About

Kyle Young is a PhD candidate at Trinity College Dublin.

The above photo was taken at Qumran.

About the blog

I began this blog as a venue to teach the first congregation I pastored. Beyond that, I hope it serves the many fellow pastors and elders in my neck of the woods who haven’t had the privilege of seminary.

Why’d I go for the title Carpe Deum? It captures my attention and ambition. Carpe diem is an old Latin expression, often translated ‘Seize the day!’ It basically means to make the best out of life. Carpe Deum is a play on that – a turn of phrase which occurred to me while preparing a sermon on Ecclesiastes 5:10–20. It means ‘Grasp God!’ as in Deut 10:20 or Ps 63:8, entailing our covenantal union with the Triune God in Christ, whereby we continuously strive to be close to God as our chief good.

About the blogger

Bitty Bio

First and foremost, I’m a Christian. I became one around seven years of age when God convicted me that I was a sinner. I believe that Jesus not only died on a cross, but that he died for me and had to die and rise again if God was to forgive my sins and restore my relationship with him.

I’ve said I’d be a missionary one day since first grade. I sensed that as my calling during sixth grade when I played Nate Saint in a drama based on The End of the Spear. A whole bunch of providential ‘setbacks’ has led me from never graduating high school and wanting to go straight overseas to serving as a pastor at a rural church in Canada while pursuing a PhD. It’s still my wife and I’s desire to serve in church planting, theological education, and Bible translation one day, but we know God’s assigned us where we are now and we’re glad to serve where he has us.

I’m a grateful husband to an adoring/adored wife and a father to an ongoing number of children. My wife currently lends her blessing to this blog so long as it doesn’t take up too much time. If it ever disappears or abruptly ceases, it’s either her or the government.

Academy

I’m a full-time PhD candidate at Trinity College Dublin (aka the University of Dublin, founded by Queen Elizabeth I in 1592). I’ve worked as a teaching assistant for a few institutions as well as a research assistant for work on the Dead Sea scrolls. A little interview from 2023 on my PhD experience investigating ancient Bible translations can be found here. My academic activities are detailed at ORCiD and my publications (where permissible) are uploaded to Academia.edu.

Affiliation

To simplify things, I’m a Reformed Anabaptist. The best (er, only) intro to what I mean is John Neufeld’s “Ploughing with a Donkey and an Ox: On Being Anabaptist and Reformed,” Direction 42.2 (2013): 124–31. For context, I was raised as a Dispensational, Arminian Southern Baptist in southwestern Virginia. Hope that helps.

Some of my sermons can be found on the website of the church where I used to be pastor in Bluesky, Alberta.