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.

Benjamin Wittes is a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and co-director of the Harvard Law School-Brookings Project on Law and Security.

David B. Kopel is an associate policy analyst and expert on firearms issues with the Cato Institute. He has written several books on gun control, including Aiming for Liberty: The Past, Present and Future of Freedom and Self-Defense. Kopel’s personal website includes a page of links about religious writings on self-defense and gun control.

Amy Laura Hall is an associate professor of theological ethics at Duke Divinity School in Durham, N.C. She teaches courses on Christian love and has written extensively on reproductive ethics.

Stephen A. Kent is a sociology professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton and an expert on religions and their views on crime and responses to violence.