Lewis House Lecture Series

In this lecture, ancient historian Dr. Nadya Williams reflects on cultural Christianity—ancient and new—to help us navigate the tension between faith and society. She offers wisdom from the earliest Christians on experiencing and responding to “cultural Christianity.”

Nadya Williams earned a PhD in Classics from Princeton University. She is Managing Editor for the magazine Current, the author of number of influential books including Cultural Christians in the Early Church (Zondervan Academic, 2023), Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic (IVP Academic, 2024), and Christians Reading Pagans (Zondervan Academic, 2025), and homeschooling mother.

In this unique panel discussion, we’ll reflect on a perennial contemporary Christian plight: how to engage in politics. Our four panelists offer four different views on how Christians should think about our current political landscape.

Gary Gregg: Dr. Gregg is the director of the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville. He holds a PhD in Political Science from Miami University. He has published several books on the history of politics in America and runs the “Vital Remnants” podcast through the McConnell Center.

Gary Houchens: Dr. Houchens is the director of the Educational Leadership Doctoral Program at Western Kentucky University. He holds a PhD in Education Leadership & Organizational Development from the University of Louisville. In addition to writing about education he writes about politics for The American Postliberal.

Kevin Kinghorn: Dr. Kinghorn is the professor of philosophy and religion at Asbury Seminary. He holds a PhD in philosophy from Oxford University, where he studied under Richard Swinburne. He’s written books on ethics and justice, including A Framework for the Good (Univ. of Notre Dame 2016) and The Nature of Desert Claims: Rethinking What it Means to Get One’s Due (Cambridge University Press, 2021).

Sydney Penner: Dr. Penner got his PhD in philosophy from Cornell University and taught philosophy for many years at Asbury University. He is a specialist in medieval and early modern philosophy, with a forthcoming book on the Jesuit theologian, Francisco Suarez.

Author and Pastor Russ Ramsey mines the lives of some of the most celebrated artists to show how their life influenced their works. He suggests that in their lives as much as in their artwork, we learn about faith and ourselves, too.

Russ Ramsey is an author, lecturer and pastor at Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, TN. He received an MDiv and ThM from Covenant Theological Seminary, and has written several books, including Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith (Zondervan, 2022) and the forthcoming book VanGogh Has a Broken Heart (Zondervan, 2024).  

In this lecture, Derek King argues that how we use our attention is crucial for our spiritual formation. Our attention is worth paying more attention to than we do.

Derek King is the Scholar-in-Residence at Lewis House. He has a Ph.D. in Theology from the University of St Andrews and M.Div. from Asbury Theological Seminary. His books include The Church and the Problem of Divine Hiddenness (Routledge 2022), Faith Without Belief (Wipf & Stock 2023), and his forthcoming book Theological Attention (Oxford University Press).

Everyone is thinking about gender, but is anyone thinking about it well? Drawing from reason and divine revelation, Abigail Favale offers an analysis of contemporary notions of gender and how those compare to a Christian understanding of the topic.

Abigail Favale is a Professor of the Practice in Theology & Literature. She has a Masters in Women, Writing, and Gender and a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of St Andrews. She has won several prestigious awards and her books recount her journey from a women’s studies professor to a Roman Catholic intellectual. Her bestselling book Genesis of Gender was published with Ignatius Press in 2022, which has been translated into seven different languages.

Is Jesus’ call always to radical living? In this lecture, Julie Canlis argues that Jesus spent 30 years being ordinary. And these years are essential for our salvation.

Julie Canlis is a Sessional Lecturer at Regent College. She has a Ph.D. in theology from the University of St Andrews. For her work on John Calvin, she won a Templeton Prize and the Christianity Today Award of Merit.

We all have questions, and they can be both plaguing and sometimes even shameful. But Matthew Lee Anderson argues questions—even those difficult ones about God and the meaning of life—can be good, leading us closer to, not farther away from, God.

Matthew Lee Anderson is an Assistant Professor in Baylor University’s Honors College and the Associate Director of Baylor in Washington. He holds a DPhil in Christian Ethics from Oxford University and is a Perpetual Member of Biola University’s Torrey Honors Institute. He has published several books, including Called Into Questions (Moody 2023).

We’re overrun with advice on what to read, but what about what not to read? Since bad theology is everywhere, knowing how to spot and respond to it is increasingly important to think well and live well as Christians.

Fred Sanders is professor of theology at the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University. He holds a PhD in Theology from Graduate Theological Union. He is the author of several books, including The Deep Things of God (Crossway 2010) and The Holy Spirit: An Introduction (Crossway 2023).