From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

—Revelation 19:15

Christopher Nolan has done it again: everyone’s talking about “The Odyssey.” As of mid-July 2026, the film just released, and is already a bona fide cultural event. If you’re at all online, you simply cannot escape discourse about this film, which made about $260 million in its first five days, a stunning total.

But here is the thing: despite the big box office, there is no consensus about “The Odyssey.” Opinions vary wildly; among conservatives, for example, you have Ben Shapiro largely praising the film and Matt Walsh decrying it. Amidst the swirling confusion, I will give my thoughts on the film.

Here is my overall take: “The Odyssey” asks spiritual (and political) questions at a level not seen since “1917” some years ago (see this essay and also this one on that excellent film). Without further ado, here are eight thoughts on “The Odyssey.” (Spoilers to follow.)

First, it is worth seeing. This is not a light and glancing film. It is a genuine work of art, reflecting expert craftsmanship. It advances several arguments that are worth turning over (more on those to come). It is a worthy work of art, and it is good for us in general terms to think about meaningful art, ponder it, and discuss it together.

Nolan swings for the fences in his films, and that matters. This is not “AI slop”; this is not half-baked superhero silliness; this is a real work of art based on a core text of Western civilization. So: go see it. There are some swear words, some jarring violence, and several very loud scenes. It’s not a movie for the faint of heart. But if you’re of age, go see it, I say.

Second, it (mostly) succeeds as a cinematic spectacle. When I watch a film, I am not first watching it to evaluate its worldview or key ideas. I first watch a film as a work of art. It is in fact the art form I most enjoy, for film combines visual excellence with auditory excellence with dramatic excellence with performance excellence. In these respects, “The Odyssey” mostly succeeds. It is a cinematic spectacle.

It is big, bold, loud, and dramatic. Numerous scenes rise to a level of major dramatic tension, filling the viewer with different sensations: dread, sadness, wistfulness, horror, and more. However, “The Odyssey” is not a masterpiece in my estimation. It has a choppy feel, and overreaches in its use of realism. For example, Nolan shows us the inside of the Trojan horse, a moment that would be better off left to the imagination.

Third, “The Odyssey” is right about the corrosion of tradition. Nolan seems to like puncturing the very sanctities he portrays. He does a movie on Odysseus’s quest, but he does so in a way that punctures the nobility of this myth. In this sense Nolan is a postmodernist traditionalist—one who values the past, but not in an absolute way.

In truth, Nolan seems to be a postmodern conservative. Overall, his “Odyssey” shows what the loss of honor, tradition, and what Christians call neighbor-love (the term xenia recurs in the film) does to people. “Zeus’s law” is appealed to repeatedly, a form of “doing to others what you would have them do to you.”

These emphases reflect what you could call a “traditionalist” outlook, a perspective that came through most palpably in Nolan’s outstanding “Dark Knight Rises.” That film was about the bankruptcy of authoritarian social justice and Marxism; this film is about the bankruptcy of atheism and unrestrained self-seeking, individually and communally.

Fourth, the intrusion of modernity messes up the experience. Much of the pre-release online dialogue about “The Odyssey” centered on two elements: the casting of “Elliott Page” as Sinon and the non-Greek makeup of the actors. In both cases, I found Nolan’s choices deeply problematic. Page makes for a terrible soldier, to be frank; she is a very gifted actress (as she is in fact a woman and cannot be otherwise), having broken my heart with her performance in Juno, but simply does not fit in her role here.

So too is the cast’s “diversity” distracting. This is a film about Greeks, and the actors and actresses would be much more convincing if they seemed Greek in an ancient way. Nations and countries change, of course, and that is no evil thing. But as I have noted elsewhere, wokeness disrespects the past nearly above all, and turns both history and beauty to ash wherever it is allowed to do so.

The modern dialogue, too, is distracting. Conversations in “The Odyssey” felt improvisational, and not in a good way, having the feel of community theater in places. Damon’s responses to his men occasionally smacked more of an aggrieved head of an auto dealership fighting with a competitor over tire pricing than a warrior leading noble soldiers into epic battle. Damon is very gifted, but he needs better material; beautiful dialogue, we remember, is itself an art form.

Fifth, the craft of “The Odyssey” is excellent but flawed. Much has been made of Nolan’s exclusive use of IMAX cameras in filming “The Odyssey.” I like IMAX films in general, but I do wonder if things have gone a bit overboard here. As is often the case with Nolan’s films, I struggled to understand the dialogue in the film. It was choppy and sounded like it was recorded in a dampened closet. The sound, too, was by my ears simply too loud.

However, as referenced above, Nolan does succeed in numerous places in his shot-making and scene-creation. To cite just three, the encounter with the cyclops was harrowing, the encounter with the dead and Hades was electrifying, and I loved the shot when Troy’s gates were opened and Agamemnon stood still before them. Nolan is nothing if not a mesmerizing scene-builder and shot-maker; he and Denis Villenueve are the craftsmen par excellence in this respect.

Sixth, Nolan both celebrates the family and is haunted by it. The men in Nolan’s movies frequently seem tired, sad, and dogged by duty. They have lost time, and they struggle to bear with the weight of this loss. Damon’s Odysseus is just such a man; he walks with a slight hunch, he looks pained at all times, and as the film develops, he is outright haunted by his separation from hearth and home.

In this way, though, we should note that Nolan celebrates the goodness of the family. As in Homer’s poem, a man is married to a woman, and they love one another and Telemachus. The movie celebrates the natural family in this respect, even as Nolan does throughout his body of work. But we note as well that the ideal of the family—bursting with warmth and closeness—is not realized in the film’s timespan, but eludes the protagonist.

Seventh, Nolan questions the nobility of Odysseus’s quest. As he frames it, his sojourn began under threat of familial death, and Odysseus’s journey home is similarly ignoble, studded with moments of foolishness, reckless loss, and poor leadership. Leaders, Nolan seems to be saying, are at best deeply conflicted people. Indeed, Odysseus’s leadership is plagued by impulsive decisions, his men struggle to follow him, and he walks them into disastrous danger numerous times.

Nolan is clearly concerned with the rhythms of folly and forgiveness in a leader’s life. So too does he raise the matter of a troubled conscience. At one point, Odysseus is quite literally pursued by ghosts of the past, a fitting image for his tormented soul. As readers of the poem will know, Odysseus does not return to his throne in the film’s end; he sails off into the West, seeking atonement for—or at least remembrance of—his fallen men. Full pardon is nowhere at hand, though; Odysseus bears the weight of his guilt without divine assistance.

Eighth, Nolan is right that religion matters. The most striking—and important—moment in the film comes near the end: in the assault on Troy, an event portrayed in exclusively negative terms, Athena’s head is struck off as a young woman is slaughtered. When the gods die, so to speak, humanity dies. Men will kill each other with abandon and purpose, and will even—at the height of their bloodlust—turn the sword on the divine.

Nolan is making a profound point about the nature of civilization. Ithaca is nearly a cut-flower society, bereft of goodness and meaning. Indeed, “The Odyssey” shows us men without fulfillment, journeys without resolution, deaths without purpose, societies without bonds, civilizations without tradition, victories without honor, and guilt without atonement.

Yet the Greeks are not entirely ignoble. Odysseus strives to return home, a virtuous undertaking, even as his wife Penelope (played movingly by Anne Hathaway) stays faithful to her husband, longing for him. So too do Penelope and Telemachus host the “suitors” in Ithaca’s court; here again (as in “Dark Knight Rises”) Nolan is showing us how the unvirtuous play on the charity of the virtuous, leeching off of them, abusing their goodwill.

This is obvious: Nolan is no leftist in terms of political philosophy. The attention the film gives to the exploitative character of Antinous (deftly characterized by Robert Pattinson) makes this abundantly clear. This is a near-constant theme of Nolan’s oeuvre: civilization is threatened, and almost no one exists who can defend it. Nolan is like Tolkien in that evil looms large—very large—in his moral vision. In fact, evil is so forceful that it crashes against its fragile cage, thrashing wildly, nearly eclipsing goodness at all times.

But there is some light in Nolan’s world. Odysseus does, in the end, rise and defend his city. He puts his life on the line for Ithaca and his family, as does his son Telemachus (Tom Holland). Good men, then, are willing to pay the ultimate cost—to die—in doing so. Even as Nolan casts a skeptical eye on the mythic heroes of the Western past (as stated above), so too does he show the need for peace through strength, which only a warrior can provide.

For me, this is the best part of Damon’s characterization of Odysseus. In the final third of the film, Damon puts on a beggar’s robes, skulks in the shadows, and then reveals himself to be the revenant of his teetering kingdom. Though Odysseus’s death-dealing does not bring atonement (as noted above), it does bring justice and peace to Ithaca. In this sense, Nolan’s Odysseus seems by my limited reckoning to be a Christ-figure, a picture of the coming Judge of all the earth.

Conclusion

Throughout his career, Nolan has shown great concern about civilization. He is right to do so, and his portrait of an embattled Ithaca is compelling in “The Odyssey.” But in my judgment, Nolan undercuts his own prescience by embracing postmodern casting, and failing—as the miscreants do in “The Odyssey”—to respect tradition (scriptural tradition, that is).

“The Odyssey,” then, is not all bad or all good. “The Odyssey” is both wrong and right. But though my stated criticism stands, I do believe that this film makes several essential points. Ithaca—like our world itself—is indeed plagued by sin and menaced by evildoers who would prey on women and children. So too do we all carry the weight of an unrelieved conscience, as Odysseus does.

Nolan is right, then: both societally and individually, we need salvation. But it will not come by striking off the head of the gods—by turning, that is, to atheism and deception and the rule of the weak by the strongest. No, we need a greater deliverer. We need a warrior-savior who purchases our redemption and the cosmos’s healing by his blood. Thankfully, we have him; he is not fictional, but gloriously real.

The greater Odysseus is coming.

Plant gardens, and eat their produce.

—Jeremiah 29:5b

Today is an exciting day: my new book, A Call to Cultivate, releases. It’s with Regnery Faith, an imprint of Skyhorse Books (a New York City publisher). Dedicated to my dear friend Ryan Carr and featuring original cover artwork from my lovely daughter Ella, A Call to Cultivate is an invitation to find contentment in a forgotten practice: cultivation.

The Genesis of the Book

Several years ago, I was reading the book of Jeremiah in my devotions. Jeremiah is not always considered an encouraging book, but when I came to Jeremiah 29, it felt like the sun emerging after a month of thunderstorms. This was in 2021, when many of us were still grappling with lockdowns, a nasty global virus, wokeness, political madness, and much more. It was an intense time to say the very least.

For this reason, Jeremiah 29:4–7 ministered to me in a powerful way. Addressed to the people of Judah entering pagan Babylon around 587 B. C., this passage spoke hope into my heart:

“Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

In a very troubled time, God did not tell the wayward children of Judah that he was abandoning them. He did not communicate that their years of disobedience left them in the doghouse, broken and unwanted. Instead, God gave them a beautiful plan for flourishing in a fallen place. In the most arresting phrase of this elegant passage, God told the people to “plant gardens” (5).

I read this in 2021, and it became more than a quotable phrase. It became a life philosophy. To be clear, we are not in ancient Babylon, nor are we old covenant followers of Yahweh. However, we have all navigated our own difficult age. The last 5-10 years of Western life have been absolutely harrowing for many of us. We have faced destabilization, job changes, deaths of loved ones, massive political confusion, the closing of schools and churches, and a great deal more.

Because of this, I think many of us need a refresh. Not only that, we need a plan. Our heads are spinning and our days feel uncertain, and so I believe that we can go to Jeremiah 29 and gain perspective on what God would have his new covenant people do (refracted through the New Testament). Wherever we are, we are to sow the Word and the gospel, cultivate what is around us with love and care, live faithfully, pray much, and watch as God carries out his perfect will in his providential timing.

How the Book Took Shape

I could not shake the power of this little phrase: “plant gardens.” It came to me and it has never left me. I don’t believe it ever will. For that reason, I did an early podcast on this theme, and returned to it again over the years. Feedback on these humble efforts came quickly; people resonated with the “plant gardens” mindset. One man told he started a business because of this biblical teaching; a young woman found a vision for her vocation because of it; others reported a general sense of peace after having their perspective rewired.

This is a key part of why “plant gardens” and a cultivation mindset resonates: it does not call you to take over the world. It does not burden you with unreasonable expectations. It does not summon you to overthrow the founding documents of your nation, render unbelievers your flesh-and-blood enemies, and holistically reconstitute your national and local government in one generation. Instead, it calls you to the simple, the humble, and the significant: Plant a garden. Cultivate it. Enjoy the goodness of what Paul calls a “quiet life” (1 Thess. 4:11).

As I discussed bringing this deeply counter-cultural mindset into print in 2022 and 2023 with the team at Salem (which is now the team at Regnery Faith), they responded strongly to this vision. My close collaborator, Kathryn Riggs, represented what every author rejoices to find: an editor who both sees what you’re trying to describe and helps you articulate it better. Truly, I am indebted to Kathryn in every sense, and her vocational skill is matched only by her personal grace.

Kathryn and I wrestled through just one matter, in the end: what the book’s title should be. I thought Plant Gardens might work well, but the team at Skyhorse wisely urged a recalibration. I am not, after all, remotely qualified to write a book on gardening, and book-browsers might mistake my book for such a treatise.

But that was a temporary hiccup. Once we decided on A Call to Cultivate, we were poised to reach people beyond the green-thumb crowd. After all, you can apply a “plant gardens” approach to most anything in life. To illustrate:

—Instead of trying to control your children, you can lovingly cultivate them for God’s glory.

—Instead of trying to control your spouse and make them what you want them to be, you can cultivate your marriage in much prayer and love.

—Instead of finding the One True Perfect Job, you can cultivate a vocation, building it over time.

—Instead of hop-scotching all over the world on an endlessly unsatisfied quest for stability and place, you can cultivate a quiet life in a given location.

—Instead of drowning yourself in endless digital distraction, you can commune with God, enjoying long prayer walks in nature, unhurried morning devotions with coffee close at hand, and lovely worship music.

—Instead of racing around everywhere, you can do less, show up on time, and have extended conversation with people, treating them not like problems to be conquered but human beings made in God’s image.

To develop my thinking on a cultivation mindset, I spoke on Jeremiah 29:1-7 in numerous locations from 2022-25. This got me into the text. (The biblical text is the thing, now and always.) All this led to me signing a contract in early 2025 to write the book, leading to today, the book’s launch date. May 5, 2026.

Soli deo gloria.

Who Should Read A Call to Cultivate?

Anyone who would like some encouragement should read this book. A Call to Cultivate is not like two of my recent books, Christianity and Wokeness and The War on Men. It is not a theological engagement of dominant cultural ideology. It is more a meditative study of how to overcome the prevailing problem of our time: anxiety.

Indeed, Jonathan Haidt has identified the predominant predicament of the young as “the collapse of adolescent mental health.” In our digital age, suicide rates have skyrocketed among the young: a 91% increase among young men and a staggering 167% increase among young women. This is desperately sad, and points to a loss of meaning, hope, and stable identity among young people.

It turns out that going digital has not resulted in a golden dawn for humanity. Instead, we are alone together: always social but rarely connecting. Who among us has not seen the sad portrait of the modern American family at a restaurant: a little child on an iPad with headphones, Dad on his phone texting his buddies, Mom looking glumly into the middle distance. Behold the modern family, and modern people more generally: alone together.

There is a better way than this. It is to engage your God-given context. It is to know Christ by faith. It is to join and serve a church. It is to get to know people in the church, some who are like you and some who are nothing like you. It is to build a marriage if called to marriage, a work that takes a lifetime. It is to pursue Christ faithfully as a single man or woman. It is to choose a place to live and build a life there.

If any of this speaks to you, then pick up A Call to Cultivate. This is a book for people who are trying to figure out the chaos of our late modern world, and who feel like the roadmap is gone. They thus battle anxiety in different forms around the clock. A Call to Cultivate gives them back the roadmap. It is not an angry book; it is not a guilt-inducing book; it is a deeply hopeful book.

Wherever you are, and however your decisions have affected you, A Call to Cultivate communicates the power of God’s promises to you. God did not abandon Judah, even after Judah’s sins landed them in the Babylonian penalty box. God stayed with Judah; God spoke to Judah; God cared for Judah; God gave Judah the opportunity to flourish once more, the flourishing that grace-powered obedience brings.

Conclusion: Jesus the Gardener

What should we be doing as believers? We should be planting gardens, I believe. We do so remembering one forgotten detail from the resurrection account. In John 20, when Mary wanders over to the tomb of Jesus, wracked with grief in early morning darkness, she meets a man. John 20:15 records her interaction with the risen Christ:

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

This is a marvelous conversation. Who is it Mary thinks that she has met, according to John? “The gardener.” Here is the simple truth: she has met him. Jesus was not the caretaker of his tomb, of course. But in the story of redemption that Scripture tells, Jesus is indeed the gardener. He is the greater Adam, the first gardener; he is the one who will—on the basis of his atoning blood—usher us into the New Eden for all eternity (Revelation 21-22).

We can plant gardens now because Jesus is our gardener. We can cultivate our lives, our surroundings, because God is cultivating us (John 15:1). In the end, then, planting gardens is not another bug-eyed self-help trope with a Christian spin. Planting gardens is not first about what we do, after all; it is not a frenzied effort to push out anxiety and be more productive.

Planting gardens is about drinking in the grace of God every day we live, and then—in the overflow of that grace—doing everything for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31).

Grace Rocky save stars.

—“Project Hail Mary”

It’s not too strong to say that many of us have given up on Hollywood. We are numbed and grossed-out by the last 10 years of films. We have scarcely found a movie (or show) we can enjoy; even when we do discover one we like, we set a countdown clock for its moral demise. When will a degenerate relationship or character or situation be inserted, gratuitously and unnecessarily? When will a new writer join the creative team and mangle the arc of a character we adore?

(Please note: spoilers to follow.)

My point is this: speaking generally, many Christians today have altogether lost trust in Hollywood. For this reason, it can be hard to believe reports when a film comes out that is genuinely beautiful, uplifting, and relatively clean. But such a film has just appeared, seemingly ex nihilo. It is entitled “Project Hail Mary,” and it stars Ryan Gosling.

Based on a best-selling book, “Project Hail Mary” tells the story of one man’s attempt to save earth. Simply put, “Project Hail Mary” is the most hope-giving film in nearly a decade. This is a film that families—watchable at minimum by teenagers and children able to handle adult themes like mortality and planetary danger—can go to and actually enjoy. Imagine that—enjoying a modern movie. Yes, it’s still possible!

A major part of the film’s success owes to Gosling. He is on-screen for basically all of it, and he somehow always holds your attention even though he does not over-act. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I would argue that Gosling deserves an Oscar for his performance in my amateur judgment. His performance is luminescent, and remarkably multi-faceted, at alternate moments hilarious, touching, endearing, troubling, and encouraging.

Simply put, Gosling carries the movie, and gives it an infectious spirit. In his hands, “Project Hail Mary” feels like a throwback, a movie from older days when filmmakers liked the human race and wanted to inspire it from their own particular worldview. In expounding on this dimension of “Project Hail Mary,” I want to consider four specific features that render this movie so compelling, and that—I would argue in all good cheer!—should compel you to go see it, perhaps multiple times.

(Not to overstate this, but again: spoilers to follow.)

Reason #1: “Project Hail Mary” has a sweet spirit. When it comes to the arts, we have all been forced to drink a bucket of despair the last 10-20 years. Postmodernity crashed into Hollywood like a bullet train off its track, leaving us with countless movies and shows that have no moral compass, no broader truth, and no uplifting message. In a similar vein, we have now survived the age of the anti-hero, having been subjected to one conflicted and troubled character after another who may have compelling traits but do little to inspire us.

Indeed, “Project Hail Mary” is a palate-cleanser for we who have been force-fed a nihilistic diet. Instead of an anti-hero at the movie’s center, we have a genuine hero, though he is a flawed and even problematic figure. (The best heroes often are.) As rendered affectionately by Gosling, he is disarming, charming, extremely funny, bright, and hiding from life. Yet the dire circumstances humanity faces leaves “Grace” (Gosling’s character) to take on a heroic role, albeit one that he does not want.

Even as the film is critical of Grace’s failings, it does not condemn him or make us hate him. Indeed, the tone is light in a number of scenes, leading me to cackle outright at numerous junctures. When Grace tries to summon his ship’s shields—“Shields up!,” he bellows—he fails miserably. When his new friend “Rocky” eavesdrops on Grace, Gosling’s deadpan response is perfect.

The humor comes steadily throughout the film. For example, the first moments after Grace wakes from an induced coma cracked me up, as Gosling seemed to be leaning into Early Morning Dad mode, all guttural sounds and loud noises and slurred words. So too is the repartee between Grace and anxious Rocky winning; Rocky has had many around him die, and is understandably on edge. Grace handles him kindly, patiently, and with a great deal of charm.

In sum, this is a script without gross jokes, stupid setups, and disgusting sexual humor. It feels downright old-fashioned, in fact, because it offers up something we’ve largely lost: clean humor.

Reason #2: “Project Hail Mary” captures why we need one another. There’s been some discussion online about how Grace’s boss brings him fully into the mission to save earth. That’s a worthwhile conversation to have, as Grace finds himself in a hard place with respect to his decision to go aboard the earth-saving ship, to say the least. But here is what some of the online chatter misses: “Project Hail Mary” shows that none of us is self-sufficient.

To the contrary, we need help. Not just in doing tasks that are hard for us, mind you. We need people speaking into our life. We need direction. We need guidance. We may be playing out of position in the grand scheme of our existence, and someone comes along who reroutes us, such that we find what we were truly put on earth to do. This is what plays out in “Project Hail Mary.”

Grace is not thriving. He is under-used. Along comes an imperious government official, Eva Stratt, who challenges him to put his talents to their best use. Grace responds positively to her, reminding us of how instrumental women often are in pulling the best out of men. For her part, Stratt sees that Grace has major ability, and does not coddle him, but rather helps him grasp that he is not only gifted for the massive scientific task at hand, but uniquely gifted for it.

Reason #3: “Project Hail Mary” reveals the beauty of sacrifice. This last observation dovetails with this third reason to watch the movie. Stratt does not try to compete with Grace, nor does she undermine him. She does something that women have done for millennia with men: she calmly encourages him to mature. To step up. To take on more than he thinks he can do. To go forward, and not give in when he feels weak.

But this is the rub: Stratt does not only nudge Grace to sacrifice himself for the greater good. In the film’s most controversial moment, she leaves him with no choice but to do so. This is indeed a hard and even troubling piece of the film’s puzzle. But it only serves to underscore how unwilling Grace is to go all in for the good of others. Left to himself, he would not become something greater than he is; he would remain stilted and stunted, kept to himself, not involving himself in the greater drama around him.

This is why Grace needs a very difficult summons to maturity. He has to move beyond self-interest if he is to maximize his gifting. He has to go all the way to the end of the spectrum of giving, and he has to sacrifice himself. At least, he has to be put in a position where that is almost certainly his fate. How surprising, then, that it is in this very place—the place of greatest giving of himself—when he finds out who he truly is, and who he can be for others.

Grace fears sacrifice, as we all do at some level. Of course, we all think to ourselves that if asked to pay the ultimate price for others, we would unhesitatingly do so. But if we take a quick scan of our daily lives, is this really so? Some sacrifices do not trouble us greatly, sure. But some do. Some of the most simple, in fact, can draw out some of our worst moments—the car trip that goes super long, the day when lots of people unexpectedly need our help, the revised plan for a spell of time that was supposed to be driven by our itinerary, not curated by someone else’s inconvenient needs.

Indeed, it can the smallest asks that ironically expose the greatest character failings. This is not true for some of us; this is true for all of us. Grace has no small ask placed upon him, and he understandably recoils from it. He has a plan for his life, albeit a fragmentary one. He has no real family, but at minimum, he wants to remain in control of his quiet little life, not be asked to do what he does not expressly choose to do.

This is precisely why his journey throughout “Project Hail Mary” is so powerful. It is the journey of one man’s soul toward nobility. We watch much of the movie thinking that this journey began in such auspicious moral circumstances, but it turns out that it was not so. Grace had to be press-ganged into his grand mission.

When he wakes up in space, he has no remembrance of this. Indeed, for a moment, the camera frames him against an Edenic backdrop, giving us a picture of an Adam-like figure emerging into a new and bewildering world. (The curse, alas, already covers the “creation”—the space-ship— as Grace gazes upward at a screen.) But then, over time, Grace comes to remember who he was and how he failed.

Yet as memory returns, Grace is not bereft. As we shall see, and as is often true with us, his greatest failure is the backdrop for his greatest triumph.

Reason #4: “Project Hail Mary” celebrates the glory of redemption. In the end, Grace is not only transformed by sacrifice. In terms of the moral universe of the film, Grace is redeemed by his act of self-giving. He holds nothing back from trying to save both Earth and Erid; he gives all of his own ambitions and interests up. He relinquishes them completely, entirely, so as to save others. In doing so, he is effectively born anew, for at the film’s end, he is a wholly different man—far more constrained physically, but far freer than even before.

The truth is this: Grace’s redemption does not come from a vacuum. It is preceded by Rocky’s self-sacrifice. When the mission meets disaster and Grace loses consciousness, sure to die, Rocky puts his life on the line to save his friend. He suffers horrifically from his act, nearly dying in the process. The scene that showcases this loving selflessness is powerful beyond words; I challenge viewers to witness it without tears in their eyes, fictional as the whole enterprise is.

We react emotionally to such self-sacrifice because, in God’s economy, there is nothing more powerful than this in all creation. Rocky gives himself (nearly unto death) to save Grace; Grace gives himself to save Rocky, Earth, and Erid. Self-sacrifice brings salvation in “Project Hail Mary,” and in deeply moving form. In this way, the film communicates (rather quietly, but unmistakably) that the world is worth saving. So too does it tell us that people are not beyond redemption; like the cosmos itself, they can be rescued.

All of this, by the way, is driven by friendship. It is not base self-interest that forms the emotional core of the film; it is friendship. “Project Hail Mary” thus serves as a reminder to us: it is so important to undertake the hard work of getting to know others, even to the point of befriending aliens. The point is simple but profound: estrangement is easy. Lack of communication is natural. Hostility and distrust seem to make sense. Self-preservation seems better than the alternative.

But all this is wrong. To give oneself for others is the greatest end of life. This is the message, in the end, of “Project Hail Mary.” Read from a Christian lens (according to my own limited sight), it is altogether correct. Nothing is greater than self-sacrifice for the salvation of others (Romans 5:7-9). This is especially true when one does this self-consciously from a place of love, not mere obligation.

This last statement is worth expounding on as we close. In the movie, humanity stands to survive and endure by Grace. The entire planet lives in the overflow of one’s man gift and self-sacrificial effort. So it is when we live by grace in biblical terms. All of life is a gift. We do not serve God out of fear of punishment or legalistic duty. We serve God out of the outpouring of grace. All of life is a gift, and so all of our labors themselves take the form of self-sacrificial giving (see Romans 12:1).

We cannot repay God. In fact, we should not at all try to do so. What we should do, however, is live in the freedom of the cross. Every good thing was purchased for us by the wrath-satisfying death of the Son of God. Yet in one major distinction between the film and the Bible, no one forced Christ into this role, of course. Because Jesus voluntarily and gladly took on the mission of redemption, we are free (Hebrews 12:1-2).

Not only this, though. Because Jesus died and rose for us, we have eternal life, we live at all times in Sabbath rest (rest from our works and back-breaking law-keeping), we are adopted, we are loved, and we have hope, the sure and certain hope of a cosmos healed and made right (see Matthew 11, Hebrews 4, Romans 8, and Revelation 21, among other texts).

Conclusion

We are reminded of these wondrous realities—each of them true!—by the fictional “Project Hail Mary.” All other commentary aside, it is wonderful to have Hollywood produce, against all the odds, a beautifully-shot film that affirms the wonder of creation and the dignity of humanity. Here is hoping that the film’s strong box office—about $600 million so far globally—will lead to a flood of similar stories, movies, and shows. (We do well to support such works of art as believers, I would argue.)

But whatever happens with Hollywood, here is a far more inspiring reality: there is a greater story of redemption on offer. It is the story of creation made, creation fallen, the salvation of the people of God through a crucified and resurrected Christ, and then the culmination of all things as creation is made new. This is not a fictional narrative, mind you; this is the drama in which we are currently playing a tiny but meaningful part, as my new book A Call to Cultivate explores.

This is the story we are living. May we take our place in it, serve God well in it, and put ourselves on the line for others, in ways both small and big. In so doing, we may lose our life, yes—but like Grace, in losing it, we will find it (Matthew 16:25).

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Image: Official promotional poster of “Project Hail Mary”

Yea, let God be true, and every man a liar.

—Romans 3:4

The conversation over “retrievalism” continues. In recent days, a young theologian named R. M. Hurd—an outspoken proponent of Thomism—announced that he has converted to Catholicism. The major factor behind this decision according to Hurd was the authoritative influence of Thomas Aquinas. Here is how Hurd characterized the shift in his life, as Thomas led him across the Tiber:

Over time, it happened that Thomas’s auctoritas became supreme in my intellectual experience. Obviously, it is not supreme absolutely speaking–Thomas would be the first person to tell you that. But it is so in my experience–especially as I have undergone the confirming process of (1) assenting initially merely because Thomas said so; (2) eventually found rationes; and then (3) locked the proposition down in a demonstration and achieved scientia. All throughout this, my learning process, I have never found Thomas wanting, not even close. He has never steered me wrong. And over time, my intellect has become habituated to proceed about contradictions in precisely this mode (I have articulated this elsewhere as simply what it means to be a Thomist).

As I became intellectually obliged to follow Thomas wherever he leads me, so withholding my assent became intellectually unjustified–even regarding those contradictions where, initially, I had no reasons for the Catholic part, or even my remaining Protestant doubts. Remarkably, I became obliged to conclude Catholicism, merely because Thomas had told me to do so. And in the end, I listened.

You can read Hurd’s short piece for yourself. He has not written of this momentous change in an angry or self-righteous form; his tone in the piece is irenic and even charitable, which is commendable. However, the claims that Hurd has made for some time deserve to be considered, even briefly. (The image above is from a conversation that Hurd (right) had with Wyatt Graham (left) over Thomistic ideas.)

The reason for this is simple: over against what many “retrievalists” told us several years ago, this paradigm has yet again led to a major theological shift. As with recent prominent examples, embracing Aquinas’s thought does not seem to fit so snugly with traditional evangelical methodology and doctrine, at least for some. One minute Thomas is merely a helpful reference; the next, one’s entire method seems to be, “Thomas said it, so I believe it.”

My purpose in this essay is not to attack Hurd. To the contrary, he seems like an amenable man, and a deep thinker besides. He is no mortal enemy of mine. Nor is Thomas without some helpful material in certain loci. However, in reading up on Hurd a bit and watching some of his material, I found several big claims that I believe are worth engaging, for they serve as a useful indicator of where some young “retrievalists” are in their spiritual formation today.

Some Teachings That the Thomist R. M. Hurd Has Promoted

Without further ado, here are three of Hurd’s more noteworthy proposals, each of them expressly sponsored by his Thomistic framework.

First, Hurd does not believe that the Old Testament teaches the right conception of divine simplicity. Hurd believes that Thomas held the right doctrine of divine simplicity, and as such, “Thomas’s doctrine of simplicity contradicts Holy Scripture.” Stated in this interview (multiple times), this is a massive claim that frankly has not attracted the attention—and fulsome critique—it deserves.

Hurd follows a Thomistic method in arriving at this conclusion. He believes that in order to arrive at theology proper, one must not simply pick up the Bible and learn what it says about God. Instead, one must put down the Bible, pick up Thomas’s writings (and others in the Aristotelian tradition), and learn simplicity in a philosophically sophisticated rendition.

To his credit, Hurd has not tried to hide the radically Scripture-contradicting nature of his position. Nor has Hurd attempted to mainstream Thomas as a proto-Protestant. Long before he announced his conversion to Rome, Hurd was writing statements like this on a Protestant website:

But something else is sobering: Protestant advocates of Thomas must face a reckoning, when the best of their tradition(s) e.g. the Reformed Orthodox often agree much less with Thomas than people today are imagining (and often quite loudly are claiming). In this sense, Protestant critics of this surge of Thomism in their ranks are perfectly right to divide the line here.

Lest one missed it, Hurd actually agrees with critics of Thomas who point out the incompatibility of Thomism with Reformed Protestantism. (I was part of a small group of men who tried in love to point out such incompatibility in this journal in 2022.) Hurd does not labor to bring the groups together; he follows the philosophical methodology of Thomas, a methodology that Hurd knows is in contradistinction from the Scripture-driven approach of many evangelical theologians.

Second, Hurd believes that we cannot ascribe positive attributes to God. Hurd says that he follows Thomas in this. Because God is simple, God has no attributes. God is not loving, or merciful, or just; instead, God simply acts in these ways. This is a striking claim, a kamikaze plane in the pastoral courtyard of the evangelical theologians. Here is how Hurd puts it in the aforementioned article:

For example, as I often have to remind my students, Thomas refused to believe that what the majority of Reformed Orthodox hold as “divine attributes” were indeed such. Protestants were mostly concerned about the so-called “biblical names,” and developed a correspondent theology which handled attributes important to the biblical corpus–ones like mercy and justice, for example. But Thomas does not hold that these are attributes in God’s essence, something in God similar to mercy and justice in us; rather, mercy and justice are creaturely forms which we can pick up and use to somewhat explain God’s works. Much to students’ surprise (and alarm), God for Thomas never is merciful or just–at most, he acts mercifully and justly.

Why do we highlight this? Because many evangelicals do not have the faintest clue what Thomas wrote or taught, and Thomas’s views are in actuality markedly different than those of many born-again believers. Most of us believe that when Scripture teaches us that God is merciful, then we may understand God as such. This certainly is how most evangelicals preachers preach, and how most evangelicals hear biblical preaching.

But this is not what Aquinas held, nor what Hurd teaches. God simply is. God is not positively merciful; we may say only that God acts mercifully. This is different theology proper than that held by most evangelicals, at the very least.

Third, Hurd argues that we can only know God in a negative sense. Hurd directly challenges—and attempts to refute—the standard evangelical claim I just made. In one place of his writing, Hurd attempts to recast one of the most important passages in the Bible, Exodus 34:6-7. This wondrous passage reads as follows:

The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

When a normal evangelical reads this passage, we believe that it teaches us vital truth about God. Again, it is not saying that there is a “love part” in God; we know that God has no parts. However, we affirm nonetheless that God is a God of majestic “steadfast love,” a God who delights to forgive sinners because of his wondrously loving nature. This truth from Scripture has warmed the hearts of countless generations of Christians and is referenced numerous times in Scripture to establish God’s beneficent character.

How sad to learn, then, that this text does not mean what it professes. At least, that’s what Hurd says. He quotes several non-Christian thinkers to argue rather straightforwardly that God cannot have positive attributes. Here is Hurd’s breathtaking rewiring of one of the most beautiful sections of the entire Word of God:

Are you perplexed about how holy Scripture even says that God has knowledge, or love, and how it ascribes him many other attributes, when as every Aristotelian knows God is altogether simple? Are you disturbed about how Moses delivered us the thirteen Middot Rachamim (Exodus 34:6–7), when Ibn Sina shows in his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics that God can have no positive attributes at all? The resolutions to all these troubles–and they are very mighty–is again straightforward. The answer is that all such sayings in holy Scripture–underneath the surface, mind you–were in fact pure negations, or periphrases for created effects. When holy Scripture says that God is good, this is to be interpreted either as that he is not evil, or that creatures made by him themselves are good. When we read that he loves, this is to be interpreted as that he hates nothing which has been made, or that creatures were not just created, but even given provisions to endure and also thrive. Faced with these scriptural sayings, Maimonides will in each case save you from being waylaid, and teach you to interpret. Again this will enable you to avoid what begets the second error: the stubborn refusal to hold that God is one only, because so many attributes holy Scripture has affirmed of him.

In Hurd’s understanding, one cannot affirm what God says about himself in Exodus. When God says that he is a God of steadfast love, we should read God to be saying something quite different: he is not a God of anger. This is because of what several thinkers in the Aristotelian tradition have avowed: Ibn Sina, Maimonides, and Aristotle himself. We should take their word literally and directly, it appears, while doing the opposite with the Bible itself.

Here’s what this amounts to: we should take Aquinas at his word, directly and unreservedly, but we should not take God at his. God as he is revealed in Scripture—by himself!—is not God as he actually is. To know God as he is, we should look to Jewish philosophers from the Middle Ages, men who did not believe in God as a triune being. I scarcely have words to capture how upside-down this theologizing is, much as I acknowledge its sharply technical nature, its abstruse vocabulary, and the pull of its (seemingly) hefty program.

Why Does All This Matter?

Is the preceding unimportant to the church? In discussing these matters, are we doing what theologians specialize in: having conversations that matter very little to real life, and that burn lots of time and energy for little gain? While noting that the conversation over Thomas and his body of thought is indeed a complex one, it is important to see that these matters do carry great weight for God’s people.

Here is what the foregoing discussions reduce to, in simplified form: does the Bible give us a right doctrine of God, or do we build our theology proper outside of Scripture, with non-Christian voices not only contributing to our doctrine of God, but serving as the key construction crew of the whole edifice? Put more simply: is the Bible sufficient to teach us about God, or not?

For his part, Hurd has given his answer. He has chosen his tutors, his pedagogues, his guides, and a number of them are not only not Reformed evangelicals, but were not Christians of any kind. While paying homage to “Holy Scripture” as he calls it, Hurd believes—and to his credit states openly and without hedging—that Scripture’s theology proper (particularly the Old Testament) is accommodated teaching.

As he said in the YouTube interview with Wyatt Graham, it is for common people in their era; it is not the sophisticated philosophical theology of Thomas and the tradition from whence he comes. Elsewhere Hurd advanced a similar argument, casting the call to warfare in the book of Joshua as a charge from “the tribal deity” of that era, a very strange referent indeed for the Most High God of Heaven and Earth.

The God of Revelation Revealed in History

In considering these ideas (and there are many others to cover), I am reminded of Paul’s discussion of “wisdom” in 1 Corinthians. The strong exalt their intellect, and the Greeks sought “wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:22), paying attention only to those whose ideas seemed reasonable per their own worldview.

But Paul did not cater to the Greeks, at least not as they might have expected him to do. He did not offer them wisdom that flattered a healthy natural intellect; he offered them true divine wisdom that “shamed” the wise, exposing their unbiblical thinking as proud, man-centered, and frankly wrong. To put it in the language of 1 Corinthians 1, God did not choose what is strong in the world to shame the strong; God intentionally chose what is “weak” in the world to shame the strong.

The wisdom revealed by God is the wisdom of the cross, a cross that brings death to the pride of the fallen mind of man. The truth of God is impossibly high and beyond all we could know as fallen men, of course, but the “wisdom” put forth by God was not a Gnostic system that only brilliant people could grasp. The “wisdom” of God was displayed not in a symposium held in the shadow of majestic columns, but in a cross driven into accursed ground—the site of executionary vengeance.

1 Corinthians 1:26–31 puts this point better than I ever could:

[26] For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. [27] But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; [28] God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, [29] so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. [30] And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, [31] so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Paul reminds us here both of how central the cross is to divine wisdom—and also, accordingly, how historicized Christian theology is. God did not give us an encyclopedia of theology proper to understand him and his works; God gave us a dynamic Word filled with drama, and invited us to learn of his character as in time and space he engaged—from his perfect freedom—the world he made.

The historicized nature of divine self-revelation culminates in the cross. There, we see the very definition of biblical love, biblical justice, and biblical forgiveness. This truth contradicts what some have argued about God, namely, that history cannot unveil theology proper. For example, James Dolezal (a dense thinker, no doubt) has made the case that “biblical theology” cannot reveal the Christian God, for God “is not a historical individual.”

Here is how Dolezal once put it (in terms consonant with Hurd’s focus on a Thomistic rendition of divine simplicity):

Additionally, the method of this work is that of contemplative theology. The contemplative approach to theology has been somewhat obscured in recent history by the rise of biblical theology as a specialized method of theological inquiry. These two approaches to Christian doctrine need not be in conflict. I readily affirm that biblical theology has been a profound catalyst for improving and enriching our understanding of the progress of redemption. But it seems to me that biblical theology, with its unique focus on historical development and progress, is not best suited for the study of theology proper. The reason for this is because God is not a historical individual, and neither does His intrinsic activity undergo development or change. This places God beyond the proper focus of biblical theology. God is not changed by what He does--though what He does certainly brings about progress in history, creatures, and salvation. In an attempt to understand God as one of the historical characters in the narrative of redemption, many have fallen into the trap of historicizing His very life and existence. Suffice it to say, while biblical theology tells us many true things about God, its proper focus on development and progress is not methodologically suitable to the study of the One who does not change (James Dolezal, All That Is in God, xv, emphasis mine).

In light of such a curious argument, which seems to direct Christians away from learning about God from the Bible, I find Graeme Goldsworthy’s comment on medieval theology instructive. Some years ago, Goldsworthy compared the medieval paradigm to the Reformation paradigm:

Mediaeval theology had internalized and subjectivized the gospel to such an extent that the basis of acceptance with God, of justification, was no longer what God did once for all in Christ, but what God was continuing to do in the life of the Christian. This de-historicizing of what God had done once and for all in the gospel went hand-in-hand with the allegorizing of the history of the Old Testament. The Reformation recovered the historical Christ-event (the gospel) as the basis of our salvation and, in turn, the objective importance of Old Testament history (Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel and Kingdom in The Goldsworthy Trilogy (Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster, 2003 [1981]), 18).

Goldsworthy is on the mark here. It is not simply that we are able to extract, as through a crude strainer, a few isolated truths about God from the historical book known to us as the Bible. No, we know God authoritatively through the Bible, as the Reformers argued. History is not a barrier to knowing God, then; history is the gateway, the enchanted cupboard door, that God has selected as the portal to true knowledge of him.

Ten Humble Considerations for a Retrievalist Age

At this point, we will need to round toward a conclusion. In the interest of clarity, let us conclude with ten humble thoughts for evangelical proponents of biblical authority.

First, in disciplinary terms, philosophy must not rule theology. If it occupies the first chair in evangelical settings, it must be dethroned, disrobed, and demoted.

Second, in seminaries and colleges, philosophical or historical theology must act not as ruling disciplines that wield plenipotentiary power over other fields, but rather exist in appropriately chastened meekness as supporting aids to exegetical theology, biblical theology, and Bible-driven systematic theology.

Third, wherever there seems to be a conflict between the plain teaching of the Word of God and the opinions of man, deference to the Word of God should obtain.

Fourth, in classrooms, professors should take care (across numerous fields) to substantiate their claims and systems directly—as much as is possible—from the Word of God.

Fifth, where Scripture does not explicitly speak to a subject or area, great care should be taken not to build a system outside of the Bible or even parallel to the Bible, but rather to harvest first principles (at absolute minimum) from the Word of God itself.

Sixth, from the starting point of biblical authority and biblical sufficiency, students should feel confident freedom to read non-Christian voices and thinkers, harvesting truth wherever it is found, for God’s common grace means that unbelievers can and do speak truly, understand elements of the God-made world, and provide genuine insight about how certain things work.

Seventh, plundering the common grace of this world does not mean affirming the man-made systems of this world, whether said systems are professedly religious or irreligious, for systems by definition come to us as a whole, not a disconnected set of parts.

Eighth, there are different species of retrievalism, and some of them are healthier than others. The form that encourages study of church history and historical theology from a robustly “sola scriptura” vision is both good and needed.

Ninth, it is now clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that what some have called “hard retrievalism” has led some Protestants away from a “sola scriptura” outlook. Young men and women are leaving the good deposit of the gospel behind, and are embracing a different conception of God than the biblical one.

Tenth, where drift has occurred and students are not being faithfully taught, repentance and change is needed, and without any delay. Thankfully, though we all stumble in many ways, our great God is gracious to all of us to lead us out of error and into the light of biblical truth (James 3:2).

As a helpful witness to the perspective lined out in this essay, I commend this gracious and incisive lecture by Shawn Wright. Wright is a church historian, clearly believes in the value of historical theology, and yet identifies several clear and present dangers in the “retrievalist” camp in our contemporary evangelical moment.

Conclusion

We live in a strange time. Young evangelicals are being told that the best theology going—far better than Word-driven biblicism as malignantly defined by some—is theology that directly “contradicts” the Bible. But this is not so; this is not a choice that sound-minded evangelicals can make. To paraphrase Paul in Romans 3, let God be true instead, and every other voice contradicted.

There is a better way than embracing a system contrary to the plain teaching of Scripture. It is for all of us sinners, brimming with pride, to humble ourselves, bow our heads before God, close our mouths, and learn about him in the blessed book he has given us. We are sanctified by truth; God’s Word is truth (John 17:17).

Confessing this is not obscurantism, nor anti-intellectualism. Confessing this is the very beginning of wisdom, for wisdom does not cut its own path to heaven. Wisdom begins in the fear of God—and reverential awe of God (fear, that is) begins by submitting oneself to the truth of God, namely, the inerrant and authoritative and sufficient Word of God (Proverbs 1:7).

Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty; they will see a land that stretches afar.

—Isaiah 33:17

I enjoy the Super Bowl like many Americans. The actual game failed to get much blood flowing; the Seahawks dominated the Patriots. In truth, the real battle was fought not over the Lombardi Trophy, but the dueling halftime shows: Bad Bunny vs. Kid Rock. Bad Bunny was the NFL’s choice for halftime performer; Kid Rock was Turning Point USA’s choice for its alternative, family-friendly halftime show.

Being Pro-Family Is Counter-Cultural

This contrast illustrates the strange place that the “pro-family” side is in today. Though we are the mainstream in terms of demographics, we are in the minority in terms of culture. By this I mean that we by and large do not get many items of entertainment directed toward us. Occasionally, Hollywood and the Entertainment Industrial Complex throw us a bone. Not usually, however.

The NFL seems to think that its market wants anti-family content. Whatever else Bad Bunny represents, he surely provides degeneracy in no small amount. The lyrics to songs he performed are, to speak frankly, debased. Further, in terms of images from his performance, there were numerous moments (as social media reported) that many parents would change the channel over.

My commentary here has exactly nothing to do with Bad Bunny’s heritage, ethnicity, or style of music. I love the way that music offers a forum for talented image-bearers from across the world. At the level of personal preference, I enjoy rap, hip-hop, some dancehall, some pop, and many other forms of music. Many of my favorite artists do not share my skin color, nor my nationality.

My critique of Bad Bunny is not coded racism, then. My critique is moral. With countless other Americans both single and married, old and young, I am dispirited by the godless entertainment sold to us by countless well-funded outlets. Of course, that is part of the purpose of such offerings: to demoralize the opposition. To change the culture. To shift us all toward paganism, debauchery, and an anti-God outlook.

Kid Rock Arises: Thoughts on the TPUSA Halftime Show

For this reason, I had definite interest in the TPUSA halftime show. From reports, this programming was a direct and intentional counter to Bad Bunny’s performance. Overall, I am glad that TPUSA staged this alternative show. As I noted above, I was reminded as I watched it that being traditional in your moral outlook continues to mean that you are the counter-culture. This is a strange but encouraging trend, I believe.

Of course, this trend has been playing out for some time. But I sense that it has remaining shelf-life. Degeneracy has been normalized; to be pro-America, pro-family, and pro-Christianity (in some form, often indeterminate) means you are part of the counter-culture. After decades of the reverse, I have to say that I continue to like that Christians are loosely speaking a guerilla force in cultural terms. The biblical worldview is not mainstream; the biblical worldview is akin to outlaw country today in many respects.

The artists represented in the TPUSA show mostly belonged to the modern form of this musical genre: bro-country. If you wanted to include the very talented Gabby Barrett, you could call it power-country. The guitars were cranked up; the vocals were powerhouse; the overall aesthetic was maximalist. This was not an approach calculated to appeal to leftist tastes; this was programming aimed straight at the American heartland, the South, and the populist base of the conservative coalition.

It was effective in different ways. Personally, I like some bro-country, and I like power-country. Carrie Underwood, for example, is very gifted, and Florida Georgia Line put out some good and heartfelt music years back. But as I watched most of the show, I had a few constructive thoughts—what you could call friendly amendments. I’ll list them here for ease of reading.

First, I liked the show overall and am glad that TPUSA did it. Well done! I can only imagine what an undertaking that was, and on behalf of my family, I give thanks to the folks at TPUSA for doing it.

Second, in terms of musical performance, I would recommend a wider range of artists from other genres. I would also recommend some calmer songs, including patriotic standards done beautifully. My sense was that families tuned in expecting some such material, but did not find it in this year’s event.

Third, in general, my suggestion would be to aim the whole thing more at the traditional American family. Think of kids, parents, and grandparents watching together. This one felt aimed at forty-something dads who like hard guitars. But in my own home, for example, we had multiple generations represented, and it would be great to present content that all of them can understand and enjoy.

Many of us love the national anthem. Many of us enjoy patriotic material. TPUSA or related groups need not be afraid of quieter and simpler songs. Next year, could there be a tribute video to our military? Could we play a video montage of soldiers who have given their life for their country? Could we have a song honoring hard-working mothers? Could we feature content celebrating babies and children, capturing our pro-life ethic?

I am not throwing stones at TPUSA here. They did amazingly well to get this show off the ground and drew—by numerous reports—over 6 million viewers. That’s monumental. What it shows us is what we already know: there is a lot of potential for this sort of programming. Families are a big market today. Many of us will happily support content that is robustly pro-marriage, pro-family, pro-child, and pro-America.

Fourth, it would be great to have someone like Frank Turek or Franklin Graham give the simple gospel in brief form. Kid Rock testified to the power of Christ in his closing song, and I am thankful for that. It seems like he drew an intentional contrast between his wild past in his opening song and his more recent posture of faith in his closing song. That was noteworthy. I do not know the man’s heart, but I do know this: Jesus saves.

Along those lines, it would be great to have a video along those lines. Assemble some of Charlie Kirk’s most moving and warm lines about Jesus and the gospel, and play them alongside photos of people being baptized. In fact, you could go one further, and track down some young men and young women converted through Kirk’s apologetic outreach, and have them briefly share their testimonies in a video.

We Are a Sleeping Giant: A Call to Beauty in the Arts

My final reflection is actually an expansion of a point I made above. Traditional and Christian families continue to be a huge sleeper market. For years, we have been cancelled, negated, and derided. We have had woke and leftist content force-fed to us for years now, and many of us long for entertainment that resonates with what is true, good, and beautiful.

Artistically and aesthetically, we are starving. We have few shows and movies geared to us. As fathers and mothers, we struggle to find content for our children that is both excellent and uplifting, beautiful and moral. At some level, we will always face this struggle in a fallen world. But we can also pray in our time that born-again believers will be a part of a genuine cultural renaissance in our generation.

Now is the time to call out the dreamers. To ignite the imaginations of our children. To do deep work and cultivate skill in a given artistic field. To strengthen co-ops and cottage schools and Christian schools and classical schools and other settings, and do all we can to put beauty right in the center of the curriculum. Beauty is not an afterthought for believers; we crave beauty all our days. We need to point our children to it, and encourage them to make it for the glory of God.

Let the church be part of a new movement of goodness, truth, and beauty in our age. Let us expect great things of God, and attempt great things for God. We are the counter-culture as Christians; we are in that coveted place, where the things of God are not mainstream. This is a great place from which to engage our world with the Word, the gospel, and the beauty of the Christian faith.

Conclusion

As I have written in this book, I am convinced that we have gone through a massive demoralization campaign in the West in recent years. We have been told to hate our skin color; hate our heritage; hate our country; hate our political leaders; hate Western civilization; hate American history; hate the family; and the list goes on. Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. There’s a lot of that in the air.

All this totals up to a whole lot of discouragement among normal people. This includes ordinary Christian folks. Aside from church, we find ourselves with little to enjoy when it comes to everyday entertainment. Hollywood puts out little for us; when we do get a show that we like—All Creatures Great and Small, for example—we watch as it is influenced by cultural pressures, and there is little that comes along of its ilk. We are left to rewatch the same shows and films we always watch.

Here, then, is hoping for better days among God’s people. Let us reject a worldview of hatred. Instead, let us drink deeply of the beauty of God, and as those filled by God’s goodness, let us go on to create our own works of beauty. These may be popular, or they may go unseen. It matters not. Beauty is its own reward; the glory of God is its own motivation.

Super Bowls, after all, will come and go. But the beauty of God that has gained our attention now will enrapture us for all eternity.

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Image: Wikimedia Commons

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

—Isaiah 40:8

It is sad but true: one of the foremost institutions of American evangelicalism, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, no longer occupies its longtime property on the North Shore of Chicago (Illinois). According to news reports, the Deerfield campus has been sold and will be developed as a sports facility.

Organizationally, some form of the divinity school does still exist as a part of Trinity Western University in beautiful Langley, British Columbia. But the historic form of Trinity is no more. Why does this matter, though? If you’re not a graduate of TEDS as I am, why should you care? Here’s why: because as I’ll show below, the closing of the TEDS campus reflects the end of an era—and the dawn of a new one.

Thankfulness for My Time at TEDS

As a PhD graduate of TEDS, I feel this change keenly. With my wife, I went to Trinity in January 2008. Bethany had previously lived in the area, as her father taught at TEDS for a number of years. My studies at Trinity blessed me in many ways. I entered TEDS to study under Jonathan Edwards expert Douglas Sweeney, and benefited greatly from my time under Doug.

Doug taught a legendary class on Edwards that was packed to the gills. There was a vibrancy in that class that I’ve rarely experienced, because Doug beautifully communicated the grandeur of the God Edwards faithfully proclaimed. Outside of the classroom, Doug and I worked together at the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding (HCTU), he as Director and me as Managing Director.

Doug and I also coauthored five books together, the Essential Edwards Collection for Moody Publishers. Today, that content is available in a sixth book: The Essential Jonathan Edwards. Aside from Doug, I was able to take a class at TEDS with D. A. Carson, the leading New Testament scholar of his generation. In “New Testament Use of the Old,” I got to experience firsthand Carson’s blend of intellectual excellence and unapologetic fidelity to Scripture (which produced, through the support of the Henry Center, this landmark volume.)

While at TEDS, my work at the Henry Center led to other profitable undertakings. After the 2009 meeting of The Gospel Coalition, we held this event at Park Church in Chicago. John Piper and Carson gave amazingly valuable lectures on the “pastor-theologian” model that David Mathis and I edited as this book. (We also did a Q&A while seated on shockingly bouncy chairs; the video is long since gone from the Internet, but you can see a lingering smile on the faces of Piper and Carson here.)

Through the Henry Center, I got to go to Hong Kong for a theological conference. I’m so thankful for that. On another count, when we hosted meetings for the Scripture Project, I was responsible for finding a restaurant for a group of esteemed academics that included Simon Gathercole, Henri Blocher, Kirsten Birkett, and Pete Williams. To their bemusement, the only place I could find for a weekend brunch was one in nearby Lake Forest that featured—I am not making this up—a champagne fountain. It was quite a thing to explain that later on to my superiors!

In my years at Trinity, I also profited from studying under Kevin Vanhoozer. Vanhoozer was a heavyweight thinker—a truly lyrical public speaker—who nonetheless had an eye to character. He began our “Prolegomena” seminar with extended time on the “theological virtues,” which has always stuck with me. Eventually, I was able to coauthor a book on the pastor-theologian model with Vanhoozer, a gift of God’s providence I will always treasure.

These men were not the only figures who served faithfully at TEDS. Graham Cole taught a fantastic PhD class on the atonement. John Woodbridge was a man saturated with love for Scripture. Willem VanGemeren encouraged students to pursue scholarship from a posture of humble faith. Scott Manetsch wrote and taught with exceptional insight about Calvin. At the peer level, I was able to form friendships with men like Andy Naselli, Mark Rogers, Jared Compton, Aaron Mahl, Jeremy Treat, Andrew Lisi, Ben Peays, Collin Hansen. I’m grateful to God for that blessing.

The Neo-Evangelical Project and TEDS

Taking major shape in 1963, Trinity was birthed out of the neo-evangelical project. It was a living, breathing instantiation of what we call “theological triage.” Particularly in its earlier years, the TEDS faculty was united by a dogged commitment to biblical inerrancy and authority, but TEDS professors agreed to disagree—in charity—on second-order and third-order doctrines.

This vision was cultivated long before my friends and I got to campus. Carl Henry taught at TEDS for years, and was with Kenneth Kantzer the human embodiment of this inspiring vision. These men and their neo-evangelical peers had numerous grand ambitions that TEDS incarnated; several of them are worth briefly unpacking, as I’ve attempted to do elsewhere.

First, they wanted to steer clear of liberalism. The neo-evangelicals came of age in the 1920s and 1930s. They watched as Protestant liberalism driven by rejection of inerrancy, substitutionary atonement, biblical miracles, and the exclusivity of the gospel swept across numerous denominations, capturing institutions, churches, seminaries, colleges, and missions boards. Henry, Ockenga, Graham, and others wished to resist this surging tide.

Thankfully, we can say in retrospect that they did. In terms of not liberalizing, they succeeded. Further, they were able to build new evangelical institutions that did—at least for some time—carry the fire of the Word and gospel. That is no mean thing.

Second, they wished to avoid fundamentalism and narrowness of spirit. The neo-evangelicals understood the mentality common among some of their doctrinally conservative peers. They honored the dogged commitment of fundamentalists to biblical authority, but they sensed—rightly—that some in the fundamentalist world had a lack of love for the church. The neo-evangelicals sought to develop a more brotherly spirit than this, a commendable aim.

In time, the fundamentalists and neo-evangelicals would have consequential disagreements. The neo-evangelicals did not win every round; Graham, for example, should not in my judgment have had liberal pastors involved in his efforts. But the neo-evangelicals did rightly strive to avoid a narrowness of theological vision in which only one system or brand of theology—defined to the finest particulars—was acceptable.

Third, they sought to engage culture and the broader theological world. The neo-evangelicals sought an awakening of the evangelical mind. They wanted to think well about all of life. I love this spirit, and I saw it at TEDS during my time there. Professors at Trinity knew their field, they thought deeply about the Christian faith and the world God made, and they tried to apply their faith to their research. This is an approach worth practicing in our day.

A World Without TEDS in Deerfield

TEDS was not perfect. No school or ministry is. For my humble part, I believe that the leaders of TEDS would have been wise to ground the school firmly in biblical complementarity. Doctrine, of course, is not only influenced by statements of faith; doctrine is influenced by cultural tides and momentous events. Because of its softness on complementarity, TEDS was not well-equipped to engage the neo-Reformed resurgence of the 2000s and 2010s. If it had, it might well still ply its trade in Deerfield.

This is not to say, though, that TEDS failed to make a difference. Over its many decades of existence, TEDS strengthened the body of Christ in many ways. Through the instruction of faithful men like Wayne Grudem, David Wells, Walt Kaiser, Gleason Archer, Harold O. J. Brown, Bruce Ware, Robert Yarbrough, Mike Bullmore, Douglas Moo, Ray Ortlund, Jr., and John Feinberg, TEDS trained many pastors, leaders, scholars, and missionaries. The faculty wrote impactful books. The school was a vital nerve-center in the Chicago Bible Belt.

For those of us who went to TEDS, it is only right to feel sadness in this hour. The school that granted us a hard-won degree no longer exists in Deerfield. Beyond TEDS, many of the projects developed by the neo-evangelicals are closing, in depreciated states, or already gone. So too have most of the pastors, theologians, and ministry leaders of the evangelical heyday departed for their eternal reward.

But here is the truth: while much around us changes today, God and his authoritative Word have not changed (Isaiah 40:8). Our kind and gracious God, furthermore, has not called us to an ongoing funeral service, nor is the anthem of the Christian life a dirge. While we know there is a time to mourn as believers, the Christian life is not an ongoing exercise in sadness. The Christian life is driven by the joy of the Lord; Christ’s excellency is truly our strength and our hope (Nehemiah 8:10; Hebrews 12:1-2).

Conclusion

This mindset has fueled the church to rebuild in hard times before. In fact, this is what we Christians do, over and over again. When we lose what faithful believers of past generations painstakingly created, we do not linger long over what is gone. We remember that we are a Nehemiah people, we pray to our great God, and then we get to work, starting new endeavors for the glory of God.

The American evangelical empire is fading. Much that we once treasured no longer endures. Many whom we loved have gone home to glory. In this way, we see that the story of a closed divinity school campus in broader Chicago actually matters for the body of Christ. We may never have studied for a seminary degree at Trinity, but we might well feel discouraged, depressed, and even despairing as we survey the state of Christian institutions in the West, whether America or beyond.

But this is not a time to abandon hope. This is a time for faith and action. This is a time to pick up a sword and a trowel. This is a time to lift up our eyes to the heavens. In much prayer and dependence on God, this is a time to build in the ruins.

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Image: TIU/Kathleen Morris

Doug Wilson just threw down a gauntlet over public school. Without nuance, he argued in a “No Quarter November” video that Christians who have their children in the “government school system” sin against God. This sin, Wilson avows, is not small; it is considerable. Here is the fuller quotation from Wilson:

Millions of evangelicals still have their children in the government school system. Get them out now. Having Christian children in the government school system is what theologians of another era would have called “sinnity sin sin.” Not a little smidge of “sinnity,” either. Not really a debatable matter. Stop it. Crash the system.

This is a significant stand to take. In what follows, I will briefly evaluate Wilson’s position, considering the strengths of his argument as well as its weaknesses. I do so in a spirit of friendly disagreement, not angry combat, and under the strong conviction that we need a fresh recovery of the gospel—not legalism—in our time.

What Wilson Gets Right

I appreciate that Doug Wilson speaks his mind. He does not dance around issues; he does not leave you wondering what he thinks. Wilson is a creative thinker; he does not seem to have an overly systematic temperament, but rather has a talent for seeing things that others do not. He promoted classical Christian education, for example, long before almost anyone else, even as adoption of this model proliferates in our day.

Further, Wilson is right that “government schools” can pose real challenges to the discipleship of children. We fathers and mothers need to handle the education of our children with great care, and a good number of us have concluded that public school will not work for us. There are indeed many bad secular ideas taught in a good number of public schools, including wokeness, radical gender ideology, pagan sexuality, a Marxist vision of America and the West, climate change, and much more.

It is not only what such schools teach that matters, though. It is also what some schools today feature in terms of the student body. In numerous locales, the American family is not in a good place today, and thus children tragically live in chaos and act accordingly. Their influence on the children of Christians can be very significant indeed, and this should not be taken lightly by any godly father or mother.

This is true even when a godly couple desires to train their child to be a light in a dark place. I applaud such an instinct; Christians are not here to huddle up in our self-created communes, fearful of the world, antagonistically apart from it. However, just as we do not send out foreign missionaries without a tremendous amount of training, careful preparation, and accountability, so I think we should be careful about burdening our precious boys and girls with a missionary call as an 8-year-old.

What Wilson Gets Wrong

At this point it will be clear that I have considerable concern about what public education looks like in different places in America. My own children do a blend of home-schooling and “hybrid” classical education, and my family enjoys this model. I recommend it—enthusiastically—to others. At the same time, though, I cannot say that it is clearly “sinnity sin sin” for believers to send their children to public school.

This mindset has troubled me for some time, in truth. While I agree with the real concerns many Christians have about secularism and paganism, I have long thought that this mentality lacks context it greatly needs. America is not monolithic, after all. (Isn’t this what conservatives not only recognize, but value—the unique nature of different places?) Rural Tennessee is not the same as urban Massachusetts which is not the same as heartland Illinois which is not the same as desert New Mexico which is not the same as college-town Idaho.

Nor is a given school district, or a given school, the same as another in a specific area. Many Christians serve in public schools with a gospel focus. So too are there Christian principals (and superintendents and school board members) who seek to love their neighbor in the public school, a worthy calling. The Wilsonian critique of American culture suffers from a lack of texture and depth, then. It paints all schools (and teachers) as the same, when this is simply not the case.

Does Christ vs. Chaos Apply to the UPS Store?

This is part of what happens with the overly broad-brush mentality represented by Wilson’s “Christ vs. Chaos” mindset. Wilson’s approach is basically to try and take down all secular systems (or at least any you can), erecting formally Christian institutions in their place. But though I understand the appealing simplicity of this model, I do not believe it does justice to the way our world works, nor of the mission of the church.

The Book of Acts does not feature Christians taking over communities and nations, but rather plunging into them as gospel-driven salt and light. Nor, aside from the Great Commission, does “Christ vs. Chaos” actually hold up as a workable approach. Yes, we long for the Lordship of Jesus to claim all the earth as it will when Jesus returns. But until that day, do we need to Christianize the UPS Store? Our local Planet Fitness? Is that the mission of the gospel in our time?

Can our kids participate in a youth basketball league in our town that is not expressly evangelical? Can we patronize the businesses of unbelievers? Can we go to non-Christian colleges or universities? Can we work at secular jobs? (In a duality mindset, aren’t believers who work in secular places amplifying Satanic “chaos” in their vocation?) Can we run for the local school board, and work alongside unbelievers on it for the good of children?

The answer to all these questions is, I believe, yes. The Lordship of Christ does not mean that we eject from the world and create a parallel Christian universe. The Lordship of Christ means we engage our world with God’s grace and truth, doing so not from a posture of fear or antagonism, but faith and love.

The Freedom of the Gospel

We have stretched into “mission of the church” conversations to this point, and necessarily so. But at this point, we need to go back a bit. At the core of my critique of Wilson’s case is this: he does not have the authority to do what he tries to do. In the simplest terms, Scripture nowhere labels going to a public school sin.

I state this, then, in a spirit of love: Wilson’s counsel wrongly binds the conscience. The Scripture teaches us a different principle: it teaches us that when we come to gray areas, as we often will, we should embrace the freedom of the gospel, serve our weaker brother where we can, and show charity on matters that are not lined out in the New Testament (see 1 Corinthians 6 and 10, Romans 6, and Galatians 5 for more).

After all, the banner over our Christian life is this: for freedom Christ set us free (Galatians 5:1). We are not under condemnation any longer as Christians (Romans 8:1). Further, we are not under law, but under the reign of grace (Romans 6:14). This glorious gospel theology works against our innate legalistic instincts. We all have an inner law-giver, it turns out; we can all see areas in which we have spoken too strongly, and colored outside the lines of our jurisdiction (I know I have).

How Gospel Freedom Helps Us (and Our Kids)

It is not wrong, of course, for a pastor to have a position on a gray area. For my part, I believe that he is free to share his view and counsel others by it. But he needs to do so humbly, charitably, and carefully, leaving room for godly disagreement. As with all of us, he needs to remember that he is not the Lord of the church. Only Jesus is.

The pastor who serves the congregation entrusted to him by Jesus thus takes pains—even decades into his ministry—to never confuse his people. It is not his voice that they should follow, ultimately; it is the voice of Jesus found in the Word of God (John 10:27). Christ alone is Lord of the conscience.

There is great freedom in this reality. We innate legalists are liberated from trying to whip others into shape. But this gospel freedom is also hugely helpful for our children. Instead of fitting our kids into a single model, we can tailor our kids’ education to best fit them. (Like culture, after all, children are not monolithic.) One child of ours may thrive with a tutor, as their autism demands special attention; another might flourish in a co-op alongside seven other children; still another might do well in a public school populated by Christian leaders and teachers.

The point is this: there is not one perfect model that works for everyone in the same way. This is true of education, of childraising more generally, and of the Christian life. Instead of the One Perfect Model that we must labor to put everyone under, we have a better option before us: we can live in the freedom of the gospel.

Conclusion

The conversation over childhood educations reminds us: today, we need a recovery of the gospel. This may sound rather basic. But it actually goes against the grain of our age. In our time, it seems common to call for the recovery of the law. This is true theonomistically, as some seek to put society under the old covenant law, and it is spiritually, as leaders promote their own opinions as authoritative for all God’s people.

While the law is good (and our society surely needs a recovery of law and order), we are not under law today as believers. The ministry of Jesus was in no way the ministry of recovering the old covenant law, and imposing it on everyone within earshot. No, the ministry of Christ—unlike Moses’ ministry of law—was and is the ministry of grace and truth (John 1:14, 17). This is not a lesser ministry than the ministry of law; this is a far, far, far greater ministry (Hebrews 4-8).

Today, when there is so much law and so little gospel, we need a robust recovery of the gospel. Where we disagree over gray areas, let us disagree in gospel love, and let us not think that the church is structured by our own dictates and opinions. No, the church has only one Lord—the Christ who bought us with his blood, and who alone has the right to call us to obey his loving voice in his perfect Word.

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If you love the gospel, and if you want to drink deeply from it, I invite you to join us for the inaugural One Gospel conference. It’s being held from April 30-May 2, 2026. The conference is not for pastors alone, or men alone, or women alone, or young adults alone. It’s for all of God’s people. Consider yourself warmly invited, one and all.

We will feature one gospel-driven message after another from convictional and gracious Bible teachers like Costi Hinn, Jonny Ardavanis, Jon Benzinger, and Jeremy Vuolo. We will enjoy exultant worship of our great God, led by the writers of the majestic song “Behold Our God.” Beyond this, we will have a lot of fun in all this, gathering across denominations and networks in a visible display of the gospel’s power. Join us!

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

—Luke 23:34

Every sinner knows it all too well: it’s hard to forgive. It is not hard to talk about forgiveness. When a child is mad, you can get down on one knee, look them in the eye, and encourage them to forgive. The lesson is easy to deliver, but then, minutes later, your spouse ticks you off. The old pattern of frustration surfaces once again; a string of past infractions rapidly comes to mind; bitterness flares without warning.

He’ll never change.

She’s done it again.

This is a bridge too far.

“The Answer Is Love”

For all of us sinners, anger is so easy. Forgiveness is so hard. That is why it was so extraordinary to attend the memorial service for Charlie Kirk in State Farm Stadium of Phoenix on September 21, 2025. In person, I witnessed one of the most remarkable public events of my life. Taking the podium near the end of the five-hour program, Erika Kirk—widow of Charlie Kirk—shared that she forgave her husband’s killer, Tyler Robinson:

My husband Charlie he wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life....On the cross, our Savior said: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” That man—that young man—I forgive him. I forgive him because it’s what Christ did. And it’s what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate. The answer—we know from the gospel—is love. Always love. Love for our enemies. Love for those who persecute us.

This is one of the most remarkable moments I’ve ever witnessed in any setting. Just eleven days prior, Charlie Kirk was cut down, brutally executed in public for speaking the truth about “transgender” public shooters. Yet in State Farm Stadium, Erika Kirk stood tall. Her eyes ice blue, Kirk fought for composure as she spoke, seeming to feel the physical weight of both grief—staggering grief—and mercy. Mercy, we can clearly say, won out.

This was nothing less than a demonstration of the gospel. Erika Kirk was driven to do this not for a secular reason, nor for a generic pursuit of peace. By her own statement, Erika forgave Charlie’s assassin because of “what Christ did.” Jesus forgave his enemies even as he died for the wicked, shedding his blood to satisfy the Father’s wrath and cleanse us of our sin (Luke 23:34; Romans 3:21-26).

It’s hard to forgive a small infraction. Forgiveness of this kind, however, is extremely difficult to grant. This is why we say that to forgive as Erika Kirk forgave is not natural; it is truly supernatural. It is above nature. Above our instincts. Above the desire for vengeance that is so strong in all of us. We witnessed a miracle in Phoenix as a heartbroken widow, her plans for a peaceful life shattered, applied the gospel and showed undeserved mercy to her husband’s murderer.

The Uniqueness of Charlie Kirk’s Memorial

The Kirk memorial was an event unlike any I’ve ever attended. It was a funeral held in a stadium that nonetheless included a three-hour worship concert (from 8-11am) and then transitioned into a remembrance of Charlie Kirk’s faith and practice, a clear proclamation of the gospel (particularly through Rob McCoy and Frank Turek), a marking of the effect of Turning Point USA on our society, and a rallying call to extend the cause of light in the public square.

It had Trump. It had Elon Musk in attendance. It had 65,000 people weeping at some points, roaring at other times, and locked in for hours. It was quintessentially Kirk and Trump in that it was bigger than anyone could have imagined and more vibrant than their opponents would ever have wanted. Yet the strange thing was this: though it represented the galvanizing of MAGA in unprecedented terms, it was more spiritual in tone than political.

What came across most strongly to me was this: Charlie Kirk’s faith had consequence. Stratospheric consequence. Here was a young man who dared to row the other direction from his culture. When he saw that conservatives had seemingly given up on winning the rising generation in the Obama years, he resolved to change that situation. He did so with no money, not much backing, and no college education.

Back in 2013, nothing about Charlie Kirk checked the boxes of “world-shaping individual” for either the left or the right. He was from the heartland (Illinois); he wasn’t born to an elite family; he didn’t come from wealth; he didn’t have polished credentials. Instead, in a classic American story, he had far more important traits: soaring vision. Relentless drive. A ferocious work ethic. (At the memorial, his business partner referred to planning times with Charlie as essentially “24-hour strategy sessions,” around the clock efforts that did not end.)

Kirk had all that, but here’s what else he had: hope. The power to inspire. A rock-solid belief that things could be better. Kirk had all the odds stacked against him, but that only made him work harder. Yet he wasn’t motivated by hate, fundamentally. Even now, his opponents have Charlie Kirk wrong. Though he was a tough customer who could put the brass knuckles on at times, he was not a world-class hater or a “fascist.” He was an optimist at heart, and a civilization-builder.

The Effect of Kirk’s Work

Charlie Kirk was always a special young man. But something happened as time wore on. As God worked in Charlie’s heart to save him and then mature him, the cause morphed. It did not become apolitical—Kirk helped deliver the White House to Donald Trump in 2024. It did, though, focus more and more on God. Kirk realized that there was a bigger problem than bankrupt political ideology. Behind this ideology was darkness, pure spiritual evil, that was destroying the souls of the young.

Kirk ramped up his efforts to overcome the darkness. He sought out the apologist Frank Turek and brought him into his circle, learning from Turek. Kirk’s presentations became as much about apologetics as about politics. It has become clear in the wake of Kirk’s death, in fact, that he was becoming the digital Billy Graham, reaching tens of millions of people through his online content.

I glimpsed this up close and personal at the memorial service. While waiting to buy water (and a much-needed mango smoothie!), I spoke to a young man who told me that that he had come to honor Charlie. He was previously in a dark place, but in listening to Kirk, he was directed toward God. He had gotten married, was working hard at his vocation, and was committed to living boldly for Christ.

This legacy stretched into the Kirk memorial itself as a message of hope prevailed. Of course, not everyone sounded these notes. Were there some statements made that I disagreed with, and some matters regarding speakers’ views that troubled me? Yes. Even as there are some good trends right now on the political right, so too are there some troubling developments.

For example, the nation of Israel is under fire, as its allies are pressured to back away from it. Antisemitism surges in America and abroad. In this country, civil religion once again looms as a real option, as “Christianity” becomes less a heart commitment and more a popular brand. Ecumenism beckons, urging us to blur lines and quiet Scripture.

The world feels flipped now. Once it was common not to express faith in God; now it is normal to do so, particularly among younger men and women. We can be thankful that the world has thawed from previous years, even as we should never turn our brains off. It is not a generic Christianity claimed by all that we pursue, after all; it is genuine gospel Christianity that we live to advance. We shall see what coming days hold in this respect.

Watchfulness, however, is not cheerlessness. We who love Christ should take care not to exude a critical and thankless spirit. Instead, we should live in trust of God and work to “believe all things” in love (1 Corinthians 13:7). It is not only Reformed people or Sunday school teachers who treasure Christ as a born-again believer, after all. The church of Jesus Christ is a big church, and it is made up of repentant people from an array of denominations, groups, and locations. Jesus promised to build it, and his Word has not failed, and never will (Matthew 16:18).

Conclusion

All this takes us back to where we began. Forgiveness, we remember, is not cheap. Forgiveness is costly. Erika Kirk gave us a powerful reminder of this truth just this past week. In public and before a watching world, she chose the road less taken. It is not the way of the world, a path of vengeance and rage; it is truly the way of Christ, a path of light and freedom.

Bleeding, suffering, and dying on a Roman cross, Jesus lifted up his voice just before death. In this instance, he was not teaching his disciples near a warm fire and a spread of good food. He was not talking with a confused but well-meaning guest about the nature of his gospel. He was not before world leaders or local rulers, unblinkingly declaring his Lordship and kingly reign to them.

No, in this moment, Jesus was before his enemies, his accusers, his leering killers. It was this hostile group that Jesus looked out on, and it was over this group that Jesus pronounced the immortal words: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

The world has never been the same since.

Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.

—Psalm 116:15

We have experienced the death of elderly evangelical statesmen recently. Their loss moved us to the core, for death is the last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26). But James Dobson and John MacArthur died old and full of days, as Scripture says. Charlie Kirk, assassinated by Tyler Robinson in Orem, Utah, was just 31. Married to Erika and the father of two precious children, Kirk’s death has unleashed a wave of grief not seen in America since the attacks of September 11th, 2001.

The founder and president of Turning Point USA, Kirk was a vibrant young man. His influence was palpable; his intervention in the 2024 presidential election almost certainly helped turn the tide in Donald Trump’s favor. With a cheerful manner and a lightning-quick wit, Kirk displayed a quintessentially American spirit: hard-working, optimistic, patriotic, open to reason, and faith-driven.

What Kirk Brought to Campus: Good Ideas and Good Cheer

Kirk had a convictional, aggressive style. He did not pull his punches, and took many stances, some of them controversial. The remarkable truth about Kirk’s method, though, was this: it was the reverse of what was being practiced on a good number of the college campuses he frequented. Kirk savored open debate, free speech, and the free exchange of ideas. He was lively; he was fun; he was puckish; he talked football; he won many people over through his manner, not just his principles.

The university did not smile back at him. At many colleges and universities, students are not being taught to think freely, debate openly, and disagree respectfully. Instead, they are being indoctrinated and made into radical activists. At least some of those who are brainwashed into a zombified morality (a counterfeit Christianity) believe that violence toward Christians and conservatives is not only allowable, but righteous.

This has taken concrete form in recent days. The assassin of Charlie Kirk (who was apparently in a relationship with a man who identified as “transgender”), the murderer of Iryna Zaruska, and the slayer of Minnesota schoolchildren each were shown to hold radical leftist views in the wake of their diabolical acts. Over the last several years, there is a spiraling chain of brutal bloodshed that proceeds directly from radical leftist ideology and activism.

Not “Culture War” but Cosmos War

It is not the case that every leftist or even radical leftist takes murderous action. Furthermore, there are bad actors on all sides. However, we cannot avoid this conclusion: the radical left is given over to ideas that are not only wrong, but calamitously destructive. These include:

1) White people are the oppressors of people of color (and so it is righteous to oppose and attack white people)

2) Christian ethics do violence to “transgender” and homosexual people (and so it is righteous to oppose and attack Christians, as Kirk’s killer seemingly believed)

3) Conservatives are fascists who are destroying this country (and so it is righteous to oppose and attack conservatives)

4) Gun usage is bad (and so it is righteous to kill those who forcefully advocate for the right to bear arms)

5) The right is fomenting hatred through its rhetoric (and so it is righteous to target hate-filled people and attack them)

6) America needs more civility (but when anti-civil people are killed in cold blood, the righteous nature of their death means we can celebrate their death)

7) We need to care for the vulnerable and weak (but the left’s cardinal principle these days is abortion, the slaughter of innocent babies)

Let us linger on the last of these bitter ironies. Over the years, the left has increasingly made abortion the effective center of its platform. Kamala Harris campaigned on the sanctity of abortion in 2024, operating on the correct assumption that abortion would be treated by the left as a human good and a political rallying point.

So it is that brutal violence is at the heart of modern leftism. This may sound impolitic, but it is an inescapable truth resting on the most basic of connections. This is why it is harder and harder to separate the left and the radical left in our time. Not all leftists seek to enact violence against conservatives and Christians, and so the distinction holds. But the line between the two camps is a fragile one indeed.

Leftism in our era is grounded in violence against the unborn. Further violence is spilling over from this diabolical—even demonic—foundation. This is not overheated language. When we encounter the manifestos and the post-murder confessions of radical leftist activists, we hear terrifying testimony of demonic influence, demonic voices, and demonic presence. It makes sense: the further into the mist of anti-God ideology you go, the more you are within shouting distance of the devil himself.

This reminds us: we are not merely in a “culture war” today. I believe, as I have said elsewhere, that we are in a “cosmos war.” Our battle, that is, is with principalities and powers of darkness (Ephesians 6:10-20). With everything he has, Satan is using the godless anti-gospel ideologies of our age to marshal a human army that preys on the innocent, the weak, and the vulnerable—with real success in our society.

Four Ways to Honor Charlie Kirk’s Legacy

Though he was just 31 years old, it is right to consider how we can honor Charlie Kirk and even emulate him in different forms. Here are four ways, in brief, we can do so.

First, we should not radicalize normalcy, but normalize courage. In response to the violence sweeping our country, some have spoken of the need to “radicalize.” With respect, I do not believe that the way forward is to radicalize normalcy. I believe that the way forward is to normalize courage. I do not simply mean courage of action; I mean courage of mind, so that we unapologetically embrace biblical principles (Romans 12:2), and courage of speech (2 Timothy 1:7).

This is what Charlie Kirk stood for. With an engaging demeanor at his “Change My Mind” fold-up table, Kirk went into the devil’s own training camp and not only held his ground, but took ground. He had major influence when alive, just as there are already signs that Kirk’s death is having a spiritual effect on many. Tragedies have a way of clarifying the true priorities of life, and we pray that many will soon meet Jesus as Savior and Lord.

Second, we should pray to see true biblical justice restored in America. Evil is on the loose, as we have been at pains to say. In such conditions, we need a return to justice, true biblical justice. In reality, we need a broader recovery of proper biblical categories for both church and government.

The church exists to preach the gospel and be salt and light (Matthew 28:16-20; Matthew 5:13-16). The government, as Romans 13:1-7 shows, exists to reward good and promote justice. This justice, however, is distinct from what is called “social justice.” In a Marxist program, justice entails leveling the societal playing field and giving everyone the same standard of life by deprivileging majority “oppressors” and elevating “oppressed” minorities based on group power dynamics.

Scripture condemns all evil oppression, to be sure, but as I have explored in this volume, biblical justice is not “social justice.” Biblical justice boils down to a) not impeding the flourishing of others and b) retributively punishing wickedness. As one cornerstone passage, Romans 13 focuses most on retributive justice. Rulers are "a terror" to "bad" conduct (3); Caesar "does not bear the sword in vain" (4); public leaders are called "the servant of God" and they are required to be "an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer" (4).

This biblical testimony should revive our flagging sense of justice. The government does not exist to feed you or fulfill you or fix your life; the government exists to promote good and stand evil down. Standing on Scripture, we believers should support the justice system, pray for justice, and be a public voice that opposes evil, honors good, and holds the wicked to full and terrifying account.

Third, we should encourage young people to embrace maturity. This is a key part of Charlie Kirk’s testimony. He was young but sought to leave childish things behind (1 Cor. 13:11). His call to maturity was grounded in the gospel. After all, we glorify God most—and are primed to most grow into our potential—when we believe the gospel, repent of the evil we have done, and trust Christ as our Savior and Lord.

In light of Kirk’s example, we say in great affection and hope to young men: Rise and build (Nehemiah 2:18); Be strong and show yourself a man (1 Kings 2:2); Act like men (1 Corinthians 16:13). Beyond young men, whatever our age or sex, we can all do something more than watch debate videos. We can put our boots on and go to work, laboring for the glory of Christ (Philippians 3:14).

Fourth, we should practice love, not hate. It is natural for all of us to hate our enemies. What is not natural is to love our enemies, and pray for them (Matthew 5:44). This is what Christ—the man who was unjustly killed for our salvation—taught his disciples, and us by extension.

But lest we misunderstand, love does not quiet societal involvement. True love of God actually stimulates love of neighbor (Matthew 22:34-39). We should be a people who honor human dignity and work to uphold ideals like religious liberty, the liberty of conscience, and the free exchange of ideas. This is not a time for totalitarianism, for trying to force people to believe truth. It is a time to practice the art of loving persuasion in a convictional, loving, and dignified manner (1 Peter 3:15).

Conclusion

Like many others, I was shaken to my core by seeing Charlie Kirk shot in Utah. The moment captured in video footage is terrible, piercing, and unforgettable. In its rawness, it feels like something beyond redemption, beyond recovery, beyond hope.

But as I reflected on Charlie’s death, I was reminded that to be absent from the body—to die—is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). I do not know the precise moment Charlie’s life slipped away. But I know this with certainty: when Charlie fell into death, never to return to us, Jesus caught him with his own hands.

These strong hands were once pierced by nails for Charlie’s redemption—and our redemption. These hands grasped Charlie’s shoulders outside of heaven’s gates; these hands pulled Charlie close in an embrace of pure love; these hands guided Charlie into the place where the Father dwells with his blood-bought people.

These hands will one day do the same for us.

Occasionally in life, we have a clear sense that the ground is shifting beneath our feet. One age is ending; another is beginning. Many evangelicals have felt this palpably in recent days, as first John MacArthur (July 14, 2025) and now James Dobson (August 21, 2025) have gone home to glory.

Each of these men had an outsized effect on the Christian church. I have already considered MacArthur’s impact; Dobson, it must be said, made no less of an impression on his era. It is not too much to say, in fact, that what MacArthur was for preachers and ministry, Dobson was for parents and the family: a voice of unflinching Christian conviction.

Dobson and MacArthur: Prophets in Distinct Areas

We know that the Old Testament office of prophet has been fully and finally fulfilled in Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:1-2). Yet the ministry of truth endures, for to speak truth in a world of lies is to speak prophetically. Like MacArthur, Dobson was a powerfully prophetic figure in his area of calling, urging evangelicals to embrace a distinctly Christian approach as a parent. His example is not merely historic; it is urgently needed today.

These men had many friends and peers, but it is only right to say that they were unique men, and had unique gifting. Each had outsized courage, unusual communicative ability, and expertise in their field. Notably, both made their mark in Southern California. MacArthur became pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley (Los Angeles) in 1969, while Dobson taught in the School of Medicine as a tenure-track faculty member at the University of Southern California (1967-81).

The scope of products, and level of influence, of Focus defies easy quantification, but in professional terms the organization set new standards of excellence in using radio and television, recruiting donors from across America, and rallying the base for activist ends. Dobson began the Focus on the Family broadcast in 1977, and moved to Colorado Springs in 1991, where the Focus organization grew by leaps and bounds.

Focus on the Family became the most important voice of conservative Christian beliefs regarding the family, marriage, sexuality, and parenting in the world. With a $120 million budget and thousands of staff, Focus represented the clearinghouse for evangelical conviction on family-related matters. The Focus on the Family show reportedly reached many tens of millions of people each day, playing on over 7,000 stations in over 160 countries at its apex. (The ministry is going strong today under the leadership of Jim Daly.)

But Focus did not only engage cultural developments. One of my favorite elements of the broader Dobson legacy is—of all things—a kids’ show: “Adventures in Odyssey.” There are many present-day Christians whose childhood revolved around “Odyssey” and its textured, enjoyable, engrossing world. (As recently as one week ago, my own family was choosing our favorite Odyssey episodes for a road trip.)

The point here is this: Dobson’s legacy—like MacArthur’s—is vast. In what follows, I will keep to my theme as sketched above, and consider five elements of MacArthur and Dobson’s ministry that stand out to me.

Five Areas of Overlap Between Dobson and MacArthur

First, each man spoke with convictional authority. MacArthur and Dobson were their own man, and had distinct demeanors. Each man, though, embodied authority in his God-given ministry. MacArthur was an expositor who preached as if the pulpit had divine authority, while Dobson was a practiced counselor who balanced awareness of the total human person with moral authority grounded in God’s truth.

In different ways and with markedly different styles, each man spoke with authority in a postmodern age. Unlike many of their peers, Dobson and MacArthur dared to draw lines, declare truths, and offer moral clarity to a rebellious age. They did not soften the biblical witness about abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, adultery, lust, and other sins. They spoke forthrightly, directly, and unapologetically—but with love (Ephesians 4:15).

In the simplest terms, neither man feared the world. Though Dobson and MacArthur came from different theological streams and had some doctrinal quibbles, they both looked to God for approval, not the culture. In the clarity and courage of their convictional witness, they left us an example to follow.

Second, each man tackled an area of great need. At times, Christians mistakenly come to think that the body of Christ needs only one kind of worker. This can happen, for example, at Christian colleges. Anyone who is truly godly, the line goes, becomes a missionary, or a pastor, or a politician. In truth, the Christian church needs people glorifying Christ in a wide range of disciplines and vocations.

MacArthur drew many to the pastorate by his example. Dobson’s role was less defined, but was similarly valuable to the church’s confession and witness. It is impossible to imagine postwar evangelicalism without him. In the simplest terms, Dobson became the leading voice in the world on the family, helping countless homes develop a biblical vision of children, childraising, discipline, marriage, and much more.

As an author, Dobson not only contributed to national conversations—he defined them. This was true of seminal works like Bringing Up Boys, Bringing Up Girls, The Strong-Willed Child, and Dare to Discipline, to name a few. Each of these texts made a major contribution to its subject; with discipline, for example, Dobson’s rightful advocacy for loving parental correction helped alter the trajectory of the American family (even as his emphasis is greatly needed in today’s “gentle parenting” age).

In all this, Dobson was a balanced voice. If at times some evangelicals wished for him to focus less on psychology, his gracious and calm approach helped many men embrace biblical fatherhood. Beyond manhood alone, Dobson and MacArthur were unwavering complementarians who defended the God-made family until their closing moments on earth (each man signed the Nashville Statement in 2017). They left complementarians a model to follow, balancing courage with kindness.

Third, each man created works that far outgrew his own reach. MacArthur started a range of ministries, each of which became a force in its own right: Grace to You, The Master’s Seminary, The Master’s University (as it is now known), TMAI, and more. Dobson started Focus, but also the Family Research Council, which grew into a valuable mouthpiece of Christian conviction in the public square, and the Family Policy Alliance, which includes chapters in many states in America.

At the personal level, I can attest to the wide reach of Dobson’s program. I had the joy of working for the James Dobson Family Institute in different capacities from 2022-25 (JDFI is what Dr. Dobson founded after leaving Focus in 2010). During my time working for JDFI, I cannot count how many times people related to me how influential Dr. Dobson was in their childhood or parenting journey:

“I listened to him every single day, without fail, at 4pm.”

“He helped me know what being a mother meant.”

“I had no idea how to have a healthy marriage, but I learned through Dr. Dobson.”

“I was disciplined because of him—thanks a lot, Dr. Dobson!” (said with a smile)

“He was the father I never had.”

I heard a well-known pastor say this last line a year ago. This is a clear part of the Dobson Effect, if I can coin that term: he not only counseled parents, and helped rebuild a home system founded in both love and discipline (not one or the other), but through his show, he became a father figure to many.

This was a crucial part of Dobson’s appeal: his approachability. Dr. Dobson was not to be messed with, but you got the sense from his public communication that he was a dad who—if he was your own father—would love you, have fun with you, counsel you, train you, and forgive you. There are far too few fathers out there like this, and that was a huge part of the Dobson Effect. Far more than a mere “culture warrior,” Dr. Dobson was an authority, a gracious father-at-large, a wise counselor in a society filled with the pain of tragic decisions, legislated sin, and familial ruin.

Fourth, each man was just a man—and a colorful one at that. Christians are a people who honor those who lead well, particularly church elders (1 Timothy 5:17). We rightly honor Dr. Dobson now, after his recent death. But we take care not to think him any more than a man. In truth, he was a colorful, lively, very interesting man.

I wrote previously about how MacArthur developed an unlikely friendship with R. C. Sproul (here and here). The two men did not allow their minor theological disagreements to stop them from enjoying fellowship, cracking jokes, and teasing one another. Dr. Dobson had a similar streak in him; he was by all accounts a likable man, kind to those in need, tender with bruised reeds. (Courageous men should always—always—be kind men, as both Dobson and MacArthur were.)

Both men were athletic, and by all accounts intense competitors. This led to some unusual occurrences. A serious pickup basketball player, Dr. Dobson hosted a three-times-per-week game at the First Church of the Nazarene. He enticed “Pistol Pete” Maravich to join this regular game in 1988. All was going normally until Pistol Pete suddenly fell forward, tragically dead of an undiagnosed heart defect, in a stranger-than-fiction moment.

Dr. Dobson had a notable presence about him. He walked closely with his God, and in God’s kind providence, it was given to Dr. Dobson to stand before kings (Proverbs 22:29). He worked closely with Ronald Reagan to counter the specter of pornography in the 1980s and became an essential evangelical voice in the public square. Late in his life, Dr. Dobson supported Donald Trump, seeing before many that Trump would stand in many valuable ways against the spirit of the age.

Though I did not know Dr. Dobson well, I got to spend a little time with him. In a lunch meeting at one of his regular spots in Colorado Springs, his physical grace stood out. Even in his eighties, he was strikingly tall; he had to sit sideways at the table to stretch his legs out. Unusual for a famous person, he listened more than he spoke; his demeanor was kind and welcoming, but he was markedly watchful and attentive. He reminded me of Jordan Peterson, in truth—this was a man who missed nothing.

I had this same experience when I did a two-part show (part one and two) with Dr. Dobson about my 2021 book Christianity and Wokeness. Dr. Dobson did not rest on his laurels; he clearly had read widely on this ascendant ideology, and he asked scores of sharp questions, repeatedly drilling to the heart of the matter. Yet his touch was not heavy, but light; that was the essence of the man. He promoted consequential and even controversial ideas, yet did so with dignity, grace, and a dash of savoir faire.

I made a propitious discovery when visiting his office. Thanks to some friends, Dr. Dobson had a massive painting of Winston Churchill just outside his main working space. When he left his inner sanctum, the heroic last lion greeted him. Seeing this connection, I gained vital information about Dr. Dobson. A man who hangs a Churchill portrait in his office is no trifling individual; he is invariably a man who values courage, counter-cultural truth, and living life with a certain zest.

Fifth, each man remained faithful to his wife and to Christ. John MacArthur was married to his wife Patricia for over 60 years (1963-2025), and they had four children. James Dobson was married to his wife Shirley for over 60 years as well (1960-2025), and they had two children: Danae and Ryan. Over more than half a century, Dr. Dobson—like Dr. MacArthur—not only honored the good design of God of the natural family. He lived out that design.

These two men kept their charge, fought their fight, and ran their race. They have left us an inspiring example that calls to us to strengthen our own marriages and families. Dr. Dobson in particular helped many men see that the family is not our third most important work, taking priority only after work and church (or our buddies). The family is our first priority, and our marriage must be cultivated, tended, invested in, and prayed over.

Dr. Dobson was faithful not only to his beloved Shirley, though. Like Dr. MacArthur, he was faithful to his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He had no massive scandal in his ministry. He did not disqualify himself due to a moral failing. He weathered challenges and difficulties, to be sure, and was a sinner in daily need of God’s grace. Yet his was a genuine walk with Christ, one that helped lift many others to God.

Conclusion

The ground has shifted beneath our feet. God has taken two honorable men home. Many of us feel this loss keenly, as well we should. The fruit-bearing witness of each man does not weigh us down or condemn us, though, but charges us. What did Paul say? Excel still more (1 Thessalonians 4:1,10). To Timothy, he gave no word of doom as his own death loomed, but sought to encourage the young man to pick up his mantle (2 Timothy 4).

So it is in our day. We cannot be these men, nor should we try. There is no immediate successor to either MacArthur or Dobson, nor can there be. God has not made the world this way; he has not set things up so that there are carbon copies of individuals, as if there are four versions of Spurgeon out there and three iterations of C. S. Lewis. This never has been how things work, and it will never be how things work, much as we understandably grieve our heroes when they are gone.

With respect to Dobson and MacArthur, we cannot replace them, and we should not try to do so. What we can do is emulate their faithfulness, their courage, and their full-orbed Christian witness as they imitated Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1). We can do so, furthermore, with faith, hope, and good cheer. Even as two lions of the faith have gone to glory, it is not time for God’s people to despair, fear, or give up.

It is time for us to pick up the banner, the torch, that has fallen from their strong hands, and by the powerful grace of God carry it forward.

*************

Image: JDFI

The cross is our theology.

—Martin Luther, “Lectures on the Psalms”

John Mark Comer is one of the most popular voices in the Christian world today. Formerly a pastor in Portland, Oregon, Comer has become a go-to authority in the Christian spirituality world, picking up the mantle of Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, and John Ortberg. Comer’s appeal is obvious: his style is easygoing and his writing is accessible. The Christianity he champions is a quirky combination of chill vibes, unabashed devotion (he likes rules!), and counter-cultural questioning of orthodoxies.

For my part, I recently read Comer’s book on ruthlessly eliminating “hurry.” Overall, I enjoyed it, as Comer offers some valuable practical guidance in resisting secular pressure. At the same time, numerous features of the book tripped my radar—the heavily ecumenical source-base, the lack of a clear articulation of the gospel and its centrality in evangelical spirituality, and the gestures made toward progressive politics.

John Mark Comer Questions Penal Substitutionary Atonement

I haven’t been entirely sure what to make of Comer’s program. Recently, an Instagram story by Comer made major waves, as Comer cited a 2024 book on the atonement as seemingly “the final biblical/exegetical knockout blow to PSA.” PSA means “penal substitutionary atonement,” the biblical doctrine of the cross that reads Christ as dying in the place of sinners under the penalty of God’s law—bearing the just wrath of God—so that those who have faith in Christ and repent of their sins may know God’s total forgiveness.

PSA has been under fire for generations. Among other reasons, liberal theologians have argued that it teaches a vision of God that reads him as a cosmic child-abuser who pours out unrestrained fury on his Son, Jesus Christ. This bad conception of God, some argue, has enfranchised all manner of evils, including abusive patriarchy, spanking and mistreatment of children, retributive justice and the death penalty, and more.

For these reasons, Comer’s cannonball into the pool surprised many. Prior to the above Instagram story, he had not waded so directly into the debate sketched above. Now, however, Comer has chosen to engage one of the fiercest disagreements in all of Christian theology. He did so by commending a scholarly book by Andrew Rillera entitled Lamb of the Free: Recovering the Varied Sacrificial Understandings of Jesus's Death (Cascade, 2024).

Rillera is assistant professor of biblical studies and theology at The King’s University in Edmonton, Alberta. Previously, he wrote a book called Fight with Preston Sprinkle, making a case for pacifism (Sprinkle is “progressive” in different respects, arguing—for example—that the experience of same-sex attraction is not a sin.) Rillera’s latest book is no peace offering, however; it is a haymaker in the direction of PSA, as we shall see.

Evaluating Lamb of the Free

What does Lamb of the Free argue? In this humble essay, I won’t try to map an exhaustive answer. In what follows, I will quote from a number of Rillera’s arguments. In the next section, I will give an overview response. Here, then, is a rapid ten-part tour of some of the core content of Lamb of the Free.

First, Rillera aims to prove that Old Testament sacrifice is not about wrath or punishment of sin.

The key point for us to grasp in this preliminary discussion is that this careful, historical work by Milgrom, along with those who argue like him, exposes the fact that the set of equations at the heart of the PSA model is, quite simply, untrue. The practice and logic of OT sacrifice has nothing to do with substitution, retribution, or punishment (i.e., negative retribution). Neither is it supplying a universal account of justice. The mechanism, logic, and concerns of OT sacrifice are completely different. (20)

Second, he believes that this relates to God’s character:

We must press, that is, more deeply into a God of love, not retribution; into a God who eschews violence, rather than practicing it proportionately; and into a gospel rooted in divine benevolence and covenant, not in retribution and contract. (22)

Third, Rillera argues that historic evangelical atonement theology produces bad results:

I hope to be a family that cultivates a shared life that is “free” from the fear-based and pseudo-justice of so many theologies of “atonement” that pass as “Christian,” but that actually nurture antichrist authoritarian household environments. Rather, we strive, with the Lamb’s help, to be participants in the broken body and shed blood of the Lamb for the life of the world. (28)

Fourth, Rillera argues that the Bible teaches the “participation” theory of atonement:

By way of conclusion, I directly address the notion of “substitution.” By this point, it will have become more than clear that the NT authors, whether they make use of sacrificial imagery, or whether they make use of the atoning sacrifices, all agree on one fundamental point: Jesus’s death is a participatory phenomenon; it is something all are called to share in experientially. The logic is not: Jesus died so we don’t have to. Rather it is: Jesus died so that we, together, can follow in his steps and die with him and like him, having full fellowship with his sufferings so that we might share in the likeness of his resurrection(e.g., Phil 3:10–11; Gal 2:20; 6:14; Rom 6:3–8; 1 Pet 2:21; Mark 8:34–35 with 10:38–29; 1 John 2:6; 3:16–18; etc.). In short, while Jesus did die for us, this does not mean that Jesus died instead of us. It means that he died ahead of and with us. (38)

Fifth—and this is big—Rillera reconceives numerous OT sacrifices:

(1) There is no such thing as a “substitutionary death” sacrifice in the Torah. (2) The hand-laying ritual is not saying “this is me; this is my substitute,” but rather, “this is mine; I own this and I’m giving it to God [for various distinct purposes].” (3) Sacrificial slaughter is itself not focused on the biological death of the animal. Sacrificial slaughter is separated from any notion of simply being a “death” and it is explicitly reconceptualized via specific ritual actions as something other than a killing of a blood-bearing creature. (4) Sacrificial slaughter is not at all about making the animal “suffer” (let alone suffer as a substitute). (43)

Sixth, in the New Testament, the cross is about “solidarity,” not substitution:

It is also worth pausing to note that Jesus repeatedly tells his disciples that they are called to follow him along the same way (Matt 10:38; 16:24; 20:22–23; Mark 8:34; 10:38–39; Luke 9:23; 14:27; John 12:24–26; 13:16–17, 36; 15:18, 20; 16:1–4; 21:18–22). This conception of Jesus’s death is not a substitution from any angle. Jesus did not die “instead of” Jerusalem, since it is still going to be destroyed. Jesus did not die “instead of” the disciples, who will still brought to trial and some of them killed. Jesus goes the way of Jerusalem’s destruction on the cross and Jesus’s disciples follow the way of the cross as they pick up their own. This is about solidarity, not substitution. According to the Gospels, Jesus is not dying instead of anyone, let alone his disciples, but rather, ahead of them. He is the one who pioneers the way through death and into indestructible resurrection life, moral purification, the forgiveness of sins, and the establishment of the new eschatological covenant. (276)

Seventh, the Lord’s Supper is a memorial celebration of “divine liberation”:

But this does not mean that either the Passover or the covenant-inaugurating sacrifice being activated at the Lord’s Supper themselves are suddenly taking on a “forgiveness” or a kipper function. Rather, they are, like all other well-being sacrifices (especially the thanksgiving sacrifice), memorializing and celebrating an act of divine liberation. And these events of divine deliverance were not accomplished via a well-being sacrifice. Rather, they are commemorated and memorialized by these sacrificial feasts. (293)

Eighth, language about “taking away sins” is about God’s patience, not atoning sacrifice:

In the other Torah passages, the phrase “takes away sin(s)” are all about God removing Israel’s sins, i.e., putting up with their disobedience, after they leave Egypt (Exod 34:7, 9; Num 14:18 [notice v. 19 “from Egypt until now”]). Right after the relationship between God and Israel is established—celebrated with the Passover and sealed in the covenant-making ceremony—Israel worships the golden calf at the foot of Sinai (Exod 32). This is the context of the first use of this phrase, which anchors Moses’s hope that God will listen to his prayer for Israel and God will take away their grave sin of idolatry (34:7, 9). Then after they depart Sinai, the people start complaining and rebelling right away and continually (Num 11–21 contains seven episodes of this).534 Numbers 14:18 occurs in middle of these episodes and it becomes apparent that “taking away sins” becomes a necessary thing for God to do if the people are not going to be totally abandoned or destroyed in the wilderness. But, importantly, this “taking away of sins” in both Num 14 and Exod 34 happens quite apart from the sacrificial system. This is just the prerogative of God because there are no atoning sacrificial remedies for these deliberates acts of rebellion... (301)

Ninth, “forgiveness of sins” means release from the consequences of moral impurity:

The theme of “forgiveness of sins” in the NT is anchored in the prophetic texts that promise a specific sort of forgiveness of sins: Israel’s release from the consequences of moral impurity (exile as covenant death, e.g., Ezek 37), which will be celebrated as a new exodus (hence Passover) and establishing/re-affirming God’s (re)new(ed) covenant (exile as covenant death, e.g., Ezek 37). Neither the Jesus-as-Passover lamb nor Jesus-as-blood-of-the-(re)new(ed)-covenant effects this forgiveness. Rather, these sacrificial feasts are sacrificialized in the Lord’s Supper to commemorate that the promised forgiveness of sins has already happened apart from any “sacrifice” (atoning or non-atoning). Jesus was literally offering this forgiveness prior to his death because the forgiveness he offers springs from the fact that “the time is fulfilled” (Mark 1:15)—it is the time of God’s promised forgiveness—and that he is God’s “mobile, and powerfully contagious force of holiness in the world . . . that overwhelms the forces and sources of impurity and death, be they pneumatic, ritual, or moral.” (313)

Tenth, the work of Christ is participatory, calling us to walk faithfully with Jesus in suffering:

Therefore, as it turns out, Jesus’s high priesthood is not substitutionary. Rather, it is something we are enabled to participate in because it grants us access to the heavenly holy of holies, which it seems Jesus will be bringing with him when he returns (9:28; 10:34, 37; 11:10, 16; 12:22, 27–28; 13:14). (363)

Believers are so intimately connected with Jesus that their suffering “belongs” to Jesus—it is “his reproach.” Their suffering is his suffering. This is as clear of a statement of total solidarity and participation as it is profound. (365)

What is clear in Hebrews, though, is that Jesus’s death is not an act of substitution. The audience is not supposed to look at Jesus’s sufferings and death and think: “Phew! Jesus did all of that instead of me!” Rather, they are “to look upon Jesus, the author and perfector of faithfulness” (12:2) and thereby pattern their lives after the crucifixion, bearing his reproach, realizing that Jesus suffered and died ahead of them rather than instead of them (12:2–4; 10:32–39; 11:25–26, 36–38). Jesus’s suffering and death is what determines what faithfulness and obedience mean (5:8; 10:7, 9) while the wilderness generation provides the antitype (3:18–19; 4:2–3, 6, 11). (368)

Moreover, according to Hebrews, Jesus not only decontaminates the heavenly sanctuary, his consecrating life-blood also grants believers access to God in the holy of holies, indexing them as co-high priests, and enables them to participate with Jesus as co-purgation sacrifices enveloped in the same single purgation sacrifice Jesus is and offers. This understanding of atonement (in the sense of kipper) is not about Jesus dying “instead of” us, but rather about Jesus’s death and resurrection making it possible for us to pattern our own lives after him in union with his suffering and death and to participate in his resurrection. This is a participatory atonement (kipper) theology. (371)

A Response to Andrew Rillera (and John Mark Comer)

Just two months before Rillera’s Lamb of the Free debuted in March 2024, I had a book come out. It’s entitled The Warrior Savior: A Theology of the Work of Christ (P&R). In what follows, I will present material adapted (and expanded upon) from The Warrior Savior that directly relates to some of Rillera’s claims, including commentary from several of Christianity’s most faithful theologians.

First Truth: God Is the One Who Is Wronged by Sin

While I recognize real scholarly ability in Rillera, I cannot mince words: my disagreement with him is entire. It is whole-cloth disagreement. I say this because Rillera and I read the Bible in fundamentally different and irreconcilable terms. Essentially, Rillera removes atonement (as it is rightly understood) from the biblical narrative, gutting biblical sacrifices of their core character.

In the Bible, our personal sin must be dealt with because it offends God personally. This is true from the jump: when Adam and Eve sin against God, God shows up personally (Genesis 3:1-13). He pronounces judgment on the serpent (first), the woman, and then the man. This is extremely important material, for it shows that when we sin, we are not only transgressing the holy standard; we are blaspheming and rebelling against God himself.

This is the background and framework of all divine-human interaction in Scripture (and history). No person can remove himself or herself from the theocentric dimension of human existence. Genesis 2-3 shows us in unmistakable terms that we are made by God, we are ruled by God, we rebel against God, and we will be judged by God. The Scripture presents sin in these terms from the start to the finish of the Bible.

Rillera’s project does grapple with sin and uncleanness and forgiveness, to be sure. But it guts the God-human relationship of its retributive and restorative character. In biblical terms, the fall is a holistic fall, entailing a change of nature; similarly, forgiveness through sacrifice is holistic forgiveness, rendering people gloriously free from the judgment of God they (we!) so clearly deserve.

Second Truth: God Is the One Who Makes Atonement

God, then, is just. In a world of fallenness, this means that God is not only displeased with sin, desiring “decontamination” (a key word for Rillera’s project). No, God burns against sin. The wrath of God is real and terrible (Romans 1:18; Ephesians 2:3). The only hope for humanity is to be rescued from this just punishment, which stretches far beyond this life into eternity.

Here, then, is amazing news: God does not leave us in our sin. God shows up. God comes near. In Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve run from God by trusting the serpent’s antirevelation, God does not abandon them. God calls them to account, but then God speaks a word to the serpent. While the smoke is still rising from the fall, God promises to send a Warrior-Deliverer on behalf of the woman’s seed (Gen. 3:15). This heroic figure will not only battle the serpent’s seed, but defeat it.

We must read this as a sign of God’s fatherly love. God protects his people from their sworn enemy. God acts when all that Adam and Eve know to do is hide. God intervenes. Not only this: God clothes the man and the woman in animal skins, prefiguring justification by faith alone. From that point forward, God ensures that the woman’s seed endures and even thrives in the midst of great peril and hardship. The standard to which the people are called is a high one indeed; as God shows Abraham, nothing can be held back from the Lord, for the Lord will hold no good thing back from his chosen.

God over and over again reveals that he loves and protects and delivers his people. In the Passover and the exodus, we find an early expression of the glorious dynamics of atonement theology: Israel’s sins are passed over, and God gives the passed-over people victory over—and deliverance from —their Egyptian enemies. We see a similar effect in play in the atonement ceremonies of Leviticus. God makes sinners clean through blood sacrifice and, at the height of this system, both accepts a ram’s blood and releases the scapegoat into the wilderness, signifying the complete removal of Israel’s iniquity that is provisionally realized in the old covenant era—and that will one day come to perfect fruition in the Lamb.

The Old Testament teaches blood atonement for sin. All this comes to culmination in the perfect atoning sacrifice foretold in Isaiah 53. No bull or goat will suffice. The personal God calls out a personal sufferer, the Suffering Servant, in order to make full and final atonement for sin. No committee appoints the Servant to this task; it is the will of Yahweh to send this figure to die for his people (Isaiah 53:10).

As is true all throughout the Old Testament and the Bible more broadly, God is the one who takes initiative to save, deliver, and heal. Only God can save; only God acts to save. The redemption that God effects, furthermore, is no trifling redemption, but is the costliest sacrifice possible. We conclude the point by citing Leon Morris:

…in both Testaments the thought is plain that the gift which secures the propitiation is from God Himself. He provides the way whereby men may come to Him. Thus the use of the concept of propitiation witnesses to two great realities, the one, the reality and the seriousness of the divine reaction against sin, and the other, the reality and the greatness of the divine love which provided the gift which should avert the wrath from men. (Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, Third Ed., Eerdmans, 210–11)

Third Truth: The Depth of God’s Love for Us Is Portrayed in Christ’s Cross

Scripture reveals that the same God who judges sin loves his people “with an everlasting love” ( Jer. 31:3). In the Bible, we learn that God is not only willing to forgive because of his great love for us, but that God delights to forgive because of his great love for us. Even in our lowest moments, in fact, God is not quick to anger. As Moses learned, the Lord is a God “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,” a God who keeps “steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Ex. 34:6–7).

Here is some truly wondrous truth: this is not love that is dependent on us, ultimately. This is not love that gets turned off rapidly like a faucet wrenched by a raging overlord. This is the love of a heavenly Father. It is love so great and joyous that it inspires us to run hard after God. We do not strive to obey God out of grim joylessness or rote duty; we strive to obey our gracious heavenly Father because, in response to his love, we love him.

His love compels our love in the gladdest possible sense (2 Cor. 5:14). Our actions all matter to God, but at the end of the day, God’s love is not dependent on us. God’s love is dependent on God. This is why it endures; this is why it continues; this is why we do not lose our salvation; this is why, once we are born again, our sin can never be unatoned for. God’s love owes to what God wills, not what we do.

So for believers, love is not an abstract category. Love is not defined by speculative philosophy or human wisdom. Love is defined by God, and love at its peak in the world that God has made is shown and offered in the cross of Christ. God shows us love at its height in the cross as the Father gives up his Son to death under judgment for us, and the Son does not flinch but dies for us under just penalty in our place. We hear J. I. Packer on this count:

The penal substitution model has been criticized for depicting a kind Son placating a fierce Father in order to make him love man, which he did not do before. The criticism is, however, inept, for penal substitution is a Trinitarian model, for which the motivational unity of Father and Son is axiomatic. The New Testament presents God’s gift of his Son to die as the supreme expression of his love to men. … And the two loves, the love of Father and Son, are one: a point that the penal substitution model, as used, firmly grasps. (J. I. Packer, “What Did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution,” in J. I. Packer and Mark Dever, In My Place Condemned He Stood: Celebrating the Glory of the Atonement, Crossway, 2008), 93–94)

As Packer is at pains to say, the cross is the visible display in history, in time and space, of the love of God. But it is not an impersonal cross. It is a cross borne for us. It is thus an objective reality that shapes our subjective experience. It does not speak to us of a limited forgiveness; the cross speaks to us through nearly two thousand years of history of complete forgiveness, perfect forgiveness, forgiveness to the uttermost. It is forgiveness seen both in the shedding of blood and in the resulting departure of the Scapegoat into utter darkness on behalf of the covenant people of God.

All this clarifies what is lost in projects like the one Rillera constructs. If we remove the wrath-forgiveness dynamic from the cross, we have no cross at all. But we do not only lose retributive justice and crucial teaching on the character of God; we lose love. Biblical love at its apex does not only modify and tweak; biblical love at its apex satisfies, cleanses, redeems, buys back from bondage—in a phrase, secures complete and total forgiveness through the death of an innocent substitute.

Fourth Truth: We Have Victory over Sin, Satan, the World, and Hell

Rillera rightly references the victory of God over the powers of darkness in his book. But in rejecting PSA, he tragically loses the very engine that accomplishes the triumph of God over Satan. (This same problem recurs in Fleming Rutledge’s The Crucifixion; Rutledge is right about Christ’s victory over the powers, but fails to situate this cosmic win in PSA.) We can say it this way: in the cross of Christ, Jesus the Warrior-Savior has kept the head-crushing promise. Genesis 3:15 is fulfilled. The power of Satan is broken because Jesus the Prophet, Priest, and King atones for the sin of God’s elect.

This means that we who love Scripture do not choose between PSA and Christus Victor (the triumph of Christ over the devil). In our atonement theology, we recognize that the forgiveness of sin through the blood of Christ is precisely what accomplishes our liberation from the forces of evil. At Calvary, Jesus dies as a penal substitutionary sacrifice, and thus propitiates the wrath of God and cleanses the guilty. There is a powerful logic at play here: atonement accomplishes liberation.

This means that the church is a victory people. The victory of God over the devil has yet to be finalized, as it will be on the last day, but it is nevertheless a completed victory. It is also a multidimensional victory. It has implications for every area of our life. For starters, the power of sin is broken by the cross (Rom. 6:6–7). We are no longer enslaved to sin, thanks to the work of Christ. Our fleshly desires still pull at us, but they have no mastery of us.

The power of Satan is broken as well (Hebrews 2:14-18). As noted, Satan cannot successfully accuse us of unatoned sin, nor can Satan wield the power of the fear of death over us. Jesus has died, and in that death we believers discover the death of death, to draw on John Owen once more. In line with this, the world and its evil spiritual powers that prey on us and brutalize us have lost their hold over us (Colossians 2:13-15).

Therefore, we believers are not part of the world any longer in terms of the deadened spiritual order of this fallen realm. Our sins are atoned for, and we are a resurrection people (see 1 Corinthians 15). All this is entailed by the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ. Take away PSA, and the victory I have just sketched—in both objective and subjective dimensions—is wholly and tragically lost.

Fifth Truth: There Is No Redemption or Victory in “Participation”

As I covered above, all of Rillera’s scholarly inquiry in Lamb of the Free bears down on this crystallizing argument: Jesus’ death is not about substitution. It is about “solidarity” with sinners that leads to us walking out faithfulness in a Christ-shaped way. I quoted several passages above that represent this view; here is one of the most strenuous.

What is clear in Hebrews, though, is that Jesus’s death is not an act of substitution. The audience is not supposed to look at Jesus’s sufferings and death and think: “Phew! Jesus did all of that instead of me!” Rather, they are “to look upon Jesus, the author and perfector of faithfulness” (12:2) and thereby pattern their lives after the crucifixion, bearing his reproach, realizing that Jesus suffered and died ahead of them rather than instead of them (12:2–4; 10:32–39; 11:25–26, 36–38). Jesus’s suffering and death is what determines what faithfulness and obedience mean (5:8; 10:7, 9) while the wilderness generation provides the antitype (3:18–19; 4:2–3, 6, 11). (368)

This is remarkable material. It shows us that Rillera’s project, for all its treatment of ancient sources, leads to a very modern liberal claim: the cross is a model of the Christian life. The cross is not propitiatory; the cross does not atone for our sins; the cross is instead a vibrant display of obedience unto death that we should emulate.

As I argue in The Warrior Savior, it is in fact quite true that the atonement exemplifies and actualizes obedience (see 1 Peter 2:21, for example). However, this is not the heart of the atonement; the heart of the atonement is Jesus dying as a propitiatory sacrifice in our place. Jesus satisfied the wrath of God for us in order that we would be completely forgiven of all our sins and thus know only the love of God (and never a single drop of his wrath!) for all eternity.

This is why the cross is such surpassing good news. This is also why penal substitutionary atonement is the heart of the gospel. Without it, in fact, there is no gospel. Sadly, we see exactly how this is so in Rillera’s project. The cross does not accomplish our redemption; rather, it functions to show believers how to “pattern their lives after the crucifixion.” After all that work, spanning hundreds of pages and dense footnotes, Rillera has left us squarely in the territory of Christus Exemplar or, perhaps, the Moral Influence theory of the atonement. Said differently, we’ve come so far just to not come far at all.

Contra Rillera (and with all due respect), the cross is not simply a call to patterned participation. The cross is, as we have said, God saving us from God. In saying this, we do not mean that God is unhinged and out of control in his justice. This is a caricature of PSA. (Where such a vision has been used to enfranchise abuse or evil parenting, by the way, that is genuinely wicked and worthy of repudiation in the strongest terms.)

No, the God who is wrathful against sin is a God who is completely under control. The judgment of God is precisely calibrated. The God who enacts retributive justice is a God of the fairest fairness; he truly could not be fairer. His fairness is a tremendous blessing to us, just as it is a massive common grace gift that evil is punished in this world (including the death penalty for heinous sins). All this is dependent on God; indeed, we only know justice in this life because the biblical God is perfect holy and therefore perfectly just.

But this is not ultimately what the cross displays. The ultimate message of the cross is love. It is not cheap love; it is love in its most costly expression. It is love in its most beautiful form. The God who is justly angry at our sin is the very same God who, throughout the entirety of the biblical narrative, offers sacrificial atonement so that he can drench his people in covenant love. These sacrificial provisions are all provisional until the cross, at which point our forgiveness is wholly and irreversibly secured.

Writing on propitiation, Stott said it well some years ago:

Why is a propitiation necessary? The pagan answer is because the gods are bad-tempered, subject to moods and fits, and capricious. The Christian answer is because God’s holy wrath rests on evil. There is nothing unprincipled, unpredictable or uncontrolled about God’s anger; it is aroused by evil alone. …it would be hard to exaggerate the differences between the pagan and the Christian views of propitiation. In the pagan perspective, human beings try to placate their bad-tempered deities with their own paltry offerings. According to the Christian revelation, God’s own great love propitiated his own holy wrath through the gift of his own dear Son, who took our place, bore our sin and died our death. Thus God gave himself to save us from himself. (John R. W. Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World, IVP, 2001, 115)

Stott is entirely correct. PSA—with propitiation at the core—does not give us a brutal picture of an unsavory God. PSA shows us that the biblical God is the one who upholds every last scintilla of his justice in order that he might bestow his eternal love on sinners like us. The God of PSA is not a tyrant or a miserly court official; the God of PSA is a living wonder, a being too generous for the natural mind to imagine, a God who draws near to sinners and then never draws away from them.

Shocking as it is, some people actually think that moralizing “participation” is better than the conception of the cross mapped here. In truth, a cross that only calls for us to “participate” in the life of Christ is no cross at all. It is a cross emptied of its power. It gives us no Savior worth trusting, emulating, or following. It is a mere model of good behavior, an atonement that leaves us lost in our sins, scraping up our best efforts at obeying Jesus, always striving but never arriving at the place where the love of God overflows without boundary or limit: the place where Jesus suffers and bleeds and dies under the weight of divine reckoning, broken for us.

Conclusion

In conclusion, penal substitutionary theology is not what is wrong with the world. Understood rightly, penal substitutionary theology is what has healed the world, securing atonement for our sins and putting the down-payment of God on the cosmos he created. The atonement, understood biblically, does not obscure the love of God. The atonement, more than any other act in history, reveals the love of God (1 John 4:9-10).

So we see that the propitiatory cross of Christ is a rushing fountain of love. All who find in themselves great rivers of sin may look to it, know its forgiving message, and discover in it power for godliness accessed through the Spirit that lasts for all their days. Challenges to PSA have come, are now coming, and will come. But this has no effect on the true people of God. The cross, after all, is not merely a small part of our theology.

The cross, as Luther said so well, is our theology.

*********************

Further resources on the cross and PSA:

D. A. Carson, “Atonement in Romans 3:21-26,” from The Glory of the Atonement, ed. Charles E. Hill and Frank James III (accessible here: https://media.thegospelcoalition.org/documents/carson/2004_atonement_in_Rom_3.21-26.pdf_)

Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach, Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution (Wheaton: Crossway, 2007)

Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965)

J. I. Packer, “Introductory Essay,” in John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, Repr. ed. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1999)

Just last week, theologian Matthew Barrett announced that he is now an Anglican. Known as a Baptist, Barrett has embraced Anglican doctrine and ecclesiology. His departure from the Southern Baptist Convention is noteworthy, for Barrett became an outspoken proponent of a theological camp in recent years: “retrievalism.”

In the essay below, I will share a related—and noteworthy—matter. It is a previously-untold story (among Baptists and evangelicals, at least) of a young seminarian who attended the seminary at which Barrett taught, was introduced to the patristics in a theology class, and converted to Roman Catholicism. This story, I believe, directs us to ask thoughtful questions about the retrievalist paradigm.

Here is one we must ask: Does the retrievalist system lead some Baptist and evangelical students to leave the Baptist and evangelical movement? Few have posed such a query in recent days, even as retrievalism has been widely and enthusiastically promoted among Baptists and evangelicals. Yet this unique moment presses us to consider this question, and with urgency at that.

I should state several matters up front: 1) I want good for Matthew Barrett, and pray that for him, as well as for the student who converted to Roman Catholicism; 2) I have no quarrel with many godly administrators and faculty members at my previous seminary in Kansas City, a school for which I give thanks to God; 3) nor do I have any quarrel with Anglicanism or the ACNA, as I have personally benefited from the Anglican movement in many ways, learning much from over the years from figures like J. I. Packer, John Stott, J. C. Ryle, and many others; 4) as stated, my purpose in what follows is not to win a battle with any given person, but to think in public about matters of public teaching and public record.

What Is Retrievalism?

I now focus our attention on what is called “retrievalism.” In this system, one “retrieves” the wisdom of the Christian past by focusing on the hermeneutic and doctrine of past generations. This usually means an emphasis on the early church and the medieval church, which are seen as under-studied and under-appreciated in evangelical circles.

In reality, there is more going on in this conversation than it appears. The role of historical theology in doctrinal and spiritual formation is front and center in the retrievalist case. On this subject, there are at least four loosely-cohering positions that I see. Here they are:

Historical Theology is Unimportant: this would fit the No Creed But the Bible camp, though this group is very small in number these days. It emphasizes that the creeds and confessions are not a meaningful part of Christian formation; beyond this, church history itself is largely ignorable, outside of the few figures or churches that agree with one’s own doctrine.

Historical Theology is Important and Valuable: those of this camp highly value the church’s views and wisdom. In the seminary classroom and church teaching contexts, they honor the insights of creeds and confessions, giving formational pride of place to the conciliar parameters of the four ecumenical councils in particular. They read theologians across denominations and the ages, finding meaningful unity with all who love the Word and gospel.

But they do not view the church’s creeds and confessions as inerrant, they have occasional points of difference with certain formulations in historical theology, and they emphasize the necessity of biblical sufficiency in theological method. Historical theology is thus a valuable doctrine-framer, conversational partner, and witness. In spiritual life and doctrinal formation, however, historical theology is a servant (an extremely valuable one), but never our master.

Historical Theology is Very Important and Decisive: Adherents profess their love of major creeds and confessions, viewing them as guardrails in framing doctrine—a secondary authority, yes, but a trustworthy one. Where the councils of history have spoken, the church’s theology is largely settled. Disagreement with key confessional documents is possible, but closely guarded.

The aforementioned confessional documents are very closely aligned with the group’s identity, and the group’s identity is often described in terms of the confession it holds. In more recent years, the fourth group—sketched below—has exerted a good bit of influence on this third group, urging it to embrace the retrievalist vision of the dogmatic synthesis between the early and medieval church. It is not immediately clear how this trend will play out.

Historical Theology is Determinative in Doctrinal Formation: this is the retrievalist position. Not every adherent holds it in the same way or to the same degree of intensity, of course; some are more charitable than others. Nonetheless, the strong edge of this Protestant camp argues that the ecumenical councils and creeds are definitive beyond a shadow of a doubt.

This is a strikingly similar vision of the creeds and councils to the Catholic position. For the strongest edge of Protestant retrievalists, no deviations from creedal formulations are allowable. If a council or creed has spoken to issues like the will of God, or the descent of Christ into hell—issues that require a great deal of interpretive care—the position is settled.

Some retrievalists—though not all—go further, in fact. They claim that creedal documents should be treated as inerrant. This is an error, and a consequential one; while many documents are error-proof, inerrancy depends on ontology. Scripture is the only God-breathed book or document per 2 Timothy 3:16, and so the autographs of Scripture alone are inerrant.

So too is there a glorious synthesis between the early and medieval church. This synthesis includes the creeds and the theological insights of Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas. Aquinas is viewed by many retrievalists as the doctrinal formulator par excellence. In his writings, the harvest of theology proper (and other doctrinal loci) over the centuries reaches its zenith.

Over the last few years, it has been strange to see the leading theologian of the Catholic tradition be touted as the greatest theologian of the Protestant tradition. Aquinas thought well about a number of ethical areas and can be read with profit in some respects. But Aquinas should be handled with great care, for as I have written elsewhere, he is the key standardizer of the sacramental theology of Catholicism, a system of soteriology in irreconcilable conflict with biblical justification and biblical sanctification as recovered by the Reformers.

The Debate Over Retrievalism Is a Debate Over Method

As I am at pains to say, the conversation over retrievalism is not simply a conversation over doctrine. It is first and foremost a conversation over method. We see the importance of method in Barrett’s Substack essay. In it, Barrett cites distaste for Southern Baptist politics, a newfound love of Anglican liturgy, and enjoyment of the warm fellowship of his local Anglican Church as key factors in his conversion. Yet it is his rationale for embracing paedobaptism that most caught my eye:

After noticing it could not account for the whole canon, I also had to ask myself, “Was the entire church wrong to baptize the children of believers for a millennium and a half? Was believer’s baptism taught by the apostles only to disappear under the supervision of the greatest theologians of the church, and then reappear for the first time in sixteenth century?” For someone serious about catholicity, that pill was too big to swallow.

Tucked into a single paragraph about baptism, this is an extremely important statement. This is, in a nutshell, a key Catholic argument against Protestantism. It is not a small or glancing charge. Before the ink dried on Luther’s famous theses, Calvin’s Institutes, and Zwingli’s own theses, Catholic theologians had mounted their most significant accusation against the Reformers: their doctrine was novel.

We should not discount the weight of this approach to doctrine. The Catholic Church wielded this weapon of accusation against the Reformational recovery of the authority of Scripture and the legal and God-enacted nature of justification by faith alone. The church had a consensus forged over 1,500 years or so; how could any lone individual break with such iron-strong unity of thought?

In Barrett’s essay, we see this most Catholic of arguments appear—strangely—once more. In truth, the Reformers were right to break with Rome in numerous respects. They rejected medieval soteriology, medieval bibliology, and different elements of medieval ecclesiology (to say nothing of numerous other areas). But the fundamental break came before these developments. The Reformers broke with Rome over method.

It was not enough to have a historical consensus, and police it. The Reformers recognized that Rome was not authoritative over the mind and the conscience. The Word of Christ alone was authoritative over the mind and the conscience. This did not mean that historical consensus was of no account for the Reformers; it did mean that historical theology was not on par with Scripture in doctrinal formation. From this hermeneutical and methodological conviction came the movement we call Protestantism.

One Student’s Testimony: “it was really hard for me to stay Protestant”

Let’s fast forward to today. As promoted by some, retrievalism has softened the clear lines drawn by the Reformers. It has not only done so in theoretical terms, though, in classroom debates. Retrievalism has passed into action. It is inescapable that this is so; ideas, after all, don’t stay theoretical for long. What is taught in a classroom eventually crosses over into everyday life.

As some students process retrievalist ideas and sources, they find themselves drawn toward the high church—and even Roman Catholicism itself. In what follows, I will retrace one such real-life example. It is the narrative of a young man named Jeremiah Zimmerman. Raised in the Assemblies of God, he entered seminary in the summer of 2021, and posted this photo on his Instagram account.

At this stage, Zimmerman articulated clear evidence of evangelical convictions. His Instagram account leaves this in no doubt. Less than two years later, though, Zimmerman was—by his own public testimony—received into the Catholic Church. Here’s the photo he posted of that event:

Zimmerman’s change was no small thing. He was interviewed by the Southern Nebraska Register, a Catholic periodical, about his newfound Catholic convictions. Here is how the article about Zimmerman described his shift:

He found solace in the Protestant faith’s scriptural foundation and intellectual depth. His passionate interest in scripture and theology led friends and pastors to encourage him to become a pastor himself.

However, Zimmerman’s spiritual journey took an unexpected turn when he delved into the writings of the early Church fathers. The ancient texts held profound insights that challenged his existing theological framework. One figure who captured Zimmerman’s attention was St. Athanasius, particularly his writings on the Incarnation.

While studying at the Midwest Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Zimmerman questioned his Protestant identity as he immersed himself in deeper theological investigations.

In a podcast interview with Zimmerman about his conversion to Catholicism, it was noteworthy to me that he cited the issue of baptism as the “catalyst” for his newfound convictions. He also referenced the reading he did as a gateway to Catholicism:

Actually, at the school I was at, the Baptist seminary, we were reading the patristic fathers like St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, St. Augustine, and we were reading scholastics like St. Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the more and more I read them, it was really hard for me to stay Protestant. At that point I knew I couldn’t be Protestant anymore, because if I were to stay Protestant, I would have to be in a very very specific traditional group that is almost so small that it’s self-defeating in the sense of its catholicity…

Zimmerman’s encounter with the patristics “in my theology course down at the Baptist seminary” had a landmark effect on him (he cited Athanasius’s work on the incarnation as a powerful influence). But not only him. Zimmerman went on to say this: “I’m not the only one from that school who’s converting. There are others who are also in the process of converting [to Catholicism]” at his former school, a claim I cannot prove or disprove.

How Should We Handle These Developments?

The preceding matters lead me to eight reflections. I will list them out here in rapid-fire fashion.

First, we should carefully evaluate retrievalism. It is not a foolproof system. It is eminently possible to embrace the retrievalist method and follow it to High Church Anglicanism or Rome. It is very clear once more (as in days past) that retrievalism affects different people in different ways, leading some to leave the Baptist world, and others to leave Protestantism entirely.

Second, we should anchor students in the Word. Instead of training students to follow us, trusting our preferred tribe, we do well to train them to follow the voice of God in Scripture (Psalm 119:97). This means, as I have said, modeling for students a genuinely exegetically-driven method. Close exegesis of Scripture builds our theology, leading to biblical-theological conclusions, systematic beliefs, scriptural ethics, and a worldview of the Word.

Third, we should approach historical theology with great care. Historical theology is of serious value. I do not merely state this; I have published books like this one that deal with historical theology directly. I have taught numerous classes in church history and historical theology, including the full range of church history, Baptist history, and neo-evangelical history. This area of formation is vital.

But historical theology must give way to exegetical theology as king of the disciplines. This is not only about the doctrine we hold, though; it is about our method (to re-scratch the record once more). We bring historical theology and church history into the doctrinal formation room with us, absolutely.

Yet we cannot fail to be crystal-clear on this count: the reason we hold a given theological position should not be because a creed addresses it. The reason we hold a given theological position should ultimately always be because the Word of God—as best we can track it—compels us to take it. God’s Word alone binds the conscience; God’s revelation alone teaches us divine truth; God’s Word alone has pride of place in theological and spiritual formation.

No historical source, no school of historical theology, and no treasured theologian can be allowed to displace the Bible from its authoritative role as the rule of our doctrine. This is, quite simply, a line in the sand.

Fourth, we should steer clear of ecumenism and guard the gospel. I need not belabor this matter, but it is non-negotiable. If we do not “guard the good deposit” (2 Timothy 1:13-14), all our labors will ultimately be in vain. Can we read some theologians from the Catholic tradition? On certain questions, we can. But should we always do so carefully? Yes, we should. After all, if we are Nicene to the core but do not teach sola fide based on solus Christus, we will not guard the gospel, nor will we honor the God who gave it to us for safe-keeping.

Fifth, we should cultivate humility, charity, and honor. Aside from our hermeneutic and formal doctrine, we must not make the mistake of failing to cultivate godly character. Doctrine cannot be separated from personal piety (which cannot be separated from the gospel and its effects), we remember.

We may have correct convictions (or not), but the Christian faith does not terminate with the signing of a sheet of paper with beliefs sketched out on it. The Christian faith bears down on the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), as doctrine is meant for joy, and truth-seeking is meant for worship.

Sixth, we should recognize numerous ironies of the retrievalist system. Toward that end, let me quickly chart a number of them with regard to the “retrievalist” emphasis of Barrett and others.

A) Anglicanism itself is only about 500 years old as a formal movement. That’s curious for someone wanting to enter the stream of the ancient and medieval church. If your entire hermeneutic rests on continuity with the first 1500 years of church history, it seems relevant to point out that Anglicanism as a formal movement did not exist during that time.

B) Anglican churches have had real struggles with doctrine and ethics. I don’t mean this as a “gotcha” statement, for Baptist churches have their own struggles. It is simply the case, however, that Anglican aesthetics and liturgy and historical connectionalism have not prevented Anglican churches from having momentous doctrinal disagreements of their own.

With the excitement of a fresh convert, Barrett seems to not see this. His enthusiastic celebration of Anglican liturgy, for example, as vital to meaningful Christianity seems to miss that such beautiful liturgy has not prevented scores of Anglicans from failing to walk with Christ. Nor has Anglican polity prevented the church from various trials and scandals.

In fact, the congregation Barrett is joining has a key Anglican leader based out of it who has been embroiled in controversy for several years now. This is noteworthy, for Barrett describes “the office of bishop so instrumental to implementing doctrinal accountability in the church” as emblematic of Anglican health. Yet according to Anglicans themselves, the ACNA has issues to sort out at this very level.

C) Barrett has aligned with feminist theologians out of step with historic doctrine. If the theology of the first millennium and a half of church history is what animates you, surely it should trouble you greatly that a female theologian named Amy Peeler has promoted a vision of God as “mother.”

Yet this has not kept Barrett from enlisting Peeler as a contributor in On Classical Trinitarianism, his recent edited volume on the doctrine of God. If “classical Trinitarianism” leads you to link up with egalitarian theologians who recast God as “mother”—over against Jesus, who taught his disciples to direct their prayers to “Our Father” in Matthew 6:9—then any Bible-loving Christian has serious grounds to evaluate such a theological camp with great care and wisdom.

D) The Great Tradition is not nearly so monolithic as some suggest. The “retrievalist” hermeneutic is presented as a grand unifier of turbulent tribes. There may be a degree of agreement reached through a common focus on Nicaea, for example. But we cannot miss this: Nicene agreement already exists between Catholics and Anglicans in formal terms, yet these two movements are not at all the same.

Furthermore, retrievalism is not an extra-interpretive movement; someone has to standardize it and lead it. This reminds us of an important point: retrievalism is not at all free of subjective preference. It has not descended from the skies as a pure body of thought. Retrievalists themselves—just like the biblical personalists they critique—pick and choose.

Seventh, there is an uncomfortable reason why the medieval church enjoyed such remarkable theological consensus. This reason, quite frankly, is not a pleasant one to think about. The Catholic Church was able to achieve the doctrinal unity it has enjoyed over the centuries in part because it ruthlessly persecuted dissenters from its body of theology during the medieval period. Many who did so—like the Waldensians and Lollards—paid the price of death for their dissent.

We should keep this in mind when retrievalists sing the soprano part about the Great Tradition having glorious unity in the pre-Reformation era. The Catholic Church, in the clearest analysis, achieved a good measure of that unity the old-fashioned way: the sword. We do well to remember this cold, hard truth when the “Great Tradition” is presented against a golden backdrop.

Eighth, we should recover “theological triage” once more. As I have been at pains to say, the sharper edge of the retrievalist movement argues that where creeds and councils have spoken to an issue—the question of the “will[s]” of God, for example, or the seeming descent of Christ into hell—that issue is settled.

To put it mildly, this is a different conception of theological formation and debate than that held by previous generations of evangelical theologians. We call the method pioneered by evangelical theologians—Carl Henry at the top of the list—“theological triage.” Christian theologians who employ this grid do not present their particular doctrinal view as the only acceptable one.

Instead, they embrace a very different scheme than that of “Pure Doctrine.” In theology, some issues are indeed first tier, essential to the faith, and must be confessed by all. But other issues are second tier, important but not salvation-dependent, and still others are third tier, consequential but fair game for different interpretation. Many gospel-loving Christians have worked hard to honor disagreement on both second tier and third tier matters.

On this count, it is not too much to conclude that “theological triage” vaulted partnership in the gospel far beyond the measure reached by previous generations. As just one example, the Reformers shared much in common but faltered in unity due to disagreement over the Lord’s Supper. This reminds us that it often takes time for Christ’s church to reap the abundant harvest of truth in Scripture.

For example, in the last 200 years of Reformed history, the disciplines of exegetical interpretation, biblical theology, biblical counseling, biblical ethics, and biblical worldview have flowered as never before. In tribalistic days like ours, perhaps we do well to think afresh about recovering “theological triage,” and questioning whether the sharp-elbowed neo-fundamentalist approach of “Pure Doctrine” is helping the church or hurting it.

Conclusion

As those who write and teach theology, we need to care well for our students, shepherding them to understand that Protestantism came out of a real break with Rome’s doctrine, ecclesiology, and method. Sola Scriptura is not branding; it reflects both the Bible’s conception of the Bible, and our own program for interpreting it.

In our day, we should carefully evaluate this question: Does embracing retrievalism—as promoted in its most uncompromising form—sometimes destabilize Baptist and evangelical convictions? The answer, quite simply, is yes. This reality should sober us; it should provoke humility, repentance, and clear-eyed evaluation of retrievalism in Christ’s people. We are not playing with Monopoly money here; the well-being of souls, nothing less than their eternal destiny, rests upon such efforts.

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Image of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London: Ronnie Macdonald from Chelmsford, United Kingdom (Wikimedia Commons)

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

—John 15:13

Chase Childers was a family man. He was vacationing with his wife and three children (two sons and one daughter) on Pawleys Beach, South Carolina when a rip curl carried another family out to sea. From reports, Childers reacted instinctively. The former baseball player and policeman (in Cobb County, Georgia, as seen above) ran toward distress, not away from it.

But the story does not end there. While working to rescue others, Childers was himself taken out to sea by the rip curl. Tragically, he drowned that day. His heroism has drawn international attention; a GoFundMe for his family has raised over $220,000. (If you are able and so inclined, please consider giving to it.)

The Needed—But Despised—Strength of Men

The example of Childers speaks truth that is beyond argument. There is nothing one can say against such self-sacrifice. It is the most incontrovertible principle on earth. Not for nothing did Jesus say, in John 15:13, that there is no “greater love” than a man dying so others can live. In the world God has made, this is the greatest love there is.

So too do examples like this tell us vital truth about manhood. Men are not made for themselves; men are built and fashioned for others. By this I mean that the strength of a man is not given him for his own selfish purposes. The strength of a man is given him to lead, protect, and provide for his loved ones.

Strength is a gift, and the gifts of God come with intentionality. God designs every manner of his blessing to be used for his glory. This is true for men and women alike. In the case of men, the physical capability of men is entrusted to us for the well-being of women and children (and other men in distress). We are made by God to serve God and strengthen others.

In recent years, the strength of men has come under fire. A feminist society has attacked strong manhood relentlessly. As I have explored in my book The War on Men, gender theorists have rendered “aggression” and “assertiveness” as endemic of toxic masculinity. They have done so without nuance or subtlety. While men can surely use their physicality against the innocent, it is a foolish thing indeed to read all aggression, and all assertiveness, as equally bad.

When a rip curl comes, you need strength on the scene. On average, that means this, in the simplest terms: you need a man.

The Differences Between the Sexes

This is not chauvinism talking. In general, men have around 50-70% more upper body strength than women. In terms of energy and drive, men have 2000-3000% more testosterone than women. Research has shown what the naked eye knows: men run faster than women, manipulate objects in space with greater proficiency than women, and have notable advantages over women in physical competition, to say nothing of combat.

As I am at pains to say, none of these realities justify macho manhood. Women are just as fearfully and wonderfully made as men (Psalm 139:14). Women are capable of amazing things. Neither sex can claim to be superior to the other; just as men have clear advantages in certain areas, so women have clear advantages in certain areas. The sexes, in God’s design, need one another.

God made it so from the beginning, forming men and women in an elegantly complementary fashion. In secular company, men and women are often treated today as if we are nothing more than evolved ooze. In truth, men and women are like Swiss watches painstakingly formed by a master craftsman, the divine maker. We are intricately fashioned. We are wisely constructed.

We are not only made to function, however; we are made with a telos, a goal, in mind. By this I mean that there are certain ends that are given especially to men, and certain ends that are given especially to women. Women alone can nurture, bear, and sustain the life of a child. Men cannot do so. Men, on the other hand, are uniquely suited to physical protection and provision (to say nothing of leadership, a subject for another day).

Heroes: Chase Childers and John Powell

As we have noted, one crucial element of the telos of manhood is physical giving so others can flourish. One need not be a Christian to live out a form of this reality; it is embedded in nature and operative in our world thanks to God’s common grace. When we see a man acting selflessly to protect and help others, we are seeing a truth of the God-made cosmos. We are observing something right in a fallen world. In that moment, we are a witness to the glory of our Creator.

All of which brings us back to Chase Childers. I did not have the privilege of knowing him. From the stories I’ve read and the pictures I’ve seen, he looks like a kind, loving, and productive man. I don’t know his heart, but I know that what he did on a beach in South Carolina to save others was honorable. He went into the rip curl a protector, and he returned to shore a hero, lifeless and spent.

The story of Chase Childers reminds me of another heroic man. Five years ago nearly this day, a pastor named John Powell did much as Childers did. Seeing a woman trapped on a Texas highway, Powell acted instinctually to save her. He succeeded in doing so, but was accidentally killed in the process. He left behind a wife and several children.

But more than this, John Powell—like Chase Childers—left behind an example. That example says this to us men, and to all the world beyond: you are not beyond hope. You are not toxic. You have been given much by God, and you can steward all that for his glory through his gospel. A life of this kind will not be easy; it will cost you. You will walk in self-sacrifice, and you may pay a heavy price for doing so.

If that is your call, though, none of your efforts will be wasted. The God who searches the heart watches everything. He looks down from heaven, scanning the earth for men and women of faith (Psalm 33:13-15). He delights to bless those who follow him. More than any earthly gift, though, he is the rewarder of those who seek him (Hebrews 11:6), and the restorer of every Christian broken unto death.

Conclusion

We cannot reward any person, to be sure. But we can honor heroes. For men who died after running into danger, answering a distress call, diving into the rip curl instead of standing on shore, working ferociously to get the head of exhausted swimmers above water, and protecting those who could not protect themselves, we remember this: they showed love of an extraordinary kind.

It is love, in truth, that points us to a far greater hero, and a far greater sacrifice. It is love that is otherworldly, love that has broken into our world, love that has conquered the menacing devil and the power of death (Colossians 2:13-15). It is love that is a picture, a fragmentary glimpse, of the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ for us.

Greater love has no one than this, we recall once more, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

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Image: Cobb County Police Department, Facebook

With many others, I am processing the death of pastor John MacArthur (1939-2025). This is not because I love evangelical celebrity culture; it is because I grew up with MacArthur’s influence all around me, and as I tried to say in this recent essay, his death feels very much like the end of an era to me. In this unique moment, tributes to the man have been pouring in, as the church of Jesus Christ shows “double honor” per Paul’s charge to an imperfect yet faithful pastor (1 Timothy 5:17).

One tribute that jumped up and bit me was not written by a known pastor or Christian leader. It was written by MacArthur’s personal trainer, a man named Jason Mazy. Before this testimony popped up online (hat tip to my sister Megan Basham), I had never heard of this man. But the short tribute Mazy shared on his Instagram account was actually quite profound, for it focused on an overlooked but super-important matter: MacArthur’s private character.

The Importance of Character

For understandable reasons, many of the reflections I’ve read about MacArthur’s ministry focus on his public gifts and public effect. This is not wrong. In God’s providence, the man was given a considerable role to play on the stage of evangelical history.

But MacArthur was far from a self-worshipping celebrity. (Read this lovely reflection along similar lines—it’s by a young woman named Madelyn Moses.) According to Mazy’s Instagram post, in the last three years of MacArthur’s life, Mazy worked closely with MacArthur. MacArthur’s legendary discipline clearly was alive and well in this partnership. Through trials and illnesses, he trained “several days a week.” This was in his eighties, we note with some amazement. Bodily training is indeed “of some value” (1 Timothy 4:8), as another warrior of Christ, Paul, once noted.

But here is the sharpest edge of that example: “You lived privately how you lived publicly,” Mazy reflects. I’m not sure you could say much more of a weighty sentence than that about a Christian leader with such a proficient record of service to Christ. If MacArthur projected maturity but behaved like a diva, Mazy would have seen it. If MacArthur preached kindness to the rafters but turned a cold shoulder to normal folks, Mazy would have felt it. If MacArthur called Christians to obey the Lordship of Jesus (as he rightly did) but lived a dissolute life in secret, Mazy might well have witnessed it.

You can fake godliness. You can put on a big show in public. You can tell everyone how to live. You can write volume after volume, tome after tome, about theology, singlehandedly exhausting printing-presses through your exploits. But if you do not know Jesus, or as a believer do not doggedly pursue the bearing of fruit in your life by the power of the Spirit, your true colors will show. It is an iron law of the cosmos.

The Grave Danger of Cold Orthodoxy

We have a problem in evangelical circles, one closely related to the sad trend of men crashing out of ministry. We have diminished the importance of character. Here is one reason why (of many): in some circles, we have defined leadership almost exclusively as holding the right views and communicating them effectively in public. We have prioritized head knowledge over heart conduct. Maturity as a Christian ends up defined by a set of ideas and—shockingly—has little to do with our spiritual life.

We must love sound doctrine. Further, we cannot fail to advocate and even contend for it (Jude 3). But Satan is always fishing in our waters. Among those who emphasize sound doctrine, Satan baits a hook with a loveless lure. In other words, he urges men in ministry to reduce the Christian faith to a set of right views.

Some swallow this lure, sadly. This warps the faith, divorcing head from heart, actions from beliefs. Maturity is no longer related to godly fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). Maturity has little to do with actionable love of your neighbor, the second greatest commandment (Matthew 22:37).

Maturity does not interface much with whether you are consistently tender and understanding with your wife (1 Peter 3:7), whether you fight hard to not exasperate your children (Ephesians 6:3), whether you feed on God’s Word and cultivate a strong prayer life (Psalm 119:105; 1 Thessalonians 5:17), whether you serve needy people and practice hospitality (James 1:27; 1 Peter 4:9).

No, spiritual maturity has been intellectualized; it’s all head-knowledge now. It’s not about how you treat your coworkers; it’s about what confessional statement you like. It’s not about how your family is doing under your leadership; it’s about whether you’ve joined the right tribe. It’s not about how servant-minded you are; it’s about you attacking those outside of your narrow circles.

“Pure Doctrine” Legalism and the Secret Sin it Fosters

This in turn helps foster the ministry posture I call “pure doctrine” legalism. It works hand in glove with tribalism, loving only those who hold your precise doctrine. You have no framework anymore for charitable disagreement and loving debate, and no grid for “theological triage” per the brilliant insights of Carl Henry and Al Mohler. It is either “You hold the pure doctrine I and my tribe holds” or it is total righteous destruction.

There is no middle ground in such a posture. Without knowing it, this is a legalistic stance. By this I mean that it removes all gray areas and room for disagreement from the Christian faith. It binds people to your precise formulations, your belief statement, your interpretation of a given passage. It causes you to work less as a shepherd and more as a member of the shock troops of a theological militia.

Such a climate can easily create a side-door into leadership for double-minded men. Such individuals are one man in public and another man in private. The public figure seems godly and edifying; the private individual is a different person altogether. Without knowing it, there is a secret agent in the body of Christ, a leader working against the purposes of God. It is not all that hard to have a Judas among us, it seems.

This, it turns out, is the unfortunate rule regarding godless character: it’s of little importance until it’s of the utmost importance. What I mean is this: you can downplay the importance of grace-shaped character for a long time. But eventually, a person’s true colors will show. When they do, wreckage all through their life will also emerge, like a hurricane trail that was somehow hidden from view.

Then, in that moment, that lack of character will not only matter. It will be everything. The game will be over. The season of joy and partnership in the gospel will end. The bonds built will fray. All because of a factor that once seemed of little importance—but was actually, in God’s economy, of the utmost importance.

Encouraged by Godly Character

All of which leads us back to John MacArthur. The testimony from his personal trainer rings in my ears, as it will in many others. This is not a lesser tribute than those from known pastors and leaders. No, MacArthur’s personal character was just as important as his gifting in ministry, evident as that was. In fact, we can sharpen the point: MacArthur’s character was more important than his vocational abilities.

Simply put, it is very encouraging to hear that a famous Christian conducted himself in a godly way in private. According to Mazy, MacArthur was kind. He was humble. He didn’t bloviate about how famous he was. (Mazy had no idea who MacArthur was for a while, in fact.) He was gracious to answer many questions even as he did his daily exercises. You lived privately how you lived publicly. Not many better sentences you could write about a Christian than this.

I might also say a quick word about how normal MacArthur sounds in the tribute by his trainer. There might be something there for the current and rising generation of preachers and teachers and leaders to mark. We all have our own quirks and weaknesses, but perhaps we can do our small part to tweak evangelical culture. MacArthur does not come off as a high-strung diva; he comes off as unfussy, unpretentious, unconcerned about how people think about him (in a good way).

Brothers, We Are Not Professionals

All of this reminds me of what MacArthur’s dear friend John Piper said so well many years ago of men in ministry: we are not professionals. If God has given us the magnificent gift of laboring in ministry in some form, we are only servants. We are not high and mighty. We are definitely not celebrities, though some men may in God’s providence become well-known. We are just doormen in the house of God. We point people in, in to where a gracious Father sits, waiting for all his well-loved children to come home.

We need to have godly character as preachers and teachers of the Word. This is non-essential. We should emphasize this in seminaries, colleges, and especially local churches, which are the true laboratories of future ministry workers. We need to redouble our focus on character, or in some cases, reactivate it. We cannot separate heart from mind; we cannot turn out double-sided men who are one person in public and another thing entirely in private.

Here is some good news to note: the power that forms godly character is not in us. The same power that saved us is the power that sanctifies us (Philippians 1:6). It is all in Jesus Christ. We can rest in this truth, drinking deeply from it (Matthew 11:29). This power flows without hesitation or limit from the Holy Spirit. It is a grace gift, prepared for us from eternity past, by our loving heavenly Father.

We are not responsible for digging up depths of mercy each morning. God renews and refreshes us every single day with showers of his favor and blessing. From there, we do our part. We put our boots on. We wash our face and pray for goodness and kiss our wife and hug our kids. Then, we go to work. We go to work vocationally, but more than this, we go to work spiritually. We seek, minute by minute, to develop godly character.

Conclusion

The tribute shared about our brother John MacArthur inspires this kind of commitment. He was no perfect man, but we seek to imitate him as he imitated Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1). Even as we feel his absence keenly, we pray to emulate him, and be the same man in private that we are in public.

If we are, it may be that when we ourselves go to glory, someone we knew on a daily basis, someone we never asked to remember us publicly, someone who saw us in our thoroughly normal moments, someone who met us the morning after a difficult medical procedure when pain gripped us like a barnacle, someone who saw us when we had just received stinging online criticism, may write, in words that are as simple as they are profound:

You lived privately how you lived publicly.

Do you not know that a prince and a great man has fallen this day in Israel?

--2 Samuel 3:38

John MacArthur has died (1939-2025). He did not fear death: “All that death can do to the believer,” he preached in his declarative style, “is deliver him to Jesus.” As was characteristic of the man, there was an entire sermon in that sentence; a whole system of theology rang out in those world-defying words.

For many evangelicals, all you need to say is the name “John MacArthur,” and a voice comes instantly to mind. Much like the baseball radio announcers who have closed quiet summer nights for generations of Americans, the deep and ever-so-slightly raspy voice of MacArthur has been a regular companion of too many Christians to count.

It is strange—and sad—to think of a world without MacArthur in the Grace Community Church pulpit, pumping out strong doses of rugged Bible truth across America and across the world. Because of his authoritative and warm presence, MacArthur was not just another talker on the air. For many, in truth, he was the loving and convictional father or grandfather they wanted but never had.

MacArthur the Man: His Unique Traits

Like all great men, MacArthur was a mix of seemingly polar qualities. He was an old-fashioned preacher, concerned only with lengthy and meaty doctoral exposition, but his was one of the first modern media ministries, as the “tape ministry” of Grace Community Church eventually grew into a genuine communications empire.

He knew his doctrine and kept a tight theological profile, yet built a marvelous friendship with Presbyterian leader R. C. Sproul that charmed thousands as they traded jokes on conference panels. (Neither should we forget this epic video.) MacArthur preached from extensive preparation, yet sounded smooth and effortless in the pulpit. He did not do much shouting, but somehow he was always engaging, even captivating, as he preached the biblical passage.

MacArthur was deadly serious in the way he lived his life, famously hewing to a disciplined weekly structure, but was known to enjoy a game of golf. Along these lines, I went to a Master’s University basketball game a few years back when MacArthur was known to be under the weather, and was shocked when he walked in, locked in on the game, and talked strategy at halftime with a few of us who greeted him. I loved that side of MacArthur—the competitor, the gamesman, the man who savored our many common-grace gifts of God.

MacArthur did not engage in flattery or puff up celebrities, but was one of Larry King’s go-to evangelicals, appearing on CNN countless times when I was in high school and college. For the younger generation, this was a huge deal back in the day. It was equivalent to going on Joe Rogan’s podcast dozens of times. Watch, for example, this prophetic on-air encounter between MacArthur and a young Gavin Newsom. What a master-class in bold evangelistic witness—you’re left with your hair blown back by the righteous authority of MacArthur’s stand.

Four Outstanding Elements of MacArthur’s Ministry

We could list more of these traits. But I will leave off here, as I want to highlight four major elements of MacArthur’s ministry that will endure long beyond this age. The point here is not to treat the man as perfect; he was far from perfect, just as I am. The point is to consider how we can imitate MacArthur as he imitated Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1).

First, John MacArthur was a lion for the truth. The man bled Bible. He loved the Word; he loved the Word like few men before him. There are no two ways about it: if you love God’s Word, it will shape you, mark you, and rewire you. By the grace of God, you will be a fruit-bearing Christian. You will think differently, talk differently, act differently, and desire differently.

There is more to sanctification than drinking in the waters of God’s living Word, yes. But this is the foundation; this is the center; this is the hub; this is the nexus. There is nothing equivalent to the Word of God. There is nothing on par with the Word of God. There is nothing you need to read more than the Word of God. The Word of God is God’s revelatory gift to us. MacArthur fed on it like a starving man, and his life and ministry reverberated with Bible. As I said above, it rang out of him.

The righteous, Proverbs 28:1 tells us, are bold as a lion. This was MacArthur. He was counted righteous in Christ, and he found what Schaeffer rightly called “true truth” and the Reformers called the “norming norm” in Scripture, and he planted his feet on this solid ground. He took his stand, and he never stopped standing. The Lordship of Christ had claimed him, just as it claims all who are truly in Christ by faith.

No doubt, there was a special gifting from God on this man’s calling. He knew a unique anointing on his life that no one can commandeer or buy. Yet MacArthur’s ministry was thoroughly emulatable. He dove into the sacred text, loved it, labored to understand it, and then proclaimed it to all who would come. This, again, is a model that we do well to mark in our time.

Second, John MacArthur was incredibly fruitful in ministry. Like the London preacher Charles Spurgeon, an entire galaxy of ministry developed in God’s kindness out of the overflow of MacArthur’s biblical fidelity. This galaxy included The Master’s Seminary; The Master’s University; Grace to You; TMAI; the Legacy Standard Bible; over 150 books, including a famous study Bible; and the list goes on.

These and many more works remind us just how much productive labor poured out of this man—and beyond him, out of the scores of godly men and women who worked alongside him. I encourage fellow believers to pray for these ministries, those who lead them, and the godly believers who staff them. Pray especially for GCC, its elders, and for love and unity to prevail now that MacArthur’s pastoral tenure has ended.

How was it that all these endeavors came into existence? Because faithfulness produces fruitfulness. By the way, those who want to understand MacArthur would do well to consult the enjoyable biography of the pastor by esteemed historian Iain Murray. Note as well that MacArthur is the kind of figure who will take volumes to sum up. As a leader of consequence, he was undoubtedly at the level of an Edwards or a Lloyd-Jones or a Spurgeon. He was, I would argue, the Spurgeon of our era.

Third, John MacArthur was faithful to the gospel. MacArthur never wavered in his promotion and defense of the gospel. He had a reputation among some as a firebrand, and understandably so—his very name is the name of some of the fiercest Highland warriors known to the West. (Scottish blood is strong blood indeed!) In truth, though, MacArthur was relentlessly evangelistic, far more so than many who critiqued him.

MacArthur proclaimed the gospel in the Grace pulpit to multiple generations of congregants, leading many to saving faith by the Spirit’s work. MacArthur also contended for the faith, and guarded the good deposit, beyond his local church. For example, with the Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) controversy in 1997, MacArthur and R. C. Sproul took what I believe was the right position (even against good men they rightly loved).

So too did MacArthur recognize early the danger of what we now call the “prosperity gospel.” Even in his winter years, the lion asserted himself all over again, speaking up so as to protect the global flock of Christ from wokeness. In this same season, when lockdown culture kept pornography shops open but mandated the closing of churches, it was inspiring to see MacArthur gather himself, stride toward the famous GCC pulpit, and charge his fellow pastors to open their churches. Church, he rightly said, is essential. So was true then; so is true today.

Of course, not every team of elders came to precisely the same plan of action as MacArthur, and we need to recognize that. Our movement should not remain mired in past controversies; that is a sure sign of a group nearing the expiration date of its usefulness. With humility and charity, we must hear Christ’s call afresh: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God (Matthew 5:9).

MacArthur himself sought to live this out. He had some disagreements with some of his fellow evangelical leaders in the period in question, but he took clear steps in the last three years to repair what had torn. On this count, we cannot help but think of what Christ said would show the world that we are his disciples: By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:35).

Those of us who love sound doctrine—as we must!—should mark these words. Would not Satan love to edit this verse in our minds? As I’ve written about recently on this very Substack, would Satan not delight to see us grip “pure doctrine” as we see it with an iron fist and a cold heart, but lose love, and in the end, lose all traces of broader unity beyond agreement with the four people on planet earth who happen to believe exactly as we do? I suspect he would, crafty devil that he is.

Fourth, John MacArthur was steady to the end. There is no need to belabor this point, for it is straightforward. John MacArthur lived in daily need of God’s grace. This grace powered him all the way to a faithful end. He did not destroy his marriage. He did not besmirch the reputation of Christ. He did not embezzle money. He did not descend into endless quarreling. He remained “stable and steadfast” in the power of the gospel until the end (Colossians 1:23).

MacArthur was what men need to be in Christ: stable. Steady. Solid. Dependable. Persevering. Too often, young preachers think that they need to be the opposite. They need to enter churches and catalyze them beyond belief. To be sure, some flocks do need a little crackle in the air, but many sheep today simply need a man who will model steady faithfulness and loving pastoral presence.

Sadly, men all around us crash and burn. They lose their first love. They get hit hard by the devil and opt out. They “succeed” and grow proud, losing sight of their utter need for God. This could happen to any of us. Men in ministry are in a dangerous place, for Satan trains his biggest guns on them. Yet this sobering reality only makes a steady man, a gospel man, stand out all the more (Philippians 1:6).

Conclusion

John MacArthur has died. Yet he is not presently mortified; he is presently more alive than he has ever been. For the Christian, God saves one last miracle for the end: death for us is only the gateway to glory. At this very moment, John MacArthur is face to face with his Savior.

He is rejoicing. Many of us, however, feel a mixture of joy and sadness. It is right that we are, for it is not wrong to grieve, nor is it sinful to mourn. No, the Bible carves out much space, much wonderful room, by which to feel deeply (Romans 12:15). Knowing this, we mourn.

But we do not mourn without hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Soon, we will see Jesus, the Jesus that MacArthur proclaimed. Then, Jesus will not be defamed. His church will no longer suffer attack. His precious saints will no longer feel lonely. We will be with our God, and he will be with us, and nothing will ever take us from him. We will be at rest, full and final rest; our hearts will be at peace.

We treasure this truth now as we mourn the faithful dead. John MacArthur, a lion of the truth, a warrior for God and an honorable man, has fallen in Israel. We shall not see his like again.

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Image: Grace to You

Dear Chip and Joanna,

I have been thankful for you and your family for years now. When it felt like America was sliding into the moral swamp, you presented a fun vision of a Christian family in the home renovation world. In entertainment terms, you have created a remarkable blend of humor, authenticity, and craftsmanship. You are loved around the world, and for good reason.

Many of us have marveled at all that you have created and built in Waco, Texas. This includes a ton of Christian families. We’ve prayed for you, cheered for you, and visited your famous complex in Waco. We’ve supported you amidst different trials you’ve faced publicly, and we’ve been thankful to our great God that you did not compromise on your shows by featuring visions of the family owing to paganism, not Scripture.

Which is why the new show on Magnolia Network called “Back to the Frontier” has troubled many of us. “Back to the Frontier” features a gay couple among the three featured “families” going back to the land. This couple could not have children in natural terms, of course, so they bought their children through surrogacy, a wholly unnatural form of family-creation. (By the way, Katy Faust is a faithful evangelical voice on surrogacy—check out this content and website.)

Just as “Fixer Upper” celebrated the God-designed natural family, so “Back to the Frontier” sadly platforms the unnatural “family.” The gay couple in question, Jason Hanna and Joe Riggs, said as much in a recent interview: “It was this great amazing opportunity to normalize same-sex couples and same-sex families.” This is the opposite effect that “Fixer Upper” has had over the years, and commendably so.

Chip, you seem like a fun and affable man. As a fellow father, I love that you are full of life. You’re joyful. You love your wife and children. You enjoy time with them. You work hard. You’re extremely skilled in your work, which is cool to see in a lazy age. You and your wife both model excellence in your craft, which stands out in our lazy, low-skill, low-ambition age.

In addition, I’ve watched you handle the dreaded “change order” more times than I can count—shifting structures, rebuilding walls, changing light fixtures, and other such last-minute tweaks. You regularly roll with these requests, doing so calmly, graciously, and with good cheer. You do so, in part, because the finished product is often all the better. Things looked great before, but your gifted wife’s sharp-eyed changes look all the better as you two improve what was already strong.

With regard to “Back to the Frontier,” I believe—in the simplest terms—that we need a change order. For what little it’s worth, here is my humble encouragement: consider pulling “Back to the Frontier.” I don’t say this in anger. I don’t say it to threaten you with the loss of money from the “family-friendly” crowd. I don’t say it from the peaks of Moral Mount Olympus.

No, I write this as a fellow sinner redeemed by the grace of God in Christ. As Christians, we cannot play any part as believers in normalizing sin. We know that sin is not freedom, but death. We know that there are not many ways to God, but one, and his name is Jesus Christ. We know that what our culture yells at us to affirm—namely sin of every kind, including sexual sin—only leads to eternal destruction (Revelation 21:8).

In saying this, I should note that you were right in your recent X statements to call for love among believers. No doubt convictional Christians can sometimes speak without love, me included. Further, “gentleness and respect” are non-negotiable in disagreement, you’re right (1 Peter 3:15). I’m sure you’ve felt the sting of ungentle speech many times as a public figure; I have real compassion for that.

But we’ve got to think hard about how Scripture handles love in a fallen world. You know this passage, but it bears restating:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth (1 Corinthians 13:4-6).

Love, Paul says, “rejoices with the truth.” Should we love unbelievers of all kinds, showing kindness to them as much as we can? Yes. Does this include gay couples? Absolutely. But can we love them in a way that affirms their sin? We dare not. Doing so is not loving because of Scripture’s clear witness on the sinfulness of homosexual desire, identity, and action per texts like Romans 1:18-32 (here is one short resource on this controversial subject).

In an evil age, we need to celebrate what God celebrates. God brought Eve to Adam as portrayed in Genesis 2, founding the family by their marriage. Everything is built upon this. The natural family alone—one man married to one woman for life, with children coming from this union—honors God.

Not only this, but marriage is a living picture of the gospel. Christ has taken a bride for himself, the church, giving his own blood for our salvation (Ephesians 5:22-33). So we see that complementarian marriage is not only honoring to God on earth, but points us ahead, to the end of all things, the undoing of all evil and the wiping away of every tear (Revelation 22).

In noting all this, Chip, I am not condemning you and your wife as the only professing believers to ever err. Every Christian fails, me very much included. Every Christian stumbles (James 3:2). You and Joanna have no doubt weathered a great deal; you have taken a lot of heat, and I genuinely empathize with you. But compassion, we remember, isn’t compromise, just as love is not affirmation.

My prayer in writing this humble little piece is that you will consider these words. In truth, we all must hit the “Restart” button at different points in our lives. As Christians, it’s not just that we try to adapt a little in such instances, honing our conversational habits and improving our table manners. No, there’s something much bigger going on: it’s the refining work of our holy God.

We break stuff, but God rebuilds us—often through the experience of pain (Hebrews 12:3-13). Even as God disciplines and redirects us, however, Scripture teaches us that he is not a severe heavenly Father. He is patient, kind, and loving beyond comprehension. God is not only willing to forgive us when we break stuff; God loves to forgive us (Jeremiah 31:3).

You could put it this way: like you, Chip, God does a lot of demo. But this is loving demo—demo that changes us for his glory and our good. With that in mind, please know that I’m praying for you and Joanna, Chip. I’m cheering for you. In faith in our great God, I believe that this is not the last page of the last chapter of the book.

To put it differently: it’s a great day for a change order.

Best,

Owen Strachan

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Image: Magnolia Network/Discovery, Inc

In the worst times, heroes arise.

This is what has just occurred in Texas. Before the day dawned in the San Antonio area on the Fourth of July, flash floods struck along the Guadalupe River. The floods ascended to towering heights within thirty minutes, destroying buildings and sweeping many people into a rushing river. According to the Wall Street Journal, over 80 people have been reported as dead, with many more still missing several days later.

The weight of grief surrounding this natural disaster is palpable in America. This is in large part because many children were involved in it. Camp Mystic is a Christian summer camp in Hunt, Texas that draws hundreds of girls each summer; it was quite literally in the eye of the storm. Dozens of the 750 girls attending Camp Mystic were swept into the floodwaters, with 28 of them dying by the latest count. The tragedy here is staggering; words truly fail when encountering photos of the precious girls—many of them less than ten years of age—who lost their lives in the Texas floods.

(UPDATE: I just heard about a good way to give to support Christian relief efforts in the flood area. Kerrville Bible Church, a faithful congregation shepherded by Scott Christensen—a gifted author of numerous excellent books, including a renowned title dealing with how evil fits with the sovereignty of God—is working closely with Samaritan’s Purse to coordinate giving and relief. I’m personally thankful for both the church and Samaritan’s Purse.)

Amidst this surge of grief has come an unexpected story of heroism. Scott Ruskan is a 26-year-old Coast Guard rescue swimmer from New Jersey who was leading a thoroughly normal life just a few days ago. As of the morning of July 4, however, he was suddenly called into action. Rising from sleep, Ruskan quickly got ready, flew in harrowing conditions for six hours to Hunt, Texas, and immediately began “triage” operations to provide aid.

On the ground, Ruskan set up landing zones on Camp Mystic’s archery and soccer fields. He comforted and encouraged the many children who were on scene, lost and distraught. He helped coordinate 12 rescue helicopters that were ferrying evacuees to safety. With many compatriots from the Army National Guard and other outfits, Ruskan saw over 850 people rescued. It is not too much to say that the weight of the tragedy in Texas is matched by the weight of the heroism showed by Ruskan and his colleagues.

In terrible darkness, light shines all the more. So it is in Texas through the ordinary heroism of Ruskan and others. The New York Times related an anecdote that caught my eye as I read numerous reports of the tragedy:

At Camp Mystic on Friday, Mr. Ruskan shuttled campers to the helicopters that would lift them to safety — sometimes carrying two girls in one arm. As he took some evacuees away, he assured the others that he would come back for them. Some asked if they could bring stuffed animals with them. “Of course,” he told them.

This piece of reporting stopped me in my tracks. Ruskan, a 26-year-old, displayed great strength and wisdom in his survival response. Without knowing his spiritual condition, I can say that he did what men must do: he formed a plan, sprang into action, and did his job tirelessly. He showed serious courage and presence of mind, qualities of biblical manhood we value at great price. He used his considerable physical ability to ferry girls to safety, putting their comfort before his as men do.

Clearly, what we call strong manhood has not died in Ruskan’s generation. Yet Ruskan’s clear-thinking capacity is balanced by an obviously empathetic nature. The same man who showed real strength under fire also showed touching kindness to the precious girls he helped save. While I don’t know Ruskan’s heart, here is a second echo of biblical manhood. Men of God are not only tough in hard circumstances, figuring out a plan and executing it with ruthless determination. Men of God are also kind. Tender. Loving. Gracious. Approachable. Compassionate.

In the Bible, godly men are not all steel with no sweetness. Think of how Matthew 19 shows Jesus engaging little children when they are brought to him:

Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away.

What a marvelous passage. It’s one of my favorite sections of Scripture. It shows us that Jesus’ heart is indeed “gentle and lowly” (Matthew 11:28). Jesus was not a fire-snorter. Jesus was not wild-eyed. Jesus was not an angry Savior. No, Jesus was and is loving. Jesus was and is approachable. Jesus was and is tender. Jesus was and is compassionate. The people around Jesus were tempted to be cold to children, but Jesus was warm to them. They were not scared of him; they wanted to go to him, and did so instinctually.

We need a fully balanced picture of Jesus today. As I’ve written about in my book The War on Men, with the legacy of feminism in our midst, we’re tempted to overreact to this movement and others. We’re tempted—very tempted—to become angry men. Ranting men. Cold-hearted men. Unkind men. Unloving men. Men without tenderness. Men whom children don’t want to approach (nor does anyone else).

A major temptation of strong men is to be a cold man. These are men who may hold to sound ideas, even sound doctrine, but they are not gracious men. They may honor God in wanting to know and love right theology, but they do not honor God in their manner, demeanor, and presentation. Cold men are men who have a lot of sanctification left, in truth. They are proud men, men who may well think themselves mature (because they define maturity solely in terms of doctrinal knowledge), but they are actually remarkably immature, for they lack love.

This is not what the gospel produces, so we’re clear. The gospel forms us into warm men. Though we’re all-too-imperfect in all sorts of ways, the gospel makes us a loving man. It makes us draw near to our families. It makes us kind to our wife (Ephesians 5:24-25). It makes us want to live with her in an understanding way (1 Peter 3:7). It makes us the kind of man who children run toward, not away from. It makes us the sort of man who can reconcile, who can be a peacemaker, who can calm down tempers when they’re boiling, who can find solutions in the wreckage of trials.

Every man fails at this. Every Christian man must regularly hit “restart” in his life. When the Lord exposes areas of sin and weakness in his walk with Christ, he must start again, forming new patterns of godliness by the Spirit’s power. But we must not miss the point: it is wholly possible to be a warm man by the power of God’s grace. We can be the kind of men who grip little girls fiercely, ushering them to safety in great calamity, while calming their terrified nerves. Of course you can bring your teddy bear, sweetheart.

The surprising case of Scott Ruskan called all this to mind recently. What is still playing out in Texas is a tragedy of major proportions. We continue to pray for the rescue work in San Antonio; we continue to pray for the grieving; above all, we continue to pray for the advance of the gospel even in tragic conditions like these.

And we should thank God as well that strong men still walk among us. Despite all the depictions of assertive and aggressive manhood as “toxic,” we continue to witness a steady stream of examples of strong men who are—in their moment of testing—anything but toxic. The common grace of God is real, we are reminded. It is a very strong force indeed in our world, sin notwithstanding. How we should thank God for it.

Even more than this, though, we should not give up the hard work of forming strong men of God. This is our greatest calling with regard to boys and young men—not merely to see them become virtuous in general terms, willing to step up in hardship, but men of Christ, men of the gospel, men of grace, men who put themselves on the line as an act of worship.

These are men who run toward the fire, not away from it. These are men who form plans when everything swirls with chaos. These are men who extend strong arms, scoop up precious little girls, and smile at them with deep tenderness. These are men who hear those same little girls ask in the most terrified moment of their lives if they can take their stuffed animal with them, and look down at those little girls without a touch of shame or a moment of hesitation, and say in a calm and gracious voice:

Of course you can bring your teddy bear, sweetheart.

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(Image: North American Rescue, Instagram

But when he [Uzziah] was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the LORD his God and entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense.

--2 Chronicles 26:16

Every time a man in ministry tragically falls, the church of Jesus Christ has a period of shock and confusion. In the aftermath, we typically try to get a sense for the why. Why did this happen? How could it happen? Who knew about the patterns of sin involved, and how much did they know? These are understandable and even necessary questions. But the why discussion misses a still bigger reality: the what.

By this, here’s what I mean: we focus on the details of the latest scandal, but we miss the bigger trend right in front of us. There is in many such instances a clear and unmistakable element: the men in question fell when they were doing well. They did not flame out of gospel ministry when they were barely surviving; they flamed out when they were prospering.

My observation here is rather counter-intuitive. Job would remind us in no uncertain terms that adversity is indeed a massive challenge, after all. But threaded throughout Scripture is a stranger truth, one sharply at odds with our common dreams and desires: adversity is often brutal to navigate, but prosperity can be far more dangerous still.

Why Prosperity Is (Often) More Dangerous Than Adversity

Why on earth would this be so? Isn’t our gravest danger the catalogue of hardships that afflict us all in some measure in this life? Isn’t cancer awful? Isn’t low attendance discouraging? Isn’t strife between brothers on the elder board challenging? Isn’t the ordinary malaise of plugging along, with its often anonymous and thankless tasks, prone to wear us down over time?

The answer to all of the above questions is a clear yes. Adversity is a bear. Some men in ministry, frankly, do not survive it, and we can all easily understand why. But strange as it is to say, I actually believe upon sustained biblical reflection (and my own personal sociological analysis) that prosperity is actually harder to survive. So many of the men I know and love who have fallen from ministry were not barely treading water. Most of the men I know who have lost their church leadership post were thriving.

Though this still may confound some, the explanation behind this desultory trend is not hard to piece together. As a Christian, when we’re in the tough seasons of life, we tend to lean on the Lord. When you’re in the early years of a pastorate, a college presidency, or a missions appointment; when you’re trying to get the church plant funded and the membership roll up to 150; when you yearn for abundant budgets and plentiful members and fruit-bearing ministries; when prosperity seems a planet away, you take your burdens to the Lord.

When we are faced with trials and needs from sunup to sundown, we feel our dependence on God keenly. We pray a lot. We get a lot of spiritual counsel. We read good books of deep truth. We hold hands with our spouse, and converse at length, navigating both excitement over the future and fear over its uncertainty.

Small wonder that the hard years can actually be deeply joyful years. Yes, there are tears and pains and obstacles and lots of looming trials. But in the midst of all that, the Christian cultivates a close walk with the Lord. He takes nothing for granted. He prays like he has never prayed before. He drinks the Word of God like water. He fasts and calls on God for help that he knows only God can give.

Then—all of a sudden—things shift. Out of the blue, God’s blessings pour down from the heavens. Attendance surges. The membership roll spikes. Giving increases fivefold. Students flock to your campus. Unbelievers convert to Christ. Your conference draws thousands of people. You’re asked to speak at big events. Your website, so long ignored, is now read by many. Overnight, you feel like you’re living a different life than in past days.

Yet here’s the cold-blooded truth: you have just entered the danger zone. Yes, all of life is war, spiritual war (Ephesians 6:10-20). But I believe, with biblical justification, that the man in prosperity is not only in a dangerous place, but may very well be in the most dangerous season of his ministry. Why? For this simple reason: now, like never before, he is going to be tempted to live in his own strength, not the strength of God.

The Alchemy of Ministry Failure: Forgetting God

This likely sounds laughable to some. Some readers out there would delight to take on the “grave danger” of great blessing, I’m sure! Yet I hold my ground nonetheless. Again, when the blessing of God is pouring in, it is not hard for us to lose our humble dependence on God. Our prayer life may lag. Our Bible reading may dry up. Our prayers of thankfulness may give way to internal mantras like “God owes me this—I faced years of hardship, and this is what I’ve earned, and it’s not gonna end now.”

This can all happen very quietly. Once we soaked up Christian fellowship like a sponge. Now, we may not seek it out. Once we felt our need for counsel; now we may close our ears to it. Once we heard words of loving correction or rebuke; now, however, when things are soaring, we may well feel that such admonishment is unnecessary. Our success, we wrongly think, is a force-field against conviction, when it is no such thing. (“Success” all the more necessitates careful counsel and loving correction.)

Here is what has happened overall: without declaring it publicly, this man’s ministry has functionally ceased to be about Christ and has become about him. This is when Satan really gets his hooks in a man. The temptations come fast and furious now, and the defenses are down. Every man has his own sin patterns, and men fall for many different reasons. But suffice it to say that the harvest time, when not carefully and vigilantly guarded, is often when Satan takes men down.

The Test of Prosperity

The test of prosperity is, for many men, the most dangerous zone of their lives. (The “test of prosperity” is language that owes to the Puritans, in particular John Owen; I first heard it exposited, brilliantly, from C. J. Mahaney. Mahaney’s preaching on this theme has stayed with me for decades.) This was true of many biblical figures, whether Hezekiah, Solomon, Saul, Asa, and more (see 2 Kings 20; 1 Kings 11; 1 Samuel 15; 2 Chronicles 16).

As the above references show, the books of 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, and 1-2 Chronicles are an extended meditation (among other themes) on how common it is to fail the test of prosperity. The most prominent—and tragic—example here is that of King David. David did not fall in the wilderness, when Saul wickedly hunted him like game. David did not fall when Goliath taunted him before thousands of men, shaming him. David did not fall in the wilderness.

No, David fell in the palace.

David fell when everything was going great for him, in sum (see 2 Samuel 11). David fell when his enemies lay at his feet. David fell when his chief antagonist, Saul, had met his untimely end. David fell when his kingdom was drenched in blessing and abounding with prosperity. The undoing of his highly favored reign did not happen when God pronounced consequences on him through Nathan. David’s undoing occurred when David desired a woman who was not his wife and took her into his bed. That was his fall; the rest was just logistics.

The Gracious God We So Easily Forget

Uriah and Bathshebah were wronged, terribly wronged, by David’s sin. But this does not obscure the fact that there was someone else who was even more sinned against than these two people: God. God, after all, is the one David forgot. God is the one who was jilted. God is the one whose kindness and mercy elevated the shepherd-boy David, at the bottom of the depth chart in his own home, to the pinnacle of power.

There is a reason behind such a narrative. It is this: the biblical God is not a God of tiny blessings and only occasional gifts. The biblical God does not give stones to those who need fish. The biblical God overflows with love (see Exodus 34:6-7). The biblical God abounds with forgiveness. The biblical God renews his mercies for us every single morning we live.

The biblical God is the antidote to our sin. Seeing and savoring the biblical God is the way to survive the test of prosperity (and the test of adversity). The biblical God is the one who gives men in ministry every last scrap of blessing they have. This is what stands out to me as I mull over so many of the cases of ministry failure in the last 10-15 years. So many of these men were not wasting away; they were men who knew blessing of a wildly unusual kind.

Like my own unworthy self, these men had so much. They were given more than they could have asked for or expected. The mind boggles at it all: they shepherded congregations, preached the Word of God, traveled the globe, wrote important books, took consequential stands, built meaningful networks, made real friendships, earned a generous living, and had families. But here’s the sad truth: none of this matters if you’ve lost sight of God.

How to Pass the Test of Prosperity

We are not alone in this spiritual struggle. We have a devilish foe who never sleeps or takes a day off (1 Peter 5:8). We must remember this about the devil: he loves to operate in prosperous conditions. He does much of his best work in the light, so to speak, when a man is flying high and everything about him seems untouchable. It is then, he knows, that he can get men to live not in humble dependence, but in proud liberation.

The devil is a cunning adversary—but God is greater still. Because God is God, we can pass all tests. We can survive. Not only this, we can thrive. We can glorify God when the cancer diagnosis strikes and our entire family is catapulted into the valley of adversity. But we can equally glorify God when the church explodes in growth and the ministry opportunities pour in.

If we are to do so, though, we need a plan. We need a plan for the test of adversity, for it will surely come. But as I am at pains to say, we need just as much a plan for the test of prosperity. So how do we pass the test, then? Is it all hopeless? No, it is not. The way to pass the test of prosperity is to run the very same plays we ran when we faced the test of adversity.

We need to lift our eyes to God (Isaiah 40:26-28). We need to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). We need to cast ourselves on the daily mercy and grace of God. We need to drink deeply from the Word, great gulps of Bible on a consistent basis. We need to rehearse our blessings regularly, pouring out praise for all God has given us. If married, we need to cultivate closeness with our wife and love our children, putting them before us, always asking the work of ministry to come second behind our love for our family.

We must not become professional Christians. We must always be a worshipper of Jesus, nothing more, nothing less. We must remember that all we deserve at any moment of any day is eternal damnation. We must pour the gospel on our head like water from a rushing shower, reminding ourselves continually of the miracle of our initial salvation and our ongoing growth in godliness.

We need to repent daily, keeping close accounts with God and man (1 John 1:9). We need to speak the language of humility every day, taking ownership of our wrongs, embracing accountability for our patterns of sin, and being quick to take blame and give credit (rather than being quick to take credit and give blame). We must never forget that we are not impervious to falling; but for the grace of God, we would, at every given moment (1 Cor. 10:12).

Conclusion

In the end, there is no foolproof solution for our sin condition. Ours is a walk lived by grace and limned in vigilance (see Proverbs 4:23). We are always on the night watch. But realistic as we must be, we do not live in terror of failure. We do not drench ourselves in dread each day. Instead, we live in God-centered confidence. God is our focus. God is our passion. God, we remember daily, is bigger than our sin, greater than the devil, more powerful than our most ingrained life tendencies.

We are the problem, but God is the solution. 2 Timothy 2:13 echoes in our mind, turning anxiety into gratitude: “if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.”

Can we survive the test of prosperity? Yes, by the grace of God, we can.

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(Image: Wikimedia Commons, Manuscript Leaf with King David in an Initial I, from a Psalter MET)

The Christian message has a salting effect upon the earth.

—Carl F. H. Henry

It was an audacious thing, and it changed the world. The “neo-evangelical” project launched by theologian Carl F. H. Henry, pastor Harold Ockenga, and evangelist Billy Graham (shaking hands in the above image) attempted nothing less than the repositioning of doctrinally conservative American Christianity. Neither liberals nor legalists, the neo-evangelicals tried in the postwar years to build a new movement anchored in gospel identity and gospel partnership.

In the 1940s, they had no time to waste. In this decade, Henry wrote The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (1947), a corker of a book that set the agenda for the evangelical approach. Graham toured the world, preaching up a storm, a veritable one-man missions society. From his perch on Boston Common, Ockenga pastored the venerable Park Street Church, even as he served as the first president of both Fuller Theological Seminary (founded in 1947) and the National Association of Evangelicals (founded in 1942).

Neither Liberal Nor Legalistic: The “Neo-Evangelicals”

The neo-evangelicals had energy and vision to burn. But their foremost burden was theological. They cut their teeth in the era when Protestant liberalism overtook many Baptist and Presbyterian churches alike; Ockenga, for example, was personally mentored by J. Gresham Machen, the single most important conservative leader in the epochal fundamentalist-modernist controversy. Ockenga watched as Machen was unjustly marginalized in the PCUSA in the late 1920s, but refused to accept defeat.

With incredible fortitude and perseverance, Machen created a suite of ministries and organizations. These include several that are vibrant today, nearly 100 years later, not least of them Westminster Theological Seminary (founded in 1929). This example was deeply instructive to Ockenga; it showed him that when a denomination and its institutions lost the light of the gospel, one did not throw up a white flag, but created new wineskins for the new wine of the new covenant.

Yet the neo-evangelicals did not only react to the left. They responded to the far right as well. Initially, the term “fundamentalist” was something of a badge of honor, signifying in the 1920s that a given Christian was not ashamed of the “the fundamentals” of biblical Christianity—biblical miracles, penal substitutionary atonement, an authoritative Scripture, and more.

The Fighting Fundamentalists

The fundamentalists initially fought liberalism, to their everlasting credit. In addition, when Billy Graham unwisely included modernist leaders in his evangelistic “crusades” (seeking to draw adherents of more liberal associations), they spoke against this decision. The fundamentalists had orthodox instincts and a desire to honor God’s truth. They brooked no compromise.

Yet the fundamentalists also failed to watch themselves carefully, as we all must do (1 Tim. 4:16). The spirit that led the fundamentalists to separate from unsound doctrine grew—over time—into the sense that the church of Christ was very nearly overtaken by godlessness. Only a few remained, and these few adopted a mindset of separation from the evangelical movement. Once they rightly practiced a responsive posture, engaging falsehood with truth, but in the postwar years, they generally adopted what is best called a reactionary posture.

A reactionary posture is in actuality a program of over-reaction. Here are some examples of such a mindset. Academically, the nascent “fundamentalists” not only disagreed with certain tenets of modernist theological seminaries, but came to distrust advanced academic training altogether. Behaviorally, the fundamentalists not only sought modesty of appearance and purity of conduct, but came to mandate certain holiness codes of dress and rules of decorum (women in skirts, boys in suits).

Domestically, the fundamentalists and their heirs formed “systems” and “methods” for parenting and the family that promised a Christian oasis. There is a “worldly way” to train kids and there is a “Christian way,” and the “Christian way” involved a home driven by many rules and a certain foolproof program of authority and obedience. Organizationally, the fundamentalists developed the model of “second-degree” separation, leaving themselves with precious few allies and peers.

The fundamentalist movement got some things notably right. Children do need to be trained to obey their parents, as one example (from the backdrop of grace). Yet over time, the strength of the fundamentalists became their weakness. Their recalcitrance developed into a hardened negativity as the “fighting fundamentalists” not only battled genuine heretics, but one another. They alone guarded the flame of “pure” Christianity; they alone faithfully protected the church against “impure” Christians.

As the 1950s and 60s wore on, the conservative Christian world increasingly became an inchoate mass of tribes, not unlike the day of judges in the Old Testament. “Fundamentalism” came to represent, justifiably, not simply a body of ideas, but a form of Christianity that—in at least a good number of cases—signaled exclusion, separation, lack of gospel partnership, strict legalism, and a vision of God grounded in anger over widespread disobedience.

The Evangelical Instinct: Carl Henry, R. C. Sproul, and John MacArthur

Back in the 1930s and 40s, the neo-evangelicals desired a better way than this. They desired a cultural theology that did not merely say “no” to what was problematic, but “yes” to what was good, true, and beautiful. They wanted unity and cooperation in the name of Christ. They desired a church that did not merely rail at a fallen world, but that pressed into the darkness as the light of Christ, loving unbelievers through the ministry of gospel truth.

So, as profiled in this book, the neo-evangelicals built. They did so not by front-loading what they disagreed about, but by uniting around common doctrinal confession. They sought partnership, not fracturing. In so doing, the neo-evangelicals laid the groundwork for the future “gospel-centered” explosion of the early 21st-century, as they created something shockingly rare in evangelical history: a framework for cooperation.

Their efforts at Fuller Seminary notably did not pan out. However, though the neo-evangelical project faltered at Fuller and elsewhere, its influence did not disappear. The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (1978-81) was a clear sign of this, as conservative Protestant Christians who did not often mingle came together to formulate the first and second Chicago Statements, important documents that planted a flag in the ground for revelational authority.

Beyond this, in the Reformed world, various networks were built in the 1980s and 90s that came to fruition in the “gospel-centered” ministries of the 2000s. The James Boice-led Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, for example, presaged Together for the Gospel, helmed by influential pastor Mark Dever (2006-22), which did so much to shape me and a generation of young evangelicals.

Though largely forgotten today, Carl F. H. Henry was the godfather of all of this. Henry was the first editor of Christianity Today, taking that role at age 43 (1956-68). Henry was a member of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D. C., and helped usher Mark Dever into that church’s pastorate. Henry mentored R. Albert Mohler, Jr., in the decade before Mohler assumed the presidency of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Henry taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School for years, crossing paths with many of the key thinkers and leaders of the future “gospel-centered” resurgence.

This last contributor is a very important element of the Reformed Resurgence. Friendship played a big role in it, friendship that was less mere acquaintance and more genuine fellowship borne of the gospel of Christ. No single relationship more symbolized the newness of the Reformed Resurgence than the unlikely camaraderie of R. C. Sproul, dean of the covenant theologians, and John MacArthur, lion of the tribe of dispensationalists.

After working together on the inerrantist cause, Sproul and MacArthur built a brotherly relationship that represented a notable change from the covenant-dispensationalist wars of past days. Instead of lobbing grenades at one another over high fences, these tribal chieftains found ways to unite. They played golf together. They teased one another. In their public interactions, Sproul and MacArthur seemed normal, likeable, and downright funny.

To be sure, each man had sharp elbows and a readiness to show up at doctrinal High Noon. Yet these men also found ways to signal that they alone were not the Last Remaining True Christian on Planet Earth. Even amidst standing disagreement on different matters, they chose to build a friendship grounded in Christ. In this respect, Sproul and MacArthur (and many other Reformed evangelicals, as I call them) have left us a worthwhile example.

Theological Triage: The Silent Partner in the Reformed Resurgence

Such friendships were helped along by a tremendously underappreciated concept: “theological triage.” This brilliant concept was developed and popularized by Al Mohler, who learned its essential elements from Carl Henry. As Mohler codified it, theological triage meant that Christian doctrine was understood in "first-order," "second-order," and "third-order" terms.

This was not a minimization of truth. Instead, it was a recognition (a correct one) that some doctrines in Scripture are especially central to the Christian faith (“first-order” truths dealing with salvific gospel confession), whereas there is room for exegetically-driven disagreement on others. Here is how Mohler lined out “second-order” doctrine in 2005; I will quote him at some length so as to display the depth of deep wisdom here.

In recent years, the issue of women serving as pastors has emerged as another second-order issue. Again, a church or denomination either will ordain women to the pastorate, or it will not. Second-order issues resist easy settlement by those who would prefer an either/or approach. Many of the most heated disagreements among serious believers take place at the second-order level, for these issues frame our understanding of the church and its ordering by the Word of God.

Here, accordingly, is how Mohler conceptualized “third-order” doctrines:

Third-order issues are doctrines over which Christians may disagree and remain in close fellowship, even within local congregations. I would put most of the debates over eschatology, for example, in this category. Christians who affirm the bodily, historical, and victorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ may differ over timetable and sequence without rupturing the fellowship of the church. Christians may find themselves in disagreement over any number of issues related to the interpretation of difficult texts or the understanding of matters of common disagreement. Nevertheless, standing together on issues of more urgent importance, believers are able to accept one another without compromise when third-order issues are in question.

It is not too much to say that “theological triage” as mapped out here (and elsewhere by like-minded believers) helped advance the “Reformed Resurgence” of roughly 2000-2018. Evangelical theology flowered in this era; church planting exploded in America and across the world; Christians who formerly stuck to their tribe now found it possible to regard believers of other groups as genuine members of Christ’s family.

Strange and wonderful things happened in this time. Presbyterians entered into fellowship with Baptists (gasp!); young Anglican priests met with non-denominational church planters for monthly lunches; Reformed continuationists like John Piper joined forces with Bible Church cessationists to call preachers to biblical ministry, not professionalized performance.

This was a harvest, a feast-season, of the gospel. Rooted in gospel identity, gospel partnership flowered in a thousand directions. Theological triage helped make possible unity that previous generations of Reformed Christians sadly had not known. Amazingly, the Reformed evangelicals (my term for the group in question, neither fundamentalist nor anti-confessional) achieved—for a time, at least—what the Protestant Reformers could not.

The Reformers’ Shocking Failure to Unite

This last sentence makes quite a claim. Weren’t the Reformers unified in doctrine and practice? At the level of theology, yes, they were united around what we call “first-order” doctrine. However, beyond this, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and many others tried to unite in the 16th-century, but could not do so. At the Marburg Colloquy, the Reformers famously could not find agreement over the nature of the Lord’s Supper. They came close to gospel partnership, but could not pull it off.

In nuanced historical analysis, the Reformers’ differences were not as great as they might have thought; as proven by expert theologian Bruce Ware in this book, the “memorial” view held by Zwingli, for example, was actually far closer to the “spiritual presence” position of Calvin than some thought. Yet because the Reformers did not have a framework like “theological triage,” they could not link up in a thick way in their day. Their differences—which were not first-order differences—ended up magnified.

This is not an uncommon problem. Across the centuries of Christian history, it is a regular occurrence. Christians have rarely had a defined program by which to handle disagreement well and unite in appropriate ways. The normative experience of Christians is much closer to the fundamentalist approach: it is to think of oneself and one’s tribe as “pure” and uncompromised, and other Christians as “impure” and one step away from heresy itself.

The Troubling Spread of “Pure/Impure” Doctrinal Engagement

This is what has happened in recent years. After the “Reformed Resurgence” lost its momentum for a number of reasons, we have witnessed the rise of what you could call “Doctrinal Fundamentalism.” I’ll call it “Theological Separatism,” and it operates under the banner of the “pure/impure” framework practiced by the fundamentalists.

In the “pure/impure” grid, balance is severely compromised. Instead of keeping doctrinal disagreement in perspective, nearly everything rates as “first-order” doctrine. “Pure” theology makes all theology a purity test. It collapses the gray areas of doctrine and removes all traces of mystery from Christian theology. Humility is out, because any recognition of disagreement is a tacit acceptance of “impure” theology, and thus a sure sign of compromise.

The “pure doctrine” approach unwittingly poisons the entire enterprise of evangelical theology. People who agree about 99.8% of all theology end up like Sicilian warlords, facing off against one another in public streets, their tribe lining up behind them for the latest social-media fracas. If someone on the Internet happens to post something that differs from the “pure” consensus, a dog whistle goes out, and within minutes, the guardians of “pure doctrine” show up, ready to battle.

The “pure doctrine” approach also changes pedagogy. Instead of teaching students biblical truth, but reasoning from Scripture first to do so (with historical theology as a great supporting witness), “pure doctrine” tells students the right theology to hold. It summons them to hold the right view, giving them the “theological grammar” they need to speak in order to land on the right side of the pure/impure divide. It warns students in summary terms about reading voices on the other side; this is not merely a matter of disagreement, but a matter of holding to “pure” doctrine, after all.

Impressionable seminarians are shaped by such a model. They do not learn to reason from the Scriptures, doing so in conversation with Christ’s church over the ages. Nor do they benefit from having their professor work out, with real care, why he arrives at the view he does (even as he scrupulously strives to present the other side in a fair way). Instead, again, they are fed the right view, with the right language and all the right implications spelled out.

Students aren’t so much taught in this system. Given approved reading lists with the the wrong theologians crossed out and the “right” authors highlighted in yellow, they are force-fed. In this system, they are not formed into fellow Christian thinkers and doers of the Word. They become foot-soldiers in the armed movement of “pure” doctrine. They graduate ready to fight, ready to police lines, ready to attack “impure” voices.

They have been trained, in fact, to read fellow conservative evangelicals as more dangerous than outright liberals and heretics, for at least heretics are obviously wrong. “Impure” conservatives are subtly wrong in hard-to-spot ways, so one must war against them with nearly unbridled zeal and unrestrained ferocity. The purity of “pure” doctrine is at hand, after all; every engagement is seemingly a repristination of the Diet of Worms, and the “pure” theologians are squarely on the side of Luther.

In the simplest spiritual terms, the separatistic “pure/impure” framework has wreaked havoc on theological exchange. Like a cavity killing a tooth from the inside, a spirit of pride has taken root in Christian seminaries and colleges. The endless battles of “pure” doctrine that have resulted have left many Christians confused.

Few believers, after all, have a deep background in medieval theology; few pastors have the time to track the internecine squabbles of academic theologians. Most of the time, normal Christians don’t even know what ivory-tower types are fighting over, let alone have a position on the issues in question (and the issues in question are commonly second-order or third-order issues).

This same spirit of pride has spread to the broader ministry world. The shift to “pure ministry” epitomized by one’s tribe has thrown a heavy blanket on evangelical unity and gospel partnership. It has led Christians to disdain unity in Christ as effeminate, to think that only a precious few believers are actually saved, and to fight one another endlessly, duped into thinking that incessant quarrelsomeness is godly.

Recovering a Spirit of Gospel Partnership Today

In sketching all of this, let us be clear about doctrinal essentialism. There are stands that must be taken. There are lines that must be drawn. Theological triage comprehends all this with its "first-order" category. Yet this system helps us all so much, because it refuses to read all issues as equally clearly outlined in the Bible, nor as equally central to the burning heart of regenerated Christianity.

Theological triage (which is really just Christ’s prayer in John 17 for unity among his people applied to doctrinal engagement) does us convictional types a wonderful service. It makes it possible for us to come together in some form of gospel partnership, but not dissolve our beliefs into a soupy, squishy mass. We can be men and women of conviction, but also—and equally—men and women of warm-hearted cooperation.

I thought about all of this harvest of the gospel when I saw the news of the closing of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Several years back, I had the privilege and the joy of doing my PhD in Theology at TEDS. TEDS was a little broader on doctrine than I was, yes, but I nonetheless profited a great deal from the school. The faculty were gracious and gifted people, the classroom experience was invigorating, and I liked the evangelical project the school attempted to carry out.

Fast forward to today. According to reports, TEDS as we have known it is no more. The school dreamed up by Kenneth Kantzer now recedes into evangelical memory, a detail for future book chapters about the 20th-century. (Kantzer is largely unknown today, but was a key neo-evangelical who studied at Harvard like many others of his ilk. I wrote about all when I was a TEDS student, and my research eventually took public form in my monograph Awakening the Evangelical Mind).

The campus that brought Carl Henry out (and housed his papers), that featured the sterling New Testament scholarship of D. A. Carson, that assembled a murderer’s row of a faculty by the 1990s (among them Grudem, Vanhoozer, Bullmore, Ortlund, Ware, Harold O. J. Brown, Moo, and more), and that launched The Gospel Coalition is now a relic of the past.

Is Evangelicalism Dead?

At moments like this, it’s fair to ask a tough question: is evangelicalism dead? I don’t ask this in a cheeky mindset. I ask it in soberness and no small amount of sadness. All these great works, all this momentous efforts, all these seemingly faithful leaders, and here we are in 2025, with no small number of our historic institutions dying. But I don’t merely mean to point to certain works. I mean something much bigger: is the evangelical spirit dead?

Here is my very quick answer: no, evangelicalism is not dead. It is true that many of our key institutions may have gone away or in some form changed, even as many of our notable leaders may have gone home to glory or be on the doorstep of heaven. We feel the loss of these men keenly today. But despite their moving on, I do not believe that the evangelical spirit—the evangelical instinct to find gospel identity and gospel partnership—is dead and buried.

We really can go back to gospel identity and gospel partnership. Here is a major way to come back to the good paths: we can practice theological triage once again. In humility and charity, we can resist a separatist mindset that tempts all of us. Instead of calling our own theology and practice “pure,” and that of those who disagree with us “impure,” we can embrace gospel identity once more.

On this count, when I had Theological Prolegomena with Kevin Vanhoozer at TEDS, by the way, he started his class with several sessions on the “theological virtues,” urging us to choose charity, humility, and carefulness over pride and tribalism and reflexive defensiveness. We’re all a work in progress with regard to this progression, me included. But this sort of model is doable. It’s possible in the Spirit.

It’s possible because the gospel frees us not only from eternal judgment, but from vocational insecurity and defensive competitiveness. When we comprehend just how greatly we are loved by God in Christ (Ephesians 1:3-14; 3:14-21), we are liberated to rejoice when others succeed (Romans 12:15). The thriving of other groups does not rile us; it does not summon us to lash out at others, jealously trying to hack away at their kingdom while making ours bigger.

This is so often what is happening when we operate in a separatist or legalistic mindset. We are operating from a heart that is not truly God-centered. As a result, at the functional level (even if we’re a born-again Christian), we live in insecurity. Our heart is following an idol, and in that pursuit, we treat our cause, our doctrinal system, our camp, our tribe, our behavioral code, or our legalistic program as if it’s the true and rightful focus of our devotion and adoration and zeal and—ultimately—worship.

That’s what we do, in the end: we worship that which is not God. We can do this with most anything, even good gifts of God. We can make a document, a book, a denomination, a local church, a spouse, a child, a bank account, a reputation, or a parachurch ministry an idol. It consumes us; it controls us (at least functionally); it commands our time, our attention, and our passions.

Again, you can easily do all this not merely with bad things but with good things. The idolatry is easy to spot when we’re dealing with physically bowing before a pagan shrine; it is much harder to spot when you’re ostensibly devoted to ministry or your children or your confessional tribe. But mark these words: idolizing good things is no less evil than idolizing bad things. Satan, in fact, specializes in getting Christians to do the latter such that they end up losing everything they have after seemingly (on the surface) devoting themselves to good ends.

Praise God, there is an antidote for this evil alchemy. It is an incredibly powerful antidote, the most powerful force on earth. It is gospel grace. When the gospel truly has hold of you, it does not create in you either a severe spirit or an antinomian slipperiness. The true saving gospel creates in us opposite instincts to these, filling us with charity, humility, and what we call biblical balance.

This is so important with regard to evangelical theology and evangelical ministry. The gospel makes us people who think deeply, converse widely, read broadly, and reason intensely. We form convictions, absolutely, but we do so in love—and both our method and manner should be loving, as loving as possible (Ephesians 4:15; Titus 3:2). In forming these convictions, furthermore, we are not doing so out of insecurity, because we need a group to join so that we have something to worship.

We form convictions so that we can know God better, and thus experience the joy of worshipping him in spirit and truth all the more (John 4:24). Doctrine is not for self; ministry is not for reputation; God’s truth is given us for joy (Hebrews 12:2).

Conclusion: The Massive Opportunity Before Us

Recent years have witnessed serious drift in Reformed and conservative circles. As we reckon with these trends, we do well to study the neo-evangelical instinct. In doing so, we have an opportunity to return to the old ways and the good paths. We can build bridges back to one another, prioritizing gospel doctrine to unite for gospel advancement while never treating second-order or third-order convictions as if they are adiaphora.

We can practice theological triage again, both in the classroom and in the conference hall. We can recover gospel identity in order to enjoy gospel fellowship once more. By the grace of God, we build something richer and deeper together than we would do alone, something beautiful, something living, vividly gospel-oriented. Something we call gospel partnership borne of gospel unity.

As it was in past days, so may it be again.

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Image: Billy Graham in Amsterdam (1954), used with permission of Wikimedia Commons—photo by Joop van Bilsen.

(Author’s note: I wrote this essay the week of May 5, 2025 in a draft form, and with no knowledge of events that came to light in Reformed circles some days later.)