Mark A. Beliles

Mark A. Beliles is an historian and teacher of American religious culture. He is editor of The Selected Religious Letters and Papers of Thomas Jefferson (America Publications, 2013) that included over 50 Jefferson letters never before seen in print. Beliles earned his Ph.D. from Whitefield Theological Seminary and his dissertation was "Free As the Air"--Churches and Politics in Jefferson's Virginia, 1736-1836. The dissertation and another book in 2014 entitled "Playful in His Closet"--The Complete Religious History of Thomas Jefferson are both available at www.AmericaPublications.com. Beliles has organized, with sponsorship of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, several scholarly symposiums held at the University of Virginia on Jefferson and religion that each featured dozens of nationally-known Jefferson scholars and church and state historians. He has contributed to volumes of collected essays such as Religion and Political Culture in Jefferson's Virginia (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2000). He resides in Jefferson's hometown where he has served for many years as Chairman of the Charlottesville Historic Resources Committee and co-chairman of the city's 250th Anniversary observed in 2012.

As president of the Global Transformation Network (www.NationalTransformation.com) and the America Company (www.AmericaCompany.org) Beliles is a popular speaker and cultural leadership coach who has traveled to over 50 countries and addressed parliaments and high-level leaders of nations on the topic of faith and freedom. He founded an educational ministry called the Providence Foundation in 1983 and co-authored other books for popular audiences such as America's Providential History and Contending for the Constitution: Recalling the Christian Influence on the Writing of the Constitution and the Biblical Basis of American Law and Liberty (Providence Foundation Press).

Beliles is an ordained minister who has served as pastor over various non-denominational churches in the United States including Grace Covenant Church in Charlottesville which he founded in 1981. He and his wife Nancy have three children and five grandchildren.