Wednesday, April 3, 2019 7:00 PM-8:30 PM

Ward Hall 223

 

On Wednesday, April 3 at 7 p.m., the Alpha Chi Honor Society, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and McClure Professorship of Faith and Science will host the public lecture, "Scientists and Christianity: What Christians Need to Know." The lecture will feature Elaine Howard Ecklund in Ward Hall (Ward 223).

Ecklund is the Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology, as well as founding director of the Religion and Public Life Program. Theoretically, Ecklund explores how individuals and small groups bring changes to larger institutions that constrain them. Substantively, her work explores this topic in relationship to religion, science, gender, race and immigration in different national contexts. Ecklund is the author of four books, including Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think (Oxford, 2010), and, with Christopher Scheitle, Religion vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think (Oxford, 2018). In addition, she has authored over 60 peer-reviewed research articles and numerous op-eds. She has received over 5 million dollars in grants and awards, including those from the Templeton Religion Trust, Lilly Endowment, Inc., Templeton World Charity Foundation, National Science Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, John Templeton Foundation, and Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Her research has been covered in national and international news media, including USA Today, Nature, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist. She received a PhD in 2004 from Cornell University, where she was the recipient of the Class of 2004 Graduate Student Baccalaureate Award for Academic Excellence and Community Service. In 2013 Ecklund was winner of the Charles O. Duncan Award for outstanding research and teaching achievement at Rice University and in 2018 gave a Gifford lecture. Over the past several years, Ecklund’s research has explored how scientists in different nations understand religion, ethics, and gender. And Ecklund has just begun (with Denise Daniels) a nation-wide research initiative entitled “Faith at Work: An Empirical Study.” Ecklund teaches classes at the graduate and undergraduate level on immigration, sociology of science, classical sociological theory, research methods, and religion in public life.

This event is free and no registration is required. Students may receive chapel credit for attending.

For more information, please contact Professor Daniel Gordon at daniel.gordon [at] lipscomb.edu (daniel[dot]gordon[at]lipscomb[dot]edu) or 615-966-5753.