Jon Meacham spoke in the Perkins Public Life/Personal Faith Lecture and Colloquium Friday. (Kevin Gaddis / The Daily Campus)

Pulitzer-Prize winning author Jon Meacham spoke to faculty and staff Friday as part of Perkins School of Theology Public Life/Personal Faith Lecture and Colloquium.

The day began at 9:30 a.m. with a colloquium held at the Elizabeth Perkins Prothro Great Hall.

About 80 people, many of whom were faculty, staff and students at the Perkins School of Theology, came to listen to Meacham speak and participate in a question and answer session.

William Lawrence, Dean of the Perkins School of Theology, started off the day by introducing Meacham to the crowd.

Meacham would speak again to a larger audience at a luncheon and lecture later in the day.

The colloquium was a more intimate environment.

“This morning is an opportunity for a larger constituency to gather and to benefit by asking questions to the invited speaker of the day,” Lawrence said.

Meacham spoke about how an individual’s public life can shape their personal faith.

He also discussed the role that religion and politics play with one another.

Meacham spoke at length about how religion needs to be viewed as one factor of many that play into our public lives, but it shouldn’t necessarily become the main one.

“The religion we grew up with, it’s part of who we are, so when we come of a certain age, and we go into the republican experiment, into the republic into the public space, we bring those beliefs that may or may not have been particularly well-thought out,” Meacham said.

And with so many different, sometimes conflicting religions, it is important to realize they should not be the most important, according to Meacham.

“[Our views] may be more innate than an actual function,” Meacham said.

“And it creates a kind of potential conflict when we step into the arena with our religious beliefs and find that that arena is one in which religion is one factor but the controlling factor.”

He continued to discuss how bringing such extreme views in faith and politics may not be the most successful route.

“Religion like economics, like geography, is one factor among many, and should be,” Meacham said.

“If you attempt to argue that the public square should be totally secular, you are fighting a losing battle,” Meacham said.

Meacham spoke for about 30 minutes, then opened the floor for questions.

Many of the questions were asked by faculty or former faculty on current events.

Some questions were about gun control and religion and the evolving diversity of our country and what role that plays in not only politics, but religion.

This was the fourth annual Public Life/Personal Faith Lecture held at SMU.

The Lecture series is described by the Perkins School of Theology as “a fundraising and outreach event of Perkins School of Theology to the larger community.”

Various speakers are brought to discuss about how personal faith shapes public life.

Meacham is a commentator on politics, history and religious faith in America.

Meacham is also the executive editor and executive vice president of Random House Publishing, former Editor-in-Chief of Newsweek and a contributing editor to TIME Magazine.

He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for his book “American Lion: Andrew Jackson and the White House.”

The next Perkins speaker will be Arlene Sanchez Walsh.