The Place Where Only Christians Can Live

Posted on November 30, 2025 by AngelsPortion

I would usually sleep on the cot in my office at the church on a snow-laden day like today. But not this time. I slept in my own bed at home last night.

For one, I prefer to make sure everything remains in good working order throughout the night, namely, that the heat and power continue uninterrupted. I also prefer not to be the only one out on the unplowed roads at 4:00 in the morning. And that’s precisely what they were on the way in. As the years go by, it seems less thought is given to the churches—to the fact that God’s people are still gathering, still trying to make their way to worship. I get the sense that Sunday morning simply isn’t factored into anyone’s plans anymore, certainly not the folks deciding what gets plowed first.

Still, in all of Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hartland, Michigan’s 70 years, we’ve never canceled a service. Not once. And it certainly isn’t going to happen on my watch. So, rest assured, the lights are bright. The heat is on. The Lord’s gifts of Word and Sacrament will be given, no matter how many gather to receive them.

The holy season of Advent begins today. That means Christmas is coming. And yet, last weekend at an event anticipating Christmas—a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in downtown Chicago—shots rang out, resulting in one dead and eight seriously wounded. That same night, in Concord, North Carolina, another tree-lighting ended in gunfire. Four were shot. Three of the victims are still in critical condition.

Violence in Chicago is a pretty standard thing. It’s one of the most dangerous cities in America. Concord, North Carolina, not so much. In fact, it ranks among the safest cities in America. Safe or not-so-safe, what makes all of this stand out is the setting. Although Christmas trees no longer mean to most what they’re supposed to mean. The whole point of a Christmas tree is Jesus—or at least it used to be, way back when Christian communities looked to the evergreen as a reminder of life in Christ during winter’s deathly season. But now, it’s little more than a seasonal prop stripped entirely of its sacred center. Still, public tree-lighting ceremonies continue to be celebratory opportunities, and if anything, a warm assumption of community. That’s nice. But it obviously isn’t enough. Not when dreadfulness suddenly intrudes. And in the end, that may be the most sobering point of all. Whether you live in a city known for violence or one praised for its safety, dreadfulness always finds a way in. And then what? I only ask this question having read some of the words from victims’ families, which I’ll get to in a moment.

In the meantime, I’ll simply say that sin can and will fracture anything devoid of Christ. When Christ is removed, wherever He once was is instantly hollow. An empty object is a fragile object. It certainly has no power to restrain real darkness. But that’s because Christ is missing, and He’s the only One who can carry us through times of need. In this sense, last weekend’s violence during the Christmas tree-lighting ceremonies served as a kind of grotesque sermon, reminding all of us how Christological substance is desperately needed in our lives, and how humanity just cannot manufacture it, not even through seasonal civic ceremonies that look and feel nice but in truth are entirely devoid of real meaning. This brings me back to Advent.

For the churches that observe Advent—and I mean, actually observe it—we know the centuries-old pre-Christmas season is by no means hollow. We know its language and sense. It’s a penitential time, one that acknowledges sin’s dreadful grip. And yet, Advent stakes a firm claim in hope as it simultaneously looks backward to the Rescuer who came at Christmas, and also forward to that same Rescuer’s promised return at the end of days. As we Confessional Lutherans tend to say, it’s the kind of hope that knows the fullness of God’s promises in the “right now” but also the “not yet,” all at the same time.

This weird tension is essential to Advent. It names sin honestly. It knows the situation is dire and, therefore, refuses to minimize the brokenness responsible for the violence we saw last weekend. But it does this while anchored in what Christ has done, is doing now, and will continue to do. That’s Christian hope. Christian hope is not some hollow form of vague optimism. That’s what happens at civic tree-lighting ceremonies. Advent’s longing is a deliberate, time-spanning trust that the same Savior who entered history will keep His promises, one of which is to return to set everything right. That makes Advent far more than a season that’s waiting for Christmas, but one filled with holy confidence rooted in history, promise, and unquestionable fulfillment.

That’s a place where only Christians can live.

By the way, this is not a claim of moral superiority. It’s one of theological location. To live in the “right now but not yet” requires faith. Only those who have heard God’s promise in Christ and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, believe, can stand in the middle of that tension without being crushed by it. It is a narrow place. But in its narrowness, there’s a freedom the world cannot replicate. It tries. But it just can’t do it.

Remember, Christians started all this decorating stuff. We decorated evergreens, lit candles, and hung lights. We sang ancient hymns that communicated the Gospel’s backward and forward perspective. We still do it. The world has similar traditions this time of year. It decorates evergreens, puts up light displays, and sings its holiday songs. But between the two spheres is a strict separation. Buffeted only by the world’s empty décor, culture’s residents experience what happened in Chicago and North Carolina, and suddenly, their holiday is tainted with despair. I read an interview with one of the Chicago victim’s family members. The woman being interviewed said she may never celebrate Christmas again. Essentially, the memory is too terrible, and now the holiday is, too.

I get how that could be true, especially when your only framework is a sentimental, once-a-year version of joy tied to things that can be ripped away at any moment. When that’s the case, then any tragedy is enough to make every twinkling light or holiday tune feel forever poisoned.

But from the Christian perspective, with Advent’s Gospel in mind and heart, we light candles and hang lights, not to deny the darkness, and not even because the darkness might be scary. We know it is. But we also have no intention of granting the darkness final authority. We keep singing our joy-filled hymns, not necessarily to cope, as though we’re in some starry-eyed form of denial, but as an act of genuine defiance against sin, death, and the devil. We sing because the Gospel has the upper hand, not the darkness, and we know it. And so, we are perpetually hopeful.

I guess one thing I’m saying is that Christian rituals like these, no matter how the world might twist or imitate them, will forever be Christian property. We own them. And because we know better, they’ll always be acts of resistance rather than seasonal sentiment. The evergreen—a plant that keeps its green even when all life around it has come to a frozen halt—for Christians, it’s a visible confession that death does not have the final word. A candle is not mere ambiance for us. It’s a proclamation that Light has entered the world and cannot be overcome. The hymns are not background music, but instead longstanding confessions of the one true faith that has survived the worst this world could throw at it. In fact, the chief hymn appointed for the First Sunday in Advent is proof alone. “Savior of the Nations, Come” was written by Ambrose of Milan. He lived from 340 to 397. And still, here we are, age after age of dreadful violence and persecution, and we’re still singing this great hymn of incredible hope, one that tells the entire Gospel story in eight beautiful stanzas.

This is proof that we own Advent and Christmas.

And so, while the world scrambles to make sense of yet another demonstration of human awfulness, the Church stands where it has always stood at this time—right in the middle of human ruin, all the while holding tightly to God’s promises. We stand there unshaken, proclaiming that this world’s terrors cannot overcome us. The Light of the World has come and is coming again. We know that everything around us is temporary, yet the forthcoming King and His kingdom are eternal. That divine knowledge shapes the entirety of our reality. And that’s that.

Indeed, the world is experiencing a sentimental countdown to a holiday. But that’s not us. Christians continue taking to a sacred battlefield, knowing the ultimate victory has already been accomplished and that the final victory is at hand. And the churches that observe Advent—and I mean, actually observe it—their senses are being honed to this truth.

Give Thanks in All Circumstances

Posted on November 27, 2025 by AngelsPortion

Once again, I refuse to let this country’s National Day of Thanksgiving pass by without saying something about it. Indeed, it is precious.

I know some among the clergy ranks see it as negligible. I certainly don’t. This is why Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hartland, Michigan, is open for worship on Thanksgiving Day. Not Thanksgiving Eve, but on the very day. Sure, it’s inconvenient for some. There are turkeys to baste, pies to prepare, green bean casseroles to bake, football teams to cheer along, and parades to watch.

Well, whatever.

All those things are a combination of both required and elected responsibilities. And if I’m being honest, they’re really no different than the everyday activities that distract far too many on far too many Sundays throughout the rest of the year. In that sense, while Thanksgiving Day is meant to be different, it really isn’t. I say this assuming that, for you, as it is for me, life is already very loud. Things crowd the calendar. Responsibilities pile up. Family tensions simmer. No matter the scene, life’s wheels keep turning.

But then, suddenly, there it is on the horizon—a special day, one that our nation has set aside—and its whole point is to stop, take a break, and give thanks.

As a pastor, I have to ask on this day, “Why wouldn’t Christians be first moved to give thanks where thanks is actually due?”

I suppose one answer to my question might be, “Well, because even Christians wrestle with their sinful nature.” As I already hinted, gratitude isn’t natural to humanity in general. We’re creatures quick to notice what’s missing but incredibly slow to acknowledge what’s been given. Complaining is easy for us. It actually takes effort to give thanks.

And yet, God’s Word cuts through our excuses with the simple command to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Not when it’s convenient. Not when everything aligns. But in all things.

I think the word we stumble over most is “all.” The word includes loss. It includes disappointment. It includes the empty chair at the table this year. It includes the prayers that still haven’t been answered the way we hoped. And somehow, in the middle of all these things, God still says to His people, “Give thanks.”

Why? Well, here’s where the world could learn a thing or two from the Christians who make Thanksgiving Day worship a priority.

For Christians, thanksgiving isn’t a denial of life’s very real challenges. For us, in a way, it’s defiance. It’s the otherworldly ability to look straight at the broken pieces of this mortal sphere and insist God is still good. By the power of the Holy Spirit for faith in Jesus, to be thankful, even when things aren’t so good, is to remember that every breath we take is already borrowed. Every blessing is already undeserved. Every single sunrise is a generous gift—a beaming reminder that God’s mercy is new each and every day, even for the stubborn and the weary and, yes, the thankless.

And so, Christians do well to embrace that one day the world actually got right, even if it doesn’t understand its truest significance.

Society has established a day for thanksgiving, a day that provides most, if not all, an opportunity to slip away from life’s busyness, no matter what that looks like or means to those who observe it. Christians have a unique perspective on this opportunity. We know first to gather and to acknowledge the One who holds everything together. That’s really the best byproduct of this day. It’s a moment carved out of the noise to remember that gratitude isn’t a feeling. It’s a confession of something true. The holiday itself is a sneaky opportunity, a countercultural decision to lift our eyes and say, “Thank You, Lord, not because life is perfect, but because Your love is. And in You, I’ll always have everything I need.”

So go ahead and enjoy the food, the family, the football, and whatever else the day brings. But allow me to encourage you to let those things assume their rightful place in line behind the far greater truth that anchors it all—which is that the Lord has given us Himself, and in Him we have more than enough reason not only to seize the day for all that it offers, but to maybe even learn from it to give thanks to the Lord every day.

With that, if you’re nearby and your church isn’t offering a service, feel free to join us here at Our Savior in Hartland. The Divine Service begins at 10:00 AM.

The Culture’s Calendar

Posted on November 26, 2025 by AngelsPortion

It’s somewhat troubling that Black Friday and Cyber Monday come before Giving Tuesday.

That said, in a consumer-driven society, I suppose the order makes perfect sense. We are trained first to ask, “What can I get?” Only afterward are we prompted to ask, “What can I give… and only from what I have leftover?” The calendar simply reflects the catechism of modern culture.

Gratification first. Generosity later, if we can afford it.

I’m not much for Black Friday or Cyber Monday. But that’s only because I’m not much of a consumer in general. I have everything I need with my Lord, and He more than takes care of me through my family, church family, and friends. And I never really paid much attention to Giving Tuesday because I already give all year long to the Godly efforts that I appreciate. Still, I wonder about the captivating allure of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I mean, when it grabs hold each year, is anyone really able to pretend to be surprised by the emptiness that follows the binge?

I suppose from another perspective, there’s an even more profound irony when Black Friday’s demands are placed beside some of the excuses I hear for missing worship. “9:30 in the morning is just too early,” some will say. “Sunday mornings are hard with the kids.” These are the same voices that find no difficulty in rolling the whole family out of bed at 3:15 AM, piling into the car with thermos’s and sandwiches in hand, and standing outside Walmart at 4:00 in the morning for a discounted television or another of the store’s newest gadgets—all of which have expiration dates, whether or not they realize it.

In other words, the body that is almost always too exhausted for time with the One who sustains for eternity somehow finds new strength for everything else it wants to do, especially time at the altar of consumerism, a wobbly platform adorned with things guaranteed to pass away.

I get why the world would be this way. I just don’t understand why it would be this way among people who claim Christ. After this thought popped into my mind, I did a little digging. Giving in churches has declined by almost 20% in the last four years. At the same time, economists are forecasting that Americans will spend over $1 trillion on holiday purchases, food, decorations, and such. This is a 4% increase over last year. Strangely, when the reward is eternal, inconvenience is a burden. When the reward is temporally material, inconvenience becomes the mission.

That contrast should disturb us, because it reveals something uncomfortable about what we truly value. We do not lack time. We lack priorities. We do not lack energy. We lack direction. We do not lack devotion. We’ve simply elected to kneel at the wrong altar.

Returning to where I started, the order of things certainly betrays this. Just looking at the calendar, we learn Black Friday and Cyber Monday come first. Giving Tuesday comes last, maybe even as an afterthought. Or perhaps worst of all, it’s sandwiched in as a moral concession once our carts are full and our credit cards are strained. It almost feels like a kind of cultural penance—a small charitable gesture meant to balance out a few days in a row of extreme indulgence.

I guess part of what I’m saying is that giving was never meant to come after getting. What’s more, time with Christ in holy worship was never meant to be an optional convenience. With that, I suppose, the true disorder is not in the world’s calendar. It is in the hearts that steer away from what’s Godly to follow that calendar.

Stay Put and Hold On

Posted on November 16, 2025 by AngelsPortion

While this past week was a little jagged, it really wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for a guy like me. Each week brings its own challenges. Each is filled with opportunities for people to take hold of something and run it into the weeds. That said, I still feel more like talking about something harmless.

And I know just what to share. I was telling Jennifer the story yesterday while we were out and around town together.

Just the day before, while walking to the center of the chancel to begin Matins with our day-school children, I noticed a ladybug on the floor. It stood out. It was a small red dot in a sea of taupe tile heading away from me when I approached. At first, I paid it no mind, except to avoid stepping on it. There were plenty of other things happening in the space before the service began. Pages turning and pews creaking. Not to mention it was Grandparents Day for our school, so the noise was a little more than usual. A ladybug hardly registered.

We began the Office of Matins. The people sang. The liturgy rose and fell in its usual way. A few minutes in, when it came time to sit for the Hymn of the Day, I looked down again. There it was, only now it had traveled nearly twenty feet, journeying straight toward where I was sitting behind the pulpit.

Throughout the hymn, I watched it advance across the tile—slowly, down and then up again through grout lines, seemingly unbothered. Almost determined. Eventually, it reached my shoe. I tried to keep singing. But at the same time, I watched this little thing pause, as if considering its options. And then, suddenly, it climbed aboard. It climbed up onto my shoe and kept heading north. I reached down to tuck my pant leg against my leg so it wouldn’t end up crawling somewhere it shouldn’t. I even shook the pant leg a little to get it to drop back to the floor. But apparently, its presence wasn’t up for negotiation. And so, up the outside of my pant leg it went.

A little more than halfway up my shin, it did something unexpected. It turned in a tiny circle, as though settling itself, and then stopped. That was it. No more wandering. No more exploring. It just stopped. Seemingly content, it stayed put throughout the rest of Matins. In fact, it stayed with me back to my office. It stayed for over an hour as I answered a few emails, made a few phone calls, and then headed out for the rest of the day’s business. Eventually, before leaving the building, I nudged it gently onto the fake palm tree in the corner of my office, figuring its tenacity should be rewarded. Indeed, it had earned a safe place to relax nearby.

That was the end of our little fellowship. I checked the palm tree this morning, but couldn’t find the little guy. Nevertheless, the brief interaction’s memory remains.

I suppose what really stayed with me was its simple insistence on getting to me. As I said, it was headed away from me at first. But then it’s as if it turned to follow. No hesitation. No sign of fear. No instinct to keep at a safe distance. It just crawled across the nave floor until it reached me. And there it stayed.

You know me. You know I’m already looking at this insignificant moment through the lens of the Gospel. Peering through the promises of God, that tiny act of creaturely persistence starts to take on a clearer shape. It’s not that the ladybug somehow found me interesting. It was that, in a space full of motion and sound, it kept a straight course. It didn’t dart sideways. It didn’t steer away when shoes scuffed past it. It simply took aim at one fixed point and then stayed the course.

That steadiness is what matters to me right now, especially in light of the conversations I’ve had this past week about so many different things, some of which led to some unfortunate hand-wringing. It was all very loud sometimes. But that’s more likely to happen in a world where folks react to the noise first and then reconsider the substance later. And then along the way, others get swept into the churn, too. People interpret “likes” as devoted association to one side or the other, rather than the actual content of the messages shared. Social media is toxic in that sense.

But beneath all the commentary, the same question keeps surfacing—at least for the Christians. It’s simply this: Where do Christians anchor themselves when the world becomes chaotic and full of crosscurrents?

That’s where the ladybug wanders back into view. It’s not a theological illustration. Again, through the Gospel’s lens, it’s seen as more of an unexpected reminder of something simple.

The road is uneven before us. We are surrounded by noise, too. Arguments. Opinions. Warnings. Accusations. Some of it is legitimate. Some of it is dreadfully misguided. All of it can be harmful, that is, if it’s allowed to distract.

And heaven knows that none among us are immune to drifting into darker places insulated by sin’s shady perspectives—opinions we think are godly but really aren’t. We end up there because it’s so easy to get pulled sideways by personalities, controversies, or as I said before, the pressure to simply react—to justify one’s position and oneself for the sake of saving face or protecting our own, not necessarily to learn, or to shore up one’s rightness or turn away from error.

In other words, we can get caught up in these things, all the while drifting from Christ and, maybe, never even noticing we’ve drifted until we’ve hit the self-destruct button on a friendship.

But the place we’re meant to be all along—close to Jesus—is not unclear. He has already planted Himself within reach. His Word, His sacramental gifts, His promises, His crucified and risen presence for sinners. Ultimately, the task is not to maneuver around every controversy perfectly, or even successfully. The task is to stay oriented toward Him. To know, even as He’s already with us in the truest sense, still, there is that Christian desire to move closer to Him in the noise, to cling to Him in the confusion. And when we have Him, just stay. Don’t let go. Hold onto Him and go with him where He goes. Eventually, He’s going to nudge you into a place of eternal rest from the busyness. But until then, stay put and hold on.

I suppose that’s the point I eventually came back to, and it’s one far more fitting for us, God’s people, than for the tiny creature that accidentally taught it.

Stay near Jesus. Keep toward Him, even when the world is noisy and uncertain, whether the ground is level or suddenly pitching low and then high—those moments of distraction that seem to come out of nowhere during life’s regular moments. Draw close to the One who has already drawn close to you. Don’t wander. Don’t negotiate terms. Don’t look for somewhere “better.” Hold onto Him. And then, just stay. Nestle in and stay. Because the safest place for any creature in God’s world is with Jesus.

A ladybug on a tile floor reminded me of that. And maybe, no matter what your week was like, it can be a reminder for you, too.

Death and Useless Sentiment

Posted on November 9, 2025 by AngelsPortion

This past Thursday, while many of my dearest friends were gathering in Lansing for the March for Life—a trip I genuinely wanted to make—I found myself in places far less energizing: doctors’ office waiting rooms. I was in two different locations that day. One of the appointments I’d scheduled mid-summer. And it was one of those “you’d better not reschedule this” kind of appointments. The other was one I didn’t anticipate. Regardless, I’ll admit I felt a little restless sitting beneath the fluorescent lights and watching the time tick by, all the while thinking of the better effort in Lansing. Of course, I prayed that the march would be impactful.

At the “you’d better not reschedule” appointment—a cardiologist’s office—I ended up in a conversation with someone a few seats away. We somehow wandered into the topic of death. I think I know why. At one point, I mentioned a friend from High School who had died this past Tuesday, someone I still considered relatively young, barely fifty-one. The exchange set the tone for what’s on my mind this morning. You may or may not appreciate what I’m about to write. Although it’s my keyboard, so there’s that. But more importantly, what I’m going to tell you echoes some of what we talked about.

I’ll just state the premise plainly: When death visits, it has become all too common for sentiment to replace reality. Now, let me explain.

Imagine for a moment you’re at a funeral. There, before you in the casket, is the deceased. It’s someone who had no time or inclination for faith—or maybe even denied the faith outright. Nevertheless, in death, suddenly—almost magically—the deceased is a believer. Suddenly, everyone gathered around the casket is speaking and acting as though the person had a devout (but entirely undetectable) trust in Jesus. And so, “He’s in a better place,” someone says. Or “She’s with the angels now,” another whispers.

How does this happen?

I suppose one reason people speak this way (although not the genuine point of what I intend to say) is that so many want to believe death is good. We say things like, “Death was her friend at the end.” But the Scriptures never speak of death as a friend. Death is the enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26). It is sin’s wage (Romans 6:23). And it is final (Hebrews 9:27). It is the moment when the curtain falls between time and eternity, when what a person believed—or refused to believe—is laid bare before the living God. And when death comes, this enemy reports there are no do-overs. I imagine the people hovering around the casket are secretly hoping there will be. They’re hoping that death, in its supposed kindness, will go easy on them.

But no matter how we try to recraft the moment, no matter what we do to make the moment palatable, death remains what it has always been. It is the world’s final intruder. And to pass death off as some sort of friend who comes along to take a person’s hand, in the end, is to cheapen the Lord’s war against death on the cross.

Christ did not come to make death poetic. He came to destroy it. If this is true, then the moments when death confronts us deserve a clarity that matches its seriousness. In other words, it’s no time for pretending.

Regrettably, I think some pastors, caught in the strange nether space between compassion and conviction, are pulled into this gush. I’ve experienced the pull before. Not so much anymore. But I do remember in the earlier days of my ministry the urge to choose words, not necessarily for truth’s sake, but to avoid offending onlookers during a sensitive moment. And yet, when the Church and her pastors do this—ultimately confusing comforting sentiment with truth—we’re really just betraying both.

I guess what I’m saying is that when we do this, we pave the way for so many to go wandering off into vague spirituality. And forget for a moment syrupy sentiments like the deceased is “looking down from heaven.” I’m talking more about faith-identifying descriptors that would somehow imply that an unbeliever is “at peace” or “in heaven now.” In other words, too many speak as though heaven were a natural right granted to the well-meaning with relatively respectable qualities. But again, the Bible knows nothing of such generalities. Salvation is not the automatic destination of the nice, the kind, or the merely religious. It is the gift of God through faith in Jesus Christ alone (Ephesians 2:8-9). If you are not a believer, when you die, you are not at peace. You are in terrible suffering. And that place of suffering—hell—isn’t imaginary. It’s real, and it’s eternal.

I know that’s not easy to hear. I warned you at the beginning. But I suppose that’s also why I’m writing this. God’s standards are the ones that apply. Never our own. That means faith in Jesus is no small thing. That also means that funerals become unique opportunities for the living.

A few weeks ago, I happened to be sitting in a funeral director’s office near the facility’s front door when I heard an unfortunate conversation between a teenage girl and someone I’m guessing was her mother.

“Why are we here?” the young girl asked. “Funerals are stupid,” she continued, sounding half-annoyed, the way young people do when confronted with something they don’t understand. Her mother replied, “We’ll just stay for a little while and then go home.” I didn’t see the girl’s expression, but I’m guessing by her sigh that she rolled her eyes before adding, “I don’t want to be here. And who cares, anyway? He’s gone.”

Her words echo a world that no longer knows what to do with death. It doesn’t know what it means.

Of course, I don’t know the complexity of the girl’s relationship to the deceased. But let’s just assume the young girl meant exactly what she said. Had I been her parent, I would’ve shepherded her to a quiet corner and explained that of all places, a funeral is the time to know what’s true, not what’s comfortable. If there’s any moment when eternity should press in upon human hearts, it’s when we’re standing beside a casket. That’s when the thin veil between life and death is most real. It’s when our mortality is undeniable. Then I’d walk her to the casket. “Look in there,” I might say. “One day, that will be me. One day, that will be you. Then what?”

That’s the intrusive question no one wants to ask at a funeral, and yet it’s one of the only ones that matter. In one sense, funerals are mirrors held up to the living. They’re opportunities to strip away the noise of daily life and, if anything, to at least recall three very important things.

First, our time is unknown. Second, eternity is real. Third, what we believe—or refuse to believe—matters more than anything someone might say about us when we’re in the casket. A room full of mourners saying nice things and grasping at a hopeful but false future won’t make that future real. Not for the dead. Not for them.

I suppose that third detail brings me back around to where I started. When churches speak and act as if every soul is saved—as if everyone who dies is owed a Christian burial with Christian hymns, Christian prayers, and a Christian sermon, they teach the living that faith and its fruits don’t really matter, that repentance and trust in Christ are optional extras that can be conjured after the fact. This unclarity does not comfort the grieving. It anesthetizes them. It teaches them to believe in a sentimental fiction rather than in the Savior who conquered the cruelest enemy, death.

Plenty of folks have asked me what I like most about being a pastor. My first answer is always, “Baptizing babies!” I just love it. Next, I appreciate funerals. Funerals are where the rubber hits the road. If ever there was a time to proclaim the Law and Gospel clearly—the fact that we are sinners in need of a Savior, and that Savior is Jesus—it’s at a funeral.

At the same time, a funeral sermon is one of the heaviest burdens a pastor has to bear, especially when he somehow finds himself standing beside the casket of someone he knows was without faith. (And in case you think I’m “judging” someone’s heart, take a quick trip through the following texts: Matthew 7:16-20; Matthew 12:33-35; Luke 6:43-45; James 2:17-18; 1 John 1:6; 1 John 2:3-4; 1 John 3:9-10; Titus 1:16; Galatians 5:19-23.) Don’t get me wrong. Great care is needed when choosing one’s words in such situations. Still, there will be the temptation to believe that speaking truth in that moment is cruel and speaking falsehood is compassionate. But actually, the reverse will always be true.

To proclaim a false peace over the unbelieving dead is to rob the living of the Gospel’s urgency. It implies that Christ’s sacrifice was really no big deal—maybe even unnecessary—and that sin has no real consequences, and ultimately that heaven can be had without the narrow way of repentance and faith (Matthew 7:13-14). This kind of preaching might comfort for a moment in the funeral parlor, but in the end, it can only lead away from Christ and condemn for eternity.

A Christian pastor must lead the people to mourn honestly. He’s wasting oxygen when he points to the moral résumé of the deceased. His job is to point to the mercy of God in Christ—mercy which had been available to the one in the casket but is still available right now for the listeners. Doing this, the pastor is careful to communicate that God’s mercy is not cheap. It came at great cost to Christ. But He went into that combat supernal because He loves you, and He knew you could not defeat the last enemy, death.

That sits at the heart of the Gospel. When the Church loses this clarity, it loses its reason to exist. To be clear about these things is not cruel. It’s love. Real love.

Of course, Christians do not gloat over judgment. We grieve for the lost. But it’s a strange kind of grieving. It’s strange because we do it as ones who have hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13), but we know better than to hope in ourselves. Our hope is in Christ, who died for sinners. Holding to this hope, we are careful not to rewrite God’s Word to make the Gospel cheap, punching holes in it and then wiggling to fit every opinion through faith’s narrow gate.

The task of the Church is to proclaim what Christ has done, not to invent an easier gospel when death makes us uncomfortable. The world may prefer gentle lies. The Church must love her listeners enough to tell the truth.

A Hollow Church

Posted on November 2, 2025 by AngelsPortion

I received some interesting responses to the notes I wrote this week about Halloween and its history. If you didn’t see the one that started it all, you can do so by visiting here: https://cruciformstuff.com/2025/10/27/is-halloween-a-pagan-holiday/.

For the record, I’d say my essential premise was not necessarily about being for or against observing the holiday, but rather that many Christians seemed more than willing to simply surrender the event to the secular world entirely, having somehow been taught that it wasn’t the Church’s to begin with—that it was a pagan holiday that the Church tried to baptize. And yet, in truth, it’s really the other way around. Halloween came from the Church’s sanctified imagination and was later hijacked by paganism. It was Christian, but then it was emptied of its Christian meaning and filled with the world’s nonsense.

That right there—the hollowing out of something holy until only the shell remains—maybe that’s the more critical point. I say that because it describes far more than just All Hallows’ Eve. It’s a pattern for our age.

In other words, we live in a world that memorializes things but forgets the reason we memorialize them in the first place. We still hang lights at Christmas, but fewer folks seem to remember that Christ, the light of the world, is the reason for those lights. We still gather for weddings, but we do so assuming that marriage is humanity’s idea. It isn’t. God started it. It was His idea. Nevertheless, holy spaces are exchanged for thematic wedding venues, and favorite rock songs replace sacred hymnody that proclaims marriage’s sanctity. I suppose even beyond the Church’s doors, we celebrate plenty of other civic holidays we no longer understand. Plenty have told me they appreciate Memorial Day, not for its solemn character, but because it extends their weekend.

All around us, the forms remain, but the meanings are gone.

But this is how the world works. It doesn’t always destroy. Sometimes it rewrites in order to repurpose. It keeps the rituals but drains them of their truth. It keeps the beauty but forgets beauty’s essence.

Here’s my concern. It sure seems like Christians are more often tempted to retreat in these situations. Overwhelmed by how corrupt something has become, rather than fight to take it back, they figure the only possible solution is to surrender the field and move on. I know folks who won’t wear a rainbow on their clothes because LGBTQ Inc. has hijacked the symbol.

But God’s people own that symbol. It’s ours. Still, it seems we’re more inclined to surrender it than reclaim it.

That’s precisely how we lost Halloween. And it’s how we’re losing nearly everything else.

For the record, one of the clearest places to see this is in worship. Somewhere along the line, the Church decided that the way to reach the world was to mimic it—that the key to filling the pews was to empty the sanctuary of everything that made it sacred. And in the process, the Church’s worship—its highest demonstration of theology—was rebranded as a form of evangelistic enticement, something meant to attract rather than feed. But that’s never been worship’s purpose. Worship’s purpose is not to entertain the unbeliever or to market the faith (Ecclesiastes 5:1-3; John 4:23–24; Galatians 1:10), but to carry Christians into a place where time and eternity meet—where God tends to His people personally, giving them the gifts of forgiveness that sustain them (Ezekiel 34: 11-16; Matthew 26:26–28; Luke 24:30–32; 1 John 1:9; Revelation 7:9–12).

The tragic irony is that in chasing cultural appeal, we lost something the world needs from us: transcendence. When the Church stops sounding like the Church and starts echoing the culture, she ceases to be a holy and distinct refuge from the noise.

But again, this isn’t merely about worship styles. It isn’t even a critique of instruments or melodies. It’s about forgetting where these good and holy things came from in the first place. The world borrows and bends what it never built. The world didn’t invent most of what it claims to have invented. It didn’t invent marriage. It didn’t invent human sexuality. It didn’t invent justice. It didn’t invent what’s beautiful. It didn’t invent charity. It didn’t invent education. All of these things are fruits from God’s soil, and as a result, are, by right, crops to be harvested from Christianity’s garden. I was just talking with a dear friend this past Tuesday about how the university itself began in cathedrals. It was a place to learn truth as an extension of God. Now the very institutions that exist because of the Church’s intellectual legacy would rather burn incense to the self and its ideologies than bow the knee to the actual Truth made flesh that made their existence possible.

Or take art. I shared with that same friend how the world still paints, sings, sculpts, and builds. But holy moly, it sure seems like it no longer knows why. For example, while walking on the treadmill recently, I was watching a documentary about the 80s band Devo. Essentially, the band members claimed to be a consolidation of art, music, film, and social commentary. At one point in the movie, a founding member noted how one of their goals was to rid the world of Christian influence. Then an audio clip from an early interview played. That same bandmate could be heard saying, “We never said we were opposed to the Church. We just said we’d rather have cancer than Christianity.”

I didn’t keep watching for much longer. It struck me that music, something meant to elevate the soul, is so easily wielded by the culture as a weapon to offend that same soul. Art, which once imitated divine order and beauty, is now used to desecrate. Masterpieces are defaced. Blasphemy is called boldness. Ugliness is praised as authenticity. Chaos is paraded as radical creativity. For me, these are just proofs that when God is removed from something, it doesn’t become better or, as some would insist, freer. It becomes grotesque.

Now, I don’t want to wander too far here, so I suppose part of my point is that anything emptied of holiness can only go in one direction. It can only collapse into mockery. This trajectory worsens wherever Christians give up ground in retreat.

And by the way, when I used the term “paganism” before, I didn’t mean people dancing around in robes in the woods performing animal sacrifices. I meant a worldview that cannot stand true transcendence. Paganism, ancient or modern, is really just an older name for what we now call secularism. Secularism is paganism in modern clothes. That said, it’ll forever be the same naked humanity trying to exist in creation apart from its Creator.

And that, I think, is why Christians must be very selective when counting their losses and choosing retreat. Every time the world steals something sacred—every time it hollows out what was ours and paints it in its own colors—our response shouldn’t necessarily be to abandon it. We should first consider how to reclaim and refill it. We should labor to turn the world back to what it once knew.

Marriage belongs to God, and so we do what we can to turn the world toward that truth. Life belongs to God, and so we head to the front lines intent on taking back that ground. Beauty, truth, and everything else I mentioned already belong to Him. And even when the world tries to rewrite the definitions, it can’t escape the reality that every good thing it holds remains a gift from a gracious Lord who “gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people,” as Luther explains in the Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer in his Small Catechism.

So, thinking back on what I wrote earlier this week about Halloween, maybe the appropriate follow-up question isn’t, “How did Halloween become what it has become?” Perhaps we should be asking, “Why do we continue to let the world steal all our stuff?”

Yes, the world has a way of spoiling things. Still, I tend to think that Christianity has a remarkable ability to let that happen. But there’s another, even better ability we possess. We have been empowered to re-sanctify what the world spoils. I mean, if we can take a cross—a dreadful device of torture and death—and put it into our sanctuaries as a foundational symbol of Christianity itself, we can figure out how to snatch back the rainbow from the LGBTQ mafia. I’d say we can even go wandering through the darkness on a cool October night dressed like a scary monster, all the while laughing in the devil’s face as we take back All Hallows Eve.

That’s our heritage—to reclaim, to remind, to re-infuse the sacred into what’s been stripped bare. Because in the end, the world can only paganize what God first sanctified. And if that’s true, then the call to the Christian forces shouldn’t be “Retreat!” but rather “Charge!” And by God’s grace, it’ll be ours to capture and reclaim.

Is Halloween a Pagan Holiday?

Posted on October 27, 2025 by AngelsPortion

After a very brief discussion in our morning staff devotion concerning the origins of Halloween, I set out intently to scribble a quick rebuttal to the argument that Christians ought not participate in Halloween activities. Admittedly, my intentions were, at first, ill-motivated. I was frustrated by how easily Christians have been sold on the idea that Halloween is a pagan holiday. For me, it’s a knee-jerk thing—a perpetual reminder of Christendom’s distance from its own history. Even worse, it’s a seasonal recollection of how particular mainstream “Christian” perspectives have seemingly claimed the last word on the topic.

But after a moment of reflection, I thought, “How could Christians not think this way? Look at what Halloween has become.” Indeed, it is not what it once was. And as a pastor, it’s on me to help the Christians in my care to navigate the holiday.

That said, I humbly give space to friends—people I care about deeply—who insist Halloween ought not be celebrated and so they avoid it altogether. These are people I respect. And I would never want them to feel as though I was insulting their piety, especially when I’m certain it’s genuine. Genuine piety flows from faith. It marks and avoids in one’s life according to personal Christian discernment and conviction. So, how does that translate to Halloween? Well, if one chooses to abstain from Halloween festivities, let it be out of devotion, not dread. And if another chooses to participate, let it be from the same source of knowledge and confident discernment.

So, it’s from that particular vantage that I think it’s at least worth pausing to make an honest historical distinction, along with a few observations.

First of all, I’m no expert. But I’m also no historical slouch. I assure you that Halloween, or All Hallows’ Eve, is not a pagan festival that was “Christianized” by the Church. It is a distinctly Christian observance that was later paganized by culture. Its roots lie not in Samhain or Druidic rituals, but in the Church’s longstanding rhythm of commemorating the faithfully departed—those who rest in Christ and await the resurrection of all flesh. Even in English, the name itself says as much. Hallow means “holy.” And then, of course, “een” is a smooshed version of “evening.” With that, Halloween is All Hallows’ Eve, a date marking the night before All Saints’ Day.

As I mentioned before, I think most of the confusion among Christians comes when modernity gets too far away from genuine history. In the early centuries of the faith, Christians took great care to remember martyrs and saints, setting aside days to honor their witness. Those days are still celebrated. (For the record, I’ve crafted an overture for our forthcoming LCMS Convention, hoping we could add Charlie Kirk to the Synod’s calendar.) In the meantime, at one point very early on—like, in the second century if I’m not mistaken—these types of remembrances coalesced into a single day. November 1st became a day when the Church celebrated (all on the same day) all who’d gone before us in faith. As with any holy day, the evening prior was marked with vigil activity. This idea is similar to one of your favorites—Christmas Eve. Such celebrations were not superstitious, but sanctified.

Of course, centuries later, as is almost always the case, secularism loosened the Church’s grip on the calendar, and the evening before All Saints’ Day began to slip from its meaning. Even worse, history’s revisionists felt almost obligated to swap out a few details here and there, replacing them with pagan ones, lest the Christian calendar be allowed to dominate everything. When they did this, as they so often do, they kept the day but emptied it of its substance. Right around the end of the 19th century, this kicked into high gear, especially in a consumer-driven America.

Still, that doesn’t change the fact that, as far back as the Reformation (and maybe even earlier), particularly in places like Scotland and Ireland, the custom of “guising” was a well-established practice on All Hallows’ Eve. Essentially, children would dress in costumes. They’d wear homemade masks or paint their faces. They’d go door to door reciting Bible verses and singing songs. From what I know, the idea of trick-or-treating is a twist on that practice. It began as children performing small acts of kindness in exchange for food or coins, which, as I recall, were later given to the poor. As far as I know, it’s only when Americans took hold of Halloween that door-to-door activities became more associated with mischief. In other words, give me a treat or I’ll give you a trick.

In the end, while everyone has their opinions on Halloween, it sure seems to me that the point of its celebration and eventual activities from very early on was partly festive and partly symbolic. It was a playful remembrance of those who died in the faith. It even encouraged children to imitate them through guising and good deeds, inviting the whole community into the observance by going door to door.

Probably like you, I’ve heard others say that Halloween guising was meant to ward off evil spirits. But I’ve never actually read that anywhere—at least not from any sources I trust. But the sources I do trust insist that the costuming aspect of Halloween was definitely meant to teach, not terrify. Maybe that’s the real issue for most. What had been a night of remembrance became, in many ways, a night of make-believe that eventually turned south.

But remember, that’s on the world, not on the Christians.

Besides, this is nothing new. The same twistings have occurred with Christmas. Many of the trappings surrounding December 25th were eventually layered with cultural practices. And for as outlandish as elves and flying reindeer might be, Christians never abandoned the celebration. If anything, we started having just as much fun with it as anyone else. Why? Because we’re not joyless people who don’t know how to have fun. But also, because we know better. The day itself was never about any of that nonsense. Christian piety, born from genuine discernment, can separate letters to Santa from faith in the Savior. We know Christmas was, and remains, a commemoration of the incarnation of Christ, the Light entering the darkness. In the same way, Halloween’s Christian roots and message of victory over death don’t have to be surrendered simply because the world has tried to paint them in a different shade.

With that, I’m one to say that Christians must never give ground on what’s theirs by right. It’s why we have every right to speak about topics such as human sexuality and life—topics that plenty among us insist are political and not Christological. I disagree. We own those topics, and plenty more. When it comes to Halloween, I’ll stand by the conviction that the core of the observance remains Christian, and at a bare minimum, to hand it over in wholesale form as “pagan” is to completely misunderstand not only the day’s name, but the story it tells—a story that begins, not with Druids, but with disciples.

I suppose I’ll leave it at that.

Well, maybe not. One more thing.

I just searched and discovered an article I plan to add to my Halloween folder, if only because I appreciate its tactic. I get the sense that the author, like me, tries to observe everything through the lens of the Gospel.

Anyway, it’s an article from 1996 by James B. Jordan entitled “Concerning Halloween.” Essentially, Jordan turns the tables on the culture. He insists Halloween is not a night to fear, but, like everything else in this world, should be viewed through the lens of Christ’s triumph. Essentially, he argues that wearing costumes and laughing at the grotesque is not an imitation of evil, not even historically. Instead, it was done deliberately to mock evil. He compares it to the gargoyles carved onto medieval churches. Are they glorifying devilish monsters? Not at all. They were caricatures designed to jeer at the devil’s defeat. Jordan believes history shows that Halloween was an in-your-face opportunity for Christians to mock the impotence of hell. When Christians dressed like scary monsters, they were participating in an already centuries-old taunt against the grave, reminding the world that death and the devil have lost their sting.

I can get on board with that. The devil is a punk, and I have no problem mocking him.

Thinking back to what I wrote before, maybe what Jordan examined is the actual source of the “warding off of evil spirits” many of us have heard before. I’ll have to look into it further. Either way, while I can’t say I align with every detail of Jordan’s article, I do appreciate how he reclaims the evening as an echo of Easter’s laughter in the face of a defeated foe. That’s good stuff.

And who’s to say that, since Halloween isn’t going anywhere, this isn’t what we should be teaching our children about it?

I suppose a crucial point here is that Christians need not fear Halloween. But we’re also not to let ourselves be naively baptized into its cultural excesses. Like anything in this world, community or cultural celebrations offer both opportunity and caution. Still, Christians ought not be pietists. A particular cultural woe of any day is not necessarily the be-all and end-all reason to forbid something that sits in the realm of Christian freedom, especially when in reality, it was ours to begin with—and even more so when we know the light of Christ will forever pierce every shadowed night. In Jesus, for the discerning Christian, the costumes and candles, the knocking at doors, the sweets and the laughter, these all echo faintly of something born of a much better history than what most of us have been told.

So, I guess what I’m saying is, by all means, carve a pumpkin, greet the costumed neighbors, give out some candy—but do it as one who knows what the world has forgotten. Like so many other things this world tries to bend into misshapen ungodliness, All Hallows’ Eve belongs to us. It’s ours. And we can observe it accordingly without feeling as though we’ve wandered into forbidden spaces.

That’s my two cents on the topic. Take it or leave it. It’s certainly not anything I intend to impose on anyone else.

The Tyranny of Lies

Posted on October 26, 2025 by AngelsPortion

It’s been a while since I’ve read C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. Believer or unbeliever, everyone should read it. In fact, it should be required reading in every school, if only for what it can teach about detecting truth and untruth.

My son, Harrison, started reading it recently. I gave it to him a long time ago. He finally took a chance on it. He admitted he wasn’t sure he’d like it at first. But before too long, he became engrossed. For me, it was an “I told you so” moment. I knew he’d appreciate it. He’s a thinker. He’s also a debater in search of capable opponents. While Dr. James Lindsay was with us a few weekends ago, he seemed to really enjoy Harrison’s company, insisting to me in private that he has a bright future ahead of him.

I don’t know if Harry has finished the book yet. I suppose I should ask. In the meantime, I intend to revisit it soon, too. I consider the volume a medicine of sorts. In the same way I need a few ibuprofen to endure a headache, I sometimes need an hour with a time-tested and clear-thinking observer like Lewis—just a few of Mere Christianity’s opening chapters—to interpret this world’s blaring noise. I need someone far smarter and more eloquent than I to make simple the fact that truth is immovable, no matter how loudly the world around me insists otherwise (Isaiah 40:8; John 14:6).

Looking back at what I just wrote, I took a moment to retrieve the volume. I flipped through it and landed on the following portion, which is one of many I have underlined in pencil:

“[The Law of Human Nature] certainly does not mean ‘what human beings, in fact, do,’ for as I said before, many of them do not obey this law at all, and none of them obey it completely. The law of gravity tells you what stones do if you drop them; but the Law of Human Nature tells you what human beings ought to do and do not. In other words, when you are dealing with humans, something else comes in above and beyond the actual facts.”

That short collection of sentences alone is a decent dosage. Lewis is preparing to show how truth is never waiting to be discovered by vote or consensus. It simply is, and it always has been (Psalm 119:89). And relative to it, somewhere beneath the static of this opinion and that alternate perspective, there remains a fixed point. By the phrase “what human beings ought to do and do not,” Lewis means there’s a discernible moral north that no amount of clever wordsmithing or philosophical opining can erase (Romans 1:18–20).

It might sound somewhat naïve to say, but I still struggle to understand how we, as a society, could be having the conversations we are at this moment—having to ask questions like, “What is a woman?” Believe it or not, there was actually a time when essential right and wrong, truth and untruth, were not up for debate. People may have differed in practice, but they shared the quiet assumption that a generation’s mood does not define what’s true and what isn’t.

But nowadays, subjectivity has eclipsed objectivity as the most virtuous approach. The thing is, even the Christians—people who supposedly herald the objective truth of Christ—fell for it (John 17:17; 2 Timothy 4:3–4).

Nowadays, we tell our kids that we want them to choose their own path, that we don’t want to force morality upon them, but rather that they discover their truest selves and a genuine love for the Faith. And so, we let them decide whether they even want to attend church (Hebrews 10:24–25). What’s more, we don’t dare restrict or monitor their friendship circles or express concern about the way they dress (1 Corinthians 15:33). We hand them mirrors instead of maps and call it guidance. And then, when they drift aimlessly away from Christ, ultimately folding under the world’s pressure and no longer able to discern right from wrong, we act surprised, as though confusion were not the inevitable harvest of our own parental cowardice.

In short, when we establish and exalt the subjective self and its personal truths as the beginning and ending of one’s moral compass, we should not wonder why that compass’s needle spins wildly, unable to find true north.

What I like about Lewis’s Mere Christianity is that, beneath the confusion brought on by our own failures, he makes clear that even as this is happening, a heartbeat remains, and then he points to its subtle pulse. For example, we get a sense for it when humanity still flinches at cruelty or shows admiration for courage. These are “conscience” things. And part of Lewis’s point is that while we might try to silence the human conscience, we’ll never be able to kill it. It’ll be there whispering, and the only way to avoid it is to pretend not to hear it.

Lewis goes on to explain that if morality were a matter of individual invention, such thinking would inevitably lead to murder, betrayal, and many other things being forbidden in some cultures but virtuous in others. And yet, not even the moral relativist can live as though that were true. I think we’re seeing this in real-time right now. I watched a video of an Antifa member screaming “Offense!” and calling for help after being thrown to the ground by federal agents. But this happened only after he’d thrown a massive brick at the same agents. I’ve heard college students shout for “justice for victims” while celebrating the killing of unborn children. I’ve watched public leaders condemn violence on the Tuesday before Charlie’s assassination, only to make excuses for it on the Wednesday afterward.

In the end, this tension betrays something deeper. And it’s simply that we know. Even when we deny it, we know. There is a law beneath the noise, written into our being. And even when we pretend otherwise, it remains.

Where does this knowledge come from? Not from textbooks. Not from governments. Not from culture. It existed before all these things. I gave a brief lesson in our Preschool a few Wednesdays ago. From my time there, I can assure you that even a child knows the difference between showing kindness and showing cruelty. I can assure you, the students knew it long before someone like me had to sit down and define it during circle time. This awareness lives deeper than instinct. It is a whisper from something else.

Christians know what that “something else” is. The Bible reveals that it’s God’s Law written on the human heart—the echo of the Creator’s own character within the creature (Romans 2:14–16). It’s why guilt for wrongdoing burns even inside unbelievers (John 16:8). It’s why repentance and reconciliation feel so good, almost like coming home, even for atheists (Luke 15:17–24). In other words, even when we don’t believe it, these sensations are proof that we’ve heard its voice.

But as I said before, the only way to get around it is to pretend we don’t hear it.

Admittedly, our age has grown clever in its deafness. Evil has become “necessary.” Good has become “oppressive.” Guilt is dismissed as a false construct, and repentance is described as emotional manipulation pushed by a cruel patriarchy. Now, we have an ever-growing generation of mindless nitwits running around shouting “Injustice!” about almost anything and everything, all the while incapable of actually defining it. But that’s because they were let loose to create their own standard of rightness apart from God and His objective standards. Maybe that’s the real tragedy of our time. They cannot escape the Law, but neither can they name its Giver. And yet, they will stand before Him at their last, just like everyone else, and they will do so according to His truth, not theirs.

I hope we can turn this around. Personally, I think one of the only ways to do it is for more to step up and invalidate the lies whenever and wherever they occur. I don’t think folks should necessarily go looking for such opportunities. I just think we should be ready to respond to lies in our everyday lives. If we find ourselves in a moment where the line between right and wrong, good and evil, is blurred, we should be ready to respond in a way that unblurs it (2 Timothy 2:25). If we just had more people willing to do that, things would likely get better.

But that will take courage, the kind that doesn’t necessarily shout louder, but instead, bows lower before truth’s sacredness than before anything else. Do we have that kind of courage? I don’t know. Some days I feel like we do. Others, not so much.

Either way, there’s one thing I do know, and it’s that objective truth does not belong to us. We belong to it (John 8:31–32). We did not invent it. We are not the authors of right and wrong. We are its witnesses and, at crucial moments along the way, its servants (Romans 12:1–2).

I suppose there’s something else I know, too. Big or small, every genuine tyranny in life exists in the spaces where fear of speaking the truth has taken root. If you are afraid to speak truth to lies, you are a loyal subject to lies, plain and simple.

A Passing Storm?

Posted on October 19, 2025 by AngelsPortion

Apparently, those among us who called it a social contagion were right.

That said, some will meet this moment with anger because the numbers undermine their narrative. Others will read them with sorrow, because it’s too late for people they know. And still others will exhale with relief, sensing that perhaps the edge of this storm has finally been sighted, and calmer seas are on the horizon.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then you’ve missed some very important news. A recent study showed that the number of students identifying as transgender or nonbinary has dropped from nearly 7 % in 2022/2023 to around 3.6 % in 2025. Regardless of how the media might spin the data, that’s not a statistical wobble. That’s pointing to a collapse.

Go figure. Truth, after all, is patient, and fads have a way of burning themselves out.

That said, we should be careful not to take a victory lap just yet. Too many lives have already been scarred, if not completely ruined, this side of eternity. Too many parents have lost children to this mess. Too many were shamed into silence by doctors, family members, and friends. And yes, too many pastors chose the comfort of quietism, deciding that inaction was courageous and engagement was heterodoxy. They hid behind pious phrases like “Just preach the Word and God will handle the rest,” as though the Word they preach never calls for the courage to act, let alone to speak plainly about or against the wolves devouring the flock.

I should stop right there. There’s no need to go further. The task now is not to point fingers, but to lock arms and bear witness. Our job is to bind up wounds. Just know that for some, that means to stand where they refused to stand before and speak truth into the ruins.

Admittedly, we do this remembering that when entire societies exchange truth for a lie, God sometimes gives up and gives them over to the “due penalty for their error” (Romans 1:18-32). I think that’s precisely what we’ve lived through—a due penalty. We landed here because, in part, a generation was catechized not by faithful pastors and teachers, but by algorithms. They were allowed to believe the body is moldable and that feelings are sovereign. The result was pain on a scale we will not fully grasp for a very long time.

But again, lies are brittle things. They can’t bear the weight of actual reality. And that’s what the entire LGBTQ, Inc.’s world is facing right now with this study. But when the fantasy does finally collapse for some, the Church needs to be ready, because they’ll find themselves wounded and wandering.

While eating dinner with Chloe Cole in our home a few weeks ago, everyone at the table learned intimately that for every young person who detransitions, there is a story of profound regret. However, Chloe herself exemplifies hope in the mess—or better said, faith rediscovered. Admittedly, the truth may seem a little slower than lies when reasserting itself, but eventually, it does.

If we are indeed witnessing the beginning of the end of this cultural mania, the Church should be careful not to respond with cynicism or self-congratulation. Honestly, I don’t think she will. It’s not what her Lord desires to accomplish through her. I think she’ll respond with compassion. But it can’t be as before. It must be compassion built on faithful conviction—the kind that is never afraid to say to anyone in any context what’s actually true. We can never be scared to say out loud and in public that male and female are not arbitrary categories. They are divine gifts. “From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female” (Mark 10:6). That truth is not subject to revision.

From this conviction, genuine compassion is born, the kind that understands that many of the children and families caught up in this wave were not villains but victims. They were misled by an age that despises God’s boundaries, preferring instead to worship the self. As I said before, many needed shepherds, but didn’t have them. Now more than ever, they need shepherds who will not flinch from the devilries this world imposes on humanity. But they also need shepherds who will not sneer at the fallen.

I’ll be honest with you. I was starting to think God was giving up. As I mentioned before, He does do that in certain circumstances. Well, I was beginning to think we were experiencing it firsthand—that we were venturing into a forsaken landscape that Luther warned about so long ago:

“Let us remember our former misery, and the darkness in which we dwelt. Germany, I am sure, has never before heard so much of God’s word as it is hearing today; certainly, we read nothing of it in history. If we let it just slip by without thanks and honor, I fear we shall suffer a still more dreadful darkness and plague. O my beloved Germans, buy while the market is at your door; gather in the harvest while there is sunshine and fair weather; make use of God’s grace and word while it is there! For you should know that God’s word and grace is like a passing shower of rain which does not return where it has once been” (LW 45:352).

Perhaps this study is proof that God has not yet abandoned this generation. The same Christ who stilled the storm is still speaking His Gospel to the winds and the waves of this culture, saying, “Peace, be still.” (Mark 4:39) It sure seems the chaos that claimed so many sons and daughters is not being given the last word.

In one essential sense, the study is not just data. It’s a mirror. It reflects a society that appears tired of pretending. Divine truth is interrupting a worldwide delusion—an ideology built on lies that delivered only despair and loneliness. And now, as the illusion collapses, as is almost always the case, a vacuum will form. Rest assured, the human soul cannot abide in emptiness for long. If the Church does not step in to fill the void with truth, another dreadfulness will rush in to fill it.

Rest assured, this moment will test us. Will God’s people seize the opportunity to engage with compassionate conviction? Will we speak mercy to the misled while refusing to avoid or soften what’s true? The time for polite silence has passed. In fact, I’d say it was never an option. Indeed, more than ever before, bold catechesis leading to an even bolder confession must fill the space left unattended.

The turbulence may be passing, but God’s mandate through Saint Paul remains. Even when the waters are still, he insists, “Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:58). Through our continued labors, many in the world may yet come to see something better—that the cure for confusion was never self-creation through mutilation. The solution to every bit of the sin-nature’s confusion is to become a new creation through faith in the mutilating crucifixion of Jesus—His death for our redemption.

Liberty is No Enemy of Holiness

Posted on October 12, 2025 by AngelsPortion

As many of you know, I prefer to post and ghost. In other words, I share something, and then I rarely return to read the comments, if only because I believe humans weren’t designed to receive 24/7 input from an endless crowd of digital judges. It’s not healthy to live beneath the constant gaze of the commentariat. Admittedly, 24/7 commentary goes with the territory for anyone who writes for public consumption, which I do. Still, I’m wise enough to know that the soul can wither when every thought must be defended and every sentence explained. It’s better, I think, to set one’s observations before readers, entrust it to the Lord, and then move on with the quiet confidence that truth doesn’t require

That said, sometimes I break my own rule.

Essentially, I shared an image of myself, Dr. James Lindsay, Father Calvin Robinson, Bishop Mel Williams, and William Federer enjoying pre-conference whiskies and cigars on my deck. It wasn’t long before Facebook reply notifications began arriving. Usually, I scroll past those notifications. But this time I didn’t. I clicked on one.

A passerby had expressed concern: “That doesn’t seem like the best example to set for young parishioners.”

Now, his words are a common enough sentiment. The supposition is that anything capable of misuse must be avoided altogether by Christians, lest someone follow the example and sin. This is Pietism in its most socially acceptable form: the attempt to preserve holiness by limiting someone else’s Christian liberty.

Attempting to be funny (but not really), I replied, “It was a heretical-pietist-free evening. Praise God for that!” Maybe I shouldn’t have. But I did. With that, the conversation grew, and with textbook precision. My counterpart immediately invoked the dangers of addiction and disease. I responded that not all enjoyments lead to sin and then offered the ancient liturgical phrase, “Τὰ ἅγια τοῖς ἁγίοις” (The holy things for the holy ones). In other words, God’s gifts are for those sanctified by Christ, not denied by fear.

The back-and-forth continued. He warned against “promoting potentially harmful behaviors.” Identifying this as classic Pietism, I took another quick moment to lay out the contrast between moral restraint and moralism:

“You are conflating personal abstinence with holiness and assuming that visible restraint equals moral superiority… you make ordinary Christian liberty (whisky and cigars) sin-adjacent, implying that the ‘holy’ choice is abstention.”

Of course, what I just shared with you was not my entire reply. In my much longer response, I invoked God’s Word and fundamental human reason, adding that the dangers of sugar, gluttony, and social media are by far statistically worse for health than cigars or whisky. My point was not complicated: true wisdom is not found in prohibition, but in discernment.

Still, he kept on. Clearly wounded by personal loss, he shared his father’s tragic battle with lung cancer. Yet even his heartfelt appeal that others should keep their “unhealthful affectations” private revealed Pietism’s blind spot. Pietism mistakes personal experience for universal moral law. In fact, is that not one of the great dreadfulnesses of our age—the confusion of subjective perception with objective reality? People no longer ask what is true, but rather what feels true to them. Truth has become elastic, molded to suit one’s emotion or experience. But someone’s subjective conviction, however sincere, cannot alter objective reality. Reality fragments when truth is privatized, its authority giving way to the tyranny of preference.

That’s the soul of Pietism. The objective Gospel is recast as personal sentiment rather than divine fact.

I know some might argue it, but I think my final (and rather lengthy) reply was both pastoral and theological, weaving together compassion, Scripture, and principle. I wrote, “Your experiences are tragic, and you have my sympathy… But in my home, I will not make your weakness my law. Christian liberty is not sin. Compulsion is.”

Then, as before, I anchored the argument in God’s Word—Titus 1:15, 1 Timothy 4:4, Psalm 104:15, Luke 7:34, Galatians 5:1. Each text underscores that the Christian life is not defined by what we abstain from, but by what we receive rightly. Certainly, one could say that Pietism was born of good intentions. Indeed, it was a 17th-century reaction to cold orthodoxy and a response to the particular woes of the day, alcoholism being one of them. But good intentions can be deadly when they elevate personal zeal above divine grace. In its essence, Pietism teaches that visible piety proves a person’s inner holiness. When it does this, it replaces the Gospel’s declaration, “You are free,” with the conscience’s suspicious questioning, “Are you holy enough?”

That’s not good. That’s flat-out dangerous to the soul.

Still, the Pietist goes further, imposing on others, “Do not drink, smoke, dance, or play cards, because these things might harm your witness.” But the Gospel says, “All things are lawful—not all are beneficial, but you are free” (1 Corinthians 10:23).

I suppose part of the irony in all of this is that Pietism sees danger everywhere except in itself. It replaces real sin with symbols of sin, preferring the optics of sanctity to the substance of faith. It is less concerned with the heart that trusts Christ than with the appearance that pleases observers.

Maybe even the more profound irony is that Pietism claims to protect morality but ends up birthing hypocrisy. It trains Christians to hide, to present a sanitized version of life, and to confuse the suppression of appetite with the cultivation of virtue. As it does this, it unwittingly revives the very Pharisaical spirit Christ so often condemned—the one that tithed mint and cumin but neglected mercy, freedom, and joy.

Against this, Saint Paul, and ultimately Confessional Lutheranism, have a proper understanding of these things, one that stands firm. And it’s simply that God’s creation is good, and when received with thanksgiving, it sanctifies rather than defiles. When Scripture warns against drunkenness, it condemns excess, not alcohol’s existence. When Paul tells Timothy to “use a little wine,” he affirms alcohol’s benefit, not vice. When Jesus turns water into wine at Cana, He not only dignifies holy marriage, but also Godly fellowship and festivity. You know one thing Jesus doesn’t do in Cana? Magnify abstinence.

Make no mistake, the theology of Christian liberty does not promote recklessness. It insists that the conscience be ruled by grace, not by fear. It says that a Christian’s freedom is not to be licentiousness, but rather faithfulness. In this context, a Christian can receive a cigar or a dram of whisky as a gift, not as a threatening vice or idol. A Christian can also choose to refrain, not because of superstition concerning one’s holiness, but according to Godly discernment.

I quoted Saint Paul’s words in my final response, saying, “If food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat” (1 Corinthians 8:13). For the record, that’s not self-contradictory, not in context. Paul is writing about charity, not control. He’s teaching about sensitivity, not censorship. Saint Paul would never forbid meat. To do so would make his other writings on the subject instantaneously hypocritical. In this instance, he forbids the sin of despising the weaker conscience. Still, Paul’s compassion never becomes compliance with false laws. And so, I also shared Saint Paul’s words that “to the pure, all things are pure” (Titus 1:15), and that “everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Timothy 4:4). I noted that God Himself gives “wine to gladden the heart of man” (Psalm 104:15). I even reminded that Christ was accused of being “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Luke 7:34), not because He was those things, but because He partook freely of God’s gifts within holy boundaries with others.

My opponent’s final plea—that such moments be kept private to avoid tempting the “impressionable”—revealed one of Pietism’s most corrosive features. Pietism’s instinct is to hide the very goodness of God’s creation. It imagines that holiness grows in secrecy, that joy must be concealed lest someone misunderstand. But remember, Christ’s first miracle at Cana was very public. His critics were the ones who scowled that He did the things He did so openly and so freely.

I should also add that to hide God’s gifts is not humility. It’s ingratitude. To pretend that the Christian life is tidy, risk-free, and maybe even unembodied is so far away from spiritual maturity. Perhaps worse, it’s a denial of the Incarnation itself. Indeed, God did not hover above creation as though holiness required distance from it. He dwelt bodily in it in ways that Pietism insists we distrust. To recoil from the tangible—food, drink, fellowship, and the bodily joys of this life—is to behave as though God erred in becoming man. It is to imply that holiness exists only in the abstract, not in the enfleshed grace of Christ who came as one of us—eating and drinking—for our salvation. The Word became flesh, not vapor.

In the end, I suppose the entire debate comes down to who sets the boundaries of holiness. Is it human fear or divine grace? I think Pietists fear liberty because they cannot control it. Pietists are closet tyrants. But Christians are free from such tyranny in every way. They are enabled by the Holy Spirit through faith to discern and embrace Christian liberty, ultimately trusting in Christ, the One who governs it.

“For freedom Christ has set us free,” Paul wrote, “do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). The Pietist, though well-meaning, forges a new yoke from his own fears and insists that it’s righteousness. But freedom—true Gospel freedom—is not the enemy of holiness. It is its foundation.

So, pour the whisky if you want. If it will lead to your demise, don’t. Light the cigar if you prefer. If it will harm your physical condition, discern the foolishness of your action and don’t. But whichever you choose, laugh with friends who love Christ. And do so not to provoke the weak, but to proclaim the strength of Christian liberty and its discernment. Proclaim that God’s gifts are good. His creation is not the problem, and holiness is found not in rejecting or hiding His generosity but in receiving it in faith with all joy.

Cruciform Stuff

A Steady Cadence of Christ for Life

Tag Archives: faith