I realized I had long and drastically underestimated the depth and vitality of the Christian intellectual tradition.
I was raised in what I can best describe as a Christ-adjacent household with a smattering of Jewish-isms. My mother, shaped by the Lutheran tradition, had largely moved into a secular mindset by the time I was born. My father, raised in a Jewish household, had likewise stepped away from religious practice. Although both of my parents carried strong cultural and moral imprints—Christian and Jewish, respectively—their secular leanings and their early divorce left me somewhat unmoored. Not in a chaotic or antagonistic way, but in the same quiet manner—the manner marked by the simultaneous certainty and uncertainty of tide waters over time—that much of the fallen world is unmoored: placing its hope in the self, or in idols disguised as light. And yet, it was likely this very background that prepared me, when the time was finally right, to see that Christianity and Judaism are not distinct or antagonistic faiths. Nor is one a mere supersession of the other. Rather, I came to see the gospel—and the person and work of Christ—not as part of some amorphous “Judeo-Christian” conglomeration, but as the fulfillment of the long arc of the Jewish story—one that, in turn, is essential for a fuller understanding of the gospel itself.
And still, by the grace of God, Scripture and Christian thought had already found their way into my early life through unlikely channels: first, the happenstance of a nearby Christian daycare, where I encountered stories from the Bible and a Trinitarian faith I did not understand—but told myself, finding something to hold fast to even then, that someday I would; and later, another quiet providence, this time through my own uneven experience in public schools, which led to a three-year stint at an Episcopal school, where the rhythms of liturgy and song left their quiet imprint. Though I drifted toward postmodern sensibilities as I grew older, and rarely saw the inside of a church, those early moments never completely faded. They remained like open tabs in the background of my life—occasionally clicked on, but mostly just… there, consuming memory. And perhaps it’s no surprise that when I met my wife—herself a professed Christian—those faint signals of grace found resonance again. Faith was not yet mine, but it was familiar.
Years later, around 2019, something else stirred. It began with an unexpected medium: Johnny Cash reading the New Testament. The cadence of his voice, the weight of the words—it awakened something, something deeper that my earthly father had sowed through his mythopoeic sensibilities. Not nostalgia, but hunger. And the first instance of tears at the sound of Scripture—helping me to understand that Scripture must enter through the ears. I began listening to theology podcasts, then sermons, then more Scripture. I realized I had long and drastically underestimated the depth and vitality of the Christian intellectual tradition—and drastically overestimated postmodernist intelligence, mostly as an emergent effect of sleep deprivation in my twenties. I was discovering not only the God who speaks, but the way in which He speaks—through paradox, promise, and proclamation, to the sort of meaning that can only belong to the already-and-not-yet kingdom: helping me make sense of the thin areas between heaven and earth I had already encountered, while revealing their robustness in Christ.
That awakening deepened in 2020 when I found 1517.org. What began as curiosity quickly became a wellspring. I devoured nearly all of 30 Minutes in the New Testament, learning and laughing in equal measure, and large portions of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament, every episode of The Thinking Fellows, and the wise, understated tirades of the late and great Rod Rosenbladt—along with much else besides. Indeed, I tried the likely untried (and probably theologically and pastorally unrecommended): listening to all of Erick Sorensen and Daniel Emery Price’s commentary on the Book of Revelation during a lonely, darkened overnight drive from New Jersey to South Carolina. Hearing Revelation 9:7–10 while surrounded by indiscernible shapes whisking past in the dark and nursing a half-filled bladder with no bathroom in sight might not be advisable—but I never tired. On the contrary: my knowledge rose, and the Spirit rose with it. I found in 1517 not merely instruction, but a theological and relational ethos—a tone marked by clarity without rigidity, conviction without control, paradox without panic. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was shaping me from within.
At the same time, I was becoming more attuned to my own vocation. I teach in the Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences at a public university, and I’ve long known that my greatest strength is writing—especially writing as a way of teaching. I try to put myself in my students’ shoes, balancing clarity and care, content and narrative. It’s not just about communicating concepts; it’s about walking alongside the learner. During this season of spiritual renewal, I began to sense that this narrative instinct wasn’t just pedagogical—it was theological. I wasn’t merely striving to teach well; I was learning to listen to the Word more deeply.
Starting about two years into teaching, I attended a local evangelical church for some time and am grateful for the biblical preaching and pastoral care I received there. But as I grew in my understanding of theology—especially Lutheran theology—I found myself drawn toward a more sacramental, grounded expression of the faith. I began attending a local Lutheran church with my family, though life obligations, including weekly Sunday SAT prep classes for one of my children, complicated our consistency. Yet even in those gaps, the Church was not far from me. I began to understand the body of Christ more broadly—not confined to a building, but abiding wherever Christ is proclaimed, in the manner of Frederick Buechner.
It was around that time that I prayed a quiet, simple prayer: that God, in and through Christ, would use the one consistent skill that I’ve always carried with me—writing—for his purpose.
Much of what I write is shaped by a theme I now think of as a hermeneutic of presence—that is, reading Scripture not only for content or truth, but for encounter—for the Christ who abides in the Word and who meets us there. This way of reading is something I first learned from listening: from the voices at 1517, who spoke not only of justification and the law/gospel distinction, but of Christ himself as the one who speaks, the one who holds the tension, the one who is present even when clarity is elusive. This presence is not a mood or abstraction; it’s the person of Christ, crucified and risen, meeting us where we are. It’s something we encounter powerfully in Peter—and, as is often overlooked, perhaps even more powerfully in Thomas.
My work at the university and my Christian reflection are no longer parallel paths—they are, increasingly, one road. I want my students to learn the topics, yes—but more than that, I want them to learn how to think clearly, live honestly, listen well, and even become narrative thinkers in healthcare. And I want my writing—whether theological, poetic, or exegetical—to serve as a space where others can glimpse what I’ve glimpsed: that Christ is near, that grace is deeper than we imagined, and that good theology is always in the service of a present Lord, the living God.
For that, I’m grateful to 1517. The clarity of its teaching, the tone of its voices, and the generosity of its theological imagination helped me come not only to greater understanding, but to joy. In a world fragmented by noise and novelty, the Lutheran distinctives offered by 1517 became not an anchor that held me back, but a rhythm that gave me freedom.
It is the freedom of the unbound, bound only by our Lord—to love God and neighbor.
