Wisdom & Wonder Conference and Expo
Saturday, April 25 at Houston Christian University
Keynote Speaker- Paul Gould
Paul Gould is a professor of Philosophy of Religion and the Director of the M.A. Philosophy of Religion (MAPR) program at Palm Beach Atlantic University. He received a B.A. from Miami University (Ohio), a M.A. in philosophy from Talbot School of Theology (Biola), and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Purdue University. Paul is the author or editor of thirteen scholarly and popular-level books including Philosophical Theology: A Christian Introduction, with Ross Inman (Baker, forthcoming), A Good and True Story (Brazos, 2022), Cultural Apologetics (Zondervan, 2019), Philosophy: A Christian Introduction (Baker Academic, 2019) and The Story of the Cosmos (Harvest House, 2019). He has been a visiting scholar at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School’s Henry Center, working on the intersection of science and faith, and is the founder and president of the Two Tasks Institute. He is a widely sought after speaker in apologetics and philosophy. He speaks regularly at universities, churches, and ministries around the country, including Summit Ministries, Impact 360, and the C.S. Lewis Institute. He is married to Ethel and has four children.
Breakout Session Speakers
E. Stephen Burnett
E. Stephen Burnett engages fantastical stories for Christ’s glory as publisher of Lorehaven.com and its weekly Fantastical Truth podcast. He coauthored The Pop Culture Parent and creates other resources for fans and families, serving with his wife, Lacy, in their central Texas church. Stephen’s first novel, the sci-fi adventure Above the Circle of Earth, launched in March 2025 from Enclave Publishing.
Breakout Session Talk:
Homeworlds: Why Christians Need Science Fiction
Christian readers often support traditional fantasy because of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. What then do we think of science fiction? Let’s explore how sci-fi heroes honor Jesus Christ, not just with dystopian and end-times thrillers, but complex stories that help us anticipate and even shape the future.
J. Matthew Boyleston
Dr. Matthew Boyleston is Professor of Creative Writing and English at Houston Christian University where he also directs the undergraduate creative writing program and the MFA/ MA in Creative Writing. His book of poetry, Viewed from the Keel of a Canoe was published by Educe Press in 2016 and his poems and essays have appeared widely in journals such as Confrontation, Spoon River Poetry Review, Blackwell’s Companion to Creative Writing, Puerto del Sol, and Open-Eyed, Full-Throated: An Anthology of America/Irish Poets. He is a board member for the educational non-profit, Catholic Literary Arts and teaches for CLA’s creative writing summer camps. Dr. Boyleston also directs HCU’s annual Narrative Arts Conference that has featured artists and creatives such as Andrew Peterson, Sandra McCracken, Bret Lott, Tony Hale, and Craig Detweiler. Currently, Dr. Boyleston is writing a series of commissioned poems for St. Martins Episcopal Church, Houston, Texas for select feast and fast days to be used in these services. He is a frequent guest on The Wayside Podcast.
Breakout Session Talk:
Keeping the Kalendar: Christian Liturgical Poems
Dr. Matthew Boyleston will share poems he wrote that were commissioned by St. Martins Episcopal Church, Houston, TX for use in the liturgy for feast and fast days. He will lead a discussion on the nature of a Christian poem using examples form other Christian poets such as R. S Thomas and Christian Wyman as well as the process he went through to write public, liturgical poetry. The session will end with a prompt to encourage attendees to write their own liturgical poems.
Austin Freeman
Dr. Freeman (PhD systematic theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is the chair of apologetics at Houston Christian University, assistant professor of theology, and member of the HCU Honors College. His research focus is cultural apologetics, and especially the intersection between theology and literature, and especially especially the theology of J.R.R Tolkien. His first book, Tolkien Dogmatics, is a systematic theology of Tolkien’s thought. But he is a broad interdisciplinary scholar, with publications on subjects ranging from Virgil to H.P. Lovecraft to angelology to evolution. He is currently writing two books on Narnia for Baker Books.
Breakout Session talk:
The Narnian Heresy: Why Apologetics Needs Theology
In C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle, the false religion of ‘Tashlan’ leads many Narnians astray. Faithful heroes like King Tirian try to persuade others to abandon the false worship of a false Aslan, but they are hindered by their lack of theological training. This workshop will make the case that apologetics is useless unless we know exactly what it is that we defend.
Bill Scott
Bill Scott is the Director of Ratio Christi International, a campus evangelism and apologetics mission society that transforms students’ lives and equips them to be culture-creating leaders. He has taught apologetics and theology in over twenty countries, equipping missionaries, pastors, and students with theological and apologetic training. Bill has earned a B.A. in Religion from KMBC, an M.A. in Cultural Apologetics, and a Graduate Certificate in Philosophical Apologetics from Houston Christian University and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Intercultural Studies at BIOLA University’s Talbot School of Theology. To find out more, check out his website at www.billscottministries.org.
Joshua Sikora
Joshua Sikora is an award-winning filmmaker and educator. He founded HCU’s Cinematic Arts program in 2013 and now chairs the Department of Narrative Arts, overseeing Cinematic Arts, Digital Media, and Creative Writing. As a producer, he has helped craft films and series released on Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon, including the feature film Do No Harm and recent award-winning shorts. He also has written about film theory, technology, and theology, including serving as the editor of A Critical Companion to Terrence Malick.
Breakout Session Talk:
Two Roads to Wonder: Truth & Imagination in Cinema
Since its inception, cinema has followed two paths: sometimes capturing the world as it is and sometimes manufacturing imaginative worlds through spectacle. Today those paths are diverging even further as synthetic media—from video games to A.I. content—becomes commonplace. This talk explores what changes when images stop being “captured” and start being “generated,” and how we can think clearly about wonder, truth, and the power of imagination in a culture shaped by screens.
Joshua Smith
Dr. Joshua Smith is Religion Faculty at Episcopal High School in Houston, Pastoral Resident at Sojourn Montrose Church, and H-Town Coordinator at Memorial Drive Presbyterian. He earned his Ph.D. from Rice in philosophy, with a focus in moral psychology and emotion. Previously, he served as H-Town Coordinator at First Presbyterian Church, where he produced a nine-month discipleship program and accompanying podcast. He has a lovely wife and 4 children.
Breakout Session Talk:
The Wonder of God
Description: Dr. Joshua Smith begins his session with comments detailing the role of wonder in our knowledge of a transcendent God. Wonder plays a similar role to some religious experiences that provide face value evidence of God. After this framing, Dr. Smith shares some case studies of wonder and asks the participants to reflect and journal about their own experiences of wonder. The session concludes on some ways that one can grow in their openness to wonder, especially in light of the Christian imagination, to make these wonder experiences more frequent and God’s presence more salient.
Melissa Cain Travis
Dr. Melissa Cain Travis serves as Assistant Professor of Apologetics at Houston Christian University. She is the co-author of The Reconstruction Project: Recovering Truth and Rebuilding Faith (2026) as well as the author of Thinking God’s Thoughts: Johannes Kepler and the Miracle of Cosmic Comprehensibility (2022) and Science and the Mind of the Maker: What the Conversation Between Faith and Science Reveals About God (2018). She serves as a Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture and is a writer and editor for Shadowlands Dispatch, a substack magazine dedicated to cultural apologetics
Breakout Session Talk:
Darwinian Naturalism and the Arts
In the wake of Charles Darwin’s two treatises, On the Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871), the naturalistic view of humankind significantly influenced the literary world. This session will examine the philosophical themes that were prevalent in the movement known as Literary Naturalism and then explore how many of the same ideas have persisted in contemporary fiction and film. Workshop attendees are encouraged to read three short stories in preparation for the discussion portion: “The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane, “The Last Question” by Isaac Asimov, and “Exhalation” by Ted Chiang.
Prices:
$55- General Admission
$5- Undergraduate HCU Students
$25- Other Undergraduates
$25- MAA Students and Alumni
$45- Group Rate (10+ registrants)
$65- Late Registration (after April 15th)
$150- Accepted Outside Exhibitors (includes admission for two)
$250- Program Sponsor- includes attendance for two, optional exhibit table, name/advertisement in the program, and being thanked from stage
Location
Houston Christian University
7502 Fondren Rd, Houston, TX 77074
For questions, please contact mtravis@hc.edu or 281-649-3383.
