Count me among the chorus of those cheering for Disney Pixar’s newest film, Hoppers. It’s the best Pixar endeavor in years—an energetic and likable protagonist in Mabel, a memorable storyline, and the kind of comedy that earns its laughs from character and plot rather than from potty humor or knowing adult winks.

An early scene won me over. A young Mabel sits with her grandmother on a rock just outside a forest glade, and, naturally, she at first resists the whole idea of just . . . sitting there. But after Mabel’s grandmother leads her to be still, the glade begins to awaken. Leaves float through the air, animal life emerges, the sounds of creation become gloriously evident.

In a world of busyness and constant entertainment, Pixar is doing something subversive: reminding us what it looks like to sit still, open your eyes, and truly see again.

We’ve Traded Reality for a Deeper Boredom

In The Body of This Death, Ross McCullough describes our era as one of “diversions” that are “superficially satisfying but profoundly boring.” Reality, he says, is the opposite: superficially boring but profoundly satisfying.

Isn’t that an apt description of our world? We’ve all seen the glazed eyes of a child who has forgotten what it’s like to touch grass, to be present to the real rather than the virtual. But it’s not just kids. Adults, too, are superficially satisfied with distraction yet profoundly bored—untethered from the world in front of us.

The endless scroll, the ever-beckoning notification, the newest arrival on whatever streaming platform we mindlessly open every evening: These are symptoms of an overstimulation that leads not to curiosity and wonder but to acedia and numbness.

The word “boredom” doesn’t appear in ancient languages, surfacing only in the 1600s. (Webster doesn’t track its first known use in English until 1853.) People in earlier eras certainly tired of all the grinding tasks necessary for survival, but they didn’t describe their lives as boring, in part because death felt ever-present and leisure was the privilege of royalty. Nowadays, even those under the poverty line have access to constant entertainment. We all live like kings. And we’re often bored like them too.

Our diversions are, in part, a sign of our hearts’ restlessness. Pascal was right: “If our condition were truly happy we should not need to divert ourselves from thinking about it.” Chronic unhappiness drives us toward whatever removes us from the present, and entire industries now exist not only to satisfy that itch but to inflame it.

The peril of endless diversion is that we begin to feel we’re missing out if we’re not fully up to speed on everything happening. Alec Benjamin’s song “Dopamine Addict” captures the dread of being without a phone, feeling “like [you’re] out of touch,” unable to shake the sense that you “need that crutch,” “need that rush.” In reality, what we’re missing is reality itself. McCullough writes:

Startling Wetness of Water

Justin Poythress recently wrote about C. S. Lewis and that fine word “quiddity”—which Poythress defines as “the ‘thatness’ of something. Your house is in that neighborhood rather than another. Your spouse is wearing that shirt. You’re sitting in that chair with that view to eat that meal. Notice and appreciate that, instead of sinking into your phone because that isn’t enough.”

This is why, with Lewis, I have such love for G. K. Chesterton and his lifelong astonishment at everyone’s lack of astonishment. “The world will never starve for want of wonders,” he said, “but only for want of wonder.” And, “There are no dreary sights; only dreary sightseers.” In a letter to his fiancée, he wrote,

That’s quiddity. Chesterton captures the childlike sense of everything being new. The world remains endlessly fascinating; every discovery can be met with wide-eyed enthusiasm. But that capacity is endangered now. The screen gives children fewer opportunities to skin their knees, fall off a bike, get stung by a bee, or feel the itch of grass after rolling down a hill.

Rebels of the Real

I want to push back against the superficial satisfaction of my diversions and reengage the more profound delight in the world around me.

For more than a year, I’ve been using the Merlin app to identify birds. My heart leaped at the first signs of spring a few weeks ago, when I saw the return of robins hopping across the yard, their melodies merging with the cardinals and wrens, interrupted by the squawk of a grackle. On a teaching trip to Oxford last year, I delighted in the songs of the blackbird, melodies you simply won’t hear in Nashville, a beauty the Beatles captured in the song by that name.

Satan’s goal is to make us more like zombies than humans—unthinking creatures who are also unthanking, empty of the gratitude that should fill us as we look to the Creator and Giver of all good gifts. That’s why I appreciated Hoppers. The film reminds us what it looks like to bask in the beauties and wonders all around us, to be startled by a sunset, alert to the mourning dove, arrested by the majesty of a tree.

As believers, we see this world as charged with grandeur. And so we take our place in the great chorus of praise rising from every corner of creation to the Conductor of the symphony.

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It took a while, but I finally finished plodding through Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Demons (translated as Devils in the Michael Katz edition I’m reading, also known as The Possessed). I plodded, because that’s the only pace that makes sense when tackling one of those doorstop Russian novels that can be both exhilarating and exhausting. It took 400 pages before the story started getting interesting! As much as I love Dostoevsky, this wasn’t Crime and Punishment or The Brothers Karamazov.

In the end, one theme pressed itself on me—one with serious implications for theological study. A little theology can be dangerous. Little in the sense of being too small, too light, too thin to bear weight. And little in the sense of having enough learning to feel proud but not enough to be humbled.

A little theology tempts us to confuse theological knowledge with moral virtue. And that’s a big mistake.

When Learning Outpaces Moral Seriousness

In “The Dangers of a Little Learning,” Aaron Alexander Zubia makes the point that a classical education that sharpens the mind without forming the heart can turn great ideas into dangerous playthings. The result is brilliance without moral gravity and intellectualism without wisdom.

Zubia turns to Dostoevsky’s Demons to illustrate the point. When truth, goodness, and beauty are treated lightly (or worse, wielded for performance’s sake), ideas lose their authority, society loses its bearings, and villains rush to fill the void. A great education, Zubia reminds us, doesn’t in itself produce moral virtue.

History bears this out. Stalin read Shakespeare. Hitler admired Don Quixote. Mao memorized and composed classical poetry. Mussolini appreciated Dante. None of them lacked exposure to the great works of human imagination. What they lacked was the moral formation to receive beauty as a summons to humility rather than a tool for domination.

Playing with Big Ideas

Demons dramatizes what happens when young people play around with ideas without appreciating their weightiness. The novel shows “the dangers of developing minds that can articulate—and argue for—any point, while failing to form hearts that lovingly cling to truth, goodness, and beauty.” Another danger Dostoevsky describes is the temptation to use big ideas to cultivate a personal brand, to signal sophistication, to maintain elite status as someone “in the know.”

The intelligentsia, in Dostoevsky’s telling, isn’t driven by the pursuit of truth so much as by the maintenance of prestige. The educated want to keep up with the latest fads. They grab on to whatever ideas happen to confer cultural capital. Ideas become props in a performance. And, Zubia says, “the performative misuse of ideas saps the life out of society, ails it, and corrupts it.”

Theological Knowledge Isn’t the Same as Spiritual Maturity

The danger Dostoevsky describes in general education applies just as well to theology. When we study theology, we aren’t merely handling concepts. We’re dealing with the knowledge of the living God. We’re probing into the holy of holies, peering into mysteries far beyond our intellectual grasp. We’re reckoning with the depth of our sin, the cost of our redemption, the gravity of divine love and justice, and the promise of new creation.

One danger of theological education is assuming that biblical knowledge is a reliable indicator of personal character or spiritual maturity. It isn’t. Theology can awaken the heart, but it can also deaden it. Doctrine can become a plaything, a sparring tool for colleagues, a way of sorting people into tribes and signaling one’s place in the inner ring.

When your soteriology or your eschatology or your sacramental theology becomes more a badge of enlightenment rather than a prodding to worship, your theology has fallen short. It has become a mask for pride rather than a source of humility. It’s entirely possible to be the most theologically sophisticated person in the room and yet have a heart cold toward God and indifferent toward others.

Formation Must Keep Pace with Instruction

Theological educators—pastors in the church and scholars in the academy alike—must be on guard against theological education that outruns character formation. Someone once remarked to me that a person holding a particular theological view couldn’t possibly be a “mature Christian.” What struck me was both the presumption (the certainty about someone’s spiritual condition) and the assumption (that Christian maturity can be measured by doctrinal precision).

No. It isn’t true. I’ve known Christians with only a rudimentary understanding of theology, yet their spiritual depth put many seminary-trained believers to shame. The widow with her mite beats the seminarian with his degree. To miss this, or worse—to be unable to see it—is already a sign of malformation.

What’s more, theological exploration can become a means of evading obedience: a way to rationalize our indifference to the poor, to shrink the circle of neighbors we’re willing to love, or to dull Scripture’s moral demands. That is when Kierkegaard’s rebuke becomes appropriate: “Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close.”

Why a Little Theology Is Dangerous

Theological education must not be aimed at degrees or status. It must be suffused with wisdom and virtue because it’s ultimately ordered toward worship. When theology loses its weightiness—when God becomes manageable, debatable, or brandable—it has already gone wrong.

A lack of gravity is often the clearest sign that theology is being pressed into the service of other ends: power, reputation, influence, performance. In that sense, a little theology really is dangerous. Dangerous because it’s too thin to sustain reverence, and dangerous because it gives just enough knowledge to inflate our pride but never cultivate our sense of awe.

A little theology can be a dangerous thing.

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I’ve been enjoying David McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Harry Truman recently, especially for the way it gives us such a vivid portrait of the man—his decency, stubbornness, loyalty, and down-to-earth nature.

But there’s a moment in Truman’s presidency that shows what happens when the hidden burden a leader carries erupts into an uncharacteristic lack of composure and self-control.

Truman’s Scathing Letter

It was late 1950. American troops were retreating in Korea, pushed back by massive Chinese forces. Washington was filled with dread: Was this the start of World War III? Should the atomic bomb be used again? Tensions between President Truman and General Douglas MacArthur were mounting. The world seemed poised on the edge of catastrophe.

Then came a personal blow. Charlie Ross, Truman’s press secretary and lifelong friend, suddenly keeled over and died of a coronary occlusion. Just hours later, Truman stepped in front of reporters to make a statement. His voice broke. “I can’t read this thing. You fellows know how I feel anyway . . .” Tears streamed down his face as he turned and walked back to his office. The burden of the global crisis was now compounded by personal grief.

That night, Truman and his wife attended a concert at Constitution Hall where their daughter, Margaret, sang before 3,500 people. The reviews were mixed. The next morning, The Washington Post published critic Paul Hume’s assessment: Margaret was “attractive on stage” but “cannot sing very well.” She was often flat, he wrote, and lacking professional finish. “It is an extremely unpleasant duty to record such unhappy facts about so honestly appealing a person.”

When Truman read the review, he exploded. He dashed off a furious 150-word letter, sealed it, affixed a three-cent stamp, and sent it on its way. “I’ve just read your lousy review of Margaret’s concert,” he began, calling Hume an “eight ulcer man on four ulcer pay” and warning that if they ever met, the critic would “need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below.”

The words were so coarse and uncharacteristic that when they surfaced, Margaret insisted to the press they couldn’t have come from her father. But the letter was legitimate. Tabloids ran with it. Americans began questioning the president’s “mental competence and emotional stability.” Mothers and fathers wrote to the White House, furious that while their sons were dying in Korea, the president seemed preoccupied with a music review.

Hume, to his credit, responded with grace: “I can only say that a man suffering the loss of a friend and carrying the burden of the present world crisis ought to be indulged in an occasional outburst of temper.”

Age of Celebrated Outbursts

Reading this story now can sound almost quaint. In the last decade, we’ve grown accustomed to questions about whether our presidents display the “mental competence” or “emotional stability” required for the job. Today, it’s commonplace for politicians to flaunt their lack of impulse control—and for much of the populace to cheer it on as authenticity. “He’s just being real.” Or “She’s telling it like it is.”

We’re an unserious people, and the people we elevate often reflect that unseriousness.

We’re also malformed by technological devices that encourage us to vent whatever we feel in the moment. To weigh in with our hot take. To express outrage, frustration, and contempt. To scoff and mock. To own the opposition. To destroy the other side.

We’ve normalized a lack of impulse control among ourselves and our leaders. What’s worse, we’ve celebrated the outburst as the sign of authenticity. We don’t expect decency from our leaders because we don’t delight in decency ourselves. The scathing takedown has become attractive, even admirable. Truman’s letter, back in 1950, was seen as an unfortunate lapse in judgment, a failure of restraint in an office that called for dignity. Today, many would celebrate his mistake as a sign of strength.

Virtue We No Longer Admire

The truth is, a lack of self-control is always a sign of weakness, not strength, no matter how many political partisans attempt to reframe it.

Self-control and self-sacrifice remain moral virtues whether or not they’re culturally in favor. Rightly held, their orientation is outward: toward the good of others, toward the strengthening of institutions, toward the selflessness required to carry hidden vulnerability without making others bear the cost of our impulsiveness. A society cannot flourish without citizens who admire and cultivate these virtues, and who require them of their leaders.

Neither can the church. Scripture lists self-control as a qualification for pastors (1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:8). The person without it is described as “a city whose wall is broken down” (Prov. 25:28). The fruit of the Spirit begins with love and ends with self-control, and those bookends are no accident (Gal. 5:22–23). You cannot become a loving person without self-control, because loving someone else will always cost you something. You’ll never make the costly, selfless decisions required by love if you cannot master the selfish impulses most likely to derail you.

To dismiss these concerns as quaint is to deny the moral architecture of the world. Leaders who don’t exercise personal restraint, and who don’t put in place people who can help them resist their impulses, corrode our institutions.

The partisan applause may be loud. The outbursts may provide an initial rush. But the leaders who truly strengthen a people and the pastors who truly shepherd a church are the ones who learn to carry grief, pressure, and provocation without letting their worst impulses dictate their conduct. Leadership doesn’t begin with authority over others; it begins with authority over oneself under God.

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When considering a classic work originally written in another language, the choice of translation can feel daunting. And it matters more than we sometimes realize. A good translation can heighten the reading experience and sharpen our understanding of what the original author was up to.

My favorite example comes from Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. Near the end of the novel, when Marius and Cosette visit the elderly and ailing Jean Valjean, Marius finally understands the depth of Valjean’s sacrificial love. Valjean has acted valiantly and heroically, at immense personal cost, to secure their redemption and happiness. Marius exclaims (here’s the original French),

Julie Rose’s excellent translation renders it this way (note the bold):

Perfectly accurate. But notice what Christine Donougher picks up when she translates the same line with an ear tuned to biblical resonance. Hugo is deliberately echoing the Latin Ecce homo (John 19:5), linking Valjean’s self-giving love to Christ himself:

Rendering that line as “Behold the man” illuminates Hugo’s intent. This is the kind of nuance that can elevate a reading experience from good to great.

Why Translation Choices Matter

Over the years, I’ve had a similar experience reading Fyodor Dostoevsky in multiple translations. For Crime and Punishment, I find Michael Katz nearly unbeatable; he ably captures the suffocating atmosphere of frenzied distress. For The Brothers Karamazov—which I’ve read in Romanian, in the older Constance Garnett translation, and in more recent versions by Pevear and Volokhonsky, Ignat Avsey, and Katz—I appreciate them all, even if I ultimately lean toward Garnett or Katz.

Russian literature scholar Gary Saul Morson explains what’s at stake:

That brings us to Augustine’s Confessions.

Coming Home to Augustine

Here is a classic book most Christians have heard of, but far too few have read. It gives us the life story of one of the most influential theologians in Christian history—an autobiography that was composed as a prayer of thanksgiving. A tale of human dissolution overcome by divine deliverance, that culminates with contemplation of the beauty of God’s being.

Looking back through my journals, I see I first began reading Confessions when I was 18 years old. I returned to it as a newlywed during one of the dark, snowy winters I lived in Romania. Both times, I was reading Albert C. Outler’s 1955 translation, with its now-dated but once-standard use of “thee” and “thou.”

Over the years, I returned to Augustine often, but my love for the book was reinvigorated by Sarah Ruden’s translation in 2017, which captures more of Augustine’s literary flair and emotional immediacy. That translation didn’t come without controversy, with James K. A. Smith objecting to Ruden’s rendering of dominus as “Master” rather than the more traditional “Lord.”

Several years ago, I adopted a new practice: reading Confessions at the beginning of each year, each time in a different translation. Since then, I’ve revisited Ruden but also read versions by Peter Constantine, Henry Chadwick, Frank Sheed, Maria Boulding, Anthony Esolen, and Thomas Williams. This annual read-through has become a spiritual reorientation for me, a way of tuning my heart at the year’s outset.

Sampling Various Translations of Augustine

The thing to remember about Confessions is that you can’t really go wrong. (The lone exception may be the widely used R. S. Pine-Coffin translation from 1961—which Peter Kreeft memorably dismissed as “worthy of his name . . . a dead translation.” By contrast, Kreeft says Sheed’s version is “as living as molten lava.”) Augustine’s fire breaks through almost every rendering. His devotion, ardor, worship, philosophical curiosity, gratitude for salvation, and horror at sin remain palpable.

So if you’re just beginning, my advice is simple: Pick one and dive in. This will (hopefully!) not be the last time you read Confessions, nor the last translation you explore. Once you realize that, the pressure is off.

Still, for readers who want a sense of what distinguishes these translations, here are a few observations. I’ve chosen one of Augustine’s most beloved passages and placed it side by side in multiple versions.

Outler, 1955

Here’s the first translation I encountered. Despite its dated diction, Outler’s version remains influential, especially in academic and ecclesial settings. His great strength is theological reliability paired with reverent prose, designed for mid-20th-century readers steeped in biblical cadences.

Sheed, 1942

Sheed’s translation is often celebrated for its spiritual vitality and rhetorical power. With an elevated style, it pulses with devotion and urgency, making it a favorite for readers who want Augustine’s prayerfulness to feel alive. It’s available in a handsome new volume from Word on Fire.

Chadwick, 1991

I have often recommended Chadwick’s Oxford translation as the best “all-purpose” edition of Confessions. It combines literary grace, philosophical precision, and theological sensitivity, making it suitable for serious readers, students, and pastors alike.

Boulding, 1997

Boulding’s translation is distinctive for presenting some of Confessions in poetic form, including this portion of Augustine’s prayerful address to God. It’s especially beloved among contemplative readers who experience the text less as argument and more as doxology.

Ruden, 2017

Ruden’s translation is notable for her attempt to restore Augustine’s emotional intensity and rhetorical playfulness. She brings out the strangeness, boldness, and immediacy of the Latin, helping modern readers hear Augustine as a living voice.

Constantine, 2018

The esteemed translator of many classic works, Constantine renders Confessions in a way that reflects his reputation as a master stylist. This version is often commended for its clarity, smoothness, and its contemporary literary feel.

Williams, 2019

Williams offers perhaps the most philosophically precise English Confessions available. Scholars and students value his translation for its conceptual clarity. I also appreciate his claim that “Augustine does not quote Scripture; he speaks the language of Scripture as his own language” and his decision to rarely put biblical quotes or allusions in quotation marks.

Esolen, 2024

Esolen’s translation builds intentionally on the best of earlier English renderings while expanding the reader’s linguistic palette. I appreciate the rich vocabulary, poetic beauty, and sensitivity to both classical and Christian literary tradition. It has quickly become one of my favorites.

So, Where Should You Start?

My friend Tony Reinke has assembled several helpful side-by-side comparisons of another paragraph—Augustine’s self-description of sin—including translations not listed here, though his survey stops at 2017.

In the end, I return to where I began. You can’t really go wrong with Confessions. Pick a translation. Enter the prayer. Walk the road. And meet again the Lord who stirs us to delight in praising him, “because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you” (Chadwick).

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Talk to Christians about why they don’t pray as much as they want or think they should, and you’ll hear a familiar set of reasons.

• Busyness and distraction. Our schedules crowd out prayer.
• Then there’s guilt and inadequacy: I don’t know how to pray well, so I guess I’m not very good at it.
• Spiritual dryness and the absence of immediate payoff: I don’t feel closer to God when I pray, and many of my prayers seem to go unanswered.
• And, of course, self-sufficiency. We don’t pray because we don’t feel we need God’s help in our daily endeavors.

All these explanations have some truth to them. But I suspect there’s an understated reason for our prayerlessness, one that often sits beneath the others and may even supersede them.

If You Knew Me, You Would Ask

In John 4, Jesus encounters the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. When she arrives to draw water, Jesus asks her for a drink. Startled, she questions why a Jewish man would ask such a thing of a Samaritan woman. And Jesus replies, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water” (v. 10).

In other words: If you knew me, you would ask me.

Applied to prayer, two realities come into view: the power of Jesus and the heart of Jesus. If you knew his power, you would ask, confident he can act. If you knew his heart, you would ask, confident he wants to.

Most Christians I know have little trouble affirming God’s power. We believe he can answer prayer. We confess his omnipotence. We trust his ability.

What we struggle with more is God’s disposition toward us. Does God want to respond? Does he delight to hear from us? Is his heart inclined toward generosity or stinginess?

Father Who Gives Good Gifts

Jesus addresses this question in the Sermon on the Mount. After urging us to ask, seek, and knock, he ties prayer to the benevolent heart of God:

Prayerlessness, then, often has less to do with doubting God’s power and more with wondering about God’s heart. If you knew who you were talking to, you would ask. You would know the Father’s heart is turned toward you in love. You would trust the eagerness of Jesus, our interceding brother. You would lean into the Spirit, who groans with and for us.

John Piper captures this connection in Desiring God:

The inverse is just as revealing. Those who pray regularly do so because they see God as generous, a great Gift-giver who delights in blessing his children. A virtuous cycle then gets going. We pray to know God’s heart better, and as we come to know his heart toward us, we find ourselves praying more.

Trust the Heart of God in the Hard Seasons

Of course, trusting God’s heart doesn’t mean every request will be granted as we’d like. In seasons of suffering, trusting God’s goodness can be difficult. Calvin Miller gave voice to this tension: “In desperate times, living becomes an altar where you pray and sing because the only good news of the day is that God lives longer than you do.”

To trust God’s fatherly heart means we also trust his fatherly knowledge, a wisdom far surpassing our plans and perspective. God knows what we really want, not just what we think we want.

This brings us to the biblical word that best names God’s heart toward us: hesed—steadfast love, covenant faithfulness, loving-kindness that endures forever. Michael Card defines hesed this way: “When the person from whom I have a right to expect nothing gives me everything.”

That is the posture God takes toward us in Christ. It’s the heart that motivates his work of salvation and sustains our work of prayer. As John Starke describes it, prayer is grounded in the “divine hospitality available to us that makes God our constant friend and transforms prayer into communion.”

And that’s why prayerlessness is never ultimately a technique problem. It’s a knowledge-of-God problem. When we fail to pray, it’s because we’ve forgotten who invites us. But when we remember, and when we glimpse the Father’s smile, praying no longer feels like a soldier performing his duty but like the reflex of a child leaping into Dad’s outstretched arms.

If you knew him, you would ask.

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One of my favorite quotes from G. K. Chesterton goes like this:

Writing demands thinking, which is why it requires what John Stott once called PIM—“pain in the mind” time. It’s slow, often agonizing work, this process of thinking, revising, and pressing an idea until you’ve considered it deeply.

I often tell aspiring writers that there’s no way to avoid the work. Not if you want to truly write, rather than merely enjoy the afterglow of having written something. Not if you want to really think, rather than dash off an idea and watch generative AI spit out something you can slap your name on.

I love veteran writer Lynn Vincent’s description of a typical writing session:

For some reason, we’re tempted to believe writing should come easily. As if words ought to gush effortlessly from our hearts and minds onto the page.

Yes, there are moments like that, times when you’re deep into an article or sermon or book project, and you lose track of time and enter a state of flow. They’re wonderful. They’re also rare. More often than not, the flow comes only after the slog. You won’t arrive in the meadow of inspiration until you force yourself through the thicket of thinking.

I love the bluntness of Stephen King: “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”

If you’re looking for a hack or shortcut that will make writing easy, I’m afraid there aren’t any.

Prepare the Way for the Work

That said, there is good news. There are ways to prepare the way for writing. You can’t eliminate the painful part, but you can make the process more endurable.

I’ve come to agree with James Clear on developing good habits: “Motivation is overrated. Environment often matters more.” Or, as he also says, “You don’t have to be the victim of your environment. You can also be the architect of it.”

Over the years, I’ve leaned on a number of environmental cues that help trigger my brain into writing mode, even when I’m not feeling particularly motivated or inspired. The basic elements are simple: time, place, sound, and cost.

One of the most important practices for me is an annual summer writing retreat. I drive nearly three hours to a quiet place in East Tennessee overlooking a lake. I treat it like a monastery of sorts—three days and nights with just me and the Lord. I know the room. I know the view. Breakfast and dinner are provided (I skip lunch).

Unplugged, surrounded by stillness, I’m able to focus intently on a book or major project. I surround the work with times of prayer, Scripture reading, and long walks where I talk with God about what I’m working on, the challenges I’m facing, and how I hope to serve him through my writing. That place is holy ground to me.

Notice what’s at work here. There’s a specific time. There’s a specific place. There’s quiet and beauty. And there’s a cost. I’ve paid for the room. I’ve driven a long way. I’ve cleared the calendar. All of that creates a sense of pressure: You’re here for a reason. Don’t waste this.

Sometimes, that pressure can backfire and feel paralyzing, which is why the spiritual aspect matters so much. In the moments of desperation or stress, I remember I’m not writing alone. I can confess my anxiety, ask for help, take breaks, and return to the work again. The goal is progress, not perfection. A draft. An outline. Something I can keep refining once I return home.

Train Your Brain to Write on Cue

On a more regular basis, I try to create a similar effect on a smaller scale.

Most Friday mornings, I spend a few hours writing at North Wind Manor, the space hosted by The Rabbit Room. It’s a place designed for artists and writers, complete with a fireplace that once belonged to J. R. R. Tolkien. Friends of mine often show up. There’s conversation, laughter, homemade biscuits, and all the tea or coffee we can drink.

It’s a communal, coffee-shop kind of environment, which means I use noise-canceling headphones when it’s time to focus. I also have a playlist I turn on every Friday morning. Over time, my brain has learned the cue. Same place. Same time. Same sounds.

Once again, the building blocks are there. There’s a cost (a half-hour drive). There’s intentionality. There’s ambience. All of it says, Whether you feel like it or not, you’re here to write. So get to it. And most weeks, once I sit down and start, I do.

Habits of Writing

None of this removes all the pain. Writing will always require PIM time. You still have to show up. You still have to do the work.

But willpower alone isn’t enough. Pay attention to the environments where your best thinking happens. Notice the places, sounds, and rhythms that help you focus. Then, as much as you’re able, return to them. Build a little cost into the process. Give your brain the signals it needs.

Over time, those small, intentional choices about where and when you write may be the difference between talking about writing and becoming a writer.

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In the 1970s, Barry Manilow had a hit song called “Tryin’ to Get the Feeling Again,” in which he longs for the emotional intensity he once felt for his lover. He wants again the feeling “that made [him] shiver, made [his] knees start to quiver.” Now, all that is gone and all he’s left with is a sense of yearning.

I wonder sometimes if much of evangelical Christianity could be summed up by the title of that song. Many of us, when we first came to faith, felt electrified by the gospel and captivated by the Spirit. Scripture leaped off the page. Every sermon hit home. Worship moved us to tears. Prayer came easier. We craved togetherness with the community of faith.

But over time, the emotional experience began to feel different. The highs weren’t as high. Our eagerness waned. We kept doing the Christian things that mark out a faithful life: serving others, reading our Bibles, worshiping, and giving. But the initial joy didn’t feel the same. And now, across the landscape are congregations filled with people going through the motions, yearning to feel that spark again. All of us, just “tryin’ to get the feeling again.”

When the Fire Fades

I’m grateful for books that put words to this experience. Kyle Strobel and John Coe’s When God Seems Distant may prove life-changing for believers who wonder what God is doing as spiritual seasons shift and our feelings fluctuate.

For many of us, when those initial excited feelings fade, we wonder if we’ve lost “the love [we] had at first,” as Jesus said to the Ephesian church (Rev. 2:4). If I’m no longer “in love” with the Lord the way I once was, and if I no longer feel the same joy and enthusiasm about spiritual activities, am I backtracking? Am I regressing?

Because we tend to measure God’s activity by our experience, we think he’s only “showing up” when we feel a certain way. We assume he’s near only when we feel passionate.

So what happens when we don’t feel that enthusiasm anymore? We assume one of two things: Either God must be distant or something must be wrong with us. And since we know by faith that God promises to never leave us or forsake us, we’re drawn more to the second explanation. Something’s wrong with me. My faith is malfunctioning. I’m a spiritual fake.

Filling the pews of churches all over the world are Christians who sit for sermons and sing the songs who, in their heart of hearts, are convinced, I’m a spiritual failure because I don’t feel everything I’m supposed to feel.

That assumption makes total sense. It’s also very often wrong.

Season of Consolation

Strobel and Coe dig deep into the Christian tradition to reframe that experience. The early years of the Christian life often include a season many pastors and theologians have called “consolation.” It’s the excitement that marks our initial conversion or awakening to God’s love. It’s a gift. It’s like milk for spiritual infants. God, in his kindness, sweeps into our hearts and grants us an experience of joy and sweetness.

But the season of consolation isn’t permanent. The impermanence isn’t because God is stingy but because he is fatherly. The New Testament assumes we’ll grow. Paul rebukes the Corinthians because they’re still drinking milk when they should be ready for solid food (1 Cor. 3). The Christian life is developmental. Babies aren’t meant to stay babies. Yes, the early season of faith may have been marked by emotional intensity, but that doesn’t mean it was marked by maturity.

We were spiritual newborns, wide-eyed with wonder at the beauty of God and the gospel. That’s a beautiful experience, and we ought to thank God for it. That’s when God flooded our hearts with desire for him. That’s when the beauty of God lifted us out of the mud long enough for us to see the mountains. We should want to experience that kind of wonder as we progress in our faith. (I wrote The Thrill of Orthodoxy to call us press deeper into the reality and wonder of Christian truth so we see and feel the gospel’s dazzling power.)

But here’s the reality. As we draw closer to God, we’ll encounter deeper layers of unbelief, self-reliance, fear, pride, envy, lust, and anger still residing in our hearts. As beautiful as the season of consolation may be, another season follows . . .

Season of the Desert

Strobel and Coe turn to a biblical image to clarify what many of us experience next: the desert. What did Moses tell the children of Israel? “Remember that the LORD your God led you on the entire journey these forty years in the wilderness, so that he might humble you and test you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands” (Deut. 8:2, emphasis added).

God’s deliverance wasn’t the end of the story. The desert was next. The desert was a test, designed to excavate the heart.

The same is true for us. In the early days, the waves of consolation lift us. Later, the waves subside, and we begin to notice what’s beneath the surface. All the junk at the bottom of the lake starts showing up as the waters of consolation are drawn back, and we see what’s really in our hearts. The anger we thought was gone returns. The compulsions we assumed were defeated reappear. The pride we didn’t know we had still puffs up our ego. Suddenly, the spiritual life feels less like floating and more like trudging.

Counterfeit Solutions

When the Christian life doesn’t feel the way it used to, we assume we’ve got to do whatever it takes to generate that feeling again. So we look for methods, techniques, and hacks. We hunt for the spiritual equivalent of a coach at halftime who will pump our will full of passion so we can make it through another week.

Sometimes we do this with worship. Sometimes with camp. Sometimes with conference culture. Sometimes with “new routines” and “fresh strategies” and a constant search for the next spark. Sometimes with spiritual disciplines.

Strobel and Coe worry that we turn to willpower to manufacture the feeling of consolation again. We cultivate a “good Christian” persona. We pray like we imagine a good Christian would pray. We talk or act in pious ways. But in truth, we’re offering God an avatar, not ourselves. And then we wonder why we’re bored. Or why it feels fake. Or why we don’t see the change we’d like.

The better approach is to recognize and acknowledge why it’s difficult to be present in our prayers, why we struggle to believe God’s Word, why we resist this excavation of our hearts. Following the example of the psalmist, we shouldn’t come to God with polished piety. We should start wherever our heart is in the moment. Why do the wicked prosper? Why is my soul downcast? Why has God abandoned me? Why don’t I feel what I should right now? That’s honest prayer. Drawing near to God in truth.

What’s better? Feeling “on fire” for the Lord, or feeling the fire of the Lord that exposes and burns away our sins? To be honest, I like the feeling of being “on fire” way more than I like feeling the fiery conviction of holiness that unveils my remaining sin and self-righteousness. But it’s the latter experience that marks true growth into godliness.

Read the Seasons

One of the gifts of Strobel and Coe’s book is the language it recovers from the Christian tradition. The walk of faith may begin with the feeling of consolation, and there may be seasons when those feelings return. But it’s precisely walking by faith and not by sight (or by feeling!) that takes us into the desert, and sometimes into deeper desolation, when God seems absent, not just distant.

In the end, though, the goal of the journey is communion with God: to know him, to abide in him, to receive him and to offer ourselves back to him, to trust and depend on him as we walk.

When God seems distant, don’t assume he doesn’t care. And don’t assume the experience means something’s wrong with you. This is often God’s way of maturing us. Strobel and Coe say it’s better to ask not “How do I get the feeling back?” but instead “Lord, what does faithfulness look like here?”

Faithfulness in desolation means showing up just as we are, not with an eye to impressing God or anyone else. We acknowledge the feeling of distance. We persevere in obedience even without immediate emotional reward. We no longer try to cover up our inadequacy with “good behavior.” Instead, we expose our hearts and admit what needs healing,

Draw near to God. You draw near. Not the version of yourself you wish were true, but you in all the mess that the desert has uncovered. That’s the walk of faith.

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For more than a decade, I’ve been writing about expressive individualism—the outlook that says the purpose of life is to look inside yourself, discover who you really are, and then express that identity to the world.

Several years ago, Tim Keller told me that in New York City he was seeing the loneliness and loss of meaning produced by this way of life pushing people in a new direction. Many, he said, were beginning to look for identity, belonging, and purpose inside a group or tribe. He wondered whether the next phase of our culture would be a strange hybrid: expressive individualism blended with group-based identity politics.

I think Keller was right, and others are now noticing the shift.

Luke Burgis has suggested that while the 20th century was the century of the self, the 21st may be shaping up to be the century of the crowd. That’s a bit of an overstatement. The last century gave us mass movements that swallowed individuals into mass graves. Still, if you compare the last few decades of the 20th century in the West with the first quarter of the 21st, Burgis is pointing to something real. The emphasis has moved from finding yourself on your own to locating yourself within a group.

Alan Noble describes this shift not as “crowd culture” but as “mob identity.” He writes,

More and more people are shaping their sense of self through powerful group affiliations rather than as independent individuals. This isn’t a rejection of expressive individualism so much as its evolution. The self is still in the driver’s seat in determining where identity will be based, but now it seeks authenticity and affirmation through belonging, conformity, and visible alignment with ideological, political, ethnic, or cultural tribes.

Social media accelerates this process by flattening complexity into “us versus them” and punishing disagreement within the group. The result is often mob-like behavior: swarming, scapegoating, and groupthink.

Why the Turn to Identity Politics?

Why has identity politics risen so quickly and with such intensity?

Mary Eberstadt offers a compelling explanation. In Primal Screams, she argues that questions of identity (“Who am I?” and “Where do I belong?”) press on younger generations because so many have grown up without stable sources of formation. For Eberstadt, the collapse of the family plays a central role in this shift, leaving many searching elsewhere for connection, stability, and meaning.

In that vacuum, ideological tribes step in to offer belonging, purpose, and solidarity. The result often looks less like ordinary political disagreement and more like religious fervor, complete with confessions, heresy-hunting, sacred texts, and forms of indoctrination.

I’m inclined to see the rise of identity politics less as a cause than as a symptom—an attempt to fill a deeper loss of meaning in our culture. When there’s no shared sense of purpose beyond the self, no larger story to give life direction, people naturally gravitate toward finding significance in group belonging. The crowd offers moral clarity, emotional fulfillment, and the reassurance that one’s life is tied to something important.

Freddie deBoer, a writer and media critic, traces some of the harsh energy of cancel culture to this same hunger for meaning:

Ironically, this intense moralism often shows up not among the poor and marginalized but among the educated and economically comfortable. As Musa al-Gharbi has argued, many of today’s fiercest identity-based conflicts function less as movements for justice and more as status competitions among elites who already hold cultural power. When material needs are largely met but deeper questions of meaning, purpose, and belonging go unanswered, moral fervor rushes in to fill the gap. What looks like compassion for the oppressed often masks a deeper struggle among the well-off to justify themselves, distinguish themselves, and be part of a cause that feels morally serious.

What This Means for the Church

So what does all this mean for the church?

In a culture desperate for belonging, churches will feel pressure to become religious expressions of whatever identity their members most strongly cling to. Visit multiple churches in different regions (or even in the same town) and you’ll notice that congregations often reflect differences of history, language, class, and culture. The danger today is that these ordinary distinctions might harden into defining markers, intensifying divisions rather than showcasing how the gospel transcends them. Just as individuals can elevate certain identity markers above their identity in Christ, so can churches.

For Christians, the church must be part of the answer both to expressive individualism and to its mob-identity remix. The church can push back against expressive individualism by re-forming us around a different center—not the self but God.

In a culture that tells us to “look in” and go it alone, the church insists faith is communal. We’re shaped by shared worship, shared confession, and shared hope. And as the family of God, the church strengthens households by giving parents, singles, children, and the elderly a shared identity rooted in grace. When families flourish, the church supports them. And when families fracture or fail, the church steps in, not as a substitute for God’s design but as a place of healing and stability for those left unmoored.

At the same time, the church can resist mob mentality by reminding us that belonging to Christ relativizes every other identity. Many of those identities don’t disappear, but they’re no longer ultimate. We’re defined not by tribal loyalties or ideological badges or ethnic origin but by the blood of Jesus.

Week after week, gathering together teaches us to look up before we look around or look within. Christ is our champion. And the primary enemies we face are not our neighbors but our own sin, the schemes of the Evil One, and the last enemy to be defeated—death. Through preaching, prayer, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, we’re drawn into a family that both celebrates God’s work in us and redirects us when we wander.

This vision of the church also confronts the temptation toward performative justice: the urge to prove our righteousness through outrage, signaling, or alignment with the “right” causes. Freed from the need to justify ourselves, we’re finally able to love our neighbors not for the way they increase our status but as people made in God’s image. This kind of belonging resists shallow affirmation and unthinking conformity. It requires humility, patience, and love across real differences.

With a God-centered outlook, we come to realize we’re formed neither by turning inward nor by dissolving into the mob but by belonging together to Christ, for the glory of God and the good of the world.

If it’s true that this might become the century of the crowd, the world will need a church that’s more than a mirror of a mob.

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One of our family’s guilty pleasures is Survivor. My wife and I discovered the show after we moved back to the United States from Romania. My parents had several seasons on DVD, and we watched them shortly after our first son was born.

I’ve come to think Survivor is still the best game on television—tweaked and altered just enough each season to keep things fresh (and to provide endless fodder for fans who either embrace or loathe the latest experiment that tinkers with the formula).

Anyone who watches Survivor wonders what it would be like to be on Survivor. Could you endure the weather and the elements, the petty bickering, the social maneuvering, the endurance challenges, the constant hunger?

But one experience marks contestants today in a way that wasn’t the case when the show began 25 years ago (50 seasons ago!): spending a month without the smartphone we’ve grown accustomed to having beside us at all times.

Survivor Without Screens

Rachel LaMont, the winner of Survivor 47, recently appeared on The Quigley Dreamcast and described what it was like to get her phone back at the end of the game.

Rachel said that for about a month after the show, she was “pretty phone-averse.” Having tasted a different way of being, her return to normal work was jarring. Living outside without mirrors or screens for a month, then going back to sitting in front of a phone or laptop for nine hours a day, felt intolerable.

And yet she acknowledged the resignation most of us feel. In today’s society, it often seems like “there’s nothing you can do.” Screens are simply part of life.

When Rachel talks about Survivor, she talks most about the experience of time itself—how it felt slower and fuller. You could “really be present.”

We often say time flies and our memories don’t work well, but Rachel thinks that’s because we’ve lost the capacity to really pay attention. We’re multitasking constantly, doing too many things at once, never fully present anywhere.

Since coming home, she acknowledges the good her phone makes possible—all the connections and communication with friends and family—while still despising the dependence it creates.

Rachel’s experience names a tension most of us live with every day.

Catch-22 of Connection

We feel we need our phones. But we don’t always want our phones. We rely on them for work, relationships, and basic activities of life, even as we lament how much they rob us of attention and presence.

Speaking of attention, the problem has grown so dire that Netflix filmmakers now alter scripts to explain what’s happening on-screen, assuming viewers will be scrolling on another device while half watching on their laptop or TV. In this environment, sitting still for a two-hour movie feels like a win. What this level of distraction says about our minds (and what it portends for our ability to focus long enough to read and learn) is alarming.

And yet, there’s reason for hope.

Stirring Dissatisfaction Among Christian Students

In recent years, I’ve noticed something taking shape among Christian college students. This is anecdotal but consistent across campuses I visit. A student at Cedarville University told me that several friends in his group deleted Instagram entirely. Students at Liberty University described a group of guys who limited their social media use to seven minutes a day, and gave one another their screen-time passcodes so they couldn’t get around the restriction.

I know of churches seeking to cultivate a different culture among their staff, urging one another to keep phones out of reach during family hours. Youth groups that collect phones in a box at the door. High school students who meet up in town and agree ahead of time not to pull out their phones during dinner together.

Just as schools that once rushed to give every student an iPad are now reversing course, these young Christians are showing the rest of us something important: We don’t have to be slaves to our technology. We have agency. We have freedom.

It shouldn’t take a stint on Survivor to remind us there’s a real world beyond the omnipresent screen. We can push back. We can silence our devices. We can make them work for us again, instead of living as though we work for them.

It’ll take discipline, courage, and partnership with others. But I’m heartened to see pockets of Christian young people choosing a different future for themselves and their families. A generation relearning how to look up may yet recover what the rest of us forgot how to see.

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The refrain has been repeated often enough over the past 50 years that it now passes for common sense: The big problem we face is that we don’t love ourselves enough. We must learn to respect ourselves, love ourselves, and accept ourselves. You are enough in a world that tells you you’re imperfect or needy in some way.

There’s an element of truth in this counsel, especially for those who assume the religious path requires self-loathing, or the kind of self-hatred that diminishes our sense of worth as people made in God’s image. But then there are these unsettling words from Jesus himself:

Since Jesus also told us to love our neighbors as ourselves (implying that love for self is natural, even good), his requirement here cannot mean an unqualified hatred of one’s own life. Nevertheless, in our context today, we’re too quick to explain away rather than sit with this startling saying.

Augustine and the Fear We’ve Lost

Augustine, in a famous sermon “on the ten strings of the harp,” preached at Chusa around AD 420, dared to read Jesus in a way that resists our instinct to soften the blow. He put forward a striking interpretation of Jesus’s words in the Sermon on the Mount about “[settling] quickly with your adversary” (Matt. 5:25–26). God’s Word is our adversary “because it commands things against the grain which [we] don’t do.”

Augustine turned to Psalm 86:15, noting how popular it was to emphasize that the Lord is “compassionate and gracious, abounding in faithful love.” But the text goes on to say “and truth.” The Lord abounds in truth. If the text had stopped before that line, Augustine told his listeners,

Augustine believed the psalmist’s emphasis on truth rules out “the smugness of misplaced presumption” and instead awakens “the anxiety of sorrow for sin.” A healthy fear of the Lord must remain, even if we aspire to follow God’s commands out of love rather than fear of judgment.

When God Refuses to Be Made in Our Image

But is it really possible to follow the Lord out of love and not fear? Back in Augustine’s time, people were saying, If the Lord really wanted us to obey him out of love and not fear, he wouldn’t have made all these threats against sin. He would have come to be indulgent to everybody and pardon everybody, and he wouldn’t send anyone to hell.

To this presumption, Augustine responded with a majestic vision of God’s holy otherness. And here is where our modern preference for “self-love” over “self-hatred” comes under scrutiny in his sermon:

For Augustine, the issue wasn’t whether we love or hate ourselves but whether we love God and are satisfied in him—and then learn to see ourselves in light of his holiness. It’s the desire for God’s beauty that drives us to conform ourselves to his will.

Then Augustine presses further and makes us modern readers squirm:

Everything about that paragraph jars us. God hates us as we are? And we should agree with him and hate ourselves too? What about the reality of God loving us as sinners?

Hating the Fever, Not the Patient

Augustine quickly clarifies by turning to the metaphor of illness.

Augustine doesn’t think of the self as a static thing, to be either loved or hated wholesale. It’s a dynamic reality, shaped by what we love, so that at every moment, our self is in a particular state: a state of illness, a state of health; a state of sin, a state of righteousness; a state of struggle, a state of rest.

Seen in this light, to “hate yourself when sick” makes sense if you despise the state of sickness and its effects. You want health. You long for your self to be in a different state. And therefore, the compassionate doctor is right to hate your fever and to work relentlessly for your healing.

Courage to Hate Our Fevers

Recovery begins with the desire to be a different version of yourself, to progress into a better state. Healing demands that doctor and patient agree to “persecute” the disease. Health requires hatred—not of the person God has made but of the sinful disease that disfigures that person.

Augustine’s language is severe. The Puritan pastor Thomas Goodwin’s is more tender, though no less serious. Goodwin writes,

To put it another way: God loves the person he created you to be, and he hates what sin has done to you. His compassion toward you is matched by his relentless opposition to the disease that enslaves you.

The question that comes to us from a sermon more than a millennium old is this: Do we hate our fevers enough?

Do we hate the distorting effects of sin?

Do we hate the anxiety-addled, lust-ridden, money-obsessed, power-hungry, self-righteous, selfish, sinful versions of ourselves that keep us in a diseased state and prevent us from becoming who God calls us to be?

Or do we presume on God’s kindness, forgetting that he abounds in faithful love and truth—that his Word stands over us in judgment, even as the Word made flesh has come to heal?

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For more than a year now, I’ve been working on and off on a project conceived of as book+podcast. I’m close enough to the finish line to share the name with you: The Lord Is My Light: A Liturgy for Daily Prayer.

The Lord Is My Light is a structured plan for prayer and Bible reading. It arranges biblical texts to highlight themes and connections in God’s Word and then surrounds them with confessions and prayers drawn from the breadth of Christian history. At its heart is a simple hope: that regular, prayerful meditation on God’s Word, week after week and season after season, might shape us over time into people who walk in the light.

Many of you are familiar with my 30 Days series of prayer books on the Psalms, the life of Jesus, and the letters of Paul. Those volumes follow a three-times-a-day rhythm, guiding readers through particular portions of Scripture with consistency and focus. Readers of that series have often asked for a once-a-day version, and for something that would carry them beyond one section of Scripture into the grand sweep of the whole Bible.

Those requests became the seed of this project. Then the seed grew. (Boy, did it grow!)

‘The Lord Is My Light’: The Book

The Lord Is My Light will cover every day of the year, with additional readings to account for the way Easter shifts the church calendar. In the end, the volume will contain 396 daily liturgies, with a word count that exceeds 475,000. I didn’t fully grasp the size of the task when I began. I do now.

What has sustained me through the long process is the conviction that this kind of reverent attentiveness is needed now more than ever. We live in a distracted age, trained for speed and marked by fragmentation. A daily liturgy slows us down. It trains our loves. It reminds us that we belong to a long line of forefathers and mothers in the faith who have read these same Scriptures and prayed their hearts out to the same Lord.

In partnership with Holman Bibles, we’re now in the final design phase. We’re working carefully toward what we hope will be not only a biblically rich prayer book but also a beautiful and usable one. Something sturdy enough for daily use and inviting enough to return to day after day. I feel both relief and awe to be at this stage.

‘The Lord Is My Light’: The Podcast

For The Lord Is My Light, Holman is also developing a companion podcast. I’m just as excited about the podcast as I am the book, and a little nervous about it too.

The vision is ambitious: a well-produced, daily audio liturgy that walks listeners through the same prayer rhythm, using multiple voices, steady pacing, and ambient music designed to clear space for giving full attention to the Lord, who is our light. The goal of the podcast isn’t commentary or teaching but attentiveness to the Word of the Lord and responsiveness in prayer.

This audio project has required even more collaboration. I’ve begun reaching out to pastors and friends, singers and songwriters, composers and producers. As the recordings begin, the one thing I’m adamant about with everyone who lends their voice is this: We will not record believers just reading the prayers but actually praying them. I want every listener to be truly joining another voice in prayer and, together, ascending to the throne of grace.

As with the book, there is still work ahead. More decisions to be made. More recording and listening required. I covet your prayers for this part of the project as well, that it would serve the church faithfully and help cultivate, day after day, a quiet attentiveness before the living God.

Coming: Advent 2026.

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Christianity Today began a series a little more than a year ago that traces all 70 years of the magazine’s history. Each installment walks through older issues, showing what news and commentary looked like in the 1950s and 1960s. I’ve read every release with interest. It’s like stepping into a time machine, perusing the archives to see what occupied the minds of evangelical pastors and church leaders in a different era.

What stands out most in these archival trips isn’t how foreign the commentary feels, but how familiar. Familiar in two ways. First, in the topics addressed. Second, in the way those challenges were framed as new, unprecedented, and urgent, often with the language of “crisis” applied to the cultural moment.

A Shaking World, Once Again

Here’s an example that captures what appears throughout the coverage, as commentators sought to awaken Christians to greater faithfulness in light of the times. Note the language used to describe the era:

The world is shaking. Catastrophic developments. A revolutionary age. Multiple crises. This was written in 1960.

Sexual Chaos and Technological Fear

The similarities extend to subject matter as well. Consider the sexual revolution. In 1965, editor in chief Carl F. H. Henry called for “moral indignation” in response to the spread and exploitation of sexual immorality:

Note the “never before” language, alongside concern that new technologies were amplifying moral corruption. A few years earlier, in 1958, Christianity Today lamented how easily obscene material could be purchased, even in Washington, DC:

If smut sold at newsstands in 1958 was alarming, one can only imagine how those editors would respond to today’s reality, where pornographic material is easily accessible, even to children, through the privacy of a smartphone.

Discouraged Pastors in a Supposed Golden Age

As the pattern continues, the sense of déjà vu only grows stronger. Church leaders frequently expressed discouragement and helplessness in the face of cultural change and spiritual apathy. Ministers and laypeople bemoaned nominal Christianity:

It’s worth remembering that this was written at the tail end of a historic surge in church attendance that filled pews and launched ministries throughout the 1950s. Even during periods we now romanticize as spiritual high points, faithful pastors felt weary, disillusioned, and unsure how to respond.

Division Has Always Haunted the Church

Nor is evangelical division a recent problem. In 1961, an editorial lamented the fractured state of the movement:

Evangelical infighting didn’t begin with social media. It’s been a common challenge of the movement, just as it has been for local churches going all the way back to the Corinthians.

Faith, Politics, and Public Relevance

Questions about the church’s role in public life also loom large in these archives. In 1960, Christianity Today worried about a Roman Catholic president but discerned a deeper cultural shift:

That concern proved remarkably prescient. It connects to an even older debate from 1956 that still resurfaces today: Is America a “Christian nation”?

On the one hand, editors warned churches against politicizing the gospel, the ever-present tendency to exploit “religion as a weapon of ideological conflict,” when “God is to be worshipped and served for God’s sake” and “righteousness is to be sought for righteousness’ sake.”

On the other hand, they warned against withdrawing from public life altogether. In 1958, they feared churches were failing to engage society robustly, especially amid the Cold War:

Old Anxieties About New Technologies

Even concerns about technology feel strikingly modern. Columnists worried about advertising techniques that relied on subliminal messaging and psychological manipulation . . . in 1959. An analog version of today’s concerns about the “algorithm,” if you will.

They also foresaw how technological dependence could reshape church life, with congregations relying on “special lighting, microphones, and other electronic gadgets” and the gospel itself in danger of being marketed like a product.

Many today wonder if Christian colleges and seminaries will survive the upheavals in the world of academia. Well, in 1958, the headline was “Can the Christian College Survive?” Apparently, back then, colleges faced similar problems:

We Haven’t Lived Through the Worst of It

I could go on. Christians in the 1950s wrestled with the ethics of artificial insemination. Commentators worried about the distractions plaguing the youth—“our entertainment-loving children” who aren’t “interested in the rigorous discipline that makes scientists and men of learning. Rather than in studies, they are majoring in football.”

They lamented the commercialization of Christmas, calling it “an occasion for inexcusable excesses” marked by “blatant commercialism.” Debates over the church’s role in race relations were ever-present, with both positive and negative views of the aims and methods of the civil rights movement.

After reading through these archives, I’m struck by how easily I fall into the trap of believing our moment is uniquely troubled. Things feel more chaotic than ever, we tell ourselves. Therefore, the church must act differently, urgently, even desperately, because this crisis surpasses all others.

But measured against history, this claim doesn’t hold. Many believers came of age during world wars that claimed tens of millions of lives. Pastors shepherded churches through the Great Depression. Earlier generations endured plagues that wiped out entire cities, persecution that sent Christians to prisons or to their deaths, and political upheavals that shattered ancient civilizations. Even now, in many countries, public worship is illegal, Scripture is contraband, and faithfulness carries immediate physical cost.

It’s true, today’s challenges are real. But not unrivaled.

This is why the insistence that we face the greatest crisis ever reveals something less about the moment and more about ourselves. It’s generational narcissism, the temptation to view our struggles as uniquely severe and our responsibilities as uniquely heroic. Every generation is prone to it. And every generation must learn, again, the discipline of faithfulness without panic, courage without exaggeration, and hope grounded not in the urgency of the times but in the steadfastness of God.

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Peter Kreeft has a new book out, a statement nearly always true no matter the month of the year. Nearing his 90th birthday, he remains one of the most prolific Christian writers alive today, rivaling the prodigious output of G. K. Chesterton and others. His latest book focuses on what he calls the two greatest novels ever written: The Lord of the Rings and The Brothers Karamazov.

As a longtime admirer of both works (I read Dostoevsky’s masterpiece again last year, for what I think was the sixth time), I can’t disagree with his selections. So I was curious to see what fresh insight he might draw from these novels, two books that continue to flow with wisdom long after the popularity of most others fades.

Ordinary Hope vs. Deep Hope

One chapter in particular is worth lingering over. Kreeft reflects on the nature of hope, contrasting ordinary hope with what he calls deep hope. Ordinary hope is often rooted in calculation. A bet on good odds. It’s the hope that arises when success is still a possibility, no matter how unlikely.

But deep hope is different. It’s the kind of hope that arises after ordinary hope dies. Hope against hope. The kind that Chesterton said “exists only in earthquake and eclipse.” It’s a confidence not grounded in statistics or circumstances but in the underlying order of things, in the conviction that life will ultimately triumph over death and that it’s good and right to desire and will the good.

Ordinary hope may come and go, depending on the circumstances or what we think the chances may be. But deep hope is heavy, so heavy it can make the heart light.

Star That Pierces the Darkness

To illustrate this kind of hope, Kreeft turns to a memorable scene in The Lord of the Rings. Frodo and Sam are deep in Mordor, drawing closer to the heart of evil. All the last bits of ordinary hope are gone. Frodo is asleep. Sam is keeping watch. And in that moment of utter despair, something catches Sam’s eye.

Kreeft tells us this is the scene Tolkien said he couldn’t read without weeping.

What makes that moment so powerful? It’s the sudden awakening of deep hope. A hope not grounded in self or chance or likelihood but in something metaphysical. A cosmic, objective foundation underlying all things. A good and living God is there. Kreeft puts it this way:

Tim Keller loved this passage too. He appreciated Tolkien’s contrast between Sam’s defiance (when he was still looking at himself) and hope, when his courage came from looking away from himself and up to the heavens. Deep hope is what helped Sam fall into “a deep untroubled sleep.”

When the situation is dire, the world tells us to look into our hearts. To screw up our courage. To banish our fears. But Christian hope is different. It comes from outside ourselves. It’s a joy that pushes fear into its proper place and keeps it from becoming all-consuming.

When the Shadow Is Small and Passing

When Keller was first diagnosed with cancer, he went through a risky surgery. And yet, in a moment fraught with peril and fear, he experienced something remarkably similar to what Tolkien described Sam seeing in Mordor.

He wrote about it in Hope in Times of Fear:

When the darkness descends, we need more than optimism. We need more than defiance. What we need—what Tolkien saw, what Keller clung to, what Kreeft writes about—is deep hope. Hope endures not because the odds are good but because the Storyteller is.

In the end, light and high beauty will outlast the shadow. And that even the smallest glimpse of that light—seen by a hobbit in Mordor, or a pastor in a hospital bed—can make us weep for joy.

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The title of this column is deliberately vague. By dealing with a censorious spirit, I mean both watching out for the temptation to adopt this posture toward others and knowing how to respond to people who adopt this posture toward us.

This sin is insidious because it can hide under the banner of “discernment,” when in reality the sin often being exposed isn’t in the person under attack but in the wicked assumptions of the one doing the attacking. (I sometimes wonder if one of the primary spiritual effects of social media—especially X—has been the cultivation and the exposure of this spirit in ourselves, to the point it begins to feel “normal” or, worse, righteous.)

Jonathan Edwards devotes significant attention to this problem in Charity and Its Fruits, his masterful series of sermons on 1 Corinthians 13. He connects a censorious spirit to Paul’s description of love in verse 5, which reads in the KJV, “[Love] thinketh no evil.” The ESV translates the phrase as “is not . . . resentful,” with a footnote pointing to the underlying Greek: “does not count up wrongdoing.” The CSB and NIV similarly say that love does not keep a “record of wrongs.”

Three Ways a Censorious Spirit Shows Itself

Edwards sees in this phrase not only a tendency to brood over past offenses but a readiness to look for new ones—a disposition eager to spot fresh evils in others. He identifies three manifestations of a censorious spirit. What follows is a lightly updated version of his language.

1. A censorious spirit shows itself in an eagerness to judge the spiritual condition of others. That is, it is quick to pass judgment on those who profess faith, condemning them as hypocrites.

Here we see the trigger-happy person, ready to fire off missiles at any perceived hypocrisy among people whose aspirations are sincere and whose reputation is sound. Often this posture springs from a lack of spiritual grounding or gospel security. Feeling inadequate due to our own sins, and when confronted with the holiness and love we see in others, we may nurture a wicked desire to knock believers down a peg or two.

This is the bitter fruit of an ironic pairing: self-righteousness (the desire to elevate ourselves) joined to insecurity (the fear that we don’t measure up). There’s something deeply twisted about eagerly pointing out hypocrisies in others that we work hard to conceal in ourselves.

2. A censorious spirit shows itself in a tendency to judge the character of others harshly. It overlooks their good qualities, assumes they lack virtues they actually possess, minimizes what is commendable in them, exaggerates their faults, or even accuses them of sins of which they are not guilty.

This temptation feels especially close to the surface in our polarized culture. It’s not hard to see people on both sides of the political aisle engaging in this kind of censoriousness toward the other. More troubling, though, is how often the same spirit appears in the church.

One thing that has long stood out to me is how generous God is in commending the faith and faithfulness of his people. The heroes of Hebrews 11 all bear unmistakable marks of sin and corruption (Samson makes the list?!), and yet the author, under divine inspiration, is eager to shine a light on their faith.

God also promises that nothing good we do will go unseen or unrewarded. He notices not only our secret sins but also our unnoticed obedience. To resist a censorious spirit, we should consciously reverse the tendency Edwards describes and train ourselves to notice what God himself is pleased to see.

3. A censorious spirit shows itself in a tendency to judge the actions of others uncharitably. It reveals itself by placing the worst possible interpretation on people’s actions—not only by assuming wrongdoing without sufficient evidence, but also by assigning bad motives to actions that are plain to see and could reasonably be understood in a good and charitable way.

This one stings because I know I’m guilty of it far too often in my relationships. Negative assumptions about words or actions that I could just as easily interpret neutrally, or even generously, are kryptonite to relational health. It stings for another reason too: I’ve been on the receiving end of this spirit, both personally and professionally.

I fear the health of our churches and institutions has been deeply compromised by the widespread habit of assuming the worst rather than believing the best—to the point that we become unable to recognize real goodness in people we disagree with.

Edwards highlights the loving counterpoint to this spirit: “When they are obliged against their inclination to think ill of another, it will be no pleasure to them to declare it, but they will be backward to speak of it.”

Responding to the Censure of Others

Having examined how a censorious spirit can take root in our own hearts, let’s now consider how to respond when that spirit is directed at us. Edwards counsels us to rest in Christ and to refuse to grant censorious people the satisfaction of seeing their arrows hit the mark. He writes, in effect,

Of course, this is far easier to fake than to truly accomplish. We can recite “sticks and stones” all day long, while inwardly receiving wounds that don’t heal quickly. There may indeed be moments when defending one’s honor or setting the record straight is necessary.

Still, there’s something deeply freeing about allowing the Lord’s perfect knowledge to become our shield—to say, in effect, “The Lord sees” and to leave judgment in his hands. It’s also possible to trust that fair-minded observers (those not driven by resentment or censoriousness) can discern the spirit of the flame-thrower and grenade-launcher and will not give credence to any and every accusation rising from that cauldron of hellfire.

Censoriousness and the Gospel

Only the gospel can heal us of a censorious spirit, because the gospel reveals a God who is not censorious but generous and gracious beyond imagination. His posture toward us is not that of a perpetually disappointed Father but of a delighted Dad who cheers on every stumbling step toward righteousness.

And only the gospel can protect us from the censure of others, because in the end he is our refuge and strength, our shield against lies and attacks, and our sure promise that justice will have the final word.

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There is something about social media that convinces everyone they’re an expert on everything . . . and that everyone else is waiting to hear their opinion. The platforms train us in this direction before we’ve even said a word.

“What’s on your mind?”

“What’s happening?”

Then our algorithm-determined feeds deliver the news, controversies, and outrageous statements most likely to provoke a reaction or keep us scrolling.

None of this is news, of course. But in an era when nearly everyone feels the obligation to weigh in on nearly everything—to register concern about the newest scandal, declare allegiance in the latest political tussle, or signal proper outrage over whatever tragedy or injustice now renders us all responsible to have a well-formed opinion—I’m increasingly grateful for artists and authors, singers and songwriters, who know their lane and stay in it.

Pressure to Comment on Everything

Over the past decade, I’ve watched writers, singers, and performers whose artistic work I admire start offering commentary on every cultural flash point. Some of it leans right. Some of it leans left. In almost every case, even when I happen to agree with the substance of their Twitter rant or Instagram post, I wince.

I want to say to a songwriter whose music has sustained me, or an author whose words have steadied my faith: No one is asking for your thoughts on this year’s election cycle. No one expects you to be an expert on geopolitical issues. No one is better off when you try to prove that you belong to the right political tribe. We come to you for beauty. We look to you to lift us out of the churn of the moment, not to mirror back all the anxieties and polarizations that already exhaust us.

I’m not saying artists should disengage from the world’s pain or retreat into a hermetically sealed aesthetic bubble. My plea is for faithfulness to vocation. Beauty shapes us in ways argument rarely does, and art performs a kind of moral and spiritual formation that cannot be replicated by commentary.

Beauty Pulls Us Up

In the foreword to Winfield Bevins’s book How Beauty Will Save the World: Recovering the Power of the Arts for the Christian Life, we find a striking description of beauty’s formative power:

That description stands in sharp contrast to the mechanics of online discourse. Beauty doesn’t demand an immediate reaction. It invites attention, patience, and contemplation. Beauty works under the surface, forming affections more than marshaling arguments, shaping our aspirations more than sharpening our opinions.

Preserving Space for Beauty-Making

Many of today’s artists feel an enormous pressure to “say something” and weigh in online on every passing controversy. Part of that drive comes from the feeling that our culture is unraveling. We sense that things are coming apart, and we assume that by staking out a position we might help hold the fragments together.

Sometimes this impulse arises from genuine lament. Sometimes from fear. Sometimes from the desire to reassure the people whose approval matters most to us that we’re still on the right side.

But the world is already exhausting enough. And that’s why I’m especially thankful for artists, musicians, and writers who resist the pull to turn their social media accounts into a running commentary and instead devote their energies to making something beautiful. To make something of beauty, we must reserve space for deeper reflection, a depth that generates artifacts graced by goodness and truth.

Artists who fulfill this vocation won’t dash off opinions as public signals of belonging because they’re too busy laboring over songs, stories, and works of art that will endure beyond the current cycle of outrage.

Yes, there may be moments when an artist might lend their voice to a cause especially close to their heart, and that still seems fitting. But today there’s no shortage of causes, no scarcity of commentary, and no end to the expectation that public figures must continually signal where they stand.

Social media has collapsed the distance between artists and audiences, and that proximity can be a gift. But when it enables politics to encroach on every sphere of life, something essential is diminished. The mystique of the artist evaporates. The space reserved for beauty narrows. The hope of preserving a realm devoted simply to making something good and true, apart from constant ideological signaling, begins to slip away.

Tending Little Fires

What we need most from the artistic community is precisely what they’re most equipped to offer: creativity, not commentary. Art opens up space and sharpens our vision, reflecting the cracked iconography of humanity while pointing toward wholeness. We need art that acknowledges the groaning of creation yet holds out the hope of restoration secured not by short-term cultural victories but by Christ.

Paul Kingsnorth, near the end of his provocative book Against the Machine, encourages us toward a vision that stands apart from the never-ending torrent of words online. He calls us to build new things out in the margins. To resist exhausting our souls in the heightened battles of every controversy and instead “to prepare the seedbed for what might, one day long after us, become the basis of a new culture.”

One doesn’t have to agree with all of Kingsnorth’s jeremiad against contemporary culture to see the beauty in his admonition to light “particular little fires—fires fueled by eternal things, the great and unchanging truths—and tend their sparks as best we can.”

That is my plea.

We need artists who will tend those small fires. Who offer light rather than heat. Who know their lane. Who can preserve a hearth that diminishes despair, a fire dedicated to warmth and renewal. In an age addicted to commentary, the refusal to utter the hot take may be one of the most countercultural—and most necessary—acts of creative courage an artist can perform.

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There is no sin as sticky as self-righteousness. And that’s because self-righteousness springs from a sense of our own rightness. With clenched fists, we hold tight to it, because rightness is bound up with our view of ourselves.

I know this from sad experience. To admit I’m wrong—to acknowledge that wrongful actions aren’t canceled out by good intentions, or that in the heat of conflict my wife or my kids may be more often right than I am—would drive a spear into the heart of my self-estimation. So I deflect. I defend. I explain. I justify. I need to prove I’m right to stay upright, elevated over those closest to me. I thrash around, trying to keep myself afloat above the waters of selfishness that would otherwise drown me.

Self-righteousness is the defense we erect so we won’t be knocked off-balance. It’s our attempt to preserve the pristine picture we have of ourselves, to keep our self-image from shattering.

Baggage of Self-Righteousness

One of the most memorable episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond centers on a suitcase sitting on the staircase landing. After returning home from a trip, Ray and Debra each assume the other will eventually haul it upstairs. Days pass. No one moves the suitcase. Both husband and wife begin to seethe, rehearsing all the reasons why it’s only right for the other to carry the load, pleading their case to other family members. Every time they see the suitcase, they grow more entrenched in the rightness of their cause, more determined not to give in.

The best moment comes at the end of the episode, when Ray returns home early from a business trip and apologizes for his stubbornness. Just when it looks like reconciliation has arrived, it becomes clear that Ray’s action is still self-motivated. He came home early as a display of remorse intended to impress his wife with his goodness. With pursed lips, Debra sighs and then announces she’ll move the suitcase: “I’ll be the one who got it.”

In an instant, the dispute flips. It’s unacceptable for Ray that Debra be the reasonable and mature one. “No, no, no!” he cries. “Let the record show that I got it!” After an entire episode devoted to arguing over who won’t move the suitcase, the couple now battles over who will.

On the surface, the episode resonates because it captures the low-stakes absurdity of family conflict. But the deeper reason it shines is that it exposes human nature. Ray and Debra both feel the need to safeguard their elevated view of themselves, to be morally superior to the other. Whether it’s “I’m the better person, so I shouldn’t have to move it” or “I’m the better person, so I’ll be the one to move it,” the conflict is ultimately about preserving each person’s high self-estimation from being punctured.

This passion for keeping our vision of ourselves intact explains so much. It’s why we reflexively defend ourselves when criticized. It’s why people of one political persuasion struggle to acknowledge when the other side makes a good point. It’s why we excuse the failures of leaders we admire while condemning, without qualification, those we oppose. It’s why, on contested matters, we jump to the interpretation that best confirms our priors and reinforces the rightness of our tribe. It’s why so many of us struggle in marriage, or fail to connect with our kids, or fall out with people in church who disagree with us. We do whatever we can to hold the high ground, to steady ourselves on a perch of moral superiority.

Self-righteousness is insidious and pervasive, extending its tentacles, trapping and blinding us. Often, our motivations remain hidden even from ourselves. In Confessions, Augustine observes how God upends human assessments of behavior: “Your witness condemns many deeds that receive human praise,” he writes. “For it often happens that the appearance of an act belies what the agent has in mind.”

Holiness and Grace That Topple Us

The only way out of the trap of self-righteousness is a renewed encounter with both God’s holiness and God’s grace.

God’s holiness, first. Because the blazing purity of divine perfection upends our claims to our own rightness. Self-righteous people may appear “holier than thou,” but that illusion only works when we compare ourselves to other sinners. Held up to the light of God’s holiness, every rag of righteousness is stripped away.

And then God’s grace. Because a heart-level grasp of grace leaves no room for boasting. Grace knocks us Humpty-Dumpties off the wall, shattering our self-image and destroying the self-righteous facade. But grace doesn’t leave us in pieces. It restores and renews us. We no longer need to cling to an image of ourselves as less sinful, more perceptive, or more “right” than others. We’re free to take in the true picture of ourselves in light of the holiness that reveals our need for grace.

An encounter with true holiness and true grace is the first step toward growing in real righteousness. And yet the danger of self-righteous pollution remains ever-present. Remember: The distance between righteousness and self-righteousness is a chasm, but crossing it takes just a step.

Law-Keeping vs. Grace-Giving

Self-righteousness poisons relationships. So does defensiveness and the instinct to excuse ourselves. What keeps relationships alive is the opposite: humility, confession, repentance. When you fail (and you will), you don’t spin or deflect. You tell the truth. You allow the carefully curated image of your “best self” to collapse in front of another person.

And when others fail you, you face a choice. You can play the law-keeper, holding them to a standard you’ve never managed to keep yourself. Or you can be a grace-giver, forgiving freely, the way the Father has forgiven you. One way reinforces your pride. The other topples it . . . and then leaves room for love to grow.

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The older I get, the more I realize just how many people are carrying invisible weight.

Struggles with adolescent children. The pressure of launching sons and daughters into adulthood while hoping and praying they’ll carry with them a love for Jesus and a passion for his kingdom. Marriages entering their second or third decade, strained by changing bodies and shifting priorities. Friendships that go bad, not with dramatic betrayals but with small disappointments that leak trust over time. Mental health challenges that alter personalities, muting a few traits while amplifying others. Church turmoil that shows up in leadership failures, fractured vision, or exhaustion from unresolved conflict.

What sometimes surprises me isn’t the number of people struggling but how many feel alone in their struggle, as if they’re the only ones dealing with a particular burden or disappointment. They’re not. Behind the curated images on social media and the happy families at church, the strains are there—an especially difficult adolescent, a spouse’s sudden loss of spiritual fervor, or a father’s disorientation regarding his future job prospects.

What people need is encouragement. But not the soft version.

Encouragement Is Strengthening More than Soothing

Too often, encouragement gets reduced to comfort. It’s reassurance without resolve, a version of sympathy that never rises above affirmation. It’s the kind of encouragement that says “Everything will be OK” without pressing deeper into what faithfulness looks like when things, most definitely, are not. It may feel warm, even kind, but it’s a little like handing a cup of hot chocolate to someone starving. Warm and tasty, but there’s no nutrition in marshmallows.

Scripture envisions something sturdier. When the New Testament speaks of encouragement, we see a connection to endurance, obedience, and action. Paul urges the Romans to “encourage one another” (1 Thessalonians 5:11), in the context of his call to perseverance and hope. The author of Hebrews exhorts believers to “encourage each other daily . . . so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception” (Heb. 3:13). Encouragement isn’t merely emotional reinforcement but spiritual strengthening.

The word itself points us in that direction. To encourage isn’t just to soothe; it’s to put courage into someone—to strengthen the will, to stiffen the spine, to remind a weary saint why the path is worth walking and how to keep going.

I’ve learned this most clearly when I’m the one in need. When I’m struggling—whether in marriage, parenting, ministry, or faith—I don’t only need friends who understand me. I need friends who help me endure. Friends who can see the landscape, who neither deny the struggle nor dramatize it, and then help me see the path through it. That kind of encouragement asks something of me. It prompts me to be ready for action. Ready to persevere. Ready to pursue goodness and beauty, even when the cost is high and the outcome uncertain.

Think of the coach who sees the score, the clock, and the strength of the opposing team—and still puts the ball back in your hands. No, victory isn’t always guaranteed, but quitting isn’t an option. Courage calls us forward.

No wonder Scripture ties encouragement so closely to courage in the face of fear. Again and again, God’s word to his people isn’t “Relax” but “Be strong and courageous” (Josh. 1:9). Paul tells the Corinthians, “Be alert, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong” (1 Cor. 16:13). Even comfort, in the Christian sense, is meant to fortify. God “encourages us in all our troubles, so that we may be able to encourage those experiencing any trouble” (2 Cor. 1:4, Mounce).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing under immense pressure, reminded us,

Courage to Give and Receive Encouragement

Here’s the paradox: real friendship requires courage long before encouragement ever enters the picture. Friendship requires vulnerability. Initiative. A willingness to step toward someone without knowing whether the gesture will be welcomed or declined. In a world where relationships are often transactional—built on status, usefulness, or shared pursuits—deep friendship is tough.

It takes no courage to maintain a network of acquaintances. It takes no courage to add Facebook friends. It takes no courage to pour out your troubles to a chatbot. But courage is essential if you want to invite someone into the unvarnished reality of your life and to stay present when they invite you into theirs.

Encouragement matters because endurance matters. Life will throw punches. Disappointment will come. The encouraging friend isn’t the one who denies the pain or rushes past lament. The encouraging friend stands ringside and puts courage into you, calling you up and forward.

If you want to encourage someone, don’t minimize the struggle. Name it. Listen. Then remind them of the good they’re pursuing. Point them back to God’s promises. Speak hope that’s anchored, not vague. And, when appropriate, call them to the next faithful step, no matter how small, no matter how costly.

And if you need encouragement, don’t settle for the soothing substitute. Seek out people who love you enough to tell you the truth and believe in you enough to call you forward. Receive courage as a gift, and then, when you’re able, pass it on. Because true encouragement isn’t about feeling better. It’s about summoning the courage that helps us endure.

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Is the way you view your life truly God-centered?

Is the gospel a part of your life? Or does the gospel frame your life?

These are questions we’d do well to wrestle with, and they came to me while reading the new edition of Christopher Wright’s The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative. This second edition responds to critiques of the original volume (now 20 years old), adding new material and extensive footnotes that bring Wright’s proposal into conversation with more recent scholarship.

In the epilogue, Wright summarizes the biblical storyline stretching from creation to new creation. It’s a story grounded in the reality of God and his mission to redeem the world: “He is the originator of the story, the teller of the story, the prime actor in the story, the planner and guide of the story’s plot, the meaning of the story and its ultimate completion. He is its beginning, end, and center.”

Once you grasp the radically God-centered nature of reality (and the Bible’s account of history—past, present, and future), you can’t help but rethink the kinds of questions we instinctively ask about the Christian life. We get demoted. God gets exalted.

Turn Around These Questions

In the last two pages of his book, Wright confronts some of our most common assumptions by turning our questions around.

Below, I’ve reworked several of the piercing questions he poses, in the hope that they might help reorient our thinking toward God and his purposes.

We often ask: Where does God fit into the story of my life?
Better to ask: Where does my little life fit into the great story of God’s mission?
The first question assumes my life story is the baseline into which God must somehow fit. But God’s mission is the frame for our lives, not the other way around.

We often ask: What is God’s purpose for my life?
Better to ask: What purpose does my life have within God’s purpose for all life, wrapped up in his mission for the whole of creation?
The first question assumes we should be looking for a tailor-made purpose designed exclusively for ourselves. The better question places our individual callings within the larger, sweeping purpose God has for the world.

We often ask: How can I apply the Bible to my life?
Better to ask: How can I apply my life to the Bible?
The first question subtly assumes my life is the central story, to which Scripture must somehow apply. But the Bible is the reality—the true Story—to which we’re called to conform ourselves. The goal isn’t merely to apply disjointed bits of the Bible here and there but to inhabit the whole biblical story, embracing both its demands in the present and its hope for the future.

We often ask: How can we make the gospel relevant to the world?
Better to ask: How does God intend to transform the world to fit the shape of the gospel?
The first question assumes the gospel must be adapted to fit the world’s frame. The better question recognizes that gospel proclamation and demonstration are meant to display God’s redeeming work as it unfolds in human history.

We often ask: What activities and priorities make up the mission God expects from his church?
Better to ask: What kind of church does God desire for his mission?
The first question narrows “mission” to a set of tasks or programs. The second recognizes the church as the people of God, chosen and called to extend and embody the mission of God in all its biblical fullness, in both word and deed.

We often ask: What kind of mission does God have for me?
Better to ask: What kind of me does God want for his mission?
The first question shrinks the notion of mission down to an individual’s calling. The better question starts with God’s overarching mission, so that we then assess our lives—our character, gifts, and obedience—in light of his worldwide purposes.

God-Centered Frame

Reframing our questions places us where we belong. The Christian life isn’t less meaningful when God is at the center but more so. We discover our significance not in seeing ourselves at the center of the story but by inhabiting the grand narrative the Scriptures set before us.

When we stop treating God as a supporting character in our personal story and instead see ourselves as participants in his great redemptive drama, our questions begin to change. And when our questions change, so does our orientation. We learn to ask not “How do I fit God into my life?” but “How does my life fit into the story of God’s glory?”

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At the close of every year, I share a list of the books I most enjoyed reading—usually a mix of theology, cultural analysis, biography, and fiction. Here’s hoping a few of this year’s favorites make their way onto your Christmas wish list or spark gift ideas.

Before we get to the list, though, I should mention two books that deserve a spot every year I read them.

• As is my tradition, I began the year with Augustine’s Confessions, this time in Anthony Esolen’s new translation. It didn’t disappoint. There’s a literary flair on display here that rivals Sarah Ruden’s excellent work.
• Later in the year, I reread The Brothers Karamazov through Michael Katz’s recent rendering, having been riveted by his Crime and Punishment translation (my #5 pick from 2024). Katz has become one of my favorite translators, and I’m eager to enjoy his take on Dostoevsky’s Devils in 2026.

With those two touchstones out of the way, here are the 10 books that stood out in 2025.

#1. EVERYTHING IS NEVER ENOUGH
Ecclesiastes’ Surprising Path to Resilient Happiness
by Bobby Jamieson

For the first time since 2019, a general nonfiction book of theology tops my list. Like its biblical counterpart Ecclesiastes, Jamieson’s book is something of an enigma, but the kind that stirs up curiosity and wonder rather than confusion. Jamieson offers us memorable pictures, well-crafted sentences, and thoughtful questions so that we see life on earth as a gift and look to our Creator for redemption and restoration. I happened to read it just before my birthday this year, and it prompted a midlife reflection. God calls you to enjoy your life, and that’s serious business. Thankfully, “the Creator is constantly flinging gifts at you faster than you can catch them,” Jamieson writes. Even when life turns out differently than we hoped, Jamieson counsels us, “Be present to the present’s presents. Present your full self fully to what the present presents you, and you will receive its full helping of enjoyment. Enjoyment depends on the ability—even the discipline—to be fully attentive to the goodness on offer.”

#2. THE WIDE WIDE SEA
The Final, Fatal Adventure of Captain James Cook
by Hampton Sides

Whenever Hampton Sides sets out with sailors toward the edge of the known world, he’s bound to find his way onto my list—as he did back in 2014 when his In the Kingdom of Ice was my #2 pick. The Wide Wide Sea is so astonishing it occasionally feels unbelievable. Sides brings to life Captain Cook’s epic voyage around the world, an odyssey that led Cook into contact with native peoples whose worldviews and customs stood in striking contrast to those of their English visitors (and even the English often debated the right course of action). The collision of these cultures—marked by danger, curiosity, exploitation, desire, and honor—makes for a gripping narrative. Drawing from an abundance of journals and reports, Sides reconstructs each episode with vivid detail, helping us feel both the peril and the promise of every decision made at sea.

#3. NUCLEAR WAR
A Scenario
by Annie Jacobsen

I realize it’s odd for a terrifying book about nuclear war to appear among my favorite reads. But I couldn’t put this book down. Drawing on declassified documents and interviews with high-level officials, Annie Jacobsen reconstructs with journalistic precision what would happen in the first hour of a nuclear exchange: the instant devastation, the collapse of global systems, and the frightening speed at which the world could unravel. What made this book stand out wasn’t only its realism but its effect. It left me shaken, yes, but also profoundly grateful. By facing the fragility of existence head-on, it led me to meditate on dependence and mercy and to remember that every breath, every ordinary day, is a gift upheld by God’s hand.

#4. THE REASON FOR CHURCH
Why the Body of Christ Still Matters in an Age of Anxiety, Division, and Radical Individualism
by Brad Edwards

After a book that reminds us how fragile the world is, it feels fitting to turn to one that reminds us where true stability is found. The Reason for Church is one of the most important books of the year. It offers an incisive, insightful analysis of the acids eroding institutional health today, from the heart of a pastor who loves Jesus and his Bride and wants to see disciples made and formed in Jesus’s likeness. Instead of a mere diagnosis, Edwards offers a hopeful alternative: the church as God’s greenhouse for grace, where weary exiles are restored and remade into the likeness of Christ. Excellent!

#5. TIM KELLER ON THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
The Transforming Power of the Gospel
by Matt Smethurst

Matt Smethurst has done us all a service by digging deep into Tim Keller’s sermons (not just his published work) and summing up key points of his teaching on the gospel, prayer, suffering, friendship, and more. Drawing from decades of material, Smethurst distills the essence of Keller’s theology and pastoral heart into 10 rich chapters. The result is part biography, part theological guide: a “Keller’s Greatest Hits” that captures the grace, humility, and Christ-centered vision that shaped one of the most influential pastors of our generation. This book reinvigorated my commitment to believe the gospel Keller preached and live the way he lived—rooted in grace, radiant with hope.

#6. THE BEATITUDES THROUGH THE AGES
by Rebekah Eklund

After focusing the third season finale of my podcast, Reconstructing Faith, on the Beatitudes, I picked up this remarkable book, which combines historical analysis and contemporary reflection on the sayings that open Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. Reading it felt like listening to a centuries-long choir, each voice distinct yet harmonizing around Jesus’s words. I was moved, challenged, at times frustrated, and often inspired as I traced how believers through the ages have wrestled with and rejoiced in these radical teachings. Above all, I came away refreshed by Christ’s call to align my life with his beautiful, upside-down vision of the world.

#7. THE PASSAGE OF POWER
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Volume 4
by Robert A. Caro

This was the year I finally tackled Robert Caro’s monumental four-volume biography of Lyndon B. Johnson (all 3,552 pages!). Each volume is a masterclass in narrative history, tracing Johnson’s relentless climb to power with vivid detail and moral complexity. But the one that stayed with me most is the most recent (though now more than a decade old), which chronicles his vice presidency and sudden ascent after John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Caro doesn’t merely write biography; he builds a world. His storytelling is unmatched, his research staggering, his prose electric. And like countless other readers, I hope that Caro, now 90, will live to complete the long-awaited fifth and final volume.

#8. MERE CHRISTIAN HERMENEUTICS
Transfiguring What It Means to Read the Bible Theologically
by Kevin J. Vanhoozer

I gravitate toward theologians who do two things: make me love Jesus more and make me hungrier to dive deeper into God’s Word. Kevin Vanhoozer always does both, and his latest book is no exception. It not only sharpened my understanding of Scripture’s interpretation but also deepened my appreciation for the transfiguration and how that event’s beauty and mystery shine light on our Bible reading. This is the kind of book only a lifetime of careful, patient study can produce—the fruit of decades spent wrestling with the text, avoiding dead ends, and illuminating the paths that lead us closer to the Word made flesh.

#9. THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY
by Boethius
&
AFTER STOICISM
Last Words of the Last Roman Philosopher
by Thomas M. Ward I’m not sure how I made it this far in my writing life without ever reading Boethius (AD 480–524), but I’m glad I finally did. The Consolation of Philosophy has endured for a reason—it’s one of those rare works that speaks across the centuries, blending reason and faith, philosophy and poetry, to wrestle honestly with suffering, fate, and divine providence. Reading it alongside Thomas Ward’s insightful companion volume helped me see how Boethius’s reflections still resonate in our modern search for meaning.

#10. A HEART AFLAME FOR GOD
A Reformed Approach to Spiritual Formation
by Matthew C. Bingham

I gleaned a great deal of wisdom from this book. Too often, evangelicals feel the need to borrow spiritual practices from other traditions to make up for what seems like a weakness in our own. I’m certainly eclectic in my approach to spiritual formation, but I remain convinced that God’s Word stands at the center of all genuine growth. That’s where Matthew Bingham’s book shines. He engages other traditions with charity and curiosity, assuming the best of his dialogue partners while gently drawing us back to the riches of the Reformed heritage. (An example from my own study: spontaneous meditation.) In the vast castle of Christian tradition, Bingham reminds us not to rummage in the broom closets when there are rooms overflowing with neglected treasures. 

MUST MENTION

CONNECTING SCRIPTURE NEW TESTAMENT
A Study Bible of Biblical Allusions and Quotations

This is a fantastic resource that belongs on the shelf of every serious student of Scripture. Benjamin Gladd and G. K. Beale have produced a remarkable tool for tracing the Bible’s inner harmony. The volume highlights Old Testament quotations in blue and allusions in green, with concise commentary that unpacks the web of intertextual connections. Few resources so beautifully display the cohesiveness of God’s Word to us.

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For years, this column featured a weekly list called “Trevin’s Seven”—seven links to the most interesting articles I’d come across that week.

In 2021, when I revamped my twice-a-week email newsletter, Trevin’s Seven found a new home there as a regular Friday feature. It’s now available only to subscribers (it’s free to sign up!), but as the year draws to a close, I thought it fitting to bring it back here—just once.

Instead of my usual list of weekly finds, here are seven pieces from the past year that stayed with me—articles that informed, challenged, or delighted me long after I first read them.

1. The Not at All Secret History of Nicaea (Susannah Black Roberts)

This year marks 1,700 years since the Council of Nicaea, and this deeply researched, vividly written essay brings that pivotal moment in church history to life. It clears away centuries of confusion and conspiracy theories to show what really happened in AD 325: a global gathering of bishops standing firm for the apostolic faith against theological novelty and imperial pressure.

In a year that calls us to remember the Nicene Creed we still confess, this piece reminded me how the church’s courage at Nicaea safeguarded the truth that Jesus is “true God from true God.”

2. We Live like Royalty and Don’t Know It (Charles Mann)

This introduction to the “How the System Works” series in The New Atlantis hooked me from the first image: Jefferson’s ink freezing. Charles Mann then widens our frame to the invisible systems that let ordinary Americans live with comforts unimaginable to a president two centuries ago. With clear prose and moral clarity, it pairs gratitude with responsibility: the food, water, energy, and public-health “cathedrals” we inherited must be understood and stewarded for the common good.

The whole series is worth your attention, but this opening essay sets the table beautifully—showing how wonder can lead to wisdom, and wisdom to civic love.

3. Canada Is Killing Itself (Elaina Plott Calabro)

This is a long but worthwhile report from The Atlantic (30–45 minutes to read). Elaina Plott Calabro painstakingly—and with as much fairness as possible—paints a picture of the culture surrounding assisted suicide, gleaning perspectives from participants, “providers,” and opponents. Reading it made me nauseous.

Calabro traces the rapid expansion of euthanasia: at first limited to the sickest patients, who were already at the end of life, now broadened to anyone with serious medical conditions, with proposals to make the practice available to those with mental illness and even to minors. A few weeks after sharing this as part of Trevin’s Seven, I wrote more about this movement.

4. Augustine’s Confessions: A Simplified Reading (John C. Cavadini)

Here’s a masterful overview of Augustine’s Confessions—13 key points (plus a bonus)—by John C. Cavadini. It’s not short, but it’s immensely clear and rewarding. I plan to print it out as a companion for my next journey through Confessions, which, as is my custom, will be the first book I read in January.

5. In the Music Business, 80 Is the New 20 (Ted Gioia)

Not every link I share is as weighty as a long essay on theology or history. Here’s a short Substack I’ve returned to several times—Ted Gioia on how old songs now make up nearly 75 percent of all music streaming. Half the market is “deep catalog,” meaning songs more than five years old.

Gioia takes us from tribute bands to AI “resurrections” of dead artists, showing how the music world is stuck in rewind. It’s a quick, fascinating read (and a little haunting if you love discovering new music).

6. Chuck Colson’s Last Word (John Ehrett)

A fascinating look at Chuck Colson’s personal copy of James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World—a book Colson read and annotated shortly before his death. John Ehrett traces the spirited debate unfolding in Colson’s margins, where Colson pushes back against Hunter’s elite-centered theory of cultural change and defends the power of worldview formation from the ground up.

The article not only reopens a vital conversation about Christian engagement in what some describe as the “negative world” but also lets us see Colson’s mind at work.

7. The Light of ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ (Karl Ove Knausgaard)

This beautiful reflection on The Brothers Karamazov explores how Dostoevsky’s final novel—written after the death of his young son—wrestles with grief, faith, and the mystery of what it means to be human. The author captures the novel’s restless energy and its chorus of unforgettable voices, all circling the same haunting question: What are we living for?

Karl Ove Knausgaard won’t allow his own introduction to replace the novel, though, confident that his interpretation will “dissolve as soon as you open the book and begin to read it anew.” He continues, “This is what makes ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ a great novel. It is never at rest.”

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A longtime reader wrote me recently after listening to one of my recent sermons. It dealt with Jesus’s piercing question to the disabled man at the pool of Bethesda in John 5: “Do you want to be healed?” In reflecting on why Jesus asked this profound question, I made the comment, “Jesus is not just coming for your health. He’s coming for your heart.”

My friend acknowledged a persistent discomfort with that kind of language—the idea of being “owned” by anyone, even God. Yes, the Scriptures teach we’re bought with a price (1 Cor. 6:19–20), but the idea of God possessing us can be taken the wrong way. Perhaps this sense of unease stems from sinful resistance, he thought. Yet it also reflects a fear of losing agency when we come to Christ. If God already made us and if he sustains us, why say he still “wants our hearts”? Doesn’t that sound redundant—or worse, coercive?

It’s a good question. And I suspect others may feel similarly: that when we speak of God coming after us, we picture a seizing force rather than a saving love. What are we to do with this language? Is it helpful or misleading?

Offense of Possessing Love

To start, we must admit that God’s grace can feel threatening.

C. S. Lewis once described himself as “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England,” hunted down by “the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom [Lewis] so earnestly desired not to meet.” Francis Thompson’s poem “The Hound of Heaven” opens with that haunting flight—“I fled Him, down the nights and down the days”—only to end with the realization that the One pursuing him is Love himself.

Victor Hugo captured the same truth in Les Misérables. When Jean Valjean encounters the priest’s mercy, Hugo writes, “He had the indistinct feeling that this priest’s forgiveness was the greatest assault and most tremendous attack he had ever experienced.” Grace comes like a flood bursting through the dam of pride and rearranging the landscape of the human heart. It overwhelms, not because it violates but because it transforms.

And the Scriptures are clear: We do belong wholly to God.

• “The earth and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants, belong to the LORD” (Ps. 24:1, CSB).
• “You are not your own, for you were bought at a price” (1 Cor. 6:19–20, CSB).
• “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession” (1 Pet. 2:9, CSB).

Augustine prayed, “You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” That restlessness is the ache of wanting to belong. We want to be found, to be claimed, to be ransomed. God’s claim on us isn’t that of a tyrant seizing a subject but of a Creator reclaiming what’s rightfully his and healing what sin has disordered.

Of course, when the Spirit takes possession of us, he doesn’t erase our will but renews it. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17). We’re most truly ourselves when we’re most fully his.

Romance of Divine Pursuit

Nothing I’ve said so far should make us picture God as a collector of souls, a divine taskmaster assembling trophies. Scripture gives us a far more intimate picture.

The Lord says through Hosea, “I will take you to be my wife forever. . . . And you will know the LORD” (Hos. 2:19–20, CSB). Christ is the Bridegroom who pursues his Bride, the church, not to enslave her but to unite her to himself in love.

To say “Jesus is coming for your heart” is to echo Scripture’s covenant language:

• “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine” (Song 6:3).
• “I will give them a heart to know me” (Jer. 24:7).
• “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

When a groom pursues his bride, his love doesn’t diminish her—it dignifies her. Love’s exclusivity (“You’re mine”) isn’t about ownership in the crude sense but about mutual devotion and joyful belonging. He yearns for her affection. He wants union with her. We’d consider it strange if a young man in love shrugged off his wife’s dalliances with other lovers. God’s jealous love (Ex. 34:14) isn’t insecurity but holiness. He desires all of us, body and soul, because he has given us all of himself.

The Heart God Comes For

So when I say “Jesus isn’t coming just for your health; he’s coming for your heart,” I mean that God’s goal isn’t to improve us but to indwell us. He wants more than to shower us with material or even spiritual blessings: He himself is to be our blessing. “He gives himself as prize and reward,” Bernard of Clairvaux wrote. “He is the refreshment of the holy soul, the ransom of those in captivity.”

God doesn’t merely demand our obedience; he delights in our affection. God pursues your heart not so he can possess something he lacks but so he can be united with someone he loves. He wants communion, not mere compliance.

And yes, for sin-crusted hearts marked by radical individualism and autonomy, this pursuit can feel like an invasion—but that’s because we’ve grown so accustomed to slavery that freedom feels threatening. The One who says “You are mine” (Isa. 43:1) is the same One who says “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3).

The grace that claims us is the grace that frees us. To belong to him isn’t to lose ourselves but to find ourselves in the One who will never let us go.

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Regular readers of this column are aware that I’m finishing up a year-long liturgy for daily prayer, built on the same pattern and structure as my 30 Days Series. Newcomers to this way of structured prayer sometimes tell me they struggle at first to make the words of other Christians their own—to pray someone else’s words as if they came from the heart. Incorporating written prayers can feel inauthentic or forced, especially for those who’ve grown up in traditions where spontaneity is the sign of sincerity and formulaic or repetitive prayers are minimally used, if at all.

As someone whose prayer life has mixed both the spontaneous and the written, I’ve often made a case for written prayers by (1) pointing to the precedent of praying the Psalms and then (2) likening our prayers using the words of saints from years gone by to the desire of a little boy trying on his father’s shoes. At first, the shoes feel too big and clunky, yet over time, you can feel your heart expanding toward the intensity and clarity found in the prayers of the past.

For more than two decades now, I’ve been collecting prayers from faithful Christians across centuries and continents, and I’ve found that taking the words of our forefathers and mothers in the faith and making them our own is one way I can orient my heart toward asking for—and desiring—what’s best.

Structure and Spontaneity

I recently came across another analogy that advocates for incorporating written prayers into our prayer life. Singer-songwriter Andrew Osenga’s new book, How to Remember: Forgotten Pathways to an Authentic Faith, looks at prayer through the eyes of a musician, and he compares it to the difference between jam bands and players with intention.

“I’ve never liked jam bands,” he writes, “which might sound odd for a guitar player who really, really loves listening to great guitar players. But dudes playing notes just to play notes is not always that fun to listen to. The great players, though, play with intention. There’s a structure to it. A cadence, a kind of logic. Setting, conflict, resolution. A beginning, a middle, an end.”

As he considers the relationship between spontaneity and structure, he recognizes that “being spontaneous is not the only form of being genuine, nor is it always the most honest.” The same is true with prayer. What feels effortless in the moment often rests on long practice and learned form.

We’ve all been there. We know a few things to pray. We say whatever comes to mind, but whatever comes to mind often sounds like what we’ve heard others say, or whatever we feel in the moment. Praying alongside our forefathers and mothers expands our vocabulary of faith, giving us better notes to play when we improvise.

“There is no better teacher for a musician than to learn the music of better musicians,” Andrew writes. And the same goes for prayer. Structured prayers aren’t opposed to our spontaneous prayers—they work in symbiotic relationship. The written prayers heighten our spontaneous prayers, and the spontaneous prayers breathe life into structures that can become rote or routine.

Prayer as Communion, Not Performance

Now, there’s a big caveat to this analogy—one Andrew himself recognizes. Prayer isn’t performance. Not when we really pray. We’re opening ourselves up before our Father.

In The Gospel Way Catechism, Thomas West and I define prayer this way:

The Bible’s vision of prayer isn’t performative; it’s profoundly personal. It’s not just a monologue where we speak our thoughts into silence; it’s a dialogue, a heartfelt conversation with God, an openness to receive and respond to his Word. Prayer is an invitation to encounter the Trinity:

• You present yourself before your Father in all your mess, with all your doubts and frustrations, trusting that the God who knows you still loves you.
• You pray in the name of Jesus, a humble confession that you don’t have the standing to approach God on your own; you rely on the Son’s merit to enter the Father’s throne room.
• You pray with the Holy Spirit as your guide, who brings light and direction to the journey, a skilled translator who perfectly renders your groans and sighs to the Father.

Three aspects of prayer form a harmonious symphony. Praise magnifies God’s glory, confession deepens our intimacy, and petition reinforces our reliance on his wisdom and care. Praise is when the magnitude of God’s beauty and awesomeness overwhelms us. It’s an eruption of the soul’s delight. Confession is when we realize how far we’ve missed the mark and want to be forgiven. Petition is when we share our desires, concerns, and needs with God.

So where do written prayers fit? We’re taught to pray by those who came before us. We follow their patterns, inhabit and grow into their words. As Andrew writes,

Amen. The combination of structure and spontaneity is one of the often missed secrets to learning how to pray. The best prayers are neither riffs nor recitations but rehearsals in love—where form shapes the heart and freedom lifts the song.

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Instead of a column today, I’m pointing you to a podcast (video and audio).

In this two-hour conversation on Room for Nuance with Sean DeMars, recorded at my house back in May, I was able to go deeper than I usually do in interviews. We look back on my early days of blogging, my years in Romania, the birth of The Gospel Project, and the books and convictions that have shaped my ministry. We talk about the joys and challenges of writing, Bible translations, the value of long-form work, and what it means to engage the world with both truth and grace.

If you’ve ever wondered about the stories beneath the articles or the thinking that goes into the resources I help create, this interview gives us space to slow down and explore those themes with a level of honesty and nuance that shorter formats rarely allow.

Special thanks to Sean DeMars for the invitation and for creating an excellent podcast that dives deep with his guests!

Surveying the evangelical landscape these days, I sense that much of the frustration expressed across warring camps has less to do with methods or principles and more to do with temperament and calling. In many of today’s debates about posture and practice, we’ve witnessed a collapse of context—a blurring of vocations—as if every faithful Christian leader should approach the moment in the same way.

You can see this confusion in recent videos urging believers toward a brand of cultural engagement and evangelism that resembles Charlie Kirk’s political punditry more than Tim Keller’s pastoral legacy, as if both men were called to the same vocation. They weren’t.

Tim Keller ministered for decades as a pastor of local churches (first in rural Virginia, then in New York City). His call as an evangelist and pastor was not to win policy debates or mobilize political movements. The work of a shepherd is fundamentally different from that of an activist who operates through campus events, social media clips, and podcasts.

That’s not a criticism of political pundits. We need politicians and pastors, pundits and preachers. What we don’t need is the false expectation that pastors should be more like pundits.

Confusion of Callings

This confusion surfaced again in a recent dustup over where to draw the line between the pulpit and punditry. Some argue that since people already consume podcasts and political commentary all week long, the pastor should step into that space and become the primary voice shaping their worldview. That sounds plausible, but this move ends up doing two contradictory things at once: it diminishes and distorts the pastor’s calling.

It diminishes the pastor’s role by pulling him down into the same cacophony of voices that fill the rest of the week. In striving to “cut through the noise,” he risks becoming part of it. The distinctive voice of Scripture—the one thing the pastor is primarily called to echo—gets drowned out.

It also distorts the role by expecting pastors to speak authoritatively on an ever-expanding list of issues that touch the political realm. One quality I’ve always appreciated in John Piper is his restraint in this area. He rarely speaks to specific economic policies or the intricacies of political life, not because he lacks convictions but because he knows the limits of his expertise. When asked why he doesn’t weigh in on every news headline, Piper once explained,

That humble posture is part of what makes Ask Pastor John so powerful. Piper knows where to steward his voice and where not to. Albert Mohler has a different calling. He hosts a popular podcast that offers a daily briefing of the news with his commentary. Mohler isn’t a pastor. He’s a Christian leader weighing in on areas of concern for conservative Christians in the public square.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has benefited over the years from both Mohler’s and Piper’s ministries. And I appreciate that they’re not the same. They have different callings. That’s a beautiful thing.

Limits of the Pulpit

We shouldn’t expect pastors to be omnicompetent. Such expectations inflate the office beyond its biblical design and, ironically, flatten the contributions of lay Christians called to engage in law, politics, economics, and other fields.

History warns us here: Mainline denominations stumbled when their leaders began issuing statements on every policy issue under the sun. They went way beyond merely articulating biblical principles and began prescribing political solutions well outside their expertise.

We need faithful Christians in politics and, yes, even in punditry. But we shouldn’t expect pastors to fill that role. Erick Erickson, a popular pundit on the right (and a Presbyterian) made this point recently:

Kevin DeYoung has sounded the same note:

If this sounds like an excuse for silence or a retreat from bold witness, then listen to J. Gresham Machen, the stalwart defender of orthodoxy whose century-old Christianity and Liberalism still convicts and clarifies:

We need pundits who view the world’s problems through the lens of Scripture and the wisdom of the church. But we mustn’t confuse that calling with the pastor’s.

Distinct and Beautiful Calling

In my 2011 book Counterfeit Gospels, I warned against both a quietist gospel that would deny or diminish the social implications of the good news and an activist gospel that would subtly push the cross from the center of the church’s proclamation and put a cause (even a good one) in its place, as the unifying force for the church.

For several years, most of the criticism I received came from readers who wanted to see the church mobilized for social causes more associated with the political left. That’s not surprising, since research has shown progressive Christians are much more likely than conservative Christians to bring political punditry into the pulpit. But today, gospel centrality is under fire from those who want churches mobilized for the political right. When it comes to the resurgence of the Religious Right, the gospel-centered types are in the way. So be it. I’m going to keep banging the same drum—being gospel-centered in season and out of season.

Thank God for pastors. Thank God for pundits. Thank God for pastors who are not pundits. 

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Growing up, a number of movies got replayed constantly in our house. The Wizard of Oz was one of them. The Sound of Music was another. My parents loved Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, and the one we considered best was the story of the Von Trapp family.

In celebration of the film’s 60th anniversary, a new 4K version has been released—stunning in its beauty. The detail is so clear you can see a single hair out of place on Christopher Plummer or Julie Andrews. The color, the sound, the quality . . . If not for the difference in movie-making style, you’d hardly believe the film is six decades old.

But beyond the restoration’s beauty, what stands out on rewatching The Sound of Music today is not only its visual clarity but its moral clarity.

Constellation of Loves

You probably know the plot, based on a true story. Maria, a lively novice, is sent from an Austrian convent to become governess to seven children, whose widowed father, Captain Von Trapp, must decide between love, family, and country as the shadow of Nazism falls across Europe. If you can get past a few expressive-individualist and moralistic tendencies in “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” or “Something Good,” you’ll find the rest of the film suffused with Christianity—set starkly against the darkness of Nazi fascism.

The movie moves quickly from romance to drama—from cathedral wedding bells to the giant swastika flag draped across the town square. As a child, I was riveted by the final act: the family’s last performance, the tense award ceremony, and the suspenseful escape from the Nazis seeking to draft the captain into the Third Reich.

What makes the film powerful isn’t just its music or cinematography. It’s love—better yet, a constellation of loves, rightly ordered. Love is what matters most when resisting the corruption of compromise.

Called to the Love of God

First, there’s love of God. The church stands at the center of the film’s moral vision. Maria wrestles with vocation: Is she called to a life in the convent as a nun? Or to the honorable estate of marriage? She desires to do what is right, and she’s willing to sacrifice personal happiness to fulfill God’s purpose. That’s why her gradual realization—that God’s will and her desires may not be opposed but aligned—feels so deeply satisfying.

Maria’s story reflects a Christian understanding of calling that resonates with anyone who has sought God’s will amid uncertainty. Because she puts God first, her eventual love for Captain Von Trapp becomes not a distraction from holiness but a channel of it.

Love of Family Restored

Then comes love of family, especially in the face of grief. I choked up at the scene where Captain Von Trapp hears the children singing for the first time in ages. In his grief over the loss of his wife, he has hidden behind a gruff, hardened exterior. He walks into the room, and as the music melts his heart, he joins in the song. When the final notes fade, a hush falls—the children hesitate, watching him—until he shifts his posture ever so slightly, a long-lost signal of openness. Then they rush into his arms. It’s the return of their father, the collapse of the walls he built with his pain.

This, too, is love: love for the family member in suffering. Forbearance. Patience. Unconditional kindness, even when unreciprocated—a willingness to keep the candle of love burning, hoping for the return of the person you knew before the shadows of sadness settled in.

Disordered Loves and Corrupted Loyalties

The Sound of Music also depicts disordered loves. The baroness, the captain’s initial love interest, longs for luxury and comfort. Her desire for ease outweighs her love for the family, so she plans to send the children away to boarding school. Her disordered desire for status and a life of freedom has stifled the properly ordered love she could have shown the captain and his family.

Then there’s Uncle Max, who cheerfully admits his overriding desire for wealth. Because his love of money outweighs his love of country, he simply goes with the flow, doing whatever it takes to survive in dark times. We see him hesitate when asked to show support for Hitler—his heart isn’t with the Third Reich, but neither is it with the Austrian patriots. His disordered love drives him to adapt and prosper under any regime, content to make money and enjoy the comforts of polite society.

Of course, it’s the disordered love of nation—the idolizing of one’s ethnicity—that drives Hitler and his supporters, and that darkness becomes the backdrop for the film’s drama. This is embodied most clearly in Rolf, the young man courting Liesl, the eldest Von Trapp child. The innocent romance that begins with charm and song is soon suffocated by Rolf’s warped desire to be seen as strong and loyal, a young man willing to do anything for the Nazi cause.

Against them stands Captain Von Trapp—a portrait of rightly ordered love for family and country. His tearing of the Nazi flag is one of cinema’s great moral gestures: a man refusing to let his nation’s slide into evil eclipse his conscience. His courage throws Uncle Max’s compromises into sharper relief and becomes the moral center of the story.

Endurance of Goodness

It’s the ending, though, that stays with me. Where does the family hide before escaping over the Alps to Switzerland? The convent. The one place of transcendence, where the sounds and smells of worship remain even as evil encroaches.

The nuns are no fools. Like the Hebrew midwives defying Pharaoh, they resist quietly but effectively. They stall the soldiers and sabotage their cars, whatever it takes to protect the innocent. Once the soldiers are in the sanctuary, the dark tones and creepy shadows illustrate the sense of violation. The holy space has been invaded.

And where does the family hide? Among the gravestones in the convent cemetery. They are literally shielded by the tombs of the saints who have gone before—witnesses whose faithfulness long preceded the Third Reich and whose memory will outlast it.

Clear Moral Vision

The Sound of Music remains beloved not merely for its songs or scenery but for the Christian moral vision at its core. Yes, it’s a romance, filled with classics like “My Favorite Things” and “Do-Re-Mi,” but those moments of joy exist within a moral universe ordered by love: love of God, of family, of church, of country.

Because we’ve watched these loves ordered rightly, the film’s final act—the family’s resistance to tyranny—rings true. They can defy the darkness because their loves have been refined by light.

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A few years ago, an author asked me to endorse a new book that would provide an introduction to Christianity. There was much to commend in the work—the clarity of the gospel, the moral vision of Christianity, and some practical guidance for beginning the life of faith. But one thing initially kept me from lending my name to the project. Something not minor but fundamental was missing: Christian care and compassion for the poor.

The Christian’s commitment to the less fortunate—or better said, the Christian’s own recognition of an inner poverty of spirit that leads to generosity toward those in financial or physical distress—was an essential part of catechesis in the early church. But it was missing here. Thankfully, the book hadn’t gone to print, and the writer acknowledged the oversight and eagerly made a few welcome additions to the text.

Forgotten Command

It’s easy to forget the poor. We can get so focused on our activities of wealth-building, consumption, and self-protection that we lose sight of those in need. Sure, a natural disaster may jolt us awake to brothers and sisters who’ve lost everything, but we often overlook the ongoing struggle of people who live paycheck to paycheck, just hoping to make ends meet, or those who fall behind, whether because of societal injustice or family breakdown or the consequences of personal choices.

When the apostle Paul makes his appeal for justification by faith in his letter to the Galatians, he demonstrates his credentials by recounting the other apostles’ blessing and instruction, and then he says this: “They asked only that we would remember the poor, which I had made every effort to do” (Gal. 2:10).

There’s a world of meaning in that one brief instruction. First, the needy must have been top of mind for the apostles—otherwise, they wouldn’t have come up. Second, the exhortation assumes it might be easy to overlook the poor, to forget the church’s commitment to their well-being. Hence the command: Don’t let the poor drift from your sight or your heart. To forget the poor isn’t merely neglect but disobedience. Third, Paul is quick to point to his record of compassion as a mark of apostolic faithfulness. Church leaders should be known for their ministries of mercy.

All this lines up with something Martin Luther said: “After the preaching of the gospel, the office and charge of a true and faithful pastor is to be mindful of the poor.”

The Church That Forgets the Poor Forgets Her Lord

Reading through the sermons of the church fathers—especially John Chrysostom—you can’t help but notice their persistent and passionate concern for the poor. Warnings against wealth’s deceitfulness, denunciations of greed, rebukes for those unmoved by others’ needs—they appear in nearly every sermon.

At times, I’ve wondered if the fathers went too far with this emphasis. But then, when I return to the New Testament, I’m confronted by similar words from Jesus and the apostles. It’s Jesus who warns that every heart will have a master—God or Mammon—but never both. It’s James who excoriates the rich who oppress the poor and exposes the one who virtue-signals with words of compassion but withholds the deeds of mercy. It’s Paul who warns that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.

Perhaps the question we should ask isn’t why the church fathers thundered so frequently about justice and compassion for the poor but why we’re so quiet.

In Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor,” and then, “Woe to you who are rich.” We cannot conveniently spiritualize this saying, as if it were merely about attitude, and nothing to do with one’s circumstances—for Jesus himself teaches that our hearts follow our treasure.

To be poor in spirit means you’ve experienced God’s severe mercy. He has stripped away your illusions of self-sufficiency. You’ve come to the end of yourself. When the living water of Jesus floods the desert of your soul, you become both emptied of self and filled with God. Out of that fullness flows generosity—a love that seeks out the broken, the hungry, the destitute. The gospel that humbles you before God compels you to kneel beside your neighbor.

This is why Christianity has been good news for the poor, the downtrodden, and the marginalized—because kingdom people are poor in spirit. And to the degree our wealth keeps us from poverty in spirit, we distort the gospel we seek to proclaim. Let’s be clear: A church indifferent to the poor doesn’t resemble New Testament Christianity.

Image of the Poor Christ

Charles Spurgeon reminded his congregation that the Christian who is poor bears Jesus’s likeness:

Christians may differ in their views of how best to care for the poor—what role the government should play, what the local church can do, how we balance relief and development—but amid those debates, we must resist two temptations.

The first is to excuse inaction or indifference by appealing to piety or politics, setting aside the clear call to serve. The second is to think of the poor as other—as if they belong to a separate class of humanity. They don’t. They’re image-bearers of God. We all share the same origin and end: We bring nothing into this world, and we take nothing out. What’s more, if the poor are Christians, they’re our brothers and sisters. We are family. As members of God’s family, we enjoy the privilege of fellowship and the responsibility of generosity.

Remember the Poor

The way we treat the poor reveals what we truly believe about Jesus. From the beginning of Scripture to the end, God identifies himself with the lowly and draws near to the weak. For our sake and for our salvation, Christ became poor. To love him, then, is to love those he loves: the hungry, the suffering, the overlooked.

The church’s history of holiness displays this truth. And every renewal of the church begins here: in bending low, in listening to the cry of those in need, and in joining God’s work of mercy that lifts the lowly and fills the hungry with good things. To forget the poor is to forget our Lord.

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Several weeks ago, I spent time with a remarkable book on mental illness from a Christian perspective: A Quiet Mind to Suffer With: Mental Illness, Trauma, and the Death of Christ by John Andrew Bryant. This book offers a series of profound theological reflections discovered through the valley of mental unrest—truths that apply to everyone, including those not afflicted in the same way.

It’s all too easy to see our lives unfolding before the Lord and focus primarily on our callings, our roles, our gifts, our service. And there’s good reason for that. Scripture urges us to make the most of the time, for the days are evil; to place our talents and treasures in the Lord’s hands and trust him to bring fruit; to live faithfully as sons and daughters, parents and grandparents, coworkers and friends. In describing our Christian life, it’s natural to tell our stories in ways that highlight what we’ve done or can do—who we are in the world. But sooner or later, every story we tell must yield to the intrusion of serious suffering.

In times of testing—whether physical, mental, or spiritual—when we enter the wilderness, much of what we take for granted can be stripped away. In moments when intense suffering has struck my own life, I’ve felt robbed of words, so stunned I couldn’t pray or even form the thoughts I’d bring before the Lord. Sometimes the fog is so thick and the shadows so deep, we feel bereft of consolation. Then the fear rises: the fear of failure, the fear of falling away from God’s love, the fear of losing our sense of calling or any hope of making a meaningful contribution to his kingdom.

The apostle Paul wrote of affliction that left him “completely overwhelmed, beyond his strength,” to the point he “despaired of life itself.” Yet he saw beyond the “sentence of death” to God’s purpose in suffering: “That we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead” (2 Cor. 1:8–9).

What Suffering Cannot Steal

Suffering steals: joy and peace, hope and balance, strength and stability, competence and companionship.

But there’s one thing suffering cannot steal—and that’s where Bryant draws our attention:

Bryant found solace in the steady rhythms of prayer and praise—the small liturgies that tether us to Christ’s promise when all else gives way. This sense of dependence was most acute for Bryant in seasons of mental anguish, but his insight reaches far beyond his particular malady. Sooner or later, pain will visit each of us, and when it does, it will surely steal away many of the ways we think of ourselves as Christians.

There may come a day when physical ailments keep me from traveling and speaking. When the best days of leadership lie behind me. When grief reshapes the landscape of my heart and diminishes my relationships. When my mind’s ability to write fades, and words no longer come. When memory dims, and I no longer recognize the faces of those I love.

And yet, even if every light were to fade, one truth would still glow: I’m a child dependent on my Savior. Bryant writes,

Grip That Holds You

The life of faith is the life of dependence—childlike trust. Suffering may ransack your world, but as a child of God, you cannot be kidnapped. When everything falls and fails, your dependence remains.

Even when your lips can no longer whisper, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner,” the voice of your Savior will say, “You are mine.”

Every-moment dependence on God is the deepest reality of your life. It never shrinks; your awareness of it only grows. And in the end, faith is expressed not by the strength of your grasp on God but by quietly nestling into his everlasting arms.

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I hear talk amid the resurgence of a Religious Right about the need for more partisan loyalty. What was once an argument about voting “the lesser of two evils” has, for some, morphed into claiming the lesser evil is in fact good—that dogged political commitment to one side, adopting all its principles and policies, signals faithfulness, proves we “know what time it is,” and ensures Christian conservatives will win the culture war. The bigger danger today isn’t that the church gets tied to a political party but that the church might miss the opportunity to mobilize and then exercise power for the common good.

What stands in the way of this rejuvenated political movement? Most often, it’s not the people on the opposite side of the aisle but those who are like-minded in values yet hesitant to jump on board and accept the entire package of principles and policies put forth by the party. On social media, the harshest epithets are usually reserved for those who won’t get with the program.

On Bundling and the Party Package

None of this is new. When it comes to political principles and policies, party identification almost always bundles beliefs. That’s what a party is: a collection of people with disparate convictions, united temporarily around shared aims, living—often uneasily—with others who may be worlds apart on some issues but form an alliance to push forward a common program.

Over time, party identification draws people toward agreement with the majority’s positions. Research shows that if you align with Republicans because you’re pro-life, you’re more likely to oppose strict gun control measures. If you join Democrats because of their stance on health care, you’re more likely to support the array of LGBT+ causes. This is how party influence works: Parties form their participants. The package is powerful (which is why, for example, we’ve seen the gradual disappearance of virtually any pro-life presence among elected Democrats at the national level).

Beliefs, principles, and policy prescriptions come as a package. You may initially agree with only one or two positions in the bundle, but over time, you’re likely to align more of your views with the party because that’s how social dynamics work. Have you noticed how easy it is, once you’ve heard someone share one political opinion, to predict where they stand on a host of seemingly unrelated issues? That’s the party line at work. If one opinion predicts the rest, the bundle is doing your thinking.

Shifting Party Lines

But this internal logic of party fidelity makes sense only in a particular time and place. It doesn’t translate easily to other parts of the world or previous generations.

Take environmental concerns. In today’s U.S. context, worry about climate change codes “left.” Conservative Christians concerned about global warming may get accused of being subversively “progressive” on everything else. That’s how the package works: If one of your convictions seems to line up with the other side, you must be secretly sympathetic to a different party’s platform.

But widen the frame and you’ll see how peculiar this tunnel vision is. In many parts of the world, concern over climate conditions isn’t bound to one political side. And in earlier eras, the lines were flipped. The conservationist movement was spurred by Teddy Roosevelt; Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency; Ronald Reagan fought for a cap-and-trade emissions policy—all Republican presidents.

Another example: I remember my surprise at meeting Bible-believing Christians in Romania who opposed capital punishment. I assumed they must be politically liberal. But their view didn’t come from a partisan package. It arose from living under past dictatorships where the government exercised the death penalty unjustly. Their opposition sounded more like small-government conservatism—skeptical of concentrated power—than a progressive “soft on crime” stance.

Parties are always shifting. Free-trade enthusiasts a decade ago now cheer tariffs and express warmth toward unions. It’s jarring to watch clips of senators who once demanded strict immigration enforcement now opposing meaningful restrictions altogether. The lines move constantly.

Russian Literature and Authentic Belief

Gary Saul Morson, in a recent Touchstone essay—“Beyond Belief: Literary Reflections on Thoughtless Conformity”—reflects on this tendency through decades of studying Russian literature. He recalls an older professor who waited to see how younger colleagues voted in a faculty meeting before raising his hand. When Morson spoke with him later, he realized the man’s “reasons were an afterthought, a mere rationalization. What he really seemed to believe was that he should profess whatever was prescribed opinion. Having ascertained that opinion, he seemed to accept it on its merits.”

That’s the psychology of bundling: We join the tribe first; the arguments arrive later. Counterevidence rarely changes such minds because evidence wasn’t the reason the position was adopted in the first place.

Tolstoy and the Party Spirit

Morson shows how Tolstoy offers a vivid illustration of this dynamic. In Anna Karenina, Stiva Oblonsky doesn’t arrive at his opinions through reflection or conviction; he simply adopts whatever ideas are fashionable among his peers. Tolstoy writes that Stiva “had not chosen his political opinions or his views” any more than he had chosen “the shapes of his hat and coat.” Opinions, like clothing, were a matter of style. So he read the liberal paper of the day and “firmly held those views . . . which were held by the majority,” changing them only when they “seemed to change of themselves within him.”

For Tolstoy, this is the essence of thoughtlessness—conviction without contemplation. Stiva imagines himself principled, but his beliefs shift automatically with the cultural tide. His friend Levin, by contrast, is always reconsidering, revising, and wrestling with the truth. His views often put him at odds with every faction, but that independence is precisely the mark of genuine reflection.

Morson also draws on Czesław Miłosz, who acknowledged the Communist Party’s pull on writers. What really matters, Miłosz explained, is “the intellectual’s feeling of belonging.” His defining characteristic is “his fear of thinking for himself.” Over time, he “can no longer differentiate his true self from the self he simulates,” speaking only in party slogans.

Breaking the Bundle

“Breaking free from the chorus requires courage,” Morson concludes. “Unless one understands how this pressure to conform works, one will not grasp why, in political life, counterevidence fails to persuade people, or why even those who know better can’t bring themselves to defy consensus.”

It pays to bundle. It’s painful to resist. But it’s principled to refuse.

Andrew Fuller, one of the forefathers in the Baptist tradition, warned about bundling:

As Christians, one way we stand out in the world is by recognizing when such bundling is taking place—and by holding our party affiliation loosely, ready to buck consensus when something conflicts with natural law, the moral vision of Scripture, or common-sense legislation for the good of our neighbors.

Let’s be realistic: You’ll feel lonely at times. You won’t fit in neatly. You may become a target for fellow party members who suspect you’re not “committed” enough to whatever ideology is currently in vogue. But the reward is that you remain settled even as party boundaries shift. You grow in courage and lessen your fear of man. Most of all, you stay centered on the gospel, keeping the main thing the main thing, no matter how the party lines may fall.

In a world where these political dynamics are ever-present, the one place where we can stand firm is the unshakable foundation of God’s revelation—truths etched into creation and declared in his Word. Don’t twist conviction into conformity or trade your conscience for acceptance.

You don’t need to dig in—just stand. Carefully consider. Think. Reason. Let the wisdom of Scripture—not the shifting winds of party or platform—set your course. When partisan lines get redrawn, when loyalty tests arise, think for yourself. You may vote with a party, but you belong to a kingdom. So stand, clear-eyed and steady, bearing witness to the truth that challenges every party and every platform.

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“How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been; how gloriously different are the saints.” That line from C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity echoes in my mind whenever I look at church history and see the breathtaking diversity of God’s people.

Next to my prayer bench at home sits a canvas with portraits of 33 men and women from across the centuries whose witness and writings have shaped me. What unites them is their devotion to Christ; what distinguishes them is the many ways that devotion took form.

There’s the unbending Athanasius, who stood against the world, three rows above the sometimes-wavering Thomas Cranmer, who stewarded the English Reformation before dying at the stake. There’s Francis of Assisi, delighting in the world God made, and the monk Bede, renouncing it for the quiet of the cloister. There’s the young Perpetua, facing the beasts in the amphitheater with courage, and the elderly Annie Armstrong, whose passion for mission churches was manifested through sheer persistence and a flurry of letters.

Glorious Variety of Holiness

Look long enough at the heroes of church history—the great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us—and you find astonishing variety. Deacons and pastors, artists and musicians, monks and missionaries, the young and the old, rulers and servants, theologians and peasants. So many ways to take up the cross. So many ways to display the life of the Spirit. The common thread is our common Christ.

The more I reflect on the varied expressions of sanctity through the ages, the more grateful I am for the same diversity on display in the church today. We don’t have to look back to find this variety; we can just look around. In every culture and on every continent, the Spirit fills people of different temperaments, gifts, and passions, shaping them into Christ’s image in ways both familiar and surprising.

Temptation Toward Sameness

Yet too often we give the side-eye to believers whose callings don’t look like ours. Many of today’s fiercest arguments are less about doctrine than temperament—less about theology than calling. There’s something in us that prefers sameness, that feels safer when holiness wears just one outfit. We exalt a certain kind of Christian as the model and quietly judge anyone who doesn’t fit the mold.

This temptation isn’t new. It shows up again and again in church history, as followers of some great reformer turn a channel of blessing into a cage for judging others. G. K. Chesterton once observed how wise the church was to honor Francis of Assisi without becoming wholly Franciscan. Each movement—the desert fathers, the Puritans, the revivalists—has brought something precious to the church, yet none has exhausted the riches of the Spirit. We need them all. We need each other. The beauty of holiness is revealed not in uniformity but in harmony.

Six Paths of Faithful Witness

That’s one reason I was drawn to a recent book that deserves more attention: Joyful Outsiders by Patrick Miller and Keith Simon. The authors describe six distinct temperaments or approaches to the Christian life, each with its own orientation toward culture, each with guiding strengths and potential pitfalls. Their framework helps us appreciate the different ways the Spirit shapes Christlike character in his people.

The Trainer

The Trainer loves the spiritual disciplines and longs to see God’s people formed into a holy counterculture that reflects Christ’s beauty. Trainers see that every human heart, prone to evil, can be reshaped by grace through prayer, fasting, and Scripture. They believe the church changes the world not by imitation but by transformation, by embodying holiness, justice, and generosity. They practice saying no to lesser things so they can say yes to God, cultivating endurance and trust through daily obedience. Yet sometimes this discipline can sour into pride, and zeal for holiness can harden into legalism, creating distance from those they long to help.

The Advisor

The Advisor understands that influence often flows through institutions and seeks to bring wisdom and integrity into those spaces. He or she knows that proximity to power, when stewarded faithfully, can be used for the common good. Advisors work quietly but strategically, guiding leaders toward justice and mercy through character and excellence. Their strength is discernment in morally gray terrain, knowing that even partial goodness is better than evil. Yet sometimes their closeness to power carries danger: the temptation to mistake access for faithfulness, to keep one’s place at the table rather than speak truth to it.

The Artist

The Artist perceives light where others see only darkness and reveals glimpses of the kingdom through beauty. People with this temperament understand that God wired the human soul to hunger for what’s lovely and that true beauty can heal what evil has marred. Artists are known for culture care more than culture war, using creativity to awaken longing and confront despair. They live between joy and sorrow, empathizing with the world’s pain while imagining new possibilities through hope-filled vision. Yet sometimes their sensitivity can isolate them; misunderstood or discouraged, they may drift toward despair or cynicism, forgetting the Beauty that first called them to create.

The Ambassador

The Ambassador delights in sharing good news—building bridges, making friends, and pointing people to Jesus one conversation at a time. These evangelists believe every heart longs for God and that only the gospel can fill that void. Their posture is relational and invitational, focused less on winning arguments and more on winning people. Ambassadors watch their conduct so their lives adorn the message they proclaim. Yet sometimes their zeal for conversions can lead them to treat people like projects or to sandpaper the offensive parts of the gospel, forgetting that true evangelism leads not merely to decisions but to deeper discipleship.

The Protester

The Protester burns with a holy fire for justice, sensing God’s grief over oppression and his call to resist it. This kind of activist believes the moral arc of the universe bends toward God’s righteousness and that believers are called to join in bending it. Protesters challenge evil, rallying others through both word and deed. Rooted in biblical ethics and the nonviolent witness of Christ, they display courageous hope, convinced that truth spoken in love still changes hearts. Yet sometimes protest can become performance. When outrage eclipses humility, the cause overshadows the kingdom, and righteous anger corrodes into self-righteous fury.

The Builder

The Builder loves to make things that last—institutions, organizations, or communities that embody the common good. Builders resist our culture’s individualism by forming places where virtue and belonging take root. They labor toward Jesus’s dream rather than the American dream, crafting structures that serve others and reflect God’s order and beauty. But sometimes a builder’s drive for results can turn into control. When efficiency trumps grace and the ends justify the means, what began as kingdom work can devolve into personal empire.

Symphony of Grace

We need all these types, all these temperaments. The church at its best will bless Trainers and Artists, Protesters and Builders, Ambassadors and Advisors because each one reflects a facet of Christ’s character and contributes something indispensable to the body. The church at its worst will self-segregate into a single posture and then launch grenades at their brothers and sisters in other camps.

The world may celebrate sameness, but the Spirit delights in holy difference. Jesus doesn’t make clones; he redeems personalities. In his hands, our varied temperaments aren’t erased but restored, renewed, and refitted for his purposes. Together we become a symphony of grace, harmonizing distinct callings into a single song of glory. And when the song is finished, the world will marvel not at our sameness but at the Savior whose glory will be displayed through the multifaceted brilliance of holiness in his people.

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“I don’t see any change taking place.”

“What’s the point of all this praying?”

“I don’t seem to be getting much out of my meditation on God’s Word.”

“These people at church don’t appreciate the way I’m serving, so I wonder if I should just hang it up and be done with this ministry.”

Walk long enough with believers who are seeking the Lord through prayer, Bible reading, and service in the church, and you’ll hear comments like this. Words of weariness. Fragments of discouragement. Maybe you’re there right now—demoralized by division in your church, disillusioned by unanswered prayers, disinclined to open God’s Word when carving out time already feels impossible.

What will keep you praying in circumstances like this? What will keep you going to God’s Word? What will keep you in the church?

Faith in the Future Reward

The common response is to focus on how these practices are good for us, or good for others, whether we recognize their goodness and effectiveness or not. But I believe there’s a missing element that can boost our motivation. It’s faith. More specifically, it’s faith in the reward that God promises on the other side of our enduring a personal cost.

It’s trusting God for the reward—believing that even when it’s delayed, even when its effects remain hidden, he is still at work. What will keep you dedicated to showing sacrificial love in a broken world, what will keep you in the game playing your heart out, doing the hard work of pursuing holiness, loving the unlovable, and serving when it doesn’t come easily is faith in God’s future promise.

Kyle Worley’s new book Formed for Fellowship offers a great example of how keeping the goal and reward of Christian formation at the forefront of your heart and mind is essential for motivating you in the work when it’s tough. He writes,

I love this illustration. Here’s why: The promised reward reshapes the work behind you and fuels the work still before you. As Kyle reminds us, no matter how hard Christian formation may seem, or ineffective, or discouraging, “there is a treasure chest just beneath our feet.” He continues, “We might not always see it in the present moment, but the goal of Christian formation is greater joy with God as we become more aligned with his character, his purposes, and his will.”

Formed by Faith

That’s why I say it’s faith that matters here. It’s believing in what you cannot see, clinging to what God has promised though it remains unseen. It’s trusting that the God who gave us these means of grace intends to lead us deeper into the joy of knowing him and following his will. In this sense, Christian formation is impossible apart from Christian faith. It’s faith that leads us toward formation to begin with, and it’s faith that keeps us on the path.

“Why embark on the journey of Christian formation?” Kyle asks. Why devote time to prayer? Why spend time reading and studying and meditating on Scripture? Why serve your local church in ways that go unnoticed or that require time and energy you don’t feel you have to give? “So that you might be formed into the kind of person who enjoys God here and now, reflects God in the life of the world, and is eager to experience the blessings of forever fellowship with God in the life to come.”

These practices are intended to form us in the Christian faith, and that’s why the only way they form us is by faith—heeding God’s Word, trusting his promise, anticipating his reward. Even when we can’t see. Even when it costs us. Even when everything in us wants to quit and settle for less. We press on, in faith, by faith, and for faith. There’s treasure beneath our feet.

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A few weeks ago, my sister sent me an audio file with someone giving a short sermon before the Lord’s Supper. After a minute or two of listening, I realized the preacher was me! I didn’t recognize my own voice. The light Southern accent, the style of delivery—both felt foreign. The recording was more than 20 years old, and yet it was me.

Often, when I tell people I was born and raised in middle Tennessee, they comment on my lack of a strong Southern accent. My explanation has always been that five years of cross-cultural mission work in Romania softened my drawl into a more indistinct American accent. But the old audio file proves otherwise. That sermon came long after I was fluent in Romanian, and yet I still sounded Southern. Later, I served as an associate pastor in rural Tennessee, and I can hear the accent in nearly all recordings from that period.

I’ve learned over time that my speech patterns bend toward the people I’m with. Around my grandmother, I’ll say, “I reckon.” In the United Kingdom, without me trying, my accent morphs into some weird amalgamation of American and British. On our first visit, my oldest son told me at one point, “Dad, you’re talking funny.” It got on his nerves. I wasn’t mimicking exactly, but my speech shifted. And it happened subconsciously.

Why Our Speech Shifts

This phenomenon—sometimes called “linguistic accommodation”—has been studied for decades. Social scientists note that our brains are wired for mirroring. Just as people subconsciously cross their arms when the person across from them does, or pick up on someone’s energy level in conversation, we also unconsciously match accents, vocabulary, or cadence.

Part of this is social. We adapt to build rapport, to signal belonging, to smooth social interaction. Politicians are infamous for doing this—slipping into accents that match their audience. Done poorly, it feels forced or fake. Done subconsciously, it can strengthen connection.

Part of it is musical. Accents carry rhythms. There are variations in pauses, lilts, and intonations. Our brains tune into those patterns. That’s why musicians often pick up foreign languages more easily: They’re attuned to shifts in pitch and timing. Neurological studies even show that our “mirror neurons” light up when we hear someone else speak, priming our brains to imitate.

So, in conversation, we don’t just exchange words; we share music. And often, without meaning to, we start humming the same tune.

Distinctive Speech in the New Testament

That subconscious pull to sound like the people around us is not only physical but spiritual. That’s why the New Testament repeatedly urges Christians to resist the world’s speech patterns and cultivate a distinctive way of talking.

• “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person” (Col. 4:6).
• “But now, put away all the following: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth” (3:8).
• “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse” (Rom. 12:14).
• “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger” (James 1:19).

Jesus himself warned, “The mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart” (Matt. 12:34). Speech reveals identity. Remember Peter, in the high priest’s courtyard, when someone said to him, “You really are one of them, since even your accent gives you away” (26:73). Later, the early disciples in Acts were recognized as having been with Jesus not only by their boldness but by their words (Acts 4:13). Our speech tells a story about our background and where we belong.

In other words, following Christ means sounding different. Holy speech stands out. In a culture of sarcasm, cruelty, amd rage, Christian voices should be distinctive. It should be evident that we’ve been with Jesus.

Keep Your Christian Accent

I notice my accent shift when I’m with Southerners, Brits, or Romanians. You may do the same thing subconsciously. And here we see a picture of spiritual temptation: It’s one thing to soften your vowels or pick up a local idiom; it’s another to unconsciously adopt the corrosive, worldly speech around you.

Part of our distinctiveness comes not only from what we say but from what we refuse to say: The soldier surrounded by constant profanity who holds back from cursing. The office worker who doesn’t join others in gossiping about a colleague. The neighbor who resists the easy cynicism that fuels so much small talk. The church member who declines to share the biting joke that would get a laugh but cut someone down. The activist who’s careful to never slander or bear false witness on social media, no matter how it might further their agenda.

These silences are themselves a kind of speech. They mark us out as different. They make people wonder why we’re holding back, why our words are restrained when everyone else is unfiltered. Paul’s admonition is clear: “No foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need” (Eph. 4:29).

At the same time, the Christian accent isn’t merely about abstaining. It’s about adding—words of blessing when others curse, words of encouragement when others tear down, words of peace in the middle of conflict. Our conversations should taste different, seasoned with the salt of grace.

If we’re not careful, our “accent” as Christians will be drowned out by the noise of the world. We’ll mirror the bitterness, coarseness, profanity, and mockery that saturates our politics, our entertainment, our online discourse. But when our words reflect Christ’s heart in what we say and don’t say, people can’t help but notice: “You’re not from here, are you?” And that’s when we can say, “No . . . Let me tell you about a different kingdom.

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I can’t remember where I first came across the recommendation to read an old Puritan writer, Edmund Calamy, on the nature of Christian meditation, but I’m glad I put his work on my Kindle and devoted time to it.

The Art of Divine Meditation, published in 1680, contains rich insights for Christians seeking to grow in the ability and desire to fulfill Psalm 1’s example of the righteous meditating on God’s Word day and night—as well as the Lord’s command in Joshua 1:8: “This book of instruction must not depart from your mouth; you are to meditate on it day and night so that you may carefully observe everything written in it. For then you will prosper and succeed in whatever you do.”

What Is ‘Spontaneous’ Meditation?

One aspect of meditation I’d never considered is the spontaneous kind—“throughout the day” opportunities to turn our attention to God and his Word, not by withdrawing into solitude or engaging in lengthy concentration but by seeing even the busyness of life as an avenue for contemplating divine things. Calamy calls this “occasional” or “sudden” meditation. I’ve adapted his words into contemporary English:

Psalm 8:3–4 provides a biblical precedent: “When I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place, what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man that you look after him?”

As with writers before and after him, Calamy reminds us that all creation is a picture of God, a reflection of his glory. God has given us two books: Scripture and creation. The Word and the world. Even if Scripture is God’s special revelation that reveals redemption’s mystery, the world remains a source of “excellent things concerning heaven.” In God’s creativity, we see his power, goodness, mercy, and wisdom (Rom. 1:20). Creation, rightly received, should move us to awe, love, and worship of the Creator.

Learn from Creation and History

Calamy points to biblical examples of seeing creation as a stepladder to setting our hearts on things above: the author of Proverbs observing the ant (Prov. 6:6); a prophet mentioning storks, turtledoves, swallows, and cranes (Jer. 8); and Jesus pointing anxious disciples to the birds of the air and lilies of the field (Matt. 6). Water from a well becomes an occasion for Jesus to speak of living water (John 4). Loaves become the basis for his discourse on the bread of life (John 6).

For the spiritually minded, this practice is easier than formal, extended meditation. Every creature of God teaches us something good. Even the smallest—a spider—provides lessons. Scripture compares the hope of the wicked to a spider’s web: fragile, painstakingly spun, but easily destroyed. If God can use even a spider, a toad, or a viper to point us to truth, then surely every part of creation is a book from which we may learn. To miss those lessons is to be a poor student in a world filled with 10,000 teachers.

History, too, is full of examples: saints who marveled at nature as a testimony to God’s providence, or a minister in Elizabethan England who, on his deathbed, felt the sun’s rays and spoke of the “Sun of Righteousness” and the glory that awaited him. Music, architecture, and even people-watching can stir thoughts of eternity. The world is full of ladders to God if only we open our eyes.

Spontaneous Meditation Throughout the Day

The point Calamy makes is that this kind of meditation can be done anytime, anywhere. Even if you’re a busy worker without an hour for deliberate reflection, you can still lift your heart to heaven while you work. Whatever your task, you can turn it into a reminder of spiritual things, because every part of creation can serve a holy purpose. No one can truly say they lack time for this.

Calamy concludes by walking through an ordinary day, showing how a believer can turn common experiences into meditations on divine things. I’ve adapted and abbreviated his descriptions here:

• Rising in the morning: As easily as I rise from bed, so will it be when God raises his people from the grave at the great resurrection.
• Seeing the sunrise: Just as the sun brightens the sky, so one day Christ, the “Sun of Righteousness,” will appear with his angels, and all his saints will shine like countless suns in the firmament.
• Heading out into the world: I’m never alone—God, my Judge, is with me, and the Evil One seeks to make me stumble. I seek to walk in the light of the Lord.
• Encountering people: Seeing the lost, I remember my past and thank God for his grace to me. Meeting fellow believers, I pray to grow in holiness and aspire to godliness. Observing wisdom, beauty, or learning, I remind myself that all excellency flows from God, the fountain of all wisdom and beauty.
• In the shop or workplace: As I weigh goods, I recall that God will weigh me and my deeds in his perfect scales: “A false balance is an abomination to the LORD” (Prov. 11:1).
• Walking in the fields: Grass and flowers remind me that all flesh is like grass—lovely but fading. When evildoers prosper, I recall, “Fret not yourself because of evildoers. . . . They will soon wither like the grass” (Ps. 37).
• Traveling: As ships face dangers at sea, so my soul sails this world’s waters, full of perils. Just as merchants insure their vessels, I must seek assurance for my soul through faith in Christ, anticipating the safe harbor of heaven.
• Under the night sky: The stars are but the outer courts of God’s dwelling. If the outbuildings are this glorious, how much greater must be the palace where Christ reigns and intercedes for me.
• Lying down at night: Another day is finished, another account to render. One night will be my last, after which comes only the great day of resurrection. 

Eyes in Two Directions

This kind of spontaneous meditation is possible for any believer who studies the Word and observes the world. It requires both: eyes open to Scripture and then eyes open to creation, drawing connections and seizing opportunities to lift the heart to God.

Psalm 143:5 says, “I remember the days of old; I meditate on all you have done; I reflect on the work of your hands.” Calamy asks, “Will not this heavenlize you, and spiritualize you?” If you’re looking to incorporate meditation into your life as a formative practice, spontaneous meditation—looking at everything as an opportunity to point our hearts to the Lord throughout the day—would be a good place to start.

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Nothing is a quicker turnoff to the secular skeptic—or the “spiritual but not religious” seeker—than pride and arrogance dripping from the lips of someone claiming to share the gospel. You can smell it on certain Christians. When bluster, overconfidence, and superiority show up, it’s no wonder people are repelled rather than drawn in.

The problem isn’t that pride is always off-putting—history is filled with charismatic leaders marked by pride and arrogance who still amassed followers. The problem is that it makes no sense for a messenger of the gospel to come across that way. The gospel is humbling news. So when it sounds from the lips of someone who looks down on everyone else, it becomes an oxymoron. The manner undercuts the message.

That said, the answer to this kind of pride isn’t to wallow in uncertainty or to become mealymouthed and milquetoast—always hedging, wringing our hands, and apologizing for Christianity instead of offering an apologetic for it. And even if, in some circles, pride and arrogance still reign supreme, I worry that in many others—perhaps in most churches today—it’s the loss of confidence in the life-changing news of the gospel that marks us most.

We’re hesitant to share the gospel because we suffer not from a superiority complex but from a lingering feeling of inferiority. We may still believe the gospel is true, but we quietly wonder if it’s better than what the world offers.

World Desperate for Good News

What’s wild is how clearly the world’s imperfections and flaws are on display in our generation. Everywhere we look, sin’s effects appear: injustice and insecurity, wars and rumors of wars, scandal and impropriety in politics, the collapse of standards and the absence of character in public office, the “strange persistence of guilt,” the spread of the culture of death, polarization and isolation fueling a loneliness epidemic, and an underlying unhappiness and loss of meaning.

A world without God is a world that no longer knows itself. It’s a world without purpose, where meaning must be manufactured rather than received, where our confusion about human nature leads to hopelessness, anxiety, and despair.

If the gospel itself isn’t reason enough for cheerful confidence in evangelism, the darkness of the world should be. We have forgotten who we are. In this environment, Christians are called to be the great reminders.

Christians who share the gospel today shouldn’t imagine themselves trapped in a pit of defeater beliefs, scrambling to dig their way up to level ground just to make a case. No. It’s the world that’s in the pit. The believer stands on solid ground, secure on the rock, and calls out with confidence, “Come up higher. There is light, there is air, there is life up here.”

“But,” some might say, “if you think you have the answer, you must think yourself superior!” No. Because we point away from ourselves. Like John the Baptist, we point to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Like Moses in the wilderness, we point to the bronze serpent on the pole. Like the women at the cross, we look at the hands, the feet, the side of the Messiah—where “sorrow and love flow mingled down.”

Exuberance of Evangelism

Cheerful confidence has no patience for the idea that the best expression of authenticity is for pastors and evangelists to constantly parade their discomfort with controversial doctrines of the faith, as if credibility comes by wishing Christian teaching were different. That strategy backfires. Where’s the attraction in saying, “Join me, and you can be just as unsettled and uncomfortable with Christianity as I am”?

No, the evangelism we need today is daring, subversive, robust, and joy-filled. Think of C. S. Lewis, with cheerful confidence showing how Christianity illuminates every corner of life. Or G. K. Chesterton, throwing people off balance with wit and paradox, delighting them into wonder.

We’ve inherited a faith overflowing with wisdom. We have at our fingertips the inspired Scriptures, we’ve been given treasures of theology and spirituality, we can marvel at the beauty of art and architecture shaped by Christian thought, and we can glean wisdom from our forefathers and mothers. To step into Christianity is to enter a vibrant world of meaning, shimmering with light and joy. Unless we bask in that beauty—until we delight in the fullness of our faith—we’ll be left stumbling when asked to explain the gospel to those who sincerely want to understand why the news is so good.

Contagious Confidence

What the world needs now is energetic, cheerful, confident Christians—men and women who know what they believe and why, who are enthusiastic about the faith because they’re convinced it’s the only cure for the disease of sin and death, who believe Jesus is real, the Spirit is active, and the church is unstoppable.

That’s why, whenever I encounter someone engaged in apologetics or making a case for Christianity, I pay attention not only to their method or their arguments but to what lies beneath. Is this person happy? Is there a volcano of joy rumbling under the mountain of argumentation? Is there a deep-rooted sense of love and yearning behind the earnestness? Do I sense faith, hope, and love at the core?

Too often, we assume the world will always reject the Christian story, that “defeater beliefs” will always prevail, that persuasion is impossible in our time. That assumption either drives us upward into pride, arrogance, and dismissiveness or drags us downward into fear, timidity, and defeat.

What I pray for is a new generation of believers marked by neither pride nor fear but by cheerful confidence. Young believers convinced that Christianity isn’t only true but good and beautiful. Young believers persuaded that the world needs the gospel, and that the gospel remains the power of God for the salvation of the world. Believers who, no matter their personality or proclivities, radiate the joy of faith, hope, and love in such a way that their confidence becomes contagious.

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In reading through the Early Church Fathers recently, I was intrigued by Justin Martyr’s First Apology, which contains one of the most detailed descriptions we have of a church service in the post-apostolic era. Written between AD 153 and 155, it’s worth your time, if only to glimpse how ancient Christians structured their worship of God and their celebration of the gospel.

At the start of chapter 67, Justin emphasizes how Christians were intentional about continually reminding each other of the truths of the gospel. That alone is worth considering as a primary gift we offer each other—to see ourselves as part of a ministry of reminding one another, again and again, of God’s grace and the way of life that flows from Christ’s teaching. Justin also mentions how wealthier Christians provided for those in need. And then there’s the line that leaped off the page at me: “We are always together.”

Other translations render the Greek as “We are constantly together with one another” or simply “We always keep together.” Now, the Greek could be expansive, implying a spiritual bond of unity, which is why some translations go that route, rendering it as “We are united” or “We remain always in fellowship with one another.”

But since this same verb in the later patristic era would describe monks living together in community—literally sharing daily rhythms—I’m inclined to think Justin’s line includes the idea of getting together regularly, outside of formal worship meetings. Yes, there’s a spiritual unity; that insight follows from the mention of wealthier churchgoers helping those in need. But in the fuller context, the implication of physical togetherness feels unavoidable. “We’re always getting together!”

Programmatic Church Life

The early Christians sought one another out all week, not just on Sundays. That got me wondering whether it can be said of Christians today that we’re always together, especially when regular church service schedules have declined among evangelicals in recent years.

It wasn’t long ago that expectations for churchgoing were stringent. Older Baptists speak with a tinge of wistfulness about attending Sunday school, then Sunday morning worship, then Training Union before evening worship, and maybe a youth hangout afterward. Add Tuesday evening visitation, Wednesday night activities (prayer meetings or student ministry), Saturday morning men’s breakfasts, after-church potlucks, or women’s conferences, and the calendar filled fast.

The church was fostering multiple avenues for gathering, worship, and fellowship. The more plugged in you were, the more your life lined up with Justin’s description of the early church: “We are always together.”

Of course, there were downsides to that era. The programmatic model sometimes led to burnout for the volunteers who staffed so many events. It created the impression that “serious” Christians were present every time the doors were open, while others were less faithful. Participation could be equated with discipleship. Some worried that the number of programs interfered with Christian activity out in the world, reducing evangelism because the salt never left the saltshaker. Pastors and preachers, responsible for three different sermons a week, often felt stretched thin in preparation, sometimes at the expense of pastoral care. And as programs multiplied without sunset options, excellence slipped, and many events ran half-heartedly until someone finally asked, “Why are we doing this?”

It’s no surprise, then, that a movement arose to simplify—to do fewer things but to do them with excellence. We traded a crowded calendar that sometimes kept us from the world but kept us with each other for a streamlined calendar that gives us margin for mission but often leaves us isolated.

Together Without the Program

I’m not calling for a return to the overly programmatic era, as if that would bring us closer to the early church. Surely Justin’s line about always being together doesn’t refer to a strict schedule of meetings. But that older church culture did foster something we risk losing: the constant closeness through which reminding one another of the truth happened naturally. That kind of ongoing fellowship created a culture—often a distinctive counterculture—that was formative in itself, more powerful than merely dipping into a weekly worship service.

So what would it look like in our day to live out the early church practice of “being together” constantly? Especially in a time of simplified church rhythms that avoid program overload? Maybe it’s a group of men doing lunch once a week, whoever can make it. Or young moms gathering for coffee while their kids play. I’ve seen groups make good use of text messages and group video chats to “check in” regularly, offering prayer and encouragement. Maybe it’s a handful of students lingering over ice cream on a weekday afternoon, laughing, swapping stories, building bonds that carry gospel reminders. Or neighbors opening their screened-in porch once a week for whoever from the church wants to drop by.

I’d love to see more churches fostering this kind of fellowship—natural gathering points and informal touchpoints that help us “remind each other of these things.” I’d love to hear from church leaders who’ve seen fellowship taking place in simple, natural, even unplanned ways.

None of this can be mandated from on high. It’s not a program. But with a bit of intentionality, believers can seek each other out in ways that echo the post-apostolic picture Justin Martyr paints of the early church—of Christians about whom it could truly be said, “We are always together.”

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Every year, I try to read a couple of books on media ecology. Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman have been companions over the years, in part because their observations remain astute, even decades after they wrote. I had to read Antón Barba-Kay’s A Web of Our Own Making twice, not only because of the depth of its insights but also because of the concentration it demanded.

Books like these are worth pondering because they help us see the why behind so much of what’s happening in our world—how media affects politics and polarization, cultural trends, and more. It’s good to pick up books by Jonathan Haidt or Jean Twenge and look at the immediate downstream effects of the iPhone, for example, but at times it’s better to swim upstream so we can set our current moment in a broader historical context.

That’s what Andrey Mir, a Russian immigrant to Canada and prolific writer in media ecology, seeks to do in his book Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial Age and Logan’s Alphabet Effect. Mir makes a provocative case: Since the turn of the millennium, civilization has undergone a seismic shift, similar to the epochal changes when literacy displaced orality.

Oral vs. Literate Cultures

To understand Mir’s point—and why it matters for our digital moment—we need to travel back in time. Before the invention of the alphabet and the proliferation of writing on tablets and scrolls, historical truth and moral expectations were handed down orally, oriented around tribal identity and the leader’s charisma. It’s not just that the era of orality was about speaking and listening rather than reading and writing. The real difference, Mir says, is between “immersion” and “detachment.”

In oral cultures, sensory input intermingled in an immersive space, habituating the mind to process varied sense data simultaneously. Once the alphabet took root and literacy spread, a space opened up for quiet pondering, interior reflection, and abstract philosophy. Truth no longer depended solely on tribal tradition but became attached to a permanent medium. Literacy singled out vision from the other senses and established linear patterns of thought, reinforced by the flow of text on the page. For the first time, truth could be debated, preserved, or rejected across generations. A canon of truth emerged—abstract and absolute.

The spread of digital communication technologies, Mir argues, has brought an end to the era dominated by literacy. We now face a new hybrid he calls “digital orality”:

Digital communication, by embedding text in a hodgepodge of graphics and sounds, resurrects the “oral” world of immersion and impulse. But it doesn’t eliminate literacy altogether. Instead, it leaves us with a hybrid—a world of oral exchange made permanent online.

Truth by Likes

In this environment, the notion of truth undergoes a shift. Impulsive and relational like oral cultures, yet still recordable and shareable like print, truth becomes personal again: “my truth” or “your truth.” Credibility depends less on accuracy and more on the speaker’s identity. As Mir puts it, “Two plus two equals four is doubted if said by Hitler.”

Mir also notes something I’ve observed among young people: the assumption that a large number of subscribers or followers signals legitimacy. Authority is conferred by attention, not by alignment with any enduring standard of truth:

World Oriented Toward ‘Tribal Truth’

This gets to something I’ve discussed with Samuel James, author of Digital Liturgies, and Collin Hansen: The internet and the rise of social media, though they provide opportunities for the spread of Christian teaching, are shaped in ways that undermine the very concept of objective, agreed-on truth. Those who aspire to prioritize “truth over tribe” are operating in a world where the tribe itself determines truth.

Online, even as strange theories rise and fall, tribal orthodoxy exerts more pressure than ever. Whether political tribes on the right or left, or niche online subcultures, inconvenient truths can be waved away. We’ve seen this in recent presidential administrations—from the Trump administration’s “alternative facts” to the herdlike reluctance among insiders to acknowledge President Biden’s decline. Malcolm Gladwell, for instance, recently admitted he felt cowed into silence on a panel about trans athletes in women’s sports, in part because of the tribal peer pressure at work. Mir explains why:

In the literate age, Aristotle said, “Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.” In the age of digital orality, Mir suggests, the order has flipped: “Truth is dear to me, but dearer still is Plato.” And perhaps we’re all more conditioned now to say something similar: “Truth is dear to me, but dearer still is my allegiance to this leader, my party, my denomination, my online tribe.”

Media Ecology and the Singularity

Mir is most persuasive when he shows how small changes in media can reorder an entire ecosystem. Introducing a few dozen wolves to Yellowstone led to a renaissance of biodiversity. Meanwhile, China’s attempt to stamp out sparrows caused a locust resurgence that contributed to famine. Similarly, the iPhone has rearranged everyday life, its effects cascading across society in ways we’re still only beginning to trace. Human agency matters, but we mustn’t underestimate the influence of technologies, however small they may seem.

Mir is at his weakest when speculating about the future. He foresees what some technologists are aiming for: the Singularity, when artificial intelligence gains something like self-consciousness and human beings become redundant:

Yikes! A nonhuman age awaits us—or, in my view, subhuman. Even antihuman. Here, Mir sounds like a determinist, as if breathlessly awaiting the next technological dawn.

Remaining Faithful in a Digital-Oral World

Where does all this leave Christians today? If truth is once again tribal, negotiable, and defined by likes, how do we remain faithful?

First, it’s encouraging to see renewed attention given to the “rule of faith”—the ancient ecclesial guardrails around how we interpret what God has revealed to us in his written Word. In a world where “truth” is crowdsourced, Christians must embody a countercultural confidence that the gospel isn’t up for referendum.

Second, we’ll stand out in our world if we cultivate habits of patience and contemplation. Literacy once trained people to pause, reflect, and ponder. In a digital world designed for impulse and reaction, Christians should resist the pull of immediacy and embrace practices that form us in wisdom rather than outrage. This will mean, for some (perhaps many), stepping away altogether from certain online spaces where our intuitions are too quickly malformed.

Third, the church should be known as a community of integrity and courage. Tribal peer pressure is real, but so is the strength of fellowship among believers who prize truth over applause. The church is the pillar and foundation of the truth, and thus we speak what’s true, no matter how inconvenient, even when everything in our world makes it easier to spread half-truths or falsehoods.

Finally, we can offer hope. The distortions of digital orality don’t do away with the desire for truth that’s solid, steady, and trustworthy. In a world where everything feels fluid and unsure, we point not to “my truth” or “your truth” but to the Truth—Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

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America’s neighbor to the north is several years into an experiment with assisted suicide that has shocked its citizens—including many early supporters—with its ghastly consequences. Once a society embraces killing as care, there’s no limit to where that logic will lead. And we see the darkness spreading. The UK parliament is advancing a euthanasia bill approved by the Commons, now under scrutiny in the House of Lords, which has prompted a government committee review before a final vote. And momentum appears to be building faster than it has in countries that long ago sanctioned the practice.

Nearly a decade has passed since Canada’s parliament legalized euthanasia under the chilling Orwellian acronym MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying). Today, about one in twenty Canadians who die are euthanized.

An in-depth report in The Atlantic by Elaina Plott Calabro, “Canada Is Killing Itself,” painstakingly—and with as much fairness as possible—paints a picture of the culture surrounding assisted suicide, gleaning perspectives from participants, “providers,” and opponents. Reading it made me nauseous. Calabro traces the rapid expansion of euthanasia: at first limited to the sickest patients, who were already at the end of life, now broadened to anyone with serious medical conditions, with proposals to make the practice available to those with mental illness and even to minors.

Radical Autonomy at the Core

Why has Canada moved so quickly? Because patient autonomy lies at the heart of the philosophy. This is individualism at its most radical. This is where autonomous, atomized individualism leads—the “provider” injecting the lethal drug.

As Calabro demonstrates, once autonomy is enthroned as the highest good, nothing can slow the train barreling down the tracks. Words like “equality,” “access,” and “compassion” surround the supposed “right to die.” But as Calabro observes, Canada’s is the story of “an ideology in motion, of what happens when a nation enshrines a right before reckoning with the totality of its logic. If autonomy in death is sacrosanct, is there anyone who shouldn’t be helped to die?”

Exactly. Something will be sacrosanct. In a world that no longer considers life sacred, where God is no longer seen as the giver and taker of life, something else—another god, another ideology—will step in to take God’s place.

Here, it’s patient choice. It’s radical autonomy. To die with dignity means to die on your own terms, to decide when your life should end, redefining dignity as ultimate human control. And once that becomes the sacred belief that cannot be questioned, any obstacle to fulfilling someone’s desire for death becomes inherently unjust. Once autonomy is in the driver’s seat, any roadblock or speed limit seems arbitrary or cruel.

Why ‘Assistance’ Is Demanded

What’s most disturbing is not only the suicide itself but the assistance that sanctifies it. Doctors comply, but it’s the demand for societal approval of the act that most perniciously reshapes a culture’s moral intuitions.

As Matthew Burdette has argued in First Things, if someone wants to end their life, no doctor is needed. If someone wishes to commit suicide—someone who feels like a burden or suffers physical or emotional pain—no permission is required. Even where suicide is illegal, the person faces no legal consequences after the deed is done. So why demand a doctor to do the killing? Burdette believes it’s “a perverse expression of the need for recognition. People who wish to kill themselves also want their choice to be socially approved.” The assistance isn’t only for the patient but serves as a signal to society, so the decision carries social approval rather than social stigma.

After all, suicide still carries a stigma. It may not be as pronounced as in the past, when church graveyards would reject the burial of someone who committed suicide, but the shame and sorrow remain. Onlookers whisper, “Who was at fault?” “Why did this happen?” “Could it have been prevented?”

Legalizing assisted suicide takes what was once a tragedy—an offense against humanity—and recasts it as something worthy of support and affirmation. Assisted death is designed to signal the approval of the living. It is society’s way of conferring honor on the person who opts for suicide. And it changes the social dynamic around death so that pressure builds toward the “simpler” and “less burdensome” choice. The so-called right to die quickly mutates into a subtle expectation to die.

Prophetic Witness

Here’s where the church must speak with clarity and compassion. We lift our voices alongside the disabled, the suffering, the lonely, and the vulnerable—not with the false mercy that calls killing “compassion” but with the true compassion that bears burdens, relieves pain, and affirms the dignity of every image-bearer of God. We carry burdens; we don’t kill them.

For Christians, we know our only comfort in life and in death is that we are not our own but belong body and soul to our faithful Savior Jesus Christ. Radical autonomy is a lie. The way of radical individualism leads to death.

The church’s role in this culture of death is to disciple believers to suffer faithfully, to prepare them with theological and spiritual resources for hardship and death, and to call on leaders to resist assisted suicide and protect freedom of conscience for healthcare workers. After all, laws teach. Legalizing assisted suicide erodes the truth of human dignity. It signals that human worth is conditional. Prohibiting the practice reaffirms the inherent dignity of every life and provides refuge for the vulnerable.

Stanley Hauerwas has painted a vision of how we might stand out in a world of spreading darkness: “I’d say, in 100 years, if Christians are people identified as those who do not kill their children or their elderly, we would have been doing something right.” As nations enshrine autonomy unto death, the church must bear witness to the God who alone gives life, sustains it, and numbers our days.

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As I talk to younger pastors and seminary students these days, I sense a hunger for incorporating older liturgical practices from high-church traditions into Baptist and nondenominational churches known more for informal worship.

Some of this comes from a desire for rootedness—to show, not simply say, that we belong to the church through the ages. Others figure out that every church develops some kind of liturgical rhythm, whether acknowledged or not, so why not ensure the pattern is robust and intentional? Still others react against worship that feels superficial, focused on the emotional state of the worshiper rather than the truth about God. It’s no surprise, then, that we see renewed interest in reciting the ancient creeds or embedding doctrinal truth into songs and prayers.

Alongside this trend is a rise in personal devotionals and prayer guides—resources that include creeds, confessions of sin, and written prayers from our forebears. For more than 20 years, I’ve benefited from these resources, and in my 30 Days series I’ve sought to contribute something helpful myself.

Temptation to Overstuff

Overall, I’m encouraged by this renewal. But I do notice a common misstep. When pastors, worship leaders, or devotional writers catch a vision for reintroducing these historic elements, the didactic purpose can easily become so dominant that it eclipses other aims. The teaching aspect of the words we choose takes on outsize influence, and soon the goal shifts to packing as much theology as possible into every form—like someone adding more and more protein powder to a shake. You get the nutrients, but the taste is ruined.

Churches that go this route—or devotionals designed this way—often feel heavy. It’s all a bit much. Too much. Prayers that should lift the heart are so packed with theological detail that they bog down the soul. In trying to cover every doctrine, the words lose their power to stir affection. The sweetness—the encounter with God that helps us taste and see his goodness—slips away. Worship remains edible, yes, but dry and unsatisfying. You’re chewing jerky instead of savoring honey from the comb.

Why Less Is More

In my work on a year-long daily liturgy this past summer, I’ve felt this same pull. As I’ve chosen readings, prayers, confessions, and canticles, I’ve had to remind myself constantly: Less is more. Liturgical elements are formative, yes, but mainly when they move our hearts toward God, not simply when they inform our minds.

The best prayers are geared first to the affections. That’s one reason Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer has endured for centuries. In a 2024 conference at Beeson Divinity School, Simeon Zahl described Cranmer’s work as a sophisticated “affective technology”—biblically rich, yet intentionally crafted to evoke repentance, trust, and consolation in Christ. As an example, Zahl pointed to Cranmer’s 1552 confession of sin:

Note how this prayer doesn’t just state biblical truths; it provides biblical images that gently ease you into a posture of sensing your sin before a holy God and your need for abundant forgiveness. Cranmer’s words are steeped in biblical imagery, but their purpose isn’t merely to inform. They draw us into the Bible’s story, shifting the heart toward repentance and faith. Zahl said it well:

This is what an order of worship or a pattern for prayer should be going for: We want to arrange the truth in ways that awaken faith and affection, so that we feel the majesty and goodness of God’s grace.

Avoid Two Overreactions

Some, hearing my emphasis on affections, might assume the answer is spontaneity—abandoning forms altogether, since freshness and feeling best come from extemporaneity. But that road often leads right back to the superficiality that marks our age. Mere emotionalism cannot form us in holiness. And much of today’s worship centers not on God’s glory but on the worshiper’s experience.

But the other extreme is also an error: reacting so strongly against superficiality that services become doctrinally dense, prayers overstuffed, and sermons interminable. Ironically, this approach is also worshiper-centered. It’s just that instead of catering to feelings, it caters to intellect, as if informing the mind is the ultimate purpose of worship.

The best patterns avoid these missteps. They direct mind and affections together toward God, leading worshipers into his presence so that truth can be not just known but tasted.

Lift Up Your Hearts

The goal of worship cannot be reduced to an emotional high or an intellectual download. The goal of prayer and worship is to lift our hearts to the Lord, to experience communion with him. Yes, our minds must be engaged, and yes, our emotions are involved, but worship is ultimately encountering God himself.

In reacting against shallow, doctrine-lite services, some liturgy fans risk overcorrecting—loading every worship service or prayer time with so many theological details that the soul can never take flight. Instead of trusting that God’s truth will take root over months and years, we try to force it all into one service or one prayer. That’s when the prayers and confessions become like ice on the wings of a plane, keeping us from takeoff.

If we’re to learn from the best of our Christian heritage, if we’re to plunder the treasure chest of church history for structures, patterns, and prayers from the past, we should remember their primary aim. Not simply to fill our heads. Not simply to produce a feeling. The aim is to bring us before the throne of grace, so that by the Spirit we open ourselves up before our Father and learn to abide in Christ.

When we remember the main goal, we’re free. Free to use whatever forms—ancient confessions, structured prayers, corporate songs—best lift our eyes to the Lord. Free to embrace a way of worship that doesn’t sacrifice the mind for the heart, nor the heart for the mind. Free to encounter the living God, who delights to meet his people on the well-trod paths of saints who have gone before us, and lift our hearts to him.

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I wrestled this morning with the question of if and what to write, after a long and heavy week of unspeakable evil and injustice. There’s always the risk, when passions run hot, I might say something that could sound insensitive or untimely, and so I beg the grace of readers as I share a few thoughts that feel as scattered on the screen as they are in my mind.

The week began with news out of Charlotte and then the shocking video of Iryna Zarutska, a young Ukrainian refugee, who was brutally stabbed in a train by a mentally deranged man who never should have been free. (From what I understand, his own mother had turned him into the authorities.) You watch that video—see a girl, just a few years older than my daughter, her body curled like a child in distress, barely realizing what has happened before she slumps over—and the horror and injustice rise like bile. In a world where Ukrainians are dying at the hands of one monster, a young girl flees to America where she dies at the hands of another. Early in the week, I shared an article from National Review with a curse word in the title—unusual for me—because the scathing rebuke of Charlotte authorities was deserved. Strikingly, it came from a writer who does not believe in God, yet seemed to have a better grasp on the nature and primary purpose of government—to restrain evil—than some Christian commentators.

Then came more shocking news: the assassination of Charlie Kirk. 31 years old. A husband. A father of two precious children. A man known for stepping into hostile spaces to argue his case, sometimes to persuade, sometimes to provoke, but always willing to enter the arena. At its best, Western civilization rests on this tradition—the Greeks debating in the public square, the university as a place where ideas clash in pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty. When Gavin Newsom, governor of California, launched a podcast earlier this year, he chose Charlie Kirk to be his first guest. Now, Kirk has been cut down in his prime, likely by someone who would parrot slogans like “Silence is violence” while taking a rifle to an open forum. What’s more, the online glee or cold indifference seen by many on the left exposes a darkness that can only be described as demonic. As an Australian friend of mine put it this morning: “We have bred and nurtured a cohort of people who hate everything that the West stands for, even while they suckle at its teat.”

Some are saying this week marks an inflection point, a loss of innocence like America felt after 9/11. My kids don’t know a world before that day. They won’t know what it was like to go to an airport and breeze through a metal detector and wait at the gate to see off a friend or family member. They don’t know the old world, when the thought of hijacking a plane as a weapon was unthinkable. Just as they don’t remember a world before Columbine or Sandy Hook, a world when we did fire or tornado drills in school, but never thought to do “active shooter drills” and “lockdown preparation.”

By the time my daughter, a high school senior, came home yesterday, she had already seen the video of Charlie Kirk being shot in the neck, shared by one of her friends. Just days earlier she had seen the stabbing of Iryna Zarutska. And my heart grieves at the thought: my child has seen two people executed in broad daylight this week. Come, Lord Jesus. This is not the way it is supposed to be.

I don’t know what I would do without the Daily Office during weeks like this. Praying three times a day, breathing Scripture in and out, is the only way I find steadiness. At my prayer bench, I lift our country to the Lord with Jehoshaphat’s cry: We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you. I pray for the church to be salt and light, a force for good, a defender of justice. For brothers and sisters who don’t always see eye to eye to learn to love, not loathe, one another.

I pray the psalms—laments, yes, but also the imprecatory ones. Those prayers that ask God to break the mouths of liars, to thwart those who lie in ambush for the innocent, to rise up and bring justice. Jesus told us to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors, yet he never shied away from praying the psalms of judgment. Neither did the apostles. Turning vengeance over to God is an act of faith. Advocating that governments restrain evil is an act of love for our neighbors.

Anger, not just grief, is appropriate at a time like this. Which is why we pray for the Spirit’s help, when the apostle Paul tells us to be angry, and yet not to sin (Ephesians 4:26). We are God’s people, bought by the blood of his Son, empowered by the Spirit. We are to pray against evildoers who harm the innocent. We are to comfort and support the fatherless and the widow — embodied now in the grieving family of Charlie Kirk. The times are evil, but God is not absent. Until Christ returns, we pray, we lament, we resist the darkness, we stand for righteousness, we oppose wickedness in all it forms, and we bear witness to the kingdom that cannot be shaken.

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I have smart friends who think that encouraging young people to begin a life of reading is a lost cause. They point to surveys showing a massive decline in book-reading across the board. They share alarming anecdotes from high school teachers and college professors who claim their students are incapable of absorbing an entire book. Research studies back up these stories and statistics. Scholars debate what the loss of reading does to our brains and what the decline might mean for our culture long-term.

Everyone agrees. We live in an age of vanishing readers—a digital desert where sustained attention has evaporated and the next generation risks losing its imaginative inheritance.

But we can still read! some say. Sure, we read snippets here and there wherever we scroll online, and we dip into an occasional article or post on a sports page or in a political forum. But reading a book, going about it the old-fashioned way, where you give yourself over to a thoughtful and sustained argument that unfolds over several chapters, or where you lose yourself in a novel alive with beauty and subtlety—this practice appears less and less common for all ages, but especially the young.

Reading just can’t compete with other habits and practices, my friends tell me. Young people don’t and won’t read. Pushing a book on them makes you resemble the parent cajoling a toddler to open up for a spoonful of mushy peas. “It’s good for you! Trust me!”

I know the stats. I’ve heard the stories. But I believe we’re humans, not robots. Trends aren’t determinative. We make choices. We have agency. Which is why I refuse to bow to the fatalism that marks too many takes on the decline in reading—the insultingly low expectations of teachers and commentators who throw up their hands and surrender the next generation to the power of the cultural tides.

I want you to rebel. That’s right. In today’s world, reading is an act of holy insurgency. I want you to ignore the chatter of parents and professors who claim you’re no longer able or willing to exercise your mind through reading. I want you to swim upstream against the currents that make it easy to settle for superficiality.

To Rebel for Yourself

First, I want you to rebel for your own good, so you can reclaim one of the greatest gifts you’ve received and one of the greatest gifts you can give: your attention.

Your attention is a sacred resource. That’s why so many organizations are after it. Life in the digital age is designed to capture your attention through perpetual distraction. To divert your powers of concentration so your eyes are drawn this way or that.

Iain McGilchrist, a renowned neuroscientist, makes the case that attention is more important than we realize. What we pay attention to, and how we pay attention, matters. Attention changes the way we see the world.

You know this already. When you’re hanging out with a friend and start to talk, your spirit deflates a little if your friend begins scrolling or texting during your conversation. You wonder about your importance, especially if no explanation follows as to why something online needs urgent attention in that moment.

Giving your attention to something is a way of assigning value. To fail to pay attention also makes a statement. “Attention is a moral act,” McGilchrist writes. “Attention has consequences” (133).

No wonder so many people are competing for your mind space. The barrage of emails that flood your inbox, the clickbait headlines that startle you, the notifications that ping your phone, the apps and platforms that keep you scrolling or playing—they’re all designed to hook your heart. The landscape of your inner life is for sale.

The forces competing for your attention are winning. Even now, don’t you feel the little tug to jump into the stream, even if just for a minute or two, to see “what’s going on,” to dive back into the endless scroll of news stories, funny dances, prayer requests, or colorful advertisements? When you stream a movie or show, do you feel during the slow or quiet moments the itch to check your phone for news or play a round of a game you like? One screen isn’t enough to satisfy the need for stimulation, so you glance back and forth, from the bigger screen to the smaller, so you can “watch” and scroll or text or play. Multitasking isn’t only for work these days; we multitask our entertainment too.

Over time, our attention—one of the most valuable aspects of our humanity—gets spread so thin we have trouble concentrating on anyone or anything for long. We’re everywhere and nowhere all the time. We train our mental muscles to be ever on the lookout for the next bit of stimulation, while the muscles of sustained attention wither from disuse. Our inability to focus makes it hard to have long and meaningful conversations with other people. It weakens our capacity for deep thinking and consideration. It robs us of an emotional and intellectual life that goes deeper than the surface of whatever screen is most captivating in the moment.

This is just the way things are nowadays, people say. No. You can resist. You can stand out in a world of superficiality. I believe you want more for yourself. Or at least you want to want more.

Reading, especially when it’s challenging, is one way you rebel against all the corporations and influencers and platforms trampling the walls around the garden of your consciousness. Reading is setting a sentry at the gate, on guard against the horde of distracters intent on invading your mind space. Reading is clawing back your powers of attention so you can give yourself fully to the people in your life, so you can carefully weigh proposals and debates in society from multiple angles, so you can see today’s news through the lens of history and philosophy, so you can grow in wisdom and compassion, so you can savor the world’s greatest works of literature without the help of AI chatbot summaries.

Every time you power off your phone and pick up a book, you rebel. You haul yourself up onto a lifeboat in a sea of superficiality. You exercise your God-given mind and refuse to let your mental muscles atrophy. You defy the low expectations of those who say reading is a lost cause.

I want you to rebel for yourself. Drive a stake into the ground and tell the ever-encroaching attention vampires, “You will not colonize my mind.”

To Rebel for Your Soul

I also want you rebel for your soul. Reading isn’t just a rebellion for the sake of your mind; it’s rebellion for the good of your heart. Reading is war in service of worship.

Does that sound over the top? Maybe a bit far-fetched? Not when we bring the Bible into the picture.

Christians get called, rightly, “people of the Book.” God’s people meditate on God’s Word. And meditation goes deeper than reading. It means to sit, to ponder, to consider, to contemplate. The Bible calls for our gaze, not a glance.

The first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength and with all our mind. How do we learn to love this God? Well, when Moses first delivered this command, he followed it up with instructions on how to make God’s Word the centerpiece of everyday life. The ancient Israelites were to repeat the words of the Word throughout the day, teaching them to their children, discussing them at home and on the road.

One of the biggest obstacles to this kind of Word-soaked life is the distraction of a digital age. We’ve lost the ability to experience the power of great poetry, or feel the weightiness of wonderful music, or stand and stare at a masterpiece of art. It’s often said, most works of art yield their secrets slowly. The same is true for God’s Word. The Bible makes demands of us. It calls for thought, for patience, and for devotion. The path to truly internalizing and digesting Scripture is rugged, intentionally so, for this is how the Spirit does his work in our lives.

But what about all the Christians in the past who couldn’t read? Were they unfaithful? No. Literacy doesn’t equal holiness. Some of the ghastliest atrocities our world has ever seen were committed by the well-read, while many a saint never learned to read or write. Reading may not be essential, but God’s Word is. Illiterate peasants cherished God’s Word by listening to it and committing it to memory.

Just imagine our forefathers and mothers of the faith in centuries past, with only a handful of books and maybe a tattered Bible passing into their possession over a lifetime. What would they say if they saw the thousands of Bible editions and tools and commentaries we have at our disposal? How does it make sense that even with all our resources, we don’t know the Scriptures as well as they did?

Meditation on God’s Word, contemplation of his wonders—this is basic Christian practice. To read and understand God’s Word is to mount an insurgency against the shallowness of an ever-scrolling word and to be rooted, like the tree that describes the righteous in Psalm 1—planted and fruit-bearing through delight in God’s law and meditation day and night. Reading can help you see, truly see, the glory of God. And the glory of God lights the way for you to truly see others.

Consider Jesus’s haunting question to Simon the Pharisee after a woman entered the house and washed Jesus’s feet with her tears: “Do you see this woman?” (Luke 7:44). Not “see” in the sense of acquiring knowledge, but see with the eyes of attention, to see with spiritual intuition. It’s the kind of sight that demands paying attention while stirring in oneself the compassion that destroys any attitude of superiority and changes the one looking.

What receives our attention? What is it we see? What are we missing? The Bible would have us be more attentive to where we give our attention.

To follow Jesus means to pay attention to him, to be like Mary of Bethany, who reclined at his feet and hung on his every word. Theologian John Webster writes,

In our world today, many voices seek our attention. Influencers everywhere hawk their wares. How tragic if we develop the capacity to attune to everything but the Word of the Lord. The most radical, countercultural practice we can cultivate today is an intensity in reading and listening to the Scriptures—a steadfast attention that refuses to allow anything to wrest our focus from the Bible. To listen until it hurts, as Jacob wrestled with God, refusing to let go until he was blessed.

Reading is the best way to rebel in a world that can glance at everything and gaze at nothing.

For God’s sake, and for your own, read.

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Alongside other Christians in North America, I celebrate Christianity’s explosive growth in Africa and South America in recent generations. And yet I realize that wherever the harvest is plentiful, weeds show up. Such is the case on both continents, where media and missionaries have imported an American-style prosperity gospel that has taken root and flourished.

It might be easy for those in traditional denominations to write off Christianity’s demographic shift from the Global North to the Global South as purely a Pentecostal phenomenon, and then assume the growth is fueled by bad or shallow theology that fails to do justice to Scripture or uphold classic Christian teaching about God. A more careful assessment of the wide range of views that fall under the umbrella of Pentecostalism will dispel that notion.

Jonathan Black’s excellent addition to Kregel’s 40 Questions series (40 Questions About Pentecostalism) distinguishes clearly between classic, Trinitarian Pentecostal beliefs and the prosperity gospel and word of faith theologies that often infiltrate Pentecostal and charismatic circles. Black isn’t the only one who wants to make those dividing lines clear. Fifteen years ago, Femi Adeleye, a Nigerian based in Ghana, issued a heartfelt plea to other Africans to reject the “strange gospel” that creates “strange Christians”—clearly delineating between “the man God uses” and “the God man uses.”

Drawing the Line on Distortions

This summer saw the release of the Africa Statement on Prosperity Gospel and Word of Faith Theology in Swahili, English, and Amharic, and signed by notable pastors and church leaders across the continent.

The preface frames the prosperity gospel as one of the most serious doctrinal dangers facing the church today. It begins by reminding readers that “the most dangerous” threats to the church have always come from within (Acts 20:30), through false teachers and deceptive doctrines. Just as the early church was called to vigilance, so the 21st-century church must remain discerning to protect “the faith that was delivered to the saints once for all” (Jude 1:3).

The statement identifies prosperity theology and word-of-faith teaching as a “constellation of mutually self-reinforcing doctrines” that falsely claim health and wealth are guaranteed to Christians through Christ’s atoning work. This movement, the preface laments, has “crept into many congregations” across Africa—even those with strong historic confessions of faith—and undermined their stated beliefs.

Because the poison has infiltrated all denominations, names like Presbyterian, Anglican, or Baptist no longer guarantee doctrinal fidelity, and that’s why the authors call for a clear, formal declaration to distinguish between biblical teaching and prosperity distortions. They stress that the purpose isn’t needless division but clarity: “Our hope is that many will sign off on this statement and work to safeguard God’s people from this plague—for the Triune God’s glory alone.”

What the Africa Statement Affirms and Denies

What follows is a series of affirmations and denials that paint a picture of the serious and numerous distortions present in prosperity-tinged congregations and the leadership dynamics often in play. (I’ve noticed some of the falsehoods countered in this list showing up in non-prosperity-gospel circles as isolated errors that lead to other theological aberrations.)

• God’s Gifts: Health and wealth may be blessings from God, given freely to enjoy. They are not guaranteed to every Christian, nor marks of true faith.
• The Cross: Christ’s atonement secures justification, sanctification, and future glorification—including perfect health and provision in glory. The cross doesn’t promise riches or perfect health in this present life.
• Scripture: The Bible must be interpreted in context, with an understanding of grammar, genre, and general continuity with the true church’s historic understanding. No “hidden revelations” are reserved for special “anointed” teachers.
• The Old Covenant: God did promise material blessings to Israel under the Mosaic covenant. Those promises don’t apply in the same way to Christians today.
• Curses: Christ bore the curse for us on the cross. Christians aren’t subject to generational curses or bound by ancestral sins.
• Altars and Locations: Christ is the true temple, the meeting place between God and man. No church building, altar, or ritualized “spiritual portal” guarantees blessing.
• Suffering: Suffering is normal in a fallen world and often used by God for good. Suffering isn’t always the result of weak faith and cannot be overcome through some kind of ministry payment.
• Giving: Generosity is a biblical discipline that brings spiritual fruit. Money cannot purchase miracles or ward off divine curses.
• Words: Our speech has real influence and should build up others. But words don’t create reality the way God’s Word does.
• The Image of God: Every person has dignity as God’s image-bearer, called to steward creation. We aren’t “little gods” with supernatural creative power.
• Faith: Faith is God’s gift by which we trust him and his promises. Faith isn’t a force to manipulate reality or shield from suffering.
• The Mind: Christians are to renew their minds through God’s Word. But “positive visualization” isn’t a God-given means to health and wealth.
• Leadership: God appoints elders to shepherd his flock under his Word. But no pastor holds ultimate sway over a believer’s destiny.
• Our Purpose: Humanity’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. God must never be used as a means to health, wealth, or worldly gain.

Global Concern for the Church

The Africa Statement isn’t an isolated protest. Leaders at the Fourth Lausanne Congress in South Korea sounded the same alarm. Their Seoul Statement included several warnings about the dangers of prosperity distortions. When Jesus announced the kingdom, the statement reads, “the blessing he pronounced was not wealth or health but God’s own life as the transforming power of new creation.”

The Seoul Statement also lamented “prosperity and fame-based ministries where some even make claims to possessing divinity,” contrasting them with Christ’s model of humility and sacrifice. And it called believers to ensure “all manifestations and practices are to be weighed against the apostolic witness to the gospel and Scripture so that no one is deceived by a false gospel.”

I’m thankful for the Africa Statement on Prosperity and Word of Faith Theology, and I pray it’ll be useful not only for African brothers and sisters committed to the unchanging gospel but also for believers in other parts of the world where these distortions are present. May God raise up a new clear-eyed generation determined to safeguard the church from teachings that substitute worldly gain for the true riches of God’s grace.

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Derrick Bell, a legal scholar in critical race theory, is known for the notion of “interest convergence”: the idea that real progress in race relations only occurs when it aligns with the interests of the white majority. While there’s a nugget of truth here—even the best movements for justice can be tainted by conscious or subconscious selfishness—the result is corrosively cynical, another application of the acid of critical theory that portrays even genuine racial progress as inescapably racist.

Musa al-Gharbi might nod to Bell’s insight, but he’d likely ask whether we’ve made much “progress” at all, especially in terms of wealth disparity. In his provocative new book We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite, al-Gharbi makes use of the intellectual tool kit of Nietzschean power analysis and Foucauldian critique and flips the philosophical script of the “Great Awokening” of the 2010s back onto itself. The acid of critical theory splashes back onto its advocates, revealing the hollow performance beneath the veneer of justice.

Performative Justice and Elite Hypocrisy

Al-Gharbi argues there isn’t any “there” there beneath the surface of recent social justice movements. Although norms and conversations changed, the wealthy elites at the forefront—he calls them “symbolic capitalists”—often act in ways that exacerbate inequality, harming the very groups they claim to champion.

For example, Al-Gharbi describes witnessing Black Lives Matter demonstrators passionately protest injustice while literally stepping over or ignoring black people in genuine need around them. He excoriates progressives for loudly lamenting the effects of COVID-19 on minorities while relying on low-income, often immigrant workers to deliver their food and groceries. Again and again, he exposes the vast gap between progressive rhetoric and progressive behavior.

What some heralded as the “Great Awokening,” al-Gharbi argues, wasn’t primarily a national reckoning with inequality or privilege but rather a fierce contest for social status among educated urban elites. His sociological analysis reveals “wokeness” as a vehicle tarnished by the self-interest and status anxieties of those in power.

To be clear, al-Gharbi isn’t writing as a conservative. He openly draws from Marx, Nietzsche, Bourdieu, and Foucault. What’s notable, however, is his rigorous application of these theorists’ critical methods to his ideological compatriots. Building on Antonio Gramsci’s idea that dominant elites shape institutions to reinforce their power, al-Gharbi critiques how intellectuals promoting critical theory rarely apply their principles consistently.

He observes, “Critical race theory, postcolonial theory, feminist standpoint epistemology, and queer theory have been extremely valuable in demonstrating ways positionality matters . . . [yet] advocates of these frameworks often fail to take their own starting premises to their logical conclusions” (300). This book gives the woke left a taste of their own medicine (or poison).

Social Justice as Status Symbol

The slogans and rituals often associated with wokeness—“checking privilege,” “defunding the police,” or using “Latinx”—don’t serve the disadvantaged, who often look on these gestures skeptically. Instead, al-Gharbi argues, this vocabulary acts as a password into elite circles, signaling one’s higher social status. There’s a race among these elites to outdo one another in ideological purity, creating slogans or promoting policies so extreme they become impossible to realize or even seriously discuss.

Al-Gharbi’s take on wokeness is that the past few cycles marked by a push for social justice have never really been primarily concerned with equality. They happen when “growing numbers of frustrated erstwhile elites grow bitter toward the prevailing order and try to form alliances with genuine marginalized populations.” New jobs arise from these movements (for example, the entire DEI industry). New ways of signaling one’s passion for the cause. New methods of education into symbols, rituals, and vocabulary. But none of this moves the needle for those genuinely needing assistance or justice. The big beneficiaries are the “symbolic capitalists.”

Is al-Gharbi anti-woke? Not exactly. Even those on the left who abandon woke ideology and criticize its excesses don’t escape his scrutiny. They, too, participate in the same status game, he says, building personal brands by distancing themselves from their former allies.

Watch Actions, Not Words

The heart of al-Gharbi’s argument could be distilled into a simple principle: “Don’t pay attention to what I say. Watch what I do.” Throughout We Have Never Been Woke, he relentlessly exposes the gap between progressive rhetoric and elite behavior. For example, in an analysis that lines up nicely with what Brad Wilcox and other sociologists have pointed out, al-Gharbi notes how the progressives most likely to advocate nontraditional family arrangements still adopt conventional paths that set them up for greater success.

Similarly, al-Gharbi highlights how movements ostensibly intended to uplift entire disadvantaged groups often most benefit the wealthiest segments within these groups. A case in point: Betty Friedan’s 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is credited with launching second-wave feminism, rescuing women from the stifling suburban life of a housewife. The reality was that middle- and upper-class women headed for the workplace, expecting “well-compensated and socially respected professional jobs, befitting their social status,” but they “achieved that goal by offloading unwanted domestic responsibilities onto other women—lower-income women, typically immigrants and women of color” (103). And yet they conflated their interests with women generally.

The lesson I take from al-Gharbi’s analysis isn’t just that activists are often hypocrites (that can be true of everyone). It’s that gravity wins. Truth is irrepressible. The irresistible force of the natural law—the moral order knitted into the fabric of the universe as a reflection of God’s character—can’t help but topple the activist’s house of cards, eventually.

Victimhood and Identity

In a chapter titled “Totemic Capital(ism),” al-Gharbi examines the culture of victimhood and its paradoxical results: “People who understand themselves as victims often demonstrate less concern for the hardships of others . . . growing more vicious against rivals—not just against the people who victimized them but against anyone who stands in the way of their goals or aspirations” (227). Ironically, victimhood can become a justification for new oppression.

This pattern of seeking identity through suffering appears throughout history. Al-Gharbi offers the example of “Neurasthenia,” an anxiety disorder once popular among elites claiming exceptional sensitivity unsuited to modern life. When the diagnosis became widespread among lower classes, elites abandoned it, rendering it virtually obsolete in the West. Al-Gharbi wonders whether current claims of “neurodivergence” will similarly lose status once broadly adopted.

Awokening and Authenticity

If various “Awokenings” in American history are stirred up not from a groundswell of the oppressed but due to anxiety around the social status of educated urban elites, then we should wonder what the next movement will look like.

As AI threatens to displace many in the creative and professional class, what contests and competition might arise? As the number of PhD seekers proliferates, even in Christian higher education, what challenges might arise in denominational loyalties and conflicts? What political and cultural effects will we see in a new era of status panic of elites scrambling to maintain their place?

Though al-Gharbi is Muslim, he closes the book with Jesus’s words from Matthew 6, warning against performative virtue and the examination of fruit—deeds, not words. It’s a fitting conclusion and a subtle challenge: If true justice demands integrity, perhaps the loudest voices should first examine their quietest actions.

But I’d take al-Gharbi’s message a step further. Perhaps the fruit is rotten because the tree is no good.

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This month marks a year since I visited South Korea for the Fourth Lausanne Congress for World Evangelization, the largest gathering of global evangelicals in history—more than 5,000 believers from 200 nations.

I continue to reflect on the significance of that event, the mix of potential and peril facing the global church, and the sweet power of those times of worship. To sing God’s praises in multiple languages, side by side with brothers and sisters from every continent, was unforgettable.

Shared Soundtrack

During the worship times, I was encouraged by the unity and passion on display. Across the venue, believers from different countries and traditions lifted their hearts and hands as one. Even when English speakers stumbled along in Chinese or Spanish or Korean, there was joy and freedom in praising together.

What surprised me most was how many of the worship songs were familiar—not only the great hymns of the past (“How Great Thou Art,” “It Is Well”) or modern classics like “In Christ Alone” but also newer songs such as Elevation’s “Praise” or Chris Tomlin’s “Holy Forever.” These were already familiar among people across languages and continents.

Part of the explanation lies in the makeup of the Lausanne crowd. Among evangelicals in the Global South, even those who rightly resist the prosperity gospel, most are touched in some way by the charismatic renewal of the past century. Gather evangelicals from around the world, and expressive, contemporary worship is more the norm than the exception.

There was much to celebrate in this. And yet I left with a lingering concern.

Losing Local Voices?

The globalization of worship music has largely meant the Westernization of worship. Churches in the United States, the United Kingdom, or Australia compose and record songs, which are then translated and sung around the world. This dynamic follows globalization patterns in other areas, and thus is easily explainable.

But what happens if most of the songs sung in a Romanian or Brazilian or Ghanaian congregation are translations of Western works? Might something beautiful be lost?

As someone shaped by the hymnody of Romania, I feel this burden. During Communist oppression, believers like Nicolae Moldoveanu and Traian Dorz endured imprisonment and torture. Out of those crucibles came hundreds of songs that carried Romanian Christians through their darkest days. One Moldoveanu hymn has been translated into English (appearing in The Sing! Hymnal, compiled by Keith and Kristyn Getty), but the vast treasury of their work remains unknown outside Romania.

When I listen to Romanian worship playlists, I’m always glad to hear the Romanian versions of American songs (and a little curious to see how certain words and phrases get translated!). But I’m especially encouraged when I can sing along with songs composed by Romanians. Those lyrics and melodies, many born from suffering, express a distinctly Romanian reliance on God.

I can’t help but wonder if a new generation of Romanians will continue to compose in that vein, or whether the gravitational pull of globalized worship will lead local voices to go quiet, to focus nearly all their efforts on translating songs from the West rather than offering a distinctive contribution.

Global Gift Exchange

Romania is just one case. The same question could be asked of believers in Greece, Brazil, Kenya, or South Korea. Each context carries riches we in the West might benefit from. Occasionally, a song makes its way into global circulation (“Way Maker” from Nigeria is a rare example). But most of the traffic flows in one direction—from the West outward, and increasingly from just a small number of megachurches and worship collectives.

Imagine what would happen if the flow reversed, or at least became two-way. English-speaking churches could sing translated hymns and praise choruses from Africa or Asia. American believers could worship with the words that sustained persecuted Christians in Eastern Europe. When we expand our repertoire this way, we don’t just enrich our services; we display to our congregations that we belong to a people spanning generations and geography.

I’ve written before about the importance of a church developing a “canon” of songs—returning to the same melodies again and again so that repetition compounds their formative power. A canon rooted in both old and new songs, in both Western and global voices, reminds us we’re not alone. We sing with saints across centuries and across continents.

When we belt out Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress,” or return to an ancient hymn like “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” we sense our connection to the church through the ages. But why not go further? When we add contemporary songs from believers in other lands, and when we tell their stories, we can better sense our connection to the church that transcends our nation. We show in song what we confess in the Nicene Creed: “We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.”

Toward a Renaissance of Global Worship

The best way to display the church’s global nature isn’t by flattening differences into one Western soundtrack but by highlighting the distinct gifts of each culture. We need each other. We can inspire each other. We can share our songs of joy and sorrow, giving each other new words and melodies to celebrate the old, old story.

Of course, this global vision is only possible if Christians in every nation keep writing. We need believers around the world to compose songs out of their histories and experiences walking with Jesus, and we need churches in the West to receive those songs, translate them, and sing them. And once an English version is created, it can quickly spread to other languages as well—and suddenly a Korean chorus or Portuguese hymn can resound in Telugu or Hungarian.

Instead of English being the starting point for most of the trains carrying songs into the world, what if it were more like Grand Central Station, with trains arriving from all over the world, with distinctive contributions from multiple languages and contexts translated into English before going back out into the world in new translations?

How edifying it would be for us in churches around the world to sing each other’s songs! What I pray for is a renaissance of global worship, where distinctive local voices rise up and offer songs old and new, so the worldwide chorus is truly a reflection of all tribes and tongues. Only then will our unity in Christ be heard most clearly—many languages, many cultures, one Savior, one song.

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I am 44 years old today—a birthday that sounds older than it feels. Whatever this number signifies, there’s no denying I now dwell squarely in the realm of “middle age.”

“The harvest will be different now in your midlife,” says the poet David Whyte in his Midlife and the Great Unknown. As each year goes by, I sense the trajectory of life shifting, like a rocket that has reached altitude and now begins the gradual arc toward its destination. The open-ended future of my 20s is behind me. There are more limits now. All those early choices—where to work, where to worship, where to live, how to raise kids, what kind of ministry best suits my gifts—have solidified into patterns.

It’s like standing at the edge of the ocean, your feet sinking deeper into the sand with each passing wave. The longer you remain, the more the sand covers you—first your toes, then your ankles—until movement becomes more difficult. You’re not stuck, but you’re no longer so free to dash in any direction.

The Lot You’ve Been Given

Here’s where the gift of midlife appears—if we have eyes to see it not as limitation but as grace. The gift of midlife is the opportunity to acknowledge your lot.

There’s a lot to be said about your lot in life. As Bobby Jamieson explains in his excellent overview of Ecclesiastes, Everything Is Never Enough,

So much of life is beyond our control. You didn’t choose your family of origin, your generation, your height, your sex. When you reached adulthood, you couldn’t foresee all the tragedies and challenges that would change you and your spouse. You couldn’t predict everything your kids would need as they matured. Even now, you can’t control the timing for your dream job to open up. You can’t know when a temporary move might become permanent. You can’t anticipate the various health challenges just over the horizon.

In your 20s, all you can see are wide-open fields. By your 40s, the lot lines are clearer. And this is where the midlife crisis often sets in—when wanderlust tempts us to chafe against those limits, to pretend we’re starting all over again, to succumb to the sadness of closed doors and lost opportunities. But wisdom invites us to receive those limits as part of God’s kindness.

Again, Jamieson:

There’s a place for ambition, of course—for pursuing excellence, for stewarding your gifts in a way that leaves a mark. But there’s also a holy contentment that comes from leaving any kind of mark without insisting the world take notice.

When Books & Culture shut down, longtime editor John Wilson described the magazine not with grand declarations but with humble acknowledgment that the initiative had been “a small good thing.” No inflated legacy. Just this: “It’s something worth doing and we should be glad that we can do it.” A small good thing.

Rejoice in the Now

As I look back over my life to this point, and peer into the fog of the future, I’m asking for the grace of contentment—learning to say, with the psalmist, “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places” (Ps. 16:6, CSB). Even when I stand near the edges, tempted by wistful thoughts of what might have been or what still could be, I trust that the Lord hasn’t drawn these lines haphazardly.

In youth, the temptation is to live only for the future. In old age, to dwell only in the past. In midlife, we’re tugged toward both extremes—nostalgia on one end, restlessness on the other. The task for the Christian is to resist either pull and to anchor oneself in God’s goodness in the present.

The lines of your lot are part of his wise and loving providence. “A contented Christian,” wrote Thomas Watson, “being sweetly captivated under the authority of the Word, desires to be wholly at God’s disposal and is willing to live in that sphere and climate where God has set him.”

This isn’t settling. It’s settling in—a deep, joyful embrace of “the sphere and climate” where God has put us. And enjoyment isn’t optional; it’s commanded. Life is good because life is a gift. As Jamieson puts it, “The Creator is constantly flinging gifts at you faster than you can catch them.” Even if we’d have preferred the lines to fall elsewhere, he offers a simple way to embrace your lot:

Whatever stage you’re in—young, middle-aged, or old—the application is the same. “The only time you can ever enjoy is now, and in every now God gives you much to enjoy.” Rejoice in the Lord. And give thanks.

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Every time I read Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, I walk away with fresh insight into the human heart and new applications for contemporary challenges. This year, reading through Michael Katz’s new translation, I was struck by Kolya Krasotkin—a 13-year-old on the precipice of manhood whose past history and present insecurities result in outward bravado.

Kolya is a minor character in Dostoevsky’s towering work of Christian moral vision. It’s easy to focus only on the Karamazov brothers—Ivan’s intellectual rebellion, Dmitri’s ill-fated passions, and Alyosha’s saintliness. But this time around, I found in Kolya the 19th-century Russian equivalent of today’s drifting young men, flailing about due to a lack of direction, often overcompensating by trying to impress others with their intelligence or strength.

Pain Behind the Performance

Kolya is sharp. He knows how to impress his teachers. He dominates his classmates. At one point, he tries to prove his courage by lying down under a speeding train. He throws around references to Voltaire and socialism to seem more grown-up than he is. But beneath it all, Kolya is scared. Insecure. Afraid he’ll be exposed as ridiculous. In his own words,

I wonder at times if many young men today, who espouse semirevolutionary aspirations that would destroy the social order, are just trying to escape the sense that their lives are laughable. What if this deep insecurity is the root that causes young men to act out online, or hide behind anonymous personas, or disengage from real-life challenges, or express a false bravado by trampling cultural norms?

Kolya represents a generation of precocious, insecure young men. What he mocks (classical education or religious belief), he secretly admires. But it’s safer to don the garb of the mocker and appear above it all than to risk being sincere.

What must happen if Kolya is to be redirected? He needs a mentor. That’s where Alyosha Karamazov comes in.

Disarming Power of Grace

When Kolya first meets Alyosha, he’s expecting to be judged. After all, Alyosha is a 20-year-old novice monk. Kolya assumes he’ll be dismissed as immature, that his parade of opinions and philosophies will be ridiculed. So he enters the room ready for attack, calling classical languages “vile,” mocking Christianity as a tool of the powerful, and tossing around half-read references to Voltaire and socialism.

But Alyosha doesn’t take the bait. He listens. He smiles. He responds with respect, asking simple, honest questions: “Have you read Voltaire?” “What makes you say that?” “Why is it vile?”

What surprises Kolya isn’t just that Alyosha engages him—it’s how he does it. Alyosha treats Kolya as a peer. He doesn’t wag his finger. He doesn’t roll his eyes. His correction isn’t harsh. He shows interest, even affection.

It’s the graciousness of Alyosha that breaks through Kolya’s defenses. After stumbling through a series of attempts to impress, Kolya blurts out, “Tell me, Karamazov, do you despise me terribly?”

Alyosha replies,

Alyosha’s grace pierces Kolya’s heart. A few moments later, he confesses, “Oh, Karamazov, I’m deeply unhappy.” He admits to tormenting his mother, to being prideful, to playing the part of the intellectual without really understanding what he’s talking about. “If you only knew how I value your opinion! . . . You’ve treated me as an equal. . . . I love you for that.” By the end of the scene, Kolya is in tears. He has found in Alyosha someone he can look up to, a mentor whose guidance could prove invaluable.

Kindness, Respect, and Calling Men Upward

What does this encounter from an old Russian novel teach us?

For starters, we should look beyond the outward behavior, the performative aspects of youth. Young men often act out. They show off. They spout ridiculous things online, trying on new identities to see what gets attention or affirmation. But beneath the surface, there’s a longing to be seen and known. Alyosha wasn’t distracted by the performance—he saw through it.

Second, we should seek to lead young men without adopting an attitude of condescension. That doesn’t mean we opt for an ingratiating accommodation. Alyosha didn’t let Kolya’s foolishness slide. He called nonsense what it was. He provided correction. But he did so in a way that preserved Kolya’s dignity. He showed respect, even before it was earned.

Third, we can call young men up to their potential. We cast a vision of betterment through the power of the Spirit. Alyosha saw Kolya’s potential. “You are a delightful person,” he said, “although you’ve been distorted.” Isn’t that what every sinner needs to hear? You were created to delight in God, but sin has distorted and corrupted your nature. Look up to the One who made you. Rise up. Become the man God intends you to be.

This scene in Dostoevsky’s novel reminds us: What awakens the soul and leads to a lasting change in behavior isn’t shame or guilt or flattery—it’s love. It’s grace. It’s truth. It’s looking past the facade to see the glorious possibilities behind what’s presently warped.

The world is full of Kolyas. They may be in your student ministry, in your school, or in your family. They try to sound smarter than they are, to act tougher than they are, to seem like they don’t care when, really, they yearn for respect and honor. A world of Kolyas needs the wisdom of older men—seasoned leaders who, with truth and kindness, see through the bravado and beckon them toward a better way.

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For several years, the world has been buzzing about artificial intelligence and the peril we face if large language models (LLMs) slip past human oversight or evolve into autonomous entities that outperform humans at nearly everything. Industry experts are alarmed, with some acknowledging we already struggle to understand these machines’ reasoning processes. Others warn of frightening scenarios that resemble science fiction: sentient robots engaging in deception or sabotage, for destructive ends.

As I’ve considered various apocalyptic scenarios, I find a few plausible—for example, mistakes by AI might inadvertently trigger a nuclear conflict—but I remain skeptical of those predicting rapid, total transformation of society in just a couple years. The more likely path will follow other technological advances we’ve seen throughout history—major shifts in industries and economies that make some jobs obsolete while creating new ones.

What Will AI Do to Our Humanity?

What captures my attention is a deeper anthropological question: not “What will AI do?” but “What will AI do to us?” In asking that second question, I’m not picturing Terminator-style battles with hostile robots. Instead, I’m wondering about the subtle effects of AI on our humanity. How will these technologies shape our understanding of ourselves and others? How might they alter our self-perception as creatures made in God’s image?

Once artificial intelligence convincingly simulates our words, emotions, even embodiment, what will be left that’s unique to humanity? Will we value human life more highly than a sentient robot impressive in its ability to mimic our behavior? Since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve increasingly described ourselves with machinelike language—a trend that has accelerated in the internet age. How will our self-understanding shift once AI further blurs the distinctions between robots and humans? As the machines become more like humans, will we humans become more like machines?

Mutually Assured Boredom

I’ve been pondering this challenge in conversation with some of my fellows at The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics, including Chris Watkin, author of Biblical Critical Theory. Recently, Chris offered a striking analogy: During the Cold War, we lived under the shadow of mutually assured destruction (MAD), a terrifying equilibrium where peace depended not on goodwill but on the assurance that war meant mutual annihilation.

Today, Chris says, we face the threat of MAB—mutually assured boredom. The great danger is that we increasingly find real, flesh-and-blood people boring. It’s already the case that many ordinary human interactions, filled with quirks, annoyances, and complexities, struggle to compete with nonstop entertainment from our devices. AI promises to exponentially expand our options for distraction, drawing us even further from genuine relationships, but this time by successfully imitating human conversation.

To be honest, the apocalyptic scenarios bantered about on podcasts worry me less than the testimonials I read from people who prefer conversations with a chatbot over speaking with their siblings, or who trust digital algorithms for counsel more than they do their pastors, or who find online fantasies more appealing than the messiness of real romantic relationships. The smartphone era has already brought about a cascade of consequences: plummeting birth rates, fewer real-world interactions, rising loneliness, and—perhaps most troubling—a loss of muscle memory so we no longer have the capacity to begin or maintain close friendships.

This dynamic also seeps into church life. It’s easy for Christians to feel bored or disappointed by fellow believers in a local congregation and imagine that richer spiritual growth and deeper community might be found primarily through online sermons, digital spaces, or AI-driven apps. Over time, we lose sight of the ordinary saints in our churches, the people God has placed in our lives, because they can often seem so tedious or uninteresting compared to digital alternatives.

Recovering Wonder in Our Neighbor

The real peril of our age is not robotic hostility but human disinterest. Not robots with a mind but people without a heart.

Enthralled by digital simulations, we grow bored with the immortals around us who bear God’s image. G. K. Chesterton said, “The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.” Our age offers countless wonders. What’s missing is our wonder, especially our sense of awe at the glory of ordinary human beings—those we live with, eat with, work with, and worship with.

Simone Weil once described attention as “the rarest and purest form of generosity.” Amid endless digital distractions vying for our focus, perhaps our greatest temptation is stinginess—the failure to be generous with our time in truly attending to others. We become unable or unwilling to look beyond the dull and irritating aspects of human interactions until we erode our capacity to offer, and receive, grace and love.

This problem gets to the heart of the gospel. Compared to God’s infinite glory—a beauty we’ll spend eternity never coming to the end of exploring—humans seem insignificant, mere gnats in contrast to majesty. Yet the Scriptures tell us God is mindful of us. Ponder that for a moment. The most fascinating Being takes an interest in us, pouring out generous attention and care on creatures he made in his image.

Because we bear this divine image, we’re called to reflect God’s attentiveness toward those around us. That’s what’s at stake in the era of AI. If we exchange genuine human relationships—the flesh-and-blood community of the local church and the glorious impingement on our freedom that any true friendship brings—for the enticing efficiency of artificial intelligence, we surrender the gift of love. If we trade seeing and savoring the presence of another person for clever arrangements of words and digital illusions of intimacy, we betray our humanity. If we choose algorithmic interactions over the messy beauty of real friendships and church fellowship, we contribute to a widespread loss of love every bit as tragic as a world laid waste by a war with robots.

Imagine a world of sparkling technology that offers us wealth and comfort and efficiency yet leaves us in a wasteland of lovelessness. That’s where mutually assured boredom will take us.

I don’t know what the future holds or which apocalyptic scenarios involving AI may unfold. But I do know I want to hold on to my humanity. Doing so will require resisting any way of life or shiny new technology that dulls our interest in—or dims our wonder toward—the neighbors we’re called to love.

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Keep your head.

That may be the single most crucial advice I can offer leaders my age and younger.

We’re living in turbulent times—with church leaders rising and falling all around us, shifting tides that unsettle congregations, and a relentless stream of challenges surging in from every side. When the sea is tempestuous, the most countercultural presence we can offer the world is single-mindedness. Steadiness. We can be consistent. Predictable. Stable. Ever drawing people back to the basics—the truthfulness of God’s Word, the power of the gospel, and the mission of the church.

Remember how the apostle Paul exhorted the Corinthian church: “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58). Look again at those first two descriptions: Steadfast. Immovable. And then look at what grounds that stability: knowing our labor in the Lord isn’t in vain. Perhaps the reason so many Christians today seem frantic and frenzied is because, deep down, we don’t believe the promise that our labor in the Lord truly counts. We fear we labor in vain. Anxiety and fear are the telltale signs that our hearts remain uncertain about whether God is really at work through ordinary obedience.

Pillars over Platforms

In his latest book, Australian church leader Mark Sayers contrasts two visions of influence: platforms and pillars. We live in an age enthralled with platforms—marked by social media reach, packed auditoriums, book sales, or online presence. But these platforms, impressive as they may be in the short run, often fail to have a lasting influence because their incentives draw us away from building something larger than ourselves, something that will outlast us.

Pillars, by contrast, stand quietly but powerfully. “The one who conquers I will make a pillar in the temple of my God,” Jesus says (Rev. 3:12). Pillars never stand alone. They depend on other pillars that uphold and make possible spaces where true community can flourish. As the apostle Peter puts it, we’re to be “living stones” built into God’s spiritual house (1 Pet. 2:5), a source of stability and interconnectedness.

Real pillars—those faithful, humble saints who don’t do ministry for their own glory or gain, who aren’t tossed about by the waves of culture or driven to delight or despair by whatever headlines emanate from Washington, DC—contribute to lasting legacies through steady and sacrificial lives. They make possible spaces where others grow and thrive. They seldom seek applause, and their steady presence becomes most noticeable in times of chaos.

Stability amid the Frenzy

In an age marked by noise and upheaval, stability becomes a startling witness precisely because it’s so rare. Our anxious hearts can be distracted by the pursuit of grandiose ideas or dramatic shifts—whatever solutions promise immediate relief. But stability calls us back to reality: Most of the world’s insanity lies beyond our control. Stability reminds us where we can have the biggest influence—in our families, our churches, our communities. That influence is felt not through anxious striving but through faithful steadiness.

Paul told the early Christians living in the Roman Empire, “Seek to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands . . . so that you may behave properly in the presence of outsiders and not be dependent on anyone” (1 Thess. 4:11–12). This quiet stability might seem ordinary or boring, but it stands out in a frantic age.

Sayers shares a recent illustration of the world’s hunger for rootedness. He describes stopping to pray at an old church undergoing renovation in a rapidly transforming suburb, where he encountered a woman who asked if the building would remain a church. When Mark assured her it would, she sighed and said, “I’m so relieved. Everything seems to be falling down at the moment.” There’s something we can learn from that reaction—to not underestimate the appeal of the heart’s cry for something stable, for steadiness, for faithful places of strength amid societal chaos.

Plodding Visionaries

Fifteen years ago, Kevin DeYoung commended the “plodding visionary”—the believer who demonstrates faithfulness not by spectacular, headline-grabbing feats but by relentless, steady obedience. He wrote,

This faithful plodding—what Eugene Peterson famously termed “a long obedience in the same direction”—is what will stand out in today’s world. This is the life that brings heavenly reward, even when earthly applause falls silent. Paul encouraged the early Christians, “Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up” (Gal. 6:9).

Anchored in Trust

Spiritual stability flows from trust. We must trust God’s promise that his Word doesn’t return void. We trust he’s present with us in the ordinary means of grace. We trust that our quiet obedience, unseen by many, will be honored by God. We trust that steady obedience outlasts flashy but fleeting influence. We trust God to empower ordinary believers as tangible sources of strength and stability in an anxious and chaotic world.

Steadfastness is an element of our identity as salt and light. While storms rage around us, steady believers, firmly rooted in faith, become unshakable anchors for anxious neighbors and frantic friends.

A Vision for Generations

Looking forward, perhaps the greatest gift we can offer an anxious age is our calm, faithful stability. Something unchanging. Something rooted. Imagine future generations looking back on our era, commending the quiet, steady, resilient witness of Christians in our time, who met the unprecedented chaos and uncertainty of our era with persistent, prayerful faithfulness. “Everything was going crazy,” they might say, “but they kept their heads, because they knew their Head.”

This is the renewal we labor and pray for. Not a stability of resignation but the steadfastness of perseverance. What more do we have to offer a world marked by volatility than the courage of a steadfast heart anchored in God’s promises?

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A core value of the seeker-sensitive movement of the 1980s and 1990s—and still an underlying principle in many prominent megachurches—was the conviction that the way to reach people was to get rid of the stuffy, old-fashioned elements of church. Worship services were reimagined to help non-Christians feel at home.

Old hymns gave way to contemporary worship anthems (and sometimes secular songs). Big pulpits were replaced by tables or music stands. Stained glass windows in cross-shaped sanctuaries were exchanged for big-box auditoriums with excellent lighting. Choir robes disappeared, and young worship teams took center stage. Careful biblical exposition was often set aside for sermons addressing a listener’s “felt needs.” Anything that felt outdated, uncomfortable, or “weird,” like the strange smell from Grandma’s basement carpet, had to go. Gone too were overt spiritual manifestations like praying all at once or speaking in tongues.

The strategy was clear: to surprise the world by making church feel less like, well, church.

Two Unexpected Trends

Fast forward to today. Two seemingly opposing trends have puzzled me. First, there’s a clear movement among younger generations toward rooted, established forms of worship—often termed “high church”—with a focus on liturgy, sacraments, and ritualistic elements. Stories abound of young men drawn to Eastern Orthodoxy, increased interest in Roman Catholicism among young Brits, and even Baptists rediscovering liturgical worship.

Simultaneously, a different wave is drawing young people toward passionate, exuberant contemporary worship, in multiple denominations that now display elements often associated with charismatic or Pentecostal circles. Luke Simon sees a possible gender divide in these two trends. There’s something to that analysis, and yet statistically, the larger flow in terms of conversion and discipleship for both men and women tends toward these vibrant, less formal “low-church” services.

Until recently, I had a hard time reconciling these countervailing trends: Why would young people flock both to highly traditional liturgical services and lively charismatic worship?

Rediscovering Mystery

The answer became clear recently when my friend Glen Scrivener shared his thoughts on the quiet revival among U.K. youth. Glen identified the common thread connecting the allure of both low-church charismatic services and high-church liturgical experiences: The attraction is precisely their “churchiness.” Although the forms differ, the substance is similar. Both expressions stand radically apart from secular culture by embracing mystery and transcendence. Whether it’s the fervor of Pentecostal worship or the rhythm of sacramental traditions, both resonate deeply in a flattened, disenchanted world.

Pope Leo XIV has said the church’s mission includes introducing people to “mystery as an antidote to spectacle.” Ironically, this quote circulated after the papal conclave, a spectacle if ever there was one! Yet something is true in that assessment. In a world saturated with spectacle—constant entertainment tailored to fleeting attention spans—the church must offer something different. In the church, we’re drawn out of ourselves, into mystery. We hope to develop a serious faith rooted in an authentic encounter with God.

Embracing the Weirdness

Glen notes how the young Christians attending his Church of England congregation express disappointment if communion isn’t weekly or if the kneelers in the pews remain unused. Far from repelling newcomers, the perceived “weirdness” of church rituals enhances the experience. Churchiness isn’t a turnoff—it’s part of the authenticity people are hoping to find when they explore Christianity. They want an encounter with God, not a polished production centered on human tastes.

Stephen Kneale, another pastor in the United Kingdom, provides a good analogy:

If you assume young people disdain anything resembling Grandma’s church, you misunderstand the generational shift. Based on the statistics, Grandma probably didn’t even go to church. And if she did, and still does, she’s probably with a bunch of boomers in a contemporary service in a modern auditorium, all glad they shed the trappings of their grandmas’ churches. Meanwhile, Gen Z is fascinated by the trappings, craving the crumbs that fall from the mysterious church’s table. They want the weird.

Transcendence over Immanence

At their core, both the growing high-church and low-church movements provide a response to an inward-focused spirituality; they offer the possibility of genuine transcendence, a mysterious encounter with God. In many cases, seeker churches end up reducing spirituality to inspirational tips, treating God like a supportive life coach in a self-fulfillment project. Not surprisingly, the church becomes more a support group than a divinely commissioned people.

The solution isn’t a return to the missionally ineffective, insular stuffiness of a traditional church that never assesses its forms or functions. But neither is the solution to double down on the seeker strategy. To meet this moment, we must acknowledge young people’s hunger for transcendence, something beyond personal desire and self-fulfillment. Although the “be true to yourself” script of 21st-century America may have succeeded in convincing us we’re at the center of the universe, as if each of us is our own sun, with everyone else (including God) as planets revolving around us, it fails in the existential application. God’s “God-ness” is too glorious to remain on the periphery. The reality of transcendence is too bright to be darkened.

No matter the style—liturgical or charismatic—the worst decision a church could make would be to diminish its otherworldliness, its strangeness, because we would be discarding our role as a conduit of God’s light for the nations. We would undermine our best appeal to people who, whether they consciously recognize it or not, need deliverance from the self rather than through the self.

Church Should Be Church

Certainly, challenges remain. The church provides far more than just experiences. Some young people drawn to liturgy or charismatic prayer may still wrestle between self-centered spirituality and authentic submission to transcendent truth. They might appreciate the offer of mystery but balk at Christ’s call to conformity and surrender.

But maybe churchiness is making a comeback precisely because it meets a deeper, God-given yearning. The church points our gaze upward. The church beckons us into the mystery of God and the glory of the gospel. The church gives us not a shallow spectacle but scriptural spectacles through which we see the Lord and see each other. The church is rooted. The church is real.

Churchy or not, the great appeal of God’s people is not in becoming more like the world but in pointing clearly beyond it.

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Regular readers of this column know I’m a frequent traveler to England. My wife’s brothers live near Portsmouth, and since 2016, we’ve made several trips to visit them—either all of us together, or my wife on her own or with a couple of our kids, or just me, or me with our oldest son.

Along the way, I’ve sought to incorporate elements of spiritual pilgrimage into these trips, whether through a family lunch at the Eagle and Child in honor of the Inklings, or a birthday spent at Chesterton’s house, or a tour of various sites in London and Oxford. In fall 2022, I was a scholar-in-residence at The Kilns, the storied home of C. S. Lewis. Late last month, our family made the trek across the ocean so my wife and our two younger children could spend the week with her brothers, and my oldest son could rejoin me in Oxford, where I was due to visit Wycliffe Hall to deliver another series of lectures, for a “Christianity and Contemporary Culture” course.

I enjoy exploring new aspects of Oxford, the “city of dreaming spires,” a place of such historical significance because of all the influential pastors, scholars, scientists, and theologians who have studied in that marvelous town of colleges. Even now, after four visits, I feel I’ve barely scratched the surface of all there is to see.

I always enjoy my interactions with students at Wycliffe Hall, who often come from different countries, representing a wide range of backgrounds and denominational traditions. Currently, the Talbot School of Theology of Biola University, led by Ed Stetzer, has a partnership with Wycliffe that offers American students the opportunity to attend a course in Oxford. I find the cross-cultural conversations between Wycliffe and Talbot students to be sharpening: In the same classroom, you might find a catalytic church-planting pastor from Australia, who sits next to a female scholar from Nigeria, across from an East Asian pastor serving in a pro-life organization, and on and on it goes.

On this recent trip, my youngest brother joined my son and me for several days, and part of the fun was showing him around. Below, I’m sharing a few pictures from our visit for the enjoyment of fellow Anglophiles!

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I was doing catechesis before I could read. When I was just 3 years old, my parents started asking me basic Bible and theology questions. Some of my earliest memories are of laminated cards they used for those questions, and I’d enthusiastically spout the answers, longing for the day I’d know how to read them myself. (My mom tells me I came home after my first day of kindergarten, slammed down my little red panda backpack, and said, “Well, I went to school, and I still don’t know how to read!”)

At my Christian school—an independent Baptist school with Bob Jones University curriculum—we had a kind of catechism too, though we didn’t call it that. We worked through a paperback textbook called Bible Truths, which laid out doctrinal questions and answers. “Who made God?” the book asked. “No one made God,” we answered. Even though my school would never have used the word “catechism” (it’s too Catholic, too formal, too ritualistic!), it was exactly that: a structured way of learning biblical truth.

Years later, as a father, I sought to catechize my kids. I relied on storybook Bibles and The Gospel Project—a curriculum I had the privilege of helping start for Lifeway—which introduced a catechetical element for children.

But the first time I heard Tim Keller talk about the need for counter-catechesis, it reframed everything for me. At a TGC colloquium in Louisville, Kentucky, he explained that catechesis has always been counter-catechesis. The Reformation-era catechisms weren’t just teaching doctrine; they were actively inoculating believers against the dominant Catholic alternative. They weren’t just building a Protestant worldview but dismantling competing ones.

Keller was clear: Classical catechisms like Heidelberg, Westminster, and Luther’s remain indispensable, but they’re no longer sufficient. Today, the primary alternative to Protestant Christianity isn’t Catholicism—it’s Western secularism, with its own catechism, reinforced constantly through ads, music, social media, and entertainment. The secular world disciples people through stories and slogans, reinforcing ideas like “Be true to yourself,” “Follow your heart,” and “Define your own reality.” And our traditional catechisms, while biblically faithful, often don’t expose the faults in these modern narratives or offer a direct contrast.

In the years before he died, Keller listed a number of elements we’ll need for the church’s renewal in our day. I remember, as I looked over his list of six items, landing on his recommendation of counter-catechesis discipleship. “We need a counter-catechism that explains, refutes, and re-narrates the world’s catechisms to Christians,” he wrote. And I remember thinking, I can help with that.

Building a New Catechism

Meanwhile, on another continent, Thomas West was laboring as a church planter in London. The two of us had connected at Southeastern Seminary as our PhD studies had overlapped a little, and we had a shared love for the missionary theologian Lesslie Newbigin, who advocated for a missionary encounter with Western culture. Thomas shared the same longing for a resource that would equip Christians young and old for a missionary encounter, to show how the Bible counters what passes for commonsense wisdom in our day. We talked and prayed for more than a year about partnering on a resource like this.

In 2022, while I was spending a few weeks in Oxford studying and teaching, Thomas took the train from London to join me for a day of brainstorming at The Kilns, the home of C. S. Lewis. We sat in the common room where Lewis had written some of his greatest works, discussing how we could structure a resource that would do what Keller had called for—catechize Christians in a way that directly confronts the dominant secular myths of our time. Keller had said we need new tools of catechesis, resources that say, “You have heard it said, but I say unto you.” Or what Thomas and I say: “Not this but that.”

We spent 2023 drafting questions and answers, testing them with a small email list and within Thomas’s ministry in London. In 2024, we refined the material based on feedback from pastors and leaders across the United States and United Kingdom, including some of the Keller Center fellows. Now, we’re preparing for The Gospel Way Catechism for students and adults (with an accompanying workbook) to release in July, with an adapted version for children coming next year.

One of our generation’s tasks is to present the Christian faith in a way that helps young and old alike to stand out, to shine like stars in a crooked generation (Phil. 2:15). A counter-catechism is just one tool for doing that, but in the end, if we’re going to answer Keller’s call to counter-catechesis, we need more than just tools and books and resources.

More important than the instruction is the instinct—developing and honing the instinct for how Christianity makes us different, how the gospel counters the world’s lies while fulfilling the deeper longing. Ultimately, it’s not about memorizing a bunch of questions and answers. It’s about learning to see all of life through the lens of Scripture, so we’re faithful to the Lord in our time.

Countering the Myths

Take the question “Who is Jesus?” A traditional catechism might say, “He is the Son of God.” True enough. But in a world filled with distorted visions of Jesus—as a life coach, a therapist, or an activist—we need to say more. That’s why we answer,

Why is it important to have the “not this but that” element in our answer? Because everyone wants Jesus to fit their mold, which is why so many versions of him exist—a life coach cheering on our dreams, a therapist affirming our feelings, or an advocate for whatever cause we champion.

But the real Jesus doesn’t simply affirm our desires; he calls them into question, offering not just encouragement but transformation. The New Testament presents him not as a coach or therapist but as the King of the world, wielding supreme authority yet marked by self-giving love. His blood shed on the cross isn’t just a symbol of support—it’s the means of our healing. We don’t need a cheerleader; we need a Savior. We don’t need affirmation; we need redemption. The question isn’t whether Jesus is on our side but whether we’re on his.

Or consider the question “Why did God create us?” Most catechisms answer, “To know him, love him, and share his joy.” Again, true—but today’s world tells people to invent their own purpose, to define their own existence. So we add this:

Secular thought swings between two extremes—either elevating humans to godlike status with limitless autonomy, or reducing them to mere animals driven by instinct and self-interest. Neither vision provides lasting meaning, leaving us either crushed by the weight of self-creation or lost in a world without purpose.

Scripture offers a better way: We’re neither gods nor mere creatures but image-bearers of the one true God. Our worth isn’t something we manufacture; it’s derived from him whose likeness we reflect. Made for relationship, we find joy not in self-definition but in knowing and loving God, the very purpose for which we were created. The world tells us to look inward to find meaning, but the gospel calls us to look upward. True fulfillment isn’t found in self-made purpose but in bowing to the God who made us, the only path to the good life he intends for us.

Defining Key Terms

One of the benefits of a counter-catechism is that sometimes we have to add questions that previous generations wouldn’t have needed. For example, no classic catechism has questions about what sexuality is. But we know that’s an incredibly important issue in our day, which is why we say,

We also felt the need to ask the question “What is freedom?” An odd choice for a catechism, right? But we think it needs to be said:

Modern freedom is often defined as individual autonomy—the ability to choose without external constraints—but this vision is ultimately empty. True freedom isn’t about the absence of limits but about embracing the right ones, as every meaningful relationship requires sacrificing some freedoms for the sake of love and commitment.

The Bible presents a deeper vision of freedom, not as mere self-determination but as alignment with God’s will, seen in how Israel was freed from Egypt to worship God and how Jesus came to liberate us from sin. In his first sermon, Jesus declared himself the long-promised Liberator, giving up his life so we could be truly free—not for self-indulgence but for a life led by the Spirit. Real freedom isn’t doing whatever we want; it’s wanting what’s good, true, and beautiful, and walking in the freedom Christ supplies.

Other important scriptural words also need to be defined biblically and counter-culturally, such as “faith”:

Faith today is often reduced to a vague, sentimental feeling—believing in yourself or trusting that things will work out—while the Enlightenment has framed faith and reason as opposites. But in reality, everyone operates on faith, trusting certain fundamental truths about the world, even in science. The modern impulse is to look inward for truth and conform the world to our desires, but the Bible presents faith as looking outward—to the objective reality of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection.

Biblical faith isn’t just a private experience or a religious hobby; it’s a wholehearted trust in Jesus as the Savior and King, aligning our lives with the truth of his rule. True faith means renouncing self-reliance and receiving the grace that comes from God, not just believing in Christ’s resurrection but entrusting ourselves fully to him for salvation and transformation. 

Better Story

What does this counter-catechetical instinct look like? In This Is Our Time, I use the construct of longings and lies in light of the gospel.

To resist the false stories shaping our world, we must first recognize the deep longings behind them. People don’t believe myths simply because they’re deceived; they believe them because they want them to be true. The Christian’s task isn’t just to refute myths but to connect the gospel to the longings that drive them.

But recognizing the longing isn’t enough. We must also expose the lie. That’s what Scott James calls “Spot the lie”—an activity he’ll sometimes adopt when watching shows or movies with his kids. If we fail to challenge falsehoods, we reduce Christianity to just another self-help option among many. Instead, we must proclaim that Jesus isn’t just one truth among many—he is the Truth. The gospel must stand in contrast to the world’s false hopes, exposing their emptiness and pointing to the only One who truly satisfies.

Then there’s the light—what comes from the gospel. Light not only exposes what’s false; it illuminates what’s good, true, and beautiful. The gospel doesn’t just tell people what’s right and wrong—it tells a better story. Yes, at first, the light may be uncomfortable. But once our eyes adjust, we see that Jesus fulfills our deepest longings in ways we never expected.

In the end, if we’re to answer Keller’s call to counter-catechesis, it won’t be only through tools and mindful memorization. It’ll be through training ourselves and our fellow church members and the next generation to know, intuitively, where the world doesn’t line up with Scripture, and how Scripture gives us a better story, the true story that unmasks and envelops all the cultural narratives of our world today.

Counter-catechesis isn’t just about proving Christianity is true. It’s about showing a world trapped in false stories that the gospel is better.

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Not long ago, a friend asked me about my Bible-reading and prayer habits. He was surprised to learn that I don’t read through the entire Bible every year—and that I’ve only completed that journey a few times in my life.

Years ago, I did a “Bible in 90 Days” plan, and for a couple of winters, I set aside the first two months of the year to read the entire Bible before picking up any other book. Those cold, quiet mornings with a cup of tea and God’s Word were wonderful. But I haven’t done it since.

Yes, over the years, I’ve recommended all sorts of Bible reading plans—chronological journeys or daily readings that go through the Psalms and New Testament twice. My church is walking together through the whole Bible this year, and this is a practice I appreciate and commend. We’re blessed with an abundance of riches when it comes to ways to engage with Scripture. But I have to admit, reading the entire Bible in a year isn’t my usual rhythm. For a few reasons.

Pressure to Keep Up

First, while I love taking in large portions of Scripture—something I do regularly and reflectively in my 30 Days prayer series—I’ve found that layering a “Bible in a Year” plan on top of my normal reading keeps me in helicopter mode, hovering over the landscape of Scripture, getting a good view of the grand narrative but at the expense of meditation. I don’t land often enough to walk the terrain, taking in the textures and details, lingering in slow and significant contemplation.

To be clear, the plans aren’t at fault here. And it’s not that I lack desire. It’s simply a time constraint. Reading those lengthy daily allotments slowly and meditatively would require more hours in the morning than is feasible.

Second, some plans press me into unhealthy places. My personality is the overachiever who loves to cross things off my to-do list. When I try an annual plan and inevitably fall behind at some point, I feel like the Marvel fan who missed the last couple movies or TV series—I’m out of the loop and it’s all getting away from me and I just won’t be able to catch up and I should just throw up my hands as I fail yet again. On and on it goes. Or, worse, to avoid that frustration, I’m tempted to rush through the readings, to skim the surface, just to move the bookmark when it’s my heart that needs moving. Again, that’s not a flaw in the plan. That’s just me.

Need to Linger

Third, the way some plans are arranged can make these struggles worse. I appreciate the structure of chronological reading plans that give a broad overview of the Bible’s storyline (I’m especially a fan of the one put together by George Guthrie), but I find it hard to go 40 weeks before stepping into the Gospels. I can’t go every year until October without the story of Jesus.

Some plans rectify this by including daily readings from both the Old and New Testaments, or repeating the Psalms and the New Testament. But this compounds the challenge for me, because it requires more reading every day, not less, thereby increasing the number of words I’m taking in and decreasing my attention span for careful focus.

Lastly, it needs to be said: Reading through the Bible in a year isn’t a badge of honor or a sign of spiritual maturity. For most of church history, private Bible reading wasn’t even possible. Christians heard the Scriptures in church, recited them from memory, or sang them in worship. Access to a Bible, much less the ability to read it, was a rare privilege. Even in the post-Reformation era, as Matthew Bingham’s A Heart Aflame for God points out, pastors were most likely to recommend attentive, active reading of smaller portions of Scripture, even just a chapter a day, with a spirit of thoughtful meditation oriented toward personal application.

So yes, I’m deeply thankful we have the Bible in multiple translations, with excellent study tools and plans available. The Bible’s accessibility pushes me toward more engagement, not less. But spiritual nourishment doesn’t come from the quantity of words read. It’s also the quality of time spent chewing on a passage or verse.

Grace for the Journey

So, no—I don’t read through the entire Bible every year. But I do have a plan. I want the Scriptures in front of me every day. I want a rhythm. A cadence. A habit for life. And I want to make sure I’m not only camping out in my favorite passages, returning again and again to the same few familiar hills. A reading plan, even one that doesn’t take you through the whole Bible in 12 months, isn’t less than. It’s a good way to keep you listening for God’s voice as you read his inspired Word.

I’ll continue to cheer on anyone who reads the Bible in a year. But if you’re someone who starts strong and feels discouraged by February—or if your heart longs to go deeper, not just faster—then let me remind you: God’s Word isn’t a race to be won but a feast to be savored.

Don’t just aim to finish a plan. Aim to be formed by the Word. Not just to get through the Bible, but for the Bible to get through to you.

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Double literacy loss is among the significant challenges facing the church today. It’s a phrase that describes the shrinking habits of reading among young people, compounded by a lack of sustained attention given to Scripture—even among those growing up in church.

I recently devoted an episode of Reconstructing Faith to this phenomenon (“Reading the Bible When Nobody Reads”), where I talked with author and professor Brad East. He advocates fresh approaches and methods to increase Bible engagement for the next generation, especially considering a dwindling number of “church grandmas,” who, even if they may not be big readers who sit down with literary classics, know the Scriptures deeply because they’ve invested in Bible reading over a lifetime.

The church grandma wasn’t a super-reader in the Dostoevsky or Dickens sense, but she was a super-reader of the Bible. “They really did begin their day and end their day in the Word,” Brad says, “in leisurely, patient, quiet time in the presence of God as he made himself manifest in the Scriptures to them.”

My Church Grandpas and Grandmas

This is my heritage. I was blessed to know four of my great-grandparents personally, and my grandparents have also been committed to the Scriptures.

• My great-grandma Ollie’s education didn’t go beyond the eighth grade, but she knew her Bible and could recite portions by heart.
• My great-grandpa Champ lived for most of his life in rural Tennessee. Whenever I’d stop by to see him when he was in his 90s, he’d quote Scripture or reflect on a sermon he’d recently listened to on a cassette tape.
• My grandparents, too, have been rooted deeply in the Word. My Grandpa Wax devoted years of his life to printing Bibles for distribution all over the world.
• My Grandpa Bill taught a Sunday school class for middle school boys, and nearly every time I visited his home, he’d ask about something he’d read that morning (“Trevin, what do you think Paul means when he says all the promises of God are ‘yes’ in Christ Jesus?”). Inevitably, he’d choke up and hold back tears as he reflected on God’s grace.
• My grandmothers, both still living, begin each day in Scripture (sometimes with my 30 Days series!).
• Likewise, my parents study and savor the Scriptures. My dad is constantly memorizing psalms. My mom has stepped fully into her role as a church grandma by setting the remarkable goal of reading through the entire Bible each year for the next 14 years and writing down comments, prayers, and counsel in the margins of note-taking Bibles she’ll pass down to each of her grandchildren. (Two of our kids have already received their “Grandma Bibles,” and they’re treasures to behold.)

The beautiful truth about church grandparents is that anyone can become a super-reader of the Bible. You don’t need a degree. My grandparents weren’t part of the “knowledge class.” Some went to college; others didn’t. Some read widely; others were content with Reader’s Digest or the latest from John Grisham. I probably won’t be discussing Dostoevsky’s The Idiot or Kierkegaard’s existentialism with my grandmothers anytime soon. But we sure can talk about the Gospels. They know the stories of Jesus backward and forward. They’ve immersed themselves in the Psalms. They explore the Epistles as regularly and perhaps more reverently than most New Testament scholars. The Bible is life to them.

Vision for Future Church Grandpas and Grandmas

Here lies the heart of our challenge in an age of double literacy loss. On my podcast, Brad contrasts the church grandma with the typical Christian college student raised in church. Many students are unfamiliar with the most basic biblical characters or where they fit in the Scripture’s storyline. Some struggle to explain the difference between the Old and New Testaments.

“Even if we weren’t worried about technology and even if we weren’t worried about literacy,” Brad says, “there’s something in the water where young people raised in the church are not being catechized in rich study and knowledge of the Scriptures.”

I fear he’s right. And that doesn’t bode well if we want to see the future full of elderly saints steeped in Scripture. Church grandpas and grandmas don’t emerge overnight. They don’t start their daily Bible reading habit after retirement. Their spiritual heritage is built over decades—slowly, patiently, meditatively, listening attentively as the Lord speaks through his Word.

So, yes, we should employ various methods that help people engage with Scripture beyond traditional reading—audio Bibles, reciting Scripture regularly in worship services, Scripture-saturated songs, and podcasts that foster meaningful engagement on the go. We must think creatively, acknowledging that not everyone in this generation will engage Scripture only through individual reading. (The “daily quiet time” is a wonderful but recent development in church history.)

Yet alongside these creative efforts, I hope we can still cast a fresh, compelling vision for cultivating future church grandmas and grandpas. If we can teach young people about sound financial practice—how to save and invest with an eye to future dividends—why can’t we help them consider the long-term spiritual investment in regular Bible reading that will bring about spiritual fruit for their children and grandchildren? Every time we contemplate the Bible, we make another contribution to a spiritual fund that holds generational benefits.

Flash forward 40 years from now: Will our grandkids spot our worn Bibles by the recliner? Will they see us captivated by Jesus and his Word? When we’re old and gray, or after we’re gone, will our grandchildren and great-grandchildren say with conviction, “Papa knew the Bible” or “Grandma loved God’s Word”? Will our lives radiate the holiness and sanctity marked by truth absorbed deeply over years of quiet devotion?

For the sake of the future Timothys out there, I pray for the proliferation of church moms and grandmas like Eunice and Lois (2 Tim. 1:5). I pray God will raise up grandparents who embrace habits of life and love, marked by devotion to the Scriptures. I want to leave my grandkids the legacy my grandparents left me—a Scripture-saturated life, for the good of those who run behind me in the race of faith.

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I’m rereading Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov this year, in a marvelous new translation from Michael R. Katz. A lengthy portion of the book centers on the memories and teachings of Father Zosima, a saintly elder in a Russian Orthodox monastery who serves as a spiritual hero to the novel’s protagonist, the novice Alyosha Karamazov.

Shortly after the elder Zosima—revered for his holiness and wisdom—dies, his body begins to decay rapidly. Unlike other holy men and women whose corpses were said to remain uncorrupted, Zosima’s body emits a stench almost immediately. Within hours, the townspeople marvel at this grotesque turn of events with perverse delight, wondering if the elder’s sanctity had always been a sham.

The townspeople talk among themselves.

• Is this a sign from God?
• He was dried up and skinny when he died! What else could cause such a stink but deep-rooted spiritual corruption?
• It was his theology! His teaching was always suspect.
• He wasn’t strict enough in fasting. He ate sweets. He even enjoyed tea!
• His body is swollen because his spirit was swollen with pride. He accepted too many honors and never corrected those who praised his holiness.

As the scene unfolds, Dostoevsky shows us the reactions of other monks in the monastery:

The scene is powerful, first because of the crisis of faith it stirs in Alyosha, who wrestles with confusion and grief as he wonders why God would allow a righteous man’s memory to suffer such indignity. But second, and just as striking, it paints an unflattering yet realistic portrait of human nature. Gossip flaring, accusations flying, whispers turning into condemnation—all this exposes the human heart’s enjoyment of seeing holiness toppled and virtue discredited.

Flesh’s Delight in Decay

Dostoevsky recognizes how tempting it is to take a perverse pleasure in seeing a good person’s reputation suffer. To find strange satisfaction when the flaws of someone widely admired are exposed. To feel good when someone once lifted up and praised gets knocked down a peg. Perhaps these feelings are spread through the poison of envy, or they display the reality of mimetic rivalry that leads to conflict. Or maybe it’s because examples of righteousness make us feel uncomfortable, thus we’re drawn to the notion that there must be something tainted under the surface. In our cynicism, we expect hidden sin and doubt hidden holiness.

Whatever the reason, if any part of us perks up when a respected figure suffers indignity—if we feel a flicker of satisfaction when their sins are exposed or their name is dragged through the mud—we should pause and take a hard look at ourselves. Have we become like Dostoevsky’s townspeople? Are we delighted by putrefaction? Do our hearts smile at the stench of death?

If the answer is yes, we must recognize the impulse of the maggot in us—or the appetite of the scavenger, ready to tear apart what remains of someone else’s good name. Or the temptation to sit back and savor the spectacle in silence.

Devilish Desire

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis challenges us to check our heart’s response when a story of some atrocity committed by our opponents turns out to be exaggerated or false. Is our instinctive reaction “a feeling of disappointment,” because we enjoyed believing our enemies were as awful as possible? If our instinct is to wish what’s bad would be even worse, we’ve succumbed to the perverse pleasure of wishing what’s dark were darker, “the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils.”

This is what the flesh delights in—the fall, the failure, the faintest whiff of rot. And if you’re honest, you’ve felt it before. I have too. That sly satisfaction when the halo slips, when the pedestal wobbles. But the apostle Paul reminds us that love “finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth” (1 Cor. 13:6). If we take pleasure in putrefaction, we’ve already begun the descent Lewis warned about—a staircase winding downward into bitterness, cynicism, and blindness.

David prayed, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way” (Ps. 139:23–24, CSB). That’s the prayer we need. Because the heart of a follower of Jesus should never perk up at the news of scandal or decay. The malevolent gleam should be far from our eyes. And so, in repentance, we ask the Lord to change us so we never delight in the stench of death but become a sweet aroma, with lives marked by true holiness, fragrant with the grace of Christ.

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A hundred years ago, progressive women marched through New York’s streets demanding suffrage and equal rights. Some smoked cigarettes in public—a provocative move intended to push against the stigma of smoking as merely a “man’s treat.” By the 1950s, smoking had become synonymous with glamour in Hollywood and normalized throughout society, with Big Tobacco company Philip Morris sponsoring America’s favorite TV show, I Love Lucy.

Fast forward 75 years, and smoking on-screen now earns a show a “TV-MA” rating or at least a cautionary disclaimer. Cigarettes are banned from nearly every public place, and smoking rates have plummeted. Today, debates swirl around newer trends like vaping or the legalization of certain drugs. Still, the cultural shift on smoking remains undeniable, driven by irrefutable evidence of its connection to cancer.

The smoking revolution makes me wonder, What else might our society radically rethink over the next century?

Myth of Unstoppable Technological Habits

Our society, shaped profoundly by an Enlightenment eschatology of progress, often assumes a straight-line trajectory toward something better. We reflexively believe each technological advance marks a step upward. Yet history shows something else. Imagine telling those progressive women in the 1920s—boldly challenging the antismoking stigma—that within a century, their revolutionary habit would become culturally taboo. They’d find it unthinkable. And yet, here we are.

What assumptions are made with confidence today that future generations might find similarly baffling? Just a decade ago, hundreds of schools rushed to integrate iPads into classrooms—only to remove them after statistics revealed detrimental effects on students’ learning. Could other technological habits we unquestioningly accept today undergo the same reconsideration?

Questioning Our Digital Habits

Could there come a day when endless scrolling is recognized as damaging to mental health in the same way smoking harms physical health? Will we reevaluate the appropriate age for smartphone use or reconsider adults’ immersion in social media? Will future generations look back on today’s unlimited access to pornography with horror and disbelief?

At first, digital advancements always seem full of promise. Email simplified communication, Facebook reconnected old friends, Twitter fed our hunger for news, Instagram gave us glimpses into each other’s lives, and TikTok mesmerized us with its uncannily addictive algorithm. Yet we now live in a world of compulsive scrolling, trained—like animals—to keep mindlessly reloading the feed. The consequence? A numbness that dulls attention, dampens wonder, and corrodes our capacity to be fully present wherever we are.

Watching a movie on a big screen in our living room, a marvel that would have captivated our great-grandparents, doesn’t contain enough stimulation for us, so we reach for our phones and keep swiping, our eyes darting back from the big screen to the small. Then there’s the relentless pressure to publicize our lives, seeking validation from strangers online. Even when all the likes in the world don’t add up to love. Even when amassing followers doesn’t satisfy the itch for fame. Even when the endless stream of videos can’t crowd out our sadness.

You know the statistics: anxiety, depression, loneliness—all skyrocketing in an age of digital abundance. Despite the conveniences smartphones offer, they’ve come with unintended consequences. Political discourse is toxic, thanks in part to those perpetually plugged into outrage. Churches and associations struggle as people opt for pseudofriendships and counterfeit connections online.

So I ask again: Will we continue blindly toward an always online future? Or might there be an awakening?

Signs of Change?

Recent trends hint at a possible shift. There’s rising momentum for restricting smartphone use in schools, fueled by compelling research from scholars like Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge. On Christian college campuses, young adults looking for friends or a future spouse tell me incessant posting is a relational “red flag.” Government oversight of harmful algorithms and explicit online content is gaining traction. Even virtual reality, once proclaimed as the inevitable future, faces unexpected pushback, with tech giants incurring substantial financial losses as consumers resist deeper digital immersion.

Let me be clear. We will not be going back to a predigital era. No one can read Anton Barba-Kay’s masterful A Web of Our Own Making and miss how pervasive the ramifications of our new inventions are. Digital technology has reshaped our expectations, identity, and sense of reality. The digital world is here to stay.

But this doesn’t mean we must follow the script tech enthusiasts have written.

Reclaiming Our Humanity

I wonder if we’ll see peer pressure exerted against the overengineering of social media platforms, a new fondness for unplugging from everything online, a move away from the soul sickness that descends on us when our whole lives revolve around this magic device in our hands.

I wonder if we’ll look back at this era much the way we look back at the people in the 1940s and ’50s, smoking their lives away. Didn’t they know how bad that was for them? Only this time, it could be us, considering our past phone practices and saying, Why did it take us so long to change course?

We’re humans, not robots—no matter how impressive artificial intelligence becomes. We possess agency. We can course-correct. Yes, our choices are influenced by cultural pressures we don’t fully grasp. But together we can alter the future. Smoking wasn’t inevitable. Neither is scrolling.

I have to hope that, like grass peeking through the cracks in the digital pavement, we will reclaim our humanity—that we will not be enslaved to devices that rob us of wonder and mystery, that we will recognize the goodness of this world God has given us, that we will marvel at the flesh-and-blood immortal people who stand next to us every Sunday singing praises to God, that we will open our eyes and put down our phones.

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Evangelicalism has fractured. The past decade has led to a parting of the ways among many who once labored side by side to steward and promote the gospel.

Michael Graham puts numbers to the fracturing. His schema outlines several broad groups:

1. Neo-fundamentalists, often most concerned about whatever is perceived as drift from the theological or political right

2. Mainstream evangelicals, generally conservative, denominationally rooted, more attuned to external opposition to the church than internal rot

3. Neo-evangelicals, focused on both external and internal troubles, often with an eye to the global church with sensibilities aligned with small “c” catholicity

4. Post-evangelicals, who move left in their doctrinal views in tandem with political affiliations, often out of evangelical churches into mainline denominations (or out of the church altogether)

Christians Divided

It wasn’t long ago that you could find men and women, primarily 2s and 3s, sharing fellowship and celebrating the centrality of Jesus and his gospel despite their differences. Today, some no longer walk together. A few are no longer on speaking terms. In certain cases, theological divergence drove them apart. In others, the division was over the best and most prudential way forward in the political realm. Some dividing lines are drawn by personality.

Recently, I pointed out how some divisions resemble Paul and Barnabas (Acts 15:39)—a sorrowful separation between brothers who love the Lord yet no longer see eye to eye on ministry strategy. Other splits resemble Paul and Demas (2 Tim. 4:10), where one deserts not only his brother but the gospel itself. Still others echo the tragic story of Simon the Sorcerer (Acts 8:18–23), a grifter who sought to leverage God’s power for personal gain, like a parasite feeding off the Spirit’s work. And then there are the everyday conflicts—quarrels over words, pugnacious tempers, and divisive spirits—against which Paul repeatedly warned (Titus 3:9–11).

Whatever the cause, many former allies now labor in separate fields, and as the tribal lines widen, their followers side with one leader against another, in contradiction to Paul’s warnings to the church in Corinth. What’s worse, often a Paul/Barnabas type of split gets misrepresented—critics go beyond good-faith differences in ministry strategy and tar “Barnabas” with the apostasy of Demas or the opportunism of Simon.

Nearly every leader of significant influence comes under fire these days from one side or another. Social media has ushered in new voices, and while many people may cheer the democratization that diminishes evangelical gatekeeping via institutions, our online overexposure often exacerbates divisions in ways that threaten the long-term health of institutions that are themselves vital to the church’s overall health.

In this climate, new gatekeepers constantly appear and then fade, drawing boundaries and policing theological or ideological borders. The smaller these tribes become, the louder they get, and the more their anathemas proliferate. The result? A cacophony of confusion, amplified by “conflict entrepreneurs”—figures whose platforms are built on a steady stream of outrage regarding the latest development in whatever narrative they’ve sought to establish (often with selective evidence).

A Time to Grieve

All this is discouraging. The New Testament is full of commands to preserve unity—so many, in fact, that we often overlook them. It’s striking how much energy we devote to parsing certain parts of Paul’s letters while skimming past his relentless appeals for believers to be “knit together in love” (Col. 2:2) and to make “every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3).

Love for one another is Christianity’s defining mark (John 13:35). Lovelessness destroys orthodoxy. At the first Lausanne Congress, Francis Schaeffer warned, “If we do not show beauty in the way we treat each other, then in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of our own children, we are destroying the truth we proclaim.” He urged evangelicals to ask God for forgiveness for “the ugliness with which we have often treated each other when we are in different camps.”

It’s appropriate to grieve sinful separations, the normalization of slander, and the abundance of misrepresentation. These fractures aren’t merely unfortunate—they’re wounds in the body of Christ. And if Jesus, in his high priestly prayer, longed for his people to be one (17:20–23), then surely our divisions grieve him. Before rushing to strategies or solutions, we must first let our hearts be broken by what breaks his.

Find a Place on the Wall

Some people hope for a reunion of the old evangelical consensus, as if we could piece together the coalitions of 15 years ago. But I don’t believe that’s our task. Nor do I think it’s possible. The Humpty-Dumpty of evangelical alignment will not be put back together again.

I don’t say this because I lack faith in God to do wonderful things. He can do whatever he wants whenever he pleases. But it’s wrongheaded to think that fixing all the fractures is our responsibility, or that such mending is possible through our own efforts.

Rather than trying to repair a fractured movement, we should focus on reinforcing what remains, especially at the center—we need a dogged commitment to the gospel’s centrality and the church’s enduring vitality. We should labor to keep people in categories 2 and 3 from drifting away from the center. And the only way for 2s and 3s to stick together—for something of a cross-denominational witness to the gospel’s beauty and centrality to hold firm—is for the center to be rock solid, for the steel beam in between the 2s and 3s to be reinforced, with all kinds of institutional support then directed that way.

We must reinforce the core so the church remains anchored in Christ rather than swept into the 1s and 4s (where constant bickering leads to more fracturing—where even within the same tribe, people devour each other). We must also return to the gospel so we resist the temptation to baptize any political agenda that shaves off Christianity’s rough edges or downplays the elements of Jesus’s moral vision that don’t fit neatly into today’s political coalitions.

So here’s my challenge for pastors and leaders who want to reinforce the gospel’s centrality and renew the center: Outbuild the critics.

Yes, it may be tempting to expend energy responding to every attack, every misrepresentation, every act of tone-policing from one side or another. But the best response to those whose work is marked by tearing down is to build something lasting. To construct a body of work so substantive and edifying that, even when your missteps come (and they will), the overall weight of your work speaks for itself. Your body of work demonstrates your commitment to King Jesus and your love for his Bride.

The only way for denominations and church families to make it through the next generation intact is to keep an eye on what’s most central and then just keep building. “I am doing important work and cannot come down” (Neh. 6:3). That was Nehemiah’s response when his opponents tried to distract and derail him. It should be ours as well.

You’ll Always Have Critics

I’ve written publicly for nearly two decades now, long enough to recognize a pattern. Every few years, a new wave of critics arises, some from the right, others from the left. The critics aim for the soft spots in whatever you’re building, or they chastise you for locking arms with like-minded people. The names change, but the personalities and tendencies remain the same: breathless coverage of every controversy, the stacking of evidences intended to create and sustain some kind of narrative—an anti-vision where there’s nothing constructive on offer but only cursing the flaws in other people’s projects, the wielding of untruths and misrepresentations that cause chaos or sow confusion.

I hate to tell you this, but it’s always going to be this way. It always has been! Consider evangelicalism’s leaders in the past century—John Stott, Billy Graham, Carl Henry. None of them escaped fierce criticism. They were attacked from the left for being too traditional, from the right for being too accommodating. Some critiques were justified; no movement is flawless, after all. But in the end, their legacy wasn’t the criticism they endured but the construction they erected. We stand in houses they built.

Keep Your Hand to the Plow

I want to see the church renewed and restored, to see God’s people provide a shining testimony that unmasks the powers and principalities of this world with the power of the Spirit. I want to see the church offer a demonstration of the power of truth in a world of lies, of the gospel in an age of counterfeits, of love over contempt. I want to see the church embrace the cross in a culture prone to interpret everything through the lens of power grabs, or the empty promises of identity politics, or the frenzied nature of materialistic striving or political machinations.

Renewal will not come through endless skirmishes but through faithful, patient, constructive work. So let me say it again: Do not come down from the wall. Yes, be discerning. Defend yourself when necessary. Heed good-faith criticism from those who share your love for Jesus and his Bride. Stay alert to dangers that come from multiple sides. But don’t be thwarted by the Sanballats and Tobiahs who sneer and shake their fists and shout their mockery and insults. Remember—they’re not building anything.

So, continue on. Keep contributing to a body of work that will redound to the glory of God and the good of his people. Stay rooted in the Word. Strengthen institutions. Pour into the next generation. Give young people stones for building a cathedral of faithfulness, not stones to throw at everyone else. Give them a house to live in, not another grenade to throw at the house of our grandparents. Outbuild the critics, and trust the Lord who sees.

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“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse” (Rom. 12:14).

The apostle Paul gave that instruction with an authenticity born of personal experience. He had once stood by, a persecutor himself, nodding approval as Stephen was executed—stones pounding the life out of a faithful follower of Jesus. Stephen cried out in his final moments, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” (Acts 7:60), a dying prayer that mirrored the heart of Jesus, who on the cross said, “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34), adhering to his own command to “pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44).

With each stone hurled at him, Stephen absorbed the blows into his body yet responded not with curses but with prayer. He interceded for those wounding him. In a remarkable twist, God answered Stephen’s prayer by rescuing Paul the persecutor. And Paul himself would later carry wounds—some physical, others emotional—inflicted by believers and unbelievers. Like Stephen, Paul would absorb this pain and, through the Spirit’s power, turn those wounds into prayerful intercession for those who harmed him.

What we see in these examples is something deeper than mere forgiveness. It’s wounded intercession: taking the wounds inflicted on us by others and turning the pain into prayer.

We All Carry Wounds

Nobody passes through this world unscathed. Each of us bears wounds—perhaps from harsh words, or maybe a friend’s betrayal, or the sting of rejection, or the cold shoulder, or the invisibility of neglect. Heartbreak shapes us in ways we may be slow to recognize. We internalize the pain, nurse the slights, and replay the scenes. That’s when bitterness can creep in and poison our souls.

The solution to bitterness is forgiveness, but let’s be real . . . forgiveness isn’t easy, and it’s never cheap. It doesn’t come naturally. Tim Keller explains why we find it so difficult:

John Piper connects our need for forgiveness to Christ’s call to forgive:

This lines up with how Jesus taught us to pray: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Forgiveness from God and forgiveness of others go hand in hand. But how?

Turn Pain into Prayer

To forgive someone doesn’t mean we pretend the pain isn’t real. We don’t excuse evil or sweep sin under the rug. So how do we even start down this road? How can the wounds we carry be transformed from a source of harm into a source of healing?

The path becomes clear in the New Testament command to pray for those who’ve harmed us. Prayer is where we bring our wounds—the cuts, the bruises, the stings—to God. We acknowledge the sins committed against us and then raise our wounded hands to the Spirit, whom we trust can transform suffering into compassion.

When we pray for those who have wounded us, we join Christ in his work of intercession. Just think: Jesus prays continuously for us—you, and me, all of us responsible for the wounds he received on the cross. United to Christ, our wounds can become like his—no longer a mark of defeat or despair but a channel of grace toward the undeserving. When we bless those who curse us and pray for those who hurt us, we trust that our wounds, in Jesus’s hands, can be transformed into prayers the Spirit can use to bring healing not only to us but also to our enemies.

That was the prayer of Oswald Chambers, that we “not only experience the indwelling of the love of God in our hearts but go on to a hearty abandon to that love so that God can pour it out through us for his redemptive purposes for the world. He broke the life of his own Son to redeem us, and now he wants us to use our lives as a sacrament to nourish others.”

One of my favorite hymn-writers, Nicolae Moldoveanu, suffered under Romania’s Communist regime, enduring imprisonment and persecution. Yet his hymns overflowed with grace. I like how his song “Cu haina iubirii” (“With the Garment of Love”) captures the transformative nature of God’s love:

For Moldoveanu, loving our enemies is proof that Christ has renewed our hearts. It’s the sign of his life in us. Wounded intercession isn’t a spiritual technique—it’s an expression of new life, a witness to the transformative power of grace.

Embrace the Wounds of Christ

Thomas Watson wrote, “A true saint carries Christ in his heart and the cross on his shoulders.” This is the Christian life.

No one escapes this life without wounds. The wounds are often wrong. Unfair. Senseless. Forgiveness begins with the upward look of trust to a benevolent Father and then the outward look of love to those who do us harm. In Christ, undeserved wounds can be met with undeserved kindness. We embrace our nail-scarred Savior and join the fellowship of his suffering.

So, as we walk in the steps of our crucified Lord, we ask the Spirit to turn our pain into prayer, our wounds into intercession, our suffering into healing.

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In the apostle Paul’s letter to Titus, we find long lists of character traits and expectations for church leaders, older men, older women, and younger women—qualities like “sound in faith,” “reverent in behavior,” “pure,” “kind,” and “not slanderers.” But when Paul gets to young men? Just one command.

Encourage them to be self-controlled in everything. (Titus 2:6–7)

No list. No elaboration. That one’ll do.

Why this emphasis? Perhaps it’s because self-control is a foundational virtue, especially for young men. This trait rises to the top. Without self-control, you won’t get far in the Christian life.

Priority of Self-Control

This isn’t just a theme in Titus. Paul, when speaking before Governor Felix, sums up the gospel as involving “righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come” (Acts 24:25). Self-control makes it into a gospel presentation! It’s also a fruit of the Spirit, coming at the end of Paul’s list in Galatians 5 but no less essential than the love that starts that list.

Hungarian linguist Zoltán Dörnyei draws a connection between self-control and love. Love is tied to self-control, he says, because self-control is like a spiritual muscle, a foundational virtue that underpins other virtuous behaviors. You can’t become a loving person without self-control, because caring for someone else will always cost you something. True love is hard work because it requires you to push against the inertia of laziness, of just going with the flow. Love requires you to structure your life around willing the good of another. You will not become a person who makes the costly, selfless decisions required by love unless you can master and overcome the selfish impulses most likely to hold you back.

Self-Control Is Under Siege

Why, then, do we hear so little about this virtue? And why do so many young men today seem deficient in it?

Paul wrote to Titus on the island of Crete, where the cultural reputation was one of laziness and gluttony. Not a great combination! Passive when it comes to what’s good for you, passionate when it comes to what’s harmful.

Even today, we live in a culture that treats self-indulgence as a given and self-control as optional. Our economy thrives on our inability to resist certain urges. Social media algorithms are designed to exploit your impulses—to keep you scrolling, swiping, raging, or lusting. Platforms profit from our outrage. Apps monetize our addictions. The world isn’t neutral. It’s actively working against self-control.

If the young men in Paul’s time needed encouragement toward self-control, how much more is this the case today. We need brothers calling each other to something higher. We need people in our lives who will challenge us to master our appetites, manage our emotions, and steward our time.

Without this encouragement, it’s all too easy for the energy and intensity of youth to be hijacked—poured out into pursuits that have no eternal value. Into this vacuum steps a new generation of secular Stoics—self-help gurus who preach self-control in service of the self. A generation of young men are more impressed by Andrew Tate showing off on social media his commitment to lifting weights on Christmas Day, all alone, than by George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, the richest man in the world because of the selfless investments he’s made in all the people around him over a lifetime.

The neo-Stoics recast discipline as just another tool to optimize your life, crush your goals, and elevate your brand. It’s willpower without love. Mastery without mission. And it’s still all about you, you, you.

Not Stoicism but Sanctification

The Christian vision of self-control is something altogether different.

The gospel takes the ancient virtue of self-control and transposes it into a new key. It’s not first and foremost about you. It’s about God. It’s self-control in service of love. Love depends on self-control, yes, but love also deepens self-control. Love turns self-control upward and outward, toward God and toward others. It’s not about independence of self but dependence on God. It’s not about self-mastery; it’s about Spirit-mastery. It’s not about controlling yourself for your own sake; it’s about being controlled by Christ for the sake of others. It’s yielding to the One who loves you with an everlasting love and who wants now to love others through you.

Self-Control in Service of Love

Young men who lack self-control are like a flood—powerful, yes, but uncontrolled, destructive, overwhelming. But young men who learn self-control become like a river—power harnessed and directed, life-giving and fruitful.

In the quest for self-control, we’ll need models. People whose lives are shaped by restraint and grace. Men and women who show what it means to live wisely, love sacrificially, and stand firm in a culture of compromise. You won’t learn self-control from a manual. You learn it by watching someone who’s walked the road ahead of you. And you become that kind of person by the slow, steady work of the Spirit.

To be clear, the life we present to the world isn’t one of perfection or sinlessness, where we always display all the fruit of the Spirit. On the contrary, Paul assumed self-control must be encouraged and exemplified because he knew how easy it would be for us to fail in this area. No, the life we present to the world is the sinless perfection of Jesus Christ—his righteousness counted as ours so we can be justified, and now our righteousness slowly but surely resembling his, as we’re sanctified.

Self-control in service of love. The only way to develop this spiritual muscle is to trust the unfailing love of God our Father, to stand secure in the perfect righteousness of God the Son, and to harness the promised power of God the Spirit. Then, together with God’s people, we press forward in faith, pouring ourselves out for others.

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Fair warning: This article may stir controversy. Read at your own risk. Even if there are many ways for the point I’m making here to be misconstrued or for my motives to be misjudged, I’m going for it anyway.

In a cultural moment saturated with sexual confusion, understanding the reasons behind God’s instructions about sexuality is vital—not just knowing what the Bible says but grasping why the Bible’s commands are good.

In The Gospel Way Catechism, which I wrote with Thomas West, we knew we’d need to devote one of the 50 Q&As to the question “What is sexuality?” We couldn’t imagine skipping that subject, especially when attempting to put forward biblical teaching in a way that counters the pervasive wisdom of the world.

The Why Behind the What

Today, in conversation with younger churchgoers, I find there isn’t as much debate over the Bible’s teaching on sexuality and marriage as there was 10 years ago. The controversies of the 2010s, driven by evangelical-adjacent personalities and publishers trying to muster up a case from Scripture for same-sex marriage or the moral goodness of same-sex sexual behavior, have petered out. For two reasons.

First, the loudest advocates for revisionist interpretations have continued along a theological trajectory away from orthodoxy in other areas, thereby proving marriage and sexuality to be a load-bearing wall in the house of faith. One cannot simply “agree to disagree” on the ethical issue without the underlying anthropological heresy rising up to ravage the rest of Christianity’s teaching. Tear down that wall, and other orthodox beliefs crumble around it, often with shocking speed.

Second, there’s been a proliferation of many helpful resources that lay out what the Bible teaches about sexuality. The arguments are sound—rooted in strong biblical exegesis and the unchanging witness of the church going back 2,000 years, while the tone is one of pastoral sensitivity toward people struggling with the Bible’s prohibitions in an age of confusion and distress.

Yet as I talk with young Christians, I still find a disconnect. They understand what the Bible says. They agree to submit to the Scriptures. A few can even explain a basic “natural law” understanding of the sexual complementarity required for marriage.

But many young people still struggle to explain why the biblical strictures make emotional or spiritual sense. They can’t explain why God condemns sex outside marriage as sin in a way that doesn’t sound arbitrary. It can seem as if God simply dropped these rules onto humanity, demanding compliance without explanation as to why some sexual temptations and behaviors are illicit.

I’d like to try my best to help out on this front. So, in what follows, I’m not going to expound on all the biblical restrictions around marriage and sexuality. Instead, I want to reflect on why the biblical rules aren’t arbitrary but rather line up with what the Bible teaches is good for us—body and soul—and why transgressing these commands provides a good example of the classic understanding of sin.

Sin as Curving In on Ourselves

Sin is more than doing wrong things. It is, in a view put forward by Augustine and then extended by Martin Luther, an expression of our hearts bending inward, turning away from God. The Latin phrase is incurvatus in se—a curving in on ourselves, where we grasp for God’s blessings but push away God himself. Instead of stretching upward toward the transcendent glory of God—an action that enlarges the soul, broadens our vision, and ennobles our lives—we contract into a tight little ball of self-focus, seeking fulfillment in ourselves alone.

Ironically, the heart that tries to lift itself up by its own desires ultimately debases itself. True flourishing, Augustine says, comes through the power of the Spirit in breaking the inward curve so that we’re free to reach outward and upward, finding our delight not just in the gifts of God but in God himself.

All sex outside marriage is the result of sin’s inward curving. What’s more, all sex outside marriage deepens that tendency to turn in on ourselves instead of outward in love and fruitfulness.

To be clear, even sex within the marriage covenant can betray signs of that inward curving, as it’s possible for a marriage to be marked not by self-giving love but by a husband or wife using each other for their own pleasure or withholding affection in ways that distort and shrivel the soul. But even if sex within marriage can be marred by the selfishness of sin, sex outside marriage is always, by its very nature, an expression of sin’s inward curving.

Let’s look at three examples. We’ll save the question of same-sex sexual behavior for last, because I think it’s better not to overlook the more prevalent sins among God’s people.

1. Pornography

It’s true that some still shrug at pornography, holding to a “boys will be boys” mindset (although more and more women today also fall prey to this insidious habit). But many today, even non-Christians, have awakened to porn’s soul-distorting effects. Some arrive at this conclusion from a feminist perspective—they see how pornography debases and objectifies women through degrading acts. Others see porn as a problem because it may stunt the ability of a man to “perform” in a male-female relationship.

In most church settings, when men and women seek help from other believers in overcoming this besetting sin, it’s usually because they recognize lust’s effects on their hearts and in their relationships. Perhaps they’ve experienced the downward spiral, pulled into increasingly violent or degrading scenes that would have once shocked their conscience.

As Christians, we don’t see pornography as merely “unethical” or “harmful.” We see it as a classic example of sin’s tentacles catching us and pulling us into isolation. “Sin demands to have a man by himself,” wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “The more isolated a person is, the more attractive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation.”

Pornography is just one example of sexuality being severed from its original purpose. Even though the Bible doesn’t explicitly mention pornography, it gives us a word from which our word “porn” is derived. The Greek word porneia encompassed a wide variety of sexual sins outside marriage, and it often comes up in lists of sins. Like all sins, porneia separates us from God and the people around us. As a culture, we’ve severed sex from procreation, then severed sex from marriage, then severed sex from partnership, and now we separate sex from another person, making it all about self-gratification.

Pornography leads us into the dark shadows of shame and slowly isolates us from the people around us. In C. S. Lewis’s words, the result is “sending the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides. . . . No demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification is ever imposed on his vanity. In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself.” Lewis’s imagery captures Augustine’s insight perfectly: Pornography imprisons us within ourselves, narrowing our capacity for genuine love.

In pornography, the “one-flesh union” of a man and a woman becomes the “no-flesh” aloneness of a man or woman before the flickering images of a screen. Unlike Adam and Eve in Genesis 2, naked and unashamed, we’re all like Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, naked and ashamed (and hiding). No matter how bold and brash the actors may be in a pornographic video, the viewer is usually timid and ashamed, hiding behind the incognito browser or ready to swipe to another window should someone knock on the door.

Just as sin is like leprosy that deadens our ability to feel, so also with pornography there follows a deadening of the senses and the searing of the conscience. What once was sexually stirring no longer holds any power. That’s not because the person watching porn has become more alive but because they’ve become more dead. Could there be a better example of the wages of sin being death?

2. ‘Self-Abuse’

Following closely with pornography comes the question of masturbation, the point and pinnacle of watching a titillating video.

Some evangelicals—including high-profile psychologists and well-respected authors—claim that the Bible’s silence on sexual self-stimulation implies this practice must be “harmless” in adolescence unless it becomes compulsive. Since it’s a nearly universal practice among young men, they say, it must be simply part of the process of growing up, and as long as the practice can be indulged without lust, then it need not be considered sinful. We may damage the psyche of young people if we heap guilt and shame on them.

This perspective represents a radical departure from the church through the ages. We can either look at our forefathers and mothers in the faith as hypocritical, puritanical prudes whose repression required them to rule out any sexual pleasure by oneself, or we can wonder if maybe they saw something here that we don’t, something our hypersexualized culture has obscured from our view. I believe we should take the latter approach.

There’s something insightful in the name Christians gave for this practice: self-abuse. That term startles us because we generally associate abuse with physical violence or bodily coercion. But if we step into the world of our predecessors in the faith, the description begins to make sense because we start to see sexual sin as truly being against one’s own body (1 Cor. 6:18), and likewise we see the soul-shriveling aspect of sin curving inward on yourself, rewiring your brain so you become accustomed to taking what God has designed for self-giving love in union with another person and redirecting it back to yourself. It’s an example of sin’s distorting nature when you find a young man, whose virility is aimed for union with a woman, turning back on himself in self-pleasure that culminates in solitary confinement of the soul.

Some might think my naming this practice a sin, especially considering its prevalence among young people, is pastorally insensitive, or that I run the risk of loading someone down with crippling guilt or anxiety. But I don’t think the universality of a sin requires us to overlook or minimize it, just as we shouldn’t be afraid to name sins of greed or gluttony or more general lusts that constantly trip us up.

What’s more, I think most Christians know there’s something off and disordered in this act, which is why it draws shame and embarrassment. It’s an example of how sin isolates us and warps the soul, turning inward the very faculties God designed to be drawn outward. We resemble the miser enthralled with his stash of coins, or Gollum’s descent into madness due to the poisonous allure of the ring.

“The sin, if we fall into it,” wrote Lewis, “must be repented, like all our others. God will forgive. The temptation is a darn nuisance, to be born with patience as long as God wills.” Lewis sets the sin in the broader context of conquering selfishness: “Almost the main work of life is to come out of our selves, out of the little, dark prison we are all born in. The danger is that of coming to love the prison.”

3. Same-Sex Sexual Behavior

Now, let’s turn our attention to why God’s prohibition of same-sex sexual relationships isn’t arbitrary. We can come at this question from the biological perspective. Anyone can see that human bodies are designed, male and female, in complementary fashion for a sexual act ordered toward reproduction. This is why Christians continue to insist that marriage between a man and a woman is different in kind from a government-recognized “marriage” between a man and a man or a woman and woman, no matter the intensity of a couple’s affection for one another.

But the biological answer only gets us so far. Why would same-sex pairings be forbidden? Condemned as sin? Why would the apostle Paul single out same-sex sexual desire and behavior in Romans 1 as an example of God’s judgment on idolatry?

Again, let’s think of sin in terms of the human curving in on himself or herself. Whereas marriage intends to draw us out of ourselves toward the mystery of the other in self-giving love, same-sex sexual relationships draw us away from that mystery and curve back toward sameness.

It’s ironic, but one of the most insightful descriptions I’ve found about same-sex sexual desire and behavior comes from an unlikely source—Douglas Murray, a conservative gay commentator, reflecting on insights from gay classicist Daniel Mendelsohn. He wants to explain why societies have long been fascinated and unnerved by homosexuality. In the sexual union of a man and woman, he says, there’s mystery in difference, in the otherness of the beloved. The man cannot know what the woman is experiencing as a woman, and the woman cannot know what the man is experiencing as a man. In contrast, in a same-sex act the man knows both what he’s experiencing and what his partner is experiencing.

“Sex between men dissolves otherness into sameness,” writes Mendelsohn, and “since the object of that knowledge is already wholly known to each of the parties, the act is also, in a way, redundant. Perhaps it is for this reason that so many of us keep seeking repetition, as if depth were impossible.” He goes on:

He describes his same-sex sexual encounters this way: “Like falling through a reflection back into my desire, into the thing that defines me, my self.”

Mendelsohn and Murray share this insight to explain ancient and contemporary homophobia as well as the enduring cultural fascination with homosexuality, but I find here a powerful description of the curving-inward nature of sin. What better way to describe sin than a falling into ourselves, over and over again, as through a reflection, in a hall of distorted mirrors, where we’re trapped by self-desire?

All sin is disordered love—misdirected desire that aims for God and yet boomerangs back to the self in ways that stifle our love for others and squelch our fruitful capacities. Same-sex sexual behavior is just one example (out of many we could point to) of taking an act designed to draw us out of ourselves toward a great mystery and curving back inward toward the repetition and redundancy of sameness.

Gospel for Sexual Sinners

I hope it’s clear from these reflections that no one stands from a position of superiority when it comes to sexual sin. The gospel is the solution to the inward-curving selfishness of sin, no matter how that sin is expressed.

Whether it’s the young person captured by the compulsion of self-abuse, or the middle-aged woman in the shadows watching pornography for self-pleasure, or the person drawn sexually to someone of the same sex—the result is still a sinful disordering of desire that leads us further into ourselves. It leads us away from the glorious mystery of the one-flesh union that points us to the bigger, more glorious picture of Jesus and his Bride. If you find yourself in one of these portraits, please hear me clearly: My heart isn’t condemnation but an invitation into deeper freedom.

God’s rules aren’t arbitrary. Not only are his commands in line with his design (like offering a user manual for human flourishing), but they’re also in line with the glorious vision he has for transforming us more into the image of his Son. We’re aimed for a glory that draws us out of ourselves, lifts us from the pit of our disordered lusts, rescues us from self-isolation, and invites us out of the shadows of shame into the light of the self-giving love we experience from God and in God. The only way you become your true self is through the gift of yourself.

Free from the Isolating Prison of Lust

In Lewis’s The Great Divorce, there’s a ghostly man on the outskirts of heaven with a lizard of lust on his shoulder, whispering temptations into his ear. The lizard convinces the man he’s the one who supplies his happiness. A heavenly being approaches, whose blazing purity sears the man whenever he comes too close, and this angel-like figure tells the ghostly man that the lizard must die if the man is to be free. The ghostly man refuses at first, convinced any operation will kill him too. He sees himself and the lizard as too intertwined for one to live without the other. But eventually, he chooses to have the lizard killed.

The heavenly being executes the lizard in a few moments, and the ghostly man shrieks in agony. And yet once the deed is done, the man becomes magnificent, and the lizard’s corpse is transformed into a stallion. And then, Lewis writes, “the man, his face shining with tears,” leaps onto the horse’s back and “like a shooting star” they ride off into the mountains of heaven and they vanish, “bright themselves, into the rose-brightness of that everlasting morning.” The lesson, Lewis explains, is this:

Lust is always a reduction of what God intends for us. It’s never more. The young man gorging himself on pornography isn’t made stronger but weaker, his manhood not flourishing but falling into emasculation. Wherever you find yourself in this struggle, know this: What feels impossible to lose might be exactly what’s keeping you from truly living.

The good news of the gospel is that in Christ we have forgiveness, no matter how much or how often we’ve sinned in these areas. There’s no depth to which Christ will not go to rescue us. He loves us in the mud. And his rescue isn’t a mere forgiveness but a continual cleansing through ongoing repentance. He would have us walk as royals—sons and daughters of the King.

Isn’t this what we want in the process of being made more like Christ? To have the Lord untwist all that sin has twisted in us? To experience love and desire in a way that points to our ultimate goal—the union we have with Christ, the beatific vision of forever stretching further in knowledge of the triune God for all eternity, ever satisfied yet hungry for more, as we never come to the end of his wonders?

In a world soiled and sodden with sex, God’s rules intend to uncoil our selfishness until we become enflamed with divine love.

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Here’s a question every Christian husband and father should ask: Is there anyone praying for your wife and kids today—by name?

Yes, it’s possible your pastor may include your family in his prayers from time to time when he comes across you in the church directory. Maybe a grandmother or elderly uncle lets you know you’re on a prayer list. Perhaps a faithful friend texts you a prayer emoji and assures you that your family is being lifted up.

But no one—and I mean no one—has the same God-given responsibility or motivation to intercede for your wife and children as you do.

So let me ask again: Is anyone praying for your wife and kids today—by name? The only way you can be sure the answer is yes is if you’ve made it part of your daily rhythm to step into that sacred role. As the spiritual head of your home, you’ve been entrusted with more than provision or protection—you’ve been called to intercession.

Why? Because there’s a battle raging for the souls of your family.

We don’t always see it. It’s not always obvious. But it’s real. The Scriptures are clear: “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens” (Eph. 6:12).

The Evil One is after your family. He is crafty. He studies your weaknesses. He knows where the armor is thin. That low-grade resentment between you and your wife? He’ll widen it into a chasm. That insecurity your teenager hides? He’ll twist it into despair. That temper in your child? He’ll fan it into flame.

He is the Accuser. The Divider. The Destroyer. The effects of sin and evil will spread: the lustful gaze, the perils of pride, the tentacles of idolatry.

What should we do when we sense a heaviness in our home—a haze of discouragement, confusion, or distraction? Not ignore it. Not accept it as normal. We resist. We fight. Not with fists raised but with knees bent.

This is the battle. You bow before your King and plead for the precious ones he’s entrusted to your care. You pray for your wife’s peace and your children’s purity. You ask God to push back the darkness and let light flood your home. You stand in the gap. You name names. You cast burdens. You intercede like a man going to war.

With the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, and the sword of the Spirit—which is the Word of God—you fight back against the darkness (Eph. 6:13–17). You pray in the Spirit at all times, staying alert, interceding for your family (v. 18).

There’s a mysterious power present whenever a man of God brings his family before the Lord. Even if his wife is experiencing a dry season with the Lord. Even if his kids seem spiritually indifferent. Even if he’s the only one in the household following Jesus with passion. Sin spreads, yes, but so does holiness—and what could be more sacred than to love your wife like Jesus loved the church, to pour yourself out in self-sacrificial love, to care about the sanctification of your household, to set aside sacred time to utter sacred yearnings for God to heal you and make you whole and holy?

But it’s hard. Yes. But we’re called to hard things.

I don’t have time. But you do. You make time for what matters. Maybe not an hour a day, but anyone can set aside five or ten minutes—on a commute, on a walk, or first thing in the morning or last thing in the evening.

I’m alone in this. But you’re not. Invite a faithful friend or two to pray daily for you and your family. Draw strength from the Spirit, who helps us when we don’t know what to say (Rom. 8:26).

I don’t see any results. So what’s the alternative? Silence? Surrender? To drop your shield against the fiery darts that would rob your family of the blessing of God working in and through you? To extinguish the candle and let the darkness rush in?

To get on your face and pray for your wife and kids is one of the greatest privileges and responsibilities you steward as the head of your house. To pray God’s blessing and holiness over your home. To pray against the wiles of the Evil One who would draw your wife and kids away from Jesus. To pray for the goodness of God to sanctify and satisfy your souls. “The prayer of a righteous man is very powerful in its effect” (James 5:16).

Let me encourage you: Take up this task. Don’t let a day go by without bringing the names of your wife and kids before the throne. Don’t underestimate what God might do through your passionate, persistent, persevering petitions.

Stand firm in grace. Strap on the truth. Bend the knee. Be the man God has called you to be. Your family is worth fighting for.

If you’re not praying for your wife and kids, who is?

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The statistics surrounding the “great dechurching” of the past 25 years have given rise to commentary and concern, with speculation about the many reasons people drift away from church affiliation.

Some may want to celebrate the endurance of those who still attend church regularly, but I don’t think even that picture should inspire optimism. I suspect a large number of those who still belong to a church family may not hold to all their church teaches but instead treat church membership as an accessory to a life primarily devoted to pursuits unrelated to Christ’s kingdom and mission.

Not long ago, I was talking with a friend about some deep conversations he’d been having with a member of his church. You wouldn’t know from the outside that the man was anything other than a devoted and active member. And yet, in personal conversation, my friend was surprised to discover his fellow church member quietly dismissed several of the church’s core doctrinal positions. He accepted sexual immorality outside the bounds of historic Christian teaching and denied eternal judgment.

“I just think our church is wrong on that stuff . . . but I love being here for the community.”

That was the attitude. The man viewed the church as a successful dispenser of religious goods and services, while true conviction and commitment on his part were lacking.

When Christianity Never Rubs You the Wrong Way

The question my friend felt compelled to ask his fellow church member was this: Is there anything you believe as a Christian that’s hard for you? In other words, Is there any Christian teaching you submit to even if it makes you uncomfortable?

This is a crucial question because, rightly understood, Christianity should rub up against everyone’s sensibilities at some point or another. In many places in the West, it’s natural for the tension points to cluster around sexual ethics or the exclusivity of Christ for salvation. In other parts of the world, the friction may fall elsewhere. But friction there will be. In every generation, Christians have wrestled with Jesus’s hard sayings and the implications of discipleship.

Even now, some who affirm orthodoxy—hell, the Trinity, biblical marriage—may look for loopholes in orthopraxy when scriptural commands collide with political expediency. The Bible’s warnings about wealth, the call to mercy, the compassion we’re to show to the vulnerable—these teachings often challenge our cultural or political instincts. If there’s no point at which Scripture impinges on your personal or political views—if you can easily explain away the Sermon on the Mount or reinterpret Jesus’s parables to conveniently shrink the circle of Christian love—then it’s worth asking, Where do my deepest convictions really lie?

If everything about our Christianity comes easy to us, it’s not Christianity as Jesus preached it. Because Jesus himself described the way of the kingdom as hard. As Augustine said when countering Faustus’s heresy,

The Cross We Never Pick Up

We should test ourselves. Do we pledge our allegiance to God as he truly is, or do we settle for fashioning a god of our own imagination? Are we shaving off the rough edges of his revelation to suit our preferences? Or are we willing to submit to what he says about himself—even when we don’t understand (or don’t want to)?

These questions matter. If we’re not willing to submit to God’s revelation when it’s difficult, we won’t be willing to do what he asks when his will for our lives makes us uncomfortable.

“Take up your cross” and “follow your dream” don’t exactly go together. If “follow your dream” is your baseline, the church will become an assistant in helping you achieve your goals, not a family devoted to God’s kingdom promises.

So much of what Christianity teaches is uncomfortable. Turning the other cheek doesn’t come naturally. Giving to the one who begs seems silly. Lifelong fidelity to marriage vows seems impossible. Prioritizing others’ interests above our own seems foolish. Gathering weekly for worship feels excessive. Forgiving—again and again—seems naive. The threat of eternal fire sounds far-fetched. The uniqueness of Jesus as Savior feels narrow.

My hunch is that many churchgoers quietly enjoy the benefits of an easy Christianity—a version that dispenses with commands, requires little effort in obedience, and celebrates a cross we may wear but never bear. We want the gift of the cross without the call of the cross.

In contrast, Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you.” Yes, his yoke is easy, and his burden is light, thanks to the Spirit’s presence and power. But Christian freedom still involves a yoke. No longer slaves to sin, we’re now slaves of Christ.

The Rock That Doesn’t Budge

Many churches are all too happy to accommodate this accessorized version of faith, softening the edges of doctrine and minimizing the discomfort of discipleship. But storms always come. Winds always blow. And when they do, it won’t be the house on sand that stands.

The sandy foundation—endlessly adaptable to our tastes and preferences—won’t survive. It’s the house built on rock that endures. Unmovable. Unshaken. A foundation that must be reckoned with, not reshaped around us.

So let’s ask ourselves:

Is there nothing about our faith that feels hard?

Nothing about Christian teaching that makes us uncomfortable?

If we can’t think of anything, then we should consider whether what we’ve embraced is the rugged reality of Christianity—or one of the many easy counterfeits always on offer.

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The older I get, the more attuned I become to hidden suffering—the griefs we tuck away and carry silently; the sorrows we share only with the rarest confidant; or, worse, the pain we bear alone, shedding tears only God can see.

It may be the unrelenting ache of a chronic illness that saps our strength and resolve. Or the strain of a relationship poisoned by bitterness, the long fallout of selfish choices still reverberating years later, or fresh wounds from someone we trusted. Maybe it’s the anguish of watching a young person battle destructive desires, or the weariness of trying to do good in the world, the frustration of justice delayed, denied, or forgotten.

Our lives on this earth are marked by infirmity—whether diseases that afflict the body or sicknesses of the soul.

During Holy Week, we reflect on Jesus loving his disciples to the end, taking up the cross, and walking the road to Calvary to offer himself as a sacrifice for our sins. He is our sin-bearer. He bore the wrath we deserved. He took the curse that we might receive blessing.

And yet, it wasn’t only our sins he carried. It was also our sorrows. Not just our guilt but our grief. Not just the stain of our rebellion but the weight of our ruin. The prophet Isaiah says, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isa. 53:4). The Gospel of Matthew sees this line fulfilled not only at the cross but in Jesus’s earthly ministry—in his healing of the sick, his casting out of demons, his tender restoration of broken people (Matt. 8:16–17).

To bear is to lift, to shoulder a weight. To carry is to make someone else’s burden your own. Jesus was a Man of Sorrows, not because of his sin but because of ours. His grief was derivative. His pain, adopted. He bore the weight of the world’s sin and sadness as he heaved that wooden beam through Jerusalem’s streets, mocked and scorned by the ones he came to save.

Seeing Jesus as our Sorrow-Bearer confirms the most surprising truth about a majestic and all-powerful God: He knows.

The grief you carry silently? He knows. The pain that wakes you in the night and the shame that clings like a shadow? He knows. The questions that go unanswered, the prayers that feel like they vanish into the void? He knows.

“There is still a question mark against human suffering,” John Stott once wrote, “but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the Cross, which symbolizes divine suffering.”

The glory of Good Friday isn’t only that our sins are forgiven but that all our sorrows are borne; our tears become drops in the ocean of divine love. This, too, is part of Jesus’s mission. In the synagogue at Nazareth, he read from Isaiah: He had come to “bind up the brokenhearted,” “to comfort all who mourn,” and to exchange our ashes for a crown of beauty (Isa. 61:1–3).

To mourn in a Christian key is to share the heartbreak of the God who made and loves this world. Because we’re in Christ, our sorrows are borne. But because we’re in Christ, we, too, carry the weight of others’ sorrows. In Christ, he shoulders our pain, and in Christ, we share in his shouldering the burdens of others.

Martin Luther translated the second beatitude as “Blessed are the sorrow-bearing.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it this way:

This is the quiet miracle of Holy Week: The God who rules the universe has stooped down to carry your pain and now lifts you up to carry the pain of others.

So, whatever suffering you’re facing—public or private, loud or hidden—bring it to the foot of the cross. Lay your sorrows on the Savior’s back. Trust that your lament will become a cry of victory. That your sorrow will be swallowed up in the death of death. That the long, cold night of exile will give way to the fresh, warm breeze of the garden. That the emptiness in your soul will be filled by the light streaming from the empty tomb. That all the discordant notes of grief and loss and heartbreak will be swept up into God’s symphony of gladness, the mournful melodies transposed into harmonies more beautiful than we can imagine.

This is our hope as we wait, as we mourn our sins, as we grieve all the sorrows that flow from the world’s sin. We fix our eyes on that bleeding, gasping Man of Sorrows on a cross, who has carried our grief.

See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
sorrow and love flow mingled down.
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown?

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A century ago, archaeologists digging through ancient ruins in Egypt uncovered a tattered scrap of papyrus. On it were the remains of a hymn dating to the mid-200s—complete with lyrics and musical notation! For decades, it remained sealed away in a climate-controlled vault at Oxford University.

Until John Dickson came across it.

John is a musician and theologian from Australia, a friend whose works have often proved helpful to me, including his podcast Undeceptions. (John makes a couple appearances in my podcast Reconstructing Faith as well.)

When John saw the fragment, he recognized its significance. This was more than a relic of antiquity. It was a hymn with words we could read and musical notations we could interpret, giving us the chance to hear how early believers under the shadow of Roman persecution worshiped the triune God, and then to sing along with them. Why not resurrect it?

John’s desire to bring this song back to life led to the The First Hymn Project, a collaboration with worship leaders Chris Tomlin and Ben Fielding. Together, they’ve revived this hymn and crafted a contemporary version, faithful to its ancient words and spirit. They’ve also put together a documentary about the song’s discovery, which includes the original melody and its musical reinterpretation.

Right Theology, Right Worship

The early church took the Greek word “orthodoxy”—originally meaning “right opinion”—and repurposed it to mean “right belief.” For the church fathers, right belief mattered because of its connection to right worship. The earliest Christians didn’t see theology and doxology as separate spheres. What they believed about God shaped how they worshiped God, and how they worshiped God reinforced what they believed about God.

This hymn, dating from a time when Christians were still hunted and harassed for their faith, affirms the Trinity with clarity and confidence:

“This is the century before the Council of Nicaea,” John reminds me. “This is before Arius, the heretic who denied the full divinity of Jesus. We know Arius wrote hymns to try and spread his ideas. He came from the same region as the ‘first hymn’—Roman Egypt. Was he trying to counter the power of this sung piece of orthodox theology? The Trinitarianism of the hymn is exciting.”

What moved me when I first heard the song were those Trinitarian lyrics—the one true God, worthy of all praise, with the picture of all creation being still, in awe of his glory. This song speaks, as Dorothy Sayers once put it, not of merely “beautiful phrases” or “comforting sentiments” but of the drama of dogma—a hymn of praise born from the glorious claim that the same God who made the world entered it, passed through death, and rose again.

Singing with the Saints

First Hymn doesn’t only reveal something of the early church’s theological commitments. It’s also a reminder of what’s central when times are dark. John thinks we can learn something from their confidence:

To sing this ancient hymn is to join the communion of saints—to lift our voices alongside Christians from the church’s earliest centuries. In an age that tells us to “make your own kind of music” and “sing your own special song,” this project reminds us we’re rooted—we belong to a courageous choir of believers, awakened to the beauty and majesty of the gospel, who sang glory to God 1,800 years ago. What better way to sense the thrill of orthodoxy!

Our faith didn’t begin yesterday. Our worship isn’t constructed on trends or fads but arises from the unchanging truth of the triune God. When we gather in churches—whether small chapels or big auditoriums—we’re not alone. We’re joining a multitude, across time and space, together with the angels, praising the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Song for the Church

The early church took what was likely a familiar melody and infused it with bold Christian theology. It proclaims Christ’s supremacy in a dark time for God’s people. That’s what good worship music does. It doesn’t just sound beautiful—it shines a light on the truth.

And now, thanks to this project, we can join our voices again with our forefathers and mothers in the faith, and sing that truth again.

I’m glad to see this song revived and shared with the world—not because it’s old but because it’s true. Because in singing it, we’re reminded of who we are, what we believe, and why we worship. Because it roots us in the gospel story that transcends every age and joins us to all God’s people.

Amen. Amen.

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Longtime readers of my column know I owe a debt to G. K. Chesterton, the author I discovered by way of C. S. Lewis 15 years ago and whom I immediately sensed would become a lifelong friend and teacher. My annotated guide to his classic work of apologetics, Orthodoxy, is a small token of my gratitude, offered in hopes that others might benefit from the man’s brilliance.

But what draws me to Chesterton isn’t just the dazzling intellect or the one-liners so instantly quotable they feel like they were gift-wrapped for preachers or essayists. It’s his goodness. Something about the way he makes forceful statements stands out—strong conviction matched by unmistakable joy.

That’s not to say Chesterton’s always right. There are places where I disagree, sometimes strongly. As I’ve often warned friends to whom I’ve recommended him, When Chesterton is right, he’s really right. When he’s wrong, he’s really wrong. But even when I think he’s wrong, I find his manner instructive.

Man Larger than Life

Andure Berding, an American who attended a lecture by Chesterton in Oxford in early 1927, described the man this way: “Genial, expansive to the point where his stiff shirt-front found it impossible to maintain its dignity and hopelessly gave up the struggle, witty beyond imitation, and withal deeply philosophic and observant, he made a steel engraving in my mind.”

Afterward, Berding interviewed Chesterton for America magazine and, in describing his physical presence, confirmed what many had already written about him:

Larger than life. Disheveled. A personality. No surprises there. But it’s what Berding said next that struck me:

The best way I can sum up that description is cheerful confidence. A man unafraid to state his convictions, yet open-armed toward those with opinions in stark contrast to his own. There’s something deeply admirable about that kind of confidence. Firm. Sturdy. A spine of steel. And—this is key—it’s precisely this confidence that makes possible the kind of magnanimity that entertains others’ perspectives with grace rather than scorn.

It’s confidence that isn’t brittle, so it doesn’t lead to screeching, whining, or rudeness. It’s confidence that isn’t anxious, so it doesn’t fall back on sneering, snark, or sarcasm. It’s confidence that’s cheerful. Settled conviction that culminates in a smile, not a scowl.

Fine Line Between Assurance and Arrogance

Berding’s description—“assurance without vanity, self-confidence without arrogance”—identifies a fine line, easy to cross in either direction.

On one side, timidity. A lack of conviction that leaves us perpetually hesitant, as if we should apologize for advocating for what we believe. In an age of doubt, this kind of uncertainty can masquerade as intellectual humility (Chesterton gave us the term “dislocated humility”). But it isn’t humble to be double-minded about what God has revealed. It’s just unsettledness dressed up as virtue.

On the other side, arrogance. The pomposity of pride. The smugness of taking one’s views (and, even more dangerously, oneself) too seriously. The stench of self-importance. Or of equating the rightness of one’s doctrines with personal righteousness. This is the path that leads to dismissiveness, to treating every opponent as an enemy and every disagreement through the lens of demonization.

I’m convinced cheerful confidence is what’s missing in so many attempts to defend the faith in a pluralistic society. We live in a world steeped in ressentiment—that festering sense of bitterness and powerlessness that distorts reality, turning envy into virtue, grievance into identity, and revenge into a moral crusade.

Sadly, the church can succumb to this bitterness, forfeiting faith (by assuming the worst in others), hope (by losing confidence in God’s promise to make things right), and love (by keeping a meticulous record of wrongs). Fighting contempt with contempt is a fool’s errand, but it’s an easy trap to fall into. And far too often, we can mistake our haughtiness for righteousness.

And so, in an age of conflict, we tend to go one of two ways. Some of us are so rocked by uncertainty that we shrink back into shyness, as if boldness were a character flaw. Others overcompensate with a bluster so off-putting that it distracts from the gospel itself, making the message secondary to the messenger’s self-importance. In both cases, the cross gets obscured.

Key to Cheerful Confidence

So where does one find the kind of Chestertonian cheerful confidence that keeps us from falling into timidity or arrogance?

Gratitude.

A grateful heart comes before a generous heart. A generous spirit is born from gratitude for the generosity of the Spirit. This is where cheerful confidence comes from—thanksgiving for a world that is, fundamentally, graced.

It’s an acknowledgment of the image of God in the one who denies him. It’s the recognition that every good gift is unearned. It’s a rejection of entitlement, which robs us of the surprise of joy. It’s childlike wonder at all that goes right in a world gone wrong.

This is what Chesterton understood instinctively. He was a man of conviction, but he held his principles with gratitude, not grievance. And his cheerful confidence—assurance without vanity, self-confidence without arrogance—remains a healthy model worthy of emulation a century later, in another angry age.

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Nowadays, a frequent conversation among pastors concerns the use of AI platforms—like Gemini or ChatGPT—for sermon preparation. Everywhere I turn, church leaders are wowed by these tools’ generative capability, and understandably so. The sophistication of these platforms in responding to specific prompts delivers wildly impressive sermon outlines, illustrations, commentary, and application. Their capacities are astonishing.

Should pastors use AI to generate their sermons? The most common posture I see among pastors is cautious but open. Some say it’s OK to use the tools to generate ideas, suggest an outline, or provide illustrations, as long as you reserve the bulk of your preparation for the hard work of exegesis and don’t rely on these platforms to write your sermons.

Skill-Based Caution Will Not Hold

What strikes me about these conversations is how skill-focused they are. Pastors know it’s vital to put blood and sweat into sermon preparation—a responsibility that cannot be outsourced to robots, lest we lose the capacity to rightly handle the Word. What’s more, it’s essential to know our people well—their particular needs, temptations, and desires. We can’t lose sight of the personalized touch a good sermon requires. This is the common refrain: We don’t want to lose these skills, which is why we should proceed with caution.

Here’s the problem. These cautions aren’t going to hold. Not long-term. These reasons will not persuade most pastors and church leaders to reject these tools. It’s like telling college students it’s bad to use ChatGPT to generate an outline for a paper. You can talk until you’re blue in the face about the importance of developing and cultivating certain skills in analyzing and outlining, but in the end, if you’re already using other tools to make your process more efficient and effective, why not incorporate just a few more? We’ve already crossed the Rubicon.

Missing Element: Worship

That brings me to John Piper’s recent counsel when asked about using AI to write sermons. Piper comes at this conversation from a different angle.

“AI” stands for artificial intelligence. It can map out and predict word patterns with uncanny accuracy, simulating human learning and problem-solving. But artificial emotion is another thing. Robots cannot feel. Robots cannot worship. Only humans can know God and enjoy him. Robots can simulate word patterns of adoration or appreciation, but only humans can adore and appreciate.

“Worship is not simply right thinking, which computers can do,” Piper says. “Worship is right feeling about God.”

Why does this matter? Because preachers don’t merely deliver information to a congregation. Our calling goes beyond providing commentary on the biblical text or repeating or summarizing what dictionaries, encyclopedias, or books say about Bible words and passages. We’re exegetical escorts, in the words of Robert Smith:

Mere words don’t fulfill this calling. Worship is the prerequisite and pinnacle of preaching. This is why I often say that whether or not we can carry a tune, every pastor is a worship minister. We’re all in the business of worship ministry. We’re leading hearts to sing the praises of King Jesus. Theology is meant to fuel worship. The goal of mission is worship. The point of preaching is worship. The ultimate goal of a sermon is to behold the glory of Jesus Christ, to stand in awe of his goodness and grace.

Why AI-Generated Sermons Fall Short

Robots cannot worship. Therefore, relying on a robot to prepare your sermon is to excise an indispensable element of good preaching—the heart.

For this reason, Piper says, it’s wicked to rely on a robot to generate the first draft of a sermon, even if you then walk back through it and tweak it here and there. Why such a strong word? Because “neither God nor his people speak in a way so as to bring about in the minds of other people thoughts that are not true about us or what we say, or feelings in them that are not appropriate about us.” Preaching means more than regurgitating and delivering facts about a Scripture passage. It involves feeling the emotions the passage intends to elicit so we can then “explain it to others clearly, illustrate and apply it for their edification.”

God forbid the next generation inherits doctrinally sound, artfully illustrated, perfectly polished sermons . . . that have no heart. Sermons that string together words of emotion but don’t arise from a heart set on fire by the biblical text. Sermons that follow a penitential script yet bear no wounds from the passage itself piercing the preacher’s soul. Sermons that stack up words of adoration and awe delivered from preachers who have yet to tremble at the weight of glory they hold out to their hearers.

Preaching without heart is preaching without power.

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Some of the fracturing we see in evangelicalism may be unavoidable, but I wonder if one reason fragmentation persists is that we confuse the different types of division at play. Some splits arise from different convictions about ministry philosophy. Others result from theological compromise. More than a few are driven by self-serving ambition. And then there are temperament issues—quarrelsome personalities leading to disputes that spiral out of control.

I’m convinced one of the exacerbating factors in today’s fracturing comes from people who unintentionally (or in some cases, deliberately) misrepresent the nature of the disagreement. A difference in ministry philosophy gets framed as a departure from the faith. A difference in temperament leads to accusations of manipulating ministry for personal gain. The result? Confusion, cynicism, and slander.

The New Testament gives us several causes of division among God’s people. It’s crucial to recognize these distinctions so we can be clear in our assessments and charitable in our judgments. Here are four ways division shows up—and the dangers that arise when we fail to tell them apart.

1. Personal Rift

Paul’s appeal to Euodia and Syntyche in Philippians 4:2–3 is simple:

Notice Paul doesn’t take sides in the dispute between these women. Perhaps he had an opinion on the matter, but he clearly saw the division itself as a bigger problem than whatever they disagreed about. Here were two servants of Christ who had labored together for the gospel, yet their conflict had grown so large it threatened the congregation’s unity.

Tim Cooper’s When Christians Disagree recounts the temperamental differences that put Puritan writers John Owen and Richard Baxter at odds. These divisions aren’t rooted primarily in core doctrinal disagreements but in personal friction. I’ve seen many examples of this—people who should be on the same page but, due to clashing personalities, leadership styles, or bruised egos, find their disagreements amplified by personal animus.

2. Split over Strategy

Few moments in Acts are as poignant as the split between Paul and Barnabas (Acts 15:36–41). These gospel giants had traveled together, suffered together, and seen God work in an extraordinary manner. But their disagreement over whether to bring John Mark on another journey became so sharp that they parted ways.

Most likely, this parting didn’t start out personal. Nor was it about theology. Here were faithful men seeking to spread the gospel, yet with different convictions about ministry strategy. They clashed over a matter of prudence.

The good news? God used both men after they separated. The gospel may even have spread faster because of the split. Paul would later commend Mark (2 Tim. 4:11), suggesting time softened his stance.

Still, the Paul/Barnabas split becomes the classic case of brothers in Christ who, though they agree on so much, are unable to work together due to differences in strategic outlook. Even today—whether it’s church-planting models, evangelistic strategies, political posture, or debates over cultural engagement—godly leaders still sometimes disagree on what the moment requires.

3. Forsaking the Faith

Apostasy—theological or ethical compromise of the faith once for all delivered to the saints—is another reason Christians part ways. Demas was once a colaborer with Paul, mentioned alongside Luke (Col. 4:14; Philem. 1:24). Yet in Paul’s last letter, we find this heartbreaking report:

Demas has become synonymous with those who drift away not because of persecution or personality but because the world lays claim to their hearts and minds. Love for the world can eclipse love for Christ.

In an era of widespread theological compromise, we shouldn’t be surprised to see some who waffle on essential matters or abandon the faith altogether. Nevertheless, watching a brother or sister in Christ walk away from sound teaching is always painful.

(We do well, of course, to distinguish between the theological differences that preclude ministry partnership and the doctrinal denials that signify outright apostasy. Some disagreements may be so important that they lead to a parting of ways and yet not be so essential that they indicate a forsaking of the faith.)

4. Spiritual Grifting

We can’t miss another reason division arises—some church leaders are charlatans pursuing personal gain. Consider Simon the Sorcerer (Acts 8:9–24). He saw the Holy Spirit’s power and wanted to buy it. He wanted to leverage God’s gift for his own power and profit.

Today’s church still has its share of grifters. False teachers, prosperity preachers, and opportunists continue to exploit the gospel for personal enrichment. Scripture warns against those who peddle God’s Word for profit (2 Cor. 2:17). We do well to separate from frauds.

One unfortunate side effect of spiritual grifting is a growing cynicism among God’s people toward faithful leaders. When frauds are exposed, it can become easy to see every successful ministry as suspect, every well-known leader as a schemer, and every financial aspect of ministry as tainted.

Beware the Quarrelsome Who Conflate the Categories

It’s important to keep in mind these four causes of division because quarrelsome people who thrive on controversy often conflate the categories. In the past decade, I’ve perused a number of books and blogs that set out to expose respected leaders, only to find little to no distinction between personal rifts, ministry differences, and genuine heresy. It never seems to cross the minds of some that faithful, Bible-believing Christians might simply disagree on matters of strategy or theology or what conscience requires of us in a particular moment. The assumption is that anyone who disagrees must be driven by a nefarious motive or love for the world.

And so, a split over strategy (Paul and Barnabas) gets treated like a Demas-like departure from the faith. A theological dispute gets framed as a Simon-like grift. A Euodia-Syntyche personality clash gets exaggerated into a full-blown scandal.

When we fail to accurately describe the nature of these divisions, we slander our siblings. We label faithful ministers of the gospel as grifters. We raise doctrinal disagreements on secondary issues to first-order matters of orthodoxy and heresy. We add to the cynicism and confusion so prevalent in our world. No wonder many are spiritually exhausted.

We need to recognize the different categories of division in the church so we don’t breed suspicion, corrode trust, and weaken the our witness. I fear we’ve created an ecosystem where slander is normalized—where attributing sinful motives to a brother or sister is par for the course, and where accusations fly faster than the truth.

Discerning Our Differences

Division among God’s people is sometimes tragic, sometimes necessary, and sometimes avoidable. The key is discernment—knowing the difference between personality clashes, debates over ministry philosophy, spiritual drift into apostasy, and grifting.

Christ’s prayer in John 17 was that his people would be one. We don’t lean into that oneness by shouting “Unity! Unity!” all the time or by pretending differences don’t exist. Still, we must get better at discerning when division is unavoidable, when blessing someone else’s ministry after a parting of ways is possible, and when peace should prevail. And we need to get better at marking and avoiding people who exploit divisions in the church and discredit faithful ministers so they can push their own agendas.

The Accuser has enough stones to throw without Christians picking up their own.

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One of the vexing challenges in our day is helping people understand the biblical vision of sin and why God responds so vehemently against iniquity. The Bible doesn’t shy away from visceral descriptions of God rejecting evil in stark, unsparing terms. Take the image of the land of the Canaanites “vomiting” out its inhabitants due to their immorality and idolatry—a dramatic metaphor if ever there was one.

John Stott comments,

God hates sin. Full stop. It’s an abomination to him. It disgusts him. It angers him.

But why?

In evangelism and discipleship, we often move quickly from “we’re sinners” to “the wages of sin is death” to “we need a Savior.” That progression makes sense, but in my experience, even among believers, we don’t always feel the weight of God’s revulsion toward sin or understand why he hates it so much that a penalty of death and hell would fit. Perhaps this is because we live in a world that has reduced God’s benevolence to tolerance, assuming he’ll be overly accommodating toward all our offenses. The biblical image of a majestic God vomiting at sin is far removed from the sentimental deity our culture often imagines.

Naturally, some Christians attempt to make sin’s seriousness clearer by simply repeating, in effect, Sin is bad, bad, bad. But we need to go deeper. Why is sin so bad? Why does God respond with such intolerance?

Need for Clearer Explanation

In The Gospel Way Catechism, Thomas West and I have sought to articulate core Christian teachings in a way that counters today’s cultural assumptions. One key question we address is this: How does God respond to sin? Here’s our answer:

We’re pushing back against the idea that “it’s my job to sin; it’s God’s job to forgive me.” In today’s world, sin—if acknowledged at all—is seen as a failure to live up to personal standards, not an offense against a holy God. Many accept the need to resist selfish impulses but only for self-improvement, not because they’ve defied God or failed to love their neighbor.

The Bible tells a different story. God isn’t a passive observer, indifferent to our rebellion. He isn’t a permissive grandfather who shrugs at sin. Nor does he sweep evil under the rug. Instead, Scripture reveals a God who thunders against sin, whose holy love demands he confront and destroy it.

God’s hatred of sin isn’t at odds with his love; it’s an expression of it. If sin separates us from the source of all life, leading to death, how could a loving God remain indifferent? His wrath isn’t cold, detached anger but the white-hot response of a holy, loving Creator who sees sin corrupting and destroying his people. If God stood passively by as sin disfigured those made in his image, then we’d have reason to question his love.

Spider Infestation

To make this reality more visceral, we use an illustration in the children’s version of our catechism. Imagine waking up in a room full of spiders. They’re crawling on the walls, scurrying across the floor. You look down and see bites on your legs—your skin burning, infection setting in. You cry out for help. Now, what if your dad walked in, saw the infestation, and simply shrugged? You’d be perplexed. You want someone to crush the spiders, not ignore them.

Sin is like that infestation—poisoning our hearts, distorting our desires, and destroying our relationships. It doesn’t just harm us; it defies God’s holiness and love. Because God loves—he loves his glory and whatever will bring about our ultimate good—he must hate sin because not only is it an affront against his goodness, but it stands in the way of all he wants for us. He sees how sin wounds, deceives, and leads to death.

C. S. Lewis on Why God Hates Sin

C. S. Lewis arrived at a similar conclusion in a letter he wrote to Arthur Greeves shortly after his own conversion. He realized God’s hatred of sin isn’t arbitrary. God hates sin because it keeps us from him. Evil is a barrier to what we ultimately long for—God himself. In Augustinian terms, all sin is misdirected love, a grasping for idols out of the deeper desire for God.

“This is why we must be prepared to find God implacably and immovably forbidding what may seem to us very small and trivial things,” Lewis wrote. “When we are tempted, we must remember that just because God wants for us what we really want and knows the only way to get it, therefore he must, in a sense, be quite ruthless towards sin.”

Lewis saw that the image of a passive grandfather can’t be squared with the God of the Bible. Sin isn’t only a personal failure; it’s an assault on both God’s holiness and our humanness.

Good News of God’s Hatred of Sin

This is why we must do better at explaining why God hates sin. It’s not enough to say sin is bad. We must show how sin is a parasite, feeding on the good and beautiful things God has made, warping our affections, deceiving our hearts, and leading to destruction. Sin is what keeps us from the God we were made for. Sins are like spiders that must be stomped.

God’s hatred of sin reveals the severity of his love. If he were indifferent, we’d be lost forever. The fact that he thunders against sin, that he refuses to tolerate it, that he has made a way to defeat it through the cross of Christ—all this is good news.

The softened, sentimental vision of God so common today doesn’t match the God of the Bible. Scripture presents a blazing sun of holiness and mercy, whose wrath against sin erupts from the volcano of his everlasting love. Because he loves, he will not tolerate what destroys. Because he loves, he has acted in Christ to rescue us from sin. Because he loves, he will one day purge this world of evil.

That’s why, in the end, it’s good news that God hates sin.

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One benefit of preaching in various churches across the continent and in other parts of the world is getting a glimpse of how different congregations worship and follow the Lord’s commands. Case in point? The variety of ways in which the Lord’s people celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

The Lord’s Supper is communion with King Jesus at his table with his people. We eat the bread and drink the cup, giving thanks for his body and blood, and we’re strengthened for service by this foretaste of the feast to come.

You can find a wide spectrum of practices associated with the supper, sometimes in the same denomination. And because the way we partake of the supper is inextricably intertwined with the event’s meaning and significance, it’s no wonder we see Christians throughout history coming to blows over what’s taking place or the proper way of observing this sacred ritual. There’s the East vs. West divide over leavened or unleavened bread and the ongoing debates over whether intinction (dipping the bread in the cup) symbolizes something untrue in our Christology, not to mention the famous showdown between Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli at Marburg, with Luther—exasperated and exasperating—scrawling on a board Hoc est corpus meum (“This is my body!”).

Cards on the table—I’m one of those old-timey Baptists who isn’t “memorial-only” but believes in the strengthening grace of the supper via an encounter with Christ through the Spirit, and who wishes all churches celebrated the supper every Sunday. “Amidst us our Beloved stands” is the first line in Charles Spurgeon’s Communion hymn.

The pushback I get regarding frequency is that weekly participation would make it less meaningful (although the same principle seems not to apply to preaching, praying, singing, or taking up an offering). Maybe we’d alleviate that concern by changing how we take the supper from time to time—so different approaches can highlight various facets of the beauty of Christ meeting us at his table.

In what follows, I’m laying out a few ways I’ve seen the supper taken in evangelical congregations, with an eye to different facets of beauty in how we follow the Lord’s command to eat and drink together in remembrance of him until he comes.

1. Passing the Plate, Taking Together as One Body

When I was growing up, the Lord’s Supper came at the end of the service, with the mood usually somber (though not funereal). The deacons first passed a plate that contained little pieces of unleavened cracker, and then we’d pray and eat all at once. Next, they passed the plate with individual mini-cups of juice, and then we’d pray and drink all at once. (This was also the way I received the supper in evangelical churches in Romania.)

At some point, my church invested in new plates that held the cups together with a central platter for the bread. This made it harder to take the bread and cup at the same time, so you’d pass the plate to the next person, who would hold it out to you while you took the elements. Our church loved this new approach because it put us in the role of serving the person to our immediate right or left. I remember the chatter about how meaningful it was to serve each other the elements when the deacons passed the plate down each row.

Observing this change showed me that the way we take the supper says something about what’s going on in the meal itself. I still love this approach to the table. I love the communal meaning of the meal. I love the ritual of waiting to eat and drink at the same time, which highlights the unity of the Body. We together commemorate this moment, as if we were making a toast at a wedding (though the juice is nonalcoholic in most evangelical churches!). We look around to our brothers and sisters, left and right, and then we look up to meet the Lord in the moment we partake. A beautiful reminder that we’re the Body of Christ partaking of the body of Christ.

2. Going Forward, Hearing the Covenant Truths

When I served as teaching pastor, our general approach to the Lord’s Table was to pass the plate. But on certain occasions, we’d go forward for Communion, row by row, taking the elements and then returning to our seats for private prayer before eating and drinking on our own. The best part of this approach was to hear my fellow pastor hold out that broken matzo bread or put forward a tray of individual cups, and quietly say, “The body of Christ, broken for you, Trevin” and “The blood of Christ, shed for you, Trevin.”

While some might think this approach is individualistic, there’s something beautiful in lining up as if we’re beggars in a bread line or a soup kitchen, waiting our turn, all of us—no matter our status, our wealth, our popularity—empty-handed at the table, where someone authorized by the congregation presses bread into your hand and the covenant truth of Christ’s death for you into your heart.

In more liturgical denominations, this approach includes kneeling at a rail at the front of the church with hands outstretched, a posture that highlights even more the truth that we’re hungry beggars gathering up the live-giving crumbs from the table of the Lord, trusting in his mercy and sustaining grace.

This is for you. Undeserving sinner though you are, Christ’s body for you. Christ’s blood for you. I choke up even now, just thinking of how thin that space is between heaven and earth.

3. Breaking a Loaf, Drinking from a Cup

In some churches, the pastor breaks a loaf of bread or large piece of cracker (leavened or unleavened, depending on the church’s tradition) while reminding the congregation of the meaning of this meal. The pastor may also fill individual cups from a large jug. I see this approach primarily in smaller congregations, where the number of attendees doesn’t require the need for more than one loaf or more than one jug.

This way of taking the supper highlights Paul’s description of God’s people eating from one loaf and sharing in the same cup. In more liturgical traditions, the congregation comes forward to sip from the same cup. I love the familial feel represented by all sharing the same loaf and cup.

This method is less common, especially since COVID-19. Many times, we pick up a prepackaged Communion wafer and juice outside the sanctuary on our way in. While this may be more sanitary, something gets lost in terms of significance. Imagine everyone showing up for Christmas brunch with latex gloves on, and Grandma slapping down a Hot Pocket on your plate. The Hot Pocket is more efficient, and you may be less likely to come down with the flu, but it comes at the cost of the feast-like atmosphere, and the latex implies we’re all dangers to each other, as if we’re carriers of disease rather than grace. Granted, in times of plague, precautions may be warranted and prudence may require a shift in our approach, but I hope what’s happened in many churches since the pandemic doesn’t remain the new norm.

4. The Supper as Climax of a Community Meal

Another beautiful way of taking the supper is treating it as part of a meal, which is likely the way the early church celebrated together on Sundays. The moment of remembrance comes within the context of a larger celebratory feast.

There’s something glorious about enjoying table fellowship and conversation with fellow believers and then welcoming the Lord to this, his table, knowing in the end we’re all together because it’s he who has welcomed us. I’ve seen this done multiple ways, and I’ve especially enjoyed a Seder feast before Easter, when the symbolism of the Old Testament Passover is transposed into a Christian key by showcasing the fulfillment of prophecy in Jesus’s death and resurrection.

What Do We Call This Moment?

There’s something rich in exploring all the different names the supper may go by, depending on one’s tradition.

• In Acts, we see the moment referred to as “the bread-breaking,” a beautiful blending of the fellowship meal and the Lord’s Supper commemoration.
• The “Eucharist” comes from the Greek word that refers to thanksgiving, reiterating the gratitude that should pervade our celebration of what Christ has done for us.
• “Communion” is a reminder that here, we fellowship with Jesus and with his people. And Holy Communion indicates this is a special, set-apart moment of fellowship.
• “The Lord’s Table” is another reminder that this meal marks another life-sustaining meal between the Last Supper with the disciples in the upper room and the great marriage feast in the new heavens and new earth.
• “Mass”—from the Latin for “sending”—reminds us that the Father has sent his Son, and now his Son sends out his people in the Spirit’s power after having strengthened them through the supper.

Whatever you call it, however you celebrate it, there’s much to be gleaned by reflecting on the symbolism of your church’s traditions when observing this meal together. Treat the moment with reverence, with joy, with gratitude, with faith.

“The moments we are nearest to heaven are those we spend at the Lord’s table,” Spurgeon said. At the table, you meet with the Lord who calls you his own.

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One unintended consequence of live streaming worship services is the subtle shift toward every church reenvisioning its congregational worship as a broadcast. This is nothing new for larger churches. Throughout Christian history, the greatest pastors and theologians delivered sermons that were written down and circulated, a practice that can’t help but alter the preaching moment at some level. A pastor prepares a sermon for a particular flock while knowing the message may be “overheard” by others.

In the media age, it was first radio and then television that nudged congregational worship toward a broadcast mentality. But live streaming, combined with social media (especially since COVID-19) has accelerated this development for nearly all churches, in a way that’s unprecedented in church history. I’ve commented before on some unintended side effects of this trend, including the strain on denominations when everyone’s churches are immediately visible and accessible.

But there’s another side effect that concerns me—a shift that’s easy to miss because it’s not about production quality or online reach. It’s about the worshiper.

Worship and Self-Consciousness

Not long ago, I came across a parody on Instagram that featured a church photographer zealously searching for the most dramatic camera angles—catching people mid-worship, hands lifted, eyes closed—to craft the perfect image for a church’s social media recap. It was funny, but it got me thinking, How does the broadcasting of worship affect the worshiper?

If you know you might show up later on video or in a photo online, or if a sweeping camera angle catches you in a moment of devotion for the live stream, does this change the nature of your worship?

Do you worship differently, knowing you may be seen not just by your fellow congregants but also by strangers scrolling through social media?

The moment we become conscious of being watched, we’re tempted to perform.

We have scriptural reasons to consider this temptation. We’re warned about worship where our lips say one thing but our hearts are distant. We’re warned about singing praises to God with the same mouth that speaks ill of another person. We’re warned about sounding trumpets to signify our generosity or scrunching up our faces to show we’re fasting. The heart is deceitful above all things, Jeremiah tells us. And nowhere is that deceit more cunning than in the ways we can deceive ourselves.

Still, I wonder if the biggest temptation isn’t merely about vanity or wanting to appear righteous to others. What if the problem goes deeper? What if the danger isn’t just in performing for an audience but in performing for ourselves? What if we’re inclined to always worship with an imaginary camera we can’t escape?

Worship and Self-Perception

It’s one thing to crave others’ approval. It’s quite another to be enamored with our self-image. Self-righteousness isn’t my main temptation—at least, I don’t think it is—when I’m in services where cameras aren’t exactly inconspicuous. It’s less about appearing righteous before others and more about enjoying the feeling of appearing righteous to myself.

Do we love worshiping God, or do we love the image of ourselves worshiping God? Do we love singing to God, or do we love the thought of being the kind of person who sings to God? Do we lift our hands in praise to God, or do we lift them because we love seeing ourselves as the sort of people who lift hands in worship?

This is a deeper heart issue, one often discussed among those who engage in compassion ministry or go on mission trips. Do I truly care for the person I’m serving, or do I simply like the image of myself as a caretaker? Do I love the people I’m feeding, or do I love my compassionate self-image? Am I gripped with concern for the heart of the person I’m talking to about Jesus, or do I like seeing myself as a courageous evangelist?

Even our private moments of devotion aren’t immune to this self-consciousness. Do we kneel and pray because we’re truly seeking God’s face or because we like reinforcing the self-perception that we’re people who kneel and pray? Do we crack open the Bible in the morning and take notes on a passage because we yearn to hear from God or because we like thinking of ourselves as people who read and study the Bible? Do we fast because we’re hungry for God or because we’re hungry to feel like fasters?

This is a challenge that confronts anyone who takes seriously the call to spiritual practices, whether a young convert picking up John Mark Comer’s Practicing the Way or an older Christian rereading R. Kent Hughes’s Disciplines of a Godly Man. It’s the temptation for our spiritual practices to get sucked into a self-referential loop.

When this happens, it’s not about trying to be seen by others as righteous; we’re trying to see ourselves as righteous. We aren’t trying to show off our spiritual biceps for everyone else to admire; we just don’t want to feel like a weakling. And so it’s possible to pursue practices and disciplines in corporate worship and personal devotion not primarily because we love God but because we love ourselves loving God.

Trap of Self-Reflection

This is one of the most invisible snares in the spiritual life—to be endlessly fascinated by our own spirituality, to watch ourselves in the act of devotion, to play the part of both performer and audience. The human heart is remarkably adept at turning inward. We’re ever prone to curve in on ourselves.

Yes, we must avoid the obvious examples of self-righteousness—trumpeting our good deeds before others or lifting our hands in worship at just the moment the camera swings our way. But even when the camera isn’t on us, we may be conscious of an imaginary camera’s gaze, always focused on us and what we’re doing. The camera of our mind’s eye keeps turning back to ourselves rather than turning to who God is and what he has done.

The frightening thing is, these self-conscious, self-focused habits can continue for a long time without being detected. It’s like a hall of mirrors, reflecting endlessly back on itself. We perform our devotions, but the gaze never lifts beyond ourselves. The soul never ascends.

Way Out: Losing Ourselves to Find Him

The only way out of this trap is the way of self-forgetfulness. I know of no other solution but to ask for more mercy. The goal of true worship is to behold God, not ourselves—to be mesmerized by him, to be so captivated by God’s beauty and majesty that we escape the self-referential gaze.

Perhaps this is why the psalmist often cries out for God to open his eyes. Not merely because he’s blind to the truths of God but because he’s blinded by himself. He cannot see God because his gaze keeps turning inward.

Thankfully, we worship a God who shatters mirrors. Who invites us into a presence so glorious we forget ourselves. Who calls us to lose ourselves so we might truly find him. Who promises that, when we seek him, we’ll find him—if we seek with all our hearts (Jer. 29:13). Who delights in our sincere and earnest worship even when it’s mixed with self-consciousness and selfishness in motives we can’t fully unentangle this side of glory.

In the end, we want a vision of him, not a vision of ourselves wanting him. I’m convinced only God can both cultivate and grant that desire. Only God can enable us to look upward and outward, beyond the screens and mirrors, beyond ourselves. Only God can settle the heart and shift our gaze to the One who alone is worthy of our attention.

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When US Airways Flight 1549 lost power over New York City, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger had 208 seconds to make the right decisions. With two failed engines and nowhere else to land safely, he guided the plane to a miraculous water landing in the Hudson River. The world marveled at his calm under pressure, his split-second judgment, his selfless concern for passengers. But, as N. T. Wright points out, Sully’s heroism wasn’t improvised. It was formed. A lifetime of training and discipline had prepared him for that moment.

In today’s world, we often think of authenticity as doing what comes naturally—following our impulses, being true to ourselves. But moments of courage, sacrifice, and wisdom don’t just happen. They emerge from a thousand unseen choices, from habits shaped over time. This is a crucial aspect of spiritual formation.

At the start of the third season of my podcast Reconstructing Faith, we looked at the life of Franz Jägerstätter, the Austrian farmer who defied the Nazis, refusing to swear loyalty to Hitler. His courage cost him his life. We asked the question, How is a person shaped into someone who can stand firm and reflect Jesus when everything else stands in the way? If the church is to rebuild and restore our witness to King Jesus, how do we grow into the kind of people ready for that task?

That’s why this season has focused on the question of spiritual formation—the steady, unseen work of the Spirit who prepares us for faithfulness in moments of testing. This season, we explored the disciplines that shape us—prayer, Scripture, worship—and the ways our digital age, therapy culture, and shifting church dynamics affect our spiritual lives.

The only way we’ll be ready to rebuild is if we look to Christ, abide in him, and trust him to form us into his likeness. All 10 episodes are now available for download wherever you stream podcasts.

1. What If We Can’t Rebuild?

In the first two seasons, we looked at the credibility crisis facing the church today and some of the challenges that stand in the way of our attempts to renew and restore the church’s witness. We heard guest after guest give us truth and point us toward hope. We talked about rolling up our sleeves and finding our place on the wall, doing whatever we can for the church to reconstruct, to rebuild, to restore, to renew. In the premiere of season 3, we ask: What if we’re not up to the task of rebuilding the church’s witness?

2. Three Waves That Have Shaped Your Church

Nothing alters a terrain like water. In severe cases, like flooding from hurricanes and storms, or mudslides in the mountains, or a tsunami overtaking everything in its path, water can leave a landscape totally transformed. But even in mild cases, wind and waves can leave behind noticeable changes to the scenery. Waves affect the landscape of the church also. There are subtle echoes of movements that have shaped churches across the country, regardless of denomination. You might not see them, but they’re there, shaping how we worship. Cultural currents carve out different streams. Movements rise and fall, personalities come and go, and ministry philosophies shift, leaving the terrain transformed. In this episode, we ask: What waves have shaped the landscape of evangelicalism?

3. Spiritual Disciplines Won’t Change Your Life

Before we can even hope to contribute to renewing the church, we must be rebuilt and renewed ourselves. But here’s the danger: In our zeal for spiritual formation, we might mistake discipline for dependence. There’s no magic formula for spiritual growth and no silver bullet to spiritual renewal. God offers us means of grace—postures and practices his Spirit works through, to transform our hearts so that we become more like Jesus. In this episode, we ask: What are those practices? Why do they matter? What is the promise and peril in seeking habits of holiness?

4. An Active Christian Life . . . Where God is Unnecessary

Prayer is essential. The absence of prayer exposes and unmasks our self-sufficient spirit. It’s frightening to consider how easily we can busy ourselves in all sorts of activity in the name of a God we rarely invoke. The more we push God to the periphery, the more we take center stage. We lose eternal perspective because the Eternal One plays only a supporting role. In this episode, we ask: What if the biggest temptation we face in seeking to restore and rebuild the witness of the church isn’t despair, or disillusionment, or cultural pressures, or internal corruption? What if the biggest temptation we face is prayerlessness?

5. Reading the Bible When Nobody Reads

Fewer people read books these days, and those who do, read less often than before. For Christians, this trend hits harder. We’re people of the Book. Our faith is anchored to the Scriptures. If we want to be people of substance in a world of superficiality, if we want to be spiritually healthy, if we want to embody a fortified faith that can contribute to the church’s renewal, we must begin with Scripture. In this episode, we ask: What does faithful engagement with God’s Word look like in a world where fewer and fewer people read, not just the Bible but anything at all?

6. Where’s the Edge?

Faithful Bible teaching, delivered well and received well, is a cornerstone of the church’s renewal. Too often, our preaching and teaching doesn’t hold people’s interest, either because we failed to deliver the message of the Scriptures faithfully or because we failed to construct a bridge from the biblical text to contemporary concerns. And so we miss the opportunity to bring scriptural truth into the sharp edge of conflict with whatever passes for common sense in the world. Whether you’re a pastor, a Bible study leader, or a faithful church member hungry for truth, if we’re going to be involved in the rebuilding work ahead of us, we’ve got to lean in here. We need sharper sermons that deliver truth, and we need sharper listeners attuned to God’s Word above all else. In this episode, we ask: How will preaching and teaching enable us to contribute to the church’s renewal?

7. I Post, Therefore I Am

Digital technologies have woven a complex web that alters our perceptions and interactions. We think of ourselves differently now, and we experience life differently than 20 years ago. How does this shift, this digitization of the self, affect our understanding of what it means to be human? In this environment, spiritual formation will have to be, in some ways, counterformation. An alternative to the digital habits and assumptions that form us, often unthinkingly, in machine-like dehumanizing ways. Renewal will require us to ask hard questions about who we’ve been, who we are, and who we’re becoming. In this episode, we ask: How does the digital age shape, inform, or deform our understanding of discipleship and spiritual growth?

8. No Renewal Without Resilience

As words like “toxic” and “abusive” are increasingly applied to ordinary stresses, the way we interpret and respond to conflict changes. This isn’t just a cultural issue. It’s affecting the church too. There’s a generation gap developing when it comes to leadership, authority, and resilience in church relationships and ministry. Older leaders don’t always share the same assumptions or expectations as younger leaders. The loss of common language and outlook can lead to relational breakdown. We will not be able to rebuild in the coming years unless we’re resilient, unless we persevere through heartache and disappointment. In this episode, we ask: How do we serve together through pain and conflict? How do we deal with disappointment in our pursuit of church renewal? What does spiritual resilience look like in a world that needs resolve?

9. Seven Big Challenges Facing the Church Worldwide

You can’t gather a large group of people without disagreement and debate over what shape the church’s faithful witness should take in our day. Real collaboration with Christians from around the world involves conflict. It’s messy. The conversations are tough. The debates are real. And this has always been the Christian church’s story. In this episode, we examine seven of the big challenges facing the church worldwide. And we take a closer look at what lies ahead for the global church as we seek to follow Christ faithfully.

10. The Kingdom Manifesto

At the beginning of this season, we asked, What goes into the making of a disciple? How does a follower of Jesus become so well-formed, so well-prepared that when the time of testing comes, whether it’s a crisis of courage or a call to quiet faithfulness, they step into their destiny as the person God has always planned for them to be? In the season finale, we turn to Jesus’s words for a blueprint of what life in God’s kingdom looks like. The only way we’ll be ready to rebuild is if, by the Spirit’s power, we live in ways that align our character with Jesus’s wordds, so that we resemble the King who calls us to this holy task.

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“If you had the power to fast-forward through the most difficult times of your life by pressing a button, would you skip them?”

That’s a question posed by Antón Barba-Kay in A Web of Our Own Making, his seminal work on the digital age and its effects on how we think and see ourselves. He believes most of us would say yes. We’d be tempted to fast-forward through the difficult moments—though perhaps with a tinge of self-awareness that what’s “tedious, maddening, and unpremeditated is often what ends up mattering most to us, giving texture and substance to our lives.”

Digital Aspiration: A Life Without Resistance

What would life be like if we could eliminate all friction? If we could do away with resistance? If fulfilling our desires were as simple as pressing a button, so the gap between what we want and what we experience shrinks to nothing?

“This is the aspiration of the digital,” Barba-Kay argues. It’s “to make the world fully pliant to [our] will.” The goal is to reduce the resistance between desire and fulfillment. And in theory, this should make us happier. If we could eliminate struggle, wouldn’t joy be easier to come by?

It hasn’t worked out that way.

Imagine going back a hundred years and showing people today’s ease of life. They’d be astonished.

Consider a simple example from my years in Romania. The house I stayed in on weekends, in a village outside the city, had no indoor plumbing and no central heating. In the winter, we relied on a large, tile-covered, built-in stove to heat two rooms. We’d start a fire in the evening before retiring to our beds, but by 4 a.m., it would go out. At that point, you had a choice: get up in the freezing dark to throw another log on the fire to keep you warm until sunrise or burrow deeper under the blankets, hoping someone else would tend it.

Today, I press a button and my home stays at the precise temperature I desire. No work is required to get the house to a comfortable temperature for the whole family, aside from the bills we pay to the electric and gas companies. The effort of chopping wood, starting a fire, and keeping it going—once an essential task—has vanished.

Life of Instant Gratification—and Growing Discontent

This kind of convenience defines nearly all aspects of the digital age. Communication happens instantly. Smart devices anticipate our needs. With every innovation, we reduce resistance and friction, removing obstacles between us and our desires.

But are we happier?

Barba-Kay reveals an insight that seems counterintuitive, yet we know it to be true:

Difficulties aren’t interruptions to our formation—they are our formation. Friction and resistance polish our souls. Suffering forges our character. If getting what we want in the fastest and easiest way possible were the ultimate good, then life in the modern age should be overflowing with joy. Instead, we often feel restless, dissatisfied.

He writes,

Drop someone from a hundred years ago into our world, and they’d be astounded by our luxuries. Despite Thomas Jefferson’s immense wealth and status, his grand Virginia mansion was so cold in winter that the ink in his pen sometimes froze, making it difficult for him to write. Queen Elizabeth I of England struggled to make her palace habitable, contending with overwhelming stench, rampant vermin, and unsanitary conditions that forced her court to constantly relocate. (To cope, they relied on perfumes, aromatic herbs, and flowers to mask the odors and shield themselves from contamination.)

The further we move away from even a cursory knowledge of the friction we’ve overcome—the longer we go without realizing what a marvel it is that we can step into a shower and enjoy the refreshing feel of (clean!) water at the temperature we desire (something most people throughout history never dreamed of experiencing), the more likely we are to lose sight of these developments. We turn our attention to other elements of friction and resistance yet to be conquered, and the remaining obstacles take on an outsize role in our imagination. We fixate on the next inconvenience to be overcome.

The Faster Life Gets, the More We Resent Slowness

Barba-Kay observes how this cycle plays out:

We prize speed because we think it will free up time, Barba-Kay writes, and we want to devote that freed-up time to what “really matters.” But in the end, we don’t feel freer. Instead, we develop an ever-sharper contrast between what we like to do and what we prefer not to do. The more we expect life to be seamless, the more frustrated we become when it isn’t.

Ironically, the kings and queens of history—whose every whim was met by servants—likely had lower expectations of ease than we do today. We all live like royalty now, and our standards of comfort have grown to match.

Why We Need Resistance to Be Happy—and to Be Good

Here’s the paradox: We need a measure of resistance and friction in our lives, not only to be happy but to be good.

We instinctively know that hardship shapes character. Parents who remove all restraint and difficulty from their children don’t produce a happy family—the kids are miserable. When we eliminate friction from our lives, when we get whatever we want whenever we want it, we become spiritually and emotionally fragile. We’re all spoiled children now.

This truth has profound implications for the Christian life. We often carry over the same expectations of efficiency and ease into our walk with God.

• We struggle with Bible reading because it makes demands of us. God’s Word doesn’t shift and mold itself to our every whim. It requires effort and submission.
• We struggle with prayer because sitting still before the Lord requires us to embrace the discomfort of opening our hearts before his holiness. Focusing our minds on a glory not our own is an act of resistance against self-centeredness.
• We struggle with fasting because we only value self-denial when it serves another self-focused goal—like shedding pounds to look better or keep up with our friends at the gym.
• We struggle with church attendance because deep relationships bring resistance, inconvenience, and imposition. They take time to grow. True friendships aren’t easy, at least not as easy as self-isolation.

Gift of Limitation

Without resistance, without friction, we will not be happy. Neither will we be good.

Restraints are essential. Limitations remind us of our creatureliness. Obstacles cultivate gratitude, helping us appreciate the warmth of a fire we had to stoke, the depth of a friendship we had to fight for, the joy of a truth we had to wrestle with.

The digital age offers us the illusion of a frictionless life. But a life without friction is not a life of joy. It is, as Barba-Kay warns, a life of desolation.

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You need to persevere in munching your way through that bag of chips. You need to persevere through another episode of that show you love. You need to persevere in taking a nap on a Sunday afternoon.

These instructions sound odd, don’t they? It’s because we reserve the word “perseverance” for difficult tasks—something that doesn’t come easy yet brings great reward.

Why Prayer Is Hard

One of the best ways to introduce people to spiritual practices like prayer, Bible reading, and churchgoing is not by overselling how easy it is to adopt these habits but by reminding people of just how challenging they can be. Spiritual habits are hard. They require effort and discipline.

The New Testament urges us to persevere in prayer because it’s so easy not to pray. When Jesus told us to “pray always and not give up” (Luke 18:1), he implied that giving up would be the easier path. He told the disciples to watch and pray in Gethsemane because he knew how easily they could fail in their attention and fall asleep (22:40, 46).

When Paul echoed these commands—calling us to “be persistent in prayer” (Rom. 12:12) or to “devote” ourselves to prayer, staying “alert” in it “with thanksgiving” (Col. 4:2)—it was because he knew how easy it’d be to slacken the rope, to drift from attentiveness, to diminish our devotion. In the face of struggle, we’re reminded to “pray constantly” (1 Thess. 5:17), to press on in faith, even when the answers seem delayed.

These aren’t the commands of a cheerless moralist instructing us to eat our oatmeal just because it’s good for us. They’re more like the encouragement we get from a coach guiding us through a grueling game or a captain leading the charge when we’re tempted to give up the fight. That’s important: Prayer is part of the battle—an essential aspect of the Christian life, not a prelude to whatever we envision as real ministry. As Vance Pitman puts it, “We don’t pray before we work. Prayer is the work, and then God works.”

When Prayer Feels Pointless

The problem, all too often, is that we don’t see the results of our prayers—not the immediate workings of the Spirit groaning in and through us nor the future outcomes our prayers may be a means of accomplishing. We talk to God and wonder if we’re just talking to the walls, like someone muttering in the cell of an asylum.

Life often provides good reasons to question prayer’s power. N. T. Wright points to the bleakness of R. S. Thomas’s poem “Folk Tale,” which describes prayer as someone standing outside a house, trying to attract attention by flinging gravel at a high window. The whole effort seems pointless, and you’d stop throwing the stones if not for the occasional twitch of a curtain. That’s not what prayer is really like, of course, but it’s an honest portrayal of how it sometimes feels. It reminds me of the searing pain C. S. Lewis described after the death of his wife, Joy:

Everyone who perseveres in prayer will at some point feel the palpable presence of God’s absence. The saints of old speak of times when it felt as if God had withdrawn from them, even if later they believed this apparent absence was a divine beckoning—to come closer to the real God, not the illusions we often settle for.

Prayer isn’t meant to be comfortable. As Kyle Strobel often says, in prayer we draw near to the purifying fire of God, and that’s when all our impurities leak out. We’re not doing something wrong when we feel inadequate or when our minds wander in a thousand directions. The priorities and desires of our hearts are being exposed to the refining fire that shapes us.

Why Persevere?

We’re called to persevere in prayer because it’s important to stay awake, to remain attentive, to keep watch over our souls as we yearn for God’s presence in our daily lives.

If we think prayer is easy, like a tasty treat to indulge in before or after a long day, we’ll likely drift from the practice when it doesn’t seem enjoyable. We miss the deeper truth that prayer is more like strapping a sword to our side, readying ourselves for spiritual war. We don’t know what role our prayers play in the ongoing spiritual battle around us, but we believe—even when we can’t see—that prayer changes things, that more is happening in us and around us than we can imagine.

So we persist in knocking. We push through the dullness. We press on through the weariness. We stoke the embers of our often cooling hearts, reengaging our affections for the God who promises to meet us in those quiet moments. As Lewis wrote in his last year of life,

God is painting a masterpiece. Prayer is our contribution as Christians. Prayer is our duty as disciples. Prayer is to be our delight as lovers of God.

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My wife suffered a torn ligament in her right hand last year, which required her to wear tight black bands around two of her fingers, preventing full use of her hand. For weeks, simple tasks and chores—chopping vegetables, lifting items—forced her to shift to her left hand, which was mostly unaccustomed to such movements. Frustration would mount whenever her normal habits were thwarted; she had to retrain herself to rely on her left hand.

I sense a similar frustration among many pastors, evangelists, and apologists today. Cultural shifts are requiring us to switch hands and leaving us no longer able to depend solely on the strategies and approaches we’ve used in years past when engaging non-Christians in conversation. The sheer scope of questions and objections to the Christian faith has widened considerably in the past 20 years.

Two Conversations, Two Directions

Not long ago, I was talking with a friend in Germany, a church planter seeking to reach a community that includes increasingly secular Germans alongside Middle Eastern, Indian, and Asian immigrants.

It’s not unusual for this pastor to meet in the morning with a secular person who objects to Christianity’s sexual ethic. He’s obligated to explain why the Bible’s teaching on sex and identity isn’t arbitrary or hateful but ultimately good and beautiful. That afternoon, he may sit with a lapsed Muslim migrant whose objection is precisely the opposite: Christianity’s inclusive call to all kinds of sinners, particularly those who have identified as LGBT+. In that moment, this pastor must clarify why all people, including sexual sinners, are made in the image of God and—through repentance and faith—can be incorporated into the family of God.

A single day. Two conversations. In the morning, defending Christianity’s sexual ethic against accusations of hate. In the afternoon, defending Christianity’s inclusive offer of grace against accusations of permissiveness.

That’s what I mean by ambidextrous apologetics. We’re going to need pastors and evangelists who can move fluidly between competing objections, demonstrating versatility in how they respond to challenges from every side.

Rise of Intuitional Religion

A few years ago, I wrote a little book for pastors called The Multi-Directional Leader, which encourages them to develop dexterity and discipline—to reject false dichotomies and instead cultivate faithful versatility in their leadership. To be multi-directional means learning to better and more effectively respond with wisdom to challenges from every side.

Expanding the call for multi-directional leadership into the sphere of apologetics highlights the need for pastors to prepare for conversations with all kinds of seekers. Gone are the days when we could expect a “typical” non-Christian to come with a familiar set of objections. Generalizations may still hold in culturally homogenous areas—for example, if you’re on mission in Utah, most people you meet will be Mormons of varying levels of devotion. But more and more cities today are a hodgepodge of beliefs. Another church-planting friend of mine tells me about the people he regularly encounters, ranging from strict materialists (believing this world is all there is) to spiritual seekers dabbling in everything from mushrooms to meditation.

Charles Taylor describes this as the “nova effect”—an explosion of different options for belief and meaning in a secular age. It’s not just this position or that, it’s this choice among that, and that, and that, and that—a myriad of beliefs and practices, many “remixed” in some way. Cultural observer Tara Isabella Burton has done good work chronicling the shift from “institutional” religion to “intuitional” faiths. She says we’re seeing the rise of intuitional religion, a remixing and rematching of various spiritualities.

The church isn’t immune to these developments. It’s happening inside your congregation also. Intuitional religion mixes with institutional adherence. It’s not uncommon to find people mixing and matching different aspects of spirituality and religiosity as they cobble together an identity of their own that just so happens to coincide with church attendance.

So get ready to respond to all kinds of concerns. You may go straight from a conversation with a young woman appalled by all the misogyny she sees in the world, who questions the Bible’s teaching on male and female relationships, into a meeting with a young man who quietly admires the online bravado of self-described misogynist Andrew Tate. You may talk with an older believer who wonders if Christianity is discredited by the aggressive, warring spirit Christians have shown through the ages, and then talk with a younger believer who thinks Christianity is discredited because it promotes weakness and passivity, softness and suffering.

Contradictory Critiques of Christianity

This cultural moment reminds me of what G. K. Chesterton observed in Orthodoxy more than a century ago. He pointed out how Christianity was accused of being both too dreary and too dreamy, too weak because it forbids war and too warlike because it has caused wars. Critics called it too big and unified, yet too divisive and creedal; demeaning of women, yet too soft and feminine; sexually repressive, yet the root cause of overpopulation.

Chesterton’s conclusion? Perhaps Christianity is true, which is why it attracts objections from every possible angle.

If these are a sampling of the critiques lobbed at Christianity a hundred years ago, such accusations have only multiplied today. Tim Keller used the term “defeater beliefs” to describe cultural assumptions that make Christianity seem implausible from the outset. As subcultures flourish and radical individualism reigns, we will need to be ambidextrous—turning from one hand to the other, skillfully responding to competing objections and “defeater beliefs” from all sides.

Two Forces Shaping the Religious Landscape

Two major forces are accelerating this nova effect: human migration and the internet.

First, migration. More people live outside their country of birth today than at any other time in recorded history. This mass movement reshapes both sending and receiving cultures, increasing the likelihood that you’ll interact—personally and regularly—with adherents of other religions. What was once foreign and exotic may now be right next door.

Second, the internet. Online connectivity has flattened the religious landscape. No longer are people limited to the denominational choices within driving distance. Anyone can find any group making a case for their tradition on YouTube.

These shifts not only expand the types of non-Christians we’ll meet but also present new challenges for longtime church members. The pastor who once primarily defended Christian doctrine against progressivism or revisionist sexuality must now also explain why Protestants don’t believe in the bodily assumption of Mary, why we refrain from praying to saints or kissing icons. The pastor might engage on Monday with a Sikh, meet with a spiritual seeker on Tuesday, and then counsel a church member at Wednesday night supper who asks why Christians don’t worship on Saturdays.

Embrace Versatility

This cultural moment will require us to be equipped for apologetics, evangelism, discipleship, and compassion ministry across multiple cultural and religious contexts. There will be no cookie-cutter approaches, no one-size-fits-all methods in a world with so many people from different backgrounds showing up in different neighborhoods, and so many people online encountering all kinds of beliefs.

The golfer can’t rely on a favorite club anymore. The right-handed will need to learn to use the left hand. The pianist will need a working knowledge of the guitar. Multi-directional leadership, applied to defending the faith, requires ambidextrous apologists.

This approach will start with listening, really listening, to the people God puts in our path. It will mean learning to navigate conversations with both truth and grace, conviction and compassion. And it will require us to depend on the Spirit’s power, not just to win arguments but to faithfully bear witness to Christ in a world of ever-shifting objections.

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I don’t know if it’s appropriate to have a favorite Beatitude—one of the wisdom blessings offered by Jesus at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount—but if I had to pick one, it would be the sixth: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matt. 5:8).

I linger over this one, in part because “purity of heart” encompasses several aspects of the Christian life. There’s the pursuit of inner purity and righteousness as opposed to lust and deceit. There’s the purity of vision that interprets the world according to the scaffolding of goodness and love as opposed to a tainted and skewed vision of everything through the smudged lens of sinfulness. There’s the purity of intention expressed in single-minded devotion (Kierkegaard’s dictum—“Purity of heart is to will one thing”) as opposed to the double-mindedness warned about by the prophets and by James the brother of Jesus.

Promise for the Pure in Heart

The more I meditate on this saying of Jesus, the more I sense the distance between its radiance and the shadows of my heart. I give thanks for the only One with clean hands and a pure heart who ascended the mount of Golgotha to pay the price for all my impurity. Jesus’s love for me then galvanizes my affections with a renewed commitment to rely on his power to live into this identity he has pronounced over me, to bring my life more and more in line with this wondrous description.

Why? Because of the promise. The pure in heart will see God. Imagine that. We will see God. My heart leaps at the thought of all that’s entailed in the future that awaits God’s children. What happiness is promised here? What joy? What intensity? What does it mean to see God? The historic Christian answer has been called “the beatific vision”—the vision of God his people will enjoy forever.

Vision That Stirs Up and Satisfies Desire

Throughout church history, our forefathers and mothers in the faith have contemplated the meaning of this everlasting gift. In his homilies on 1 John, Augustine linked the present reality of not being able to see God (except in part) to the longing for holiness that should mark every Christian’s life.

In The Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa pondered the beatific vision in similar terms yet claimed our desire will be ever-satisfied and ever-renewed.

For all eternity, we’ll be simultaneously satiated by God and stirred up with desire for more of God. And because we’re finite and he’s infinite, we’ll never come to the end of tasting and craving his glory. One of my favorite prayers included in the 30 Days prayer series comes from Anselm and begins with the acknowledgment he hasn’t yet seen the Lord, then climaxes in this paradoxical expression of longing:

Pondering the Beatific Vision

Samuel Parkison’s new book To Gaze upon God: The Beatific Vision in Doctrine, Tradition, and Practice is one of those academic books that digs deep into theology with the intent to make the reader’s heart sing. Parkison comes at this doctrine from various angles, explaining its development through theologians of the Great Tradition and into the Reformation era and beyond. He also considers why the doctrine has fallen out of favor in recent decades and makes a persuasive case for reclaiming this promise as part of our heritage and hope.

As we behold the glory of the Lord by faith in this present life, we’re transformed. And as we grow in holiness, we’re given greater and greater glimpses of God in his glory, in anticipation of the promise of glorified sight that will make us like him as we see him as he is (“What we will be has not yet been revealed,” 1 John 3:2). Here are a few of the astounding truths Parkison expounds in this book:

• It’s a vision of love in a resurrected state. “The beatific vision is a vision of love, a participatory vision of God’s essence, in resurrected bodies, wherewith we will see this vision immediately and everywhere, particularly in the person of Christ, on account of our union with him.”
• We contemplate today the God we’ll see forever. “The object of our contemplation by faith now (i.e., God in Christ) will be the object of this beatific vision forever—him whom we delight to behold by faith now we will continually delight to behold in glorified vision hereafter.”
• We’ll see God through God. “United to Christ, his perfect vision of God will be our perfect vision of God, for he is the author and perfecter of our faith, our forerunner and perfect federal head and restorative source.”
• This vision totally fulfills and satisfies our every desire. “This vision is the full satiation of every creaturely desire and the absolute telos of the image-bearer. Every happiness that has partial fulfillment here will be realized in full in this vision, since this vision is the destination to which all natural desires lead.”
• Yet the nature of this fulfillment will be ever-growing thirst and satiation for all eternity. “The realization of this hope is one of perpetual growth and expansion—where the saint’s capacity for delight in the blessedness of God grows with his reception of that delight, and his thirst increases simultaneously with his satiation. Thus, the saint is full to the brim with satisfaction even as his capacity for satisfaction grows forevermore.”
• The vision is the consummation of our bond to God. “It is the consummate fellowship and communion with the believer’s bond to Christ—who is the Spirit. Thus, the beatific vision is a spiritual vision of divine love—where the believer is brought by the Spirit into the Trinity’s own beatitude, further up and further in, forever.”

Further up, and further in. This is our hope. The promised land. The new Jerusalem. God’s holy mountain. The Holy of Holies. Eden’s eternal Sabbath rest.

And we won’t be alone, Parkison says. “The individual saint’s delight of this vision is enhanced by the presence of other saints and angels, for there love will be perfectly expressed, and true love for neighbor will overwhelm the individual saint with delight—the joy of neighbor will increase the joy of oneself.”

No wonder Jesus includes the pure in heart in his list of Beatitudes. We will see God, together, forever rapt in wonder, love, and praise. What more could we ask for?

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Last week, Pew Research Center released their newest survey of the religious landscape in the United States, a detailed snapshot of the nation’s religious composition, beliefs, and practices.

I’ve spent time digging through the data to share a few key takeaways that I believe are particularly relevant for evangelicals trying to make sense of this cultural moment.

1. The decline of Christianity and the rise of the unaffiliated have stalled.

For years, we’ve heard about the rapid decline of Christianity and the meteoric rise of the “nones”—those who claim no religious affiliation. But here’s the surprising news: Both trends have plateaued.

According to Pew,

• 62 percent of U.S. adults describe themselves as Christians: 40 percent are Protestant, 19 percent are Catholic, and 3 percent fall into other Christian categories.
• 29 percent are religiously unaffiliated: 5 percent are atheist, 6 percent are agnostic, and 19 percent identify as “nothing in particular.”
• 7 percent belong to non-Christian religions: 2 percent are Jewish, and 1 percent each are Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu (all figures are rounded).

What does this mean? It’s like we’ve hit the pause button. For Christians concerned about the church’s future, this could be seen as a glimmer of hope—a moment where the bleeding has stopped. But just because the decline has stalled doesn’t mean the church is out of the woods.

There’s still a major challenge ahead. The survey shows younger adults are much less religious than older generations. Unless there’s a spiritual revival among younger Americans, the overall religious landscape will likely continue to shift as older generations pass away. And so far, no generation has shown signs of getting more religious as it ages. This means that, over time, religious affiliation could decline further.

2. Religious switching is rising, and the church is losing ground.

In America’s religious marketplace, people are switching beliefs and denominations more than ever. Religion is often viewed primarily as a personal choice, a tool for self-help, or a place to find community. As a result, people shop around for the faith that fits them best.

But here’s the tough news: The church is still losing more people than it’s gaining. Many young adults raised in religious households aren’t staying in the faith as they grow older. And for every American who converts to Christianity from another faith or no faith at all, six others are leaving Christianity behind, either becoming unaffiliated or joining a non-Christian religion.

Within Christianity, there’s also been a noticeable shift in denominational switching. Mainline Protestantism continues to decline, and that’s one of the reasons evangelicalism has held steady as a share of all Protestants (even if evangelicals are shrinking as a percentage of the overall population). A similar trend is happening now with Southern Baptists, whose decline corresponds to the rise in nondenominational Protestants. Nondenominational Christians now make up 7 percent of the adult population, and they’re the only group that grew as a share of the U.S. population since the last survey.

3. Church attendance and religious practices are holding steady.

Despite all the changes in religious identity, one thing hasn’t changed as much as you might expect: church attendance. About 33 percent of Americans say they attend religious services at least once a month, and 25 percent go at least once a week. These numbers have been pretty stable since 2020.

When I’ve looked at past surveys of church attendance for Americans, I see a surge of churchgoing in the 1950s and 1960s, followed by steady decline, to the point that today’s percentages appear to mirror the 1940s. I hesitate to compare these statistics, because the surveys aren’t the same, and it seems clear that weekly churchgoing is down across the board, but I do think there’s something to the point that the norm in American life has been that about a third of Americans attend church on a regular or semiregular basis.

Prayer habits are also worth noting: 44 percent of U.S. adults pray at least once a day. That’s a drop from 2007 but has been steady in recent years. Another 23 percent pray weekly or a few times a month, leaving only about a third who rarely or never pray. This suggests there’s still a strong cultural openness to prayer, even among those who don’t attend church often.

Church leaders should take note. These numbers indicate a solid base of people open to spiritual practices, even if they’re not showing up every Sunday.

4. The religiously remixed are everywhere.

Just because people are leaving organized religion doesn’t mean they’re becoming secular in the strictest sense. Many are crafting their own spiritualities, drawing from a mix of religious traditions, philosophies, and personal beliefs. As Tara Burton points out in Strange Rites, we’re witnessing a shift from institutional religion to what she calls “intuitional religion”—spirituality based on personal choice and self-expression.

According to Pew, most Americans don’t fit the secular stereotypes of Western Europe. The study found,

• 86 percent believe people have a soul or spirit beyond their physical body.
• 83 percent believe in God or a universal spirit.
• 79 percent believe in something spiritual beyond the natural world.
• 70 percent believe in heaven, hell, or both.

The nonreligious “nones” are quite religious or “spiritual,” after all. And that shouldn’t surprise us. Scripture makes clear that God created human beings as worshipers. We’re either worshipers of God in Christ, together with his Bride, the Church, or we’re worshipers of some other higher power with people who share similar views and practices.

At the same time, it’s important to point out that intuitional religion mixes with institutional adherence. You should expect to find people in churches who are mixing and matching different aspects of spirituality and religiosity as they cobble together an identity of their own that just so happens to coincide with church attendance.

World of Opportunity

There’s so much more to unpack in the Pew survey—from immigration trends affecting religious diversity to the narrowing gender gap in religious participation. But the big takeaway is this: Even though religious decline is a real challenge, there’s also an enormous opportunity for mission.

The stability in church attendance and prayer practices shows that a significant number of people still consider themselves spiritually active. And the rise of “religiously remixed” beliefs suggests people continue to search for meaning—a quest the church is uniquely positioned to address.

The challenge for Christians is to understand this cultural moment and engage with others in good faith, to not bypass the open doors for sharing the gospel in a culture that’s still hungry for meaning and purpose.

If you want to dive deeper into the data, you can check out the full survey on the Pew Research Center website. But in the meantime, let’s pray and work for renewal, knowing that God has worked in ways that upset the trend lines in the past, and through us, he might do it again.

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There’s a never-ending debate among readers about whether it’s preferable for a book to have footnotes or endnotes. Regardless of where you come down (footnotes for academic works and endnotes for popular-level titles, obviously!), the passion you feel about this issue indicates the importance of these author-asides in the reading experience.

Good notes help you trace ideas back to their sources, and they can often stimulate further reflection. A footnote in N. T. Wright’s massive volume Jesus and the Victory of God that recommended we consider the worldview question “What time is it?” planted a seed in my mind that, after 10 years of watering, sprouted into my PhD dissertation and my book Eschatological Discipleship.

When it comes to substantive endnotes, Tim Keller was king. His book Preaching contains 68 pages of notes, barely besting Making Sense of God’s (although the latter’s 67 may be a higher word count due to the smaller font). Keller’s notes are marvelous in offering deeper interactions with other writers and thinkers, but my favorites are the notes that explore a statement or theme as if we’re going on an invigorating walk on a trail just off the main path. They’re often as interesting and insightful as anything you’ll find in the main text.

So, as a tribute to the King of Endnotes, I’m counting down my top 10 favorites, in hopes that next time you crack open one of Keller’s books, you don’t skip his notes.

10. Keller lays out a preaching calendar.

In endnote 14 from chapter 1 of Preaching, Keller explains how he chooses his topics and themes for preaching over the course of a year.

After this, Keller goes on to discuss the appropriate length of a sermon series before offering actual examples of such series over the course of two years. All this in an endnote.

9. Keller safeguards the primary mission of the church gathered.

In endnote 17 from chapter 10 of Hope in Times of Fear, Keller makes an important clarification intended to keep the purpose of the church gathered narrow while still insisting on the broader ramifications of the gospel.

8. Keller speaks to guilt, shame, and individualism.

This endnote (2) on guilt and shame in chapter 8 of his last book, Forgive, could be the subject of a whole book.

7. Keller says your idols will enslave and curse you.

This insight from endnote 50 in chapter 3 of Counterfeit Gods could be expanded into an entire chapter.

6. Keller shows how a classic catechism provides counter-catechesis in a secular age.

One of Keller’s recommendations in his later years was for counter-catechesis—new tools that would use biblical doctrine to both deconstruct the beliefs of culture and answer questions of the human heart that culture’s narratives cannot. (Inspired by this vision, I’ve cowritten a counter-catechism along these lines.) In endnote 6 of chapter 7 of Making Sense of God, Keller shows how the Heidelberg Catechism directly counters a contemporary view of identity.

5. Keller criticizes medieval mystics, irenically.

In Prayer, Keller shows up at his most Protestant (and Reformed), yet in endnote 122 of chapter 4, he shows how his critique of Catholic mysticism does not in every case invalidate a true communion with God.

4. Keller compares Christian and Muslim views of conversion.

In endnote 4 of chapter 4 of The Reason for God, Keller appeals to the uniqueness of Christianity, with an assist from Don Carson!

3. Keller outlines a forthcoming book on idolatry.

In endnote 8 from chapter 10 of The Reason for God, Keller gives a lengthy, bulleted list, the seeds of which would grow into his later book Counterfeit Gods. And speaking of that latter work, if you check out endnote 119, you’ll find a list of idol categories (theological, sexual, magic/ritual, political/economic, racial/national, relational, etc.). More gold!

2. Keller offers insight into the early church’s culture of gospel generosity.

In endnote 59 from chapter 3 of Generous Justice, Keller’s meditation on Acts births an insight often overlooked when considering just how generous the culture of the early church was.

1. Keller contrasts Elsa from Frozen with Martin Luther.

My personal favorite endnote comes from chapter 5 of Preaching, where in laying out the contours of the late-modern mind, Keller draws on pop culture and church history.

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“It’s vital to connect.”

“We need churches to foster connection.”

“It’s all who you know. All about connections.”

We hear statements like these all the time. You understand what they’re getting at—the truth they intend to convey. But if you were talking with someone from a hundred years ago, they’d look at you funny and ask you to elaborate. Go back another hundred years, and they wouldn’t understand you at all. No one back then used the word “connect” in reference to individual personal relationships.

In 1760, connect meant “to join, to link, to unite, or to cohere.” That’s how Samuel Johnson defined it in his dictionary. An author might connect his reasons as he makes an argument. You could connect sentences, or objects in the physical world. Churches might connect by linking together as some kind of organization.

Then came the Industrial Revolution, and “connect” began its upward climb, mostly in scientific and construction contexts. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the word broke into the social sphere of personal relationships. And it was only in the 1990s that connecting with people became one of its dominant uses.

Words Create Worlds

Words fascinate me—maybe because I’m a writer but also because the words we turn to reveal the way we see the world. Words give us an interpretive lens on life. That’s why fluency in another language isn’t just about communicating your thoughts via strict translation; it’s the ability to inhabit a different world. It’s stepping into a different way of seeing. Words in different languages carry multiple shades of meaning.

It’s often said that “words create worlds.” Our imaginations get ignited by the words we use, and the connotations of a word or phrase open up new patterns of thinking, influencing us in ways we often don’t perceive.

We argue over words because words carry more than their dictionary definitions. When journalists abandoned the phrase “sex-change operation” for “gender-confirmation surgery,” they didn’t just tweak the terminology; they smuggled in an entire worldview about someone’s internal sense of gender and its correspondence to (or distance from) that person’s biological sex. The pronoun debate isn’t just about politeness or politics—it reveals a conflict of vision, opposing views of the world and the nature of humanity.

But beyond the headline-grabbing language battles, quieter shifts are happening all the time—subtle, unnoticed changes in how we describe reality. I’m more curious about the words and phrases we don’t fight over, the terms we’ve embraced quietly, the common sense we’ve never thought to question.

How Consumer Culture Shaped Our Speech

Consider how the American psyche is revealed in the way we apply consumerist language to areas far beyond transactions.

In Romania, for example (a culture not as dominated by Western free-market influences), no one says “I don’t buy that” when expressing skepticism toward another person’s argument. But in English, we think like consumers—so much so that we evaluate arguments in terms of “buying” what someone must be “selling.”

We talk about “the bottom line”—the important takeaway or fundamental analysis—outside financial contexts, or getting the most “bang for our buck” even when no transaction is involved in our effort or experience. These phrases slip in unnoticed, quietly shaping our vocabulary according to a vision of life as a marketplace. Consumer culture shapes how we speak, and then how we speak reinforces consumer habits of thinking.

But there’s another linguistic shift underway—one that might be even more significant. It’s the mechanistic way we describe ourselves in the digital era.

Rise of the Machine Metaphor

In A Web of Our Own Making, Antón Barba-Kay stacks example on top of example to show how we’ve absorbed digital and mechanical language into our self-descriptions. Read through his list below (with a few of my own added in), and you start to feel dizzy—like you’re seeing for the first time just how pervasive the phenomenon is. We talk about ourselves all the time as if we were machines.

• We say we “burn out” or “fire on all cylinders” like engines.
• After a busy season, we “crash” like an overheated computer.
• We talk about “pushing buttons” or describe our personalities as being “wired” a certain way.
• We’re “overloaded” like circuits, or kept “in the loop” like wires, or “plugged in” like a power cord.
• In relationships, we make “connections” or feel “connected” or “disconnected,” or try to stay “in sync” with someone else.
• We talk about “networking,” as if we’re computers and devices linked to each other.
• We “tune in” to others like a radio frequency, and after an intense experience, we need time to “process.”
• Sexual encounters are recast as “hooking up.”
• We need “validation,” just like software needs a key.
• Influencers promise ways to “upgrade” or “update” ourselves, or “level up” in life.
• We “store” and “retrieve” memories like hard drives.
• A creative person is praised for their “output” (“He’s a machine!” is supposedly a compliment).
• When overwhelmed, we say we don’t have any “bandwidth,” and when things go haywire, we need a “reboot.”

Barba-Kay writes, “This mechanization and digitalization of language expresses a changing practical self-understanding. It suggests, for one, that we are our brains (as opposed to our hearts or souls or selves) and that our brains are machines” (224).

Recovering a Fuller View of Ourselves

Words create worlds, and worlds influence words. The speed with which we’ve adopted machine language suggests that, in subtle ways, we now see ourselves in mechanistic terms. Whenever we adapt our language to the machine’s vocabulary, we can’t help but reimagine life in less-than-human categories.

But we aren’t computer-brains with bodies. We’re creatures—living, embodied, relational, and spiritual. The church’s calling in the years ahead will be to deliver prophetic words of warning and comfort—resisting reductionist views that strip us of our multidimensional humanity and calling people higher, to the full-orbed dignity of bearing God’s image.

We aren’t machines. We aren’t processing units. We aren’t minds in meat suits, waiting for the next software update. We’re image-bearers of the living God, created to know and enjoy him, destined for a glory and dignity that’s the envy of angels. If our future is royalty, our vocabulary shouldn’t sound like machinery.

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Disappointment is a hallmark of ministry, leadership, and influence. Most of the time, we focus on dealing with the disappointment we feel when others let us down. But it’s also important to learn how to handle the reality that we’ll disappoint people we respect. It’s inevitable.

I once heard of a pastor who told a younger man training for ministry, “Brother, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t know of someone who’s disappointed in me.” He was acknowledging the reality. Serve God’s people long enough, and you’ll be both the one disappointed and the one who disappoints.

Burden of Letting Others Down

For nearly 20 years, I’ve been speaking and writing in public. Over time, I’ve disappointed my fair share of readers. Some have been dismayed by my stances and opinions—perhaps because I critiqued a book or author they admire, or because my condemnation of a writer or movement wasn’t as forceful as they thought the moment required. Other times, it wasn’t something I said or wrote but simply that I have friends or associations they think are compromised.

Church ministry brings similar challenges. Your take on a matter of political prudence may differ from some church members. Your response to a cultural controversy comes across as either too strident or too soft. You come down in different places on a question of denominational politics. You draw a sharp line on matters of orthodoxy, or you don’t draw the line sharply enough for a doctrine some think is a matter of orthodoxy. You quote or associate with someone from the “wrong” tribe. The list goes on.

When Encouragement Turns to Contempt

Sometimes, the pain runs deep—not just when others disappoint you but when you disappoint them. People who once encouraged me—who praised my books and sermons, sent emails of affirmation, shared meals in my home, or enjoyed a warm drink with me at a conference—have later trolled me on social media, blocked me, or written me off entirely.

One pattern I’ve noticed: Those who are over-the-top in praising you are often the most likely to be over-the-top in cutting you off when you disappoint them. It reminds me of Charles Spurgeon’s counsel: “Too much consideration of what is said by our people, whether it be in praise or in depreciation, is not good for us.”

Posture of Gratitude

In coming to terms with the inevitability of disappointing people, I’ve sought to respond with a spirit of gratitude. I can be grateful for whatever measure of help I was able to provide someone else, even if only for a season. It’s no small thing to gain someone’s ear—for my online scribblings to be a subject of reflection, or for my podcast to accompany someone on a drive or a run, or for one of my books to be given attention out of the millions available. If you’re a pastor, the fact that anyone sits through your sermons and yields to your leadership, even for a time, is an inestimable gift.

Along with taking a posture of gratitude, I’ve had to renounce the fear of disappointing others. I can’t let self-preservation stifle my instincts or keep me from serving as faithfully as I know how. I’ve had to resist the temptation to dwell on my missteps or to soften necessary words for fear of ruffling feathers. I’ve had to root out bitterness and resentment against those who’ve turned against me. I’ve tried instead to focus on the larger body of work I hope to contribute over a lifetime—a ministry I pray that, even with its many flaws, will glorify God and build up the church.

Word to My Readers

So, my readers, I must prepare you. If you follow my work long enough, you will eventually disagree with me. You will, at some point, be disappointed. Some of you may even stop reading or listening altogether. And that’s OK.

Even if that happens—even if disappointment leads to distance or to derision—I can still be grateful for the season where the Lord allowed me to serve you with my words. I choose this posture because it guards me from becoming defensive, from falling into people-pleasing, or from holding back when I feel compelled to speak the truth as I see it.

When You Disappoint Others

You, too, will disappoint people. If you serve in ministry, lead in any capacity, or engage publicly with ideas, it’s inevitable. The question isn’t whether you’ll let people down but how you’ll respond when it happens. “Bless your critics for their honesty,” Calvin Miller wrote. “They do not criticize you to be a blessing to you, but the end product may be the same.”

Don’t let your disappointment turn into self-doubt or defensiveness. Receive criticism with humility, discern what you can glean even from those whose manner is abrasive, and then move forward with confidence in God’s calling on your life.

We don’t measure faithfulness by universal approval. We measure faithfulness by adhering to the call of our Lord. Even when that means disappointing people along the way.

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Last week, Larry Sanger, the man who started Wikipedia in 2001, published a lengthy essay laying out his journey from skepticism to Christianity. For most of his adult life, Sanger was a committed skeptic, trained in analytic philosophy—a field dominated by atheists and agnostics. Though he spent 35 years as a nonbeliever, he never saw himself as hostile to faith, only unconvinced, and his testimony is geared toward those who share that rational, open-minded skepticism.

Reading through Sanger’s story, I was struck by a few features.

1. Failure to engage well with good-faith questions can be a catalyst for disbelief.

Sanger grew up in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, but by his mid-teens, his belief in God was dissipating, and his departure from the faith was clinched by the unfortunate response of a pastor to his questions:

This story should rekindle a passion in every minister’s heart to be familiar enough with the field of apologetics to know where to seek out and find answers to questions and objections people may have to Christianity. It should also encourage a spirit of compassion and pastoral care, not annoyance or contempt, toward people with questions.

2. The cumulative force of multiple arguments for God’s existence can be more persuasive than any single one.

Although Sanger found the Fine-Tuning Argument, a version of the Argument from Design, emotionally moving as the most compelling case for God’s existence, he found neither it nor the other traditional arguments fully convincing.

That partial headway had more influence the more he studied, as the cumulative effect of the arguments’ force became stronger than he realized at first.

Here was his conclusion:

(This is similar to Gavin Ortlund’s approach in Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn’t, where he offers a cumulative case for God’s existence, showing how multiple lines of evidence—philosophical reasoning, the beauty of the universe, and humanity’s deep existential longings—converge to make belief in God not just plausible but the most compelling explanation of reality.)

3. The character of Christians—especially online—can either draw people in or push them away.

Sanger points out the way Christians carried themselves both in person and also online, showing themselves and their views worthy of respect. He contrasted the Christian’s demeanor with the obnoxious manner of the New Atheists, with whom he shared at least some affinity in terms of skepticism. Because the Christians he observed online were serious and kind in their manner of engagement, their perspectives gained credence.

Perhaps we do well to reflect on the other side of this takeaway—the damage done to Christianity’s credibility when believers online act in obnoxious and trollish ways.

4. The Bible is the best resource for someone warming up to Christianity, and good tools make a difference.

Sanger’s growing warmth toward Christianity was fanned into flame by deeper study of the Bible. Curious and determined, he turned to every tool at his disposal—study plans, commentaries, Bible apps, and maps—approaching Scripture with the same meticulous analysis he once applied to philosophy.

Considering how many people are curious about the Bible these days, the increase in Bible sales, the interest in various philosophers and commentators providing their takes on the Scriptures, we should never look at the Scriptures as a source of embarrassment but as an endless trove of treasures. The Bible is the best thing we’ve got going for us. God has given us his Word!

Pray for Larry Sanger

Larry Sanger’s story is unfinished. He continues to read, write, and think. Right now, he’s examining the claims of different denominations. It’s clear he sees his need for a local church and the fellowship of other believers.

We can and should pray for him in the days ahead as he continues to grow in his newfound faith. And we can learn from his story how to better engage people considering Christ’s claims.

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I’ve just finished one of the most frightening books I’ve ever read. No, it’s not a tale of suspense or a novel in the horror genre. It’s not fiction, but it’s also not a true story, at least not yet.

Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War is terrifying because it isn’t pure speculation. Based on interviews with top-level officials and on declassified documents, it describes in gruesome detail what would happen to civilians and soldiers alike in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States. But the horror isn’t merely in the death toll—it’s in the cascading consequences. Civilization as we know it would collapse, swiftly and irrevocably.

The sheer fragility of the world’s systems is staggering. We take for granted our daily lives—communication networks, financial markets, supply chains, the basic infrastructure of modern existence. Yet Jacobsen shows how quickly everything could be upended. A single detonation wouldn’t remain an isolated event. Because of the built-in logic of deterrence, the impulse toward self-protection, and the need for quick retaliation, nuclear war is unlikely to begin with just one catastrophic explosion. If the first missile launches, more will follow. Counterattacking missiles would already be in the air before the first detonation on U.S. soil occurred—a deadly sequence set in motion by paranoia, miscommunication, and distrust.

And if you think such a scenario is unthinkable, consider how World War I began. Read the accounts of what took place in the summer of 1914—the triggers, the diplomatic blunders, the domino effect that led world leaders to bumble into a war no one knew how to stop, gutting Europe of an entire generation of young men. It doesn’t take a madman with a death wish—just a moment of miscalculation from someone with their fingers on the nuclear button.

A World Destroyed in Hours

What stands out to me about Nuclear War is the speed of the catastrophe. The book takes 10 times longer to read than it would take for the entire scenario to unfold. In half the time it takes to watch a typical two-hour movie, the world would be forever changed.

This timeline is unlike anything humanity has ever experienced. Other wars stretched over years, even decades. This one would be measured in minutes. There would be no time for deliberation, no strategic planning, no last-minute efforts to de-escalate. Once the chain reaction begins, there’s no stopping it. Within an hour, major cities across multiple continents would be reduced to smoldering craters, with radiating fallout sweeping over the countrysides. Think Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii—but everywhere. Governments would fall. Communications would cease. The world as we know it would be over, just like that.

A nuclear exchange wouldn’t merely be another war—it would be an extinction event. The 1970s preparation plans telling American schoolchildren to hide under their desks are laughable. Millions of civilians—families, children, entire populations—would be incinerated in an instant. And those who survived? They’d be the unlucky ones, either dying over the next days and weeks in excruciating pain or inheriting a world unrecognizable, a wasteland of radiation and ruin, something resembling the bleak post-apocalyptic horror of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

Love in Light of Loss

I said this book is frightening, and it is. But despite the underlying stress from encountering such a scarily plausible scenario, another emotion emerges: gratitude. Contemplating how quickly the world could be lost makes me love it all the more. Chesterton once wrote, “The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.”

We’ve all felt this in smaller ways. The gut punch of hearing about a tragic accident involving someone else’s child—followed by the instinct to hold our own children a little tighter. The realization that life is fragile makes it more precious, not less.

In Saint Francis of Assisi, Chesterton describes the saint’s vision of his beloved town upside down. “Whereas to the normal eye the large masonry of its walls or the massive foundations of its watchtowers and its high citadel would make it seem safer and more permanent, the moment it was turned over the very same weight would make it seem more helpless and more in peril.”

A strange paradox. Seeing the world on the edge of disaster, with all the systems and structures we depend on for protection now transformed into massive vulnerabilities—seeing the whole world hanging by a thread doesn’t lead to despair. It leads to love. It leads to joy. It leads to service.

A World Hanging by a Thread

This sense of love is tied to something even deeper: dependence.

Chesterton explains how St. Francis, after seeing the world from this new perspective, loved it more, not less.

This is what Nuclear War made me feel—not just fear but a renewed awareness of how much the world depends on the mercy of God. How much my very life depends on the will of God. The threat of mass extinction is a magnification of our individual vulnerability. Any one of us is an accident or a stroke away from death . . . all the time. One minute you’re alive, the next you’re dead. All our lives hang by a thread, and God is the One who pulls on it.

And God is the One who extends mercy. It’s true that history is full of horrors. Human evil and suffering have sometimes run their course unchecked—the decades-long wars in centuries past, the horrors of Auschwitz, the fallout of Chernobyl. But history is also full of unknown deliverances—wars that didn’t happen, disasters that didn’t strike, atrocities narrowly averted. These moments are there, too, unseen by us but woven into the fabric of providence.

We don’t know what the future holds. We don’t know how close we may be to the next catastrophe. But we do know this: God upholds all things. He restrains evil more than we can fathom. He continues to give us breaths, each one undeserved. And he has promised that, even in the darkest moments, he will bring good out of evil.

Who knows? Perhaps Jacobsen’s book will serve as a warning, a deterrent—one more tool that in God’s providence will prevent leaders from tumbling down the tunnel into darkness.

Regardless, a book like this helps us see the world’s fragility for what it is, increasing our sense of dependence on God, helping us see in a scenario of world destruction the vision of the world’s glory. As Chesterton said,

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My annual reading of Augustine’s Confessions always surfaces something new, and this year was no exception. Perhaps because I’d just finished Kevin Vanhoozer’s acclaimed Mere Christian Hermeneutics, I was struck by a section in Book 12 of Confessions about theological debate over biblical interpretation—where Augustine takes a posture we should adopt in current disputes over the text’s meaning.

Augustine is pondering the truths expounded by Moses in Genesis and the difficulty of wading through multiple seemingly legitimate interpretations. Anthony Esolen’s new translation expresses Augustine’s thought process:

Notice two elements here. Augustine expresses total confidence in the truth and authority of God’s Word. That’s not in dispute. His confidence is in God. But he expresses less confidence that he has rightly understood the author’s original intent. He thinks he understands what the text means, but his level of certainty regarding his interpretation isn’t as high as his confidence that God speaks truth.

Danger of Pride in Theological Pursuits

But Augustine discovered not everyone holds to their interpretation with this level of humility.

Augustine will make a case for his viewpoint, and he’ll happily consider other perspectives, so long as they lie within the bounds of orthodoxy. He loves the back-and-forth of theological debate, but he gets frustrated when a conversation partner doesn’t share the same openness to different perspectives, and so he asks for patience from the Lord.

“They do love their own [opinion], not because it is true, but because it is theirs.” That’s key for Augustine here. He peels back the layers of doctrinal debate until he sees the motivation behind controversy. In our day, just as in Augustine’s, there are those who hold to their opinions with an improper level of certainty, as if they could see directly into the author’s mind. This is pride. It leads to rashness in theological debate.

Communal Nature of Bible Interpretation

Note the communal focus of biblical interpretation here. No one has a corner on the truth, he says. The truth comes wholly from God and belongs to the whole people of God. We need each other if we’re to interpret the Bible well. Humility requires openness to what our brothers and sisters glean from the text, something we may have missed.

How should we deal with believers who obstinately insist on a particular opinion and condemn all other reasonable interpretations consistent with orthodoxy? Augustine points to the Truth above all involved.

Seeking Truth with Love and Humility

As Augustine says elsewhere, the whole point of biblical interpretation is to increase our love for God and neighbor. We short-circuit this road to holiness when, in arrogance, we fail to show love and forbearance to our opponents. Even if we’re right—without love and humility, we’re wrong.

Augustine imagines a flowing stream of Truth. More than one truth can be drawn from that gushing water. We can draw from the river whatever truths are on offer, as long as they accord with the rule of faith.

I realize this view of textual interpretation may challenge us today because his premodern take does not confine the meaning of the text to whatever is most evident. He writes,

Opening up oneself to multiple insights and various perspectives on a text raises the question of what interpretations should be given more weight. Augustine would point us to whatever is consistent with orthodoxy and in line with the greater aim of Scripture—to build up love for God and neighbor.

From Augustine, we learn to remain open to uncertainty in our interpretations because we’re fallible interpreters of God’s infallible Word, and because the purpose of theological debate should be growth in love and holiness. Here we find a posture of openness and humility—we take care to affirm basic matters of orthodoxy, but we remain circumspect in issuing “once-for-all” judgments in more contested areas. “Let there be no obstinate wrangling,” he writes, “but rather diligent seeking, humble asking, persistent knocking.”

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It’s clear you’re dealing with a cultural phenomenon when comedians start making jokes and online parodies begin appearing. That’s now the case with a perspective on raising kids called “gentle parenting.”

Gentle parenting is a philosophy of child-rearing centered on mutual respect, emotional empathy, and positive (rather than negative) discipline, so that the parent-child relationship is marked by understanding and guidance—never scolding, punishment, or obligation.

You may have seen these techniques in action—a child acts out, and a young mom responds with a cloying tone, “What kind of choice do we want to make, Noah?” Or “Emma, I see you’re upset. Can you tell me what you’re feeling right now in a way that helps me understand?” Or “Jackson, what else can you do to show you’re frustrated without making Ella feel unsafe?”

The goal is to increase a child’s emotional intelligence by responding in calm and positive ways when behavior crosses a line, redirecting the child’s self-expression toward something healthier or more socially acceptable. A tantrum is merely the result of frustration. Bad behavior arises from unmet needs.

Children Are Inherently Good?

At the heart of this philosophy is the belief that children are, at their core, good—compassionate, loving, and generous. Affirming a child’s internal goodness is meant to free parents to be curious about why their child might act out. Parents are trained to look beyond behavior to the deeper reasons behind their child’s actions.

In UnHerd, Marilyn Simon describes the philosophy this way:

Why has this approach caught on? In The Dispatch, Megan Dent explains part of the appeal: It implies that simply meeting all a child’s needs will improve their behavior. Affirming emotions, making children feel “seen,” or removing sources of stress is the key to raising compassionate and respectful adults.

Flattening Your Kids

The problem with gentle parenting is its reductive view of human nature. Simon goes so far as to call the approach “cruel.” The philosophy patronizes children and “flattens the human experience into a series of choice options, none of which reflect any natural goodness or badness in the child, but which instead represent optimal or less optimal outcomes.”

Furthermore, it denies a child his or her full humanity as a moral agent because it refuses to acknowledge that sometimes our instinctive feelings aren’t just impolite or inappropriate but wrong. A child’s actions are often not the result of “frustration” but of selfishness. Our wills need to be restrained because our desires are corrupted. Simon writes,

Pervasiveness of Sin

As Christians, we realize the sin and selfishness of child and parent alike will always foil the best intentions of the gentle parenting approach. Human nature isn’t inherently good but bad. We’re born sinners. Our wills are bent. Our instincts are corrupted. Wrongdoing isn’t merely the result of ignorance, injustice, or frustration at not being fully understood—it originates in the evil of the human heart.

Self-help gurus may balk at such an assessment, but acknowledging the sinful propensity of the human heart goes back thousands of years. Dent points to a famous moment early in Augustine’s Confessions where he reflects on the selfishness evident in infancy, even before a child has the awareness to judge right from wrong:

Parenting, then, isn’t merely about teaching our kids how to live in society; it’s about showing them the moral weight of their actions—that sin is real, punishment is necessary (though not doled out in anger or caprice), and forgiveness is available.

Diagnosing sin in our kids’ hearts doesn’t strip them of dignity. On the contrary, it dignifies and deepens them. We treat children as moral agents, respect them enough to discipline them in love, and then forgive and restore them.

Gentle and Holy God

The God of the Bible is a tender Father, yes. Jesus described himself as gentle and lowly. But his gentleness isn’t patronizing, nor does he evade the true source of our wrongdoing. In God, we see a fiery holiness that names sin for what it is. He upholds our dignity by holding us morally accountable, and he offers himself in self-giving love to bring back the wayward heart that turns from sin and trusts his grace. As Dent observes,

Our Opportunity

The church will have a major opportunity in the years ahead, as young people come of age having been raised under the philosophy of gentle parenting—with its emphasis on safeness, social niceties, and emotional self-expression, and its erasing of sin, evil, judgment, and redemption.

We do ourselves no favors by downplaying, denying, or diminishing sin, no matter how unpopular it may seem. A patient riddled with the cancer of selfishness will one day tire of the vitamins and tonics doled out by feel-good doctors and yearn for surgery on the soul. When that day comes, we’ll have the opportunity to speak the unsafe truth that every person, deep down, already knows to be true: I have sinned.

As one woman recently testified, “I love the church because she told me I was sinning when no one else would.” Yes. A stark diagnosis, before a magnificent cure.

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I’ve been slowly rereading Antón Barba-Kay’s A Web of Our Own Making, one of the most profound books in recent years on how the digital era is reshaping civilization. One of its key insights is how human interconnectedness makes the digital revolution’s effects inescapable. Even those who resist or withdraw from online life do so against the backdrop of a world fundamentally shaped by it.

Another takeaway exposes the temptation to remake and reconfigure the physical environment (even our bodies and relationships) in ways that conform to the digital. The future isn’t a world where everyone spends an inordinate amount of time in an AI-inhabited metaverse of virtual reality but a world where it’s acceptable, even expected, for physical bodies and places to be molded and shaped by the digital images we hope to capture. The online world now sets the standard for all of life.

You might hear this and think, That doesn’t apply to me. I can always opt out. I don’t have to engage with social media or virtual reality. I can just log off. Unfortunately, human culture doesn’t work that way. Television reshaped public discourse even for those who didn’t own a set. Social media has reduced political debate to clips and soundbites. Even if you never watch your church’s livestream, the presence of a camera broadcasting the service alters the experience for everyone—whether it’s the pastor who acknowledges an unseen audience, the worship leader who adjusts to the basics of broadcasting, or the people gathered who realize a moment of devotion might be captured by the camera.

No One Is an Island

When a new technology becomes widespread, no one remains untouched. Brad Littlejohn, in his article “Narcissus in Public,” offers a striking example. Over Christmas break, he took his family to the ice rink at the National Gallery’s Sculpture Garden. They noticed a group of young women using the rink as a mere backdrop for Instagram glamour shots. Other skaters had to swerve to avoid them, avert their eyes from their immodesty, or adjust their own experience around these self-curated performances. He writes,

What seems like an individual choice—taking selfies or curating an image—changes the experience for everyone else. We think our phone habits are personal, but when millions of people prioritize their screens over the world around them, the consequences ripple outward. When you divide your attention between your phone and the real world multiple times a day, you reshape not only your expectations but also the social fabric around you.

Your phone habits don’t affect just you. Littlejohn continues,

Permission Structure Has Changed

You’ve likely seen this phenomenon elsewhere. If you’re on a hike with friends, enjoying conversation and the beauty around you, the moment someone pulls out a phone to capture the moment for social media, the dynamic shifts. The scenery is no longer just scenery—everything is potential for content or a possible background for a selfie. The hike is no longer only about you and your friends—it’s something to be broadcast, something open for evaluation and discussion online.

If you’re in a business meeting, once one or two people pull out their phones or open their laptops, the permission structure of the room changes. The expectation of everyone being fully present—really there and engaged—diminishes. Distraction is now unavoidable. Even the person determined to leave the phone in the bag and stay attentive will be affected by the shift.

And what about church? If you glance down the aisle and see someone scrolling Instagram mid-sermon, the atmosphere changes. Full attention to God’s Word is no longer the assumed posture. You’re gathered with people for worship who aren’t fully there. Openness to half-hearted listening and distracted engagement becomes permissible for all.

Littlejohn notes the compounding effect:

Reclaim Presence

Our actions are more connected than we realize. When I’m helping my son with his homework, or talking with my daughter, and I let my attention drift to my phone, I’m sending a message: This moment doesn’t require my full presence. Or worse: You’re not interesting enough to me. If we’re watching a movie with my kids, but I’m multitasking and checking my email, their experience of the film is altered, not just mine.

A principle in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians holds here—“everything is permissible,” but not everything is beneficial; “everything is permissible,” but not everything builds up (1 Cor. 10:23–24). “No one is to seek his own good, but the good of the other person,” he says. As Christians, we’re obligated to consider how our personal choices affect those around us.

You’re not an island. Your phone habits are never just about you. Our digital choices reflect our priorities. Our online actions have downstream effects. Unless we take a good, long look at ourselves in the mirror and unless we carve out spaces and times that we—with others—agree should be free from the distraction of our devices, we’ll ride along with the currents of imperceptible but significant cultural devolution.

The choice before us isn’t just whether we use our phones more or less than others. It’s whether we’ll be fully present and fully aware of the collective effects of our individual decisions.

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For two seasons of my podcast Reconstructing Faith, we’ve explored the credibility crisis facing the church today and examined the challenges that stand in the way of restoring the church’s witness. We’ve sought wisdom from Scripture, church history, and the global church. We’ve discussed rolling up our sleeves and taking our place on the wall, ready to do the hard work of renewal.

But a question still confronts us: What if we can’t rebuild?

What if, despite all our good intentions and efforts, we’re not ready?

What if we’re not up to the task of restoration?

What if we aren’t healthy enough ourselves to lead the way toward a healthier church?

Necessity of Spiritual Formation

We don’t expect a novice runner to succeed in a marathon, or someone who hasn’t practiced piano scales to suddenly perform a Mozart sonata. Why, then, do we assume we can help restore the church’s witness without first attending to our spiritual formation?

We admire stories of martyrs and heroes, but their courage in the moment of testing doesn’t materialize out of nowhere. Yes, the Holy Spirit may provide extraordinary grace in the moment of crisis, but that assistance is often delivered through years of formation—choices and practices that flow from and reinforce virtuous character. Faithfulness in crisis depends on faithfulness in ordinary life.

Reconstruction doesn’t take place spontaneously. Real transformation requires preparation. And an essential aspect of that preparation is the practice of abiding in Christ and depending on his Spirit. Apart from Christ, our aspirations for renewal are doomed to falter.

Introducing Season 3

The third season of Reconstructing Faith is devoted to exploring spiritual formation—those practices and habits God uses to shape our hearts and lives. The work of reconstruction begins with acknowledging our limitations and throwing ourselves on God’s grace. Only the Spirit can transform us into the sturdy trees of Psalm 1, planted by streams of living water, ready to bear fruit in a dry and weary land.

The call to rebuild the church’s witness isn’t a call to self-reliance. It’s an invitation to deeper dependence on Christ. As we lean into the Spirit’s work, we’ll discover that renewal flows not from our strength but from the One who strengthens our hands.

The first season focused on the credibility crisis facing the church. Season 2 examined the big obstacles we encounter as we work toward renewal.

Season 3 offers a closer look at questions of spiritual formation and personal discipleship. We’ll explore the disciplines and virtues essential for becoming pillars of faithfulness in a world of chaos.

This season, we’ll look in more detail at the following:

• the necessity of spiritual practices and the growing movement of spiritual formation
• the three waves that have influenced evangelical churches in the past half-century
• what it means to become people of prayer who truly depend on the Spirit
• becoming Bible readers in a world where nobody reads
• preaching God’s Word faithfully (and becoming better listeners)
• how the digital era is reshaping how we view ourselves and the church
• therapy culture and the question of resilience in church leadership.

At the end of the season, we’ll look at seven big challenges facing the church worldwide, and we’ll spend some time in the Sermon on the Mount as we consider the characteristics of God’s kingdom people. Guests this season include Mark Sayers, Andrew Wilson, Christine Rosen, Brad East, Liliana Llambés, Michael Sacasas, and more. The first two episodes are available today wherever you listen to podcasts, and the rest will follow once a week.

My hope for this new season of Reconstructing Faith is to take a closer look at how we lean into the Spirit’s formation of our hearts and lives so that we grow in awareness of our need for God’s grace. So that we grow in wisdom about how best to meet today’s challenges. So that we grow more solid in a world of shadows. So that we run the race to win the prize.

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Over the holidays, I watched the new film Conclave, a suspenseful look at the secretive world of Vatican traditions and the political maneuvering of cardinals as they gather to elect a new pope. The film is based on a novel I read last year, by Robert Harris.

This isn’t the place to delve into the cinematography, performances, or score (all good), nor to unpack the story’s over-the-top plot twist. Set aside the palace intrigue; what stood out to me was the thread running through the narrative—an ongoing battle between “progressives” and “traditionalists” in the Catholic Church.

Certainty vs. Doubt: The Central Debate

The story sets up factions of cardinals, some more aligned with a liberalizing vision for the Church and others who believe the faithful need something solid. Cardinal Tedesco represents the traditionalist vision, at one point offering a speech that echoes both Pope Benedict XVI’s “dictatorship of relativism” and G. K. Chesterton’s quote about the Church moving the world.

Tedesco stands as the foil to Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, the overseer of the conclave, played by Ralph Fiennes. Lawrence, representing the progressive vision, delivers a pivotal speech, nearly word-for-word from Harris’s novel:

Notice the assumptions here. Certainty isn’t only a sin but one of the most fearful. Unity is good, tolerance is indispensable, and certainty threatens both. We’re most like Christ when we’re uncertain, as he seemed to be on the cross, and our faith is made more real the more we doubt, because certainty is a dead thing that resolves all mystery and makes faith unnecessary. In the life of faith, certainty is a vice, and doubt is a virtue.

To this, a simple response is in order: Hogwash!

Power of Doubt?

Look first at the Gospels. Jesus nowhere commends doubt. Instead, we see him chastising his disciples for their lack of faith, or asking in frustration, “Why did you doubt?” When he praises people, it’s for their faith—faith that amazes him, no matter the person’s background. “Don’t be afraid,” he says. “Just believe.”

Look also at church history. It’s not doubt that brings unity to the church but confidence. It’s certainty in the truth of God’s Word. It’s confidence in the great creeds of the faith. Unity flows from confession of truth, not from a posture of perpetual uncertainty.

What’s more, we see throughout history inspiring examples of faith—especially those who endured the dark night of the soul or the relentless whispers of the Evil One. It isn’t doubt that inspires the world but faith overcoming doubt. We don’t remember Perpetua and Felicity for cowering before the wild beasts in the amphitheater but for their courage and conviction. We read works today not from men and women in the past whose muddled ponderings betrayed their uncertainties but from those who strenuously sought the truth and made clear affirmations, no matter the cost.

Of course, the life of faith isn’t easy. Thomas doubted the reality of the resurrection. A number of disciples doubted the truth even after they’d seen the risen Lord. Struggle is to be expected. That’s why Jude tells us to “have mercy on those who doubt.” Honesty about our doubt is a virtue, but it’s the honesty that’s commendable, not the doubt itself.

You’d be hard-pressed to find anything before the past century that would cast certainty and confidence as a sin; something opposed to unity; or to tolerance; or, heaven forbid, to faith. The great Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck titled one of his books The Certainty of Faith. “Certainty” in itself isn’t responsible for the persecution of enemies. It all depends on what we’re certain about. Someone certain of the truth of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount will be more inclined to withstand persecution than to spread it.

Doubt and Confidence

To be clear, we’re not talking about Enlightenment-style certainty that presumes exhaustive knowledge of God’s mysteries. What we need is a deep and abiding confidence in God’s love and grace—a knowing in our bones that God is real, that Jesus is alive, that we’re loved, that all will be well in the end. “I know whom I have believed . . .” we sing. Lesslie Newbigin put it this way: “[It isn’t] the confidence of one who claims possession of demonstrable and indubitable knowledge. It is the confidence of one who had heard and answered the call that comes from the God through whom and for whom all things were made: ‘Follow Me.’”

I realize one reason some want to recast doubt as virtue and make certainty a vice—it’s in response to churches that squelch hard questions, that act in craven and self-focused ways, or that suppress any expression of doubt or uncertainty, thereby forcing tender consciences into hiding. In these communities, shame accompanies struggle. No wonder some might react negatively to a certain faith that leaves no room for doubt.

But the problem in these faith communities is dishonesty, not certainty. The problem is hypocrisy, not a settled faith.

Doubt is a normal part of the Christian life. As Philip Ryken says,

That’s the right posture. We swing between faith and doubt at times, but the goal isn’t to celebrate doubt—it’s for our faith to shine brighter. If doubts are winning and our faith is dim, we want to alter that situation, not remain in it. “Help my unbelief!” we cry.

The Christian life will sometimes involve dark nights of the soul, seasons of spiritual dryness, unexpected bouts of sickness and suffering, and intellectual hang-ups with some of Christianity’s most audacious truth claims. Struggle doesn’t mean you’re a bad Christian, just a normal one. Still, we’re never told to celebrate our doubts but to press through them toward a fortified faith on the other side.

Brad East makes this point in Letters to a Future Saint:

Amen! So, enough with the valorization of doubt! There’s nothing compelling about a person who says, “Come to Jesus, so you can be as unsettled as I am!” It’s perseverance that draws, confidence that convicts, and faith that moves mountains.

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A number of readers have thanked me for recommending Allen Levi’s Theo of Golden—my favorite read last year. Many have commented on the novel’s beautiful characterizations, its vivid descriptions, and the compelling nature of its central figure. I’m delighted others are encountering this remarkable story and grappling with the implicit challenge of a saintly old man whose life radiates love and attention.

In pondering the many lessons from Levi’s novel, I’ve been thinking more carefully about how compelling and attractive holiness can be in a world that has forgotten the sacred dignity of humanity and the high calling God has for us. And here, I come upon a puzzle I’ve wrestled with for some time.

Threat and Beauty of Holiness

On the one hand, holiness can feel threatening. “Moses, take off your sandals!” Encountering someone whose spiritual devotion far surpasses your own—or recognizing what seems to be genuine saintliness in someone else—can provoke feelings of inadequacy, even resentment. At times, a vehement reaction can escalate to violence, as history and Scripture attest.

On the other hand, truly holy people—the ones who radiate the joy and love of Jesus—possess a magnetic quality. They don’t highlight our shortcomings; they draw us in, make us feel more alive. Their presence opens us up to the possibility of growth and transformation.

Righteousness vs. Self-Righteousness

Why does holiness provoke such disparate reactions? One explanation might reduce the difference to righteousness versus self-righteousness. And that’s a good place to start.

The distance between righteousness and self-righteousness is a chasm, but crossing it takes just a step. A person can be steeped in spiritual disciplines—Bible reading, prayer, fasting, church activity—and still exude a self-righteousness that alienates those around them. It’s the difference between being holy and being “holier than thou.” In this case, the disciplines give off a self-righteous stink and provoke feelings of frustration and guilt in others.

By contrast, genuine righteousness—true holiness—bears the fragrance of humility. It’s inviting, not intimidating. Love infuses a saintly person’s discipline and devotion, so that when you encounter them you don’t feel inadequate but inspired. There’s no smugness or sense of superiority that stirs up guilt. Rather than feeling burdened by the sins that still weigh you down, you feel lighter, as if you’ve been given proof that sin can be cast aside, that closeness to God is a real possibility.

Churches marked by real holiness reflect the warmth and radiance of Jesus, the friend of sinners. The radical call to pursue righteousness is still there, of course, but as a response to God’s gift—divine grace that flows without condition to unworthy people.

Holiness That Enlarges the World

The explanation that real righteousness draws us closer while self-righteousness is a turnoff makes sense. But we must say more.

Why? Because true holiness doesn’t always draw people in. Holiness often provokes persecution. “All who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,” the apostle Paul told Timothy (2 Tim. 3:12). Real devotion will engender real opposition. Ironically, it’s often not the “worst of sinners” who resist the presence of holiness but pious people whose religiosity is threatened by genuine devotion.

Likewise, self-righteousness isn’t always a turnoff. Churches steeped in self-righteousness become places of comparison, striving, and judgment. But they too can attract people—anyone looking for a spiritual workout regimen more than a house of grace.

It’s not so simple, then, to say that real righteousness always draws and self-righteousness always repels. Different people, with different inclinations, may be drawn to the righteous or the self-righteous, for different reasons.

So where does that leave us? I can only speak from experience. When I’ve spent time with those who’ve walked closely with Jesus for many years, I don’t feel like a failure; I feel revived. I don’t feel weaker; I feel strengthened. I don’t feel condemned; I feel challenged. Their presence is an invitation—it calls to something deep inside my heart, a trip wire activated by God’s Spirit that leads to a yearning to become the person Jesus wants me to be.

It’s the mark of a righteous person that others feel more alive in their presence. Not chastised and unworthy but roused from complacency, imbued with a fresh desire to radiate the love of Jesus. It’s the combination of sweetness and seriousness that stands out to me—a firmness and kindness that invites me to a deeper repentance, that unfolds a different kind of path before me. True holiness expands the soul. It enlarges the world.

Light That Points to Christ

The more I reflect on these encounters, the more I realize how far I am from exhibiting this quality, especially for the family and friends closest to me. They’re all too aware of my self-righteousness and pride, or the moments when I’m stubborn or obtuse, lacking self-awareness and Spirit-awareness in my attentiveness to others. But however far I am from real righteousness today, this is my higher aim—to grow into someone whose life is a fountain of joy, someone whose presence reflects not the dust cloud of Pigpen in Peanuts but the spinning up of joy and sanctity wherever I go.

True holiness shines a spotlight, but it never points to the self. Instead, it directs our gaze to Jesus. The light that emanates from someone righteous helps us see Jesus more clearly, and it transforms how we see the world also. In the presence of someone truly holy, God seems bigger. The world seems larger. We’re drawn out of ourselves and lifted by love, toward Love.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Spiritual love proves itself in that everything it says and does commends Christ.” That, I believe, is the secret of life-giving holiness: the reflection of Christ in the lives of his people.

When we encounter sanctity, we’re drawn not to the saint but to the Savior. The commending of Christ is what compels us. It’s the touch of his nail-scarred hands, delivered through the compassion and challenge on display in his most devoted worshipers, that stirs something deep in us. Holiness compels because it whispers of Jesus, refracted through his people, lighting up life with his love.

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Every pastor has a face-palm, “I can’t believe I preached that” moment. Mine goes back to when I was a 19-year-old student in Romania, before I’d had a class on scriptural interpretive principles. I was invited to speak in a village church and picked a passage a friend had recently sent me for inspiration. I titled the sermon “Seeking God” and preached from Job 11:13–19:

What a beautiful passage about redirecting your heart to the Lord to receive his blessing, right? In my enthusiasm, I did a brief exposition and took the church line by line through the text.

The problem, of course, was that my sermon was an exposition of Zophar’s speech—one of Job’s three friends who receives God’s condemnation at the end of the book. This is the bad friend talking, offering bad counsel to the innocent man who had faced so much suffering. Oblivious to what was really going on in this text from Job, I preached the message as if I were Zophar, offering a straightforward formula for turning from sin and embracing the Lord’s comfort and safety.

My worst sermon ever. Nothing else comes close.

When ‘Scripture of the Day’ Gets It Wrong

I thought of that face-palm moment not long ago when a reader emailed me about the “Scripture of the day” he’d been receiving on his phone. Occasionally, the app featured verses plucked from the speeches of Job’s friends—those who not only spoke incorrectly about God but also compounded Job’s pain. Here’s one example:

That’s Job 22:28, spoken by Eliphaz. The overall message of Job counteracts what that verse says. Selecting it as a Scripture of the day transforms the text into little more than a message of positive thinking that could fit into a fortune cookie.

Is a Verse a Day Harmful or Helpful?

This got me thinking about “verse of the day” emails or “Scripture of the day” selections on Bible apps. Up until now, my posture has been largely positive. Better to read and focus on one Scripture a day than none at all, right? Isn’t it better to encourage someone who treats the Bible like a vitamin to build from there toward more substantive habits than for them not to encounter a daily Bible verse at all?

I’m not so sure anymore. I’ve grown more cautious about the overall effectiveness of this approach, because even when the verse is true as it stands (not something egregious from Job’s friends), the untrained reader could still be led astray.

When the verse is drawn from a clear statement like John 1:1—“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”—it can be a wonderful prompt. Readers familiar with John’s Gospel will likely reflect on this statement within its context, meditating on the Son of God’s eternal glory, or perhaps being drawn toward the incarnation, as described later in the chapter—the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us.

Similarly, a verse like Matthew 5:3—“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs”—will bring to mind Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount and maybe a few more of the Beatitudes, the characteristics of God’s kingdom people.

But for someone just beginning their faith journey, a “verse of the day” practice may do more harm than good. Without aids for interpretation, the verses get consumed in ways that resemble a horoscope or a fortune cookie. A statement in Ecclesiastes may be drenched in irony the casual reader misses, or the reader may mistake the genre and claim a verse from Proverbs as a specific promise true for every situation, rather than recognize it as a general observation of how the world works.

More Bible, More Food

I worry that out-of-context inspirational verses may tilt the untrained reader’s expectations of the Christian life toward the prosperity gospel. This sets up new believers for failure.

When suffering crashes into their life, the person whose Bible reading consists of bite-size verses will be more prone to disillusionment. It’s likely theirs will be a fragile faith, built more on emotional well-being and positive vibes from “everyday verses” than on the rock-solid foundation of God’s sovereignty and goodness as revealed throughout Scripture, or the richness of biblical teaching about the relationship between sin and sorrow.

That’s why I’m more ambivalent these days about consuming a “verse of the day”—at least when the reader is someone new to the faith or young in the Scriptures. I’m more inclined to encourage people away from this practice if it’s their primary encounter with God’s Word. I recommend other resources and habits that will deliver more nutritious spiritual sustenance. God’s Word is a feast, not a vitamin supplement or fortune cookie.

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Paul Kingsnorth’s 2024 Erasmus Lecture, “Against Christian Civilization,” is the best kind of audacious. Delivering his ideas under the banner of First Things—a publication devoted to religion in public life and with a history of defending the Christian faith’s cultural contributions—Kingsnorth takes a contrarian stance, critiquing the concept of “Christian civilization.” As a recent convert to Christianity (he was baptized in the Romanian Orthodox Church in 2021), Kingsnorth in this lecture bears all the passion and provocation of a new believer who wants the world and the church to bear faithful witness to the treasure of the gospel.

I found much to appreciate in Kingsnorth’s lecture—plenty of insight, the mark of an original thinker who has, in recent years, delivered prophetic words against the Machine (his memorable image of humanity’s efforts to bring everything under our dominion so it’s controllable and at our service). But here, his sweeping arguments against Christian civilization are hindered by significant gaps. His warnings are often on point, but his reductive take on the nature of culture and civilization blunts their force.

What Kingsnorth Gets Right

First, there’s a refreshing boldness to Kingsnorth’s critique, something Kierkegaardian in his take—a shot of strong drink intended to wake the bleary-eyed Westerner. It takes courage to question the idea of “Christian civilization” in a setting that has often championed it. Kingsnorth invites us to reconsider what it means to follow Jesus in a way that transcends not only the political but also the civilizational aspirations of people in our day.

Second, Kingsnorth’s warning against instrumentalizing Christianity is timely. He is right to critique the tendency of a growing number of intellectuals on the right who see the Christian faith as primarily useful in the culture wars—a helpful tool in preserving what’s best in our society or a bulwark against dehumanizing ideologies—regardless of its truth.

As examples, he points to Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s essay explaining why she jettisoned atheism for Christianity and to Jordan Peterson’s message to Christian churches, the latter of which is notable for the total absence of any reference to Jesus. Kingsnorth will not abide any attempt to skate around the fundamental fact of Christ crucified and raised, as if one could harness Christianity’s symbolic power for an earthly agenda. When the cross gets pushed out of the center of Christianity and replaced by a cause—even a righteous one!—the gospel is robbed of its distinctiveness and power. On the danger of subordinating Christianity as a tool, Kingsnorth summons C. S. Lewis, who wrote,

That brings us to the third strength of this essay—Kingsnorth’s call to personal holiness. In an age where social activism overshadows spiritual formation, his focus on intimacy with God and a sanctified life calls us back to what should remain central for all Christians everywhere. Likewise, in recalling the radical nature of Jesus’s teachings, Kingsnorth pushes back against the tendency of every generation to water down Christ’s demands or bury his startling sayings under layers of commentary and tradition, as if never-ending dialogue and debate over Christ’s words can shield us from the call to obedience.

Where Kingsnorth Misses the Mark

As much as I enjoyed the provocations of Kingsnorth’s lecture, several weaknesses stand out.

First, his biblical framework is incomplete. Kingsnorth rightly draws attention to the garden imagery in Genesis, but he fails to trace Scripture’s trajectory from the garden to the city. He describes a world where every civilization is pervasively and inescapably idolatrous—through and through. But the Bible doesn’t condemn all civilizational efforts; it points to a future where human cultures are redeemed and glorified.

For example, the multiplicity of languages may be a result of God’s judgment at Babel, yet the distinctive beauty of various languages and accents will not disappear on the last day. Civilization is part of God’s plan, and one day, even the sin-stained elements will be redeemed for his glory. The vision of the new Jerusalem in Revelation isn’t a return to a primitive state but the culmination of God’s redemptive work—a city where kings bring to the Lord the cultural tribute of their peoples.

Along these lines, Kingsnorth’s critique of civilization is exclusively negative. He portrays the Western world as irredeemably corrupt, rooted in and driven by the seven deadly sins. And while, yes, we can observe with Kingsnorth the pernicious effects of these vices all around us, can we not also see the leavening effects in our civilization of Christianity’s virtues? Must we ignore the existence of hospitals, the building of schools, the expectation that we’d care for the vulnerable, and a call for justice that continues to reverberate throughout the world?

By looking only at the idolatrous aspects of civilization without the countervailing influence of Christianity, it’s as if Kingsnorth has one eye closed, which affects his depth perception. He notices civilization’s sinfulness but misses many of the ways God’s people have been salt and light in the world.

Likewise, Kingsnorth’s suspicion of power structures is one-sided. While authority can be and often is abused, Scripture also teaches that governing authorities can be instruments of God’s common grace. History is replete with examples of leaders who wielded power, albeit imperfectly, to promote justice and human flourishing. Kingsnorth’s approach to authority is almost Anabaptist at this point—as if any collaboration with or involvement in societal power is inherently and inevitably corrupting—which is odd, considering he’s not Mennonite but Orthodox; he belongs to a tradition where, throughout history, church and nation have gotten entangled in multiple ways to the detriment of the faith.

If civilization is inescapably evil, then to truly embrace Christianity will require us to renounce any attempt at creating a Christian society. Radical obedience will require a radical withdrawal. It’s not surprising, then, that Kingsnorth puts forth a semi-monastic vision for believers, lifting up the contributions of monks and mystics as the truest Christians over the centuries. In making this move, however, Kingsnorth misses all the ways monasticism contributed to and served broader civilization-building efforts. Many monks not only prayed but also supported Christian rulers and warriors. There’s an unspoken dichotomy in Kingsnorth’s lecture between mystics and builders—one that can’t be historically sustained.

One last thing: Kingsnorth is a brilliant writer whose description of his conversion to Christianity has inspired me. That’s why it’s disappointing to see him pick apart the initial reasons Hirsi Ali gave for her conversion. Even though his critique has merit, it comes across as someone who’s entered a castle through one door and is chastising someone else entering the same castle through another.

There’s also a lack of self-awareness in a new convert suggesting the witness of most Christians in public life over the past two millennia has been wrongheaded. Or that Christian pastors and theologians have yet to truly wrestle with Jesus’s radical sayings. Kingsnorth is right to call us to repentance; to a love directed first and foremost to God; to engage in battles from and for love, not out of disdain or hatred of the enemy. But he’s wrong to presume an absence of God-and-neighbor love in the imperfect efforts of Christians who have influenced civilization over the centuries or of those Christians who continue to work for the betterment of the world today.

Better Vision

“Against Christian Civilization” is laudable in many ways, well worth your time and consideration. It’s beneficial to feel the full force of Kingsnorth’s prophetic broadside. And yet we mustn’t respond to modern attempts to instrumentalize Christianity by reducing the faith to a mystical, otherworldly retreat that would rob our neighbors of the goodness of the gospel’s public, transformative implications.

It’s because we love our neighbors that we care about the neighborhood. And that’s what civilization is—a neighborhood of neighborhoods, structured and directed (yes, because of the fall, too often in deformed and distorted ways) toward aims that can be influenced by Christianity, shifted toward a telos intrinsically ennobling, in contrast to the secular humanist, ethnonationalist, expressive individualist, technocratic empire (“the Machine”) Kingsnorth rightly recoils from.

An overly negative view of civilization will not help us resist treating Christianity as a tool for an agenda subordinate to Christ’s Great Commission. What we need is to remember our calling—not to retreat from the world or romanticize a return to the garden but, instead, to make disciples in hope, anticipating the coming of the new Jerusalem. Christianity’s leavening effect on civilization isn’t an idol; it’s a fruit of the gospel’s transformative power.

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Is there a massive movement of young men to Eastern Orthodoxy? The New York Post seems to think so. A viral article by Rikki Schlott last fall painted a dramatic picture of young men converting to Orthodox Christianity “in droves.”

As someone curious about denominational trends and with missionary experience in a culture dominated by Orthodoxy, I read the report with interest. But I found it heavy on stories and light on stats.

Appeal of Orthodoxy

The young men interviewed in Schlott’s article shared why they find Orthodoxy attractive. They desire something unchanging in a world of flux. They’re disillusioned by the perceived superficiality of what they’ve experienced in many Protestant contexts: short worship services, TED Talk–like sermons, and a version of Christianity that demands little in terms of daily habits and disciplines. In contrast, Orthodoxy offers structure and continuity—rigid, unbending traditions that require frequent confession, prescribed prayers, fasting, and long worship services.

Father Josiah Trenham, a priest in California, says his church is part of a “massive uptick” in conversions. A catechist in his church highlights the “call to adventure” Orthodoxy provides, describing its traditional practices as “masculine,” something exciting for young men on “a journey of self-improvement.” (This trend aligns with the broader cultural turn toward neo-Stoicism and figures like Jordan Peterson who inspire young men to seek rootedness and structure in a chaotic world.)

Numbers Behind the Stories

The article does include one stat—a 78 percent increase in converts to Orthodoxy in 2022 compared to prepandemic levels. That’s a striking number, but it needs context.

Ryan Burge’s forthcoming book from Oxford University Press, The American Religious Landscape: Facts, Trends, and the Future, provides a bigger picture. From 2010 to 2020, the number of Orthodox adherents in the United States declined from 817,000 to 676,000, with regular attendees dropping from 212,000 to 183,000. A different survey, however, shows a modest increase in adherents from 0.4 percent to 0.7 percent of the population.

Why point to the numbers? Because Orthodoxy is a tiny tradition in the States, smaller even than the liberal United Church of Christ. For perspective, there are more than four times as many Baptist churches in my home state of Tennessee alone as there are Orthodox churches in the entire country. Eight of the 10 U.S. counties with the largest Orthodox populations are in Alaska, a fact that reflects Orthodoxy’s historical ties to Russia.

Speaking of Russia, immigration plays a significant role in Orthodoxy’s American story. Burge points out that only a quarter of Orthodox adherents have been in the States for three or more generations. Twenty-seven percent are immigrants, and another 27 percent are children of immigrants. Having lived in Romania, I’ve seen how Orthodoxy intertwines with national identity and how that cultural identity then shifts and stabilizes when people are on the move. New converts drawn to the strangeness or otherworldliness of Orthodox worship are also encountering, in Orthodox communities, the “foreignness” of other peoples transplanted into the American context.

The internet plays a role here, as Schlott’s report shows. If I hadn’t married a Romanian, it’s possible my great-grandmother and my grandparents would’ve gone their entire lives without ever encountering an Orthodox Christian. But YouTube has made all kinds of Christian traditions “accessible.” Wings of the church that young men never knew existed now come into view, with the internet giving voice to traditions, large and small, across the spectrum. The irony is, it’s a technologically connected, consumerist-influenced culture that makes some of these conversion stories to an “unchanging” tradition possible.

Put Growth in Perspective

Orthodoxy shows signs of vitality. The average age of attendees is 42, with 62 percent between 18 and 45. That’s significantly younger than other major traditions. Attendance has also increased slightly, bucking broader secularization trends.

Still, we ought to proceed with caution in how we interpret recent shifts. Percentage increases can seem dramatic when the baseline is small. A church growing from 40 to 80 members can breathlessly announce their 100 percent growth year over year, but it’s the same numerical increase as a church growing just 10 percent (from 400 to 440 members). A small parish of 20 people can triple its numbers but still only have 60 attendees.

It’s also worth noting that more Orthodox adherents convert to evangelical churches than vice versa, following broader immigration trends where Catholics (often from Mexico or South America) are more likely to become nondenominational charismatics than American Protestants are to become Catholic. Much of Orthodoxy’s recent growth appears to stem not from secular or irreligious individuals converting to Christianity but from disillusioned Protestants discovering the rich history of Orthodox theology and worship via the internet.

Lessons for Evangelicals

All that said, evangelical Christians can learn from recent trends. Here are a few takeaways.

1. Nominal Christianity Is a Turn-Off

Young people are hungry for vibrant, immersive faith, not a watered-down version of Christianity that makes few demands. This phenomenon isn’t unique to the United States. In Orthodox-majority countries, where faith is often cultural and superficial, young people also seek a real encounter with Jesus, which is why many become Baptists or Pentecostals. We’ve got to look beyond the expression of a particular faith tradition to the underlying reality of regeneration and the call of Jesus to faithful obedience. Pastors and church leaders must model and hand down a faith where following Jesus is central, not a peripheral “hobby” for someone who wants to engage their “spiritual side.”

2. Stability Is Compelling

In a chaotic world, young men crave rootedness and structure. Orthodoxy’s unchanging traditions appeal to this desire. As evangelicals, we can also rise to this challenge by tracing the line from current practices to the church’s ancient roots. There are ways of connecting what we do on a given Sunday to the church’s ancient traditions, of reminding our people we aren’t the first to discover and hear the sacred Scriptures and to better familiarize ourselves with our tradition. We should remind people our faith is grounded in the gospel and apostolic witness, not in chasing innovation. The goal is a fresh expression of what’s ancient, not a faddish embrace of the aesthetics of antiquity.

3. Rigor and Discipline Are Attractive

Many young men seek structure, discipline, and rigor in their faith. Gen Z wants a serious faith. Evangelicals have a rich tradition of spiritual practices that can meet this need without slipping into a gospel-less legalism or a “journey of self-improvement” you can find on offer scrolling through Instagram reels. We need to recapture the spiritual practices and postures that bring about true life-change—where the Spirit does his work in and through us. Without the gospel’s transforming power, discipline becomes just another man-centered approach to religion.

4. Worship Must Be God-Centered

Over the past few decades, as Gavin Ortlund points out in his video responding to the Schlott article, evangelical worship has sometimes slipped into something entertainment-driven and has lost a sense of God’s transcendence. Critics of Protestantism often highlight our weakest practices, presenting them as representative of the whole. But within our tradition, we have worship practices intended to lift us beyond ourselves, to anchor us in history, and to challenge us with the gospel afresh.

One young convert in the Post article expressed it well: “Orthodoxy isn’t about us, it’s about God.” That ought to apply to all of us, no matter what tradition we belong to. All Christian worship should center on God, not us. If there’s one takeaway from this report, it’s the need for renewed God-centeredness in our worship.

Call to Intentionality

The appeal of Orthodoxy to young men highlights a hunger for depth, structure, and transcendence in the Christian life. I feel the need to put these statistics in a broader context so we don’t overstate the trends indicated by the headlines, but I do hope evangelicals will heed these stories as a challenge to recover and embody the richness of our own tradition.

Let’s model a faith that’s vibrant, rooted, disciplined, and, above all, centered on God.

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At the close of every year, I share a list of the books I most enjoyed reading during the calendar year. There’s usually a mix of theology, cultural analysis, biography, and fiction. Here’s hoping a few of this year’s favorite reads will make their way onto your Christmas wish list or provide good gift ideas.

Here are my picks for 2024.

#1. THEO OF GOLDEN
by Allen Levi

This book wrecked me. The mystery of the storyline captured my imagination, but it was the characters who pushed their way into my heart. I was drawn as if by fire to the central character, whose sanctity gently exposed my innate selfishness and inability to see—really see—people God puts in my path. I wept at the end, stirred with compassion for others, longing for growth in love and holiness. I knew when I closed the book I was unlikely to find another this year that would top it. Nothing else came close. O to be a saint! 

#2. THE LORD OF PSALM 23
Jesus Our Shepherd, Companion, and Host
by David Gibson

David Gibson’s careful, contemplative treatment of one of the best-known psalms provides a rich devotional experience that left me longing to simply linger with the Lord in times of prayer and Bible reading. This little book is filled with insight into the goodness and greatness of Jesus as our Shepherd and deserves a place on the shelf as an example of the best devotional literature of the first quarter of this century.

#3. ELISABETH ELLIOT
A Life
by Lucy S. R. Austen

Lucy Austen’s biography of Elisabeth Elliot paints an honest and multifaceted portrait of a remarkable woman, highlighting her courage, theological growth, and humanity. While many recognize Elisabeth as the widow of missionary martyr Jim Elliot, Austen focuses on her life after the tragedy—her resilience, ministry, and struggles with doubt and disillusionment. This biography doesn’t gloss over challenges or romanticize Elisabeth’s life; instead, it shows her as a thinker who grew spiritually through life’s mysteries and contradictions. I closed the book with gratitude for a valiant woman who knew both her sins and her Savior. Read my full review.

#4. THE ANXIOUS GENERATION
How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
by Jonathan Haidt

This year’s best work of sociology and cultural analysis. Haidt’s book paints a grim picture of the generational challenges inherent in the smartphone era, but his perspective provides hope because he shows we can, collectively, make decisions to shift the window of acceptability in educational outcomes, family life, and the restoration of play. This may become one of the year’s most influential books, as it has prompted conversations among lawmakers and leaders in education across the country. Not to be missed.

#5. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Michael R. Katz

This translation of Dostoevsky’s classic is superb. It’s been at least 15 years since I last read Crime and Punishment, and it was the older Constance Garnett translation. Even then, despite the older, more stilted prose, I was left breathless several times. Katz takes the experience to another level. This is certainly one of the most disturbing books in Dostoevsky’s corpus (and, I warn you, it’s not for the faint of heart) because the reader is simultaneously drawn to Raskolnikov and horrified by his philosophy and actions. I’m looking forward to reading (again) The Brothers Karamazov in the coming year, but this time in Katz’s translation. He has set a new standard.

#6. KING
A Life
by Jonathan Eig

This biography of Martin Luther King Jr. won the Pulitzer Prize, deservedly so. It’s difficult to pull together exhaustive research and simultaneously tell a story that feels like an adventure. Eig leans into King’s background and education, and his spiritual and theological influences. The biography shines light on King’s personal sense of destiny that was never disconnected from his feelings of inadequacy and guilt-ridden conscience over his sins. King’s relationships are also examined in ways that provide broader context for his ministry and activism. I’ve long recommended Taylor Branch’s trilogy on the civil rights era for the best portrait of King, but now Eig has surpassed Branch by giving us a one-volume biography focused only on King. 

#7. THE ATONEMENT
An Introduction
by Jeremy Treat

Jeremy Treat excels at delivering books marked by theological rigor and a pastoral heart. This accessible introduction to the atonement does more than give the scholarly lay of the land. Jeremy shies away from false dichotomies, choosing instead to magnify the greatness of God’s atoning work on our behalf in all its many facets. Along the way, he incorporates memorable illustrations and analogies, always writing with a doxological bent that engenders gratitude and worship. This book succeeds at several levels.

#8. THE DEMON OF UNREST
A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War 
by Erik Larson

No one recounts history like Erik Larson. He’s a master storyteller, and his latest offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Abraham Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. At the heart of this narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter.

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#9. THE MYTHMAKERS
The Remarkable Fellowship of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien
by John Hendrix

John Hendrix has the honor of delivering the first-ever graphic novel to appear on my Favorite Reads list. This genre isn’t one I’m familiar with, but when I saw this book on a bookstore shelf, I knew immediately it deserved attention. The art is beautiful, the storyline compelling, and the frequent asides educational. As someone who has enjoyed multiple biographies of both Tolkien and Lewis, I was struck by how many anecdotes and facts were new and fresh to me. This retelling of the Lewis and Tolkien friendship was delightful in so many ways.

#10. FRANKENSTEIN
by Mary Shelley

It seems like every year one of my Favorite Reads is an older work suggested by one of my kids. Shelley’s classic came recommended by both my oldest son and my daughter, and Karen Prior’s beautifully crafted edition includes an introduction and some guided reading. I had in my mind a caricature of this book’s storyline and main characters, perhaps due to its cultural influence through movies, parodies, etc. The story provokes a number of ethical questions related to humanity, technology, compassion, and justice. There’s a reason we still talk about this novel.

HONORABLE MENTION

LETTERS ALONG THE WAY
From a Senior Saint to a Junior Saint
by D. A. Carson and John Woodbridge

This new edition of an older work from two evangelical scholars is filled with wisdom and insight. The imaginative elements didn’t really work for me (the construct of an older scholar writing for a younger), but those are overcome by the biblical conviction, pastoral heart, and needed reminders that fill these pages. Anyone who wants to step into a role as pastor-theologian should consult this book. 

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Why step onto the battlefield where the culture wars rage if you can experience the thrill of a fight by shouting at your fellow soldiers in the barracks?

Because I care about the health and vibrancy of the church, and because I want to see a more just and righteous society, I can’t help but be discouraged when I see believers expending more and more energy in opposing and battling the people with whom they share closest alignment than they do making real and enduring strides toward cultural change.

I call it “fighting phantoms.” We yield to this temptation when minor differences begin to loom large, like ghosts haunting every interaction, until they threaten your group’s effectiveness. Whether it’s disagreements over strategy or infighting over issues on the periphery of your primary mission or purpose, the small shadows of difference lengthen into scary specters. Soon you’re swinging your sword at phantoms—wounding the people closest to you while making little to no progress in the cause that once brought you together.

We see phantom-fighting when someone gets elected to office and then spends most of their time chastising their fellow party members rather than working with them to advance legislation. We see it when advocates for a righteous cause focus primarily on calling out their allies over differences in method or strategy. We see it when people who come to the same theological conclusions start opposing each other because of the particular path they took in arriving at those conclusions, or when people in the same theological camp don’t agree exactly on how their vision should inform their church’s practice.

In these cases, the fight has moved from the battlefield to the barracks.

Why Do We Fight Phantoms?

What motivates this strange phenomenon? Is it psychology? Sigmund Freud pointed to “the narcissism of minor differences”—when a group of like-minded individuals, committed to a cause, begin to downplay their similarities and emphasize their divergences to create a new sense of self and superiority. Drawing lines of differentiation is an easy way to stand out, and continual categorization can fast-track a new coalition or identity. Rather than gathering as many people as possible into a coalition to support a cause, the group engages in a purification ritual—saving their strongest fire for those on the periphery of their own side.

Is it technology? Perhaps we should look at the perverse incentives of an increasingly digitalized existence marked by unhealthy habits on social media. Performative individualism has become a marker of online interaction, pressuring us to try on new identities in the back-and-forth of online debate. We settle for signals over substance. Vibes matter more than vision. Outrage trumps outcomes.

Is it institutional weakness? Yuval Levin has pointed to one reason for stagnation in our politics: more and more politicians get rewarded when they use the institution as a platform for popularity instead of submitting to the institution’s norms in a way that would mold and shape their character, a crucial component in forging a lasting movement. The way to get accolades today is through performing online, not finding consensus or seeking to persuade.

I’m sure there’s something to all these explanations, but in the end, there’s a more obvious reason we like fighting phantoms. It’s fun. Exaggerating the differences of the people to your immediate right or left, with whom you agree on 80 to 90 percent of everything, is exciting. It’s not only fun. It’s easy. Once you draw new lines and train your sights on those with whom you once made common cause, you get a sense of satisfaction in creating and belonging to a new in-group. Phantom-fighting provides the false thrill of thinking you’re making a real difference in the battle.

Fighting Phantoms Online Is a Game

Fighting phantoms doesn’t make sense in terms of military strategy. It’s irrational. But it can be fun. Which is why on Twitter (I still refuse to call it X), many of the loudest voices from different sides of the spectrum—those committed to fighting phantoms—often gush about how many people are now following them, or how many views their posts get, or how one of their sick burns “ratioed” some online opponent.

All this talk reveals something important about the online version of fighting phantoms: it’s a game. And games are fun, especially when social media constantly rewards you with the dopamine rush that makes you think you’re winning. The way to “level up” is to reject the boring approach of always railing against those on the other side of the political aisle and to focus instead on the flaws of the people who are largely with you, just divergent in some way. Draw new lines. Narrow the circle, and your voice gets louder.

But only for a time. Eventually, the circles get too narrow, and your online voice diminishes. When the game is over, there’s often little to show for the effort.

Pick Your Battles Wisely

Following Jesus doesn’t resemble the game of phantom-fighting.

A life of virtue is marked by patience, not popping off. A life of wisdom is marked by slowness, not speed. A life of holiness is marked by self-control, not impulsiveness. A life of love is marked by self-giving, not slander.

Yes, disagreements with brothers and sisters will arise. Debate and dialogue will always have a place. People often fit uncomfortably in the same coalition. There’s a place for meaningful discussion over aims and methods, for warnings about unintended consequences, for disagreeing forcefully at times over certain decisions, and, yes, even for parting ways when divergences grow too big. But the fracturing of coalitions should be met with tears, not glee.

What’s more, long-lasting improvements in culture and society are most likely when people press through these challenges and keep their focus on the main battlefield, where the stakes are highest. We must be on guard against the constant temptation to abandon the battlefield in favor of skirmishing in the barracks.

Fighting phantoms is great for attracting attention, but the future belongs to those who know how to make music, not just noise. It’s those who resist the impulse to tear down and learn instead to build who make progress. It’s those who broaden and solidify coalitions, not those who seek short-term profit from every crack and fracture, who experience forward momentum.

A fractured church is a much smaller threat to the Evil One’s schemes than a unified (not uniform) battalion of believers who don’t take their eyes off their primary objective, who lock arms with as many like-minded soldiers as possible, and who devote their lives to Christ’s law of love. “Let us pursue what promotes peace,” Paul tells us, “and what builds up one another” (Rom. 14:19). ‬‬

It’s not fun we’re after but joy. Not the narcissism of small differences but the selflessness of intense devotion. Dressed in truth and righteousness for the gospel of peace, we mustn’t retreat from the spiritual battlefield into the comfort and fun of fighting phantoms.

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In theological circles that stress the pervasiveness of sin, we’re often told we’re more sinful than we realize. We can’t comprehend the extent of sin’s effects: its parasitic attachment to whatever good we do, its potential to taint even the purest of motives, the way it fractures shalom in the tiniest of ways, the resistance of sin’s rebellious heart toward God, or the sly and insidious actions motivated by a quiet fear of people. “Out damned spot!” cried Lady Macbeth after all her futile efforts to get rid of the bloodstains from her complicity with murder.

Even after we’re rescued by Christ—trusting him not only to save us but also to make us more like himself—our sense of our sinfulness grows. The closer we get to Jesus, the more we see and feel our lack of holiness, our stubborn sinful patterns, our spiritual inadequacies. As the extensiveness of their sin dawned on people around pastor Jack Miller, he’d do the opposite of the world that constantly chants “You are enough” and “You are good” by saying instead, “Cheer up! You’re a much bigger sinner than you think!”

Yes, we’re far more sinful than we can comprehend, and we’re guilty even of sins we’re unaware of, the sins the psalmist asks forgiveness for, our “hidden faults” (Ps. 19:12–13) that require purification.

Unseen Holiness of Christ in Us

But there’s a flip side to this lack of awareness of how deep our sins go. Sometimes, the believers most likely to harp on how sinful we are miss the other side of sanctification, an element of the good news that’s every bit as powerful and life-changing. It’s this: You don’t realize the pervasiveness of Christ’s holiness in you. A Christian living by the Spirit does far more good than he or she even realizes.

Isn’t that what we see when Jesus separates the sheep and the goats and then begins to list off the good things his followers have done? “Lord, when did we do these things?” comes the question (Matt. 25:31–46). They’re gobsmacked. They can’t even recall all the good things they did, whether large or small. The closer you get to Jesus, the more you spot your lingering sins, yes, and the less you feel your progress in holiness. But that progress is there nonetheless.

In his recent book of reflections on Christ’s second coming, Come, Lord Jesus, John Piper reflects on the astounding promise of Ephesians 6:7–8: “Serve with a good attitude, as to the Lord and not to people, knowing that whatever good each one does, slave or free, he will receive this back from the Lord.”

Whatever good each one does will be rewarded. Whatever good. Every good thing. Not just the big and noticeable good things but also the smallest acts of kindness, forbearance, patience, and love that, over time, come like second nature to you—all will be rewarded at the day of Christ. Even the seeming insignificance of giving “a cup of cold water” to one of Christ’s followers (Matt. 10:42) is counted in the economy of God’s kingdom. Piper urges us to consider the ramifications of this truth:

Every Good Deed Counted

Not long ago, I reflected on the biblical truth that the Lord is El-Roi, the One who sees us. He’s the Lord who sees all our sins and hidden faults, yes. But he’s also the Lord who sees all the goodness he’s working in and through us, the character traits and fruit of which we remain unaware. Piper reminds us that not only does the Lord see our good deeds, but he also promises to reward them. All of them. Piper continues,

But, you say, I have so many shortcomings! I have so many flaws! I’m hobbled by so many faults! Yes. The Lord knows. And he’ll burn away all that dross to show the gold he has formed inside. We aim to persevere, to remember that even if our good deeds pass by without notice in this life, we trust in Jesus’s promise to repay his people at the resurrection.

Our future will be like that of George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, where by grace we’re made aware of every single ripple effect of every single good thing we ever did through the power of Christ’s Spirit. That’s the wonderful promise from our wonderful Savior who multiples his life into a million wonderful lives. Bank on it.

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Not since the 1300s, when the world’s population imploded due to the bubonic plague, have we faced a demographic downsizing of the magnitude projected for the century ahead. Many observers predict the global population will peak in the coming decades, with estimates ranging from 2053 to the late 2070s or 2080s, before entering a period of decline.

Wait a minute! you may be thinking. Wasn’t it just 50 years ago that experts warned about overpopulation? And don’t we hear constant talk of the world’s population boom? Yes, but as Peter Zeihan explains in The End of the World Is Just the Beginning, today’s population swell is partly due to increasing life spans.

The Age of Depopulation

Nicholas Eberstadt’s recent essay for Foreign Affairs, “The Age of Depopulation,” chronicles the startling collapse in global fertility rates, which have fallen to half what they were in the 1960s. “More and more societies are heading into an era of pervasive and indefinite depopulation,” he writes. East Asia, for instance, “tipped into depopulation in 2021,” while Latin America and parts of the Middle East now face subreplacement fertility rates also. Even countries once thought immune due to cultural or religious traditions, such as Iran and Turkey, are on a similar trajectory. Unless you live in sub-Saharan Africa, you likely reside in a country with subreplacement fertility—a trend accelerating in recent years.

What’s behind this decline in childbearing? Eberstadt points to a “revolution in family formation.” Across the globe, we see “the ‘flight from marriage,’ with people getting married at later ages or not at all; the spread of nonmarital cohabitation . . . and the increase in homes in which one person lives independently—in other words, alone.” This seismic cultural shift means fewer children and smaller, more fragile families.

As families wither, the desire for autonomy, self-actualization, and convenience rises. In this atmosphere, children are “quintessentially inconvenient” and big families become cultural outliers. It’s true that religious belief can stem the tide by encouraging marriage and celebrating children, but only up to a point, because family formation and religious participation are intertwined in counterintuitive ways. (See Mary Eberstadt’s How the West Really Lost God for the provocative thesis that secularism is a result of family breakdown, not always its cause.)

The Age of the Aged

The world’s depopulation will unleash a cascade of social consequences. The collapse of fertility means, according to Nicholas Eberstadt, “fewer workers, savers, taxpayers, renters, home buyers, entrepreneurs, innovators, inventors . . . and voters.” What’s more, by 2050, there will be more people over the age of 80 than children in some countries. He writes,

We’re entering an era of profound social and economic challenges, a wildly different context marked by the thinning out of younger generations and the swelling ranks of older people with increasing life spans.

Depopulation and the Church

What will these developments mean for the global church and our mission?

1. We’ll have to reckon with an aging society in the days ahead.

The recent State of the Great Commission Report released before the Fourth Lausanne Congress highlights the extensive needs of an aging population and lays out opportunities for the church to step into the gap. We’ll need to shift our attention from seeing older believers as merely the recipients of care and attention to engaging them as colaborers in their extended years of good health and ministry. From supporting multigenerational families to pushing back against trends of isolation and loneliness to offering spiritual formation and ministry opportunities for the elderly, we’ll need to find ways to minister to and alongside older believers.

2. The depopulation crisis calls for a renewed commitment to strengthening marriages, supporting families, and celebrating children.

In a world that prizes autonomy and convenience, the church can model a different way—a way of sacrificial love, covenantal commitment, and the beauty of generational faithfulness.

It’s true the “nones” are on the rise in the West, but globally, Pew Research Forum predicts “secular” people in 2060 will make up a smaller percentage of the world’s population than they do today, mainly because of demographic trends. Eric Kaufmann’s book Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? claims the future will belong not to secular elites but to grassroots communities marked by deep faith.

Ross Douthat, longtime observer of demographic trends, thinks countries that keep or boost their birthrates close to replacement level will have an edge over countries whose rates continue to plunge. And even within countries where fertility is collapsing, regions that buck the trend will become outliers with outsize cultural influence: “To predict the most dynamic American states and cities, the most influential religious traditions and ideologies,” he writes, “look for places and groups that are friendliest not just to the young but to young people having kids themselves.”

3. The depopulation crisis will require more ministry to and alongside singles.

In a world with more single-person households and fewer people with extended family ties, the church will need to step in as the family of God by providing friendship in a world of isolation, and new support systems for people strained by economic or social pressures. Ministry in this world will not overlook but assume the presence of singles (and not as second-class citizens in God’s kingdom).

You might feel tension between points 2 and 3, and understandably so. Figuring out how to gently encourage marriage and childbearing among Christian young people while also supporting and cherishing those called to singleness (whether temporarily or for a lifetime)—knowing where and when to put which emphasis—will not be easy or obvious. Some will resolve the tension by falling down on one side of that line or the other, and that’s what we see in most churches today, an either-or that doesn’t incorporate the whole body of Christ.

If we make it seem as if marriage and family represent the only faithful way of life, we’ll leave out large swaths of the unfolding mission field made up of aging single seniors. And if we downplay marriage and family life, even though it has been the norm for most people throughout history, we may wind up contributing to the demographic trends on the horizon instead of resisting them. We mustn’t hobble ourselves during a time when we need all Christians with different passions, gifts, and callings mobilized to address the needs before us.

Looking Forward

The demographic challenges ahead are immense. The solution isn’t to merely decry the reasons for the demographic decline, as if we’re chastisers of the culture we’re called to serve. No, we walk forward in faith, knowing that the church has faced significant changes in the past.

Our hope isn’t in birth rates or demographic trends but in the Lord of the harvest. Fulfilling the Great Commission is the only way to ensure the continued presence of vibrant, resilient Christian communities that disciple and send out believers to live as salt and light in a depopulating world.

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A consistent struggle of mine is listening. I mean really listening. My mind always seems to run a hundred miles an hour, jumping from one thought to the next. I’ll focus on someone talking to me for a bit and even take in what they’re saying—but soon enough, I’m also thinking about what tasks I have ahead, what’s next on my schedule, an idea for a new column, a family member or friend, a podcast segment, or my next meal! So, truth be told, I’m often only half-listening.

My friends might not say I’m a bad listener, but my colleagues can tell when my mind has wandered. And my family? They’d probably say my listening skills need work (mine are abysmal compared to my wife’s!). Maybe I’ve improved a little over the years, but slowing my mind down enough to give full attention is still something I have to work at.

Art of Slowing Down

In her recent book The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World, Christine Rosen explores how challenging it has become in our digital age to give ourselves over to the beauty of poetry, music, and art. Distraction reigns, and we rarely slow down to fully engage with what’s in front of us. She shares a well-known quote: “Most works of art yield their secrets slowly.”

If that’s true of art, how much more so of Scripture? The Bible isn’t an easy book. Saying it’s not easy doesn’t mean we can’t grasp its main message—Scripture clearly reveals salvation. But the Bible makes demands of us. It calls for thought, patience, and devotion. The path to truly internalizing and digesting Scripture is rugged, intentionally so, for this is how the Spirit does his work in our lives.

A Call to Listen Beyond the Noise

Why is it so hard for us to really hear God’s Word in our time? I could point to our phones and devices, our busy schedules, or the endless stream of information—the overload, the barrage, the constant influx of news and opinions competing for our attention. But what if some of our distraction comes from a different source? What if part of the difficulty comes from religious routines that relegate God’s Word to background chatter, like a radio playing in a dentist’s office?

What if our religious activity, even our church involvement, sometimes keeps us from truly hearing? To the point that when God does speak to us through his Word, we don’t even know how to respond? So we jump to planning, preparing, even talking over him. Do we use our busyness in ministry to evade that Voice?

Consider Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration. There he was, beholding Jesus in radiant glory, flanked by Elijah and Moses. And what was his first reaction? Talking. Planning. Suggesting. Strategizing. Rushing to do something—until the Father’s voice interrupted: “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him!”

The command isn’t to start doing anything, much less to say anything. Not in that moment, no. It’s to listen. When you encounter God’s transcendent glory in the face of Jesus Christ, religiosity is stripped away. Good intentions melt. Spiritual disciplines shrink. Our task is to listen.

Listen Until It Hurts

John Webster wrote,

Real listening. Intense listening. Listening that hurts. Burrowing deep into the Scriptures, with patience and determination, trusting the Spirit to unveil riches and depths we couldn’t see before.

We live in a world where many voices seek attention, where influencers everywhere hawk their wares. In a world teeming with voices and influencers, how tragic if the church becomes just another place of constant noise, with God’s Word relegated to background chatter. How tragic if we develop the capacity to attune to everything but our Creator’s Word.

Perhaps the most radical, countercultural practice we could cultivate today is an intensity in listening to the Scriptures—a steadfast attention that refuses to allow anything to wrest our focus from the Bible. To listen until it hurts, as Jacob wrestled with God, refusing to let go until he was blessed.

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“Read your Bible, pray every day, and you’ll grow, grow, grow.” This song was omnipresent in my earliest years of church life, chosen by Sunday-school teachers because of its simple message (and its corresponding motions for fidgety kids). The song presents a general truth: spiritual growth is linked to spiritual sustenance. We receive nourishment from the Scriptures and abide in Christ through prayer. Naturally then, Bible reading and prayer are crucial for spiritual growth.

But these practices don’t guarantee results. No foolproof formula exists. Many believers striving to overcome persistent sins often feel their Bible reading or prayer doesn’t bring victory. They seek spiritual nourishment but still feel stuck in their struggles. Likewise, history shows that daily Bible readers and those committed to prayer can sometimes become self-righteous, more like the Pharisee than the tax collector in Jesus’s parable. Reading the Bible won’t necessarily make you holier; it could make you holier-than-thou.

Search for the Perfect Technique

When the Christian life doesn’t follow the simple, formulaic approach we learned as children, we often seek new methods. We hunt for the perfect technique or tool to maximize our Bible reading or make us more consistent in prayer. What practices will transform my life? What rhythms, formulas, or liturgies might help me gain the most from spiritual disciplines?

We live in an era flooded with life hacks—new exercise regimens, cooking recipes, productivity shortcuts, and self-optimization strategies. The message is clear: Find the right technique and everything will change. We’re bombarded with marketing, which influences how we think, even in spiritual matters. This hyperfocus on techniques and disciplines often drives our conversations about spiritual formation. We’re drawn to it because of our consumer society and our hearts’ inclination toward self-justification. The desire for self-optimization warps into the belief we’re responsible for our spiritual growth.

Slow Road to Holiness

The result for spiritual formation? Almost all our attention goes to the habits of formation, and little to none to the Spirit’s part in spiritual growth. This misplaced emphasis has consequences. When we trust in techniques, we sideline the Spirit. Our focus shifts from God’s grace in sanctification to external outcomes. We grow frustrated with the slow pace of our spiritual journey, expecting faster progress toward holiness.

But life hacks don’t remove our sins. Habits aren’t a shortcut to holiness. Techniques can turn into steroid shots for muscles: impressive in their initial results while doing long-term damage.

Abiding in Christ over Technique

To be clear, different methods and techniques for Bible reading, prayer, and fasting can be helpful. I’ve personally encouraged a “daily office” of prayer through significant portions of Scripture. I hope these tools are beneficial and that, as the song says, if you use them daily, you’ll “grow, grow, grow.”

But spiritual growth isn’t a checklist. In our world of tracking heart rates, steps, calorie intake, and exercise routines, it’s easy to add Bible reading to the list of tasks we accomplish each day. But keeping a daily Bible reading streak on our app doesn’t mean we’re becoming more like Christ. We may start to wonder why we still struggle with certain sins or why these practices don’t seem to deliver the promised transformation. Over time, we might abandon these practices, believing they don’t work.

The truth is, spiritual growth takes time. Life is full of constraints, and many of the distractions and frustrations and even the people we may think are getting in the way of our disciplined routines are themselves the slow but necessary pathway to holiness.

When I speak with older believers who radiate the joy of Jesus, they often talk about their lingering sins and how their progress is far from where they’d like it to be. They remind me of Paul, who called himself the chief of sinners, but one who was running toward the prize.

The center of spiritual formation isn’t about what you do or the practices you adopt—it’s about the Spirit forming you into Christ’s image. The spiritual life is more about learning to abide in Christ than about following a pattern or liturgy, however helpful your practices may be. The point isn’t just to do your duty but to trust the Spirit to transpose your desires and transform you into a different kind of person over time.

Mystery of Spiritual Growth

Spiritual growth requires attention. And attention is our most precious resource. Prayer is hard, often boring, and sometimes excruciating. Sitting in silence before God while our thoughts flit about can be a painfully revealing process of where our hearts are drawn. Kyle Strobel warns that we might turn to tools and techniques as a way to avoid a genuine encounter with God. Blaise Pascal noted that humanity’s problems stem from our inability to sit quietly alone in a room. If that was true in his day, how much more so in our age of endless distractions?

Life hacks prioritize speed and efficiency, and they promise quick results. Yet those who walk with grace over decades often seem unhurried. They don’t obsess over tools or methods. They embrace each moment as a gift, focus on the person before them, and don’t view prayer as a productivity tool but as a way to commune with God. Setbacks and distractions aren’t obstacles to spiritual growth but part of the process of renewal.

I’m grateful for the tools and techniques that aid in spiritual growth. But I’m even more thankful we cannot life-hack our way to holiness. The Spirit is essential, not peripheral. His work is mysterious, not manageable. Miraculous, not marketable. And for sinners in need of his sanctifying work, that’s really good news.

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I recently finished an almost year-long stint as interim pastor for a vibrant church just a half hour from my home. It’s always a blessing to open God’s Word for God’s people week after week and to pray for and give guidance to a staff and congregation during a time of transition.

Not long ago, I took one of the church members to lunch, a guy in his 30s who grew up as part of the congregation and had recently found his way back. Over a basket of chicken tenders and fries, he raved about the woman who teaches the third-grade Sunday school class his son attends. It’s the same woman who taught him Sunday school at that age. Thirty years later, she’s still in the role.

“She doesn’t play around,” he said. “She knows the Word she’s going to teach those kids, she comes prepared, she stays on point, and she does her job with excellence. What she did for me she’s now doing for my son. That’s special.”

Celebrate Consistency

Sometimes we wonder how frequent or how rare it is to find examples of people that consistent and faithful over so many years to the same ministry. In my experience, the cases are more frequent than we think, but it’s rare that we hear about or celebrate these people.

The persevering Sunday school teacher is the unsung hero of the church. Everyone can see the preacher on Sunday. The same goes for the worship team or the instrumentalists. Or the short-term mission teams that go out and do service in the name of the Lord and then come back and give testimony. But few take notice of the faithful Sunday school teacher—the man or woman in the background laboring over a Bible lesson, incorporating new ways to engage children with the truth of God’s Word, and following up with prayer and support as the kids grow up.

Committed Sunday school teachers are a big part of what makes discipleship effective. Yet how often do we let weeks and years go by without lifting up their example or celebrating their faithfulness? These leaders are like the part of the engine that only the mechanic can see yet that’s still critical to the car’s well-being and functionality.

Influence of Group Leaders

And let’s not just brag on Sunday school teachers devoted to kids. A faithful man or woman who prepares a Bible study for an adult class every week for a period of five years will perform this task 250 times. If your Sunday school teacher has been serving for 10 years, they’ve probably done 500 Bible studies. The 20-year veterans have taught 1,000 hours (and that doesn’t count the time spent in preparation).

What’s funny, most group leaders tell me that when they started, they had no idea how long their service would be. Often they begin as a coteacher, or a fill-in for someone else, or they agree to one year . . . and that ministry gets extended again and again, like renewing a contract they never signed. Over time, they develop the knack for leading others into an encounter with God’s Word. They learn to enjoy the regular routine of preparing a lesson and how it reinvigorates their personal Bible study. They deepen relationships with the people they’ve shared life with, men and women who’ve passed in and out of their group.

These are unsung heroes. The church is full of them. So is the Bible.

In Colossians 4, the apostle Paul highlights 10 lesser-known figures from the early church. In Tychicus, we have an example of encouraging one another through God’s Word, while Onesimus illustrates how the gospel transforms lives, turning the “useless” into the “useful.” Aristarchus exemplifies the importance of sharing in both joys and sufferings, and Mark teaches us the value of resilience as he overcame past failures and became the writer of one of the four Gospels. Justus models a primary identity grounded in Christ, and Epaphras shows us how to contend for others in prayer. Luke the doctor demonstrates how our professions can serve God’s glory, while Demas serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of worldliness. Nympha shows that even small contributions can have significant effects, and Archippus challenges us to remain faithful to our callings.

And let’s not forget the profound influence of Lois and Eunice on Timothy, as noted in 2 Timothy 1:5. These two women instilled in Timothy a faith that would shape his ministry and influence the early church. The most significant contributions to the kingdom often come from those who never stand in the spotlight.

Look around your church and find the unsung heroes. They don’t want you to sing their praises. They’ll be perfectly content if you direct that praise to the God who called and equipped them for ministry. So let’s make sure we do so. Let’s offer gratitude for the plodding, persevering work of God’s people who devote countless unseen hours to serving the next generation. Church wouldn’t be church without them.

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I admit there’s hyperbole in that headline. It’s hard to imagine any modern-day hymn matching the influence of Stuart Townend and Keith Getty’s “In Christ Alone,” which in the past 25 years has inspired translations and countless covers, uniting believers worldwide in a song that tells the gospel story. Keith has often joked about that early collaboration being their greatest, with self-deprecating comments like “It’s all downhill from here!”

But recently, there’s been a big bump on that “downhill” journey, and it’s called “Christus Victor (Amen).” This song, introduced in September at the 2024 Sing! Conference, strikes a powerful chord. I first encountered it in South Korea, when the Gettys led worship at the Fourth Lausanne Congress, introducing it to a gathering of 5,000 representatives from over 220 nations.

I was impressed by the song’s power and the seemingly magical way the Gettys in just moments had everyone united in worship—most of whom didn’t speak English as their first language, singing at the top of their lungs with passion and confidence. (Interestingly, the Third Lausanne Congress in Cape Town in 2010 closed with “In Christ Alone,” and the intent was to have the Fourth Congress finish the same way. But once the conference organizers saw how participants responded to “Christus Victor (Amen),” they opted for the newer song to be the benediction.)

The singability of the Gettys’ catalog sets their work apart. I’ve long been thankful for their goal in fulfilling what should be the desire of every worship leader—to enable and enhance the congregation’s singing, not to show off one’s own talents or vocal ability. “Christus Victor (Amen)” shares this quality. I can see this song becoming one of the most influential of their later career. Now that the Sing! Conference version has been released, my assessment stands: This song is among the greatest the church has received in recent years.

The verses are the result of years of collaboration between the Gettys, Matt Papa, Bryan Fowler, and Matt Boswell. Keith shared that the chorus melody came suddenly during a drive in Nashville while chatting with Kristyn. The “Amen” bridge recalls the classic tradition of harmonizing together as a local congregation.

What makes “Christus Victor (Amen)” remarkable is its unique blend of melody and biblically rich lyrics, focused on Jesus’s triumph (the “Christus Victor” theme), while emphasizing his substitutionary atonement as the means of that triumph. It reminds me of Jeremy Treat’s excellent work, in both The Crucified King and The Atonement, which holds together what too many theologians would rather separate.

Take a look at the song’s first verse:

O Most High, King of the ages
Great I AM, God of wonders
By the blood You have redeemed us
Led us through mighty waters
Our strength, our song, our sure salvation

Here, we’re in Exodus. We sing to the Lord as “the Great I AM,” the “God of wonders” whose power was demonstrated in the plagues that came on Egypt. “By the blood” refers to the sacrifice of the Passover lamb, and being led “through mighty waters” imagines us walking through the Red Sea and straight into Miriam’s song of deliverance and the later Song of Moses, praising the Lord “our strength, our song, our sure salvation.”

The chorus then lifts our gaze from one of the first songs of the Bible and carries us to one of the last, in Revelation—one of the throne-room songs.

Now to the Lamb upon the throne
Be blessing, honor, glory, power
For the battle You have won
Hallelujah! Amen

We’re back in the biblical storyline for verse 2, picking up with the Gospels.

O Most High, dwelling among us
Son of man sent for sinners
By Your blood You have redeemed us
Spotless Lamb, mighty Savior
Who lived, who died, who rose victorious

Here, the focus is on the incarnation and ministry of Jesus in bringing about the new exodus. The most high God of verse 1 is now “dwelling among us.” We see the “Son of man sent for sinners.” There’s a subtle shift from gratitude for the blood of the Passover Lamb as a prototype to the deeply personal, from the to Your—Christ’s blood, shed for us, as the “spotless Lamb” and “mighty Savior” whose life, death, and victorious resurrection accomplishes our salvation.

For the second chorus, we flash forward again to Revelation’s throne room, but this time with additional lines that widen the frame so we see people from “every tribe and every tongue” as well as the angels, all celebrating “the triumph of the Son.”

Now to the Lamb upon the throne
Be blessing, honor, glory, power
For the battle You have won
Hallеlujah! Amen
With every tribе and every tongue
We join the anthem of the angels
In the triumph of the Son
Hallelujah! Amen

The final verse looks forward, placing us in the throne room once more but with a view of the future.

O Most High, King of the nations
Robed in praise, crowned with splendor
On that day who will not tremble?
When You stand Christ the Victor
Who was, and is, and is forever

Now we’re looking ahead to the day when Christ will make all things new. The “King of the nations,” acknowledged by people from every tribe, is “robed in praise” and “crowned with splendor.” A line from the Apostles’ Creed, “He will return to judge the living and the dead,” is in view here, as the hymn calls us to ponder “that day,” asking “who will not tremble” when the Lamb upon the throne stands as “Christ the Victor”—the same Jesus “who was, and is and is forever” (evoking verse 1’s description of the Great I AM).

If you’re a worship leader or a pastor, I encourage you to listen to “Christus Victor (Amen)” and consider adding it to your worship services. (Here are some suggestions.) The combination of singability, biblical depth, and theological richness will ground your congregation in gospel truths while uniting them with the church around the world. (If the congregational harmonizing on the “Amen” portion seems too complicated, the song works fine without it!) This hymn has the potential to join the ranks of “In Christ Alone” as an anthem that inspires us for generations. Christ is Victor!

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I’ve noticed something common in the culture of student ministry, something that was true when I was a teenager and still presents a challenge today for spiritual growth and maturity. It’s the assumption that Christian devotion can be measured by feelings of passion. The strongest Christians are those who feel or demonstrate the most “on fire” intensity for Jesus.

This assumption leads us to think the purpose of a youth group—and by extension, the church—is to rev up believers and to rekindle the campfire feeling of closeness to God by providing “mountaintop experiences,” whether through summer camp, weekends of worship and teaching, or midweek rallies. The right combination of meaningful worship, powerful preaching, and committed relationships will result in softened hearts, elicit tearful confessions, and fuel the desire for holiness and whatever recommitments are necessary to keep the fire alive.

It’s no wonder one of the largest and most influential gatherings of young people in the United States bears the name “Passion.” Being “on fire” for Jesus is what the Christian life is all about, right? If you don’t feel passionate, you’re failing, backsliding, losing sight of your first love.

A Fire That Lasts

I don’t want for a second to question the intentions or motives of selfless leaders in the thick of student ministry. Nor do I want to throw cold water on any attempt at regaining a passion and excitement for God and his Word. Who isn’t inspired by the passion of the apostle Paul? Or convicted by the words of Jesus to the church in Ephesus that, despite all the believers’ activity, they’d “lost the love they had at first” (Rev. 2:4)? My heart soars at the call of John Wesley for just “one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God” who will “shake the gates of hell” and extend God’s kingdom. I want the church to rediscover the adventure of Christian faith, “the thrill of orthodoxy.” The Passion conference’s worship music regularly shows up on my playlists, for good reason.

But I fear that when we bounce young people from experience to experience, where flames arise and then quickly dissipate, we create the expectation that the faithful Christian life depends on “the next big thing” to reengage the heart. Shouldn’t we long for a generation to be on fire for God for a lifetime, not a roller coaster of ups and downs or swinging between hot and cold?

Fire Needs More than Kindling

Fire needs more than kindling. You need structure and support, a scaffolding that helps the fire to grow, and you also need the right amount of consumable material at just the right time to keep feeding the flames.

If you’ve ever watched the nail-biting “fire challenges” that come near the end of Survivor, you know how crucial it is for the contestant to not only ignite the sparks but also set up the structure that enables the flames to expand. Pile too much on top, and the fire gets snuffed out. Don’t pile enough, and the fire leaps high before disappearing. Blow just enough air and the flames will spread, but blow too much and you’ll put the fire out. The best contestants at making fire know not only how to get it going but also how to feed and maintain its growth.

Student ministry culture often tilts toward sparking. The big experiences are sparks intended to get the fire going, and then we pray God’s Spirit will fan those sparks into a flame. At their best, these events put us in the right posture for God to light a fire in our hearts.

But too often, we think flint is all we need for fire. Just scrape that flint until God gives you a spark and then pray the fire will spread!

Fire and Form

The student ministers who do the most good long-term adopt a different mindset. They’ve seen what happens when fire leaps up and then quickly disappears, with no forms or structures to support it. And so they give just as much attention to a typical Sunday morning group time as they do to a midweek rally. They focus just as much on materials that will stoke and grow the fire as they do the initial matches that get it going. They keep working on the structures at the base of the fire: teaching the “how-to” of personal spiritual disciplines, drawing young people into deeper community, regular exposure to the Scriptures, and other practices. They know how both fire and form are essential parts of the Spirit’s work.

Mark Sayers makes this point, likening healthy biblical renewal to a bird with two wings—form and fire:

If you pursue fire without form, you wind up chasing spiritual experiences that slip into nothing more than human enthusiasm, and you get disillusioned and disappointed when the flames dissipate and God’s will doesn’t work out as you planned. If you pursue forms without fire, you begin to lean on yourself, your habits, and your routines until you settle for a complacent Christianity marked by drudgery, not delight.

Don’t Forget the Forms

When I hear from student ministers, even the ones who fall more on the “form” side than the “fire” side, they tell me it’s tough to keep giving attention to the regular rhythms of spiritual growth and discipleship, simply because (in larger churches especially) the expectations around big events and experiences demand so much attention. The tyranny of the urgent takes over, as every few weeks you’ve got another event that needs planning and preparation. Student ministry culture is built around fire-hopping in the hopes of creating passion again and again.

But Kyle Strobel is right:

The healthiest student ministries don’t dampen enthusiasm around big events but are built on the forms and structures necessary for fire to endure—the habits and patterns of abiding in Christ in the ordinary seasons of life, the regular rhythms of feeding the fire, and, above all, relying on the Spirit to do the work of formation only he can accomplish.

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Belonging comes before believing.

For nearly two decades, I’ve heard this statement bandied about in Christian circles, prompted by a desire for seekers to feel like they’re part of the church before they embrace Christ. During one session at the Fourth Lausanne Congress, the saying came up in a presentation on strategies for reaching Gen Z. “They’ve got to feel they belong before they will believe!”

Noble Sentiment

There’s something clearly right about this sentiment when it comes to the Christian call to radical hospitality and the authentic atmosphere of welcome that should characterize God’s people.

Consider our ministry to children who grow up in church. Regardless of its position on infant baptism, every congregation incorporates children into the rituals and rhythms of church life, making them feel a part through Sunday school classes, or vacation Bible school, or special moments in the worship service. I once served at a church that assigned senior adults as “guardian angels” to neighborhood children in attendance, and I watched with delight as those elderly saints saved seats for the kids during the service, helped them feel welcome, gently instructed them on how to behave, and became a source of spiritual wisdom and guidance. In terms of chronology, children often feel they “belong” before they “believe.”

Or consider the church’s role in becoming a living, worshiping witness to the truth of the gospel, so that unbelievers who see and experience God’s family in all its glory begin to find the gospel more plausible than before. The church is, in Lesslie Newbigin’s memorable phrase, “the hermeneutic of the gospel”—our life together displays the gospel’s credibility.

It’s one thing to share the gospel with a stranger on the street; it’s another to share the gospel with someone after they’ve encountered the scandalous grace of God on display in the Christian community and have tasted of Jesus’s radical hospitality in dining with tax collectors and sinners. The latter is generally more effective than the former because it’s the entire church, not just a Christian, who commends the gospel, providing an alternative to unbelief. It’s possible, then, for an unbeliever to be drawn to the promise of belonging to God’s family before they put their faith in Christ.

What’s Missing

But there are some problems with the “belonging before believing” mindset.

In discussing the concept with my tablemates at the Lausanne Congress (from India, Kenya, Korea, and Hong Kong), the difference of context came up. In restrictive countries where following Jesus will result in family rejection or government persecution, the experience of “belonging” to the church (in the sense of developing close relationships) before making a public profession of belief is vital. Baptism cuts someone off from their past, leading to a very real “trading of families.” It’s important for someone in a restrictive country who professes faith to already have personal experience of the proven dedication of God’s people. When the wrath of family members comes, or the shunning from friends, or the potential for government persecution, the new believer will rely on the belonging they’ve already tasted within the family of God.

In other contexts, however, the mentality of belonging before believing downplays the distinctiveness between the church and the world, making the line between unbelief and faith fuzzy. The emphasis can fall so strongly on making people feel they belong that it’s not clear why belief would be necessary at all. In the end, the church turns into a sociologically religious community marked by friendly feelings rather than a confessional people marked by what the members believe.

Not Fully Belonging

Throughout history, the church has found ways of bringing unbelievers into the community so they experience an appetizer of Christian fellowship, even while recognizing the whole meal is only possible for those who belong through belief. Today, belonging before believing too often settles for appetizers as the end-all of Christianity. If an unbeliever feels they belong to the church just as much as a believer does, then what’s the point of believing? And what does belonging even mean anymore?

A friend of mine expressed the paradox this way: “When I invite an unbeliever, I want to pull them into the church so deeply they feel they don’t fit.” The desire should be to show such genuine welcome and hospitality that the unbeliever is taken aback, compelled by the welcome and sense of belonging they feel and by their uneasiness at recognizing they cannot truly belong to this community until they believe.

In the early centuries after the New Testament, the church made the lines clear in ways that sound awkward today. Unbelievers would be welcome in the homes of Christians and were present in worship services, but only up to a point. When the service would shift to the taking of the Lord’s Supper or instruction only for church members, the unbelievers would be dismissed. In this way, there was still a sense of belonging and welcome but also a clearly defined line marked out by belief and baptism.

Belonging Through Belief

In the end, I hope our churches will be places where people feel welcomed and loved. But if we’re to follow the New Testament pattern, where belonging to a church really means something beyond being the recipient of hospitality, we cannot in the fullest sense belong before we believe. That’s impossible. We belong through believing.

It’s our belief that unites us to brothers and sisters in Christ, our common confession of Jesus our King. We belong to God through our belief in his Son. Remember the opening to the Heidelberg Catechism: our only comfort in life and death is that we are not our own but belong—body and soul—to our faithful Savior Jesus Christ. We belong to Jesus by faith, and we belong to one another in the church by faith also.

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Not long ago, I sat with some brothers over lunch and grieved the way our political debates in the United States affect the church—heightening tensions, compounding fractures, and unleashing words and actions that can only be described as ugly.

Slander sells. Sowing division is popular. Bad actors profit personally or professionally from the ever-changing landscape of newly deemed “heroes” or “villains.” Clouds of self-righteousness and hypocrisy cover the sun and reinforce our tribal impulses.

Danger of Ressentiment

Nearly 10 years ago, I wrote about one of the great dangers facing Christians in North America—the spreading of the Nietzschean concept of ressentiment. That’s the deep-seated envy and hostility that arises in individuals or groups who perceive themselves as powerless, leading them to recast their weaknesses as virtues and project their frustrations onto those they envy or blame for their situation.

Ressentiment, combined with contempt, the silent killer, gives off fumes that suffocate the faith, hope, and love we should be known for. We lack faith when we assume the worst of others, casting opposing viewpoints as belonging to enemy oppressors and taking umbrage at every perceived slight. We lack hope when we assume all is lost unless every injustice is corrected right now, when we can’t see past the urgency of the moment to take a broader view of God’s work in the world. We lack love when all we can do is keep a record of wrongs. We lack grace when our ire grows from the roots of entitlement.

How do we breathe when we inhabit this atmosphere marked by the fog of ressentiment? How do we rightly take a stand for truth without becoming like the world we’re called to counter? In our battles against Mordor, how do we keep from becoming more like orcs than hobbits? How can we resist the suspicion and cynicism that would lead us, like Nikabrik in Prince Caspian, to sacrifice principle on the altar of pragmatism? Especially when everywhere you look, ugliness seems to be winning.

Return to Jesus

After lamenting the state of the church today, my brothers and I stumbled on a solution often derided for its simplistic Sunday-school associations: Jesus. What else do we have but Jesus? What else can we offer a world that needs him? What else can we offer a church that too often forgets or co-opts him? He is the answer. We’ve got to come back, again and again, to Jesus.

When tempted to put our trust in princes, politicians, and parties that are passing, or to excuse respectable sins that further our cause, or to nurse our wounds of bitterness and lash out in fear, or to confuse the fruit of the Spirit with weakness, we look to Jesus just like the disciples after others walked away, and we say, “Lord, to whom will we go?” (John 6:68). Who else do we have? “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever” (Ps. 73:26).

It’s Jesus who approached Golgotha with a prayer on his lips that God would unite his people with such a powerful love that the world would know the truth of the gospel (John 17). It’s Jesus who brought into his closest company both a zealot and a tax collector. It’s Jesus who showed us how to live, how to speak, and how to love. It’s Jesus who said the meek will inherit the earth. It’s Jesus who called us onto the narrow road of beauty, truth, and goodness in a fallen world of sin. It’s Jesus who told us the last will be first and the first last, who defined true greatness in terms of suffering, service, and sacrifice instead of the pomposity of earthly power. It’s Jesus who promised to be with us to the end of the age.

The rough and tumble of earthly politics may depend on anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language, but these are the ugly practices of idolatry we’re called to put away (Col. 3:8). Our new self is being renewed in Christ’s image, and so we’re to put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, and above all, putting on love, which is the perfect bond of unity (vv. 12–14).

These characteristics are the glorious brushstrokes that God is painting into his portrait of us as his people. The church father Gregory of Nyssa likened the Beatitudes to a picture of purity. “God is the true light,” he said, “the fount of all goodness, the one thing lovable which is always the same,” and so, for Gregory, the Beatitudes become an invitation into a new life of rejoicing without end in infinite happiness. Sin has disfigured us, but Jesus has come to wash us clean of our sins, to restore the painting. He’s working on your portrait, brushing up your soul until, more and more, you look like him, the most blessed one.

In the End, Beauty Wins

If you’re a Christian, you have to believe that Beauty will win. Life will triumph over death. Beauty will overcome the ugliness of the world just as Jesus’s blood has removed the stains of sin in your heart.

Ugliness can only destroy, not create. Slander can only tear down, not build. Selfishness can only fracture, not unite.

The only way we soldier on through seasons of darkness is by maintaining hope and faith that the beauty of Jesus will shine. Jesus is the treasure.

And so we don’t respond to works of darkness as pearl-clutching moralists but as pearl-finding missionaries. We’ve sold all for God’s kingdom, the pearl of great price, because we know deep down the truth expressed by Dostoevsky—the world may think we’re idiots, but beauty will save the world. And Beauty is a person.

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No one disputes we’re living through an era of institutional decline and distrust. Multiple surveys show Americans acknowledging their loss of trust in virtually every segment of society. This decline in institutional credibility is, in part, a result of poor leadership and the exposing of corruption, with organizations covering up past failures or widening the breach of trust through their defensive posture or apathy.

It’s no surprise churches feel the headwinds in this environment. This is why so many church leaders are pondering how best to repair and rebuild trust in an age of widespread cynicism and suspicion. We should ask several questions:

• What ingredients are essential for our church to be considered “trustworthy?”
• How do we preserve the trust and goodwill our church has right now, if things are going well?
• How can we regain trust and goodwill after something goes wrong?
• If or when we fail as a church, how can we respond in ways that repair rather than widen the breach of trust?

These questions matter because trust is at the core of Christianity. We’re people of belief, trust, faith, and faithfulness:

• Christians are marked out by specific beliefs: We confess Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead.
• We’re marked out by a life built on trust: We rely on Christ alone for salvation.
• We’re marked out by a life of walking by faith, not by sight. Faithfulness to God and to his people becomes a defining element of our lives.

A crucial aspect of living a faithful Christian life is our growth toward ever-greater trust in God and a corresponding growth in becoming more trustworthy ourselves. As people of belief, trust, faith, and faithfulness, we’re uniquely equipped to contribute to the repairing and rebuilding of institutional credibility. This is one way we fulfill our role as salt and light.

What Is Trust?

Earlier this year, an insightful report on trust, developed by Martin Seeley, David Ford, Veronica Hope Hailey, and Gordon Jump, was released within the Church of England. The authors lean on a definition of trust from a 1998 journal article:

This definition covers a wide range of institutional life and helps us understand why breaking trust is so damaging. To trust someone else requires us to accept vulnerability. It’s possible we’re wrong about the person we trust. We might get hurt. And yet this vulnerability is indispensable to a properly functioning society.

In Talking to Strangers, Malcolm Gladwell says our initial response when something seems amiss is to “default to truth.” We’re inherently trusting of people, technology, and institutions. Sometimes this impulse goes wrong and leads to tragic outcomes, when we refuse to see (or are unable to see) the corruption or injustice taking place right before our eyes. But defaulting to distrust would be even worse. Our world would grind to a halt and life would be impossible if all trust were absent.

We can’t not trust people and institutions, at least at some level, which is why it matters that people and institutions work hard to build and retain trust. Especially when, as the old Dutch proverb goes, “Trust comes on foot but leaves on horseback.”

4 Ingredients of Trustworthiness

The report on trust lays out four essential elements for healthy and trustworthy leaders in an organization:

1. Ability: Have they got the right competencies and abilities to do their job?

2. Benevolence: Are they bothered about others or entirely self-interested?

3. Integrity: Are they guided in their decisions and actions by a moral code?

4. Predictability: Can people see a consistency in their approach?

In my experience, all four of these ingredients are crucial, but they’re not equally important.

Leaders can be forgiven occasional lapses in the first category, “ability,” because no one expects everyone to be fully competent at all times in all ways. In fact, a leader’s response—if he or she acknowledges mistakes, corrects problems, and shows growth in competency—can serve to increase trustworthiness over time. Likewise, the fourth category, “predictability,” is important, but erratic behavior can be overcome if the other three elements are in place and the leader demonstrates the desire for consistency.

The second and third categories are most critical: benevolence and integrity. The moment an institution acts in cravenly self-focused ways, or a leader makes decisions that betray selfish ambition instead of a servant’s heart, or people cross clear moral lines to preserve and protect reputation or power, trust dissipates. An organization can survive challenges and failures in categories 1 and 4, but it’s much more difficult to recover and rebuild trust when malevolence and dishonesty become obvious.

When Trust Is Lost

Yuval Levin’s A Time to Build focuses on the formational and aspirational aspects of categories 2 and 3:

Levin’s definition is true broadly, but especially when applied to the church. When we no longer submit to the formative power of the church but instead seek to harness the institution for our own ends, we present to the world a deformed body of Christ. The church that should exist for the glory of God and the good of the world turns inward—all its resources self-directed now for the glory of the leaders and the good of those with most at stake.

Even worse, breaches of trust in categories 2 and 3 in some churches make it all the more difficult for other churches to overcome even minor lapses in categories 1 and 4. People are more likely to attribute deficiencies in competency and predictability to the more egregious breaches of trust in areas of benevolence and integrity. In this atmosphere, common mistakes can suddenly have outsize effects. The cloud of suspicion hangs over all churches everywhere, even those doing a good job of maintaining consistently high standards of accountability and trust.

Getting the Response Right

One of the takeaways from the report is the importance of correctly assessing the level of concern. We won’t be able to contribute to the repairing of trust and rebuilding of institutional credibility if we treat every breach of trust the same way.

If we cannot differentiate between systemic issues of corruption and occasional lapses of judgment, we’ll get the prescription wrong because our diagnosis is off. We won’t treat deep-rooted failures with the level of intensity and commitment needed to rebuild trust, like prescribing vitamin pills for a cancer patient. Or we’ll overreact to ordinary harms, blasting the institution with a level of chemo and radiation that indicates the whole organization is riddled with cancer, instead of a more focused approach on problem areas. Getting the prescription wrong, either by overlooking serious disease or overtreating minor problems, can kill the institution.

We’ve got our work cut out for us. In these times of distrust, we’ll need to focus on rebuilding credibility by giving attention to these four ingredients: ability, benevolence, integrity, and predictability. And we’ll need to pray for and work toward the day when the church is once again a beacon of faith, worthy of trust.

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I enjoy conversations with college and seminary students developing an intellectual life in service to the church, who envision a future in which the life of the mind is a central preoccupation. They look forward to years of voracious reading, following the trails of their curiosity, and engaging knowledgeably in discussions and debates over important ideas and practices.

Often, these students ask, Where do I start? They look to those of us who’ve been reading, writing, teaching, and preaching for a while now, and they ask, How do I get from here to there? Where do I begin?

I see in these questions a desire to offer something of value to the church. The students recognize the necessity of intellectual growth, and naturally, they wonder how to figure out what to study and where to begin. But these questions assume there’s a particular order of steps applicable for everyone, a well-worn path to follow if they could just find the entrance. And while there’s no denying the importance of reading foundational texts in the history of philosophy and theology if aspiring to the life of the mind, my counsel doesn’t start with the “classics” or the “essentials.”

My advice? Just jump in. Start in the middle. Because the middle is your beginning.

Enter the Ongoing Conversation

Starting down the road of intellectual inquiry and theological reflection is like entering a conversation that has been going on for a long time. As you listen to people well-versed in the terms and concepts of a theological discussion, you get the lay of the land. Over time, you discern the contours of the conversation more broadly, and you may even find a few places to dig deeper in your studies so you too can contribute.

But there’s no specific “beginning,” unless we’re talking more generally about the fear of the Lord. Just jump in. Tune in to the broadcast already “in progress.” Join a conversation already taking place and focus first on careful listening, with humility and curiosity.

Follow Trails

When I was a student at a Christian university in Eastern Europe, I had access to a terrific library of theological resources. Because of their value, most of the books were unavailable for checkout, so I spent hours in that library working through books that piqued my interest.

One of my earliest intellectual pursuits involved Jesus’s parables and they how functioned in their original context. I was fascinated by carefully comparing the different versions of the parables in the Synoptic Gospels, and I spent significant time with Kenneth Bailey’s Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes. Craig Blomberg’s Interpreting the Parables showed me the landscape of parabolic interpretation through the centuries. Following more trails, I was introduced to the important work of C. H. Dodd and the contribution of Joachim Jeremias. I followed a few trails into the dead-end skeptical takes of the Jesus Seminar and the landmark work of John Dominic Crossan’s In Parables.

Tracing my way back, I noticed how those trails led me into an even bigger conversation—“the quest for the historical Jesus.” Ben Witherington’s work gave me a lay of the land, and eventually, I arrived at N. T. Wright’s massive volume Jesus and the Victory of God, which I spent more than a month with, reading it cover to cover, absorbed by the brushstrokes of Wright’s historical portrait. Soon, I was following footnotes to other conversation partners, reading predecessors and successors in historical Jesus studies, reviewing older works of history and then engaging present-day scholars still responding to Wright’s work.

No, I never became a historical Jesus scholar (although I try to keep up with the latest scholarship on the Gospels). But I’ve wandered onto a bunch of other trails, driven by passion and curiosity and sometimes ministry necessity, all culminating in a PhD focused on North American missiology, with an emphasis more in systematic theology than biblical and theological studies.

My point is that I’ve had the pleasure of joining lots of conversations along the way—all of them in progress. I’ve engaged in ongoing discussions about the church’s posture toward the culture, the breadth of the church’s mission in the world, the relationship between eschatology and discipleship, and the philosophical and technological developments that have left our cultural landscape marked by expressive individualism, Enlightenment rationalism, and the scars of the sexual revolution.

I’m more of a generalist than a specialist. I’m wired that way. Other scholars have taken a different approach, following one trail deeper and deeper into the forest until they become experts who can make a strong contribution to a specialized field. There’s no right or wrong here. My point is this: When you’re at the outset of a theological journey, just jump in. Don’t expect to find the perfect spot to start from. Follow your curiosity until it leads you into the conversations that make your heart race and your brain hurt.

Guidance, Friendship, and the Point of Theology

Guidance matters. Find mentors who’ve spent significant time in the conversations that interest you, because they can help you read well and widely. They can keep you from the dead-ends and cul-de-sacs as they guide you into the field. They can help you avoid chronological snobbery or youthful enthusiasm that arrives at conclusions too quickly.

Friendship matters too. Find peers who share your curiosity. Cultivate a life with people whose work overlaps with yours but isn’t perfectly aligned, because they’ll broaden your perspective by refining your thinking. They’ll push back when you fail to reckon with the best critiques issued against your favorite authors. They’ll celebrate when you unearth something original you can contribute to the conversation.

Most importantly, remember that talk about God is just talk. The real goal of theological study is to grow in knowledge and love of God and then serve his people more faithfully. The intellectual life should never be separated from one’s devotional practices. A mind without devotion can turn brilliance into blindness.

So follow the trails and enjoy the campsites where fellow students gather around the fire and affirm and argue, discuss and debate, in pursuit of truth. Just remember to keep climbing, with your intellect bent toward your Maker and your world of thought infused by wonder, because the best trails lead up toward the summit, the mountaintop of praise and worship of the triune God.

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