Mathew D. Staver

Mathew D. "Mat" Staver is an American lawyer and former pastor of several Seventh-day Adventist churches who became a Southern Baptist. He is a former dean of Liberty University's law school. In 1989, he founded the nonprofit organization Liberty Counsel, where he serves as chairman. ProPublica called him "a leading Christian legal theorist." Education Staver received a B.A. in theology from Southern Missionary College, an M.A. in religion from Andrews University, and a Juris Doctor from the University of Kentucky. During college he began a process which led him to later leave the SDA church and eventually attend a Southern Baptist church. Career He was the pastor of three churches in Kentucky that belonged to an evangelical Protestant denomination known as the Christian Church.