Meet Dr. Koty Arnold
Degrees and Experience
- B.A., Government (Regent University)
- M.A., Politics (Hillsdale College)
- Ph.D., Politics (Hillsdale College)
Biography and Professional Achievements
Gordon Dakota "Koty" Arnold is a native of High Point, North Carolina and received his B.A. in Government with a minor in History from Regent University in 2017. During his time as an undergraduate, he worked for several political institutions that promoted conservative political causes, including the National Right to Work Committee and the Leadership Institute. After the completion of his degree, he served as a Fellow for a semester at the John Jay Institute, where he studied many of the greatest books of Western civilization within the context of a Christian community. In 2018, he matriculated into Hillsdale College’s Ph.D. program and began his graduate studies of American Government and Political Theory. He is currently in the process of completing his doctoral dissertation.
Arnold specializes in the study of American Government, the American political tradition, and American political history. One special interest for him is the political thought of the Progressive Era. He has sought to explore the beliefs and ideas of key Constitutional Conservative leaders who resisted the Progressives. Consequently, his doctoral dissertation focuses on the Constitutional Nationalism of the conservative Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, while his first scholarly journal article explored the political philosophy of President Calvin Coolidge. His other major scholarly interests include the relationship between religion and politics, the division between ancient and modern political philosophy, and political ideologies. He has written on Jonathan Edwards, James Madison, Augustine, Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Nietzsche, and other critical thinkers in the Western heritage. As a Professor at Colorado Christian University, he believes that he has a duty to bring the history of ideas to life and he hopes to inspire his students with the same passion for truth that his teachers helped instill in him.
Publications
- "Calvin Coolidge: Classical Statesman," Humanitas Journal, Vol. XXXII, Nos. 1 and 2 (2019).
- “Massachusetts Values and the Filibuster: A Short History,” Law & Liberty (April 2021).
https://lawliberty.org/what-massachusetts-senators-used-to-think-of-the-filibuster/ - “The Original Anti-Christian Nationalist,” The American Reformer (September 2022)
https://americanreformer.org/2022/09/the-original-anti-christian-nationalist/ - “Farewell to Roe,” The American Reformer (June 2022)
https://americanreformer.org/2022/06/farewell-to-roe/ - “Finding Unity in the Diversity: Aristotle’s Theory of Civil Harmony,” Voegelin View (October 2021)
https://voegelinview.com/finding-unity-in-the-diversity-aristotles-theory-of-civil-harmony/ - “Marcus Tullius Cicero and the Harmony Between Politics and Philosophy,” Voegelin View (July 2021)
https://voegelinview.com/marcus-tullius-cicero-and-the-harmony-between-politics-and-philosophy/ - “Rousseau’s and Kant’s Competing Interpretations of the Enlightenment,” Voegelin View (December 9, 2020). https://voegelinview.com/rousseau-and-kants-competing-interpretations-of-the-enlightenment/
Faith and Learning
As Christians, we know that the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves are so closely connected that we cannot enjoy one without the other. Similarly, in politics, we recognize that learning apart from faith is not enough. The grossest tyrannies in history have often been forged by educated intellectuals, men such as Marx and Lenin, who aspired to organize a scientific society bereft of any recognition of human fallenness or depravity. Christians, conversely, recognize that because humans are sinners, utopian political schemes will never succeed. We seek a good life, but never ignore its religious prerequisites. The efficacy of a Christian education flows from our understanding that reason and faith are not separate entities, but that they complete one another. A Christian education better equips us to serve our fellow man and the God who made us to share in political life with one another.