Shirl James Hoffman is professor emeritus of kinesiology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He wrote the Jan. 29, 2010, Christianity Today cover story “Sports Fanatics,” and he has a book, Good Game: Christianity and the Culture of Sports.

John Fitzsimmons Mahoney, author of The Tao of the Jump Shot: An Eastern Approach to Life and Basketball, is a former high school basketball coach in New Jersey and author of books on Eastern religions who uses both sport and religion to illuminate each other.

The Rev. Kent Berghuis is senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Oklahoma City, and an affiliate in theology at Palmer Theological Seminary in King of Prussia, Pa.

Clifford Putney teaches American religious history at Bentley College in Waltham, Mass. He is the author of Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920, regarded by many as a definitive work on the relationship between Protestantism and sports in America.

Bassam Tibi is a professor of international relations at the University of Göttingen in Göttingen, Germany, and an expert on radical fundamentalism in political Islam throughout Europe and the Middle East.

Warren Goldstein teaches American history at the University of Hartford, where he chairs the history department. He is the author of Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball, and he wrote an essay in the Nov. 1, 2003, Christian Century magazine titled, “Winning Isn’t Everything: Baseball as a Theological Discipline.”

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes, based in Kansas City, Mo., is the leading Christian organization for professional and student athletes. The ministry aims to evangelize through sports and has members sign a “Competitor’s Creed” to be on “Team Jesus Christ.” The FCA was founded in 1954, and its “huddles” meet regularly on nearly 8,000 junior high, […]

Jonathan Laurence is an assistant professor of political science at Boston College in Boston. He specializes in Muslim identity in Europe, especially in Germany and France. He has written widely about the integration of Muslims in France, including on the controversy of Muslim girls wearing hijab to public school.

H.A. Hellyer is an associate fellow at the University of Warwick in Warwick, England, and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy. He is an expert on Islam in Europe and has written several books on the subject, including Islam in Europe: Multiculturalism and the European “Other.”  He can discuss Islam […]