Visiting History Professor to Speak About the Future of Christian Marriage

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Media contact: Terry Goodrich, (254) 710-3321
WACO, Texas (Jan. 27, 2015) – What defines a Christian marriage?
According to A.G. Roeber, Ph.D., professor of early modern history and religious studies at Pennsylvania State University, the answer goes deeper than “with God as my witness.”
Hosted by Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion, Roeber will present his lecture, “The Future of Christian Marriage: Lessons from the Protestant Pietist Experience” at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 29, in the Cox Lecture Hall inside Armstrong Browning Library.
“He’s an internationally known historian,” said Philip Jenkins, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of History in Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion. “What’s unusual about him is that he concentrates on a global perspective to really understand changing Christian ideas about marriage through the centuries.”
Roeber will summarize the argument of his recently published book, “Hopes for Better Spouses: Protestant Marriage and Church Renewal in Early Modern Europe, India and North America.” Within his book, Roeber reconstructed a series of internal debates among Protestants on three continents on how to define marriage in its relationship between political authority and various understandings of the Church.
“It’s an important idea because Christians today are talking about what Christian marriage means,” Jenkins said.
In addition to being the author of various publications, including the upcoming “Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theology,” Roeber is an Orthodox priest of the Antiochian Christian Archdiocese of North America.
The lecture is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
Armstrong Browning Library is located at 710 Speight Ave. in Waco.
For more information or to register, visit BaylorISR.org , or call 254-710-7555
by Sarah Czerwinski, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805
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Launched in August 2004, the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR) exists to initiate, support and conduct research on religion, involving scholars and projects spanning the intellectual spectrum: history, psychology, sociology, economics, anthropology, political science, epidemiology, theology and religious studies. The institute's mandate extends to all religions, everywhere, and throughout history, and embraces the study of religious effects on prosocial behavior, family life, population health, economic development and social conflict. While always striving for appropriate scientific objectivity, ISR scholars treat religion with the respect that sacred matters require and deserve. For more information, visit www.baylorisr.org