Speaker and Presenter Bios
Dr. David Miller, director
University Faith and Work Initiative, Princeton University
Dr. David W. Miller is Director of the Princeton University Faith & Work Initiative and President of the Avodah Institute. He was named a Senior Fellow of The Trinity Forum in 2007. He is also an Associate Research Scholar and teaches at Princeton. Prior to this, he was at Yale University for five years, where he served as the Executive Director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture.
David’s signature course is “Business Ethics: Succeeding without Selling Your Soul.” David brings an unusual “bilingual” perspective to the academic world, having spent 16 years in senior positions in international business and finance.
David did undergraduate studies at Bucknell University and received his Ph.D. and M.Div. degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). While working on his doctorate, David co-founded The Avodah Institute in 1999 and serves as its president. Avodah's mission is to help leaders integrate the claims of their faith with the demands of their work.
Prior to academia, David lived and worked in London for eight years, where he was an equity partner in a private bank specializing in international investment management, corporate finance, and mergers and acquisitions. Prior to that, he was a senior executive and director of the securities services and global custody division of Midland Bank plc (now part of the HSBC Group).
David serves as an advisor to several corporate CEOs and senior executives on questions pertaining to ethics, values, integrating faith and work, and becoming a faith-friendly company. He is a frequent speaker at gatherings of business leaders, industry associations, academic conferences, and large church programs. His views are often cited in the media, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, Fortune Magazine, Forbes, NPR, ABC, NBC, and CNN.
Dr. Marcus J. Borg, professor of religion emeritus
Oregon State University
Marcus Borg held the Hundere Chair in Religion and Culture in the Philosophy Department at Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon. Now retired, he has been described by The New York Times as “a leading figure of his generation of Jesus scholars,” and has been interviewed on many nationally-aired TV and radio programs.
Borg was born in Park River, ND, and spent part of his youth in Fergus Falls, MN. He graduated from Concordia College, and later taught at Concordia, Carleton College, and South Dakota State University before moving to Oregon. He is one of the rare biblical scholars to have achieved a national and international reputation. His books have been translated into nine languages, and his Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time is the single best-selling book by a contemporary Jesus scholar. Having grown up Lutheran, Borg became an Episcopalian, and is married to an Episcopal priest, Marianne Wells-Borg.
At Concordia College, his understanding of God and of Christianity began to move beyond his pietistic Lutheran up-bringing, especially under the brilliant Paul Sponheim (who later moved to Luther Seminary). Not intending to go on to seminary, Borg nevertheless gave it a try after receiving a Rockefeller Fellowship. At Union Seminary in New York, Borg was initiated into the world of Jesus scholarship by W. D. Davies. Borg would go on to Oxford University, working especially under George Caird, who helped him see both the political implications of Jesus’ ministry and the possibility of seeing Jesus through a non-eschatological lens.
Borg’s work has been applauded by a number of leading figures, including Peter Gomes, Frederick Buechner, Karen Armstrong, Walter Brueggemann, Barbara Brown Taylor, and Walter Wink. As Barbara Brown Taylor put it, “With great clarity and pastoral genius, Borg offers questioning Christians a way to keep their faith without shutting down the search for truth.”
Dr. Peter Schultz, chair and assistant professor
Department of Art, Concordia College
Peter Schultz received his BA in Art History, Philosophy and Latin from Concordia College in 1994 (summa cum laude), his MA in Art History from Vanderbilt University in 1997 and his Ph.D. in Classical Art and Archaeology from the University of Athens in 2003. Peter's dissertation -- the first written by an American in the Department of Art History and Archaeology for the University of Athens -- treated the sculptural program of the temple of Athena Nike on the Athenian Acropolis. He lived and worked in Greece from 1996-2004 as a research fellow of the American School of Classical Studies where he continues to pursue his academic interests. Peter joined Concordia's Department of Art in 2004. He is Chair of the Department and Director of the Cyrus Running Gallery. Peter is currently engaged in a number of research projects. These include the publication of his book on the Nike temple, a collaborative project with Athenian architect Chrys Kanellopoulos and Gustavus Adolphus classicist Bronwen Wickkiser treating fourth century B.C. performance spaces, a book length manuscript treating the iconography of the Parthenon's west pediment as well as several articles on Athenian art and topography.
Laura Hoverson
lhoverso@cord.edu
218-299-3257
2008-09 Religious Voices Series
