John O’Sullivan is an editor and columnist, director of 21st Century Initiatives and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute in Washington. His earlier posts include editor of National Review, associate editor of the London Times, senior fellow of the Hudson Institute, and special adviser to Margaret Thatcher.
John O’Sullivan spoke on the topic: “Identity Politics”
Mark Tooley is Institute on Religion and Democracy president and editor of IRD’s foreign policy and national security journal, Providence. Prior to joining the IRD in 1994, Mark worked eight years for the Central Intelligence Agency. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and is a native of Arlington, Virginia. A lifelong United Methodist, he has been active in United Methodist renewal since 1988, when he wrote a study about denominational funding of pro-Marxist groups for his local congregation. He attends a United Methodist church in Alexandria, Virginia. Mark Tooley became president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) in 2009. He joined IRD in 1994 to found its United Methodist committee (UMAction).
He is the author of Taking Back The United Methodist Church, published in 2008; Methodism and Politics in the 20th Century, published in 2012; and The Peace That Almost Was: The Forgotten Story of the 1861 Washington Peace Conference and the Final Attempt to Avert the Civil War, published in 2015. His articles about the political witness of America’s churches have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, First Things, Patheos, World, Christianity Today, The Weekly Standard, National Review Online, Washington Examiner, Human Events, The Washington Times, The Review of Faith and International Affairs, Touchstone, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Post, and elsewhere. He is a frequent commentator on radio and television.
Mark Tooley spoke on the topic: “Nationalism and Christianity”
Gregory Alan Thornbury, Ph.D., serves as the sixth President of The King’s College in New York City – an institution dedicated to faith, free enterprise, and The American Dream. Called “America’s first hipster college president” by The American Spectator, Dr. Thornbury is also a Visiting Professor at the Values and Capitalism initiative of the American Enterprise Institute; a Senior Fellow for The Kairos Journal; a columnist for Townhall.com; and a member of the editorial board of the Salem Media Group. His recent books focus on the relationship between philosophy, theology, and culture. They include Recovering Classic Evangelicalism: Applying the Wisdom and Vision of Carl F. H. Henry, and Bigger on the Inside: Christianity and Doctor Who, with graphic artist Ned Bustard. His forthcoming work, Only Visiting This Planet (Penguin/Random House, 2016), is a biography of the 1970s Jesus Movement icon and rock pioneer, Larry Norman, whom Thornbury calls, “the forerunner of the millennial generation’s attitude toward religion.”
Prior to joining King’s in 2013, he served at Union University in Tennessee as a Professor of Philosophy, Founding Dean of the School of Theology, and Vice President. He has completed graduate work at Southern Seminary in Louisville and the University of Oxford in England. A popular campus speaker and lecturer, he is also a member of the Society of Christian Philosophers.
Dr. Thornbury and his wife Kimberly, who also holds the Ph.D., have two daughters and reside in Manhattan.
Gregory Thornbury spoke on the topic: “Jews and the Future of Christianity”
Gil Student is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of TorahMusings.com, a leading website on Orthodox Jewish scholarly subjects, and the Book Editor of the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Action magazine. He writes a popular column on Jewish issues featured in newspapers and magazines. In the past, he has served as the President of the small Jewish publisher Yashar Books and as the Managing Editor of OU Press. Rabbi Student currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America, the Editorial Board of Jewish Action magazine and the Board of OU Press.
Mitchell Rocklin is a resident research fellow at The Tikvah Fund, and a doctoral candidate in History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is a Chaplain in the US Army Reserve with the rank of Captain, and is a member of the Rabbinical Council of America’s Executive Committee and Military Chaplaincy Committee. Rabbi Rocklin was previously a congregational rabbi in Connecticut, and has taught history at the City University of New York’s Hunter College.
Mitchell Rocklin spoke on the topic: “When Christians Were ‘Winners’: The Politics of Realignment”
Russell Ronald “R.R.” Reno III is the editor of First Things magazine. He was formerly a professor of theology and ethics at Creighton University. Reno is the author of several books, including “Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society”, “Fighting the Noonday Devil — and Other Essays Personal and Theological”, “In the Ruins of the Church”, “Redemptive Change: Atonement and the Cure of the Soul”, and a theological commentary on the Book of Genesis in the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible series, for which he also serves as general editor. He has also coauthored two books, “Heroism and The Christian Life” and “Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible”. His scholarly work ranges widely in systematic and moral theology, as well as in controverted questions of biblical interpretation.
Rusty Reno spoke on the topic: “Nationalism and the Question of the Sacred”
Dennis Prager hosts the nationally syndicated radio talk show The Dennis Prager Show, a best-selling author, and is the co-founder of Prager University.
Dennis Prager spoke on the topic: “The Left is Destroying Western Civilization”
Robert Nicholson is the Executive Director of the Philos Project, an American nonprofit that seeks to promote positive Christian engagement in the Middle East. Robert is also the co-publisher of Providence: A Journal of Christianity and American Foreign Policy. He holds a BA in Hebrew Studies from Binghamton University, and a JD and MA (Middle Eastern history) from Syracuse University. A former U.S. Marine and a 2012-2013 Tikvah Fellow, Robert has published articles in the Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Mosaic, Canon & Culture, and Syracuse Journal of International Law & Commerce. His work focuses on spreading the vision of a new multi-ethnic and multi-religious Middle East based on freedom and rule of law.
Dr. Mitchell is currently professor of political theory. He has been Chairman of the Government Department and also Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs at SFS-Q. During the 2008-10 academic years, Dr. Mitchell was took Leave from Georgetown, and was the Acting Chancellor of The American University of Iraq – Sulaimani. His research interest lies in the relationship between political thought and theology in the West. He has published articles in The Review of Politics, The Journal of Politics, The Journal of Religion, APSR, and Political Theory. In 1993 his book, Not by Reason Alone: Religion, History, and Identity in Early Modern Thought, was published by the University of Chicago Press. A second book, The Fragility of Freedom: Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy, and the American Future, was published in 1995, also by the University of Chicago Press. In 2006, Plato’s Fable: on the Mortal Condition in Shadowy Times, was published by Princeton University Press. His most recent book, Tocqueville in Arabia: Dilemmas in a Democratic Age, was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2013. He is currently working on a book manuscript entitled, Reinhold Neibuhr and the Politics of Hope.
In addition to teaching at Georgetown University, Dr. Mitchell is an avid conservationist, working to restore his small forest on the Eastern Shore, and working to develop the next generation of solar-electric sailboats.
Joshua Mitchell spoke on the topic: “No Place for the Reformation?”
Dr. Tricia Miller is an Evangelical Christian who works as a Senior Research Analyst for CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. She monitors Christian organizations and media activity in relation to the Arab-Israeli conflict and focuses specifically on the effects of Christian anti-Zionism on support for Israel in the Evangelical world.
Tricia has a Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible from Claremont Graduate University, Claremont CA, and wrote her dissertation on Christian anti-Semitism in relation to the book of Esther. Her second book, titled Jews and Anti-Judaism in Esther and the Church, reveals the relevance of the story of Esther to the controversy over the existence of Israel and the role that anti-Judaism plays in that debate. This book was written in order to expose the theological and historical errors at the root of the anti-Jewish/Israel narrative, for the purpose of strengthening Evangelical support of Israel’s right to exist and defend itself against those who seek its annihilation.
