The 2018 Touchstone Conference

Thursday, October 11–Saturday, October 13

Trinity International University, Deerfield IL

Thanks to all of our sponsors, supporters, speakers, and guests for making this a very successful and memorable weekend. All of the sessions were recorded and will be posted online in the coming weeks.


Sponsor the conference! Sponsorship Info PDF.
Questions: email webmaster@touchstonemag.com.
Scholarships available: email scholarships@touchstonemag.com for more information.

Schedule & Sessions
—subject to change—

Thursday, October 11

thursday evening session

7:00 p.m.

James M. Kushiner

Opening Remarks—A Return to Fatherhood

7:15 p.m.

Patrick Henry Reardon

Fatherhood & the Holy Trinity

8:00 p.m.

S. M. Hutchens

Response & Commentary

8:15 p.m.

Rachel Fulton Brown

Praying the "Our Father": How Prayer Shapes Reality & What It Means for Fatherhood

Friday, October 12

friday morning session

8:30 a.m.

Glenn Stanton

Manhood is Not Natural: Why It's in Bad Shape & How to Recover It

9:15 a.m.

Steven Faulkner

A Father's Day in the Rain: Everyday Walks & Other Adventures with Sons

10:00 a.m.

Break

10:30 a.m.

Leon J. Podles

Honorable Men & the Honor of God: The Centrality of Honor in Masculinity & Christianity

11:00 a.m.

J. Budziszewski

What Makes Men Men?

12:00 p.m.—Lunch

friday afternoon session

1:30 p.m.

Patrick McCaskey

Gird Up Your Loins!

2:00 p.m.

Robert P. George

Manhood, Courage & Sacrifice

2:45 p.m.

Break

3:15 p.m.

C. R. Wiley

Make Men Pious Again

5:30 p.m.—Dinner

friday evening session

7:00 p.m.

Nancy Pearcey

Toxic Masculinity & #MeToo Can Christianity End the War between the Sexes?

8:00 p.m.

Hans Jacobse

Pastoring Young Men into Manhood

8:45 p.m.

Q & A, Panel

Saturday, October 13

saturday morning session

9:00 a.m.

Anthony Esolen

The Boy Genius: Finding Him Again Through the Patriarchal Group

10:00 a.m.

Break

10:30 a.m.

Allan C. Carlson

Is Patriarchy Inevitable? Lessons Religious & Secular 

11:15 a.m.

Q & A—Closing Remarks

speakers

Rachel Fulton Brown

Praying the Our Father

How Prayer Shapes Reality and What It Means for Fatherhood

Rachel Fulton Brown is Associate Professor of History at The University of Chicago. Research and teaching specialties include: History of Christianity; Medieval European Cultural, Religious, and Intellectual History; Liturgy and Prayer; Devotion to the Virgin Mary; Scriptural Exegesis and Hermeneutics; Subcreation and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien

J. Budziszewski

What Makes Men Men?

J. Budziszewski is a professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas, Austin, where he also teaches courses in the law school and the religious studies department. He specializes in political philosophy, ethical philosophy, legal philosophy, and the interaction of religion with philosophy. Among his research interests are classical natural law, virtue ethics, conscience and moral self deception, the institution of the family in relation to political and social order, religion in public life, and the problem of toleration. His books include What We Can't Not Know: A Guide (2d ed. Ignatius, 2011), On the Meaning of Sex (Intercollegiate Studies Institute Press, 2012), and Commentary on Thomas Aquinas's Virtue Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

Allan C. Carlson

Is Patriarchy Inevitable?

Lessons Religious & Secular

Touchstone senior editor Allan C. Carlson earned his PhD. in Modern European History from Ohio University. He is the President emeritus and founder of the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society in Rockford IL, where he continues to serve as editor of The Family in America. He was also a visiting professor of history at Hillsdale College in Michigan. Dr. Carlson has written extensively on issues of family and society. Among his most recent publications are: Godly Seed: American Evangelicals Confront Birth Control 1873-1973 (Transaction Publishers); Conjugal America: On the Public Purpose of Marriage (Transaction Publishers); and Third Ways: How Bulgarian Greens, Swedish Housewives, and Beer Swilling Englishmen Created Family-Centered Economies—And Why They Disappeared (ISI).

Anthony Esolen

The Boy Genius

Finding Him Again Through the Patriarchal Group

Touchstone senior editor Anthony Esolen teaches English at Thomas More College in Merrimack, New Hampshire, and is the author of many books, including Defending Marriage: Twelve Arguments for Sanity (St. Benedict Press), Life Under Compulsion (ISI Books), Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), and Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery). He has also translated Dante's Divine Comedy (Random House).

Steven Faulkner

A Father's Day in the Rain

Everyday Walks & Other Adventures with Sons

Steven Faulkner teaches creative writing at Longwood University in southern Virginia. He is the author of Waterwalk: A Passage of Ghosts (2007) and Bitterroot: Echoes of Beauty and Loss (2016). Both books are memoirs of father-son journeys that followed the paths of missionary priests: Marquette (in Waterwalk) and De Smet (in Bitterroot).

Robert P. George

Manhood, Courage & Sacrifice

Touchstone senior editor Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Founder and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He is also frequently a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School, where he has taught civil liberties and philosophy of law, among other subjects. He is author of The Clash of Orthodoxies (2002), and Conscience and Its Enemies (2013), and co-author of Embryo: A Defense of Human Life (2008) and What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense (2012).

S. M. Hutchens

S. M. Hutchens received his Ph.D. from the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago. He served as a reference librarian for twenty years, retiring in 2015 to become Touchstone's book review editor. He has been the chairman of the board of The Fellowship of St. James and is a senior editor of Touchstone, in which most of his writing appears. He has also published essays and reviews in The New Oxford Review, The Congregationalist, The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology, The Religion and Society Report, The Evangelical Catholic, Sursum Corda, Books and Culture, and The New Atlantis. He and his wife Mary live near Racine, Wisconsin, and have two daughters.

Hans Jacobse

Pastoring Young Men into Manhood

Hans Jacobse has been a priest for twenty years. He has a B.A. from the University of Minnesota, an M.Div. from St. Vladimir's Seminary, studied the Greek language at the University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and is a fellow at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. He is married and has one daughter. His editorials and essays have been published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Duluth News Tribune, International Herald Tribune, Hellenic Voice, Breakpoint website, Front Page Magazine website, Institute for Religion and Democracy website, Discover website, and more. His podcasts can be heard on Ancient Faith Radio.

Patrick McCaskey

Gird Your Loins!

Patrick McCaskey is a Chicago Bears board member and the Bears' Vice President of Special Projects. He has been working for the Bears since 1974. He is Chairman of Sports Faith International, a non-profit a Chicago-based initiative dedicated to inspiring and transforming our culture through the world of sports. He is the author of five books: Bear with Me: A Family History of George Halas and the Chicago Bears, Sports and Faith: Stories of the Devoted and the Devout, Pillars of the NFL: Coaches Who Have Won Three or More Championships, Sports and Faith: More Stories of the Devoted and the Devout and Pilgrimage: A Sports & Faith Series Book.

Nancy Pearcey

Toxic Masculinity and #MeToo

Can Christianity Heal the War between the Sexes?

Nancy Pearcey is the author of the newly released Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality. She is professor and scholar in residence at Houston Baptist University and editor at large of the Pearcey Report. Her earlier books include The Soul of Science, Saving Leonardo, Finding Truth, and two ECPA Gold Medallion Award Winners: Total Truth and (coauthored with Harold Fickett and Chuck Colson) How Now Shall We Live . Hailed in The Economist as "America's pre-eminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual," Pearcey has spoken at universities such as Princeton, Stanford, USC, and Dartmouth.

Leon J. Podles

Honorable Men & the Honor of God

The Centrality of Honor in Masculinity & Christianity

Dr. Leon J. Podles holds a Ph.D. in Old English and Old Icelandic from the University of Virginia. Some of his recent publications include The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity (Spence) and Sacrilege, an in-depth look at sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. His latest book is Meek or Macho: Men and Religion from St. Augustine's Press. His work has appeared in numerous publications including America, The American Spectator, and Crisis. After serving as a federal investigator for 20 years, Dr. Podles founded the Crossland Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing Christian culture through education. He is involved in his own community by serving on the boards of the Baltimore Area Council of Scouts and the Baltimore Opera Company. He and his wife Mary are the parents of six children. He resides in Baltimore, Maryland, and Naples, Florida.

Patrick Henry Reardon

Fatherhood & the Holy Trinity

Touchstone senior editor Patrick Henry Reardon, archpriest of All Saints' Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois, studied at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, and St. Tikhon's Orthodox Seminary in South Canaan, Pennsylvania. His writing has appeared over the past four decades in many publications, including Touchstone, of which he is a senior editor. He has also written many books, including Christ in the Psalms, Christ in His Saints, commentaries on Genesis, Job, Chronicles, and the Wisdom of Solomon, and the first volume in a trilogy, Reclaiming the Atonement: The Incarnation. Father Patrick lives in Chicago with his wife Denise.

Glenn Stanton

Manhood is Not Natural

Why It's in Such Bad Shape & How to Recover It

Glenn T. Stanton is the director of Family Formation Studies at Focus on the Family. He debates and lectures extensively on the issues of gender, sexuality, marriage and parenting at universities and churches around the world. Stanton also served the George W. Bush administration for many years as a consultant on increasing fatherhood involvement in the Head Start program. Stanton is the author of eight books on marriage and families and a regular columnist for various blogs. His latest book, Loving My (LGBT) Neighbor: Being Friends in Grace and Truth, explores how Christians should interact with gay or lesbian neighbors in a Christ-honoring way.

C. R. Wiley

Make Men Pious Again

C. R. Wiley has written for Touchstone, Modern Reformation, Sacred Architecture, The Imaginative Conservative, Front Porch Republic, Scenes Media, Kuyperian Commentary, National Review Online, and First Things, among others. His most recent book, Man of the House: A Handbook for Building a Shelter That Will Last in a World That is Falling Apart is published by Wipf and Stock. His short fiction has appeared in The Mythic Circle (published by the Mythopoeic Society) and elsewhere, and the first book in his young adult fantasy series was republished by Canon Press in December of 2017. He is a member of the Academy of Philosophy and Letters.

registration rates

Full Conference Rate
Price includes all sessions + 2 meals (Friday lunch and dinner) and 3 snacks.
Conference begins Thursday, Oct. 11th at 7 p.m. and ends Saturday, Oct. 13th at 11:45 a.m.

Ticket Price
Individual $249 ea.
Married Couples $224.50 ea.
Group Rate
(4 or more)
$199 ea.
Family Members
(son or daughter 18 or younger)
$19 ea.
College Student $29 ea.
Individual Session
(meal not included)
$49 ea.
Friday All Day
(Morning, afternoon, evening sessions)(food included)
$117 ea.
Register Today

• Cancellations before September 15th incur a $15 processing fee.
• Refunds up to 30 days before event.

location

2065 Half Day Road
Deerfield, IL 60015
tiu.edu

lodging

RECOMMENDED
Adjacent to Trinity—walking distance


LaQuinta Inn & Suites
Special rates available*
2000 Lakeside Dr.
Bannockburn, IL 60015-1237
Call 847-317-7300 then
dial 5 for front desk
*Must call by September 20 and mention Touchstone

MORE HOTELS NEARBY

Marriott Courtyard Lincolnshire
505 Milwaukee Ave., Lincolnshire
847-634-9555
2.68 miles from Trinity


Homewood Suites
10 Westminster Way, Lincolnshire
847-945-9300
0.6 miles from Trinity


Hampton Inn & Suites Lincolnshire
1400 Milwaukee Ave., Lincolnshire
847-478-1400
3.96 miles from Trinity

transportation

Transportation info from airport to Trinity (You can explore a range of options at RideGuru):

• Taxis from O'Hare may run between $40 and $49. (18 miles)

• Uber and Lyft operate at O'Hare as well. See below. They can save you money.

• Transportation from Midway is much higher because of the distance (40-45 miles depending on route)

• Standard Services like UberX and Lyft: Meet your driver upstairs on the Departures level. Look for the signs "Rideshare Pickup zone." This also includes UberXL, UberSelect, Lyft Plus, etc.

• Luxury Services like UberBlack and Lyft Lux: Meet your driver downstairs on the Arrivals level. They are with other car and limo services. This also includes UberSUV, Lyft Premier and Lyft Lux SUV.

stay informed

past touchstone articles on fatherhood

14.1—January/February 2001

Fatherhood Uprooted

A Sociologist Looks at Fatherlessness & Its Causes by David Blankenhorn

21.4—May 2008

Attention Deficit

on the Absence That Ritalin Can’t Cure by Bruce D. Woodall

32.1—January/February 2019

Is Patriarchy Inevitable?

Answers Secular & Religious by Allan C. Carlson

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