Mathew D. Staver | |
---|---|
Education | Southern Missionary College (BA) Andrews University (MA) University of Kentucky (JD) |
Occupation | Attorney |
Employer | Liberty Counsel |
Known for | Litigation for religious freedom, against abortion and LGBTQ rights [1] |
Title | Chairman of Liberty Counsel Action [1] |
Spouse | Anita Staver |
Website | https://www.lc.org/mat-staver |
Mathew D. "Mat" Staver is an American lawyer and former pastor of several Seventh-day Adventist churches who became a Southern Baptist. [2] [3] [4] He is a former dean of Liberty University's law school. In 1989, he founded the nonprofit organization Liberty Counsel, where he serves as chairman. ProPublica called him "a leading Christian legal theorist." [5]
Staver received a B.A. in theology from Southern Missionary College, an M.A. in religion from Andrews University, and a Juris Doctor from the University of Kentucky. During college he began a process which led him to later leave the SDA church and eventually attend a Southern Baptist church. [2]
He was the pastor of three churches in Kentucky that belonged to an evangelical Protestant denomination known as the Christian Church. [6]
In 1990, he criticized the ACLU's efforts that led to removal of a Latin cross from the top of the St. Cloud, Florida water tower, stating that Liberty Counsel would be "a Christian antithesis to the ACLU." [4]
In 2000, he represented absentee voters in the Bush v. Gore election case. [7]
A Young Earth creationist who believes that intelligent design should be taught in public schools, Staver also denies Darwinian evolution. [8]
He has argued before the Supreme Court of the United States twice, before most of the federal courts of appeals, [9] and has testified before the United States Congress. [10]
In 2005, he opposed the nomination of Harriet Miers to the United States Supreme Court. [11]
Staver served as the dean of the Liberty University School of Law from 2006 to 2014. [12] [13]
In 2011 he was added to the Commission on Accountability and Policy for Religious Organizations, which was established by Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley. [14]
In October 2015, Staver claimed that 100,000 people gathered in Peru to support Kim Davis in support of her refusal to issue marriage licenses. The event was shown to have happened more than a year earlier and was unrelated to Davis. [15] Liberty Counsel issued a press release, stating that Staver had relied on a member of the Congress of the Republic of Peru for the information on the rally. [16]
In 2016, Staver served on the resolutions committee for the Southern Baptist Convention. [17]
In late 2018 he voiced his opposition to including gender identity and sexual orientation in a senate bill that would make lynching a federal crime. [18] Staver "pushed back against mainstream media coverage, and explained that while no one can or should oppose a bill banning lynching, there were provisions in it that served an ill purpose." [19]
In 2020, he represented a Tampa, Florida pastor who was arrested for holding church services when the county had mandated churches to close. [20] Charges against the pastor were later dropped. [21]
Staver favors allowing religious exemptions to Covid-19 vaccine mandates. [22]
Staver practices law on behalf of Liberty Counsel. [23]
Thomas Road Baptist Church (TRBC) is a Baptist megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia, located on the campus of Liberty University, which it founded and is closely affiliated with. In 2016, a church spokesperson stated they had an average weekly attendance of 9,000. The pastor is Jonathan Falwell, the son of previous Senior Pastor Jerry Falwell and brother of former Liberty University President, Jerry Falwell Jr. In addition to a second campus, Dan River Church, Thomas Road also hosts a Spanish congregation on its main campus. It is affiliated with the Baptist Bible Fellowship International and the Southern Baptist Convention.
Liberty Counsel is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt religious liberty organization that engages in litigation related to evangelical Christian values. Liberty Counsel was founded in 1989 by its chairman Mathew Staver and its president Anita L. Staver, who are attorneys and married to each other. The Southern Poverty Law Center has listed Liberty Counsel as an anti-LGBT hate group, a designation the group has disputed. The group is a Christian ministry.
Alan E. Sears is an American lawyer. He served as the president, CEO, and general counsel of the Alliance Defending Freedom until January 2017. Sears was also the staff executive director of the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, popularly known as the Meese Commission.
Becket, also known as the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, is a non-profit public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C., that describes its mission as "defending the freedom of religion of people of all faiths". Becket promotes accommodationism and is active in the judicial system, the media, and in education.
The Diocese of Palm Beach is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in eastern Florida in the United States The patron saint of the diocese is Mary, mother of Jesus, under the title Queen of the Apostles.
George E. Grant is an American evangelical writer, and a Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) pastor.
The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC) is a US faith-based organization which focuses on upholding the historic Baptist principle of religious liberty.
Dade Christian School is a private Christian school that enrolls kindergarten through 12th grade students in Miami, Florida.
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) is a Baptist theological institute in Louisville, Kentucky. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. The seminary was founded in 1859 in Greenville, South Carolina, where it was at first housed on the campus of Furman University. The seminary has been an innovator in theological education, establishing one of the first Ph.D. programs in religion in the year 1892. After being closed during the Civil War, it moved in 1877 to a newly built campus in downtown Louisville and moved to its current location in 1926 in the Crescent Hill neighborhood. In 1953, Southern became one of the few seminaries to offer a full, accredited degree course in church music. For more than fifty years Southern has been one of the world's largest theological seminaries, with an FTE enrollment of over 3,300 students in 2015.
The Holy Land Experience (HLE) was a Christian amusement park in Orlando, Florida and registered non-profit corporation. HLE conducted weekly church services and bible studies for the general public. HLE's theme park recreated the architecture and themes of the ancient city of Jerusalem in 1st-century Judaea. The Holy Land Experience was owned by the Trinity Broadcasting Network. It closed in March 2020.
The Liberty University School of Law is the law school of Liberty University, a private evangelical Christian university in Lynchburg, Virginia. The school offers the J.D., L.L.M., and J.M. degrees.
Fathima Rifqa Bary is a Sri Lankan–born American author. She drew international attention in 2009, when she ran away from her home in Ohio under the threat of an honor killing by her family due to her conversion to Christianity from Islam. As she fled to Florida and sought refuge with a family of evangelical Protestants, her story was widely broadcast on television and discussed on political blogs, eventually becoming a focal point in a religious clash between Christians and Muslims in the United States.
Dove World Outreach Center is a 50-member non-denominational charismatic Christian church led by pastor Terry Jones and his wife, Sylvia. After spending more than 25 years in Gainesville, Florida, the church sold its 20 acres of property in July 2013 and plans to relocate to Tampa. The church first gained notice during the late 2000s for its public displays and criticism of Islam and gay people, and was designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It became widely known for its pastor's controversial plan to burn Qur'ans on the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., more commonly known as the National Baptist Convention, is a Baptist Christian denomination headquartered at the Baptist World Center in Nashville, Tennessee and affiliated with the Baptist World Alliance. It is also the largest predominantly and traditionally African American church in the United States and the second largest Baptist denomination in the world.
James Brent Walker is the former Executive Director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, a leading church-state advocacy group. He holds professional designations as a member of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States and an ordained Baptist minister. After retirement from the BJC, he served as Interim President of the John Leland Center for Theological Studies in Arlington, Virginia, until the end of 2018.
Chris Whaley is an American author, Southern Baptist pastor and former professional wrestler who competed in Florida using the ring name The Saint. His novel The Masked Saint was turned into a movie in 2016. He grew up in Auburndale, Florida and graduated from Auburndale High School in 1972.
Melissa Rogers is an American church-state lawyer and non-resident senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. She previously served as special assistant to President Barack Obama and executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. On February 14, 2021, President Joe Biden designated Rogers as executive director of the reestablished Office under his administration.
Kimberly Jean Davis is an American former county clerk for Rowan County, Kentucky, who gained international attention in August 2015 when she defied a U.S. federal court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist churches or officially the New Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement are an association of conservative, King James Only, independent Baptist churches. The New IFB began with Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in response to perceived liberalism in other independent Baptist churches. The New IFB does not consider itself to be a denomination. As of 2019, the New IFB listed 32 affiliated congregations on its website, most in the U.S. with some in Australia, Canada, the Philippines and South Africa.