Brad Wright on American Christianity: Myths and Realities

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 26, 2012

WENHAM, MA—Why do we hear so much bad news about Christianity? Sociologist Brad Wright will speak at Gordon College February 2-3 in a dialogue that will focus on what is really happening in American Christianity—shattering popular myths and revealing how American Christians are truly doing when it comes to issues of marriage and morality, church growth and public perception.

On Thursday, February 2 at 4:30 p.m., Wright will address the audience in a public interview/lecture in the Ken Olsen Science Center. He will speak the following morning, Friday, February 3, at 10:25 a.m. in the A. J. Gordon Memorial Chapel. Events are open to the public free of charge.

“Into a world of shoddy sociological research and sensationalistic pronouncements about the demise and corruption of the Church and society, Brad Wright pushes back with an irenic spirit,” says Dan Russ, Academic Dean at Gordon College. “Wright counters the all-too-prevalent sweeping generalizations of those such as George Barna and James Dobson with the nuanced research of a seasoned sociologist and the prophetic voice of a Christian thinker who cares to tell the whole truth.”

Wright is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut where he studies American Christianity. He has authored twenty scholarly articles and two books including Christians are Hate-Filled Hypocrites...and Other Lies You've Been Told and Upside: Surprising Good News about the State of Our World. Hypocrites won the Christianity Today Book of the Year Award for Christianity and Culture.

These talks are part of the “Faith Seeking Understanding Lecture Series” at Gordon College and sponsored by the Center for Christian Studies. This ongoing lecture series brings first-rate guest speakers to Gordon College to address various topics related to Christian thought and practice, the theology of vocation, intellectual commitment, ethics, and more.

The next FSU speaker will be Dr. Stephen Pope, professor of theology at Boston College, speaking on Thursday, February 16 at 4:30 p.m. in the Ken Olsen Science Center. Pope teaches courses on social ethics and theological ethics and is author of The Evolution of Altruism and the Ordering of Love (Georgetown, 1994) and Human Evolution and Christian Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2007).

For information, contact Debbie Drost in the Center for Christian Studies at Gordon College at [email protected] or 978.867.4365.

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Gordon College is a multi-denominational Christian college of the liberal arts and sciences on Boston’s North Shore, offering majors in 36 fields with graduate programs in education and music education. Gordon is nationally recognized for excellence in academics and in character building, and ranks as one of the nation’s top Christian colleges. www.gordon.edu

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