To learn more about the Cole Lectureship, visit the Divinity School's Annual Community Lectures page.
Some of the material in the following table comes from The Cole Lectures, 1893-1993. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University, 1993. Locate a copy of the book or Get a copy of the e-book via Internet Archive
| Date |
Speaker
|
Lecture Title | Availability | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Library Physical Copy | Free Online Copy | ||||
| 1894 | Alpheus Waters Wilson | The Witnesses to Christ, The Saviour of the World | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
|
| 1896 | Charles Betts Galloway | Modern Missions: Their Evidential Value | |||
| 1898 | Alexander Sutherland | The Kingdom of God and Problems of Today | Manuscript | ||
| 1900 | John C. Granberry | Experience: The Crowning Evidence of the Christian Religion | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
|
| 1903 | Eugene Hendrix | The Religion of the Incarnation | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1904 | James Chapman | The Christian Character in its Relation to the Christian View of the World | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1905 | Charles Hall | The Universal Elements of the Christian Religion: An Attempt to Interpret Contemporary Religious Conditions | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1906 | Francis H. Smith | Christ and Science: Jesus Christ Regarded as the Centre of Science | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1907 | John Watson (aka Ian Maclaren) | God’s Message to the Human Soul: The Use of the Bible in the Light of the New Knowledge | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1908 | George Jackson | The Fact of Conversion | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1909 | Charles McTyeire Bishop | Jesus the Worker: Studies in the Ethical Leadership of the Son of Man | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1910 | William McDowell | In the School of Christ | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| Alpheus Waters Wilson | The Life and Mind of Paul | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1911 | Robert Speer | Some Great Leaders in the World Movement | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1912 | William H. P. Faunce | What Does Christianity Mean? | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1913 | George A. J. Ross | The God We Trust: Studies in the Devotional Use of the Apostles’ Creed | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1914 | Francis J. McConnell | Personal Christianity: Instruments and Ends in the Kingdom of God | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1915 | Walter Russell Lambuth | Winning the World for Christ: A Study in Dynamics | Book | E-book via Internet Archive |
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| 1916 | Herbert Workman | The Foundation of Modern Religion: A Study in the Task and Contribution of the Mediæval Church | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1917 | James Macdonald | The North American Idea | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1918 | Charles E. Jefferson | Old Truths and New Facts: Christian Life and Thinking as Modified by the Great War | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1919 | Lynn H. Hough | The Productive Beliefs | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1920 | Henry Churchill King | A New Mind for the New Age | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1921 | John Kelman | The Foundations of Faith | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1922 | Harry Emerson Fosdick | Christianity and Progress | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1923 | Charles D. Williams | The Gospel of Fellowship | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1924 | Samuel Parkes Cadman | Imagination and Religion | Book | E-book via Internet Archive |
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| 1925 | Edwin Mouzon | The Program of Jesus | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1926 | Cornelius Woelfkin | Expanding Horizons | Book | ||
| O. E. Brown, James Kirkland, and Edwin Mims | God and the New Knowledge [series of lectures published by the Cole Lecture Foundation] |
Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
||
| 1927 | Charles Whitney Gilkey | Present-Day Dilemmas in Religion | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
|
| 1928 | Edwin Hughes | Christianity and Success | Book | ||
| 1929 | Charles Abram Ellwood | Man’s Social Destiny in the Light of Science | Book | ||
| 1930 | Harris Kirk | The Spirit of Protestantism | Book | ||
| 1931 | John Mott | The Present-Day Summons to the World Mission of Christianity | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
|
| 1932 | Kenyon Butterfield | The Christian Enterprise Among Rural People | Book | ||
| 1933 | Henry Sloane Coffin | What Men are Asking: Some Current Questions in Religion | Book | ||
| 1934 | Shailer Matthews | Creative Christianity | Book | ||
| 1935 | Paul Kern | The Basic Beliefs of Jesus: A Study of the Assumptions Behind a Life | Book | ||
| 1936 | Rufus M. Jones | Some Problems of Life | Book | ||
| 1937 | Frederick B. Fisher | The Man That Changed the World | Book | ||
| 1938 | Gaius Glenn Atkins | Christianity and the Creative Quests | Book | ||
| 1939 | Albert W. Beaven | Remaking Life: A Challenge to the Christian Church | Book | ||
| 1940 | Edwin Aubrey | Man’s Search for Himself | Book | ||
| 1941 | George Buttrick | Prayer | Book | ||
| 1942 | Edgar Brightman | The Spiritual Life | Book | ||
| 1943 | Frederick C. Grant | The Earliest Gospel: Studies of the Evangelic Tradition at Its Point of Crystallization in Writing | Book | ||
| 1944 | Edwin Mims | Great Writers as Interpreters of Religion | Book | ||
| Robert L. Calhoun | Basic Christian Doctrines | ||||
| 1945 | Paul Scherer | The Plight of Freedom | Book | ||
| 1946 | Umphrey Lee | Render Unto the People | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
|
| 1947 | Wyatt Smart | Still the Bible Speaks | Book | ||
| 1948 | Luther Allan Weigle | The English New Testament from Tyndale to the Revised Standard Version | Book | E-book via HathiTrust |
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| 1949 | Nels Ferré | Christianity and Society | Book | ||
| 1950 | Pitirim Sorokin | Social Philosophies of an Age of Crisis | Book | ||
| 1951 | Rudolf Karl Bultmann | Jesus Christ and Mythology | Book | ||
| 1954 | Nathaniel Micklem | Ultimate Questions | Book | ||
| 1955 | Albert Victor Murray | Natural Religion and Christian Theology: An Introductory Study | Book | ||
| 1956 | Shaun Herron | [Title unknown] | |||
| 1957 | Wilhelm Pauck | The Religion of the Reformers | |||
| 1958 | Albert C. Outler | The Man of God's Own Choosing | Audiocassette | ||
| 1959 | Paul Tillich | Religion and Culture | CD | ||
| 1960 | Harold DeWolf | Themes of Continuity and Discontinuity in Recent Thought and in Christian Faith | CD | ||
| Wayne Oates | Protestant Distinctives and Pastoral Care | CD | |||
| Roland Bainton | The Relevance of Church History for the Strategy of Social Change | CD | |||
| Walter Harrelson | Biblical Theology and Contemporary Exegesis | CD | |||
| 1961 | H. Richard Niebuhr | Next Steps in Theology | CD | ||
| 1962 | Ernest Colwell | Jesus and the Gospel | Book | ||
| 1963 | Gunther Bornkamm | Christology and Justification in Pauline Theology | |||
| 1964 | Seward Hiltner | Images of the Ministry: A Theological and Psychological Analysis | |||
| 1965 | Roger Shinn | Faith, Freedom, and the Future | |||
| 1966 | Sidney Mead | The Line of Separation | CD | ||
| 1967 | Joseph Fletcher | The New Morality | |||
| Gabriel Vahanian | The New Theology | ||||
| Colin Williams | The New Church | ||||
| 1968 | Nathan A. Scott, Jr. | Forms of Pilgrimage and Exploration in the New Literature | |||
| 1969 | Langdon Gilkey | Reflections on Myth, Science, and Theology | |||
| 1970 | Martin Marty | The Future Context of Christian Belief | CD | ||
| 1971 | Krister Stendahl | The Need for Interpretation | CD | ||
| 1972 | Robert Bellah | America's Third Time of Trial: The Mythic Dimension | CD | ||
| 1973 | Jaroslav Pelikan | The Sermon on the Mount in Christian History | CD | ||
| 1974 | James M. Gustafson | Christian Reflections on Taking Human Life | CD | ||
| 1975 | Ernest Campbell | Biblical Faith and Contemporary Society | Audiocassette, CD | ||
| John Killinger | The Bible and Southern Preaching | Audiocassette, CD | |||
| Michael Novak | Biblical Background to Presidential Politics | Audiocassette, CD | |||
| Aquin O'Neill | The Bible and Southern Womanhood | Audiocassette, CD | |||
| Walter Harrelson | Preaching and the Old Testament Prophets | Audiocassette, CD | |||
| Donald Shriver | The Bible and Southern Ethics | Audiocassette, CD | |||
| Sallie TeSelle | The Bible and Southern Literature | Audiocassette, CD | |||
| William Stringfellow | The Problem of a Political Hope: America's Destiny and Christ's Advent | Audiocassette, CD | |||
| David Napier | Word of God, Word of Earth | Audiocassette, CD | |||
| Charles Wellborn | The Bible and Southern Politics | Audiocassette, CD | |||
| James Crenshaw | Biblical Wisdom and Southern Folkways | Audiocassette, CD | |||
| Martin Marty | Biblical Worlds in Today's Many Worlds | Audiocassette, CD | |||
| Julian Hartt | The Predicament of the Church and the Task of the Theologian | Audiocassette, CD | |||
| David Tracy | The Unity of the Theological Curriculum | Audiocassette, CD | |||
| Dorothee Sölle | The Bitter Christ: Suffering Between Abolition and Acceptance | Audiocassette, CD | |||
| 1976 | Robert Coles | Ideology and Transcendence [first lecture]
The Pastoral and the Prophetic[second lecture] The Prophetic and the Pastoral [first lecture] |
CD | ||
| 1977 | Langdon Gilkey | Religion in Contemporary America: Religion and the American Future | CD | ||
| Robert T. Handy | Religion in Contemporary America: The Long Spell of Christendom | CD | |||
| Paul Pruyser | Religion in Contemporary America: The Seamy Side of Current Religious Beliefs | CD | |||
| 1978 | Elizabeth Sewell | The Parabolic in Religion and Literature: Figures in Light and Darkness, or, The Scholar-Gypsy | CD | ||
| Stephen D. Crites | The Parabolic in Religion and Literature: Spirit over the Waters: The Imaginative Formation of Experience | CD | |||
| Erich Heller | The Parabolic in Religion and Literature: The Birth of Tragedy and the End of Art: The Mindscape of Nietzsche's Philosophy of Art | CD | |||
| 1979 | Burgess Carr | The Churches and Radical Revolution in Africa | Audiocassette, CD | ||
| 1980 | Raymond Brown | Christianity in the Post-Apocalyptic Churches of the New Testament | CD | ||
| 1981 | Fred Craddock | How the Word Sounds | Audiocassette, CD | ||
| 1982 | Paul Ricoeur | Poetics and Symbolism | Audiocassette, CD | ||
| 1983 | Walter Brueggemann | The Religious Imagination and World Transformation | Audiocassette, CD | ||
| Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza | Women and Men in the Household of Faith | CD | |||
| 1984 | Lou Silberman | Some Metaphors of Faith | Audiocassette, CD | ||
| 1986 | Albert Raboteau | Uncovering a Tradition: Afro-American Religious Life | Audiocassette, CD, Videocassette | ||
| 1987 | Leander Keck | Jesus and Our Rectitude: The Christology of Matthew | Audiocassette, CD, Videocassette | ||
| 1988 | James Barr | Biblical Faith and Natural Theology | Audiocassette, CD, Videocassette | ||
| 1989 | Margaret Miles | Nakedness and Religious Meaning in Fourth-Century Christianity | Audiocassette, CD | ||
| 1990 | Gustavo Gutierrez | [Untitled] | Audiocassette, CD, Videocassette | ||
| 1991 | Wendy Dongier | Sexual Doubles in Religious Literature | Audiocassette, CD | ||
| 1992 | Enrique Dussel | 1492, the Genesis of Modernity | CD | ||
| 1993 | Brooks Holifield | The Practicality of Theology in America [first lecture]
Defining God in America: The Debate over Usefulness [second lecture] |
CD | ||
| 1994 | Rebecca Chopp | We Shall Unname Them: Theology as Emancipation | CD | ||
| 1995 | Sheila Greeve Davaney | [Title unknown] | |||
| 1996 | James H. Cone | [Title unknown] | |||
| 1997 | Donald Beisswenger | [Title unknown] | |||
| Edward Farley | Beauty as the Beast: The Uphill Path to a Theological Aesthetics | CD | |||
| 1998 | James Barr | Where are Biblical Studies Going? Prospects for a New Millennium | Audiocassette, CD, Videocassette | ||
| Eugene TeSelle | Living Dangerously: Theological Explorations of the Human Situation | Audiocassette, CD, Videocassette | |||
| 1999 | David Buttrick | Social Dreaming and the Impudence of Preaching [first lecture]
Preaching and Partying [second lecture] |
Audiocassette [first lecture], CD, Videocassette [second lecture] |
||
| 2000 | Marcus J. Borg | The Battle over Jesus Today [first lecture]
Jesus Today: The Legacy of Albert Schweitzer [second lecture] |
Audiocassette [first lecture], Audiocassette [second lecture], CD, Videocassette [first lecture], Videocassette [second lecture] |
||
| 2001 | Parker J. Palmer | Divided No More: Spiritual Formation in a Secular World | Audiocassette, CD, Videocassette | ||
| 2002 | Jürgen Moltmann and Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel | The Crucified God: Yesterday and Today [first lecture]
Friendship, the Forgotten Category for Faith and Christian Community [second lecture] |
CD, Videocassette [first lecture], Videocassette [second lecture] |
||
| 2003 | Kathryn Tanner | Economies of Grace [first lecture]
Grace and Global Capitalism [second lecture] |
Audiocassette [first lecture], Audiocassette [second lecture], CD, Videocassette [second lecture] |
||
| 2004 | Peter Gomes | The Bible: The Development of an American Book | CD, Videocassette | ||
| 2005 | Jim Wallis | God's Politics [first lecture]
New Vision for American Politics [second lecture] |
CD, DVD | ||
| 2006 | Lamin Sanneh | World Christianity and the Global Balance of Power | CD, DVD | Video [first lecture] via Institutional Repository |
|
| 2007 | Mark Noll | The Bible in American Public Life | Video [first lecture]Video [second lecture]via Institutional Repository |
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| 2008 | Randall Balmer | So Help Me God: Faith and the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush [first lecture]
Keep the Faith: Reclaiming Christianity from the Religious Right [second lecture] |
Video [second lecture] via Institutional Repository |
||
| 2009 | James M. Lawson, Jr. | Seeking First the Kingdom: The Nashville Story, 1958-1962 [first lecture]
Unfettering Jesus [second lecture] |
Video [first lecture] Video [second lecture] via Institutional Repository |
||
| 2010 | John W. O'Malley, S.J. | What Happened at Vatican II [first lecture]
Interpreting What Happened at Vatican II [second lecture] |
Video [first lecture] via Institutional Repository |
||
| 2011 | R. Scott Appleby | The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion as a Source of Violent and Nonviolent Militance [first lecture]
Strong Religion, Weak Religion: Religious Extremism and its Violent Accomplices [second lecture] |
Video [first lecture] Video [second lecture] via Vanderbilt's YouTube channel |
||
| 2012 | Anthea Butler | Race, Religion and the American Project [first lecture]
Whitewashing the Past: The Religious Right and the Quest to Reframe American History [second lecture] |
Video [first lecture] Video [second lecture] via Vanderbilt's YouTube channel |
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| 2013 | Elaine Pagels | Art, Music, and Politics in the Book of Revelation [first lecture]
New Reflections on Gospel Traditions: The Gospel of John and The Gospel of Thomas [second lecture] |
Video [first lecture] Video [second lecture] via Vanderbilt's YouTube channel |
||
| 2014 | Tex Sample | Talking the Talk: The Skills of Fluency in Ministry [first lecture]
Walking the Walk: The Formation of Material Skills in Ministry [second lecture] |
Video [first lecture] Video [second lecture] via Vanderbilt's YouTube channel |
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| 2015 | Nikky Finney | A Young Black Woman Shimmy & Shakes a Flagpole and Finally Brings the Confederate Flag Down After One Hundred Years: Thoughts on Climbing, Not Waiting on the Calvary, Faith, and Manners, in the Contemporary South | Video [first lecture] Video [second lecture] via Vanderbilt's YouTube channel |
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| 2016 | Ingrid Mattson | The Landed Muslim, At Home, On the Earth [first lecture]
Solomon and the Ant: A Qur’anic Story of Perspective [second lecture] |
Video [first lecture] Video [second lecture] via Vanderbilt's YouTube channel |
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| 2017 | Daisy L. Machado | Of Marginal Identities and Heterotopic Saints: Lived Religion in the Borderlands | Video [first lecture] via Vanderbilt's YouTube channel |
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| 2018 | Gary Dorrien | Stubborn Ethical Radicalism: Christian Socialism as Political Theology and Economic Democracy [first lecture]
The New Abolition and the American Nightmare: DuBois, King, Christian Socialism, and the Black Social Gospel [second lecture] |
Video [first lecture] Video [second lecture] via Vanderbilt's YouTube channel |
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| 2020 | Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. | Fugitive Democracy, Ella Baker, and Black Democratic Perfectionism | Video via Facebook |
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| 2021 | R. Marie Griffith | Making the World Over: Confronting Racism, Misogyny, and Xenophobia in the Religions that have Shaped Us | Video via Facebook |
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| 2022 | Francis X. Clooney | Hindu Poetry and Christian Particularity: Translation, Disruption, Revelation | Video via Vanderbilt Divinity School's YouTube channel |
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| 2023 | Willie James Jennings | Climbing Zacchaeus’s Tree: Reparations as a Spatial and Spiritual Practice | Video via Vanderbilt Divinity School's YouTube channel |
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| 2024 | David Nirenberg | What History Offers Theology in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam | Video via Vanderbilt Divinity School's YouTube channel |
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