Does discipleship require isolation from the world?
Discipleship doesn't require isolation. It requires the relocating principle: recovering structures that God made good and inhabiting them under Christ's authority. Both assimilation and unnecessary rejection abandon the field. Only relocation actually contests it.
How Can Christian Community Serve as an Alternative to Surveillance Culture?
Christian community offers what surveillance cannot: knowledge held within love. Where surveillance produces conformity through observation, Christian community produces formation through covenantal presence — known not for control but for the sake of restoration.
How can pro-life Christians respond to pro-choice Christians?
Not all Christians hold the same position on abortion, and pro-life Christians should establish shared theological ground before pressing into disagreement. Convictions about Scripture’s authority, God’s sovereignty, and the call to neighbor-love provide a framework for honest conversation that does not require contempt. The aim is to reason together from commitments already shared, not to persuade by argument alone.
How Can the Church Help Christians Resist the World's Pressures in a Digital Age?
The church resists digital-age pressures by modeling a different kind of community—slowing the rhythms of life through worship, confession, and communion; teaching explicitly about how technology forms us; and fostering covenantal relationships where believers are known not for performance but for participation in Christ.
How Should Christians Use Technology without Losing Their Neighbor?
Christians use technology faithfully when they refuse to outsource the inefficient, embodied work of loving God and neighbor. The danger is not the tool itself but the way devices unburden us in ways that erode the practices through which love is formed. Progress defined only as making life easier too often neglects the personal and collective solidarity forged through struggling together.
How should we think about our relationship with pro-choice advocates?
Christians are not at war with pro-choice advocates; the struggle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. That does not mean pro-choice advocates fail to oppose Christian convictions, but it means Christians must engage them as people who do not yet see with eyes that see or hear with ears that hear. The posture is witness rather than combat—patient, truthful, and aimed at the gospel.
Should Churches Be on Social Media?
Yes, with discernment. Social media can extend a church's witness, teaching, and connection — but churches that adopt social media without reflection often absorb its formative pressures: optimizing for engagement, performing spiritual authenticity, and measuring faithfulness in metrics that have no theological warrant.
What are a few things Christians might avoid saying in conversations with those who hold differing views on abortion?
Christians should avoid expressing surprise at pro-choice advocates’ distress over the loss of abortion access, since surprise implies unawareness of how deeply the world is broken and how differently others perceive it. Christians should also avoid name-calling, which treats opponents as enemies rather than people made in God’s image. The aim of conversation is faithful witness, which requires honesty about life and genuine respect for the person present.
What Do Communal Practices Form That Individual Disciplines Cannot?
Individual disciplines form individuals. Communal practices form a body. The distinction isn't one of emphasis but of kind. Worship, confession, the Lord's Supper, and the patient bearing-with of difficult people produce a common life that no amount of private practice can substitute for.
What if I don’t want to come off as judgemental?
There is a way for Christians to be genuinely judgmental—assuming a holier-than-thou posture that is both uncharitable and unpersuasive. But avoiding that posture does not mean avoiding discernment between good and evil, which Christians are called to exercise. The goal is to be both winsome and bold: offering a theological perspective on the world without contempt for the people being addressed.
What Is the Biblical Nature and Role of the Church?
The church is not a voluntary society but a community called by God, united to Christ, existing to glorify the Triune God, proclaim the gospel, and make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20)—an embassy of another kingdom present within the nations but ordered by a different authority.
What Is the Difference Between Being Watched and Being Known?
Being watched is observation without intimacy—knowledge gathered for purposes of management, evaluation, or control. Being known is observation with intimacy—knowledge held within a relationship of love. Christians are called to be known by God and by one another, and that calling is not the same thing as accepting surveillance.
What Kind of Accountability Does Discipleship Require, and How Does It Differ from Moral Oversight?
Moral oversight checks for specific failures. Discipleship accountability is the ongoing, mutual work of helping each other perceive what we can’t perceive on our own and respond to Christ in situations where our instincts pull us elsewhere. The two practices aren’t the same.
What posture might Christians adopt when we interact with those who are angry about the Dobbs v. Jackson decision?
Christians must not become so focused on protecting the unborn that they forget the call to reach the lost, many of whom do not know Christ. Convincing someone to be pro-life is not the same as seeing them come to faith, and Christians must hold both aims without collapsing one into the other. When argument is not working, stopping to ask questions and seek genuine understanding is often more faithful than pressing harder.