Rachel Wagner is an associate professor of religion and philosophy at Ithaca College in Ithaca, N.Y. She has taught courses on religion and video games and is interested in the ways video and computer games depict rituals and sacred space, such as churches and cemeteries.

Rick Hemphill is spokesman for the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Colorado Springs, Colo. Since 1884, the alliance has been evangelizing, starting churches, educating Christian church leaders and offering medical care in Africa.

Amy Parodi is deputy director of media relations for World Vision, based in Federal Way, Wash. The Christian relief and development organization’s activities include building health clinics, sponsoring peace-building initiatives and addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa.

Suzanne Holland is a professor in the department of religion at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash. She has written about television and radio as public confessionals in the shows of Judge Judy and Dr. Laura.

Read a Nov. 22, 2012 Huffington Post story about the health benefits of gratitude.

Read a Nov. 21, 2011, article in the New York Times about gratitude and Thanksgiving.

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.

John E. Seery is a professor of politics at Pomona College in California. He is an expert on abortion politics and wrote the article “Moral Perfectionism and Abortion Politics” for the journal Polity (2001).

Carole Joffe is a professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis. She wrote the article “Roe v. Wade at 30: What are the Prospects of Abortion Provision,” for the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health (January 2003) and has written other articles examining abortion and morality.