Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Faith
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‘The Odyssey’ and the Longing for Home
Christianity Today: Why Christopher Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’ Haunts Us Right Now, by Russell Moore: One of the biggest cultural events this summer isn’t a superhero sequel or a streaming series. It’s a 3,000-year-old Greek poem. That The Odyssey would be a box office powerhouse is not all that unexpected—after all, filmmaker Christopher Nolan gave us The Dark Knight Rises and Oppenheimer.…
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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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High Moral Standards and Limitless Mercy Make Catholicism So Appealing, Says America’s Most Media-Savvy Bishop
The Free Press: Two Drinks with. . . America’s Most Media-Savvy Bishop, by Madeleine Kearns: Bishop Robert Barron … began his Catholic media empire, Word on Fire, with the simple conviction that the Church should be more involved in mass media. As a priest in Chicago, he broke into radio in the late 1990s, TV in…
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When Faith Is Just an App
The Free Press: When Faith Is Just an App, by Freya India: Much has been said about a Christian revival among Gen Z. Some statistics are disputed, but there does seem to be something happening. I am curious about Christianity myself, and have noticed changes lately, conversations with young people who were raised as atheists and…
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Is God Punishing Me?
Christianity Today: Is God Punishing Me?, by Kristen Wetherell & Sarah Walton (Co-Authors, Jesus Will Meet You There (2026)): Suffering. Nobody wants it. And rarely can we make sense of it. That’s why, when life hurts, we often look for someone or something to blame. Something is awry, and our pain needs somewhere to go.…
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Highlights: Harvard Faith & Veritas 2026
Following up on my previous post, Harvard Faith & Veritas 2026: Standing in the Gap:
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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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A Christian Vision for the Future of AI
Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: A Christian Vision for the Future of AI, by Walter Kim (President, National Association of Evangelicals): Transformational opportunities for improvement are before us, thanks to AI. But a pro-human worldview—the philosophical grounding to aim those opportunities at the moral end of human flourishing—won’t emerge spontaneously. We must shape AI before it…
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Blessed Are the Trillionaires . . .
Christianity Today: Love Thy Trillionaires, by Luke Simon: Last month, Elon Musk became the first trillionaire in recorded history. A trillion requires imagination. It approaches a quarter of total US federal tax revenue. It exceeds the combined net worth of Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos. According to Oxfam, it surpasses the total wealth of…
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July 4th Lessons From the Farewells of Moses and George Washington
Christianity Today: Moses Warned His People. So Did George Washington., by Domonic D. Purviance (Pastor, Cornerstone Church-Atlanta): Before Israel entered the land God had promised, Moses gathered the nation and delivered a final warning (Deut. 28–30; Lev. 18:28). Prosperity, he told them, would be achieved by covenant faithfulness, humility, and obedience. If Israel forgot the…
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What to the Christian Is the Fourth of July?
Christianity Today: What to the Christian Is the Fourth of July?, by Myles Werntz (Abilene Christian University): In 1852, Frederick Douglass was invited to deliver a speech at the annual Independence Day celebration in Rochester, New York. After escaping from slavery some 14 years earlier, Douglass became an abolitionist and a sought-after speaker in the…
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NY Times: Pope Leo Faces the First Crisis of His Pontificate
New York Times (David Gibson (Fordham)), Pope Leo Faces the First Crisis of His Pontificate (June 30, 2026), When terms like “schism” and “excommunication” crop up in news stories about the Catholic Church, you start looking around for a momentous event that will change the course of history, like the Protestant Reformation in 1517 or…
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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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WSJ: As Progressive Mainline Protestant Denominations Wither, Conservative Gen-Z Christians Seek Return to Theological Orthodoxy
Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: The Reconquest of Mainline Protestantism, by Alex Hibbs (American Enterprise Institute) Operation Reconquista, they call it: a cohort of conservative Generation Z Christians working to steer America’s Protestant mainline churches back to theological orthodoxy. They don’t form a single organization but are unified by ideals shared across many denominations. This 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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Are Latter-day Saints Christians?
New York Times, Pentagon Cuts 180 Religious Identities From Military Personnel Records: The new policy, which the Pentagon framed as a largely administrative action, leaves just 31 religious categories to choose from, 22 of which are Christian. New York Times, Pentagon Again Revises Religious Categories for Troops: In response to a request from Republican lawmakers,…
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A Professor Felt God Speak to Him During His Wife’s Chemotherapy, Revealing Scripture’s Surprising Power
Christianity Today: The Startling Fit of Scripture, by Jim Beitler (Wheaton): Eight years ago, my wife, Brita, and I were sitting together in uneasy silence, waiting for her to receive her first chemotherapy treatment of Adriamycin. … [I]t looks like black cherry Kool-Aid and kills rapidly growing cells, good and bad alike. A poison. We…
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NY Times: Spielberg, Aliens, and God
New York Times Op-Ed: Does U.F.O. Disclosure Threaten Faith?, by Ross Douthat (Author, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious (2025)): Steven Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day” is a movie in which characters argue about whether the discovery of extraterrestrial life would be a threat to religion, something that a great many people have decided to argue about since the Pentagon started releasing tranches…
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WSJ: Will the Pope Apologize to AI?
Following up on my previous post, Pope Leo on AI: Magnifica Humanitatis: Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: Will the Pope Owe an Apology to AI?, by Cameron Berg (B.S. (Cognitive Science) 2022, Yale; Founder & Director, Reciprocal Research: Developing the Empirical Science of AI Consciousness): In his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” Pope Leo XIV frames the future of…
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WaPo: What Is Suffering For? After My Sister Died, I Found the Answer.
Following up on my previous post, Finding Meaning in Suffering: Washington Post: What Is Suffering For? After My Sister Died, I Found the Answer., by Helen Andrews: My sister was born with profound disabilities, the result of a genetic disorder. She never learned to talk. I don’t think she could even recognize the faces of…
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Pepperdine Caruso Law Hosts 2nd Annual State Of Religious Freedom Conference
Following up on last year’s inaugural State Of Religious Freedom Conference in Switzerland, we welcomed over 50 scholars, judges, and practitioners from around the world to Malibu last week. See the program here.
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A Sudden Epiphany Showed Johns Hopkins Professor the Limits of Medicine (and the Abundance of God)
Washington Post Op-Ed: A Sudden Epiphany Showed a Johns Hopkins Physician the Limits of Medicine, by John V. Campo, (Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine): As an academic physician, trained first in pediatrics and then psychiatry, a field highly skeptical of religious faith, I was unprepared for a transcendent…
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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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The Impact of the Decline of Christianity in the Northeast and Its Rise in the South
Dispatch Faith: Why American Christianity Became Southern, by Daniel K. Williams (Ashland University; Author, Politics of the Cross: A Christian Alternative to Partisanship (2021)): In the Deep South, more than half of adults regularly attend church, but in the Northeast, more than half never attend. The two regions seem to be mirror opposites of each other when it comes…
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Pope Leo on AI: Magnifica Humanitatis
New York Times, Pope Leo Warns of Risks From A.I. in 42,300-Word Encyclical: The document marks a powerful foray by the leader of the Roman Catholic Church into the debate about the misuse or overuse of artificial intelligence. New York Times Op-Ed: Pope Leo Isn’t Standing Athwart the Singularity, by Ross Douthat (Author, Believe: Why Everyone Should…