Weigh Down Ministries is a Christian-based fitness program founded by Gwen Shamblin, who is also a co-founder of Remnant Fellowship Church in Brentwood, Tenn. The Weigh Down Diet was at the forefront of the Christian diet craze of 20 years ago and remains very popular, despite Shamblin’s personal problems with her congregation.

Darby Kathleen Ray is an associate professor of religious studies and director of the Millsaps Faith and Work Initiative at Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss. She is the editor of Theology That Matters: Ecology, Economy and God (2006).

Laurie M. Johnson is a political science professor at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan., where she teaches a course on religion and politics.

Walter Sundberg teaches church history at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., and has written about religion, politics and trends in American religion.

PraiseMoves is a “Christian alternative to yoga” founded by Laurette Willis. It consists of books, DVDs, tapes and television programs for adults and children. Willis is based in Tahlequah, Okla.

Dale Soden is a history professor at Whitworth University in Spokane, Wash. He contributed a chapter on mainline Protestants, Catholics and Jews in the Pacific Northwest to Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Northwest: The None Zone.

Karate for Christ is an international organization of karate schools and teachers who approach this martial art with a Christian perspective. Among its goals is evangelization of Asia and Asian communities. David Dunn is director.

First Place 4 Health is a Christian weight-loss program that began as a ministry at Houston’s First Baptist Church and now has groups in 12,000 congregations nationwide. The website has a search engine that allows a state-by-state search of existing groups and meetings. Vicki Heath is national director.

Bill McKinney was president of the Pacific School of Religion at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif. for fourteen years before he retired in 2010. He is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and a religion sociologist who is an expert on American Protestantism.