Dr. Stephen Prothero, who has been described by Newsweek magazine as “a world religions scholar with the soul of a late-night comic,” will deliver a public lecture Friday, Sept. 28, at Marshall University.
Prothero, chair of the department of religion at Boston University, is the featured speaker in the third annual da Vinci Lecture, presented by Marshall’s Honors College and the office of the provost. The public lecture and discussion begin at 7 p.m. in room BE 5 on the lower level of the Memorial Student Center on the Huntington campus.
Prothero’s lecture is titled God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run The World And Why Their Differences Matter – the same title as his book published in 2010. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Religious Literacy.
“He is an exciting speaker, very provocative,” said Dr. Clayton McNearney, a professor in Marshall’s department of Religious Studies who has heard Prothero speak. “He can situate a discussion of American religion within a global context. Students will come away having learned something.”
Prothero’s bestselling books inspired a cover story in Time magazine and he also has appeared on Oprah, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, National Public Radio and other top national media outlets. He writes and reviews for The New York Times Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Salon, and other publications. He holds degrees in American Religion from Harvard and Yale.
Prothero is the author of numerous other books, including the critically acclaimed The American Bible: How Our Words Unite, Divide, and Define a Nation; Religious Literacy; and American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon.
He is a regular contributor to CNN.com’s Belief Blog, a frequent guest on NPR, a speaker on religious literacy at the White House, and a prolific writer for professional journals and the popular press.
