Our 2010 Perkins Lecturer will be Amy-Jill Levine the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Graduate Department of Religion, and Program in Jewish Studies.

Holding a B.A. from Smith College, M.A. and Ph.D. from Duke University, and honorary doctorates from the University of Richmond, the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, and the University of South Carolina- Upstate, Professor Levine has been awarded grants from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies.  She has held office in the Society of Biblical Literature, the Catholic Biblical Association (she is presently the New Testament book review editor for the Catholic Biblical Quarterly), and the Association for Jewish Studies.

Her most recent books include:

• The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (HarperOne);
• The edited collection, The Historical Jesus in Context (Princeton Readings in Religions) (Princeton);
• The fourteen-volume series, Feminist Companions to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings (Continuum);
• The Cambridge Companion to the Bible (Companions to Religion) (Cambridge).

In addition, she has recorded “Introduction to the Old Testament,” “Great Figures of the Old Testament,” and “Great Figures of the New Testament” for the Teaching Company.

A self-described “Yankee Jewish feminist who teaches in a predominantly Christian divinity school in the buckle of the Bible Belt,” Professor Levine combines history and literary insight with a frequent dash of humor to bring aspects of the Scriptures down-to-earth.  In all of this, she maintains a commitment to eliminating anti-Jewish, sexist, and homophobic theologies.

This year, the lectures will be:

• Sunday, March 7, 2010 – 10:30am
  The Good Samaritan
• Sunday, March 7, 2010 – 7:00pm
  Hearing the Parables Anew
• Monday, March 8, 2010 – 12:00noon
  The Prodigal Son
• Monday, March 8, 2010 – 7:00pm
  The Laborers in the Vineyard

Our 1992 & 2009 Perkins Lecturer was Dr. Tex Sample, the Robert B. and Kathleen Rogers Professor Emeritus of Church and Society at Saint Paul School of Theology where he also served as the Acting Academic Dean during 1987-88.

A native of Brookhaven, Mississippi, he attended public schools in Brookhaven and went on to receive his B.A. from Millsaps College with a major in psychology. He received his M.Div. from the Boston University School of Theology and his Ph.D. from the Boston University Graduate School. While a graduate student, Sample was a Fellow in the Boston University Human Relations Center. In 1999 he was named Distinguish Alumnus of the Boston University School of Theology. He received the D.D. degree from Coe College in 2003.

Over the course of his life Sample has worked as a cab driver, as a laborer, and as a roust-about in the oil fields. In addition, he pastored churches for eight years and served three years as the Director of Social Relations of the Massachusetts Council of Churches. In this last capacity he was the lobbyist for the Council and worked actively in the civil rights and peace movements. An ordained elder in the United Methodist Church (UMC), he is a member of the Missouri Conference. He served as a delegate to the General Conference of the United Methodist Church on four occasions and to the South Central Jurisdictional Conference five times.

Academically, Sample works and teaches in the areas of U.S. lifestyles, U.S. culture, social theory and social change, power, social class and theological ethics. He is a specialist in the study of blue collar and poor people. Sample is a member of the Society of Christian Ethics and a member and Fellow of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. In Phoenix, Arizona, where the Samples currently live, he is active in The Valley Interfaith Project (an IAF community organizing effort), Interfaith Worker Justice, and The Arizona Interfaith Movement, an organization with twenty-four participating faith traditions. The Sample are also active in the Asbury United Methodist Church in the city.

Sample has authored nine books and co-edited another: Blue Collar Ministry: Facing Economic and Social Realities of Working People (Judson Press, 1984); U.S. Lifestyles and Mainline Churches: A Key to Reaching People in the 90’s (Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990); Hard Living People and Mainstream Christians (Abingdon, 1993); Ministry in an Oral Culture-Living With Will Rogers, Uncle Remus, and Minnie Pearl (Westminster/John Knox, 1994); White Soul: Country Music, the Church and Working Americans (Abingdon Press, 1996); The Spectacle of Worship in a Wired World (Abingdon Press, 1998); a book edited with Amy DeLong: The Loyal Opposition: Struggling With the Church on Homosexuality (Abingdon, 2000); Powerful Persuasion: Multimedia Witness In Christian Worship (Abingdon, 2005); Blue Collar Resistance And the Politics of Jesus: Doing Ministry With Working Class Whites (Abingdon, 2006); and Earthy Mysticism: Spirituality for Unspiritual People (Abingdon, January, 2008).

In 1957 Sample married Peggy Jo Sanford. Ms. Sample is a landscape artist and works in acrylics and watercolor. A retired soprano she sang professionally in churches in Kansas City and Boston. She worked for many years in community theater. The Samples have three children: Steven (deceased), Shawn, and Jennifer. They have four grandchildren.

His real name is Tex. It is not a nickname. His father named him after Texanna Gillham, an African-American woman who was born in slavery and helped raise his father near Center, Texas.

(Majority of information above gleaned from www.texsample.com)

1992 Lecture Topics:

• To Believe the Mystery and Hear the Music
• Fulfillment, Achievement and Tradition: The Shapes of American Life
• The Middle Aging of the Baby Boomers
• Will Rogers, Uncle Remus and Minnie Pearl: Oral People and Literate Clergy
• Loving Jesus and Justice: Doing Ethics With Real People
• A Gospel of Grace in an Achievement Culture

2009 Lecture Topics:

• Sunday, March 1, 10:30am – The Practices of Transformation
• Sunday, March 1, 7:00pm – Getting the Story Right
• Monday, March 2, 11:00am – Reading the Bible as the Church
• Monday, March 2, 7:00pm – Living the Tradition
• Tuesday, March 3, 11:00am – The Practice of Justice
• Tuesday, March 3, 7:00pm – The Craft of Witness

Our 1997& 2008 Perkins Lecturer was and will be Dr. R. Maurice Boyd, whose ministry has included preaching and teaching in the major pulpits and universities of the Nation and abroad and he has been the Theme Speaker at many conferences. For instance, he delivered the Hickman Lectures on preaching at Duke University in 1980.

Dr. Boyd served churches in Ireland and Canada before coming to New York City. Dr. Boyd was Minister of The City Church, New York (1993-2007), of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York (1988-1992) and of Metropolitan United Church, London, Ontario, the largest congregation of the United Church of Canada (1975-1988).

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and ordained in the Methodist Church there in 1956, Boyd is a graduate in Theology from Edgehill Theological College, Belfast and McMaster Univerisity, Hamilton, where he majored in Philosophy and English. He holds the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Victoria College and the degree of Licentiate of Music from the University of Western Ontario. In May, 1992, he was awarded the Doctor of Sacred Theology degree by Hastings College.

Four books of Dr. Boyd’s sermons have been published: A Lover’s Quarrel With the World (1985); Permit Me Voyage (1989); Running To Paradise (1990), and Corridors of Light (1991). Also published are The Fine Art Of Being Imperfect: And Other Broadcast Talks (1998), and Why oesn’t God Do Things Perfectly? (1999) a defense of the goodness of God in the face of evil and suffering.

1997 Lecture Topics

• On Not Being Taken In
• How to Have Faith
• Wishfulness and Wishes
• Prevenient Grace
• The Slant of Truth
• The Summing Up

2008 Lecture Topics

• Knowing Our Place
• Buying Our Dream
• Gathering Our Harvest
• Reading the Signs
• Remembering to Forget
• Stringing Our Instrument

Our 1983 & 2007 Perkins Lecturer was Dr. Fred B. Craddock, who is minister emeritus of Cherry Log Christian Church in Cherry Log, Georgia and Bandy Distinguished Professor of Preaching and New Testament, Emeritus, in the Candler School of Theology, Emory University. An ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Dr. Craddock has also served pastorates in Tennessee and Oklahoma. Much sought after as a lecturer, he has delivered the Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale, the Scott Lectures at Claremont School of Theology, the Adams Lectures at Southeastern Baptist Seminary, the Schaff Lectures at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, the Cole Lectures at Vanderbilt, the Westervelt Lectures at Austin Presbyterian Seminary, the Mullins Lectures at Southern Seminary, Earl Lectures at Pacific School of Religion, and even the Perkins Lectures here at FUMC in 1983.

Reported in Newsweek as one of America’s top preachers, Mr. Craddock, reared in rural Tennessee, speaks the folk idiom with prophetic authenticity.

Dr. Craddock has written a number of books, including The Pre-Existence of Christ in the New Testament (1968), As One Without Authority (1971, rev. 1974, 1979, 2001), Overhearing the Gospel (1978, rev. 2002), The Gospels: Interpreting Biblical Texts (1981), Preaching (1985, rev. 1990), Craddock Stories (2001), and The Cherry Log Sermons (2001). In addition, he has written Bible commentaries on John (Knox Preaching Guides) (1982), Philippians (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching) (1985), Luke (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching) (1991), and First and Second Peter and Jude (Westminster Bible Companion) (1995). In 2004, he also co-authored The People’s New Testament Commentary with M. Eugene Boring. Dr. Craddock has also contributed articles to various journals. (To order any of the above mentioned books, just click the title of the book).

A native of Humbolt, Tennessee, Dr. Craddock is married to the former Nettie Dungan. They have a daughter and a son.

1983 Lecture Topics

• The Moment of Truth (Luke 3:1-17)
• Jesus Tempted by the Devil (Luke 4:1-15)
• A Word to the Wise (Luke 4:16-30)
• Learning What We Already Know (Luke 4:16-30)
• Offended by Generosity (Luke 15:11-32)
• While They Were Eating (Luke 24:13-35)

2007 Lecture Topics (based in the book of Philippians)

• Free From Regret
• Free From Excessive Inwardness
• Free From Anxiety About Death
• Free From Being Determined By Others
• Free From Pre-Occupation With Status
• Free From Obsession With Things

Our 2006 Perkins Lecturer was the Rev. Dr. James Alexander Forbes, Jr., Senior Minister Emeritus of The Riverside Church and President of the Healing of the Nations Foundation.

Dr. Forbes has earned three degrees and has been awarded 13 honorary degrees. He earned a Doctor of Ministry Degree from Colgate-Rochester Divinity School in Rochester, NY, in 1975; a Master of Divinity Degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, NY in 1962; and a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Howard University in Washington, D.C., in 1957. He earned his Clinical Pastoral Education Certificate from the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, VA, in 1968.

Forbes, who was installed as the fifth Senior Minister of Riverside on June 1, 1989, and retired on June 1, 2007, was the first African-American to serve as Senior Minister of this multicultural congregation. He is an ordained minister in the American Baptist Churches and the Original United Holy Church of America.

Before being called to Riverside’s pulpit, Dr. Forbes served from 1976-1985 as the Brown and Sockman Associate Professor of Preaching at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. From 1985-1989 he was Union’s first Joe R. Engle Professor of Preaching. Union named him the first Harry Emerson Fosdick Adjunct Professor of Preaching in 1989, when he accepted the pastorate at Riverside. Dr. Forbes also serves on the Core Teaching Staff at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York.

In national and international religious circles, Dr. Forbes is known as the preacher’s preacher because of his extensive preaching career and his charismatic style. In their March 4, 1996 issue, Newsweek magazine recognized Forbes as one of the 12 “most effective preachers” in the English-speaking world. This Pastor, Educator, Administrator, Community Activist, and Interfaith Leader was designated as one of America’s greatest Black preachers by Ebony magazine in 1984 and 1993. He won the Alumni Charter Day Award of Howard University for Distinguished Post Graduate Achievement In Ministry. In 1995 he emerged in the Baylor University Survey as one of twelve remarkable and most effective preachers in the English-speaking world.  On December 26, 2003, Dr. Forbes was featured on Bill Moyers’ “Speaking to Power” where he shared his prophetic principles, which have become part of the Mobilization 2004 initiative at The Riverside Church.

Two of Dr. Forbes’ songs have been published in the Silver Burdett Songbooks for schools: “We Shall Overcome” and “Our Families Together.” Dr. Forbes has performed the narration for several large musical productions, including Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Riverside choir.

On top of all of this, Dr. Forbes is author of two books:

• Whose Gospel?: A Concise Guide to Progressive Protestantism, New Press, 2010
• The Holy Spirit & Preaching, Abingdon Press, 1989

Born in 1935 in Burgaw, North Carolina, Dr. Forbes is married to Bettye Franks Forbes, formerly of San Antonio, TX. They are the proud parents of one son, James A. Forbes III.

2006 Perkins Lectures Theme:

Let’s Talk About God!

Topics:

• Sunday, March 5, 2006 – 7:30pm:
  “God’s Response to Gideon’s Question”
  Judges 6:1-13
• Monday, March 6, 2006 – 11:00am:
  “God’s Concern for Our Satisfaction”
  John 4:4-15
• Monday, March 6, 2006 – 7:30pm:
  “God’s Expose of Counterfeit Religion”
  Isaiah 58:1-9
• Tuesday, March 7, 2006 – 11:00am:
  “Honesty in the Presence of God”
  Psalm 51:1-12
• Tuesday, March 7, 2006 – 7:30pm:
  “What God Has Done – What We Must Do”
  John 9:1-11

Dr. Forbes published these lecture titles in advance and made verbal amendments during the Lecture week.

Our 2005 Perkins Lecturer was Rev. John M. Buchanan.  He has served as Senior Pastor of the 4000 member Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago since 1985. During this time, he has led that church to grow to one of the largest churches in his denomination.

A native of Altoona, Pennsylvania, Rev. Buchanan graduated from Franklin and Marshall in 1959.  He was influenced by his father to believe that he could do whatever he aspired to do and the he should “by golly . . . aspire high!”

Aspiring high, Rev. Buchanan earned a Bachelor of Divinity from the Divinity School of the University of Chicago in 1963.  He then served as pastor of churches in Dyer, Indiana, Lafayette, Indiana, and Columbus, Ohio before returning to Chicago to take up his current pastorate.

He served as moderator of the 208th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) In that position, he guided the Presbyterian Church through some difficult periods and represented his denomination before ecumenical bodies around the world.

Rev. Buchanan has served since 1999 as the Editor/Publisher of the Christian Century magazine. This is one of the most influential magazines in the Christian faith. The overall theme of the Christian Century can be summed up in the phrase: “Faithful Living, Critical Thinking.”

Also, Rev. Buchanan is author of two books:

• A New Church for a New World, Geneva Press, 2008
• Being Church, Becoming Community, Westminster John Knox Press, 1996

Buchanan and his wife, Sue, have five children.

2005 Perkins Lectures Theme:

A Viable Theism:
Questions People Ask About God

Topics:

• Sunday, March 6, 2005 – 10:30am:
  What Do You Know For Sure?
  Romans 8:31-39
• Sunday, March 6, 2005 – 7:00pm:
  Does God Exist?
  Exodus 3:1-15, Psalm 14:1
• Monday, March 7, 2005 – 11:00am:
  Can I Trust God and Science?
  Genesis 1:1-5, 26-31, John 1:1-5
• Monday, March 7, 2005 – 7:00pm:
  Does God Care?
  Job 42:1-6, Psalm 77:9, Luke 13:1-5
• Tuesday, March 8, 2005 – 11:00am:
  Does God Provide?
  Exodus 16:1-15, Matthew 7:7-11
• Tuesday, March 8, 2005 – 11:00am:
  Can I See God?
  Exodus 33:22,23, John 1:14-18