I attended Hillsdale College on football scholarship and was a three-year starter on the offensive line. At the beginning of my college career I had little interest in learning for its own sake but my experience at Hillsdale was truly transformative. I majored in sociology and religion and attended Baylor University for graduate school.

In 2014 I was hired in the Sociology Department at Union University in Jackson, TN, which has encouraged me to integrate faith and learning and to work across disciplinary boundaries. My approach to teaching and scholarship has become less narrowly sociological, as I now seek ways to draw on sociological perspectives to contribute to larger questions about what it means to live well in the modern age.

My scholarship is centered on two questions:

  1. How do the specific features of the modern age challenge the faithful practice of the Christian faith?
  2. How can Christian communities successfully form their members to fully embody (and not merely believe) the Christian faith?