Faith and Law

James Forsyth, senior pastor of McLean Presbyterian Church, will examine John 6:26, where Jesus exposed the political motivation of the crowd who followed him. He'll ask key questions, such as, "How did the crowd's political vision for Jesus keep them from truly seeing him? In what ways can our politics distort our view of Jesus? What does it look like to pursue Jesus because he is an end in himself, not a means to other things?" We hope you can join us for what I believe will be an important discussion in the lives of those who work in politics and policy.

James is the Senior Pastor of McLean Presbyterian Church, located just outside of Washington, D.C. He grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he graduated from the University of Edinburgh, before moving to the U.S. to study at Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS), Jackson. He is now a Guest Professor of Practical Theology at RTS Washington, D.C.James is married to his high school sweetheart, Rosie, and is dad to Mia, Caleb, Seamus, and Isla. Formative experiences have included growing up in a strong, yet tender, family, being a college athlete, becoming a father at the age of 19, wrestling through a dark season of anxiety, and being shaped by a handful of key mentors. Throughout, God’s grace has been the theme – a theme that now animates his life and ministry.

In his free time, you might find James CrossFitting, supporting Man Utd., laughing too loudly with friends, grilling, playing guitar, or – at his happiest – enjoying his young family.

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On June 27, 2003, Rear Admiral Barry C. Black (Ret.) was elected the 62nd Chaplain of the United States Senate. He began working in the Senate on July 7, 2003. Prior to coming to Capitol Hill, Chaplain Black served in the U.S. Navy for over twenty-seven years, ending his distinguished career as the Chief of Navy Chaplains. The Senate elected its first chaplain in 1789.

Commissioned as a Navy Chaplain in 1976, Chaplain Black’s first duty station was the Fleet Religious Support Activity in Norfolk, Virginia. Subsequent assignments include Naval Support Activity, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland; First Marine Aircraft Wing, Okinawa, Japan; Naval Training Center, San Diego, California; USS BELLEAU WOOD (LHA 3) Long Beach, California; Naval Chaplains School Advanced Course, Newport, Rhode Island; Marine Aircraft Group THIRTY-ONE, Beaufort, South Carolina; Assistant Staff Chaplain, Chief of Naval Education and Training, Pensacola, Florida; and Fleet Chaplain, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, Norfolk, Virginia.

As Rear Admiral, his personal decorations included the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit Medal, Defense Meritorious Service Medal (two medals), Meritorious Service Medals (two awards), Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals (two awards), and numerous unit awards, campaign, and service medals.

Chaplain Black is a native of Baltimore, Maryland and an alumnus of Oakwood College, Andrews University, North Carolina Central University, Eastern Baptist Seminary, Salve Regina University, and United States International University. In addition to earning Master of Arts degrees in Divinity, Counseling, and Management, he has received a Doctorate degree in Ministry and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Psychology.

Chaplain Black has been selected for many outstanding achievements. Of particular note, he was chosen from 127 nominees for the 1995 NAACP Renowned Service Award for his contribution to equal opportunity and civil rights. He also received the 2002 Benjamin Elijah Mays Distinguished Leadership Award from The Morehouse School of Religion. In 2004, the Old Dominion University chapter of the NAACP conferred on him the Image Award, "Reaffirming the Dream -- Realizing the Vision" for military excellence.

Chaplain Barry C. Black is married to the former Brenda Pearsall of St. Petersburg, Florida. They have three sons: Barry II, Brendan, and Bradford.

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Culture is upstream from politics. In other words, government is like a giant mirror reflecting the soul of the nation. While the clarity of that reflection will shift from administration to administration, we generally get the government we deserve. As Plato argued, the state is the soul writ large. What we love and what we hate are shaped less by laws than by our habits of the heart. And those habits are shaped far more powerfully by the songs we sing, the movies we watch, and the books we read. It’s been wisely written, “Give me the songs of a nation, and it matters not who writes its laws.” This reality has important implications for how we pursue cultural change.

Bill Wichterman was Special Assistant to President George W. Bush in the White House, Policy Advisor to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and Chief of Staff to Congressman Joe Pitts and Congressman Bill Baker. He has been a senior advisor on several Presidential campaigns. Bill is the author of the book, Dying to Live: Finding Joy In Giving Yourself to God (Oakton Foundation Press, 2014), and he authored an influential essay entitled, “The Culture: Upstream from Politics,” which appeared in the 2001 Eerdmans book, Building a Healthy Culture (ed. Don Eberly). He co-authored an essay entitled, “Making Goodness Fashionable” in the Stroud & Hall book Creating the Better Hour: Lessons from William Wilberforce (Ed. Chuck Stetson, 2007). He is co-founder of Wedgwood Circle, channeling investments into mainstream arts and entertainment that tells the truth about the world. Bill is President of the Board of Faith & Law. He holds an M.A. in Political Theory from the Catholic University of America, and a B.A. from Houghton College.

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Paul Marshall is a research professor in the Department of Political Science as well as the Jerry and Susie Wilson Chair in Religious Freedom at the Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR).

Marshall was formerly a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom in Washington, D.C. He is the author and editor of more than 20 books on religion and politics, particularly religious freedom, including Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians (2013, with Lela Gilbert and Nina Shea), Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide (2011, with Nina Shea), Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion (2009), Religious Freedom in the World (2007), Radical Islam’s Rules: The Worldwide Spread of Extreme Sharia Law (2005), The Rise of Hindu Extremism (2003), Islam at the Crossroads (2002), God and the Constitution (2002), The Talibanization of Nigeria (2002), Massacre at the Millennium (2001), Religious Freedom in the World (2000), Egypt’s Endangered Christians (1999), Just Politics (1998), Heaven Is Not My Home (1998), A Kind of Life Imposed on Man (1996) and the best-selling, award-winning survey of religious persecution worldwide Their Blood Cries Out (1997).

Marshall’s current research is focused primarily on understanding how Muslims and Christians are able to live and work together peacefully in Indonesia – the world’s most populous Muslim country.

Marshall is in frequent demand for lectures and media appearances and has been featured on ABC Nightly News; CNN; PBS; FOX; the British, Australian, Canadian, South African and Japanese Broadcasting Corporations; and Al Jazeera. His work has been published in, or is the subject of, articles in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Times, The Boston Globe, The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, First Things, New Republic, The Weekly Standard, Reader’s Digest and many other newspapers and magazines.

Marshall also is a Senior Fellow at the Leimena Institute, a Christian public policy think tank in Jakarta, Indonesia, and was previously a Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Sharif Hidayatullah Islamic University (UIN), also in Jakarta.

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Vision, leadership, patience, strategic thinking - each is key to maximizing long-term success in our work and in our daily lives. But what is the best way to think about these often nebulous concepts, and how are they best practiced? Further, how do we persevere in the face of inevitable obstacles? Alan Sears, founder of Alliance Defending Freedom, presented the life of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in World War II and the 34th President of the United States, and how Eisenhower's faithfulness and perseverance is a model for us all to follow if we want to be used by God to make a difference in the world.

"[Ike's] story has many important lessons that we can apply to our lives today as we seek to shape our futures to please God and to be all that we can be. And few things provide context better than understanding our collective past, learning from those that persevered and kept the faith often through circumstances that made no sense at all to enable us to live in freedom." - Alan Sears

As the first president, CEO, and general counsel of ADF, Alan Sears led all strategic initiatives from 1993-2017, strengthening alliances, forging new relationships, and developing the resources needed to ensure the ministry's capacity to respond to opportunities. Realizing the need for conservative lawyers, Sears created the world-class Blackstone Legal Fellowship leadership-training program which has since graduated more than 1,960 outstanding law students. At the same time, ADF has trained more than 2,000 lawyers to defend religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage and the family. Under Sears' leadership, ADF attorneys won more than three out of four cases and ADF has played various important roles in 52 victories at the United States Supreme Court.

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