Speaking
Talks, Panels, and Debates
Available for keynote addresses, conference presentations, panel discussions, moderated debates, festival appearances, and workshops
Talk topics
Selected Talks
The Road to Damascus: On Encounter, Transformation, and What We Were Not Expecting
A meditation on the Damascus Road as metaphor — for individuals, communities, and institutions confronting the unexpected.
Fear and Faith: The Prophetic Imagination in an Age of Anxiety
On why fear is the central obstacle to both spiritual and political flourishing — and what the prophetic tradition has to offer.
AI, Consciousness, and the Soul: What Theology Has to Say
A serious theological engagement with machine intelligence — exploring what the Christian tradition offers to the conversation about artificial minds, consciousness, and the nature of persons.
The Post-Human and the Image of God: A Theological Reckoning with Transhumanism
Engaging the transhumanist vision of redesigned humanity — from longevism and cognitive enhancement to post-biological existence — through the lens of Christian anthropology and the prophetic tradition.
The Coming Chinese Church: Fifteen Years On
A revisiting of the themes from the 2013 book in light of what has happened since — geopolitically, culturally, and within the global church.
Union, Not Performance: Rethinking the Foundations of Christian Life
A theological argument against performance-based faith, and for a Christianity grounded in revelation and union with God.
Between Two Worlds: Language, Culture, and the Politics of Understanding
On what Mandarin, translation studies, and cross-cultural practice reveal about the limits and possibilities of human understanding.
Hope as Discipline: What Theology Has to Say to a World in Crisis
Arguing that hope is not an attitude but a practice — one with roots in theological tradition and consequences for political life.
The Affective Dimension: Why Feelings, Faith, and Fear Drive Geopolitics
For policy and academic audiences: why the emotional and spiritual dimensions of political communities are analytically indispensable.
Debate Propositions
Suggested Debates
1
“The Western church has confused performance with faith — and the consequences are political, not just spiritual.”
2
“Artificial intelligence is not the greatest challenge to human identity. The greatest challenge is that we have already forgotten what it means to be human.”
3
“Transhumanism is not a philosophy of the future. It is a symptom of the present — and theology has both a diagnosis and a better vision.”
4
“China’s engagement with the Global South is better understood through the lens of religion than through the lens of economics.”
5
“Hope is not an attitude. It is a theological and political discipline — and secular politics cannot sustain it without borrowing from religious traditions.”
6
“Cross-cultural fluency — real fluency, not surface competence — is one of the most important and most undervalued capacities in contemporary leadership.”
7
“Deconstruction of faith is not a crisis. It is a necessary stage — and institutions that pathologise it will not survive.”
8
“The prophet’s task has always been political. The separation of theological prophecy from public life is a modern mistake with serious consequences.”
Panel suitability
Panel Themes
The geopolitics of religion
The global church
Artificial intelligence and human identity
Transhumanism and the future of faith
Cross-cultural understanding
Hope and political recovery
Faith deconstruction
Technology and ethics
The bi-vocational academy
For event organisers
Why Book Paul Stefan Golf
What He Brings
Intellectual seriousness, cross-disciplinary range, and the kind of calm authority that elevates a conversation without dominating it. Equally comfortable with the conceptual and the concrete — moving from Trinitarian theology to Belt and Road geopolitics to the ethics of artificial intelligence without losing either rigour or accessibility.
Range of Expertise
- Christian theology, mysticism, and the public dimensions of faith
- East-West cultural analysis, with particular depth on China
- Geopolitical research: Chinese foreign policy, conflict zones, digital security
- Cross-cultural communication and translation
- Artificial intelligence, consciousness, and theological anthropology
- Transhumanism and future societies through a prophetic lens
- Hope, fear, and the affective dimensions of change
Format Flexibility
Keynote address (45–60 minutes) · Academic or conference lecture · Panel discussion and moderated debate · Long-form interview (broadcast or podcast) · Workshop or masterclass · Q&A format for festival or public engagement events
Paul Stefan Golf is the kind of speaker an organiser books once and invites back. He does not perform certainty — he demonstrates it, and audiences notice the difference.