Paula Kane is an associate professor of Catholic studies at the University of Pittsburgh and teaches American religious history. She has been studying stigmata and Marian apparitions.

Todd Klutz is a graduate of Wheaton College, a senior lecturer in New Testament studies at the University of Manchester in England and editor of Magic in the Biblical World: From the Rod of Aaron to the Ring of Solomon.

Seung Ai Yang is an associate professor of sacred Scripture at St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity, the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. She wrote the entry on miracles for the Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible.

Read the entry on miracles in the 1911 edition of The Catholic Encyclopedia. (The 1911 edition has since been superseded in some respects, but this entry is a good historical overview.)

ChristusRex lists Marian apparitions in the United States.

Read a May 21, 2001, Christianity Today essay about how to identify a real miracle from God.

Read an August 28, 2012, article at ChristianityToday.com analyzing the results of a poll analyzing the effects the recession had on churches’ budgets.

Shane Claiborne is a Philadelphia-based Christian activist and author. He is a co-founder of Red Letter Christians, a Christian group that focuses on people at the economic and social margins.

Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer is senior pastor-teacher of Faithful Central Bible Church in Inglewood., Calif. Most of the more than 13,000 members of his congregation are single. The church has a You Are Not Alone single parent ministry. In 2011, he was named as a member of the commission for Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA).