Dr. Pete Ward, Senior Lecturer in Youth Ministry and Theological Education at King’s College, London, will speak at Indiana Wesleyan University on Monday, March 28, 2011, as a part of the President’s Author Series. The event will be held at 6:45 p.m. in the Globe Theatre, located in the Barnes Student Center on the IWU campus in Marion, Indiana.
Dr. Ward’s published works include Liquid Church (Hendrickson Publishers, 2002) and God at the Mall (Hendrickson Publishers, 1999). His most recent book and the subject of this spring’s President’s Author Series is Gods Behaving Badly: Media, Religion, and Celebrity Culture. The book examines the blurred boundary between popular culture and religion—one that has given way to an often confounding fusion of the sacred and the profane. Flipping through pages of tabloid media and looking underneath the veil of Hollywood’s glamour, Ward exposes how, in its consumer life, Western society elevates celebrity to the theological and, in so doing, creates a new para-religion.
John Wilson, Editor of Books & Culture, will facilitate a conversational interview with Dr. Ward. Questions from the audience will be invited.
For more information, contact honors.forum@indwes.edu.