Over 1,700 Attendees Drawn to Largest Annual Apologetics Conference; Robots, Aliens and Superheroes Among Topics
Robots, aliens and superheroes are among the many topics that will be tackled this weekend at the Southern Evangelical Seminary's 21st Annual National Conference on Christian Apologetics in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Somewhere between 1,700 and 2,000 are expected to attend. Speakers will focus on three main topic areas — God and science, Christianity and culture, and historical apologetics. The theme is, "defending a never changing faith in an ever changing world."
The conference begins and ends with talks by Michael Behe on Darwinism. Behe, professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, is the author of Darwin's Black Box (1996), which is about the challenges to evolutionary theory presented by "irreducible complexity" in nature. The book was named one of the 100 most important books of the 20th century by both National Review and World magazine.
Josh McDowell, a best-selling author and speaker on Christian apologetics, will share the stage for the first time in his career with his son, Sean McDowell, to talk about passing on the faith to the next generation.
A significant portion of the conference will be on the "Spanish track." One of its speakers will be Antonio Cruz, who is both a scientist and a theologian in Spain, with Ph.D.'s in both biology and ministry. His two talks will cover the relationship between scripture and new discoveries in physics. Josh McDowell, who speaks Spanish as a second language, will deliver a talk for that part of the conference as well.
There will also be a women's pre-conference Thursday night with talks on Internet pornography, feminism and Common Core. Donna Rice Hughes will speak at both the pre-conference and the main conference. She is CEO and president of Enough is Enough, a non-profit advocacy organization devoted to making the Internet safer for children.
Other speakers will talk about aliens and evolution, the biblical flood, robots and artificial intelligence, astronomy, sexuality, abortion, pop culture, the resurrection, archeology, Islam, Hinduism, the Shroud of Turin, the inerrancy of scripture, and C.S. Lewis.
One of the keynote speakers will be Richard Land, president of SES and executive editor of The Christian Post.
To accommodate its growing attendance, the conference has moved to Calvary Church, the largest church in Charlotte.