(in alphabetical order)

Speakers

Malcolm Guite

Malcolm Guite is an English poet, singer-songwriter, Anglican priest, and academic. His research interests include the intersection of religion and the arts, and the examination of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and Owen Barfield, and British poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was a Bye-Fellow and chaplain of Girton College, Cambridge, and associate chaplain of St Edward King and Martyr, Cambridge.

Guite is the author of several books of poetry, including Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year (2012), The Singing Bowl (2013), and his most recent book David’s Crown (2021), among others. He has also written several books on Christian faith and theology, such as Mariner: A Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2017) and Faith, Hope and Poetry: Theology and the Poetic Imagination (2012). He has a decisively simple, formalist style in his poems, many of which are sonnets, and he stated that his aim is to “be profound without ceasing to be beautiful.” You can learn more about Malcolm Guite at his website. (Image courtesy of Lancia E. Smith)

Crystal Hurd

Crystal Hurd is an educator and researcher from Virginia. She lives with her husband and three dogs. A self-proclaimed “book nerd”, her interests include reading, writing, photography, and listening incessantly to MUTEMATH. Over the past decade, she has read and researched both biographical and rhetorical aspects of C.S Lewis, fully endorsing his integration of faith and intellect.

Dr. Hurd loves discussing Lewis as well as various aspects of spirituality, apologetics, and leadership theory. Her dissertation applied Transformational Leadership theory to the life and works of Lewis. She is currently researching the role of artists as leaders. You can learn more about her on her website.

Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson

Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson is a George MacDonald Scholar based in the Ottawa Valley, Canada. She lectures internationally and publishes widely in books, journals, and online, on topics related to MacDonald; 19th century literature and faith; the Inklings; Faith, Arts, & Imagination; Ecology and Community; etc. She features in the documentary “Fantasy Makers: Tolkien, Lewis, and MacDonald,” and is guest on numerous podcasts and YouTube videos.

An alum of Regent College and St Andrew’s ‘Institute of Theology, Imagination, and the Arts,’ Kirstin directs Windstone Farm Linlathen, a non-profit that seeks to facilitate and cultivate community, through ‘Theology, Ecology, & the Arts.’ Links to her academic work can be found at kirstinjeffreyjohnson.com..

Amy Baik Lee

Amy is a founding member The Cultivating Project, contributing writer and columnist for Cultivating magazine, a literary member and former co-director of the Anselm Society Arts Guild, and the author of This Homeward Ache. A lifelong appreciator of stories, she holds an MA in English literature from the University of Virginia. You can learn more about Amy at her website. (Image courtesy of Lancia E. Smith)

John Lennox

John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University (emeritus), is an internationally renowned speaker on the interface of science, philosophy and religion. He regularly teaches at many academic institutions, is Senior Fellow with the Trinity Forum and has written a series of books exploring the relationship between science and Christianity.

He studied at the Royal School Armagh, Northern Ireland and was Exhibitioner and Senior Scholar at Emmanuel College, Cambridge University from which he took his MA, MMath and PhD. He worked for many years in the Mathematics Institute at the University of Wales in Cardiff which awarded him a DSc for his research. He also holds an MA and DPhil from Oxford University (by incorporation) and an MA in Bioethics from the University of Surrey. He was a Senior Alexander Von Humboldt Fellow at the Universities of Würzburg and Freiburg in Germany.

He has lectured extensively in North America, Eastern and Western Europe and Australasia on mathematics, the philosophy of science and the intellectual defence of Christianity. He has written a number of books on the interface between science, philosophy and theology. These include God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? (2009), God and Stephen Hawking, a response to The Grand Design (2011), Gunning for God, on the new atheism (2011), and Seven Days that Divide the World, on the first chapters of Genesis (2011). He has also written a number of books exploring biblical themes, including Against the Flow (2015), on the topic of Daniel, Determined to Believe? (2017), on the the subject of free will and God’s sovereignty, Joseph (2019), on the story in Genesis, and the ‘Key Bible Concepts’ series, co–written with David Gooding (in the 1990s). His most recent titles are Have no Fear (2018), on evangelism today, Can Science Explain Everything? (2019), on the relationship between science and Christianity, and the six–part ‘Quest for Reality and Significance’ series co–written by David Gooding (2018–9). Furthermore, in addition to over seventy published mathematical papers, he is the co–author of two research level texts in algebra in the Oxford Mathematical Monographs series.

Alister McGrath

Alister McGrath was born in Belfast in 1953, and educated at Down High School, Downpatrick, and the Methodist College Belfast. Although McGrath was an atheist as a teenager, he discovered Christianity while an undergraduate at Oxford University, and has spent the rest of his life exploring its rich themes and their wider impact. After gaining first class honours in Chemistry at Oxford, McGrath earned his doctorate in molecular biophysics in the laboratories of Professor Sir George Radda, and went on to gain first class honours in theology, and two further earned Oxford doctorates in theology, and intellectual history.

He began his teaching career at Oxford in 1983, when he was appointed lecturer in Christian doctrine at Wycliffe Hall. He was appointed University Research Lecturer in Theology in 1993, Principal of Wycliffe Hall in 1995, and Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University in 1998. After two years as Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College, Oxford from 2006, McGrath was appointed Professor of Theology, Ministry and Education at King’s College London, and returned to Oxford as Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion in 2014. He retired from this endowed chair in 2022, and now serves as Senior Research Fellow at the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion at Oxford.

McGrath also held several other appointments alongside these positions, including President of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics from 2006–14, and Professor of Divinity at Gresham College London (a chair in public theology founded in the City of London in 1597) from 2015–18. He holds both British and Irish citizenship, and lives with his family near Oxford. Learn more at his website.

Amy Orr-Ewing

Dr. Amy Orr-Ewing is an international author, speaker and theologian who addresses the deep questions of our day with meaningful answers found in the Christian Faith. She is the author of multiple books including ‘Where is God in All the Suffering?’ (runner up Michael Ramsay Prize, 2023), bestselling ‘Why Trust the Bible?’ and ‘Mary’s Voice: Advent Reflections to Contemplate the Coming of Christ.’

Over the last twenty five years, Amy has spoken in 40 countries as a public advocate for the Christian faith including public lectures and open forums on university campuses, as a broadcaster on TV and radio, and addressing Politicians and Parliamentarians in the Speakers Rooms and Chapel at the UK Parliament and staffers on Capitol Hill and the West Wing of The White House. Amy speaks about how theology connects with the deepest questions of life.

In 2023, Amy was awarded the Alphege Medal for Evangelism and Witness by the Archbishop of Canterbury. She previously served as President of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics and is now Honorary Lecturer at the School of Divinity, University of Aberdeen.

Alexander “Sandy” Smith

Alexander “Sandy” Smith is the author of C.S. Lewis and the Island of His Birth and a Director of Heritage Experience. His book is available through www.authenticulster.com. Three short film pieces on aspects of the life of C.S. Lewis can also be viewed on the website. In addition he has produced several YouTube videos of Ireland.

Curt Thompson

Curt Thompson, M.D., is a psychiatrist in private practice in Falls Church, Virginia. With a considerable dose of warmth (and surprising measure of humor), Curt weaves together an understanding of interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB) and a Christian view of what it means to be human — to educate and encourage others as they seek to fulfill their intrinsic desire to feel known, valued and connected.

Through his workshops, speaking engagements, books, organizational consulting, private clinical practice and other platforms, he helps people process their longings, grief, identity, purpose, perspective of God and perspective of humanity, inviting them to engage more authentically with their own stories and their relationships. Only then can they can feel truly known and connected and live into the meaningful reality they desire to create. Learn more about Curt at his website.

Sheridan Voysey

Sheridan Voysey is a writer, speaker, broadcaster, and founder of FriendshipLab.org. He is the author of eight books, including The Making of Us: Who We Can Become When life Doesn’t Go as Planned, and Resurrection Year: Turning Broken Dreams into New Beginnings, and is a featured writer for Our Daily Bread, a devotional read by 60 million people daily.

Sheridan is a regular presenter of Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2, Europe’s largest broadcaster, and has conducted over 2000 radio interviews in his 25-year broadcast career. He speaks at conferences and events around the world, and has been featured on numerous TV and radio programs including BBC Breakfast, BBC News, Day of Discovery, 100 Huntley Street, CBC’s Tapestry, and in publications like The Times, Telegraph, and Christianity Today. You can learn more about him at his website.

Clergy

Eric Redmond

Rev. Eric C. Redmond is Associate Professor of Bible at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, IL, where he began teaching in January 2015. He hold a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Capital Seminary and Graduate School in Greenbelt, MD (CSGS). He also serves as Associate Pastor of Preaching, Teaching, and Care at Calvary Memorial Church in Oak Park, IL. Formerly he served as Senior Pastor of Reformation Alive Baptist Church, Temple Hills, MD, and Assistant Professor of Bible and Theology at Washington Bible College (WBC), Lanham, MD.

Rev. Redmond blogs regularly at A Man from Issachar. He is the author of, Where Are All The Brothers? Straight Answers to Men’s Questions About the Church (Crossway 2008) – a book written to reach men outside of Christ and outside of the church. He is also a contributor to Becoming a Pastor Theologian: New Possibilities for Church Leadership (IVP, 2016), Glory Road: the Journeys of 10 African Americans into Reformed Christianity (Crossway, 2009), and Don’t Call it a Comeback: The Old Faith for a New Day (Crossway, 2011).

Malcolm Guite

Malcolm Guite is an English poet, singer-songwriter, Anglican priest, and academic. His research interests include the intersection of religion and the arts, and the examination of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and Owen Barfield, and British poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was a Bye-Fellow and chaplain of Girton College, Cambridge, and associate chaplain of St Edward King and Martyr, Cambridge.

Artists

Ad Deum Dance Company

Ad Deum is a professional modern/contemporary dance company based in Houston, Texas, directed by its founder Randall Flinn, who established the company in January 2000. Dancers have come to Ad Deum from around the world seeking to be connected with a community of artists that share a common vision and desire. The mission of Ad Deum is to create and perform excellent and vital works of dance that serve to wash over the heart and soul of humanity with relevant meaning and redemptive hope.

Ad Deum has toured across the USA, Canada, Mexico, Europe, and Asia. Their work has been featured in Dance Spirit and Dance Magazine and they have received outstanding reviews of their performances worldwide. Ad Deum has performed the works of many amazing choreographers including Steve Rooks (former principal dancer with Martha Graham Dance Company), Durell Comedy (José Limón Dance Company), Ryan Corriston (former dancer with Doug Varone), Caleb Mitchell (former Houston Ballet dancer), Hope Boykin, Matthew Rushing, and Freddie Moore (Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater), Stephen Wynne (TALK Dance Company), Bill Wade (Inlet Dance Theatre), as well as the works of Mr. Flinn and Ad Deum Company members.

Eastgate Creative

Eastgate Creative is a non-profit film production company founded in 2017 by filmmakers Ralph Linhardt and Jock Petersen. Eastgate Creative targets a broad audience with historical and educational films. Currently under production is a The Forge of Friendship, a documentary film series about the friendship between J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis forged over decades and leading their fantastic works. Eastgate Creative is deeply grateful for our many friends who are helping to support our documentary film, The Forge of Friendship.

Diana Pavlac Glyer

Diana Pavlac Glyer is an internationally recognized speaker and teacher whose work always circles back to collaboration, creativity, and community. She is a professor in the Honors College at Azusa Pacific University in Southern California where she teaches literature, history, theology, and philosophy in an integrated Great Books curriculum.

Dr. Glyer is also an award-winning writer whose research focuses on C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Inklings. Her book The Company They Keep (2008) offers an in-depth account of Lewis and Tolkien and their writing process. It shows how encouragement, praise, criticism, and conflict shaped their fellowship and their books. In Bandersnatch (2015), she explains what we can learn about creativity, productivity, and collaboration from their example.

She has also authored a series of Christian devotional books called Clay in the Potter’s Hands: Recognizing the Extraordinary Work of God in Your Ordinary, Everyday Life. A new edition of this book revised specifically for artists and students in ceramics classes is forthcoming from Square Halo Press.

At present, she is collaborating with Abigail Dengler on a series of books designed to inspire writers step-by-step as they make their way from blank pages to finished manuscripts. You can learn more about Diana on her website.

High Drive

The ‘High Drive’ are a high energy, toe tapping, 5 piece Scots-Irish Trad band from County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The group has twenty years performing together, including performances in USA, China and Europe. Incorporating fiddle, flute, accordion and harp, the group has an extensive lively repertoire of songs and tunes combined with stomping Ceilidh dance sets that will see your guests fill the floor well into the wee hours.

Joanne Hogg

Joanne Hogg is a Northern Irish musician, best known for her work as the lead singer and songwriter with the Celtic Christian progressive rock band Iona.

Hogg was born in Ballymena to a family of medical missionaries. Her father is a Presbyterian minister, her mother a nurse; her family also includes three sisters and two brothers. With medicine strong in the family, it was natural for Hogg to become a doctor and she studied medicine at Queen’s University Belfast. In her third year, Hogg was singing at the Christian Artists talent event and was convinced to sing in a school ministry at Youth for Christ in Denmark. After a year, Hogg got married and returned to university to complete her two remaining years of schooling.

After graduating, Hogg interned as a junior doctor at Belfast City Hospital to complete her registration. Six months into working at the hospital, she was taken ill and stopped working for seven months to recover; after recovering, she completed her registration as a doctor, but was advised on medical grounds not to continue in full-time medical work for a year.

During her convalescence, she had been contacted by Dave Bainbridge and Dave Fitzgerald, who had considered forming a band. In 1989, Hogg ceased practicing medicine, and Iona was born. Since then, Hogg has sung all over Europe and America. Iona’s recordings have become successful worldwide, making them Europe’s best-selling contemporary Christian band.