What the Forum is
The Mars Hill Forum is a public evening with a serious speaker, held on the University of Kentucky campus. Someone who has spent their life on a question comes and talks about it properly, at length, to a room of people who have shown up because they are interested. There is usually an afternoon session as well as the evening one, sometimes aimed at a particular group such as teachers, and part of it is an interview: one of our pastors sits on stage with the speaker and asks the questions the room would ask.
It is free, and it is open to anybody. It is put on by University Christian Fellowship, a student organization at the university, which is how it comes to be held on campus.
You do not have to be a Christian to come, and the Forum is not really aimed at people who already are. It exists because we would rather make the case in public, to people who have not made up their minds, than talk among ourselves.
It began in 2017, at Memorial Hall, advertised on flyers. Ten minutes before the start there were about fifty people in the room and it was looking thin. By the time it actually got under way there were around two hundred and thirty.
Coming up
Nothing is listed here at the moment. This page is where a date will appear when there is one, with the speaker and the subject, and anybody who wants to come can simply come. If you would rather be told than keep checking, email info@tcfky.com and ask.
Friday evenings at 7:00 carry on as usual either way, and you would be welcome at one of those in the meantime.
Past forums
Most recent first. This list is not yet complete: the Forum has run since 2017 and only the two below are on record with us so far.
- November 2, 2024. Fred Sanders, Divine Comedy and Socratic Method. Sessions on the doctrine of salvation and the doctrine of God, each with questions from the floor, and one on Socratic teaching at the Torrey Honors College at Biola University.
- October 28, 2023. Dr. Peter Leithart, The Quality of Mercy: Protestant Comedy in The Merchant of Venice.
Both of those were recorded. The Sanders visit runs to five recordings and the Leithart lecture to one, and all six sit together in the teaching archive.