J. Nick Pitts serves as the director of cultural engagement at the Denison Forum on Truth and Culture.

He came to the Denison Forum in 2014 after a fateful conversation with its founder, Dr. Jim Denison. Pitts, a Ph.D. candidate at Dallas Baptist University (DBU), had spent the summer studying at Oxford with other students and faculty including Denison, a visiting professor.

He contributes to the Forum in the areas of geopolitics and popular culture, as well as serving as the editor of the Daily Briefing. He continues work on his doctorate and serves as an adjunct professor at DBU, teaching a master’s level course in the philosophy of leadership.

His Ph.D. research centers upon John F. Kennedy’s engagement of the religious community in the 1960 presidential campaign. He presented a paper on the topic at Calvin College’s 2015 symposium on religion and public life.

He is an editor at large for The Liberty Project, an online magazine, and his op-eds have been published by The Philadelphia Inquirer, Religion News Service and Townhall.com.

He received a bachelor’s degree in 2007 from Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, and a master’s degree in 2009 from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

He served as the Director of College Ministry at First Baptist Church Arlington (Texas) for five years.

(RNS) He needs no introduction, nor does he need forgiveness — at least in his eyes.

On Tuesday (June 21), I joined more than 900 other predominantly evangelical Christians from around the country to engage in a conversation with Donald Trump at a Manhattan hotel on Times Square.

One might say it was “YUGE.”

The presumptive Republican nominee took predetermined questions that were couched in praise from pre-selected evangelical leaders. Billed as a “conversation,” the event felt more like a cross between a revival meeting and a campaign rally, all guided by the moderator Mike Huckabee — a former Baptist pastor and Arkansas governor.

Can Trump get out of the trap of running against himself? Donald Trump is not so much running against Hillary Clinton as against the inner demons of Donald Trump. The 2016 election still should easily be his to win.

Americans do not historically like the twelve-year regnum of any party. The termed-out incumbent Democratic president can win approval ratings of 50 percent only by staying quiet, out of the public eye, and doing as little governing as possible. Whenever Obama emerges from his hip cocoon and talks off his teleprompter, he reminds us that he is typically petulant, untruthful, and rambling. Witness his latest pathetic assurances that sending cash on pallets at night to obtain simultaneous release of hostages was not ransom. Even the obsequious pajama-boy D.C. press corps did not quite buy that. As so often, Obama’s soft-spoken prevarication comes across as being as coarse as Trump’s crudity.

Since the Democratic National Committee emails were leaked a few weeks ago, three people associated with the DNC have all been found dead under what could be questionable circumstances. Some — including Bernie Sanders supporters — suspect the Clintons were behind the deaths, just more episodes in the alleged “Clinton body count” dating back to the 1990s. Others dismiss the speculation as left-wing conspiracy nuts. But until the police have completed their investigations and the medical examiners have released autopsy reports, it is premature to make any determinations.