Truth Unites - What Now?

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

Gavin Ortlund shares five strategies for how Christians can respond to fear, anger, and cultural turmoil with the hope and light of the gospel.Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/X: https://x.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

What does it look like to be a follower of Jesus right now? I'm recording this September 15th, 2025, and these feel like dark days. I think a lot of people are wrestling with, you know, how do we move forward? The terrible death of Charlie Kirk, and just what that represents in the political and cultural divide in America where I live, also other evils in the world, and then the way people are responding to these things. And you get the sense of we're losing the ability to disagree without resorting to violence, it feels like society is unraveling. A lot of people have this sense of they feel overwhelmed

and they feel maybe even hopeless. I think it's worth thinking about a basic question of just, what do we do? How do we live for Christ right now? In the dark moments, the light of the gospel shines out all the brighter. What does that look like right now? We're kind of leaning forward and we're kind of saying, okay, you know, what opportunities do we have for the gospel right now? What does it look like to be faithful to Christ right now? It does not look like being quiet. throwing in the towel, cynicism, despair. We know we'll be tempted to those things, but that's not the answer. One reason is there's a lot of openness to the gospel right now, which is exciting. We want to live well, we want to steward our lives. What does that look like? Here's five suggestions

just for ordinary people day to day. What might this look like? Number one, hope this would encourage you. Number one, ground your heart in the gospel. This is the old basic idea, but it's so true. you cannot better the world when you're acting out of anger and fear and panic and so forth. We need to get grounded in Christ. I've been spending time in John 14 to 16. I keep getting stuck in verses 2 to 3, and this simple idea where Jesus says, I'm preparing a room for you. And that's true for everyone who trusts in Jesus.

Just think about this. Sometimes we conceptualize heaven as though it's this very generic experience, like it's a big church service or a big worship concert or something like that. You just get lost in the crowd. not at all. Heaven is a deeply personal experience. Think of, you know, that's what's conveyed with the image of a room as well as preparation. Have you ever been traveling? You come back home and your room is all set, ready, prepared for you, conveys this sense of, you're wanted, you belong here. That's what Jesus is saying, heaven is for us. And we need to know that. You know, I think there are times where

some people feel like, oh, but if we focus too much on heaven, that just makes us withdraw from the world, I think it's just the opposite. C.S. Lewis, he addressed this multiple places. In mere Christianity, he said, you know, people who are so heavenly-minded, people worry you're going to be so heavenly-minded, you're no, earthly good. And he said, no, aim at heaven and you get earth thrown into. Being grounded in the heavenly hope we have is how we better the world right now. My favorite spot that C.S. Lewis addressed this is a little lecture from 1948 on living in an atomic age. He finishes off the whole thing with this little statement, those who want heaven must have served Earth best. That sums it up right there. When your heart is set on your heavenly hope, now you're prepared to take action,

and we do need to take action. Second idea is less time online, or at least monitoring very carefully how the internet is affecting you. I think this is a huge issue right now. We have to think about this. There is no doubt that there is a correlation between too much time online and a anxiety and depression as well, but especially anxiety. Study after study shows this. It was just reading one that talks about how among teenagers, those who spend four hours or more on screens every day are more than twice as likely to have issues with anxiety. And that's only one of the ways the internet can negatively affect us. Another thing that happens, especially when there's a crisis, it's just it's ruthless because it still wants to make money off of us. It's not like, oh, it's a

crisis, so let's shift how we're functioning. The algorithms are still manipulating us. We don't use social media. Social media uses us. So they are making money off of feeding us information that is provoking more outrage and envy and division and so forth. And you have to know this. Both for ourselves and then what I want to say to parents, parents, please monitor your teenagers' use of the internet. Don't just give them a phone or a computer and say good luck. a lot of young people are getting radicalized by the internet and it can happen to anybody. Please consider reading this book by Jonathan Haidt. I think there's going to be a book for teenagers coming out at some point soon, by the way,

to check out that. I'll put a link in the video description to this book and consider his basic warning that we've overprotected our children outside and underprotected them on the internet. Let our kids go play tackle football. They're going to be fine. but don't let them stay up at night with an iPad. That is far more dangerous than we realize. This is one of those moments as a culture. We've got to catch up and see the danger and adjust. That's what I'm trying to think through in this video. Third issue is tuning out hateful voices. We are seeing a lot of

Galatians 515 playing out on social media among Christians, biting and devouring each other. And this is, of course, not just Christians. This is the way of social media, and there's reasons for that, but we are getting drawn into it. I experienced this last week. I put out what I thought was a fairly benign and simple lament. This was before he died right after he was shot, and I was horrified, and I just said, praying for Charlie Kirk, this violence reveals a deep sickness in our culture come Lord Jesus. And you would not believe some of the reactions to this. People calling me a demon, poisonous, drive these pastors out of our churches, this kind of thing. That very phrase right there is interesting. It's a good example of it. What did that person, whoever said that, drive these

pastors out of our churches? What did he mean by these pastors? Right? Who does he mean? Like, which ones? And this is one of the things that social media does. It makes us other people. It's always my tribe versus that tribe. And it just distorts our dialogue and so on and so forth. Because basically what happened is people are using this tweet as trying to twist it as though I were advocating for both sidism, which I could not possibly. possibly have anticipated. This happened several times where I'll put out something, because you know how X works, you'll put out something not even, not even be able to guess how it could become controversial and it will, and you're thinking, wow, I could not even have guessed that. For the record, I don't

believe in both sidesism. I think that leftism, all other factors being equal, is a far more anti-Christian ideology than the conservative options on the table before us. It tends to have a very high view of human nature. It says people are basically good. the problem is systems and structures that we need to throw off. You get the oppressor versus oppressed categories that get superimposed onto everything. It often results in a very anti-God mentality. So when I advocate for addressing problems on the right, it doesn't mean that they're equal to the problems on the left.

It just means things on the right are also getting normalized that 10 years ago were unthinkable. And yet here it is. And it's really bad. So there's real conversations to be had about all of that. How Christianity and politics relates, I think that is a huge issue. And we need to be able to think about that, work through that, have conversations about that. You know, some people want to pull Christianity and politics completely apart. But another danger is people using Christianity for politics. So it's really politics that's in the driver's seat. All of that we need to talk about. But the amount of vitriol

and hate in the conversations makes it extremely difficult. And this whole area, I think, is a huge one for Christians to think about how do we conduct disagreements. I wrote a book on this. I never at all anticipated this would be a topic for a book, but I'm convinced this is a big issue in the church. And I think every Christian needs to come up with their own personal policy. How am I going to use the internet so I don't fall into biting and devouring? I want to be bold. I want to be clear, but I don't want to fall into that. And it's easy to get sucked into that. For a lot of us, it's going to take a lot of self-control to not get sucked into unproductive conversations. It's a huge area we've got to think about, especially right now.

Number four, and this is a nice redirect from that, is try to meet needs. There are so many needs around right now. And I've found this so helpful in my own life, just tuning other things out and just taking any energy that you would put towards a problem that you can't solve. Put that towards problems you can solve because those are around us. They're just less noisy and less visible. There are silent onlookers that need to be shepherded and spoken to. There are people who have needs. Here's how I put it on X this morning. A simple strategy can help these days focus on meeting needs right around us. There is so much that is broken and discouraging and it is so easy to get overwhelmed. Redirecting our attention toward the problems we can actually help is not only more

productive, it keeps us sane. In other words, when there's a problem that will pop up, the algorithms will pop it up right in front of you, and it will seem very urgent, but it's actually not a problem you can fix. And so instead of raging about it, just move on. Honestly, we're not going to solve the problems of the world by arguments on the internet. Occasionally, there's a place for back and forth and so forth, but we have to realize how clumsy these mechanisms are for actually getting through to a productive dialogue. So meet the needs you can meet. Be intentional to think of these people that could fall for parents. Let's invest in our kids all the more. Take your kids to the park and so on and so forth. If you're an employee, do everything you can to be a joy to your boss, be a joy to work with,

to your coworkers. If you're a church member, meet needs. There's other people, send an encouraging note to your pastor. Send an encouraging text to another friend of your church. show up on Sunday morning and sit, you know, if you're never not sure how to meet needs at church, just do this alone. Arrive early and sit in the front row. I mean, as someone who seeks to serve the church, I could tell you that helps us, and that alone is an encouragement, but there's other ways I'm sure you can find as well. I think a big way to meet needs right now is evangelism.

People are asking deep questions. We want to be available to help our non-Christian friends, and that's my last point, Now is a time to pray for revival. It's not a time to shrink back and live in fear. It's a time to lean forward. And yes, it's scary. It is. There's evil.

People are literally getting shot. I mean, it is, I've never lived in a time like this. But that doesn't mean it's a time to shrink back in fear. It's a time to lean forward with the hope of the gospel. This world is never meant to be our home. This world is a battlefield for spiritual. battle. And right now, a lot of people are open to evangelism. Now is the time for boldness. Glenn Scrivener has a great video chronicling a lot of the reactions to people who are sort of

exploring Christianity as a result of current events. And I watched through it and was listening. Some of the themes he highlights are a sense of awakening to evil and seeking good. People attending church for the first time in decades. People reading their Bible for the first time. People praying and feeling a sense of God's presence. People wondering, is there meaning, after all, a sense of spiritual stirring and openness. It's fascinating. It's so endearing to read some of these comments of non-Christians kind of talking about like, you know, I want to go to church, but do I need to do anything first, or do I just show up? I thought, you know, you don't need to do anything. Just come. And you'll be amazed at how thrilled people are that you're there.

So if you're a non-Christian watching this video and you're interested in going to church, just come. Don't do anything. Don't wait. Don't delay. Just come. We'll be so thrilled to have you there. But for those of us who know Jesus, I think now is the time for evangelism. I would like to ask for your prayers as I'm working on a book that is very evangelistic. It's called why Christianity makes sense. And it is due over the next two months. I've asked for prayer before. I really believe in it. It's my favorite book I've ever written. It's a popular level, like the book, Mere Christianity. I basically wanted to write a mere Christianity, but for all, day addressed to new issues. Very popular level, trying to be winsome and clear, shepherding the reader

through, starting with no assumptions, and just clearly presenting the Christian faith, working through objections. So that's my focus right now. It's what a lot of my days are spent doing just this particular month. Pray for me as I do that. All of us can think about this. Here's the final image to leave you with. I mentioned CS Lewis is 1948 address. Let me leave you with what he said toward the very beginning. It's a wonderful redirect and focus for us. In his day, they were talking about the atomic bomb being invented, and the lecture was entitled on living in an atomic age. Here's what he said. The first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing

sensible and human things, praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts, not huddled together like frightened sheep thinking about bombs. That's a great focus for us. It's easy right now when you know, you see evil and you're knocked off balance and it's easy to kind of stop leaning in to the human activities that are just a part of our day. And it's just kind of thrilling and wonderful to remember. We, it's okay. Yeah, like maybe things will get worse. We can't control that, but what we can control is how we're going to face it. And let's face it in these ways. I'm sure there's other things we could add on. I'd love to know

your thoughts in the comments, but these are just my thoughts today. Hoping this is pastoral, encouraging for people. In the meantime, after this, we'll back to a couple of apologetics videos. I hope this is encouraging to you. Thanks for watching, everybody.