When you hear the phrase, “the Black church,” what comes to mind? Who do you think about? Maybe high-spirited songs and impassioned sermons fill your ears as you recall attending a Sunday service where the majority of people in the…
Mercer scholar studies Muslim women who marry non-Muslim men
Muslim women in Western and Islamic societies are increasingly standing up against Quranic interpretations barring them from marrying non-Muslims, religion scholar Shehnaz Haqqani said. “My respondents insist their marriages are Islamically valid and Islamically grounded, and that their marriages are…
‘I remember repeating to myself: “I have the right to be here.”’
Participating in the racial integration of Mercer University was not for the faint of heart when the process began in the 1960s, said Pearlie Toliver, one of the first Black women to attend the Macon, Ga., institution. Toliver, who also…
Mercer sets $500 million goal for Aspire campaign
Mercer University’s board of trustees elected 10 new trustees and a new board chair during its November meeting and authorized increasing the Aspire capital campaign goal from $400 million to $500 million. Launched in 2014, Aspire, The Campaign for Mercer University already…
Mercer gets $9.6 million grant to address public school teacher retention and diversification
Mercer University’s Tift College of Education is embarking on a partnership with five Georgia school districts to strengthen teacher recruitment and workforce diversification through a $9.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education. In announcing the project, the Macon,…
‘Listen before you preach,’ Godsey says at McAfee Founders Day
The power of preaching lies not in how well one speaks but in how well one listens, Kirby Godsey told students, faculty and staff at Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology Aug. 23. Godsey, former Mercer president, delivered the annual…
Rural churches: Pay attention to the mental health needs of farm workers
Mercer University researchers have identified a critical pastoral care need for leaders of rural churches: America’s farmers are in a mental health crisis. Across all farmers surveyed in a Georgia sample, 82% reported a moderate level of stress according to…
Remembering the struggle to integrate even ‘progressive’ Baptist churches in the 1960s
Writing from a Birmingham jail cell in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. expressed his profound disappointment with “white moderates” who “constantly advise the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’” We easily assume that, had we belonged to a…
Mercer University dedicates new $50 million Medical School campus
Trustees and administrators of Mercer University dedicated a new $50 million Medical School campus on the banks of the Chattahoochee River in Columbus, Ga., April 22. Mercer is the only university with historic ties to the Southern Baptist Convention that…