Santa Clara University's Third Annual Speaker Series, Politics and Religion: on a Collision Course?, to Begin Oct. 9

Business Wire, Sept 23, 2008

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Politics and religion may be topics to avoid at a cocktail party, but no one will steer clear of these ordinarily taboo subjects during the third annual Santa Clara University President's Speaker Series, Politics and Religion: On a Collision Course?

"The Series will give our audience a rare chance to hear four of the foremost thinkers in the whole world on the relationship of religion and politics," says Margaret Avritt, program manager of the series.

October 9: Michael Eric Dyson, Baptist minister, professor at Georgetown University, frequent cultural commentator, and author of April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Death and How It Changed America, will discuss the presidential election, America's religious and racial divide, and how the African-American church can remain vital in the 21st century.

Earlier books include Know What I Mean?, a critical study of hip hop music; Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster; and Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?

Whether critiquing the prosperity gospel of megachurches or opining in the New York Times that the Democratic Party desperately needs to develop a backbone, Dyson does not shy from controversy. He holds a doctorate from Princeton University and teaches in the sociology department at Georgetown University.

January 15, 2009: Alumna Lisa Sowle Cahill '70 will take the podium. The Boston College professor and political advisor to the Obama campaign will discuss Catholic notions of feminism, politics, peacemaking, and ethics in the 21st century.

March 11, 2009: Washington Post columnist and political commentator E.J. Dionne Jr. will tackle the religious right. "It is a great sellout of religion to insist that it has much to teach us about abortion or gay marriage but little useful to say about social justice, war and peace, the organization of our work lives, the death penalty, immigration policy, or our approach to providing for the old, the sick, and the desperate," Dionne says.

May 6, 2009: Avraham Burg will close out the series. A leading figure in Israeli politics for the last 20 years and author of The Holocaust is Over: We Must Rise from the Ashes, Burg will discuss God and politics in the Middle East.

This year, SCU is also offering VIP packages that allow ticket holders to attend pre-lecture receptions with the speakers.

Each event begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Louis B. Mayer Theatre. Get more information and order tickets online at www.scu.edu/speakerseries. To order tickets by phone, call 408-554-4400.

About Santa Clara University

Santa Clara University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California's Silicon Valley, offers its 8,685 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, and engineering, plus master's and law degrees and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. master's universities, California's oldest operating higher-education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice. For more information, see www.scu.edu.