Graham Reside is the executive director of the Cal Turner Program for Moral Leadership for the Professions at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee. He researches ethical leadership, religion and globalization and race, religion and poverty. He is also an expert on prison reform.

Phillis Sheppard is an associate professor of religion, psychology and culture at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tenn. She is an expert on the role religion plays in self-understanding, womanist theology and psycholanalysis.

David Perkins is the director of the Religion in the Arts and Contemporary Culture program at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. He is a guitarist and songwriter who plays for the Nashville chapter of Beer and Hymns. He teaches courses on religion and the arts, including the theology of song.

Thomas Albert Howard is a professor of humanities and history at Valparaiso University where he is an expert on the Protestant Reformation. He is the author of Remembering the Reformation: An Inquiry into the Meaning of Protestantism (2016).

Geoff Little is the leader of Beer and Hymns in Nashville, Tenn., which meets at the Mercy Lounge, a 500-seat venue.

Alex Amend is the research director at TheSouthern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project where he manages a team of researchers and analysts who monitor hate groups and extremist movements in the United States. He can discuss the religious roots and relationships of multiple racial extremist groups in the U.S. He participated in a panel on […]

Matthew Peeples is the lead pastor of The Point Knox, a Lutheran church in Knoxville, Tenn. He also holds a regular worship service in a bar called The Bar Church.

Christopher B. James is an assistant professor of evangelism and missional Christianity at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa. He is author of Church Planting in Post-Christian Soil: Theology and Practice (2017) and is an expert on churches and worship in non-traditional places.

Lindsay Wilkinson is an assistant professor of sociology at Baylor University, where she studies medical sociology, aging and social stratification. She has assisted in several Baylor religion studies, including research on religion and mental health.