Church-State Studies To Hold Lecture April 1

Dr. James E.Wood Jr., former director of Baylor University's J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, will deliver the first Hugh and Beverly Wamble Lectureship on Religious Liberty at 3 p.m. Thursday, April 1, in the church-state research center in Carroll Library. Wood's lecture, "Religious Human Rights and A Democratic State," is free and open to the public.
Wood, who served as the first director of the Dawson Institute, has authored 15 books and contributed to 25 other volumes in the field of church-state relations. He is the author of an additional 200 articles in various journals and has lectured on church-state relations and religious liberty at more than 50 colleges and universities in the United States and in 16 other nations. He has served on numerous national and international human rights and religious liberty organizations and has been recognized for his tireless efforts to educate and to provide clarity and intelligence in the ongoing debate to preserve and promote religious freedom. Additionally, from 1973 to 1980, Wood served as the director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Hugh Wamble taught church history at the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Missouri from 1959 until his death in 1991 and was passionately devoted to the Baptist principle of religious liberty. He represented the Missouri Baptist Convention in legislative matters from 1967 to 1975 and was an acknowledged expert on the constitutionality of "parochiaid," government aid to religious schools. He was the author of The Shape of Faith, Baptists, Bible and Authority, Glossalalia in Christian History and Through Trial to Triumph.
In 1997, at the request of Beverly Wamble, the Dawson Institute received a generous donation to establish the G. Hugh Wamble and Beverly C. Wamble Fund for Religious Liberty. In addition, the Institute received Dr. Wamble's extensive collection of theological and historical research, as well as his private papers and archives, which will be used to educate future generations of students.
For more information, call 710-1510.