Read a Sept 24, 2008 LifeWay research report on how the U.S. public feels about political endorsements by religious leaders. When U.S. citizens were posed the statement “I believe it is appropriate for churches to publicly endorse candidates for public office,” 59 percent of participants strongly disagreed.

Alicia McNary Forsey is a research professor at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, Calif. She authored an essay, “Attitudes About Money in Theological Schools.”

Gregory Schopen is a professor of South Asian Buddhism in the department of Asian languages and cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has written on the role of money in Buddhism, especially in India.

Michael David Bonner is a professor of Near Eastern studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He has written on money and Islam, including the entry “Wealth” in the Encyclopedia of the Qur’an.

Roger J. Nemeth is a sociology professor at Hope College in Holland, Mich. He has written about finances and congregations, including an essay, “The Religious Basis of Charitable Giving in America: A Social Capital Perspective” for the volume Religion, Social Capital and Democratic Life.

Steven Jacobs is a professor of religious studies and holds the Aaron Aronov Chair of Judaic Studies at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. He can comment on altruism as a scholar of modern Jewish thought and from a post-Holocaust perspective.

Sharon L. Miller is associate director of the Center for the Study of Theological Education at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City. She is a sociologist of religion who specializes in evaluation research and data analysis. Miller co-edited a collection of essays on religious giving titled Financing American Religion.

Stephanie Clintonia Boddie is senior researcher at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in Washington. She specializes in the role of religious congregations in providing community services and has published two reports on giving for the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Center on Social Development.

Paul G. Schervish is a director of the Boston College Center on Wealth and Philanthropy and a sociology professor at the college in Chestnut Hill, Mass. He directed the studies “The Moral Biography of Wealth: Philosophical Reflections on the Foundation of Philanthropy,” “The Contradictions of Christmas: Troubles and Traditions in Culture, Home, and Heart,” and “The […]