Location: Grace Chapel, Lenoir-Rhyne University Campus.
The Rev. Dr. Daniel M. Bell Jr. is an independent scholar who served for almost two decades as a professor of theology and ethics at LR’s Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary. He is a popular speaker at colleges and universities, campus ministries, and churches on topics such as war and peace, the moral life, stewardship and economics, leadership, and mission of the church.
Bell is the author of several books, including Liberation Theology After the End of History (2001), Just War as Christian Discipleship (2009), The Economy of Desire: Christianity and Capitalism in a Postmodern World (2012), and most recently Divinations: Theopolitics in an Age of Terror (2017). He has also presented papers before various distinguished organizations and his work has appeared in various journals.
A gifted scholar and an enthusiastic teacher, Bell has been active in Habitat for Humanity and prison ministry, has led study seminars to Mexico, and regularly took students on cross-cultural immersion trips to Honduras and Haiti. He worked for years with active duty military chaplains in their advance civilian education program and served for several years as the General Hugh Shelton Distinguished Visiting Professor of Ethics at the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. He is an ordained Elder in the United Methodist Church. A graduate of Stetson University in Florida, he earned a Master of Divinity degree from Duke Divinity School and a doctorate in theology and ethics from Duke University.
Before his seminary teaching, Bell taught at Monmouth College, Truman State University, and Meredith College. He currently resides in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The event is free and open to public. For more information, visit lr.edu/publicevents or contact Mindy Makant, Ph.D., LR associate professor of religious studies and director of the Living Well Center, at mindy.makant@lr.edu or by calling 828.328.7188. Visit danielmbelljr.com to learn more about the presenter.
Established in 2018, the LR Living Well Center for Vocation and Purpose strives to engage students, faculty, and staff in the ongoing discernment of vocation and purpose. The Living Well Center for Vocation and Purpose hosts the speaker series: Lives Worth Living. Speakers, including theologians, bishops, artists, and advocates for justice, will share their vocational stories and encourage participants to think in new ways about what makes one’s own life meaningful and purpose-filled.