Christopher Bellitto is chair of the history department at Kean University in New Jersey, where he has taught a course on the papacy. He has also written many articles on Catholicism and is a regular television commentator on Vatican stories.

Michael Scott Horton is a professor of systematic theology and apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Escondido, Calif. He has called prosperity gospel a “wild and wacky theology.”

David G. Myers is a professor of psychology at Hope College in Holland, Mich. He has written about the pursuit of happiness and consumerism.

Alan Branch is a professor of Christian ethics at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo. He wrote an article for The Baptist Messenger about prosperity gospel and Joel Osteen’s relation to it.

Joerg Rieger is a professor of constructive theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He is an expert on mainline Protestant denominations and says some of those churches, while they do not teach a prosperity gospel, share a “prosperity mentality” when they preach that “good things happen to good people.”

Anthony B. Pinn is a professor of humanities and religious studies at Rice University in Houston. He has been critical of the prosperity gospel preached in some Black megachurches for its lack of emphasis on community service and charity. He is the author of Why, Lord?: Suffering and Evil in Black Theology and editor of Redemptive Suffering: a […]

Shayne Lee is an assistant professor of sociology at Tulane University in New Orleans. He is the author of T.D. Jakes: America’s New Preacher (New York University Press, 2005).

Forrest Harris is director of the Kelly Miller Smith Institute on African-American Church Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, Tenn., as well as an associate professor of the practice of ministry. He teaches courses on the theology of ministry in the black church tradition and can discuss liberation theology and social justice.

Stephanie Mitchem is a professor of womanist theology and African-American spirituality at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C. She is the author of Name It and Claim It? Prosperity Preaching in the Black Church (Pilgrim Press, 2006).