MU religion center gets grant

The Center for Religion, the Professions and the Public at MU will receive a $1.5 million renewal grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts, which helped the center begin in 2003.

“It renews the center for the next two to three years,” said Edmund Lambeth, director of the center. “It lays the groundwork for becoming a permanent center at the university.”

The center brings together MU faculty from a range of disciplines, including agricultural extension, business, health professions, journalism, law, medicine, public affairs and religious studies.

These people work together on projects, with a primary goal of educating professionals on religious diversity in the U.S.

“It’s important to MU because we’re able to bring together the expertise in both a strong department of religious studies and the professional schools,” said Sharon Welch, chairwoman of the department of religious studies and a member of the center since it opened. “We can help develop a sense of religious literacy and competency for professionals dealing with a religiously diverse public.”

The center is working on four projects: strengthening journalistic coverage of religion in the United States, researching the relationship between spirituality and health care, interdisciplinary work on religious ethics and continuing conversations with the mid-Missouri community on issues related to religion and public life.

The Pew Charitable Trusts will give out $204 million in the 2006 fiscal year to give groups and citizens research and solutions for challenging issues, a news release from the center said.

Other “centers of excellence” funded by Pew can be found at Boston University, New York University and Princeton University. All examine the role of religion in areas of public life.

“Many professionals need to learn more about the religions that are now represented in significant numbers in the population,” Lambeth said. “That’s one of the reasons why fostering religious literacy is one of our key goals.”