Presentation List
Presentations
Teaching is a curious vocation. Basically, I get paid to stand up in front of people and talk. That's fun. But I enjoy it more when I get to listen, too. My students have good questions. I am privileged to observe their intellectual development, as they learn to answer these questions more carefully and more fully.
When I give presentations beyond the classroom, sometimes I'm trying out a new idea before bringing it into the classroom. Other times, the idea already has been tried and tested on my campus, and I want to share it with a new audience to foster a broader dialogue. Either way, I find that my own thinking becomes clarified by the interaction I have with my audience. Ideally, a presentation matures into a publication—giving a more permanent form to our discernment between truth and error, good and evil, as we cultivate the liberal arts.
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- "Store Per" documentary film interview
- “The Great Transformation” and “Five Continents and Seven Seas” (RAH, PLC V)
- A.D.: The Trials and Triumphs of the Early Church
- Address to the Mankato City Council concerning the Minnesota Marriage Protection Amendment
- Advice for Keeping Your Republic: Constitution Day Address
- America’s Moral Crisis concerning Genetics
- Biblical Model of Marriage
- Bringing Good News to Life in Defense of Marriage
- Build Your House on the Rock
- Cherish God's Gift of Life
- Communicating a Culture of Life: The Redemptive Power of Conversion Narratives
- Courageously Compassionate, Compassionately Courageous: Biblical Apologetics, the Christian Worldview, and Contemporary Social Issues
- Curved into Ourselves: How the New Gnosticism Cancels Our Own Humanity
- Ethics in the Practice of Science
- Evidence for Easter (with Allen Quist)
- Evidence for Easter Invitation
- Facebooking for Life in a Wiki World of Tweeting YouTubes
- From Pedagogy to Publication: Involving Students in a Documentary History of Their College’s Educational Philosophy
- Getting the Facts Straight: How Grammar, History, & Logic Can Rescue Education from Postfactualism
- Getting the Facts Straight: How Grammar, History, and Logic Can Rescue Education from Postfactualism
- God, Creation, Humanity, and Living Life
- God's Work of Creation
- God’s Life-Giving Gospel Is Active at Conception
- God’s Workmanship: A Biblical Exploration of Creation, Ancient History, and the Natural Family
- How Do You Spell "Jesus" in Hebrew?
- Is the Old Testament Reliable? The Evidence within the Text
- Life Seminar 2014: Marriage, Family, and Evangelism
- Lutherans, Political Resistance and the 1550 Magdeburg Confession
- Men and Abortion: The Forgotten Legacy of Roe v. Wade
- Minnesota Requires Teachers to Advocate for Transgender Ideology and Critical Race Theory
- Natural Law and the Family
- Natural Law Principles: Family, Gender, and Chastity
- Natural Revelation: Two Lectures in Denmark (Lutherskfordybelse 2023)
- On the Antiquity of the Earth
- Ottawa Circuit COVID Convocation Part I: The Magdeburg Confession of 1550
- Ottawa Circuit COVID Convocation Part II: How to Avoid Reading Romans 13 like a Nazi
- Pro-Life Apologetics
- Rediscovering Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Eighteenth-Century Solutions for Twenty-first Century Problems
- Seven Things about the U.S. Constitution that Every College Student Needs to Know
- State Teacher Licensing Requirements vs. the Bible, the Hymnal, and the Catechism
- Studying Luther's Large Catechism
- Teaching Objective Morality to a Postmodern Audience
- Ten Surprising Facts concerning the Abortion Controversy in America
- Thank God, There Are So Many Old People in the Church!
- The “War on Women”: Myth or Reality?
- The Baby War: Defenders and Defectors
- The Church and Science through the Ages
- The Coercive Reality behind Pro-Choice Rhetoric
- The Coercive Reality behind Pro-Choice Rhetoric: Identifying What ‘Popular Sovereignty,’ ‘Reproductive Freedom,’ and ‘Death with Dignity’ Demand from Persons Who Disagree
- The Culture of Life: Ten Principles for Christian Bioethics
- The Electoral College: Its History, Some Controversies, and Your Questions
- The Foundation of Christian Bioethics
- The History of No-Fault Divorce: An Odd-Couple Marriage between the Political Left and Right
- The Legal Issues Surrounding Proposition 8
- The Vestiges of Creation Meets the Scientific Sovereignty of God: Natural and Theological Science at Princeton, 1845–1859
- Transformations of the Vestiges of Creation in American Periodicals, 1845–1860
- Two Tales from the Early American Republic (RAH, SS I)
- U. V. Koren the Citizen
- What's Worldview Got to Do with Everything?
- Whose Fault Was No-Fault Divorce?
- Why Genuine Marriage Is Heterosexual
- Your Vocation in Civil Government
Invited Speaking Engagements
I am regularly invited to speak at an academic conference or to a church group. These opportunities allow me to share my teaching and research with a broader audience and also to stay attuned with what is happening beyond my campus. I am listed on the speakers bureau for Lutherans for Life and also have given public addresses or run workshops for several other organizations. If you are interested in having me present for a meeting you are organizing, I welcome you to contact me.
Conference Papers
Academic conferences provide scholars with an opportunity to get peer feedback on their works in progress and to learn what others in their discipline are doing.
Workshops
Workshops allow for greater audience participation than typical presentations. Whereas a presentation is instructive, a workshop is interactive. People leave with more than just new ideas. They leave with a new project—a work in progress begun under the presenter's guidance but now ready to be continued by the participants on their own.
Campus Presentations (Bethany Lutheran College)
The Bethany Series in Scholarship (BSiS) provides faculty at Bethany Lutheran College an opportunity to share the results of recent research or to solicit feedback concerning a work in progress. Bethany's annual celebration of Constitution Day (September 17) features student, faculty, or guest presenters who explore our nation's political foundations. I have enjoyed participating in both events.
Media Interviews
Journalists, talk-show hosts, and documentary film makers interview researchers for their expert opinion concerning matters of public interest.
Videos
Watch video recordings of assorted presentations by Dr. Ryan C. MacPherson.