Frances Taylor Gench to “Engage Tyrannical Texts” in 2011 Zenos Lectures

12-06-2010

The 2011 Zenos Lectures, scheduled for 1 p.m. and 4 p.m., February 21 at McCormick Theological Seminary, features a pair of provocative presentations by Dr. Frances Taylor Gench entitled, “Desperate Housewives? Engaging Tyrannical Texts.”

Gench will confront what are for many modern day Christians the Bible’s most awkward, offensive, or embarrassing texts and explore strategies for engaging them directly, honestly, faithfully, and publicly. Texts that have proved oppressive in the lives of many Christian women will serve as test cases. The Zenos Lectures are a biannual endowed lecture series offered free and open to the public. A reception will follow.

Frances Taylor Gench is the Herbert Worth and Annie H. Jackson Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia.  Prior to joining the Union-PSCE faculty in 1999, she taught for 13 years at Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary (Pennsylvania).She is a graduate of Davidson College and Union Theological Seminary in Virginia (now Union Presbyterian Seminary; M.Div., Ph.D.).  She was a member of the PCUSA General Assembly’s Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church, and is the author of Faithful Disagreement: Wrestling with Scripture in the Midst of Church Conflict (WJKP, 2009); Encounters with Jesus: Studies in the Gospel of John (WJKP, 2007); Back to the Well: Women’s Encounters with Jesus in the Gospels (WJKP, 2004), Hebrews and James (Westminster Bible Companion; WJKP, 1996), and two Horizons Bible Studies for Presbyterian Women. 

The Zenos Lectures at McCormick are presented bi-annually to honor the memory of Andrew C. Zenos, professor of Bible and ecclesiastical history and dean at the seminary for more than 40 years, retiring in 1934. The Zenos Lectures were inaugurated in 1946 by Professor Emil Brunner to offer the wider community the opportunity to hear what's on the hearts and minds of some of our greatest Biblical scholars. 

McCormick Theological Seminary is a seminary of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in association with the Hyde Park cluster of seminaries and the Association of Chicago Theological Schools.