The Book

If you’ve been reading this Substack since the beginning, you know that it all started because I wrote a book…

…five years ago.

College J.T. reckoned that book would be on the shelves by now.

Unfortunately, college J.T. has since discovered that’s not how the world works.

Last year, I raised my white flag and surrendered to self-publishing. Fresh off parting ways with a publisher who courted my work for some time, I figured in a TikTok-Amazon-Instagram-AI playing field, publishers have far less significance than they once did.

That is, of course, quite true. But for a kid whose dream has always been to publish with a “real publisher,” it tasted like defeat. And for an adult who has been working and schooling full-time, it felt like adding self-marketing for a book might be the last straw.

As a matter of fact, it was the last straw.

The Last Straw

In a span of two months, I rewrote the entire book (for the third time) and posted sixty videos all while trying to manage my regular work last summer. Then I collapsed. Like—actually. Exactly one year ago, I woke up early on a Saturday morning to make another video, arrived at the office, laid down, left cheek against the polished concrete floor, and didn’t get up for two hours.

It’s possible that some people don’t find concrete slab moments particularly alarming. Perhaps you have them all the time. I can only say that there has never been a time where I felt as if I simply could not will myself to stand up and keep working.

The Retreat

So, since I had practically skipped beach week and all other vacation opportunities, I made myself put down my work for a 48-hour retreat with the LORD.

I hopped in Ceci (my faithful Honda Civic Hybrid), began the two-hour trek to Greenville, SC, and planned to fast and pray and bombard my LORD with lists of questions I had for Him.

Unfortunately, the retreat did not last two days. It lasted two hours. I came in thinking I had called God to this conversation — but when I stepped into my cabin to pray, I had the funny feeling that God was not on my agenda; I was on His. And He would finish this meeting when He willed.

In the end, I heard two primary things:

First, when I asked God, “How much should I pray?” I heard no voice, but it genuinely seemed as if He spoke back: “How much should you breathe?”

Second, when—overwhelmed and exhausted—I then asked God, “But how can I do all these things You’ve put in my heart?” Again, it seemed all He said was: “Give me back my Sabbath.”

Which was probably to say, “No matter the amount of time you have, you can’t do these things. Only I can. So surrender your time to me.”

So I decided to (attempt to) surrender my agenda, and almost immediately several doors flung open that I had blindly believed couldn’t be opened.

Finding a Publisher…

Again, I’d already given up on publishing in a traditional route. It felt irrevocably off-the-table. Interestingly enough, right around that time, two of my mentors read my fully-finished manuscript (they later told me it’s a terrible idea to have a fully-finished book — who knew?) and sent it to their publishers. Within a few days, I was suddenly connected to multiple high-level publishers. Within a few months, I had received offers from both Seedbed Publishing and their friends, Zondervan Reflective.

If you know much about the book publishing world, Zondervan is a huge name, and on paper, perhaps I should have published with them. Nevertheless, I wasn’t able to shake my desire for the smaller publisher in Seedbed. Maybe it’s because I’ve felt like an underdog in this process all the way through. Either way, I felt such a depth and intimacy with the team at Seedbed, and knew that our hearts were aligned concerning the purpose of the book… To me, with this particular book, it seemed far more important to have a publisher who cares about my project and understands it (they sat down with me for three hours to learn the story behind my writing) than a publisher whose people I may never really get to know.

Not to mention the fact that it would’ve taken years longer to publish with Zondervan — and I suppose I’m not particularly patient with this project anymore.

I’m just so thankful to God to be able to finally give away this long-labored love of mine. Hundreds of hours of meticulous focus and prayer have gone into this work, and it feels surreal for it to be, well, real.

Now, the anticipated release date is in mid-to-late September. It’s a soft launch, and we’ll do a lot of marketing after-the-fact. But a launch it is!

In some ways I could call it a “dream-come-true” — but dreams are never quite so lovely in reality as they are when dreamt. It’s really a prayer-come-true — and prayers are always far more lovely in their end than they are when prayed. Like Jacob wrestling for the blessing: the wrestling itself was hard; but the reward is eternal.

Father, I do pray that lives would be changed eternally from this book.

A New Era

I feel like I’m exhaling as I write this. I’ve now been living in one place for almost two months. The book is almost published. I’m starting to remember names and stories at my church. We’re off to the races here at RADIUS Church Southside, and just embarked on a series called “Be Human,” which will mesh beautifully with The True Human Project.

All that being said — it’ll be a blitz again come mid August and September. 50,000 college students will move into the city of Columbia, including students at the University of South Carolina, by far the largest university in our state, and also the largest incoming sorority class in the nation.

Right after they get settled in, the book will be published, and I’ll be speaking at a conference in Alabama the last week in September for that release.

I’ll keep y’all posted on more things to come going forward.

For now, I’d love for you to help me out with some feedback! Could you enter your vote below?

Thanks y’all!

Let’s be human this week,

J.T.

I’m in a car with Gandalf, Gimli, and Legolas.

Apparently that makes me Aragorn, which is somewhat unfortunate since he’s definitely not my first choice.

The Gandalf-guy who’s driving the car has a real name, of course, and it’s Colin. He’s sixty-something, widowed, and a well of wisdom. He’s from England, but he’s lived in Scotland for some forty-odd years, and probably knows more about this country than 99.9% of Scots. He even speaks Gaelic. He’s also something of a Hebrew nut, can try his hand at French and German, but spends his time mentoring charismatic Catholics in Poland and Slovakia—because why not?

Behind him sits the Gimli figure, Joseph Yoon. His name is JY; I’m J.T. He’s South Korean; I’m South Carolinian. He’s 5’5” and Asian; I’m 6’6” and white.

So basically we’re twins.

JY is easily one of the best storytellers I know, and he prays as if he were discipled into revival prayer in Korea… maybe because, well, he was.

Then there’s Sam. He lives in London, but also pretty much lives everywhere else in Europe. His heart burns for revival, but it tends to burn with a smile, not a grimace. He’s 26, and he’s “mates” with just about everyone on this continent.

Then there’s me. And I’m pretty tall. So I guess I’ll be Aragorn. Or maybe a troll or something.

Anyways.

With the Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack playing in the background, our little stick-shift European car skirts up the left-side of the highland roads toward the Outer Hebrides. Colin is driving, and we tell story after story of spiritual wars and quests and failures and feats. JY’s telling stories from his time in Japan, Sam in Barbados, Colin in Israel, me in—um—South Carolina?

Then we ask Colin, our resident expert, about the significance of the place where we’re going on pilgrimage: The Hebrides.

He clears his throat, which is quite possibly one of the best sounds one can hear when in the presence of a wizard, and then he begins.

“The Hebridean revival,” he says in his soft, deliberate English accent, “was probably the most recent true revival the world has witnessed. According to legend,” he glances aside from the rolling countryside to acknowledge our limited expertise, “which is the sort of thing I’m sure you have heard before, the revival began with Peggy and Christine Smith—an 84-year-old blind woman and an 82-year-old crippled woman—who prayed fervently in their little cottage after receiving a vision of young people packing their near-empty church. Now—” Colin says with a twinkle sparkling behind his round-rimmed spectacles, “—that is true, but it’s not the whole truth. In reality, it’s reckoned that the whole town was praying in this manner, begging God to revive their churches, including seven men who covenanted to pray until God revived their churches.

“It’s said that around that time one man famously prayed, ‘God, Your honor is at stake,’ just before the Lord poured out His Spirit and supplied for the Hebrides a young leader, as He so often does, by the name of Duncan Campbell.”

Of course, all of us had heard of Duncan Campbell many times, but that’s hardly a good reason to stop a wizard while he’s narrating one of the greatest stories of all time.

So we listened to Colin tell us many things we all already knew, perking up at the few things we didn’t. We heard how buildings shook at prayer meetings, how young Campbell’s preaching reached to the ends of the Hebridean islands, how meetings routinely went until 2 or 3AM, how the young people were the key leaders of the whole movement, and yet how one key city—Stornoway, the capital, and the very town where our conference would be held—was left untouched by the revival, because its ministers opposed it. On and on Colin went whilst we listened willingly.

And so the brown-rocked highlands whistle by, the Scottish rains fall relentlessly against the green, the white streams foam alongside, and the story of Duncan Campbell gradually mixes with other, older stories of which Colin is reminded. Then, it morphs again into our own stories of battles, victories, woes, and laughs. Soon, we’re counseling with one another about the forces of evil and good in our time, and where wisdom beckons us to deploy our weapons. Then, when the stories and strategies somehow grow stale, we sing. Song is a lost art among men of the modern world, and it’s a pity, because there’s a certain side of masculinity that can only be unleashed in the raging current of music.

All in all, to say I was living a dream would be an understatement.

Interestingly, though we went to a marvelous conference at Martin’s Memorial Church, and though we heard several of my favorite leaders on planet earth speak, and though we experienced incredibly powerful things in that room, it’s being stuffed in a car for eight hours that seems to assert itself as the core memory of our time in Scotland.

It reminds me of a moment of my childhood that I’ll leave you with…

One of the most vivid memories I have in all my younger life took place when Mama and I were driving home from school one day. I was ten, just completing The Lord of the Rings for the first time, and full of romantic longing for war and goblins and adventure. I looked at my mother and said, “Mama, why is there no adventure these days?”

I suspected she would be stumped by this question, but she just laughed aloud.

“Honey, if anything, this life has too much adventure, and pretty soon you’re going to find yourself asking God for less of it.”

I’ve been in Europe for two months, and I’m sure I’ll have a thousand stories to tell upon my return to the states. But truth is, every day I’ve been in Europe, I’ve been asking God to prepare me for the adventure that He has laid before me at home.

Sure, this Europe stuff is great. But the only reason I want to see the trees in another land is so that I can learn to grow something in my own backyard.

In the Scriptures, it actually seems that adventure begins where fellowship begins (Acts 2:42). Adventure and fellowship are synonymous—or perhaps adventure and love are synonymous—which is why the greatest adventure is our fellowship with the Lover of our Souls.

This idea is core to the birth of the church, and I suspect all of our lives will feel as if we have “too much adventure” the moment we give up our lives for the sake of Christ.

Let’s be human y’all,

J.T.

Istanbul.

When they set the Turkish breakfast before me, I forgot everything I’d learned about The City for the last four days.

Freshly sliced tomatoes and cucumbers lay on a platter between fresh parsley, neighbored by two square plates of menemen and Çılbır eggs, which accompanied some heavily spiced pan-fried beef sausage, a smattering of salami slices, and an assortment of bottomless breads (the donut shaped “Simit” was the only one I recognized), which were to be dipped in the Tahini-Pekmez sauce, Bal Kaymak honey-creme, or Acuka red pepper paste—all washed down with endless Çay Tea.

Meanwhile, the emerald blue waters of the famous Bosphorous see reflected the same streaks of sunlight which lit up the collection of domes which winked at us from their towering structures.

This was my first full meal in about two weeks (I grew up cheap, y’all), so it fares that this meal was somewhere near “heavenly.”

But it was a veneer. This city was not heaven, though it—more than any city from AD 325-AD 1900—has claimed to be.

This was Istanbul. In other ages its name was Constantinople, or Byzantium, and some of the greatest and most horrific things in the history of the church happened right here.

Even today it remains unique as a city in the world—though now it lives as one of the most difficult cities in the world for Christianity to exist.

……………

It’s AD 312, the year of what becomes maybe the most controversial historical moment in Christian history. It’s the year that Constantine claims he’s converted. For the first time ever, a Roman Emperor is an outspoken Christian.

By this point, the Empire is beginning to show signs of splintering, and with each decade the great city of Rome is losing its former stability geographically. So Constantine decides to build a “New Rome” in the East, and he happens to name it “Constantinople,” because he’s super humble.

For the next thousand years, this city would be one of, if not the, leading city in Christian power, beauty, theology, and history at-large. In fact, some of the darkest days the Church has ever seen took place in this city.

But now I’m sitting in front of a missionary who tells me that Turkey is one of the most hardened places to the gospel in the world.

……………

The missionary I sit with encourages me to dip a fried-cheese-thing into a bowl of honey and cream. That sounds awesome, so I oblige, and then I feel weird because what’s going into my mouth—sweet explosive flavors—doesn’t make sense with the stories I’m hearing.

Over the course of the week, I was able to sit before this missionary, who had previously been in China, and several refugee pastors, who had previously been in Iran. All of them said the Turks were much more difficult to draw toward the gospel. It’s as if Istanbul, also known as Constantinople, also known as “the City,” still holds the haunting memories that have plagued Christianity for so long. It is, after all, the site of the most horrific occurrences in church history.

……………

It’s AD 1054, and tensions between the Greek East and the Latin West are increasing. Constantinople—not Rome—has been the signet of Roman glory for the last five centuries. Its gold-glittering skyline is the envy of the Roman world, and its influence is unparalleled. Yes, the Muslim nation has been pushing against the boundaries of this great city, but as of yet it still seems impossible for Islam to splinter Constantinople.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t Islam that splintered Christianity. It was Christianity that splintered Christianity.

The Cardinal waltzes into Constantinople with a fresh document, a papal bull. It’s a formality that expresses something that has existed for sometime: the rupture between the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church. Of course, there had been a thousand divisions in church history up to this moment, but none near this magnitude. The Catholic Church had pronounced the Orthodox Church out of step with Jesus Christ, and therefore not Christian. Of course, the Orthodox Church responded in turn, dubbing the Catholic Church out of step with Christ and His teachings.

What neither understood was that this very division would open the door to what were quite possible the two most shocking events in Christian history.

……………

Do you ever feel the weight of a city when you walk through it? I do. Each city emanates with its own personality. I think as an American I often forget how land remembers its own history; it is, as Baldwin says, its history. I wonder if we wouldn’t be more effective as Christians if we knew the land we stood upon. Its dangers, its beauties, the people who were born there, the blood that still cries out from the ground—I reckon the earth is a place that holds memory.

I feel the weight of memory here in Istanbul, unlike almost any other city I’ve ever stood in. Jerusalem alone compares. The first thing I wrote in my prayer journal was this:

“Father,

What a city.

I’m stunned. The size and magnitude of this place is beyond my comprehension. Fifteen million people and fifteen hundred years of the richest history in the world. Many of the greatest and most terrible deeds in the history of Your people have been done here.

This is the city where Christianity became powerful under Constantine.

This is the city where Christianity’s greatest preacher ever preached… before being exiled and then practically murdered.

This is the city where Christianity was made beautiful under Justinian and Theodora.

This is the city where Christianity built its most magnificent buildings.

This is the city where Christianity split between Catholic and Orthodox.

This is the city where Christianity went to war with itself during the Crusades.

This is the city where Rome endured, and the city where it fell.

Now, it is the largest city in Europe, and the gateway to the Islamic world.”

This is not new for Istanbul, “The City.” It has always been one of the great battlegrounds in all the earth.

……………

It’s AD 1204, maybe the darkest day in Christian history.

For the fourth time, the Pope has commissioned troops from Western Europe to “take back” Jerusalem “for Christ.” As a political maneuver, it’s not at all unhistorical. Religion is ever being twisted by unholy emperors and wielded like a weapon. In fact, the Crusades as a whole can almost feel unremarkable when compared to history’s great atrocities.

What makes it so memorable, you ask? It is memorable because the brutality, the senselessness, the wickedness was committed not by the “heathen,” but by the “civilized” Christians. And—the great horror—it was done primarily to Christians. By us. To us.

When the Venetians entered Constantinople in 1204, they were underfed, underpaid, and under-rested. Meanwhile, they found themselves in what was the greatest city of the ancient world, like starving children sitting just outside a chocolate-shop. Why did the Greeks get to have the gold, anyway? Weren’t the Greeks the enemy? Hadn’t they defied the true center of Christianity in Rome? Didn’t a warrior deserve his spoils?

The inner-questioning escalated until the unthinkable happened.

The armies that had come to overtake the Muslim empire toppled the longest standing stronghold of Christianity. The armies from France and Italy suddenly rose up and tore Constantinople apart, sacking even the Hagia Sophia—which was the single largest enclosed space on planet earth for over 1,000 years. It’s been an obsession of the Islamic power for 600 years to capture it for themselves.

They’ll get their chance soon—but only because Christians sacked it first.

So often it’s not the enemy without that destroys the Bride of Christ. It’s the enemy within.

……………

The Turkish tea is a favorite, and in England I’ve learned to love taking milk for my tea, so I watch as the cream white changes the color of the scalding brown liquid. The missionary before me has become a friend at this point—mostly because we’ve simply recognized in the eyes of the other a story, a passion, a devotion that is always reaching out for a hand to take—and, in the few instances where a hand is offered in return, it clasps on tightly.

Or, at least, it tries to clasp tightly. What you may not realize is that all of Hell will try to make us let go of one another.

I’ve often romanticized the places where the church is small, struggling, persecuted as the place where Christians will clearly get along. It’s not always so. Often, the division that rests on a place, the blood that cries from the ground, the “memory” of the land so-to-speak, seems to have lingering effects.

The charismatics call this a “stronghold,” and I find that to be a compelling word.

There are strongholds in Istanbul. Ancient. Polarizing. Powerful.

These kinds of strongholds will take courage to break. Not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Living God, the God who is in the business of making cities come alive again.

Pray for the church in Istanbul.

Let’s be human, y’all.

J.T.

Taizé: My (Very Confusing) Time with the Monks

You ever heard of the word “ecumenism”? It comes from a word used by Rome: oecoumenia, meaning “the whole world.” The Romans would often use it to refer to the entire kingdom.

In 325 AD, Christians held what is called the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea (modern-day Turkey, near Istanbul). It was meant to clear up differences between how Christians theology was developing across the sprawling Roman empire.

Apparently it’s important that when you and I say “God,” we know that we are saying the same thing.

Hence, the church ratified the Nicene Creed.

The point of a creed is clarity, order, communication… truth.

This past week, during my time with the monks, I experienced none of these things.

………..

Hanging out with the monks is not necessarily the most common employment of many men my age, nor is it terribly common to leave a revival conference in Scotland and head straight for the monks in France.

To be fair, I didn’t head straight to France.

First, I visited Milan — for precisely sixteen hours. On the flight over, I had a gospel conversation with a Nigerian-Italian woman named Priscilla and she gave her life to Christ (which was insane — please pray!), and then landed in Milan just to see my plan for visiting friends fall through (which was insane in a different way), found a free hotel (i.e., the airport floor), and accidentally took a train from Milan to Zurich to Geneva to Taizé (which was the most insane).

Anyways, I end up in this monastery place that some friend recommended off-the-cuff. I had no clue Wikipedia calls it “one of the world’s most important sites of Christian pilgrimage.” I just kind of, well, show up.

When I finally do make it there, the place is a ghost-town—like one of those Bonanza episodes of dusty western cities at sundown before a shoot-out. Double-backpacked, with an obnoxious orange T-shirt and bucket-hat, I cautiously wander past a variety of French signs on little cabins, past an outdoor dining area, past several more cabins, drawn by the only sound that interrupts the midday birds: singing.

I find the source partway across the campgrounds and gently open the door.

Unfortunately, I opened the door at the front of the room, not the back.

I’m greeted by several hundred pairs of eyes. Some gigantic double-backpacked American in a bright orange Percy Jackson T-shirt and bucket-hat just interrupted their monkful meditations.

Then the door slammed behind me, and anyone who wasn’t already looking at me was now looking.

Classic.

Obviously, my entrance into monastery life was a raging success.

………..

As you know by now, I’m working on a church history project during this trip. Taizé feels like a living embodiment of many of the centuries that no one wants to talk about: the 6th through 14th centuries. The Great Schism, the Crusades, and the founding of monasticism aren’t exactly the most inspirational moments ever.

Yet it would be a mistake to miss the significance of the monks in Christian history. Contrary to popular belief, monasteries were the environments where art, learning, science, and innovation were preserved. Even more surprising, it was most often the monks who were the key evangelists in the church.

Fast-forward to me in Taizé.

Each day, we have three hourlong prayer sessions, usually right around meal-times. Each day, we have work we have to do (my team was in the kitchen—and I’m pretty sure we had the best group in the whole camp). And each day, we have Bible study; this week, that means a walk through the Book of John.

I’ve been in a lot of Bible studies in my life. On my last day at Taizé, I had the most interesting Bible study I’ve ever had by far.

…………….

It’s 10AM, in little-patch-of-heaven France. Sitting in a circle is the most unlikely assortment of people. There’s Gesa (Germany), Leonard and Fiona (Netherlands), Isabel (Mexico), Alina and Michel (Netherlands), Hannah (Texas), Pedro (Spain), Sam (Canterbury, UK), and me. We warm up to each other as quickly as a bunch of strangers can, trying to pull deep spiritual thoughts out of one another. This is our third Bible study, and it’s not going particularly well.

That is, until I do the one thing you’re not allowed to do in “ecumenical” spaces.

I disagree.

Picture this: we’re discussing John 3—one of the most famous passages in all the Scriptures—and confusion is rampant…

“What does Jesus mean by ‘born again?’” Pedro asks.

“I feel like it means to be born to love,” Leonard responds in his thick Dutch accent.

“Isn’t love a process?” Fiona chimes in beside him.

“I think we’re all born to love in our own way, and Nicodemus is like, being born into that love, you know?” A woman says.

At this point, everyone nods. It doesn’t matter that no one has a clue what she means. What matters is nodding to any mention of “love,” no matter how vague.

Nowadays, it seems nodding is the essential maneuver anytime one is confused. Far better to assume you agree than to seem ignorant. Besides, even if you were to disagree, it would be far more disagreeable to show that you disagree. Better just to nod.

Unfortunately, I’m not particularly good at nodding.

Instead, I explain what the passage actually means. But come to find out, the Bible-study group leader seems to think that this is precisely what must never be done in an ecumenical group. The key is “not stepping out of the tension,” “not ignoring the nuance,” “not holding a dogmatic view.”

Isn’t it interesting how those who criticize the ridiculous Bible-believing Christians (me) for saying negatives like “Thou Shalt Not” are the very persons whose whole worldview is a double-negative: “Thou Shalt Not Thou Shalt Not.” The problem with double negatives is they can’t say anything positive. They literally stand for no-thing.

At first, these thoughts are simply marinating in my mind.

Then they’re released.

…………….

“I hope none of us think that there’s one right way to be Christian. If that’s what any of us are hearing, I really just want to be sure to clear up that this isn’t what anyone is doin—” the group leader is saying.

“I disagree,” I interrupt. “That’s exactly what I think. The Bible explicitly says there’s one Way, one Truth, and one Life. Please do not silence my view by pretending I agree with everyone else.”

Gasp.

The whole group looks like a bombshell has just gone off.

Then the German woman beside me claps her hands and laughs: “Finally! Now we really have something to talk about!”

I won’t bore you with the remaining time in the group. In a few moments, it’s clear that only two of us in the group have some true belief in Christ’s singular Life. The group leader, ironically a pastor from Texas, fires question after question at me about Hell, suffering, and how I could ever believe in a God that she—in all her infinite wisdom—could not.

The discussion lasts several hours. By the end, we are the last group in the entire camp discussing, two folks have left because they are offended by the “intensity” of the conversation, and my heart is both filled with joy and near to tears.

My prayer for several weeks prior had been this: “Father, break my heart again.”

I’m shocked to say that here, at this world-renowned pilgrimage site for “Christians,” is where God truly broke me.

The next week, after finishing my time with the monks, a close friend who leads a European missions organization looked at me and said: “J.T., I think of everywhere you’ve been, Taize is likely the most accurate representation of the European church as a whole.” Confusion. Compromise. Craving for meaning.

Dear reader, there is a haze over this generation. The simplest truths are nearly impossible for us to see. This requires prayer, yes. Deep, earnest, tear-filled prayer to the only God who can open the eyes of the blind.

But it requires the boldness to wield Truth like a double-edged sword, disarming the fog that chokes whole denominations into believing that Christians need not believe anything.

Father, open our eyes.

Father, open our mouths.

Father, make the offense of the cross clear once more.

Let’s be human, y’all.

J.T.

The One and Only Martin Luther.

October 31st, 1517.

It’s Hallow’s Eve, what Americans might now call Halloween, and an obscure Augustinian monk is pacing toward the doors of a medieval church in Wittenberg, Germany. What he is about to do will arguably make him the most significant figure in the last millennium. His pen, and his passion, will become the plow that forges the way for the birth of the Protestant Reformation, mass literacy, mass media, mass individualism, modernism, and the democratization of religion.

As I write this, I’m sitting just outside the doors where it is said to have all begun.

I’m staring at Schlosskirsche, examining the towering medieval structure where the whole world shifted. I’m smiling at fluttering German tourists, who humdrum toward the church doors with gray-hair and outdated Nikon cameras. I’m ruminating on the fact that this pebble of a town is a rudder which has proved to steer the whole world.

In the end, I learned two things from my pilgrimage to Wittenberg.

First, the unassuming often assume the largest roles in history.

Second, media has played a large role in the church for quite some time.

Mary’s Milk, Moses’s Twig, and 1.9 Million Years Off Jail Free.

October 31st, 1517.

Wittenberg’s cheery streets are nearly asleep as a waxing crescent moon takes its position in the sky. Beneath it, Martin Luther walks pointedly across Collegienstrasse to the church at the edge of the little town. Hot spikes of anger strike the cobblestones with each footstep. He wears only a hooded black tunic to the ankle, and a simple leather belt-strap around his waist. His hair is shaved in the middle, leaving a circlet of curls like a well-kempt hedge, symbolizing a crown of thorns. The garments reflect the Augustinian order, a monkhood known for its extreme devotion to poverty, chastity, and obedience.

Perhaps this is why Luther’s rage is kindled. The Grand Commissioner for the indulgences in Germany, Johann Tetzel, is preaching just outside Wittenberg. What is he preaching? He’s preaching the holy empire’s greatest media campaign, summed up in this catchy slogan: “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”

In other words, Tetzel is an aggressive prosperity gospel sales-preacher. He’s commanding Luther’s parishioners to pay (just a little more) money to the Pope. That way their family members can escape purgatory, or Hell, or other wraths of God.

Meanwhile, the Prince of Luther’s city had curated one of Europe’s most famous relic rooms in Schlosskirsche (Castle Church), where he claimed to have amassed over 17,000 holy relics. Among these magical items, pilgrims could find a thumb from St. Anne, hay from the baby Jesus’s manger, milk from the Virgin Mary, a piece of bread from the Last Supper, and—last but not least—a twig from Moses’s burning bush.

All together, these relics were said to have the power to reduce your stay in Purgatory by 1,902,202 years and 270 days.

Since the day after Hallow’s Eve was All Saints’ Day, the most popular day for visits to the relic-filled church, Luther figured he’d kill two birds with one stone.

He did this by entering one of the church’s most epic media battles.

The First Church Tweet Battle.

October 31st, 1517.

Finally, we get to the moment.

A doctor of theology, an expert in the Greek language, and a man with nuclear-level charisma puts pen to page in warlike fashion, scribbling down ninety-five cursive theses, carrying them to the front of Schlosskirsche, and violently nailing them to the door in defiance of the corrupted Catholics.

It’s an awesome story.

Except it never happened.

I know, it makes me a little sad as I sit in front of the towering doors recording a video for my mom.

On that legendary night under the waxing crescent moon, there was likely no village-shaking hammer, no massive nails penetrating the church door, no dramatic moment waking the foggy world. It was over a century before anyone mentioned Luther “nailing” something to a door. And even by some chance there was a hammer and nails, it wasn’t revolutionary. It’s just another professor posting a paper to the town news center. This was a common medieval practice.

What made Luther’s move on October 31, 1517 uncommon was not that he wrote a little paper challenging the Catholic Church—it was that he sent his 95 theses to some of the most significant political and religious figures he knew. Within a few weeks, and seemingly without the consent of Luther, this paper trail hit the press and exploded, making Luther, along with his cause, an international star. Tetzel’s rhymes didn’t stand a chance against Luther’s dynamite sticks of rhetoric which exploded in the faces of the powerful and lit the fuses for everyday Christians to rise up.

Thus dawned a new era of human history.

For the first time, someone was able to publicly call for the world to have the opportunity to read the Bible for themselves, to make decisions as individuals, and to be, in one sense, modern.

It’s only plain that Luther could have never foreseen what happened afterward.

It’s also plainer that Luther would oppose much of what passes for Christianity now with as much vehemence as he spent against the medieval indulgence-driven church.

An Honest Assessment of Luther.

May 19, 2026.

It’s funny, if you go to Wittenberg, you’ll find a pair of medieval churches, a relatively simple monastery, and an array of quaint pastel buildings lining smiling streets. It’s beautiful—not breathtaking. It’s old—not ancient. More than anything, after traveling to Warsaw, Krakow, Bremen, Munich, Cologne, and Berlin, Wittenberg feels innocent, as if it has seen very little of the world, and therefore has little to say to the world. It is dwarfed in every way by the “great cities” of the world.

Yet it can be—and generally is—argued that what happened in this little village is more significant to world history than anything in all those cities combined.

And it must also be said that this one monk, the son of a miner, is more significant to world history than every other German figure… and it’s not close.

At the end of my waltz through Wittenberg, I find myself slowly stepping toward a little backroom within the church where Luther preached. It’s an unimpressive room in an unimpressive church. The arched wooden doorway is made for someone far shorter than me, and I duck to slip in. Once inside, I quickly notice a collage of color straining to peer down from the wooden floorboards which serve as a ceiling, but centuries have weathered through their once vivid figures and leave the room browned. Cold slabs of stone greet my knees as I kneel, somewhat overwhelmed by the thought of someone so earth-shattering kneeling here.

It’s such a paradox that I’m here.

I’m on pilgrimage to visit the grave of a man known for destroying the graves pilgrims sought.

I’m on pilgrimage to visit a man whose virtues will make you sing yet whose vices will make you sick.

I’m on pilgrimage to visit a man whose story is influential because it starts so small… and yet this sort of influence makes my story feel smaller than it’s felt in a long, long time.

In the end, my most honest assessment of this man is what I wrote there on the cold slabs of wood as I wrestled with the Almighty.

Father,

I’ve never particularly liked Luther. And I don’t particularly like him now. His anger does not seem to fit a man of God. His carelessness and vociferousness and belligerence feels unholy. His power feels stately and not ecclesial sometimes.

And yet I must admit that here was a man who took You seriously, Lord.

And if I had half so much gravity I’m sure I’d be twice the man I am now.

Let’s be human, y’all.

J.T.

I’m standing in J.R.R. Tolkien’s college chapel.

Which I’m probably not supposed to be in—but I sort of just walked in confidently.

And now I’m smitten.

The place sprawls before me in all its erudite majesty. “Daedal” is a word that comes to mind, but probably only because I’m in Oxford. Big words fall as often as raindrops here; it’s like they just end up in your head somehow.

Sophistication is king, and it’s clear in this chapel that the makers were more than sophisticated. It’s stunning in all the ways my nondenominational warehouse-church upbringing was not.

Yet as I turn to leave, a blinding array of colors meets my gaze. These colors are not stained glass. On the contrary, instead of blending, they seem to clash violently with the windows they block, as if in competition. As if demanding a reverence once reserved for God.

It is, of course, one of the largest LGBTQIA+ flags I’ve ever seen.

And it symbolizes an age-old issue in the Oxford church.

“Be of Good Cheer, Master Ridley.”

In her journey of faith, the church has always tended to sway between compromise and courage.

Days ago, a vicar in Oxford showed me the famous spot where Latimer and Ridley were burned alive under the anti-Protestant queen, “Bloody Mary.” The rest of Oxford bustles along, most of the city is ignorant of the cobblestone patch that’s been left untouched for the last five hundred years.

The same cobblestone patch where Latimer looked at Ridley and spoke some of the most famous words of the English Reformation: “Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man; for on this day a fire will be lit that will not easily be quenched.”

He was then engulfed in flames.

But though this story is, well, completely awesome—it’s not Latimer or Ridley’s story that I found myself praying over Oxford. It’s Cranmer’s.

Thomas Cranmer is one of those names you should know if you don’t know it.

Author of The Book of Common Prayer, and chief architect of what we now call Anglicanism, there are few other figures more pivotal in the history of the English world.

Cranmer too walked the streets of Oxford during the reign of “Bloody Mary,” the anti-Protestant queen of England. During her reign, under threat of torture or murder, many Protestants recanted their beliefs.

As the story goes, Thomas Cranmer was forced to watch from a window as Latimer and Ridley, some of his closest friends, were incinerated. Months after this and other psychological torture, Cranmer himself, the foremost leader of the English Reformation, would renounce his protestantism:

“I, Thomas Cranmer, late Archbishop of Canterbury, do renounce, abhor, and detest all manner of heresies and errors of Luther and Zwingli… And I acknowledge the Bishop of Rome to be supreme head on earth…”

Christian Aestheticism.

Admittedly, stepping into Tolkien’s chapel complicated my picture of revival.

You may have noticed that there’s currently a passionate resurgence of the desire for both the intellect and the aesthetic in the church. In other words, there’s a resurgence for an Oxford-like faith.

Between Justin Brierly’s The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God, Christianity Today’s Inkwell, and a variety of high-profile figures flirting with (especially Anglican or Catholic) Christianity, this Oxford faith is receiving a whole lot of buzz.

Much of this is in response to the stark pragmatism of church-growth models: find a warehouse (because it’s cheap), forget every trace of art (because it’s expensive), and dumb every sermon down to the point where it nearly feels insulting (because it’s practical). To this, I heartily embrace my artsy, analog, stringed-lights-and-classic-old-books people who are starving for beauty and truth.

Beauty and intellect. What’s not to like?

But as I exit this regal chapel, it seems to me that there is not so vast a difference between Christian aestheticism and Christian politicism. They each build kingdoms here. Now. The fields of art, academia, and politics are equally likely to become graveyards for Christian orthodoxy.

In fact, I think Tolkien himself says it best, as if prophesying to his alma mater. For my Lord of the Rings fans, here’s a warning that seems to hit that high and hollow vaulted Oxford chapel between the eyes: “Even as mithril was the foundation of their wealth, so also it was their destruction: they delved too greedily and too deep, and they awoke a monster from whom they could not escape.”1

The mythical “mithril” can easily be replaced by the word “knowledge,” or even “beauty.” Or perhaps a combination of both. The spirit of Oxford has delved too greedily and too deep, eroding the foundations of its knowledge, and awakening ideas utterly contrary to nature (Rom 1).

The very knowledge given by God is used to worship other gods.

In order to fit in, in order to be beautiful and smart, Christians compromise on core truths of the Scriptures.

And so we return to Cranmer.

“This Hand Hath Offended.”

It’s March 21, 1556 in Oxford, England.

Age sixty-six, Thomas Cranmer is led into St. Mary’s Church in Oxford, the most prominent pulpit in England. Here he is, the figurehead of the English Reformation, and today was the day he would publicly crawl back to Rome.

Afterward, his prosecutors planned to set fire to his body anyway. But that wasn’t the point. The public recantation was.

He looked like an insect beneath St. Mary’s vaulted night-blue ceilings, massive pillars, and larger-than-life saints who lived as paintings on the cold walls. The cathedral had been redressed for these trials; now, timber scaffolding dominates the nave. A deep chunk is hacked out of the pillar to make way for the platform where Cranmer stands, and a packed crowd of witnesses and scholars sit across from him, just behind the pulpit.

Cranmer rises to testify, and he begins precisely as his captors expect.

Love God, he says. Obey the queen, he says. He recites the Nicene creed, as so many had before him.

And then everything flips upside down.

In front of a host of gloating witnesses, he denies Rome, denies the Pope, and vows that when they kill him, his right hand—the hand that signed the lies he wrote—will burn first.

He’s dragged away from the stage and thrown out into the street, at the very spot where his friends were martyred five months previous.

As the flames are kindled, Cranmer is speaking aloud repeatedly, looking down at his fingers: “This hand hath offended.” And he thrusts his hand into the flame first, just as he vowed, until it burns to a crisp.

All witnesses testify that Cranmer did not so much as flinch while the flames roasted his body alive.

The Spirit of Cranmer.

As I stand there, my right hand resting on Cranmer’s Pillar in St. Mary’s Church, I can’t stop praying:

Lord, give us the spirit of Cranmer.

Lord, give us the spirit of Cranmer.

Lord, give us the spirit of Cranmer.

Yes, I also pray that the Lord would give us an outpouring of beauty and intellect—the pure spirit of Oxford.

But Oxford’s spirit will inevitably be corrupted if not held aloft by the humility that can look back and say those impossible words:

I was wrong.

I renounce my renunciations.

And though the world calls me a fool, I will hold to the Word of God.

It is only on this foundation that Oxford’s stained glass will unveil its true colors.

U P D A T E S .

Hey y’all. Sorry it’s been a few weeks.

Couple things to note…

1. The book is making progress… Publishers are planning to have it ready by early Fall!

2. I’ve now been through Germany, Turkey, Scotland, and Italy working on this church history project for Gen Z and Alpha.

3. I’ve also listened to the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy 🤓

4. Instead of writing these Substack articles, I’ve been busy writing a fictional series that I’m literally SO EXCITED ABOUT if the Lord ever allows me to finish it. It’s been years since I’ve put pen to paper with fiction, and I feel like I’m returning to my first love in the nerdiest way.

5. We’re tossing around the idea of our first ever THP Retreat in the Fall.

6. The LORD is a marvelous God, and we are co-heirs with Jesus Christ Himself. What a God! It truly is a wonderful life.

Let’s be human, y’all.

May Christ awaken us!

J.T.

Bucha: Human Safari.

“We call it ‘human safari,’” Ivan says as we drive past an abandoned car riddled with bullet holes. “If their soldiers see civilians in cars, they shoot them. Doesn’t matter why.” We’re in Bucha now, and Ivan is slowly giving me a tour of his home, recalling detail after detail as if he’s struggling to accept their reality again.

“Every night, I look at my wife and say, ‘Can you believe that they sat right here? Right here? At our kitchen table?’”

It’s a liturgy he’s learned to do, remembering how the Russian soldiers looted their apartment, slept there, and clearly had used their table for eating. Healing is often the process of coming to full realization of the wounds that are in need of treatment, and Ivan refuses to simply “move on.”

Bucha is green and wooded, communal and “comfortable” as he said a dozen times—a picture-perfect peaceful suburb outside the big city of Kyiv. When war broke out, he and his wife were taken by surprise and had to flee separately to reach the woods where Ukrainian soldiers camped. Ivan laughed, recounting how he had to hop off his bike and lead an oversized, overaged, and undersighted lady sneak across to the other side, all while Russian soldiers were within view.

Laughing now. Trembling then.

I won’t describe everything that Ivan shows me, mostly because I can’t.

There’s a monument to hundreds of Buchans who were murdered behind an Orthodox church; we visit at the same time as another family, and the woman begins weeping, forced by grief to leave as quickly as she arrives.

There’s a bridge, blown-up to keep the Russians from making it over the river; it remains as a symbol, and in the ten minutes I stand there a dozen Buchans come to visit. “Everyone has a story of trying to cross this water,” Ivan says.

There’s buildings that stand like charred logs, streets that look like a toddler’s violent scribblings, and trenches—real war trenches in the twenty-first century—which remain as a reminder to the people of Bucha that this is where the Russian advance was stopped. The names of those who died in the trenches are read aloud at every minute of every day.

There’s more to say about looting, mutilation, torture, rape—and they should be said at some times in some places, if only to understand what happens to human beings even in our day. Just because they are Ukrainian.

“What do you want the church to know about Ukraine right now?” I ask Ivan at the end of the day.

He doesn’t really hesitate.

“I want them to know that this war is not about territory; it is about identity. They are denying that Ukraine exists.”

………..

How the Gospel Stayed in Kyiv.

For several decades Kyiv has been under constant threat by groups who threaten to steal its identity. The Russians ousted Ivan from his home. The Soviets suppressed his religion. But this is not simply a story of decades—it is one of centuries. And it begins in AD 863.

At that time, Prince Ratislav of Great Moravia was desperate for aid from the Byzantine Emperor. Ratislav feared that the German Frankish empire would soon overtake Great Moravia. The Franks were Christians, but they wielded Christianity as a weapon: Frankish military powers forcibly baptized Moravian nobles; foreign priests held the keys to “true” worship; and non-Latin speakers were excluded from the Scriptures.

In other words, becoming Christian meant becoming Frankish.

So to keep from succumbing to Frankish colonization, Ratislav requested missionaries—and especially a bishop—who would give Moravia their own independent church government, free of the Franks. The Emperor of Greek Byzantium cautiously sent a priest instead.

Translation? The Slavic church was weaned with the milk of politics.

And even in the 2020s, the division can still curdle into war.

Ratislav got his missionaries: Cyril, the brilliant linguist, philosopher, and librarian of Hagia Sophia itself; and his older brother, Methodius, a retired military commander who became a monk. Together, Cyril and Methodius gave the slavic people a gift that would change the world forever…

The alphabet.

The first Slavic alphabet. Then the first Slavic Bible. Then the first Slavic church liturgy.

Though at times persecuted or tortured for their work, Cyril and Methodius endured, laying the foundation for Poles, Czechs, Slovaks; for Bulgarians, Serbs, Macedonians, Croats, Slovenes, Bosniaks; and for the Rus, who would become Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.

Through them, Kyiv—the motherland of the Rus people—would eventually receive the gospel in a language they could understand.

Giving Kievans the Scriptures was the liberation needed for independence as a people.

As I hear the rest of Ivan’s story, it seems the same can be said today.

………

The Bus Toward War.

For some reason, Ivan thinks it’s a good idea for me to preach in his church.

Despite the fact that I only speak English, I enthusiastically say “I’d love to,” and now a giant American is standing in front of a little Ukrainian church (ironically, I felt quite at home by this point. By then, we’d already sang the Ukrainian version of Chris Tomlin and Hillsong Worship).

As I look out at the surprised Buchan church, I notice a few things immediately. First, as I preach on the Road to Emmaus (with Ivan’s translations), I realize that this entire little church can feel these Scriptures about betrayal, danger, and “having all things in common” more poignantly than any church I’ve ever known before. They get what it means to be the church.

Second, the congregation is predominantly women or very young men. Most all men ages 25-65 have been drafted—unless they’re wounded or perform a service of “critical infrastructure” for the Ukrainian people.

Third, after the service, as I watch interactions between Ivan and the congregants, I quickly see why Ivan has been exempted from being drafted from the military.

Ivan, as an evangelical pastor, has been deemed “critical infrastructure” for the Ukrainian people. It would do the nation more damage than good to put him in the battle.

After all, who else would care for the mothers who have lost sons… and husbands… and fathers?

Who else would drive buses toward war, bringing loads of fleeing refugees to safety?

Who else would go as a chaplain to the front lines to minister to soldiers in emotional and spiritual crisis?

Who else would provide hundreds of thousands of meals with a team of just 5 people?

Who else would train the next generation of pastors at Ukraine’s Evangelical Theological School?

Who else would call the global Church, the largest institution in the world, to help this besieged people?

Who else would receive the funds, teams, meals, and encouragement worldwide to support the forlorn and war-torn?

Who else would conduct the thousands of funerals, speaking Light and Hope into darkness and despair?

Who else would pray? Preach? Preserve the identity and fidelity of the nation?

Who else if not Jesus Christ?

Indeed, Ivan was exempted from the draft because he’s a man who will go straight to the front lines anyway. Now, Ukraine has wisely declared pastors and priests as “critical infrastructure” for the state. It is the one institution which is taught not to run away from the cross, but to run toward it. In fact, the government has not only given Protestants (who have historically been looked on with suspicion) equality in military chaplain status, but Protestants have actually been invited by the two historic denominations to have the highest number of military chaplain positions per capita.

Funny how Orthodox, Catholics, and Protestants link arms when the Eucharist must be served in war trenches.

Relationships tend to deepen in wartime, and that’s how I feel about Ivan, and Fyodor, and Daniel, and many others as I pack up to leave Ukraine a few days later. I step into Ivan’s car and we drive to the bus station. Our car whizzes past many demolished buildings as we travel from Bucha to Kyiv one last time, but it also passes many newly erected buildings. There’s a glimmer of hope in each shiny new gas station, restaurant, apartment complex, or school—and shockingly, it seems what has been reconstructed is outpacing the deconstruction.

At the end of our drive, I suddenly ask Ivan something I’ve been wondering for the past few days: “Ivan, why did you let me come? I’m 25, and have so little to offer you.”

He just looks at me and chuckles. “Because no one else would come,” he says simply. “After this war is over, we will need partners from around the world; partners who can help us heal—maybe even reminding us that forgiveness is essential in the Scriptures. And if we see that you came to be with us in our time of need, we will be much more likely to listen when you return.”

He smiles again. “I cannot imagine how Ukraine could have survived without the global church,” he says.

“And we will not survive the aftermath without the global church either.”

Father, teach the Body of Christ to be critical infrastructure for our homes, cities, states, countries, and world.

Father, teach the Body of Christ to drive the bus toward war.

Amen.

Let’s be human, y’all.

— J.T.

See Ivan’s Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary (UETS)

The Bus Toward War.

The first thing I learned about the church in wartime is that it’s incredibly difficult to get to.

Apparently you can’t take a plane into a country at full-scale war. And it’s also almost impossible for foreigners to catch a train.

So I took the only other available option: the bus.

There I am, all six feet and six inches of me, helplessly American, crammed in a bus seat for what became an eighteen-hour trip from Warsaw, Poland to Kyiv, Ukraine. It’s pretty much me, a couple Ukrainian men, and several dozen Ukrainian women—very few of whom speak English.

Good thing “hot dog” is understood by all cultures, because that was the only food at the gas station I could figure out how to order.

Y’all, Ukrainian hot dogs are insane.

Anyways.

I somehow make it to Kyiv to visit my friend Ivan, and that’s where much of the humor ends. As we sit over beetroot borscht and chat, I find that Kyiv’s story—Ivan’s story—is devastating.

But as Ivan is telling me the story, I have to keep asking him to go further back, to rewind to the time where it began. Come to find out, the story of Kyiv began a long, long time ago.

……….

How the Gospel Came to Kyiv.

It’s 860 AD. A pair of overeager Kievan rulers are preparing their armies for a raid against Constantinople (now Istanbul), the impregnable capital of the Byzantine Empire. Upon reaching the city’s shimmering walls, the Rus peoples of Kyiv find themselves outmatched. History seems to suggest that they are defeated soundly.

Yet it’s war, even military defeat, which provides a way for Christianity to find its first significant foothold among the Rus.

It seems the Kievan rulers Askold and Dir returned to their recently-conquered Kievan territory with new hearts. They had seen the glory of Constantinople, been subject to the power of its God, and now they wanted to be baptized.

Though it is likely that one or both of these rulers were murdered for their baptism, and though the name of Christ would not be welcome in Kyiv just yet, it is striking to note that somehow the darkness of war opened the Ukrainians to the gospel in a way that nothing else could.

……….

Strawberry Dumplings.

“What have you learned about the church in wartime?”

It’s an odd question for me to ask as I gently cut a softly sugared strawberry dumpling. Somehow, I came to Ukraine during a 3-day ceasefire—which never happens. So here we sit, delighting in Ukrainian cuisine with our knives and forks as we chat about Ukrainian war with its knives and drones.

I suppose the best way to defy the tyranny of war is simply to delight in life. And eat dessert.

“That’s an impossible question,” Ivan tells me, a playful smile characteristically rising to his lips. “We’ve learned many things.”

He too slices into a strawberry dumpling. I stay silent.

He breaks our hush with his Ukrainian accent, “We’ve begun to learn what forgiveness truly is,” he says. “That it’s harder than we imagined. Now, we struggle to listen to anyone who speaks of forgiveness and doesn’t have any wounds. That’s why Jesus’s teachings are so hard. He has wounds. He can speak to us.”

Ivan then leans back and starts to tell me about why forgiveness is so hard for the church during wartime. It helps that we’ve just walked the streets where his stories take place. We were there, standing on Kyiv’s famous Khreshchatyk Street together. We were there, greeted by a host of post-WWII Soviet architecture, a duo of stunning Byzantine churches, and in between them a collage of incinerated Russian tanks. We were there, in that same “Independence Square,” where thousands upon thousands of Ukrainian flags—large and small, ornate and simple, many paired with picture frames, flowers, and shining objects—lean over the streets.

Each flag represents a fallen soldier.

Ivan tells me that for years they have held funerals there weekly, if not daily.

Everything in the square screams for liberty. Flags, monuments, images, the dead and the living… They cry out for justice. And as familiar as I am with that liberty cry, war on my soil is a foreign concept to me. There is a sort of trauma here which cannot simply be understood.

Kyiv is the cultural and spiritual cradle of the east slavic world, the modern capital of Ukraine, and one of the most spiritually significant cities in the world. Why then would Russia—another state which claims to be “Christian”—wage war against her own mother?

My last bite of warm and sweet strawberry knydli tastes odd with the cold bitterness of betrayal in the air.

That’s when Ivan looks at me and says, “People do not understand. Russia is not our mother as the propaganda says. Kyiv is Russia’s mother, and she is our wayward child. This is why it is so painful. For another nation to invade, it would not hurt so bad. But the Russians? This is our own family.”

……….

Kyiv’s Hagia Sophia.

As we get up from the restaurant, I’m learning two things. First, I’m a huge fan of Ukrainian food. Like—wow. Second, the Orthodox Church in Ukraine has a powerful but checkered history.

We’re now approaching the famous Ukrainian Orthodox cathedral: Saint Sophia. It was built over a millennium ago, beginning around AD 1011. A thousand years later, it’s still breathtaking. The noontide sun burns like fire against the golden dome of the entrance tower; all around the towers are crisp white walls that fence-in the cathedral complex. Behind the gates are the many teal-colored domes of the cathedral, springing up like blooming flowers with cross-shaped golden stamens. Inside, all the walls are gowned in faded frescoes of Scriptural stories.

This place was built in response to the monumental events of AD 988, when the grand prince Volodymyr adopted Christianity as the state religion, commanding the baptism of masses of officials in his kingdom. According to legend, Volodymyr (Vladimir the Great) sent envoys to surrounding nations to observe the major religions and choose the best one for his people.

To be crass, it seems that after viewing Constantinople, Volodymyr discovered Christianity to be the most politically and economically advantageous. From its inception, the church in Ukraine has struggled to emerge as distinct from, and not dominated by, political powers.

And yet, Ivan tells me as we examine frescoes together, “Many of our leaders join together and often still pray in this church right here.” He points to the nave of the cathedral where we are standing. “Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Zelinsky and political leaders—we have been regularly praying together in this cathedral for four years.”

Ivan shakes his head and laughs at this. After all, not every power over Kyiv has been friendly to Christians. Ivan grew up under Soviet rule, and he still has trouble believing his country would dare support his Protestant convictions.

………

Bucha.

When Ivan grew up, the only way to access a Bible was via smuggling. Pastors and church leaders were imprisoned for their faith. And in public institutions, Christians were shunned. Ivan is just one example of someone who was constantly given low marks for the simple crime of being Christian.

“I just gave up because it was no use studying. If you would have told me I’d now have a PhD, I would never have believed you.”

The Soviet Union collapses in the early 90’s, and Ivan witnesses things shift rapidly—but wounds abide. Russian-Ukrainian relations were already fractured, they ruptured again in protests of 2014, and then in March of 2022, Russia did the unthinkable. They invaded Ukraine… and very nearly took it. Putin was persuaded it would be a simple conquest. March through the east, reach Kyiv, topple the city, game over.

But Kyiv and the surrounding neighborhoods were far more resilient than was expected.

A key battle was fought in the trenches of a little suburb called Bucha.

Bucha: the city that the Russians could not cross.

Bucha: the city known internationally for the war crimes committed against it.

Bucha: Ivan’s home.

PART II COMING TOMORROW.

Below I have some prayer requests for Ukraine. Here is the website to Ivan’s seminary—what I think is and will be the foremost evangelical seminary in Ukraine:

Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary (UETS)

Let’s be human y’all,

J.T. (or Yere-ME-yah, as they call me in Kyiv)

Anna Kraus.

“Anna Kraus, Born 19.05.1898”

This was the name I saw written in bold on a stolen suitcase in Auschwitz-Birkenau today.

“Anna Kraus” is a name that belongs to a Jewish woman, a human being made in the image of the omnipotent God. And today, May 17th, is her birthday.

After reading several books, listening to several podcasts, and walking with my Polish guide all-day today, I want to take a few minutes to share her story.

Please bear with me.

Auschwitz-Birkenau.

A black shadow swallowed Anna Kraus’s life when she was stripped of her home in Vienna and deported to Terezin. Soon afterward, she was deported yet again.

This time to Oswiercim, Poland.

In the German tongue, Auschwitz.

Forced into a freight car with a little over 200 square feet of space, she found herself being packed like a sardine among eighty—or was it ninety?—other human beings. About two square feet per person.

And maybe four square feet for the corpses. Some wouldn’t make it to the camp.

At least, that’s what the tour guide says, and as I stand outside a 1940s freight car, I can almost believe him.

When Anna’s freight crosses through those barbed Birkenau gates and screeches to a halt, she has a hideous sense of relief. Relief because she can finally escape the smell of fear, excrement, dead bodies. Hideous because she knows what she will step into could be worse: Auschwitz.

The doors are wrenched open. Floodlights blind her. Dogs are barking and flashing their teeth. SS guards tear the Jews from the freight car and thrust them toward a singular SS doctor; Anna doesn’t know that with one split-second judgment, this infamous man will decide her fate.

At least, that’s what the tour guide says, and as I stand on those very railroad tracks, I don’t want to believe him.

Anna is confused—and some may call her naive for this. She’s naive because despite every rumor of Auschwitz’s horrors, she has somehow retained faith in the human race. No human could be so wretchedly inhumane, she tells herself.

As she thinks this, prisoners in pinstripes are retrieving the luggage, including her suitcase. Soldiers thrust her forward, and she reaches the SS doctor. Decked in pure white, whistling a soft classical German tune, and smiling bizarrely, Dr. Josef Mengele gives her one penetrating look and points left.

Anna’s heart sinks—but she doesn’t know why. Maybe her children are screaming and her daughters or sons are being led in the opposite direction. Maybe she senses that the young and able-bodied are being sent to the right… and she’s neither young nor able-bodied.

At least, that’s a bit of what the tour guide says, and I wish I didn’t believe him—but I’m staring at her suitcase right now.

When life is hopeless, hope is all that remains, and as the Nazis strip Anna of all else, this she clings to. After all, the Germans are leading the women toward what clearly appear to be showers. Anna almost exhales with relief. Perhaps the older, weaker, left-going women like Anna are simply receiving the opportunity to wash themselves first.

So she and the women are willingly herded like cattle into the shower complex, where the guards force them to undress. Shoes and clothes come off their emaciated, fragile frames. Then comes the hair—Jewish barbers are forced to shave their scalps and humiliate them. Huge clumps of dark locks fall to the ground until Anna has nothing left but her skin.

At least, that’s what the tour guide says, and I can’t not believe him—because I’m looking at a glass case of two tons of hair stolen from the bodies of a hundred and forty thousand people.

Still, the Germans are not finished. Even Anna’s skin must be poisoned, and her breath robbed from her body.

She’s trembling now, hoping against hope that today will be the worst day of her time here. Even now, she doesn’t know that today is her only day here. The sole reason she was deported is because Birkenau is the most efficient mass murder complex the world has ever seen. Now, she’s being shoved—alongside 2,000 other women—into a shower room of 200 square feet.

One square foot per everlasting being.

And when the showers are turned on, it’s Zyklon B gas that comes down instead of water, and it’s screams that go up instead of relieved sighs, and Anna Kraus’s life is extinguished.

After twenty minutes, Anna’s corpse was dragged a few feet away to an underground furnace. That the body exists at all is an offense to the Germans, and so they’ve built furnaces that can burn four thousand bodies a day. Chimneys. They have chimneys for human bodies.

And so they finalize their solution. Anna has been utterly dehumanized.

Anna Kraus, homeless, friendless, shoeless, shirtless, hairless, breathless, was murdered almost immediately upon entering that cursed Birkenau extermination camp.

And so were a million other human beings made in the image of the living God.

We Have Done This.

A few hours after the tour, I’m sitting and writing this reflection in Krakow, Poland. As I do so, a homeless woman begins to approach me, and I feel myself rolling my eyes as I pull my coveted baguette beneath my jacket. I’m wishing she wouldn’t come near and interrupt me, wishing she would go bother someone else, wishing—and then it strikes me.

I was wishing she wasn’t here. More than that. I was wishing she didn’t exist.

I was letting my soul move—ever so slightly—in the direction of Auschwitz.

What happened in the 1940s is not a German problem; it’s a human problem.

That’s why the Christian must say two things to every human tragedy and every human triumph:

We have done this.

And.

This was done to us.

“We have done this” because Auschwitz did not start with Hitler’s Final Solution. It started when one human being looked at another and said, “I wish you did not exist.” Auschwitz isn’t dreadful because it’s unimaginable. It’s dreadful because it’s not. It seems almost every human society finds a way to systemically eliminate the most vulnerable and call it “progress” or a “return to greatness.”

“This was done to us,” because, with Christ, we are nailed to the suffering of all humanity. Yes, the Holocaust is a uniquely Jewish plight; and yet to remember it rightly, we must consider it a human plight. We would do well to remember the Holocaust not only as if we were the perpetrators, but as if we were Anna Kraus.

At the end of my day, as I waded through the Birkenau Death Camp alone, I stumbled upon a massive monument at the back of the camp, clearly erected to commemorate the Shoah. The monument itself was underwhelming, a mass of stones with little apparent rhyme or reason—though perhaps it was this, the lack of reason, that makes it appropriate.

What struck me with far more force is the message that interprets the stones.

Twenty-three granite plaques lay in front of the monument. They’re each the same size, shape, and message, but different languages. Clearly, it’s the one statement Auschwitz-Birkenau wants to offer, and I can’t read it. After a long walk, I find the twenty-third and final plaque written in English.

Here’s what it says:

“For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women, and children, mainly Jews from various countries of Europe. Auschwitz-Birkenau 1940 - 1945”

As I wander away, I can’t help but pray to God:

Father, please purge the Auschwitz in me.

Let’s be human.

Lord, please make us human again.

J.T.

Warsaw’s Memory.

I traipsed through the streets of Warsaw, Poland this past week.

Posted about it on Instagram.

Person after person DMed me saying stuff like, “so jealous!” or “oh I love that city…” or “beautiful!”

Their comments probably have merit. There’s beauty, it’s a privilege to walk those streets, and there’s much to love about Warsaw.

But that’s not what struck me.

What struck me was the way the city sang—slow and somber, a wilting, whispering melody that sweeps over and under your feet like the soft spring wind. The melody matched the sun-soaked pastel buildings the way Easter garments match Good Friday. Peach-cream and sunset-pink, lemon-chiffon and Warsaw’s signature terracotta blend beautifully into the kind of aesthetic that enchants toddlers and tourists.

But the pastels won’t let you forget the crucifixion.

On the contrary, they are the cheery coloring that make Warsaw’s stone-cold monuments feel so stark.

When I walk alongside one of the primary highways I spot a towering statue that makes my heart stop. It’s a massive bronze sculpture of a woman rising up—or falling down—or perhaps both. Her head is lifted high and proud, though low to the ground, and her long stone tresses fly behind her. Her right hand clutches a glorious six-meter sword and her left arm is outstretched pleadingly toward the enemy. They call her the Warsaw Nike. She’s unclothed, defiled in every way, and yet defiant in every way too.

She is just one of many haunting stone sculptures in Warsaw who will not let the passions of the present obscure the presence of the past. Warsaw is still a defiled and defiant woman. She resists anyone who tells her otherwise. No conquering tourist or toddler has the power to forget. She will not be forgotten.

I move past her statue, past a dozen others, and find my way into the Warsaw Old Town, which is the world’s exemplar of a resilient city. 85% of the medieval city was demolished in 1944, but by 1945 it was already being reconstructed brick-by-brick—they restored the historic paintings, the stained glass, the pastels.

But reconstruction does not mean hiding the past.

No. Steel figures with screams still on their lips greet those who step into Warsaw’s infamous Archcathedral—the same Archcathedral that had stood as a symbol of the city’s impregnable infrastructure and Polish culture since the 13th century; the same Archcathedral that had been a fortress for the Jews during the Warsaw Uprising; the same Archcathedral into which the Germans drove a remote-controlled tank filled with explosives. The Germans would then drill holes in the walls of this refuge and blow it to bits.

Warsaw reconstructed the Archcathedral. And Warsaw remembered the Archcathedral’s fall.

The two can, and must, be true at the same time.

The Church’s Amnesia.

It is doubtful there is any communal disorder so dangerous in the eyes of God as amnesia.

The word “remember” is used nearly two hundred times in the Bible, often as a word from God to the people, urging us to recall His scandalous faithfulness and our scandalous faithlessness.

Every festival, every feast, every fast, every fun and foul thing was attached to the memory of Israel. Memory was a core foundation on which God’s people are established:

“Then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Deut 6:12).

This verse follows directly after the Shema, arguably the most famous passage in the Hebrew Bible:

“Hear, O Israel, the LORD your God is One; you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deut 6:4-5).

This Scripture has been repeated every morning by the Jews for millennia. To recall the words of God was to call their identity into being. For the Hebrews, “hearing,” “obeying,” and “remembering” are interrelated concepts.

Perhaps God, in His infinite wisdom, knew that when a nation forgets its past, it actively forgets its present. When a people misplaces their history, they actively forget their identity. Amnesia and Alzheimer’s are peculiarly tragic not because they are peculiarly bodily debilitating, but because they are not. There sits the body of a person—the same person you know so well, and yet this loved one does not remember who they are…

They’ve forgotten who they love. They’ve forgotten who loves them. They’ve lost the story.

I wonder if the American church has lost our story.

Where are our monuments? Where are our stone-cold structures that tell our story?

“Do this in remembrance of me,” is most certainly at the core of Christianity—and all doing comes from the practice of remembering. And yet the Body of Christ has somehow forgotten even what it means to be Christ’s Body.

I cannot tell you the amount of times a Jesus-loving college student has somewhat bashfully asked me, “Why do I need the church?” It is not the sickness of rebellion which produces this question. It is the disorder of amnesia.

Christians would do well to learn from Warsaw.

In a world of amnesia, churches must hold the memories of our cities. Like Saint John’s in Warsaw; like Saint Sophia’s in Kyiv; like University Church in Oxford; like Sixth Avenue Baptist in Birmingham; like Hagia Sophia in Istanbul; like the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem—though our cities fall a thousand times over, we rebuild and remember.

After all, no other institution—not even marriage—can hold memories forever.

Though Warsaw was resurrected, it will be crucified again.

The only institution that will last into eternity is the people of God.

The Church alone will remember and be remembered.

Let’s learn to remember well.

And let’s be human y’all,

J.T.

So glad to have you.

As for the old guard — y’all, I think I’m finally free to write again!

Why? I’m so glad you asked. Let me give you a rundown of updates and let you know why things are about to shift with the True Human Project going forward.

UPDATE #1 — WE MADE IT!!!

On Friday, May 1st, I officially finished my MDiv.

Apparently this means I am now a “Master of Divinity,” which sounds pretentious at best, and blasphemous at worst. Whoever came up with that term must’ve been a horrible theologian.

Anyways.

Six semesters, two summers, three houses, three jobs, and I’ve survived my three years of graduate studies.

I’ve learned a million things in these three years, and my gratitude multiplies each day as I reflect more.

That being said, one of those million things I’ve learned is that being human means I can’t do everything all at once—and I heartily welcome more time and attention for fewer things.

UPDATE #2 — I Moved… Again.

On Thursday, I packed up my “homeless house” (it’s a house that was meant for the homeless, but it ended up being, um, my house — long story), said painful goodbyes to some of my dearest friends, spent the night thanking the Lord for His mercy upon me in Birmingham, and prepared to move my heart—as well as my stuff—back to Carolina.

Friday was moving day. And graduation.

Diploma in one hand and keys in the other, I basically strode out the marble chapel of Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama, hopped in my Honda Civic, and took I-20 straight to Columbia, South Carolina to preach this past Sunday. I’ve made that trek about twenty times this year, and this was the last one.

Praise God.

Yes, leaving Birmingham has hurt a bit.

But true tragedy is leaving a place and having nothing to miss. And no one to miss you.

UPDATE #3 — We had BOTH our AWAKE Nights.

Both Baylor and Birmingham had all-night prayer nights led by our THP team. It’s always hard to summarize what happens in a twelve-hour prayer period—but suffice it to say that clearly the Lord was at work in both of these meetings.

We’re learning a whole lot as a team, and it seems we’re beginning to solidify vision over time. Continue to pray as we discern next steps for Chicago and Columbia this year.

UPDATE #4 — I’m Going on a Revival Tour

After the night service at church, I had to hop on my laptop and buy a bunch of bus, plane, and train tickets in Europe and Turkey Monday morning until 2AM.

Why? Because I’m flying out for a 60-day past and present Revival Tour today! (Monday)

Really, it’s less of a tour and more of a pilgrimage—serving with churches, researching at sites, evangelizing, praying over cities, and seeking the presence of God in places where He has come in power before.

This trip has several primary goals that I’d ask you to be praying for:

1. I Need to Finish my MDiv

Fun fact, I’m not quite done with my MDiv yet. I walked, but I’ve got one requirement left: a cross-cultural trip overseas. So we’re finishing out this season of the mind with a bang. I’m praying (and expecting) that this trip will be the equivalent of a full semester or two of learning in school.

2. I Need a Heart Refresher

Like a flame in need of kindling, my heart is hungering for a bit of fuel right now. So I want to treat this as a preparation trip for full-time ministry. It’s certainly not a Sabbatical, but I do think the term “pilgrimage” makes sense. I hope that by encountering friends across the world—in the UK, Germany, Ukraine, Turkey, etc.—who are on fire for Jesus, my heart can be warmed afresh.

3. I Need to Write Again

I’ve pretty much always, for as long as I can remember, spent my free time writing new books. Like—always. Until these last three years. Full-time seminary, part-time preaching, inner-city ministry, media content, large-scale prayer, and living in two states have eaten away any free time I thought I might have.

But that season is coming to an end…

UPDATE #5 — What J.T. is Doing Going Forward

This Substack originally began as I was getting ready to publish The True Human: 6½ Ways My Generation Misunderstands Jesus. Now, I have a publisher (Seedbed Publishing), and I finally feel as if that project is out of my hands (forthcoming in Fall 2026)!

Since my hands are empty (or emptier), I’m starting on some new projects, including a work that tells the 2000-year story of the Church for a generation suffering from historical amnesia.

So as we approach the 2000 year anniversary of the Church, I figured it would be important to write something commemorating the work of the Holy Spirit over the last two millenia. So on this trip I’ll be hopping from Wittenberg to Constantinople to Geneva to Lyons to Assisi to Hebrides to London to Ephesus to Smyrna to Kyiv.

All these locations have hosted some of the most crucial moments in the history of the church—for good or evil—and I plan to write creative, easy-to-read episodes of some of these pivotal moments.

As Baldwin says, “We are our history,” whether we know it or not.

Far better that we do know it.

For the next two months, before stepping into a full-time role leading in the church at Radius Southside, it seems like the perfect time to literally step into God’s story, our story, my story, and walk in the footsteps of our brothers and sisters, from AD 33-2033.

I hope you’ll tag along.

Reflections and poetry and articles incoming.

In the meantime, don’t forget to be human.

May Christ awaken us,

Jeremiah Titus (J.T.) Reeves

The Test.

He has just eaten His last supper in this life.

Now the sky is clothed in obsidian, and the Jerusalem sun has dipped below the Judaean highlands. That’s when Jesus of Nazareth—the great Rabbi, the miracle-worker, the son of Joseph—raises himself up on one elbow from his reclining position and alights on His feet. He eyes the Twelve Disciples, His dearest friends, and He motions for them to follow Him. Alone. They all come—all but Judas Iscariot, who reports some odd excuse for leaving the supper early.

Cloaked in the shadows of dusk, Jesus leads His friends on a slow, sober, somber journey out of the city.

As they walk, the heaviness of the Passover feast, and the wine, and the words of Jesus are sinking deeper and deeper into the hearts of the disciples. Peter looks down at his feet, the same feet Jesus washed only a few hours earlier, as they tread downward, past the East Gate, across the Kidron Valley, and to the Mount of Olives. Earlier that day, Jesus had prophesied that Peter would betray him three times before the following morning.

He would soon learn what that meant.

Today was to be the greatest test he would ever face.

He would fail.

The others are on edge, too. If Peter was to betray Jesus—and if another was to hand Jesus over—and if Jesus was to “suffer” tonight—then what was to become of James and John and Andrew and Phillip and Thomas and Thaddeus and Matthew and Bartholomew and James and Simon?

Eyes downcast, they said nothing.

Eyes downcast, they saw nothing.

Jesus asked them to come “watch” with Him. Jesus asked His closest companions to be there for Him in His moment of greatest need. Yet the three disciples would see nothing but themselves. They saw nothing. They said nothing.

They may as well have been absent.

This night, the night of Gethsemane, was the great test for both Christ and all His Disciples.

It was a test only One could pass.

The Symbols.

So Peter, James, John and the rest of the disciples follow Jesus silently, moving Eastward, away from the Temple, away from the presence of God, toward the wilderness.

It recalls one of the most significant metaphors in the Old Testament. It recalls the scapegoat, the sacrificial animal meant to bear the sins of all Israel away—east—from the presence of God.

21 He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task.

22 The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness.

From the very beginning, God’s chosen people are instructed to cast their sins on a sacrificial goat that will remove their sins as far as the east is from the west. For a millennium, God’s people have rehearsed this sign over and over and over and over again.

But now the Sign has come. No scapegoat needed. The true sacrifice has come.

Yet there’s more symbolism here. At the very beginning, there was another man—Adam, “the son of God” (Luke 3:38). Adam was sent away from the presence of God, away from the garden of Eden because he knew sin. To the contrary, Jesus went away from the presence of God, to the garden of Gethsemane, because He knew no sin—and this was where the reversal of the curse began. This is the retelling of Adam and Eve’s story:

The First Adam was sent away from the garden of joy.

The Second Adam was sent toward the garden of agony.

The First Adam disobeyed and rejected the presence of God.

The Second Adam obeyed and accepted the absence of God.

The First Adam brought the Curse upon the whole world by seeking a blessing for himself.

The Second Adam brought a blessing for the whole world by taking the Curse upon Himself.

The First Adam chose death when he tried to secure life.

The Second Adam chose life when he surrendered to death.

The First Adam lost the image of God when he tried to become God.

The Second Adam recovered the image of God when he became human (Phil 2:5-11).

Behold, the retelling, the rewinding, the rewriting of the story of all humanity in Christ.

Now, the Son of Man, the Second Adam, has gone east… but here’s the test: will He go back west, knowing what awaits him there? Would He dare to step into the fate which hurtles toward humanity? Would He truly remain human?

The Cup.

So here we are in the garden of Gethsemane.

The olive trees are the only wildlife that might justify its being dubbed a garden. Gnarled and knotted like old men with thin, over-jointed, bony finger-like branches pointing in every direction, the trees seem to lean in tonight. Beneath the upraised fingers and green skin are thick, exposed trunks whose wrinkles hint at how ancient these trees are. Many of them are over a thousand years old—as if they had spent centuries preparing to be the shade of the Son of Man on this very night.

When He arrives, Jesus leaves eight of His disciples at the edge of the garden, leaves Peter, James, and John a stone’s throw away, and leaves all of them with instructions.

“Watch and pray,” He commands, “That you might not enter into temptation.”

But they do not watch. They do not pray.

They leave Him. Alone.

So He watches. He prays.

For He will not leave them alone.

It’s here that Jesus looks straight into the furnace of all humanity’s evil, beholding the bloodshed of a thousand generations, receiving cruelty like an innocent slave and receiving condemnation like a convicted slave-master. None of it is His sin, His pain, His world to carry, and this was His chance to escape it all—here it was! Alone to His own devices, the son of Mary has every reason and right and opportunity to escape the wrath of all the world. After all, He did not deserve to go from dust to dust; He did not deserve to be banned from the garden; He did not deserve friends as treacherous as His disciples; He did not deserve death by crucifixion; He did not deserve to receive His Father’s silence, His Father’s judgments, His Father’s wrath.

And so Jesus prays.

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but Yours, be done.”

Silence.

In His humanity, the Son prays to the Father and hears “No.”

The Father sends an angel—but the angel doesn’t speak a word. The angel is only sent to strengthen the Son to endure the silence. Though silence reigns, this very silence is exactly what allows the Son to display His trust in the Father, a trust that Adam and Eve did not have when tested.

Jesus was able to submit to the will, the Word, the way of God, and declare with sweat pouring out of His pores, “Not my will, but thine be done.”

The deafening sound of unanswered prayer resounding in His heart, Jesus’s agony is unbearable. Each of his cries are echoed by legions of angels. Each drop of blood makes the oceans squirm and weep rivers of tears. Each moment of this raging battle for life is protested by all of Creation.

Except humans.

Except the imagers of God, who have orchestrated all this.

We have fallen asleep, and here our LORD is—awake, alert, and powerfully, prayerfully shaking us with the same voracity of a father shaking his children awake from their slumber when a fire is closing in on the house.

Jesus prayed so ardently for the ransom of the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve in this garden that He spilled His very lifeblood on the ground.

It was the passion birthed in Christ’s prayers that led Him to endure the Passion for us.

The war for our lives was won first at Gethsemane, and then enacted at Golgotha.

The Call.

Here in the garden was the restaging of the great “test” or “temptation” for Jesus to fall asleep, and to declare with all the rest of humanity, “My will be done.”

But He would not rest until the Sabbath day.

And after that Holy Saturday, He would go to work once more… and rise from the dead.

Now, He never ceases to work on our behalf. And what is He doing?

He’s doing the work of Gethsemane (Heb 7:25).

He’s interceding for us night and day until that day when night is no more; until that life when death is no more; until that moment when time is no more.

“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” (Matt 25:13)

You know only that He’s coming “soon.”

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

THP News:

WATCH:

• AWAKE Birmingham was the simplest and most profound night I’ve had in some time — and we actually used this passage in Luke 22 as the core for the 7PM-7AM prayer and worship night. I hope to tell a bit more of this story soon!

• AWAKE Baylor takes place in just two weeks, which Cade Rex and Tabitha Ross have been spearheading in Waco, Texas. More info to come there!

WORDS:

• Here’s a few quotes we should all meditate on for Maundy Thursday…

Jonathan Edwards | Christ’s Agony, preached 1739

“Then seems to have been the greatest and most peculiar trial of the strength of the love of Christ, when God set down the bitter portion before him, and let him see what he had to drink, if he persisted in his love to sinners; and brought him to the mouth of the furnace that he might see its fierceness, and have a full view of it, and have time then to consider whether he would go in and suffer the flames of this furnace for such unworthy creatures, or not.”

Charles Spurgeon | Sermon No. 1199.

“Those gnarled and twisted olives knew Him well — there was scarcely a blade of grass in the Garden which He had not knelt upon. He had consecrated the spot to fellowship with God! What wonder, then, that He preferred this favored soil? Just as a man would choose, in sickness, to lie in his own bed, so Jesus chose to endure His agony in His own place of prayer.”

Blaise Pascal | Pensées, “The Mystery of Jesus,” §919.

“Do you want it always to cost the blood of my humanity while you do not even shed a tear?”

May Christ awaken us,

J.T.

• I know I know. I told y’all I’d get this article out about a month ago.

  Just to summarize, here’s what happened: first I had midterms; then our THP team went to the UK; then we went to Germany; then our flights got delayed to the U.S.. Around the same time I was in bed for two weeks with a wicked sickness. So we put our podcast and Substack on pause for just a bit, and will continue to put the podcast aside so I can finish up one more month of school (so so close). Thanks for your prayers and your patience.

• ALSO big news: this week we’re doing our first ever Birmingham AWAKE night hosted by Beeson Divinity School and some student groups at Samford University. PLEASE pray for us as we seek God for our city from 7PM-7AM on Friday, March 27th-28th.

WORDS:

Speaking of all-night prayer, I’m preaching on Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane this Sunday, and here’s a few meditations from Pascal for us to consider:

“Jesus is alone on Earth, not merely with no one to feel and share his agony, but with no one even to know of it. Heaven and he are the only ones to know.”

“Jesus will be in agony until the end of the world. There must be no sleeping during that time.”

— Blaise Pascal (Pensees, 919)

WAKE:

You know what really doesn’t sleep? AI agents. Nor do the arguments about AI agents. Everything is moving so fast in our culture that it seems important to sit down and have a bit of a chat about the things to and from which we are offloading or uploading or perhaps even downloading all of our humanity.

So, without further ado, after a dozen podcasts, several convos with PhDs, and several hundred pages of reading, let’s chat. What follows is the quickest rebuttal argument I’ve got for why AI preaching is not good for us (and honestly, I still think it is good for us — which I’ll discuss another time).

Allow me to preface by giving my primary argument that will thread through each of these specific questions below. Here’s the ethic I’ve been developing in my book for technology, and I think it’s essential in our time: technology is good insofar as it makes us more human.

If it does anything else, it undermines its own programming.

With this in mind, let’s rebut the last eight arguments on why AI preaching is good.

I) If AI preaching gives pastors more time to be pastors, why object?

Here begins one of the most lethal reasons to bow the knee to technological infiltration.

But the church must ask itself a question: is efficiency the goal of the church? Does efficiency make us more like the Body of Christ? Does it make us more human?

If there is anything we have learned in the last few years, it is that more and better technology does not equal more and better human beings. On the contrary, the nations most inundated with technology have (by far) the least children and are far more likely to succumb to moral relativism.

Besides, if God really wanted salvation to be efficient, He would’ve snapped His fingers. He wouldn’t have spent three decades among rebellious creatures who would slowly, sadistically, cruelly crucify Him—and He wouldn’t have chosen humans to be the creatures by whom He would save the world.

He would’ve made robots instead.

II) If there are thoughts humans can’t easily access, why not simply let AI organize them for us?

Let’s be real. Digital technology has not made us better Biblical scholars. It’s made us worse.

New software, the internet, AI preaching — these innovations have only seemed to accelerate the swan-dive of our biblical literacy, which is now regularly reaching all-time lows. The thing is, only reading the Bible will make us better Bible readers. Go figure.

Dozens of people have asked me why I’ve spent several years of my life studying Greek and Hebrew. Our age cannot imagine someone taking the time to do that when we have so much technology.

But perhaps I want to know the Bible. Perhaps I want to know the Word of my Lord and my Love. Perhaps I find it offensive that a whole generation is offloading the most important work of a Christian—to know what our God says—to heartless technology.

All in the name of our 21st century god: Efficiency.

May God have mercy on us.

III) If preachers give sermons that are boring, doesn’t it make sense to let AI aid our messages?

Do you know what bores me? Intellectual or emotional stimulation with no heart behind it. Yes, AI will be able to create better, more interesting, movie-like sermons soon: click a button and bingo, it’s thirty minutes of Tim Keller meets John Piper meets Charles Spurgeon meets Christian Hollywood every week. But a boring sermon is nothing compared to an empty one.

If the church transitions to soulless messages by unaffected robots, it catechizes its people to believe that Christianity is about knowing proper information, not about the heart. That’s what we call dead preaching. And dead faith.

IV) If the church has always used lifeless texts (liturgies, catechisms, books, podcasts, etc.) for discipleship, what makes AI different categorically?

Lifeless texts were still written by humans. Example A: the Bible. Do you know how many perceived “flaws” AI might find in the Scriptures? Jeremiah could be less whiney and boring; Leviticus needs a full-scale rebrand; and what the heck was John thinking writing the Book of Revelation? Surely God should be able to communicate more effectively.

Except God wanted to communicate through humans. In human languages. AI texts bypass the Spirit-breathed writing that can only be produced by a person who has been given the Spirit of God.

V) If the church fears moral compromise, wouldn’t AI be a route toward recentering our focus on the Word of God?

Allow me to rephrase this point: “Let’s offload our morality to a non-moral agent so we don’t have to live up to God’s standard.” Brilliant.

Fear of moral failure is sin, not wisdom. On judgment day, no one will receive a reward for not trying—as a matter of fact, Jesus gave us a whole parable about how we should, um, not do this (Matt 25:14-30). Bury your gifts and you will suffer consequences, even if your gifts are meager.

Now, one may still argue that AI preaching could give us less of the preacher and more of the Word of God, but I would contend that giving less of the preacher is obscuring and obstructing the Word of God. Jesus—the true Word, the fulfiller of the Scriptures—does not come in the abstract, but in the flesh (John 1:1-14). In the same way, preaching is never meant to be abstract truths told by a soulless, immoral, unmoved robot; it is meant to be the concrete Truth told by a particular human to a particular people in a particular place and time. Humanity is core to preaching.

VI) If true worship is aroused via AI, then why wouldn’t the worship still be effective?

Again, this is a lousy argument. If we take it to the logical extent, we may assert that if true worship is aroused via Joseph Stalin, then perhaps we should have him preach! He’s a talented speaker, isn’t he? If the only justification for our preaching is the result (this is a philosophy called utilitarianism), then churches will quickly fall into all sorts of pits with pointy things at the bottom.

The church has never justified her actions by the result. Paul did not justify his decision to go back to Jerusalem because he could make maximum converts there; he went back to Jerusalem because the Holy Spirit told him it was time to die for his faith (Acts 21:13)!

If all the Bride of Christ cares about are the results, why would she inconvenience herself with making sure her pastors have integrity—or the Holy Spirit? Wouldn’t she simply be concerned with how many people these leaders were “saving” or “discipling?” Yet every Old Testament (and New Testament) prophet will tell you that worship without justice, mercy, and love is hateful to God, no matter the numbers.

This does not mean that my sister was hateful to God when she accidentally worshipped via AI hymns (as all of us will soon accidentally do at some point or other); it simply means that God cares about the vehicles for our worship, and while He can and does use non-moral agents like AI bots, they are never His first choice in the Scriptures.

VII) If we say that AI can’t be used for preaching, then aren’t we claiming that God needs humans to do His work?

The answer to this question is simply “no.” We’re claiming that God wants humans to do His work.

Why else would He have become human Himself? What is the incarnation of Jesus but the supreme truth that God wished to redeem humanity through humanity? This is never done by machines who cannot receive the message (like AI), but by persons who have themselves been transformed by the gospel we preach.

God does not need us, but the whole Bible is a testimony that—even in our inefficiencies, our insufficiencies, and our iniquities, perhaps even especially so—God wants to reveal His power through human weakness.

VIII) If AI preaching is saving souls, why not do it?

Finally, we come to the most straightforward logic in this piece: if AI can be used to save souls, then why not use it to do just that? After all, isn’t AI being used for a million other, less worthy things? After all, doesn’t Matthew 28:19-20 say, “Go make disciples of all the nations?”

There’s a saying in Christian circles that goes like this: “The first group to master new media technology is always the pornography industry… and the second is Evangelical Christianity.”

It’s true that Christianity has always been innovative, and Evangelicals especially have an uncanny ability to use anything and everything to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. Yet wielding technology without reckoning with its full consequences is a precarious endeavor for the Christian.

We must again recall our telos, our end goal. If Matthew 28 is about something numerical: more salvation, more baptisms, more disciples, more more MORE—then AI could potentially be our best friend.

But if, as I suspect, we are misreading Matthew 28; and if Matthew 28 is actually telling us to make disciples of ALL nations; and if many of ALL these nations will have incredibly gradual, slow, thin return rates after decades of evangelism; and if Matthew 28 also says that making disciples means teaching them to observe ALL that I have commanded y’all; and if this might suggest our end goal isn’t just about dunking the most people underwater, but teaching the nations to be like the Son of Man; if, as I further suspect, this passage is about teaching humans to be human again…

…then maybe AI could be our worst enemy.

The ethic of God is not utilitarian. He chooses twelve tribes, twelve disciples, and ultimately just one singular small Jewish man to save the whole cosmos. He trims Gideon’s army to 300, sends a plague on Israel for David’s counting their troops, and continually refers to the narrow way of Christianity.

Numbers are not bad, and they are often signs of God’s miracles in the Bible—but they are not the end goal.

So what is?

To me, it’s becoming human, after the image of Jesus.

But what is the end goal to you?

Your answer to that question will inform every decision you make about AI.

We’ll revisit this topic very soon, because I have a thousand more thoughts. For now, I figured I’d give you a few long-awaited rebuttals. In other words, this conversation is most certainly to be continued…

I was so grateful for all the engagement with the last article. Let me know if you’ve got thoughts on this one.

And please pray for AWAKE Birmingham this week (graphics below)!

May Christ awaken us,

J.T. Reeves

• The AI girlfriend (or boyfriend) is a real thing, and needs to be addressed in the church. In the last two weeks, the Atlantic released articles entitled “The People who Marry Chatbots” and “The Bots that Women Use in a World of Unsatisfying Men,” which narrate positive accounts of how bots are “saving” relationships. If you think the people in your school or church aren’t using AI chat bots as emotional, sexual, or intellectual companions, you’re likely mistaken.

• If you read my article about Lenten fasting last week, you might be excited to hear about several things going on from our THP team. In Chicago, one of our readers started a fasting Fridays community with his small group; in Milwaukee, another reader began a fasting Fridays group in her own church to hunger for the presence of God; and here in Birmingham, the Dean of Beeson Divinity School invited our whole school into fasting and prayer on Fridays together—in total about fifty graduate and undergraduate students joined this week.

• We had our first ever THP Staff Conference last weekend! It was absolutely amazing. A couple notes: 1) The podcast starts this week… Be on the lookout for an episode about Europe with our friend Sam Couper, leader of Revive Europe; 2) Anticipate events in Birmingham, AL and Waco, TX this spring—we’ll keep you posted on how to pray and support; 3) After six months, our whole team is still on fire for this generation, and we’re thankful for your backing along the way.

WORDS:

“O for thousands upon thousands, divided into small bands in their respective cities, towns, villages, and neighbourhood, all met at the same time, and in pursuit of one end, offering up their united prayers, like so many ascending clouds of incense before the Most High!”

— Jonathan Edwards, 1744

“If you’re gonna go to Hell you’ve got to go through me first.”

— Beeson Professor, 2026

WAKE:

I live in a homeless house.

It’s a long story, but it’s a digression—and now isn’t the time for it.

What I really wanted to tell you is what happened in my homeless house this past weekend.

Picture this: nearly fifty folks packed into my little place from over a dozen different churches: Anglicans, Presbyterians, Wesleyans, Southern Baptists, Black Baptists, Nondenominationals; high schoolers, college students, young professionals; white and black; men and women—all seated on the hardwood floor.

Turns out, my seven chairs and singular oversized sofa wasn’t enough for the wealth of guests who came.

Just for you to get a better grasp on what was happening, allow me to walk you through the room.

To start, if you enter my door and somehow manage not to hit your head on the odd wooden arch, you would probably enter the room and see Luke Harms, a young business professional and former Sigma Chi fraternity brother, praying with Samuel Fernandez, a worship leader at a Spanish-speaking church in town. Turn slightly, and you’d see a missionary bound for the Middle East in a few months, as they pray with Daniel Oludemi, an aspiring preacher at a historically black church in Birmingham. A few steps later, you’ll reach Reagan Bovenkamp and Carly Hambrick, who hold a Bible study of over seventy young girls in an inner-city school called Wilkerson; they’re praying with Charlotte Fawcett and Elle Shuford, full-time seminary students who have never heard of Wilkerson.

The thing about the Church is she makes no sense.

Sometimes, the only thing her members have in common is God and a burden.

We came together because we all believed in the same God and had the same burden. For the first portion of the night, we sat and listened to an older couple who had prayed and fasted and evangelized and labored in the inner-city for over a decade. For the second portion, we stepped into their story and fell on our knees in prayer.

For hours.

Did it mean anything? The knees which uncomfortably jutted into crooked hardwood floors, the voices aimed downward at the silent deep brown planks, the tears which spilled onto that same poorly swept ground. What was the point of everything going so low, falling so hard, flattening against the floor?

Sight and sound and knees and tears and pride and fears crashed against those crooked hardwood floors.

And perhaps that’s precisely when the power of God is on its fullest display.

It was as if, for one moment, we remembered that from dust we were born and to dust we shall return (Gen 3:19), and instead of puffing ourselves up against that truth we allowed it to be real to us—and when truth, darkness, evil, death becomes real to us, so often God does too.

When humans admit we are human, God suddenly becomes God to us again.

It’s then and there, on the tear-stained floor of the homeless house in Titusville, Alabama, that miracles begin to take place.

At the end of the night, most of us dedicated ourselves to fasting and prayer each Friday throughout the season of Lent. For our ministries, our churches, our city.

This Friday night we will meet again after fasting — prayerfully with even wider distribution throughout the city of Birmingham — and we’re hoping that what started in Nazareth would reach all of Judea. Lord-willing, we’re planning for a true citywide all-night prayer gathering on March 27, 2026 with all of Birmingham.

Please pray for us.

Please pray for Birmingham.

And then please pray for your own city.

“Who knows whether God will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind Him?” (Joel 2:14)

👉 If you’re in Birmingham, come pray with us this Friday night @8PM. We’ll be back in the homeless house, preparing for our all-city gathering.

P.S. I APOLOGIZE YET AGAIN FOR THE WAIT ON THE “WHY AI PREACHING IS GOOD (PART II)” ARTICLE — I’M MEETING WITH SOME PEOPLE THIS WEEK WHO WILL HELP SPEAK INTO THAT PIECE, AND I WANTED TO SHARE THIS BHAM STORY WHILE IT’S STILL FRESH. BUT DON’T FRET, IT’S COMING SOON!

I didn’t grow up Catholic. I didn’t grow up Anglican. I didn’t even grow up Baptist. I grew up with more non in my denomination than just about any non-denominational person I know.

But when you hang out with friends from different traditions—with different “mamas” so-to-speak—you constantly learn new things about what it means to follow Jesus.

Thus, at the ripe age of twenty-one, I was shocked to learn from a friend that there’s something called “Lent,” and that it’s not simply a Catholic thing.

In fact, after years of neglecting and/or rejecting Lent, I now want to write an article for us uber-non-denominational types about why fasting for Lent is a good thing.

1) Fasting has always been practiced by the Church.

First of all, fasting ain’t Roman Catholic. It’s deeply Christian. And, I might add, it’s deeply human.

Every major religion has fasts (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism). It’s no coincidence that the societies least inclined to fast are the societies who have become the least religious (ex: Europe). Interestingly, on the very day we begin Lent in 2026, the Muslims begin Ramadan fasts. Meanwhile, will Christians, in our protest against anything uncomfortable, simply rub our well-fed tummies and snooze?

It seems like that’s precisely what Satan wants for us (cf. Luke 4:1-13).

Fasting is starving the body to feed the soul, because so often when we over-feed the body we starve the soul. It is a physical reminder that our energy comes only from God—yes, fasting is repenting for believing that we can survive without God, for believing we are independent. This is why every significant leader of the early church was well-versed in fasting. Pure independence—utter freedom from—unravels humans.

Fasting does not dehumanize us. On the contrary, being human means being needy, and the rich must fast to remember that we are mortal, fragile, human.

2) Lent has Always Been Practiced by the Church.

Our first recorded reference to fasting during the season of Lent comes from Irenaeus of Lyons (AD 130 - 202). He writes:

“And this variety in its observance has not originated in our time; but long before in that of our ancestors. It is likely that they did not hold to strict accuracy, and thus formed a custom for their posterity according to their own simplicity and peculiar mode.”

— fragment from Ecclesiastical History, written by Eusebius of Caesarea

A couple notes for us then:

First, Lent likely began in the first century, well before “Roman Catholicism” as we know it today. In fact, it’s very possible it was implemented while some of the Apostles were still living.

Second, fasting was never meant to place burdens on Christians. As Irenaeus writes, Lent was not first observed with “strict accuracy.”

Third, the early church assumed the Lenten fast. No one was arguing about whether the church should repent and fast leading up to Easter, but about how, when, and why they should fast.

Clearly, since the dawn of the church Lent was assumed as a core practice, and yet not as a burden. On the contrary, repentance has always been God’s great gift. It would be tragic for us to refuse to let a knowledge of repentance take form in arms and legs and stomachs.

3) Lenten Fasting is also Biblical.

It’s not just church history that emphasizes fasting and embodied remembrance, it’s biblical history.

Moses, David, Esther, Hezekiah, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, the Ninevites, Elijah, Jeremiah, Joel, the prophets, the psalmists, John the Baptist, the Twelve, and, of course, Jesus Christ all fast extensively in the Scriptures. Moreover, Jesus teaches that when the Bridegroom (Jesus Himself) leaves, the people will fast (Luke 5:35)—and we see that in early church of Acts, led by the Apostle Paul.

That pretty much covers the whole Bible.

For two thousand years, Lent has beautifully illustrated remembrance of Jesus’s humiliation. On that note, let me put forth a few final reasons why Lent might be biblically observed today:

1. Lent is meant to mirror Jesus’s fast. It spans 40 days (not including Sundays), which reflects the True Human’s time in the wilderness, when he rejected sin to save us (Luke 4:1-13). Lent is choosing to walk with Jesus toward His crucifixion, knowing that only the crucified rise from the dead. In the age of technology, it is ever more significant to teach our bodies the gospel, as well as our hearts and minds. Lent gives us an opportunity to walk through the wilderness with Jesus and literally “follow in His steps” (1 Pet 2:21).

2. Lent teaches us to prefer the Best Thing over good things. The most common objection to Lent is: “Why would I give up good things that God has made?” But have we forgotten that every sin is a distortion of good things? Money. Sex. Speech. Power. Food. These are all good in themselves, but are corrupted when used wrongly. Lent trains our bodies that even good things are worthless in comparison to the Ultimate thing. After all, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” (Mark 8:36)

3. Lent is preparation for the coming of Christ. More than anything, Lent’s practice of self-denial reminds us that Christ is coming soon. It is a reminder to breathe, “Come, Lord Jesus,” every time our stomach growls, our mood shifts, and our energy wanes (Rev 22:20).

An Invitation:

It goes without saying that at the end of this article, I want to invite you to fast during Lent with me.

In Birmingham, we have a crew of Gen Z high schoolers, college folks, seminary students, and young professionals fasting on Fridays from sunrise to sunset.

For the first two weeks, we’ll plan to fast and pray for:

1) Three names of people in your life who don’t know Jesus.

2) The Lord to show us how to repent in our own lives and on behalf of our churches.

After this, we will reevaluate together whether the Lord has something specific for us.

This Lent season, give up lesser things for the Ultimate thing.

Let’s recover an ancient path and remember the story of Jesus with our human frames.

Let’s be human again this week,

J.T. +
THP Team

Quick Note:

I know several of you were anticipating the Part II article about AI Preaching. I’m sorry not to get that to you, but it seemed more significant to write about fasting this week. AI Preaching Pt II is coming soon!

My family group chat exploded tonight.

Maybe that’s normal for you. Let me tell you: it ain’t normal for us. It happens like twice a year.

The debate? AI preaching.

After repeated volleys of text exchanges, I told my family I’d write an article on why AI preaching was bad.

The only problem is that—since I was driving to South Carolina to preach this weekend—I only had time to write half the article. So what I’m finishing up at 2AM on this fine Monday is Part I on the topic: “Why AI Preaching is good for us.”

My hope is to “steel-man” the argument for AI preaching. I want to give you one of the best cases you’ve yet heard for why it is, at minimum, worth our consideration.

It’s necessary that the church takes this seriously, because it will inevitably become one of the most significant subjects of our time.

So, here we go: 8 Reasons Why AI Preaching is Good For Us.

I) If AI preaching gives pastors more time to be pastors, why object?

The best use for technology is to enable humans to do more of the things that technology can’t. When tech makes us more human, it becomes useful. Therefore, the fact that technology can help us write, speak, or communicate with greater efficiency may enable pastors to spend fifteen to twenty hours a week actually caring personally for their staff instead of wading waist-deep through yet another weekly sermon. Burnout and pastor shortages have skyrocketed, y’all.

Why wouldn’t we allow technology to remove things from our plates so we can better serve our churches?

II) If there are thoughts humans can’t easily access, why not simply let AI organize them for us?

Let’s be real. Not only does AI preaching give us more time back, it also gives us access to two thousand years of biblical interpretation, PhD-level expertise in nearly any subject, and synthesizing ability beyond what most any preacher has alone. In point of fact, my brother-in-law has a friend who created an AI companion for apologetics which has apparently led to the conversion of many atheists.

It seems naive—or even arrogant—to neglect such a tool just to maintain a romanticized version of the (American) “pastor.” Moreover, if the pastor doesn’t use AI, they’re suddenly the least knowledgeable Christian in the room.

It only makes sense to use AI to better create our messages, and to create better messages.

III) If preachers give sermons that are boring, doesn’t it make sense to let AI aid our messages?

Truth is, LLMs not only give us efficiency and accuracy—they can also end up simply making our sermons more interesting. Everyone knows videos are more engaging than some old guy struggling to read off printer paper holding a NKJV Bible. Why would it be wrong for us to, by 2035, have full sermons in movie format, generated via AI? How else could we become all things to all people in the digital generation? (1 Cor 9:19-23)

IV) If the church has always used lifeless texts (liturgies, catechisms, books, podcasts, etc.) for discipleship, what makes AI different categorically?

For all of human history, humans have used dead resources. AI freaks us out—but why? If it doesn’t truly have “intelligence” (and it doesn’t), then LLMs are hardly different from chainsaws or printing presses: they’re tools. Enter an input, receive an output. Now, all we have to do is program AI well by putting in the right inputs and receiving quality outputs. This is not unprecedented. It is a normal and appropriate accommodation of technology.

V) If the church fears moral compromise, wouldn’t AI be a route toward recentering our focus on the Word of God?

One of the great objections to churches in the modern age is the hyper-focus on the pastor. It seems the Word of God is often blurred and bloodied both by pastors’ egos and by our moral failings. With AI, it may be easier for messages to be focused primarily on the Word of God itself, and not on the message-bringer. This may prove to be a technology that can purify worship—not distort it.

VI) If true worship takes place via AI, then why wouldn’t the worship still be effective?

All of this began with a text sent from my sister: “Hey, have y’all listened to this new Christian artist?” She went on to say how much she loved their stuff. That was, of course, before somehow the family discovered that the artist was a bot. My big sis had experienced God in worship through the machinations of an artificial and lifeless robot.

So the question surfaced: “Well, if one of us can experience God personally through words given by a non-human, what’s so wrong about that?”

In this modern era, you and I are inevitably going to listen to—and likely be moved by—AI content at some point, whether we want to or not. And if we hear the Word of God from a bot and are led to worship, surely the worship is not made void… It’s real worship.

Think about that: what Christian would ever object to real worship?

VII) If we say that AI can’t be used for preaching, then aren’t we claiming that God needs humans to do His work?

After all, serpents (Gen 3), donkeys (Num 22), eagles (Rev 8), hills (Isa 55), rivers (Ps 98), heavens (Ps 19), rocks (Lk 19), mountains and trees (Isa 55) all get speaking parts in the Bible. Who’s to say that God can’t use machines too? Even this week, I heard two different testimonies — one from a high schooler and another from a man in his thirties — about how they met God through their TV screens. That’s how they were converted. One while watching a deeply secular reality TV show. One while watching an anime show.

The Word of God is living and active apart from human agents.

VIII) If AI preaching is saving souls, why not do it?

Finally, we come to the most straightforward logic in this piece: if AI can be used to save souls, then why not use it to do just that? After all, isn’t AI being used for a million other, less worthy things?

The Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20) comes directly from the mouth of our Lord Jesus Christ, and though it may seem uncomfortable, AI preaching should at least be wrestled with as a possible innovation for the church. In short, why not employ the most powerful technology of our age for the worthiest cause of all the ages?

Okay, that’s all for Part I.

Next week, I’m going to try and debunk every one of these arguments in Part II.

In the meantime, help me out by sharing some of your own thoughts below.

Be human this week.

May Christ awaken us,

J.T

On July 29, 1954, a man prophesied the iPhone. His name was J. R. R. Tolkien.

Only, he called it by a different name: the Ring of Power.

Here’s how he described it (emphasis added):

When I first read this, I had chills. Then I read it again. And again. Seventy-five years ago, Tolkien diagnosed exactly what every Gen Zer (and everyone else too) has felt in the smartphone age: the weight of carrying an irresistible object that has a will to dominate.

Six Ways the Smartphone Is a ‘Ring of Power’

After reading Tolkien’s quote and journeying with characters like Bilbo and Frodo who expressed eerily similar sentiments to my own, I decided to ask ChatGPT, “What are the main purposes of Tolkien’s Ring?”

It gave six purposes.

They’ll probably stun you like they stunned me.

Each is an eerily accurate description of the six-inch screen we’re staring at.

Here’s the condensed version:

1. Control. The Ring is made to reach, master, and control everything in existence.

2. Amplification. The Ring enhances the natural abilities of its wearer, corrupts humans by giving a twisted version of what they want, and serves as a mirror and magnifier for our own desires.

3. Invisibility. When worn, the Ring makes people invisible. The wearer enters a wraithlike state, and they assume they can do whatever they wish without detection.

4. Addiction. The Ring has a will of its own, aligned with its maker. It tempts and corrupts its bearer over time, driving them toward obsession and destruction.

5. Connection. The Ring creates “a spiritual tether” between the maker and the ring-bearer. This allows the maker to perceive and influence those who wear the ring. The maker can both hear and affect your every word through a piece of tech on [or in] your hand.

6. Extended life (but not true life). The Ring prolongs life unnaturally, as seen in Bilbo and especially Gollum. But it doesn’t grant peace—it withers the soul and body over time.

Rings of power tend to make you more wraithlike. They make you more, well, virtual.

And less human.

Yet still we keep our precious, precious pieces of plastic as our closest companions.

It seems they’re impossible to toss in the fire once they’re in our hands.

Chuck Our Phones into the Fire?

Jesus had a wonderful tendency to ask questions that made everyone uncomfortable (see Luke 6:46; 18:19) and to respond to questions without the “appropriate” answer that would have set everyone at ease (see John 3:4–12). While Jesus might not prescribe an anti-phone rule for every Christian, we could easily hear him saying something like “Where is your faith? Would you dare to give up your most precious item for me?”

When we, abashed, respond, “So you’re asking us to throw our phones away?” it seems unlikely Jesus would simply say, “Oh no—absolutely not! That’s ridiculous!” (see Matt 19:10–12; 16–22). Instead, I wonder if he’d respond as he usually does, with a barrage of uncomfortable questions:

Can a teenage girl really handle the ability to compare herself to every other person on the planet? Should a pornography addict be expected to hold a strip club in his pocket 24/7? Must an anxious mom battle with the superhuman ability to see where and how her teenager is at all times? Can the workaholic surrender his progress when it sits inches from his fingertips at every moment?

What if we, the church, had the liberty to simply ask, “Should I get rid of my phone?” And what if we had pastors who actually believed that “Yes!” is a possible answer to that question?

We keep our precious, precious pieces of plastic as our closest companions. It’s starting to turn us into digital wraiths.

Yes, Jesus wants to heal the human heart more than he wants what my generation likes to disdainfully call “sin management.” We’re quick to say, “Getting rid of a phone can’t instantly solve someone’s lust, laziness, fear, or greed.” But we forget that “sin management” is an essential part of how humans recover from addiction.

Distance from the addictive substance allows our brains to be rewired. Instead of allowing sin to manage us, we take practical steps that might enable us to “be transformed by the renewal of [our minds]” (Rom. 12:2). After all, what if obedience could mean gouging out our eyes and cutting off our hands (Matt. 5:29–30)?

Getting Rid of the Ring.

In late September, our team organized a Homecoming event at Wheaton College. We called it “AWAKE,” an all-night prayer and worship service for both alumni and current students to repent, fix our gaze on Jesus, and intercede for Wheaton’s campus and beyond.

I wish I could tell the full story. Nine hours of worship and prayer. Three and a half hours of uninterrupted public confession. But there was one moment in particular where words of confession solidified into action, and I won’t soon forget it.

The room grew quiet as one grad student determinedly marched to the stage, reached into his pocket, and slipped out his iPhone. I can’t remember what he said, but I vividly remember him taking a trash bag, lifting it in front of everyone, and tossing his phone into the bag, which he later tied and chucked into a dumpster.

When I spoke to him afterward, he told me he’d hoped he wouldn’t be the only one who felt the conviction to escape the bondage of the smartphone. But, as Tolkien so aptly perceived, only a few people have the strength to escape something many of us might benefit from escaping.

Of course, the “smartphone as Ring of Power” metaphor breaks down at some point. You’re likely reading this article on your smartphone, and you likely do many other good and true and beautiful activities on that same device. So perhaps you and I are right to second-guess the throw-away-the-smartphone strategy. “If phones are inevitable these days,” we reason, “then can’t we just use technology for good?”

Still, we ought to remember Jacques Ellul’s insight that technology isn’t neutral. Your tech wasn’t simply made to be used—it was made to use you.

Your tech wasn’t simply made to be used—it was made to use you.

So while our churches need not make the destruction of smartphones or AI normative, we must encourage and normalize drastic actions to limit these technologies. Otherwise, technology’s default—its will to dominate—will consume us. And the church’s default has always been to not give in to society’s default settings.

Perhaps this is why, as I marveled at the grad student’s boldness, I felt a stirring of hope that—should a Spirit-filled craving for repentance fall on our churches—more of us might be moved to cast our rings into the fire.

Thanks for reading. Would love to hear your thoughts about this.

May Christ awaken us,

J.T.

Click HERE to read the full article at The Gospel Coalition.

Two words to wrestle with.

One article to keep us awake.

WATCH…

1. PASTORS IN AMERICA ARE THE OLDEST THEY’VE EVER BEEN—by a lot. The average age of the current American pastor is 57. The number of pastors above 65 has tripled in the last 25 years. Obviously, the American life expectancy has increased slightly, but this doesn’t tell the full story. Gen Z may be leading the charge back to church, but they’re not leading the charge back to church leadership.

2. PROTESTORS STORM A CHURCH IN MINNEAPOLIS. Anti-ICE protestors entered a Sunday worship gathering last week and interrupted the service as part of broader demonstrations across the city. Federal officials and national leaders have since weighed in. Minneapolis will likely become a key case study this year in how protest, politics, and religious space collide.

3. WE RECORDED OUR FIRST FOUR EPISODES of the incoming True Human Podcast. They say you don’t start preaching until you’ve preached 50 sermons, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the same can be said for podcasting—but our guests were absolutely amazing. Conversations around Instagram, European revival (?), and the final days of one of America’s greatest seminaries are incoming.

WORDS…

1. “The hardest things to say are the things that most need to be said.”

   — Journals, AD 2026

2. “Americans [are] trained to hope but no longer convinced of what to hope for…”

   — Robert Jenson, AD 1973

   

WAKE

Do you know the best question you can ask to get past the airpods-in, head-down, screen-absorbed generation that we live in? It was the first question Jesus asked when He turned around and saw the first of John’s disciples starting to tiptoe behind Him. Jesus’s first words in John’s Gospel form pretty much the most penetrating question ever: “What are you seeking?” (John 1:38)

In other words, “What do you want?”

Throughout the Book of John, Jesus regularly deploys this question in various ways.

I’ve used this question a hundred times in random conversations with Gen Z folks on college campuses. Three days ago, I used this question at the outset of a three-hour flight, because, of course, being strapped in a highly-pressurized metal container flying 35,000 feet above ground at 550 mph is the perfect setting for deep spiritual discussions.

The man I’m speaking to is an ex-Marine, a chief sniper turned business-shark; he’s quite the character and takes it in stride. Without pausing, he turns to me and answers, “I want to work my ass off, help as many good people as I can, and put away the bad ones.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well,” he starts, “I’ve seen and done a lot of evil things. A lot of terrible things. And I just know that nothing else is worth it. Helping people—helping good people—like my kids,” and then, to my surprise, he turns to me, “people like you. I want people like you to have everything.”

At first I thought this was somewhat touching. Then he said the next thing…

“Like I’d kill anyone who would mess with a guy like you.”

I can’t really remember what I said to that. What would you say? What would Jesus of Nazareth say? In the end, I think I probably just managed a hesitant chuckle.

Anyways.

Somehow we landed on the topic of faith for the next two hours.

“So, you have a faith?”

“Nah—organized religion is just tryna steal your money. They prey on your hope. Hope is something that can be weaponized, monetized. And even though I like Christianity better than any of those other ones, I know what this world really is, and the only thing I hope in is me.”

The only thing I hope in is me.

This was an eerily similar answer to the ones I get interviewing students on college campuses. No wonder this generation is anxious. Hope in the self is too fragile to maintain as a human.

But it was then, after the first hour of debates and conspiracy-theories and apologetics and genuine wisdom from a former Marine that we finally came to the deepest parts of his, and therefore my, humanity.

Eyes locked on the tan United Airlines seat ahead of him, he dove into a story, and he began telling me that he had recruited his brother to the military, and that then—after convincing his brother to join the ranks—he watched him blow up in Iraq.

The day that we chatted was almost exactly twenty years from his brother’s death.

At first, I wondered if he was fabricating—why would someone share something so intimate to a stranger? But as he spilled more about his family life, about the loved ones that were no longer close, about how he was using his work to find every scrap of purpose that a bootstrapping marine could, about how he was—without ever saying it out loud—alone, I realized then that I was likely the only living person who would know about the twenty-year reunion of this death. He needed to share it with me.

Now, what does this 30,000 foot conversation have to do with Jesus and the True Human Project and John 1?

Simple. Recently I heard a mentor say, “Unbelievers are those who cannot let the past grow old.”

Why?

Because an unbelieving, unforgiven person answers the question, “What do you want?” and has to gaze back longingly at the mistakes, the tragedies, the broken things, and say, “Please, I want these gone.”

And yet, when Jesus points to His own work on the cross, to the instant death of twenty years of haunting guilt, the ex-Marine in us squirms and we say, “No. It can’t be that easy. I can’t trust that. The only thing I hope in is me.”

So we go do great things for good people. Maybe then we can finally justify our own existence.

But the ease of Christ is precisely what makes Him so difficult to follow (Matt 11:29).

Unlike any other religion, Christianity teaches us to become human again by teaching us that we can’t become human again. We’re lost. And until we admit that what we seek, what we long for, what we want is more than we can secure for ourselves, we will never be able to hope for a future beyond human hopelessness.

Dear human, hope in something bigger than yourself.

When Jesus, the True Human, asks what you’re seeking, answer him in the way the disciples did.

“Teacher, where are you staying?” (John 1:38)

“Come, and you will see.” (John 1:39)

Let’s be human this week,

J.T.

Today, I wanted to write on what has become the most significant discipleship battlefield for the church in our time. It’s what I like to call The Algorithm.

So here’s this week’s edition:

3 things to Watch. 2 Words to say. 1 piece to help us stay Awake.

WATCH

1. GEN Z IS LEADING CHURCH ATTENDANCE. Carey Nieuwhof’s highly anticipated 7 church trends for 2026 came out recently. Here’s his number one: “Gen Z is leading the surge in church attendance.” Get this: Gen Z, the generation many thought would mark a point of no return in church decline, is actually going to church more than Elders, Boomers, Gen X, or Millennials at 1.9 times a month. This is exactly what we’ve been praying for! And yet the story is not without casualties. In fact, in the most unexpected turn, the church is losing one demographic in particular…

2. WOMEN ARE LEAVING THE CHURCH. This is unprecedented in American history, and in church history. Since the dawn of Christianity, women have almost always been leaders in committing to their churches. Yet a new era is dawning, and young women in particular are leaving the faith at astonishing rates. We’ll be working with some female writers to produce a few pieces on this throughout the year. Stay tuned.

3. THP IS LAUNCHING “THE TRUE HUMAN PODCAST.” Our little organization is taking off this semester, thanks to the generosity of one of our readers. We’re hosting several events on college campuses, training teams to prepare for the presence of God, and now—for the first time—we’re going to start telling stories of what God is doing in our generation. This week, I’ll fly to Chicago to record with Joseph Yoon (Pastor & PhD Candidate, Edinburgh Theological Seminary), Sam Couper (President of REVIVE Europe), and Gabriel Meyers (Entrepreneur, CEO of Meyers Media), an incredible trio of Gen Z leaders passionate for Christ to enter their spaces. I’ll fill y’all in on more soon!

WORDS

1. “The glory of God is man fully alive, whose work consists in beholding God.”

   — Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, c. AD 180

2. The value of the human body is defined by the value of the body of Christ, who is consubstantial to God the Father Himself. — Journals, AD 2026

Song of Simeon, Rembrandt

WAKE

The man’s platinum name-tag reads “Carter Banks.” Gray-haired, round-faced, slightly overweight—Banks is, um, forgettable. People often find it hard to believe he is one of the wealthiest men on the planet, but here he is nonetheless, standing outside a lab in a high-security facility in Nowhere, Peru.

Banks set this whole thing up. Thousands of hands. Billions of dollars. Politicians. CEOs. Scientists. Analysts. AI specialists. Philosophers. Sociologists. Spiritualists. Military personnel. Everything. Banks assembled this formidable crew for one reason: to engineer the perfect human.

A human free of problems. A human free from the bondage of human life.

Could it be possible? His heart whispers. Could so many messed up people produce perfection?

That’s when the hair on his arms stands on end. Violent chill. Suppressed gasp.

A doctor dressed in a stark white medical suit passes through the delivery room door into the immense lobby. Held aloft in her arms is a specimen. An infant. A tiny human being. But the baby isn’t crying. Isn’t screaming. It’s just sitting there perched happily for all to see. Rapturous applause melts into an unnerved thundering in Banks’s heart. What have we done?

“THIS,” the doctor lifts up the baby triumphantly, “IS THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD!” Wild cheers.

Then she says the words that Banks would never forget.

“MEET THE PERFECT HUMAN!”

Jesus Christ was not a designer baby.

Kind of a weird way to start to an article, but here we are.

Jesus Christ, the man hailed as faultless even by some of His enemies, would never have fulfilled our perfect human ideal. He was the unexpected child of a girl named Mary. He was a Jew, part of a politically oppressed people, with “nothing in his appearance that would attract us to Him” according to Isaiah (translation: He was very not pretty). He was not a macho warrior. And He had no wealth or fortune.

Jesus of Nazareth suffered from the humiliating case of being human.

In fact, Jesus’s favorite name for Himself was “the Son of Man.” Whenever this phrase is used in the Old Testament, it’s a semitic idiom signifying ‘human being.’1 Since Jesus was an Aramaic-speaker steeped in the Old Testament, we can retranslate Jesus’s favorite title as “the Human Being.” 2

Let’s revisit that: Jesus liked to call Himself “The Human Being.”

Here is the only person in all world history who has claimed to perfectly love and know both Himself and every other human being. Here is the “image of the invisible God” once lost but now found again (Col 1:15). Here is the True Human.

If this is true, then Jesus has the final say on who humans are.3 So in order for you to be you, you must look to Jesus. You and I must conform to His teachings, implement His methods, and even feel His emotions. If you want to be human, your chief effort should be to study the life of Jesus Christ.4

Perhaps that’s why we’re so bad at being human these days. Bible sales skyrocket, but Bible literacy remains startlingly low. Many of us like Jesus—but we have no idea who He actually is.

Now, with the rise of AI, VR, and the mass iEnslavement of the 2000s, our generation faces what will likely be the greatest identity crisis in the history of humanity:

Enter the Algorithm.

SOMETHING IS SEEKING YOU…

It started with Facebook. Then Twitter. Then Instagram. Then TikTok. Then ChatGPT. Then [enter new platform here]. Algorithms have become all the rage. By definition, an algorithm is simply “a set of rules that must be followed when solving a particular problem,”5 which begs the question… What “problem” are our algorithms solving?

Answer: you.

It’s no longer a who that is the primary teacher leading us to our true selves. It’s a what.6

Unfeeling algorithms, it seems, have become our most intimate companions.

Now, we are less likely to feel like we know ourselves, less likely to have close friends, less likely to be married, less likely to have children, and less likely to know God than any generation in the Western world before us.7 Most of us grew up lonely,8 ashamed of our bodies,9 and addicted to pornography.10 Most of us have more money, entertainment, freedom, fun, and food than our ancestors could have imagined—and yet we are starving for the things that make us most human.

If we can be real for a minute—the Algorithm is, in many ways, winning the battle for Gen Z.

And yet, in other ways, I think the Algorithm is actually serving the purposes of God.

Next week, I’ll write about why this is. We’ll also talk about the single best question a human can ask to someone who’s being dominated by the Algorithm. It comes straight from the mouth of Jesus of Nazareth, the One who came to make us human again.

Thanks for reading, y’all. Please feel free to share any comments or thoughts below.

May Christ awaken us,

J.T. Reeves

I’m sorry I’ve been offline for the last month, but I’ve been building up enough content to last through the year. Now, we have a new rhythm I’m excited to share with you about this newsletter:

➡️ Each week, I’ll post a (brief) WATCH section for what’s happening in the world and with THP.

➡️ Each week, I’ll post a (brief) WORD section to help us interpret the times.

➡️ Each week, I’ll post a (less brief) WAKE section to stir awakening to Jesus Christ in our own lives.

I realize there are a thousand other things you can read this year. But if I have one selling point for you, it’s that each of these writings will focus unapologetically (or perhaps very apologetically) on the one person for whom there can never be enough writing: Jesus of Nazareth.

He’s a Man worth reading about.

It’s my prayer that by the end of this year you’ll see and hear Jesus in fifty ways you’ve never seen or heard Him before.

Only seeing Jesus—the True Human—newly, truly, rightly will make us more watchful, more Word-filled, more awakened Jesus-followers in a sleeping generation.

So, if you find any of these writings to be beneficial, please feel free to share them.

On that note, here’s our foundational article for 2026…

WATCH…

1. 2025 was the quiet year of comeback for the church in the West. For the first time in forty years, Pew Research Center, BARNA, USA Today, and many others posted groundbreaking research about church attendance and Bible-reading going up. Let’s continue to pray fervently that the church can sustain her hunger in 2026.

2. The fear of most American church leaders for the last two decades has been impending government persecution. That fear has shifted rapidly since the overturning of power to the GOP in 2025. Now, “Christian nationalism” is the buzz-phrase of our moment. Much thought is currently being dedicated to how we navigate church and state relations (I’ll publish multiple articles on this in 2026).

3. The True Human Project is here! We came partially as a timely response to the AIpocalypse that erupted in 2025. Be on the lookout this year for podcasts, articles, AWAKE Nights, and The True Human book launch in the Fall. This is a year of entrepreneurship — and I expect there’ll be far more twists and turns than last year. Glad you’re here for the ride.

WORDS…

WAKE…

(*this is an article I’ve already published, but a perfect refresher for us at the New Year!*)

Our generation is really good at everything virtual and virtually good at nothing real.

Welcome to the most anxious1, most relationally dysfunctional2, most spiritually confused generation in the history of the Western world3. We’ve lost ourselves. We’ve lost others. We’ve lost God.

And they’re all linked.

Whenever we misunderstand God, we lose sight of our humanity. After all, if God isn’t real, really real, then humans are nothing more than a bunch of molecules.

Apparently we’re nothing more than matter… which means we don’t matter. For all our hubris, Gen Z feels like we don’t matter at all.

So we’ve made ourselves animals, like hamsters sprinting on wheels until we wear ourselves out in the pursuit of the perfect, authentic, original “me.” The “me” that doesn’t exist. We’ve made ourselves bots, hijacked and programmed to be more comfortable with loveless machines than people, always holding out for the perfect, authentic, original “them” to marry or befriend or give birth to. The “them” that doesn’t exist. We’ve made ourselves gods, unable to recognize another God who demands everything from us, and uploading in his stead a perfect, authentic, original version of “God” we cheffed up. A “God” who doesn’t exist.

But don’t you see? We’ve lost what it means to be human.

Our time and attention have been stolen by things that don’t love us, by manipulative algorithms that train us—whether we realize it or not—in the religion that starts and ends with ME.

But there is another who demands our attention.

There is another who claimed to be the True Human.

His name is Jesus Christ.

Our generation feels immense pressure to tame Jesus, to squeeze him inside the plastic box of our digitized imaginations. Because our algorithms only push forward what people want to hear, we quickly discard the parts of Jesus we don’t like. Jesus the hater? Jesus the homophobe? Swipe left. Jesus the health and wealth guru? Jesus the happiness genie? Swipe right. Maybe if we make him more appealing our Jesus can survive this world’s beatings.

But Jesus doesn’t need our help surviving the world’s criticism. He did just fine surviving death without us.

Do you want to be you? Then we should want God to be God. Jesus will not be a human of our making. He would only have us be humans of His making.

Let me say this: if you’re a Christian in the western world, you probably don’t know the Jesus of the Bible. You’ve probably missed Him for some algorithmic, cheapened, plastic version. And so you’ve probably missed yourself (and others) for some algorithmic, cheapened, plastic version.

This Substack is my confession of all the ways I’ve missed Jesus, too.

It’s my attempt to be real with you.

I want to show you the unabridged, raw, unedited version of Jesus we see in the Bible. In doing so, I want to show you the raw version of myself, because even after seven years of theological school, the best way I can tell you about the Love and Lord of my life is not simply to tell you how I know Him but how He has known me.

Then I want to show you that He is real. And that He knows and loves you as much as He knows and loves me.

This Substack is a series of emergency letters to the Christians of my generation, a plea for us to beware the lies perpetuated by our algorithms, a guide for us to be human in an increasingly robotic world, and a call to take joy in the crazy, costly, worthy, misunderstood fullness of the True Human, Jesus Christ.

It’s a prayer for awakening.

Thanks for reading. I’d love to hear your thoughts on anything above: feel free to leave a comment or like on this page.

Let’s be human this week. Love y’all.

May Christ awaken us,

J.T.

“Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.”

Revelation 13:11