Looking Back, Moving Forward
A recap of my articles this year and a look ahead at what's next.
Merry Christmas everyone!
I launched this Substack on January 1st of this year to archive the research and analysis I was privately conducting and to network with like-minded individuals. I have enjoyed the opportunity to do exactly that. As the year comes to a close, I would like to briefly recap the six articles I wrote and discuss what lies ahead next year.
Article Recap
Book Review: In Quest of the Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration by Dr. William Lane Craig
Wrestling with science-faith matters was a significant and grueling season of my life. Dr. Craig’s book stands out as my favorite book on this topic and I appreciated his honesty about the best and worst-case scenarios of his exploration. I was impressed by the depth of his research on both the biblical and scientific fronts. If you are interested in this topic but do not want to read the book, I suggest watching the panel discussions he engaged in at the Evangelical and Philosophical Society meeting in 2022.
While I don’t foresee writing many more book reviews in the future, I do plan to write a piece outlining my views on science and faith.
In this piece, I discussed why Southern Baptists should attend our annual general meeting and how they can contribute to reforming the SBC. Education and mobilization are the two keys to driving meaningful change in the Southern Baptist Convention. To stay informed on the SBC and reformation efforts, I recommend the Center for Baptist Leadership’s articles and podcasts. For mobilization, assuming your church shares your vision for the SBC—or is at least open to it—the two most important steps you can take are attending the convention and working to maximize your church’s messenger count.
One of the most striking statistics I’ve seen during my research is that 75% of the Fortune 500 now cover transgender "benefits" for employees and their children, compared to 0% just 15 years ago. In this piece, I examined the role of the Human Rights Campaign in mainstreaming transgender healthcare coverage. The HRC is the activist organization most responsible for injecting wokeness like this into public corporations. Highlighting the influence of the HRC has been a personal focus of mine, and I was pleased to see the success Robby Starbuck has had in prompting major corporations to reconsider their engagement with this activist group.
In recent years, corporations played a major role in censoring mainstream perspectives online through their partnership with the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, an initiative of Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum. Even Elon Musk, perhaps the most effective advocate for free speech in the world, was unknowingly allocating resources to this group. Ironically, GARM was responsible for advertisers pulling off of X (formerly Twitter), as unveiled by the House Judiciary Committee report this summer. Fortunately, once this was exposed, Elon Musk sued GARM and it shut down all operations within days. This incident serves as a striking example of how corporate governance is outsourced to organizations with unintended, drastic consequences.
August 2024 marks 5 years since the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs from America’s largest corporations, attempted to redefine the purpose of a corporation. Traditionally, corporate governance focuses on shareholder primacy, which inevitably creates value for employees, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. However, Business Roundtable’s endorsement of stakeholder capitalism introduced a more subjective approach to corporate governance that opened the door to climate alarmism, divisive social agendas, and other radical activism in corporate America.
The increasingly unpopular DEI policies in corporate America are largely the result of CEO Action, the largest business-led initiative advancing DEI in the workplace. This coalition includes over 2,500 signatories across 85 industries, representing 21 million employees, and boasts a private network of 6,000 Chief HR/Diversity Officers. CEO Action has driven corporations to adopt policies such as racial/gender quotas, DEI training, “inclusive language” guides, and transgender healthcare “benefits”. Its influence is set to grow even further following its acquisition by SHRM, the world’s largest human resources association, in October 2024.
The upcoming Trump presidency offers an opportunity to challenge DEI policies. However, to effectively push back against these discriminatory policies and practices in corporate America, we need to identify the organizations responsible for promoting them and develop strategies to counter their growing influence.
Looking Ahead
At the beginning of the year, the specific areas I expressed interest in were:
Recovering the proper Biblical paradigm in the Protestant church
Reforming the Southern Baptist Convention
Integrating spiritual formation with other areas of knowledge
Shining a light on malpractice in corporate governance
Engaging spiritual seekers and skeptics
My writing this year focused heavily on corporate governance issues. However, next year I will write more on these other topics. Specifically, I want to delve deeper into the dysfunctional ministry paradigm of the Southern Baptist Convention and the necessity of integrating spiritual formation into the new Protestant right.
My goal for next year is to write 6-12 pieces. While I was thrilled to see my research inform articles in Fox Business and The Wall Street Journal this year, my aim for 2025 is to personally write a piece for one of these publications. This would provide an opportunity to elaborate on important points in my research and thinking that may go unnoticed by others.
If you’ve enjoyed reading my Substack, I would greatly appreciate it if you shared it with three of your friends! I am at 38 subscribers right now but am aiming to reach 50 by the end of the year.
Happy New Year and God Bless,
Dustin