Provocative thinker/author Karen Armstrong to speak at TCU on Oct. 6

Karen Armstrong will discuss "Religion in an Age of Terror" at TCU event

Fort Worth, TX

9/10/2009

Karen Armstrong, whose insightful observations of spirituality throughout the world have garnered wide acclaim, will speak at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 6 in the University Union ballroom at TCU, 2901 Stadium Drive. Her topic is “Religion in an Age of Terror: Perils and Possibilities.”

She is the first guest for the Daryl D. Schmidt Lectureship on Religion in Public Life, recently established by the TCU Religion Department in memory of a longtime colleague.*  Ms. Armstrong and the late Dr. Schmidt often spoke at the same scholarly conferences and were united in their desire to promote and raise religious literacy.

•    A fulltime writer and broadcaster since 1982, Ms. Armstrong is the bestselling author of 15 books, include Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet (1991), A History of God (1993), Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths (1996), The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions (2006) and The Bible: A Biography (2007). Her work has been translated into 45 languages.
•    Her newest book, The Case for God to be released in late September, is a nuanced exploration of the part religion plays in human life, past and present.
•    She has three times addressed members of the United States Congress on religious issues.
•    Among her American television appearances are the PBS programs Bill Moyer’s Journal, Frontline and Genesis: A Living Conversation.
•    She received one of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award (Freedom of Worship) in 2008, for her contribution to better understanding among religions in an era of confrontation and violence.
•    She is currently at work on a worldwide interreligious Charter for Compassion that recognizes The Golden Rule as fundamental in all world religions.

Tickets for the lecture are $10 and available through the Web at www.rel.tcu.edu. For more information, phone 817-257-7440.

*The Daryl D. Schmidt Lectureship on Religion in Public Life

The Schmidt Lectureship commemorates the life and work of longtime TCU Religion Department faculty member and chair, Dr. Daryl D. Schmidt, a New Testament scholar who believed that scholars should and can make a difference in society. A Christian pacifist, Dr. Schmidt was passionately committed to principles of non-violence and social justice. As a public intellectual, he understood the power of religious values and language in the public sphere. And as a Biblical scholar, he was especially adept at communicating to a wide audience — in an intellectually rigorous fashion — the interplay between religious scholarship and the crucial issues of our time.  Dr. Schmidt passed away in 2006.

The Lectureship’s goal — to deepen listeners’ ability to think for themselves about complex and vital matters — is part of the ongoing mission of the Religion Department in the AddRan College of Liberal Arts at Texas Christian University.

The Religion Department fosters an inquiring and critical approach to the study of religion and various religious traditions. More broadly, the Department supports the multicultural, ethical, and global aspects of the TCU mission by utilizing perspectives from the U.S. and beyond to study the diversity manifest in the world's religions.