2021 Think Well Speakers

KEYNOTE SPEAKER / Brett Kunkle is the founder and president of MAVEN, a movement to equip the next generation to know truth, pursue goodness, and create beauty. He has more than 25 years of experience working with youth and parents. Brett has developed a groundbreaking approach to mission trips, creating a one-of-a-kind experience that immerses participants in real-life engagement in apologetics and evangelism in Berkeley, California, and Salt Lake City, Utah. In addition, Brett is a Teaching Fellow at the Impact 360 Institute. He was an associate editor for the Apologetics Study Bible for Students and coauthored A Practical Guide to Culture: Helping the Next Generation Navigate Today’s World with John Stonestreet. He received his master’s degree in philosophy of religion and ethics from Talbot School of Theology. Brett lives with his wife and kids in Southern California. More on Brett and his family here. 

Topic areas: Worldview/apologetics, navigating the culture, tech/screens and media

GUEST SPEAKER / Glenn Sunshine is a professor of history at Central Connecticut State University. An award-winning author, Glenn has published books, articles, and book chapters on history, theology, and culture, online and on both sides of the Atlantic. His book Why You Think the Way You Do: The Story of Western Worldviews from Rome to Home (Zondervan, 2009) received the 2006 Acton Institute Book Grant. His most recent book, The Kingdom Unleashed, was coauthored with missiologist Jerry Trousdale. He is a regular columnist for The Worldview Journal, an online publication of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview; a core faculty member and Senior Fellow for the Colson Center's Fellows Program; has taught a variety of Bible, history, and worldview seminars and courses to churches around the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa; and has been a content consultant for several worldview curricula. The founder of Every Square Inch Ministries (www.esquareinch.com), Glenn and his wife Lynn have two children and live in Newington, Connecticut. More about Glenn here.

Topic areas: Worldview, history (including the history of Christianity and the church)

HOST PASTOR / Todd Cothran is the pastor of CrossLife Community Church (conference host site). He and his family (wife Renee and four children) moved to Charlottesville in 2012 to “replant” Alliance Bible Church, now known as CrossLife, a member in the Christian & Missionary Alliance denomination. He formerly served as an associate pastor and elder at Front Range Alliance Church in Colorado Springs. Before that (1996–2008), he worked at Summit Ministries in Manitou Springs, Colorado, where he directed the ministry’s Christian leadership program for college-bound students and, later, the curriculum department. Much of the worldview and apologetic curricula produced by that department served as a springboard and inspiration for Think Well. ​

Topic areas: Worldview/apologetics, evangelism and discipleship, purpose and calling 

Jennifer Patterson (nee Marshall) is a visiting lecturer and director of the Institute of Theology and Public Life at Reformed Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. She has worked in public policy for 25 years on issues related to family, poverty, and religious liberty. Jennifer holds degrees from Wheaton College, the Institute of World Politics, and Reformed Theological Seminary. She is currently a doctoral candidate in moral theology and ethics at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. Jennifer also spoke at our first Think Well in 2016.

Topic areas: Worldview in public policy, religious freedom, and effective compassion

Elizabeth Stewart is the worship leader at GraceLife Church in the Charlotte, NC, area. She holds a BA in music from Hunter College, New York City. She serves as the artistic director for Ken Boa’s Reflections Ministries and is currently pursuing a master’s in biblical and theological studies through Dallas Theological Seminary. In 2019 she led worship at the Billy Graham Training Center, and she has been an integral part of leading worship for the National Conference on Christian Apologetics (2013–2016). She has spoken at women’s conferences, with some of her favorite topics to address being issues surrounding comparison, the importance of story, suffering and redemption, and restoration in the Psalms. Elizabeth is a classically trained pianist as well as a songwriter and video producer. She and her husband Michael (see below) have two young sons, William and John.

Topic areas: Identity (in Christ), success (from a biblical viewpoint), image and comparison issues

Michael Stewart is vice president of Ken Boa's Reflections Ministries and Omnibus Media Ministries as well as lead pastor of GraceLife Church (in Pineville, NC). He holds a BA in philosophy/religion from Mississippi State University and an MA in biblical studies/languages from Southern Evangelical Seminary. He previously worked as minister of education for GraceLife Church and as editor for the Cobb Institute of Archaeology. He hosts an apologetics forum at GraceLife called In Question. As a teacher, writer, and editor across academic and ministry settings, Michael has significant expertise in apologetics and is passionate about helping people see the beauty and power of Scriptures. He and wife Elizabeth (see above) have two boys and live in Indian Land, SC.

Topic areas: Various apologetics topics

Neil Shenvi is a Christian apologist who has read and written extensively about critical theory and its (in)compatibility with Christianity. He has given talks on this subject all over the country, and we are privileged that he’ll be able to join Think Well 2021 via Zoom. Neil attended Princeton University as an undergraduate and holds a PhD in theoretical chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. He worked as a research scientist at Yale and Duke before quitting his job to homeschool his four children through Classical Conversations. He lives in Durham, North Carolina. Learn more about Neil on his website, which offers a wealth of resources on both critical theory and apologetics in general.

Topic areas: Critical theory/critical race theory

W. Bradford (Brad) Wilcox will give a talk at Think Well, followed by Q&A, entitled “Wandering toward the Altar: 10 Rules to Follow on the Road to ‘I Do.’” Wilcox is director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia (UVA), a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He earned his undergraduate degree at UVA, where he was a Jefferson Scholar, and his PhD in sociology at Princeton University. Prior to coming to UVA, he held research fellowships at Princeton and Yale. Professor Wilcox’s research focuses on the quality and stability of family life in the United States and around the globe. He is the author and coeditor of five books, including Gender and Parenthood: Biological and Social Scientific Perspectives (Columbia University Press, 2013). He has published multiple journal articles on marriage, cohabitation, parenting, and fatherhood, and his research is featured regularly in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, NPR, National Review Online, and other media outlets. Connect with Professor Wilcox on Twitter here.

Topic areas: Marriage, dating, and cohabitation

Bill Basener received his PhD in mathematics from Boston University in 2001. An emeritus faculty member (in mathematics) at the Rochester Institute of Technology, he is also on the University of Virginia’s systems engineering faculty. The founding owner of two software companies (Spectral Solutions and Geospatial Technologies), he has authored research in the fields of chaotic dynamical systems, human population modeling, genetic population modeling, computer graphics, cosmology, game theory, and signal processing—including the textbook Topology and Its Applications. His paper on mutations and natural selection has been cited as a refutation of part of Neo-Darwinism, and was discussed by World Magazine, the Discovery Institute’s Evolution News & Science Today, and David Coppedge’s Creation-Evolution Headlines. He and his wife, Amber, have five children and live in the Charlottesville area.

Topic area: Faith and evolution/science

Jenny Abel has been our Think Well Conference director since its inception. In a session at the 2021 conference, she will share some of her personal story and speak on the topic of trusting God when life doesn’t go as expected. Jenny has been a freelance writer/editor for the past decade and, when not chasing her young daughter Heidi around, works part-time for Dr. Ken Boa of Reflections Ministries and Omnibus Media Ministries. With Dr. Boa, she coauthored Shaped by Suffering and edited Life in the Presence of God, both of which won IVP Readers’ Choice Awards. She is a graduate of Furman University and of the Focus on the Family Institute, where she and her husband met. Check out a short version of Jenny’s story here.

Topic areas: Christian living amidst suffering/trials

David Cothran attended Think Well in 2016 and 2018. He is now a rising senior at Liberty University, where he is working toward his bachelor’s degree in computer science and training to become a commissioned officer in the U.S. Air Force through AFROTC. His background includes working for Eagle Lake Camps, a ministry of the Navigators that focuses on discipleship training and applying the spiritual disciplines. While working for Eagle Lake he oversaw a traveling summer camp program that shared the Gospel with children and teens in Missouri, Colorado, New Mexico, and Kansas. His hobbies include reading too much, writing too little, and the occasional outdoor trail run. David is excited to share the tools he gained from Greg Koukl’s book Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions, which has enabled him to be more confident and skilled at engaging the culture for Christ.

Topic area: Evangelism/faith conversations