Posted on July 19, 2004 at 4:25 p.m.
BIRMINGHAM, AL — Longtime University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Professor and prolific author James Michael Lee IV, Ed.D., considered one of the world’s leading experts on religious education, has died suddenly at the age of 72.
Lee’s career spanned 40 years, teaching educational philosophy at UAB and at the universities of Notre Dame and Seton Hall. He held the distinguished honor of having been the youngest full professor at Notre Dame University at age 28. A prolific author, he wrote extensively on religious education.
Lee taught military chaplains for Air University and the U.S. Department of the Navy and received the distinction as honorary chaplain in the U.S. Air Force. Professor Lee was a member of the Board of Directors of the International Religious Education Association and lectured frequently to professional education groups throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia.
Lee joined the UAB faculty in 1976. He taught in the UAB School of Education’s Department of Leadership, Special Education and Foundations. He retired from the university in 2002 and was named as a professor emeritus.
Lee published more than 70 book chapters and journal articles and was the founder and editor-in-chief of the non-profit company Religious Education Press, which publishes the works of noted authors. He considered religious education to be his life’s mission. The preeminence of his monumental trilogy on religious education, “The Shape of Religious Instruction,” “The Flow of Religious Instruction” and “The Content of Religious Instruction,” has been widely recognized by scholars in North America and throughout the world.
Lee is survived by his wife Marlene Lee and their three sons, James, Patrick and Michael.
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