[Ask Mr. Religion]

A little about me...

I am a Vietnam veteran, formerly a Catholic Jesuit (Tertian), and am an ordained minister (Southern Baptist 1984), who later joined the PCA. I pastored a new Reformed church in Clearwater, FL for a few years and then spent many years as a wireless communications technology expert at companies such as Alcatel, Motorola, Intel Corp., and General Dynamics. To this day I, along with my son, still maintain a wireless communications intellectual property consulting business that specializes in forensic patent analysis (related to puchases/licensing of intellectual or litigation).

I am a MDiv with an additional Licentiate in Sacred Theology certificate (2 yrs beyond a MDiv) graduate of the Jesuit School of Theology. After seven years of study, contemplation, and teaching, I left the Jesuits once I realized that as a "heretical" Jansenist, I could no longer keep my Jesuit vow to defend Catholicism.

I am also a MS (Adult Education) graduate of Nova Southeastern University.

I possess the BSEE and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Columbia Pacific University (now defunct - a very long story) and have been a MENSA member since I was eight years old. I have taught electrical engineering and computer science courses at So. Illinois University, DePaul University, and Augusta College.

In addition to being the founder and moderator of http://www.reformedtheologyinstitute.com/ I moderate the Yahoo! Groups TheologosAMR advanced theology discussion mailing list.

In theology, I’m a Calvinist, creationist, inerrantist, cessationist, classical Christian theist, and moderately preterist. On the sacraments, I take them to be symbolic. I regard other issues in sacramentology as secondary to this primary position. In philosophy, I’m an Augustinian exemplarist. I’m a Cartesian dualist. I’m an alethic realist, but scientific antirealist. I believe in innate ideas, sense knowledge (I'm an indirect realist), and the primacy of divine revelation in Scripture. In ethics, I subscribe to traditional Christian morality, rooted God’s revealed law as the source and standard of personal and social ethics. I also subscribe to a infralapsarian theodicy.

In July 2008 I founded The Reformed Theology Institute (RTI) for the express purpose of providing a place where like-minded persons can come together and dialog in a civilized manner about the many aspects of the Reformed faith. Nearly one year later, I transitioned the full time ownership of RTI to another member, an outstanding defender of the Reformed faith.

I have been married for 27 years to a woman who makes me want to be a better man every day. Valerie taught mathematics at a local community college here in Chandler, Arizona.

Lastly, I am the 1994 founder of the Ask Mr. Religion confidential theology Q&A service. The nine volunteer member AMR service has provided custom theology research for academic theologians, religious web sites, and private individuals (mostly seminarians) since 1994. The fruits of the AMR volunteer theologians have anonymously appeared in hundreds of academic papers, conferences, internet forums. etc.

Go easy on me. I am earnestly studying the whole KJV issue and genuinely seeking to be enlightened and am open to correction.

AMR