About the Series
The annual Hein-Fry Lecture Series identifies lively, pressing theological issues facing the church and offers free and open to the public lectures that stimulate intellectual inquiry and discussion of those issues throughout the church.
The goals of the endowed series are to:
- foster original scholarship,
- encourage broad dialogue throughout the church on a theological topic, and
- give seminary faculty, students, clergy, church leaders, and other interested persons access to leading theologians.
The Hein Fry Lecture Series grows out of prestigious traditions dating back nearly 40 years in the histories of the ELCA predecessor church bodies.
The Hein Seminary Lectures were held each year at the four seminaries of the American Lutheran Church. The Fry Lectures continue and expand on the series known as Knubel-Miller-Greever Lectures, which were held at various seminaries and other locations in the Lutheran Church in America.
The Hein-Fry Lecture Series is unique in that it addresses all the seminary communities within a major American denomination. This gives the Series great potential for engaging both the current theological leadership and a generation of ministerial candidates in discussion of a focused theological issue.
The series is coordinated by the Vocation and Education unit of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Lecture topics, speakers, and schedules are set by Hein-Fry Lecture Series Governing Committee.