{"id":1009,"date":"2025-10-03T08:10:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T08:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/2025\/10\/03\/2025-10-03-from-skeptic-to-speaker\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T23:09:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T23:09:48","slug":"2025-10-03-from-skeptic-to-speaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/2025\/10\/03\/2025-10-03-from-skeptic-to-speaker\/","title":{"rendered":"From skeptic to\u00a0speaker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Olivia Petty<\/a> · Contributing Writer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former atheist and environmental activist Paul Kingsnorth will visit Grove City College on Tuesday as the keynote speaker of the annual Christian Writers Conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kingsnorth will expound upon his faith and writing in an interview with Dr. Jeffrey Bilbro, professor of English, in the Breen Student Union Great Room at 3:30 p.m. He will lecture at 7 p.m. in Harbison Chapel with an 8 p.m. reception and book signing following in Rathburn Great Room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faced with the opportunity to host a writer admired for his “moral seriousness and intellectual acuity” in the words of Bilbro, the college elected to host the event a semester early. After meeting Kingsnorth at a conference in Wisconsin in 2023, Bilbro hoped to invite him to the college, and two years later, Kingsnorth’s book tour will bring him to campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arriving in the wake of the last guest, the well-known Andrew Peterson, Kingsnorth’s conference may find it hard to stand out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Peterson focused on the relationship between people and the natural world, Kingsnorth will examine the relationship between people and AI, according to junior English major Sophia Pelsue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Most fields are and will continue to be changed by AI and its uses,” Pelsue said. “It’s easy to get sucked into technology and the ways it makes life easier (to our detriment). Kingsnorth could help clearly line out the dangers of AI and specifically the human aspect of relations to technology.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kingsnorth ran into God while thinking he was running away, forsaking diverse religious pursuits and a life of activism as he admitted in his article, “The Cross and the Machine.” Kingsnorth would say he had nothing to do with this transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I only knew that I could argue a good case for the injustice of the world made by this ‘God,’ and the silliness of miracles, resurrections and virgin births. I knew I was cleverer than all the people who believed this sort of rubbish, and I was happy to tell them so,” Kingsnorth admits in his book, “The Cross and the Machine.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A life of activism burned Kingsnorth out. He began to consider not just how to respond to the treatment of the earth but also how to improve it, according to Bilbro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In the Kingdom of Man, the seas are ribboned with plastic, the forests are burning, the cities bulge with billionaires and tented camps, and still we kneel before the idol of the great god Economy as it grows and grows like a cancer cell,” Kingsnorth said. “And what if this ancient faith is not an obstacle after all, but a way through?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a life made dangerously effortless by technology, it is tempting to stray from natural lifestyles. Kingsnorth will seek to answer that concern.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former atheist and environmental activist Paul Kingsnorth will visit Grove City College on Tuesday as the keynote speaker of the annual Christian Writers Conference. Kingsnorth will expound upon his faith and writing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[14,32,117],"class_list":["post-1009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campus","tag-front-page","tag-issue-2025-10-03","tag-olivia-petty"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Ian Schartner","author_link":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/author\/schartnerij23\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Former atheist and environmental activist Paul Kingsnorth will visit Grove City College on Tuesday as the keynote speaker of the annual Christian Writers Conference. Kingsnorth will expound upon his faith and writing","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1009"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1970,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009\/revisions\/1970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}