Melva Wilson Costen is an authority on music and worship in the black church. She wrote the widely consulted African American Christian Worship (Abingdon Press, 1993) and In Spirit and In Truth: The Music of African American Worship (Westminster, 2004). She recently retired from the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, where she was Helmar Emil Nielsen Professor of Music […]

Leo Davis Jr. is artistic director at Gia Publications, Inc. in Chicago, Ill. Davis has a scholarly background in black church worship and can discuss contemporary influences and trends in church music.

Rudolph McKissick Jr. is co-senior pastor at the 9,000-member Bethel Baptist Institutional Church in Jacksonville, Fla. He is a national leader in contemporary sacred music and developed a professional-quality national recording choir at his church. He is an expert in sacred music and opera.

Mark Anthony Neal is associate professor of black popular culture in the Program in African and African-American Studies at Duke University. He wrote What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (1998), Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic (2002), and Songs in the Key of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation (2003).

Read a July 23, 2009 article about the warning sent out by health officials concerning Hajj and the swine flu epidemic.

Read a Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia page about Hajj requirements, the fifth pilar of Islam.

Jaime Lara is a research professor at the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Tempe, Ariz., where he works in the intersection of the visual arts and religion through various media (architecture, painting, sculpture, prints). He can discuss Hispanic theology and the arts.

Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla. Her interests include Afro-Cuban studies, feminist theologies and Hispanic religiosity. She wrote Sor Juana: Beauty and Justice in the Americas; Afro-Cuban Theology: Religion, Race, Culture and Identity; and Embracing Latina Spirituality: A Woman’s Perspective.

José Irizarry is a part-time professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University in Villanova, Pa. He can discuss public theology, religious education, ecumenism, intercultural issues and the arts.