Walter B. and Kay W. Shurden Lectures

John Compton

Professor and Chair of Political Science,
Chapman University

John Compton is Professor of Political Science and chair of the political science department at Chapman University in Orange, California. His teaching and research interests include religion and politics, American political development, and constitutional law. His first book, The Evangelical Origins of the Living Constitution (Harvard UP, 2014), received the Cromwell Book Prize from the American Society for Legal History. His most recent book, The End of Empathy: Why White Protestants Stopped Loving Their Neighbors (Oxford UP, 2020), received honorable mention for the Hubert Morken Book Prize, awarded by the American Political Science Association’s religion and politics section. With Karen Orren, he is co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to the U.S. Constitution. His research articles and essays have appeared in Studies in American Political Development, the Review of Politics, Political Psychology, Constitutional Commentary, American Political Thought, and the Journal of Supreme Court History, among other journals.

“The Politics of Secularization”

Wednesday, November 13  |  Macon Campus

Lecture I – “Democratic Values in a Secular Age”
3:30 p.m., Griffin B. Bell and Frank C. Jones Courtroom, Mercer Law School

Lecture II – “Secularization and the Rise of Political Extremism”
5:30 p.m., Peyton Anderson Auditorium, Science and Engineering Building

Thursday, November 14  |  Atlanta Campus

Lecture III – “Secularization and the Fracturing of the American Left”
12:15 p.m., Luncheon, Trustees Dining Room