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The Annual Thomas H. Lake Lecture

Ingrid Mattson – March 25, 2010

Elliot Dorff – March 26, 2009

Dr. Paul Schervish - "Receiving and Giving as Spiritual Exercise"

Click here for a slideshow with audio highlights of Dr. Paul Schervish’s lecture, April 10, 2008.

On Thursday, April 10, 2008, Dr. Paul Schervish presented the fifth annual Thomas H. Lake Lecture on Faith & Giving. His lecture was titled "Receiving and Giving as Spiritual Exercise."

Paul G. Schervish is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy (CWP) at Boston College, and national Research Fellow at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy. He is also Senior Advisor to the Wealth & Giving Forum, a peer-centered endeavor to deepen the philanthropic engagement of the nation’s 700 wealthiest families and to the John Templeton Foundation. Schervish was appointed a Fulbright Scholar for the 2000-2001 academic year at University College Cork in the area of research on philanthropy. For the 1999-2000 academic year he was appointed Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Indiana University Center On Philanthropy. He has been selected five times to the NonProfit Times annual “Power and Influence Top 50,” a list which acknowledges the most effective leaders in the non-profit world. He received a bachelor’s degree in classical and comparative literature from the University of Detroit, a Masters in sociology from Northwestern University, a Masters of Divinity Degree from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Current activities include developing and training fundraising and financial professionals in the use of a discernment methodology based on Ignatian principles for guiding wealth holders through a self-reflective process of decision-making about their finances and philanthropy; analyzing what key religious and philosophical thinkers understand and teach about discerning the use of wealth for philanthropy; estimating wealth transfer projections for states and metropolitan regions, and analyzing the patterns of relative philanthropic generosity among cities, states, and regions in the U.S.

Dr. Mark Noll - "The Logic of Evangelicalism and the Challenges of Philanthropy"

On Thursday, March 29, Mark A. Noll, Ph.D. presented the fourth Annual Thomas H. Lake Lecture on Faith & Giving. His lecture was titled “The Logic of Evangelicalism and the Challenges of Philanthropy.” In it, Noll analyzed common threads of the Evangelical perspective on money throughout history and outlined ways in which this perspective might be broadened without losing its identity.

Mark Noll's main academic concern is the interaction of Christianity and culture in 18th- and 19th-century Anglo-American societies. After many years of teaching at Wheaton College, Noll joined the history department of the University of Notre Dame as the Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History. He earned his B.A. in English at Wheaton and a Ph.D. in American religious history at Vanderbilt University. The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded him two year-long fellowships, and in 2004 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in American History and Ethics at the Kluge Center of the Library of Congress in 2004-05. Noll was named by Time magazine as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America. Among his many books, articles, and reviews, Noll's well-known titles include A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada; America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln; The Civil War as a Theological Crisis (just published), and The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. He co-founded The Institute for the Study of American Evangelicalism, and he is the former president of The American Society of Church History.

Dr. Luke Timothy Johnson – “The Life of Faith and the Faithful Use of Possessions”

Dr. Luke Timothy Johnson served as the third annual Thomas H. Lake Lecturer on April 6, 2006. His lecture was entitled "The Life of Faith and the Faithful Use of Possessions.”

Dr. Luke Timothy Johnson is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Emory University's Candler School of Theology. Before becoming a Biblical scholar, Dr. Johnson was a Benedictine monk and priest. Today, he remains a lay person in the Roman Catholic community. After completing a Master of Divinity degree at St. Meinrad School of Theology in Indiana and a Master of Arts degree in Religious Studies in Indiana University, he earned a Ph.D. at Yale University. Dr. Johnson taught in the field of New Testament studies at Yale Divinity School and Indiana University before taking his present position. In addition, he has written a large introduction to the New Testament writings called The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation, now in its second edition,which is widely used in both colleges and seminaries.

Dr. Martin Marty – “The Market and the Donor”

Dr. Martin E. Marty joined us as the second annual Thomas H. Lake Lecturer March 10, 2005. His lecture was entitled "The Market and The Donor: Creative Destruction and Creative Construction." In it, "Marty" built on Schumpeter's theory of capitalism as creative destruction and presented a lively yin-yang discussion on religion and giving in today's market-driven economy.

Martin E. Marty is the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he taught chiefly in the Divinity School for 35 years and where the Martin Marty Center has since been founded to promote "public religion" endeavors. He is a columnist for the Christian Century, on whose staff he has served since 1956 and in which his "M.E.M.O" column appears. He is also editor of the semimonthly Context, a newsletter on religion and culture and a weekly contributor to Sightings, a biweekly, electronic editorial published by the Marty Center.

Dr. Robert Wuthnow – “Faith and Giving”

Dr. Robert Wuthnow joined us as the inaugural Thomas H. Lake Lecturer September 25, 2003. His lecture was entitled "Faith and Giving: From Christian Charity to Spiritual Practice." In it, Dr. Wuthnow shared results of his research, discussed changes in faith and giving over times and their impact on society, and explored current issues.

Robert Wuthnow is director of the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University, which aims to encourage scholarly research, teaching, and public discussion about religion through the diverse perspectives of the humanities and social sciences. He teaches sociology of religion and cultural sociology, specializing in the use of both quantitative and qualitative (historical and ethnographic) research methods. Dr. Wuthnow is an internationally renowned scholar in religion and contemporary culture. His books include God and Mammon in America, Growing Up Religious: Christians and Jews and Their Journeys of Faith, and Acts of Compassion: Caring for Others and Helping Ourselves, for which he received a Pulitzer Prize nomination. Through a Guggenheim Fellowship, he is writing a book on the new challenges of religious and cultural pluralism.