MBU Faith and Learning Symposium set for April 9, Professor of History Dr. Keith Beutler to deliver keynote presentation.
This Friday, MBU Professor of History Dr. Keith Beutler will present, “The Weight and Weightlessness of George Washington’s Hair: What C.S. Lewis and a Founder’s Follicles Are Teaching Me About the Weave of God’s World” as the keynote lecture for the University’s third annual Faith and Learning Symposium.
The event will take place in a hybrid format—in person inside the Jung-Kellogg Learning Center and via video conference—so scholars from other universities may present and attend. MBU’s Scholarship and Research Committee, led by Dr. John Han, MBU Humanities chair and professor of English and creative writing, coordinates the event. The Symposium begins at 9 a.m. and ends following Beutler’s lecture, which is set to begin at 5 p.m. inside the Learning Center’s Pitch Room.
Other presenters include professors and students from several Christian universities including Grove City College, Central Christian College of Kansas and Missouri Baptist University.
Beutler’s lecture will be based on his upcoming book, “George Washington’s Hair: How Early Americans Remembered the Founders,” set for release this October. In 2020, Beutler was one of 24 leading history scholars to be named a fellow at the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington (Washington Library).
Beutler is a longtime advocate for the integration of faith and education. He serves as a member of the University’s Faith and Learning Committee. “I believe, in the late Frank Gaebelein’s helpful words, that ‘All truth is God’s truth,’” said Beutler.
“The urgent task of faith and learning integration in my classroom is never as simple for me or my students as peppering lectures or discussions with soothing affirmations of whatever historical suppositions are most current in American or even in American-evangelical culture,” Beutler said. “It involves looking with care at as much available relevant academic evidence as possible. Simultaneously, we strive to exemplify the Christian virtue of humility, taking care to not confuse our own academic hypotheses with received Biblical writ, or to wall ourselves off intellectually from academic colleagues within and without this university.”
Beutler holds a Ph.D. in History from Washington University in St. Louis, an M.A. in History from The University of Tennessee, an M.Ed. from Union University and B.A. degrees in History and Philosophy from Liberty University.
For more information about the 2021 Faith and Learning Symposium, click here.
