Marvin Olasky is editor of World magazine, based in Asheville, N.C. He is credited with coining the phrase “compassionate conservatism” and has been a proponent of the government’s faith-based initiatives. He is the author of Renewing American Compassion: How Compassion for the Needy Can Turn Ordinary Citizens Into Heroes (The Free Press, 1996).

Noel Castellanos is institute director of the Chicago-based Christian Community Development Association, which works to reclaim and restore under-resourced communities, and he was appointed to serve on the president’s council for Faith and Neighborhood Partnerships.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops supports the government’s faith-based initiatives. Read a 2005 statement posted on the website.

Rebecca Sager is an assistant professor of sociology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. She wrote Faith, Politics, and Power: The Politics of Faith-Based Initiatives (Oxford, 2010).

John DiIulio Jr. is a professor of politics, religion and civil society at the University of Pennsylvania and was the first director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. A frequent speaker and writer on faith-based social services, he is co-editor of What’s God Got to Do With the American Experiment? (Brookings, 2000).

Patricia Telesco is the co-author of Sacred Beat: From the Heart of the Drum Circle. She has been participating in drum circles for many years and lives in Amhearst, N.Y. Contact via Bonni Hamilton, director of publicity for Red Wheel/Weiser.

Rabbi Rayzel Raphael leads drum circles in Philadelphia.

Adair T. Lummis is a religion sociologist and a faculty associate in research at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn. Her research focuses on denominational policies; gender, spirituality and leadership in communities of faith; and clergy concerns. Her books include, as co-author, Clergy Women: An Uphill Calling.

Jan Gregory was an adjunct professor of liturgy, worship and spirituality at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn., where she taught a course in drumming and worship.