In 2004, Dr. Walter B. Shurden and Dr. Kay W. Shurden of Macon, Georgia, made a gift to the BJC to establish an annual lectureship on the issues of religious liberty and the separation of church and state. The lecturers, selected by the executive director of the BJC, may be academicians, politicians, ministers, church historians, ethicists or activists. Above all, the Shurden Lecturer is someone who can inspire and call others to an ardent commitment to religious freedom and the separation of church and state. Designed to enhance the ministry and programs of the Baptist Joint Committee, the lectures will be held at Mercer University every three years and at another seminary, college or university the other years. Past lecturers include Rabbi David Saperstein, Dr. James M. Dunn, Dr. Charles G. Adams, and Dr. Randall Balmer.

A nationally noted church historian, Dr. Walter B. Shurden is the founding executive director of the Center for Baptist Studies and a minister at large for Mercer University. Shurden served at Mercer for almost 25 years as Callaway Professor of Christianity in the Roberts Department of Christianity in the College of Liberal Arts. During eighteen of those years, he served as Chair of the Roberts Department of Christianity.  Dr. Kay W. Shurden, a retired professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Mercer University School of Medicine, is a noted author and maintains a practice in counseling and supervision.

The 2014 Shurden Lectures will be on the campus of Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

Past Lectures

April 9-10, 2013
Stetson University, DeLand, Fla.
Lecturer: Baptist Joint Committee Executive Director Brent Walker
Theme: Religious Liberty and Church-State Separation: "Oh, What a Touchy Subject!"
Read about the 2013 Shurden Lectures online.

Click here to watch lecture #1: First Principles: God-given, but government protected
Click here to watch lecture #2: First Freedoms: Accommodate religion, but don't advance it
Click here to watch lecture #3: Religion and Politics: How did we do in 2012?

April 17-18, 2012
Mercer University, Macon, Ga.
Lecturer: Dr. Franklin T. Lambert, professor of history at Purdue University and author of several books, including The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America and Religion in American Politics: A Short History.

Click here to watch lecture #1: America Conceived as a Christian Nation?: The Separation of Good and Bad History
Click here to watch lecture #2: A Secular/Sacred Alliance in the Fight for Religious Liberty
Click here to watch lecture #3: Constituting the Separation of Church and State

April 4-5, 2011
Georgetown College, Georgetown, Ky.
Lecturer: Melissa Rogers, the director of Wake Forest University Divinity School's Center for Religion and Public Affairs and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Click here to read about the 2011 Shurden Lectures.
Watch or listen to lecture #1: Religious Expression in American Public Life
Watch or listen to lecture #2: An American and Christian case for defending Muslims' free exercise rights
Watch or listen to lecture #3: Faith-based partnerships under Presidents Bush and Obama

April 27-28, 2010
Samford University, Birmingham, Ala.
Lecturer: Dr. Martin E. Marty, former professor of religious history at the University of Chicago and author of more than 50 books
You can watch the lectures online .

April 14-15, 2009
Mercer Univeristy, Macon, Ga.
Lecturer: Dr. Randall Balmer
Lectures are available online.

April 14-15, 2008
Wake Forest University Divinity School, Winston-Salem, N.C.
Lecturer: Dr. Charles G. Adams

February 26-27, 2007
Carson-Newman College, Jefferson City, Tenn.
Lecturer: Dr. James M. Dunn

April 4-5, 2006
Mercer University, Macon, Ga.
Lecturer: Rabbi David Saperstein