Ross Stolzenberg is a sociology professor at the University of Chicago. He has written about Jewish concepts of the afterlife.

Alan Franklin Segal was a professor of Jewish studies at Columbia University in New York City and author of Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion. He passed away in 2011.

Lisa J. Schwebel is an assistant professor in the department of classical and Oriental studies at Hunter College in New York City and author of Apparitions, Healings and Weeping Madonnas: Christianity and the Paranormal.

Mark Massa is a professor of theology and co-director of the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies at Fordham University in New York City. He is also a Jesuit priest and can address Catholic concepts of God.

Julie Hicks Patrick is an associate professor of psychology at West Virginia University in Morgantown. She is working on a journal article that examines what adults pray and why.

Mary Elizabeth Perry is a certified spiritual director in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) who teaches Lectio Divina and meditation as a form of prayer. She can discuss the mainline Protestant concept of meditation. She lives in Mobile, Ala.

Cherry Hill Seminary is the leading provider of education and practical training in leadership, ministry and personal growth in pagan and nature-based spiritualities. Holli S. Emore is the executive director.

Laurence Hull Stookey is a professor of preaching and worship at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. He has written about the language of prayer and praying in public.

Morris Fiorina is co-author, with Jeremy Pope, of Culture War?: The Myth of a Polarized America. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., where he is an expert in public opinion.