Liberal Arts Faculty Lecture with Dr. Peter Jauhiainen

Overview

Come to the next Liberal Arts Faculty Lecture on Thursday, March 5, featuring Dr. Peter Jauhiainen, Professor of Religion at Kirkwood Community College! Biderman will present: "'Your Hands are Full of Blood': Samuel Hopkins, Antislavery, and the American Revolution."

The Calvinist theologian, Samuel Hopkins, was one of the most prominent and forceful critics of slavery in late-eighteenth-century America. While pastoring in Newport, Rhode Island, the leading slave-trading port in the colonies, he drew upon his ethical theory of disinterested benevolence to demand the immediate emancipation of all enslaved Africans, as well as compensation and assistance to help them become productive members of society. Hopkins was one of the few colonial leaders who consistently applied the libertarian rhetoric of the American Revolution to all residents of America. He ridiculed fellow patriots for their flagrant hypocrisy and racism and argued for the equality of Whites and Blacks. A willingness to abolish slavery became the primary framework for Hopkins’s interpretation of the American Revolution—a litmus test of the moral worthiness of the revolutionary struggle.

Dr. Peter Jauhiainen (Ph.D, University of Iowa; M.Div, Princeton Theological Seminary) is a professor of religion at Kirkwood Community College, having taught for over 30 years. He specializes in American religious history, particularly late-18th-century New England, and has a keen interest in the intersection of religion, politics, and society in modern American culture.

Join us at 11:15 a.m. in 2082 Cedar Hall on Kirkwood Community College's main campus in Cedar Rapids. This event is free and open to the public.