Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, based at the University of Notre Dame, is one of the world’s leading centers for the study of the causes of violent conflict and strategies for sustainable peace. Kroc Institute faculty and fellows conduct interdisciplinary research on a wide range of topics related to peace and justice.

Read about the Eco-Palm movement in a Religion News Service story, published April 8, 2006, in The Washington Post.

Beliefnet.org’s article that explores the meaning of suffering in different faiths.

The Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, based at Wheaton College in Illinois, provides leadership in the study of evangelicals, informs the public and seeks to support evangelical scholars from a variety of disciplines who seek to apply Christian truths to intellectual and cultural endeavors.

Jerry Walls, philosophy of religion professor at Houston Baptist University, has written about making sense of evil and Christian conceptions of God. He is co-editor of The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy (Open Court Press) and co-author of C.S. Lewis & Francis Schaeffer: Lessons for a New Century From the Most Influential Apologists (InterVarsity Press, 1998).

Betsy Steele Halstead is a visual arts specialist at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich.

William Dyrness is professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. Among his books are Modern Art and the Life of a Culture: The Religious Impulses of Modernism, which he co-authored with Jonathan A. Anderson, and Visual Faith: Art, Theology and Worship in Dialogue.

Luke Smetters is a candle carver who has led workshops at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, Ill., where he is also a student. Contact him at Bethany Lutheran Church in Ishpeming, Mich., where he is the vicar.

Martin Marklin is a liturgical artist in Contoocook, N.H., who makes paschal candles.