Mario Beauregard, University of Montreal neuroscientist, has studied when religious feelings are experienced by using sophisticated brain scans to see inside the brains of Carmelite nuns as they recall a spiritual experience.

Glen H. Stassen is the Lewis Smeades Professor of Christian Ethics at the Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. He is an expert on religion and social justice and specializes in war, peace and ethics. He wrote Just Peacemaking: Ten Practices for Abolishing War.

John G. West Jr. is a senior fellow at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. He co-edited the book The Theology of Welfare (University Press of America, 2000).

Pamela K. Brubaker is professor emeritus of religion at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. She wrote the article “Making Women and Children Matter: Feminist Ethics Confronts Welfare Policy” for the Journal of Poverty (1999) and the book Women Don’t Count: The Challenge of Women’s Poverty to Christian Ethics (Scholars Press, 1994). [email protected]

Richard L. Wood is director of the Religious Studies Program at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He wrote the book Faith in Action: Religion, Race, and Democratic Organizing in America (University of Chicago Press, 2002) and contributed the essay “Religion, Faith-Based Organizing, and the Struggle for Justice” for the book Handbook of the Sociology of Religion (Cambridge […]

Royal W.F. Rhodes is professor of religious studies at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. He co-wrote the book Eclipse of Justice: Ethics, Economics, and the Lost Traditions of American Catholicism (Orbis Books, 1992).

David Sikkink is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. He wrote the article “Who Gives to the Poor? The Role of Religious Tradition and Political Location on the Personal Generosity of Americans Toward the Poor” for the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (1998).

Andrew D. Walsh is assistant professor of religion and philosophy at Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Mo. He wrote the book Religion, Economics, and Public Policy: Ironies, Tragedies, and Absurdities of the Contemporary Culture Wars (Praeger, 2000). Contact him via his website.

Warren R. Copeland is professor of religion at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. He wrote the book And the Poor Get Welfare: The Ethics of Poverty in the United States (Abingdon Press, 1994).