Marvin Olasky

Marvin Olasky is an Acton Institute affiliate scholar and a Discovery Institute senior fellow. Among his 29 books are Prodigal Press, The Tragedy of American Compassion, Fighting for Liberty and Virtue, Compassionate Conservatism, Reforming Journalism, Lament for a Father, and The Story of Abortion in America. He has written 5,000 articles for World magazine and other publications including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Olasky earned an A.B. from Yale University in 1971 and a Ph.D. in American Culture from the University of Michigan in 1976. From 1983 to 2008 he was a professor at The University of Texas at Austin and from 1992 through 2021 he edited World. He also had affiliations for at least a year with The Boston Globe, the Du Pont Company, Princeton University, three Washington think tanks, The King’s College, and Patrick Henry College.

Olasky is a Presbyterian Church in America elder and the chairman of Zenger House, a foundation devoted to increasing biblical objectivity in journalism and honoring those who practice it. He and his wife Susan have four sons and six grandchildren. He has been a foster parent, college provost, PTA president, school board and pregnancy center chairman, cross-country bicycle rider, informal advisor to George W. Bush, and—rising to the utmost of his baseball abilities—a Little League assistant coach.

Olasky has traveled to 76 countries and 79 major league or spring training ballparks and seen his writing translated into Chinese, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Baseball. He has been in all 254 Texas counties and once did at least 10,000 steps on 534 consecutive days before sidelining by plantar heel pain taught him the value of a Sabbath.