Dr. Allen Verhey of the Hope College religion faculty will present the 1998 Collins Lectures in Portland, Ore., on Friday-Sunday, Nov. 13-15.

          The lecture series, now in its 32nd year, began as
  the Portland Christian Lectureship in 1967.  The series is
  intended to provide the clergy, lay leadership and public of
  the Portland area with the opportunity to explore the
  ramifications of the Christian faith.
          Verhey, who is the Evert J. and Hattie E. Blekkink
  Professor of Religion and chair of the department at Hope,
  will present two addresses within the general topic of
  "Suffering, Compassion, and Piety."  The first lecture will
  be "Suffering and Compassion:  Looking Heavenward," and the
  second will be "Lessons of Lament for Responding to
  Suffering."
          The Collins Lectureship emerged from discussions
  between the Greater Portland Council of Churches, the Roman
  Catholic Archdiocese of Portland and the Holy Trinity Greek
  Orthodox Church, which wished to bring great scholars to
  Portland during the Pentecost season each year to discuss
  questions of paramount importance to members of many
  communions.  The goal has been to foster inter-
  denominational and inter-faith learning.
          Verhey's fields of interest and inquiry are the
  New Testament and Christian ethics.  He has focused a good
  deal of his attention on questions of medical ethics.
          His book "The Great Reversal:  Ethics and the New
  Testament" was described as "a standard for all future work
  in this area [on the relation of scripture and Christian
  ethics]."  The anthology he edited on medical ethics, "On
  Moral Medicine:  Theological Perspectives on Medical
  Ethics," won a CHOICE award as one of the outstanding
  academic books of 1987.  In addition, he is the author or
  editor of seven other books.
          He has written nearly 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 the National
  Advisory Board on Ethics in Reproduction, and as a member of
  the editorial board of 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.
          He holds a bachelor's degree from Calvin College,
  a bachelor of divinity from Calvin Theological Seminary and
  a doctorate from Yale University.