Christina Cabeena wrote a paper on Las Vegas and nuns while she was doctoral student at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Robin Sylvan is an adjunct professor of art and religion at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif. He has written about religion and rave culture, popular music, rap and hip-hop.

Kate McCarthy is an associate professor of religious studies at California State University, Chico. She has written about religious expression in rock music, including the music of Bruce Springsteen.

The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel in Los Angeles builds churches and has trained local people to carry on the work in east, west and south Africa.

• Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., has an HIV/AIDS initiative to bring churches together to help stop the spread of HIV and AIDS globally. Contact initiative founder Kay Warren.

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin was spiritual leader of the Synagogue for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles. He wrote Jewish Humor: What the Best Jewish Jokes Say About the Jews, as well as several books on Jewish ethics, such as The Book of Jewish Values: A Day-by-Day Guide to Ethical Living and The Ten Commandments of Character: Essential Advice for Living […]

Robert K. Johnston is a professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., and an expert on film and faith who has written Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue (Baker Book House, 2000). He was director of Fuller’s Brehm Center’s Reel Spirituality Institute for Moving Images.

Linda Seger has a master’s degree in religion and the arts and is a Hollywood script consultant who has consulted on more than 2,000 projects, including more than 30 produced television projects and 50 completed feature films. She has been a keynote speaker at conferences on religion and the media and is a recipient of a […]

Michael Suman is a communications lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles, and editor of Religion and Prime Time Television (Praeger Publishers, 1997).