2019 and 2020: My most productive two year period of publishing, and a little advice to my younger self

The last two years have been my most productive in terms of publishing.  I really don’t understand why.  My guess is that I have become far more disciplined in reading and writing while at the same time realizing how little I actually know.  Looking back at some of my early publications in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, I am actually surprised that they were published at all.  What I see in my younger self is a way too overconfident young man who could write well but had not read as widely and deeply as he should have.  I also had a tendency to jump on bandwagons, to attach myself too quickly and without much reflection to movements and ideas that I thought would advance the religious and political ideas I thought were good and true.  This had much to do with friendships with philosophers and other intellectuals that I admired and wanted to emulate.  This, of course, is not in and of itself a bad thing.  But if I could send a message backwards through time to my younger self  it would be this: Slow down, don’t be too quick to attach yourself to new intellectual enthusiasms, spend more time with your wife, be suspicious of any one who thinks they have the one new big idea that will solve the world’s problems, and return to the Catholic Church and immerse yourself in its intellectual and spiritual traditions, and invest in Apple and Google (okay, that last one was a joke).  

Here’s what I’ve published in the last two years:

Book:
Never Doubt Thomas: The Catholic Aquinas as Evangelical and Protestant. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2019.

Academic Articles:
“Church, State, and the Abuse Crisis:  The Role of Assumed Ideas of `Reasonableness’ in Religious Liberty.”  Journal of Christian Legal Thought 10.1 (Summer 2020): 21-28.

“Moral Status and the Architects of Principlism” (with Allison Thornton). Journal of Medicine & Philosophy 45.4-5 (2020): 504-520.

“Gotta Serve Somebody?: Religious Liberty, Freedom of Conscience, and Religion as Comprehensive Doctrine.” Studies in Christian Ethics 33.2 (2020): 168-178.

“Faith, Reason, and the Liberal Order: A Philosophical Reflection.” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 92 (2018): 1-18. Published online first September 10, 2020.

“Now, I’m Liberal, But to a Degree: An Essay on Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination.” Cleveland State Law Review 67.2 (2019): 141-172.

“Like It Was Written On My Soul From Me to You: Assessing Jerry Walls’ Critique of the Catholic Account of Purgatory.” The Heythrop Journal 60 (2019): 447-458

“Natural Law, Catholicism, and the Protestant Critique: Why We Are Really Not That Far Apart.” Christian Bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality  25.2  (August 2019):  154-168

Book Chapters:
“Rawls’ Political Liberalism and the Problem of Taking Rites Seriously: From Abortion to Same-Sex Wedding Cakes,” Raised on the Third Day: The Gary Habermas Festschrift. Edited by W. David Beck and Michael R. Licona. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020. Pp. 75-88.

“Morality is Objective” and “Response to Ruse.” In Problems in Value Theory: An Introduction to Contemporary Debates. Edited by Steven B. Cowan. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020. Pp. 37-49, 50-54.

“Thomas Aquinas: Defending Reason and Faith” (with Shawn Floyd). A History of Apologetics: A Biographical and Methodological Introduction. Edited by Benjamin Kelly Forrest, Joshua D. Chatraw, and Alister McGrath. New York: Harper Collins, 2020. Pp. 231-250.

“All Worship the Same God,” Rejoinder,” “Response to Wm. Andrew Schwartz and John B. Cobb, Jr.,” “Response to Gerald R. McDermott,” and “Response to Jerry L. Walls,” in Do Christians, Muslims, and Jews Worship the Same God? Four Views, eds. Ronnie Campbell and Christopher Gnanakan. New York: HarperCollins, 2019. Pp. 65-86, 105-107, 43-49, 141-146, 190-195.

“Taking Faith Seriously.” Foreword to Faith and Reason: Philosophers Explain Their Turn to Catholicism, eds. Brian Besong and Jonathan Fuqua. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2019.  Pp. 7-14.

“Who and What Are We? (What the Abortion Debate is Really About).” Writing That Makes Sense: Critical Thinking in College Composition. Second Edition. Edited by David S. Hogsette. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2019. 554-557

Book Reviews:
Review of A Vindication of Politics: On the Common Good and Human Flourishing by Matthew D. Wright. Philosophia Christi 21.2 (2019): 457-459.

Review of Jewish Justices of the Supreme Court: From Brandeis to Kagan by David G. Dalin.Journal of Church & State 61.4 (Autumn 2019): 728-730.

Non-Academic Essays:
“Was the American Founding a Philosophical Fait Accompli?” Catholic World Report (4 July 2020)

“Not Your Daddy’s Classical Liberalism.” American Mind (27 May 2020)

“Bad (Though Not Entirely Bad) Pro-Life Arguments.”  Public Discourse (14 January 2019)