Chaplain’s Speaker Series

The Chaplain’s Speaker Series is on hiatus for Fall 2019, to return in Spring 2020.

Starting in Fall 2013, the University Chaplain was charged with starting a new speaker series to bring to Vanderbilt’s campus dynamic and thought provoking speakers who will address religious and spiritual life on campus. Bringing one great speaker per semester, the Office of Religious Life welcomes the opportunity to hear from clergy, professionals, and authors alike to delve into topics that is need to be talked about more on university campuses.

Past speakers and topics have included:

Fall 2018: Jim Wallis, president and founder of Sojourners in Washington, DC, speaking on America’s Original Sin and the Bridge to a New America.

Spring 2018: Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart, Faith Work Director for the National LGBTQ Task Force, speaking on Making Sacred, Where Spiritual Resistance and Activism Meet.

Spring 2017: Nouman Ali Khan, founder of the Bayyinah Institute for Arabic and Qur’anic Studies, speaking on Reviving Your Hear: Putting Student Life in Perspective.

Fall 2016: Dr. Miroslav Volf, Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology and Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale University, speaking on Public Faith in Action: How to Think Carefully, Engage Wisely, and Vote with Integrity.

Spring 2016: Dr. Eboo Patel, founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core, speaking on Interfaith Leadership: Engaging Faith and Philosophical Diversity in the 21st Century.

Fall 2015: Krista Tippet, Peabody Award-winning broadcaster and New York Times bestselling author, speaking on The Mystery and Art of Living.

Spring 2015: Rev. Dr. Barbara Brown Taylor, New York Times bestselling author, professor, and Episcopal priest, speaking on Redeeming Darkness.

Fall 2014: Dr. Marcelo Gleiser, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Dartmouth College, speaking on The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning.

Spring 2014: Dr. Ralph C. Wood, University Professor of Theology and Literature at Baylor University, speaking on Fydor Dostoevsky, Flannery O’Connor, & Christ Pantocrator.

Spring 2014: Rev. Dr. Emilie M. Townes, E. Rhodes and Leona Carpenter Chair in Womanist Ethics and Society and Dean of the Divinity School at Vanderbilt University, speaking on Does Your House Have Lions?

Spring 2013: Rob Bell, founding pastor and pastor emeritus of Mars Hill Bible Church and author, speaking on What We Talk About When We Talk About God.