Noted Intellectual Dr. Wilfred McClay to Lecture Thursday

April 27th, 2011

By Carissa Davis

CONTACT:

David Halbrook Patrick Henry College (540) 441-8722 OfficeOfCommunications@phc.edu

 

Dr. Wilfred M. McClay

This Thursday, April 28, at 7:30 p.m., noted American historian, conservative intellectual Dr. Wilfred M. McClay, will lecture in the PHC coffeeshop in the Barbara Hodel Student Life Center. Hosted by the Alexis de Tocqueville Society, McClay will present his lecture entitled “Herbert Butterfield and the Task of the Christian Historian.”

“There has been a great deal of discussion about the distinctive mark of “Christian scholarship” in recent years, but none of it mentions Butterfield,” said McClay. “This has always seemed to be a serious oversight… In addition to being a very distinguished historian and a lion of mainstream British academia, Herbert Butterfield was also a very committed Christian, who thought long and hard about what effect his Christian faith should have on his work as a historian.”

McClay had served with a number of different organizations, including the National Council on the Humanities, Ethics and Public Policy Center, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. He is on the editorial board of First Things, Society, The Wilson Quarterly, Historically Speaking, The University Bookman, and The New Atlantis. McClay currently holds a chair at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga.

“Dr. McClay is a committed Christian and noted public intellectual,” said senior Barton Gingerich, moderator of the Alexis de Tocqueville Society. “It would be impressive if we could have a good attendance for such an exemplary scholar.”