James Byrd Jr. is an associate professor of American religious history at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., where he has taught a class in religion and war in American history. He is also an expert on this story of Baptists and Methodists in the U.S. He has written two books about religion in early American […]

The WomanSpirit Center of Bellevue, Wash., is an interfaith community of women that offers retreats, workshops and activities, many of which include unusual forms of prayer, such as hiking, beachcombing, journaling, centering prayer and meditation.

St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in Tucson, Ariz., has a “way of the cross” that worshippers are encouraged to walk as part of their religious practice. Email through the website.

Central United Methodist Church in Skokie, Ill., has taken worshippers on a walk through the Stations of the Cross as part of their Good Friday observance.

The Rev. Robin Griffeth is a United Methodist pastor in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and has participated in conferences on the religious response to domestic violence. She has volunteered for Sistercare, a battered women’s shelter, and was a training coordinator for the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse.

The Rev. Susan Gregg-Schroeder is a United Methodist minister in San Diego and coordinator of Mental Health Ministries, an effort that grew from her own experience of depression. She is the author of a paper, “Mental Illness and Families of Faith: How Churches Can Respond.”

The Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have issued statements or resolutions supporting public education, according to resources offered by the Baptist Center for Ethics.

Michael E. Lodahl is a professor of theology and world religions at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. He has written about Methodism and its relationship to nature and about Wesleyan thought and environmental ethics.