Mark David Hall is Herbert Hoover Distinguished Professor of Politics at George Fox University, and the author of a number of books on religion and politics in American life. The majority of his research has been in religion in the American founding era. He is also the current President of Christians in Political Science.
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In 1988, Hall received a BA in Political Science from Wheaton College (IL) and in 1993 received his PhD in government from University of Virginia. Prior to his 2001 hiring at George Fox University, he taught from 1993-2001 at East Central University, first as an Assistant and then an Associate Professor.[1] He has served as Herbert Hoover Distinguished Professor of Politics at George Fox since 2005. His primary teaching fields are political theory, constitutional law, and religion and politics in America.[2]
Hall’s scholarly work is focused on issues of religion in the American founding era. In particular, his writing is often concerned with dispelling misconceptions that the Founders were deists who desired the strict separation of church and state. Instead, he argues that there are good reasons to believe many Founders were influenced by orthodox Christianity and that virtually none of them favored anything approximating a contemporary understanding of the separation of church and state. See, for instance, his 2010 lecture at the Heritage Foundation that was covered by C-Span.[3] Hall demonstrates that these distortions are of more than scholarly interest, arguing that they have had a profound impact how the Supreme Court has interpreted the religion clauses of the First Amendment.[4] As part of this project, Hall has co-edited with Daniel L. Dreisbach several books exploring the views of America’s “forgotten founders,” including The Forgotten Founders on Religion and Public Life, The Founders on God and Government, and The Sacred Rights of Conscience: Selected Readings on Religious Liberty and Church State Relations in the American Founding.
He has also authored a book on James Wilson's political philosophy, as well as co-edited a major scholarly compilation of Wilson’s work, The Collected Works of James Wilson. In the same vein, he is the author of a book manuscript entitled The Old Puritan and a New Nation: Roger Sherman and the Creation of the American Republic.[5]
The Sacred Rights of Conscience: Selected Readings on Religious Liberty and Church-State Relations in the American Founding. Edited with Daniel L. Dreisbach. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund Press, 2009.
The Forgotten Founders on Religion and Public Life. Edited with Daniel L. Dreisbach and Jeffry H. Morrison. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009.
Collected Works of James Wilson, 2 vols. Edited with Kermit L. Hall. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund Press, 2007.
The Political and Legal Philosophy of James Wilson, 1742-1798. Columbia: The University of Missouri Press, 1997.
“Beyond Self-Interest: The Political Theory and Practice of Evangelical Women in Antebellum America.” Journal of Church and State 44 (Summer 2002): 477-99.
“Jeffersonian Walls and Madisonian Lines: The Supreme Court’s Use of History in Religion Clause Cases.” Oregon Law Review 85 (2006), 563-614