Juan M. Floyd-Thomas is associate professor of African-American religious history at Vanderbilt University’s Divinity School and a member of the cultural resources team for the African American Lectionary. He is also an expert on religion and protest music and black religious experience in America.

The National Campus Ministry Association is a professional organization for those working in Christian ministry in higher education. It’s based in Charlotte, N.C.

Souls in Transition: The Religious & Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults (2009) examines the spiritual values of today’s college students. Christian Smith and Patricia Snell are the co-authors.

Cultivating the Spirit: How College Can Enhance Students’ Inner Lives (November 2010) is based on a five-year study of the changes students go through during their college years and the role schools can play in spiritual development. Alexander Astin, Helen Astin and Jennifer Lindholm are co-authors of this just-released book.

The Islamic Learning Foundation, a project of the Islamic Circle of North America in New York, conducted a hajj workshop in 2007 at their center in College Point, N.Y. They hoped the program would better equip and prepare people for the trip.

Read a May 23, 2011, article from the Washington Examiner about the coalition of religious groups forming to back Maryland’s version of the DREAM Act.

Written by John Danforth (Viking Adult, 2006). Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri and an ordained Episcopalian minister, speaks out against the conflation of political agendas with religious views and the religious right’s focus on wedge issues.

Written by Gregory A. Boyd (Zondervan, 2006). Boyd, a theologian and pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minn., discusses his worry over the growing alignment of Christianity and the right-wing ideology of the Republican Party.

Written by Randall Balmer (Basic Books, 2006). Balmer, an evangelical Christian, writes about what he believes has been the hijacking of the Christian faith on behalf of the Republican Party.