John K. Simmons is professor and chairman of the department of religious studies at Western Illinois University in Macomb. He has written about metaphysics, the Unity Church and Christian Science.

Mark Anthony Lord is a spiritual leader of the Center for Spiritual Living in Chicago, which is in the tradition of the New Thought movement.

The Rev. Jerry Shirley is pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Decatur, Ill., where he has preached numerous sermons on the Book of Revelation and other biblical end-times prophecies.

The Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago surveyed 1,590 African-Americans, whites and Latinos aged 15 to 25 in several Midwest cities on subjects including rap music, premarital sex, politics and the “color-blind” society. The results included: 58 percent of black youth listen to rap music daily, compared with 45 percent of Latinos and 23 percent of […]

Cathy J. Cohen is professor of political science  and deputy provost for graduate education at the University of Chicago, where she formerly directed the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture. She wrote The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics (University of Chicago Press, 1999). She directs the Black Youth Project at the […]

John S. Feinberg is chair of the department of biblical and systematic theology and professor of biblical and systematic theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill. He wrote The Many Faces of Evil: Theological Systems and the Problems of Evil.

Barry Bryant is an associate professor of United Methodist and Wesleyan studies at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill. He has written about John Wesley and the origins of evil.

Larry G. Murphy is a professor of the history of Christianity at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill. He wrote African-American Faith in America (Facts on File, 2002) and edited Down by the Riverside: Readings in African American Religion (New York University Press, 2000).

The Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago, Ill. is dedicated to establishing a new type of research institute that studies the relationship of race and ethnicity.