The Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and minister of the Memorial Church at Harvard University, Gomes reinterprets the bible as a dynamic, transforming and inclusionary work for our times. “The theme of this book is the risk and joy of the Bible: risk in that we might get it wrong, and joy in the discovery of the living Word becoming flesh,” Gomes wrote.

Since being named by Time Magazine in 1979 as one of our country’s seven most influential preachers, he has remained an insistent voice of conscience, blending a conservative view of religion and morality — he is a leading authority on the Pilgrims of Plymouth — with contemporary concern for the physical and spiritual welfare of all Americans.

Humor and wit — he quotes from T.S. Eliot and Mae West, as well as the Bible — inform the serious moral content of his sermons and have made him a sought-after speaker, including two presidential inaugurations.

A native of Boston, Gomes graduated from Bates and Harvard Divinity School. After teaching and serving as director of freshman studies at Tuskegee Institute, he arrived at Harvard in 1970 as assistant minister in the Memorial Church. Gomes has been minister at the Memorial Church since 1974, when he was appointed Plummer Professor of Christian Morals.

The talk is sponsored by the offices of the chaplain, the dean of the college, alumni affairs and the Department of Philosophy and Religion.