Sherman Hicks is executive director of multicultural ministries for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Michael N. Allen is senior pastor of Uptown Baptist Church, a multicultural Southern Baptist congregation in Chicago. The church has an English-speaking congregation that’s about half Anglo, half people of color. It also has congregations that worship in Spanish, Russian and Vietnamese, along with two West African congregations.

The Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., provides several archives links, including a timeline and official biography.

M. Cherif Bassiouni is president of the International Human Rights Law Institute and law professor at DePaul University in Chicago. Read about the institute’s International Criminal Court-Arab World Project.

Stephen Presser is Raoul Berger Professor of Legal History at Northwestern School of Law. His areas of expertise include business associations and legal history.

The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity in Bannockburn, Ill., helps individuals and organizations address bioethical challenges, including end-of-life treatment, genetic intervention, euthanasia and reproductive technologies, from a Christian perspective. Its website contains articles with overviews on various topics in bioethics, some position statements, bibliographies and podcasts.

Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy at Loyola University of Chicago’s Stritch School of Medicine in Maywood, Ill., is a pluralistic bioethics institute that draws upon its commitment to social justice of the Jesuit and Roman Catholic heritage.

The American Society for Bioethics and Humanities in Glenview, Ill., is a professional advocacy group that brings together bioethicists from medicine, nursing, law, sociology, anthropology, government and philosophy. The society organizes a large educational conference each year and periodic smaller, topical meetings.

Read a Feb. 16, 2007, Chicago Tribune article about Chicago’s Center for Spiritual Living, describes the spiritual dimensions of a New Thought church in the tradition of The Secret.