Events

Where Scripture meets the questions shaping real life. Dr. Sutherland speaks on the ethics of artificial intelligence, human dignity, empathy as moral discipline, and the boundaries of political and technological power, bringing biblical theology and legal analysis into direct conversation with the challenges facing church, academy, and culture. Explore upcoming and past events along with…

UPCOMING 2026 Events

ETS Eastern Region Conference

  • Date: April 10-11, 2026
  • Location: Lancaster Bible College | Lancaster, PA
  • Presentation Type: Oral Presentation / Academic Paper
  • My Topic Title: From the Nile to the Sea of Reeds: Egyptian Water Symbolism and the Biblical Drama of Identity
  • Description: For three millennia, the Nile shaped how Egypt understood cosmic order, divine presence, and royal legitimacy. The primeval waters of Nun, the cult of Hapi, and the royal ideology of inundation formed a coherent theological system in which Pharaoh stood as cosmological guarantor of water-order and, through it, of human identity itself. Previous scholarship has examined Egyptian parallels to Genesis and Exodus in fragments, treating creation texts, plague narratives, and Sea crossing traditions as discrete objects of study. This paper argues that the movement from the Nile to the Sea of Reeds constitutes a theologically unified drama in which Egyptian water cosmology serves as the contrast structure for YHWH’s reclamation of the imago Dei. Genesis 1 establishes the theological grammar; sovereign waters are ordered by divine speech, with no royal intermediary. The plague sequence systematically deconstructs the Egyptian system from the Nile outward. At the Sea of Reeds, creation vocabulary (yabbashah, ruach, baqa) signals that what occurs is not rescue but new creation; it is the reconstitution of a people whose identity rests on divine presence rather than imperial mediation. The reading contributes a unified account connecting Exodus water events to Genesis 1, imago Dei theology through shared creation vocabulary and theological anthropology, recovering a canonical arc that previous treatments have left fragmented.

Liberty University’s Research Week

  • Date: April 20-23, 2026
  • Location: Liberty University | Jerry Falwell Library
  • Presentation Type: Oral Presentation / Academic Paper
  • My Topic Title: Human Data as Personhood: A Theological-Legal Framework for Protecting Immutable Embodied Identity
  • Description: This presentation argues that contemporary data governance has misclassified human data by treating identity-bearing information as a transferable commercial asset rather than as an extension of the human person. Drawing on theological anthropology, dignity-based legal theory, and emerging scholarship in technology ethics, the project contends that biometric, genetic, health, and long-term behavioral data arise from embodied and relational identity rooted in the imago Dei. Current regulatory frameworks prioritize efficiency and commodification while failing to account for the moral gravity of identity inference and data aggregation. This research proposes a personhood-centered framework that distinguishes transactional data from identity-rooted information, offering implications for artificial intelligence governance, consent structures, privacy law, and legislative reform. The project contributes a Christian ethical paradigm for digital governance that centers human dignity, agency, and the protection of embodied identity in an increasingly surveilled world.

Tyndale Fellowship Annual Conference 2026

  • Date: July 1-3, 2026
  • Location: High Leigh Conference Centre, Hoddesdon, UK
  • Presentation Type: Oral Presentation / Academic Paper
  • My Topic Title: Empathy as Imago Dei: Moral Perception, Alterity, and the Rehabilitation of a Disparaged Virtue in Evangelical Ethics
  • Description: Evangelical critiques of empathy, especially those advanced by Joe Rigney, Doug Wilson, and Owen Strachan, along with secular echoes in Paul Bloom, argue that empathy weakens moral clarity, dissolves personal boundaries, and threatens theological fidelity. This paper contends that such “anti-empathy” accounts rest on a truncated theological anthropology that confuses sentimental fusion with disciplined moral perception. Drawing on Edith Stein’s phenomenology of empathy as non-appropriative access to another’s experience, Levinas’s account of the face as ethical summons, Augustine’s ordo amoris, and Bonhoeffer’s vision of stellvertretende Handlung (vicarious representative action), the paper argues that genuine empathy is a graced capacity to perceive the neighbor as irreducibly other, a posture presupposed by the imago Dei. Empathy discloses the moral claim of the other prior to deliberation while safeguarding, rather than eroding, the distinction between self and other. Situated within a relational ontology rooted in Trinitarian life, the project offers a constructive account of empathy as virtuous participation in Christ’s kenotic orientation toward the other (Phil. 2:5–8) and advances an alternative vision of moral formation, pastoral discernment, and Christian ethics in a polarized age.

International Jacques Ellul Society (IJES) Conference 2026

  • Date: July 14–16, 2026
  • Location: University of Notre Dame
  • Presentation Type: Panel / Academic Paper
  • My Topic Title: Simulated Speech & the Silence of Meaning
  • Description: Orwell feared a government that would ban words. Huxley feared that words would become meaningless, drowned in sensation and novelty. Ellul feared that the word itself would be humiliated: emptied of truth, displaced by image, replaced by technique. And Postman feared that once truth became entertainment, censorship would no longer be necessary. They were all right. We now inhabit a world in which Orwellian surveillance coexists with Huxleyan sedation. Attention is commodified, reality is curated, language is simulated, and discourse is diluted. AI mimics speech without listening. Propaganda no longer needs enforcement; it is preferred, packaged, curated, and shared. The word is not simply ignored; it is algorithmically replaced. The crisis is not just political or cultural. It is ontological. What we are witnessing is not just the death of truth, but the desecration of meaning, a slow erosion of the very conditions under which truth can be spoken, heard, or desired. So, what do we do now?

Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies (JIS) Symposium 2026

  • Date: October 17, 2026
  • Location: Online International Conference / Academic Paper
  • Paper Title: Personhood and the Renewal of Ordered Liberty
  • Description: As democracy enters its 250th year, this presentation examines how datafication reshapes the very conditions of ordered liberty. When identity becomes a harvest of biometrics, genetics, and behavioral inference, law inherits a worldview that treats the human person as informational property rather than embodied dignity. Drawing from theological anthropology, constitutional philosophy, and comparative data regimes, this paper argues for a federal personhood-centered framework that protects identity data as inseparable from the human being. By recovering the imago Dei as the grounding logic of democratic agency, the project offers a path toward renewing public trust, stabilizing civic responsibility, and safeguarding liberty in a technological age.

Past Events (Papers & Presentations Available via Links)

Princeton Theological Seminary – The Koinonia Forum

  • Date: March 6-7, 2026
  • Location: Princeton Theological Seminary
  • Presentation Type: Oral Presentation / Academic Paper
  • My Topic Title: Tech Beyond Its Maker: AI, Idolatry, and the Inversion of Human Agency
  • Description: Artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly shapes the conditions of human agency, perception, and desire. This paper argues that contemporary AI enacts an “instrumental inversion” in which those who create technological systems risk becoming tools of their own tools. Drawing on Aristotle and Aquinas on instrumental causality, Heidegger’s analysis of Gestell, and Levinas’s ethics of the face, the argument shows how algorithmic enframing reduces persons to function, eclipsing moral encounter and reconfiguring the structure of freedom. A biblical theology of idolatry, together with Marion’s idol–icon distinction and Augustine’s ordo amoris, interprets transhumanist aspirations as a contemporary eidolon, an image severed from its source, where simulation displaces worship and self-extension replaces grace. Against this technological sovereignty, the imago Dei is presented as an ontological limit and gift, resonant with global relational ontologies such as Ubuntu and fitra. These frameworks reorient causality toward covenantal dependence and responsibility for the vulnerable “Other.” The paper concludes with a constructive theological ethic in which faith communities practice discernment, embodied care, and the redirection of technological power toward human flourishing. In this vision, AI becomes servant rather than sovereign, and the sacred image reclaims its rightful primacy.

Liberty University Conference on Teaching Excellence

  • Date: January 14, 2026 (available all Spring Semester)
  • Location: Liberty University / Virtual
  • Presentation Types: #1 – Paper / #2 – Presentation
  • #1 Paper / Topic Title: Patience as Pedagogy in a Digital Age
  • Description: The paper examines how accelerated, AI-mediated learning environments reshape not only how students learn, but who students become. The thesis argues that patience (makrothymia) is a central virtue for Christian education amid algorithmic immediacy. Integrating biblical theology, theological anthropology, cognitive science, and pedagogy, the study critiques the idolization of speed in digital classrooms and proposes virtue-centered practices that reclaim time as formative space. The paper concludes with concrete strategies for online and residential course design that cultivate deep attention, spiritual maturity, and wisdom shaped by the Spirit rather than efficiency alone.
  • #2 Presentation / Topic Title: Forming Peace and Belonging in Digital Learning
  • Description: The video presentation explores how Christian educators can cultivate relational presence and spiritual formation in online and hybrid classrooms shaped by speed and efficiency. Drawing on biblical studies and interdisciplinary research on attention, belonging, and formation, this presentation argues that peace, understood as biblical shalom, reorders pedagogy by restoring attentiveness, patience, and relational wholeness. Through theological reflection and concrete mentoring practices, the teaching offers educators practical strategies for designing digital learning environments where students can breathe, belong, and grow.

Tyndale Fellowship Annual Conference 2025

  • Date: June 30–July 2, 2025
  • Location: The Hayes Conference Centre, Derbyshire, UK
  • Academic Paper: From Babel to AI: Technology, Human Dignity, and Theological Ethics
  • Presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWvoBv997zs
  • Description: As AI and transhumanism rise, this paper probes how theology confronts technology’s new towers. Engaging ancient texts, continental philosophy, and real-world AI ethics, it traces how imago Dei anchors human dignity against algorithmic idolatry. From Babel’s ambition to resurrection’s hope, this presentation challenges scholars to reclaim covenantal personhood in an age of synthetic transcendence.

SBL & EABS International Conference

  • Date: June 23-27, 2025
  • Location: Uppsala University, Sweden
  • Academic Paper: Render Unto Caesar? The Megiddo Mosaic and the Theological Reclamation of Allegiance in Imperial Context
  • Description: Unearthed in a Roman military base, the Megiddo Mosaic boldly proclaims “To the God Jesus Christ,” redefining how early Christians negotiated faith and empire. Drawing on postcolonial perspectives and fresh readings of Matthew, this presentation reveals a subversive yet entangled allegiance, one that still resonates in modern debates around nationalism, identity, and worship.

ETS Eastern Regional Conference

  • Date: April 11-12, 2025
  • Location: Liberty Theological Seminary (Liberty University)
  • Academic Paper: Worship and the Imago Dei: Safeguarding Humanity’s Purpose in an Age of Autonomy
  • Description: Worship shapes human identity, but false worship distorts the imago Dei. This presentation explores how biblical worship safeguards humanity’s purpose, countering the false narratives of autonomy seen from Eden to Babel to AI and transhumanism.

AAR-SE Conference

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