The annual Presbyterian Women’s Lecture Series was originally endowed by Miss Laura Pettway. She was a long-term member of First Presbyterian Church; at her death in 1974, she left her gift to the Women of the Church of this congregation. Since the endowment’s creation it was doubled anonymously in honor of Julia Taylor White. This series has brought some of the most important minds in Christian theology and biblical scholars, reinforcing our deeply thoughtful Presbyterian Heritage.
Past speakers include Dr. Laura Mendenhall (President of Columbia Theological Seminary), Rev. Dr. Stanley P. Saunders (associate professor of New Testament at Columbia Seminary), Dr. Freda Gardner (former director of Christian Education at Princeton Theological Seminary), and Dr. Elizabeth Achtemeier (former professor of homiletics at Union Theological Seminary, Richmond).
Lecture Series - September 7 and 8, 2008
Rev. Dr. Amy Plantinga Pauw
Amy Plantinga Pauw grew up in Connecticut and studied at Calvin College in Michigan with majors in philosophy and French. She also studied at Calvin Seminary before completing her M.Div. at Fuller Seminary in 1984. In her doctoral studies at Yale she became particularly interested in the writings of Jonathan Edwards. Since joining the faculty at Louisville Seminary in 1990, she has taught a variety of courses including Christology, ecclesiology, and feminist ethics and the theologies of Jonathan Edwards, Karl Barth, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Dr. Pauw says that Louisville Seminary is a place where she can explore, along with her students, issues and ideas that are vital to the Church’s future. “The excitement of teaching theology is at least two-fold for me. One part is conveying to students a sense of the diversity and elasticity of the Christian tradition on the perennial issues of the faith: How do we know God? Who is Jesus Christ? How is God involved in the world’s suffering? What do we hope for? The other part is to encourage students to be theologians themselves, to join the church’s ongoing conversation about how to be faithful to God and each other in our time and place.”
Dr. Pauw serves on the editorial boards of the Columbia Reformed Theology Series, Yale University Press’ edition of The Works of Jonathan Edwards, and various journals. Her writing interests include feminism and Reformed theology, Jonathan Edwards, and Christian practices. She was a 1997-98 Lilly Faculty Fellow, pursuing research on The Supreme Harmony of All: Jonathan Edwards’ Trinitarian Theology published by Eerdmans Press (2002). She is co-author with Seminary Professor Susan Garrett of a devotional guide for pre-teen children, entitled Making Time for God: Daily Devotions for Children and Families to Share (Baker Book House, 2002). With Serene Jones she co-edited Feminist and Womanist Essays in Reformed Dogmatics (Westminster/John Knox Press, 2006).
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