LIBRARY
Shurden Lectures
The annual Shurden Lectures travel 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 Shurden Lectures are held at Mercer University in Georgia every three years and at another seminary, college or university in the intermediate years.
2019 Lecture Features
On March 27, 2019, Rev. Dr. Aidsand Wright-Riggins gave this presentation on the campus of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Shawnee, Kansas.
Aidsand Wright-Riggins and Amanda Tyler on Race, religious liberty and reconciliation
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 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
2018, March 20-21
Lecturer: Charles C. Haynes, founding director of the Religious Freedom Center of the Freedom Forum Institute
Location: Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and Mercer’s McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta
Follow Your Conscience and Raise Your Voice (Report from the Capital, March/April 2018)
Liberty of Conscience and the Future of American Democracy (Video)
Standing up for Justice and Freedom in an Age of Conflict and Division (Video)
From Battleground to Common Ground: A First Amendment Vision for Religious Liberty in Public Life (Video)
Charles Haynes previews the 2018 Shurden Lectures (Podcast)
2017, March 27-28
Lecturer: Holly Hollman, general counsel and associate executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee
Location: Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina
