Providence Magazine‘s annual Christianity & National Security (CNS) conference will be held this year from midday on Thursday, October 31st to the evening of Friday, November 1st, at the Army and Navy Club in Washington, DC. The two-day event will feature academics, journalists, think tank fellows, veterans of Capitol Hill and the White House, and other experts on the theory and practice of international relations. CNS serves as a unique space for thoughtful Christians to come together and discuss the meaningful and consistent application of Christian ethics to foreign policy.
From St. Augustine in the 4th century to Reinhold Niebuhr in the 20th, Christians have long understood that the laws of government, including the use of force, must be judged according to the law of God. As threats from China, Russia, and Iran proliferate, educating young people on the Christian tradition of Just War Theory and the importance of American hard and soft power for global stability and prosperity is more important than ever. This year’s conference is open to college students, professors, and DC area professionals, though priority will be given to students and professors.
Hotel rooms and meals will be provided free of charge for the duration of the conference for students and professors. In order to attend the conference, a resume and brief statement of interest should be sent to our Events Director, Sarah Stewart, at [email protected].
CNS 2024 Speaker Bios
Judd Birdsall
Judd Birdsall (PhD, University of Cambridge) is assistant professor of the practice in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Georgetown University, where he is also a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and the project director of the Transatlantic Policy Network on Religion and Diplomacy (TPNRD). From 2011 to 2020 Birdsall was based at Cambridge University, where he earned his Ph.D., founded a research center on religion and international studies, and served as an affiliated lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Studies. Prior to his time at Cambridge, he served in the U.S. State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom and on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff. Birdsall is the editor of Religion & Diplomacy, and his work has appeared in the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Guardian, Huffington Post, Christianity Today, and Religion & Politics. He is also a senior editor and a frequent contributor at the Review of Faith & International Affairs.
Olivia Enos
Olivia Enos (MA, Georgetown University) is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute. She specializes in human rights and national security challenges in Asia, focusing on China, North Korea, Hong Kong, Burma, and Cambodia. Enos also serves as an adjunct professor in the Democracy and Governance Program at Georgetown University, where she teaches on countering authoritarianism in Asia. Additionally, she has a regular column with Forbes, in which she writes on the intersection of human rights and national security in Asia. She is also an adjunct fellow with Pacific Forum. Prior to joining Hudson, Enos served as the Washington director for the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation (CFHK) where she led CFHK’s Washington-based efforts to support the Hong Kong people. She previously worked at the Heritage Foundation, where she last served as a senior policy analyst in the Asian Studies Center advancing human rights and freedom in Asia.
Enos has testified several times before Congress, including before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, and the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. She has also testified before the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and regularly briefs senior executive branch officials and members of Congress. Her commentary has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, and elsewhere. She has also appeared on CNN, BBC, Fox News, and other news outlets.
Rebeccah L. Heinrichs
Rebeccah L. Heinrichs (PhD, Missouri State University) is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute and the director of its Keystone Defense Initiative. She specializes in US national defense policy with a focus on strategic deterrence. Heinrichs currently serves as a commissioner on the bipartisan Strategic Posture Commission, which was created in the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act. She also serves on the US Strategic Command Advisory Group and the National Independent Panel on Military Service and Readiness. Additionally, she is an adjunct professor at the Institute of World Politics, where she teaches nuclear deterrence theory, and is also a contributing editor of Providence: A Journal of Christianity and American Foreign Policy. Heinrichs also appears regularly on Fox News to comment on international affairs and national security.
Matthew Kroenig
Matthew Kroenig (PhD, UC-Berkeley) is a Professor in the Department of Government and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Kroenig is also the Vice President and Senior Director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Kroenig was appointed by the US Congress in 2022 to serve as a commissioner on the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. He has served in several positions in the U.S. Department of Defense and the intelligence community during the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations, including in the Strategy, Middle East, and Nuclear and Missile Defense offices in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the CIA’s Strategic Assessments Group.
Kroenig is the author or editor of eight books, including The Return of Great Power Rivalry: Democracy versus Autocracy from the Ancient World to the US and China, The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy: Why Strategic Superiority Matters, and Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons. His articles have appeared in American Political Science Review, Annual Review of Political Science, Foreign Affairs, International Organization, International Security, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Strategic Studies, Politico, Security Studies, Strategic Studies Quarterly, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, among others. He is a columnist at Foreign Policy. Dr. Kroenig provides regular commentary for major media outlets, including PBS, CBS, BBC, CNN, Fox News, NPR, and C-SPAN.
Marc LiVecche
Marc LiVecche (PhD, University of Chicago) 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. 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.
Paul Miller
Paul D. Miller (PhD, Georgetown University) is a Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where 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, an Editor-at-Large for Providence, and a research fellow with the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. He also served in the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
As a practitioner, Miller served as Director for Afghanistan and Pakistan on the National Security Council staff, worked as an intelligence analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, and served as a military intelligence officer in the U.S. Army. His most recent book, The Religion of American Greatness: What’s Wrong With Christian Nationalism in 2022. He is also the author of Just War and Ordered Liberty (2021) and American Power and Liberal Order (2016). Miller’s writing has also appeared in Foreign Affairs, Survival, The Dispatch, Presidential Studies Quarterly, The Journal of Strategic Studies, Orbis, The American Interest, The National Interest, The World Affairs Journal, Small Wars and Insurgencies, and elsewhere.
Robert Nicholson
Robert Nicholson (JD, MA, Syracuse University) is Editor-at Large of Providence, co-founder and board member of Save Armenia, founder of The Philos Project, and co-founder of Passages Israel. Robert also serves on the advisory board of In Defense of Christians and The Hague Initiative for International Cooperation (thinc). A formerly enlisted Marine and Tikvah Fellow, he holds a BA in Hebrew Studies from Binghamton University, and a JD and MA in Middle Eastern History from Syracuse University. His written work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Telegraph, New York Post, Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Newsweek, First Things, The Hill, and National Interest.
Eric Patterson
Eric Patterson (PhD, UC-Santa Barbara) is the President and CEO of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Dr. Patterson previously served as President of the Religious Freedom Institute (RFI), where he led the organization’s efforts to advocate for religious liberty around the world through training and educational programs for students, teachers, public officials, and other audiences. Prior to RFI, Dr. Patterson was the Dean of Regent University’s School of Government. His government experience includes service as a White House Fellow, at the U.S. Department of State, and, for over 20 years, as an Air National Guard commander. He is an active scholar on the moral dimensions of national security and international affairs, as well as author of over 20 books, including Just American Wars: Ethical Dilemmas in U.S. Military History and the co-edited volume The Reagan Manifesto: ‘A Time for Choosing’ and Its Influence.
Scott Redd
Scott Redd (PhD, Catholic University of America) 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. After working in media consultation for multiple national and international corporate clients, he decided left 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, MD, and ministered at Christ the King Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, N.C. In 2009, Redd came back to his alma mater to join 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.
Elizabeth Spalding
Elizabeth Edwards Spalding (PhD, University of Virginia) is Chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) and Founding Director of the Victims of Communism Museum. She is Senior Fellow at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy and Visiting Fellow at the Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College. She is the author of The First Cold Warrior: Harry Truman, Containment, and the Remaking of Liberal Internationalism and the co-author of A Brief History of the Cold War. Her scholarly and popular articles and reviews have been published widely, including in Journal of Church and State, Orbis, The Wilson Quarterly, Providence, The American Spectator, Law & Liberty, H-Diplo, and Claremont Review of Books.
Knox Thames
Knox Thames (JD, MA, American University) is an international human rights lawyer, advocate, and author. Thames spent 20 years working for the U.S. government, serving in the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations and in the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki Commission), the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), AmeriCorps VISTA, and the U.S. Army War College as an Adjunct Research Professor. In addition, from 2004-2012, he was a State Department appointee to the OSCE Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief. He is a Senior Fellow at Pepperdine University where he directs the Program on Global Faith and Inclusive Societies. He is also a non-resident Senior Visiting Expert at the United States Institute of Peace and was a finalist to serve as the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief. He has spoken before the U.S. Congress, the United Nations, the European Parliament, the Organization of American States, the OSCE, the Atlantic Council, Wilton Park, the Foreign Service Institute, and U.S. military war colleges. He has written for USA Today, the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, TIME, CNN, Newsweek, RealClearPolitics, the Times of London, the Harvard Human Rights Journal, the Yale Journal of International Affairs, the Small Wars Journal, and others. He was the lead author of International Religious Freedom Advocacy: A Guide to Organizations, Law and NGOs and his new book, Ending Persecution: Charting the Path to Global Religious Freedom, was released in September 2024.
