Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Brandon Vat the host and the senior publishing

director. When universities turn to the secular narrative of the ego drama, which views

education as directed towards self-advancement alone, they suffer a loss of identity. And

her talk at the recent Good News Conference, Jessica Houton Wilson offers a different

vision of education, one that is based on an apprenticeship to tradition and is oriented

toward a contemplative life, both for educators and students. Moving toward this vision

creates a university system that orders its teachers and students to be good beyond themselves.

Again, this talk was recently given at the Good News Conference. It is titled Christianity

and the Crisis of the Universities and we hope you'll enjoy it. So please sit back,

take in this talk by Jessica Houton Wilson and enjoy.

I'm so grateful that I get to be here today. I was telling Jared, I'm just so thankful

for everything that Word on Fire is doing. And I'm amazed that this many people are

coming together to find ways to spread the gospel, to share the good that we've received

and not just hold it to ourselves, like Bishop Aaron said last night, but to find ways to

increase the true good and beautiful things in the world. And as Jared just mentioned,

my heart is for education. A quick background on me and then I'd like to open in prayer

if that's okay, borrowing a prayer from the tradition. But my heart is in education.

I was an undergrad at Pepperdine University and I was trying to find where God was calling

me to. And I knew I wanted to share ideas. I knew I wanted to change people's hearts

and I didn't know what that looks like. And I tried Paramount Studios for a little while.

I thought I was going to write movies. And then I went to DC and I worked in public policy.

And I found that in both of those places, yes, gospel work was being done, but everything

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