HCU Apologetics Day 2025 Schedule
Friday, March 21st: The Council of Elrond
Pre-conference Academic Symposium
The Symposium on Friday is taking place on HCU’s campus (7502 Fondren Rd, Houston, TX 77074) in Founders Hall 1 room 302. Please check the HCU campus map for directions.
1:00-1:15 Introduction
1:15-1:45 Donald Williams, “Tolkien as Apologist”
1:45-2:15 Benjamen Kilgore, “Eucatastrophe as Apologetic”
2:15-2:45 Adam Bishop, “The Giant’s Castle: Tolkien & Imagination in the Catholic Theory of Signs”
2:45-3:00 Break
3:00-3:30 Terry Cokenour, “C.S. Lewis’s ‘Thick’ and ‘Clear’ Religion within Imaginative Apologetics”
3:30-4:00 Megan Rials, “Deserts into Oases: Revelations of a Baptized Memory in C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces”
4:00-4:30 David Haines, “The Absence of God in Lewis’s Til We Have Faces & Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings”
4:30-4:45 Break
4:45-5:15 Bill Scott, “Feminism in Middle-earth?”
5:15-5:45 David Wolcott, “Fanfiction and Canon: Assessing Orthodoxy through Middle-earth”
5:45-6:15 Parker Settecase, “Magic: Ancient & Modern: How the Inklings’ Magia/Goetia Distinction Can Help Us Use Technology Like a Jedi instead of a Sith”
6:15-6:30 Break
6:30-7:00 Austin M. Freeman, “Tolkien & the Divine Author”
Saturday, March 22: Apologetics Day
Main Conference
The Apologetics Day Conference on Saturday is taking place at Christ Community Church (1303 Sherwood Forest St. C, Houston, TX 77043).
9:00-10:00 Plenary Session 1: Holly Ordway, “To What Extent is The Lord of the Rings a Christian Book?”
10:05-10:50 Breakout Session 1
11:00-12:00 Plenary Session 2: Trevor Hart, “Unashamed imagining: Why an imaginectomy is a bad idea all round and fatal for the life of faith”
12:00-1:30 Lunch
1:30-2:20 Breakout Session 2
2:30-3:30 Plenary Session 3: David Fairchild, “The Gospel According to Middle-earth: Using Tolkien’s Imagination in the Pulpit”