The Rev. Kent Berghuis is senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Oklahoma City, and an affiliate in theology at Palmer Theological Seminary in King of Prussia, Pa.

Clifford Putney teaches American religious history at Bentley College in Waltham, Mass. He is the author of Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920, regarded by many as a definitive work on the relationship between Protestantism and sports in America.

Warren Goldstein teaches American history at the University of Hartford, where he chairs the history department. He is the author of Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball, and he wrote an essay in the Nov. 1, 2003, Christian Century magazine titled, “Winning Isn’t Everything: Baseball as a Theological Discipline.”

Pastor Herb Lusk is a former Philadelphia Eagles tailback who is thought to be the first NFL player to kneel and pray in the end zone after scoring a touchdown, in 1977. Since 1982 Lusk has headed the congregation at the Greater Exodus Baptist Church in Philadelphia.

Read a Jan. 29, 2013, article from The Atlantic that compares sports fans to members of a religious congregation.

Read a July 31, 2012, article from The Wall Street Journal about the struggles Muslim women face while competing in the Olympics.

Read a Feb. 6, 2013, story published by BigThink.com that compares religion and the spectacle of sports.

Read a Jan. 13, 2013, story published by Slate about a survey released by the Public Religion Research Institute that found 27 percent of Americans think that a higher power plays some role in deciding who will win sporting events.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation in Albuquerque, N.M., has been active in the religious freedom debate. Founder and president Michael “Mikey” Weinstein is an attorney, former military attorney and graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. He co-wrote With God on Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military.