Honors Speaker Series

Monday, September 16, 2024, 7 p.m. — Shaw CLC Luce Auditorium

Alligators, Crocodiles, and Cultural Christians

Christians today often assume that the earliest Christians were better than us, that they were zealous converts more counterculturally devoted to their faith than typical churchgoers today. Furthermore, too often today we think of cultural Christianity as a modern concept, and one most likely to occur in areas where Christianity is the majority culture, such as the "Bible Belt." But what if we are much more similar to earlier Christians than we realize? This is both good and bad news but most of all, this is a call to pursue sanctification.

Dr. Nadya Williams received her PhD in Classics from Princeton University. She is the author of Cultural Christians in the Early Church (Zondervan Academic, 2023) and Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic: Early Christianity and the Recovery of Human Dignity (IVP Academic, 2024). She is currently completing a guide for Christians on reading the pagan classics for spiritual and moral formation, Christians Reading Pagans (under contract, Zondervan Academic). She is Book Review Editor at Current, and a contributing editor at Providence and Front Porch Republic.

Monday, November 11, 2024, 7 p.m. — Kinlaw Board Room

Pursuing Perfection: Michelangelo’s David and our Hunger for Glory

This multimedia examination of how Michelangelo’s David came to be, highlights our hunger for glory, and how our desire for perfection is actually a longing for another world.

Russ Ramsey, author and pastor, grew up in the wheatfields of Indiana. He studied at Taylor University and Covenant Theological Seminary (MDiv, ThM) before becoming a pastor. He and his family live in Franklin, Tennessee. Russ is the author of Van Gogh has a Broken Heart: What Art Teaches Us About the Wonder and Struggle of Being Alive (Zondervan 2024) and Rembrandt is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith.

Wednesday, January 22, 2025, 7 p.m. – Shaw CLC Luce Auditorium

Genesis of Gender

How do contemporary theories of gender compare to a Christian understanding of gender? This talk will give an overview of the two major understandings of gender in today's culture and bring those frameworks into conversation with Christian scripture and theology, highlighting the points of consonance and dissonance between them.

Dr. Abigail Favale is a writer and professor whose work lies at the intersection of Catholic theology, literature, and women’s studies. Her abiding interest as a writer and scholar is the meaning and dignity of woman, and her work explores sexual difference and embodiment in the Catholic imagination.

Abigail supports MICL programming by writing and teaching on women, feminism, and gender from a Catholic perspective. She holds a concurrent appointment in the Department of Theology, where she teaches on topics like Edith Stein’s Theology of Woman and Religion & Literature.

Abigail's most recent book, The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory, was published in 2022 by Ignatius Press and has already been translated into multiple languages. Her numerous essays have appeared in MICL's Church Life Journal, The Atlantic, First Things, Public Discourse, Comment, and elsewhere. Abigail is also a fiction writer and was awarded the J.F. Powers Prize for Short Fiction in 2017.

Tuesday, February 4, 2025, 7 p.m. – Shaw CLC Luce Auditorium

How We Did It! Reading the Herculaneum Scrolls Without Opening Them

This talk tells the story of virtual unwrapping, conceived during the rise of digital libraries and large-scale computing, and now realized on some of the most difficult and iconic material in the world - the Herculaneum Scrolls - as a result of the recent phenomena of big data and machine learning. Virtual unwrapping is a restoration pathway for damaged written material, allowing texts to be read from objects that are too damaged even to be opened. To understand how the scrolls from Herculaneum can possibly be read despite their profound damage, I will describe the non-invasive, technical steps that we invented, and I will discuss the human steps necessary to race toward digital restorations that will have impact for the scholarly world.

Dr. W. Brent Seales is the Stanley and Karen Pigman Chair of Heritage Science and Professor of Computer Science at the University of Kentucky. He earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has held research positions at INRIA Sophia-Antipolis, UNC Chapel Hill, Google (Paris), and the Getty Conservation Institute.

The Heritage Science research lab (EduceLab) founded by Seales at the University of Kentucky applies techniques in machine learning and data science to the digital restoration of damaged materials. The research program is funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Arts and Humanities Research Council of Great Britain, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Google.

Seales is a co-founder of the Vesuvius Challenge, an international contest formed around the goal of the virtual unwrapping of Herculaneum scrolls. He continues to work with challenging, damaged material (Herculaneum Scrolls, Dead Sea Scrolls), with notable successes in the scroll from En-Gedi (Leviticus), the Morgan MS M.910 (The Acts of the Apostles), and PHerc.Paris.3 and 4 (Philodemus / Epicureanism). The recovery of readable text from still-unopened material has been hailed worldwide as an astonishing achievement fueled by open scholarship, interdisciplinary collaboration, and extraordinary leadership generosity.

March 21, 2024, 7 p.m. — Bennett-Bernard Auditorium (Morrison 206)

Educating Germany’s Health Workers in Light of a Troublesome Past: National Socialist Euthanasia-Killings and Their Consequences for Today

Between 1940 and 1941, in national socialist Germany about 70,000 patients of psychiatric clinics were murdered in six killing facilities. These murders took place within the framework of the so-called Euthanasia action. One of those killing facilities was installed in the city of Brandenburg, nearby Berlin, where over 9,000 men, women and children were gassed with carbon monoxide.

Among the perpetrators in Brandenburg were three physicians and 15 nurses. One of the duties of the Memorial today is to educate students of medicine and trainees of nursing professions. In the Memorial they learn about the history of their profession with a focus on questions of responsibility for future ethical orientation in professional activity.

Christian Marx was born in the city of Duisburg, Rhineland, West-Germany, and finished school in 1984. After the mandatory civilian service, he was trained as a nurse. While working in a Berlin hospital, he studied history and political theory at the Humboldt University in Berlin.

Since 2009, Christian has worked as a historian at a variety of institutions as well as a freelancer in the House of the Wannsee Conference in Berlin. Christian is currently the Director for the Memorial for the Victims of Euthanasia Killings in the city of Brandenburg, Germany. His tasks include working on exhibition projects as well as the development, implementation, and evaluation of profession-specific educational formats.

March 4, 2024, 7 p.m. — Shaw CLC Luce Auditorium

Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood, Presence, and Place in the Digital Age

Dr. Felicia Song, Professor of Sociology at Westmont College, is a cultural sociologist who studies the place of digital technologies in contemporary life. Having trained in History, Communication Studies and Sociology from Yale, Northwestern, and University of Virginia, her research is oriented around the rapidly evolving digital technology industry and how the adoption of social media and digital devices fundamentally alters the landscapes of family, community, and organizational life.

She is author of Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood, Presence and Place in the Digital Age (InterVarsity Press Academic, released November 2021) and Virtual Communities: Bowling Alone, Online Together (Peter Lang 2009).

Dr. Song regularly speaks on digital practices, social media, the digital media industry, parenting in the digital age, and spiritual formation at universities and colleges, churches, schools, parent groups, and conferences. Her expertise has been sought by a wide range of organizations including BioLogos, The Vatican, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, Trinity Forum, Thinq Culture Summit, National Association of Evangelicals, Notre Dame University, Fuller Theological Seminary and Asian American Christian Collaborative.

January 31, 2024, 7 p.m. — Shaw CLC Luce Auditorium

John Dickson, PhD

John’s story is eclectic. Starting out as a professional singer-songwriter for the 90’s band 'In the Silence', he now works as an author, speaker, historian, and media presenter. He was the Founding Director of the Centre for Public Christianity (2007-17). He has published over 20 books, two of which became TV documentaries, and a third, For the Love of God: How the Church is Better and Worse Than you Ever Imagined, released in Australian cinemas in 2018.

John has held a variety of teaching and research positions before moving to Wheaton College, including in the Ancient History Department at Macquarie University, a lecturer in the Hebrew, Jewish and Biblical Studies Department at Sydney University, Distinguished Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Public Christianity at Ridley College Melbourne, and Visiting Academic in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Oxford, where he is researching Christianity and education in the ancient and early medieval worlds.

John currently holds the Jean Kvamme Distinguished Chair at Wheaton College, where he is also Distinguished Scholar in Public Christianity.

John has given well over a hundred talks a year at conferences, churches, schools, not-for-profits, corporations, and universities around the world. He is fascinated by history and philosophy, and about what makes people believe and doubt. His forthcoming Persuasion from Aristotle to Apple examines the intellectual and ethical keys to a good argument, from ancient times to today.

A busy public speaker, he lives in Wheaton, Illinois, with his wife Elizabeth and the youngest of their three children.

Saturday, October 7, 2023 — Shaw CLC Luce Auditorium

Christian Scientific Society Conference
The Impact of Technology on Human Flourishing

The Honors Program is happy to bring the CSS conference to the AU campus on October 7.

The CS Society aims to increase the understanding of the natural world and to encourage Christians in these efforts; to support education of the public on both the certainties and uncertainties of science, with a special aim to glorify God; to deliberate and investigate various controversial topics related to science; support scientists who are Christians through relational ministry and discipleship; and are called to support scientists who are Christians in cases where they may be facing discrimination or persecution because of their faith in Christ.

Friday, October 6, 2023, 7 p.m. — Shaw CLC Luce Auditorium

Virtually Like Jesus? Spiritual Formation in the Age of AI

Join Dr. Rickabaugh in discussing how our use of AI reveals a dehumanizing vision of ourselves, each other, and God. His idea is that by rejecting the depths and dynamics of the human soul, we are outsourcing our humanity. Dr. Rickabaugh argues that the only way forward is a return to the reality of the soul as understood by Jesus.

Dr. Brandon Rickabaugh is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Research Scholar of Philosophy of Technology and Culture at Palm Beach Atlantic University. He is co-author of The Substance of Consciousness (Wiley-Blackwell, 2023) with J. P. Moreland. Dr. Rickabaugh is a fellow of the Culture Initiative at The Martin Institute in Santa Barbara, CA, where he explores how the nature of consciousness and developing technologies, such as AI, impact human flourishing and culture.

Tuesday, September 19, 2023, 7 p.m. — Kinlaw Board Room

The Ballot and the Bible: Scripture and Public Life

Kaitlyn Schiess is an author, speaker, and perpetual theology student. She is the author of The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture has been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here (Brazos, 2023) and The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor (IVP, 2020). Her writing has appeared at Christianity Today, The New York Times, Christ and Pop Culture, RELEVANT, and Sojourner. She has a ThM in systematic theology from Dallas Theological Seminary and is currently a doctoral student in political theology at Duke Divinity School.

Wednesday, April 12, 2023, 7 p.m. — Kinlaw Board Room

Christians, Imagination, and Social Imaginaries

Karen Swallow Prior, Ph. D., is Research Professor of English and Christianity and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. She is the author of Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me (T. S. Poetry Press, 2012), Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist (Thomas Nelson, 2014), and On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books (Brazos 2018). She is co-editor of Cultural Engagement: A Crash Course in Contemporary Issues (Zondervan 2019) and has contributed to numerous other books. Her writing has appeared at Christianity Today, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, First Things, Vox, Relevant, Think Christian, The Gospel Coalition, Religion News Service, Books and Culture and other places.

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

Plastic People, Liquid Worlds

Dr. Carl Trueman, Ph.D., is a Christian theologian and ecclesiastical historian. He was Professor of Historical Theology and Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary, where he held the Paul Woolley Chair of Church History. In 2018, Trueman resigned his position at Westminster to become a full-time undergraduate professor at Grove City College, serving as Full Professor in their Department of Biblical and Religious Studies as of the fall semester of that same year.

Among Trueman's books are John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man, The Creedal Imperative, Fools Rush in Where Monkeys Fear to Tread: Taking Aim at Everyone, and Republocrat: Confessions of a Liberal Conservative. In 2020, Trueman published what is probably his most popular and widely read book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution. His most recent book, Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution, is a condensed version of his previous book. He contributes to First Things (Journal of Religion and Public Life), blogs regularly at Reformation21, and co-hosts the Mortification of Spin podcast.

Trueman is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and was the pastor of Cornerstone OPC in Ambler, Pennsylvania.

Thursday, October 20, 2022, 7 p.m. — Miller Screening Room

Pierre Sauvage is an Emmy-winning French/American documentary filmmaker. A child survivor of the Holocaust who only learned that he was Jewish at the age of 18, Sauvage is best known for his 1989 feature documentary Weapons of the Spirit, being reissued in 2022 in a newly remastered edition. That highly acclaimed documentary tells the story of the "conspiracy of goodness" of a mountain community in France that defied the Nazis and took in and saved thousands of Jews, including Sauvage, who was born there. Described by Tablet Magazine as "a filmmaker of rare moral perception," Sauvage, also a lecturer and a former film scholar, is the founder and President of the nonprofit Chambon Foundation. Three other documentaries by Sauvage will be released or re-released in 2022: Not Idly By—Peter Bergson, America and the Holocaust, Yiddish: the Mother Tongue, and We Were There: Christians and the Holocaust.

Monday, October 10, 2022, 7 p.m. — Kinlaw Board Room

Dr. Jennifer Frey is Associate Professor of Philosophy at U of SC, is host and creator of philosophy, literature, and theology podcast, Sacred and Profane Love. Her talk entitled Classical and Contemporary Views on Happiness is open to the public.

Jennifer A. Frey is associate professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina, where is currently the Peter and Bonnie McCausland Faculty Fellow in the College of Arts and Sciences. Prior to UofSC, she was Collegiate Assistant Professor of Humanities at the University of Chicago, where she was a member of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh and her B.A. at Indiana University in Bloomington. She has published widely on virtue and moral psychology. Her writing has been featured in Breaking Ground, First Things, Image, The Point, and USA Today, among others. She is the host of a popular philosophy, theology, and literature podcast titled Sacred and Profane Love. She lives with her husband and six children in Columbia, SC.

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

Dr. Rebecca DeYoung (Ph.D. Notre Dame) has taught at Calvin University for over 20 years. She studies the seven deadly sins and virtue ethics.
She recently published a new edition of Glittering Vices and won an essay prize from The Character Project for her analysis of the virtue of courage in Being Good: Christian Virtues for Everyday Life. She speaks widely, works in prison education, and is exploring philosophy for children.

Thursday, September 8, 2022, 7 p.m. — Miller Screening Room

Theism and Science: A Conversation with Dr. John Lennox. Watch an interview with Dr. John Lennox and Dr. Paul Nesselroade, Director of the Asbury University Honors Program at the Oxford Center for Christian Apologetics.

John Lennox is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University and Emeritus Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science at Green Templeton College. He is an internationally renowned speaker on the interface of science, philosophy, and religion, well known for public debates with public intellectuals such as the late Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Peter Singer.

In addition to being co-author of two mathematical monographs for Oxford University press and his mathematical research papers, he has written a series of books exploring the relationship between science, philosophy and theology including Can Science Explain Everything? (2019); 2084 – Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity (2020); and Cosmic Chemistry: Do God and Science Mix? (2021)

Watch the interview

Thursday, March 31, 2022, 7 - 8 p.m. — Kinlaw Library Board Room

Dr. Richard Weikart, Professor of History (Retired), California State University, Stanislaus

Are You the Image of God or a Cosmic Accident? — This presentation will examine the ways that many prominent Western thinkers in the past three centuries have contributed to the erosion of the Judeo-Christian sanctity-of-life ethic. Prominent intellectuals from the Enlightenment to the present claim that humans are the product of mindless, random, purposeless processes and thus have no intrinsic value. This has not only contributed to mass murder in communist and fascist regimes in the past century, but has also opened the door to widespread acceptance of abortion, assisted suicide, euthanasia, and transhumanism, especially among the educated elites.

Thursday, February 10, 2022, 4 - 5 p.m. — Kinlaw Library Board Room

Dr. Calum MacKellar, Director of Research for the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics and Visiting Lecturer in Bioethics at St. Mary’s University in London

Resurrecting Eugenics: Should only Healthy Children be Born? — With the possible selection of a future child’s health, athletic prowess or intelligence becoming ever more likely in the context of new developments in human reproduction, concerns are growing about the consequences of such selection on modern society.

Unnerving similarities between the discredited eugenic programmes of early twentieth century regimes may now be resurfacing under a new guise of a more ‘sanitised’ selective eugenics. There is, therefore, an urgent need to evaluate both current and future selection practices from a Christian perspective.

Thursday, October 7, 2021, 8 - 9:30 p.m.

Dr. Chris Bounds, Professor of Christian Doctrine, Indiana Wesleyan University, Wesley Seminary

The Imago Dei, Incarnation, and Human Dignity — Dr. Bounds will outline the Christian concept and historic significance of the Imago Dei with the Eternal Son’s incarnation; particular attention will be given to Wesleyan-Holiness distinctives. Application of this core doctrine will be brought to bear on some issues associated with contemporary life.