The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has raised concerns about a range of freedom of conscience questions related to protection of life issues and supports including conscience provisions in proposed funding bills.

Tommy Kyllonen, who also goes by Urban D., is a hip-hop artist and lead pastor at the Tampa, Fla., Crossover Church. The church’s ministry is the hip-hop culture, and worship combines music, dance, visual arts and other media. He has recorded albums, performs concerts and has written a book about hip-hop and the church.

Pastor Rob Bell is is the author of Love Wins, Velvet Elvis, and Sex God, and is a coauthor of Jesus Wants to Save Christians. He is also featured in the first series of spiritual short films called NOOMA with spiritual teachings aimed at teenagers and college-age adults.

This March 31, 2006, article in The New York Times cites a long-awaited study that showed prayer offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, and patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications.

Stephen Streed is director of chaplaincy for Eventide Lutheran Senior Communities, based in Moorhead, Minn. He can talk about the composition of the ethics committee at the home and about issues facing ethics committees in geriatric situations.

Kenneth Surin, professor of religion, literature and critical theory at Duke University, has written about liberation as a critical term of religious study and the relevance of Marxism.

Lorine Getz is a scholar based in Hilton Head, S.C., and a retired professor of religion, culture, ethics and spirituality and the arts at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She co-edited Struggles for Solidarity: Liberation Theologies in Tension (Fortress Press, 1991).

The Rev. Iain Maclean, associate professor of Western religious thought, philosophy and religion at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., has written about liberation theologians and the struggle for democracy in Brazil.