Alan Brownstein to deliver 2015 Shurden Lectures in Atlanta and Macon, Georgia

March 24, 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Cherilyn Crowe | Phone: 202-544-4226 | Cell: 202-670-5877| [email protected]

Nationally-recognized constitutional law scholar Alan Brownstein will speak at Mercer University in Atlanta and Macon, Georgia, on religious liberty and equality, respectful discourse and recent Supreme Court decisions for the 2015 Walter B. and Kay W. Shurden Lectures on Religious Liberty and Separation of Church and State.

The lectures are sponsored by the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and Mercer University. All of the presentations are free and open to the public.

Brownstein, professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis, School of Law, will present three lectures April 7-8 for the event. The April 7 lecture will be on Mercer’s Atlanta campus; the two lectures April 8 will be on the Macon campus.

While the primary focus of Brownstein’s scholarship relates to church-state issues, he has written extensively on many constitutional law subjects. His assistance is often sought by advocacy groups on issues relating to religious liberty and equality.

On April 7 at 4 p.m., Brownstein will deliver a lecture titled “Engaging in Respectful Discourse about Religion and Equality” in the Atlanta Administration and Conference Center on Mercer University’s Cecil B. Day Graduate and Professional Campus in Atlanta. The Mercer University McAfee School of Theology will host the lecture.

On April 8, the lectures will be on Mercer University’s Macon, Georgia, campus. At 10 a.m., Brownstein will discuss “The Multi-Dimensional Nature of Church-State Controversies” in the Mercer Medical School Auditorium, hosted by the Roberts Department of Christianity of Mercer University.

Later that day at 3:30 p.m., Brownstein will focus on two recent Supreme Court religious liberty decisions in a lecture titled “Liberty and Equality Values in the Hobby Lobby and Town of Greece Decisions” in the Mercer Law School’s First Floor Courtroom. The lecture is sponsored by Mercer University’s Walter F. George School of Law.

In 2004, the Shurdens of Macon, Ga., made a gift to the Baptist Joint Committee in Washington, D.C., to establish the annual lectureship. Designed to enhance the ministry and programs of the Baptist Joint Committee, the lectures are held at Mercer University every three years and at another seminary, college or university the other years.

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, a retired professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Mercer University School of Medicine, is a noted author and maintains a practice in counseling and supervision.

The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty is a 79-year-old religious liberty organization dedicated to defending and extending religious liberty for all, bringing a uniquely Baptist witness to the principle that religion must be freely exercised, neither advanced nor inhibited by government. It serves 15 Baptist bodies and works with a wide range of religious groups, and it is the only religious agency devoted solely to religious liberty and the separation of church and state.

For more information on the Shurden Lectures, visit www.BJConline.org/lectures.

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