Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis, with Richard Thomas, co-edited Lights of the Spirit: Historical Portraits of Black Bahá’ís in North America, 1898-2000, which featured, among others, jazz great Dizzy Gillespie. She is a professor of English at Miami University in Ohio.

Watch a YouTube video that showcases Bahá’í performers, including jazz great Dizzy Gillespie.

Russell C. Leong, a writer and poet who teaches Asian-American studies and English at the University of California, Los Angeles, edits Amerasia Journal.

Oliver Wang is an assistant professor of sociology at California State University, Long Beach, and writes about Asian-American cinema and about music, youth culture, popular culture and politics.

Read a Jan. 14, 2008, New Yorker article about Scientology’s outreach to celebrities.

Read Lawrence Wright’s February 14, 2011, New Yorker article about film director Paul Haggis’ break from the Church of Scientology.

Read a Nov. 26, 2012, article from The Washington Post discussing the relevance of Abraham Lincoln’s legacy to the social, political, and economic situations of today.

Read a Nov. 8, 2012, review  from Time magazine of Stephen Spielberg’s 2012 film Lincoln. The review discusses the lessons to be learned from Lincoln’s legacy, and their relevance to modern-day issues.

Sharon Soneff is an artist and blogger and the co-author of Faith Books and Spiritual Journaling: Expressions of Faith Through Art. She lives in San Clemente, Calif.