LEWISTON – A religion professor at Piedmont College will give a presentation titled “Sabbath: Self-Care or the Mending of the World?” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 2, in the Bates College Chapel.

The public is invited to attend the 2008 Zerby Lecture in Contemporary Religious Thought, sponsored by the Office of the Multifaith Chaplain, free of charge. For more information, call 207-786-8272.

An Episcopal priest since 1984, Barbara Brown Taylor teaches religion at Piedmont College in rural northeast Georgia, where she holds the Harry R. Butman Chair in Religion and Philosophy.

She also serves as adjunct professor of Christian spirituality at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga.

Before becoming a full-time teacher, Taylor spent 15 years in parish ministry, first at All Saints Church in Atlanta and then at Grace-Calvary Church in Clarkesville, Ga.

In recent years, she has lectured on preaching at Yale, Princeton and Duke universities, and has preached at churches across the country.

The annual Zerby lecture honors the late Rayborn L. Zerby of Lewiston, professor emeritus of religion and dean of the faculty at Bates.

Each year, the program brings to campus leading commentators on contemporary religious thought. Previous Zerby lecturers have included Holocaust chronicler Elie Wiesel and Harvard University theologian Peter J. Gomes, Bates class of 1965.