Tim Reed is a professor of English and American studies at Washington State University in Pullman. He is responsible for the website Popular Culture, which looks at mostly American popular culture.

Alison Hill is a television and radio producer and contributor to the website AssociatedContent.com. She has written about the religion of celebrity in the U.S. Hill lives in Asheville, N.C.

Read a July 1, 2004, article by Carlin Flora about celebrity worship syndrome. It’s posted on the Psychology Today Web site.

Read a July 12, 2009, essay at ReligionDispatches.org about the aftermath of Michael Jackson’s death by Pauline Hope Cheong, an associate professor at the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University.

Read a June 29, 2009, post at the First Things blog by Richard Scott Nokes, who argues that the singer is “a martyr to our culture’s true god: Celebrity.”

Read a June 26, 2009, Beliefnet column remembering Michael Jackson by Deepak Chopra.

Read a June 26, 2009, commentary on Michael Jackson’s death at The Huffington Post by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the popular writer and a friend of Jackson’s.

Read a June 25, 2009, column at ReligionDispatches.org about the passing of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett by Anthea Butler, a historian of American and African-American religion who specializes in popular culture. In the piece, she describes Jackson as “a pop theologian.”

The Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Mich. publishes The Foundation Review. Kathy Agard is executive director and can discuss the general health of nonprofits, including religion-based ones, in the Grand Rapids area.