I am sure everyone else has already seen this ad, but I saw it for the first time during the NBA Finals. “How did they live their lives,” we hear across old pictures and videos, “without posting about it?”

History, we are told, is not simply the past, but another world. This makes intuitive sense as we consider events that are 75, 100, or 500 years old. But how does a span of 20 years feel like an eon?

The ad resonates for both groups, I think—those of us old enough to remember life before smart phones, social media platforms, and email, and those who have always lived saturated in data. They, our digital natives, carry the burden, whether or not they can put it into words, that things must have been different and better before they were born. They are children of the Great Depression, nursed on ephemeral tales of plenty.

How did we live? We lived imperfectly, but it was better. My high school years were without GPS, cell phones, and “like” buttons. I had bad haircuts but I made up for them by listening to good music—New Order, John Cougar Mellencamp, and Tracy Chapman—on local radio stations. Curated? Of course, but I was exposed to things I’d never heard before. I had awkward dates not by swiping on an app, but by pushing all my anxiety aside long enough to ask a girl out. I spent as many nights as possible with friends. I couldn’t wait to drive. I was obsessed with basketball. I did some stupid things, but always with others. I cannot imagine living as a teenager under the gaze of a smart phone or worried that someone might use AI to doctor a photo of me. That so many of us think of it as normal, and acceptable, marks the extent of our fall.

Children of divorce, or those who experience trauma at a young age, often blame themselves for suffering they did not cause. Sit with an excessively online young person deprived of their phone (or an old one), and you will see the jitters begin. Students will ask to leave class after fifteen minutes, likely to check their status and notifications. Young kids are pacified with screens inside instead of playtime outside. They live in the residue of an unnamed malaise, or within an isolation felt even in the company of others. It feels terrible because it is. We all know it, and I fear the young are convinced they are to blame.

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Yes, the commercial resonates until the last line: “The best thing you can find online is a reason to go offline.” We then see the logo behind the ad—Pinterest.

I was expecting a consumer protection group, or maybe evidence that Jonathan Haidt got the budget to go big. Instead, we get a social media platform encouraging us to look online for a reason to go offline.

Telling doom scrollers to keep searching for a reason to go offline is perverse. It is akin to telling an alcoholic to search for sobriety at the bottom of their next beer. It is like telling a young male, as he feverishly dials the 1-800 number tagged at the bottom of the ubiquitous gambling ads, the next 12 step meeting happens at the casino. This is Meta telling us it cares about our teenagers even as it uses behavioral psychology to addict them.

Until you see evidence to the contrary, you should assume every action taken by a social media company—and every company or institution—is done exclusively with the bottom line in mind. In a culture capitalism has shaped, where efficiency and profit are the dominant values, this is a fair and defensible assumption. The choice to air such an ad is to make more money or to avoid losing money. Pinterest is undertaking a deliberate marketing campaign to curry favor, likely to avoid a backlash, or to paint itself as one of the “good ones” as the conflict brews.

After all, if Pinterest really wanted to give people a reason to go offline, it would close up shop. Somehow, I don’t think that is going to happen.

Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath. Psalm 58:9

My father was buried on my son’s 9th birthday. It was the symbolic end of Dad’s struggle against the Devil’s eraser of dementia. Across these three generations, few ties truly bind us, but one surely does.

I did not grow up in an overly musical household. Not a single Smith kept with an instrument, and only some can carry a tune. The car regularly played a horrific easy listening station in Indianapolis, WXTZ Radio, “Ecstasy 103,” elevator music that made you pray a cable might snap to put an end to the aural suffering.1

Still, music found a way. Church was full of rich, old hymns. Oldies radio stations were allowed at home, so I grew up more familiar with the 1950s than my own decade. And, there were some records, stowed in a living room side table. Prominent in the collection was Johnny Cash.

My Dad loved Johnny Cash. I love Johnny Cash. My son loves Johnny Cash. The Man in Black sings across our times and our places.

My father grew up in a West Virginia “hahl-ur”2 and worked his tail off to send me to private school in Indianapolis. My son grew up in small town Ohio, the son of a professor. My Dad’s boyhood was hunting in the woods. Mine was playing basketball and reading history and Stephen King. My son played golf and devoured The Lord of the Rings along the way. The same blood. All of us tall and broad shouldered. But different people.

But Johnny Cash abides.

My father resonated with his deep voice, relentless guitar, and country roots. When I think of my Dad, I think of Jackson, the incredible duet with June Carter Cash. They got “married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout.” I think the song captures my Dad’s love for my Mom about as well as possible: full, funny, touching, and real.

The Man in Black speaks to me deeply. It is a song with a conscience, a recognition that while many people have it good, many have it worse: “But just so we’re reminded of the ones who are held back, up front there ought to be a man in black.” It was a song of courage. Cash tackled poverty, criminal justice, war, peace, and patriotism, and he did it in 1971, a time of tumult. He was sure to lose as many fans as he might gain when he debuted it on his television show.3

My son heard Johnny Cash from me, for certain, but I know he fell in love with Cash when he encountered his music in different media forms. Cash’s music has been popular in video games and films. Rusty Cage was in one iteration of Call of Duty, and it is full of absurd beauty, like “Too cold to start a fire, I’m burning diesel, burning dinosaur bones.” However, its absurdity is used to point to the liberation of the afterlife.

What is life but a rusty cage from which we long to be free?

The Man Comes Around defines the end of Logan, a brilliant, moving story, probably the most human of any superhero film. Logan is about the final days of Wolverine, the once indestructible hero who is now dying. Logan, the character, sacrifices himself so that others might survive.

The song fits the tone of the end of the movie perfectly, but the lyrics speak to bigger things. “The Man” is Jesus and he comes to judge the quick and the dead. “Will you partake of the last offered cup? Or disappear into the potter’s ground, when the man comes around?” Salvation is a free gift, but turning it aside brings punishment.

This core message is translated into the song’s repeated metaphor when Cash sings “the whirlwind is in the thorn tree.”4 He borrows it from Scripture, which often refers to God’s power as a whirlwind and sin as a tangle of thorns. That Christ’s crucified brow was pierced by a crown of thorns was no accident. The image, of the whirlwind and thorns, is one of eternal justice, a promise that God will right all wrongs, that he gives grace, through the death of his Son, who triumphs over sin, to those who believe. For the rest there is damnation.

There is, we learn early in life, a persistent gap between temporal and eternal justice. While God appoints those who govern, Paul tells us, and they are called to reward the good and punish the wicked, we know they regularly fail. How we behave in that gap matters a great deal.

Despair is a temptation we must resist. Instead, we embrace hope. But as believers, especially those nurtured at the knee of St. Augustine, we know our hope lies not in a policy, a president, an election, or a court decision, but in the Heavenly City. There, God’s justice will reign, and that justice includes eternal rewards through his grace and punishments for unrepentant sin. The end of days carries a gavel and that gavel both brings a hope for the future and curbs our present.5

This hope is not the Christian gospel, but it is a necessary consequence of belief in the gospel. One of the great mysteries of today, at least for me, is that America has tens of millions of Christians who claims these beliefs, but I see a Christian politics entirely devoid of meaningful, godly, eternal hope. I have devoted myself to that mystery over the last couple of years, and will continue to ponder it, hopefully here and elsewhere.

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Much has been written and said on the President’s misappropriation of funds. As Kevin Williamson noted, in the case of Trump v. Trump, where the president settled with himself to push money into a fund he controls to dispense it to those willing to do violence on his behalf, “We are going to need a whole brigade of additional tally-men to tally the bananas in this bananas republic.”

I want to focus on a smaller point that looms large for me. We are limping toward our 250th anniversary and I will need to summon stores of patriotism to celebrate it. Our nation is larger than one administration, and our history is deeper than the 1/3 of the people still besotted with Mr. Trump. There is much for which to be thankful.

But it is these stores of patriotism that Mr. Trump manipulates to sell his schemes to followers. The size of the settlement, $1.776 billion dollars, was not a number arrived at through numerical calculation. No one sat down to estimate the number of those “injured” by the courts of justice, after they violently beat police officers and threatened to hang the Vice President, or the possible extent of their injuries, which were suffered at the hands of juries. No one said, “yep, it’s not quite $1.8 billion…$1.776 billion ought to do it.”

$1.776 billion was chosen to wrap the rotted wood of Mr. Trump’s corruption in a veneer of cheap patriotism. It is disgusting, like a star-spangled jock strap, red, white, and blue toilet paper, or, maybe, a “God Bless the U.S.A. Bible.”

No, the number was not accidental. It was chosen for two reasons. To take advantage of the reflexively positive feelings many of us have for our country and to troll anyone who wants to challenge it. Either motivation is profane.

My youngest daughter is a “thrower,” so I was at a track meet recently. Track meets are a bit more haphazard as athletic events, with 20 things going on in different places and different starting and ending times. The Star Spangled Banner sort of happens. At this meet, during a girl’s discus throw, the speakers played the national anthem. Nearly all of us instantly stood up straight, turned toward the nearest flag, and conversations stopped. We snapped to reverence.

1776 is not the flag, but a number. It is a sacred number for Americans, an arrangement of digits that pluck our deepest chords. To put it in service of an unconstitutional, impeachable action pulls bile from my belly and engages my gag reflex.

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In Mr. Trump’s universe, everything is a sales prop. 1776. The Bible. The Flag. What is next? A Purple Heart Shaped Bed to pull together “The Fallen Hero’s Suite” at Mar-a-Lago? Maybe an “I Have a Dream Sleep Mask” will hit shelves next?

The Declaration of Independence, whatever its flaws, is majestic. It marked a pivot point in human history. It asserted “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” It said government exists to “secure these rights” and “just powers” come only from the “consent of the governed.” In 1776, beginning with these audacious principles, we cut a new path into the political wilderness.

We have shed blood to live up to those principles and extend them to others. We did not fill our military cemeteries to sell a product or circumvent the people and their elected representatives to create a slush fund for grifters.

As I watch all this unfold, atop the unconstitutional wars, the crypto corruption, and the pay for pardons schemes, I shake my head and consider what we have become.

Granted, I quite like the last one. I would probably put it on the wall. It would sit alongside two of my actual student gifts. One is a picture of Eisenhower playing golf bracketed by a quote from Russell Kirk: “Ike Isn’t a Communist. He Plays Golf.” The other comes from my lips. “I think if Sam Adams was getting on a plane and a TSA agent tried to frisk him, he would beat the agent to death with a musket.”1 A student framed it and gave it to me at the end of the semester.

Student evaluations are not the best way to measure effective teaching, but I think they are a necessary component. Unless things have changed, the best historical correlates with student evaluations are grade point average and humor. Professors who give out higher grades get better reviews—shocking!—and those who make students laugh also do better.

There really is no excuse for inflated grades, though I am sympathetic to professors who have high standards but hesitate to hand out poor grades when no one else does. As for humor in the classroom, it is a mixed bag. I have had professors who could tell a good story, show a funny clip or headline, and be entertaining, but I learned nothing from them. I have had others who taught at a high level and were deadly serious.

Still, when I think of the best professors I had, the ones who cared about the material and the students, they were often hysterical. They were bright, clever, skilled at jousting with students and keeping them on their toes. Kurt Wise, Richard Cornelius, John Woodbridge, John Maltese, Chuck Bullock, Stefanie Lindquist. These were terrific teachers and terrific human beings. They love to laugh with students.

I try to do this. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I don’t. The key is to roll with what is happening and turn it toward humor. I am terrible at telling jokes, but I think I am decent at turning a situation into something funny. One brief story.

Many years ago, I was working a large class (80 or so students) through McCulloch v. Maryland. One of the key concepts in the case is Marshall’s distinction (and the Constitution’s) between implied and enumerated powers. Congress’s power to tax and spend is enumerated, or spelled out in the document, while its power to create a national bank, for Marshall, was implied, unstated but based on other powers. This is critical for understanding the scope of legislative power (remember when that still existed?) within our system.

I was just wrapping up this concept when I get a knock on the door and four young men walked in. They were carrying a balloon. “Dr. Smith, we have a singing telegram to deliver to one of your students,” one of them said. “Is it ok if we do it?”

“Of course.” This was during a Sadie Hawkins kind of event, where women were expected to be asking young men on a date. The quartet asked if a young man was present. He identified himself, though he soon regretted it.

They sang to him. Boy, did they sing. I think it was some version of “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” but I could be wrong. At the end, the guy with the balloon extends it to the young man, who is now ten shades of purple in embarrassment. “This is from,” and he names the young woman and says she would like the man to accompany her to the formal. They then file out.

The class is stone silent. Everyone is staring at the young man, who is obviously mortified. I look at him, and I simply cannot resist.

“Well, can you tell us whether this young woman’s affections were previously enumerated or were they just implied?”

“Implied,” he grimaced and put his head in his hands. The class erupts.

Back to the dog. Obsessed is a strong word. She is a fantastic dog. Here is a nifty picture of the pup.

There is much to love about Juniper. Her good humor (unless you are riding a scooter or bicycle nearby), her licks (until they become incessant), and her tricks (unless it includes eating unmentionable things) are fabulous. But my favorite trait speaks to her character. Yes, I think she has a character.

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Juniper sometimes pretends she is unable to jump onto something—the bed or a chair—and puts her front paws on the item. She then stares at you. If you give in, as you lift her, you feel her back legs push and her body contort into a “jump” even though you have two firm hands around her. To be clear, she is getting lifted to the bed. She actually contributes nothing to the process. But she still jumps.

I am not a theologian, and I am prepared for an intervention if this goes off the rails. I think Juniper’s Jump is a little like my understanding of how God works in my life. He is really doing all the heavy lifting. He is turning me into what he wants me to be. He is making my paths straight. I am truly along for the ride.

But my own sanctification demands that I jump nonetheless. I strive. I run the race. I work because that is what I am called to do. In my striving, I bring glory to God even as I lovingly rely on his hands to guide me. I don’t really affect the results and I have no idea, sometimes, about why I am doing something. I just know that I do it.

Teaching demonstrates this powerfully. I teach because I must. Like the sower and the seed, I walk and I toss my seeds. Some land on receptive soil and some land on stony ground. Others are choked out by weeds as they sprout. God prepares the soil as each student enters the classroom. My words go hither and yonder and I know, honestly where none of them land.

I teach. God does the work. I lift. Juniper jumps.

There will come a time when I will be unable to teach and Juniper will no longer jump. Just as I will lift her above her body’s struggles, God will carry me beyond the classroom and into the rest of my days. I pray God grants me some version of “Good Dog” at that moment. There can be no better compliment.

“Tense debates already have played out in Tennessee, Alabama and Louisiana as Republicans push aggressively to leverage a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened Voting Rights Act protections for minority districts. The ruling has opened the way for Republicans to redraw districts with large Black populations that have elected Democrats.”

Jeffrey Collins and David Leib, Associated Press

Republicans and Democrats across the country are maximizing their seats in the U.S. House by systematically eliminating districts likely to elect representatives from the other party. This reveals a remarkable lack of prudence. Our elites are failing us, but we are incentivizing them to do so.

Spurred by Pres. Trump’s call to redistrict mid-cycle, Republicans began to aggressively draw new boundaries in Texas to pick up a few seats in the U.S. House. Trump pressured Republicans across the country to follow suit. Some who resisted, in places like Indiana, have lost primary elections. Democrats responded in California, and had a map overturned in Virginia.

Gerrymandering, of course, goes back to the nation’s founding. It is not breaking news when parties carve up districts for their own benefit. Both parties do it. But what is happening now is of a different order of magnitude.

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Consider Tennessee as the Republican example.

Tennessee is solidly Republican when you look at state wide election returns. Since 2008, the GOP has won 61% of the presidential election vote, 60% of US Senate returns, and 65% of gubernatorial ballots. Tennessee has 9 seats in the U.S. House. One might assume 6 would be in Republican hands, 7 if the party was ruthless.

The current breakdown: 8 Republicans (89% of seats) and 1 Democrat. Republicans think this is still too many Democratic seats.

There is an ongoing effort to eliminate the district built around Memphis by cracking the African American community into three bits to reduce its political impact. Granted, in a place like Tennessee, the correlation between race and partisanship is high, so let’s be gracious and assume this is purely partisan.1

Consider California as the Democratic example.

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California is solidly Democratic. Since 2008, Democrats have won 61% of presidential election votes, 58% for Senate contests, and 59% of gubernatorial ballots. California has 52 seats in the U.S. House. If the delegation was proportional, we would expect 31 Democrats and 21 Republicans. If Democrats were ruthless, maybe 37 or 38 seats for the Democrats.

The current breakdown: 42 Democrats (81% of seats), 7 Republicans, 1 Independent, and 2 vacancies (both of which lean toward the Democrats). Democrats currently think this is still too many Republican seats.

They recently passed a proposition to allow new congressional districts to be drawn. It might garner up to 5 additional seats, skewing the delegation to more than 90% Democratic in a state that has a healthy number of Republicans.

The Democrats will argue these actions are required in the face of Republican efforts. Republicans will argue Democrats have been doing this, in places like California, for decades. Tit for tat for tit for tat…all the way down to oblivion.

Nine states have redrawn their maps recently (Alabama, California, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Utah), and at least three more (Georgia, Louisiana, and South Carolina) are likely to follow suit. There is no question these changes will result in partisan gains. Perhaps Republicans will manage to hang onto the House in 2026. Maybe they will not. Honestly, I almost don’t care. For me, the question is simpler.

Are these outcomes representative?

The U.S. House was built to be the most democratic (small ‘d’) part of our federal system. As we read in Federalist 57, the intent was to bind representatives to their constituents. Madison, in answering the charge of elitism, worried about the “ambitious sacrifice of the many to the aggrandizement of the few.” The solution was to have frequent elections, minimal qualifications for candidates, and a deep pool of voters. (The pool was not deep enough, perhaps, but far deeper than anywhere else in the world at that time.) The hope was “to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of society…”

The rub, of course, is defining the common good of society. Members of each party justify these decisions as a way to pursue their own conceptions of what is good. However, if pursuing “the common good” requires the end of representation for your political foes, you have given up on the idea of a representative republic.

I understand the complexities of drawing legislative districts, plus the tradeoffs of different models of representation, party systems, or forms of government. But under no system of republican government should 35-40% of a state’s population be frozen out of representation at the federal level.

In The Four Cardinal Virtues, Josef Pieper argues prudence is chief among the virtues, for “none but the prudent man can be just, brave, and temperate, and the good man is good in so far as he is prudent.” Defining prudence is a challenge, but Pieper suggests it is “the perfected ability to make right decisions,” the carrying through of “impulses and instincts for right acting.” To put it more carefully, prudence is the marriage of “universal principles” and the “singulars” of the context for action. It is “perfected practical reason.” Something might be “good” in the immediate context, but terrible in light of larger notions.

Our political reality is mostly a quest for the “good” in the pursuit of partisan advantage, but it is rarely concerned with larger principles. Our form of government was built to limit itself because organized political power, unchecked, becomes tyrannical in the hands of fallen, corruptible human beings. At the same time, it is built on popular sovereignty. The people grant authority to the government by their consent, which is an ongoing mechanism of accountability. Voting, and the consequences of voting, are at the core of the process.

Granted, consent does not translate always into power. One can vote and lose. Even in these specific cases, voting rights are not being directly stripped away. But when voting carries so little possibility of representation, even when those voters are strongly congregated in local, identifiable areas that are defined geographically and with common borders (like the city of Memphis or Shelby County), and they make up a sizable minority, gerrymandering teeters away from partisan gain and toward abuse of power.

California Republicans and Tennessee Democrats are on the verge of having zero or minimal representation even though they make up around 40% of their states’ electorates. Remember, those voters are already losing senate contests. To deprive them of House seats in a systematic manner, to the point of exclusion in Tennessee, is simply unAmerican. These voters will bear the brunt of the law, and suffer the federal government’s coercive powers, all without meaningful legislative representation. This is a recipe for frustration and distrust at best, and resignation or rage at worst. This rage, by the way, often manifests itself as a willingness to let the president run roughshod, especially if he is from your party and you are frozen out of Congress.

I normally think the political system should take care of itself. I am happy when the Court pulls most issues out of the constitutional realm and tosses them back into proper politics. Let the people feel the consequences of policies and vote based on those consequences. But this only works if the system is functional. When voting rights are destroyed, or rendered meaningless, or when parties use the levers of power to eliminate their opposition, the system is no longer responsive to the pain of California Republicans or Tennessee Democrats.2

Not only is the system not responsive to these voters, it is organized against them. When gerrymandered districts yield pure candidates and office-holders who only need to satisfy core voters, there is no downside to this kind of behavior. In fact, resisting, as we saw in Indiana, is the surest way to suffer.3

To a degree, this is the logical end game of polarized politics. When partisanship is a form of identity, and the opposition is cast as dangerous enemies, instead of as fellow citizens, annihilation of the opposition is not just accepted but required to hang onto power.

To put it crassly, this outcome is a toxic marriage of voters driven by partisanship as identity and candidates who will do anything to please them. The parties as institutions have little power (like choosing candidates or controlling funding) to change the situation. Neither core voters nor candidates have an incentive to change the system if it yields their most desired outcomes—pain for the other side and getting re-elected.

Reform will have to come from within the electorate or from outside the system. Better voting is probably too much to ask for or expect. A mass movement that presses for changes to gerrymandering, an increase in the size of the House, proportional representation, or multi-member districts could work. There are groups and thinkers advocating for all sorts of changes, but there will probably have to be a precipitating event to give them traction.

Regardless of the probability of reform, no one can claim this is good for the country or good for our form of government. Short-term gain to the detriment of long-term health is becoming a way of American life. This is just the latest manifestation.

The language is jarring, pulled from another time and place, like the clacking of a horse’s hooves on cobblestone streets. Peter’s words (1 Peter 2:17) are even more anachronistic to American ears, especially in the 21st century. We have never had an emperor and we live in a dishonorable age.

Peter’s admonition made some sense to his readers. They were aware of the Emperor (Nero, in this case), and the honor that was expected. Most exercised no direct political influence, and would never come close to the emperor, but they would run into his acolytes in various shapes and forms.

Peter couches his appeal in a broader context of submission to authority, both because God had “sent” these authorities and to “put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.” The first point, I think, is vital. Honor is expected as a recognition of God’s sovereignty. The second point was also critical for Peter’s audience. Following the law and honoring those in authority was one way to undercut any conception that Christianity was inherently a threat to the political order. Whatever the conflict between Christian beliefs and the regime—and there were many—was minimized by these twin expectations of submission and honor. If Christians were going to revolutionize politics, at least along biblical lines, they would do so within boundaries.

One other thing is worth noting. Peter’s words bear a striking resemblance to Paul’s in Rom. 13. Paul was writing to believers in the belly of the imperial beast, yet his message was the same. Put together, the implication I think is clear. Respect and honor were expected not because the person in charge was honorable, but because God has put them there. They carry God’s stamp, even if they do so feebly and corruptly. After all, Nero was not honorable in any normal sense.

If we broaden our scope a bit, neither was Pilate, the man most responsible for Christ’s crucifixion. He willingly followed the crowd’s demand to release a hardened criminal instead of God’s perfect and only son. Christ, even at that moment, never undermines Pilate’s authority. He honors Pilate as God’s chosen instrument when he says, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above.” (Jn. 19:11)

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To put it plainly, dishonorable leaders, by any standard definition, are still due an amount of honor.

Dear readers, this is where I struggle the most. I generally follow the law. I pray for my leaders. But this notion of honoring, even the dishonorable, cuts to my sinful heart. I am, in this way, thoroughly American.

I struggle mightily to honor my leaders across the spectrum. President Donald Trump is the biggest challenge. I can try to finesse this into something manageable, like, “I can honor the presidency, but not the president,” or “I will honor him when he deserves it,” or “how can I honor someone so obviously unfit for office?”

Those are all rationalizations. Donald Trump deserves my honor because he is the authority God has placed over me. Nothing else really needs to be said.

This honor, if we take the original meaning, is more than a mental state. It is also a physical outworking of that mental state. Honor is something to think and feel, but also a way to behave. It is a posture. It should impact the way I speak about President Trump, how I post online about him, and how I engage others regarding him.

This is where I want to throw up my hands and say, “Impossible!”

Yes, for me, perhaps. The divine must eclipse my fallenness. My sinful disposition must give way to God’s work in and through me. An example might help.

Honor does not demand agreement. Neither does it suppress the truth. It also must fall well short of idolatry. The case of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego highights the tension. As we read in Daniel 3, the young Jews were commanded to kneel before Nebuchadnezzar’s golden statue. Relying on God’s commandments, they refused but maintained their dignity and the King’s honor even as they did so. “…be it known to you, O, King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

God chooses to deliver the young men, but, regardless, imagine the witness. They held together, all at once, these seemingly conflicting demands of honor, truth, and perspective. This is the standard—and one I routinely fail to achieve.

Also, this is deeply counter-cultural within the American context. We have never had a politics built around “honor.” We have had respected and revered political figures, but, with the possible exception of Washington, most of them were divisive in their day, often reviled by large portions of the country. Jefferson, Lincoln, pick your Roosevelt, or Reagan all inspired stiff opposition, including attempted or successful assassinations. A democratic republic courts some level of discord, and politics will always be sharp.

But unlike the past, or at least my understanding of it, dishonor today is a kind of currency. The online world rewards disrespect, spite, anger, and ridicule. Entire brands and fortunes are built on ressentiment, to use Nietzsche’s word, a rage that seeks to destroy the opposition.

It is difficult to imagine much upside to a politics built on honor and respect, but I hope I am wrong. Peter and Paul were not admonishing us, however, based on political upside. Like loving your enemies, honor and respect are counter-cultural ways of living, social fingers that point a fallen, broken world toward God’s glory. The temptation to build the kingdoms of earth on disrespect and dishonor is strong, but it should always be resisted. God’s kingdom should draw our gaze and be glimpsed in our efforts.

Sunday comes. I live close enough to walk to campus. The weather is perfect for early May in the midwest—sunny yet cool enough for long sleeves. I turn a corner past the construction, the blessings of a thriving institution, and look at my little corner of the place. Two academic buildings and a large dorm share a sizable parking lot. It is now drained of cars, like a vehicular rapture has come and Cedarville’s automobiles were of the elect. I stroll at an angle across parking lines. “The Only Living Boy in New York” is spilling into my ears. “Hey, I’ve got nothing to do today but smile.”

The graduates have now officially bent into the stiffness of the real world. Some will land softly, already with plum posts in the waiting. Others will flounder a bit, echoing Simon & Garfunkel’s lyric, “Half the time we’re gone but we don’t know where.” They search for something they cannot quite name. Purpose. Calling. Fit. Meaning. The hope that when they look in the daily mirror, they respect what they see. Those are my people.

We in the arts and humanities don’t normally walk into signing bonuses. Consulting firms aren’t beating down our doors. We have to claw our way about and for most it takes precious and patient time.

This year feels different. There are two reasons, I think. For students who are publicly minded, the market is tight. Law school applications have spiked, and graduate school interest has likely followed. The world is flooded with exiles from government cuts, most sporting advanced degrees and years of experience. Politics is also polarized and toxic, especially at the federal level. A good option seems less inviting to many.

The other reason is far worse. I fear the world is becoming less hospitable to my kind of people. We hope to produce thoughtful, curious, bookish, critical people with firm principles but soft hearts. During the past six months, I have been asked some version of this question more times than I care to count:

“What am I supposed to do?”

In the past, graduate school made a great deal of sense, especially for the brightest. Beyond the spike in interest, which makes admission harder, the end result is far more speculative. We have always needed professors, at least to replace ourselves, but that is becoming a much steeper climb. Or maybe these folks would teach in private or public schools, latch onto think tanks as research assistants, or veer toward journalism.

Right now, all these avenues are either full of traffic, closed for construction, or, perhaps, in the process of being obliterated altogether. What do you tell a person who wants to read and write for a living when chatbots are spitting out articles, book chapters, press releases, and social media posts? What happens if universities upload Dr. Chatbot into the cloud and let her hover around for a generation or two? She is much cheaper, requires no travel money for conferences, and can probably be programmed to have no disconcerting opinions.

Even if we put aside making a living, what do you tell people who like to think and read and talk to others as they wade into this world? Will they find others who want to do the same? Sure, there is plenty of good content about. What of good people?

Even five years ago, I am not sure I would have asked that question. But smart phone addiction, social media’s poisonous algorithms, endless rivers of short-form video, and ear buds are pulling people, numbed and glazed, into themselves. Attention spans and conversations are shriveling. If it is, we hear, too much to expect elite college students to read and reflect on a good book—while they are in college!—what will the rest of the world look like?

Ideally, the church would fill some of this space. Good churches should be a collection of thoughtful, reflective, curious people. Pastors should model such a mindset and encourage it in others. Churches are, to be sure, already clubs for The Book. It might be nice if they spawned the other kinds of book clubs as well.

It is also possible things are already turning a little. Schools are waking up to the disaster of students with phones, and maybe they will soon realize the wasteland of computers in the classroom. Dumb phones are becoming more popular. Movements are happening. People want and need other people, live and in the flesh.

What we need is an identifier—a handshake, a lapel pin, maybe a common drink or color. Hold on. We already have something. Read a book. Wherever someone else is on a phone, pull out a book instead. Planes. Trains. Automobiles. Coffee shops. Then, the hard part, have enough courage to ask another person, “so, what are you reading?” For those of us who lean toward introversion, and who are the kinds of people who would be in a coffee shop alone reading (yes, that is me), don’t roll your eyes or respond tartly. Take it as an invitation to know, if even for a few moments, another lost and lonely soul.

As instructed, I made my way to the back of the sanctuary, three men converged on me, almost at once. The first reached for my hand, a wide grin on his face. “Thank you for this sermon. I really needed to hear it. It is always a good reminder, even though sometimes it is hard.”

“Thank you,” I replied. I tried to encourage him to persevere, to remind him that Christ’s way is not the world’s way. “We need to do better holding one another accountable.” He agreed and we parted.

As I turned, another man also wore a smile and extended his hand. As I shook it, he said, “I appreciate what you said, Professor, but I can’t love Satan.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Love Satan?”

“Yeah. The Democrats. They are carrying out Satan’s orders. I can’t love them. It wouldn’t be right.”

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We were staring at one another now. I refused to let his hand go. I said, hopefully so only he could hear, “You do understand, though, they are not Satan. Right? Even if you think they are evil. They are not Satan.”

“Well, I guess.”

“They are human beings. They need God’s grace.” Still shaking hands.

“Yeah.” The shaking stopped. “I suspect I could tolerate them, maybe, but that is about all.”

“I hear you. But Jesus is asking you to do more than that. Overcome evil with good.”

“I appreciate it. Thanks.” He was finished. He wasn’t angry, at least I don’t think so. If I had to guess at the mood reflected in his expression—disappointment.

A third man emerged and also extended his hand. His smile covered his insult. “I am probably the only progressive in this place…That was a pretty jesuitical1 sermon you just gave.”

“Oh really. How so?”

“It is pretty rich to ask people to love their enemies. What if the people they are loving see that love as an existential threat?” I did not ask him to elaborate, but this is a common argument. Pro-choice women, gay couples that are married, or trans people might reject any overture of Christian love because the policies those Christians support on abortion, marriage, or gender and sexuality, are seen as inherently threatening to those communities.

“Listen. I am not here to argue Christians have been perfect. We have not always shown love as we have advocated for our beliefs. If people are afraid because of our actions or our rhetoric, that is on us to own. But if people are threatened because of our beliefs, because we are willing to speak out on those beliefs, but we do so in a loving way—that is on them. I am not going to apologize for that.”

He gave me a quizzical look. “I can appreciate that. Thanks.” We shook hands again as he walked away.

**

Sometimes truth is better than imagination. I am not sure I could script a better set of conversations as a shorthand for where it feels like the great swath of Protestantism is today. A sermon on loving your enemies is far from novel. Matt. 5 and Romans 12 are not difficult to interpret, at least in a superficial way. Applying them in our moment, of course, is where things get complicated.

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Negative partisanship is a profound reality for many people.2 What they despise about the “other side” not only motivates many people but also forms aspects of their identity. This is as true in the church as elsewhere, I suspect.

These short conversations also pointed to a larger truth. I am not claiming divine authority. Nor am I pretending to represent anything. But God’s Word confounds our current politics. The full witness of Scripture is bigger than any ideology, party, or candidate. The truth (or Truth) of the Bible challenges conservatives, progressives, libertarians, greens, reds, and everyone else because no group or movement fully represents that truth and likely never will. The moment you believe your political tribe, or leader, or philosophy perfectly pulls Scripture into the political world, you are probably using those things to shape your view of Scripture instead of letting Scripture shape your views on those things. There is a world of difference.3

Still. Something nags. As President Trump’s behavior grows either more brazen or more reckless, and as the midterm elections, and the primary dates surrounding them inch closer, politicians, podcasters, and influencers are opposing Trump more vocally. The Iran War has revealed cracks at the elite level. There is at least a small chance people will listen now in a way they would not six months or a year ago.

Also, I, the insignificant speck in the cornfields, want to say some things on the “record.” I want my children and grandchildren to know, if they care to search, that I thought this was horribly wrong.

Ronald Reagan, the Republican, fashioned America as “a shining city on a hill.” The poetry tugs at our collective souls because Reagan knew the power and truth of this Puritan notion of America as an experiment, “an errand in the wilderness,” and a beacon to others. Reagan meant it theologically and politically. Theologically, America is different, perhaps assigned a purpose by God himself. Politically, America was a beacon of freedom in a time of darkness, a promise that self-government was not only possible, but better—far better—than life behind the Iron Curtain.

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Reagan’s chief audience for such language was conservative Christians. He needed to pry them fully away from any loyalty to Jimmy Carter, the Democratic Baptist Sunday School teacher, and his opponent in the upcoming presidential election. He succeeded wildly, thus beginning the decades long marriage between the G.O.P. and traditional Christians.

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Theologically, I have no patience for Reagan’s language. While it was not a treatise, I get nervous, or nauseated, when politicians lift biblical language for political ends unless they can make the connections candidly and without manipulation. Christ’s words in the Sermon on the Mount are about the Christian life lived boldly to reflect the glory of God to the world. Yes, it is possible, I suppose, for a nation to take on that mantle, but Reagan was not calling for that. For me, the Reagan kid, America as a city on a hill is too much, but I am being persnickety in my protection of the biblical text.

My concerns aside, if we consider Reagan’s artful, but arguable, language as a recent peak of religiously infused political rhetoric, what are we to make of the image President Trump shared earlier this week? To say it is a valley or a trough is too kind.

Reagan cast a vision for America, granted, one that was expedient for his politics. Trump, in contrast, places himself at the intersection of Christianity and country. Trump has taken on the central role. He is by far the biggest figure in the frame, and all action revolves around him. He, not the people, is the healer of whatever ails. He alone has the power to solve the sickness. His power is seemingly supernatural. He is a bringer of light.

Trump’s administrations have coincided with surges in Christian Nationalism. As a concept, Christian Nationalism is slippery, with a broad spectrum of adherence. Each flavor revolves around the idea that America was founded by Christians (either as a portion of the population or as a portion of the founding fathers), and this is critical for understanding the nature and character of America as a place and Americans as a people. Many push these ideas farther, of course, but this is a baseline of understanding, and it is not necessarily harmful.

Trump’s image takes the idea of Christian Nationalism and inserts himself into the role of Christ. Trump is the defining symbol, and all things flow in and from him. It is personality-driven nationalism, accruing to itself the trappings of the divine.

As a Christian, this is blasphemous, a worship of the self in the place of God. One resource defines blasphemy as “impious and reproachful speech injurious to the divine majesty.” In Mark 14, the priests and elders ask if Christ is truly Christ, and he responds, “I am…” They condemn his assertion of divinity as blasphemous. Unless I misunderstand, President Trump’s visual assertion carries the same connotation. The key difference, of course—he is not actually Christ.

As an American, it is an abomination, a reorientation of our ideals. In a republic, no one person defines our nation, much less presumes to heal it. No one can demand or expect devotion. We are all, Jefferson tells us, “created equal,” and out of that equality flows our rights. We, the people, are sovereign.

I remember, way back in 2016, when the Christian Right’s elites had to “sell” Mr. Trump to their loyal soldiers. Their first attempt was to persuade Christians the presumptive nominee was a Christian and warranted their support. Jerry Falwell, Jr, then the president of Liberty University, endorsed Trump. “I can tell you with confidence that I have heard Mr. Trump verbally acknowledge his faith in Jesus Christ,” Falwell claimed. James Dobson, famed founder of Focus on the Family, called President Trump a “baby Christian,” and urged his followers to vote accordingly.

That all feels so quaint now. Many have traveled a slippery road from Baby Christian to Blasphemy in their support for Donald Trump. I have believed too many times that “surely now, his support will start to break.” I am done predicting that.

Every day I consider, at least for a moment, this question. My grandfather’s military portrait peers at me from a perch in my office. He fell in the Hürtgen Forest in November 1944, killed by a Nazi landmine. His blood flows in my veins, and I have been blessed with a life hard for him to imagine, just two generations removed from the coal mines in which he toiled before the war. The story of his life and death planted within me a simple love for America at its best. He is buried in the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery in Belgium, and I hope to visit that sacred space.

(To read the rest of this article, you will need to go to The Dispatch where it was published.)

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For me, two things matter: prospects and process.

Only a moral monster would bemoan a reckoning in Iran. If temporal justice exists, the country’s leadership should fear a reaping given the terror it has sown. George W. Bush was right to label Iran’s leaders as part of the Axis of Evil. Not only does the government sponsor terrorism, but it oppresses its own people and cannot be trusted with a nuclear weapon. I have no sympathy for the leaders, and I hope this somehow succeeds. But Iran is not Venezuela. Things can go sideways quickly. We are operating with one ally, and dropping bombs has not proven a clean mechanism of political change. Besides, American military action in the Middle East has a complicated history. May it be better this time.

The process of this war, however long it lasts, has been disastrous for the republic. Unlike wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, Trump’s actions in Venezuela and Iran have not been authorized. The administration has done almost nothing to persuade the American people. And like with Venezuela, there is not an obvious connection between objectives and actions. There is some reporting of resistance among Trump’s top military staff, and his choice for war in the Middle East while being served diplomatically by amateurs like Kushner and Witkoff feels short-sighted. We should be concerned when the war power is so fully concentrated in one man’s whimsy.

But in case you are worried, fear not American citizens. Your other elected representatives, the lions of the First Branch of Government, the ones empowered to declare war, to regulate the military, and to pluck the purse strings that pay for these swords—they have been briefed. Yes, you read that correctly. Briefed. They did not vote. They did not debate. They did not hold hearings. Instead of defining the war’s limits, like lemmings they listened.

President Trump, more than any executive, has defanged and declawed Congress. Instead of a growl of rebuke or the bite of impeachment, this pride, led by Speaker Johnson and Leader Thune, will roll over and ask for belly rubs from any squatty, red-hatted figure that strolls along.

A reasonable observer would assume we live in a functional monarchy, where the people elect a king and 535 social media influencers with side gigs as advisors to the king. We choose the crown and cast ballots for his court, full now only of jesters. My how things have changed.1

Unlike their critics, who worried over an executive colossus, the Constitution’s framers and defenders feared a dominant legislature. In Federalist 48, Madison wrote, “The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity, and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.” This is why Article 1 is so long and complicated. The power to write law—to tax, spend, and structure everything else—is the first mover in a republic. Everything else is reactionary.

For myriad reasons, America no longer works this way. As Congress has receded, more of us put our hopes and dreams on the slender shoulders of one leader, and we rarely give that leader even a working majority in the legislature. We have grown comfortably numb to executive abuse. Iran, no matter how it goes, is just the latest example.

In the darkest shadows of my conservative, constitutional soul, I don’t see much light for reform. Fragmentation, polarization, civic ignorance, gerrymandering, unrestrained spending, the fecklessness of elected representatives when confronting abuse in their own party, and the presidency’s ability to turn ubiquity into celebrity—these are the cobblestones on the road soon paved into autocracy.

If there is hope, it will rest in a reassertion of representative power. Maybe we need a wave of blue hats in the coming years—Make Congress Great Again.

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch to America—”HOLD FAST!”

After reading his concurring opinion in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, that was the phrase that kept coming to mind. I wondered if the Justice, who seems both rebellious and conformist at the same time, may also have the phrase tattooed across his knuckles. The ruling, which might be the most important of the last couple decades, struck down the president’s use of one particular statute (International Economic Emergency Powers Act ) to impose tariffs. This matters for a host of reasons, but Gorsuch’s opinion touches on fundamental things for the Court and the project of American government. His exhortation is for the Court to Hold Fast as it considers the demands of the law and the temptation of politics.

I discovered Hold Fast in a movie. Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World is a brilliant and under-appreciated film, a sea shanty for the eyes. It chronicles the journey of the H.M.S. Surprise during the Napoleonic wars. Buckles are swashed. Butts are scuttled. The movie is thrilling, but it is more than that. As one reviewer wrote, Master & Commander

is among the most thoroughly and proudly conservative movies ever made. It imagines the Surprise as a coherent society in which stability is underwritten by custom and every man knows his duty and his place. I would not have been surprised to see Edmund Burke’s name in the credits.

The Surprise survives and thrives because of the order and structure that define it. During storms and battles, each man knows what is expected of him and he knows his shipmates are counting, for their survival, on his resilience. A phrase sums up the philosophy: Hold Fast. One character has it tattooed across his knuckles. He flashes his fingers at young officers nervous for their first fight. You see it again as he grips his clothes during his own gruesome medical procedure. Hold Fast is not just about grabbing tightly any rope in a storm, although it is that; it is about duty, tradition, strength, and sacrifice against waves of water and enemies.

Hold Fast is about doing what is right and best no matter the costs.

Gorsuch channels this mentality as his opinion picks a fight with virtually everyone. Read most charitably, it is an admonition for his colleagues to stick to their principles, but it is barbed. Gorsuch goes after the progressive wing of the Court (Kagan, Jackson, and Sotomayor) that voted along with the Chief Justice (who wrote the Court’s opinion), Barrett, and Gorsuch. Those progressives, not long ago, wanted to uphold Joe Biden’s expansive efforts to forgive student loans (Biden v. Nebraska) and require COVID vaccines (NFIB v. OSHA), but decided Trump’s use of tariffs was a bridge too far. He similarly goads Kavanaugh, Thomas, and Alito. This trio voted to slap down the Biden Administration in the cases above but could find no good reason to curb Trump’s authority here.1

The similarities between the cases are too much for Gorsuch to overlook. All of them deal with “emergencies” and have the president assuming a power not explicitly delegated by Congress. He argues all six colleagues are guilty of selectively reading statues either narrowly or broadly, of claiming context is either decisive or deniable. Sometimes executive power is “unparalleled” and should be frozen by separation of powers, while at others separation of powers is forgotten. For the conservatives, the Major Questions Doctrine matters until it doesn’t.

Justice Thomas comes under special treatment because he argues Congress can delegate all its powers to the Executive except for deprivations of life, liberty, or property. Gorsuch, icily, notes even if Thomas’s theory is correct, the question remains whether “Congress has given the President the tariff authority he claims in this case…” Unsurprisingly, Justice Gorsuch reasons Congress has not done so.

Besides, Gorsuch says, if we take Thomas’s theory seriously, what do “we make of the Constitution’s text?” Article 1 vests “all legislative Powers” in Congress. Section 8 lists those powers. “Neither provision speaks of some divide between true legislative powers” and “other kinds of powers…” Even if one thinks the President has reserved powers to impose tariffs through monarchical residue, “whatever the views in Britain may have been, American revolutionaries hardly shared” them. This is a spicy argument against Thomas, the grandfather of the use of text, history, and tradition to settle such matters.

Gorsuch seems suspicious of the legal inconsistencies at work among the progressives and the conservatives.2 Perhaps his colleagues are unable or unwilling to step outside their political conceptions to arrive at a consistent set of principles on executive power. This does not mean they are operating in bad faith, and it does not make them wrong, but it does, potentially, make them dangerous.

The temptation, even unrecognized, to grant the president from “your side” the magical keys to just “get things done,” to dispense with the clutter of legislation, is strong. We are all prone to it. Giving your side the power may mean a short term win to forgive students loans, mandate vaccines, or impose tariffs. But that means the next president, yanking the ideological, economic, or cultural pendulum back in his or her direction, will pull even harder. The system can only withstand so much executive overreach before it collapses. At the moment, the Supreme Court appears to be the only hope for restraining the president. More than ever, it needs to Hold Fast.

If you hold to quaint views, like I do, this is the difference between law and politics. The law demands judicial detachment, sound reasoning, and consistent application. Blind-folded Lady Justice should make her decisions regardless of which party controls the White House or which ideological objective is being obtained. Politics is using the context to achieve your preference. At a basic level, politics is about outcomes, while the law, and especially the Constitution, demands a process. Gorsuch is all about the process, while he strongly implies too many of his colleagues, if they know it or not, are about the end results.

In his final paragraph, he tells the American people to Hold Fast by forcing their legislators to, you know, actually legislate. We should vote for those who get more things done than TikToks and vibe checks. As Gorsuch says, “the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design.” Through representatives legislating the people are most directly consulted. “And because laws must earn such broad support to survive the legislative process, they tend to endure.” Our politics should be about the fruits and vegetables of making laws instead of the dessert of raw power through executive orders.

Via this complex and convoluted system, we not only solve our problems, but we protect our rights. The American government was not erected to be efficient. It was constructed to be hard, slow, and rooted in consensus. This makes it more difficult to address our issues, but we also protect ourselves. The obstacles in front of forgiving student loans are the same ones that shield free speech. If imposing tariffs is complicated, so is denying the free exercise of religion. As Gorsuch concludes, the legislative process is “the bulwark of liberty.” To that, we should all Hold Fast.

On Friday, the Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s current tariff regime. The 6-3 decision in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump had “conservatives” spread across the majority and the dissent, determined the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not empower the presidency to apply tariffs. The act authorizes regulation but not taxation, which is how the Court treated tariffs in this instance. IEEPA was not designed to raise revenue based on the text.

The Court fractured from that point forward, with the Chief Justice (who wrote the opinion), Gorsuch, and Barrett arguing the Major Questions Doctrine should apply. If Congress had intended to delegate its taxing power to the president, it would have to be explicit, and IEEPA was not explicit. Kagan (joined by Sotomayor and Jackson) wrote that the text of the act was sufficient to reach the decision and the MQD should not apply. Gorsuch wrote a long (46 pages) concurrence articulating his own view of the MQD, while Barrett wrote separately with an alternative perspective. Justice Jackson wrote about legislative history’s importance in such analyses.

Of the three dissenting justices, two wrote opinions. Justice Kavanaugh’s dissent argued the MQD does not apply in foreign affairs or national security contexts, where the executive enjoys broad authority. He also worried about the complications of possible tariff refunds. Justice Thomas argued for extensive Article 2 power.

President Trump’s reaction was perfectly in line with his politics. There are no opponents in his world, only enemies. Justices Gorsuch and Barrett, Trump appointees, are “an embarrassment to their families.” Of the majority itself, it is “unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution” and “swayed by foreign interests.” The “liberal” justices got special treatment as a “disgrace to our nation.”

We have a long history of hard politics in America. Presidents have unloaded on the Court from many different perspectives. Before President Trump, one of the sharpest public criticisms of the Court came from President Obama during his State of the Union address in 2010, where he sharply disagreed with the Citizens United decision.

“With all due deference to the separation of powers,” he said, the court last week “reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections.” This started a news cycle about whether President Obama had gone too far.

President Trump’s public comments are from a different universe.

One of the great challenges of teaching politics today, especially to students just developing their points of view, is to give them a sense of reality, while also suggesting things can be different—based on either my faith or my understanding of America’s founding principles. This is much harder over the past ten years.

President Trump’s public conduct and language are cementing young conservative minds. Many now believe it is normal and proper for Presidents to treat politics like a war where those who disagree are un-American.

At one point I worried the rhetoric would raise the political temperature to a boiling point, inciting violence, assassinations, and civil unrest. That could happen, but I think the greater threat is numbness. We are growing so calloused that we no longer really care. Words don’t matter. Ideas don’t matter. Arguments don’t matter. There is no more shock. No more outrage. There is only power. If we have it, we use it. If they have it, they use it.

This is functionally nihilistic. A politics rooted in nihilism on all sides cannot lead to a positive future of prosperity or justice, but only to darkness and ruin. Things can change, but we will have to erect anew civic guardrails that are now rusty and rotting. That is a generational project.

At least the student was honest. For him, and so many others, it is a question of efficiency. Frederick Douglass’s What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, Texas v. Johnson, Federalist 10, or Brave New World—these are words in the process of becoming data inputs. The mind is a conduit for outputs like quizzes, discussions, papers, and exams.

The purpose is to minimize academic work to maximize either career or social opportunities. More activities, club memberships, or internships can buttress the résumé, which is critical for graduate school or that first job, especially in a competitive world. It also provides more time to game, binge, party, or date. In a sense, both ends of the curve benefit from these shortcuts, the high achievers who want to do more, and the slackers who want to do less.

But neither group is getting an education.

If education is checking off boxes for a piece of paper to get a job, or to live it up a bit, using A.I. to “hack” readings is rational. The result is a husk of an education, with the outcome a piece of paper wrapped around something less than a fully formed soul. When used this way, A.I. is not a supplement to education. It is anti-education.

Education within a Tradition

At its best, education begins with a text that changes you. For me, this book was thick. I don’t just mean thick in pages, but thick in narrative, language, digressions, and time jumps. Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men was published in 1946. It was a fictional tale adjacent to the rise and fall of Huey Long, the great and terrible southern demagogue who threatened to rend the union.

The book’s core is the relationship between Jack Burden, our narrator, and Willie Stark, the governor of a fictional southern state. Willie’s rise to power is dramatic and his fall is tragic. Both men are corrupted, and corrupt others, along the way. No one emerges from the tale unscathed—not Willie, not Jack, and not the people both men aimed to serve.

In the first chapter, Jack is describing a brief stop in Willie’s hometown. As the governor, already a legend in the dusty, decrepit village, enters a local drugstore, a white-coated man emerges from behind the counter. Warren tells us this fellow, upon seeing the governor, “grabbed Willie’s hand as though he were drowning.”1

It is a small detail, but it starts the profile of devotion that Warren builds as he describes the state’s hopeless citizens. A ChatGPT summary of Chapter 1 would likely include a sense of Stark’s power and his popularity, but it will not capture this image that suggests a degree of intensity, and it would not touch on the common human recognition. We have all seen this kind of interaction, where respect or admiration becomes uncritical allegiance.

After reading All the King’s Men I started to grasp the psychology of demagoguery: the power of defining common enemies, instilling passion through a shared vision, and providing a personal symbol of change. Warren’s book, more than any piece of history I read, put me in the physical, social, and cultural reality of a region I studied abstractly through other works. All the King’s Men made me more wary of concentrated power, and forced me to empathize with those who have lost trust and hope in a political system.

In brief, the novel challenged my thinking and it made me feel things I knew intellectually. Mental beliefs became the heart’s commitments. As C.S. Lewis describes it, when the right book falls into the literary reader’s hands, “Their whole consciousness is changed. They have become what they were not before.”

Through reading a novel, I also encountered Warren himself. He became a teacher and an authority. I know Warren even though he died before I picked up his book. We wrestled one another. As a reader, I only had the illusion of touching his mind, but he put mine in a temporary chokehold. I came to believe, over many years, that Warren’s book is a towering achievement built on shifting sands. I held my faith and found hope there; Warren discarded his faith, though he still hoped for hope. Despite our deep disagreements, he earned my respect as he educated me.

I sought other sounding boards for reflection. My closest friend in graduate school, also a Christian, was a few more stops along the academic trail than I was, and he was wise. He educated me in every conversation we ever had.

The classroom where I took Southern Politics from a legend in the field was also a dramatic influence. My mentor pushed against my sentiments and corrected my flawed memory and understanding. He forced me to think carefully. He educated me.

Later, I taught a course on American Demagogues to a handful of interested political science students. I introduced them to All the King’s Men, only with partial success. I tried to shepherd them through Warren’s context, the history of the South, the seductive power of utopia’s promise. I hope I educated them, but I know together we learned.

This, for me, is an inkling of an education. As Alisdair MacIntyre says, learning within the great tradition is a paradox. A teacher “introduces one to certain texts and educates one into becoming the sort of person capable of reading those texts with understanding, texts in which such a person discovers the story of him or herself, including the story of how he or she was transformed into a reader of these texts.”2

We read to become the person who can understand, and be shaped by, the reading. A book that imprints upon you, especially as it asks and answers life’s biggest questions—who am I? why am I here? what is true? how do I live with others?—educates you. You can do that alone, perhaps, but being alone is dangerous. What if you are thinking incorrectly? What if this thinker is leading you toward something evil? Finding the light of truth sometimes means being pulled from a dark path by a trusted guide. As Zena Hitz writes, “Habits and disciplines are transmitted person to person, with mutual rapt attention, fed by appropriate encourage or discouragement.”3

The last bit there is key. An authority, ideally one with wisdom, must be submitted to for learning to be most effective. This is a trusted source, one suited to encourage and discourage well. But once found, some submission must occur. This is an act of humility, a recognition you don’t know everything, and that if you think you do know everything, you may be too proud or too ignorant to learn well.

A.I. as Anti-Education

A.I. undermines this kind of education, especially when it is used destructively. Like my own experience suggests, anecdotal evidence is building that students us Large Language Models (L.L.M.s) to summarize readings. As I wrote above, the temptation is easy to understand for both the most and the least motivated students.

Regardless of the motivation, notice the shift from one form of education to another. Students are treating literary, political, social, and historical texts as “information” that can be clinically summarized for input in preparation for data-driven outputs. Students are no longer marinating in precise words, allowing language, narratives, or the feel of another time and place to shape or challenge them. They will not see the degree or momentum of an argument, or the way a play on words delights.

The doors that open to the mind of another are not closed, but students are diverted away from them. Reading carefully reveals the subtleties of arguments and the majesty of literary creations. If I asked ChatGPT to give me a summary of chapters and characters from All the King’s Men, I am getting data but not dreams. Inputs instead of inspiration. A machine now shapes what an author once did. And yes, it is shaping, even as it scrubs away the rough edges of a text to fit seamlessly into increasingly smooth and receptive minds.

Aside from shaping the mind, reading, and the reflective life it inspires, provides a means of wisdom and survival in a harried world. Life is hard. Hard reading, which means walking in the shoes of another, seeing their trials and tribulations, knowing they made it to the other side—or sometimes didn’t—is a lifeboat, a place to jump in for shelter while rubbing knees with those who have come before. As Allan Bloom writes, it is in universal wisdom, the sort that touches us and others, that we can forget our “accidental lives. The fact this kind of humanity exists or existed, and that we can somehow still touch it with the tips of our outstretched fingers, makes our imperfect humanity which we can no longer bear, tolerable.”4

Bloom could not find the same solace I can in Scripture, the ultimate source of wisdom. Again, I have more hope than Bloom, but in reading Bloom I am connected to his teacher and all the teachers that came before. Even outside our worldview differences, we form a human bond, a transient, ephemeral community.

Hacking an education may indeed provide students with a wealth of time, but it makes them poorer in every other way.

A.I. as Authority

A sharp critic might point out that what I have written has been true for a time. CliffsNotes, SparkNotes, or any physical or digital shortcut, have been around. Isn’t A.I. just a different manifestation of the same problem? Students can always avoid the work if they want. MacIntyre’s sense of humility and submission to authority is already moot when so many other resources are available. The chain between the student, text, teacher, and other texts is already broken.

True, but that fails to see how A.I. is fundamentally different than what has come before. Learning from an L.L.M. is learning from a hungry beast in search of profits. Considering the billions and billions of dollars being invested in salaries, infrastructure, and new technology to run the models, those who produce and tune them must maximize profit.

Like social media platforms, A.I. companies will thrive on usage, attention, and reliance. Higher priced models may bring in professional revenue, but the real money will come from advertising. Researcher Zoë Hitzig, who just resigned from OpenAI as it embarks on advertising, fears that deeply personal and revealing user queries will be grist for the advertising mill, even in a way that surpasses social media ads. As she writes, “Advertising built on that archive creates a potential for manipulating users in ways we don’t have the tools to understand, let alone prevent.”

For students using L.L.M.’s as a content shortcut, this will be like your professor interrupting a thoughtful discussion every few moments. “Chase away that existential crisis with Black Hole Energy Drink!” “Your student loans might cover a study abroad semester in beautiful Budapest!” “Don’t like what you see in the mirror? Botox is for more than wrinkles!”

Beyond manipulation, I worry over the values the machine will inculcate. A liberal education requires devotion, patience, and listening. The classroom is a microcosm of society, a place for arguments, discussion, evaluation, judgment, and, in some cases, persuasion. Nuance, long considerations, and mutual struggles begin over a text. The classroom built on a text is a consistent balance between what students want and what their professors think they need.

It is difficult to imagine values much more contradictory to purely profit-driven endeavors. A.I. is providing tools that might revolutionize industries and probably higher education itself. Perhaps students can discern its proper use while resisting its improprieties. But the digital world’s wrecking ball—screens in classrooms, tablets in hands, phones in pockets, platforms for influence—has so far been unable to build a better education. By encouraging cognitive off-loading, and resisting the humanity, beauty, and complexity found in rich texts, it is hard for me to imagine A.I. will be different. It is easy to imagine, since my imagination is fired by good books, that it will be much worse.

When it comes to A.I., I am bent toward Leif Enger’s recent book title: I Cheerfully Refuse.

Why This All Feels Pre-Ordained

Students will use L.L.M.s to shortcut their work and institutions will likely facilitate and encourage them to do so. This is natural because of the pale copy of higher education that has been sold for the past several generations.

We have entered into a contract with students, parents, and constituents, a seeming guarantee that a college degree will lead to a career and, if possible, a few years of fun. When institutions tout a return on investment, climbing walls, lazy rivers, granite countertops, the number of recruiters on campus, sports, tail-gaiting, food trucks, movie nights, or Greek life, they are selling jobs and social life. Some of these things are good and are worth hard conversations. Degrees should form people who are highly employable, and college shouldn’t be dour. Campus life is important.

It is also easy to see how institutions have headed down this path. Meeting parent and student expectations is the difference between organizational life and, increasingly, death. But this contract, in a fluid world, where A.I. itself threatens to automate so much of “thought” work, feels like it will be harder to sell for much longer.

Institutions may have to rediscover education’s original pitch: as an end and not just a means to something else. To learn, to struggle, to read, to work through, commune with each other, and the saints that have preceded us—these are goods all by themselves.

When the difference between human and machine becomes harder to decipher, an education that defines and empowers humans seems not only feasible, but desirable. As always, it will begin with a book, an eager reader, and a conversation. Not with a prompt.

Bad Bunny’s Thin Identity

In Santa Clara, Bad Bunny asserted his own kind of American identity. Raised as a Roman Catholic in Puerto Rico, Bad Bunny’s performance, in Spanish, featured the island’s flag, and celebrated its culture and traditions. Still, through music, lyrics, and actions, he affirmed American culture. He praised American football, sang an ode to New York City, and asked for God’s blessing on America. This was not a “woke” or “progressive” act to the degree there were no calls to fundamentally change America or destroy its culture.

Bad Bunny implied a “thin” American identity. America, unlike nations before it, had to constitute itself. It was a place and a people, but the nation was not an accident of history. Instead, it was formed by “reflection” and “choice.” Since its beginning, being American was not about language, religion, race, blood, or soil. It was a legal status built on basic consent—a recognition of the republic, an appreciation of rights for self and others. America is, in this way, built on a set of ideals first articulated in the Declaration of Independence—basic equality, rights that precede government, and the necessity of consent. This was Lincoln’s understanding of America in The Gettysburg Address, where he traces our founding to 1776 as a nation “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

As Lincoln understood, America’s history has been a gradual closing of the gap between what was promised in the Declaration and what was delivered in the Constitution, our enduring social contract. The Constitution excluded slaves, women, Native Americans, and their struggle for inclusion marks our path and our progress. They, and their descendants, have become, by fits and starts, just as “American” as those who signed the Declaration and ratified the Constitution.

Bad Bunny’s show elicited revealing responses that help illustrate the contrast. Donald Trump said it was “an affront to the Greatness of America.” Some said Bad Bunny is a “fake citizen” and that a Spanish halftime performance was too “exclusive,” presenting Hispanics in a less than flattering light. Conservative members of Congress are calling for federal investigations into the sexuality on display in Santa Clara. Some of these criticisms land more fairly than others, but, like the performance, they also reveal the fundamental differences present in our politics.

The All-American Halftime Show and Thick Identity

In contrast, “The All-American Halftime Show” was headlined by Kid Rock, a strong and consistent Trump supporter. He opened with an electric guitar version of the Star Spangled Banner. Brantley Gilbert performed “Real American” and “Dirt Road Anthem,” and sang, “We fly the red, white, blue, high, waving all across the land.” The event opened and closed with commemorations of Charlie Kirk, who was killed last September by what appears to be a politically motivated assassin. It was a strong appeal to the base of the current Republican Party.

The event, and our Trump moment, suggests a “thick” conception of American identity. In Federalist 2, John Jay argued for the new Constitution as an improvement on the current government, and as better than states operating on their own. To make his appeal, Jay said shared governance made sense because of what was already shared across the colonies—language, history, religion, ancestry, manners and habits, and political principles.

Jay is not arguing for an American identity per se, but his thinking reflects a common perception. These ingredients did make for a practical political recipe. Similar stories and values are an important part of forming a new contract. Not only would these traits make America governable, but they would also define entry into the social contract. This was welcome news for many, and a cold truth for others being formally snubbed.

Immigration has always sparked these discussions about whether and how the “new” group is included or excluded from the contract. German, Irish, Chinese, Mexican, and later Puerto Rican, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian, Taiwanese, and so many other people have come to America in small and large numbers. Slaves were freed. Women could vote. Unquestionably, America has changed through immigration and constitutional reforms, and those changes have renewed this conversation of what it means to be an authentic American.

J.D. Vance explicitly rejects “thin” or “credal” American identity as being too low of a barrier for entry. He is joined by a cadre of thinkers and academics (Samuel Huntington, R.R. Reno, Rich Lowry, Yoram Hazony). A “thick” identity underpins the Trump Administration’s immigration policies and fuels elements of Christian Nationalism. The struggle of the West, they often argue, is a struggle against a global monoculture brought on, in part, by unregulated immigration in Western Europe and the U.S. In some ways, this is the thread that connects the populist movements in the U.K., Hungary, the Netherlands, France, and the U.S.

History and the Future

There are reasonable arguments on each side of this discussion, but only one side fits both history and current reality. While Jay was correct in his practical argument, being American has always been more a matter of law than of blood and soil. Citizenship is not reserved to those who can visit relatives in military cemeteries, and it has never depended on a Mayflower lineage. All that is required is a legal recognition that ends with an oath and a pledge to “the republic” that embodies our ideals. This does not mean open borders, but it does mean entry into our social contract should not be based on race, lineage, color, or religion alone, especially for people who are already citizens.

What drives much of the desire for “The All-American Halftime Show” is understandable. We are fragmented. We are struggling for any common ground, much less a shared morality or organizing vision for the future. Americans disagree sharply over fundamental questions of sex, humanity, marriage, and the nature of truth, beauty, and goodness. These sharp quarrels freeze our politics.

But guess what? We have always been a culture in a perpetual state of clashing. What separated the North from the South except for the humanity of the slave and the “goodness” of the slave system? We were born from our arguments and despite them.

America was far less diverse historically than it is now, but it is easy to overstate the commonalities that once existed. America has always needed to weld together disparate groups into something coherent. Our national motto, E pluribus unum, or “out of many, one,” acknowledged both the dramatic fissures and the desire to hang together.

The thirteen colonies and their residents included a range of regions (North, South, and Mid-Atlantic), religious sensibilities (Congregational, Presbyterian, Quaker, Roman Catholic, Anglican/Episcopalian, Lutheran, Baptist, Jewish), classes (from the wealthy planters to more humble merchants and farmers, and slaves), and roots (English, Scottish, Dutch, German, French, African). America was made of white slave-owners, slaves, and abolitionists. America had the rigidly orthodox (like Witherspoon and Henry) and the philosophically detached (like Paine, Jefferson, and Franklin). Some of the religious and ancestral differences may feel quaint today, but those have been the basis of fighting wars throughout history.

No matter the past, the credal or “thin” approach is the only practical way to deal with the present—unless we want a new form of government. American citizens of all stripes, regardless of race, language, religion, and moral code, have legal and constitutional rights. They have access to due process, free speech, a free press, and the free exercise of their faith. There are tens of millions of Americans who don’t fit comfortably in the pews reserved for The All-American Halftime Show. They are not going anywhere.

We can manage our differences while recognizing our rights and obligations, or one group will gain enough power to grind the other “side” into political dust. I fear the post-liberal movement is for some a dark mask to cover just such a desire. I admire and hope to join the quest for a stronger American identity, but the path to it should travel through persuasion instead of persecution, reason over revolution.

Bad Bunny is neither a philosopher nor a politician, but his show, even if flawed, was more of an open hand than a closed fist. In that way, it was something the aspiring artists of the right could learn from, and something that merits consideration.

The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.

“O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?

Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save?

Habakkuk 1:1-2

When justice collapses through violence, overreach, or paralysis, we, as citizens and believers, are left with real questions. Why do the wicked prosper? Why are we surrounded by violence? Where is God when injustice reigns? Habakkuk, a little book tucked in the Old Testament, gives us answers that feel more relevant each day. Understanding Habakkuk’s lament begins in the recent past.

Violence: Watching the World Burn

I watched Los Angeles burn literally and figuratively.

In 1991, four L.A. Police Department (L.A.P.D.) officers beat (or ‘subdued’) Rodney King for resisting arrest. King suffered broken teeth, bones, and skull fractures. What made it news, instead of just another arrest, was a video recording. It went as viral as something could before the internet was in full bloom.

The men were charged with assault and excessive force, tried by jury, and acquitted on April 29, 1992. What began as protests slid into five days of lawlessness.

One motorist, Reginald Denny, in the wrong place at the worst time, was pulled from his truck and beaten nearly to death. Neighborhoods were destroyed. Local shops were pillaged for electronics, clothing, and furniture. Fires raged and thick black smoke choked the California sun.

On April 30, tensions brewing between Korean American grocers and African American customers spilled into violence. A year before, a store owner had shot and killed a young black girl after a confrontation over shoplifting. Convicted of manslaughter, the Korean received a fine and probation instead of a prison sentence.

The surrounding chaos gave some an excuse for reprisals. Mobs targeted Koreatown in earnest. The L.A.P.D. was slow to react to everything; its leaders were later accused of securing the wealthy westside while leaving poorer neighborhoods to shudder, buckle, and burn. “To protect and to serve,” emblazoned across the black and white L.A.P.D. cars, meant little as the Koreans and others were left to defend themselves. No one was coming to help.

This interminable moment, trapped between the eruption of violence and the restoration of order, had to move beyond isolation, frustration, and fear. A lifetime spent saving to own and maintain a sliver of a dream was about to be reduced to smoldering ruins. This moment invited despair.

Blunt Overreach: Immigration

It is through this smoke and ruin, when 9-1-1 calls are unanswered, protection is gone, and justice far away, that Habakkuk speaks. I am not in the middle of an inferno. My home is safe, I pray, and my family is secure. The village of Cedarville is not the mean streets of Minneapolis, where federal agents have killed two American citizens within the past month.

But just up the road a few miles sits Springfield. I lived in Springfield before I moved to Cedarville. I went to church at Southgate and Rocky Point Chapel. My kids went to public schools in the area. I know and care about Springfield and its people.

After the town was falsely dragged into the political spotlight during the 2024 presidential campaign, by Ohio’s own J.D. Vance, Springfield’s Haitian immigrant community has been well-chronicled. As their legal status is in jeopardy, it is possible, and the town is preparing, for Springfield to be the next Minneapolis. ICE agents have an easily identifiable population with suddenly changed legal standing, an ideal stage for the latest performance of enforcement theatre.1

For most of my adult life, I have had some faith in the federal justice system, even when it was “controlled” by the “other” party. Yes, there are always abuses of power, and justice, as an ideal, will never be fully achieved here, but I trusted that for both Democrat and Republican administrations due process was resilient and required. That law enforcement would feel bound by standards. That someone in an FBI, CPB, ATF, or ICE jacket could be assumed competent, professional, and deeply schooled in the law. That federal prosecutors would strive to be impartial. That the Attorney General, though under the President’s power, was never under his thumb. I had confidence investigations would happen, and care would be used to withhold judgments and handle evidence, even when verdicts and decisions went against my own beliefs.

That trust has been shaken in the past year. People killed in the streets are automatically labeled “domestic terrorists” before their bodies are cold, which doesn’t take long in the frigid Minneapolis air. American citizens are detained for not having “papers.” Subdued protestors are pepper sprayed in the face. Free speech and legal possession of a firearm are evidence of criminality.

Our immigration system is broken and laws should be enforced. Citizens should not obstruct enforcement, but there is a fine line between protest and obstruction. I do not trust this administration to search for that line, much less err on the side of respecting constitutional rights. I do not trust this administration to “do justice,” especially when it perverts justice regularly through the pardon process.

Polling indicates most Americans want a humane approach to immigration enforcement that includes a pathway to legal status for law abiding immigrants, a safer (agents with body cameras and without masks) approach to enforcement, and impartial investigations of recent fatal shootings. Making these things a reality will take political will from Republicans and Democrats together, especially as they vote.

Justice Paralyzed? Epstein

Immigration enforcement, once we get past immigrants living here and convicted of other crimes, is difficult to make humane and fair. In the effort to do justice, the speed of the process, and its bluntness, jeopardizes justice itself. Immigration’s mirror image is the Epstein Files. While immigration enforcement suffers from speed and clumsiness, the risk of justice perverted, the Epstein case may find justice paralyzed (see Hab. 1:4). In the face of what feels like massive wrongdoing, a desire must be summoned to do something.

I have not spent a great deal of time on the files, and I do not want to. What seems apparent is that Jeffrey Epstein, a criminal and registered sex offender, used vulnerable women and girls as currency. At minimum, we know Epstein had relationships with elites from the tech world, sports, politics, finance, and royalty.

Justice is blind when she ignores the status of those who stand before her. She is no respecter of people, possessions, or power. When she removes her blindfold and takes note of those before her, we are no longer looking at justice, but something else. If justice is stunted or twisted to empower the rich, she is perverted. When justice is seized, bound by privilege, unable or unwilling to move against the powerful, she is paralyzed.

God provides constant reminders to the Children of Israel about injustice. In Exodus (23) we read, “…nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit…and you shall not pervert the justice due to your poor…” In Leviticus (19) we find, “You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness judge your neighbor.” In Amos 5 we see God condemn those who “turn aside the needy” in the legal system.

Because of the seeming exploitation by the rich and powerful of the weak and vulnerable, the Epstein Files beg for vigorous investigations, for an impartial, unvarnished search for truth. This would be justice for the victims, exoneration for those suspected of things they did not do, and conviction for the perpetrators.

We, as citizens, owe this to the victims and we should work doggedly to demand it, no matter the results.

O Lord, How Long? Wisdom and Justice

We live, all of us, in that interminable space, somewhere between eruption and restoration; it is after Eden and before the full coming of God’s Kingdom. Being human is to be hemmed in by injustice, and to find the law rusted solid like Dorothy’s Tin Man. Most of us are not defending storefronts against a mob, and we are not cleaning shotguns to ready for the evening’s assault on kith and kin. But we do have friends and neighbors living in fear. Things can almost always be worse, even if your gaze is through smoke arising from rubble, but they can always be better.

This is the true burden believers carry. Habakkuk was not really an ‘oracle’ in the way the word is often understood. He was not from Delphi and did not spit prophecies on God’s behalf to the wicked tribes that surrounded him. Habakkuk saw the world for what it was, and he compared it to God’s own standards for justice and goodness. What he found was wanting. Though his situation may have been worse than ours, we must pray our eyes are opened to the injustices that surround us and peeled for the paralysis that freezes legal joints.

The true burden that Habakkuk carried was philosophical, closer to wisdom than prophecy. His burden was born of reflection. Habakkuk’s utterance, ‘O Lord, How Long?’ is aggressive and pointed at God himself. In Exodus 16, we hear God say, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?” In Numbers 14, we read again, “How long will this people despise me?”

God castigates his own people for not living up to their end of his covenant. Habakkuk challenges God in the other direction by using his own words. Is God what he claims to be? If he is indeed all good and all powerful, why does injustice surround us? Why is violence unpunished? Why do the wicked prosper and the righteous struggle? Habakkuk’s lament is essentially this: God, if you are who you say you are, prove it.

God is neither too big nor too small for these questions. He is not so big that he ignores the pleas of his creatures; he is not so small that he is unable to remedy them. If you read further in the chapter, God does not rebuke Habakkuk’s cheek, and he does not challenge the oracle’s narrative. Instead, he says “wonder and be astounded, For I am doing a work…”

God’s answer is the only answer that satisfies the heart, giving it a place to rest, even as it confounds the mind. Justice is coming. It may not be here (but it might be), and it may not be now (though it could be). But it is coming. God’s wheels sometimes turn slowly, but they inevitably turn. They will turn for the victims and the villains. They will turn for the agents and the oppressed. It is the turning, in which we have faith, that pulls us from despair.

The burden we, as Americans bear, is different even from Habakkuk’s. We have the chance to bend our own shoulders to the wheel, so that as God pushes, his power and his might will shine through us. As we bend to our task, we should remember Habakkuk’s lament. O Lord, How Long?

Justice, as we demand it, is not vengeance. Justice is not tribal. Justice is wanting for others—neighbors, victims, accused, citizens, immigrants—what we hope for ourselves. Shaping a system that gets us closer to those ideals should inspire a generation of Christians, and it would reveal, perhaps dimly, God’s kingdom to come.2

“Christians have a responsibility, before God, to get involved…How can you be salt and light if you are not engaged with politics? Churches have failed us. Pastors have failed us.”1

I am searching the news in this, the thirteenth month of the Second Trump Administration, for evidence of salt and light. I am searching the video clips of killings and rage. I am searching the memes and the propaganda that masquerades as government communication. I am searching the statements of Christian politicians attached to this movement and party, for if our culture war has an army, they are its officer class. I see the flag. Always the flag. But I am looking for things that sound like truth, feel like love, and can bear the weight of the word ‘justice’ without buckling under reality.

I am searching this party, this administration, and this place, because I have been told, as long as I can remember—way back in elementary and middle school—that if people like me Just. Got. Involved. Things will change. Transformation will occur. I have been told, time and again, that being salt and light not only can, but MUST be, about my vote. My money. My time. My devotion. My energy. If I simply march, onward, as Christian soldiers should, into the culture war, searching for enemies to vanquish, things will improve, or at least not grow worse.

I am searching for the sting of salt and the stab of light. Please let me know if you find them. I could use some good news.

For nearly a half century, tens of millions of conservative (orthodox, traditional) Christians have done what they were told. They voted. They donated. They worked polls. They took over party organizations and rewrote party platforms. They formed interest groups. They developed legislative scorecards. They ran for office. They found themselves at the seat of power. They are, and have been, the most reliable part of the “conservative” party in America. They have achieved most of their practical political goals, including the overturn of Roe v. Wade. During the past ten years, the faithful have been HIGHLY influential by any measure. If the Charlie Kirk memorial was an indication, the religiously and politically rightist impulses in America are fused in some ways and in some places.

But to what degree does the Trump Administration, the Republican Party, or American politics bear the marks of Christ? Do we see strong dispositions toward truth, the fruits of the spirit, and love of neighbor? Is there a thirst for an impartial, fair justice that punishes the wicked and rewards the good? Even if the “system” is corrupted in some manner, one might hope Christians working in, around, and through that system would stand out, be shining cities on that hill, with lights unhidden.

Our current political moment feels untouched by Christ. It seems instead to be something rotting that was never salted, or a figure cloaked and hidden from the light. Even though the party and administration most affiliated with traditional Christianity in America is in power across the three branches of government, it doesn’t feel like that affiliation has yielded a practical consequence in the day to day affairs of this nation. Why?

Distinctive Engagement

We were told something that proved to be false. I hesitate to call it a ‘lie’ because I am sure many, including myself much earlier in life, who uttered the words believed they were true. They were not. Political activism is not being salt and light. It is merely political activism. It can be good, but that does not make it divine.

The quote that leads this piece is typical of the species. It assumes, improperly, that being salt and light is defined by engagement alone, as if action is the key ingredient in this dish of cultural transformation. But Christ’s message in the Sermon on the Mount, where he calls his followers to be salt and light, is more radical than mere engagement.

After all, Muslims are engaged in politics in America. Are they being salt and light? The same is true for atheists, LGBTQ+ advocates, and others. These groups vote and engage the political system, often in impressive and effective ways if we measure effectiveness by results and influence.

No, engagement, in the political sense, is expected within our system, a tool accessible via our Constitution and necessitated by our civic design. What do Christians bring that is unexpected? Being salt and light requires a higher standard, one that makes us out of step, even in politics, even to the point of suffering.

Salt was multi-faceted in the ancient world. It was used as a preservative, but also as a purifying agent. Salt was added to sacrifices. It was a symbol of purity and loyalty, and some used it to clean newborn infants. The Romans used it as a weapon, we are told, by sewing the fields of the Carthaginians with salt to prevent future growth. Salt was useful.

Light was a symbol of goodness, while darkness was a symbol of evil. Light illuminates and reveals, while darkness hides and conceals. In Ephesians 4 and 5, Paul calls on believers to seek a new way of living and to “put off our old self,” which is marked by sin. Falsehood and corruption characterize a darkened mind. Instead, Paul urges us to walk “as children of light, for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true” (Eph. 5:8b-9). Christ reminds us this light should not be hidden, but put on a stand for the world to see. Why? Christ tells us to “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:15-16).

Children of God are called to be salt and light, but how do we put feet to these verses? How can these words, that so often roll out of our mouths and across our pages, be put to use? What does it look like as we interact with the world as salt and light? David L. Turner’s summary is, like salt and light, useful and illuminating. “Perhaps the dual images of salt and light are intended to portray two aspects of witness that are not easy to balance: engagement and distinctiveness.”2

What does distinctive engagement look like? Christ, in the same Sermon, calls on his followers to turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile, and love our enemies. Elsewhere, we are called to honor and respect authority (see 1 Peter 2:13-17), obey and submit to that authority (Rom. 13:1-7), love our neighbors as ourselves (Matt. 22:39), speak the truth (Eph. 4:25), and seek the welfare of the city (Jer. 29:7).

Notice, this list does not get into particular policies, but it does condition what Christian political engagement ought to look and feel like. For if we do these things, we will be known by our fruits, recognizable as children of God.

American evangelicals have clearly been engaged, but they have lacked this distinction. Instead of transforming, they have perhaps too often been conforming.

Against Political Conformity

As Carl F.H. Henry surveyed the evangelical movement unfolding around him, one that he had helped motivate, he was struck. There is an array of Christian activism, cultural products (books, music, films), institutions (colleges, interest groups), and churches across the United States. There are so many Christian inputs to the culture, but they are disconnected and limp. They do not translate into our culture’s outputs in higher education, popular culture, publishing, journalism, and elsewhere. Why don’t evangelicals have a greater impact?3 Henry, in 1992, is asking the same question more broadly that I am asking today more narrowly.

The usual answers sometimes feel compelling. Christians disagree too much to be a united front. Christians are passive. Maybe they are too political. Perhaps Christians just need to commit a little more and that marginal “oomph” will make all the difference as we approach a tipping point.

Henry brushed all that aside as he said,

The real reason evangelicalism has still not deeply penetrated the reigning culture is that the culture—whether on its right or on its left—has too much penetrated the evangelical movement.4

As I survey the political culture around me, Henry’s answer still resonates. Neither America, the Trump Administration, nor the Republican Party suggest deep penetration by Christian thinking and they don’t behave as if constrained by Christian ethics, at least not in most matters. As Henry feared, Christians have sought influence using horizontal political and social values—like mobilization, branding, engagement—instead of the vertical values rooted in God’s Word—like truth, love of neighbor, the unvarnished pursuit of equal justice, the commands to care for the foreigner and immigrant while still maintaining law and order.

Instead of capturing politics, we have been captured by it. Instead of shaping ideology, we have been shaped by it. Instead of forming social media platforms, we have been formed by them. The reason there is no political Christian counter-culture is because we have been conformed to the political culture.

If you want to be a shining city on a hill, look not to America’s history, but consider ways to stick out and be different. In this political reality, it would not be hard. Tell the truth and demand the truth of others. Love people even when they hate you. Pursue justice even when it cuts against your own side.

These are not magical properties. This isn’t exactly rocket science. It’s not even political science. It is just applying clear Scriptural teaching to the world around us. The tension, of course, is that it may not be “good” politics. It may not feel realistic. It might be accused of “not knowing what time it is.” It might fail by any worldly measure, but this will turn the worlds eyes toward God through us. That is all that should matter.

Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.

The backstory may be obvious, but clarity is important. President Trump did not win the Nobel Peace Prize last year. Instead, it went to Maria Corina Machado, Venezuela’s opposition leader. Machado, remarkably, gave her prize to Trump, but that was not satisfactory. Even though an independent committee, detached from Norway’s government, awards it, Mr. Trump suggests losing the Peace Prize has shifted his foreign policy motivations. The letter, which will be included in any worthy history of the era, reveals much.

Jay Nordlinger’s Peace, They Say: A History of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Most Famous and Controversial Prize in the World, begins his book presciently.

“Is there a higher earthly honor than the Nobel Peace Prize? It’s hard to think of one. It represents a summit of human achievement, and goodness…When you receive the Nobel Peace Prize, you are crowned a “champion of peace.” (1)

Mr. Trump’s focus on winning must have been stimulated when he learned winning a Nobel prize would make him a champion. It is also likely a win would be Mr. Trump’s final revenge on President Obama, himself a Peace Prize recipient.1 President Obama famously chided Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2011. For Mr. Trump, securing the Nobel Prize might, in his own mind, prove Obama wrong.

What Mr. Trump’s letter truly reveals is his disdain for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and America’s historic allies. NATO, an alliance of 32 nations, has never been perfect. Mr. Trump has spurred member states to increase their defense spending and to take more ownership over European security. These possible improvements may come just before NATO’s unraveling. Mr. Trump has refused to rule out using force to take Greenland from Denmark. I cannot speak with certainty, but I assume this is the first time a NATO member has threatened to invade another member. This would trigger Article 5, which compels members to assist any member under attack. This would end NATO. If America, as NATO’s richest, most powerful member, attacks Danish territory, something else might emerge eventually, but it will not be an American led alliance of democracies.

Mr. Trump, even if he decides not to use force, has fractured and diminished our most important alliance. In his drive to pursue America’s agenda, I fear Mr. Trump will weaken America and embolden its enemies. NATO, no matter its flaws, has been an important bulwark in Europe, a continent long riven by conflict, and has been a counter-weight to oppression since its founding.

But how does threatening the end of NATO make sense? Mr. Trump has beliefs and opinions, and he often acts on them, but it is not always clear how those beliefs go together, at least not within an ideological, philosophical, or moral framework. Even though Mr. Trump views his unpredictability as a strength, there are some consistencies across time and space. For example, Mr. Trump is firmly opposed to immigration. Mr. Trump has long criticized America when it failed to leverage its military power into control over natural resources like oil.

Another through line can be found in a previous correspondence. The letter to Norway’s P.M. is not Trump’s first executive missive. In 2018, Trump spoke about a different pen pal—North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. After describing a set of testy notes, Mr. Trump said the tone changed and the two men discovered previously unknown and unspoken feelings. As Mr. Trump described it:

“And then we fell in love, okay? No, really - he wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters.”

Let’s grant that Mr. Trump was engaged in an elaborate diplomatic courtship of Mr. Kim, and he felt compelled to speak in flowery terms, maybe even to secure his precious—the Nobel Peace Prize. If we hold that to be true, Trump’s revelation is still consistent with his sometimes fawning admiration of the world’s strongmen.

Compare the tone of Trump’s letter to Norway’s elected Prime Minister to these descriptions. China’s Xi is “brilliant” and someone worthy of “respect.” Russia’s Putin demonstrated his “genius” and “savvy” by invading Ukraine. Turkey’s Erdogan is “very smart” and “I like him.” Brazil’s Bolsonaro is a “great president” and “great friend.” Hungary’s Orban? He is “fantastic” and there is “nobody that’s better, smarter.”

Did he fall “in love” with them? Probably not, but Mr. Trump nearly never criticizes autocrats, neighbor invaders, or coup attempters. His allies, however, fellow democracies, get the scorn of tariffs, the high-handedness of the Norwegian letter, and berated on camera in the Oval Office.

In fact, Mr. Trump’s sharpest language is reserved for his fellow Americans. Liberals are “vermin,” “Communists,” and “Marxists.” Immigrants are “not people” and “animals.” Journalists occupy their ring of damnation. They are “terrible,” “liars,” “ugly,” “cheap,” and an “enemy of the people.” One fortunate female reporter was dubbed “piggy” aboard Air Force One.

It is tempting to dismiss Mr. Trump’s language as merely uncouth. We managed to survive Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon’s terrible tongues, and surely Mr. Trump is not all that different. But Mr. Trump’s public words have been spit through authoritarian teeth. Mr. Trump has punished law firms, universities, and news outlets for engaging in constitutionally protected speech. The Administration has threatened to block media mergers or strip F.C.C. licenses for unfavorable coverage. Mr. Trump brings the gusto and verve of Pavarotti to assail his domestic foes, but his defense of Ukraine and Taiwan is whispered sotto voce.

It is difficult to find a tie that binds all this together, but I think Jonah Goldberg’s explanation may be the most accurate. For Goldberg, Trump conducts foreign and domestic policy like a mob-boss. Mob bosses have total control over their own territory and put down rivals by any means necessary. Bosses respect other family heads since each family controls its own domain. Threats across family lines must be avoided.

Mr. Trump sees everyone and everything within his sphere as not only under his control, but he expects them to demonstrate total loyalty. This includes Americans, Congress, NATO, and the Western Hemisphere. Other family leaders (like Xi, Putin, and maybe even Kim) have their own spheres of influence that must be respected. What they do in their spheres is mostly up to them.

This explains Trump’s squishy approach to Ukraine, his deference to strong leaders, the “Donroe” Doctrine, and his view of allies. They owe America loyalty, favorable terms for trade, and money for protection. Anything else is evidence of America getting ripped off.

I have no idea how all this will play out. I have fears, of course, and daily I try to check them. President Donald Trump continues to strike and toss lit matches toward leaky barrels of gasoline. Minnesota. Venezuela. Greenland. NATO. Iran. Tariffs. At some point, something will ignite. I don’t know how we, the people, our political leaders, or our actual enemies will react if that happens. Republicans in Congress are most able to restrain him. They choose not to because they agree with Mr. Trump or they fear being labeled disloyal “RINOs.” Let’s hope enough of them recover their nerve before the worst happens.

***Please note that spoilers are ahead.***

Wake Up Dead Man is about the conflict between Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) and Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin). The younger Duplenticy, punished for a burst of temper, is sent to the older Wicks’s (Josh Brolin) parish, where there are lingering concerns about the dwindling flock. Wicks, we find out, has a coterie invested in his sharp, culturally-tinged preaching. Fr. Jud teaches the cross, while Wicks prepares parishioners for combat. When Wicks ends up dead at the beginning of Holy Week, the murder mystery ensues and Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) arrives.

Institutional Power and Persuasion

Wake Up Dead Man is, at heart, about two visions of faith set against the background of the cultural conflict in America. That divide exists because Americans, collectively, are unable to find common ground. As James Davison Hunter argues, we struggle because we disagree over the nature of reality. Our varying conceptions of what is good, true, and beautiful lead to varying conceptions of human beings, sexuality, truth, and power. Polarization means that persuasion across the divide is difficult, if not impossible, and if persuasion is not an option, the assertion of raw power feels like the only remedy available if either side hopes to “win” the cultural battle raging.2

None of this is novel, of course. Wake Up Dead Man trods well-tilled soil, but it places blame in interesting ways. Through Blanc, Fr. Jud, Mons. Wicks, and some of Wicks’s faithful congregants, the movie suggests mediating institutions are partly responsible for our divisions. Institutionalized religion and social media platforms are obstacles to, instead of conduits for, persuasion.

For persuasion to happen, whether it is truthful or not, there must be a speaker and a hearer. In the simplest terms, this is a meeting in a coffee shop, or a mother talking to her daughter on the way to soccer practice. One-to-one, face-to-face communication is the obvious gold standard. If we hope for “truth to win” and for good arguments to prevail, this has to be the best setting because the two parties not only communicate, but know one another.

Fr. Jud appeals to Wicks’s followers in a small prayer meeting with this hope. He says the new group is “all about breaking down walls between us and Christ, us and each other, us and the world.” Fr. Jud wants an unmediated conversation, for in the cottage, with snacks and drinks set in the middle of comfortable seating, the barrier of the pulpit has been removed.

Fr. Jud thinks Wicks’s power over his congregation is due in part to the pulpit.3 The physical church, where Wicks smolders (the name is probably not an accident) and picks on newcomers until they walk out, has not only propped up Wicks spatially, but the setting ties his temporal, culturally bound message to eternal, transcendent concerns of life, death, sin, and salvation. Jud believes Wicks is poisoning his shrinking congregation by crafting a narrative of conflict that is artificially sacralized. This narrative also resonates with a growing number of online followers. Given the Catholic approach to church government, those in authority (and we see them at the beginning of the movie) could remove Wicks, but instead they tolerate or sympathize with him. This makes the institutional church, according to the film, the real religious culprit. It is not authentic faith that is the problem, but the organization that has failed to exercise its authority properly.

Social Media and Douglass’s “Double Wrong”

Like institutional religion, the movie implies social media platforms fan the flames of the culture war. The film demonstrates this mostly through Cy Draven (Daryl McCormack). Draven is a frustrated politician. When Jud meets him, Cy says he has been unable to connect to voters, which has limited his career options.

“I didn’t have that cult of personality thing, I guess. I tried everything. I hammered the race thing. I hammered the gender thing. The trans thing. The border thing. The homeless thing. The war thing. The election thing…people are just numb these days, I don’t know why.”

This is the clearest political element within Wake Up Dead Man. Draven’s use of hot-button issues to build a following has failed. Cy, who is much more “cipher” than “Cyrus,” is a flat, empty husk, like a snake skin left long behind. His politics are not genuine. He is only reaching for something to animate others; he has no meaningful beliefs of his own beyond his lust for power.

After Jud’s first interaction with Cy, we see him film and post everything to social media. Cy’s lust for followers and fame has destroyed him morally. There is no such thing as a neutral observer, at least not in a social media sense. The act of seeing, recording, and posting carries real costs for Cy and the world he documents. Cy alters himself and the environment when he taps the red dot on his screen, and the consequences are devastating.

In his own struggles, Cy recognizes Wicks’s potential. We learn that Wicks’s online presence is growing. For Wicks, there is an inverse relationship between the size of his flock and the size of his internet celebrity. As one droops the other soars. His sermons have enough red meat to satisfy RFK, Jr. and others with the appetite. Wicks’s words, though, lack the balance needed for nurturing health. Wake Up Dead Man here demonstrates social media’s destructive capacity.

While X or Meta or ByteDance provide the platform, these mediating institutions are not neutral carriers of information. Each part of the communication chain is radicalized. This is social media’s own version of Frederick Douglass’s famous “double wrong” of suppressing free speech. In Douglass’s terms, social media platforms distort the speaker and hearer through algorithmic means.

Frederick Douglass lived, and was politically active, in an age even more polarized than our own—Civil War America. No matter what you think of Democrats, Republicans, and Social Media in the 21st Century, they do not match the powder keg of 1860. In that white hot moment, months away from Lincoln’s inauguration and Ft. Sumter’s fall, Douglass, the former slave, attended an abolitionist meeting in Boston.

Before the event could unfurl, an angry mob (is there any other kind?) broke it up and the city’s authorities failed to restore order. Six days later, speaking at Boston’s Music Hall, Douglass defended free speech and excoriated the elites who did nothing to protect it.4

Douglass saw free speech as “the great moral renovator of society and government” and as the “dread of tyrants.” Free speech’s power comes from its accessibility. Anyone can speak, no matter their race, status, or creed, and anyone can hear, for moral renovations begin in the hearts of listeners.

Suppressing speech by using force or withholding the force needed to protect speech is for Douglass a “double wrong.” The speaker is robbed of a platform and the listener is denied a perspective.

Douglass’s critique highlights the necessity of cultivating an environment that protects persuasion. While his stemwinder was aimed at the city’s leaders who had the power and duty to punish the mob, but chose not to, he also aims at the mob itself. These private citizens were a “blending of the gentleman and the rowdy,” reflective of those who wear “tarpaulin or broadcloth.”

Speech, though accessible to all, flounders if private actors are unrestrained as they suppress speech and punish speakers. While we typically think of encroachments on speech, especially in light of the Constitution, by the government, Douglass was equally disturbed that Boston did not have a culture of free speech broad and deep enough to dissuade the rioters. If Boston—advanced and literate Boston, the academic jewel of the eastern seaboard—would not protect speech, what hope exists in St. Louis, a border state, or in Savannah, the heart of the Deep South?

For today—what of Silicon Valley? How might Douglass assess social media’s double wrong? Social media platforms are not angry mobs, but Wake Up Dead Man suggests they create those mobs. Wicks is incentivized to foment anger and capitalize on resentment. Platforms filter content to maximize engagement through pointed, explosive, and divisive material, which ultimately radicalizes hearers.

We see evidence of this in the film. Monsignor Wicks admits “I envied my grandfather’s power as a priest, I wanted that—always did.” We see him exercise that power by targeting newcomers to the church, searching for their cultural vulnerabilities, and exploiting them to entertain his followers online and in the pews. Father Jud stares in shock. Wicks provokes “walkouts,” where visitors grow so offended they leave, never to return. When it happens, the bond of the “in-group” is strengthened, but the church is stained. In this context, the physical place is polluted by the dynamics of the digital space.

So, Douglass’s double wrong has shifted. Government suppression through force or angry mobs—empowered when a government chooses to sit on its hands—are still concerns, but they are not paramount for this age. The new double wrong is distortion for profit. History will prove this new era perhaps more dangerous than the old one, especially as distortion’s effects leak into every corner of our existence. Like television a few generations before, social media has now defined and shaped our culture so that everything bears its mark.

Cy Draven has lost himself in the social media slop, and Wicks’s church has disappeared, replaced by a black hole of need and resentment. Sin, salvation, grace, hope, and love have been banished. Culture War, us vs. them, and “owning the libs” have taken their place.

Problems and Possibilities: Grace and Love As the Way Forward

Wake Up Dead Man, while fascinating, is incomplete. Though it “blames” the institutional church and social media for twisting our narratives and rewarding or hiding hate, the movie is ideologically partial. Conservatives shoulder most of the narrative’s blame, and little is said about progressives. There would not be a war if only one side is fighting.

I am sympathetic to Father Jud. The modern evangelical movement, as an example, is large and diverse, but too many of its leaders, like Wicks, have adopted a combative crouch as their cultural posture. The way of Christ is not about control or coercion. The cross is not a weapon but an invitation.

But I also understand that cultural conservatives have a reason for being wary. During the past three decades, they have witnessed a dizzying amount of change. While obvious, it bears repeating and same-sex marriage is the easiest example. In 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman for the purposes of federal law, and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages from other states, passed the U.S. House with 342 votes (out of 435, or 79%) and the U.S. Senate with 85 (out of 100) votes. It was signed into law by Pres. Bill Clinton, a Democrat. In 2008, California’s voters amended their state constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. These events, which feel frozen in a cultural ice age, were not that long ago.

I don’t subscribe to Monsignor Wicks’ methods or his message, but I understand why he, and others like him, want to fight. Wake Up Dead Man, to be fair, should have considered the rationale behind someone like Wicks. This failure is a mark against the film.

It overcomes this blind spot by providing a path out of the cultural conflict that surrounds us. This is the strongest part of the film—both theologically and culturally.

Father Jud, though flawed, is sincere in his love for others. We see him drop an investigation that could clear his name to counsel and pray with a struggling woman. We see him gently push back at Blanc’s atheism. We see him comfort a dying, guilty soul, one who has been his enemy, with a love she cannot have earned.

As a good and loyal Protestant, I have my qualms with Father Jud’s Catholicism—though it is mostly aesthetic in the film—but it is difficult to argue with his ethic. Our posture toward the world should not be one of combat. We should, like Father Jud, forsake the stance of pugilism and embrace the vulnerability of the cross and the love of God it represents.

But love is complicated, of course. Love, in the political sense, for our neighbors, demands justice, which carries a sword. Love, even for our enemies, accompanies truth. The innocence of the dove requires the shrewdness of the serpent. But love amidst the culture war’s debris is the right place to begin. Wake Up Dead Man’s Father Jud is cinema’s best recent reminder of this essential Christian truth.

If we wish to think of “winning” the culture war, we should be praying to persuade our friends and our enemies, not only of the rightness of our thinking, but of the love in our hearts. This is love instead of likes, and it takes dwelling in places instead of sharing posts.

First, let’s consider the end. Nicolas Maduro has updated his status: now in U.S. custody. Maduro, and Hugo Chavez, his predecessor, oversaw dramatic declines in Venezuela’s GDP and increases in inflation and poverty. Maduro’s human rights record was equally deplorable. After the 2024 presidential election, his government was credibly accused of arbitrary killings, disappearances, and torture, plus unlawful arrests and detentions. Supporters of good government and human dignity should shed no tears over Maduro’s fall.

Still, a question lingers. Based on the Administration’s own language, was the goal simply to arrest and prosecute Maduro or was it something else? While President Trump’s advisors, like Secretary of State Rubio, have highlighted law enforcement as the justification, Mr. Trump has not. President Trump wants American access to Venezuelan oil. He is threatening Mexico, Colombia, and Cuba through leverage gained via Venezuela. He wants America to “run” Venezuela until compliant leaders can be found to replace Maduro, even if that means American boots on the ground.

These other justifications revolve around regime change and regional hegemony. They go well beyond Maduro’s arrest and prosecution. If these ends prove to be more accurate, the United States will have waged an unconstitutional war under the fig leaf of legal indictment. Capture and prosecution are one thing. Nation-building and regime change are not only something else, but they are exactly the kinds of things that demand congressional input and oversight.

If we take Sec. Rubio’s rationale of narco-related law enforcement at face value, an uncomfortable fact requires explanation. If America is truly “at war” with illegal drugs, and is seeking to stabilize the hemisphere and punish trafficking, why did President Trump pardon Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras? Maduro stands accused of what Hernández was convicted of—using government resources to import tons of cocaine into the United States. Sentenced to 45 years in federal prison in 2024, Hernández’s pardon last November suggests America’s interest in Maduro are about much more than drug trafficking.

Finally, let’s consider the means employed. The Constitution was written both to empower and limit the national government. The war-making power was divided, like the treaty and appointment powers, between Congress and the Executive. Congress declares war, funds the military, and regulates the armed forces. The President’s power as Commander-in-Chief is broad and is not necessarily limited to defensive actions against invasion or insurrections.

The truth, as Jack Goldsmith, who teaches at Harvard Law and worked in the George W. Bush Administration, recently wrote, “few if any effective legal constraints on unilateral presidential uses of force” exist. Congress has paid for a world-class military but does little to regulate it or oversee the president’s actions. This is especially true in recent decades as partisan bonds between the branches have superseded any loyalty members of Congress once had to their own branch of government. Since the courts rarely intervene in how the president uses an explicit power, the question, which is evidence of the decline of our republic, is not “is it legal?” but “can the President get away with it?”

In the past, when the President used the military, Congress has either declared war, authorized the use of force, or at least been briefed ahead of sensitive operations. The Trump Administration, pointedly, declined even to brief Congress before Maduro’s capture. No declaration. No authorization. No briefing. The branch of government designed to represent citizens directly, the people’s megaphone, was frozen out of the process.

In today’s Washington, DC, where President Trump still controls the Republican Party, and where Speaker Johnson (R-LA) and Majority Leader Thune (R-SD) lead the House and Senate, can Trump get away with it? The answer is an unqualified “yes.” To expect Congress to come down hard on Trump is to expect water to be dry or the sun to rise in the west.

But should Trump get away with it? Of course not. Like his stunning use of the pardon power to waive Mr. Hernández’s federal crimes, Mr. Trump is flagrantly abusing his power as Commander-in-Chief and should suffer for it politically, especially if the United States “runs” Venezuela and puts boots on the ground.