Back to News 
MILLIGAN COLLEGE, Tenn. (April 5, 2017) — The Milligan College Honors Program will host a guest lecture addressing the rise of secularism in America on Friday, April 7, at 5:30 p.m. in the college’s Hyder Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.
Dr. Joseph O. Baker, associate professor in the department of sociology and anthropology at East Tennessee State University, will speak on “The Great Abdicating: Why a Rapidly Increasing Number of Americans Claim No Religion.”
“Dr. Bakers’ research is of crucial importance to anyone, but especially Christians, who seek to better understand this rising trend—and help reverse it,” said Dr. Michael Blouin, assistant professor of English and humanities and co-director of the Milligan Honors Program.
Baker is the author of “American Secularism: Cultural Contours of Nonreligious Belief Systems” (New York University Press, 2015) and serves as a senior research associate for the Association of Religion Data Archives (www.thearda.com). His research focuses on the sociology of religion, deviance and social control, and social theory, and it has been published in a wide variety of peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Criminal Justice, Public Understanding of Science, Social Forces, Social Science Research and Sociological Quarterly.
The Milligan Honors Program provides an advanced and enriching opportunity for high achieving undergraduate students from all major fields to work together to deepen their intellectual scholarship, engage in creative and professional work, and embrace their roles as servant-leaders.
Upcoming college freshmen who are interested in Milligan’s Honors Program and honors scholarships for fall 2018 must be admitted and submit the Honors Program Application by December 1, 2017. Candidates for honors scholarships are selected based on high school GPA and ACT/SAT-I scores. For more information, visit www.milligan.edu/honors.