Peter L. Benson and Eugene C. Roehlkepartain are co-directors of the Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence in Minneapolis. Benson is investigator and co-director for Search Institute’s new Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence. He wrote Sparks: How Parents Can Help Ignite the Hidden Strengths of Teenagers (2008) and has more than a dozen other publications.

Stephen McDowell is president and co-founder of the Providence Foundation in Charlottesville, Va. It says its mission is spreading liberty and justice among nations, and it uses the example of America’s founding to illustrate the relationship between theology and civil government.

Karen-Marie Yust is an associate professor of Christian education at Union Theological Seminary-Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Va. She is a minister in both the United Church of Christ and Disciples of Christ denominations and is the author of Real Kids, Real Faith: Practices for Nurturing Children’s Spiritual Lives.

In January 2006, Journal of Adolescent Health published a review of U.S. sex education policies and programs, concluding that the government’s push for abstinence-only education is “morally problematic” and threatens teens’ human rights to “health, education and life.”

Bob Ditter is a therapist and author who specializes in working with youth and their families. He is a consultant for the American Camping Association and has worked with summer camps since 1982.

Isaac Kramnick teaches government at Cornell University and co-authored The Godless Constitution: A Moral Defense of the Secular State (W.W. Norton, 2005). His 1996 American Prospect essay “Is God a Republican?” reflects on religious entanglement in partisan politics. Book co-author R. Laurence Moore teaches American studies at Cornell.

An independent journal from a more conservative viewpoint.

The U.S. government report on the first-year impact of four abstinence-only education programs.

Our Sunday Visitor is a popular Catholic news weekly viewed as conservative.