Release date: Sept. 24, 2002
Contact: Elaine Justice, Associate Director, Media Relations,
at 404-727-0643 or ejustic@emory.edu

Center For Interdisciplinary Study of Religion to Host Conference on Sex, Marriage, Family

Emory University’s Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion (CISR) will examine the problems of marriage and family life during the last 25 years and explore solutions during its conference, "Sex, Marriage and Family and the Religions of the Book: Modern Problems, Enduring Solutions," March 27-29, 2003 in Atlanta.

Eighty distinguished experts from a wide range of fields – anthropology, economics, ethics, history, law, primatology, psychology, sociology, theology and public health – will outline and debate the issues from a multitude of religious and political perspectives.

The CISR conference culminates two years of study on the issues surrounding sex, marriage and family as they relate to Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Eighteen senior fellows, most from Emory, participated in the interdisciplinary approach to solving family problems, producing a series of public forums and 29 new written works in various stages of publishing.

"Traditional forms and norms of marriage and family are in trouble today around the world," says John Witte Jr., Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law and Ethics at Emory and director of the CISR. He cites examples that include one-half of all marriages in the United States ending in divorce and the rise in illegitimacy, child prostitution, domestic violence and sexually transmitted disease that has broken out globally.

"This conference aims to take stock of this dramatic transformation of marriage and family life and to craft enduring solutions to the many new problems we face," he says.

Keynote speakers will include Robert N. Bellah, Elliott Professor of Sociology of Religion at the University of California at Berkeley; Rebecca S. Chopp, president of Colgate University; and Martin E. Marty, the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago.

Bellah will discuss how societal traditions affect sex, marriage and family today. Chopp and Marty will present the array of new challenges facing families in this century. Marty has been appointed Robert W. Woodruff Visiting Professor of Interdisciplinary Religious Studies at Emory for the 2003-2005 CISR project on children.

The conference will open with an overview on modern families presented by Don Browning, Alexander Campbell Professor of Ethics and the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago Divinity School and the CISR’s first Woodruff Visiting Professor of Interdisciplinary Religious Studies; Jean Bethke Elshtain, Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School; and Robert Wuthnow, director of the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University.

The conference also will feature lectures and panel discussions on:

• Sex, Marriage and Family: Teachings and Sources
• Marriage: Promises, Realities, Alternatives
• Law, Religion and American Family Policy
• Loving Others, Loving Otherwise: Future Challenges

Conference conveners are Witte, Browning, and Steven M. Tipton, professor of sociology of religion at Candler School of Theology, director of Emory's Graduate Division of Religion, and senior fellow of the CISR.

The CISR is one of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Centers of Excellence, designed to encourage study of the many ways in which religion influences contemporary life. It was established in the fall of 2000 with funds from Emory and a five-year $3.2 million grant from Pew. The center is housed at the Emory University School of Law and administered by Emory’s well-known Law and Religion Program.

For more information about the conference schedule or participants, contact April Bogle at 404-712-8713 or abogle@law.emory.edu.

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