Bracke lecture series inaugurated

The first of a lecture series created in honor of longtime Eden professor John Bracke took place on Friday, February 15, 2013. Dr. Bracke, Martha McCall Egan Professor of Biblical Studies, taught Old Testament and congregational leadership. Dr. Bracke retired from the seminary in 2012 after teaching for 28 years.

The inaugural lecture of the John Bracke Lecture Series featured Dr. Richard Lischer, an expert in the areas of homiletics and ministry. The event began with worship at 10:30am, followed by the lecture at 11 and lunch at 12:30pm. 

Lischer is the James T. and Alice Mead Cleland Professor of Preaching at Duke's Divinity School and received in 2007 a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Homiletics. In his scholarly work Dr. Lischer has sought to portray proclamation as an integrated theological activity. He also has explored the interactions of preaching, politics and contemporary culture, notably in The Preacher King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Word that Moved America and in his most recent book The End of Words. His theological memoir, Open Secrets, evokes the hidden dynamics of ministry in a small-town parish. His latest book, Stations of the Heart: Parting with a Son, will be released April 2, 2013.

A native of St. Louis, Professor Lischer's graduate theological training is in systematic theology. He is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and has nine years of pastoral experience in rural and suburban settings. He joined the Duke Divinity School faculty in 1979 and teaches in the areas of homiletics and ministry.