You Tube Theology

Oct. 7, 2025
Is it true that political leaders cannot help but commit immoral deeds if they want to be successful? Are there times when vicious means are justified by the ends? Machiavelli certainly thought so, but is this the way American politics works as well? Are leaders really good if they leave with dirty hands? Join us for a searching investigation into these questions by a panel of experts.

Baylor in Washington was thrilled to partner with the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, The Institute on Religion and Democracy, and The Institute for Religion, Politics, and Culture at Washington College for this event.

William Galston is an American author, academic, and political advisor, who holds the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies and is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He was deputy assistant for domestic policy to U.S. President Bill Clinton (January 1993 – May 1995) and was employed by the presidential campaigns of Al Gore, Walter Mondale, and John B. Anderson. Formerly the Saul Stern Professor and Dean at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and a professor of political science at the University of Texas, Austin, Galston specializes in issues of U.S. public philosophy and political institutions.

Eric Gregory is Professor of Religion and former Chair of the Humanities Council at Princeton University. His research and teaching focus on religious and philosophical ethics, theology, political theory, law and religion, and the role of religion in public life. He is the author of Politics & the Order of Love: An Augustinian Ethic of Democratic Citizenship (University of Chicago Press, 2008), and recent articles on myth and politics, the philosophy of history, secularity, and moral supererogation. A graduate of Harvard College, he earned an M.Phil. and Diploma in Theology from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and his doctorate in Religious Studies from Yale University.

Catherine Zuckert is a political philosopher and Reeves Dreux Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author of, most recently, Machiavelli’s Politics (2017) and Leo Strauss on Political Philosophy: Responding to the Challenge of Positivism and Historicism (2018). Zuckert completed her Bachelor of Arts degree at Cornell University. Upon graduating, Zuckert enrolled at the University of Chicago for her PhD in political science. She and her husband Michael Zuckert both studied under political philosopher Leo Strauss while at the University of Chicago.

Moderated by Dr. David Corey, Director of Baylor in Washington