“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Hebrews 11:1

Dear Friends of the Upper Room Gathering,

As we near our third Upper Room Gathering (August 4-9), we are looking forward to another invigorating and productive time with approximately 40 of us working together to impact the larger culture with Christian thought.

For those who would like more detail on what impacting the culture looks like, attached below are some examples of our Board members’ and other forerunners’ publications so you get a better sense of the vision and the task we have of better informing the culture at large.

Simply put, there are excellent research findings and essays on the superiority of actively leading a Christian life in terms of health, psychology, economics, education and virtually all human activities. These findings, however, are most often ignored or hidden in research journals and Christian publications. In part, our job is to get the news out widely.

Once again, our August URG speakers and participants will be exceptional. Eminent law scholar Harry Hutchison of ACLJ will share with us on the “grievance industry and identity politics in the West” as well as “liberalism’s future through the lens of labor law”. Andrew DeLoach, a new member of URG from Trinity Law University, will share his work on the ways people are using law “to unmake the foundations of Western civilization and Judeo-Christian culture”. Eric Halvorson, recently head of Trinity Law University, will be presenting as well on his crucial insights on the intersections of business, law and higher education.

URG Board member Doug Matthews from the University of Wisconsin will present on the science of addictions and relate it to faith as well as share his journey as a Christian in academe. (Please pray for his quick recovery from a rather nasty bike accident.) Fr. Michael Chaberek from Poland will present from his work on Aquinas and the ongoing debate within Christendom between those who believe essentially that the process of evolution is still valid and is simply the way God created man and nature versus the ever-gaining position of “intelligent design” which points to the lack of data for evolution across species, to which increasing numbers of Nobel Prize winning scientists are moving. Our own members will be presenting on topics as diverse as business, Marxism and critical theory, for example, Spencer Fang of the Claremont Institute, Mark Pritchard (Washington State) and Jane Zhao (U of Kansas), Dean Bork (Virginia Tech). I could go on but you can see we are in for a third very productive Upper Room Gathering.

We are so very grateful to an anonymous donor that has allowed us to hire David Martin, a very experienced and skilled person to develop a high caliber website. David just retired from a university technology center. We are anticipating the website will roll out at our August Gathering. David is making possible our sharing data sets, articles, and ideas as well as making it easy for donors to use a secure online donation service. We also now have Michelle Kilman, most of you will meet her in August; she’s helping us coordinate and communicate.

For those not present at our meeting in January (URG#2), participants across different fields (education, sociology, economics, theology, psychology, law) began to realize that all our disciplines are essentially challenged by the same mindsets and cultural trends – Marxism/socialism, critical race theory, addictions of all kinds, and the various contentious arguments around sexuality, abortion, and other eugenic movements. Attached below are also articles also on the dominance of the secular left in all the university disciplines.

As I write, there are at least three groups of our members working on topics and publications to reach the larger public.

Because we seek to remain a private organization so that we can work without distractions from those who would strongly and publicly contest our vision, we must seek funds without a dominant public presence. Thus we covet your prayers for “a few great men, women and foundations” to catch the vision and support our efforts to influence culture. Pray also for the good health and provision, the great staff at Montserrat who serve us, for traveling mercies, an absence of distractions and great focus and engagement at our 3rd Gathering of Christ followers eager to interrupt the dominance of secular ideas.

More later on the Board’s vision for two other ways URG wants to impact culture by 1) bringing Christians who serve on college and university boards together for training on ways to influence the universities and colleges they serve for Christ and 2) providing funds to help young Christian scholars do their research that may be rejected by secular funding sources.

We are so very grateful and dependent on your partnership, wisdom, and work. We are blessed to continue to experience so many answers to your prayers.

In Christ Jesus,

Mary