08264
April 7, 2008

Seminary news

by Toya Richards Hill
Presbyterian News Service

AUSTIN, TX – Lawrence Sager, dean of the University of Texas School of Law, will speak about religious freedom at the thirteenth annual George. S. Heyer Jr. lecture at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. The April 30 event in the seminary’s Shelton Chapel is free and open to the public. Sager is the author of a new book, Religious Freedom and the Constitution. He holds the John Jeffers Research Chair in Law and the Alice Jane Drysdale Sheffield Regents Chair at the University of Texas School of Law. The George S. Heyer Jr. Distinguished Lectureship was established to honor George Heyer, professor emeritus of the history of doctrine, for his 30 years as a member of the Austin seminary faculty.

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DECATUR, GA – Columbia Theological Seminary held a “ground-blessing” April 1 at the site of a new $9.6 million student residence hall. The ground-blessing included the dedication of a collection of prayers sent by students, alumni, faculty and staff for placement in the new building’s foundation. The building is expected to be one of the first in Decatur, GA, to earn LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. The residence hall will include studio and one-, two- and four-bedroom apartment units, a recreation-workout area accessible to the entire student body, a community kitchen with indoor and outdoor seating and fireplaces, a laundry area for residents, and mechanical and facilities support spaces. The building is expected to use about 50 percent less energy than a conventionally constructed facility.

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LOUISVILLE – Yale scholar Margaret Farley, winner of the 2008 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion, will speak at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary on April 16. Her lecture will focus on her book,Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics. The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place in the seminary’s Frank H. and Fannie W. Caldwell Chapel.

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PITTSBURGH, PA – Pittsburgh Theological Seminary will hold its annual April lectureships April 24-25. The first will be the Albright-Deering Lectures in Methodist Studies. Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, professor emerita at the Claremont School of Theology, will present two lectures on the theme “A Plain Account of a Plain Account (of Christian Perfection).” The J. Hubert Henderson Conference on Church and Ministry will follow on April 25. J. Wentzel van Huyssteen, James I. McCord professor of theology and science at Princeton seminary, will present two lectures and a chapel talk on the theme “Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology.” The events are free and open to the public. For more information, call (412) 441-3304, ext. 2196, or visit http://www.pts.edu/conted9.html.

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PRINCETON, NJ – Peter Paris, Elmer G. Homrighausen Professor of Christian Social Ethics Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary, will give the seminary’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture on April 7 in Miller Chapel. The lecture is titled “Moral Theatre in the Streets: The Role of Suffering in the Quest for Social Justice.” Paris joined the seminary faculty in 1985, and prior to that he taught at Vanderbilt University Divinity School and Howard University School of Divinity. He has published Black Religious Leaders: Unity in Diversity, The Social Teaching of the Black Churches and The Spirituality of African Peoples: The Search for a Common Moral Discourse. For more information about the lecture, call (609) 497-7760.

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