PROFESSOR OLIVER O’DONOVAN
is an ordained priest of the Church of England and has served on the General Synod. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the problem of self-love in St Augustine under both Henry Chadwick at Oxford and Paul Ramsey at Princeton, before taking up posts teaching at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford (1972–77) and at Wycliffe College, Toronto (1977–82). He was then appointed Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology and Canon of Christ Church at the University of Oxford (1982–2006) whereafter he became Professor of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology at the School of Divinity, New College, Edinburgh, (2006-2013) and an associate director of the Centre for Theology and Public Issues. He is a past President of the Society for the Study of Christian Ethics, Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
In 2001 he delivered the Stob Lectures at Calvin Theological Seminary,
in 2007 he delivered the New College Lectures at New College, University of New South Wales, and in 2008 he delivered a lecture at Princeton Theological Seminary upon receiving the Abraham Kuyper Prize for Excellence in Reformed Theology and Public Life.
He has held distinguished visiting lectureships in the Universities of Durham and Cambridge, the Gregorian University in Rome, McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, St. Patricks College, Maynooth, the University of Hong Kong, and Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.
Among his many publications, major works include
Resurrection and Moral Order (1986) which defends the objectivity of Christian moral claims and seeks to ground an ethic of obedience in a natural moral order that is ultimately found in Christ.
The Desire of the Nations (1996).
The Ways of Judgment (2008).
In 1978 he married Joan Lockwood O’Donovan. They have jointly authored two books on the history of Christian political thought, and have two sons, Matthew and Paul.
D. JOAN LOCKWOOD O”DONOVAN
has lectured and written extensively in Christian political and social thought. She has taught for several theological colleges as well as the university and adjunct programs in Oxford. She has been Research Fellow in the Law and Religion Program, Emory University, and is currently an Honorary Fellow at the University of Edinburgh in the School of Divinity, and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of St. Andrews in the School of Divinity.
Her many publications include:
George Grant and the Twilight of Justice (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), Theology of Law and Authority in the English Reformation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought, co-edited with Oliver O’Donovan (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), and Bonds of Imperfection: Christian Politics Past and Present, co-authored with Oliver O’Donovan (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004).
She has been a consultant editor and regular reviewer for Studies in Christian Ethics. She is currently completing a book on the public theology of English church establishment.
PROFESSOR GILLIS J. HARP
is professor of history at Grove City College and member of the faith & politics working group with The Center for Vision & Values. He took his B.A. in History from Carleton University, 1979 and M.A., in American History from the University of Virginia in 1980 where he also received his Ph.D. in American History in 1986. He subsequently taught at McGill University and the University of Toronto. A specialist in American intellectual and cultural history, with particular reference to the nineteenth century his latest book is on the relationship between religion and American conservatism.
Among Dr. Harp’s further publications are
Positivist Republic: Auguste Comte and the Reconstruction of American Liberalism, 1865-1920 (Penn State Press, 1995)
Brahmin Prophet: Phillips Brooks and the Path of Liberal Protestantism (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003).
“Traditional Dissent: The Reorientation of American Conservatism, 1865-1900,” Modern Intellectual History (2008), 5:487-518
“Hofstadter’s The Age of Reform and the Crucible of the Fifties,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 6:2 (April 2007)
“The Strange Death of Evangelical Episcopalianism,” Anglican & Episcopal History 74:2 (2005): 180-206.
“‘We cannot spare you:’ Phillips Brooks’s Break with the Evangelical Party, 1859-1873,” Church History 68:4 (December 1999): 930-953.
“Determinism or Democracy? The Marxisms of Eduard Bernstein and Sidney Hook”, History of European Ideas 25 (1999):243-250.
“The Young Phillips Brooks: A Reassessment,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 49:4 (1998): 652-667.
“Patrician Partisans: New York in the House of Representatives, 1789-1803,” Canadian Journal of History 29 (1994): 479-500.
“Taylor, Calhoun, and the Decline of a Theory of Political Disharmony,” Journal of the History of Ideas 46 (1985): 107-120.
PROFESSOR ROBERTA BAYER
is Professor of Government at Patrick Henry College since having previously taught at the University of King’s College, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Saint Mary’s College, Leavenworth, Kansas, and George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.
She took her Doctorate from the University of Notre Dame having previously gained an M.Sc. in Political Philosophy from the London School of Economics and her M.A. in Medieval Studies from Toronto University after her BA Degree from the University of Guelph.
Dr. Bayer teaches courses on the American Founding, Medieval Philosophy, and contemporary Christian thought. She edits Anglican Waymagazine on behalf of the Prayer Book Society and has edited a volume of essays entitled Reformed and Catholic: Essays in Honor of Peter Toon.
Dr. Bayer, in her introduction to this volume references Dr Peter Toon, the noted late President of the PBS, in ways particularly apposite to this conference when she writes,
“Anglicanism holds to the central teachings of the faith; it contains within its doctrines everything which must be known for salvation.” And she goes on to highlight the aim of Dr Toon in his writings (in The Anglican Way, 1993) ‘to present a definite picture of Anglicanism as called by God, …to set an example for the worldwide Church in terms of her simultaneous commitment to the Evangel and to Catholicity…. just as ancient Israel was set by God to be a light to the nations, so I see the Anglican Communion in the midst of all the churches to be a light –providing a luminous example of simultaneous commitment to the Gospel and to Catholicity’.”
Dr Bayer comments that in this perspective, “the Anglican Church is not called to be evangelical in its preaching and catholic in its liturgy, not is it called to be sometimes evangelical and sometimes catholic, rather the history of the Anglican Church shows that it is called to be simultaneously wholly evangelical and wholly catholic”.
PROFESSOR NEIL G. ROBERTSON
Dr Robertson is Professor in Early Modern Studies and Contemporary Studies King’s College, Halifax, Nova Scotia
He graduated from the University of King’s College in 1985 in Political Science and went on to take an M.A. in Classics at Dalhousie University and completed his PhD at Cambridge in Social and Political Science in 1995. He formerly held the position of director of the Foundation Year Programme and is past director of the Early Modern Studies Programme, which he helped to found. He was also dean of residence in 1989-1990 and has served as chair of faculty.
Dr. Robertson takes a particular interest in the shaping of modernity in early modern Europe and his publications include:
• “Milbank and Modern Secularity” in W.J. Hankey and Douglas Hedley eds. Radical Orthodoxy (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,).
• “Montesquieu, Rousseau and the Origins of Inequality” in John Duncan ed. On Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality (Toronto, University of Toronto Press).
• “George Grant: Intimations of Deprival, Intimations of Beauty” Modern Age (Winter/Spring 2004, Vol. 46, nos. 1-2) 74-83.
• Edited with David Peddle, “Lamentation and Speculation: George Grant, James Doull and the Possiblity of Canada” Animus 7 (2002) 1-29
• “Leo Strauss’s Platonism” Animus 4 ( 2000).
• “The Closing of the Early Modern Mind: Leo Strauss and Early Modern Political Thought” Animus 3 (1998) 1-16.
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