Dr. Jefrey Breshears

Founder & President of The Areopagus | Historian | Apologist | Author | Former University Professor

Dr. Jefrey Breshears founded The Areopagus in 2003 with a conviction shaped by nearly two decades in the university classroom: that the Christian faith is not only defensible but compelling — and that most believers have never been equipped to say so. What began as an itinerant teaching ministry in Atlanta-area churches has grown into one of the Southeast’s most distinctive Christian education ministries, offering rigorous, culturally engaged apologetics to students, scholars, and skeptics alike.

The path to founding The Areopagus was anything but conventional. Dr. Breshears attended Jacksonville State University on a baseball scholarship, and after graduating in the early 1970s spent two years at Capitol Records in Atlanta before becoming the Southeastern regional representative for the companies producing most of the era’s ‘Jesus Music’ — the movement that brought a generation of countercultural seekers into the Christian faith. It was a front-row seat to one of the most remarkable spiritual awakenings in American history, and it formed in him both an evangelist’s heart and a cultural critic’s eye.

In the early 1980s he co-founded and edited Crossroads: An Atlanta Christian Forum, a monthly publication addressing religious issues and events across metro-Atlanta, while simultaneously enrolling in the doctoral program at Georgia State University to prepare for a career as a history professor. Following completion of his doctoral studies, he taught for eighteen years at Georgia State University, Kennesaw State University, and Reformed Theological Seminary — offering courses in Church History; Ancient History, Philosophy and Religion; U.S. History; American Political Philosophy; and an original course he developed entitled American History Off the Record: How Popular Music Echoes American History in the 20th Century.

In the early 1990s, the scholar became a pastor. Dr. Breshears planted and led the Marietta Community Church, a nondenominational house church that later gathered for worship at MUST Ministries — a local homeless shelter. The experience grounded his intellectual ministry in the pastoral realities of ordinary Christian life and confirmed his conviction that serious theology is not the exclusive property of the academy. When he left Georgia State in 2001, it was to give himself fully to the ministry that would become The Areopagus.

The intellectual formation behind The Areopagus reflects a scholar who reads across traditions with rare breadth and insight. The writings of C.S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer — particularly Schaeffer’s insistence that Christianity is ‘True Truth,’ a coherent and complete account of reality — have been foundational to his approach. He has also drawn deeply from the contemplative Christian tradition, from the Jesus Movement of the early seventies, from the Berkeley Christian Coalition and Radix magazine, and from a wide range of historical, theological, and cultural writers.

Among the books that most impacted his life were:

• The Early Church by Gene Edwards
• The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• The Reformers and Their Stepchildren by William Estep
• How Should We Then Live? by Francis Schaeffer
• Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ron Sider
• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
• The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck

In more recent years he has enjoyed revisiting and teaching on the works of Francis Schaeffer and C.S. Lewis, along with:

• How Now Shall We Live? by Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey
• Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey
• The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher
• Letter to the American Church by Eric Metaxas

Published Works:

• Introduction to Bibliology: What Every Christian Should Know About the Origins, Composition, Inspiration, Interpretation, Canonization, and Transmission of the Bible Through the Centuries
• The Case for Christian Apologetics
• Francis Schaeffer: A Retrospective on His Life & Legacy
• C.S. Lewis on Politics, Government, and the Good Society
• American Crisis: Cultural Marxism and the Culture War — A Christian Response
• Why Study Christian History: The Value of Knowing the Past

For more than twenty years The Areopagus has served churches, schools, and communities across metro-Atlanta with seminars, forums, and courses in Christian history, apologetics, bibliology, and contemporary cultural engagement. Dr. Breshears remains its primary teacher and the animating intellectual force behind its curriculum.

He is deeply grateful for his wife Dollie — his faithful soul-mate through every chapter of the journey — and for his parents, Edd and Lucille Breshears, whose lives and faith were among the most formative influences of his life. He counts it a privilege to serve alongside the Areopagus board, faculty, and the many Christians across the city who have made this ministry their own.