Urbana University Welcomes Swedenborg Lecturer to Campus

Urbana University Welcomes Swedenborg Lecturer to Campus

 

Urbana University Welcomes Swedenborg Lecturer to Campus
 
URBANA, Ohio (March 11, 2011) - Urbana University invites the public to the 2011 Swedenborg Lecture on Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 7 p.m. in the Sara Landess Room in the Urbana University Student Center. The keynote speaker, the Reverend Dr. Ray Silverman, will present a lecture entitled, “Blind Seer of a New Civilization: the Spiritual Side of the Helen Keller Story.”
 
Helen Keller, the world-renowned champion of the disabled, was stricken blind and deaf at the age of nineteen months. She never regained her sight, hearing, or normal speech. Nevertheless, she rose above her triple disability to be regarded as one of the most influential women in history. A 2010 internet poll gives her the number one ranking among the Top Ten Extraordinary People with Disabilities (which includes such notables as Ludwig von Beethoven and Stephen Hawking).
 
What was the secret behind Ms. Keller’s invincible optimism? In her spiritual autobiography, My Religion, she confides that “The teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg have been my strongest incitement to overcome limitations.”
 
The Rev. Dr. Silverman serves as college chaplain and assistant professor of religion at Bryn Athyn College in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. He is the editor and reviser of Helen Keller’s Light in My Darkness (Chrysalis Books, 1994, 2000), and has co-authored with his wife, Star, Rise Above It: Spiritual Development through the Ten Commandments (Touchstone Seminars, 2000, 2005). Dr. Silverman has just completed a new book about Helen Keller called How I Would Help the World (Swedenborg Foundation Press, March 2011).  This book will be available for purchase and for signing by the author/lecturer following the program.
 
Dr. Silverman has lectured nationally and internationally on theories of Biblical atonement and is currently working on two new books, A Seamless Garment: A Study of the Four Gospels as a Continuous Narrative and I’m Not Religious, I’m Spiritual: The Inner World of Today’s College Student. The second book will be the topic of his Brown Bag Luncheon presentation on Monday, March 21, 2011 from noon to 1 p.m. in the Moore Conference Room in the lower lever of the Student Center. Both the book and the lecture are based on a course he teaches – Religious Ethics: Spiritual Development through the Ten Commandments. He will share journal entries from college students and incorporate Swedenborg’s teachings about the significance and centrality of the commandments in our lives.
 
Silverman has a PhD in English and education from the University of Michigan, and a master’s degree from Wesleyan University. He is a member of the Society for Biblical Literature, a member of the American Academy of Religion, and is a Fellow in the Institute for Transforming Undergraduate Education at the University of Delaware.
 
The Swedenborg scholar-in-residence at Urbana University is made possible by funding from the General Convention of the Swedenborgian Church.  For more information, call 937-484-1318.