4/15/12
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David Aikman
Award-winning print and broadcast journalist |
Randolph-Macon College will host award-winning print and broadcast journalist and author
David Aikman on Monday, April 30, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. in Blackwell Auditorium, R-MC’s Center for the Performing Arts. Aikman's lecture, “China’s Search for a Lasting System of Values: Will Christianity Emerge as a Moral Foundation for Capitalism in China?” is free and open to the public. This program is sponsored by the BB&T Moral Foundations of Capitalism Program.
Aikman will discuss the dilemma that China’s leaders are facing to find an ethical center for its civilization and its impact on economics, business and the social fabric of their society. He will also explore the potential impact that Christianity could have on the country’s communist party. Aikman is a specialist on Russia, China, East Asia, the Middle East, and religious freedom issues worldwide. He is the author of
Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power.
Aikman will be available for book signing after the lecture. His books are available for purchase in the R-MC bookstore and will also be available during the lecture. David Aikman
During a lengthy career as a foreign correspondent, Aikman reported for TIME Magazine from five continents and more than fifty countries. Since leaving TIME, he has authored ten books. His latest,
The Mirage of Peace: Understanding the Never-Ending Conflict in the Middle East (Regal, September 2009), is a comprehensive overview of the nations and societies of the strife-torn region and the historical roots of the intransigent conflicts that have defied attempts to bring a lasting peace. He has two books due for publication this year: a novel set in the Middle East called
Kidnapped in Gaza, and a non-fiction work entitled
One Nation Without God: The Battle for Christianity in an Age of Unbelief.
Aikman serves as Senior Fellow and is a regular moderator for the Trinity Forum, a leadership academy that seeks to transform society by helping leaders examine issues in their personal and public lives in the context of faith.
He is presently writer-in-residence and professor of history at Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Virginia. He is the founding chairman and a board member of Gegrapha, a global fellowship of journalists, and was recently a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. He writes columns for
Christianity Today and
Provocations in addition to extensive freelance writing for such publications as
The American Spectator and
The Weekly Standard. He is a regular commentator and host on Voice of America and has been a commentator on NBC, ABC, CNN, Fox News, and the BBC.
Raised and educated in England, he earned his B.A. at Worcester College, Oxford, and his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Washington at Seattle. He is fluent in a number of languages, including Russian, Chinese, French, and German. A naturalized U.S. citizen, Aikman lives in Virginia and has two grown daughters.
BB&T Moral Foundations of Capitalism Program
Randolph-Macon College received a $500,000 grant from the BB&T Charitable Foundation to expand the study of ethics, economics and capitalism through a broadened curriculum, faculty and student research, internships and one-on-one interaction with business leaders.
BB&T Corporation is the 10th largest financial services holding company headquartered in the United States with $152.4 billion in assets. Its bank subsidiaries operate approximately 1,500 financial centers in the Carolinas, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia, Maryland, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Indiana and Washington, D.C. BB&T annual charitable contributions totaled nearly $20 million in 2008.
For more information on this event or the BB&T Moral Foundations of Capitalism Program, please contact Pam Harris Cox at (804) 752-3712, pamelacox@rmc.edu or Anne Marie Lauranzon at (804) 752-7317, alauranz@rmc.edu.