Bruce Forbes receives Francis Asbury Award at state conference

Dr. Bruce Forbes, professor and chair of religious studies at Morningside College, received the Francis Asbury Award at the Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church held in June in Ames, Iowa.

The award is given each year at the annual state conference to someone who has made a significant contribution to ministries in higher education.

“Formerly a campus minister himself, Forbes understands the connection between a college’s religion department and its campus ministry program,” said Dana Scopatz, a pastor in Council Bluffs and chair of the board which chose Forbes for this honor.

Forbes said the study of religion is not an intellectual chess game. He said it is about helping students gather information and then figure out for themselves what they believe.

“A Morningside education is about the whole person, and if we say that, we ought to live that out,” he said. “Education involves not just filling your head with knowledge but also dealing with our lives. It’s kind of the heart and the head together.”

Forbes has been on the faculty at Morningside since 1978 and is an adjunct professor at Augsburg College Weekend College in Minneapolis, Minn. He holds a bachelor’s degree in religion and philosophy from Morningside College, a master of theology degree from Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and a doctorate in the history of American Christianity from the Princeton (N.J.) Theological Seminary. He is an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church.