Hampton, Va., hiphop artist Sean Slaughter writes a column, Freestylin‘, for GospelFlava.com, the gospel music industry newsmagazine. He can discuss the relationship between gospel and hiphop.

Charles E. Jones chairs the African-American studies at Georgia State University. He recently took part in the second annual Hiphop Summit Behind Prison Walls at the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ USP Coleman II high-security prison near Ocala, Fla., where participants discussed the role of hiphop in crime and violence in black communities.

Brad Mathias is president of Bema Media LLC, the parent company of iShine, the world’s largest preteen Christian media group in Nashville. He can discuss the hiphop genre of Christian music.

James Scandrick directs the Institute on Black Church Sacred Music and Worship at Nashville’s American Baptist College.

CEO, pastor and rap recording artist Del Lawrence, aka Mr. Del, was a member of a secular – and explicit – rap group, Three 6 Mafia, before he became a Christian in 2001. Since then, he says, he has been rapping for God. Lawrence leads City of Refuge Church in Memphis, Tenn.; records with EMI Gospel; […]

Alan Lamar Patterson, aka AL P, got a law degree from Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University and then became a minister. He is a staff member of Mount Corinth Church in Houston, where he directs the monthly Friday Night Live, the Happy Hour of Power.

A poll in 2011 by the National Association of Evangelicals showed that a majority of its board of directors believe in one of various end-times scenarios.

Efrem Smith serves as the President and CEO of World Impact in Los Angeles, Calif., a urban missions organization committed to the empowerment of the urban poor through the facilitation of church planting movements and leadership development. He also served as founding pastor of The Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis, Minn. Smith co-authored The Hip-Hop Church: […]

Read a Nov. 19, 2012, article from Catholic World News about the reactions of religious leaders to the end-of-the-world mania. Mainstream religious leaders, like Pope Benedict XVI, said Christians should focus on Jesus and not on doomsday prophecies.