Eboo Patel is the featured speaker for the 2020 Walter B. and Kay W. Shurden Lectures, which take place March 5 from 11:30 a.m. to 3:20 p.m. on the campus of SMU. The event is hosted by the Baptist House of Studies at Perkins School of Theology at SMU and co-sponsored by Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, a national organization dedicated to preserving faith freedom for all.  

The 2020 Shurden Lectures will place in the Great Hall in Elizabeth Perkins Prothro Hall, 5901 Bishop Boulevard, Dallas, TX 75205. The program kick offs at 11:30 a.m. with Patel speaking on “Religious Freedom and a Theology of Interfaith Cooperation.” A lunch will follow at 12 p.m. with a conversation between Patel and George Mason, pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church. (There is no charge for lunch, however, attendees must RSVP to receive a parking pass.)  At 2 p.m., Patel will conclude the program with a talk on “Religious Freedom and Interfaith Leadership.”

For more information, click here. 

Registration for the Master of Sacred Music 60th Anniversary Reunion is now open! The event will be held at Perkins on March 9-11, 2020. Visit our website for full details, including a schedule, featured speakers and more: smu.edu/msmreunion

From Shelf to Spotlight: The Hidden History of Women’s Speeches, will be held Wednesday, March 25 from 12:30 - 2 p.m. in the Great Hall.

Dana Rubin, award-winning journalist and curator of the Speaking While Female Speech Bank, will share her timely, inspiring research into the hidden history of women’s public speech, highlighting stories of women past and present who used their voices for change. The event will be moderated by Dr. Alyce McKenzie.

This event—including lunch—is free and open to the public, but reservations are required. For more information and to register, click here.

The next Inside Perkins takes place Thursday, March 26, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the Dallas campus. The events give prospective students the opportunity to visit classes, meet faculty and current students and experience the warmth of the Perkins community. Additional information and registration are available here.

Additional Spring 2020 Admission events will take place on the following dates:

• Theology and Craft: April 2, Details to Come 
• Inside Perkins: Thursday, April 16

With the theme “Boundless Learning, Bountiful Life,” the next Perkins Summit for Faith and Learning (formerly the Perkins Theological School for the Laity) takes place March 26-28, 2020. Featured speakers include William Willimon, Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke Divinity School, and several Perkins faculty members. Registration is now open. Visit our website here.

Save the Date for Theology on Craft, An evening of music and conversation for prospective students, featuring a hymn sing with both familiar and contemporary hymns

More details coming soon!

Perkins is co-sponsoring, along with the Simmons School of Education and Human Development, a Spring 2020 Colloquium, “Spiritual and Religious Abuse: Recognizing, Preventing and Healing,” on Saturday, April 4, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Harold Simmons Hall Room 101A. Professors Susanne Scholz and Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner will lead a breakout session for the program on “Recognizing How Individuals Use the Old and New Testaments to Spiritually Abuse Others.” Said Stevenson-Moessner, “The mental health profession and ministerial training have focused so intensely on physical and emotional abuse; now is the time to reckon with spiritual abuse.” Register at this link and see the schedule and list of speakers here.

The Black Seminarians Association at Perkins School of Theology is sponsoring the Seven Last Words Worship Service on Friday, April 10, 2020, at 7 p.m. at St. Paul United Methodist Church, 1816 Routh Street, Dallas. Seven preachers, alumni and current students of Perkins, will proclaim the gospel according to the seven last sayings Jesus Christ uttered while on the cross at Calvary. 

The Perkins Center for Preaching Excellence is sponsoring an interdisciplinary annual workshop and book series called “Preaching And…” A homiletician collaborates with a scholar from another field in offering a workshop for clergy that becomes a book in a series edited by Dr. O. Wesley Allen. The workshop will be held April 20, 2020 at Perkins.

The topic will be “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Pulpit: Preaching and Humor.” Co-leaders are Alyce McKenzie and Owen Lynch, Associate Professor and Director of the Honors Program and SMU-in-London Internships, Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor of Corporate Communication and Public Affairs.

An exhibit tentatively titled “Women’s Voices, Women’s Votes: An Exhibition Marking the 100th Anniversary of the Passage of the 19th Amendment” will run July 1 – September 30, 2020, in the Hillcrest Foundation Exhibition Hall, Fondren Library. The exhibit will feature more than 100 objects from the collections of Perkins faculty member Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner, Helen LaKelly Hunt and the DeGolyer Library, including rare books, pamphlets, broadsides, photographs, sheet music, manuscripts and ephemera documenting the history of the women’s rights movement in the United States.