§ Michigan Avenue Forums

Michigan Avenue Forums at Fourth Presbyterian Church promote civic formation within the Chicagoland community by presenting a series of events that feature important thinkers and public leaders in live lecture or debate format, discussing current issues of civic and ethical priority. There is some opportunity for audience participation through a structured question and answer session.

Sex and the Limits of Ethics
Presented by Ted Smith
Sunday, October 3, 7:00 p.m.

How should Christians think about the ethics of sex? Mainline Protestants have often tried to steer a middle way between absolute prohibitions that forget the complexity of human lives and "anything-goes" permissions that forget the damage people can do to one another. We have tended to stress values such as consent, responsibility, and reciprocity—values that play out between one person and another.

But this stress on relations between persons has sometimes come at the cost of connection to our deepest convictions about who God is and how God calls us to new life. Our sexual ethics can become oddly disjointed from the core of our faith.

In this Michigan Avenue Forum, Vanderbilt Divinity School professor Ted Smith will work from classic and contemporary sources to suggest the need for a Christian sexual ethic that grows out of the relationship between erotic desire and the love of God.

Ted Smith is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), and is Assistant Professor of Ethics and Society and Director of The Program in Theology and Practice at Vanderbilt Divinity School.


“This I Believe”: An Evening with Bob Edwards
Wednesday, December 8 at 7:00 p.m.

Join public radio host Bob Edwards for an exploration of personal belief. Founded in 2004, “This I Believe” is an international project engaging people in writing and sharing essays describing the core values that guide their daily lives. Based on a 1950s radio program of the same name hosted by Edward R. Murrow, more than 90,000 of these essays have now been collected, written by people from all walks of life. This event will include audio excerpts from the 1950s series as well as live readings and discussion with local essayists to celebrate the beliefs of Chicagoans. The event will be recorded for possible future broadcast on The Bob Edwards Show and Bob Edwards Weekend.

This Michigan Avenue Forum is offered in partnership with WBEZ. Tickets and more information will be available beginning September 1 at wbez.org/events.

Bob Edwards is a Peabody Award-winning radio host who for more than twenty-four years hosted National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. He is currently host of The Bob Edwards Show and Bob Edwards Weekend.

For information about Michigan Avenue Forums, contact Adam Fronczek, Associate Pastor for Adult Education and Worship.