Francis Collins |
More than 400 university professors, including the director of the Human Genome Project, will gather near the nation's capital to examine the ways Christian faith influences their views on controversial issues.
Genome director Francis Collins will be among the keynote speakers at the National Faculty Leadership Conference meeting June 22-25 at the Hilton Mark Center Hotel in Alexandria, Va.
Issues on the agenda range from human stem-cell research to the arts to immigration to civilization clashes between Islam, Judaism and Christianity.
Other speakers include the dean of the Julliard School, Stephen Clapp; Princeton physicist Robert Kaita; and Harvard astronomer Owen Gingerich.
The conference, sponsored by Christian Leadership Ministries, also will offer presentations in 15 academic tracks, including philosophy, life sciences, literature, communications and history.
Christian Leadership Ministries, the faculty division of Campus Crusade for Christ International, describes itself as a network of Christian professors at more than 1,100 universities worldwide, "equipping them to offer a Christian perspective to their colleagues and students in their research and teaching."
The year's conference honors the life and work of Charles Malik, best known as the former president of the United Nations General Assembly from 1958-59. After earning a Ph.D. from Harvard, Malik established the philosophy department at the American University of Beirut. He later taught at Dartmouth, Notre Dame and Catholic University of America.
The theme of the conference, "The Two Tasks," reflects Malik's "call to redeem the mind and redeem the soul through a life-transforming personal relationship with Jesus while promoting a biblical academic perspective on secular university campuses."
Malik recognized professors shape the thought and opinions not only of their students, but of the world at large through their influence on public policy.
Malik's son, Habib Malik, will offer a tribute to his father and discuss "Being a Christian in the Era of Civilization Clashes." Habib Malik is a professor of philosophy at Lebanese American University and a founding member of Lebanon's leading independent human rights group, the Foundation for Human and Humanitarian Rights.
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