John K. Cochran is a professor of criminology at the University of South Florida in Tampa and has written widely on religion and crime.

The Rev. George Clifford is an Episcopal priest and ethicist serving at the Church of the Nativity in Raleigh, N.C. He has blogged about gun control.

Wendy M. Wright is a theology professor who holds the John C. Kenefick Chair in the Humanities at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb. She specializes in the Salesian tradition, a Christian spiritual tradition founded by St. Francis de Sales, and can speak about the place of love in Salesian spirituality.

James Kelly is associate professor of social work and director of the Grace Ann Geibel Institute for Justice and Social Responsibility at Carlow University, a small Catholic liberal arts school in Pittsburgh.

The Rev. Edward C. Vacek holds the Stephen J. Duffy Chair in Catholic Studies at Loyola University New Orleans. He wrote Love, Human and Divine. He has written about gratitude and love.

Mark Lloyd Taylor is an associate professor in the School of Theology and Ministry at Seattle University. He teaches Christian theology and wrote God Is Love: A Study in the Theology of Karl Rahner.

Michael Boylan is a philosophy professor at Marymount University in Arlington, Va., who has written about ethical perspectives on gun control.

Caroline J. Simon is the John H. and Jeanne M. Jacobson Professor of Philosophy at Hope College in Holland, Mich. She specializes in the topics of virtue, moral knowledge and sexuality and wrote The Disciplined Heart: Love, Destiny & Imagination.

Doug Oman is an assistant adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkele , School of Public Health. He has researched the health benefits of empathy, of learning from spiritual role models and of spiritually oriented meditation.