Julia Garschagen

Julia Garschagen is a speaker and apologist at the Zacharias Institut für Wissenschaft, Kultur, und Glaube (the Zacharias Institute for Science, Culture, and Faith) based in Cologne, Germany. She frequently speaks in universities and at different events across Germany and Europe about an intellectually robust faith, and addressing societal and existential questions from a Christian perspective.

Julia also serves on the leadership of two large youth missions in Germany: Jesus House, organized by ProChrist, and the Christival. She is passionate about listening and responding to the questions and concerns of young people and will be co-leading the next series of Jesus House events in 2020, which in 2017 were attended by 85,000 people across Germany as well as in other European countries. Julia also teaches apologetics at the Johanneum Theological Seminary in Wuppertal.

Before joining the Zacharias Institut, Julia worked for many years as a regional coordinator with SMD (InterVarsity Germany), a network of Christians in schools, at universities, and in workplaces. She also served for a year as a university evangelist in England, speaking at university missions in both the UK and Europe. Prior to this, she worked for a year with people living in extreme poverty in Lima, Peru. This experience inspired her to establish a small charity which helps young people in Peru to access and pursue higher education, and to break the cycle of poverty.

Julia studied theology in Wuppertal, Germany, and earned her MA in theology at King’s College London. Key areas of Julia’s research included, among others, the question of suffering (theodicy) and the contemporary critique of the atonement.