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Scholars (Last Name: M-R)
David Martin
Non-Resident Fellow, Sociology of Religion
London School of Economics & Political Science
David Martin, a sociologist of religion known especially for his critique of secularization as a theory of social process and his pioneering work on Pentecostalism in Latin America, is a professor emeritus of sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), honorary professor of the sociology of religion at Lancaster University, and Ordinary Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship. He is also an ordained priest in the Church of England attached as a non-stipendiary assistant to Guildford Cathedral. A past president of the Science and Religion Forum, the Religion Section of the British Sociological Association, the International Conference for the Sociology of Religion, and the United Kingdom Committee for University Autonomy, he has been a member of the boards of directors of CORAT (Christian Organizations Research and Advisory Trust), St. Catharine's Royal Foundation, Culham College, the Higher Education Foundation, and the International Council for the Future of the University.
The author of numerous articles in scholarly journals, Dr. Martin is an editor or co-editor of eleven books and the author of seventeen others, including Pacifism: An Historical and Sociological Study (1965), A General Theory of Secularization (1979), Tongues of Fire: Conservative Protestantism in Latin America (1990), Does Christianity Cause War? (1997), Pentecostalism: The World Their Parish (2002), and, most recently, On Secularization: Notes Towards a Revised General Theory, which was published in 2005 by Ashgate. His latest work, co-authored with his wife Bernice Martin, is Betterment from on High: Evangelical Lives in Chile and Brazil and will be published in 2006 by Oxford University Press.
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Wilfred McClay
Non-Resident Scholar, History
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
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Curriculum Vitae
Wilfred M. McClay has been SunTrust Bank Chair of Excellence in Humanities at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where he has also been a Professor of History since 1999. He has also taught at Georgetown University, Tulane University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Dallas, and is currently a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC, and a member of the Society of Scholars at the James Madison Program of Princeton University. He was appointed in 2002 to the National Council on the Humanities, the advisory board for the National Endowment for the Humanities.
His book The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America (North Carolina, 1994) won the 1995 Merle Curti Award of the Organization of American Historians for the best book in American intellectual history published in the years 1993 and 1994. Among his other books are The Student's Guide to U.S. History (ISI Books, 2001), and Religion Returns to the Public Square: Faith and Policy in America (Woodrow Wilson Center/Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003). He is currently at work on a biographical study of the American sociologist David Riesman under contract to Farrar, Straus & Giroux with the manuscript completed in 2008, a collection of essays, arising out of a conference I organized in the fall of 2006, entitled The Burden of the Humanities, to be published by Eerdmans in 2008; and a volume of his own collected essays entitled Pieces of a Dream: Historical and Critical Essays, also to be published by Eerdmans.
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Gerald McDermott
Non-Resident Scholar, History of Christianity
Roanoke College
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Curriculum Vitae
Gerald McDermott is the Jordan-Trexler Professor of Religion at Roanoke College, where he teaches courses in the history of Christianity and Christian theology of world religions. He has written, co-written or edited eleven books and scores of articles. He is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion.
His academic research focus has been two-fold: Jonathan Edwards, and Christian understandings of other religions. One of the leading authorities on “America’s theologian,” McDermott has produced four books on Edwards: Understanding Jonathan Edwards (Oxford University Press), Jonathan Edwards Confronts the Gods (Oxford University Press, One Holy and Happy Society: The Public Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Penn State Press), and Seeing God: Jonathan Edwards and Spiritual Discernment (Regent College Press).
Professor McDermott is now editing The Oxford Handbook of Evangelical Theology (Oxford University Press), and co-editing Handbook of World Religions (Baker Academic). His The Great Theologians for Beginners (InterVarsity Press) will appear in February, 2010.
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Paul McKechnie
Non-Resident Fellow
Macquarie University, Australia
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Curriculum Vitae
Paul McKechnie gained degrees from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. He taught Classics and Ancient History in the University of Auckland for sixteen years before joining the Centre of Research Excellence in Ancient Cultures (Department of Ancient History) at Macquarie University in 2007.
His principal research interest is in early Christianity from the New Testament period to Constantine. He also studies Ptolemaic Egypt. Recent publications include:
Books
Paul McKechnie and Philippe Guillaume (eds.), Ptolemy II Philadelphus and his World (Leiden, Brill, 503 pp., 2008).
The First Christian Centuries: Perspectives on the Early Church (Downer's Grove, IL, IVP, 2002)
Articles
‘Christian City Councillors in the Roman Empire Before Constantine’ Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion (2009) Volume 5, article 1: http://www.religjournal.com/pdf/ijrr05001.pdf
‘A Syrian (?) Villager Remembered in Byzacium’ Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 169 (2009), 177-179.
‘Business and Wealth in the Shepherd’ Classicum 35.1 (2009), 16-21.
‘Apollonia: an early testimony for Christianity in Anatolia’ Epigraphica Anatolica 41 (2008), 141-146.
‘Judaean Embassies and Cases before Roman Emperors, AD 44-66’ Journal of Theological Studies 56.2 (2005), 339-61.
‘Flavia Sophe in Context’ Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 135 (2001), 117-24.
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Keith Meador
Non-Resident Scholar - Health & Spirituality
Duke University Divinity School
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Professor of the Practice of Pastoral Theology and Medicine and Director, Theology and Medicine Program
Keith G. Meador, M.D., ThM, MPH, is Professor of the Practice of Pastoral Theology and Medicine at Duke Divinity School where he teaches pastoral theology and pastoral care. He established the Theology and Medicine Program in the Divinity School and gives leadership to varied programmatic initiatives - one of which is the Caring Communities Program, which seeks to support health ministries and form caring communities throughout the Carolinas through education of clergy, health care providers, and lay leaders in the community. The Theology and Medicine Program also includes academic opportunities for nursing, medical, divinity, and undergraduate students to pursue studies in theology and health and the practice of health ministries.
Dr. Meador's scholarship focuses on pastoral theology interpreted through practices of caring and their formation within the Christian community, as well as the investigation of health ministries as a manifestation of these practices. A physician and board certified psychiatrist, his work builds on his clinical, research and teaching background in mental health, pastoral theology, and public health about which he lectures widely and has published numerous publications including the recently co-authored book, Heal Thyself: Spirituality, Medicine, and the Distortion of Christianity.
He is co-director for the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health in the Duke University Medical Center and holds a joint appointment as a clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences in the Duke School of Medicine. He also serves as a senior fellow in the Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development.
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J. Gordon Melton
ISR Distinguished Senior Fellow
Institute for the Study of American Religion
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Melton is the Director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion located in Santa Barbara, California, and a Research Specialist with the Department of Religious Studies, University of California-Santa Barbara. He is the author of more than 40 reference and scholarly books. He is perhaps best known for Melton’s Encyclopedia of American Religions first published in 1979 and now in its 8th edition (2009). He co-edited the volume Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices (2002), and other recent titles include: Encyclopedia of Protestantism (2005), Nelson's Handbook of Denominations (2007) and A Will to Choose: the Origins of African American Methodism (2007). He is currently finishing a book on Chinese Buddhism. Melton holds a Ph.D. in the History and Literature of Religion from Northwestern University, and has been the director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion since 1968.
Carson Mencken
ISR Director of Research - Resident Scholar - Criminology
Baylor University
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Curriculum Vitae
F. Carson Mencken is Professor of Sociology and Research Director for the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. He received his BS degree summa cum laude from the College of Charleston (SC) in 1987, and his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University in 1994. His areas of research expertise include regional sociology, criminology and research methods. Recently, with Dr. Christopher Bader, Dr. Mencken has been pursuing research which links civic engagement, religious communities, and economic growth. He has authored over 30 professional publications. He has received competitive grant funding for his research from such sources as the Tennessee Valley Authority, the United States Department of the Interior, the United States Department of Justice, and the John Templeton Foundation. He is the Project Director for the Empirical Study of Values in China. Prior to joining the faculty at Baylor University, Dr. Mencken served as the Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at West Virginia University.
Heidi Metcalf Little
Non-Resident Reseach Fellow
Center for Global Prosperity, Hudson Institute
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Heidi Metcalf Little has worked extensively in both domestic and international policy arenas with a specific focus on issues of poverty and youth. She has taken a leading role developing policy, programming, philanthropic granting strategies, and public-private partnerships addressing global issues including HIV/AIDS, anti-human trafficking, and disaster relief as well as domestic issues such as foster care, workforce development and public safety.
Heidi is a senior fellow and deputy director of the Center for Global Prosperity at the Hudson Institute where she is responsible for managing the center and publishing the Index of Global Philanthropy and Remittances, the only comprehensive report of private financial flows from developed countries to the developing world. With the help of the Urban Institute, Heidi is currently overseeing the creation of a new and improved religious giving survey to ensure better data on religious organizations substantial giving to developing countries which will be featured in CGP’s 2010 Index.
As Vice President for Public Private Partnerships at Geneva Global, a global leader in international philanthropic advising, Heidi was responsible for the largest successful bid in PEPFAR’s New Partners Initiative (NPI). In her role as the NPI Chief of Party and Chair of the Investment Committees for the Tsunami Fund, the Women’s Fund and the Anti-Human Trafficking Fund, Heidi oversaw the placement of over $15M into hundreds of community based projects in over twenty countries. Heidi was the founding director of Geneva Global’s Washington office and responsible for the company’s government relations. Heidi has lived in Japan and Kenya.
Heidi’s interest in international poverty and philanthropy grew out of her domestic policy and social enterprise experience. As Policy Advisor for Public Safety to the Governor of Virginia, Heidi was responsible for creating a program to put non-violent offenders to work across the Commonwealth in response to the Parole Abolition Reform. As the Governor’s Legislative Liaison, Heidi worked closely with State Senators and Representatives throughout the implementation of Welfare Reform.
At the end of the Governor’s term, Heidi worked with a local philanthropist to found award-winning Partnership for the Future (PFF), which under her leadership, grew to be the largest privately funded work-force development and college preparatory program in the Commonwealth. PFF mobilizes businesses to hire urban youth for three consecutive summers who then match what those students save for college. The partnership also includes all of Virginia’s top private and public universities who participate in a curriculum intended to prepare students for admission and successful matriculation into selective schools. While building PFF, Heidi also served as the director of Community Relations for the Markel Corporation, overseeing their corporate philanthropy and initiating their employee giving program.
Additionally, Heidi served as Chief of Staff for the Administration of Children and Families within the US Department of Health and Human Services. Her responsibilities included operations oversight for the $50B agency, planning and policy and inter-governmental relations. She began her career at Procter & Gamble and spent a year in a research fellowship at the Ethics & Public Policy Center.
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Carrie Miles
Non-Resident Fellow
George Mason University
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Curriculum Vitae
Carrie A. Miles is a Senior Research Fellow at CESR and the executive officer for the Association for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Culture. Dr. Miles holds a Ph.D. in social and organizational psychology from the University of Chicago. Her new book "The Redemption of Love" explores the intersection of Christianity, economics, and the family. Carrie also applied her work on a 2 week speaking tour in Uganda during October 2005. While there, she presented her paper, "'For Richer, for Poorer': Materialism's Corruption of the Family, Past and Present, and Moral Solutions to Its Problems," at Kyambogo University in Kampala, Uganda. Finally, Dr. Miles presented her work, "Patriarchy or Gender Equality? Reading the Apostle Paul in Light of Ancient History and Modern Economics," at the 2005 meetings of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion/Association for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Culture, Rochester, New York.
Alan Mittleman
Non-Resident Fellow
The Jewish Theological Seminary
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Curriculum Vitae
Alan Mittleman is Director of the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies and Professor of Jewish Philosophy at The Jewish Theological Seminary. As Director of The Finkelstein Institute, Dr. Mittleman brings programs at the intersection of religion and public affairs to JTS and the general community.
Dr. Mittleman is the author of three books: Between Kant and Kabbalah (SUNY Press, 1990), The Politics of Torah (SUNY Press, 1996), and The Scepter Shall Not Depart from Judah (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000). He is also the editor of Jewish Polity and American Civil Society (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), Jews and the American Public Square (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), and Religion as a Public Good (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003). His many articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in such journals as Harvard Theological Review, Modern Judaism, The Jewish Political Studies Review, The Journal of Religion, and First Things. He is a contributor to The Cambridge Companion to American Judaism. Mittleman's current project is a book on the philosophical and theological dimensions of hope in democratic political theory, under contract with Oxford University Press.
Dr. Mittleman served as Professor of Religion at Muhlenberg College from 1988 to 2004. He is a member of several learned societies and is a Fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. From 2000 to 2004, Dr. Mittleman served as Director of a major research project, "Jews and the American Public Square," which was initiated by The Pew Charitable Trusts. Under his direction, the project produced two national surveys of Jewish attitudes on public affairs, three volumes comprising forty scholarly essays, and fifteen conferences around the United States. He is the recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellowship and served as Guest Research Professor at the University of Cologne (1994 and 1996). He has lectured widely in Germany in the course of more than fifty trips to that country. Dr. Mittleman also received a Harry Starr Fellowship in Modern Jewish History from Harvard University's Center for Jewish Studies (1997).
Dr. Mittleman has been an active participant in interfaith dialogue throughout his career, and has been interviewed by Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, and USA Today, among other periodicals, and has appeared on Fox News. He was also part of a leadership delegation that met with Pope John Paul II. During the bicentennial of the US Constitution, Dr. Mittleman spoke on the meaning of religious liberty for American Jews in the chambers of the US Senate. He has served on the Advisory Board of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
Dr. Mittleman holds a BA (magna cum laude) from Brandeis University and an MA and PhD (with distinction) from Temple University. He lives in Allentown, Pennsylvania with his wife, Patti, and their sons, Ari and Joel.
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Mansoor Moaddel
Non-Resident Fellow, Middle East
Eastern Michigan University
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Curriculum Vitae
Dr. Moaddel studies Islam, culture, ideology, political conflict, revolution and social change. His work currently focuses on the causes and consequences of values and attitudes of the Middle Eastern and Islamic publics. He has carried out values surveys in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia. He has also carried out youth surveys in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. His previous research project analyzed the determinants of ideological production in the Islamic world. He teaches sociology of religion, ideology, revolution, Islam and the Middle East. His current research focuses on religious fundamentalism, national pride and national identity, and attitudes toward gender and the veil in Islamic countries.
Stephen Monsma
Non-Resident Fellow, Christianity and Politics
Paul Henry Institute, Calvin College
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Curriculum Vitae
Stephen V. Monsma joined the Paul B. Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College as Research Fellow in 2004. He is a former professor of political science and director of the Washington, D.C., Internship Program at Pepperdine University where he held the Blanche E. Seaver Chair in Social Science. He is a nonresident fellow at the Center for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society at the University of Pennsylvania and at the Center for Public Justice. He has taught at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan (1967-1972), and served in the Michigan House of Representatives (1972-78) and Michigan Senate (1978-82). He also was a member of the Michigan Natural Resources Commission (1983-85) and a member of the top management team in the Michigan Department of Social Services (1985-87).
Monsma received his bachelor of arts degree from Calvin College, his master of arts degree from Georgetown University, and Ph.D. from Michigan State University.
He is the author of many books, including Working Faith: How Religious Organizations Provide Welfare-to-Work Services, Center for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society, University of Pennsylvania, 2002, The Challenge of Pluralism: Church and State in Five Democracies (1997), When Sacred and Secular Mix: Religious Nonprofit Organizations and Public Money (1996), and Positive Neutrality: Letting Religious Freedom Ring (1993). He is the editor of Church-State Relations in Crisis: Debating Neutrality (2002) and the co-editor of Equal Treatment of Religion in a Pluralistic Society (1998). In addition, he has contributed chapters to numerous books and has authored articles in many journals, including the Journal of Church and State, Policy Studies Review, Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics, and Public Policy, and American Journal of Political Science.
He studied the welfare-to-work programs in Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and Philadelphia under grants received from the Smith Richardson Foundation and the Haynes Foundation. His new book, Mapping the Terrain: Welfare-to-Work in an Age of Devolution is in the preparation stages.
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Margarita A. Mooney
Non-Resident Scholar, Religion
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
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Curriculum Vitae
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Margarita A. Mooney is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Faculty Fellow in the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Princeton University in 2005, and her M.A. in Sociology from Princeton in 2000, with her B.A. in Psychology from Yale University in 1995.
Dr. Mooney's areas of interest include immigration, religion, culture, education and economic sociology.
Sarah-Jane Murray
Resident Scholar
Baylor University
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K. Sarah-Jane Murray is Assistant Professor of Medieval Literature and French in the Honors College at Baylor University. She received her PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures from Princeton, where she was recognized for outstanding scholarship with the Porter Ogden Jacobus Prize. She also holds a diploma in French and Linguistics from the Ecole normale supˇrieure-lettres et sciences humaines (Lyons, France), and a B.A. in French and Philosophy from Auburn University. She is co-director of the award-winning Charrette Project (http://www.princeton.edu; http://lancelot.baylor.edu), General Editor of the Digby 23 Project, and Associate Editor of the Edward C. Armstrong Monographs on Medieval Literature.
Dr. Murray is particularly interested in the origins of vernacular storytelling, Celtic and classical sources of medieval literature (her first book, From Plato to Lancelot: A Preface to Chrˇtien de Troyes [under advance contract] deals with this issue in detail) and the field of humanities computing. She is also currently researching two new book-length studies: one about the pan-European legends surrounding St. James the Greater, the other about the ethical lessons of twelfth- and thirteenth-century courtly literature. She has published widely on Old French and medieval literature in venues such as Philological Quarterly, Romance Quarterly, Īuvres et Critique, The Explicator, the Cahiers de civilisation mˇdiˇvale, and Florilegium. She is a contributing author to the medieval section of the Dictionnaire des lieux mythiques to be published under the direction of Jean-Jacques Vincensini by Robert Laffont ˇditions (Paris) in 2007, and is currently writing a chapter on the European Middle Ages for the Cultural History of Reading (Greenwood Press, 2007). She is also the guest-editor of a special issue of the Baylor Journal of Theatre and Performance devoted to Medieval and Renaissance Performance (Fall 2006), and has contributed to the Encyclopedia of Sex, Love and Culture in the Medieval World (Greenwood Press, 2007), the Companion to Pre-1600 British Poetry (Facts on File, 2007), the Encyclopedia of World History (Greenwood Press, 2007), and the New Handbook to Medieval Studies (De Gruyter, 2007), and the Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages (Oxford UP, forthcoming).
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James Neff
Non-Resident Scholar
Old Dominion University
Dr. Neff is currently Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Community and Environmental Health at Old Dominion University. He has over 25 years of experience conducting federally funded community based survey and evaluation research and has over 60 refereed publications in areas of psychological distress, depression, alcohol use, and HIV risk behaviors.
Dr. Neff's research funding includes: (1) a large-scale NIAAA-funded prospective study (R01-AA06723) of sociocultural influences upon drinking patterns and alcohol-related problems among adult male and female Anglo, Black, and Mexican American regular drinkers, (2) an NIAAA grant (R01-AA08067) to examine relationships between drinking patterns and AIDS risk behaviors, (3) a NIAID funded research project to compare alternative models of Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) education for primary care providers(U19-AI31498), (4) a CMHS funded demonstration/evaluation project involving provider education regarding mental health aspects of HIV/AIDS, and (5) two SAMHSA/CSAT funded Targeted Capacity Expansion projects focusing upon strategies to engage out-of-treatment drug users in substance abuse and HIV risk reduction interventions.
Most recently, Dr. Neff has served as Principal Investigator on two NIH-funded research development program grants focusing upon minority substance abuse: The Substance Abuse Research Development Program at the at the University of Texas at Austin (R24-AA13579) and the Meharry Alcohol Research Collaborative at Meharry Medical College (U01-AA014939). Both of these projects have involved extensive mentoring of junior faculty to help them develop fundable research programs.
Dr. Neff's research interests include: minority mental health and substance abuse, research methodology, and program evaluation.
He is currently developing research projects addressing the role spirituality and spiritual change as a mediator of outcomes of substance abuse treatment, particularly among minority populations.
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Charles North
Resident Scholar, Religion & Economics - Baylor University, Hankamer School of Business
Baylor University
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Curriculum Vitae
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Recent Publications
Charles M. North is an associate professor of economics at Baylor University. He holds a B.A. in Business Administration and an M.B.A. from Baylor University, a J.D. from Duke University, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin. His areas of expertise are the economics of religion, labor economics, law and economics, and applied microeconomics. His work in the area of religion has focused on the effects of government regulation of religious markets and the linkages between religion and economic growth. His work has been published in several peer-reviewed journals, including the Southern Economic Journal and the Industrial and Labor Relations Review.
Kenneth Pargament
Non-Resident Scholar, Health
Bowling Green State University
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Dr. Pargament's nationally and internationally known research addresses religious beliefs and health. His current research program addresses how elderly people who struggle with their religious beliefs and hold negative perceptions about their relationships with God and life meaning have an increased risk of death, even after controlling for physical and mental health and demographic characteristics. He also studies the process by which people create perceptions about the sanctity of aspects of their life activities and the beneficial effects of "sanctification" for individual and interpersonal well-being.
A strong emphasis on this work is how individuals and couples "sanctify" their marriage and how that sanctification is a strong predictor of marital quality and stability. Dr. Pargament won the 2000 Virginia Staudt Sexton Mentoring Award from the American Psychological Association for his generous work in encouraging both faculty, undergraduate, and graduate research in the psychology of religion.
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Jerry Park
Resident Scholar
Baylor University
Recent Publications
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Curriculum Vitae
Jerry Park is an assistant professor in the sociology department with research and teaching interests in religion, race/ethnicity, culture, civic engagement, and Asian America. His recent publications have appeared in Social Forces, the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and the Journal for Asian American Studies. Currently, his research projects include an analysis of family influences on Asian American second-generation religious socialization, the role of religion on Asian American civic participation, interpreting Asian American pan-ethnic identity meanings, an overview of contemporary American charismatic Christians (with Chris Bader), academic scientist views of the relationship between religion and science, and the consumption of religious goods.
Mikeal Parsons
Resident Scholar, Philosophy
Professor of Religion, Baylor University
Curriculum Vitae
Homepage
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Dr. Parsons is the Kidd L. and Buna Hitchcock Macon Chair in Religion.
I am a native of North Carolina and married to Dr. Heidi J. Hornik, who is a professor of Italian Renaissance Art History at Baylor. I have taught in the area of New Testament at Baylor since 1986.
Steven Pfaff
Non-Resident Fellow, Historical Sociology
University of Washington
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Curriculum Vitae
Pfaff's current research projects explore the dynamics of spontaneous mobilization in repressive states, religiously-based collective action, the emergence and diffusion of Evangelicalism in 16th Century Central Europe, the causes of mutiny in Britain's Royal Navy during the age of sail, mosque-state relations and their consequences for Muslims in Western polities, and the political process of secularization in Europe during the 19th and 20th Centuries.
Steven Pfaff is Associate Professor of Sociology and Directer of the Center for West European Studies (CWES) in the Jackson School of International Studies. He works broadly in comparative and historical sociology, with substantive interests in collective action and social movements, religion, and politics.
He is the author of Exit-Voice Dynamics and the Collapse of East Germany: The Crisis of Leninism and the Revolution of 1989. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006. It was the winner of the 2004 Social Science History Association President's Award and has been favorably reviewed by sociologists and historians alike. Other recent work includes "The Religious Divide: Why Religion seems to be Thriving in the United States and Waning in Europe" in Jeffrey Kopstein and Sven Steinmo (Eds.); Growing Apart? America and Europe in the 21st Century. New York: Cambridge University Press (in press); "Will a Million Muslims March? Muslim Interest Organizations and Political Integration in Europe.", Comparative Political Studies 39/7 (2006): 803-28 (with Anthony Gill); "Explaining a Religious Anomaly: A Historical Analysis of Secularization in Eastern Germany.", Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 44/4 (2005): 397-422 (with Paul Froese); "Exit-Voice Dynamics in Collective Action: An Analysis of Emigration and Protest in the East German Revolution.", American Journal of Sociology 109/2 (2003): 401-44 (with Hyojoung Kim), "Theory, History and Comparative Political Sociology.", Research in Political Sociology 12 (2003):285-310 (with Edgar Kiser), and "Replete and Desolate Markets: Poland, East Germany and the New Religious Paradigm.", Social Forces 80/2 (2001): 481-507 (with Paul Froese).
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Edward C. Polson
Non-Resident Scholar, Religion and Civic Life
Lousiana State University, Shreveport
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Recent Publications
Curriculum Vitae
Edward C. Polson is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Louisiana State University in Shreveport where he also serves as the editor of the Quarterly Journal of Ideology, published by the Institute for Human Services and Public Policy. Dr. Polson holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Baylor University. He also holds an M.Div. from George W. Truett Theological Seminary and an M.S.W. from Baylor University. His research interests include the intersection of religion and civic life, the life of religious congregations, political behavior, and the work of faith-based non-profit organizations.
Post began writing on the subject of altruism and the spirituality of love at the age of 16, for which he received honors at St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire. His college focus on the evolution of altruism led to a research assistantship at Cornel Medical School, focusing on the endocrinology of altruism. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago Divinity School (1983), where he received a “distinction” for his dissertation on love and human fulfillment, was elected a University Fellow, and taught in the Pritzker School of Medicine. He has continued to focus on the theme of altruism and love over the entire course of his career across a variety of disciplines. During the 1990’s his research on the dynamics of compassionate love in the lives of persons with dementia and their caregivers resulted in his being elected member of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Board of Alzheimer's Disease International. Post served on the National Ethics Advisory Board for the Alzheimer's Association, and was recognized in 1998 for “distinguished service” by its national board. In 2004 Post was elected a Distinguished Fellow of College of Physicians of Philadelphia. His research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, and various other entities.
Post was selected by Sir John Templeton as Founding President of the
Institute for Research on Unlimited Love - Altruism, Compassion, Service, which was founded in 2001 with a generous grant from the Templeton Foundation (
www.unlimitedloveinstitute.com). The Institute facilitates research, writing, conferences, and courses at the interface of science, spirituality, health, and love for humanity. Since the day the Institute was founded at a meeting in a coffee shop on Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights, it has been featured in 2500 newspapers and magazine across the country from the
New York Times to
Psychology Today, from
20/20 to
The Hour of Power. It has funded more than 70 scientific studies at universities from Harvard to Stanford converging on the reasons why positive "spiritual" emotions (compassion, forgiveness, love & gratitude) and giving behaviors benefit givers; it has also convened an annual conference of 1000 participants from 40 different countries, bringing together spiritual leaders, theologians, scientists, and practitioners of
agape and compassionate love from every corner of the globe. Dr. Post has chaired nine national conferences, and delivers numerous invited lectures in the United States and abroad.
Post has published over 130 articles in peer-reviewed journals such as
Science, The International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, The Journal of Religion, The American Journal of Psychiatry, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and
The Lancet. He has written seven scholarly books on love, and is also the editor of eight other books, most recently including
Altruism & Health: Perspectives from Empirical Research, and
Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy and Religion in Dialogue, both published by Oxford University Press. He is also editor-in-chief of the definitive, five-volume Encyclopedia of Bioethics. His most recent book, published with Broadway Books is
Why Good Things Happen to Good People: The Exciting New Science That Proves the Link Between Doing Good and Living a Longer, Happier, Healthier Life (with Jill Neimark).
www.whygoodthingshappen.com
Post lives in Shaker Heights, Ohio, with his wife, Mitsuko, and their two children, Emma and Andrew. They worship regularly at St. Paul’s Church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
(216) 368-6205
Stephen.Post@Case.Edu www.stephengpost.com
Stephen Post
Non-Resident Scholar, Altruism
Stony Brook University
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Stephen G. Post is Director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics in the School of Medicine, Stony Brook University. From 1998 to 2008 he was Professor of Bioethics & Family Medicine in the School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University. 1988. He is recognized internationally for his work on the unselfish compassionate love at the interface of science, ethics, religious thought, and behavioral medicine. In addition, he is a recognized expert on the spiritual and ethical aspects of caring for persons with dementia.
Post began writing on the subject of altruism and the spirituality of love at the age of 16, for which he received honors at St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire. His college focus on the evolution of altruism led to a research assistantship at Cornel Medical School, focusing on the endocrinology of altruism. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago Divinity School (1983), where he received a “distinction” for his dissertation on love and human fulfillment, was elected a University Fellow, and taught in the Pritzker School of Medicine. He has continued to focus on the theme of altruism and love over the entire course of his career across a variety of disciplines. During the 1990’s his research on the dynamics of compassionate love in the lives of persons with dementia and their caregivers resulted in his being elected member of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Board of Alzheimer's Disease International. Post served on the National Ethics Advisory Board for the Alzheimer's Association, and was recognized in 1998 for “distinguished service” by its national board. In 2004 Post was elected a Distinguished Fellow of College of Physicians of Philadelphia. His research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, and various other entities.
Post was selected by Sir John Templeton as Founding President of the
Institute for Research on Unlimited Love - Altruism, Compassion, Service, which was founded in 2001 with a generous grant from the Templeton Foundation (
www.unlimitedloveinstitute.com). The Institute facilitates research, writing, conferences, and courses at the interface of science, spirituality, health, and love for humanity. Since the day the Institute was founded at a meeting in a coffee shop on Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights, it has been featured in 2500 newspapers and magazine across the country from the
New York Times to
Psychology Today, from
20/20 to
The Hour of Power. It has funded more than 70 scientific studies at universities from Harvard to Stanford converging on the reasons why positive "spiritual" emotions (compassion, forgiveness, love & gratitude) and giving behaviors benefit givers; it has also convened an annual conference of 1000 participants from 40 different countries, bringing together spiritual leaders, theologians, scientists, and practitioners of
agape and compassionate love from every corner of the globe. Dr. Post has chaired nine national conferences, and delivers numerous invited lectures in the United States and abroad.
Post has published over 130 articles in peer-reviewed journals such as
Science, The International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, The Journal of Religion, The American Journal of Psychiatry, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and
The Lancet. He has written seven scholarly books on love, and is also the editor of eight other books, most recently including
Altruism & Health: Perspectives from Empirical Research, and
Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy and Religion in Dialogue, both published by Oxford University Press. He is also editor-in-chief of the definitive, five-volume Encyclopedia of Bioethics. His most recent book, published with Broadway Books is
Why Good Things Happen to Good People: The Exciting New Science That Proves the Link Between Doing Good and Living a Longer, Happier, Healthier Life (with Jill Neimark).
www.whygoodthingshappen.com
Post lives in Shaker Heights, Ohio, with his wife, Mitsuko, and their two children, Emma and Andrew. They worship regularly at St. Paul’s Church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
(216) 368-6205
Stephen.Post@Case.Edu www.stephengpost.com
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Mark Regnerus
Non-Resident Scholar, Family & Religion
University of Texas
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Curriculum Vitae
Prior to joining the faculty at UT, Dr. Regnerus was director of the Center for Social Research at Calvin College (2001-02). Regnerus' current research interests concern the influence of religion on adolescent behavior. His work offers a developmental, intergenerational way of looking at how religion plays a significant role in the socialization of children and youth. His research on religious influences on educational resilience was featured recently in the USA Today, The Washington Post, and Time Magazine. Additionally, Professor Regnerus has also conducted research on peer effects on adolescent delinquency, religious influences on adolescent sexual behavior and parent/child communication about sex, religion and family well-being, the influence of religiosity on Latino adolescents, and the role of social context in the development of religious behavior.
His recent work has been published in such journals as Social Forces, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Social Psychology Quarterly, and Social Science Research. He is also a collaborator on the Lilly Endowment funded National Study of Youth and Religion. His published work has garnered both the 1999 and the 2001 Best Article Award from the ASA Section on the Sociology of Religion.
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Robert C. Roberts
Resident Scholar
Baylor University
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Curriculum Vitae
Dr. Robert Roberts received his Ph.D from Yale University in 1974 and has taught at Western Kentucky University (1973-1984) and Wheaton College (1984-2000). During his tenure at Wheaton, Roberts was honored twice by the National Endowment for the Humanities and received a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts. He has written or edited eleven books and is currently working on the sequel to his 2003 book on emotions. During his time at Baylor, Roberts has continued his work in virtue ethics and began critical new work in virtue epistemology.
Areas of Interest
Ethics (especially virtues), Kierkegaard, Emotion Theory, Moral Psychology, Epistemology
Current Projects
Emotions and Virtues: An Essay in Moral Psychology
Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, with Jay Wood (forthcoming Oxford University Press, January 2007)
Spiritual Emotions: Reflections in Christian Ethics (forthcoming, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company)
Recent Publications
Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology Cambridge University Press
"The Virtue of Hope in Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses in Robert B. Perkins (Ed.), International Kierkegaard Commentary: Eighteeen Upbuilding Discourses (Macon: Mercer University Press), (2003) 181-203.
"Humility and Epistemic Goods" (with W. Jay Wood) in Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski (Eds.), Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press),(2003) 257-279.
"Proper Function, Emotion, and Virtues of the Intellect" (with Jay Wood) in Faith and Philosophy 21 (2004): 3-24
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Wade Rowatt
Resident Scholar
Baylor University
Email Wade Rowatt
Recent Publications
Curriculum Vitae
Most of the research I conduct occurs at the interface between social psychology, personality psychology, and the psychology of religion. Most of my publications focus on humility, personality and prejudice, deception, or personal relationships.
My current research focuses on the measurement and potential benefits of humility relative to arrogance. My collaborators and I have developed and validated some measures of humility (Rowatt et al., 2006) and are using those measures to study a variety of social behaviors (e.g., helping, forgiveness). Generous funding for this line of research on the positive psychology of humility was provided by the John Templeton Foundation.
Much of my current research also focuses on the use of the Implicit Association Test to assess self-concept/personality (e.g., humility-arrogance, religiousness-spirituality) and romantic partner evaluation. Graduate and undergraduate students working with me are in the process of using the IAT to study religiosity/spirituality, relationship commitment and stability, and other constructs (e.g., body-image, optimism/pessimism).
My broader research interests include the psychology of religion and the study of personal relationships. For example, during the past few years my colleagues and I have been examining associations between personality and implicit prejudices (Rowatt et al., 2004, 2005, 2006), self-reported sexuality description (Rowatt & Schmitt, 2003), and attachment to God (Rowatt & Kirkpatrick, 2002).
My early research focused on the use of lying and other deceptive tactics people use to attract a date (Rowatt, Cunningham, & Druen, 1998, 1999), self-monitoring and mate preferences (Rowatt et al., 2001), and perceptions of brainstorming as an idea-generation technique (Rowatt et al., 1997).
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David R. Rudy
Non Resident Scholar
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Curriculum Vitae
Dr. Rudy has recently retired from Morehead State University where he served as Associate Provost for Regional Engagement and Dean of the Institute for Regional Analysis and Public Policy.. He earned the Ph. D. in sociology at Syracuse University. Author of Becoming Alcoholic: Alcoholics Anonymous and the Reality of Alcoholism (1986, Southern Illinois University Press) and co-editor (with Jim Orcutt) of Drugs, Alcohol, and Social Problems (2003, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.), Rudy’s current research interests include regional program development, policy analysis, alcohol-related social movements, and drinking behavior. Professor Rudy’s work has appeared in Sociological Analysis, Sociological Inquiry, Qualitative Sociology, Sociology and Social Welfare, Contemporary Drug Problems, The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and several anthologies. Dean Rudy’s administrative and political roles involve intergovernmental partnerships in community and educational capacity building, economic development, and homeland security. He and his staff have attracted funding support from EDA, HUD, NOAA, NSF, SBA, USDA, USDE, and others.
