Richard Golden is director of the Jewish Studies Program at the University of North Texas in Denton.

Gregory Kaplan is the Anna Smith Fine assistant professor of Judaic studies at Rice University in Houston and faculty advisor for the University of Tennessee Hillel Jewish Student Center. He is an expert on modern Judaism.

Arturo Chavez is president of the Mexican American Cultural Center in San Antonio, Texas. The center is a leading advocacy group for Latino Catholics and immigrants.

Jan. 29, 2013, The Dallas Morning News blog post which takes offense to the belief that the religious left needs to be more combative to gain traction in the national conversation.

The Prayer Bear Ministry of Sherman, Texas, solicits small donations from people to make simple fabric teddy bears for shipment to servicemen and women at home and abroad. In just one year, the ministry sent more than 20,000 bears to Iraq and Afghanistan. Each bear is prayed over as it is made and has a silver tear, […]

Bishop T.D. Jakes is head of the 30,000-member Potter’s House in Dallas. He was named “America’s best preacher” by Time magazine and in 2001 was the subject of a Time  cover story, “Is this man the next Billy Graham?”

Read an Aug. 8, 2002, article on Beliefnet.com (reprinted from The Dallas Morning News) about a Buddhist summer program for children, a kind of Buddhist version of Vacation Bible School.

Mark Bailey is president of the Dallas Theological Seminary and a noted expert on Christian End Times scenarios. He is the author of essays in the books Countdown to Armageddon (Harvest House, 1999) and The Road to Armageddon (Word, 1999).

William Martin is the Harry and Hazel Chavanne Senior Fellow in Religion and Public Policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston. His interests include the impact of religious fundamentalism on politics, and he is the author of With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America.