John Witte Jr.

Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law, Alonzo L. McDonald Distinguished Professor, Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion

John Witte Jr. is Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law, Alonzo L. McDonald Distinguished Service Professor and director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion Center at Emory University. A specialist in legal history, marriage law and religious liberty, he has published 180 articles, 11 journal symposia and 23 books—including recently Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment (2000, 2d. ed. 2005); Law and Protestantism: The Legal Teachings of the Lutheran Reformation (2002); Sex, Marriage and Family Life in John Calvin’s Geneva (2005); Modern Christian Teachings on Law, Politics, and Human Nature, 3 vols. (2006); God’s Joust, God’s Justice: Law and Religion in the Western Tradition (2006); The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism (2007); Christianity and Law: An Introduction (2008); and Sins of the Fathers: The Law and Theology of Illegitimacy Reconsidered (2009). He has five books under contract.

Professor Witte’s writings have appeared in 10 languages, and he has lectured and convened conferences through North America, Western and Eastern Europe, Japan, Israel and South Africa. With major funding from the Pew, Ford, Lilly, Luce and McDonald foundations, he has directed 12 major international projects on democracy, human rights and religious liberty, and on marriage, family and children. These projects have collectively yielded more than 160 new volumes and 250 public forums around the world. He edits two major book series, “Studies in Law and Religion” and “Religion, Marriage and Family.” He has been selected 10 times by the Emory Law students as the Most Outstanding Professor and has won dozens of other awards and prizes for his teaching and research.

Professor Witte is married to Eliza Ellison, a theologian and trained mediator. They have two daughters: Alison Marie Witte, an anthropology and religion major at Emory University, and Hope McCormick Jarkowski, an Emory College and Catholic Law School alumna who practices law in Washington, D.C. Hope is married to Justin Jarkowski, and they are the proud new parents of Baylor Jarkowski. Alison is Baylor’s godmother; Eliza and John are overly doting new grandparents.

Education: BA, Calvin College, 1982; JD, Harvard University, 1985.