Dr. Nile Harper is director of Urban Church Research, Minneapolis and former chairman of the Presbyterian General Assembly’s Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy. He is a sociologist and Presbyterian minister who served as professor of Church and Society at New York Theological Seminary and also at the Schools of Theology (Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian) in Dubuque, Iowa. Other books by Harper include Urban Churches: Beyond Charity Toward Justice, and Will the Church Lose the City? (co-editor with Dr. Kendig Cully).