President’s Lecture Series: The Pilgrims, Puritans, and Mayflower Compact

In honor of the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims coming to America, Dr. Mark David Hall, the Herbert Hoover Distinguished Professor of Politics and Faculty Fellow in the William Penn Honors Program at George Fox University, will speak on “The Pilgrims, Puritans, and Mayflower Compact.”

The President’s Lecture Series exists to expose students to great authors, speakers, theologians, philosophers, statesmen, historians, and others, in an effort to provide students with an excellent education in strategic disciplines and Western civilization.

Monday, November 9, 2020

7:00 pm – 8:30 pm MT

Mark David Hall has been at George Fox since 2001. He received a BA in political science from Wheaton College and a PhD in political science from the University of Virginia. In addition to teaching politics and honors, he is director of the John Dickinson Forum for the Study of America’s Founding Principles.

Mark’s primary research and writing interests are American political theory and the relationship between religion and politics.

He has written or co-edited twelve books, including:

• Did America Have a Christian Founding? Separating Modern Myth from Historical Truth (Nelson Books, October 28, 2019)
• Great Christian Jurists in American History  (Cambridge University Press, 2019)
• America’s Wars: A Just War Perspective  (University of Notre Dame Press, 2019)
• Faith and the Founders of the American Republic  (Oxford University Press, 2014)
• Roger Sherman and the Creation of the American Republic  (Oxford University Press, 2013)
• America’s Forgotten Founders  (ISI Books, 2011)
• The Forgotten Founders on Religion and Public Life  (University of Notre Dame Press, 2009)
• The Sacred Rights of Conscience: Selected Readings on Religious Liberty and Church-State Relations in the American Founding  (Liberty Fund Press, 2009)
• The Founders on God and Government  (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004)
• The Political and Legal Philosophy of James Wilson, 1742-1798  (University of Missouri Press, 1997)

He has also written more than 100 journal articles, book chapters, reviews and sundry pieces. His essay, Did America have a Christian Founding? has been downloaded more than 260,000 times. Mark’s expert’s report for the Alliance Defending Freedom in the Barronelle Stutzman case was published by the Heritage Foundation as Religious Accommodations and the Common Good .

Mark occasionally contributes to The Intercollegiate Review , Law and Liberty, and Learn Liberty. He can be followed on Twitter at MDH_GFU.

In addition to teaching at George Fox University, Mark is Associated Faculty at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University, Senior Fellow at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion, and an Affiliate Scholar at the John Jay Institute.

Mark is listed in Wikipedia  and is recognized as an expert on church-state relations by Christians in Political Science  and ReligionLink. He is also serves on the Board of Veritas Christian School.

Professor Hall is available for public speaking on the following topics:

• “Did America Have a Christian Founding?”
• “Jeffersonian Walls and Madisonian Lines: The Supreme Court’s Use of History and the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses”
• “Roger Sherman and the Creation of the American Republic”
• “Faith and the Founders of the American Republic”
• “Religious Liberty and Same-Sex Wedding Ceremonies: Historic Precedents, Future Possibilities”
• “Why Tolerate Religion? The Rise and Fall of Religious Liberty in America”

Mark gave a talk at a religious liberty conference in October 2016: “History Lesson: Founders, Intent, & Foundation of Religious Liberty,” Plenary Address at the Pensmore National Symposium on Religious Liberty.

Mark has created a web page of religious liberty resources for Christian churches, schools, and other Christian ministries.