Read a Nov. 19, 2012, article from Catholic World News about the reactions of religious leaders to the end-of-the-world mania. Mainstream religious leaders, like Pope Benedict XVI, said Christians should focus on Jesus and not on doomsday prophecies.

W.P. Middlebrooks is a lay minister and rap evangelist at People’s Place Church in Pasadena, Calif., affiliated with the Church of God in Christ. He has developed Christian hiphop events and clubs through his Youth United for the World ministry.

18Doors.com (formerly InterfaithFamily.com) is a resource supporting interfaith couples exploring Jewish life and inclusive Jewish communities. It offers educational content; connections to welcoming organizations, professionals and programs; and resources and trainings for organizations, clergy and other program providers.

The Rev. David Keck is a Presbyterian minister who teaches pastoral education at Duke University. He is the author of Forgetting Whose We Are: Alzheimer’s Disease and the Love of God. He is also pastor at Northgate Presbyterian Church in Durham, N.C.

George L. Murphy is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and has a doctorate in physics. He can discuss theology and science. He lives in Tallmadge, Ohio.

The Rev. Peter Paris, an ordained Baptist minister, is Elmer G. Homrighausen Professor of Christian Social Ethics and Liaison with the Princeton University African American Studies Program at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Fumitaka Matsuoka is Robert Gordon Sproul Professor of Theology of Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, Calif., where he is executive director of the Institute for Leadership Development and Study of Pacific and Asian North American Religion. He is an ordained minister in the Church of the Brethren. He co-edited Realizing the America of Our Hearts: Theological Voices of […]

A September 2011 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, in partnership with Religion News Service, showed that a majority of Americans (57 percent) believe in evolution. But white evangelicals and Tea Party members — a core constituency for the GOP — are significantly less likely to believe in evolution.

A January 2012 survey of Protestant pastors, conducted by LifeWay Research, shows that by a wide margin most of them believe that God did not use evolution to create humans and think Adam and Eve were literal people. It also found that ministers are almost evenly split on whether the Earth is thousands of years old.