The interdenominational Christian Renewal Center in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon has an annual weekend retreat that features holiday dinner, inspirational speakers and children’s activities.

The center is an interdisciplinary program in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, dedicated to the study of the modern Middle East and the geo-cultural area in which Islamic civilization prospered, and continues to shape world history.  The center at the University of Arkansas includes professors in a variety of disciplines.

Karim was an assistant professor in the department of philosophy and religious studies at Spelman College in Atlanta. She was reared in an African-American Muslim community. Her expertise is on race, gender and Islam; younger Muslims in the U.S.; and connections and tensions among African-American Muslims and immigrant Muslims in the U.S.

See a Feb. 4, 2012, New York Times story about the increasing number of people living alone.

Robert M. Baird is a professor and chairman of the philosophy department at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He co-edited the books Same-Sex Marriage: The Moral and Legal Debate, Caring for the Dying: Critical Issues at the Edge of Life, and The Ethics of Abortion: Pro-Life Vs. Pro-Choice.

V. Bailey Gillespie is a professor of theology and Christian personality and executive director of The John Hancock Center for Youth and Family Ministry at La Sierra University in Riverside, Calif. He can talk about Valuegenesis, a major study of Seventh-day Adventist youth in North America.

Kara Powell is an assistant professor in youth and family ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena and executive director of the seminary’s Center for Youth and Family Ministry. She has worked in college and youth ministry and is co-author of the youth curriculum “Good Sex” as well as “Help! I’m a Woman in Youth […]

Roland D. Martinson is a professor of children, youth and family ministry at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn. He has written books on parenting and youth ministry and has been involved with the Faith Factors project, a longitudinal study of the factors that lead young people who are Lutheran and Baptist to remain involved […]