Sue Vineyard is an author and volunteer consultant based in Darien, Ill.

Pastor Phil Jackson conducts hip-hop worship services at Lawndale Community Church in Chicago with the Firehouse Community Arts Center, which seeks to “uncover and develop the gifts and strengths of North Lawndale’s youth and young adult residents.”

Abdul Malik Mujahid is a leader in Chicago’s Muslim community and chairman of Soundvision.com, a web-based resource for Muslims with a teen section and multimedia products. He has written and spoken about the Islamic perspective on various political issues, including drug policy.

Paige Cunningham is an attorney and educator who is the executive director of The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity in Deerfield, Ill.

Luis Rivera-Rodriguez, associate professor of theology and director of the Center for the Study of Latino/a Theology and Ministry at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, wrote the article on “Liberation Theology” in the Encyclopedia of Religion and War (Routledge, 2004).

Valarie Blake is a senior research associate at the American Medical Association’s Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs in Chicago. She assists the council by researching ethics topics of medical interest and developing policy and responds to inquiries concerning AMA ethics policy.

Dwight N. Hopkins, University of Chicago theology professor, has written about black theology of liberation and also about gun control. Black liberation theology, he says, is aligning more closely with black churches and developing partnerships with liberation theologians in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific Islands.

Troy Taylor specializes in Midwestern ghosts and paranormal phenomena. He is also the founder and president of the American Ghost Society. He is based in the Chicago area.

Alan Jacobs is an English professor at Wheaton College in Illinois. An evangelical Christian, he wrote about how Harry Potter’s magic fits with faith in an essay in First Things. He is the author The Narnian: the Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis (HarperCollins, 2005).