Pulitzer Prize winning author and Chattanooga native Jon Meacham will be one of five speakers to present lectures on the topic of “Faith In The Public Sphere” during the 2024 Thorne Sparkman School of Religion lecture series. Mr. Meacham’s talk will be on Wednesday, Feb. 21. The Lenten season lecture series, in its 51st year, is held at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in downtown Chattanooga.
Mr. Meacham holds the Rogers Chair in the American Presidency at Vanderbilt University where he also is a distinguished visiting professor and co-chair of the Vanderbilt Project on Unity & Democracy. He is author of numerous bestselling books, including And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle, and The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels. He is a contributing writer at Time Magazine and the New York Times Book Review.
The Thorne Sparkman School of Religion lecture series this year also will include:
February 28 – The Rev. Josh Bales. A Chattanooga native, the Rev. Bales is a singer-songwriter and licensed mental health counselor. He is Canon Priest at the Cathedral Church of Saint Luke in Orlando, Florida.
March 6 – The Rev. Dr. Rosalyn Nichols. Dr. is President and founding partner of the Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope and is Pastor of Freedom’s Chapel Church in Memphis.
March 13 – The Rev. Dr Joel Huffstetler, Rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland, Tennessee. He is the author of several books, including Changed Eyes: Pandemic, Protests Proclamation.
March 20 – The Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery, Dean of Duke University Chapel and Associate Professor of Homiletics at Duke Divinity School, and the author of many books on the topics of preaching worship and the African diaspora.
Each of the lectures will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the nave of St. Paul’s church, preceded by a 5:15 p.m. Holy Eucharist and a 5:45 p.m. soup/salad dinner. Tickets may be purchased through the Thorne Sparkman web site: thornesparkman.org.
Sponsored by a number of Chattanooga area churches, the Thorne Sparkman School of Religion has become an important Lenten offering in the Chattanooga area for more than a half century. The school is named for The Rev. Thorne Sparkman, who served as Rector of St. Paul’s in the 1930s and 1940s.