Dr. Anna Carter Florence, a professor at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, will be guest speaker for the Festival of Faith at First Central Presbyterian Church Sunday and Monday, Sept. 15-16.

Florence, who is the Peter Marshall Professor of Preaching at the seminary, will speak at 8:30 and 11 a.m. and at 7 p.m. Sunday and at an 11:45 a.m. lunch on Monday. The luncheon talk will be followed by a “Talk it Over” session for pastors, professors, and seminarians at 1:15 p.m. Florence will close out the Festival of Faith at 7 p.m. Monday. All sessions are free except for the luncheon, which costs $8. The public is invited to all the presentations.

Florence will return to Abilene in October as a featured speaker at Abilene Christian University’s Summit. According to her biographical information, Florence “is interested in historical, theological, aesthetic, and performative dimensions of preaching and the ways preaching engages other fields and different traditions.”

Dr. Anna Carter Florence

Her latest book is A is for Alabaster: An Alphabet of Preachers. The book features 26 “preachers,” one for each letter of the alphabet, drawn from New Testament texts. Each shows a different angle of diverse homiletics at work in scripture.

Florence is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a master of divinity and doctorate from Princeton Theological Seminary. Prior to joining the Columbia faculty in 1998, Florence was associate pastor for youth and young adults at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis.