Steven Jacobs is a professor of religious studies and holds the Aaron Aronov Chair of Judaic Studies at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. He can comment on altruism as a scholar of modern Jewish thought and from a post-Holocaust perspective.

Catherine M. Roach is an associate professor women’s studies at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. She is an expert on the spiritual and religious idea of “Mother Nature.”

Kristina Scott is executive director of the Alabama Poverty Project, which builds coalitions among religious, business and higher education organizations to work toward eliminating poverty. The project is based in Birmingham.

John Turner teaches American history at the University of South Alabama in Mobile. He specializes in 19th-century American civil religion.

Danny E. Burton is an associate professor of history at the University of North Alabama in Florence, Ala. He co-authored the book Magic, Mystery and Science: The Occult in Western Civilization.

Bryan K. Fair is a professor at the University of Alabama law school, where his specialties include the First Amendment, and gender and the legal system.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is a civil rights legal advocacy group based in Montgomery, Ala. Email through the website.

Susan Pace Hamill is a professor at the University of Alabama School of Law who specializes in tax law, business organizations and ethics. She is an advocate for Bible-based tax reform guided by the moral principles of Judeo-Christian ethics.

Bill Devlin is president of Redeem the Vote, a nonprofit organization that works to engage young people of faith in politics, especially through a voter registration drive. The group has been called the evangelical answer to MTV’s Rock the Vote. Contact Don Stillman in public relations.