Jason Lief

What have I been doing during the pandemic? Chopping wood. Sure, I've been teaching online like every other college professor, I was even fortunate enough to receive tenure and a promotion to full professor, but social distancing has given me…

Sometime very soon the Supreme Court will decide whether the Trump Administration has the right to terminate the DACA program that began during the Obama administration. DACA (Deferred Action Childhood Arrival - a form of legal status for immigrants brought…

Today is the day when the cheap grace of triumphalism is shown to be a fraud. Today is the day when those who use the gospel to fulfill their selfish ambition are unmasked. Today is the day when the voices…

I write from a position of privilege. I'm at my desk, typing on a computer hooked up to the internet, the lifeline for many who now work at home. I'm able to do my job, teaching students through videos and…

Lately, I've been reading the mystics. You know, Christians from a different time and place who speak of love as the highest knowledge, calling us to the God beyond God—the God who cannot be rationally known, only encountered. I know…

Recently, I had my students read about the spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi. Late in his life, while up on a mountain, he had a vision of Christ as a seraph. When the vision was over, Francis had the…

I loved The Two Popes. I know it's fiction, based on conversations and individual statements, but it still left me hopeful. I've read Benedict's work on worship and the person of Jesus—he's an insightful scholar that helps me understand the…

Iowa is a great place to be during an election year. Yes, the rest of the nation pisses and moans about Iowa getting to go first, but what do they know? Iowans are dismissed as monolithic, back water, goat herders,…

Star Wars has always been about family. From the very beginning Luke wondered about his father as he pushed against the domesticated life of his Uncle Owen. The Empire Strikes Back put parenting at the center of the story with…

Lately, it's easy to get caught up in either anxiety or rage. The speed of cultural change, and the inevitable backlash, leads to a permanent state of dis-orientation. As we get caught up in careers, family life, political campaigns, it's…