Dr. John Warwick Montgomery, Professor Emeritus of Law & Humanities, University of Bedfordshire, England, and
Distinguished Research Professor of Apologetics & Christian Thought, Patrick Henry College, Virginia, will present two lectures on Hillsdale's campus. He will present “A Lawyer’s Defense of Christian Faith" on Tuesday, November 3, at 7:00 p.m. in Phillips Auditorium. On Wednesday, November 4, he will speak on “Why Human Rights Are Impossible Without Religion” at 8:00 p.m. in Phillips Auditorium. Receptions will be held both evenings in the Upper Lounge of the Dow Center.

Montgomery is considered by many to be the foremost living apologist for biblical Christianity. A renaissance scholar with a flair for controversy, he lives in France, England and the United States. His international activities have brought him into personal contact with some of the most exciting events of our time: not only was he in China in June 1989, but he was in Fiji during its 1987 bloodless revolution, was involved in assisting East Germans to escape during the time of the Berlin Wall, and was in Paris during the 'days of May' 1968. Dr. Montgomery is the author of more than forty books in five languages. He holds ten earned degrees, including a Master of Philosophy in Law from the University of Essex, England, a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and a Doctorate of the University in Protestant Theology from the University of Strasbourg, France, and the higher doctorate in law (LL.D.) from the University of Cardiff, Wales. He is an ordained Lutheran clergyman, an English barrister, and is admitted to practice as a lawyer before the Supreme Court of the United States and inscrit au Barreau de Paris, France. He obtained acquittals for the 'Athens 3' missionaries on charges of proselytism at the Greek Court of Appeals in 1986 and won the leading religious liberty cases of Larissis v. Greece and Bessarabian Orthodox Church v. Moldova before the European Court of Human Rights.

To use C. S. Lewis's words, John Warwick Montgomery was brought over the threshold of Christian faith "kicking and struggling." The year was 1949. The place, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Herman John Eckelmann, a persistent engineering student, succeeded in goading Montgomery into religious discussions. Montgomery, a philosophy major disinterested in religion, found himself forced to consider seriously the claims of Jesus Christ in the New Testament in order to preserve big intellectual integrity. After no mean struggle, he acknowledged his rebellion against God and asked His forgiveness.