Theologian-in-Residence to Address Religious Diversity and Tolerance

Gustav Niebuhr’s free public lecture scheduled for Feb. 10 at The College of Wooster

WOOSTER, Ohio — Gustav Niebuhr, this year’s Theologian-in-Residence at The College of Wooster and founding director of the Carnegie Religion and Society Program as well as associate professor of religion and the media at Syracuse University, will present “Religious Diversity Means We’ve got to Talk, not just Tolerate” on Thursday, Feb. 10. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, begins at 7:30 p.m. in Gault Recital Hall of Scheide Music Center (525 E. University St.) as part of Wooster’s Spring Academy of Religion series. Niebuhr will also present a writing workshop, titled “The Power of Narrative in Interfaith Dialogue,” on Friday, Feb. 11, at 3 p.m. in Lowry Center (1189 Beall Ave.).

An accomplished writer and a former reporter for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, Niebuhr is currently a columnist for “Under God,” a religion and politics blog at The Washington Post and Newsweek. A graduate of Pomona College, where he earned a B.A., and the University of Oxford, where he earned an M.A., Niebuhr is the author of Beyond Tolerance: Searching for Interfaith Understanding in America, which received a Frederick G. Melcher Book Award of the Unitarian Universalist Association. He is also the recipient of the William A. Reed Lifetime Achievement Award of the Religion Newswriters Association.

Niebuhr is based in Syracuse’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, and teaches courses in news reporting and religion in the United States. He has also been the co-recipient of grants from the Henry Luce Foundation and the New York State Department of Health, both to establish new courses and develop case studies related to religion and other aspects of American society. Prior to his arrival at Syracuse in 2004, he spent two years as a visiting fellow and scholar-in-residence at Princeton University’s Center for the Study of Religion.

Niebuhr’s visit at Wooster is sponsored by Interfaith Campus Ministries, the Spring Academy of Religion, the Center for Diversity and Global Engagement, and Wooster’s Departments of English and International Relations.

Additional information is available by phone (330-263-2558) or e-mail.