Baptist Joint Committee receives large donation

WASHINGTON — Walter B. and Kay W. Shurden of Macon, Ga., have donated $100,000 to the Baptist Joint Committee to establish an annual lectureship on religious liberty and church-state separation.

Designed to enhance the ministry and programs of the Baptist Joint Committee, the Walter B. and Kay W. Shurden Lectures on Religious Liberty and Separation of Church and State will be held at Mercer University every three years and at another seminary, college or university the other years. The first lectureship date will be

either in 2006 or 2007 at Mercer University.

J. Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee, expressed gratitude to the Shurdens for their vision and excitement about the possibilities the lectureship brings.

Walter Shurden, a former seminary and college professor and dean, is executive director of the Center for Baptist Studies at Mercer University. For 17 years, Kay Shurden was an associate professor of marriage and family therapy in the Mercer Medical School. She has a private practice in marriage and family therapy.