Latest Posts

July 09, 2026

More Kings, Please?

If there is one thing Americans seem to agree on these days, it is discontent with the American democratic system. According to a recent Gallup survey, half of Americans agree with the statement that democracy is performing poorly. Continue Reading...
July 08, 2026

America Is Exceptional Because It Is Not Radical

“A republic, if you can keep it” was Ben Franklin’s famous answer when asked what kind of government the framers created at the Constitutional Convention. The founders were men of ideas, but they also took history, democratic practice, politics, and the reality of the human person seriously. Continue Reading...
July 07, 2026

AI, or This Stranger We Keep Inventing

At the end of Terminator 2, the machine lowers itself into a crucible of molten steel, gives the thumbs-up it learned from a child, and disappears. It is one of the strangest images American cinema has produced: a killing machine that learned to love and chose its own unmaking so that the future might live. Continue Reading...
July 06, 2026

Have We Been Spiritual but Not Religious Forever?

Michael Horton’s Shaman & Sage: The Roots of “Spiritual but Not Religious” is not a quick read, which means that for the past few months, I’ve been carrying the book around and taking it out to read in spare moments: at coffee shops, sandlot baseball practices, the playground, etc., Continue Reading...
June 29, 2026

What Do Conservatives Believe?

I’m not sure where I first encountered conservatism as a political philosophy. Was it in the Baptist environment where I was raised to love God, be faithful to family, and honor the country? Continue Reading...
June 25, 2026

Agentic AI, Meatspace, and Martin Luther

Stop hiring humans. They get sick, have children, and occasionally observe religious holidays. Bots, on the other hand, never waste time on these sorts of things. Bots don’t take personal days or holidays, and they never have children with runny noses. Continue Reading...
June 24, 2026

In Grand Rapids, Acton Makes Liberty Larger Than the Self

At Acton, I learned that faith and freedom were not rival loyalties after all. A few weeks into the Acton Institute’s Emerging Leaders Program in Grand Rapids, I wrote something on LinkedIn that captured my state of mind more honestly than I knew at the time: “I Am in Grand Rapids, Caught Between the Architecture of Ideas and the Reality of Nigeria.” Continue Reading...