📖 Politics, justice, and the Church

I. 5 reflections on politics, justice, and the church in light of the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

1. The progressive left often throws out terms like “Hitler,” “fascist,” or “phobic” at anyone to the right of them. When you use those labels inaccurately and consistently, you shouldn’t be surprised when some people think violence is justified. If Hitler should have been stopped, and someone is “like Hitler,” why not stop them too?

2. We are all creatures of worship. For many who reject God, politics becomes the substitute. When politics is your savior, opponents must be destroyed at any cost to “save” the world. But politics is a terrible god. Having the right politics or ideology will not save you.

3. God’s wrath against evil is loving. Because he is holy, sin cannot survive in his presence. He is a God of justice, and we all deserve his judgment on our sin. Yet in grace, Jesus bore God’s wrath for all who repent and trust in him. I am grateful to serve a God who “examines the righteous, but hates the wicked and those who love violence” (Psalm 11:5).

4. Living life online and in isolation corrupts the soul. We all need to be around real people: those we like and those we don’t, those we agree with and those we don’t. Community reminds us that even those we differ with are human, made in God’s image, valuable to him, and are not monsters simply because we disagree.

Which means 👇

5. You should go to and belong to a church. Not only on the Sundays when you feel sad or grieved, but as a priority in your life. We need people to celebrate with, mourn with, pray with, and live on mission with. Jesus is the hope of the world, and the local church is the means of grace God has given to help us follow him together.

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II. Faith is not something you inherit.

While it is certainly helpful (and a blessing) to have parents who follow Jesus, or friends who love Jesus, or to have gone to church growing up, faith in Jesus is not something acquired by your association with others.

We are not good with God just because of our background, or because we prayed a prayer when we were younger, or because we go to church.

If your heart has not turned to God with genuine repentance, you are far from God.

If a verse feels confusing, read it in another translation. A fresh or slightly different wording may unlock more clarity for you on what the verse is saying.

I. Kevin DeYoung on how to read the Bible:

“We should always look at the Scriptures with the goal of obedience, not just information.”

II. Tim Keller on what the Gospel does to us:

“The gospel is not advice to improve your life but news that changes your life. Our task is not to edit it to fit culture but to live it so clearly that culture sees Christ.”

The Sin of Empathy by Joe Rigney

This book explores what empathy actually is, how it’s commonly misunderstood, and why, when misapplied, it can actually be harmful.

The author explains how empathy differs from compassion, using the analogy of someone drowning in a river: if you jump in and simply feel what they feel, you both get swept away. Compassion, instead, means anchoring yourself and helping them out of the water. Being present and supportive, but not necessarily affirming everything they feel.

While the title feels unnecessarily provocative and the tone can be brash at times, the author is not without care. In fact, one of the strengths of the book is how deeply he acknowledges trauma, pain, and the reality of hard experiences.

Even when calling out emotional manipulation, he does so with pastoral sensitivity, showing that being rooted in truth doesn’t mean we’re cold or indifferent. We need to grieve with people, be compassionate, and offer hope, but not at the expense of truth.

I found the book especially helpful for pastors. It gives language and clarity to some of the emotional dynamics of our current cultural moment, and it offers a necessary counterbalance to the idea that love means full affirmation.

While I didn’t agree with every word choice or tone, and at times it felt like a bit too strong, I’m glad to have read it.

7.5/10

P.S. I hope you get better…