Baylor Professor to Lecture on God After the Holocaust

by Jaime Bates, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805
Dr. Marc Ellis, University Professor of Jewish Studies at Baylor University, will lecture on "The Holocaust: What Can We Say About God - After" from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday, March 25, in the Paul Powell Chapel of the George W. Truett Theological Seminary on the Baylor campus. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is part of the University and Distinguished Professors Lecture Series and is sponsored by the Office of the Provost.
Ellis earned his both his bachelor's and master's degrees in Religion and American Studies from Florida State University. He received his doctorate in contemporary American social and religious thought from Marquette University in 1980. Shortly after he became the founding director for the master's program at Maryknoll School of Theology's and the Maryknoll Institute for Justice and Peace in New York. He was a senior fellow at Harvard's Center for the Study of World Religions and a visiting scholar at Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He became a professor of American and Jewish studies at Baylor in 1998 and became a University Professor the following year.
Ellis has written 15 books and edited five others. His book, Toward a Jewish Theology of Liberation, is now in its third edition and has been translated into Dutch, German and Spanish. Another book, Out of the Ashes: The Search for Jewish Identity in the Twenty-first Century was translated and published in Chinese.
In January 2008, Ellis was elected to the board of the Society of Jewish Ethics. Last May, he also traveled to Korea to speak at the 2008 Global Forum on Peace and Civilization sponsored by the Academy of Korean Studies. Ellis has been inducted into the Martin Luther King Collegium of Scholars at Morehouse College, and was honored at the 2000 national convention of the American Academy of Religion with an entire session devoted to the discussion of his work.
The University and Distinguished Lecture Series was started in 2007 and is held each semester with the intent of making university and distinguished professors available for conversation with the students, faculty and Waco citizens. The professors lecture on topics that relate to their work and expertise.
"The lecture will discuss the Jewish reflection on the presence of God, or lack there of, after the Holocaust, said Ellis. "As a Jew born shortly after the holocaust, this lecture is an important reflection on Judaism and my life."
"This lecture will be very informative and give students and the public the great opportunity to learn about Dr. Ellis' work," said Carol McCulloch, assistant to the executive vice president.
For more information on the lecture, please contact McCulloch at (254) 710-7803.