SMU Theology Dean To Deliver Willson-Addis Lecture Feb. 10
Dr. Robin W. Lovin, dean and professor of ethics at Southern Methodist University's Perkins School of Theology, will present the fourth annual Willson-Addis Lecture at 4 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 10, in Meadows Recital Hall in the Glennis McCrary Music Building on the Baylor University campus. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by Baylor's George W. Truett Theological Seminary.
Lovin, an ordained elder of The United Methodist Church and a member of the North Texas Annual Conference, will speak on "Learned Ministry in a New Century."
"I think that the relationship between practical pastoral skills and the older images of learned ministry is one of the more interesting contemporary tensions in our work," Lovin said.
Lovin joined the SMU faculty in 1994, after serving as dean of the Theological School of Drew University in Madison, N.J., from 1991 to 1994. His teaching career includes positions as an instructor at Candler School of Theology at Emory University and 13 years as a faculty member at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. Lovin holds a B.A. from Northwestern University and earned his doctorate at Harvard University.
He was president of the Society of Christian Ethics for 1999-2000 and serves as vice president of the Association of United Methodist Theological Schools. He recently completed Christian Ethics: An Essential Guide, a book to be published in late spring by Abingdon Press.
His writings also include two studies of 20th century Christian social ethics --Christian Faith and Public Choices: The Social Ethics of Barth, Brunner, and Bonhoeffer (1984) and Reinhold Nieburh and Christian Realism (1994). Lovin also has written extensively on religion and law and comparative religious ethics.
Designed to examine practical Christianity from any branch of the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Willson-Addis Endowed Lectures were created in 1964 by a gift from Mr. and Mrs. James McCorry Willson of Floydada, Texas. The Willsons were active Methodist laypersons, involved in many areas of denominational, educational and social service. The lectures were
named in honor of the couple's daughter, Ora Eugenia Willson Addis.
Until 1997, the lecture was presented through Baptist Student Ministries and administered through the Baylor University Student Life Division. Truett Seminary, with its curricular emphases on practical Christianity, then became the permanent custodian and sponsor of the annual lecture.
For more information, call Truett Seminary at (254) 710-3755.