Paul Plenge Parker is chairman of the theology department at Elmhurst College in Elmhurst, Ill., and has written about miracles and healing.

Wendy Cotter is a Sister of St. Joseph and an associate professor of Scripture at the department of theology at Loyola University in Chicago. She has written about miracles in the Greco-Roman world and in the New Testament.

The Christian Community Development Association, the largest Christian community development group in the country, works to reduce poverty. It’s based in Chicago. Contact interim CEO Ava Steaffens.

Read a July 7, 2013, News-Gazette article about teachers working to overcome generational poverty by understanding the “culture of poverty.”

Paul Koch is an economics professor at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Ill. He has written and presented on Christianity and economics.

James Halteman is the Carl R. Hendrickson Professor of Business and Economics at Wheaton College in suburban Chicago. His work emphasizes the dimension of moral reflection in economics.

John Transue is an associate professor of political science at the University of Illinois Springfield. His research primarily involves social identity, public opinion, political participation and the relationships between political events and financial markets. His expertise includes the political participation of youth.

Bishop Carlton Pearson is senior pastor of New Dimensions Worship Center in Chicago, a Pentecostal Christian church.

Craig Mousin is director of the Center for Church-State Studies at DePaul University law school in Chicago. The nondenominational center promotes debate and discussion about the First Amendment and the Establishment Clause.