ATLANTA/MACON – Mercer will host the 20th annual Walter B. and Kay W. Shurden Lectures on Religious Liberty and Separation of Church and State Nov. 13-14 on the University’s Atlanta and Macon campuses.
This year’s lecturer is Dr. John Compton, professor of political science and chair of the Political Science Department at Chapman University in Orange, California. The three lectures will be delivered under the theme “The Politics of Secularization.”
Dr. Compton’s first lecture, titled “Democratic Values in a Secular Age,” will be hosted by the School of Law at 3:30 p.m. on Nov. 13 in the Griffin B. Bell and Frank C. Jones Courtroom at the Law School campus in downtown Macon. His second lecture, titled “Secularization and the Rise of Political Extremism,” will be hosted by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences on Nov. 13 at 5:30 p.m. in the Peyton Anderson Auditorium in the Science and Engineering Building on the Macon campus. An invitation-only dinner will follow at 7 p.m. in the Mercer Innovation Center.
Dr. Compton’s final lecture, titled “Secularization and the Fracturing of the American Left,” will be hosted by McAfee School of Theology on Nov. 14 at 12:15 p.m. in the Trustees Dining Room on the Atlanta campus. A light lunch will be provided.
Online registration is requested for the three lectures, which are free and open to the public.
Dr. Compton’s teaching and research interests include religion and politics, American political development, and constitutional law. His first book, The Evangelical Origins of the Living Constitution (Harvard UP, 2014), received the Cromwell Book Prize from the American Society for Legal History. His most recent book, The End of Empathy: Why White Protestants Stopped Loving Their Neighbors (Oxford UP, 2020), received honorable mention for the Hubert Morken Book Prize, awarded by the American Political Science Association’s religion and politics section. With Karen Orren, he is co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to the U.S. Constitution.
His research articles and essays have appeared in Studies in American Political Development, the Review of Politics, Political Psychology, Constitutional Commentary, American Political Thought, and the Journal of Supreme Court History, among other journals.
Dr. Compton earned his B.A. from William Jewell College, his M.A. from Syracuse University and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.
In 2004, Dr. Walter B. Shurden and Dr. Kay W. Shurden of Macon made a gift to the Washington, D.C.-based Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC) to establish an annual lectureship on the issues of religious liberty and separation of church and state.
A nationally noted church historian, Dr. Walter B. Shurden is founding executive director of the Center for Baptist Studies and a minister-at-large for Mercer. He served at the University for almost 25 years as Callaway Professor of Christianity in the Roberts Department of Religion in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. During 18 of those years, he served as chair of the department.
Dr. Kay W. Shurden, a retired professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in Mercer’s School of Medicine, is a noted author and formerly maintained a practice in counseling and supervision.
Designed to enhance the ministry and programs of BJC, the lectures are held at Mercer every three years and at another seminary, college or university the other years. The lecturers may be academics, politicians, ministers, church historians, ethicists or activists.
About BJC
BJC (Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty) is a leading voice working to defend faith freedom for all and protect the institutional separation of church and state in the historic Baptist tradition. BJC also is the home of the Christians Against Christian Nationalism campaign. Founded in 1936, BJC fights for religious liberty for everyone, knowing that a threat to anyone’s religious liberty is a threat to everyone’s religious liberty. Learn more at BJConline.org.
About Mercer University
Founded in 1833, Mercer University is a dynamic and comprehensive center of undergraduate, graduate and professional education. With more than 9,100 students enrolled in 12 schools and colleges, on major campuses in Macon and Atlanta; medical school sites in Macon, Savannah and Columbus; and at regional academic centers in Henry and Douglas counties, Mercer is ranked among the top tier and best values of national research universities by U.S. News & World Report. The Mercer Health Sciences Center includes the University’s School of Medicine and Colleges of Nursing, Health Professions and Pharmacy. Mercer is affiliated with six teaching hospitals – Atrium Health Navicent The Medical Center and Piedmont Macon Medical Center in Macon; Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah; Piedmont Columbus Regional Hospital and St. Francis-Emory Healthcare in Columbus; and SGMC Health in Valdosta. The University also has an educational partnership with Robins Air Force Base in Warner Robins. It operates an academic press and a performing arts center in Macon and an engineering research center in Warner Robins. Mercer Medicine, the clinical faculty practice of the School of Medicine, is based in Macon and operates additional clinics in Sumter, Clay, Putnam, Harris, Taylor and Glynn counties. Mercer is one of only 293 institutions nationwide to shelter a chapter of The Phi Beta Kappa Society, the nation’s most prestigious academic honor society; one of eight institutions to hold membership in the Georgia Research Alliance; and the only private university in Georgia to field an NCAA Division I athletic program. www.mercer.edu.
