Schaff lectures planned March 25 at First Presbyterian

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Luke Bretherton is the keynote speaker at the 2015 Schaff lectures March 25 at First Presbyterian Church, 201 Wick Ave.

Registration will take place at 3:30 p.m. followed by a clergy, lay and community leaders workshop. The speaker will address the topic, “The Politics of a Common Life and the Nature of Faithful Citizenship.”

The session is free, but reservations are requested. The workshop will be followed by a boxed supper at 6 p.m. Paid reservations of $8.50 must be at the church office by March 19. For reservations, call the church office at 330-744-4307.

A free public lecture is scheduled for 7 p.m. on “Poverty, Privilege and Participation in the Healing Rule of Christ.”

Bretherton is an associate professor of theology ethics and senior fellow of Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke Divinity School. Before joining the Duke faculty, he was reader in theology and politics and convener of the Faith and Public Policy Forum at King’s College of London.

His most recent book was “Resurrecting Democracy: Faith, Citizenship and the Politics of a Common Life.”

He also wrote “Christianity & Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilities of Faithful Witness.” That book focuses on faith-based organizations and the church’s involvement in social welfare.

The David S. Schaff Lecture Series is made possible by the late Mrs. Philip H. (Jane Booth) Schaff, who died in 1981. In her will, she provided for the completion of the endowment of the previously established David S. Schaff Lectureship at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

It was stipulated that the Schaff lecturer would give one address in Youngstown. Mrs. Schaff’s father-in-law, professor David S. Schaff, taught church history at Western Theological Seminary, a forerunner to Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.