W.P. Middlebrooks is a lay minister and rap evangelist at People’s Place Church in Pasadena, Calif., affiliated with the Church of God in Christ. He has developed Christian hiphop events and clubs through his Youth United for the World ministry.

Kimasi Browne is director of the ethnomusicology program at Azusa Pacific University near Los Angeles, where he is an assistant professor of music. Contemporary religious music trends and hiphop are among his areas of expertise.

Bobby Schuller, head of Hour for Power in Garden Grove, Calif., and grandson of founder Robert Schuller, holds regular hiphop church services at the Los Angeles FaithDome, attracting thousands. Contact through Melanie Vogel, Shepherd’s Grove Public Relations.

The Rev. Ralph C. Watkins is the Peachtree associate professor of evangelism and church growth for Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga. Watkins co-authored The Gospel Remix: Reaching the Hip Hop Generation (Judson Press, 2007). Watkins, a pastor and musician, works to resolve gaps between the hiphop generation and its elders.

Larry Acosta is president of the Hispanic Ministry Center and the evangelical Urban Youth Workers Institute in Buena Park, Calif. He can discuss the organization’s use of Christian rap and the response of youngsters to it.

See the entry on evil in the Catholic Encyclopedia, posted at New Advent.

Benjamin Chavis Muhammad lead the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, a nonprofit founded in 2001 to use hiphop as a catalyst for improving society and addressing poverty and injustice. Contact through Jody L. Miller.

Dancer Jessica Ralph, a member of the National Baptist Convention USA, directs workshops using hiphop, liturgical dance and other art forms in a religious context. She is a member of the World Council of Churches’ transformation team, a group with varied backgrounds and talents who lead classes and workshops.

The Rev. Paul Crowley, professor of religious studies at Santa Clara University, has written about evil for the Encyclopedia of Catholicism. Crowley is primarily concerned with how the problem of evil intersects with the problem of suffering. He says today’s scholarship is much more concerned with social and historical forms of evil, such as genocide and […]