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School of Law Professor Robert F. Cochran, Jr. to Lead 13th Annual Frank Pack Distinguished Christian Scholar Lecture Program


Robert F. Cochran, Jr., Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law and director of the Herbert and Elinor Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion, and Ethics at Pepperdine University School of Law, will present “Agape, Justice, and Law: Should Christian Love Shape Law?” at the 13th annual Frank Pack Distinguished Christian Scholar Lecture Program at Stauffer Chapel in Malibu on Wednesday, January 11, at 7 PM.

Following an election year that was marked more by hostility than by respect, Cochran will explore politics through a spiritual lens. He will argue that Jesus would judge law and politics—as well as our personal lives—by the standard of Christian love.

Cochran is cofounder of Pepperdine University’s Union Rescue Mission Legal Aid Clinic, Nootbaar Institute, Global Justice Program, and the Wm. Matthew Byrne, Jr., Judicial Clerkship Institute. In recent years he has traveled to Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan, South Korea, Vietnam, and Thailand with the Global Justice Program, assisting human rights groups, supervising students, consulting with governments on religious freedom issues, and speaking on Christianity and law.

He is the author of 10 books and more than 50 scholarly articles and book chapters. His books include Agape, Justice, and Law: Should Christian Love Shape Law?, Law and the Bible, and Lawyers, Clients, and Moral Responsibility.

Frank Pack served for 60 years as a preacher in Churches of Christ and for more than 45 years as a distinguished professor of biblical studies in three colleges related to Churches of Christ: David Lipscomb College (1940 to 1944), Abilene Christian College (1949 to 1963), and Pepperdine University (1945 to 1945 and 1964 to 1990), where he was elevated to the rank of Distinguished Professor of Religion in 1978.

The Thomas F. Staley Foundation of New York City funded a lecture program on the Pepperdine campus from 1984 to 2004. In 2004 the Staley Foundation ceased funding lecture programs on American campuses. However, these programs had been so well received by the Pepperdine community that the University continued the programs under a new name. Beginning in January 2005, these events became known as the Frank Pack Distinguished Christian Scholar Lecture Program.

For additional information, contact program host Jerry Rushford.