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MILLIGAN COLLEGE, TN (Jan. 13, 2003) – The third week of January is a time that Americans remember and honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his monumental work done to break down racial barriers. In recognition of what this holiday signifies, one of today’s leading authors and speakers on racial reconciliation, Chris Rice, will speak at Milligan College on Jan. 22 and 23.
Rice is currently a student at Duke Divinity School but in the early 1980s, he left college to volunteer for six months with Voice of Calvary Ministries, a nationally acclaimed interracial urban ministry in Jackson, Miss. The six-month stay turned into 17 years of living, working and worshipping with the interracial community.
While there, Rice befriended Spencer Perkins, the oldest son of evangelist John Perkins, and together they directed the International Study Center of the Voice of Calvary Ministries, founded by Perkins’ father in the early 1970s. Perkins had been active with his parents in the early 1960s civil rights movement and was among the first black children to integrate public schools in Simpson Co., Miss.
While in ministry together, Perkins and Rice teamed to do racial reconciliation work throughout the United States. Together they launched and served as top editors for Urban Family magazine (now Reconcilers) to champion the message of racial reconciliation and community development among evangelicals. Out of this grew Race and Reconciliation Online and the Reconcilers Fellowship ministry.
In 1993, Perkins and Rice co-authored More than Equals: Racial Healing for the Sake of the Gospel, which won a Critic’s Choice Award from Christianity Today.
In 1998, Perkins died of a sudden heart attack at age 44.
Rice released a new book and memoir to his late friend Perkins about his life at Antioch, Grace Matters: A True Story of Race, Relationship, Friendship, and Faith in the Heart of the South in September 2002.
Rice will present the lecture “So What’s Wrong With a Segregated Sabbath? The Challenge of Racial Reconciliation” on Wednesday, Jan. 22, at 8 p.m. in Hyder Auditorium and he will also present “Get Up And Go Onto Strange Ground” on Thursday, Jan. 23, at 11 a.m. in Seeger Chapel.
For more information, please contact Dr. Phil Kenneson, associate professor of theology and philosophy, at Milligan College at 423-461-8797.