Christianity & National Security: Exploring Church Teaching on Government’s Divine Vocation

   Register Today

   What

Providence: A Journal of Christianity & American Foreign Policy is hosting this groundbreaking two-day conference on essential historic Christian teaching about God’s purpose for government, starting with its vocation for security and public order. The conference will include leading scholars and practitioners of political theology and national security. They will address issues such as Just War teaching, nuclear weapons, Reinhold Niebuhr, Christian Realism, nationalism, international human rights, American Exceptionalism, torture, and terrorism. This event is open to all but is especially aimed at Christian young people who are graduate students or early career. Event includes two lunches and two breakfasts. Scholarships are available to students, military and clergy.

   When

Date: November 2 & 3

   View Schedule

   Where

Georgetown University Hotel & Conference Center
Salons D-E-F

3800 Reservoir Road, NW
Washington, DC 20057
202-687-3200

Hotel rooms are available at Georgetown University Hotel for $189 per night. Reservations can be made here.

   Speakers

Walter Russell Mead

James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College
Walter Russell Mead is Editor-at-Large of The American Interest magazine, author Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How it Changed the World.

Marc LiVecche

Managing editor of Providence and Scholar of Christian Ethics, War, & Peace at the Institute on Religion and Democracy
Marc LiVecche completed doctoral studies at the University of Chicago, dissertation: With Malice Toward None: The Moral Ground for Killing in War.

Thomas Farr

President, Religious Freedom Institute​
Thomas F. Farr is president of the Religious Freedom Institute, an NGO committed to achieving worldwide acceptance of religious liberty. He is also a senior fellow at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion and at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey. After a distinguished career in the U.S. Army and the Foreign Service, Farr served as the first director of the U.S. State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom from 1999 to 2003.

Joseph Hartman

Attorney, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Georgetown University Department of Government
Joseph Hartman wrote his doctoral dissertation titled “In His Image: God and Man in the Political Philosophy of Reinhold Niebuhr.”.

Samuel Goldman

Executive Director, Loeb Institute for Religious Freedom; Assistant Professor of Political Science
Samuel Goldman in assistant professor of political science at George Washington University, where he also leads the Politics & Values Program. Goldman received his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard. Before coming to GW, he was a Tikvah Postdoctoral Fellow in Religion, Ethics & Politics at Princeton. He’s author of God's Country: Christian Zionism in America.

Travis Wussow

Travis Wussow
Serves as the Vice President for Public Policy and General Counsel for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
Travis led the ERLC’s first international office located in the Middle East prior to joining the Washington DC office. He received a B.B.A. in Finance from The University of Texas at Austin and a J.D. from The University of Texas School of Law.

Dr. Joshua W. Walker

Joshua Walker
A recent contributor to Providence
Dr. Joshua W. Walker serves as the Global Head of Strategic Initiatives and Japan in the Office of the President at Eurasia Group, the world’s leading political risk consultancy.

Debra Erickson

Debra Erickson Photo
Instructor in Philosophy at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania
Debra Erickson is a scholar of social and political ethics, interested in the public applications of her work. Her areas of competence include economic, environmental, and medical ethics; religion, politics, and ethics; and topics in global ethics. She have significant experience in higher education and the public sector.

David Shedd

Over 30 year career in intelligence and diplomacy including acting director of Defense Intelligence Agency
David Shedd is a former Deputy Director of National Intelligence, CIA Chief of Congressional Liaison, and postings in Costa Rica and Mexico. Visiting distinguished fellow in Heritage Foundation’s Davis Institute for National Security & Foreign Policy & Adjunct Professor at Patrick Henry College.

Keith Pavlischek

Military affairs expert with focus on just war theory and ethics of war
Keith Pavlischek is a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel with Iraq and Afghanistan service, author of John Courtney Murray and the Dilemma of Religious Toleration.

Daniel Strand

Postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Political Thought and Leadership at the Arizona State University
Daniel Strand is a contributing Editor to Providence.

Matt Gobush

Served at the National Security Council in the Clinton White House
Matt Gobush served at the National Security Council in the Clinton White House, and as chair of the Episcopal Church’s Standing Commission on International Peace and Justice. He currently works in government relations in Washington, DC for an energy corporation.

Robert Nicholson

Founder and Executive Director of The Philos Project, and a publisher of Providence
Robert Nicholson is a former U.S. Marine and a 2012-13 Tikvah Fellow. Robert's advocacy focuses on spreading the vision of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious Middle East based on freedom and rule of law.

Emilie Kao

Director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion & Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation
Emilie Kao was formerly with U.S. State Department and The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

Mary Habeck

Adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced & International Studies
Mary Habeck held appointment with the National Security Council and served as associate professor of history at Yale University.

Matthew Kroenig

Associate Professor in Department of Government and Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and Senior Fellow in Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at The Atlantic Council
Matthew Kroenig is the author or editor of six books, including the forthcoming, The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy (Oxford University Press). His articles have appeared in many publications, including: American Political Science Review, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Organization, The Wall Street Journal, & The Washington Post.

John P. Gallagher

Senior Vice President at Tracker Capital Management. Former president/CEO of Institute for Global Engagement
John P. Gallagher is a former Special Assistant to the Chairman of Joint Chiefs, Commander of U.S. Central Command, & Commander of International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Taught U.S. politics/counterterrorism at West Point. 25 years in U.S. Army deployed to Egypt, Kosovo & Afghanistan. Co-editor of Debating the War of Ideas (2009).

Faith McDonnell

Director of Religious Liberty Programs and of the Church Alliance for a New Sudan
Faith McDonnell writes and speaks on the subject of the persecuted church and has organized rallies and vigils for Sudan in front of the White House, the State Department, the Canadian Embassy, and the Sudanese Embassy. She has drafted legislation on religious persecution for the Episcopal Church and for the United States Congress. In June 2007, her book, Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda’s Children, was published by Chosen Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Paul Miller

Professor of the Practice and Concentration Chair for Global Politics and Security at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.
Paul Miller was formerly Associate Director at the University of Texas Clements Center for National Security. His research focuses on grand strategy, U.S. national security policy, the intelligence community, stability operations, just war, and related issues. Currently, he is working on books on the war in Afghanistan and on the history of the just war tradition, and another writing project on religion and American nationalism.

Dr. Scott Redd

Dr. Scott Redd is the president and an associate professor of Old Testament at the Washington, D.C., campus of Reformed Theological Seminary.
Dr. Redd'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.

   Schedule

Breakfast available in meeting room both days starting 8am. Lunch will be served in meeting room both days. Snacks, soft drinks and coffee available all day both days.

Friday November 2nd

  9:30am Mark Tooley   Welcome
  9:35am Walter Russell Mead   Christian Realism
  10:30am Thomas Farr   Theology of Religious Liberty
  11:00am Paul Miller   Faith & Strategic Thinking
  11:30am Scott Redd   China & Global Christianity
  12:15pm Lunch
  12:45pm Mary Habeck   Projecting American Power
  1:15pm Travis Wussow   Southern Baptists & the World
  1:45pm Emilie Kao   Global Hate Speech
  2:15pm Joseph Hartman   Reinhold Niebuhr for Today
  3:00pm Robert Nicholson   Overcoming American Mideast Frustrations
  3:45pm Joshua Walker   Millennial Christians & Foreign Policy
  4:30pm Jeff Farnsworth   Evangelical Power & Latin America
  5:00pm Adjourn

Saturday, November 3

  8:30am Doug Mastriano   Christian Liberal Worldview in a Realist World War
  9:00am Keith Pavlischek   Just War’s Critics
  9:45am Sam Goldman   Christian Zionism
  10:30am Matt Kroenig   Morality of American Power & Nuclear Weapons.
  11:15am Dan Strand   On the Virtues of Loving the Nation
  Noon Lunch
  12:15pm Brad Littlejohn   The State in the Theology of the Reformers
  12:45pm Marc LiVecche   Christian Realism in the Age of Providence
  1:30pm Debra Erickson   Neighbor Love & Global Statecraft
  2:15pm Faith McDonnell   Theology of Christian Advocacy
  3:00pm Jon Askonas   Christian Origins of International Order
  3:30pm Miles Smith   USA Foreign Policy Yesterday & Today
  4:15pm Mark Tooley   Adjourn

   Last Year's Videos

Christian Influences on American Foreign Policy

Millennials & Global Statecraft

Christianity & Pacifism

The Christian & Espionage

Just War Teaching & Higher Education

Theology & International Religious Liberty

Foundations of Civil Society in US Foreign Policy

Ethics & Nuclear Weapons

Christianity & Islam

A Christian Critique of American Exceptionalism

God’s Vocation for Government

Reinhold Niebuhr for Today

Dietrich Bonhoeffer & Pacifism

Catholic Teaching & Just War

Jean Bethke Elshtain & 9/11