2023 Creation Conference

2023 Creation Conference Speakers

Dr. Marcus Ross

Dr. Ross received his B.S. in Earth Science from Pennsylvania State University, his M.S. in Paleontology from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and his Ph.D. in Geosciences from the University of Rhode Island. He served as a full-time professor at Liberty University from 2005-2021, attaining the rank of Professor of Geology and served as Director of the Center for Creation Studies. He is the founder and CEO of Cornerstone Educational Supply, and continues his relationship with Liberty University as a Fellow of the Center for Creation Studies and as an adjunct professor for the College of Arts and Science and the School of Engineering.

Ross’ work as a young-Earth creationist has found a broad audience, with articles and essays in both technical journals and lay-oriented magazines and websites, including Answers Research Journal, Zondervan’s Dictionary of Christianity and Science, Journal of Creation, Sapientia, Answers Magazine, and more. He is the lead author of collegiate textbook, The Heavens and the Earth: Excursions in Earth and Space Science, along with Dr. John Whitmore, Dr. Steven Gollmer, and Dr. Danny Faulker. His work has also has drawn national media attention, featured in articles from The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Times Sunday Magazine, and other print and electronic media. In 2017 he was one of the featured scientists in the theatrically released documentary Is Genesis History?, where he and the other cast members argued in favor of and presented evidence for a young Earth.

His first talk is entitled "The Geology of the Post-Flood World." After the flood ended, God commanded Noah and his family to "be fruitful and multliply and fill the earth: (Gen. 9:1). As humans began to spread over the earth, what was it like? Geology provides us with the right tools to understand the human fossil record as evidence of post-Flood migration and development.

His second talk is titled "New Views on Adam & Eve: A Young-Earth Creation Assessment." Evolutionary models of human origins generally disallow Adam & Eve as the original ancestors of all humanity. In response, two recent proposals by theistic evolutionists have sought to keep Adam & Eve as real people. William Lane Craig places Adam in the deep past (750,000 years ago) as an ancestor to Homo sapiens and Neandertals, while Joshua Swamidass and Andrew Loke redefine Adam as simply one of our many genealogical ancestors. What are creationists to make of these new proposals, and how should we respond?

Dr. Gary Locklair

Dr. Gary Locklair is Professor of Computer Science at Concordia University Wisconsin. His favorite person is Chuck Norris and his favorite baseball is the San Francisco Mud Hens. His talk is called "Positive Evidences for the Creation of Human Life."

Dr. Joel Heck

Dr. Joel Heck is Assisting Pastor at Redeemer Lutheran Church, Austin, Texas. He has authored or edited fifteen books, five of them on C. S. Lewis, and he teaches Old Testament, New Testament, and the life and writings of C. S. Lewis.

His talk is called "The Genesis Genealogies." In this presentation, the speaker will present information about Genesis 5 and 11, two unique genealogies. He will discuss whether or not gaps may have existed between the generations named in these two chapters, looking at data regarding ancient contemporary civilizations (especially Sumer and Egypt), related passages in the Old Testament especially, and where the LCMS stands on this issue.

Dr. Todd Wood

Dr. Wood has a BS in Biology from Liberty University in Virginia (1994) and a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Virginia (Charlottesville, 1999).

Immediately following his PhD work at Virginia, Dr. Wood accepted a position as the Director of Bioinformatics at the Clemson University Genomics Institute (Clemson, South Carolina). After working for about two years at Clemson University, Dr. Wood accepted a faculty position at Bryan College (Dayton, Tennessee) in 2002.

He is now president of the Core Academy of Science.

His first talk is called "Finding the Image of God in the Fossil Record." The image of God has been described in different ways, but it is not a physical feature of skeletal remains.  When dealing with the human fossil record then, how can we discern what is human and what is not?  To do so, we will need indirect evidence of the sorts of attributes that allow us to fulfill our role as God's image.  We will survey six evidences that relate to human ingenuity and mastery of creation: controlled use of fire, advanced toolmaking, art, care for the infirm, intentional burial, and complex exploration.  We will examine these traces in different fossil forms and distinguish true humans from mere apes.

His second talk is "Cave men in the Holy Land???" Yes, you read that right!  So-called "cave men" once walked where Jesus walked - literally!  From the caves of Mt. Carmel to the shores of Galilee, we'll examine amazing discoveries that help us trace the history of humanity from the Flood to the arrival of the Canaanites.  This journey will take us from the early traces of humanity in the north, where people fished and cooked their food, to the widespread Neandertal presence (including Jesus' "homebase" of Capernaum), to the more familiar signs of culture in the archaeological record. We'll discover how humanity survived AFTER the Flood.