Marvin Olasky - Education and Career

Education and Career

Olasky was born in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, to a Russian-Jewish family and graduated from Yale University in 1971 with a B.A. in American Studies. In 1976 he earned his Ph.D. in American Culture at the University of Michigan. He became an atheist in adolescence and a Marxist in college, ultimately joining the Communist Party USA in 1972. He left the Communist Party the following year and in 1976 became a Christian after reading the New Testament and a number of Christian authors.

Olasky was provost of The King's College in New York City from 2007 to 2011, prior to which he was a professor in the University of Texas at Austin journalism department. He is now dean of the World Journalism Institute and a senior fellow of the Acton Institute. He joined World Magazine in 1990 and became its editor in 1994 and its editor-in-chief in 2001. Earlier, he was a reporter on the Boston Globe and a speechwriter at the Du Pont Company.

Olasky’s most famous book is The Tragedy of American Compassion, which in 1992 Newt Gingrich distributed to incoming Republican representatives of the 104th Congress. The book, an overview of poverty-fighting in America from colonial times to the 1990s, argues that private individuals and organizations, particularly Christian churches, have a responsibility to care for the poor, and contends that challenging personal and spiritual help, common until the 1930s, was more effective than the government welfare programs of recent decades. Olasky argues that government programs are ineffective because they are disconnected from the poor, while private charity has the power to change lives because it allows for a personal connection between giver and recipient.

The book eventually helped to define "compassionate conservatism" in relation to welfare and social policy. In 1995, Olasky became an occasional advisor to Texas gubernatorial candidate George W. Bush. Bush made faith-based programs a major component of his 2000 presidential campaign, and Olasky's academic work helped form the basis for Bush's "compassionate conservatism." But in 2009, when both liberal and conservative critics were arguing that compassionate conservatism had led to an expansion of the federal government, Olasky distanced himself from the program. In an interview with Mike Huckabee on October 10, 2009, Olasky even denied that the Bush administration had implemented compassionate conservatism, remarking that "it was never tried."

Olasky became provost of The King's College in June 2007. On November 5, 2010, the college announced his resignation, saying he would "devote more time to his role as editor-in-chief of World magazine." In an online article at Christianity Today about the announcement, Olasky suggested the move was related to the recent hiring of Dinesh D'Souza as the college's president: "'It will come as no surprise to you that Dinesh D'Souza and I have different ideas about some things," said in an e-mail to Christianity Today. 'I'd like to leave it at that and not do an interview.' This is a shift from what he told CT in August: 'I remain committed to King's.'" In a blog post, WORLD publisher Nick Eicher said "there are no hard feelings" between Olasky and The King's College.

On August 22, 2011, Patrick Henry College announced Olasky's appointment to its newly created Distinguished Chair in Journalism and Public Policy beginning in the fall semester of 2011.