Episcopal Divinity School announces 2007-2008 series lecturers

Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) in Cambridge, Massachusetts has confirmed the Rev. Dr. Harold Lewis, Attorney Charles Walker, Jr., and the Rev. Professor Marilyn McCord Adams as speakers for their 2007-2008 lecture series.

Walker, a labor and employment lawyer specializing as an employment discrimination consultant and workforce development trainer, will speak at the 2007 Jonathan Daniels lecture on November 15.

The Jonathan Daniels lecture was named for the 26-year-old Episcopal seminarian and civil rights worker who answered the call of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to help register African-American voters in Alabama, only to be shot and killed months later, on August 20, 1965, while shielding a then 16-year-old Ruby Sales from the shotgun fired as she attempted to enter a store to buy something to drink.

Walker teaches classes on race, law and social policy at Boston College and Tufts University. He is the former executive director of the Boston Chapter of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law. Walker appears and provides commentary for local and national television and radio broadcasts. He is also the author of several articles on the history of blacks, and black lawyers practicing before the Massachusetts courts.

Lewis, rector of Calvary Episcopal Church, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, will deliver the 2008 Absalom Jones Lecture February 13-14.

The Absalom Jones lecture was named for the first black priest in the Episcopal Church. The church sets aside a day of devotion annually during the week of February 13 (Jones died on February 13, 1818) to commemorate his work. EDS celebrates Jones’ legacy every year since 1986 to help support the Absalom Jones Scholarship Fund which provides scholarships for African American students attending EDS and preparing for ordination in the Episcopal Church.

Lewis has been a missionary in Honduras and in the Congo, and has served parishes in
England; Washington, D.C.; New Haven, Connecticut; and his native Brooklyn, New York. He has also served as director of the Episcopal Church’s Office of Black Ministries and has authored several books and written hymns which have appeared in “Lift Every Voice and Sing II: An African American Hymnal,” “Wonder Love and Praise,” and “This Far By Faith.”

Adams, Regius professor of Divinity at Oxford University, will speak at the 2008 Kellogg lecture May 1-2.

The Kellogg lecture series is held each spring in conjunction with EDS Alumni/ae Days. The late Rev. Frederic Brainerd Kellogg ’37 established the lectureship in memory of his father, Frederic Rogers Kellogg, a distinguished lawyer who was founder and first president of the National Community Chest of America. Upon his death in 1958, his continued the lectureship on a permanent basis as a memorial to both her son and husband.

Adams, an American, is a theologian, philosopher of religion, and a writer on medieval philosophy. Her work focuses on the philosophy of religion, especially the problem of evil, philosophical theology, metaphysics, and medieval philosophy. Her work also argues for the legitimacy of homosexual as well as heterosexual relationships in Christian ethical theory.

Adams is the author of several books, including “Wrestling for Blessing” (2005), and “Christ and Horrors: The Coherence of Christology” (2006).

For more information or to register for these events visit http://www.eds.edu.