Stories this week at Wake Forest

Rabbi Kicks Off Year of Religion

Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” answers the question, “What’s the Point of Being Religious?” at 11 a.m. today, Sept. 4, in Brendle Recital Hall. The lecture marks the start of Wake Forest’s 1997-98 Year of Religion in American Life. Immediately afterward, Kushner and Bill J. Leonard, dean of Wake Forest’s Divinity School and chair of the Year of Religion committee, will be available for brief interviews.

Kushner to Sign Books

Opening Convocation speaker Rabbi Harold Kushner will sign books in Wake Forest’s College Bookstore from 2-2:45 p.m. today. Photographers are welcome.
Two Teachers Each Win $20,000 for Excellence
Two outstanding teachers will each receive $20,000 during Opening Convocation today. The 1997 Marcellus Waddill Excellence in Teaching Award recipients are Patricia Ann Killian, a high school French teacher in Gainesville, Fla., and Ellen Carole Stanley, a multi-grade elementary teacher in Newport, Del. The Waddill awards recognize annually two Wake Forest alumni who are outstanding teachers.

Paganism and the Early Church

Luke Timothy Johnson, the scholar whose best-selling book, “The Real Jesus,” became a rallying point for scholars rejecting the Jesus Seminar’s portrayal of Christ, reviews the evidence of pagan influences on the early church on Monday, Sept. 8, in the Phi Beta Kappa Lecture. The program is at 8 p.m. in Scales Fine Arts Center, Room 102. Johnson, who is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, is visiting Wake Forest as part of the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar program.

Prints Capture Prairie Music

Seven midwestern printmakers will be on hand to discuss their work at the opening reception for “Prairie Music,’ a show of prints and poetry that explores the idea of the American prairie. With titles like “Tornado Pilot,” “Thunder,” and “Morning Farm Report,” the prints are all based on the prairie theme and were created during Wake Forest’s 1996-97 Year of the Arts. The reception will run from 7-9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 5, in the Scales Fine Arts Center Gallery.

Categories: Arts & Culture, Events