DANVILLE, KY -- The Centre College religion department will host two respected scholars within the next month. Edward Farley, author of an award-winning book, Divine Empathy, will give a campus lecture Monday, March 22, exploring the tensions between popularized forms of religion and an authentic faith in God. His presentation will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Weisiger Theatre in the Norton Center for the Arts.

William F. May, professor of ethics at Southern Methodist University, is scheduled for an April 20 lecture entitled "Leadership in a Democracy: What It Takes Morally." May's presentation will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Newlin Hall in the Norton Center. Both lectures are open to the public at no cost.

As a scholar, Farley has explored the dilemma of youth and young adults who want an authentic faith yet find that much of popular religion is very conservative and preoccupied with self. His lecture will describe that dilemma and the avenues open to contemporary young adults for pursuing faith.

Farley is a Louisville native who graduated from Centre in 1951 and earned advanced degrees at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary and Columbia University. While completing a doctorate at Columbia, he studied with two of this century's best known theologians, Reinhold Neibuhr and Paul Tillich.

Farley taught at DePauw University and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary before joining the Vanderbilt University divinity school faculty in 1969. He remained there until his 1997 retirement. Farley's book, Divine Empathy, won the 1997 award of excellence from the American Academy of Religion. Among his other works are Deep Symbols, Good and Evil, and The Transcendence of God.

May's lecture will explore some of the themes from the book he currently has underway, Beleaguered Rulers: The Public Obligation of the Professional. Although he was planning the volume long before President Clinton's impeachment difficulties, May's studies of morality in leadership now are generating a new level of interest.

He is the author of other works including A Catalogue of Sins, The Physician's Covenant and Testing the Medical Covenant.

May is a graduate of Princeton who earned a divinity degree and a doctorate from Yale. Prior to joining the faculty at SMU, he held an endowed chair in Christian ethics at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. May also founded the department of religious studies at Indiana University, and he was founding director of the Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility at SMU.

He is former president of the American Academy of Religion and was a founding fellow of The Hastings Institute, where he co-chaired the research group on death and dying.

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Contacts at Centre:

Eric Mount, Rodes Professor of Religion - 606-238-5249
Patsi Barnes Trollinger, Centre news service - 606-238-5719

Communications Office
Centre College
600 W. Walnut Street
Danville, KY 40422