In the News ... "Hardin-Simmons, McMurry spring into lecture series"

• Going on this week in Abilene

By Loretta Fulton, Reporter
• Abilene Reporter-News

ABILENE, TEXAS - Hardin-Simmons and McMurry universities next week will be hosts of lecture series, both of which are free and open to the public.

The T.B. Maston Lectures in Christian Ethics will be Monday evening and Tuesday at Hardin-Simmons. The Sikes-Melugin Lectures will be Thursday at McMurry.

T.B. Maston Lectures in Christian Ethics

Brian Bantum, associate professor of theology at Seattle Pacific University, will be featured speaker for the Maston lectures. The first is at 7 p.m. Monday in Logsdon Chapel on the HSU campus. A reception will follow. The second lecture will begin at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday in Behrens Chapel, also on the HSU campus.

Overall theme is “Christianity & Race.” Bantum writes and teaches on the intersections of theology and embodiment, particularly on questions of race and identity. He is a regular contributor to Christian Century and has published two books.

Sikes-Melugin Lecture

Guest lecturer for this year’s Sikes-Melugin Lecture at McMurry University is Kenda Creasy Dean, professor of youth, church, and culture at Princeton Theological Seminary. She will speak at 3:30 and 8 p.m. Thursday at Matthews Auditorium in McMurry’s Old Main.

Dean is an ordained United Methodist pastor in the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference. Dean is the author of numerous books on youth, church and culture, including her latest, “Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church. Dean also is project director and senior strategist for The Zoe Project, an Lilly Endowment initiative designed to foster innovation in congregations around young adults.