I wanted to provide a few updates about what has been a quite eventful year, especially for those who I don’t stay super connected with me on social media.
First and foremost: on May 26th, I defended my thesis at the University of Aberdeen, passing with minor corrections. (!) I’ve been open about this: my viva was a tougher conversation than I expected. I prepared as much as I could—nearly full-time for a few weeks—and nearly none of the things I prepared for were the tensions raised within the discussion. Ha!
Despite how nice it would have been to pass with flying colors and no corrections, however, I can say with sincerity that I am grateful for what my examiners helped expose. Especially as I have begun preparing a monograph proposal based on the thesis, their feedback has shown me which of my darlings deserve to die and what is best saved for another context or study. I am incredibly grateful for their time, attention, and energy in the examination process. They scheduled an in-person viva on a very tight schedule to accommodate my trip to the UK this summer. I’m waiting on my corrections to be signed off, but hopefully it is all squared away soon.
The week after my viva, I was invited to participate in this summer’s Aquinas Summer Seminar at Blackfriars Hall in Oxford. Thomas Joseph White, Bruce Marshall, and Daniel Gordon all did a fantastic job walking a group of eager-eyed doctoral students through Aquinas’s treatise on the Trinity in Summa Theologiae I.27–43. My experience of this seminar was a bit of an out-of-body experience: I was coming off passing my viva with mixed feelings, kicking a head cold, and still consider myself a bit of an outsider to Thomism on the whole. I think a lot of my peers understood where my head was at when I explained the week I’d had. I am grateful for the generosity of the Blackfriars community and the instructors for their time and attention, and Oxford is such a special place. The seminar was very helpful for understanding the reception of Thomas’s thought, and it’s opened new lines of inquiry I hope to pursue someday when I get some of what’s in front of me off the desk.
After coming back to the US and going to the SBC Annual Meeting, I also had the honor of participating in 2026’s Lumen Christi Institute patristics seminar, “The Mystery of Christ from Chalcedon to Maximus,” led by Lewis Ayres, Paul Blowers, and Fr. Andrew Summerson. (It was maybe the most ecumenical summer imaginable.) I applied to LC seminars nearly every year as a student and had never selected until this year—but I was still very tempted to bail since my viva was only a few weeks prior to it and I had a lot of travels stacking up. I am so glad I was able to go. This week in particular was so enjoyable: I met so many lovely people who I hope will stay in touch, and I see why so many of my friends who have participated in LC events speak highly of them. Lumen Christi is one of the rare spaces in academia that blends scholarly excellence, spiritual formation, and truly personal collegiality. The whole thing was contemplative and fruitful, and I would love to do more with them in the future. (I have also long been a Chicago doubter during my NAPS trips, but my experience in the city was really delightful this go around!) I can’t say enough how much I hope I get to interact with LC again in the future.
In terms of scholarly updates beyond world travels:
My Vigiliae Christianae article has been published. I am quite excited about it, if you can’t tell, even if there are some tweaks I would make in hindsight already. (Isn’t that how this goes?) VC has been a staple in the field for a long time, so having an article land there is rewarding.
I am preparing a few projects beyond my thesis revisions, including an entry on Julius Africanus for a forthcoming reference work and an edited volume on Clement of Alexandria and the arts. Likewise, last year at NAPS, my friend Dr. Edward Creedy and I organized a thematic session on the topic with the intent to publish the results. Contributors’ drafts have been rolling in, and we have been diligently working to get it in shape. I’m excited about the collection so far and think it will make a worthy contribution to Clement studies once it exists. Stay tuned (and start saving your funds now!).
I’ll be presenting at the Evangelical Theological Society annual meeting this year on Tuesday morning. My paper is titled “Homoousios as Hermeneutic: Applying the Nicene Creed as a Rule of Faith,” and it’s going to be one part historical work on Athanasius, one part constructive consideration of Nicene retrieval. I hope to publish the findings at some point, but I’m sure it will take some work to get it into shape.
With some more margin for thinking about non-dissertation things, I have a number of things here and there that I hope serve the church, pastors, and interested readers. The Gospel Coalition ran a piece I wrote for the Carson Center website, “Why Some Church Fathers Are Hard to Read.” Mere Orthodoxy ran a short reflection I wrote on theological retrieval and John Webster: “Against Theological Retrieval as Resource Gathering.” I want to do more of this work again now that I have the time for it.