Our Keynote Speaker

Paul D. SImmons, Ph.D.

Dr. Paul Simmons is Clinical Professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine, U of L School of Medicine, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Philosophy, where he teaches courses in Medical Ethics, Business Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, and Human Rights. He is an ordained Baptist minister and Director of The Center for Ethics: Ministry, Business and Medicine.

Simmons was professor of Christian Ethics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1970-1993, and served as Director of the Clarence Jordan Center for Christian Ethical Concerns 1977-1992.

Professor Simmons has contributed to the national and international dialogue on medical ethics through his writings on topics such as abortion, genetics, in-vitro fertilization, elective death and health care. He is qualified as an Expert Witness in legal cases involving medical issues. He lectures and writes on a variety of issues, however, including business ethics, sexuality and family, aging, peacemaking, religious liberty and values in education.

He has written five books. Birth and Death: Bioethical Decision-Making (1983), Issues in Christian Ethics (1980), and Growing Up with Sex (1973) a book for early teens. His Freedom of Conscience: a Baptist-Humanist Dialogue (edited, Prometheus, 2000), is a study of the First Amendment and its importance for religious and non-religious people. His latest book is The Southern Baptist Tradition: Religious Beliefs and Healthcare Decisions (Chicago: Park Ridge Center, 2002). Books in process include Dying in the Lord: Might My Physician Assist? and Ethics at the Frontiers of Medicine: the Intersection of Medicine, Law and Morality (editor).

He has three monographs: Personhood, the Bible and the Abortion Debate (3rd edition, 1992); Religious Liberty: a Heritage at Stake, and A Theological Response to Fundamentalism on the Abortion Debate.

Simmons has contributed to twenty books including Abortion, Medicine and the Law (4th ed., 1992), Bioethics Yearbook (1991, 1993, 1997), and Secular Bioethics in Theological Perspective (1996). He has published more than fifty articles in professional journals, as in the Saint Louis University Public Law Review (1994), Christian Bioethics (2:1, 1996), Christian Ethics Today (Feb., 2002), Journal of Elder Abuse and Neglect (1999), Journal of Church and State (2000) and Microsurgery (2000).

Professor Simmons has a special interest in the intersections of religion and science, and of ethics and public policy. His method brings biblical, theological and philosophical perspectives into conversation with scientific and legal dimensions of particular problems.

He serves on the Hospital Ethics Committee (HEC) of the University of Louisville Hospital, Baptist Hospital East and the Jefferson County Medical Society. He has also served on the Ethics Committee of Louisville Hospice, the In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) Overview Committee of Alliant Hospital, the Animal Review Committee of VA hospital and for 10 years was on the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of Audubon Hospital during the era of the artificial heart program.

Simmons is a Trustee of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and a member of the Religious Consultation on Population, Reproductive Health and Ethics. He also served on the Governor's Commission on Values in Secondary Education.

Simmons earned the Ph.D. from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (1970) and the B.D. & Th.M. from Southeastern Seminary, Wake Forest, NC. He has done post-doctoral studies at Princeton University (1976-77) and Cambridge University (1983-84). He is a member of the Society for Christian Ethics; American Academy of Religion; Association of Baptist Professors of Religion; American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics; Sigma Xi; and the American Society for Bioethics and the Humanities. He was the first recipient of "The Dr. David Gunn Award" (1994) presented by the Kentucky Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

Dr. Simmons is married to the former Betty Kinlaw of Raeford, N.C. who is a graduate of Meredith College (B.A., 1961) and the Univ. of Louisville (M.Ed., 1986). She is a teacher in the Jefferson County Public Schools. They have three adult children: Brent (m. to Connie), Brian, and Catherine.

Simmons is a native of West Tennessee, reared on a farm near Union City and a graduate from Dixie High School where he lettered in baseball and basketball. He still participates in sports (tennis, golf) and has enjoyed travel to Europe, Africa, the Near East, the Caribbean and the American west.

Our Panel Speakers

Kent Blevins, Ph.D.

Dr. Blevins, Associate Professor of Religion, joined the Gardner-Webb Department of Religious Studies and Philosophy in August, 1998. He earned a B.A. degree in Religion from Wake Forest University, and both an M.Div. and Ph.D. in Christian Ethics from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He served for over 15 years as a missionary, first with the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board (1982-1992) and then with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (1993-1998). During those years he taught at the Portuguese Baptist Theological Seminary in Quelez, Portugal, the Baptist Theological Seminary in Rüschlikon, Switzerland, and the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague, Czech Republic. He has served as pastor and supply preacher in many churches in the United States, Portugal, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic. He teaches courses in ethics, theology, philosophy of religion and science and religion at Gardner-Webb. He previously has served on the Human Rights Commission of the Baptist World Alliance and currently serves on the North Carolina Baptist State Convention Council on Christian Life and Public Affairs.You may reach Dr. Blevins at kblevins@gardner-webb.edu.

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Doug Dickens, Ph.D.

Dr. Dickens is Professor in Gardner-Webb's M. Christopher School of Divinity where he teaches pastoral couseling.

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