For Your Consideration

Christian Study Center

Listen to audio version of study center essays as well as lectures and talks. christianstudycenter.substack.com

  1. Jun 10

    "Magnificent Humanity": A Conversation About Artificial Intelligence and Faith

    On Thursday, June 4, 2026, Executive Director, Mike Sacasas, moderated a panel discussion inspired by the most recent encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. Mike was joined by an ecumenical panel consisting of Ana Siljak (PhD), Lily Abadal (PhD), and Christoper Hampson (JD, MTS). This audio includes the discussion and the Q&A afterward. About the Panel Mike Sacasas (Moderator) Executive Director, Christian Study Center of Gainesville Mike Sacasas earned his MA in Theological Studies from Reformed Theological Seminary in 2002. He was later a doctoral candidate at the University of Central Florida studying the relationship between technology and society with a focus on the work of Hannah Arendt. He currently serves as a Senior Fellow with the Trinity Forum, an Associate Fellow in Ethics and Culture at the Greystone Theological Institute and is a contributing editor for Comment Magazine. His writing on technology and the moral life has appeared in The New Atlantis, Comment, The Point Magazine, and Plough. Ana Siljak, PhD Associate Professor of Humanities, University of Florida Hamilton School Dr. Ana Siljak received her PhD in History from Harvard University and was a professor of history at Queen’s University until 2023. Her most recent publications include her edited volume entitled Religion and Secular Modernity in Russian Christianity, Judaism, and Atheism (Cornell University Press, 2024) and her edition of the translation of the correspondence of Nikolai Berdyaev and Jacques Maritain entitled An Exceptional Dialogue, 1925–1948: Nikolai Berdyaev and Jacques Maritain (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2025). She is currently a co-author of the textbook, Visions of the West, to be published by Oxford University Press in 2026. She is currently completing her book on the personalist philosophy of Nikolai Berdiaev. Lillian King Abadal, PhD Visiting Assistant Professor of Instruction, University of South Florida Dr. Lily Abadal completed her doctorate under the mentorship of Thomas Williams at the University of South Florida, focusing on the history of medieval philosophy and virtue ethics. Lily has presented original research at the American Academy of Religion’s annual conference, The New College Conference for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Notre Dame’s Center for Ethics and Culture, and numerous other academic conferences. She maintains an interest in history of medieval philosophy but has also begun developing several ideas in applied virtue ethics, particularly in healthcare and medicine. Christopher Hampson, JD, MTS Associate Professor of Law, University of Florida Levin College of Law Professor Hampson is an award-winning scholar of bankruptcy, insolvency, and the ethics of debt. His research focuses on how legal institutions can best serve our shared values during times of financial distress. Professor Hampson earned an A.B. from Harvard College in the comparative study of religion, magna cum laude with highest honors, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, and an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School, where he was a Dean’s Fellow. During his time at Harvard Law School, he served as Articles Co-Chair of the Harvard Law Review. He has written on a wide range of topics, from social enterprises and small businesses to debtors’ prisons and harsh debt collection practices. His scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in prominent law reviews across the country, including the Harvard Law Review, the Iowa Law Review, the Boston University Law Review, the Fordham Law Review, the American Bankruptcy Law Journal, and the Journal of Free Speech Law. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit christianstudycenter.substack.com

    1h 30m
  2. May 20

    The Question of Formation and the Virtues of the Digital Future

    On Wednesday, March 4, 2026, Dr. Antón Barba-Kay gave a public lecture at Christian Study Center. Dr. Barba-Kay is a Distinguished Fellow at the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law, a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Practical Ethics at UC San Diego, and a Fellow at the Carr-Ryan Center at Harvard. Virtues are forms of habitual excellence. They are coherent responses of character to some stable set of threats, challenges, and temptations. But what becomes of the notion of virtue when we inhabit technological and social circumstances that are changing more quickly than we know what to do with? How should we approach the task of educating children to adulthood and forming human beings within a world that is increasingly unable to imagine the long term? Dr. Barba-Kay ventures some thoughts on these questions based on his experience teaching at Deep Springs College and offers some suggestions for formulating virtues suited to a time of deep disruption and uncertainty. Speaker bio Dr. Barba-Kay is a Distinguished Fellow at the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law, a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Practical Ethics at UC San Diego, and a Fellow at the Carr-Ryan Center at Harvard. He received his PhD in 2013 from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago; he has been Associate Professor of Philosophy at Catholic University and Robert Aird Chair of Humanities at Deep Springs College. In addition to his scholarly publications in nineteenth-century German philosophy, his essays about culture and technology have appeared in The New Republic, The Atlantic, The New Atlantis, The Hedgehog Review, and The Point, among other magazines. A Web of Our Own Making–his book about what the internet is and what a difference it makes–was published in 2023 by Cambridge University Press.Dr. Barba-Kay ventures some thoughts on these questions based on his experience teaching at Deep Springs College and offers some suggestions for formulating virtues suited to a time of deep disruption and uncertainty. This event is made possible by the John Templeton Foundation. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit christianstudycenter.substack.com

    52 min
  3. Feb 17

    Freedom Songs: The Songs and Singing that Inspired the Civil Rights Movement

    On Thursday, October 23rd, 2025, Dr. Kevin Bird gave a public lecture at Christian Study Center. Kevin Bird, Ph.D., serves as the Center’s Experiential Learning Coordinator and Lecturer with the UF Bob Graham Center for Public Service. Martin Luther King Jr. called the songs sung during critical junctures of the struggle for America’s Second Reconstruction, “the soul of the movement.” Other Black Christian activists contended the Civil Rights Movement would not have been possible without signing. In this talk, Dr. Kevin Bird will explore the role of singing and a few representative songs in enlivening the movement, deconstructing Jim Crow, and paving the way for the most significant expansion of democracy in the history of the United States. Dr. Bird will also comment on singing and songs from an understanding of the Movement as America’s Third Great Awakening. Lecturer Bio Kevin Bird, Ph.D., serves as the Center's Experiential Learning Coordinator and Lecturer with the UF Bob Graham Center for Public Service. Kevin has a doctorate in history from UF with a focus on the American South. He appreciates researching and teaching on the consequential movements of change that secured modern notions of citizenship and unshackled democracy. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit christianstudycenter.substack.com

    43 min
  4. Feb 9

    CSC 25th Anniversary Celebration - Dr. Jay Lynch

    On Friday, October 10th, Dr. Jay Lynch gave a public lecture at Christian Study Center’s 25th Anniversary Celebration. Dr. Lynch is one of the founders of the Christian Study Center of Gainesville. In the first lecture at the 25th Anniversary Celebration, Dr. Lynch gave a talk about the Study Center’s providential role in his life’s calling as a medical professional, namely its impact on helping him to define and preserve the soul of his vocation. Dr. Lynch posits that medicine is not solely a science, but also an art, and it’s the art of medicine that allows care-providers to step beyond the medicine of modernity to see patients as humans with a soul and a story. Lecturer Bio Dr. Jay Lynch is one of the founders of the Christian Study Center of Gainesville along with his wife, Laura Lynch. He served as Board President of the Study Center from 2000-2024. Dr. Lynch received his BA from the University of Virginia and MD from Eastern Virginia Medical School in 1984. He did his internal medicine training at the University of Florida and medical oncology training at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD. He eventually returned to University of Florida College Of Medicine (UFCOM) and has served in multiple roles during this tenure including, course director in Oncology, program director for hematology/oncology, section chief of hematology/oncology at the Veteran Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) and now serves as the Assistant Dean for Admissions at UFCOM. Dr. Lynch is a nationally recognized, well-published expert in the diagnosis and treatment of lymphomas and has coauthored over 130 papers, book chapters and abstracts. He was the first faculty inductee into the Chapman Humanism Society at the UFCOM and serves on its board of directors. He has received multiple teaching awards including clinical teacher of the year, the Hippocratic award, is a member of the College of Medicine Society of Teaching Scholars, and in 2006 was honored by the University of Florida as one of 5 Distinguished Teaching Scholars. He and his wife Laura, have 4 children and several grandchildren. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit christianstudycenter.substack.com

    55 min
  5. Feb 9

    CSC 25th Anniversary Celebration - Dr. Richard Horner

    On Friday, October 10th, Dr. Richard Horner gave a public lecture at Christian Study Center’s 25th Anniversary Celebration. Dr. Horner is one of the founders of the Christian Study Center of Gainesville. In his lecture, Dr. Horner draws from the philosophical work of Saint Augustine, Alasdair McIntyre, and Blaise Pascal to raise challenges to modern thinking inspired by the projects of René Descartes, Enlightenment, and Liberalism that propound humanity’s ability arrive to certainty through reason alone. Utilizing the questions “What frames what?” and “With whom are you in conversation?” Dr. Horner presents what he believes to be a better framework than what’s presented as a result of modernity. Additionally, he expounds upon the importance of reconsidering which telos is the most reasonable and leads to human flourishing. Lecturer Bio In the summer of 2001, Dr. Horner left his position at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia to become the first Director of the Christian Study Center of Gainesville, where he served until his retirement in 2022. He received his BA in History from Houghton College, his MDiv from Covenant Theological Seminary, his PhD in Intellectual History from the University of Virginia, and he is ordained as a Pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America. He has taught part-time at James Madison University, the University of Delaware, the University of Florida, and Reformed Theological Seminary and has served churches in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia. In retirement Dr. Horner works on various writing projects, including “The Yellow Pad,” and delights in the pleasures of simply being with his wife April, their three children, and their four grandchildren. Dr. Horner is recognized as Director Emeritus at the Study Center. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit christianstudycenter.substack.com

    39 min
5
out of 5
3 Ratings

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Listen to audio version of study center essays as well as lectures and talks. christianstudycenter.substack.com

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