David P. Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics and the director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University, Macon, Georgia, will deliver the annual Marjorie Hall Thulin Lecture in Religion on Wednesday, March 6, at 7:30 p.m., in Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum of World Cultures, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana.
David P. Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics and the director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University, Macon, Georgia.
The lecture, sponsored by the department of religion at Illinois and titled “From Wilberforce to Malala: Assessing the Religious and Ethical Journeys of Transformative Leaders,” is free and open to the public.
One of the world’s leading Christian ethicists, Gushee is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of 24 books. His latest book, “Moral Leadership for a Divided Age: Fourteen People Who Dared to Change Our World,” was published in October.
His other notable books include “Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust,” “Kingdom Ethics,” “The Sacredness of Human Life,” “Evangelical Ethics,” “Letter to My Anxious Christian Friends” and “Still Christian.”
In his lecture, Gushee will introduce the life stories of 14 transformational leaders in world history, including such notables as William Wilberforce, Harriet Tubman, Mahatma Gandhi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr.
The lecture describes the reasons for Gushee’s interest in researching these leaders, the role that the study of moral exemplars has in the teaching of ethics and the personal impact of these leaders in Gushee’s work. The lecture closes by exploring how moral leaders sustained their work despite intense criticism and threats.
Gushee earned a bachelor’s degree from the College of William & Mary; a Master of Divinity from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; and a Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy from the Union Theological Seminary in New York.
Marjorie Hall Thulin (1910-2009), for whom the annual lecture is named, was a 1931 graduate of the University of Illinois. She enjoyed a successful career in advertising and published poetry and children’s literature, in addition to editing a book on the history of Glencoe, Illinois. Each year, her endowment brings an internationally known scholar of religion and contemporary culture to the Champaign-Urbana campus for several days.
A reception in Spurlock Museum will follow the lecture.
