Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Faith
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Make the Sabbath Great Again
The Free Press: Make the Sabbath Great Again, by Max Raskin (NYU): As America celebrates its 250th birthday, the monuments in Washington, D.C., will feature prominently—so much so that it’s easy to forget that the country’s legacy is not made of marble. The Founders erected monuments of ideas, and none is so central to our…
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Reflections on Robert Prevost’s First Year as Pope Leo
The Dispatch: A Pope You Don’t Have To Think About Every Day, by George Weigel (Ethics & Public Policy Center): Shortly after the funeral of Pope Francis last April 26, the First Things website began running an essay series in which Catholics around the world reflected on the kind of pope they hoped the impending conclave would…
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Ivy League Students Suffer From Religious Illiteracy
Washington Post: Ivy League Students Are Suffering From Religious Illiteracy, by Gregory Conti (Princeton): Several years ago, one of my colleagues at Princeton University hosted a lecture on religion and free speech. The talk didn’t seem to be landing with the students. Finally, he realized why: The speaker had made repeated reference to the Ten…
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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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Writing With AI Robs Us of God’s Gifts
Christianity Today: To Write Well Is Human, by Nadya Williams (Ashland University): As Christians, we are called to love God with all our soul, heart, mind, and strength (Luke 10:27). Using AI to write robs us of opportunities to fulfill this commandment. With enough use over enough time, it will reduce our capacity to read…
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Department of Justice Releases 565-Page Report on Biden Administration’s Anti-Christian Bias
New York Times, Trump Administration Casts Host of Policies Under Biden as Anti-Christian: The Justice Department on Thursday accused the Biden administration of pushing policies that were unfair to Christians, releasing a report that amounted to the latest rhetorical broadside by the Trump administration over what it calls the “weaponization” of government. The 197-page document,…
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WaPo: Society Needs More Belief and Less Skepticism
Washington Post: Skepticism Is Tearing Society Apart. Belief is the Answer, by Christopher Beha (Author, Why I Am Not an Atheist: The Confessions of a Skeptical Believer (2026)): Twenty-five years ago, I decided, in the self-conscious manner of late adolescence, to live my life as a skeptic. Having given up the Catholic faith in which I’d been raised,…
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WSJ: The Economics of Religion
Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: The Economics of Religion, by Roland Fryer (Harvard): Religion is one of the most successful enterprises in human history. Churches [in] the U.S. alone collect well over $100 billion a year in donations. Billions of people globally are adherents to a religion. The institutions are durable. The customers are loyal. And the product—moral…
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Non-Religious Artemis II Astronaut Brought to Tears When He Saw a Chaplain’s Cross on Return to Earth
NEW: Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman reflects on being MOVED to tears by the Christian cross after returning to Earth from the historic expedition: “When I got back on the on the ship — I’m not really a religious person — but there was just no other avenue for me to explain… pic.twitter.com/yk2JBIkxrN — Fox…
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NY Times: ‘The Reason I’m Not an Atheist Is That I Think the Philosophical Arguments Against It Are Unanswerable’
New York Times Op-Ed: ‘The Reason I’m Not an Atheist Is That I Think the Philosophical Arguments Against It Are Unanswerable’, by Peter Wehner (Trinity Forum): David Bentley Hart is one of the world’s most formidable and provocative theological minds. He is an Eastern Orthodox scholar of religion, a philosopher, a cultural commentator and a…
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‘I Am Iranian. I Am Christian. I Carry Scars.’
Christianity Today: My Family Resisted Iran’s Regime. My Hope Is Not in Foreign Intervention., by Sara Afshari (Oxford): In recent weeks, Iran has been plunged deeper into war. Airstrikes have hit cities, energy infrastructure, and residential areas. Reports—fragmented and difficult to verify—suggest widespread destruction of homes, hospitals, and public spaces. Communication blackouts have made it…
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WaPo: Faith Guides Jimmy Lai As China Slowly Kills Him
Washington Post Op-Ed: What Guides My Father As China Slowly Kills Him, by Claire Lai: Since 2020, my father, Jimmy Lai, has been held in solitary confinement for the crime of defending democracy. Though his jailers in the Chinese Communist Party have kept us apart physically, I have received regular letters from him. Reading his…
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NY Times: How Ben Sasse Is Living Now That He Is Dying
New York Times, How Ben Sasse Is Living Now That He Is Dying: How would you live if you knew when you were going to die? When Ben Sasse announced last December that he had been diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, he called it a death sentence, but he noted that he’d had one…
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The Upsurge In Gen Z Catholic Converts: ‘The Most Punk-Rock Thing I Could Do’
Washington Post: Awakening, by Matthew Schmitz (Co-Founder, Compact): What explains the upsurge in Catholic converts, many of whom seem to be young? One factor, Julia Yost suggests below, is the importance of images for a generation raised on TikTok. If we’re becoming a postliterate society, it will be hard for a textual faith such as…
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Easter Monday: The Rebellious Act of Rolling Back the Stone
Christianity Today: The Rebellious Act of Rolling Back the Stone, by Richard Mouw (Former President, Fuller Theological Seminary): Mary Magdalene’s role in the Easter story certainly deserves an upgrade. Another time in the ancient past, the Lord searched for a woman in a garden. On that occasion, the woman and her husband hid from their…
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Easter Sunday NY Times Debate: Did Jesus Rise From the Dead?
New York Times, Did Jesus Rise From the Dead? A Debate.: A Christian atheist [Bart Ehrman (North Carolina)] joins Ross Douthat. Did Jesus actually rise from the dead? Heal the sick? Turn water into wine? How close do the Gospel stories take us to what really happened at the beginning of Christianity? This is one…
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Holy Saturday: Scandal and Grace
Christianity Today: The Scandal and Grace of Christ’s Saturday in the Grave, by Hardin Crowder: If we are honest, many of us do not know what to do with Holy Saturday. Good Friday is terrible, but it is also dramatic and full of passion. Easter Sunday is triumphant, radiant, and full of song. But Holy…
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Good Friday’s Good News: Healing for a Wounded World
Christianity Today: The Cross that Saves and Heals, by Jeremy Treat (Biola University): [There is a] deep human desire to be healed and made whole. Good Friday speaks directly to that longing. It tells the story of a God who entered a wounded world not only to forgive sin but also to bring healing. ……
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Judge Blocks IRS Deal Allowing Churches to Endorse Political Candidates; Treasury & IRS to Release New Guidance
Wall Street Journal, Judge Blocks Deal Allowing Churches to Endorse Political Candidates: A federal judge in Texas rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to allow religious leaders to endorse candidates from the pulpit. Judge J. Campbell Barker ruled Tuesday that he lacked the authority to consider an agreement that would have effectively created an exception to the so-called…
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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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NY Times: Is There a Religious Revival in America?
New York Times Op-Ed: Is There a Religious Revival in America?, by Ross Douthat (Author, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious (2025)): In the early 2020s, secularization stopped: After rising for 15 years, the nonreligious share of the American population suddenly stopped growing. Ever since, there’s been a vigorous debate over whether this plateau is a precursor to religious…
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Harvard Faith & Veritas 2026: Standing in the Gap
Harvard Faith & Veritas 2026: Standing in the Gap (March 26-29): A University-Wide Gathering of Harvard’s Christian Alumni: Our vision: A rich community of faith leveraging excellence in our expertise, faithfulness in our calling, integrity in our character, and love in our actions to address society’s needs. Law Prof speakers:
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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…