Central Presbyterian Church NYC - Lectures

Central member Mary A speaks on Easter Sunday about God's work in her life.

How and when should Christians engage, as Christians, in the public square? When it is appropriate to use specifically religious arguments on questions of public policy? What is the effect on the church? Professor McConnell will offer very tentative thoughts about how to negotiate these difficult questions.Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to the summer of 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. McConnell has held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and the founding. In the past decade, his work has been cited in opinions of the Supreme Court second most often of any legal scholar. He is co-editor of three books: Religion and the Law, Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought, and The Constitution of the United States. McConnell has argued fifteen cases in the Supreme Court. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and is Of Counsel to the appellate practice of Kirkland & Ellis.

Professor Brian Brenberg serves as Chair of the Program in Business and Finance and teaches courses in business and economics at The King’s College. Prior to joining the King’s faculty, he worked in the financial services and medical device industries, as well as public policy research and philanthropy. He earned an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School and an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School. In addition to his teaching at King’s, Professor Brenberg is a frequent guest on several FOX News and FOX Business programs, and has written for many publications, including USA Today, Forbes.com, CNBC.com, the New York Post, and The Hill. His speeches have been covered by Time and The Washington Post, and he regularly lectures for the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) and the American Enterprise Institute’s Values and Capitalism Project. Brian, his wife Krista, and their three children live in New York City.

Many secularists argue that the First Amendment prohibition on the establishment of religion is a guarantee of a purely secular public square, requiring the exclusion of religious voices and institutions. Some religious people respond in kind, by opposing the separation between church and state. Professor McConnell will argue that both are wrong. Church-state separation originated in Protestant Christian teaching, was promoted by the most evangelical sects in America at the founding, and rests on Christian theological principles. Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to the summer of 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. McConnell has held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and the founding. In the past decade, his work has been cited in opinions of the Supreme Court second most often of any legal scholar. He is co-editor of three books: Religion and the Law, Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought, and The Constitution of the United States. McConnell has argued fifteen cases in the Supreme Court. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and is Of Counsel to the appellate practice of Kirkland & Ellis.

Everybody knows about the Enlightenment, but very few know how the Reformation contributed to the development of the ideas of freedom of thought, conscience, speech, and worship. How did we move from Romans 13 to "God Alone Is Lord of the Conscience"?Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to the summer of 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. McConnell has held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and the founding. In the past decade, his work has been cited in opinions of the Supreme Court second most often of any legal scholar. He is co-editor of three books: Religion and the Law, Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought, and The Constitution of the United States. McConnell has argued fifteen cases in the Supreme Court. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and is Of Counsel to the appellate practice of Kirkland & Ellis.

All across America, it seems that freedom of speech and freedom of religion are under assault. Has this country lost its belief in civil liberty, or civility in general? Where does the Supreme Court stand in all of this?Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to the summer of 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. McConnell has held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and the founding. In the past decade, his work has been cited in opinions of the Supreme Court second most often of any legal scholar. He is co-editor of three books: Religion and the Law, Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought, and The Constitution of the United States. McConnell has argued fifteen cases in the Supreme Court. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and is Of Counsel to the appellate practice of Kirkland & Ellis.

Reverend Howard Edington dedicated most of his career in ministry rebuilding First Presbyterian Church of Orlando. He was also the "Preacher in Residence" of Central during the early years of Central's turnaround in 2009. Rev. Edington and his wife Trisha describe what they learned from leading First Church and what they would commend to us as we approach the future at Central.

Reverend Howard Edington dedicated most of his career in ministry rebuilding First Presbyterian Church of Orlando. He was also the "Preacher in Residence" of Central during the early years of Central's turnaround in 2009. Rev. Edington and his wife Trisha describe what they learned from leading First Church and what they would commend to us as we approach the future at Central.

Albert J. Raboteau, Ph.D., is the Henry Putnam Professor Emeritus of Religion at Princeton University and a leading expert on African American religious history. Before Raboteau was born, his father, Albert Jordy Raboteau (1899–1943), was killed in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, by a white man who was never convicted of the crime. His mother moved from the South, where she was a teacher, to find a better place for her children. She remarried an African-American priest, who taught Raboteau Latin and Greek and helped him to focus on church and education. Accepted into college at the age of sixteen, Raboteau was awarded a BA by Loyola University in 1964 and an MA in English from the University of California, Berkeley. He then studied at the Yale Graduate Program in Religious Studies, receiving his PhD in 1974. Raboteau's dissertation, later revised and published as the book Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution" in the Antebellum South, was published just as the black studies movement was gaining steam in the 1970s. In 1982 Princeton University hired Raboteau, first as a visiting professor and then as full-time faculty. He is currently (2009) Henry W. Putnam Professor Emeritus of Religion.

Gordon Graham is Henry Luce III Professor of Philosophy and the Arts at Princeton Theological Seminary. Born in Ireland and educated in Ireland, Scotland and England, he taught philosophy in Scotland at the University of St Andrews from 1975-95 and at the University of Aberdeen from 1996-2006 before taking up his post in Princeton in January 2006. He has published on a wide range of philosophical topics relating to art, education, ethics, politics, religion, and technology. He has a special interest in the Scottish philosophical tradition, and directs the Center for the Study of Scottish Philosophy at Princeton. In 1999 he was elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's premier academy of science and letters. He was Director of The Abraham Kuyper Center for Public Theology from 2008-2015 and headed the Theology dimension of the Varieties of Understanding Project which ran from 2013-16.

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. 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.

George Hunsinger earned his B.D. from Harvard University Divinity School and his M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Yale University. He served as director of the Seminary's Center for Barth Studies from 1997 to 2001. George has broad interests in the history and theology of the Reformed tradition and in "generous orthodoxy" as a way beyond the modern liberal/conservative impasse in theology and church. An ordained Presbyterian minister, he was a major contributor to the new Presbyterian catechism. He teaches courses on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the Reformed tradition, the theology of the Lord's Supper, the theology of John Calvin, and classical and recent Reformed theology. He is the founder of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.

George Hunsinger earned his B.D. from Harvard University Divinity School and his M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Yale University. He served as director of the Seminary's Center for Barth Studies from 1997 to 2001. George has broad interests in the history and theology of the Reformed tradition and in "generous orthodoxy" as a way beyond the modern liberal/conservative impasse in theology and church. An ordained Presbyterian minister, he was a major contributor to the new Presbyterian catechism. He teaches courses on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the Reformed tradition, the theology of the Lord's Supper, the theology of John Calvin, and classical and recent Reformed theology. He is the founder of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.

George Hunsinger earned his B.D. from Harvard University Divinity School and his M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Yale University. He served as director of the Seminary's Center for Barth Studies from 1997 to 2001. George has broad interests in the history and theology of the Reformed tradition and in "generous orthodoxy" as a way beyond the modern liberal/conservative impasse in theology and church. An ordained Presbyterian minister, he was a major contributor to the new Presbyterian catechism. He teaches courses on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the Reformed tradition, the theology of the Lord's Supper, the theology of John Calvin, and classical and recent Reformed theology. He is the founder of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.