Clatsop Community College
1653 Jerome, Astoria OR 97103
For immediate release
Contact: Lenore Morrisson (503) 338-2473

CCC’s Arts & Ideas and PTK Honor Society sponsor Oregon Chautauqua Program “Respecting an Establishment of Religion” by Mark David Hall

Clatsop Community College Arts & Ideas is pleased to sponsor an Oregon Chautauqua program by Mark David Hall entitled “Respecting an Establishment of Religion.” The program, which is free and open to the public, will be held at 3 p.m. Friday, April 27 at the Performing Arts Center, 16th and Franklin Streets in Astoria.

The program is co-presented by CCC’s Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, who chose this speaker because his topic is related to their Honors Study topic “Gold, Gods and Glory,” which calls for an examination of the role that religion, power and commerce have played in shaping human history.

Church-state relations have been a source of controversy since the first European settlement in the New World, and they continue to provoke energetic debate and intellectual discourse. Certainly the 2004 election revealed once again the significant relationship between religion and politics in America. Would America’s founders have been surprised, heartened, or dismayed at this connection?

Professor Mark Hall contends that few topics in public life are more appropriately informed by a thorough understanding of American history than the vexing relationship between religion and politics. In this program he discusses how America’s founders approached the subject by considering primary sources such as early state constitutions, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and President Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists. As well, he reflects on key Supreme Court decisions regarding the First Amendment’s declaration that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Please visit the OCH on the web at www.oregonhum.org to learn more about OCH programs.

For more information about Clatsop Community College’s Arts & Ideas, visit http://www.clatsopcc.edu/arts&ideas

Oregon Chautauqua Speaker Mark David Hall