Donna Bowman is a professor of religious studies at the Honors College of the University of Central Arkansas and has written on the role of sports and faith.

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.”

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.

Jocelyne Cesari is a professor of Religion and Politics, working primarily in the Edward Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion at the University of Birmingham.

Pastor Herb Lusk is a former Philadelphia Eagles tailback who is thought to be the first NFL player to kneel and pray in the end zone after scoring a touchdown, in 1977. Since 1982 Lusk has headed the congregation at the Greater Exodus Baptist Church in Philadelphia.