He is an Ambassador Warren Clark Fellow with Churches for Middle East Peace and recently completed a Ph.D. in New Testament at the University of Glasgow. His work explores how multiethnic identities were negotiated and utilized as fluid concepts in the ancient world, and how these dynamics continue to shape Christian theology and discourse today. He also writes about peacebuilding in the Middle East, with particular attention to Israel and Palestine.
Posts By This Author
Christian Masculinity Doesn't Have to Be This Way
Tap, tap, tap. I rap my knuckles against the glass pane.
A young man opens the sliding door, his shoulders fill the door frame as he raises his eyebrow at me. I was not invited to the party, and even worse, I had beef with some people present—the man with the furrowed brow included. The greeter turns his head to shout toward his friends, maybe to announce that an uninvited guest has appeared, or to call out for help. Who knows.
I came for one purpose. I grab the handle of the door and lean back for leverage, my weight shifting. I lunge forward and land a blow right on his unsuspecting chin. He falls back onto a table behind him, where it collapses from his weight. No introductions needed. I walk in.
I was 20-years old then. I am now 36.
This story from my past is one of many marked by regretful acts of violence, revelry, and a restless search for purpose.
Christian Zionism Helped Bring the Right Together. Now, It's Driving It Apart
Joe Kent, the former head of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned on March 17 in an act of protest over the war in Iran. Kent self-identifies as a proponent of the America First ideology. He claimed in a letter posted on X that Israel deceived President Donald Trump into believing that war with Iran was necessary. Trump has said the war in Iran was his choice alone.
Before praising Kent’s actions, it should be noted that his resignation reveals a stark divide within the Republican Party, which has pitted America First advocates against those who believe the U.S. should offer uncompromising support to Israel. Kent’s resignation highlights fault lines that threaten to fracture the Republican Party and the evangelical voting bloc.
Don’t Try to ‘Win’ With Vaccine Skeptics
I remember a distant past, almost too faint to recall with clarity. That season, so long ago, marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, has since been eclipsed by the pressing concerns of our day. We now live with the backdrop of global shifts, political instability, war, and domestic turmoil. But when I think back on that time, one overwhelming emotion returns with acuity: a deep concern for the safety of my friends and loved ones. Unfortunately, that same fear has crept back with suffocating weight due to rising measles cases in the U.S. But this time, the demographics I am most concerned with are not the elderly or those with preexisting conditions. I am most concerned for the most vulnerable among us: our children.
Since the first documented case in South Carolina in October 2025, the state has reported 979 cases, and the numbers are rising. The surge in outbreaks threatens to reverse the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s declaration that measles was eliminated in the United States in 2000. At this rate, we are on the verge of losing elimination status. The moral crisis deepens with reports that two detainees in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center have tested positive for measles.
The Bible Character That Most Resembles Trump
Chaos fills the streets as families are separated by force, and mothers cry out as their children are taken from them. To exert control and maintain power, a ruler orders agents to detain people off the street. Those the ruler labels as “subversive” are treated as a threat to his reign. The violence is indiscriminate and unrelenting. It does not matter who gets hurt, as long as the ruler stays on the throne.
If your mind went directly to President Donald Trump or the news of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shooting and killing two Minnesota residents—mom and poet Renee Nicole Macklin Good, and intensive care nurse Alex Pretti—you are not alone. But in this case, I am talking about Herod and his order to kill the children in Bethlehem and its surrounding region (Matthew 2:16). While the parallels are not identical, the shared logic of unrestrained state power is unmistakable.