A Dialogic Unconference Hosted by the Christianity and Communication Studies Network (thecssn.com)
Date/Location/Time: Tuesday, November 18, 2025; noon to 8:30 pm, Doubletree by Hilton, 6900 Tower Road, Denver, Colorado, 80013; Phone: 303.574.1300; https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/denaadt-doubletree-denver-international-airport/. The event coincides with the annual Religious Communication Association and National Communication Association conferences.
- A courtesy shuttle from Denver International Airport is available.
- The hotel is just minutes from the airport and a short drive to the Gaylord Convention Center and the main NCA convention.
- We have reserved a courtesy block of rooms. The hold will be lifted after October 27, after which time we cannot guarantee a room at the block rate will be available for you at the Doubletree. Book a room.
Keynote Presenter: Ken Chase (PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign), Associate Professor of Communication, Wheaton College
The “What”? In the past several generations, in response to the growing secularism about objective truth claims, Christians developed responsive intellectual frameworks under the broad category of “Christian worldview.” Books like Francis Schaeffer’s How Should We Then Live? (1976), James Sire’s The Universe Next Door (1976), and Nancy Pearcey’s Total Truth (2004) all, in various ways, advanced the perspective that Christian faith and action are primarily cognitive, intellectual enterprises.
One of Calvin University professor and philosopher James K. A. Smith’s important contributions to Christian thought has been to offer an alternative way of thinking, suggesting that traditional “Christian worldview” responses misunderstand not only the nature and accessibility of truth, but also how spiritual formation actually works. In Desiring the Kingdom (2009) and Imagining the Kingdom (2013), Smith makes the case that human choices and spiritual formation are driven much more by matters of the heart and by desire than they are by intellectual assent, and that regular habits and practices (i.e., “liturgies”) play a prominent role in shaping the desires and experiences of individuals and communities. He has continued to develop this idea through not just his Cultural Liturgies series but also much of his mass of published work that calls Christians to reengage the Christian mind with the glacial power of embodied Christian habits. Such ideas require a significant reassessment of how we think about Christian engagement in scholarship and teaching.
The “Why”? Despite the work of Smith and others over the past few decades, American Christians still are very much captivated by worldview frameworks for thinking about Christian scholarship. There is still much value, then, in understanding more richly—and communicating more clearly—to faculty, students, clergy, and laity about how religious faith and practice actually work. Such intellectual efforts could significantly change or even transform how discipleship is done in churches and other Christian communities.
There is also much value in this type of reassessment for understanding the ways that theology, religion, and communication interact. For instance, rhetoric in Christian circles is still largely understood from a classical perspective that emphasizes logos at the expense of ethos and pathos. Perspectives like Smith’s, on the other hand, can help recover a proper emphasis on issues of trust, credibility, and desire in religious persuasion and apologetics.
Finally, a richer understanding and appreciation of the formative effects of liturgy can refresh and sharpen how we approach undergraduate education, particularly from a faith-informed perspective. Such a perspective can help educators navigate the relational and thoroughly human elements of education in classroom environments, and it can be a powerful inventional resource for the mentoring we can give to students of faith about how to see their education as a calling, and about how they can approach their studies in more effective and more life-transforming ways.
Accordingly, this dialogic unconference explores the relevance and value of Smith’s call to habits and practices of Christian scholarship that profoundly shape academic life. In what ways can adopting Smith’s proposed habits and practices enhance academic life, both for individual scholars and academic communities as a whole? How do Smith’s suggestions challenge traditional notions of academic success and productivity? What are the potential barriers or challenges to implementing Smith’s call for habits and practices within academic institutions, and how might they be overcome?
The “How”? To attend, you must first sent an email to CCSN Executive Director Robert Woods (rwoods@theccsn.com) no later than June 1, 2025 with your interest in attending. Space is limited for this event to maximize one-on-one and small group discussions throughout our time together so we recommend that you RSVP earlier than June 1. The cost of the event (including lunch and dinner) is $140.00.
Pre-work: As with other CCSN dialogic encounters, there will be some basic pre-work required for those who wish to attend so we can maximize discussion during our short time together. This year’s pre-work will include reading James K. A. Smith’s second book in his Cultural Liturgies Series Imagining the Kingdom: How Workshop Works (Baker Academic, 2013). We highly recommend a second book by Smith titled You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (Brazos Press, 2016). Pre-work will also include reading the short papers to be presented in our opening panel as described below. By accepting the invitation to attend, you agree to complete the pre-work prior to the event.
Paper/Panel Presentations, and Edited Book. Based on feedback from our first-ever pre-con in 2024, we are going to extend our time together by a couple of hours and offer individuals an opportunity to submit papers ahead of time to be included in a opening plenary panel.
The panel format, given our dialogic format, will be different from traditional panels. Paper options include a short essay (approx. 1500-1700 words) and a long form essay (approx. 2500-3000 words) in response to this year’s pre-con theme. Your paper will help to prime the pump for our discussion throughout the day and is also something that can be included in the edited book we will publish from the event. Your paper will be read by participants ahead of time as part of their pre-work and your “presentation” at the event will take place as part of a roundtable discussion that includes discussion and Q & A. The discussion will help you, as author, refine your contribution for the book and, we hope, encourage others to plan their own contributions.
If you would like your paper to be considered as part of the panel, please submit a brief abstract (no more than 250 words) on or before May 10th to rwoods@theccsn.com. Papers will be due no later than August 18th.
Our goal is to have the edited book from last year’s pre-conference (2024) to be available through integratiopress.com prior to the 2025 pre-conference. Those who attend this year’s pre-con will receive a free copy of that publication and will have the opportunity to contribute to the book that arises out of the 2025 gathering. Last year’s first-ever NCA pre-conference description and schedule is available here: https://www.theccsn.com/ccsns-first-ever-pre-conference-at-nca-a-dialogic-unconference-on-christian-scholarship/.