My Faith Story: I grew up on a cattle ranch in Waco, and I asked questions about God for as long as I could remember. I don’t really have a dramatic conversion story, and I don’t really even know a date or time period when it took place. But I do know that I only got serious about what it might mean for Jesus to be the Lord of every aspect of my life when I was a teenager, and that meant changing the way I joked, acted, and thought. Exegetical preaching and an Apologetics Study Bible set me on that path, and I wanted to be an apologist until college arrived and amidst panic attacks and anxiety I decided to pursue the much more reasonable goal of being a full-time academic theologian. Look what happened though!

My Ministry: I am not ordained, but I am the chair of the department of apologetics at Houston Christian University, the best place in the country to study imaginative apologetics. I do consider apologetics to be a form of ministry, a subset of evangelism performed in a certain mode. To me, the best apologetics is a good systematics: knowing what you believe and why it all hangs together can answer 80% of questions on its own. Academically, I focus on theology and literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Maybe you even saw my book somewhere.

What I Believe: I am a member of the Presbyterian Church in America, though I have some baptistic leanings. I subscribe to the early creeds and councils and then primarily to the Westminster Confession of Faith, though there are many other confessions to which I would gladly sign my name (like the 3 forms of unity). Theologically, I am a Calvinist in the specific sense that I follow John Calvin in most things, including his regard for humanism, the classics, and the early church. I do have a fonder view of the medievals than Calvin, but I like to think that if he ever received formal theological education he might have come around. My other big theological influence is Tolkien, and believe it or not they have a lot in common.