He is a Senior Fellow at The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity (CBHD) in Deerfield, Illinois, where he served as founding director until Fall 2005.

At the end of high school, Kilner[3][4] won the Illinois State Debate Championship and the United States National Debate Championship with his partner Robert Biederman, representing New Trier East High School in Winnetka, Illinois.

[4] In 1996 he was promoted at Trinity to full professor, and in 1999 was awarded its Franklin and Dorothy Forman endowed chair in ethics and theology.

[6] In 2005 he became its Director of Bioethics Programs, providing academic direction for Masters-level degree initiatives in North America, Asia, and Africa.

The study investigated the effect of exposure to Western values (through the educational system) on what people consider to be ethical approaches to resource allocation.

[18] Later, as Director of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, Kilner oversaw the development of a research project on ethical and religious perspectives on emerging biotechnologies.

[19] Upon moving to his position as Director of Bioethics Programs for Trinity International University, Kilner obtained a grant from the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning (Indiana) for a research project on “The Pedagogical Challenges of Engaging Bioethical Issues across the Theological Curriculum.”[20] He assembled a team of faculty from each departments at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School to study bioethical challenges and to develop teaching strategies for how their departments could prepare students.

[23] A similar volume co-edited by Kilner and cardiologist Jay Hollman outside this series is entitled Medical Ethics.

[4] He was selected to write the sections on human dignity, on macroallocation of healthcare resources, and on microallocation of healthcare resources for the Encyclopedia of Bioethics (published by Macmillan);[25] and the section addressing the issue of stem cell research for The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity.