Build Beautiful Culture

[Manuscript of the student address at the New Saint Andrews College 2026 Commencement Ceremony] 

I am honored to be speaking to you all this evening. We are now at the point in the ceremony that calls for me to impart something profound and of lasting importance. So, I thought it would be a good idea to start by talking about myself. 

After I leave NSA, I’ll be heading to Michigan for graduate school, and, Lord willing, I hope to attend law school afterward. Whenever I discuss this plan with non-church members, they often inquire as to what my undergraduate degree is, and, I will admit, I have described it as something akin to a pre-law degree. However, if you were to look at my transcript, there are some anomalies that would raise an eyebrow about the whole pre-law narrative. If I want to be a lawyer, why was I frolicking around on the Washington coast last September catching crabs and sea urchins? Why did I spend three years reading fictional Latin stories with strange cadences? And why did I spend hours writing papers on King Lear, Rousseau, the Phoenicians, and dolphins? 

Because if all I got out of NSA was a prelaw degree, then I have failed during my time here as a student. 

. . . 

NSA’s motto is “build and fight.” That is our goal. But what exactly does that entail?  Well, “build and fight” is a derivative of Nehemiah 4:16-18, where the men building the wall were also trained warriors carrying swords, ready and able to defend themselves. In this passage, “fight” more readily grabs your attention. Similarly, at NSA, fighting is where the college most obviously breaks the standard educational mold. Students are expected to participate actively. 

NSA is a first-person experience that locates students in the driver’s seat from Day 1, even if you may not be able to reach the pedals yet. Additionally, students read (a lot) and study broadly.  The aforementioned paper on dolphins was written concurrently with a commentary on Ephesians 1 and a paper on 19th-century obscenity law. NSA will find a way to push you outside of your comfort zone, no matter how expansive it might be. This is because NSA is not only graduating dangerously competent leaders but also men and women who embody grit, ambition, temperance, and courage: all of which are necessary to wage a counteroffensive against the evils of today.  

So far, this seems to be in keeping with what could be expected of a pre-law degree. But be that as it may, “fight” is not the extent of this education. Again, if all I got out of NSA was some intellectual boxing practice, then I have missed out on an entire half of NSA’s mission. 

NSA isn’t merely a gladiator school; there’s a reason we carry shovels as well as swords.  If you reread Nehemiah, it is clear that while the men did carry swords and were more than apt to use them, they still labored with their other hand because building was their primary task. They were builders who could fight. “Build” precedes “fight” because if all we do is tear down idols with nothing to replace them, then we are no better than the iconoclastic revolutionaries of the past century. Part of shaping culture is creating culture. Our goal isn’t to raze everything to the ground; our goal is to take dominion. Our goal is not to destroy everything in our sight, but rather, to spread a new Eden across every square inch of the earth. We pluck weeds along the way, but God hasn’t just instructed us to give him an empty flowerbed. We are called to plant a bountiful garden that spills over with the glory of God’s creation. 

As Chesterton says, the good soldier fights because he loves what is behind him, not because he hates what is in front of him. We fight because we have beautiful things to defend. 

And not only do we ourselves find them worthy of cherishing, but God also Himself loves them, and that is why they are worth building up and defending. That is the distinguishing quality of what it means to be Christian. Christianity is lovely, because being a Christian is learning to love what God loves, and find beautiful what God values as beautiful. So, while apologetics and cultural debates are good and necessary, the most crucial component that makes Christianity so compelling is that we simply possess something no one else does: the love and loveliness of God. 

. . . 

I participated in a Tiny Heartbeat Ministries mission trip a little over a year ago, and I there was one confrontation I had that really stuck with me. I called out to a man to ask him about his view on abortion. He blew me off told me it didn’t matter. I asked why. We got to talking, and I learned that he grew up in a Christian household, but because of some tragic events in his adult life, he became a full-blown nihilist. So, he told me, abortion isn’t wrong because nothing is wrong. He could shoot me right now, or me, him, and it wouldn’t be wrong. It was simply his choice not to. That was the reality of the world he lived in. But I told him that’s not the world I want to live in. I wouldn’t kill someone else because that is not what God wants.  Even if he disagreed, that is what I wanted to believe. I didn’t need to hear his arguments; the alternative was simply too ugly for me to even consider. 

In the Silver Chair, Lewis makes this point explicitly. The witch tries to convince Eustace, Jill, and Puddleglum that their world is nothing but a silly fairy tale. It was, instead, as she described it, a black place full of despair. But Puddleglum doesn’t buy it: 

“Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the invented things seem much more important than the real ones…And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real-world hollow.” 

As Dr. Stokes is fond of saying, loveliness implies likeliness. In our modern time, when the dichotomy is the side with drag queens, blue-haired lesbians with pixie cuts, and a depressed mob with a steady diet of antidepressants and pornography, people will be drawn towards Christ simply because of our rich heritage and culture. People want more than just dry arguments; they want something that isn’t ugly. Something other than the sordid and unattractive alternatives secularism can provide. They just want a hope that is worth clinging to. 

Thus, the primary way we fight is by building. People aren’t drawn to gardens because they don’t have weeds, they are drawn in because they have flowers. That is why I would argue that NSA is primarily training builders who are additionally equipped to fight. The liberal arts are founded upon the Western edifice, and this tradition is ultimately driven by an aesthetic goal. It is a history of striving after the beauty hidden in creation, discovering more ways to enjoy what God values as beautiful. It is inherently and inseparably Christian. 

All the paintings, the poems, the music are all striving after this divine aesthetic. Even the ideas and philosophies themselves are ultimately aimed at this beauty. Thus, the reason we read Latin, study Natural History, and read the great books, the reason behind everything we do here is to love more deeply the things that God loves and then bring more of that into the world. NSA is giving students something beautiful behind them that is worth fighting for because beauty is what shows us where to dig and where to point the sword. And God is the one we look to as the source of all beauty. Shaping culture necessitates orienting your values around what God values, loving what He loves, and then making the world like that. 

So, I’d like to bookend the year by reiterating the exhortation we received at convocation. To those who will return as students: Dig in.

NSA is steeping you in beauty. To get out of this school with only a pre-law degree, you would need to have your eyes closed. You are being handed down the richest tradition ever to exist. It superabounds with goodness and beauty. So, devote yourself to learning and make an intentional effort to love what you learn because God made it beautiful and calls it good. He has given us so much in this life to cherish, and we need to learn to enjoy these subject matters, not merely for their pragmatic use, but simply because God loves them. He takes delight in the lily, and he provides for the sparrows because He loves them. So, take Natural History and go catch frogs and salamanders. Go on those field trips. Read more Shakespeare. Listen to Vivaldi’s La Folia. And as you bask in beauty, let the art remind you of the Great Artist who made all things, and then go out and adorn the earth as an apprentice of Him. And precisely because you have been filled with this beautiful inheritance, beauty will flow forth from you. 

And for those of you who are either graduating or have already graduated, don’t stop: you can dig in too. Figuring out what is beautiful is a lifetime endeavor, and so my exhortation extends to everyone present tonight. Learn what God loves, surround yourself with those things, and make more. Families, books, works of art, hymns, houses, churches: all of it. 

Because the whole cosmos sings praises to God. The heavens declare His glory and the firmament reveals His handiwork. God takes delight in it all, and He has called us to take dominion over it and make it better. So be diligent and learn how to build well under the tutelage of the Master Craftsman, and by creating culture and doing so magnificently, we will not grow closer with our Father as sons and daughters of the Creator, but we will cause the whole world to shimmer with the light of the gospel. So be saturated in beauty, order your loves to align with your Father in heaven, and build beautiful culture under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.