Hold Fast to What’s True and Push Back

Posted on August 23, 2026 by AngelsPortion

If you visit with my weekend message every Sunday, you’ll remember that I was in the emergency room last week. At about one o’clock last Sunday, I made the trip because my eye had swollen shut.

Essentially, for the last few weeks, I’ve been dealing with an unrelated issue involving the gel inside my eye pulling away from the retina. Apparently, this can happen with age. However, there’s a possibility that the process can cause a retinal tear, so I went to see a retina specialist, and now I’m paying close attention to any changes in my vision.

That’s the background. It isn’t the actual story.

Let me start by saying that if you’ve never had a retina specialist inspect the deepest recesses of your eyeballs, blessed are you. It’s not a pleasant experience. It’s thoroughly intrusive. There are instruments. There’s pressure. There are moments when you wonder whether the doctor is deciding whether he wants to examine your retinas from the front, or simply push your eyeballs through the back of your skull and inspect them from the other side. And the thing is, you simply hold still and endure it because that’s what you’re supposed to do.

After the examination, my eyes were irritated—my left eye more so than the right. I also had a few blurry spots in that eye. I assumed this was the result of the examination itself, not to mention that’s the eye that had already been having the most trouble. Either way, the doctor had just spent considerable time poking, prodding, pressing, and otherwise doing things to both eyes that I absolutely did not enjoy.

So, I figured whatever was irritating my eye would get better with time.

A few days later, something resembling a stye developed beneath my eyelid. I didn’t know it was there. Not yet. The irritation continued. Then the swelling started. I later learned that something had apparently been torn during the examination, and the area had become infected. Again, I didn’t know that at the time. All I knew was that my eye was becoming increasingly useless.

Now, I couldn’t get an immediate appointment with my regular doctor, so I went to an urgent care in Fenton. The PA looked at it and said it was probably just a stye. Okay, fine. Drops were prescribed. But before walking out the door, I asked about getting an antibiotic, too, because by then, I had begun to suspect that something else was going on. And for the record, I’m hardly a person who goes fishing for antibiotics. I can barely remember the last time I needed them. In fact, I rarely make trips to the doctor for anything. Most everything that ever happens to me can be solved with a two-fingered pour of Scotch. But in this case, I had a distinct sense that something more than whisky was required. And so, I asked. I was told antibiotics weren’t necessary. Use the drops. Apply warm compresses. Give it twenty-four to forty-eight hours. It would get better. So, I did exactly what I was told, and I did so religiously. But it got significantly worse.

Two days later, I called my doctor’s office and more or less begged them to find a place for me. They gave me an appointment for the following morning, which was Friday. Again, I explained the entire history. I explained the retinal examination. I explained the irritation that followed. I explained how the swelling progressed. I explained that the drops were not helping. Same conclusion. It’s probably a stye. This time, I was prescribed a different drop—something stronger.

Again, I asked about an antibiotic, just in case. Again, I was told no. Again, I was told to continue the warm compresses and give the new drops twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Again, I went home with the new drops and did exactly what I was told. And again, it only got worse.

By early Sunday morning, the situation had changed considerably. I woke up and couldn’t see out of the eye because it had swollen shut. I could barely force it open to use the drops. The swelling had spread around the eye socket, and I was beginning to feel pain along the bone beside and beneath the eye. The entire area had become extremely sensitive to the touch. I woke Jennifer and told her I was going to the emergency room.

Now, get this. The woman in scrubs at the check-in desk, after I explained why I was there, tried to talk me out of checking in. “It’s probably just a stye,” she said. “I get those all the time.” She asked to see the drops I was using. She recognized them and suggested I just needed more time for them to work. She said her styes, with the same drops, usually went away on their own after about ten days or so. At one point, she told me that looking at me was almost like looking at herself when she had one.

Needless to say, it was late, and I was already exhausted. My eye was swollen shut. Every medical professional before this had already told me I had a stye. And now, before I had even officially checked into the emergency room, its gatekeeper was essentially telling me the same stupid thing—and was trying to talk me out of checking in.

I nearly left. I really did. I almost walked back out to my car, went home, and kept fighting whatever was happening to me with the stupid little drop squirter and warm compresses. And why? Well, forget the pressure building in my eye for a moment. There’s a strange psychological pressure that develops when enough people with medical credentials keep telling you the same thing. Eventually, you begin wondering whether you’re experiencing what you’re experiencing, that maybe you’re the unreasonable one. Am I overreacting? Maybe the “experts” are right and I just need to give the drops another day—or as the lady at the check-in desk insinuated, ten more days.

But I’m telling you, I knew something was wrong. With that, I insisted that I be seen by someone.

The first doctor who came in was a student. I gave her the entire history, beginning with the retinal examination and continuing through the visits, the drops, the compresses, the swelling, and the increasing pain. She examined the eye and then left. Eventually, another doctor came in. (By the way, is there a class in nursing and medical school devoted to not writing anything down? I gave the same history again and again and again at every visit along the way.) With that, a similar examination. But this time, something was different. At one point, the second doctor said something along the lines of, “I’ve never seen a stye actually do what this one is doing.” I didn’t like the sound of what she was saying. And yet, her words were sort of reassuring, if only because someone had finally acknowledged something other than what everyone else had been saying all along.

She said she wanted to do a little research. And then she left. Eventually she returned with the ER’s supervising physician.

Keep in mind, all of this occurred over several hours. If you’ve ever been to an emergency room, then you know time operates very differently there. Entire civilizations can rise and fall while you’re sitting beneath fluorescent lighting waiting for someone to tap on the door or curtain and say, “I’m Doctor so-and-so. What’s brought you in here tonight?” Again, is anyone writing anything down?

Anyway, the supervising doctor examined me, performed a few tests, and then, suddenly, there it was. This wasn’t simply a stye. She was certain I had preseptal cellulitis. The infection was spreading through the tissue around my eye, and it had progressed to the point that it could become orbital cellulitis, which is considerably more dangerous. If you don’t get on it right away, you can go blind. This is to say, I needed an antibiotic. Like, days ago! And as if that wasn’t enough, she said the drops I had been using so diligently were actually making the situation significantly worse. Go figure.

Now, jump ahead a few days. After I set the drops aside and started slamming down a proper antibiotic, the swelling had almost completely disappeared by Tuesday. I could open the eye normally. I could see through it. The blurring was, for the most part, gone. Although there’s something else I should at least mention. We had some leftover antibiotics in our medicine bin from one of the kids’ prescriptions. After my visit to the doctor’s office, and before the emergency room visit, I had already started taking them. As it turns out, they were the same antibiotic the ER eventually prescribed. A slightly smaller dosage, but still the same stuff. I’m betting that those first few punches are why things were already turning around by Tuesday. And that only reinforced what had been bothering me all along. I knew something wasn’t right.

Now, to start wrapping this up, as with everything, there’s a lesson here somewhere. I suppose first, I should acknowledge that doctors know plenty of things I don’t. But that said, I’ve never been one to surrender my reason, senses, and judgment entirely because someone in authority has spoken. It’s just never proven to be a very good idea. Then came COVID, and that instinct stopped being theoretical. And not just for me. So many learned there’s a distinct difference between respecting expertise and abandoning your own capacity to think, observe, question, and make judgments.

I suppose next, you should know I had a brief conversation with the first ER doctor about my job as a pastor—because, making small talk, she asked what I do. Unsurprisingly, I wandered into how frustrated I was about everything happening at the moment, but at the same time I didn’t want to be rude, becoming the ratchety patient no one wants to deal with. I told her that Christian sensibility often leaves guys like me somewhere between arrogance and passivity. What I meant was that conviction can rather easily become egotism: I know what’s what and I refuse to accept anything other than what I want. But humility has its own danger. A Christian can become so reluctant to assert himself, so determined to avoid conflict, that he begins distrusting what is plainly in front of him and allows dangerous falsehood to slip through unchallenged.

Remember, I almost walked out of the emergency room. I’d been told the same thing so many times that I was beginning to distrust what I could quite literally see happening to my own face. And so, maybe the lesson in all of this is that humility never requires us to pretend we don’t know what we know. It doesn’t require us to ignore the evidence in front of us or surrender our judgment whenever the opposition speaks confidently. Christian humility starts with recognizing that we can be wrong. But it also recognizes that everyone else can be wrong, too.

After this whole episode, I’m convinced that this is one more reason why Saint Paul wrote, “Test everything and hold fast to what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). For as humble as Christians ought to be, we’re not supposed to switch off our brains and obey whoever happens to be standing before us. I mean, just think about the Bereans. They were praised because they listened to Paul himself and then searched the Scriptures to see whether what he was telling them was true (Acts 17:11). Indeed, they didn’t reject the teacher. But they also didn’t surrender themselves to him. Not yet. First, they listened. Then they tested what he said, measuring it against the truth of God’s Word.

That’s a faithful Christian posture toward every earthly authority, if ever there was one. Show respect to the office. Receive good and honest counsel with gratitude. Be humble enough to admit when someone knows more than you do. But never—ever!—confuse humility with surrendering your responsibility to seek and maintain truth.

In the explanation of the First Article of the Apostles’ Creed in Luther’s Small Catechism, Luther writes that God “has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them.” This is to say, God made you, and He gave you the necessary faculties (eyes, ears, senses, and the like) for feeding a reasonable mind capable of discernment. And then, later in his explanation of the Third Article, Luther insists that “the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.” This means that, yes, our reason and senses are gifts from God. And yet, they are not chief. For the Christian, they are ultimately steered by the Word, the means through which the Holy Spirit establishes faith and keeps us anchored to what is really true. Indeed, God’s Word stands above every human authority, and it is by God’s Word that every human claim must finally be measured.

It even helps keep our own claims in check, because just as pride can make a person unteachable, blind agreement for the sake of a person’s authority or celebrity can also lead people away from plain truth.

So, to all of this, I say listen carefully. Think clearly. Ask questions. Test what you’re being told. Be humble enough to be corrected, but courageous enough to say, when necessary, “I hear what you’re saying, Doc, and I think you’re wrong.” And through it all, let faithfulness to Christ and His Word remain the goal. Because in the end, the Christian’s task isn’t to defend his own opinions or surrender to someone else’s. It is to hold fast to what’s true.

Excommunication? Yes.

Posted on August 16, 2026 by AngelsPortion

I spent the early hours of this morning in the ER. Unfortunately, it couldn’t be avoided. I’ve been dealing with trouble in my left eye for the last few weeks, and somewhere along the way, it appears a retina specialist injured it badly enough that it became severely infected. It has only gotten worse over the last week, and, as it turns out, two different eyedrop prescriptions from two separate but equally concerned visits were making things worse. I woke up early this morning realizing that a trip to the ER was unavoidable. Hopefully, I have what I need now. And, as it would be for any grossly disfigured, pirate-like person, I didn’t want to leave anyone waiting on the plank. So, after some rest, time with God’s Word, and prayer, I started tapping away at something I’ve been thinking about all week and was determined to get out.

Maybe you heard the news about Governor Healey in Massachusetts? If not, maybe I should actually start with something else first. And by something else, I mean a definition of excommunication, if only because some Roman Catholics are calling for Healey, a confessing Roman Catholic, to be excommunicated. I’ll get to the reason for the calls in a moment.

In the meantime, let me just say that excommunication is probably one of the most misunderstood practices of the Christian Church. For the most part, people hear the word “excommunication” and imagine punishment. But that’s not excommunication’s point.

Excommunication exists for repentance, absolution, and restoration. Jesus establishes the pattern in Matthew 18:15–20, showing Christians how to move patiently from private admonition toward gathering the whole Church’s engagement. But the process only progresses step by step as the sinner refuses to hear God’s Word, repent, and amend. Still, even in the final step—excommunication—restoration remains the goal.

All of this is to say that excommunication is the Church, in love, refusing to allow an impenitent sinner to exist comfortably in dangerous falsehood that leads away from eternal life to eternal condemnation. For the sake of the faithful, it also means guarding the Church from pretending that open, persistent, and unrepentant sin is somehow compatible with a faithful Christian confession.

Now, back to Governor Healey.

Healey, a Catholic, gleefully signed legislation last week eliminating the state’s previous legal restrictions on abortion after 24 weeks. Under the new law, abortions will be legal right up to birth. You read that right. As it is here in Michigan, a full-term baby can now be aborted in Massachusetts, too. The state’s Catholic bishops had already condemned the measure, even going so far as to call it a “gravely immoral” measure. Of course, that’s a sanitized description. I’d call it state-sanctioned barbarism.

I’ve implied the appropriateness of excommunication for Christians who openly defend and support abortion. In fact, I can think of a couple of folks in the past who transferred from Our Savior to other local LCMS congregations because I spoke those words out loud. I remember my District circuit visitor at the time mentioning the Johnson Amendment, seemingly in passing, and implying that I might be offending someone’s civil rights. I found the argument strange. Why? Because, ultimately, he didn’t ground his position in the Word of God, but instead said something more like, “You’d better be careful what you say about the state, because the state says so.”

That said, forget for a moment that God’s Word seems to matter very little to folks in these situations and instead consider that too many are way more confident than accurate with their Johnson Amendment invocation. Essentially, under section 501(c)(3), churches and other tax-exempt organizations are prohibited from financial partisanship. This means churches cannot use the congregation’s money to intervene in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to particular candidates. An easy example is that it can’t donate to or print materials on behalf of a local candidate or party.

What the Johnson Amendment does not say is that churches must become politically mute. Churches remain free to preach and teach concerning anything and everything under the sun. They may take positions on political issues, ideologies, legislation, public policies, and whatever, even when those issues divide candidates. And that’s good, because almost everything in our world is, in some way, Christological, and as such, the Church has both the freedom and the responsibility to engage with it, while also shepherding God’s people through it.

Still, remember that excommunication looks like punishment to the onlooking world, even though it isn’t. Add to that the misunderstanding that many interpret the Johnson Amendment as protection against political persecution or punishment, and we have a problem. But the problem only exists when a person gets both excommunication and the Johnson Amendment wrong at the exact same time.

Regardless of the fact that nothing, not even the U.S. Constitution, supersedes God’s authority, the Johnson Amendment does not say that a church must suspend its doctrine whenever a sinner happens to hold public office or the sinner’s dealings are labeled “out-of-bounds” politically by the culture. The Johnson Amendment does not erase the Lord’s instructions in Matthew 18. In fact, the IRS itself recognizes this by identifying a “formal code of doctrine and discipline” as one of the essential characteristics associated with churches.

Therefore, excommunication cannot be called a political punishment when exercised rightly. The Church is not saying, “You voted incorrectly, so we’re going to hurt you.” The Church is saying, “Through your actions in the public square, you are persisting openly and unrepentantly in something God calls sin, and because we love you too much to lie to you about it, we cannot pretend everything is fine. Repent, be absolved, and amend the sinful life.” And this would be the same process for everyone, whether the sin was committed in a voting booth, at a governor’s desk, in a bedroom, or wherever.

In short, the IRS’s concerns revolve around dollars. It can regulate a church’s use of finances in the public square. But it does not administer the Office of the Keys—the Church’s authority from Christ to forgive and retain sins among its Christians in the public square.

Looking back at everything I’ve just written, I need to be clear, especially for the usual suspects who are likely already preparing to email or message me privately. Understand that I’m not at all suggesting that to be a Christian, one must be a registered Republican. All political parties are imperfect human institutions, and there are plenty of things within the Republican Party that Christians can and should criticize. However, we shouldn’t pretend the two major parties occupy morally equivalent ground on matters about which God’s Word speaks clearly.

They just don’t. Not anymore. Not in 2026.

For one, the modern Democrat Party is nothing like what it used to be. It has committed itself institutionally to dreadfully ungodly positions concerning abortion, human sexuality, marriage, and a whole host of other platform planks that stand in direct contradiction to Christian teaching. And these are not obscure planks buried somewhere on page seventy-three of a policy document. They’re the defining commitments of the party—its principal talking points. On the other hand, while the Republican Party is often just as embarrassingly imperfect on other topics, when it comes to the fundamental moral questions, it remains the only major American political party whose stated positions leave any meaningful room for Christian conviction in the public square.

So, again, to my critics, I would never say that voting Republican makes someone a Christian. Salvation does not come through a ballot box, and the GOP is not the Kingdom of God. But what I am saying is that if Christians care at all about faithful engagement with the world around them, they forfeit the right to pretend that political choices occur in some morally sterilized chamber where God’s Word no longer applies. I’m also saying that at some point, continued political association with official platforms that stand in opposition to God’s Word becomes more than association. It becomes advocacy. It becomes cooperation. It becomes the deliberate lending of oneself—opinions, voice, vote, money, influence, public service, and so much more—to perpetuate things God has strictly forbidden.

That’s where I think the question of church discipline becomes unavoidable.

If a Christian willfully persists in sin, the Church needs to act according to the Lord’s mandate. If throughout correction, the person remains steadfastly impenitent, even as the goal of restoration remains, the door of heaven is closed until he repents. That’s why the Church calls this the Office of the Keys. It means the authority Christ gives His Church to forgive the sins of the repentant and to retain the sins of the impenitent—to open the door with the Gospel and, when necessary, to close it until repentance comes (Matthew 16:19 and 18:18, as well as John 20:22–23).

There’s no doubt in my mind that this applies when the sin has been folded into someone’s politics. If a Christian knowingly and willfully supports and/or makes possible the destruction of unborn life, openly celebrates the mutilation of healthy bodies in the name of gender ideology, or publicly advances other teachings fundamentally contrary to the Christian faith, the Church cannot simply shrug and say, “Well, that’s your political opinion.” Labeling something “political” isn’t a baptismal font. It doesn’t wash the sin away.

So, I suppose the harder question, then, is not whether someone has a D or an R beside his or her name. The question I’m suggesting we consider is whether political loyalty has become an actual loophole that allows, first, for a Christian to deliberately, publicly, and unrepentantly participate in what Christ confesses to be sin, and second, for a pastor to be absolved of having to deal with it like all other sins.

I think it has become just such a loophole. And I think we need to close it, regardless of the fallout, if only because the topic itself is not complicated. In Confessional Lutheranism, we already know that no matter the real or hypothetical scenario, everything must be observed through the lens of God’s Word. That also means, regardless of person—regardless of someone’s job or political office or opinions or whatever—no exemption from Matthew 18 exists for anyone. We all fall under its authority.

In Healey’s case, Massachusetts’ own Catholic bishops have already identified the moral character of what occurred. If they’ve pursued correction according to the Lord’s mandate, and still there has been no repentance and amendment of the sinful life, then Healey should be excommunicated. She used the authority entrusted to her to oppose Christ’s holy Word, then celebrated the moment and smiled for the cameras while doing it, proving her willful rebellion.

In the end, some folks will read everything here and immediately start tallying sins. “But what about this Republican position? What about that Libertarian one?” The question is not whether other sins exist or whether the Church has failed to confront them consistently. The question is whether clear, persistent, public impenitence should simply be ignored. I’m saying it shouldn’t.

Of course, the devil is remarkably skilled at taking what is objectively true and smearing it with enough subjectivity that, before long, God’s Word becomes “your interpretation,” or “your opinion.” That trick has been working for a very long time. Once that happens, the next move is kind of predictable. Rather than asking what the Church is obligated to say and do in all circumstances according to God’s Word, people start asking what the Church is permitted to say and do in certain contexts according to the government’s allowance.

But just remember, the Church’s responsibility to respond to anything doesn’t live or die according to the government’s rules. I can promise you that faithful adherence to the Johnson Amendment’s tax-exemption concerns will not be a part of the Last Day’s calculus. There’ll be no IRS agent seated beside the throne of Christ.

Besides, the Church should never be more concerned about its 501(c)(3) status than its call to bear the Office of the Keys. One comes from the heart of Caesar. The other, from the heart of Christ. Only one survives the grave.

Socialism Simplified for Christians

Posted on August 9, 2026 by AngelsPortion

If you hadn’t heard, Michigan was pretty much ground zero for something disturbing last week. Essentially, our primary elections signaled that the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are no longer flittering around like gnats at the political margins. They’re gathering in plague-sized formations and moving toward the center of the Democrat Party’s power.

For starters, and just to name a few, Abdul El-Sayed won the Democrat Party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate. No, El-Sayed doesn’t call himself a democratic socialist. However, the DSA supported his candidacy, and plenty of prominent DSA members appeared at his events and celebrated his victory as a win for the DSA movement. Search the name “Hasan Piker.” You’ll see. And, of course, it makes sense that guys like Piker would be there. El-Sayed shares Piker’s and the DSA’s platforms. His economic vocabulary and class analyses are indistinguishable from what the DSA is selling.

But El-Sayed wasn’t the only attention-getter last week. There are a few more names worth remembering.

William Lawrence, a progressive activist knee-deep in the socialist movement, won the Democrat Party’s nomination in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District. Donavan McKinney, a candidate formally endorsed by the DSA, defeated the incumbent Congressman Shri Thanedar. Yousef Rabhi, another DSA candidate, defeated Ann Arbor’s twelve-year incumbent mayor. And, of course, there’s Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. She easily won her primary.

I did some digging on Friday. Interestingly, the DSA had a little more than 6,000 members in 2015. Just last month, the organization announced it had reached 120,000 members, making it the largest socialist organization in American history. And it seems to be picking up serious steam. Its candidates won races all over the country—places like New York, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Washington, and others. But here in Michigan, they did really well. They proved they’re not just a bunch of disenfranchised weirdos gathering in obscure spaces to argue over mimeographed manifestos. They’re also not a specter of campus curiosity inevitably destined to fade after graduation. It’s a movement. They’re actually out and around. They’re winning nominations and getting elected. Not only that, but they’re raking in cash from big donors. With that cash, they’re directing campaigns, staffing organizations, and, unfortunately, taking serious ground in American politics.

On one hand, I’m not surprised. Much to the American citizenry’s discredit, we exist in a perpetual “It’ll never happen” mode. That’s definitely true for many in the Church. “Gay marriage will never happen.” Then it did. “Transgenderism will never become mainstream.” Now gender confusion is an epidemic among children. Strangely, we tend not to believe the radicals when they tell us plainly what they intend to do. And then they do it, and it’s too late.

The DSA has told us what they intend to do—like, right on their website. Read for yourself. But here’s the thing. Its platform is more than the carrots of tax rates and wages and healthcare being dangled before the belly-serving masses. Socialism, as a system, reaches into religion, private property, education, medicine, marriage, sexuality, childhood, and pretty much everything relative to family life. It reaches into these places because its fundamental assumption is that every sphere of human existence answers to the state.

Now, keep in mind, while both are antichristian, there is a difference between Marxist socialism and regular socialism. Marxist socialism openly renounces and abolishes God, criminalizing religion altogether. Plain ol’ socialism—the kind sweeping across America this very minute—doesn’t abolish and replace God on day one. It simply begins the essential process leading to it, arriving and wearing a much friendlier face in the meantime. It talks about fairness and compassion. It’s likely you already know its most popular slogans: Diversity, equity, and inclusion! But in the end, socialism isn’t a different road than Marxism. It’s a catechetical increment of Marxism. It’s the first few miles of the same highway.

In other words, before socialism can become full-blown Marxism, it must first train people to accept the premise Marxism requires—which is that government should control more, and the individual should control less. From there, no sphere of life exists beyond the state’s reach. This includes the Church. Ultimately, this means plain socialism is not an alternative to Marxism. It’s the necessary stage that prepares a nation for it.

And so, regardless of a starry-eyed DSA member’s best intentions, and despite socialism’s countless other conflicts with Christianity, this is where the contradiction draws an absolute line in the sand for believers, even as I’ve so strangely heard the term “Christian socialist.” Plainly, a Christian who actually believes the inerrant, immutable, and inspired Word of God cannot embrace socialism without surrendering something essential to the one true faith.

Christianity confesses an authority above the state (Exodus 20:3). Socialism doesn’t.

So, again, while a socialist government may permit Christians, at least for a time, to gather, sing hymns, receive the Sacraments, and speak privately about Jesus, a telltale sign of its trajectory is its irritation when the Church steps into the public square, points at the state, calls it to task, and says, “You are not the highest authority. We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Socialism won’t tolerate such things. And by the way, remember this key indicator when your pastor or Christian friend tongue-lashes you for offending the supposed Church and state divide, insisting that the Church must not engage in the political realm. Kindly remind them they’re aligning with one of the most basic socialist principles.

Christian engagement in the public square offends socialism in the worst way. It’s a stick in the spokes of the socialist machine because it understands and confesses biblical truths that the machine cannot accommodate. For example, it understands that the state doesn’t give children to parents. God does (Psalm 127:3). It confesses that the state doesn’t define marriage. God does (Genesis 2:24 and Matthew 19:4-6). It goes to the mat arguing that the state doesn’t create male and female. God does (Genesis 1:27). It will not back down from saying that the state doesn’t grant human life its value. God does (Psalm 139:13-16). And it would never agree that the state owns the fruits of a man’s labor. God gives property and commands its faithful use (Exodus 20:15 and Acts 5:4). These are all basic doctrines of the Christian faith.

For me, this is also where the biblical doctrine of the Two Kingdoms becomes essential. God established both Church and state, but He gave them different tasks. The Church makes Christians. It bears and brings Word and Sacrament ministry to a world in need of rescue. The state has no hand in this, except to say that it accommodates the Church by bearing the sword (Romans 13:4) to restrain evil and preserve civil order so that the Church can, as Saint Paul insists, “lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Timothy 1:2). He continues, telling us why it’s good for the government to maintain a civil context in which the Church remains unhindered in its task to preach and teach the full counsel of God’s Word: “This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (vv. 3-4).

The Two Kingdoms (separation of Church and state) doctrine does not silence the Church in the public square. On the contrary, it reveals the cooperative nature of the two in its cleanest form. But more importantly, it absolutely requires the Church to be ready and willing to push back hard against Caesar when he crosses boundaries God has established.

The state has a divinely ordained purpose (Matthew 22:21). But when it claims authority over every sphere of life, demanding in these spheres what only God is owed—which socialism clearly does—the Church must answer as it always has.

Caesar is not Lord. Jesus is.

Politics = Unavoidable

Posted on July 26, 2026 by AngelsPortion

The 69th Regular Convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod gathered in downtown Phoenix last week. Delegates worshiped, elected officers, considered resolutions, debated amendments, called questions, cast votes, and did all sorts of parliamentary things you’d expect at a convention.

I did not attend. I watched closely from afar. Very closely. And I stayed in close contact with various folks on the floor. Quite a few, in fact. So many, I spent most of last week doing things I absolutely despise: texting and private messaging.

That said, and regardless of anyone’s relationship with my denomination, I suppose what I want to say this morning crosses all denominational lines. Essentially, even as so many of the usual suspects did all they could to insist that the LCMS’s churchly proceedings were somehow above or insulated from the politics of the civil realm, I can promise you that the event was political from the moment the first delegate arrived.

I know right away that using the word “politics” makes some Christians, especially Lutherans, uncomfortable. Politics has become a word that people use when they want to end a conversation. A pastor—or even a pew-sitting Christian—addresses abortion, marriage, education, sexuality, religious liberty, crime, or whatever from the Christian perspective and someone complains that they’re “getting too political.” Even some Christians are quick to respond in this way. I heard pastors actually say that kind of stuff from the convention’s floor microphones.

It’s no wonder that after my online commentary concerning an amendment that would add Charlie Kirk’s name to a resolution—an amendment that was voted down—I received no small number of Lutherans telling me that the Church and politics must never mix. Like, at all. Some, just to stick the knife a little deeper into the apparent loss, expressed a sarcastic sadness that the Charlie Kirk amendment was only voted down by a slim margin rather than unanimously rejected by all. Others spoke out, saying that if the LCMS ever started speaking directly into the political sphere, they’d leave the fellowship.

Curiously, a handful of the objections came pre-wrapped in assurances that the speakers appreciated Charlie and even agreed with much of his politics. They simply did not want the Church to say his name.

For the record, all of these responses are typical of the “absolute separationist” personality. An absolute separationist believes the Church should remain entirely removed from political questions and public affairs, leaving such matters entirely to civil institutions. Of course, these folks tend to insulate their real reasoning with statements like, “A Church engaged in politics is in jeopardy of losing its actual mission.”

That certainly sounds virtuous—that is, until you actually try to live beneath absolute separationism’s maxim.

By definition, politics is the ordering of our common life in this world. It concerns authority, law, justice, public responsibility, institutions, and the decisions that determine how people exist in community together. If politics is entirely removed from the Church’s calculations (as absolute separationism hopes to achieve), then the Church makes a dangerous assumption about Christian life in a world whose hostility toward the Gospel is hardly theoretical. A Church operating beneath that assumption pretends that laws, institutions, and public decisions exert no pressure upon her mission or determine how openly she may carry it out.

And so, I return to what I said at the beginning, which was that the LCMS convention last week stood in politics’ shadow before anyone stepped to a microphone, whether the separationists are willing to admit it or not.

For starters, the convention met in the Phoenix Convention Center, a facility operated as part of the government of the City of Phoenix and supported by public tax dollars. In fact, I learned on Friday morning that the city maintains an actual convention-center department. It negotiates contracts and regulates the building’s usage. And beyond the facility itself, don’t forget everything else the local government provided. Police and emergency personnel stood ready. Roads, airports, public transportation, utilities, parking structures, and all kinds of civil mechanisms carried anyone and everyone associated with the event into and through to its conclusion.

All of this is political stuff, and it made the LCMS convention possible.

But what if different political winds were blowing and no Christians were present in the public square to represent the Church? What if all Christians suddenly embraced the absolute separationist ideology that the Church ought not mingle in politics or represent its concerns there? A local government could become overtly hostile to Christianity and refuse the rental contract. It could prohibit the Synod’s teaching about marriage or human sexuality. It could declare portions of God’s Word discriminatory. It could censor convention publications, arrest speakers, restrict travel, seize property, or surround the building with armed men.

“That’s ridiculous, Reverend,” you say. Tell that to Päivi Räsänen. Finland’s Supreme Court convicted her over the continued publication of a church pamphlet addressing marriage and sexual ethics. I just read last week how she’s prohibited from even visiting certain countries. Political hostility to Christian teaching is hardly a hypothetical exercise.

“But the Church can continue with or without a convention or a convention center.”

Yes, Christ has promised that much. And yet, the point is relatively simple. Good or bad, politics is, in truth, an “unavoidable” that determines a great many things. In a way, the LCMS acknowledged the unavoidable nature of politics when it adopted the resolution titled “To Condemn Political Violence and Encourage Participation in Public Life.”

So many wanted Charlie’s name erased from the resolution lest the LCMS dabble in politics. Even as I might have cried, I laughed instead. The title itself tells you everything you need to know. Its thrust is toward and into politics. It announces that politics has the potential for truly dreadful behavior. And while the LCMS initially embarrassed itself by voting down a relatively microscopic amendment to at least name the man who inspired the resolution—Charlie Kirk—still, whatever reasons the nays may have offered, their votes could not erase what the resolution itself admitted. They unwittingly acknowledged that evil politics—politics left unchecked against God’s established moral order—empowers the wicked. It creates widows. It creates orphans. It creates fearful communities.

Thankfully, Charlie Kirk understood that Christians cannot abandon the public square. He spent his life urging believers to speak, organize, vote, persuade, and refuse the lie that separationism leading to political silence is somehow a higher form of faithfulness to Christ. It isn’t. And a voting delegate who refuses to admit this, especially when it comes to what happened to Charlie, has already somehow missed the fact that the Fifth Commandment just walked into the room. Martyrdom or not, God forbids murder, including the assassination of people because of their political views. And yet, who enforces the restriction? The Church? The Church names the sin and forms the conscience. But the magistrate restrains the murderer and bears the sword. The same commandment lives in both spheres of Church and state.

The same is true of nearly every modern political question. Before any of them became political, they were already Christological. Life, marriage, authority, justice, truth, mercy—they all belong to Christ before any legislature, court, party, or candidate could take them up. Christ owns the whole world, and His people have no reason to surrender any part of it as though it were outside His authority or beyond the reach of Christian vocation.

I’ve said it a thousand times, and I’ll keep on saying it: Caesar doesn’t somehow take ownership of something just by placing it on a ballot or talking about it during a legislative session.

And one more quick thing.

Lutherans should know this better than anyone else because Lutherans already possess a theological vocabulary capable of handling it. We are inheritors of Luther’s Two Kingdoms doctrine, which, of course, he lifted straight from God’s Word. We own the church-and-state framework that even the Founding Fathers commended as the best extrapolation of the concept.

As Lutherans, we confess that God rules through two kingdoms. Through the right-hand kingdom, He establishes and ordains His Church to preach and teach the Gospel, forgive sins, gather His people, and create faith. Through the left-hand kingdom, God establishes and ordains earthly government to restrain evil, preserve order, punish wrongdoing, and protect earthly life. The distinction preserves the Gospel from coercion. It also prevents civil government from pretending it plays a role in saving souls.

But nowhere in this biblical distinction is Christianity removed from public life. Rather, the Bible, and therefore the Two Kingdoms doctrine, teaches that Christians live under both kingdoms at the same time. It also teaches that they often interact with one another, accommodating and upholding each other in certain ways, each helping the other maintain its divinely ordained purpose.

I already pointed out the convention itself was an example of how the left-hand kingdom touches the right-hand kingdom. In other words, the Church cannot avoid dealing in political things. But even with that example, I don’t just mean that she must deal in legal contracts and pay taxes for this or that. I don’t even mean she must occasionally push back when laws threaten life, redefine marriage, corrupt children, punish Christian confession, or reward wickedness. I mean she must already be active in holding the civil government to its ordination. She must already have a hand in shaping the entirety of the political landscape. She doesn’t do this to make the government a theocracy. We are not Dominionists. Ultimately, she does it to preserve a society that supports her purpose. She must be allowed to preach and teach the Gospel unhindered.

To do this, at a minimum, the Church must carry political things to her people. She must teach her people about the issues and how to engage faithfully with them in the civil realm.

For as much as the absolute separationists would hope, the two kingdoms are never completely sealed away from one another. And to believe otherwise—to pretend politics does not intersect with the Church or that it is someone else’s or another institution’s sole concern—is to miss the fact that politics has already entered the sanctuary, the home, the school, and the lives of God’s people. And a pastor’s silence relative to politics doesn’t safeguard the Christians in his care. It simply allows Christians to receive their teaching from another source. And trust me. The world has a truckload of catechists vying for the opportunity. The world is more than happy to teach Christians what they should believe about life, gender, morality, justice, freedom, and all kinds of other topics deemed too political by some.

Now, I’ve already gone on long enough. But before I finish, no, the Church must never become an auxiliary of a political party. I’m not arguing for that, and I don’t know any confessional Lutherans who are. Admittedly, too many in mainstream evangelicalism do drift wildly in that direction. But regardless of what you’ve heard about Charlie Kirk, I know for a fact that was not his argument. He did not believe that the Church should surrender her doctrine, worship, or mission to a political party. He simply urged Christians to bring their faith into public life, and then he demonstrated it.

I suppose I’m compelled to clarify this, not only because I knew Charlie, but because the warnings raised against naming him at my own denomination’s convention—that doing so might make the LCMS look as though it officially endorsed one party over another—were wildly misinformed opinions likely learned from very bad sources. In short, they pinned Charlie to a position he didn’t hold.

Actually, I guess maybe I’m not done yet. Forget about the Dominionists in mainstream evangelicalism for a second. I know plenty in the LCMS who go in the extreme opposite direction, treating political withdrawal as though it were the quintessential mark of confessional purity. Interestingly, some of the delegates who resisted naming him seemed to think they had insulated themselves from this criticism by first offering a testimonial. They appreciated Charlie Kirk. They agreed with much of his politics. Some even admired his courage. Then came the ecclesiastical disclaimer: his name still had no place in the Church’s mouth. It was the familiar rhetorical maneuver by which someone cites a favorable association as proof that the conduct now under examination cannot possibly mean what it plainly means.

Yes, the Church’s proclamation belongs to Christ alone. Her sacraments belong to Christ. Her hope rests in the resurrection of Christ. But you’ll never convince me that politics exists beyond the Church’s concern, especially when her members still live in cities, counties, states, and nations. Laws govern them. Their children attend schools shaped by elected boards. Their livelihoods are affected by public policy. Their church properties depend upon civil protections. Their unborn children live or die under political decisions. Their freedom to confess Christ publicly can expand or contract according to the people elected to office.

As I told someone very plainly yesterday on the phone, no, politics will never save the Church. But only a fool would believe that the Church’s absolute retreat from politics doesn’t somehow give the state the room to build the machinery by which the Church is persecuted.

The Furnace

Posted on July 19, 2026 by AngelsPortion

Actor Neal McDonough will speak at our “The Body of Christ and the Public Square” conference this fall. I must say I’m genuinely excited to welcome someone who has spent decades working successfully in Hollywood without compromising his Christian faith or his conservative convictions.

Folks closest to me know I have long wanted our conference to feature someone active in the entertainment industry who can speak honestly about what it means to remain faithful while immersed in a world that, for the most part, is opposed to Christianity. I’ve said before that when it comes to persecuting the Christian faith, Hollywood shares a lot in common with Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace.

So far, as a writer who has bumped into Hollywood, my experience has been relatively good. That said, I’ve also learned from those in the know that it’ll take very little of my confessional Lutheranism or conservative leanings to see it come undone. The furnace’s flames are definitely there. They come through contracts, casting decisions, lost opportunities, ridicule, and the quiet warning that life would be easier if one would simply stop being so serious about what he believes. Interestingly, it seems the pressure is rarely presented as a demand to deny Christ outright. More often, it’s an invitation to sacrifice just enough to remain welcome.

That’s what makes Neal McDonough’s story so valuable. Of course, like everyone else in the world, he’s had his troubles. If I recall correctly, he struggled with alcoholism. However, unlike so many others in Hollywood, Neal hasn’t moved from marriage to marriage. He’s been married to his wife, Ruvé, for nearly twenty-three years. A strong marriage was essential to his survival. When he struggled, she was there. And he was there for her. With that, they’ve raised five children together, and he has been remarkably public about the boundaries he maintains to protect his marriage. Among them is his longstanding refusal to kiss another woman on screen who isn’t Ruvé, let alone participate in sex scenes.

Compared to so many others in Hollywood, he holds a hard line on things like that. One would think he’d be considered honorable for it. And yet, the decision has cost him.

Watch one of his interviews. Or read some of the articles about him—especially the ones that lean toward ridiculing him. You’ll learn that he has, indeed, been pushed aside, ultimately losing work, because he wouldn’t cross the lines his Christian conscience has drawn. He has also acknowledged that his personal restrictions probably explain why he has so often been cast as a villain rather than a leading man. It’s not that he couldn’t fit the role. It’s just that Hollywood doesn’t really care if the villain gets a leading lady. The villain is there for the audience to hate. The villain is only there to challenge the seemingly better man, the one who saves the girl, and then, as a reward, gets to sleep with her. Although I suspect most moviegoers don’t even pick up on that distinction. Most audiences have been conditioned beyond the ability to imagine a leading man who believes that sexual fidelity is as important as stopping the villain.

Now, think about that.

In an industry that celebrates nearly every imaginable boundary being broken, one of the truly rebellious acts by comparison is a husband refusing to pretend that his wedding vows have an “except while filming” clause.

Neal is probably right about such convictions having cost him roles, a whole lot of money, and the professional standing that comes with all of it. Still, he pushed through and remained in the industry. He didn’t retreat into silence. He certainly didn’t accept the premise that success required surrender. He found ways to work within his convictions, and the Lord has blessed him with A-list success.

Considering our forthcoming conference, that’s precisely the kind of encouragement our attendees need as we consider our own levels of engagement with the world around us.

For Neal—a man working in one of the most challenging fields for Christians—the answer has not been withdrawal. It hasn’t been accommodation, either. Thankfully, he knew the dangers of those actions early on. He knew that faithfulness often meant being called to enter difficult places without allowing those places to enter him. As it meets with our efforts, Neal will be a great addition to our lineup because our primary purpose is to teach that the public square doesn’t need Christians who have mastered the art of blending in. It needs Christians who know how to be who they are in Christ while holding the line.

Neal can help us understand what that looks like in a unique way, one that deals with real-world consequences. He can speak from the position of his career being at stake. He can talk about what it means to protect a marriage in a culture increasingly hostile to marital fidelity.

Again, Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace comes to mind. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego didn’t survive the heat because they found a way to compromise with it. They survived because, while refusing to bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s lies, the God in whom they’d placed all their trust preserved them. They didn’t know if He would act to preserve their earthly lives. They said as much before the guards threw them into the flames. Still, they knew God was faithful and that He would keep them for eternity. Trusting Him, they refused to compromise.

I often say that the Good Samaritan story is the account of our age. Perhaps the account of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is a better fit. Of course, most folks reading this will never stand on a Hollywood set. Most will never face a studio executive or watch opportunities disappear because of Christian or conservative conviction. As I said, I’m a little closer to these things lately, and at the same time, I’m fully prepared for it to unravel. So far, so good. In the meantime, most of our furnaces look more like classrooms, businesses, courtrooms, congregations, family gatherings, and a host of other settings.

But the thing is, no matter the setting, the challenge and its temptations remain. Bow just a little. Keep your head down. Stay quiet. Chalk it up as wisdom when you compromise this or that part of the Christian faith. Convince yourself there’ll be time for faithfulness soon enough. Until then, let the danger pass.

I admire Neal. I’m glad he’ll be with us. He’s a crisp example that you don’t have to win the rooms you’re in. But faithfulness is essential while you’re in them.

As we prepare for this fall’s conference on October 3, my hope is that Neal’s words will encourage everyone in attendance to enter everyday life with courage. As it meets with Christian conviction, I can assure you that the world doesn’t need a quieter Church. It certainly doesn’t need a Church that spends itself to blend in, doing everything it can to look and act like the world around it.

The world needs a Church that’s holy—set apart and standing out as immovably distinct. Simply put, it needs the faithful Bride of Christ, a body of believers who know all too well that the furnace is already burning, and yet, regardless of the world’s threats, they have no intention of bending the knee in adoration to anyone but the divine Groom, Jesus Christ.

God Bless America

Posted on July 12, 2026 by AngelsPortion

I’ll start by saying the same thing I say every year when I return from vacation. I love vacations, but it’s good to be home, even if only to sleep in my own bed.

As you may already know, the Thoma family has been in Florida for the last two weeks. Every year, we rent a home just a little southwest of Orlando. For the most part, we go to the same place every year. And even though we’re about 15 miles from everything “Disney,” we never go to the parks. Perhaps we might, if Disney could only return to what it once was before it bought into the viral delusion. There’s nothing creepier than being greeted at a theme park’s entrance by a bearded Cinderella.

We also don’t do a lot of sightseeing, either. The main point of our getaway is to do just that. To get away. And so, we swim, eat, play games, and shop. That’s pretty much it. Well, add to the list that we spend a day hunting for shark teeth in the Gulf.

We were in Florida on July 4th. With this year being America’s 250th birthday, we decided that rather than going to a local event, we wanted to see a fireworks display worth remembering. Jen looked online and found a list of the must-see opportunities. We chose the display at SeaWorld, and it was by no means disappointing.

For starters, the amphitheater where we planted ourselves was packed. People were shoulder to shoulder, filling every available space. I’m no fan of crowds, especially sweaty ones. However, I’ll admit it was nice to see so many wearing their patriotism so openly. For once, in the strange way a crowd can become one from many—truly “E pluribus unum”—everyone seemed caught up in the same spirit of gratitude and celebration for this great country.

The last time I experienced that kind of national unity was just after the events of September 11. Except then, it wasn’t celebratory. It was something else entirely.

Anyway, SeaWorld’s fireworks display was extraordinary. The sky lit up. The music swelled. Everyone cheered.

I should mention that before the fireworks began, a DJ orchestrated a dance party on the stage at the front. The rest of us—the ones who preferred to stay and protect our seats for the forthcoming fireworks—we all sang along to the familiar tunes. It’s funny how you know the Michiganders in the crowd when Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” plays. My daughters were sure to play their part. Of course, being from Illinois, when the line about being born and raised in South Detroit lands, I give my wife a wink before the very next line, which is one that reminds everyone singing he wanted on the next midnight train to anywhere but Michigan.

But then came something I absolutely did not expect.

Near the end of the fireworks, there was an incredibly moving rendition of “God Bless America.” It is no understatement to say I was shocked to hear it. America knows the song. But it seems she’s been more interested in keeping everything the song delivers tucked away quietly.

But there it was. And no one was looking around at others concerned. No one was apologizing for it. People took off their hats. I certainly removed mine. And I sang, even if only quietly. I’m pretty sure the man sitting on the stairs beside me with his daughter and her light-up hat was singing, too.

I don’t know the artist who sang that particular version—a female country singer, I think—but whoever she was, she nearly brought me to tears. My lip certainly quivered a few times.

I’m guessing this happened because in the current climate of our country, where almost anything openly patriotic, let alone Christian, is treated as divisive—and often embarrassing—the familiar song was being offered so openly and received so warmly.

I did see a few folks get up and leave. But for the most part, no one seemed offended. No one actually melted under the weight of the words “God” or “America.” In fact, most appeared moved by them.

But here’s something that came to mind the very next morning while driving my family to church.

It sure seems as though America still knows how to call on God when the fireworks are overhead. But then it seems she readily forgets how to kneel before Him when the show is over.

As I said, this thought came to me the next morning—Sunday—while driving to church. We traveled there using the same roads that had been congested almost every day of our vacation so far. Except that morning, they were, for the most part, bare.

I should add that the church lots we passed on the way, at least ten, told the same story. They were relatively deserted. The church we attended was reasonably attended, and I was grateful for that. Still, the difference between Saturday night’s patriotic celebration and Sunday morning was incredibly hard to miss.

Just the night before, thousands stood together while “God Bless America” filled the air. The next morning, many could not find their way to the God they had just asked to bless and preserve them into the future.

I was nearly moved to tears the night before. I felt the same sensation on Sunday morning, but for an altogether different reason.

Just so you know, I’m not sharing this to bring you down from any patriotic high you may be experiencing because of the gravity of this year’s Fourth of July celebration. But I should at least be honest and admit it’s written from a place of grief.

I learned that most Americans are likely still okay with God. Just not all of Him. Sunday morning reminded me that they prefer He keep to the anthem. I suppose it’s okay for most when He stops by to bless the nation, protect the troops, or sanctify a national holiday. I suppose folks are fine with Him giving moral weight to the things we already love.

I suppose what I mean is this.

Be sure to celebrate, but as you do, keep in mind that God is not a patriotic accessory. He’s far more than a line in the Pledge of Allegiance or “God Bless America.” He’s not limited to your mood at the end of a moving fireworks show.

I had another thought while driving.

If we are prepared to sing “God Bless America,” then we should also be prepared for the harder roads God often uses to deliver those blessings. We should be ready for Him to knock us to our knees. And when He does, we should be ready to repent.

I think that’s the part most prefer to skip.

We want God to stand respectfully behind the American flag and the freedoms it symbolizes, but we don’t want Him standing there in judgment over our pitifully self-centered hearts. We want God to bless us even as we somehow twist the word “liberty” to mean we are free to murder unborn babies. We want his nod of acceptance while we do the same with “the pursuit of happiness,” using it to justify confusing His natural law.

In the end, too many simply want Him to smile and wave at us from a distance—a distance we certify when we avoid time in worship with Him.

All of that said, the God who hears a nation singing “God Bless America” is also the God who looks to those seeking faithfulness to Him when there is no crowd, no spectacle, no music swelling over fireworks, and no patriotic feeling to carry the fast-fleeting moment.

Sunday, July 5th, told me a truth that Saturday night tried to hide.

Again, I was glad “God Bless America” was sung. I was glad people joined in. I was glad that a massive, and typically left-leaning organization like SeaWorld, actually inserted God into the evening rather than erasing Him. Whether or not they did it on purpose, it was a moment for Americans to remember, even imperfectly, that our blessings do not come from ourselves. They don’t even come from the brilliance of our Founding Fathers. They come from God.

People who know that—and actually believe it by faith—are the ones who know that the truest way to sing “God Bless America” on Saturday night is to do so planning to be with Him in His house on Sunday morning.

Everyone else is not really asking God to bless America. He’s just one more guest they’ve invited to the fireworks display. And like all the other invited guests, they expect Him to leave when it’s over.

Charlie Is A Martyr

Posted on June 14, 2026 by AngelsPortion

It pretty much goes without saying that many Christians grow uneasy when the conversation turns to politics. They hear words like life, marriage, family, manhood, womanhood, religious liberty, and natural law, and they instinctively hesitate. Why is this?

I give speeches about this on occasion. I do so because, unfortunately, Christians have been incessantly told these are political issues. Perhaps worse, their pastors were trained to think of them that way, too. Admittedly, while I don’t remember a single lesson in Two Kingdoms theology at the seminary, I do remember being told to avoid talking politics with my people. And so, for many years, I didn’t, which meant I naturally avoided any topic labeled as political. The ill-fated result was a type of absolute separationism that the Founding Fathers did not intend. Still, somehow the Church was convinced to leave the state to its dealings and the Church to hers. Indeed, we churchmen have far more important things to do—Word and Sacrament things. Local, state, and federal policy is none of our business.

Are you sure about that?

I suppose there’s a reasonable measure of piety to be found in the concern, if only because the Christian pulpit should never become a place where the Gospel is reduced to an election strategy. I certainly didn’t endure seminary training to become little more than an appendage of Washington, Lansing, or any other earthly capital.

So, I suppose in one sense, I agree with the concern. Still, the piety as defined is incredibly incomplete.

Life in the parish has taught me a few things. For starters, I’ve learned that the devil is quite happy to be in charge of deciding what belongs in whatever category. He convinces a husband that watching porn doesn’t equate to cheating on his wife. He convinces a believer that he can still call himself a Christian while refusing to attend worship. Yeah, okay. Similarly, in this instance, Satan is more than pleased to slap the label “political” onto something if, by doing so, that means the Church will steer clear of it, if only because the label marks its object as out of bounds. I’ve been told by countless Christians that the topic of abortion is political. I’ve been told by just as many that marriage laws and LGBTQ Inc.’s efforts are civil issues—political issues—and therefore, none of the Church’s business. I’ve had fingers wagged at me for saying from the pulpit that transgender surgery for children is ungodly child-mutilation, and that to insert that into a sermon was political.

The devil is also quite content to corral us into using only Bible-y words. He’s more than happy to let us talk about peace and forgiveness and love for the neighbor in the abstract while the unborn child is treated as disposable—while marriage is completely redefined, families are destroyed, and children are handed over to ideologies that teach them to despise the bodies God gave them. The devil is quite pleased to have us speak in generalities from the pulpits and in Bible studies about God’s beautiful creation while male and female are legislated into costumes, religious liberty is recast as bigotry, and natural law is openly mocked as though that same beautiful creation has no say whatsoever.

So yes, call them political issues if you want. I suppose, at a minimum, doing so helps a person see where the fight is actually taking place. It helps you see that life is debated in legislatures. It shows you that marriage is being defined by the courts, and that family is being shaped by school boards and bureaucracies. It reveals that religious liberty is currently being defended or surrendered through public pressure, leading to ungodly statutes lathered in dreadful policies that persecute rather than preserve. Natural law is suffering the same. Have you noticed how it’s essentially being buried under a mountain of slogans?

Quite frankly, the devil prefers these topics to be fixed in the political sphere. The kingdom of the left—the civil government—is the one place where human beings can be forced to submit under threat. It’s in the kingdom of the left where humans can either formalize reality or rebel against it.

I learned years ago to narrow my eyes at anyone who equates biblical fidelity with political speech. That’s because I’ve since learned that many, even in the Church—especially in the Church—have it backward.

The first thing to keep in mind is that politics was second to the discussion. Christ was here first. With that, I’m willing to say that almost every major cultural issue in our world today is already Christological in nature, especially the ones I already mentioned. They do not belong first to politics. They belong to Christ. That means they belong to the Church. That also means the world cannot tell us when, where, and how we ought to speak of or engage with them. We own them.

The topic of life belongs to us because Christ is the Author of life, the One in whom was life and through whom all things were made (John 1:3-4, Acts 3:15). Marriage belongs to us because God’s Word makes clear that Christ is the epicenter of its mystery from the beginning (Ephesians 5:25-32). He is the Bridegroom. We are the bride. Family belongs to us because Christ has revealed God as Father and has made us His children through Baptism (Matthew 6:9, Galatians 3:26-27, and Ephesians 3:14-15). Manhood belongs to us because of Christ’s incarnation. He is the eternal Word made flesh and is the one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (John 1:14, 1 Timothy 2:5, and Hebrews 2:14-17). Womanhood belongs to us for the same reason. Christ took upon Himself flesh from the Virgin Mary and honored motherhood in the economy of salvation (Luke 1:30-35, 42-43 and Galatians 4:4). Religious liberty belongs to us because Christ alone is Lord of the Christian conscience, and we must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29, Romans 14:4, and 1 Corinthians 7:23). Natural law—which pretty much touches everything in the entire world—belongs to us because all things were created through Christ and for Christ (Romans 11:36). Not only that, but the law written on the heart still bears witness to the Creator’s order (Romans 2:14-15 and Colossians 1:16-17).

Having said this, and considering recent rumblings in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod as it heads into convention this summer, I should add that this is also where the objection to calling Charlie Kirk a martyr begins to come undone.

Some Christians insist he died as a result of political speech. Some will go still further and say it was divisive political speech, maybe even bigoted. And then, like clockwork, they’ll regurgitate some of the more popular fabrications. For example, even though he regularly had black female guests as experts on his show and as speakers at TPUSA events, some quote him as saying, “Black women do not have the processing power to be taken seriously.” He never said that. Ever. The line is an outright invention, and yet it keeps getting passed around, if only because it does exactly what his enemies need it to do. As another example, people say he called LGBTQ people a “contagion.” He didn’t call anyone a contagion. But he did point to reliable statistics, referring to the rising numbers of gay and transgender children as demonstrating “social contagion” metrics, and from there, he warned against the increased ideological capture of children through the rejection of God’s natural law and the deliberate confusion of the body God gives.

Ultimately, fabricated quotations, mangled summaries, and phrases ripped from context will never define anyone, most especially Charlie. He was a crisp speaker, arguing from the lordship of Christ over all things. To his enemies, he was horrifyingly effective. Therefore, it became necessary to recast Charlie’s perspectives into “racism,” “hatred,” or “bigotry.”

But Christians know better. We know the real point is what he actually confessed and why he confessed it, not what his opponents needed him to have confessed in order to despise him. Ultimately, Charlie engaged every topic as a Christian, openly insisting that his listeners first understand faith in Christ as his point of origin in every discussion or debate. In other words, he did everything as an emissary of Jesus. He observed each and every topic through the lens of the Gospel, and then went straight into public conversation as one who already knew Christ owned any topic he chose to confront.

If a Christian is killed because he publicly confessed Christ’s claim over life, the body, marriage, the home, conscience, liberty, the order God has written into creation, and all the extraneous points extending from these things, simply calling it political speech just doesn’t work. If anything, it merely proves how successful the devil’s tactics have been. It shows how deeply politics has trespassed onto the Church’s property—onto holy ground.

In the end, the simplest point here is that heaven gives no permission to the Church to surrender these things. Caesar may regulate them. Courts will distort them. Activists from every strange perspective will weaponize them. Political parties of every persuasion will almost certainly exploit them. Still, they’re the Church’s property. The Church owns them all. She has received them from the hand of God, and with that, she goes forth into the world as their guardian, being sure to hold the government to its ordination relative to them.

I will always enter the public square without apology. Even as a pastor, I belong there. Of course, I don’t go there because politics is my ultimate. I go there because Christ is.

So, again, call all these things political if you want. But just remember what politics is actually doing. It’s merely trying to handle what Christ already owns.

Fear’s Ambiguity

Posted on June 11, 2026 by AngelsPortion

There are moments when a church body betrays itself more by what it avoids saying than by what it actually says. Of course, you need more context to understand what I mean by this.

Essentially, I wrote and submitted an overture asking the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, in convention this summer, to acknowledge Charlie Kirk as a modern Christian martyr, establish September 10 as a Day of Prayer for Faithful Witnesses in Our Time, and call the Church to renewed courage in public confession under the cross. Two other similar overtures were submitted, both supported by multiple districts and circuits. Admittedly, mine was the more aggressive of them in asking the Synod to establish a specific day of prayer and remembrance. Still, the fact that there were three shows that the concern was shared by countless others. (You may read the original overtures on pages 330 and 331 in the Convention Workbook, which is found at https://files.lcms.org/file/preview/2026-convention-workbook.)

The floor committees responsible for handling the overtures have met. Their task was to review submitted overtures, combine related matters where they saw fit, and present final resolutions for action. In this case, they produced a generic omnibus resolution condemning political violence and encouraging public service while avoiding Charlie Kirk entirely. (You may read the replacement overture on page 91 by visiting https://files.lcms.org/file/preview/2026-todays-business-issue-1.)

I’ll speak plainly for myself. The replacement overture currently on its way to the convention is a fine example of institutional evasiveness. It condemns political violence. It encourages peaceful participation in public life. It quotes Scripture. It even cites the Confessions. From there, it commends Lutheran resources on church and state. But together, it has the all-too-familiar scent of committee caution. The whole effort has been scrubbed clean of Charlie.

The whole reason this replacement overture even exists is that something concrete happened nine months ago. Charlie Kirk was murdered. It happened publicly. He was shot and killed for Christian conviction—for speaking in defense of life, marriage, family, manhood, womanhood, religious liberty, and the lordship of Christ over all things. These are all things treated with open contempt by very powerful forces in American life. His death was therefore more than another entry in the tragic ledger of political violence, as the new overture implies by withholding any and all references to him. Charlie’s death exposed what so many Christians in the trenches already know, and what many institutional churchmen still seem desperate to avoid—or at a minimum, soften. And it’s simply this: Confession of Christ in the public square has a cost.

Charlie paid it.

And yet, the replacement overture refuses to even mention his name. That alone tells me almost everything I need to know. By the way, I should make it clear that I am not accusing Committee Chairman Christopher Esget or Vice-Chairman Lucas Woodford of having a hand in this. I know them both. They were clearly outnumbered by both opponents and institutional cautionaries. The result? Smoothing the matter into a generic condemnation of political violence in order to lessen the risk of offending the more left-leaning elements in the LCMS, which I know exist. Back in March, I gave a speech seasoned with elements of my relationship with Charlie to a relatively large LCMS gathering. No sooner did I begin mentioning his name in a positive way than at least ten of the fifty-plus tables got up and walked out in protest.

How dare an LCMS pastor say anything positive about such a public figure espousing divisive rhetoric?! By divisive rhetoric, do you mean his fearless defense of what we LCMS Lutherans believe, teach, and confess in unity—in synod—in our supposed walking together?

Well, whatever. People getting up and walking out of one of my speeches doesn’t bother me. And it doesn’t change the central fact. Charlie confessed the true Christ, and with that, he was a public Christian figure who labored in defense of truths that Scripture teaches and the Church confesses. He spoke in the open. He did so knowing that, for one reason or another, many would hate him for it. Still, he went. And he was ultimately killed for that public confession and for no other reason. That is martyrdom in the truest sense of the word, and as I said, he’s the only reason we’re having this conversation.

Relative to the original three overtures, it seems a no-brainer that, throughout history, the Church has remembered her notable martyrs. That’s because we know with certainty that Christ sustained their confession under the cross. And so, naturally, the Church remembers them because their blood preaches with otherworldly eloquence to the living. And she says their names because she knows that nameless remembrance becomes abstraction.

Unfortunately, abstraction is almost always the first refuge of fearfulness. I’ve seen it a thousand times in the political sphere. We may be seeing it here, if only because the omnibus overture takes Charlie’s death and dissolves it into “multiple assassination attempts,” “violent conflicts,” and “many other sad examples of division.” Those things are real, and political violence should be condemned wherever it appears. However, the whole force of the matter is lost when the Synod is asked to speak about everything in general because it lacks the willingness to name Charlie in particular.

But again, we’ve seen this a thousand times. History teaches that’s exactly how bureaucracies mourn. They widen the lens until the real issue disappears into ambiguity.

Now, I know some are reading this and already objecting, assuming Charlie should be excluded from remembrance because his theology was not exclusively Lutheran. That brings to mind something I wrote and shared with the men in my own circuit with the same concerns when I first introduced the overture. At one point along the way, I wrote to them:

“Something came to mind during our Children’s Christmas service rehearsal yesterday morning. While we were singing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, I was reminded that the hymn comes to us from Charles Wesley. As LCMS Lutherans, we are far from Charles Wesley doctrinally. We do not share his theology of the sacraments, ministry, or conversion. And yet, without hesitation, we sing his words, teach them to our children, and gladly receive the hymn as a faithful witness to the incarnation of Christ. We do this not because we endorse Wesley wholesale, but because we recognize that God’s truth can be confessed clearly and beautifully even through someone with whom we have real theological differences. We’re capable of distinguishing between honoring a faithful confession at a particular point and canonizing the entire theological system of the person who made it. At least, I believe we’re capable of making and maintaining that distinction within the Church. Either way, that’s the distinction I was reaching for with Charlie, who, many of you know, was my personal friend. The epicentral point of alignment is not that he was Lutheran, or that we would affirm every position he held, but that he died confessing Christ. His death was, in that sense, a confession of Christ to the end, and that confession stands on its own. Memorializing him by name need not imply doctrinal agreement any more than singing Wesley’s hymn does. Overture or hymn, in both cases, the Church is not saying, ‘This person was right about everything,’ but rather, ‘Here, Christ was confessed.’ That, it seems to me, is something we have long known how to recognize as Confessional Lutherans.”

Now, had I thought to do it at the time, I might even have added some of the names we recall formally in the Lutheran Service Book. Ironically, we remember Gregory the Great on September 3, which would be seven days before the date I’m recommending for Charlie. Gregory the Great played a role in developing the theology of purgatory in the Western church, a doctrine that Lutherans explicitly reject as dangerously false. Still, we remember him for other reasons, one of which is his Regula Pastoralis, a timeless exposition of pastoral care. Meanwhile, Charlie openly confessed himself a Christian according to the Nicene Creed, which I know firsthand served as a rudder for his public and private confession of Christ. Not to mention, he began events saying as much.

Apart from these things, indeed, this remains a teachable moment for our churches. In an age that requires bold confession—even as the replacement overture quotes Luther’s Large Catechism, rightly saying that the devil seeks to destroy peace through contention, murder, sedition, and war—I can assure you that Satan also appreciates bureaucratic fog, the kind that insists the best way through controversy is through safe and inoffensive generalities.

The Synod had before it three concrete opportunities to teach clearly about martyrdom, vocation, public witness, and the cost of confessing Christ in an increasingly hostile age. At a minimum, it could’ve edited those, easily showing, without causing any division, that Charlie Kirk’s death matters because public Christian confession matters. His death became a holy opportunity for the Church to preach Christ crucified while teaching her children that those joined to Christ should expect opposition. When a public Christian is murdered amid rising hatred for Christian truth, the Church should have enough nerve to call it what it is. She should at least have enough wits about her to understand that the real human being at the event’s center ought not go unnamed.

In the end, I don’t really care which of the three overtures the committee might choose to handle. Personally, the Wyoming overture is probably the best of the three. But either way, choose one. Cultivate it, if necessary. And as you do, leave its core alone. Leave Charlie Kirk in it. He must be named. His witness should be acknowledged. His death should be interpreted theologically. His murder should be condemned concretely. His example should summon the Church to the courage she’ll need in the forthcoming era.

If we cannot do that, the failure will say more than the replacement overture ever could. And I dare say that, since I was working with TPUSA leaders to attend the convention, arranging for them to be present and to listen as Charlie’s name is spoken by one of the last remaining denominations of biblical fidelity, this could be a huge black eye for LCMS Lutheranism. It doesn’t have to be. But it could be.

The Church must do better. The Church, in convention, must say Charlie’s name. His blood is still very fresh in Utah’s soil, and the forthcoming generation of Christians—one that overwhelmingly claims him as its own—will remember this moment.

Only So Much For So Long

Posted on June 7, 2026 by AngelsPortion

Are you a Star Wars fan? I am. Well, I kind of am. I’m not so sure anymore. The films of the original trilogy will forever be favorites. But then again, I was there in the ’70s and ’80s when they were let loose on the world. The prequels, I can take or leave them. The sequels—puke. Although there was that one scene in Episode VII where the Millennium Falcon was reintroduced. I’ll admit to having enjoyed the chase. The endless spin-offs? Just stop already. By the way, have you seen the box office results for the new The Mandalorian and Grogu film? They’re not good.

But I didn’t come here this morning to talk about how Disney murdered Star Wars. At least, not directly. In truth, Star Wars comes to mind because I read something last Wednesday that reminded me of the crime scene. And the Thoma family talked about it during dinner that same night. After that discussion, I’ve convinced myself we may have a serial killer on our hands.

Gallup keeps track of lots of things. Its latest numbers concerning LGBTQ Inc.’s acceptance in America are telling. I’m not necessarily surprised. Although I’m willing to bet that the people who thought they could force consent through exhaustion are a little bit nervous. That’s because, after years of rainbow-branded everything, Americans appear to be pulling back. Even some major corporations are taking a stand. I read last week that a few NFL teams bowed out of Pride Month. Parades in different cities can’t get the funding they used to get. Some businesses are actually putting out statements saying they were sitting it out, too. Jennifer read to me Chick-fil-A’s public statement. Take a look. It’s good.

But again, Gallup’s numbers. The findings sure seem to suggest that the public is tired of being re-educated. Support for same-sex marriage has fallen from 71% to 65% since 2023. That’s a huge shift in a very short period of time. Moral acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships has dropped from 71% to 62%. The trajectory is the same relative to gender transitioning. Its favorability dropped from 46% to 38%.

The partisan split was somewhat interesting, too. For a time, LGBTQ Inc. seemed to be gaining traction in the Republican Party. But now it’s slipping. Republican support for same-sex marriage has fallen from 55% to 37%. It’s no surprise that the Democrat Party’s numbers didn’t move at all, remaining at 87%. On the moral acceptability of LGBTQ relationships, Republicans are at 35%. Democrats are at 81%. On changing one’s gender, only 5% of Republicans consider it morally acceptable. Democrats have far more weirdos. They’re at 60% in that category.

Regardless of anyone’s opinions, these show a vast distinction. If anything, I think these numbers show that the two main political parties in America are indeed living inside very different moral worlds. I’ll bet the LGBTQ Inc. element in both looks at these numbers and sees unfortunate regression. I look at them and see a nation rediscovering its gag reflex.

Again, as a Star Wars fan, this feels familiar. And I should probably add Marvel to the mix, too. Genuine fans who watched what happened to these two franchises will know what I mean.

At dinner on Wednesday, I made the point that both franchises were once strong because they respected the worlds they inherited. Born in the ’70s, Star Wars had myth, fathers and sons, sacrifice, redemption, darkness and light, and an almost religious awareness that power without virtue destroys the soul. Many of Marvel’s characters emerged in the ’60s. They swooped in with courage, friendship, and dutiful loyalty. Then the films began, and they held to the original concepts.

But then Disney bought Star Wars. Then Disney bought Marvel. Then came the ideological machinery designed to rework everything fans knew. But it wasn’t just slight creative enhancements. It was a complete reworking delivered in a tidal wash of political ideology. The whole thing was designed to smother all the original premises.

With that as the goal, film followed film. Spin-off followed spin-off. Streaming series followed streaming series. At dinner, I told the family that after Disney took charge, everything in the Star Wars world started to feel as if it had been processed through a lesson plan.

The box office has now supplied some interesting receipts. The Mandalorian and Grogu is a huge flop. Some estimates say it cost $500 million to make, which includes international marketing. It’s been out for a few weeks, and it’s only at $248 million in worldwide sales. It wasn’t that long ago that people were calling the new live-action Snow White film the worst flop in history. By comparison, it lost about $170 million.

Again, I told the family during dinner that Disney seems to be in the business of losing any and all money it made before it got into the business of re-education.

I think the Star Wars sequel trilogy made the forthcoming demise obvious. By the time episodes VII, VIII, and IX arrived, original fans like me (and I should include my sons, who were raised in the lore) noticed a managed demolition of our inheritance. Disney could have stewarded the franchise’s lore with humility. Instead, they treated the old world as needing renovation. All of it—the Force, the Jedi, the moral architecture that made the story resonate with billions of fans—directors and executives spoke as though the old ways needed to be challenged and remade. A line from Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi captured the new spirit. I haven’t forgotten it. He said, “Let the past die, and kill it if necessary.”

The thing is, the real caretakers of the Star Wars legacy and the source of its genuine success—billions of fans like me—we can endure a fresh story. We can endure new characters. We can even endure surprises. What we resist is contempt for received things. We resist the smugness that looks at inherited loves and assumes those loves are flawed and need to be demolished.

Disney followed the same path with Marvel. It received a massive story arc that rewarded patience and devotion. Then they began adding ideological obligation. Audiences began to drift. Why? Because the people who love the films weren’t interested in beloved things being rewritten to scold them.

I think that’s the real cultural context for Gallup’s numbers.

For a long time, Americans were told that every new moral demand represented compassion and inclusion and diversity and progress and whatever other syrupy word could be used to impose guilt. The first ask was tolerance. But very soon tolerance also meant affirmation. Affirmation demanded celebration. Now it has become compelled speech, pronoun rituals, men in women’s sports, parental rights being stripped away, and public shaming for anyone who disagrees.

I suppose this is also where tradition comes to mind. When I teach about tradition in my catechetical classes, I try to make the point that tradition is, in at least one sense, the accumulated wisdom of people who learned, sometimes painfully, that certain things are built into reality. God’s moral and natural law are exactly this. They are the deepest structure of creation. Male and female, marriage, fatherhood, motherhood, the human body, the boundaries of acceptable human desire—these are simply givens, and they are far more durable than anyone with other ideas might think.

Of course, these givens do not grant permission to be cruel to the confused. Christians owe every neighbor patience, and most importantly, kindness. But kindness doesn’t require us to pretend that Disney—or anyone else for that matter—has some sort of authority to overrule creation. Kindness doesn’t require us to surrender reality. People are actually being kind—even loving—when they hold the line on what is real and what isn’t.

In the end, I’d say the Gallup numbers suggest that many Americans have reached the same point audiences reached with Star Wars and Marvel. They’ve had enough. They’ve been lectured enough. They’ve watched enough traditions get mocked and replaced by people who seem far more eager to deconstruct what human history knows to be true.

And so, in the end, the lesson is relatively simple. You can push people for a while. You can shame them for a while. You can flood every institution with the same message for a while. You can even persuade many of them that resistance will be embarrassing and costly. Still, creation has a way of reasserting itself. Reality will always outlast propaganda. And because tradition is built from real things, it has a way of surviving the people who sneer at it.

Stopping Short of the Line

Posted on May 31, 2026 by AngelsPortion

For the record, and regardless of your preferred method of information reception, I’m going to do what I do every Sunday morning. I’m going to start tapping away at the keyboard until I’m done. And when I’m finished, I’ll find an image that fits the eventual message, copy and paste the text into the media streams that normally deliver it for me, and then go about preparing for the rest of my day, which promises to be long.

Admittedly, I do have an agenda this morning. Perhaps the previous paragraph is already a noticeable wink toward it. But first, something I see more often than I prefer.

Every now and then, I pull up to a stoplight and find myself behind or beside someone who has stopped a car length from the line. For some reason, it happens a lot at the light at the end of the off-ramp from southbound US-23 onto M-59. People approach that light, sometimes stopping fifteen or twenty feet from where the front bumper belongs, leaving a stretch of perfectly usable pavement in front of them. A.J. Hurley was at my home on Friday evening. Over a whisky and cigar, I shared with him how frustrated I get when I see this, especially when every second matters at particular intersections—and that’s an intersection that matters, the light being relatively short. Twenty feet makes a difference there.

But no matter the light, the practice makes no sense to me.

That said, I assume there may be explanations for the behavior. What those explanations are, I don’t know. Perhaps those drivers have depth-perception issues. Or maybe they’re simply overly cautious, having been rear-ended and shoved into oncoming traffic at some point in the past.

Whatever the reason, it doesn’t change the fact that the whole point of the line is to tell you where to stop your car. It’s the appointed place. It’s where the law, the road, and everybody else’s expectations meet. And I would think it’s more dangerous when someone ignores that normal expectation. The person behind you might expect you to stop in the appointed place. If you stop a car and a half length before it, you’re more likely to get rear-ended.

I drive a two-door Jeep Wrangler, which is relatively short. Admittedly, I’ve sometimes been tempted to simply pull around (even going onto the median if necessary) to park in that unused space. I’ve confessed this sinful inclination to my wife. Rest assured, I’ve never done it. I’ve only imagined it. Plenty of sins have had long and satisfying lives in my imagination while being denied a body in the real world. I’m grateful when the Holy Spirit keeps them there.

Even so, the thought arrives because it feels like a ridiculous, almost rude, waste of space. It feels as though someone came all the way to the place where the decision needed to be made and then refused to complete the approach.

This is right about the time in my writing when the skimmers start getting irritated.

I know this because some people don’t like that I tell stories in my writing. They hear an opening about lines at traffic lights and immediately want to know why I have not already made the point. They would prefer the thesis statement in the first sentence, the conclusion in the second, and the whole thing finished before the coffee cools. They want the truth in a line. Even better, a meme.

I understand the instinct. We live in a skimming age. We skim headlines. We skim articles. We skim emails. We skim the terms and conditions when we buy a car. We do the same in our mobile phone contracts, pretending to accept responsibly. We skim because there is too much to read, too much to answer, too much to carry, and too much demanding our attention.

So, in other words, skimming has become sort of a survival skill.

Again, I get it. Still, skimming has a cost. A skimmer gets the icing. A reader gets the cake. A reader can savor the truth, having received it by patience, observation, memory, humor, discomfort, recognition, and whatever other tool the writer employs in his narrative. A reader is brought to and led through the ordinary world until the ordinary world gives up something worth seeing—and then a reader understands that worth.

That’s why I often begin with the everyday things. I begin with the odd driver at the stoplight because the odd driver at the stoplight might be relatable to you. It might even be you. I begin with the useless gap in traffic because the senseless gap in traffic might become a way of seeing the senseless gaps in your own life. I begin with something small because small things have a way of carrying larger truths.

And this is where I would expect Christians to be more tolerant of the method, because Jesus Himself taught this way.

The Lord certainly spoke plainly. He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). He said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). He said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). There were times when the truth came directly.

And yet, again and again, Jesus taught by making people listen and watch something happen. He told them about a man beaten and left half dead on the road, while religious men passed by and a Samaritan stopped to show mercy (Luke 10:25-37). He told them about a younger son who wasted his inheritance, a father who ran to welcome the lost boy home, and an older son who resented that father’s grace (Luke 15:11-32). He told them about a sower scattering seed on the path, the rocks, the thorns, and the good soil (Matthew 13:1-23). He told them about a Pharisee and a tax collector who went up to the temple to pray, and the one who went home justified was the one beating his breast and begging for mercy (Luke 18:9-14).

Jesus could have summarized each lesson in a sentence. He could have reduced the Prodigal Son to a doctrinal claim and the Pharisee and tax collector to a warning against spiritual pride. Instead, He made His hearers walk through the scene. He brought them into what today’s skimmers would call irrelevant details, making them stand on the road, in the field, at the house, near the temple, beside the wounded man, beside the angry brother, beside the seed that failed, beside the sinner who had nothing to offer except a quiet plea for mercy in darkness’s corner.

But here’s the thing. Like it or not, a story slows us down. Yes, it requires our time. But in the same way Jesus understood, a story is sometimes the only thing that gets past the gate we set up to protect ourselves from confronting something we might otherwise avoid. It gets past our efforts to avoid being corrected. A story lets us nod along until we suddenly realize we have been implicated. Nathan understood this when he came to David with the story of a rich man, a poor man, and a beloved little lamb. David burned with anger against the man in the story, and then Nathan said, “You are the man” (2 Samuel 12:1-7). The story is what Nathan used to help lead David across the distance he’d placed between himself and truth.

In that sense, here’s where the story of the stoplight can make each of us stop and think. The driver who stops a car length from the line has become, in my mind, a small parable of stopping short. He’s near the appointed place—the location he should be occupying. He can see the line. Everyone else can see the line. The whole intersection is arranged around the expectation that he will move to the line. And yet he sits back from it.

We all live this way on occasion in normal, everyday life.

We know we’ve done wrong, and yet, we stop short of saying it out loud. We come near to forgiving someone but stop short, preferring instead to continue rehearsing the details of the person’s offense. We see our talents and treasure and understand faithful stewardship, but we stop short of actually engaging in it. We confess God’s Word as the sole source for faith, life, and practice, but then stop short of letting that be true in our lives.

We leave gaps in so many places. For whatever reason or excuse, we sit back from the line. Meanwhile, the place of faithfulness sits in front of us, visible and empty.

Again, the skimmer, if still with us, is reading and thinking all of this could’ve been stated simply and plainly. The reader—who also happens to be the deeper thinker—knows why the stoplight story helped. And yes, this is absolutely true. Neuroscientists have long understood that readers are this world’s critical thinkers. That’s because genuine understanding that leads to betterment is a process that takes time. On the flip side, a skimmer’s chief tool is not his brain, but rather, his eyes. They use what some neuroscientists have labeled the “F” pattern of reading, which means a skimmer scans a line, then another, before scrolling down, hoping to find a word that attracts their attention. Then the process starts again. A line. Another line. Then scroll. The point is that, by default, skimmers look for things that already make sense to them. That inhibits a skimmer’s ability to grow beyond the self-protective boundaries I described earlier.

But again, readers are engaged in a longer, slower process that expands—and actually strengthens—their cognitive abilities. They’re the ones who can see the driver sitting back from the line and recognize themselves. I dare say, they’re the ones who, once they’ve felt my temptation to drive up and onto a median to pull my Jeep into the gap, can understand how the Holy Spirit fights the flesh in even the simplest moments.

That’s the benefit of storytelling. It does more than state the truth. It gives the truth room to approach. It lets the hearer live with the matter for a while. It gives the conscience time to wake up. It teaches without sounding like a scolding lecture, even when the teaching finally becomes sharp.

Jesus knew all of this before neuroscience was even a thing. That’s because He knows us. He knows that we can defend ourselves against a single sentence or meme. He knows that a story can lead us to the line before we realize where we’ve been going.

So, I will keep noticing the cars that stop too far back at red lights. I will probably keep wondering why they do it. By God’s grace, I hope to continue resisting the urge to drive my Jeep onto the median and dropping into the gap to make a point.

I’ll also keep writing this way, regardless of anyone’s criticism, if only because the world is full of little parables. Some are found in vineyards and fields. Some are found beside wounded men on roads between Jerusalem and Jericho. Some are even found at a traffic light, where someone has come toward the line and stopped short.

Again, a reader will understand. A skimmer will be irritated, and most likely, have already moved on. But if he stayed, perhaps the next time he sees that empty space at the light, he’ll think about the places where he has done the same. And for me, that’ll always be worth the extra paragraphs.

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A Steady Cadence of Christ for Life

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