Faith & Reason Archives

Guest Lecturer: Dr. Anthony Esolen

Anthony Esolen teaches Renaissance English Literature and the Development of Western Civilization at Providence College in Rhode Island. A senior editor for Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity, he writes  regularly for Touchstone, First Things, and a number of publications and blogs, most notably at Mere Comments.  His most recent books are Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child (ISI Press, 2010), The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization (Regnery Press, 2008) and Ironies of Faith (ISI Press, 2007). Professor Esolen is the translator of Dante’s Divine Comedy (3 volumes, Random House), Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered (Johns Hopkins University Press), and Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things (Johns Hopkins University Press). With his family, he spends summers in Nova Scotia, where he enjoys picking berries, studying dead (or nearly dead) languages, and roofing the barn. 

Faculty Lecturer:  Dr. Steven Hake

PHC’s longest-serving faculty member, Dr. Steven Hake chairs the Department of Classical Liberal Arts and teaches literature and writing. Courses include Western Lit I and II and electives such as Selected Works of Charles Dickens and Christian Values in Tolkien. He also teaches upper-level literature courses for Classical Liberal Arts majors and oversees Practicum/Apprenticeship for CLA majors. He was a college professor/missionary for many years in Taiwan and more recently launched Rivendell Study Center.

Guest Lecturer:  Dr. David M. VanDrunen

Dr. VanDrunen, a minister of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, began teaching at Westminster Seminary California in 2001. He formerly served as a pastor of Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Hanover Park, IL, and currently serves on the Orthodox Presbyterian Church’s Committee on Christian Education and Subcommittee on Ministerial Training. His present research interests include natural law, the two kingdoms doctrine, and bioethics. He was the recipient of the Acton Institute’s Novak Award in 2004 and was a visiting fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University in the spring of 2009.

His most recent book is entitled Living in God's Two Kingdoms: A Biblical Vision for Christianity and Culture.

Faculty Lecturer:  Dr. John Warwick Montgomery

One of contemporary Christianity's leading apologetics experts joined the PHC faculty in spring 2008. Dr. John Warwick Montgomery, author of more than fifty books in four languages on the issues of human rights and biblical apologetics, has been named a Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy and Christian Thought at PHC. Dr. Montgomery, who lives in France and England, spends each fall semester teaching the core course in apologetics at Patrick Henry and an upper level course entitled Philosophy of Law and Human Rights. According to Dr. Gene Edward Veith, Provost at PHC, "Dr. John Warwick Montgomery is one of the giants in Christian thought. He is one of the most influential voices in apologetics today; his spiritual children include Josh McDowell and many others."

Dr. Montgomery is an ordained Lutheran minister and English and French barrister, and is admitted to practice as a lawyer before the Supreme Court of the United States. Besides his extensive literary corpus, Dr. Montgomery has won leading religious liberties cases before the European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg, France. In addition, Dr. Montgomery holds eleven earned degrees.

Guest Lecturer:  Dr. Nancy Pearcey

Nancy Pearcey is author of the bestselling Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity, winner of the 2005 ECPA Gold Medallion Award for best book on Christianity and Society.  Her newest book will appear in September 2010 under the title Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals & Meaning. 
 
Pearcey is currently the Scholar of Worldview Studies at Philadelphia Biblical University, and editor at large of the Pearcey Report (www.pearceyreport.com).  Formerly she was the Francis A. Schaeffer Scholar at the World Journalism Institute and the founding editor of "BreakPoint," a daily radio program.  She has authored or contributed to several works, including How Now Shall We Live? with Chuck Colson and Harold Fickett, and The Soul of Science.  She and her husband are homeschooling the second of their two sons.

Faculty Lecturer:  Dr. Mark T. Mitchell

Dr. Mark Mitchell teaches upper-level political theory courses at Patrick Henry College. His research interests include modern and contemporary political theory, conservative political thought, the political implications of science, and political themes in literature.

Dr. Mitchell has published on such figures as Eric Voegelin, Michael Polanyi, and Flannery O’Connor, and on themes including democracy, community, and tradition. His first book, Michael Polanyi: The Art of Knowing, was published in 2006 by ISI Books.