In 1948, the late J.M. Willson and Mavis Terry Willson, alumni of Southwestern University, established an annual lectureship directed at the student body that relates religious questions to social life and experience. Southwestern is pleased to announce that Harold J. Recinos, professor of church and society at Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology, will be the 2005 Willson Lecturer. Recinos will give his lecture, “God in a Dim Mirror: The Politics of Race in a Changing Society,” at 4 p.m. on Jan. 20, 2005, in the McCombs Ballrooms.

Recinos was abandoned to a life on the street by immigrant parents at the age of 12. In his challenges, he found a God of life and hope. Recinos, an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church, has served urban parishes in both New York and Washington, D.C. He earned a Masters of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary, a Doctor of Ministry from New York Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Philosophy with Honors from American University. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including Jesus Weeps: Global Encounters on Our Doorstep (1992) and Who Comes in the Name of the Lord? Jesus at the Margins (1997). The 2005 Willson Lectureship is presented in conjunction with Southwestern’s celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Week.