During the Inauguration of LCU’s sixth President, Tim Perrin, the Honors Program will be hosting its first Honors Convocation. This event is open to all faculty, staff, and students. The Honors convocation will seek to highlight the excellence in university education. The goal of the event is not simply to dispense knowledge, but rather to encourage the pursuit of wisdom as our students prepare for careers and hear the call to lives of service. It is a great honor to have Dr. Robert D. Benne scheduled to speak at the Convocation.

Dr. Benne is currently serving as the Director of the Center for Religion and Society at Roanoke University. He received his BA from Midland Lutheran College before completing his MA and PhD from the University of Chicago. He also conducted post-graduate study at Hamburg and Cambridge Universities.

Dr. Benne’s research and teaching interests include Christian ethics, Christian sexual ethics, Christian higher education, and the theology of Lutheran, Lutheranism, and Reinhold Niebuhr. He is also on the board of Faith Christian Classical School and actively participates with Mutual Ministry Committee of College Lutheran Church and the Bio-Ethics Committee of Lewis-Gale Hospital.  He has written ten books, including Quality with Soul: How Six Premier Colleges and Universities Keep Faith with Their Religious Traditions (Eerdmans, 2001) and his most recent work, Good and Bad Ways to Think About Religion and Politics (Eerdmans, 2010).

The Honors Convocation will be held on September 26^th in the Baker Conference Center at 2:30. A Panel Discussion will follow shortly after at 4:00. Dr. Benne will be joined by Dr. Allison Garret (Abilene Christian University), Dr. Doug Henry (Baylor University), and Dr. Richard Hughes (Messiah College) to discuss “The Enduring Idea of a Christian University.”