Faith and Law

Dr. Eric Patterson will discuss just war thinking within the context of a Christian worldview and our current political climate.Dr. Eric Patterson is dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University. His research and teaching focus on religion and politics, ethics and international affairs, and just-war theory in the context of contemporary conflict. Prior to his arrival at Regent, Patterson served as associate director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs and visiting assistant professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. As part of the Berkley Center's Government Outreach program he has spoken and led seminars at 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 other government venues.Patterson has considerable U.S. government experience. He served as a White House Fellow and special assistant to the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and has spent two stints in the State Department's Bureau of Political and Military Affairs. He continues to serve as an officer and commander in the Air National Guard.Patterson is the author or editor of 10 books, including most recently: Ending Wars Well: Just War Thinking and Post-Conflict (Yale University Press, 2012) and Ethics Beyond War's End (Georgetown University Press, 2012.) He has also edited two volumes on Christian realism and has been published in numerous journals including Survival, International Studies Perspectives, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, International Politics, Journal of Diplomacy and International Affairs, and Journal of Political Science, among others.Support the show

A 1990s Republican Revolution in helping the poor came close to critical mass but then fizzled: The result was tragic for poor people, for idealistic reformers, for the GOP, and for America generally. We’ll look at how and why that happened, and whether Christians can help to revive the spirit of those years at a time when callous conservatism seems to reign.Marvin Olasky is editor in chief of WORLD News Group and the author of more than 20 books, including The Tragedy of American Compassion. His latest book is World View: Seeking Grace and Truth in Our Common Life. Support the show

Pastor Brett Fuller is the Senior Pastor of Grace Covenant Church.  He currently serves as the North American Leadership Team Director for Every Nation Churches, and as Chaplain of the Washington Redskins.  From 2005 to 2014 he served as Chaplain for the National Association of Basketball Coaches.  In 2000, he initiated a bill in Congress to build a memorial honoring the African American Slaves who helped build America. Though the bill was never passed, he still hopes to complete the mission.  Also, from 2007-2009 he served on President George Bush's Advisory Board for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.  He has written two devotional books:  Live Well and Relate Well.He and his lovely wife of 30 years, Cynthia,  frequently conduct marriage and family seminars.  Brett also coordinates relational and professional development seminars helping leaders in every walk of life to become better leaders.  He and his bride reside in Chantilly, VA and have parented 7 children.Support the show

Os Guinness is an author and social critic. Great-great-great grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer, he was born in China in World War Two where his parents were medical missionaries. A witness to the climax of the Chinese revolution in 1949, he was expelled with many other foreigners in 1951 and returned to Europe where he was educated in England. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of London and his D.Phil in the social sciences from Oriel College, Oxford.Os has written or edited more than thirty books, including The Call, Time for Truth, Long Journey Home, Unspeakable, A Free People’s Suicide, The Global Public Square, and Renaissance. His latest book is Fool’s Talk – The Recovery of Christian Persuasion, which was published by InterVarsity Press in June, 2015.Before moving to the United States in 1984, Os was a freelance reporter with the BBC. Since then he has been a Guest Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies, a Guest Scholar and Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum and the EastWest Institute in New York. From 1986 to 1989, Os served as Executive Director of the Williamsburg Charter Foundation, a bicentennial celebration of the First Amendment. In this position he helped to draft “The Williamsburg Charter” and later “The Global Charter of Conscience,” which was published at the European Union Parliament in 2012. Os has spoken at dozens of the world’s major universities, and spoken widely to political and business conferences on many issues, including religious freedom, across the world. He is currently a senior fellow at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics in Oxford, though he still lives with his wife Jenny in the Washington, DC, area.Support the show

As vice president of The Heritage Foundation, Jennifer A. Marshall runs the think tank’s Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity. In that capacity, she oversees research into a variety of issues that determine the strength and character of American society.  Issues explored by Institute researchers range from marriage, life, and religious liberty to health, education, and welfare to the application of America’s founding principles to today’s challenges.Marshall collaborates with Heritage colleagues to explore how moral values and civil society relate to issues such as limited government, a strong national economy and foreign policy. She also edits Heritage’s annual Index of Culture and Opportunity, which tracks key social and economic trends to determine whether important indicators of opportunity in America are on the right track.In 2010, National Journal named Marshall one of Washington’s 20 “power players” in recognition of her work on school choice and other education reforms.Before joining Heritage in 2003, Marshall worked on cultural policy issues at Empower America, a free-market think tank. Before that, she was senior director of family studies at the Family Research Council and taught at an American school in Lyon, France.She has spoken at national and international forums, testified before Congress and appeared on numerous radio and television shows, including C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” and PBS’ “To the Contrary.”She is the author of “Now and Not Yet: Making Sense of Single Life in the Twenty-First Century” (Multnomah Publishers, 2007). The book evaluates the cultural, practical and spiritual issues that marriage-minded young women confront as the age of first marriage continues to rise in America.Marshall holds a master of arts in religion from Reformed Theological Seminary, a master’s degree in statecraft and world politics from the Washington-based Institute of World Politics, and a bachelor’s degree in French from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., where she also earned teacher’s certification. She currently resides in Arlington, Va.Support the show

Civility Is Needed Most When It's Most DifficultCherie Harder serves as President of the Trinity Forum. Prior to joining the Trinity Forum in 2008, Ms. Harder served in the White House as Special Assistant to the President and Director of Policy and Projects for First Lady Laura Bush.Earlier in her career she served as Policy Advisor to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, advising the Leader on domestic social issues and serving as liaison and outreach director to outside groups. From 2001 to 2005, she was Senior Counselor to the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, where she helped the Chairman design and launch the We the People initiative to enhance the teaching, study, and understanding of American history. Prior to that Ms. Harder was the Policy Director for Senator Sam Brownback and also served as Deputy Policy Director at Empower America.Ms. Harder has contributed articles to publications including Policy Review, Human Events, the Harvard Political Review, and various newspapers, as well as a chapter on fashion to the volume Building a Healthy Culture (Eerdmans 2001). Her ghost-written speeches and articles have appeared in Vital Speeches of the Day, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, and others.She holds an Honors B.A. (magna cum laude) in government from Harvard University and a post-graduate diploma in literature from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, where she was a Rotary Scholar. She serves on the board of Gordon College, the Convergence Center for Policy Resolution, and Faith and Law; and on the advisory boards of the National Civic Art Society and the National Museum of American Religion.Ms. Harder was raised in New Mexico and currently lives in Northern Virginia.Mark Strand became President of the Congressional Institute in 2007. Founded in 1987, the Congressional Institute is a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to helping Members of Congress better serve their constituents and helping their constituents better understand the operations of the national legislature.Strand is also an adjunct professor of legislative affairs at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management, and the coauthor of the book Surviving Inside Congress. He also writes a blog, The Sausage Factory, that provides an inside look at legislative strategies and procedures (http://conginst.org/news-feed/).Strand spent nearly 24 years on Capitol Hill in both the House and the Senate, most recently serving as Chief of Staff to Senator James Talent (R-MO). He served as the Staff Director of the House Committee on Small Business when Talent was Chairman. He was also chief of staff for Reps. Bill Lowery (R-CA) and Stan Parris (R-VA). He has also served as a Legislative Director and a Press Secretary.During a brief interlude from the Hill from 2001-2002, Strand was Vice-President of Government Affairs for the American Water Works Company – the largest publicly held water utility in the United States.Strand obtained a master’s in Legislative Affairs from GWU’s Graduate School of Political Management, an M.B.A. in Marketing from the University of Phoenix, and was an undergraduate double major in Political Science and History at Excelsior College of the University of New York.Strand regularly speaks to organizations about how Congress works (or doesn’t). Besides speaking and lecturing on legislative politics, Strand teaches courses on “Surviving Inside Congress” to new Hill staff, government affairs employees and Washington-based diplomats. In addition, he regularly works with Congressional offices on management issues.Support the show

"There is only one prediction that is safe about the upcoming term, and that is it will be momentous."  Justice Ruth Bader GinsburgDr. Joseph Hartman discussed key Supreme Court cases being considered in the 2017-18 term, especially focusing on those that could have an impact on the Church.  Dr. Hartman teaches constitutional law in the Georgetown University Department of Government, where he earned his Ph.D. in political theory in 2015. He also holds a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School and spent a decade in the private practice of law in Washington, D.C.Support the show

In recognition of the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation, Dr. Joseph Loconte addressed Faith & Law on "How Martin Luther's Reformation Transformed the World."  As the lecture title suggests, Loconte gently pushed back against Rod Dreher's "Benedict Option."  One of the first things Luther did as he secured his position in Germany was to abolish all of the monastic orders.  Loconte will explain why Luther chose this course of action.Joseph Loconte, PhD, is an Associate Professor of History at The King’s College in New York City, where he teaches courses on Western Civilization, American Foreign Policy, and International Human Rights. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-1918(Harper Collins, 2015) and winner of the 2017 Best Article award from the Tolkien Society for his article How J.R.R. Tolkien Found Mordor on the Western Front.Dr. Loconte previously served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University, where he taught on religion and public policy. He was a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., and from 1999-2006 he held the first chair in religion and civil society as the William E. Simon Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.Dr. Loconte’s other books include: God, Locke, and Liberty: The Struggle for Religious Freedom in the West(Lexington Books, 2014); The Searchers: A Quest for Faith in the Valley of Doubt (Thomas Nelson, 2012); The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler’s Gathering Storm (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004); and Seducing the Samaritan: How Government Contracts Are Reshaping Social Services (The Pioneer Institute, 1997).Dr. Loconte’s commentary on religion and public life appears in the nation’s leading media outlets, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the National Interest, the Weekly Standard, and National Review. He is also a regular contributor to the London-based Standpoint and the Huffington Post. For 10 years he served as a commentator for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered.Dr. Loconte has testified before Congress on international human rights and served as a human rights expert on the 2005 Congressional Task Force on the United Nations, contributing to its final report, “American Interests and U.N. Reform.” From 2001-2003, he was an informal advisor to the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. More recently, he was a speechwriter for British MP Andrew Mitchell, Shadow Secretary of State for International Development. He now serves as a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum and as an affiliated scholar at the John Jay Institute.A native of Brooklyn, NY, Dr. Loconte divides his time between New York City and Washington, D.C.Support the show

In this lecture, Dr. Jay W. Richards gave highlights from his upcoming book on human uniqueness and the claim that machines will replace us.  He will show how the Christian understanding of the human person helps provide guidance in the debate about artificial intelligence and automation, and how to respond to it.A thousand futurists predict that in the next few decades, machines will take over even more of our work, leaving mass joblessness in its wake. How should we respond to these claims? It’s true that machines will do many tasks we imagined could only be done by people. But many of these claims are based on a materialistic view of the human person that contradicts both faith and reason.Dr. Richards argued that we do need to prepare for massive job disruption. And we'll need to adapt by focusing on key virtues that separate man from machine. But machines will never replace us.Jay W. Richards, Ph.D., is the Executive Editor of The Stream. He is an Assistant Research Professor in the School of Business and Economics at The Catholic University of America and a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute. He is author of many books including the New York Times bestsellers Infiltrated (2013), and Indivisible (2012), co-authored with James Robison. He is also the author of Money, Greed, and God, winner of a 2010 Templeton Enterprise Award; and co-author of The Privileged Planet with astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez. His most recent book, co-authored with Jonathan Witt, is The Hobbit Party: The Vision of Freedom that J.R.R. Tolkien Got and the West Forgot. He has a Ph.D., with honors, in philosophy and theology from Princeton Theological Seminary.Support the show

The Rev. Bill Haley is Executive Director of Coracle and the Associate Rector at The Falls Church Anglican.  A graduate of Bethel College (1991) and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (magna cum laude, 1994), he is an Anglican priest and spiritual director, having completed his training with the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation (2007). His life has been profoundly shaped by many international experiences, particularly in places of deep brokenness in the world, and he has devoted many years to ministering in urban contexts, especially in inner-city Washington DC. With his wife Tara and four kids, Bill lives at Corhaven in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.Since 1996 he has ministered with The Falls Church in a number of different capacities.  Bill was the founding Rector of St. Brendan’s in the City in Washington DC.  He recently served as the Director of Formation for The Washington Institute and  previously served as president of The Regeneration Forum and publisher of re:generation quarterly, a magazine devoted to “community transforming culture”.  He has also served on staff at the Servant Leadership School of Church of the Savior, was a founding board member and then President of the Southeast DC Partners, and is currently a US Trustee of the Anglican Relief and Development Fund and on the Advisory Council for The Telos Group. Because of such diverse experiences in life and around the world, and so many questions to ask, and so many things that matter, Bill’s life has been fired by the phrase “in Christ all things hold together.” He wants to be able to live and say with the same passion of St. Paul, “It is no longer I who live, it is Christ who lives in me.”Bill's publications include articles in The Washington Post,  re:generation quarterly, Prism and Sojourners magazines, Inward/Outward of The Servant Leadership School, The Cry of Word Made Flesh, and with The Washington Institute.   He has compiled several original editions of poetry and prayers. His interests include outdoor sports, especially fly-fishing, the visual arts and music, reading, writing, and long conversations over a good cup of coffee (or wine).Support the show