Dr. Allen Verhey Looks at Relevance of Prayer, Attention to God

Hardin-Simmons University welcomes Dr. Allen Verhey, professor of Christian Ethics at the Duke University Divinity School, as lecturer for the seventh annual T.B. Maston Christian Ethics Lectures at HSU’s Logsdon School of Theology.

This year’s lectures, scheduled for 2 Apr at 7:00 p.m. and 3 Apr at 9:30 a.m. in Logsdon Chapel, explore themes related to the relevance of the practices of reading scripture and prayer to dying well and to caring for the dying. The first lecture, “Reading Scripture and Caring at the end of Life,” will attend to the narrative of cross and resurrection and to the Christian hope for resurrection. It will suggest that without such hope the resistance to death can grow sometimes desperate. It will suggest that the Christian narrative calls people to courage and patience and to care for people as embodied, communal, and spiritual beings. The second lecture, “Praying and Caring at the End of Life,” will ask how dying and caring for the dying may be formed by attention to God, or prayer. It will examine prayer as invocation, as confession, as thanksgiving, as lament, and as petition, asking how these different forms of attention to God can re-form our living and our dying.


Dr. Verhey

Dr. Verhey's work has focused on the application of Christian ethics, especially in the area of medical and health practice. He has published widely, the author, editor or co-editor of 12 books, Reading the Bible in the Strange World of Medicine, is his latest. Verhey was director of the Institute of Religion at the Texas Medical Center for 2 years and served as the Blekkink professor of religion at Hope College for 10 years prior to his position with Duke Divinity.

The T. B. Maston Christian Ethics Lectures series, named for Dr. T.B. Maston who taught Christian ethics at Southwestern Seminary for over forty years, explores the application of the Christian faith to life. Dr. Maston was known for his pioneering writing and teaching in The areas of biblical ethics, race relations, family life, the Christian and vocation, church and state, and character formation. One of the highlights of the lecture series will be the presentation of “Young Maston Scholars” from Texas Baptist universities.

Both lectures are free and open to the public.