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Commencement to remember: Country singer Eric Church on faith, family and more

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Commencement to remember: Country singer Eric Church on faith, family and more

When addressing the 2026 graduates at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, country-music star Eric Church used words rarely heard in secular-campus rites, such as "faith," "family," "grace" and "soul."

Using an acoustic guitar, Church explained how its strings, when in tune, represent essential elements of life. The May 9 speech went viral on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok and other platforms, with an estimated 4 million views so far.

The bass string is "faith," he said. "Your belief about what this life is for … what holds the universe together when science reaches the edge of its own explanation, and shrugs.

"The people who tend to their faith in ordinary seasons do not come undone in extraordinary ones. They still hurt. They still sit in hospital waiting rooms asking unanswerable questions at three in the morning. But they have a foundation to return to. … Tend to your faith. Not just when you're broken, but when you're whole."

Church, who grew up Baptist, didn't label his own faith in this speech. His eight-album career began with "Sinner Like Me" in 2006, with a title song that ended with this verse: "On the day I die / I know where I'm gonna go / Me and Jesus got that part worked out / I'll wait at the gates 'til his face I see / And stand in a long line of sinners like me."

The singer's address was not explicitly Christian and included zero material about politics. However, it was an example of a major campus welcoming an unconventional voice popular with middle America.

Elite-campus leaders need to show that they are committed to cultural diversity, noted Robert P. George, an outspoken Catholic and distinguished professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University. A 2022 survey of commencement rites at America's top 25 research universities and top 25 liberal-arts colleges failed to find a "single conservative among a sea of liberal and progressive speakers. A harmless coincidence? No," he wrote, in a recent Washington Post essay.

This "commencement conformity" may be caused by "inattentiveness or a lack of careful thinking on the part of administrators. George argued that these choices matter since, to quote Harvard University President Alan Garber, "truth is rarely found in echo chambers." Thus, it's important to challenge "ideological bubbles," even if that will cause on-campus tensions.

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The golf world is still dissecting Scottie Scheffler's heart, mind and soul

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The golf world is still dissecting Scottie Scheffler's heart, mind and soul

When Scottie Scheffler celebrated his recent victory at the British Open, it was hard to tell who drew the loudest cheers -- the world's No. 1 golfer or his toddler son.

Nike captured the family vibe with a viral advertisement showing Scheffler and Bennett, with the caption, "You've already won," before adding, "But another major never hurt."

After the win, Scheffler added fire to the week's hot story, which was his candid remarks about why he isn't obsessed with winning trophies week after week.

"My faith and my family is what's most important to me," he told reporters. "Those come first for me. … Golf is third in that order."

The key words were "in that order," noted Daniel Darling, director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Seminary. "Scottie Scheffler doesn't see golf as a god. He's thankful that God has given him the abilities that he has." However, he also "knows the challenge in life is to keep things in the right order, to focus on what really matters."

The firestorm began earlier that week, when the 29-year-old superstar drew nervous laughter by stressing: "I'm not here to inspire somebody else to be the best player in the world, because what's the point? … This is not a fulfilling life. It's fulfilling from a sense of accomplishment, but it's not fulfilling from a sense of the deepest places of your heart.

"There's a lot of people that make it to what they thought was going to fulfill them in life. And then you get there, then all of a sudden you get to No. 1 in the world, and they're like, what's the point? … That's something that I wrestle with on a daily basis."

Scheffler's remarks revealed a "human side we too often don't get to see," noted Shane Ryan, writing for Golf Digest. "For those with ears to hear it, there was a deep message at play, and an almost unbearably honest one." Perhaps, Ryan added, if "someone like Scheffler, who has been to the mountaintop of his world, finds spiritual emptiness on that summit, what hope do the rest of us have?"

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A powerful Catholic voice from Africa judges America on sex and marriage

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When United Methodists argue about sex and marriage, these doctrinal struggles usually evolve into clashes between progressives in America and conservatives in the growing churches of the Global South, especially Africa.

When Anglicans knock heads over the same issues, the loudest voices on the doctrinal left are from America and Europe, while most of the conservatives are from Africa and Asia.

It's safe to call this an ecclesiastical trend, especially in light of recent debates about marriage, family and sexuality in the largest Christian flock of all -- the Roman Catholic Church. Consider, for example, the salvos delivered by Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea at the recent National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.

Catholics are now witnessing, he argued, the consummation of "efforts to build a utopian paradise on earth without God. … Good becomes evil, beauty is ugly, love becomes the satisfaction of sexual primal instincts and truths are all relative. So all manner of immorality is not only accepted and tolerated today in advanced societies, but even promoted as a social good. The result is hostility to Christians, and, increasingly, religious persecution.

"Nowhere is this clearer than in the threat that societies are visiting on the family through a demonic 'gender ideology,' a deadly impulse that is being experienced in a world increasingly cut off from God through ideological colonialism."

Cardinal Sarah is not the first prelate from the Global South to use "demonic" language in a public-square battle over marriage.