To purchase your tickets, click below. Register We wanted to personally invite you to meet Rosaria at our upcoming Celebration of Carolina Values event on October 17th in Raleigh. We would be honored to have you be part of this wonderful evening, and we wanted to introduce you to this year’s incredible speaker, Rosaria Butterfield: Rosaria is a former tenured professor of English and women’s studies at Syracuse University, where she experienced a profound spiritual transformation. Her memoir, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor’s Journey into Christian Faith (Crown and Covenant, 2012), details this remarkable journey. She is now married to Kent Butterfield, a Reformed Presbyterian pastor in North Carolina, and is also a mother, grandmother, author, and speaker. Raised in liberal Roman Catholic environments and passionate about books and philosophy, Rosaria embraced feminist philosophy and LGBTQ+ politics in her late twenties, identifying as a lesbian. She earned her Ph.D. from The Ohio State University (1992) and served in the English department and women’s studies program at Syracuse University from 1992 to 2002, achieving tenure in 1999. In 1997, while researching the Religious Right and their perceived hostility toward people like herself, Rosaria wrote a critical article about The Promise Keepers, an Evangelical Christian organization for men which opposes same-sex marriage, and emphasizes marital fidelity and the man as being head of the household. This led to a series of dinners with local Reformed Presbyterian pastor Ken Smith and his wife, Floy. Their discussions on the Religious Right and the Bible profoundly impacted Rosaria, who eventually converted to Christianity in 1999 after reading the Bible multiple times under their guidance. Since then, Rosaria has authored multiple books and engages regularly in speaking engagements where she shares about her journey and the transformative work of the Gospel. Rosaria recently spoke at Liberty University's 2023 Convocation Ceremony. If you are not familiar with her work and message, this video wonderfully displays her heart to declare the truth of the Gospel, and its transformational power. Click here to see her speech. We would hate for you to miss an opportunity to hear from such an incredible woman and champion of your values. If you would like to meet Rosaria yourself, and celebrate all of our pro-values accomplishments this year, secure your ticket at ncvalues.org/celebration.
