Exploring democracy and Christianity

Colin Bird is a professor of politics and the former director of the Program in Political Philosophy, Policy and Law at the University of Virginia. He is the author of The Myth of Liberal Individualism; An Introduction to Political Philosophy; and Human Dignity and Political Criticism. His next book, under contract with Cambridge University Press, is Liberalism (And Why We Should Stop Talking About It). His scholarly articles have appeared in Ethics, Political Theory, The American Political Science Review, and Philosophy and Public Affairs, among other journals. He holds a BA in history from Trinity College at Cambridge University and a PhD in political science from Columbia University.

Laurie Maffly-Kipp is a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia and the director of the Mormon Studies Program. Her research and teaching addresses African American religions, Mormonism, religion on the Pacific borderlands of the Americas, and issues of intercultural contact. She is author, coauthor, or editor of several books including Religion and Society in Frontier California; Practicing Protestants: Histories of Christian Life in America, 1630-1965 with Leigh Schmidt and Mark Valeri; Proclamation to the People: Nineteenth-Century Mormonism and the Pacific Basin Frontier; Setting Down the Sacred Past: African-American Race Histories; American Scriptures; and Women’s Work. She holds a BA from Amherst College and an MA, MPhil, and PhD from Yale University.

Jonathan Rauch is a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. His latest book is Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy. He also is the author of The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth; The Happiness Curve; and Denial: My 25 Years Without a Soul, among other books. He has published widely on topics including government, public policy, and gay marriage and is regularly interviewed on television and radio. He has received two major industry awards—the National Magazine Award (the magazine industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize) and the National Headliner Award. Rauch is a graduate of Yale University.

John Owen is a Miller Center faculty senior fellow and the Ambassador Henry J. Taylor and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. His latest book is The Ecology of Nations: American Democracy in a Fragile World Order, which was awarded the 2025 Grawemeyer Award for World Order from the University of Louisville. He also is the author of Liberal Peace, Liberal War: American Politics and International Security and The Clash of Ideas in World Politics: Transnational Networks, States, and Regime Change 1510-2010. Owen is a member of the editorial board of International Security and a faculty fellow at the UVA Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. He holds an AB from Duke University, an MPA from Princeton University, and a PhD from Harvard University.