Gospel Coalition VP encourages students to take a stand for Christ at annual Every Square Inch Conference

As American culture steadily drifts further away from biblical teaching, today’s Christians are tasked with the continuing call of the Great Commission to usher in the next generation of faithful believers. Last week, Liberty University offered students the chance to gain valuable evangelistic and apologetic training to address major issues affecting contemporary Christian thought at the ninth annual Every Square Inch Conference.

Hosted last Thursday and Friday by the John W. Rawlings School of Divinity’s Center for Apologetics & Cultural Engagement (ACE) in partnership with Student Activities, the event tackled multiple topics like the role of technology and artificial intelligence in evangelism, the American cultural shift from Christianity to secularism, the significance of Christianity in establishing cultural stability, and more. Each session included a moderated Q&A discussion. Collin Hansen, vice president for content and editor-in-chief for the Gospel Coalition, served as this year’s featured speaker.

Thursday’s sessions opened with a dinner for ACE Senior Fellows and Student Fellows followed by a brief message by Hansen on the importance of general cultural apologetics. Highlighting society’s continual struggle to deal with heavy trauma brought by World War II, he noted three authors who took various approaches to rationalizing this tragedy: Elie Wiesel in his memoir “Night” discussing his time in German concentration camps, Richard Flanagan in his fictional work “The Narrow Road to the North,” and Laura Hildebrand in her biographical work “Unbroken” about WWII veteran Louis Zamperini.

He concluded that the best approach was the one taken by Zamperini, who devoted his life to forgiveness through Christ after returning home from time spent in a Japanese internment camp.

“One of the things we see in cultural apologetics is we have a great friend in our triune God and His revealed Word,” Hansen said. “Because if the Bible does anything, it does not shy away from really hard questions and seeking through the presence of the Lord to comfort us in the difficult journey from trauma to healing, from sin to redemption, from exile to home.”

Hansen asserted that throughout history Christianity has served as an integral piece in maintaining a moral standard in society. Without Christianity, society fails to maintain proper order.

Later that evening, Hansen met with Liberty students in the Center for Worship and Music Arts Concert Hall for a plenary session on the “Importance and Relevance of Cultural Apologetics.” This session, attended by nearly 1,000 students, included worship led by Graham Guy and a discussion on the topic “What is Cultural Apologetics and Why Is it Important?”

The Every Square Inch Conference continued Friday with three breakout sessions, the first two led by Hansen before ACE Student Fellows led a final session titled “Apologetics in a Culture of Anxiety and Myths.”

Hansen’s first session, “Pastoring in an Age of Doubt and Derision,” discussed the impact of technology on evangelism. He argued that following the advent of television, evangelists were incentivized to formulate simpler sermons to reach a larger congregation instead of preaching the uncomfortable truths of the Gospel. As technology evolved over time, there remains a temptation for churches and pastors to use that technology to prioritize the sheer size of the congregation over the authenticity of sermon messages. This issue is compounded by the rise of artificial intelligence, which pastors can use to shorten time spent on tasks like sermon preparation. Hansen rebuked an overreliance on this technology.

“Through the digital media, you can’t communicate the essential element of suffering in leadership,” he said. “It’s one of the things in pastoral ministry that connects us with our people. They are a people we suffer with, and they suffer with us. We go through all these experiences together as well.”

In the second session, “Defending the Faith in an Angry Culture,” Hansen shared how Christians must have courage to confront society’s shortcomings. He used German Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the prophet Jeremiah as examples of those who willingly shared God’s truth despite incredible opposition.

“When Christ calls you, wherever He calls you, you’ll never stand alone because when you are on the side of truth and courage; He is always on your side, standing there with you,” Hansen said. “No matter how lonely you may feel, no matter if your friends and family abandon you, no matter if you think you have lost your mind. And sometimes in the process it might even feel like you may lose your soul. Remember, when Christ calls you to stand up for Him in the public arena, you never stand alone.”

The Every Square Inch Conference concluded Friday night with a concert featuring Christian singer Antoine Bradford in the LaHaye Event Space.

“I really love being able to help run these events because a lot of the people who are involved are so essential in a lot of the things that happen in evangelical culture but also culture at large and in understanding how people view Christianity,” said second year Master of Divinity student Dennis Nicholson, who is a graduate student assistant for ACE.

“Liberty’s focus on apologetics shows that, especially as a Christian university, we are not afraid of the way we could be swayed in a different direction by culture, but we are willing to take that posture where we stand in the midst of these important questions and engage them sensitively and graciously,” he said. “The fact we have these events, instead of retreating, shows that boldness we have as a university. That is very admirable.”

ACE Director Dr. Kevin Richard emphasized the importance of the conference and noted that in many ways apologetics may serve as the first step in bringing someone to Christ.

“Apologetics is sometimes called a pre-evangelism, and in doing cultural apologetics specifically we are asking the question, ‘What is the approach we can take to appeal to people and to engage in conversation to get them to think about those deeper things of life like meaning, purpose and morality and use that to point to truth, goodness, and beauty of the Gospel?’” he said. “We submit that all people experience those things – meaning, purpose, morality, etc. – but they don’t have a robust explanation or grounding to justify said experiences in their own worldview. It is there we find inroads to God.”

Outside of hosting the annual Every Square Inch Conference, ACE also conducts multiple faculty lecture series throughout the school year and publishes the “Faith and the Academy” Journal. Students interested in becoming Student Fellows can visit the center’s website for information on applying.