Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Faith
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Don’t Pursue Happiness. It Will Make You Terribly Unhappy.
Following up on my previous post, The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness: The Free Press: Don’t Pursue Happiness. It Will Make You Terribly Unhappy., by Arthur Brooks (Vanderbilt) (Author, The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness (2026)): As someone who has dedicated my life…
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NY Times: Christianity Today, a Voice of Centrist Evangelicalism, Is In Turmoil
New York Times: Christianity Today, a Voice of Centrist Evangelicalism, Is in Turmoil, by Ruth Graham: Last year, leaders of the evangelical publication Christianity Today summoned the entire staff to a hotel ballroom in the Chicago suburbs for a meeting about their future. The publication’s chief operating officer, Nicole Massie Martin, opened her presentation with…
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America’s Deep Religious Divide Over Empathy
Following up on my previous posts: Axios, America’s Deep Religious Divide Over Empathy: White evangelical Protestants are the only major religious group in which a majority says empathy can become dangerous when it leads people away from a society guided by God’s truth, according to a new survey. …
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East of Eden: Families, Forgiveness, and God
he Free Press: ‘East of Eden’ and the Families We Choose to Forgive, by Michele McAloon: As Netflix brings John Steinbeck’s 1952 classic to a new generation, Free Press Book Club moderator Michele McAloon reflects on what ‘East of Eden’ teaches us about family, forgiveness, and free will. The book, which follows the lives of…
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Why the Catholic Church Is AI Doom’s Most Formidable Foe
Following up on last Sunday’s post, New York Times: Religious Scholars Met With Anthropic. What They Heard Stunned Them.: Dispatch Faith: Why the Catholic Church Is AI Doom’s Most Formidable Foe, by Claire Lehmann (Founding Editor, Quillette): Earlier this year, the cherub-faced technologist Christopher Olah led a delegation of Silicon Valley executives into the ancient…
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The Shrinking God of Jim Bakker (and the Infinite God of Annie Dillard)
Washington Post Op-Ed: The Shrinking God of Jim Bakker, by David Von Drehle: I imagine this might be the first and only time the writer Annie Dillard will be mentioned in a sentence alongside the grifting evangelist Jim Bakker. But if Dillard had not died recently, I would not have been rereading her intensely spiritual…
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WaPo: AI and Christian Asceticism
Washington Post Awakenings: This Ancient Spiritual Practice May Be the Answer to AI, by Paul Kingsnorth (The Abbey of Misrule): [If] the arrival of AI raises spiritual questions — questions about the existence and nature of God — then a spiritual response is required. As AI rushes through all systems, upending everything from the water…
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The Spiritual Reason Our Elderly Leaders Refuse to Give Up Power
Christianity Today: The Spiritual Reason Our Elderly Leaders Refuse to Give Up Power, by Russell Moore: [Many Americans feel exhausted by our long-running political gerontocracy.] If this were a problem relegated to the political sphere, we could imagine passing a constitutional amendment that puts an age cap on public office, but we see a similar phenomenon…
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NY Times: Religious Scholars Met With Anthropic. What They Heard Stunned Them.
New York Times: Religious Scholars Met With Anthropic. What They Heard Stunned Them., by Elizabeth Dias: In a series of private meetings, the company consulted religious scholars to help instill morality into its A.I. models — and make the case that Claude could be conscious. One night in April, a leader of the artificial intelligence…
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The Gospel According to Claude
The Free Press: The Gospel According to Claude, by Josh Code: Faith leaders are using AI to help research and outline their sermons. Where to draw the line depends on who you ask. … Roughly 24 percent of U.S. pastors use AI to help write or edit sermons, according to new data from the Barna…
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Rise in Young Catholic Converts Points to Spiritual Longing in U.S. and Europe
Washington Post, Rise in Young Catholic Converts Points to Spiritual Longing in U.S. and Europe: As Pope Leo XIV visits France, the number of converts is growing in secular Western countries, and some in Gen Z are rediscovering the faith of their grandparents. When Léa Guiragossian, a 22-year-old medical student from Bordeaux, arrived in Paris…
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How Did Jesus Answer a Lawyer’s Question: ‘What Must I Do to Inherit Eternal Life?’
Christianity Today: From ‘Thou Shalt’ to ‘Once Upon a Time’, by W. David O. Taylor (Fuller Theological Seminary; Author, To Set the World Aflame: How Artists Bear Witness to the Fullness of God’s Creation (2026)): In Luke 10:25–37, a lawyer approaches Jesus with a question: “Teacher … what must I do to inherit eternal life?”…
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Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law School Celebrates 57 Years of Greater Purpose at Annual Law Dinner
Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law Celebrates 57 Years of Greater Purpose at Annual Law Dinner: Framed by Pepperdine’s “For Greater Purpose” theme, the Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law hosted its annual law dinner, one of its most prestigious convenings. On September 26, 2026, Caruso law faculty, administrators, alumni, students, and distinguished guests came…
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Christian Humility Isn’t Just ‘Thinking of Yourself Less’
Christianity Today: Christian Humility Isn’t Just ‘Thinking of Yourself Less’, by Stefani McDade: A popular misquote of C.S. Lewis flattens this fundamental virtue—and retracts an invitation to the self-scrutiny we need. Scripture honors and commands humility, but what does it look like in practice? A line widely misattributed to C. S. Lewis offers a memorable…
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Faith Lessons From Jimmy Carter’s Playboy Interview 50 Years Ago
Dispatch Faith: Pulpits and Playboy, by Mark Kendall: On this day 50 years ago, during the home stretch of a tense presidential campaign, Playboy magazine gave America a glimpse of evangelicalism’s better side. It didn’t seem that way at the time. The confession of “born-again” presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, given to a publication famous (or…
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John Maxwell: Great Leaders of the Bible
John C. Maxwell, Great Leaders of the Bible: Lessons from Scripture’s Visionaries, Change Makers, and Trailblazers (Aug. 4, 2026): Discover timeless leadership principles through the lives of Scripture’s greatest figures. In Great Leaders of the Bible, John C. Maxwell, a New York Times bestselling author and one of the world’s most trusted voices on leadership,…
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Justice Department Sides With Churches In Political Speech/Tax-Exempt Status Case
Bloomberg Law, Justice Department Sides With Churches in Political Speech Case: The Justice Department told an appeals court it largely agrees with the religious groups suing it over how far churches can wade into politics and still keep their tax-exempt status. The DOJ said a lower court judge was wrong to throw out an agreement…
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The Death of Religion?
Byron Johnson (Baylor & Pepperdine) & Thomas Kidd (Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary), The Death of Religion?: Nones, Others, and the Flourishing of Faith (2026): The common media and scholarly story—especially with the rise of people who don’t identify with any religion—suggests that religion in America is in serious decline. In The Death of Religion?: Nones, Others, and the Flourishing of Faith, Byron R. Johnson…
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WSJ: Jews Need to Get Personal With the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: Jews Need to Get Personal With God, by Roberta Rosenthal Kwall (DePaul; Author, Polarized: Why American Jews are Divided and What to Do About it (2026):The mere belief in a ‘higher power’ is an impoverished form of spiritual sustenance. The holiest time of the Jewish year is approaching. According to Jewish…
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9/11, Theology, and Politics
Dispatch Faith: The Islamic Introspection That Never Came, by Michael Reneau (Executive Editor, The Dispatch): While much of what was written at The Dispatch and elsewhere this week focuses on what 9/11 means to America, or to families of the day’s victims, religious scholar Iqbal Akhtar has written this week’s Dispatch Faith essay to consider…
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AI and Faith
Following up on my previous posts on AI and Faith (links below): New York Review of Books, Against Slop: An Interview with Meghan O’Gieblyn: “The whole field of AI alignment—ensuring that machine intelligence can peacefully coexist with humanity—grew out of the pervasive anxiety that we might create monsters.” This is, Meghan O’Gieblyn argues in our June…
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Las Vegas Raiders’ Kirk Cousins and Fernando Mendoza Find Common Ground in Their Christian Faith
Beliefnet, Kirk Cousins, Fernando Mendoza Find Common Ground in Christian Faith: Las Vegas Raiders quarterbacks Kirk Cousins and Fernando Mendoza may be at opposite ends of their NFL journeys, but the two are already finding common ground in more than football. Cousins, 38, joined Las Vegas this offseason for his 15th NFL season, while Mendoza…
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WaPo: Would Jesus Like Waymo?
Washington Post: Would Jesus Like Waymo? Baptists Have Thoughts. (2026): Would Jesus like Waymo? The Rev. A. Michael Charles Durant doesn’t think so. “Jesus either walked or rode a beast,” Durant said in an interview at the Tenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, where he serves as pastor. “He would be opposed to technology that…
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Request for Papers and Presentations: Christian Legal Thought from the Margins
Request for Papers and Presentations: Christian Legal Thought from the Margins on January 21-22, 2027, at Emory University School of Law: Emory University’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion and Pepperdine Caruso School of Law’s Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion, and Ethics are pleased to invite legal scholars to participate in the second “Christian Legal…
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I’m an Evangelical Christian. My Faith Isn’t ‘a Cancer.’
Washington Post Awakenings: I’m an Evangelical. My Faith Isn’t ‘a Cancer.’, by Bonnie Kristian (Christianity Today; Author, In Defense of Evangelicalism: A Response to Its Cultured Despisers (Sept. 1, 2026)): I’m an evangelical woman and a frequent critic of President Donald Trump. I don’t believe evangelicals are above reproach. But legitimate criticism of their political choices…