Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Book Club
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Dust to Dust: Aging Wisely in an Anti-Aging World
Dispatch Faith: A Better Way to Think About Old Age, by Wesley Liu (Penn): Jen Wilkin’s Dust to Dust: Aging Wisely in an Anti-Aging World approaches aging through a Christian lens, arguing that [the] obsession with extending life’s “prime” has never been merely cosmetic. Rather, it’s also based on the belief that we can prolong the years…
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JD Vance & Barak Obama: Community, Heritage & Faith
Washington Post Op-Ed: JD Vance Makes the Case for a More Christian America, by Matthew Schmitz (Religion Editor, Washington Post) In a divided America, JD Vance sees Christianity as a unifying force. His new memoir, “Communion,” blames secularism for social strife and proposes faith as the solution. The book is not just a conversion narrative;…
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What Grows in Weary Lands: Christian Resilience
Tish Harrison Warren (Priest, Anglican Church), What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience (2026): How do we cultivate faith that endures? From award-winning author and former New York Times writer Tish Harrison Warren comes a fresh vision for navigating burnout and weariness through ancient Christian practices—guiding us toward lives of resilience, renewal, and flourishing. “Warren is…
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Father’s Day Wisdom From the Apostle Paul and Woody in Toy Story 5
Christianity Today: Dads, Provoke Not Your Children to Wrath’—Even the Fussy Toddler, by Seth Troutt (Pastor, Ironwood Church (Phoenix); Author, Authentic Masculinity (2026)): Ephesians 6:4: “Fathers, do not exasperate your children.” … The King James Version even famously translated this passage as “provoke not your children to wrath.” … Paul gives a similar command in…
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Yale Grad, Who Left Practice After Bipolar Diagnosis and Joined Alabama Law Faculty, Publishes Book on Mental Health
ABA Journal, Mental Health Law Becomes This Law Prof and Author’s Focus After Walking ‘Through the Fire’: The most dangerous moments of Fredrick Vars’ life guided his career path. The first came in fall 2004, when he was a third-year associate at a law firm then known as Miller Shakman & Beem in Chicago. Just days…
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Righteous Anger Submits to God
Christianity Today: Why (and When) It’s Okay for Christians to Get Angry, by Hannah Miller King (Author, Feasting on Hope: How God Sets a Table in the Wilderness (2026)): Anger isn’t always a sin, and suppressing anger isn’t always a virtue. … In 2025, Oxford University Press’s word of the year was rage bait. People often…
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Finding Meaning in Suffering
Dispatch Faith: The World Needs to Recover True Lament. Christianity Can Teach It., by Kelly M. Kapic (Covenant College), M. Elizabeth Lewis Hall (Biola University) & Jason McMartin (Biola University) (Co-Authors, When the Journey Hurts: Finding Meaning in Suffering for Heart, Mind, and Soul (2026)): Benjamin Franklin famously declared that only death and taxes are…
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Near-Death Experiences and the Christian Hope of Heaven
Christianity Today: Are Near-Death Experiences Evidence for Heaven?, by Andrew Wilson (Pastor, King’s Church London; Author, Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West (2023)): Writing about heaven is different from writing about other Christian doctrines. Some books on the new heaven and new earth are so imaginative and speculative that they become untethered…
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The One Idea That Ended Slavery: Every Human Being Is Created in the Image of God
Dispatch Faith: The One Idea That Ended Slavery, by Tomer Persico (Shalom Hartman Institute; Author, In God’s Image: How Western Civilization Was Shaped by a Revolutionary Idea (NYU Press 2025)): The oldest known records of slavery come from Mesopotamia, some 5,000 years ago. Then Egypt. Then China. Then Mesopotamia, of course, and Greece, and Rome.…
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Law Professors Are Too Old
Chronicle of Higher Education Op-Ed: Professors Are Too Old, by Samuel Moyn (Yale; Author, Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth―and What to Do About It (2026)): I work at Yale Law School. Its faculty was dramatically transformed by the elimination of retirement coupled with the extension of lifespans. In the…
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The Atlantic: The Evidence That God Exists
The Atlantic: The Evidence That God Exists, by Elizabeth Bruenig (B.A. Brandeis; M.Phil. Christian Theology, Cambridge): I grew up in a faithful Methodist household in deep-red Texas during the George W. Bush years, when the political sway of evangelicals was at its zenith. At the same time, evangelists of a robust atheism—figures such as the biologist…
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The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness
The Free Press: Why Your ‘Perfect’ Life Feels So Empty, by Arthur Brooks (Harvard) (Author, The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness (2026)): I’ve spent most of my career around some of the most accomplished young people in the world. What I’ve found is that they are undeniably, desperately, incorrigibly…
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Steven Pinker & Ross Douthat: The God Debate
The Free Press, Debate: Do We Need God?: Hosting a debate about God in 2026 might seem like a strange thing to do. … For years, intellectuals predicted that as religion receded, society would become calmer, more rational, and more scientific. Shed religious superstition, the theory went, and we would inherit a more enlightened public…
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James Talarico, Liberal Protestants, and Evangelicals
Following up on my previous post, Can Texas Senate Candidate James Talarico Reclaim Christianity for the Left? (New York Times): Dispatch Faith: The Real Difference Between Evangelicals and Liberal Protestants, by Daniel K. Williams (Ashland University; Author, Politics of the Cross: A Christian Alternative to Partisanship (2021)): Evangelicals and liberal Protestants badly misunderstand each other.…
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NY Times: What Is The Argument For Believing In God?
New York Times Book Review: What Is the Argument for Believing in God?, by Timothy Egan (reviewing Christopher Beha, Why I Am Not an Atheist: The Confessions of a Skeptical Believer (2026)): Christopher Beha’s long and winding road from well-read atheist to even better-read Christian begins with a compelling image: An angel appears to him. Not…
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Suffering Is Part Of The Christian Job Description
Christianity Today: Revival Begins with Suffering, Not Celebrity, by Luke Geraty (reviewing Craig Keener (Asbury Theological Seminary), Suffering: Its Meaning for the Spirit-Filled Life (2025)): I remember the first time I heard Craig Keener speak. The world-renowned scholar had recently published Miracles, a two-volume work providing a philosophical, biblical, and experiential case for the supernatural…
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If There Is No God: The Battle Over Who Defines Good and Evil
The Free Press: Right and Wrong Are Not a Matter of Personal Opinion, by Dennis Prager (Author, If There Is No God: The Battle Over Who Defines Good and Evil (2026)): The great moral tragedy of our time is that feelings have replaced values. And they shouldn’t. Feelings are beautiful. Feelings are wonderful. It’s good…
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Pickleball and Faith
Christianity Today: Blessed Are the Pickleball Players, by David Zahl (Author, The Big Relief: The Urgency of Grace for a Worn-Out World (How to Overcome Burnout, Perfectionism, and Life’s Overwhelming Demands by Embracing Grace, Acceptance, and Peace) (2025)): On our way to church every weekend, my family and I pass two sets of tennis courts,…
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Disciplining the Dragons Within Us: Spiritual Formation and the Healing of Our Hearts
Christianity Today: The Dragons Within, by Haley Byrd Wilt: In Scripture, dragons—these great beasts we humans can’t help but dream about (or have nightmares about) from time to time—are associated with evil and chaos. And in the works of the original Inklings, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, dragons remind us of those corners of ourselves…
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From the Bookshelves: The Proving Ground by Michael Connelly (2025)
I love legal thrillers. If you do too and need a distraction, check out The Proving Ground by Michael Connelly (2025). Very enjoyable! Here is the publisher’s description: “From #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly, the Lincoln Lawyer is back with a case against an AI company whose product may have been responsible for the murder…
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From the Bookshelves: John Grisham, The Widow
Need a break from grading — if you are still grading — final exams? I found John Grisham’s latest, The Widow, to be fun. Here is the publisher’s blurb: “Simon Latch is a lawyer in rural Virginia, making just enough to pay his bills while his marriage slowly falls apart. Then into his office walks…
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Charlie Kirk’s Final Message to America: Stop, In the Name of God
Charlie Kirk finished writing a book on the Sabbath months before he was murdered. This book discusses the importance of observing the Sabbath—and why rest might heal our country.
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NY Times: Christmas and the Resilience of Religious Doubt
Christmas and the resilience of religious doubt
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How Church Could (Literally) Save Your Life
How Church Could (Literally) Save Your Life introduces skeptics to data, invites them to church, and finally guides them toward the one by whose wounds we are healed—no pills, planks, or apps required.
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DREAM Act Reintroduced in Congress
This week, another version of the DREAM Act was introduced in the U.S. Congress. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) introduced the bill, which would create a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. The law likely would ease access for immigrant students to higher education. It also a…