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10/20/2006
Contact: K.E. Schwab -- 724-738-2199;
e-mail: karl.schwab@sru.edu
SLIPPERY ROCK UNIVERSITY LIBRARY SERIES TO
FOCUS ON
‘FAITH AND THE PRESIDENCY’ AT
BAILEY LIBRARY ‘ENCOUNTERS’
SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa.
– Slippery Rock University’s Bailey Library
“Encounters” series will bring Gary Scott Smith, author
of "Faith and the Presidency: From George Washington to George W.
Bush" and history department chair at Grove City College, to campus
at 3 p.m. Oct. 31 to discuss his work and provide further insights
on 11 of America’s chief executives.
The public event will be held in the
library’s Special Collections Room.
Smith, who
serves as coordinator of the humanities core at Grove City College,
is author or editor of six previous books, and was named the 2001
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in Pennsylvania
Professor of the Year.
His book,
published for Oxford University Press, focuses on 11 presidents and
the role religion played in their policy-making. The Oxford
Web site describes the work as a series of "compelling portraits of
the religious lives and presidencies of 11 chief executives for
whom religion was particularly important."
David L.
Holmes, Walter G. Mason professor of religious studies at the
College of William and Mary and author of "The Faiths of the
Founding Fathers," says Smith's book is: "Broad in scope,
thoroughly researched, written by an author informed both in
theology and in political history, this book may establish a
standard for subsequent writers on the American presidency. Smith's
insightful and ambitious study details the ways in which the
religious faith of 11 key presidents influenced their policies and
performances, and is especially arresting in its treatment of
Wilson, the two Roosevelts and Kennedy. It promises to become
required reading for anyone concerned with the interplay of
religion and presidential policies in American history."
George Marsden,
Francis A. McAnaney professor of history at the University of Notre
Dame and author of the award-winning "Jonathan A. Edwards: A Life,"
says of Smith's book, "In this fascinating and well-documented
study, Gary Scott Smith evenhandedly recounts how religion played
differing roles in a variety of leading American
presidencies."
PN, PGN, WPN, PR
FaithPrez.kes.doc
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