He majored in Philosophy and Religious Studies at Stanford University, received an M.Div. at Princeton Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in Religion at Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He has also studied at Oxford and two universities in China, has won multiple fellowships and prizes for his essays and teaching, and has published in several international commentaries on Kierkegaard. He worked part-time in chaplaincy for three years in a maximum security prison, and has ministered in congregations in America as well as overseas.