What solutions does religion offer for racial tensions?

DALLAS (SMU) – As the nation grapples with simmering racial tensions, SMU’s new Center for Faith and Learning is gathering a panel of sociologists and religious scholars for a timely discussion, “Black Lives Matter, All Lives Matter, or Something Else?” on Thursday, Oct. 27, to explore what role Christianity can play in solving these old challenges.

“We want to demonstrate that the new center will speak to academically and socially relevant questions,” said Center for Faith and Learning director Matthew Wilson. “Race relations in America would be an example of something that is of academic interests to people in a lot of different disciplines and also really important to our society. This panel will look at the Black Lives Matter movement and the responses it has garnered, then evaluate it all through the perspective of Christian faith and sociology.”

The event will begin at 6 p.m. in SMU’s McCord Auditorium, following a 5:30 p.m. reception.

The panel’s featured speaker will be University of North Texas sociology professor George Yancey, who specializes in interracial contact and has authored books on multiracial churches.

Respondent panelists will include: SMU professor of church history Ted Campbell; SMU corporate communications professor Maria Dixon Hall, who also serves as Provost’s Senior Advisor for Campus Cultural Intelligence Initiatives; and Texas Women’s University sociology professor Bilal Sert.

“I think people, whatever their faith, may be interested in understanding what the country’s largest religious tradition says about this faith issue,” Wilson says. “This is a question where faith perspectives have a lot to say and contribute.”