Columbia University

Martin Bashir was named co-anchor of ABC News "Nightline" in October 2005 and assumed anchor duties at the end of November; he is based in New York. The internationally acclaimed, award-winning journalist joined ABC's newsmagazine "20/20," in September 2004 and will continue to report for the program. Bashir is best known for making landmark documentaries including "Living with Michael Jackson," and conducting such exclusive interviews as the now historic one with the late Princess Diana. He is also known for his investigative reporting for ITV, British television's most popular network. Bashir's work has been broadcast worldwide. Twenty-seven million American viewers tuned in to watch his 2003 documentary "Living with Michael Jackson," which featured exclusive access to the King of Pop and prompted a police investigation of the singer.

Dale Hanson Bourke is the author of eight books, her most recent, “The Skeptic’s Guide to Global Poverty.”  As a nationally syndicated columnist, she wrote on the intersection of religion and culture and continues to write guest columns for The Washington Post “On Faith.”   Previously, she served as an editor, publisher, business owner and nonprofit executive.  Currently the president of the CIDRZ Foundation, Bourke spends much of her time in Africa .  She speaks and writes about HIV/AIDS, poverty and international development issues. A graduate of Wheaton College , she earned an MBA from the University of Maryland .  She serves on the boards of Opportunity International and MAP International.

Andrew Delbanco is Director of American Studies at Columbia University and Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities. 

He is the author of The Death of Satan (1995), Required Reading: Why Our American Classics Matter Now  (1997), and The Real American Dream (1999), which were named notable books by the editors of The New York Times Book Review.  The Puritan Ordeal (1989) won the Lionel Trilling Award from Columbia University. He has edited Writing New England (2001),  The Portable Abraham Lincoln (1992), volume two of The Sermons of Ralph Waldo Emerson (with Teresa Toulouse), and, with Alan Heimert, The Puritans in America (1985).  

Andrew Delbanco’s most recent book, Melville: His World and Work (2005), was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Biography and winner of the Lionel Trilling Award from Columbia.  It is published in Britain by Picador, and has been published in German (Hanser Verlag) and Spanish (Seix Barral) translation.  

Andrew Delbanco’s essays appear regularly in The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, and The New York Times Magazine on topics ranging from American literary and religious history to contemporary issues in higher education.  In 2001, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and named by Time Magazine as “America’s Best Social Critic.” In 2003, he was named New York State Scholar of the Year by the New York Council for the Humanities.

Dr. David Eisenbach is an alumnus of Columbia College and teaches courses on media and politics in the history department.  He is the author of “Gay Power: An American Revolution,” winner of the American Library Association’s 2006 Stonewall Honor Book Award and a Lambda Award finalist.  His second book, “Echo Chamber: How the Media Threatens Our Democracy and Our Security” will be in bookstores this spring.  Dr. Eisenbach created the Friendly Fire free speech series dedicated to welcoming speakers with a variety of political perspectives to the Columbia campus.

Tim Keller is the author of the forthcoming book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. The book is written, he says, "for the ordinary (which means very sharp) spiritually skeptical New Yorker." To read more from Keller about this book, click here <http://www.redeemer.com/news_and_events/articles/yes_i_wrote_a_book.html>.

Keller serves as Senior Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, "one of Manhattan's most vital congregations," according to Christianity Today. A church that started with a group of 15 people in 1989, Redeemer has grown to an average Sunday attendance of around 4,500 per week, drawing people from many diverse occupations and cultural backgrounds. It is Dr. Keller's desire to help incite the movement of holistic ministries that will produce dozens of new congregations throughout the urban area and the world, continuing into decades to come.

Keller earned degrees from Bucknell University and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He also received his D.Min from Westminster Theological Seminary, where he then served as faculty and continues as an adjunct professor of practical theology. He and his wife, Kathy, live in New York City with their three sons.

Mark Lilla is currently a professor in the Humanities and Religion at Columbia University.  He holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Harvard University.  He earned a PhD in Government at Harvard and had held professorships at New York University and the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. 

He has delivered the Weizmann Memorial Lecture in Israel and the Carlyle Lectures at Oxford University, which was the basis of his The Stillborn God.  His works cover the history of ideas, focusing on the relation between religion and politics.  His books include G.B. Vico: The Making of an Anti-Modern (1993) and The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics (2001). 

His most recent book The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West (2007) is a wide-ranging study of modern political theology, named one of the "100 best books of the year" by The New York Times Book Review and one of the 150 best books of the year by Publisher's Weekly.  His current research focuses on the religious concepts of conversion and innocence.