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Hoosier United Methodist News Archives
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March 2004 |
Renowned religious thinker to speak at DePauw April 29
GEENCASTLE, Ind. -- Elaine Pagels, claimed to be one of the world's most important writers and thinkers on religion and history and winner of the National Book Award for her groundbreaking work the Gnostic Gospels, is scheduled to speak at United Methodist-related DePauw University here to deliver the spring Mendenhall Lecture on April 29. The address by Pagels, "Beyond Belief," will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Gobin United Methodist Church. The event is free and open to all.
Pagels, professor of religion at Princeton University, is a preeminent figure in the theological community whose impressive scholarship has earned her international respect. As a young researcher at Barnard College, she changed forever the historical landscape of the Christian religion by exploding the myth of the early Christian church as a unified movement.
Her findings were published in the best-selling book, The Gnostic Gospels, an analysis of 52 early Christian manuscripts that were unearthed in Egypt. Known collectively as the Nag Hammadi Library, the manuscripts show the pluralistic nature of the early church and the role of women in the developing Christian movement. As the early church moved toward becoming an orthodox body with a canon, rites and clergy, the Nag Hammadi manuscripts were suppressed and deemed heretical. The Gnostic Gospels won both the National Book Critic's Circle Award and the National Book Award and was chosen by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best books of the 20th century.
Pagels' latest book, the New York Times bestseller, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, focuses on religious claims to possessing the ultimate "truth." She contends that, as Christianity became increasingly institutionalized, it became more politicized and less pluralistic.
The Mendenhall Lectures, inaugurated in 1913, were endowed by the Rev. Dr. Marmaduke H. Mednehall, a North Indiana pastor in the former Methodist Episcopal Church. For more information, log on to www.depauw.edu.
Last updated on 04/19/2004