Middle East expert to discuss volatile mix of religion and politics

Charles Kimball, professor of comparative religion at the Wake Forest University Divinity School, will give a presentation titled Hope for the Perilous Journey Ahead: Engaging the Volatile Mix of Religion and Politics in Christianity, Judaism and Islam at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 15, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave., at Bates College. The public is invited to attend the 2006 Bertha May Bell Andrews Lecture, sponsored by the chaplain’s office, free of charge. For more information, call the chaplain’s office at 207-786-8272.

An ordained Baptist minister, Professor Kimball received his Th.D. from Harvard University in comparative religion with specialization in Islamic studies. He is an expert analyst of the Middle East who has worked closely with Congress, the White House and the State Department for the last 20 years. Kimball’s articles have appeared in a number of publications, including Sojourners, The Christian Century, The Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Boston Globe.  He is also the author of four books: When Religion Becomes Evil (Harper San Francisco, 2003), Striving Together:  A Way Forward in Christian-Muslim Relations (Orbis Books, 1991), Religion, Politics and Oil: The Volatile Mix in the Middle East (Abingdon Press, 1992), and Angle of Vision: Christians and the Middle East (Friendship Press, 1992).

A signature talk at Bates since 1975, the Andrews Lecture is a memorial to Bertha May Bell Andrews, who served on the Bates faculty from 1913 to 1917 and established the women’s physical education program at the college. Her son, Dr. Carl B. Andrews of the Bates class of 1940, established the lectureship.