Social Ethicist Peter Paris to Give Princeton Seminary’s Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture

Princeton, NJ, March 27, 2008–Dr. Peter Paris, Elmer G. Homrighausen Professor of Christian Social Ethics Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary, will give the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture on Monday, April 7 at 7:00 p.m. in Miller Chapel. His lecture is titled “Moral Theatre in the Streets: The Role of Suffering in the Quest for Social Justice.”

Paris joined the Seminary faculty in 1985. Prior to that he taught at Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee, and at Howard University School of Divinity in Washington, DC.

Paris earned his B.A. and M.Div. degrees at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Chicago, which honored him as alumnus of the year in 1995. He has also been the recipient of honorary degrees from Acadia University, McGill University, Lehigh University, and Lafayette College. 

He has published Black Religious Leaders: Unity in Diversity, The Social Teaching of the Black Churches, and The Spirituality of African Peoples: The Search for a Common Moral Discourse, and coauthored chapters in books and many essays in academic journals.

Paris has served as president of the American Academy of Religion, the Society of Christian Ethics, and the Society for the Study of Black Religion. He has also served as vice president of the Society for Values in Higher Education.

The Princeton Seminary faculty established the annual King Lecture as a way of honoring the man who, according to Paris, “ranks among the greatest American leaders in both church and state because he combined religious, social, and political resources in pursuit of racial justice and the moral enhancement of the common life.” Previous lecturers have included James W. Douglass, James H. Cone, Katie Geneva Cannon, and Michael Dyson. For more information, call 609.497.7760 or visit www.ptsem.edu.

Princeton Theological Seminary was founded in 1812 as the first seminary established by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. It is the largest Presbyterian seminary in the country, with more than 700 students in seven graduate degree programs.