Speaker - Amanda Porterfield

Amanda Porterfield, the Robert A. Spivey Professor of Religion at Florida State University, will present the keynote lecture during the 75th anniversary weekend. She will speak on Saturday, November 5, 2005 at 4 p.m. in Hendricks Chapel on "Religious Pluralism and the End of Protestantism." Religious pluralism has advanced in the United States along with decline in Protestant hegemony. At the same time, Protestant ideas contributed to the development of religious pluralism, making Protestantism, in some respects, a victim of its own success.

Porterfield, a historian of American religion interested in the interplay between religion and culture, has written books on the New England Puritans and Protestant women missionaries. She also has wider interests in the history of Christianity and in the comparative study of world religions. She served as president of the American Society of Church History in 2001 and was a member of Syracuse University's religion faculty from 1975 to 1994.