CANCELLED – Parr Center Presents: Dr. Jonathan Lee Walton (Dean of Divinity, Wake Forest), “A Call for Unity?: The Weaponization of Christian Discourse”

“A Call for Unity?: The Weaponization of Christian Discourse”

What happens when the language of personal conscience or human personality becomes a governance project—an appeal to individual freedom to authorize regimes of truth and systems of domination? The aim of this lecture is to unpack Martin Luther King Jr’s political philosophy while considering the underside of the religious freedoms argument in the black freedom struggle. 

Dr. Jonathan Lee Walton is Dean of the Divinity School at Wake Forest University, where he also holds the Presidential Chair in Religion & Society and is the inaugural Dean of the university’s Wait Chapel. Prior to his appointment at Wake Forest, Dr. Walton served as the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard University. Trained as a social ethicist focusing on evangelical Christianity, his work and insights have been featured in national and international news outlets such as The New York Times, CNN, Time magazine, ESPN, and the BBC. His latest book, ​A Lens of Love: Reading the Bible in Its World for Our World​, explores the Bible from the perspective of the most vulnerable and violated characters. Its aim is to underscore a tradition of Christian witness that privileges radical inclusion and social justice.