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Allen Verhey of Religion Faculty
Writes "Remembering Jesus"

Posted February 5, 2002

HOLLAND -- Dr. Allen Verhey of the Hope College religion faculty is the author of "Remembering Jesus: Christian Community, Scripture, and the Moral Life," published recently by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. of Grand Rapids.

In the book, Verhey asserts that following Jesus requires remembering Jesus, which entails reading and understanding Scripture, where the memory of Jesus is found. "Remembering Jesus" examines what Jesus said and did, and applies it to medical, sexual, economic and political ethics. The book also explores the church in relation to Jesus' teachings.

"Remembering Jesus requires participation in, and formation by, practices of the church, like reading Scripture, prayer and moral discourse," Verhey writes in the book. "By remembering Jesus--and by remembering the early churches remembering jesus--[this book seeks] to contribute to the efforts of Christian congregations to discern the shape and style of lives 'worthy of the gospel' and 'in memory of Jesus.'"

The 538-page book grew out of a series of lectures, "Remembering Jesus in the Moral Life," that Verhey presented more than a decade ago for the summer program in continuing education at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. The book is dedicated to Dr. Jacob E. Nyenhuis, who retired from Hope in 2001, for his distinguished service to the college as provost.

Verhey is the Evert J. and Hattie E. Blekkink Professor of Religion at Hope. He is the author or editor of nine other books, including "The Great Reversal: Ethics and the New Testament," and the anthology "On Moral Medicine: Theological Perspectives on Medical Ethics," the latter of which won a CHOICE award as one of the outstanding academic books of 1987.

He has written some 200 articles which have appeared in journals, as chapters of scholarly books or as contributions to encyclopedias. His work is discussed in the 1997 book "Theological Ethics and Holy Scripture: The Use of Scripture in the Works of James A. Gustafson, R. Paul Ramsey, and Allen D. Verhey," a dissertation written by Laurens Wouter Bilkes.

Verhey has served on the Board of Directors of the Medical Ethics Resource Network of Michigan and on the board of the Society of Christian Ethics, and is currently on the board of the Duke Institute for Care at the End of Life. His editorial board memberships include the "Library of Theological Ethics," the "Journal of Religious Ethics," "Ethics and Medicine," and "Christian Bioethics."

He joined the Hope faculty in 1975. From 1992 to 1994, he was director and a fellow with the Institute of Religion at the Texas Medical Center in Houston. During 1993-94 he was an adjunct professor with the Department of Community Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, and with the Center for Ethics, Medicine and Public Issues. During the spring of 1994, he was a Rockwell Distinguished Scholar and Visiting Lecturer in Religion at the University of Houston. In 2001, he gave the Alexander Robertson Lectures at the University of Glasgow.

Verhey holds a bachelor of arts degree from Calvin College, a bachelor of divinity from Calvin Theological Seminary and a doctorate from Yale University.

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