Born and raised in a Pennsylvania coal-mining town to Dutch immigrant parents, Rev. Peter C. de Vries studied at Penn State University and Princeton Theological Seminary. While working as a full-time pastor, he earned a Ph.D. in Religious Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, with a focus on the theory of Biblical interpretation. He has taught New Testament exegesis at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, trains church leaders in Ghana, and has held regional and national leadership positions in the Presbyterian Church. He has been a Presbyterian pastor for over thirty years, having devoted over twenty-five of those years to a single congregation in rural southwestern Pennsylvania.
