Tactical Faith

09/01/2026

Shakespeare’s Hamlet does not open with the prince, the new king, or the queen. It begins at night on the battlements of Elsinore, where soldiers keep watch. The court is below them: the marriage, the succession, the official grief of the king’s death. Up here there is only cold stone, a changing of the guard, and something the watchmen have already seen twice. In that dark, two worlds are already meeting—the world that can be named by reason and the world that still walks after death. The play will not explain the meeting. It forces us to stand on that wall and experience the world of the watchtower guards.

The rooster at Elsinore, Horatio’s clause, and the ghosts that find their way back in

08/25/2026

By the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dave Bowman has left the spacecraft. He stands in a spacesuit in a white room that resembles a hotel; it has French furniture, the floor is lit from below, and there is a bathroom, a table, and a bed. Through a door, he can see an older man sitting down to eat. The older man hears something, stands up, and goes to that door. He then looks back toward where the younger man had been standing. The pod is no longer there, and the first Bowman has now become the second.

Reminiscence, Augustine’s halls, and the last rooms of 2001: A Space Odyssey

08/18/2026

Tonight, I met with two young people for the last time before I officiate their wedding in September. They are sincere and hopeful, and a bit nervous, as anyone would be when something big is about to start. Soon, I’ll stand with them in Atlanta and ask them to make promises they can’t fully understand yet. I know this because I’m still learning what those promises mean after twenty-six years. I’ve also seen two other couples carry them for fifty-three and fifty-eight years.

What fifty-eight and fifty-three years have taught me about the kind of attention that lasts

08/10/2026

Last week, a small, almost trivial complaint set off a larger argument. A college student associated with Turning Point USA remarked that a campus burrito now costs twenty dollars. The observation was modest, almost offhand: that basic things are too expensive. Within hours, the comment had drawn in conservative columnists, the Vice President, and finally Representative Dan Crenshaw ...

What Kind of Word Meets a Man Under the Weight

08/06/2026

For the second time within the last year, I have stayed in the town of Burford in England. For me, this is not just the name of any town, but the place my people came from…. An ancestral place that holds immense meaning for my family and me. These ancestral places are never neutral; they press on the imagination. Walking those stone streets, I felt the special type of attention that comes when a place is both new and, in some attenuated way, already yours. The Cotswolds did not feel like home, yet they did not feel entirely foreign either.

Under the Round Tower

07/30/2026

Today's kids have more information than any generation in history but they struggle to pay attention, think deeply, and engage with truth. Why?

In this episode, Brett and Erin sit down with Dr. Matthew Burford, founder of Tactical Faith, to explore the hidden cost of the attention economy and what it's doing to our kids' minds. Together, they build a practical framework for how parents can address the attention crisis in our young people, helping them to wrestle with big ideas and cultivate wisdom instead of mere information.

WATCH HERE: https://linktw.in/vfuUPS

07/27/2026

We walked it this afternoon—my wife, our daughter, and me…..Addison’s Walk…..the footpath that is connected to C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. This is the path where Tolkien would walk and listen to Lewis debate and discuss the finer truths about his atheist and agnostic positions about God. The path where Lewis finally gave his mind and heart to the reality of the Jesus Christ. I wonder what trees are here from that day more than 90 years ago. If only places could recall past events and reveal to us (those of us living) the deeds and actions of by gone eras. It would be incredible to hear the stories from this particular space.

Lewis, the second-person perspective, and the places that still remember

07/20/2026

We just wrapped up another Worldview Academy at Samford. The lectures on Dante’s Divine Comedy and related topics reminded us why this work matters: creating spaces where people encounter real knowledge, experience change, and learn to flourish by knowing Jesus. Building these environments—so others can grow and then serve in the world—is core to who I am and what our ministry is about ...

The Hidden Labor of Tilling Ground in a World That Values Only the Harvest

07/19/2026

Mary Harrington has been arguing that literacy was the first technological singularity. Long before the printing press or the smartphone, the alphabet itself began the slow externalization of human memory. Socrates already saw the danger. Writing, he warned in the Phaedrus, would produce the appearance of wisdom without the reality of it—people who could consult records but could no longer truly remember. Knowledge would become something stored outside the person rather than something formed within the person...

Christopher Nolan, Homer, and the interior conditions for receiving a story

07/18/2026

Event happening now. Join us for all or part of the day. (Note: location moved to Chapman Hall due to AC issues)

Worldview Academy - Speaker Schedule!
RSVP HERE: https://tacticalfaith.com/worldview/world-view-academy-2026/