The Institute on Religion & Democracy and Providence have launched a new program of Christian campus outreach to uplift historic Christian teaching about political theology. We are dispatching scholars to speak to students and professors about the historic church’s intellectual treasury of resources on God’s purposes for government. And we are resourcing ongoing student groups devoted to the discussion of political theology. There has perhaps never been a greater time or need for this knowledge as increasingly post-denominational US Christianity increasingly loses all memory of what the historic church has taught on political theology. We hope this program will help young Christians and others better understand the ecumenical church’s repository of experience and wisdom. If you are interested in this program, please contact Sarah Stewart ([email protected]).
Mark Amstutz
Wheaton College
Professor Amstutz’ major academic interests are in international affairs and, more specifically, the role of ethics in the conduct of foreign relations. He has written international relations texts and undertaken pioneering research on the role of international political morality, earning his PhD in IR from American University. His book International Ethics is used widely in American colleges and universities. In recent years, he has carried out research on the political ethics of U.S. immigration policy, resulting in the publication of Just Immigration: U.S. Policy in Christian Perspective, published by Eerdmans in 2017. Prof. Amstutz has received numerous scholarship and teaching awards. For more than a decade, he served as a reserve naval attaché, retiring as a Commander from the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1993.
Matthew Lee Anderson
Baylor University
Matthew Lee Anderson is an Assistant Research Professor of Ethics and Theology at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion and the Associate Director of Baylor in Washington. He is an Associate Fellow at the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Life at Oxford University, where he completed a D.Phil. in Christian Ethics. Academically, Anderson writes on a wide range of subjects, including pro- and anti-natalism, political theology, and bioethics. In 2005 he founded Mere Orthodoxy, a web-based magazine that provides both long- and short-form commentary on matters of religion, politics, and culture from a broadly conservative, evangelical standpoint. Anderson writes occasionally for Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, The Washington Post, and elsewhere and was listed among Christianity Today’s ‘33 under 33’ list of younger evangelical leaders, co-hosts Mere Fidelity, a podcast on faith, theology, and ethics.
Joseph Capizzi
Catholic University
Joseph E. Capizzi is Ordinary Professor of Moral Theology at the Catholic University of America. He teaches in the areas of social and political theology, with special interests in issues in peace and war, citizenship, political authority, and Augustinian theology. He has written, lectured, and published widely on just war theory, bioethics, the history of moral theology, and political liberalism.Dr. Capizzi is the Executive Director of the Institute for Human Ecology at Catholic University. He received his B.A. from the University of Virginia, his Masters in Theological Studies from Emory University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Theology from the University of Notre Dame. He lives in Maryland with his wife and six children
J. Daryl Charles
John Jay Institute
J. Daryl Charles, Ph.D., is a contributing editor of Providence: A Journal of Christianity and American Foreign Policy and the journal Touchstone. Charles is author, co-author, or editor of some 20 books, including most recently (with Eric Patterson) Just War and Christian Traditions; Our Secular Vocation: Rethinking the Church’s Calling to the Marketplace; Wisdom and Work: Theological Reflections on Human Labor from Ecclesiastes; Wisdom’s Work: Essays on Ethics, Vocation, and Culture; America and the Just War Tradition: A History of U.S. Conflicts (with Mark David Hall); Natural Law and Religious Freedom (with David D. Corey); The Just War Tradition: An Introduction. The focus of Charles’ research and writing is religion and society, Christian social ethics, the just war tradition, and the natural law. Prior to entering the university classroom, Charles did public policy work in criminal justice in Washington, D.C
David Corey
Baylor University
Dr. David Corey is the Director of Baylor in Washington, D.C., a Professor of Political Science in the Honors Program, and an Affiliated Professor in the Philosophy Department and the Political Science Department. He earned his B.A. in Classics from Oberlin College, a B.Mus. from Oberlin Conservatory, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from Louisiana State University. He teaches courses on political philosophy, the history of political thought and great texts. He is the author of The Just War Tradition (with J. Daryl Charles) and The Sophists in Plato’s Dialogues. He is currently writing a book entitled The Politics of War and the Politics of Peace.
Dean Curry
Messiah University
Dean Curry is a professor at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He is a professor who specializes in International politics; U.S foreign policy, and religion in society. He has a Ph.D., from Claremont Graduate University.
Debra Erickson
Providence
Debra Erickson holds a Ph.D. in Religious Ethics from the University of Chicago. She is co-editor of the forthcoming volume: In Search of the Ethical Polity: Critical Essays on the Work of Jean Bethke Elshtain.
Mark David Hall
George Fox University
Mark David Hall joined the faculty of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University in 2023. He is one of the most outstanding scholars of early America, whose many distinguished publications have argued persuasively for the crucial importance of Christianity in the flourishing of America’s experiment in ordered liberty. He is also widely regarded as a leading student of religious liberty and church-state relations in America. Hall has served or is serving as an expert witness for the U.S. Department of Justice, the State of Arkansas, the Alliance Defending Freedom, and the Institute for Justice. Prior to Regent, he was the Herbert Hoover Distinguished Professor of Politics at George Fox University.
Dr. Hall earned a B.A. in Political Science from Wheaton College (IL) and a Ph.D. in Government from the University of Virginia. Hall’s primary research and writing interests include American political theory, the relationship between religion and politics, and religious liberty/church-state relations.
Dr. Hall has written, edited, or co-edited a dozen books, including Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism: Why Christian Nationalism is Not an Existential Threat to America or the Church (Fidelis Books, forthcoming); Proclaim Liberty Through All the Land: How Christianity Has Advanced Freedom and Equality for All Americans (Fidelis, 2023); Did America Have a Christian Founding?: Separating Modern Myth from Historical Truth (Nelson Books, 2019); Great Christian Jurists in American History (Cambridge University Press, 2019); Faith and the Founders of the American Republic (Oxford University Press, 2014); and Roger Sherman and the Creation of the American Republic (Oxford University Press, 2013). He has also penned more than 150 book chapters, journal articles, reviews, and other pieces.
Joe Hartman
Georgetown University
Joseph Hartman is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University, where he teaches courses on political theory, constitutional law and American government. Prior to his time in the academy he spent more than a decade as a litigation attorney in private practice with a large law firm in Washington, D.C. He earned his Ph.D. in Government from Georgetown in 2015, holds a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School (1999), and a B.A. in American Government from the University of Virginia (1996). His academic and intellectual interests focus on contemporary issues relating to public and constitutional law and the relationship between political thought and theology in the Western tradition.
Matthew Kaemingk
Fuller Seminary
Matthew Kaemingk is the Richard John Mouw Associate Professor of Faith and Public Life at Fuller Theological Seminary where he also serves as the director of the Richard John Mouw Institute of Faith and Public Life. His research and teaching focus on marketplace theology, Islam and political ethics, and public theology. His books include Christian Hospitality and Muslim Immigration in an Age of Fear (2018), Work and Worship: Reconnecting Our Labor and Liturgy (coauthor Cory Willson, 2020), and Reformed Public Theology (2021). In 2018 his book on Muslim immigration was named among the best of the year by Christianity Today and in 2019 Dr. Kaemingk was named the “Emerging Public Intellectual of the Year” by the Redeemer Centre for Christian Scholarship.
Kaemingk earned his Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and holds doctoral degrees in systematic theology from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and in Christian ethics from Fuller Theological Seminary. In 2011 he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study political theology and the European conflict over Muslim immigration in Amsterdam.
Robert Kaufman
Pepperdine University
Robert G. Kaufman is a political scientist specializing in American foreign policy, national security, international relations, and various aspects of American politics. Kaufman received his JD from Georgetown University Law School in Washington, D.C., and his BA, MA, M. Phil., and PhD from Columbia University in the city of New York. In May 2016, Kaufman received an LLM in dispute resolution from the Straus Institute at the Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law. Kaufman has written frequently for scholarly journals and popular publications, including The Weekly Standard, Policy Review, The Washington Times, the Baltimore Sun, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Lifezette. He is the author of four books, including his most recent, Dangerous Doctrine: How Obama’s Grand Strategy Weakened America (University Press of Kentucky, May 6, 2016). Kaufman also assisted President Richard M. Nixon in the research and writing of Nixon’s final book, Beyond Peace. Kaufman is currently working on a new publication entitled The “Principled Realism” of President Trump—Two Cheers.
Paul Marshall
Baylor University
Internationally acclaimed scholar Paul Marshall, Ph.D., has joined the faculty of Baylor University as holder of the Jerry and Susie Wilson Chair in Religious Freedom at the Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR). Marshall also will serve as a research professor within Baylor’s department of political science. He earned his PhD from York University in Canada.
Marshall is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom in Washington, D.C. He is the author and editor of more than 20 books on religion and politics, particularly religious freedom, including Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians (2013, with Lela Gilbert and Nina Shea), Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide (2011, with Nina Shea), Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion (2009), Religious Freedom in the World (2007), Radical Islam’s Rules: The Worldwide Spread of Extreme Sharia Law (2005), Egypt’s Endangered Christians (1999), Just Politics (1998), Heaven Is Not My Home (1998), A Kind of Life Imposed on Man (1996) and the best-selling, award-winning survey of religious persecution worldwide Their Blood Cries Out (1997).
Marshall’s current research is focused primarily on understanding how Muslims and Christians are able to live and work together peacefully in Indonesia – the world’s most populous Muslim country.
Bryan McGraw
Wheaton College
Dr. McGraw has always had an interest in the normative and philosophical aspects of politics and only started learning about political theory in graduate school. He is particularly interested in the ways modern states seek to establish and enforce their own normative visions and how religion plays into that process. He has taught previously at the University of Georgia, Notre Dame, and Pepperdine University. His first book was published by Cambridge University Press, and he is beginning a project on pluralism, law and religion, and political theology. Professor McGraw and his wife Martha, a practicing neurologist, live in Wheaton with their three children. They enjoy gardening, all manners of outdoor activities, and perfecting the art of pulled-pork BBQ sandwiches. Dr. McGraw earned an MA in Russian Area Studies from Georgetown and a PhD in Political Theory from Harvard University.
Eric Patterson
Regent University
Eric Patterson, Ph.D., is a scholar-at-large in the Robertson School of Government, where he once served as dean and tenured professor. Dr. Patterson also serves as president and CEO of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation after holding positions as Executive Vice President and later President of the Religious Freedom Institute. In previous years, Patterson taught at Georgetown University and Vanguard University and has extensive government experience, including service as a White House Fellow and special assistant to the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, two stints in the State Department’s Bureau of Political and Military Affairs with time on the Inter-Agency MANPADS Taskforce, and over 20 years of service as an officer and commander in the Air National Guard. He earned his doctorate in Political Science from UC-Santa Barbara
Patterson has addressed many government audiences, such as the U.S. Air Force Academy’s National Character and Leadership Symposium, the French Department of Defense, the U.S. Military Academy (West Point), the U.S. Naval Academy (Annapolis), the Armed Forces Chaplains Center, National Defense University, the Pentagon, the Naval Postgraduate School, the Foreign Service Institute, and various combatant commands.
Jonathan Leeman
9Marks
Jonathan Leeman is the editorial director for 9Marks. After doing undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science, Jonathan began his career in journalism where he worked as an editor for an international economics magazine in Washington, D.C. Since his call to ministry, Jonathan has earned a master of divinity and later a Ph.D. in theology from the University of Wales and worked as an interim pastor.
Today he edits the 9Marks series of books as well as the 9Marks Journal and is the co-host of Pastors Talk. He has written for a number of publications and is the author or editor of a number of books.
Jonathan lives with his wife and four daughters in a suburb of Washington, DC and serves as an elder at Cheverly Baptist Church. He teaches adjunctively at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Reformed Theological Seminary. You can follow him on Twitter at @Jonathan Leeman.
Marc LiVecche
Providence & Stockdale Center/U.S. Naval Academy
Marc LiVecche is the McDonald Distinguished Scholar of Ethics, War, and Public Life at Providence. He is also a non-resident research fellow at the US Naval War College, in the College of Leadership and Ethics.
Marc completed doctoral studies, earning distinction, at the University of Chicago, where he worked under the supervision of the political theorist and public intellectual Jean Bethke Elshtain, until her death in August, 2013. His first book, The Good Kill: Just War & Moral Injury, was published in 2021 by Oxford University Press. Another project, Responsibility and Restraint: James Turner Johnson and the Just War Tradition, co-edited with Eric Patterson, was published by Stone Tower Press in the fall of 2020. Currently, he is finalizing Moral Horror: A Just War Defense of Hiroshima. Before all this academic stuff, Marc spent twelve years doing a variety of things in Central Europe—ranging from helping build sport and recreational leagues in post-communist communities, to working at a Christian study and research center, to leading seminars on history and ethics onsite at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp in Poland. This latter experience allowed him to continue his undergraduate study of the Shoah; a process which rendered him entirely ill-suited for pacifism.
Marc lives in Annapolis, Maryland with his wife and children–and a marmota monax whistlepigging under the shed. He can be followed, or stalked, on twitter @mlivecche. Additional publications can be found at his Amazon author page.
Paul Miller
Georgetown University
Dr. Miller is a political theorist and political scientist focusing on international affairs, the American experiment, and America’s role in the world. He is a Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He serves as co-chair of the Global Politics and Security concentration in the MSFS program. He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
His most recent book, The Religion of American Greatness: What’s Wrong With Christian Nationalism, was published by IVP Academic in 2022. He is also the author of Just War and Ordered Liberty (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and American Power and Liberal Order (Georgetown University Press, 2016). Miller taught at The University of Texas at Austin and the National Defense University and worked at the RAND Corporation prior to his arrival at Georgetown.
Miller holds a PhD in international relations and a BA in government from Georgetown University, and a master in public policy from Harvard University. He is a contributing editor of Providence: A Journal of Christianity and American Foreign Policy, a research fellow at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and a visiting professor with AEI’s Initiative on Faith and Public Life.
Scott Redd
Reformed Theological Seminary
Dr. Scott Redd is the president and Stephen B. Elmer Professor of Old Testament at the Washington, D.C. campus, and the executive director of the New York campus of Reformed Theological Seminary.
Scott began his career at the Burson-Marsteller office in downtown Washington, D.C., where he was involved in media consultation for multiple national and international corporate clients. He decided to leave the business world to pursue a Master of Divinity at RTS in Orlando, Fla., and then went on to complete his doctoral dissertation in the Department of Semitic Language and Egyptian Languages and Literatures at the Catholic University of America. During his doctoral studies, he taught at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, M.D., and ministered at Christ the King Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, N.C.In 2009, Scott came back to his alma mater to join on the faculty of RTS Orlando, where he also served as Dean of Students, before moving to Washington, D.C., in 2012. Scott has also taught at Catholic University of America, the Augustine Theological Institute in Malta, the International Training Institute in the Mediterranean basin, and for Third Millennium Ministries.
Scott’s interests include literary approaches to the Bible, linguistics and the biblical languages, ancient Near Eastern backgrounds to Scripture, and Old Testament theology. He cares deeply about the teaching of Scripture and its application to all situations in life, particularly in the context of a learning and worshiping community. Due to this interest, he continually finds himself drawn to the learning community of the seminary as well as that of the church.
Lee Trepanier
Assumption University
Lee Trepanier is incoming Dean of the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Assumption University in Massachusetts. He is a Political Scientist by training who teaches political philosophy, constitutional law, and American Politics. His research is in Eric Voegelin; Politics and Literature; Religion and Politics; Democracy and Education; Civic Education; and Teaching and Learning Political Science. He is also the editor of Lexington Books series Politics, Literature, and Film. His Twitter handle is @lee_trepanier.
Kevin Vallier
Assumption UniversityBowling Green UniversityAssumption University
Kevin Vallier (PhD, University of Arizona) is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University, where he directs their program in Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law. Vallier’s interests lie primarily in political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of religion, and philosophy, politics, and economics (PPE). He is the author of three monographs, four edited volumes, and over forty peer-reviewed book chapters and journal articles. His books include Liberal Politics and Public Faith: Beyond Separation (Routledge 2014), Must Politics Be War? Restoring Our Trust in the Open Society (Oxford UP 2019), and Trust in a Polarized Age (Oxford UP 2020). His next book will address religious anti-liberalisms, tentatively titled All the Kingdoms of the World (Oxford UP 2023).
Andrew Walker
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Dr. Walker (PhD, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) serves as Associate Dean in the School of Theology, and Associate Professor of Christian Ethics and Public Theology. He is also the Director of the Carl F. H. Henry Institute for Evangelical Engagement. Additionally, he is a fellow in Christian Political Thought at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and serves as the Managing Editor of WORLD Opinions. Walker joined the faculty of Southern Seminary in 2019. His previous appointment was Senior Fellow in Christian Ethics at the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. He is married to Christian, and they have three children. He is a member of Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, and in 2023, he was one of the winners of the inaugural “Freedom and Opportunity” academic awards from the Heritage Foundation for his contributions to conservative thought.
A sought-after conference speaker and cultural commentator, Walker researches and writes about the intersection of Christian ethics, public theology, and the common good. His academic research interests include natural law theory, human dignity, theology of law, family stability, church-state studies, and social conservatism. He teaches courses in the areas of ethics, biomedical ethics, sexual ethics, moral theory, public theology, and religion in the public square. He oversees several Doctor of Ministry students and Research Doctoral students as well as serving as the primary program coordinator for Southern’s Ethics and Public Theology concentration.
George Weigel
Ethics & Public Policy Center
George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is a Catholic theologian and one of America’s leading public intellectuals. He holds EPPC’s William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies.
Mr. Weigel is perhaps best known for his widely translated and internationally acclaimed two-volume biography of Pope St. John Paul II: the New York Times bestseller, Witness to Hope (1999), and its sequel, The End and the Beginning (2010). In 2017, Weigel published a memoir of the experiences that led to his work as a papal biographer: Lessons in Hope — My Unexpected Life with St. John Paul II.Mr. Weigel received a B.A. (Philosophy) from St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, an M.A. (Theology) from the University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto, and is the recipient of nineteen honorary doctorates. In 2024 he was decorated with the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, and has also been awarded the Papal Cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, the Lithuanian Diplomacy Star, and the Gloria Artis Gold Medal of Poland’s Ministry of Culture.
Stephen White
Catholic University
Stephen P. White is the Executive Director of The Catholic Project. Since 2019, he has led The Catholic University of America’s response to the clergy abuse crisis, focusing on the collaboration of clergy and the laity. He served as executive producer for the award-winning podcast, Crisis: Clergy Abuse in the Catholic Church.For over a decade, Mr. White has been a fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC. His work focuses on the intersections of faith, politics, and culture, frequently applying Catholic social teaching to contemporary issues. Mr. White is the author of Red, White, Blue, and Catholic (Liguori Publications, 2016) and writes a bi-monthly column for The Catholic Thing. Since 2005, he has helped organize the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society, a three week seminar on Catholic social teaching with an emphasis on the thought of St. John Paul II which takes place every summer in Krakow, Poland.
