Past Events
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2009
April 2, 2009
Queer Conversions: The Sexual Politics of the Christian Ex-Gay Movement
Professor Tanya Erzen
7:30 pm
Hatfield Room, 2nd floor, Mark O. Hatfield Library, Willamette University
Professor Tanya Erzen will also give a free lecture at 11:30 a.m. that day in Cone Chapel for University Convocation. Erzen’s visit is sponsored by Willamette’s Center for Religion, Law and Democracy and The Teagle Foundation.
Erzen is an associate professor in the department of comparative studies at Ohio State University. Her scholarly interests include American and comparative religion with a focus on Evangelicalism; religion, gender and sexuality; social movements and politics; political theory; and the Christian Right. She is the author of the award-winning 2006 book, Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement.
Straight to Jesus is an ethnographic study and cultural history of the ex-gay movement, an international network of religious ministries that attempt to change and convert gay men and lesbians to non-homosexual Christian lives through psychological, self-help, therapeutic and biblical approaches. The book, which focuses on the everyday lives of men and women at a residential ex-gay program in California, analyzes conservative Christian politics around sexual transformation and identification, evangelical conversion and testimony, and alternative forms of kinship.
For more information, contact Reyna Meyers with the Center for Religion, Law and Democracy at 503-370-6046 or rmeyers@willamette.edu
Wednesday March 4, 2009
Interfaith Energy and Climate Stewardship Advocacy Day
9:00 am to 4:00 pm
Hudson Hall, Willamette University
The first part of the day consists of advocacy training, briefings on climate and energy legislation, a panel of citizens and legislators, and keynotes by Bishop David Brauer-Rieke, Oregon Synod ELCA and a representative from Governor Ted Kulongoski’s office. After lunch, participants will visit with their legislators and return for a debriefing. The cost is $15 before February 20 and $20 after; students and seniors are $10. Scholarships available. For more information, call (503) 221-1054.
The event is sponsored by Oregon Interfaith Power and Light, a project of EMO.
Cosponsors include: Oregon Area Jewish Committee; Community Relations Committee, Jewish Federation of Greater Portland; Douglas County Global Warming Coalition; Muslim Educational Trust; First United Methodist Church, Portland; Earth Home Ministries; Portland St. John the Baptist Episcopal; Portland Fellowship House; Western Oregon University; Eco-Justice Team, Presbytery of the Cascades; St. Andrew Lutheran Church, Beaverton; Justice Commission, Ainsworth United Church of Christ; First Presbyterian Church, Portland; Benedictine Sisters of Mt. Angel; St. Philip Neri Peace and Justice Commission; Office of the Chaplains, Willamette University; Center for Religion, Law and Democracy, Willamette University.
2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Forum on Church Sanctuary and Immigration Issues
First Methodist Church, Portland (co-sponsored with Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon).
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Speaker on Islam, Social Science and Policy in France and the U.S.
Nadia Marzouki
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Inaugural Lecture on Religion and Cultural Understanding
Stephen Prothero, Boston University
2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
“Darwin Day” Panel: “The Evolution-Intelligent Design Debate”
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Screening and Panel Discussion: “The Bible Tells Me So!”
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Symposium, “The ‘Greening’ of God? Religion and Environmentalism”
In conjunction with the Center on Sustainability and Chaplain’s Office
For more information on this even click here.
April 17, 2008
Grand Opening of the Centers for Academic Excellence
Hallie Ford Museum of Art (5:00 pm - 8:00 pm )
Please join us for an evening of celebration as President Pelton introduces Willamette University's Centers for Academic Excellence: the Center for Ancient Studies and Archaeology (directed by Lane McGuaghy), the Center for Asian Studies (directed by Juwen Zhang), the Center for the Study of Religion, Law and Democracy (directed by Steve Green), and the Center for Sustainable Communities (directed by Joe Bowersox). These four centers join the preexisting Public Policy and Research Center (directed by Fred Thompson). The directors will give an overview of each of the Centers and be available to answer questions. The Centers are designed to promote cross-disciplinary interaction as well as provide increased opportunities for faculty development, research and scholarship, and provide undergraduates and graduates with opportunities to develop specialized projects in a variety of academic fields. Each center also hosts conferences, colloquia and symposia as well as bring visiting scholars, speakers and practitioners to our campus community. Campus administrators and faculty feel the creation of these centers, rare for a small independent university with a liberal arts focus, will establish Willamette as a place of distinction.
September 26, 2008
Conference: “Religion and Politics in the 2008 Election”
Monday, September 29, 2008
Religion and Politics in the 2008 Election with E.J. Dionne, columnist for the Washington Post
E.J. Dionne Jr., a syndicated national policy and politics columnist for The Washington Post, will address “Religion and Politics in the 2008 Election” in a Sept. 29 lecture at Willamette University.
The lecture begins at 7:30 p.m. in Smith Auditorium. Tickets are $10 for the public and will be available starting Sept. 22 at the information desk on the first floor of Putnam University Center. The event is sponsored by Willamette’s Center for Religion, Law and Democracy.
Dionne is a frequent politics commentator for National Public Radio, ABC’s “This Week” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He has been a columnist for The Post since 1993. Before joining The Post, he spent 14 years at The New York Times covering local, state, and national politics and serving as a foreign correspondent in Paris, Rome and Beirut. He is a professor at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution.
Dionne’s 1991 book Why Americans Hate Politics won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was a National Book Award nominee. He is also the author of Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right (2008), Stand Up, Fight Back: Republican Toughs, Democratic Wimps, and the Politics of Revenge (2004) and They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political Era (1996). Dionne received the American Political Science Association’s Cary McWilliams Award in 1996 for a major journalistic contribution to the understanding of politics.
For more information, contact Reyna Meyers with the Center for Religion, Law and Democracy at (503) 370-6046.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
“The Qur'an of 'Uthman: Political Legitimation in the Islamic West from the Umayyads to the Almohads”with Amira Bennison, senior lecturer and director of the Center of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge
4:00pm, Eaton Hall 209, Willamette University
The twelfth century geographer, al-Idrisi, alludes to the presence of the so-called Qur’an 'Uthman in the great Mosque of Cordoba and a ceremony in which it was brought out and paraded daily after the Umayyads proclaimed themselves caliphs in 317/929-30. Around 552/1157, the same Qur'an appeared in the processions of the Almohads, a Masmuda Berber dynasty from the High Atlas mountains, who also claimed to be caliphs. Ibn Sahib al-Salat, al-Marrakushi and the unknown author of the Hulal al-mawshiyya who describe the Almohad parades all mention the Qur'an’s 'Uthmanic antecedents and possession by the Umayyads. Using this as a starting point, Amira Bennison explores the image the Umayyads projected in the Maghrib, and the later significance of Cordoban Umayyad prototypes to the ruling Mu'minid dynasty of the Almohads. This contributes to a larger discussion of the evolution of a paradigm of imperial power in the Islamic west and its manipulation to legitimise a succession of dynasties whose actual origins, ambitions and praxis diverged widely.
Co-Sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies and the Center for Religion, Law and Democrac
Thursday, October 23, 2008
“Race and Religion in the Race for the White House” with Professor Dwight N. Hopkins, University of Chicago Divinity School
7:30 pm, Hudson Hall, Willamette University
Professor Dwight Hopkins of the University of Chicago Divinity School, a frequent media commentator on the controversy surrounding Barack Obama’s religious beliefs, visits Willamette University Oct. 23 to discuss “Race and Religion in the Race for the White House.”
He will deliver a free public lecture at 7:30 p.m. in Hudson Hall. He also will speak at 11:30 a.m. in Cone Chapel for University Convocation. His visit is sponsored by Willamette’s Center for Religion, Law and Democracy.
Hopkins is an American Baptist minister and theologian who studies cultural, political and economic approaches to religious thought. He has written and edited numerous books and magazine articles, including Being Human: Race, Culture, and Religion and Heart and Head: Black Theology — Past, Present, and Future. He is senior editor of the Henry McNeil Turner/Sojourner Truth Series in Black Religion from Orbis Books.
For more information, contact Reyna Meyers with the Center for Religion, Law and Democracy at (503) 370-6046.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Post-Election Insights
7:30 pm, Paulus Great Hall, College of Law
Voters will soon cast their ballots for a new president, but discussions about the candidates don’t end on Election Day. Join the Center for Religion, Law and Democracy at a post-election panel to address the breakdown of votes among various demographics, particularly religious groups.
Panelists include Bill Lunch, chair of the Oregon State University political science department and a political analyst for Oregon Public Broadcasting, and Michael Sean Winters, who writes about politics and Catholicism for a variety of national publications.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Steven T. Wax
7:30pm
Paulus Great Room (201), Truman Collins Building, College of Law
Steven T. Wax is a Federal Public Defender of Oregon, and the author of Kafka Comes To America, Fighting for Justice in the War on Terror, and A Public Defender's Inside Account.
This is a free event.
For more information please contact Reyna Meyers at 503-370-6046 or rmeyers@willamette.edu