John Warwick Montgomery - Career

Career

Montgomery became a Christian in 1949 as an undergraduate student majoring in the classics and philosophy at Cornell University. Upon graduation Montgomery then began studies in librarianship through the University of California, followed on by two degrees in theology, and ordination as a Lutheran clergyman. His M.A. thesis in library science was published by the University of California as A Seventeenth Century View of European Libraries. In 1959–60 he served on the faculty of theology as principal librarian in the Divinity school's library at the University of Chicago, whilst simultaneously undertaking doctoral studies in bibliographical history.

He then served as Chairman of the Department of History at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada, where he began to develop a reputation as a Christian apologist. Some of his earliest apologetic lectures in defending the historical reliability of the gospel records were presented at the University of British Columbia and the lectures were subsequently published in his book History and Christianity.

On receiving a Canada Council Senior Research Fellowship, Montgomery commenced doctoral studies in theology at the University of Strasbourg, France. His doctoral dissertation, which was on the life and career of the Lutheran pastor Johannes Valentinus Andreae and his alleged connections with Rosicrucianism, was subsequently published as Cross and Crucible. Montgomery regards this particular text as his most important piece of scholarship.

After completing his Th.D (1964), Montgomery assumed a post as professor of church history at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois (1964–74). It was during the 1960s that he emerged as a significant spokesman for Protestant Evangelicals, writing as a regular columnist in the flagship periodical Christianity Today (1965–83).

He injected himself into the theological controversies of his denomination the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod concerning Biblical inerrancy and higher criticism. On the wider church scene he wrote against the death-of-God theology, and publicly debated one of its proponents Thomas J. J. Altizer at the University of Chicago in 1967. He was also critical of Karl Barth, Paul Tillich and Rudolf Bultmann. He summed up much of his opposition to Liberal Christianity and radical theologies in works such as Crisis in Lutheran Theology, The Suicide of Christian Theology and God's Inerrant Word.

His role as an apologist for the Christian faith extended to debates with the American atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair (1967), situation ethicist Joseph Fletcher (1971), Australian atheist Mark Plummer (1986), humanist George A. Wells (1993), and Jesus Seminar scholar Gerd Ludemann.

During the 1970s Montgomery began training in the law with the twin aims of reintegrating Christian foundations into jurisprudence, and to integrate insights from legal theory and doctrines of proof relevant to furthering Christian evidentialist apologetics. To that end Montgomery established in 1980 The Simon Greenleaf School of Law in California, which is now part of Trinity International University. Montgomery resigned his post as Greenleaf Law School Dean and Professor in 1989. In 1991 he relocated to London, where he became a Barrister-at-Law, wrote widely on apologetics, defended international cases of religious freedom, and taught at the University of Bedfordshire. In 2009, Montgomery passed the French bar examinations and became an avocat à la Cour, barreau de Paris; he is a member of the Paris law firm of Noual Hadjaje Duval.

Montgomery's apologetic work has generally centred on establishing the divinity of Christ by assessing the historical and legal evidences for the resurrection. Much of this work has influenced popular apologists like Josh McDowell, Don Stewart, Francis J. Beckwith, Ross Clifford, Terry Miethe, Gary Habermas, Craig Parton, Rod Rosenbladt, Loren Wilkinson, Kerry McRoberts and Elliot Miller. He is an advocate of evidentialist apologetics, offering a distinctly Christian philosophy of history in his books The Shape of the Past and Where Is History Going?

Montgomery's interests in the occult has also yielded his studies on early Rosicrucianism (Cross and Crucible), demonic phenomena (Demon Possession), and analytic considerations of the occult as a spiritual search for truth (Principalities and Powers). In the 1980s he spent eight years as a Sunday evening radio broadcaster in California, and from 1988–92 a television presenter of "Christianity on Trial".

In his legal career Montgomery has, in addition to teaching law, practiced law in California, been admitted to the English bar as a barrister, is also licensed in France, taken higher degrees in ecclesiastical law at Cardiff University, and served as Director of Studies for the International Institute of Human Rights, Strasbourg (1979–81). He has written on legal-moral problems such as cryonics, stem-cell research, euthanasia, abortion and divorce, as well as arguing for a transcendental perspective in international human rights and jurisprudence. He has successfully represented clients in religious liberty cases before the Court of Appeals (1986) in Athens, Greece, and the European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg (1997 and 2001).