The Rev. Calvin O. Butts III is head pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, N.Y. Butts chairs the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS.

Christine D. Chapman wrote (with Stephen C. Rasor) Black Power From the Pew: Laity Connecting Congregations and Communities (Pilgrim, 2007). She is an adjunct professor at Georgia State University and at the Interdenominational Theological Center.

Stephen C. Rasor wrote (with Christine D. Chapman) Black Power from the Pew: Laity Connecting Congregations and Communities (Pilgrim, 2007). Rasor is a professor of sociology of religion at the Interdenominational Theological Center, where he directs the doctor of ministry program.

Martha Simmons is publisher of the nondenominational preaching and ministry journal The African American Pulpit, and she is an associate minister at Rush Memorial United Church of Christ in Atlanta. Simmons has preached throughout the country for 20 years in a variety of ministerial capacities and has her finger on the pulse of trends, changes and issues […]

Harold Dean Trulear, senior pastor of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Twin Oaks, Pa., is an expert on religion and social policy. He is associate professor of religious education at Howard University and is ordained in both the Progressive National Baptist Convention and American Baptist Churches in the USA.

Faith communities in the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are heavily involved in relief efforts. BP donated $1 million to the Archdiocese of New Orleans for relief programs, as this May 28 Catholic News Service story recounts.

Read a June 1, 2010 Washington Post story, “Gulf Coast residents finding comfort in prayer,” about religious responses to the disaster.

The Rev. William H. Gray III is pastor of Bright Hope Baptist Church in Philadelphia. He was formerly a former U.S. congressman and president of the United Negro College Fund.

Read a May 27, 2010 article from the Huffington Post about the Buddhist perspective on the oil spill.