A common experience as an elder millennial who grew up surrounded by fundamentalist Christian culture is watching your friends and family and people you grew up with or worked with slowly drift from orthodox views of sexuality toward progressive, more “inclusive” views. In a word, “deconstructing”; sometimes they stop at issues of sexuality and politics, sometimes they go all the way and abandon the faith altogether. But the trajectory roughly looks the same: moving from what they viewed as a strict, narrow-minded faith of their parents to a “liberating,” more expansive and loving faith (or non-faith) of themselves and the larger world. It always breaks my heart a little to see an old friend who has abandoned the Bible’s teaching on sexuality, posting on social media during Pride Month. But I think I understand the logic for some of them, as I’ve heard them speak and change over the past decade. And I share some of their concerns. You see, growing up in fundamentalist or strict evangelical cultures of the 80s and 90s, we were taught a very severe morality. We were raised on legalism. Purity culture (which was not entirely bad, in my opinion, but was excessive and often lacked grace), the Satanic Panic (I remember this), the demonization of “secular music,” the SBC Disney Boycott, and the impeachment of Bill Clinton (which I think was appropriate!) because of his sexual behavior in office all taught us that personal morality mattered, a lot. The World was a frightening place and we had to keep ourselves pure from immorality by holding to a higher standard. With the nomination of Donald Trump in July 2016, something radical started to shift for people I knew. Maybe this isn’t a statistically significant number of people. But there is a group of people I’ve witnessed who seem to have questioned, abandoned, or altered their faith because of the apparent hypocrisy of supporting Donald Trump for the highest office of the land.

This isn’t an article about all the ways Donald Trump is unfit for office or immoral. I’m not interested in making that case. Do your own research. All I’m observing is that for many people I know, something cracked over time as Trump cemented himself as leader not only of our country but also the political and cultural leader of choice for evangelicals. And it’s a simple story, really. When you’ve been told your whole life that character matters and all of a sudden your trusted leaders are promoting someone who lacks character, you lose trust in your leaders. And then you start to wonder if you have been hoodwinked. You start to question everything. You start to wonder if maybe what’s really important for them is actually power and not the love of Christ. Which is a fine question to ask, but who gets to define “love”?

Once you start questioning everything, then the World’s definition of “love” sounds awfully appealing: love is a deep desire in my innermost self which only I can judge unless I am causing some clear, non-consensual harm. The problem with this definition is that “harm” gets immediately defined as “measurable harm,” so anything immeasurable, like spiritual harm, is discounted right out of the gate. We live in a mechanical world where the only thing that counts is if you can measure it. So love is complete acceptance of everyone’s actions so long as science says it doesn’t hurt anyone. And the world becomes flattened down to a materialist, scientific world. Even then, what counts as material evidence of “harm” often gets filtered and judged according to our deepest emotions. But here’s the thing, that sounds comforting when the alternative seems to be an evangelicalism whose understanding of “love” allows them to support a leader who ruthlessly rounds up immigrants, who brazenly lies, and who mocks handicap people. The list could go on.

Hear me: I’m not saying this is a good reason to abandon a biblical view of sexuality. Nor am I saying that this is a good reason to vote Democrat. I have made my stance clear on this and I haven’t changed. I am saying that this logic is compelling to many people. They look at how love is practiced by Christians and they want to make sense of it. So they look for an alternative that appears to be more expansive, kinder, and more compassionate. They desire something that fits the Christian love they were raised with, and that looks more like progressive Christianity or even agnosticism than traditional Christianity.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. I’m not advocating for a squishy “Thirdwayism” that is soft on biblical morality for the sake of appeasing the World. But I am going to argue that our witness matters. Our love matters. Love has direct implications on our politics and our lives. And when our witness does not display God’s love for our neighbors, we should not be surprised when people wonder about the truths of Scripture. The answer is not to abandon Scriptural teachings on sexuality or other core doctrines, nor should it be that we abandon important political and cultural issues like abortion or immigration. But there are ways of advocating for these issues that are compassionate and persuasive and firm, and there are ways that are destructive and focused on power and domination.

In Josef Pieper’s account of love, the definition is, “How wonderful that you exist! How good that you are!” Here we affirm the existence of each person, made in the image of God, without affirming their lifestyle. In fact, we desire that they repent of their sin! That is true love. It requires that we say that some forms of desire—what the World calls “love”—are sinful. The presence of desire, even strong desire which we do not call up but comes from within us does not make it moral or licit. God’s will, manifested in his Word and creational design, makes something moral. So while we affirm the being of every person, we also, in love, invite every person to the joy of redemption in Jesus Christ which involves turning from their sins. Understood this way, Christian love is expansive, kind, and compassionate, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Notice that in this verse in Peter that the desire is for repentance.

That should be our desire, not just for those outside the visible church, but for those inside the visible church—especially for those inside. Because some who walk as Christians lack love, some revel in the cruelty toward others (as modeled by the current administration). And in defence of this cruelty, they accuse men who show compassion of being “feminine.” Again, when such language is thrown about by professing Christians, is it any wonder that some evangelicals feel an attraction toward a belief system that will embrace them and support them for being compassionate?

So what are we do to? How are we to minister to those who abandon an orthodox view of biblical sexual ethics or Christianity in general? I think we begin not by compromising our faith, but by making a better case for biblical fidelity than many of us heard in the 80s and 90s. And that means not rabidly joining the culture wars, but focusing on those in spiritual need. I also think that regardless of how you vote for prudential reasons, it is important to judge the language and actions of the current administration rightly, opposing what is unjust and unloving and praising what is praiseworthy. In our hyper-partisan world, that will still be seen as supporting what is evil, but I think it is the best we can do. Probably the best thing you can do to help those who are considering leaving the faith or abandoning orthodox views on sexuality is living the truth out in simple, humble, kind, open lives, without condoning or approving the cruelty and evil of this World. It is in embodied relationships where people know you and can see you and love you that they will be witnesses to the love of Christ in your life and the goodness of God’s will. Ultimately, it is up to the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives to convict and bring them back to Christ. But we should be eager to live lives that invite them to seek Christ by walking in a manner worthy of the gospel.

On a totally different note!

Join me next Friday online at the Trinity Forum for a discussion of my book, To Live Well! For more information, see their website!

I recently took a van full of teenage boys on an 11-hour drive to a church camp in Colorado. On the way home I passed an old, broken down sign on the side of the road that read “ADULT” in large red letters. And tucked into a turnout behind some trees was a very sad, dilapidated building with a few cars in front of it. I tried to imagine what kind of person, in the age of ubiquitous and virtually free pornography, still visits a roadside pornography store. I couldn’t. And then I thought about those large red letters and the word ADULT. I had spent a week with young men on the cusp of entering adulthood, discussing with them a theology of sanctification and sharing with them practical advice on growing in maturity. And here was a sign that took the good thing they were working toward (becoming an adult) and used it to represent the very opposite of adulthood: being controlled by your passions, lusts, and sins. And it seems to me that there is something very perverse about calling pornography “adult content.” It implies that adults are people who give in to their passions and indulge in their sins, which is true on some level because of our sin nature, but should not positively define adulthood. And it also perverse because we need adults to be mature, safe, self-controlled, responsible and godly. The word “Adult” shouldn’t have connotations with pornography. It should call to mind those higher qualities. Yes, I understand that we use the category of “Adult” to note that those under 18 shouldn’t have access to the material. But I’m merely pointing out the natural consequence of this use of language. The result is that this essential word in the English language becomes adulterated by a perverse meaning, a meaning that represents the very opposite of its intended meaning. And I do wonder if that has consequences on the way we view adults and adulthood in our culture.

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To begin the process of healing and restoration, whatever that may look like for you, you must first come to terms with the struggle. And to some extent, that means being public about your struggle. The first time I truly tried to get help for my OCD, I made an appointment with my pastor to talk about my thoughts. A few days before the appointment, I canceled. I had to hit rock bottom before I sought help. And even then it took 8 or so more years before I got the help I needed. There remained a great deal of shame leading up to the phone call when I canceled that appointment. Shame that I couldn’t deal with my problems on my own. Shame that I needed help. Shame that I wasn’t “alright.” Shame that I was out of control of my life. That shame didn’t go away, even when I sought help from a counselor. Because then there was the shame of getting “professional help.” Was I broken? Was there something wrong with me? And what about medication? Were my body and mind not right? Didn’t I have it in me to fix my problems without the help of medication? And on top of all this was the harm I was causing, the people I was letting down by ruminating, the family members, friends, professors, and students. Shame upon shame upon shame.

There is no end to shame, if we allow it to build. It just echoes through our lives. And even after there has been some healing and restoration, there can be a sense of shame at having caused harm in the past, the weight of harm you can’t ever fully undo, which you can only repent of. And all this shame holds you back from the very thing you need, which is to heal. The more shame you feel, the more likely you are to fall into despair that you will never get better, and the less likely you are to advocate for yourself. So how do we move beyond shame over mental afflictions?

At its core, shame is the belief that we are not good enough, that we are not okay, that we are not affirmed. And when you are struggling with a mental affliction, those are the voices you are likely to hear from your mind, whispers that you are flawed, broken, hopeless, a failure, and so on. You may be hearing those whispers because of the affliction itself, for example depression, or you may think those thoughts as a consequence of your affliction (“because I’m so anxious, I can’t do anything right, which makes me a failure”). But either way, these thoughts are common to those who struggle and they prevent you from doing the thing you need to do to move forward, which is advocate for yourself. The less you believe you are loved, worthy, and cared for by God, the less you will believe that you deserve proper treatment and healing.

Which means that foundationally, you must ground yourself in the reality that God desires you to take care of yourself. It is honorable and good for you to pursue your mental health, just as it is good for you to pursue your physical health (and most often the two are intertwined!).

Shame tries to convince us that at our core we are condemned. But the reality is that at our core we are redeemed and beloved by God because of Christ’s finished work on the cross! Now, sometimes shame travels in place of guilt. Guilt tells us when we have done something wrong. And it is valuable for us to acknowledge when we have done something wrong, even when it is related to our mental affliction. For example, just because you are anxious, doesn’t give you permission to be unloving or abusive to other people. You are still responsible for your actions. When our mental afflictions incline us to sin against our neighbor, we may feel shame as a result, thinking, “See, this is who I am, I am hopelessly broken. I can’t do things right.” At that moment, we need to correct our thinking with the gospel, reminding ourselves that we are a new creation, set free from the bondage to sin by Christ. We don’t need to feel that sense of shame, although it is appropriate to feel guilt and repent for our sins!

That said, most of the shame I’ve witnessed in others who struggle with mental affliction and have experienced myself does not center around actual issues of sin. It has centered around fears of being fundamentally broken as a person or being a drain on family or friends. So let me address those points.

First, you are and you are not broken. Because of the Fall, we are all broken in one way or another. All of us suffer in this life. All of us face struggles and setbacks and difficulties. You are not alone in that. You should not feel ashamed or unique or different. And yet, before God, you are not broken. You are redeemed.

Also, behind the fear that you are broken, I think, is the fear that you must be “fixed” in order to be accepted. God accepts you and loves you. He desires you to be well. But he loves you right now.

Second, to be a human is to depend on other people. There is no escaping this fact. You are born dependent. You will die dependent. This is not a failure on your part. This is not a flaw. This is a glorious design by God! Do not feel ashamed for depending on your family and friends while you walk through mental affliction. Let them sacrifice for you. And as you can, sacrifice and serve them in turn. This is just how life is done. When you feel creeping shame for their sacrifices for you, say a prayer of thanksgiving to God for them instead of entertaining those thoughts. Practically this means we need to open up to people about our suffering. We need to reach out and rely on others, professionals and clergy and friends, to support us. We need to take that initiative, to have the courage to open up.

In the end, if we allow it, shame will hold us back from pursuing the thing God desires for us. As we assume agency over our lives, we glorify him. Shame surrenders agency by folding into despair. When we have the courage to struggle with our afflictions, we give hope to others, the shame decreases, and we move toward healing. But all of that is dependent upon recognizing that God loves us because of the righteousness of his Son.

I have what I would call the Charlie Brown Problem. Very often, and I mean very often, when I’m supposed to feel some way for some special occasion, I feel the opposite.

If I visit an amusement park, I struggle to be present and enjoy myself. If it’s a birthday party or event in my honor, I feel anxious. And if I’m on a family vacation, I regularly have a hard time letting go, relaxing and just enjoying myself. I’m not a good vacation-taker. Is this pessimism? Negativity? A bad attitude? A problem with resting? Or is it the natural result of being a father who is one of the two main adults in charge of making sure everyone is safe, happy, fed, and not fighting during a vacation? Who knows?

But here’s what I do know: my duty on a family vacation is not primarily to have a good time or to relax or to have grand adventures. My duty is to be present with my family as best I can, to expose my children to God’s creation and the wider world, and to fellowship with others. If I can get some measure of joy or happiness out of that experience in the short term, all the better! But I know that when everything is unpacked and settled down, I will have the satisfaction of having fulfilled my duty as a father regardless of how I felt. And this is particularly important for me because sometimes my mental health throws an extra wrench in me enjoying time with my family. In these moments, it feels like I’m just going through the motions, just doing what I’m supposed to. And I guess what I want to say is, there’s something to be said for going through the motions. Because what you’ll find in retrospect is that the memories you create are the rest you were looking for.

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I recently heard from someone who is reading To Live Well who expressed a concern that I don’t think I adequately addressed in the book: What if your problem is not so much that you struggle to pursue virtue, but that you think about being a virtuous person all the time? You are striving to be a virtuous person all the time. So much so that it overwhelms you. You grow anxious, self-critical, doubtful of your own intentions and actions, never content, never at peace, never able to say, “it is enough” and then rest and enjoy the good gifts God has given you. Tim Keller would describe you as the “Older Brother” type in the story of the Prodigal Son. This is an exhausting and impossible way to live, because it says, “You cannot feel safe, loved, or at peace until you achieve this impossible standard which only Christ could achieve on your behalf.” And the interesting thing is, if you find yourself in this position, with these fears, some of them are true! You aren’t living as virtuously as you could be! But it’s not the way you think. The very virtues you need to cultivate are the ones that will help free you from bondage, from the urge to keep striving for moral perfection on your own efforts, which you can never achieve. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, you need to cultivate the faith to trust in Christ’s finished work on the cross for your righteousness, the courage to delight in the good gifts God has given you to enjoy, and the hope that he is sanctifying you.

Faith in Christ’s finished work on the cross is difficult for many of us to comprehend viscerally. This is one good reason I think Christ instituted the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, because we need a visceral experience of communing with him to make us aware of that reality. But it also helps when we realize that we are in union with Christ, that his righteousness is counted as our righteousness. That when God looks at us, he doesn’t see our sad attempts at virtues, but his Son’s glorious, perfect life imputed to us. And he loves us. Which doesn’t mean that we aren’t called to love and good works. We are. In fact, Ephesians 2:10 teaches that “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” I love this verse because it clearly lays out the right order of things. We are God’s good work, not our own. We were created in Christ Jesus, not in ourselves. And we were created in Christ not for sin, but for good works! And who prepared those works? Who planned them out? Not us, but God! So what’s our role in this? Just walking. All we have to do is walk in the footsteps God has laid out for us. Not in fear, because there is no fear of condemnation here. God already loves us! We just have to walk. So we walk with our heads held high, as beloved sons and daughters of God.

And this takes courage. Courage is important because if you truly believe that you have been redeemed by God and are righteous before his eyes, then you are free to delight in the good gifts he has given you! As the Westminster Shorter Catechism says, the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever! And how do we practically enjoy God? We enjoy God by delighting in his creation. By resting on the Sabbath from our labor and trusting that he will provide. By reading great poetry without guilt for being unproductive. By painting. By playing games with your family. By walking in creation and admiring what he has made. By giving thanks for your life. By enjoying the beauty, goodness, and truth he has made and being grateful. By practicing leisure. If you allow a drive to be perfect to overwhelm you, you will never rest from your labors and never enjoy God. You will come to see God as a taskmaster, not a generous Father. It requires courage to delight in God. Because it feels risky to rest. What if something goes wrong? What if I miss something? What if I should be getting work done? What if I should be helping people right now? What if I’m being selfish? Courage involves risk for the sake of the good. And here the good is delighting in God. What a wonderful good it is! As with all virtues, this takes practice. But over time, you can cultivate a habit of resting and delighting in God and letting your anxious thoughts go. They can be there, but let your attention settle on the present moment: a bird, a poem, a TV show, a human face.

Finally, hope is important for overcoming anxious, overwhelming thoughts about whether you are good enough. Ultimately, God is the one sanctifying you. As Paul writes in Philippians 1:6, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” He began the good work in you. He will bring it to completion. Not you. And again, that doesn’t mean you have no obligation to “walk” in the good works God has prepared for you beforehand. You do. Act virtuously! However, know that in the end, all those good works are God’s good works that he is orchestrating for his glory and your good! You can have perfect hope in your ultimate sanctification. He will bring that about. Rest in that truth. Your duty is to be honest with yourself. Where there is sin in your life, repent and turn from it. God will be faithful to forgive you. But there is no need to agonize over your righteousness. He will sanctify you. As Paul tells us in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Our end is written. And it is glorious. We can hope in that.

The goal of the virtuous life is not to think about living virtuously all the time, but to act virtuously and be present to people and wonders God has given us. Some deliberation about what is virtuous is necessary, from time to time, but the ideal is to form habits of virtue that allow you to contemplate less and be more. How do we do this? We walk in grace. We accept that we are already righteous before God because of Christ, we act courageously by resting and delighting in God, and we hope in our sanctification.

If you are interested in reading more about the virtues, please consider buying, sharing, and leaving an honest review for my new book, To Live Well: Practical Wisdom for Moving Through Chaotic Times!

Standard conceptions of totalitarianism define it as control by an absolute State. That’s a very basic definition. And it’s a fine definition. But I want to consider moving beyond State totalitarianism to something broader. I know that’s controversial and probably unacceptable, but just let me run with this for a few minutes. This essay is an test, an attempt, a trying-out of an idea. And that idea is this: in the contemporary world, the threat of a totalitarian system is less from an absolute State like Communism or Fascism (as it was in the Twentieth Century) than from the union of the State and Industry, particularly Big Tech, into one omnicompetent system. In other words, it’s not that the State controls all your data and tells you where you can work and what to think. It’s that that State and tech companies control all your data and nudge you to work in certain places and pressure you to think certain things. It’s less 1984 and more Brave New World. Together, they create what I want to call the Worldly Powers. And what makes these powers particularly totalitarian is that they work to atomize us by wearing down thick mediating associations and institutions, which as Robert Nisbet and others have noted is a defining feature of totalitarian regimes. So what I am suggesting is that with the accelerating growth of Big Tech through things like AI, we are facing a looming threat of a kind of totalitarianism. One professor of politics, Sheldon Wolin, described this as “inverted totalitarianism.” I think there are many potential dangers here. I’d love you to read and help me with this argument.

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One of my favorite cultural analysts, , published an article at yesterday titled “The Commodification of Christianity” which posits that the growing interest we’re seeing among Gen Z in Christianity reflects a thin, digitized, plastic, frictionless and faceless vision of faith: “The problem with religious apps is the same problem we have with Instagram communities or with online porn, we encounter the virtual version of everything first, before the real thing. And so that becomes our standard. Supplements become substitutes.”

I share Freya’s concern here. The Church, especially evangelicals (but Catholics are guilty here, too) has a history of adopting technology and then in retrospect discovering whether it is helpful or appropriate after it is too late and damage has been done. The excitement of progress draws us to develop things like gamified prayer apps in place of cultivating habits of prayer without a dopamine-driven point system. I see that and recognize the problem. I’m just not convinced that commercialized, digitized Christianity is that widespread and significant among younger generations. I do, however, see young people drawn to the faith for a sense of belonging. And sometimes that belonging isn’t a belonging to Christ and his Church, but to a kind of cultural Christianity, one that is mixed up with a political agenda. That concerns me, but even here I have hope that when the gospel is properly preached in churches, those who attend for the wrong reasons can be won over to the beauty of the gospel and a true belonging to something deeper, truer, and more complex than partisan politics.

Everybody desires to belong. But our desire to belong in the contemporary world is especially acute because our natural spaces for belonging have broken down so dramatically. Families are fractured. Friendships are fluid. Young people aren’t dating at the same rates. Where do you belong in a deep, meaningful sense? A group that gives you shared purpose, meaning, value, and direction, that encourages you in virtue and supports you in difficult times? That reminds you of your place in the cosmos? Healthy associations (institutions) can do this by embodying God’s truths to us in the world. This is true of families, marriages, churches, schools, and so on (for more on this, see my next book which I should be writing right now: Shoring Up The Ruins [the title will almost certainly change]).

However, just because we have this deep desire, doesn’t mean we pursue it in meaningful ways. In fact, if society gives us primarily superficial options to fulfill this desire, we start to look for superficial ways to fulfill it. For example, if young people only see dysfunctional marriages with self-absorbed people, and community modeled at their jobs in highly contrived ways, and the only churches they visit treat them as viewers or consumers of a worship or entertainment production, then they will look for superficial ways to belong. They will come to expect that commitment is unnecessary, that “joining” Christianity is more about a lifestyle option than about recognizing the reality that Christ is the Son of God and they desperately need him to redeem their lives.

In that way, we shouldn’t be surprised when some young people turn to Christianity less for the radical transformation of the gospel and more for the identity with cultural Christianity and its political leanings that it brings. Because they don’t see themselves committing to something greater, something life-changing, something that makes demands on them. They see themselves making a lifestyle choice. They are choosing to add Christianity to their profile. And that doesn’t demand commitment. It can be dropped at any time.

This all sounds like I’m disparaging these young people who are coming into the church. And I want to clarify that point. For whatever reason they are entering a church to hear the gospel preached, I say, “Praise God!” I just pray that they are hearing the gospel preached and the whole counsel of Scripture.

Because the reality is that we all come to Christ with mixed motives. No one comes with a pure heart. None. If someone comes to your church because of a desire to be identified as a certain kind of cultural Christian, great! Yes, in a sense they are treating Christianity as a consumer identity, but also, great! You have an opportunity to share the gospel with them and disciple them. Praise God for that!

Here’s the thing: some young people will come to identify with cultural Christianity, but some will come because they desire to belong to who they were created to belong to, God. And in the end, all of them need to know that their true desire is to belong to God. Whether they mask it under cultural Christianity or a desire for a spouse or a desire for friendship or whatever, our true desire is to belong to God. And that happens (in part) when we commit to his Body on earth, the Church, when we meet face-to-face, embodied, at the table, in communion, in prayer, greeting each other, singing together, rejoicing together, crying together, repenting together, forgiving each other, and so on.

What’s important is that the desire of those who are concerned about politics don’t have to surrender their concerns when they commit to the church. And the person who desires a spouse or a friend doesn’t have to give that up when they commit. But when you belong to God and have your loves properly ordered, those other desires become relativized. You no longer find your sense of identity or belonging in politics. Justice matters. But it doesn’t define your place in the cosmos. It is right and good for you to look for a spouse or friend, but you belong to Christ and his Church, so you should never be alone.1

So, back to Freya’s point. Is the growth in young people we are seeing in the church due in part to a commercialization of Christianity? To some extent, sure. To a larger extent if you consider that some young (and older) people consume Christianity as a lifestyle option to add to their profiles or identities. But I choose to take this as a challenge for the Church. How are we going to invite people in our pews to the beauty of committing to the whole truth of the gospel and the wonder of belonging to Christ? I think we begin by showing that it is beautiful. And by cultivating embodied, committed communities that model what it means to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel.

This article really doesn’t have much to do with the virtues, except perhaps faith, but still, please consider buying and sharing my new book, To Live Well: Practical Wisdom for Moving Through Chaotic Times, especially with someone young. And if you have bought it, consider leaving an honest review on Amazon if you bought it there or Goodreads if you bought it elsewhere!

One of the pieces of advice I try to give my classes early each semester is that I can’t facilitate their growth in learning unless they choose to have a posture of humility. This might sound a bit arrogant of me, a bit “sage on the stage” as opposed to the “fellow traveler” model of teaching, but after nearly 20 years of teaching, it’s a conclusion I can’t avoid. Humility is a necessary sub-virtue to all true forms of learning. Aquinas puts humility under the virtue of temperance and that seems right to me since you are rightly moderating your perception of yourself, but as with all the virtues, there is a mixture of other virtues: justice and love especially. It is an injustice to God, your neighbor, and yourself to perceive yourself wrongly because it is not giving those individuals their due regard. But it is also unloving because when you love someone’s existence, you naturally respect them and show them honor. So I see humility as touching temperance, justice, and love, but mostly temperance.

When a student enters my class convinced that they have already mastered the content, they are condemning themselves to learn nothing. When a student enters convinced that they lack knowledge, they open themselves up to the possibility of wisdom. And this necessarily means being humble before teachers, professors, elders, pastors, the wisdom of the past, and the subject. This is true for all of us, not just students. For all of us, the path to knowledge comes through humility.

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Recently I have been building the case that inhibition marks contemporary culture, particularly the sense that we lack agency in our lives. A few weeks ago I argued that because we are taught that we are radically autonomous, we get overwhelmed with our freedoms and freeze up, coming to despise the very freedom that we’ve been promised by the World. In this process of despising our freedoms, we come to deny our God-given agency. Instead of just rejecting the promise that we are radically free from God, family, the church, and creation, we respond by coming to believe that we are also unable to act in our lives. We feel we are helpless to make our own choices, advocate for ourselves, or otherwise act. But part of becoming healthy, God-honoring adults is learning to accept the truth that God has given you agency. You have the ability to make choices: both prudential and ethical. In fact, you have a duty to make and act on your choices. This is part of what it means to be human. You have the obligation to make judgements and act. Thankfully, as Christians we have the help of the Holy Spirit to guide us and strengthen us, but we still must ask for wisdom and make judgements and follow through with them. And that duty can feel crushing to some people. How do I know if I’m in God’s will? What if I make the wrong choice? What if I’m not really worthy or qualified to make this choice or act in this way? This is the sin of pusillanimity, a fear of being unworthy of the giftings and greatness that God has called you to. And he has called you to act in your life! So how do we do this? How do we make choices and act with resoluteness when we are afraid we are inadequate to the task, either because we feel we can’t make good choices or we don’t have the agency to follow through with those choices?

Choices

Let’s first consider the fear that you are not capable of making difficult decisions, whether those are difficult moral decisions or life decisions. To begin with, James tells us that God offers wisdom generously to all who ask (James 1:5). But verse 6 reminds us to pray without doubt! We have no reason to doubt that God will give us wisdom. This doesn’t mean that when we make a decision after praying for wisdom it will necessarily be the right one; it’s still possible to deny the wisdom God gives us with our own pride, but he will give us wisdom. Then it’s important to go through the process of prudent discernment, which I discuss in To Live Well: surveying reality rightly, identifying the good, deliberating moderately, making a judgement, and acting resolutely.

I don’t have the space to go through each of these steps here, but what I can say is that going through this process allows you to accurately assess the situation according to reality, focus on what would glorify God, bring in wise counselors, and make the best judgement you can with the information you have at the time. Your duty is to be faithful to make the best decision you can with what you have for God’s glory and your neighbor’s good. That’s it. Make that decision and move on. You can always make the best decision you can, because by definition, that’s the best decision you can make. That what God asks of you. But he does ask that of you—that you use the wisdom and reason and wise counsel and the Word that he has given you to make good choices. And then to act on them.

And when you make a mistake (not if, but when), you must face your mistake, repent (if that is appropriate), learn from your mistake, and make a new wise decision. That’s what human life is comprised of: a series of choices (the best you can make) some of which are mistakes, and some of which are wise, all done under the grace and for the glory of God.

The point here is that you probably have all the tools you need to make wise choices in your life. God has gifted you with the Holy Spirit, with reason, with resources, and if you look around, there are probably wise counselors for you to rely on. The goal is not to have those counselors make decisions for you, but to get their advice. You still have to make the decision. The good news is, you can!

In addition to praying for wisdom, we should pray for courage to make wise choices. Because once you make a choice, you have to walk it out. You have to live it. Many of us get stuck in our heads. We spend all our time deliberating or we make a decision and then never act. But a truly prudent person does something about their decision. They go out into the world and follow through with their choice, only veering from their path if new, significant information comes to light. And that takes courage.

Actions

As I have argued before, the contemporary world tries to convince us that we don’t have agency, that we are controlled by massive forces: our biology, the State, Big Tech, the Economy, the Environment, and so on. We’re just along for the ride. Voting doesn’t do anything. Politicians are all the same: corrupt and self-serving. The same can be said for corporations. We’re all victims of our mental and physical conditions, which, as we research more, we discover are more and more disruptive of our lives. There’s no predicting the market or careers because the Economy is out of control and/or is governed by an oligarchy of billionaires. At best, all we can do is entertain ourselves and fight for scraps. This mindset is directly related to the socio-political nihilism described by James Davison Hunter in his book, Democracy and Solidarity.

But it’s not reality. In reality we still have agency, more agency than we think. Yes, there are powerful forces which limit what we can do in the contemporary world, but we can still act, can still choose to live, to fight for what is good for us, to advocate for justice and human flourishing.

Human life has been toil since the Fall. This is nothing new. You can advocate for yourself medically more than you think, whether it’s physically or mentally or both. You can advocate for yourself or for justice at work more than you think. You can pursue beauty and good work, even when the world feels plastic and saccharine and soulless. You have agency. The only question is, will you take a step to the block and exercise that agency, or will you find excuses to abdicate your humanity?

As children, some of us climbed the ladder to the slide only to hesitate at the top for fear of plunging down. Over time, hopefully, we learned that the good of the joy of sliding was worth the risk of hurting ourselves. And so we took the plunge, we acted with courage.

Many of us still hesitate at the top, afraid that what awaits us at the bottom is only pain and suffering. And of course, that is possible. Just as when going down a slide it’s possible to fly off and hurt yourself, so it’s possible that if you take a plunge in your life and become an active agent based on a wise choice, you may end up hurt. But oh, the joy you will miss if you never plunge!

Again, the good news is that God has given you what you need to act! You have the Holy Spirit, his Word, the church, and reason. If you have prayerfully made a wise decision, then walk out that decision in peace, knowing that God is beside you. Do so with your head held high. You may be afraid, as you were afraid when you first went down that slide, but that fear can go with courage, knowing that you are doing what you are obligated to do: the best you know.

And here’s the truly Good News: even the best you know will sometimes be wrong and God’s grace is enough for you in that moment! If you repent and turn to him in your sins, he will forgive you. You don’t have to be afraid to choose wisely and act responsibly. Your Father in heaven knows you and loves you and desires your good. He will shepherd you to sanctification. Rest in that and act.

For more on choosing wisely and acting with courage, see my new book, To Live Well: Practical Wisdom for Moving Through Chaotic Times, out now wherever fine or even mediocre books are sold!

A week ago I asked for suggestions for things to write about, and my friend suggested I address the challenge of cultivating virtues in our children. It is difficult to raise children to be virtuous, particularly in a culture that celebrates vice. Aristotle knew this and addressed the problem in his Nicomachean Ethics, right at the end: “It is difficult, however, for someone to be trained correctly for virtue from his youth if he has not been brought up under correct laws.” And so we need good government to set up strict laws to cultivate virtues in our children! Simple. Except that anyone who has witnessed public attempts at instilling even civic virtues like obeying the law, voting, and basic communal spirit can attest that the State is a very, very poor moral tutor. Yes, the State can teach us what we are free to do by granting us liberties, but it is not very good at teaching us what we were made for through propaganda. The exception, Aristotle notes, was an extreme form of violent oligarchy: Sparta. If we want to grant any kind of liberty, then we can’t rely on the State to cultivate virtue in our children. So what’s the alternative? Aristotle’s answer is that “it seems fitting for each individual to promote the virtue of his children.” Thanks, Aristotle. But how do we do this work of “promotion”? If children need a holistic understanding of the virtuous life that the State should but fundamentally cannot provide without restricting liberty, how can parents provide that? I believe parents can cultivate virtues in their children by inviting them into a virtuous life, by modeling virtues, by using the language of the virtues, and by surrounding their children with a community of virtuous people.

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I recently came across this article from an Association of Certified Biblical Counselors counselor on how to treat OCD “biblically,” which begins by rejecting the psychological label altogether. This isn’t the first time I have objected to some biblical counseling views of OCD. There are many objectionable things in th…

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Learning to live with AI in higher education has not been easy. While some advocates are praising the pedagogical possibilities, many professors are concerned about rampant misuse of AI. Students are using AI to write entire papers for them, to summarize readings, to do their math questions, to create presentations, …

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In 1948, Richard Weaver published Ideas Have Consequences, a classic of conservative thought. And he was right. Ideas do have consequences. For example, as our culture has increasingly come to accept the belief that humans are sovereign over their lives, it has fed directly into abortion and assisted suicide amongst other evils. The problem with this phrase is that it seems to have more explanatory power than it really does. Ideas have consequences, yes. But so do material conditions. So does our environment. Also, we can’t often disentangle the web of ideas that produced an outcome. It’s not just one idea, but several. “Ideas have consequences” is a powerful phrase to use when there is a tidy direct line to draw from, say, radical individualism to assisted suicide, but even then we must be cautious. What role does the medical industry and cost-saving measures play? What role does our disrespect for the elderly play? It’s complicated! What I want to argue today is that we should be very cautious when arguing that ideas have consequences. Not that we shouldn’t make that case, but that we shouldn’t flippantly use that phrase as a causal argument. Sometimes things seem to have a direct causal relationship based on an ideology, but that isn’t evidence that there is a causal relationship. The reality is, ideas have consequences, except when they don’t—which is all the time! And evangelicals across the theological and political spectrum use this phrase (despite its conservative origins) as a hammer to hit at their opponents. Progressives claim that abuse is consequence of the ideas of complementarianism. More conservative types claim that sin is the consequence of the ideas of more centrists types. When the reality is much more complicated and human. We’d all do well to use this phrase sparingly.

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Increasingly I am convinced that inhibition is a defining characteristic of contemporary culture. As a nation, we’re dating at lower rates, having less sex, young people are delaying getting their driver’s license, we’re in a loneliness epidemic, people are turning to AI companions for love and attention, we feel compelle…

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A few days ago, I had the pleasure of joining the MereFidelity podcast (the episode isn’t out yet), the podcast hosted by . And asked me an excellent question which I didn’t answer adequately, and I want to take the time to elaborate on here. He asked me about the Love chapter in To Live Well, specifically the section on “Friendship,” and about how we can practically develop and nurture deep friendships. I want to take that a step further and ask the question, what does love mean in a friendship? How ought we love our friends in practice if we intend to develop deep friendships that will carry us through life?

My theory is that many contemporary people have never been taught these practices of love in friendship, or they have allowed these practices to atrophy so that their friendships have atrophied as well. Certainly the statistics on friends suggest that something has changed. And my fear is that with the rise of AI companion bots, some percentage of Americans will continue to neglect these practices by turning to a simulacrum of a companion who sycophantically never requires love.

So what does love in friendships entail? How do we love our friends well? What does that look like in the day-to-day trenches of modern life? And how does our love of friends fit with our love of God?

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Last year, wrote a moving essay entitled “Why We Doubt Everything” for her Substack, (which I highly recommend). In it the article, she argues that it’s not so much that the younger generation has lost faith, but that they never were taught to have faith to begin with. She calls Gen Z “a chronically doubtful generation,” d…

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Today is the day. After working on To Live Well: Practical Wisdom for Moving Through Chaotic Times for three years, it’s finally (officially) out. So I wanted to write a piece that explains what this book is all about, where it came from, who it’s for, why you should read it, and how you can help get the word out. Because I do need help. I deeply believ…

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Tomorrow is the release of my fourth book, To Live Well: Practical Wisdom for Moving Through Chaotic Times. I know I’ve talked about it a lot, but I am proud of the book. Tomorrow I’m going to publish a special post talking about the book and why I think you should read it. But for today, I want to share another excerpt cut from the book during the editing process. Each chapter contains several practical examples of how to exercise the virtues. Under the virtue of justice, I had a section on how to practice justice in relation to the “government,” which is not always easy for Americans. I hope you find it helpful and challenging.

Justice demands that we submit to the governing authorities (Rom 13:1), but also that we show them respect and honor. This is particularly difficult in liberal democracies like America where rebelling, criticizing, and condemning the government is not only seen as permissible but as responsible. There is a balance here between respecting governing authorities, recognizing their legitimate authority, and holding government leaders accountable to the people. For most of us, the challenge is not to defer to the government’s authority too much, it’s to see ourselves as superior to government leaders.

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It’s one thing to read that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). It’s another thing entirely to believe it and live it. This is especially true in a culture that degrades the body, that consumes the body, that commodifies the body, that abuses the body, that teaches men that women’s bodies are ther…

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