Francis Beckwith

Francis J. Beckwith is a philosopher who teaches, publishes, and speaks on a variety of topics and issues in ethics, law, politics, and religion. Since 2003 he has been on the faculty of Baylor University, where he currently serves as Professor of Philosophy and Church-State Studies, Affiliate Professor of Political Science, and Associate Director of Graduate Studies in Philosophy. Prior to arriving at Baylor he was a 2002-2003 Visiting Research Fellow in the James Madison Program in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. 

Born in Brooklyn, New York, he grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada, the eldest of the four children of Harold (“Pat”) and Elizabeth Beckwith (née Guido). He is a graduate of  Bishop Gorman High School, where he was a three-sport letterman and a member of the Nevada State AAA Basketball Championship Team. He earned an Ph.D. and M.A. in philosophy from Fordham University, and a Master of Juridical Studies (M.J.S.) degree from the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, where he won the CALI Award for Excellence in the Reproductive Control Seminar.

He the author of over 100 academic articles, book chapters, reference entries, and reviews. Among the scholarly periodicals in which his work has appeared are Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, San Diego Law Review, Synthese, International Philosophical Quarterly, Nevada Law Journal, Public Affairs Quarterly, Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy, Journal of Law & Religion, American Journal of Jurisprudence, Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, Journal of Medicine & Philosophy, Social Theory & Practice, Journal of Law, Medicine, & Ethics, University of St. Thomas Journal of Law & Public Policy, Human Life Review, Journal of Social Philosophy, Philosophia Christi, Evangelical Quarterly, Journal of Medical Ethics, Civil Rights Law Journal, American Journal of Bioethics, and BYU Law Review.

His over twenty books include Never Doubt Thomas: The Catholic Aquinas as Evangelical and Protestant (Baylor University Press, 2019), Politics For Christian: Statecraft as Soulcraft (InterVarsity Press, 2010), Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air (1998), Return to Rome: Confessions of An Evangelical Catholic (Brazos Press, 2009), Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (Cambridge University Press, 2007), and Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith (Cambridge University Press, 2015), winner of the American Academy of Religion’s prestigious 2016 Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in Constructive-Reflective Studies. 

He was the 2016-2017 Visiting Professor Conservative Thought & Policy in the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado, Boulder as well as the 2008-09 Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow in the de Nicola Center for Ethics & Culture at the University of Notre Dame. The only person to have served as the President of both the American Catholic Philosophical Association (2017-18) and the Evangelical Theological Society (2006-07), he is an elected member of the American Academy of Catholic Scholars and Artists. He is the winner of both the 2024 Heritage Foundation Freedom and Opportunity Academic Prize, awarded in recognition of his scholarship and contributions to the academic community, and the 2025 Russell Kirk Paideia Prize, a lifetime achievement award presented by the CiRCE Institute to an extraordinary veteran educator. 

He and his wife, Frankie, make their home in Woodway, Texas.  His website is http://francisbeckwith.com, where you can find a video of Stephen Colbert quoting from one of his tweets.

Selected Publications

Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice

Politics for Christians: Statecraft as Soulcraft

Return to Rome: Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic

Never Doubt Thomas: The Catholic Aquinas as Evangelical and Protestant

Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith