Robert Louis Wilken, Ph.D., professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and author of several books on Christianity and its history, lectured at Benedictine University on the Christian roots of religious freedom as part of the Visiting Scholar in Catholic Thought Lecture Series.
Dr. Wilken presented "A Loser's Creed" at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 4, in the St. Benedict Chapel on the fourth floor of Kindlon Hall. He addressed "The Church Fathers, Roger Williams and Thomas Jefferson" at 12:20 p.m. on Thursday, November 5, on the fifth floor of Kindlon Hall.
A professor emeritus at the University of Virginia, where he was the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of the History of Christianity, Wilken earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and has taught at Notre Dame, Fordham, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum and Gregorian University.
Wilken is the author of 10 books, including "The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity" and "A Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought." His books are popular worldwide and have been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Polish, Ukrainian, German and Italian.
