The Visiting Scholar in Religion program in Lawrence brings the academic and faith communities together with an acclaimed speaker to address issues of faith.

About Dr. Cladis:

Dr. Mark Cladis is the Brooke Russell Astor Professor of the Humanities, Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Brown University, a founding member of Environmental Humanities and an active faculty member in Native American and Indigenous Studies. He received his Ph.D from Princeton University, and has been a member of the faculty at Brown, Vassar, and Stanford universities. Dr. Cladis is the author of Public Vision, Private Lives and A Communitarian Defense of Liberalism as well as over sixty articles and chapters in edited books. He has recently completed his first memoir, In Search of a Course. He is currently working on the book project, Radical Romanticism: Religion, Democracy, and the Environmental Imagination. He was named a Carnegie Scholar and has received research awards from the Fulbright Foundation, the National Endowments for the Humanities, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Public events:

Sunday, October 1

7:00 pm @ Lawrence Arts Center - Black Box Theater

“The Song of Songs: An Erotic Love of God, the Beloved, and the Natural World”

Monday, October 2

5:00 pm @ Haskell Indian Nations University - Parker Hall, Room 110

“Leslie Silko and the Power of Indigenous Storytelling: Healing and Resistance in Defiance of Settler Colonialism”

Tuesday, October 3

11:15 am - 12:30 pm @ University of Kansas - Religious Studies Classroom, Strong Hall 

“Religion in American Society”

Please donate to keep this Theologian in Residence program going, click HERE and choose Theologian in Residence in the drop down menu. 

Thank you to First Baptist Church of Lawrence for hosting this online giving option on behalf of Theologian in Residence Consortium.

Theologian in Residence Consortium Members: 

First Baptist Church 

First Presbyterian Church 

First United Methodist Church 

Islamic Center of Lawrence 

Lawrence Jewish Community Congregation 

Plymouth Congregational Church 

Trinity Episcopal Church 

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Lawrence 

Ecumenical Campus Ministries at KU (ECM) 

Haskell Indian Nations University 

University of Kansas: Department of Religious Studies

Among those who have previously served as Visiting Scholars in Religion are: 

Marcus J. Borg, Professor of Religion and Culture, at Oregon State University 

Amy-Jill Levine, Ph.D., E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School 

John Dominic Crossan, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, DePaul Univ. 

Bart D. Ehrman, Ph.D., Chair of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina 

Peter J. Gomes, Ph.D, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Chaplain at Harvard University 

Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Ph.D., William S. Tod Professor of Religion and African- American Studies, Princeton University 

Larry Rasmussen, Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary 

William P. Brown, Professor of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary 

Molly T. Marshall, President and Professor of Theology and Spiritual Formation at Central Baptist Seminary 

George “Tink” Tinker, Professor of American Indian Culture, Illif Theological Seminary 

James Wellman, Professor and Chair of the Comparative Religion Program, University of Washington.