It scarcely goes without saying that moral foundations in our country and in this current moment are eroding and degrading all too fast. The Center for the Foundations of Ethics at Houston Baptist University seeks to address this trend and offer a positive and well-reasoned vision for believing in enduring moral truths built on ancient foundations that are altogether sure and trustworthy. The Center, we believe, is an important piece of what Andy Crouch calls culture making, an institution that will be around well after we are gone and that will continue to make a great impact. Our hope is to establish a central hub of cutting-edge research in moral apologetics and the foundations of ethics.

In its inaugural year, the Center has overseen a great many initiatives along these lines, with many more in the works. Here is a small sampling of the Center’s activities:

Under the new leadership of executive editor TJ Gentry and managing editor Jonathan Pruitt, MoralApologetics.com is doing better than ever generating solid content.

We have also expanded our Moral Apologetics team to include as associate editors at the site and/or research fellows at the Center Zach Breitenbach, Jan Shultis, Brian Chilton, Stephen Jordan, TJ Gentry, Jonathan Pruitt, David Ochabski, and Tony Williams. Pending approval by the president and provost of HBU, the Center saw passed a Certificate in Moral Apologetics, hopefully to begin June of 2022.

Moral Apologetics Press, in just the next few months, will be publishing a number of volumes under Jonathan Pruitt’s leadership: my journal of my second year as the Center director chronicling its ongoing development and maturation; our Strauss lectures called Coming to Life; Daniel McCoy’s book on Buddhism and Christianity; Elton Higgs’ collection of Twilight Musings; a few books by TJ Gentry; and a collection of Worldview Bulletin articles. Additionally, Marybeth Baggett has assumed the series editor role for a new series on Apologetics and Popular Culture, and Marybeth and I published our Telling Tales: Intimations of the Sacred in Popular Culture.

In another significant development for the Center this past year, Marybeth and I were privileged to give the Strauss lectures at Lincoln Christian University, where Zach Breitenbach and Richard Knopp, kindred spirits both, are doing stellar work with Room for Doubt.

This school year the Center also initiated a Student Fellows program run by Taylor Neill and me here at HBU featuring about a half dozen meetings throughout the school year.

Additionally, my research and writing has born much fruit. Ronnie Campbell and I got a contract with Broadman and Holman for a forthcoming book on philosophical theology. Jerry Walls and I have a contract with Oxford University Press for the fourth in our tetralogy on God and morality—a book on moral realism. Yale’s John Hare and I have a contract with OUP for a significant collection on the moral argument, with contributions from leading scholars in the field. Marybeth and I have a contract to edit Ted Lasso and Philosophy for Wiley Blackwell, and just a few days ago William Lane Craig and I were informed that Baker will be offering him and me a contract to write a book on the moral argument.

Additionally, the Center is currently planning a number of activities over the near year. Mike Austin will be speaking at HBU in the spring of 2022, and Baylor’s Steve Evans in the fall of 2022. We are also hoping to put on a major conference on the moral argument in the spring of 2023 at HBU in conjunction with the collection that Hare and I are editing, culminating in the publication of that volume.

Owing to a $50,000 gift to the Center, we are now in a position to do a matching fundraising campaign to support the continued work of the Center. All donations will support the Center’s goals of generating a diverse community of scholars at work in the arena of the foundations of ethics and the moral argument(s) for God’s existence. Specifically, financial gifts will be used wholly for such purposes as scholarships for students enrolled in the four-course Certificate of Moral Apologetics, conferences, and invited speakers lecturing on God and ethics.

We are earnestly praying that God blesses this ambitious effort to raise money to help build the Center, forge this important community, and advance cutting-edge work in the area of theistic ethics and moral apologetics. There is no other outfit or institution quite like this one, and the fruit of this ministry has only just begun bearing great fruit.

If you want to contribute to a bulwark against encroaching secularism and equip voices to articulate with rigorous minds and warm hearts the love of God, the goodness of the gospel, the enduring value of persons, deliverance from guilt and shame, the evidential significance of moral truth, and the transcendent foundations of ethics, please consider contributing to this important ministry.

Submit tax-deductible gifts through the HBU online giving form (select “Additional Giving Opportunities” and designate Center for the Foundations of Ethics from the pop-up list). You may also mail contributions to the following address (with Center for the Foundations of Ethics in the memo line): HBU Advancement Lockbox, PO Box 4897, Dept #527, Houston, TX 77210. (Link)

Blessings,

David Baggett

Director of the Center for the Foundations of Ethics, Houston Baptist University