Drumwright Family Lecture Series Will Host Distinguished Scholars

Media Contact: Lori Fogleman, 254-710-6275
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by Jessie Jilovec, student newswriter

WACO, Texas (Oct. 1, 2018) – People are currently living in a time scholars identify as a “secular age.”

Douglas Henry, Ph.D., acting dean of Baylor University’s Honors College and associate professor of philosophy, said “secular” can have various meanings all rooted in a loss of religious vitality. In secular times, religious people encounter hostility and persecution yet also may find opportunities presented by secularity, he said.

Baylor’s Honors College and Honors Residential College will host the annual endowed Drumwright Family Lecture Series at 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 4, in the Alexander Hall Reading Room, 1413 S. Seventh St. Henry said this lecture will bring two scholars to Baylor to discuss current issues in secularism.

“A secular age brings the opportunity to deepen convictions tried against the challenges of the time, as gold refined by fire according to scripture,” Henry said. “It offers the opportunity to bear witness to the answers faith offers to life’s perennial questions.”

Robert P. George, Ph.D., McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Founding Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, will speak alongside Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, president of Zaytuna College in Berkley, California. They will present “The Challenge of Secularism: A Christian-Muslim Dialogue” and bring two vantage points on the same issue, one from a Christian perspective and one from an Islamic perspective.

George is a visiting professor at Harvard Law School. He serves as the vice chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and as a presidential appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Additionally, he has served on the President’s Council on Bioethics and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Commission on the Ethics of Science and Technology. He was also a Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States.

George has received numerous awards including the U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal and is the general editor of New Forum Books, a Princeton University Press series of interdisciplinary works in law, culture and politics. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has had numerous articles and review essays appear in various publications.

In addition to his role as president, Yusuf is a senior faculty member at Zaytuna College, America’s first accredited Muslim liberal arts college. He is an advisor to the Center for Islamic Studies at Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union, serves as vice president for the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies (Abu Dhabi) and is a part of the Emirates Fatwa Council.

Yusuf is the author of several books and scholarly articles, while also translating major Islamic texts into English. He recently was ranked as “the Western world’s most influential Islamic scholar” by “The Muslim 500.” Yusuf has studied Arabic and the Islamic sciences for over 40 years with leading scholars of the Muslim world.

The event is open to the public and will be immediately followed by a reception for all attendees, also in the Alexander Hall Reading Room. For more information, email Douglas Henry at Douglas_Henry@baylor.edu>.

ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked research institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 17,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 80 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions.