Walter B. and Kay W. Shurden Lectures
Religious freedom and civil rights belong to the same unfinished American story. Join us on the campus of Wake Forest University this October to hear more from Maya Wiley and others for our annual Walter B. and Kay W. Shurden Lectures on Religious Liberty and Separation of Church and State. Our focus is the intersection of race, religion, civil rights, and religious liberty in American law.
2026 Shurden Lectures
Faith and Freedom at 250: Religious Liberty, Justice, and the Unfinished Work of Democracy
American law has too often treated church-state questions and civil rights as separate. The 2026 Shurden Lectures bring these histories into conversation to examine what that separation has obscured —and how a fuller understanding of the past can strengthen freedom for all.
Join us on the campus of Wake Forest University on Oct. 21-22 to hear from Maya Wiley, a nationally respected civil rights attorney and activist who has dedicated her life to the fights for justice, equality, and fairness. She’ll deliver a lecture on the first day, and then she will participate in a panel discussion on day two. The events are free and open to the public, but we ask that you register.
2026 Schedule
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LECTURE
Oct. 21 at 5 p.m.
Maya Wiley delivers the 2026 Shurden Lecture, examining the disconnect between church-state law and civil rights law and what that separation has meant for religious freedom and racial justice in America. The lecture will be followed by a moderated question-and-answer session.
Location: Porter Byrum Welcome Center, Kulynych Auditorium
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PUBLIC CONVERSATION
Oct. 22 at 11 a.m.
Maya Wiley will join Audra Savage and Amanda Tyler for a conversation about the intersection of race, religion, civil rights and religious liberty in American law. Moderated by Dr. Corey D. B. Walker, the discussion will examine how courts use history and tradition—and how a more inclusive understanding of both could strengthen civil rights and religious freedom.
Location: Worrell Professional Center, Law School Auditorium
Meet our Lecturer
Maya Wiley
Maya Wiley is the president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund. A nationally respected civil rights attorney, she has been a litigator and a program creator and policy advocate in philanthropy, non-profits, government, and higher education.
In 2014, she became the first Black woman to be Counsel to a New York City Mayor, Bill deBlasio, where she worked to protect and expand civil rights, Minority and Women-Owned Business contracts and broadband access. Wiley became a Senior Vice President for Social Justice at the New School University, where she also founded the Digital Equity Laboratory.
Wiley has been a litigator at the ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Inc, and the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. She has received numerous awards, and has been a public voice for rights, justice and democracy, through written opinion editorials and as a former legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.
Meet our Panelists
Our Oct. 22 event is a public conversation, featuring Maya Wiley alongside BJC Executive Director Amanda Tyler and Wake Forest Law Professor Audra Savage. Dr. Corey D. B. Walker will moderate the conversation.
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Audra Savage
Audra Lyn Savage uses the lenses of critical race theory and legal history to analyze issues of justice at the intersection of law, religion, and race. She teaches courses on business organizations, freedom of religion and race and the law. Professor Savage’s award-winning scholarship has been widely published.
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Amanda Tyler
Amanda Tyler is executive director of BJC (Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty), leading the organization as it upholds the historic Baptist principle of religious liberty: defending the free exercise of religion and protecting against its establishment by government. She is the author of How to End Christian Nationalism.
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Corey D. B. Walker
Corey D. B. Walker is an acclaimed scholar, academic leader, and public intellectual committed to a broad and inclusive vision of human flourishing. He serves as Dean of Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Wake Forest Professor of the Humanities, and Inaugural Director of the Program in African American and African Studies.
Thank you to Wake Forest University School of Divinity for partnering with us on the 2026 Walter B. and Kay W. Shurden Lectures on Religious Liberty and Separation of Church and State.
Questions about this year’s event? Need additional details? Let us know.
We hope to see you in Winston-Salem on October 21-22!
History
History of the Shurden Lectures
In 2004, Dr. Walter B. Shurden and Dr. Kay W. Shurden of Macon, Georgia, made a gift to BJC to establish an annual lectureship on the issues of religious liberty and the separation of church and state. The annual event travels to campuses across the country, bringing a speaker to engage with the community and inspire students to stand up for religious freedom for all people. Designed to enhance the ministry and programs of BJC, the Lectures are held at Mercer University in Georgia every three years and at another seminary, college or university in the intermediate years.
The lecturers may be academicians, politicians, ministers, church historians, ethicists or activists. Above all, the Shurden Lecturer is someone who can inspire and call others to an ardent commitment to religious freedom and the separation of church and state.
Who are Walter and Kay Shurden?
A nationally noted church historian, Dr. Walter B. Shurden is the founding executive director of the Center for Baptist Studies and a minister at large for Mercer University. Shurden served at Mercer for almost 25 years as Callaway Professor of Christianity in the Roberts Department of Christianity in the College of Liberal Arts. During 18 of those years, he served as Chair of the Roberts Department of Christianity. Dr. Kay W. Shurden retired after serving for 17 years as a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Mercer University School of Medicine. An admired teacher, conference leader, mentor and church leader, she is an author and was a marriage and family therapist in Middle Georgia.
Lecture Archives
Lecture Archives
2025, Oct. 21-23
The 2025 event was in St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minn., featuring Dr. Sergio M. González.
A historian of U.S. immigration, labor and religion, Dr. González teaches at Marquette University and is a co-founder and former organizer for the Dane Sanctuary Coalition. He is the author of Strangers No Longer: Latino Belonging and Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin (University of Illinois Press) and Mexicans in Wisconsin (Wisconsin Historical Society Press).
For those interested in this topic, Dr. González recommends these resources:
- Brad Christensen, Alexia Salvatierra, Roberto Chao Romero, and Nancy Wang Yuen, God’s Resistance
- Leo Guardado, Church as Sanctuary
- Gina Perez, Sanctuary People
- Jonathan Blizter, Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here
Lecture Archives
20th Annual Shurden Lectures: Nov. 13-14, 2024
Lecturer: Dr. John Compton, a professor of political science and chair of the political science department at Chapman University in Orange, Calif.
Location: Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta
Click here to read a recap of the lectures.
Watch the lectures online:
Lecture 1: Democratic Values in a Secular Age
Lecture 2: Secularization and the Rise of Political Extremism
Lecture 3: Secularization and the Fracturing of the American Left, featuring responses from the Rev. Dr. David Gushee and the Rev. Dr. Angela Parker.
Lecture 3 and the responses are also available as a podcast
Lecture Archives
2024, April 2
Symposium Panelists: Rev. Dr. Joseph Evans, J. Alfred Smith, Sr. Endowed Professor and Chair of Theology in the Public Square and Director of the Center for Truth, Racial Healing and Restorative Justice Center at the Berkeley School of Theology; and Rev. Dr. Christopher The, director of student research and initiative management for the Association of Theological Schools
Moderator: Rev. Dr. Najuma Smith-Pollard, assistant director of community and public engagement with the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture
Location: University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Calif.
Recap from Baptist News Global: MAGA equals authoritarianism, professor says in Shurden Lectures
Podcast: Race, religion and citizenship
Lecture Archives
2023, May 31
Lecturer: Dr. Catherine Brekus, the Charles Warren Professor of the History of Religion in America at Harvard Divinity School
Location: Old North Church in Boston
The myth of American ‘chosenness’ (Article in BJC magazine)
Watch the presentation on YouTube
Listen to the lecture as a podcast
Listen to the panel discussion as a podcast
Lecture Archives
2025, Oct. 21-23
The 2025 event was in St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minn., featuring Dr. Sergio M. González.
A historian of U.S. immigration, labor and religion, Dr. González teaches at Marquette University and is a co-founder and former organizer for the Dane Sanctuary Coalition. He is the author of Strangers No Longer: Latino Belonging and Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin (University of Illinois Press) and Mexicans in Wisconsin (Wisconsin Historical Society Press).
For those interested in this topic, Dr. González recommends these resources:
- Brad Christensen, Alexia Salvatierra, Roberto Chao Romero, and Nancy Wang Yuen, God’s Resistance
- Leo Guardado, Church as Sanctuary
- Gina Perez, Sanctuary People
- Jonathan Blizter, Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here
Lecture Archives
20th Annual Shurden Lectures: Nov. 13-14, 2024
Lecturer: Dr. John Compton, a professor of political science and chair of the political science department at Chapman University in Orange, Calif.
Location: Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta
Click here to read a recap of the lectures.
Watch the lectures online:
Lecture 1: Democratic Values in a Secular Age
Lecture 2: Secularization and the Rise of Political Extremism
Lecture 3: Secularization and the Fracturing of the American Left, featuring responses from the Rev. Dr. David Gushee and the Rev. Dr. Angela Parker.
Lecture 3 and the responses are also available as a podcast
Lecture Archives
2024, April 2
Symposium Panelists: Rev. Dr. Joseph Evans, J. Alfred Smith, Sr. Endowed Professor and Chair of Theology in the Public Square and Director of the Center for Truth, Racial Healing and Restorative Justice Center at the Berkeley School of Theology; and Rev. Dr. Christopher The, director of student research and initiative management for the Association of Theological Schools
Moderator: Rev. Dr. Najuma Smith-Pollard, assistant director of community and public engagement with the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture
Location: University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Calif.
Recap from Baptist News Global: MAGA equals authoritarianism, professor says in Shurden Lectures
Podcast: Race, religion and citizenship
Lecture Archives
2023, May 31
Lecturer: Dr. Catherine Brekus, the Charles Warren Professor of the History of Religion in America at Harvard Divinity School
Location: Old North Church in Boston
The myth of American ‘chosenness’ (Article in BJC magazine)
Watch the presentation on YouTube
Listen to the lecture as a podcast
Listen to the panel discussion as a podcast
Looking for More?
Contact us if you have questions about the Walter B. and Kay W. Shurden Lectures on Religious Liberty and Separation of Church and State. We’ve been coming to college campuses with this annual event for more than 20 years.
