An alumnus of Baylor undergraduate and law had heard me speak some months earlier in Bethlehem, Palestine, at an international conference organized by Palestinian Christians on the Jubilee tradition in the Hebrew Bible. I relate this story of my arrival at Baylor because it is important to the formation of the Center for American and Jewish Studies, the inauguration of which we celebrated in early November. After one day at Baylor, I was taken by the integrity and vision I found here. Baylor was religious and had a vision. I am religious and have a vision, and I thought that these sensibilities would make an interesting, perhaps even a dynamic, combination.
Integrity can bridge differences in religious and cultural outlook.
The Center for American and Jewish Studies has commitments and a vision. First and foremost, the Center has a commitment to Baylor University. The Center's programs emerge from within Baylor's mission statement. The Center seeks to become, like other entities at Baylor, part of the University's tapestry, so that one day its special quality becomes part of Baylor's normal routine, a part of campus life. Among them were Professors Richard Rubenstein of the University of Bridgeport, Rosemary Radford Ruether of Garrett-Evangelical Seminary, Mahmoud Ayoub of Temple University, and Lawrence Carter of Morehouse College.