Founded in 1982 by physicist-theologian Dr. William Monsma (PhD, University of Colorado), the Institute offered a learning context where Christian faith and academic concerns were integrated. In its first decade, the Institute sponsored lectures by Christian academics, while also helping Christian graduate students and faculty at the University of Minnesota to thoughtfully engage academia from a distinctly Christian vantagepoint.

Since the mid 1990s, the Institute's horizons have also included international students and scholars, efforts which culminated in the Institute's first major conference, the World View for World Healing Conference, in May 1998, with some 300 participants from across North America, as well as 40 speakers and facilitators from around the world.

Each year, the Institute records most of our 15-20 events. All of these files are copyrighted by the MacLaurin Institute, unless otherwise noted. Please contact the Institute to receive permission to use any of these recordings for large-group settings.

HEART OF THE MATTER

May 1st, 2003 - Daniel Taylor
Leaving a Spiritual Legacy: Telling the Master Stories of Your Life

April 3rd, 2003 - Peter Kreeft
Tolkien's Worldview: How the Greatest Book of the Century is a Religious Book

March 6th, 2003 - Drs. Monsma and Macosko
Intelligent Design From Different Angles

February 6th, 2003 - Andrew Fellows
U2 and the Search for Spiritual Reality

January 2nd, 2003 - Gannon Murphy
God and the Problem of Evil

December 19th, 2002 - Dr.William Monsma
Star of Bethlehem

December 5th, 2002 - Dale Ahlquist
The Spiritual and Intellectual Delight of G. K. Chesterton

May 16th, 2002 - Don Bierle
A Biologist Asks, "Where's the Evidence for God?"

April 4th, 2002 - Vishal Mangalwadi
Two Enlightenments and One Light

January 2nd, 2002 - Daniel E. Ritchie
Reconciling the Heart With the Head

November 1st, 2001 - Dr. Walter Sundberg
The Danger of Sacred Politics

February 1st, 2001 - David Clark
Is Morality Possible if There Is No God?

January 4th, 2001 - Mary Ellen Ashcroft
Lost for Words: Reclaiming Meaning in an Age of Sound Bites

April 6th, 2000 - Denis Haack
The Truth Is Out There

March 2nd, 2000 - Walter Sundberg
Reshaping the First Amendment: A Point of No Return?

January 6th, 2000 - J. Budziszewski
Written on the Heart? The Case for Natural Law

April 1st, 1999 - Daniel E. Ritchie
Battle of the Books at Century's End

NOTE: Some of these speakers are not Catholic, and I haven't listened to all of these lectures (yet). I'll vouch for Peter Kreeft (on Philosophy), J. Budziszewski (on Natural Law) and Dale Ahlquist (on Chesterton) -- they're the some of the top Catholic folks in their respective fields -- but I simply don't know about the others. If you know better, please feel free to comment and let everyone else know.