Robert S. Barker, J.D.
June 11, 2013 - American Founders Luncheon
“Natural Law and the United States Constitution”

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The Founding Fathers of the United States Constitution believed that God, in creating the universe, implanted in the nature of man a body of law to which all human beings are subject, which is superior to all manmade law, and which is knowable by human reason. Thus, the Natural Law of the American Founders was traditional Natural Law as understood and expounded by classical and Medieval writers and carried forward in the English Common Law, and not the “Enlightenment” version in vogue in eighteenth-century Europe. The classical-traditional Natural Law understanding of Madison, Hamilton, Wilson, and other leaders of the Philadelphia Convention are reflected in the three most important characteristics of the Constitution: the principle of limited government; the principle of subsidiarity (in both political and larger societal matters); and the practice of guaranteeing traditional rights, and only as against government.

At our next American Founders Luncheon at noon on June 11 at Pittsburgh’s Rivers Club, The Center for Vision & Values will feature leading natural law expert Dr. Robert Barker of Duquesne University. Invite your friends to join us for a $17.76 lunch where Dr. Barker will help us gain a better understanding of our nation’s challenges and how we as individuals can make a difference in the debate over our future. Please register here or contact Mrs. Brenda Vinton at blvinton@gcc.edu or 724.450.1541.

Professor Robert S. Barker earned his undergraduate degree at Duquesne University, where he majored in History and Political Science and was captain of the debate team. He graduated in 1966 from Duquesne University School of Law, where he was Case Editor of the Duquesne Law Review. Following his admission to the Pennsylvania bar, he served for two years as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Panama. Upon his Return to Western Pennsylvania, he worked as an attorney for Neighborhood Legal Services, an official of the City of Pittsburgh’s Model Cities Program, an associate of the law firm of Rose, Schmidt and Dixon, and Assistant Dean and Assistant Professor at Duquesne University School of Law. In 1974, he earned a Master’s degree in American History at Duquesne. Thereafter, as Assistant Allegheny County Solicitor, he was Legal Counsel to Pittsburgh International Airport for six years, and served as Vice Chairman and, later, Chairman of the American Bar Association Committee on Airport Law. He returned to the full-time Duquesne Law faculty in 1982. Since then he has written and spoken throughout the Western Hemisphere, in English and Spanish, on a wide range of Constitutional Law topics. For twelve years he was Chairman of the Constitutional Law Committee of the Inter-American Bar Association (IABA), and for five years was the IABA’s General Reporter. In 1995 he was a Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. His books include La Constitución de los Estados Unidos y su dinámica actual. In 2001, Duquesne University conferred on him the rank and title of “Duquesne University Distinguished Professor of Law.”

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Richard G. Jewell J.D.
March 12, 2013 - American Founders Luncheon
“In the Beginning: Washington and the Birth of American Political Parties”

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We’re fond of calling George Washington the “Father of Our Country,” but he was a reluctant father in light of his real reticence to stand for president. Our nation’s first two elections were relatively peaceful affairs. And that’s what Washington preferred – he didn’t like the idea of political parties. So how did the parties arise even though America’s patriarch thought it to be a bad idea? Join us for the March 12, 2013, American Founders Luncheon at Pittsburgh’s Rivers Club to hear Grove City College President Richard G. Jewell, JD, discuss “In the Beginning: Washington and the Birth of American Political Parties.” We think today’s elections can be nasty, but they hardly rival the vicious election of 1800 between John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Aaron Burr or the political acrimony leading to the dueling deaths of Alexander Hamilton and his son. To register for this lively talk, please contact Mrs. Brenda Vinton at blvinton@gcc.edu or 724.450.1541. And please bring a friend. The cost of lunch is $17.76.

Richard G. Jewell, J.D.
President, Grove City College

Pittsburgh lawyer and businessman Richard G. Jewell is a 1967 Grove City College graduate and a 1973 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School. In the fall of 2003, he left his Pittsburgh position as a director of the Chicago-based Navigant Consulting, Inc., the nation’s largest forensic accounting firm, to assume the presidency of his undergraduate alma mater, Grove City College.

Before joining Navigant, Jewell had been a partner and vice president of its predecessor, Peterson Consulting, LLC. Prior to that time, he served as executive vice president of the University of Pittsburgh Trust, the holding entity for five of the university’s applied research companies. He was also a senior administrator in applied research at the University of Pittsburgh, and served as a member of the university’s senior management council and president of Pittsburgh Applied Research Corporation, the for-profit operating company of the one-million-square-foot University of Pittsburgh Applied Research Center in Harmarville, Pa. For 10 years prior to that time, he was General Corporate Attorney for Harbison-Walker Refractories, a Division of Dresser Industries, Inc.  His initial law work was in litigation for the Pittsburgh law firm of Wayman, Irvin, Trushel & McAuley.

Jewell is a U.S. Army veteran from 1969-71, serving primarily with the Army’s Third Armored Cavalry Regiment.

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Dr. John Sparks
December 4, 2012 - American Founders Luncheon
“Sir William Blackstone and the American Republic”

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In 1924, a statue of Sir William Blackstone, 18th century commentator on the English common law, judge and Oxford law professor, was placed in the Great Hall of Law Courts, London, England. Was this an act of the British government or of English barristers honoring one of their own? No, the statue was made possible by the contributions of hundreds of American lawyers and presented to the English legal profession by the American Bar Association. Why would American lawyers demonstrate their regard for Blackstone, who after all was a Tory, who loved the English monarchy and who was no friend to American independence? Why should Blackstone be the subject of an American Founder’s luncheon when he was clearly neither an American nor a Founder. Come and hear why Dr. John A. Sparks, professor of U.S. Constitutional History, calls Blackstone “the father of American Law and Law professor to the new Nation.”

John A. Sparks is dean of the Alva J. Calderwood School of Arts & Letters at Grove City College, where he teaches U.S. Constitutional history and business law, and was the former chairman of the business department. A fellow for educational policy with The Center for Vision & Values, he has been named an H.B. Earhart Foundation Fellow, an R.C. Hoiles Fellow, a Chavanne Fellow (Baylor University Hankamer School of Business), and has received the prestigious George Washington Honor Medal from the Freedoms Foundation, Valley Forge, Pa. He was named Professor of the year at both Hillsdale College (where he previously taught for seven years) and Grove City College (where he began teaching in 1976) and received the highest alumni award from his alma mater, the Jack Kennedy Memorial Achievement Award. Sparks is a graduate of Grove City College with a B.A. in economics and received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School.

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John Blundell
September 18, 2012 - American Founders Luncheon
“Three Ladies for Liberty”

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Following publication of his biography of Lady Thatcher (Margaret Thatcher: A Portrait of the Iron Lady) which was written specifically to explain her life and achievements to Americans, Blundell was invited to speak about her—and still does so—all over the United States. At such meetings, he was often surprised when references to his favorite women in U.S. history were met with blank stares. Yes people knew of Abigail Adams, Martha Washington, Harriet Beecher Stowe and so on, but Mercy Otis Warren, the Grimke Sisters, Madam CJ Walker, Bina West Miller, Vivien Kellams and others would all be greeted with silence. So he set out to rectify that situation and last fall published Ladies for Liberty: Women Who Made A Difference in American History, which details the lives and achievements of over 20 women. He selected for inclusion only those women who had made a major long-term contribution and whose story was different and inspiring.

The opening three chapters of his book cover Mercy Otis Warren (born 1728), Martha Washington (born 1731), and Abigail Adams (born 1744) and he will concentrate on these three Ladies for Liberty in his opening remarks. During discussion he will be happy to answer questions about the other women he highlights and his overall conclusions about their contributions.

John Blundell is the author of Margaret Thatcher: A Portrait of the Iron Lady (NYC: Algora, 2008) and Waging the War of Ideas (London: IEA, 3rdrevised and expanded edition 2007). He recently completed his new book Ladies For Liberty: Women Who Made a Difference in American History (NYC: Algora, 2011) as a visiting fellow of The Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC. He also serves as distinguished senior fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs, London, UK where he was director general from 1993 through 2009. He is the author of two bio comics in the Female Force series, namely Margaret Thatcher and Ayn Rand. He is a past president of the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University, Virginia, and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, Washington D.C., and serves on both boards of directors. He is a past president of the Charles G. Koch Foundation, vice president of the Mont Pelerin Society and a former board member of the Philadelphia Society. In 2010 he received an honorary doctorate in science from the University of Buckingham, UK, and an honorary doctorate in social science from the Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala City, Guatemala, Central America, which also made him an honorary professor.

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Dr. Gillis Harp
June 5, 2012 - American Founders Luncheon
“There is No Special Providence for Americans: Lessons for Today’s Conservatives from John Adams”

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Recent years have witnessed a dramatic revival of popular interest in one of our previously most neglected founders, John Adams of Massachusetts. The self-effacing Adams would certainly have been surprised to see the best-selling biographies and television miniseries about him that have appeared since the 1990s. Not only has the general public become more interested in his life and thought, but historians have also come to appreciate both Adams the man and Adams the patriot and politician. Adams’s vestigial Calvinism and his deeply conservative temperament produced a different kind of leader. What historian Paul Conkin terms “his preference for being right rather than popular, and his supreme devotion to public duty” contrasts vividly with today’s talking heads who play shamelessly to the lowest common denominator. Many of today’s conservative pundits are following the logic of the market as they seek to attract the largest audience with appeals to passion over reason. Patrick Deneen has recently spoken of the need for conservative renewal and the importance of revisiting the movement’s historical roots. A reconsideration of the conservatism of John Adams can be a helpful part of that recovery.

Gillis J. Harp is a professor of history at Grove City College and member of the faith & politics working group with The Center for Vision & Values. He is the author of “Positivist Republic: Auguste Comte and the Reconstruction of American Liberalism, 1865-1920” (Penn State Press, 1995) and “Brahmin Prophet: Phillips Brooks and the Path of Liberal Protestantism” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003). Dr. Harp has previously taught at McGill University and the University of Toronto, and is currently researching a book on the relationship between religion and American conservatism. His academic specialty is American intellectual and cultural history, especially the nineteenth century. Harp earned his B.A. in history from Carleton University, and both his M.A. and Ph.D. in American history from the University of Virginia.

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Randall Wenger, Esq., The Independence Law Center
March 13, 2012 - American Founders Luncheon
“James Wilson: A Founder Whose North Star Can Guide Our Rescue of Good Government”

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The mind of this Pennsylvania Delegate to the Constitutional Convention was described as “one blaze of light.” It was said of James Wilson that “Government seems to have been his peculiar study; all the political institutions of the world he knows in detail, and can trace the causes and effects of every revolution from the earliest stages of the Grecian commonwealth down to the present time.” A philosophical giant among giants, he was one of the most prolific speakers at the Constitutional Convention. Despite his disappointments, he was able to say that our constitution presented “the best form of government which has ever been offered to the world.” Washington ultimately appointed him one of our nation’s first Justices of the Supreme Court.

His ability to help craft a constitution and to administer it in the courts did not arise out of a vacuum. While his knowledge of history and philosophy were amazing, these were secondary. Instead, he understood law to be something that does not proceed from government but from God Himself. Those laws best suited to guide men and nations must harmonize with the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God and preserve the Natural Rights of Man. James Wilson’s insights into these Laws of Nature and Natural Rights were not only well suited for designing our remarkable constitution, but are vital to rebuilding the crumbling foundations of our Republic.

Join us for lunch on March 13, 2012, for $17.76 at Pittsburgh’s Rivers Club to hear The Independence Law Center’s Randy Wenger, Esq., discuss “James Wilson: A Founder Whose North Star Can Guide Our Rescue of Good Government.”

Randall Wenger Bio

Randall Wenger  is chief counsel for the Pennsylvania Family Institute and the Independence Law Center, which fights to defend citizen rights to exercise religious and other First Amendment freedoms.

Mr. Wenger holds a juris doctor degree from the University of Pennsylvania, the alma mater of American Founder James Wilson. He also he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Chicago, the intellectual home of renowned economist Milton Friedman.

Mr. Wenger dedicates his life’s work to protecting the God-given freedoms enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. His commitment to these liberties led him to leave a career in the strategy wing of the Coopers & Lybrand management consulting division to pursue a degree in law. While at the University of Pennsylvania, he served as president of the law school’s Christian Legal Society before graduating in 2000. As an attorney with Clymer & Musser in his native Lancaster County, Pa., and later with Boyle, Neblett & Wenger in the Harrisburg area, Mr. Wenger practiced in numerous federal appellate and district courts around the country, specializing in public policy litigation. His work earned recognition from Alliance Defense Fund leaders as someone uniquely qualified to advocate for liberty and pro-family issues.

The founder of the non-profit Independence Law Center, an affiliate of the Pennsylvania Institute, Mr. Wenger routinely provides counsel to citizens throughout the commonwealth struggling with private and public civil liberties issues. His lengthy list of legal cases includes challenges pertaining to:

• the constitutionality of state and federal Defense of Marriage Acts (Cozen O’Connor v. Tobits; U.S. District Court, E.D. Pa.)
• taxation of church property (Northumberland Baptist Church v. Wyoming County Board of Assessment Appeals and Revision of Taxes; Wyoming County Court of Common Pleas)
• freedom to picket a pornography shop on public property (Routes 202 & 309 Novelties Gifts, Inc. v. The King’s Men; U.S. District Court, E.D. Pa.)
• the right of a religious organization to deny a request to facilitate a civil union (Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Ass’n of the United Methodist Church v. Vespa-Papaleo; U.S. Court of Appeals, 3rd. Circuit)
• intervening on behalf of a pregnant minor seeking to not to be forced into an abortion. A baby boy was born on November 4, 2011.

Pennsylvania Family Institute and the Independence Law Center are located near the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg.

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Jane E. Calvert, Associate Professor of History, University of Kentucky
December 13, 2011 – American Founders Luncheon
“John Dickinson: America’s First Political Hero”

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Before 1776, few men equaled Founding Father John Dickinson in international reputation and influence and none surpassed him. Colonial legislatures sought his council, Congress sought his guidance, the French philosophe Voltaire proclaimed him the American Lycurgus, and the British considered him, as John Adams put it, the “ruler of America.” Jefferson proclaimed that “his name will be consecrated in history as one of the great worthies of the revolution.” Yet, today few Americans are aware of this great patriot’s contributions for one main reason: He refused to vote on or sign the Declaration of Independence. Despite taking up arms for the American cause, his reputation never quite recovered even though he held significant leadership positions following the war. Historians have been confounded by how this great champion of American liberties could not sanction American liberty.

Join us on December 13, 2011, at Pittsburgh’s Rivers Club to hear historian Dr. Jane E. Calvert of the University of Kentucky and, visiting associate professor at Yale, describe John Dickinson’s achievements and explain the apparent contradiction in his thinking and behavior. Her talk will highlight the religious influences on Dickinson’s political philosophy and show how, even more than most Founding Fathers, Dickinson’s values, causes, and example speak loudly to us today.

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June 7, 2011 – American Founders Luncheon
Joseph Postell, Ph.D.
“The Federalist Papers and the Foundation of American Conservatism”

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Are the Founders responsible for today’s big government? Some people think so. Join us for the next American Founders Luncheon Series on June 7 when our speaker Joseph Postell of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs takes up this question. Postell said, “Although many Americans love the Founders, they often feel uneasy about certain elements of the Founding. Many conservatives argue that the Founders were too modern, and that their emphasis on rights, freedom and equality has actually laid the groundwork for Big Government and its supporting ideology today. Are these conservative critiques of the Founders correct?”

Register to join us for lunch to hear Postell’s answer at Pittsburgh’s Rivers Club for $17.76 when he discusses “The Federalist Papers and the Foundation of American Conservatism.” Doors open at 11:45 a.m. The program will begin promptly at noon and dismiss before 1 p.m.

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Astrophysicist, author and science-faith think tank founder Dr. Hugh Ross travels the world challenging students and faculty, churches and professional groups to consider what they believe and why … and now he’s coming to Grove City College! Join us for two fascinating discussions involving the intersection of science and scripture!

March 31, Sticht Hall

• 2 p.m. “Why the Universe is the Way It Is”
• 7 p.m. “An Astronomer’s Quest”

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Hugh Ross, astronomer with a PhD from the University of Toronto, did research on quasars and galaxies as a post-doctoral fellow at Caltech. He is an internationally known speaker and president of Reasons To Believe. He is also the author/coauthor of 10 books, including Creation as Science, Why the Universe Is the Way It Is, and More Than a Theory.