Christianity does not locate freedom in radical autonomy. It does not tell either men or women that happiness consists in escaping obligations arising from relationships we did not entirely choose.
Jesus never promised me a World Series championship. He never promised that my children would always succeed or that life would go according to plan. He promised something better.
In Jesus, God acted first, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:5).

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The reasoning was always the same. The gods were angry. The gods were hungry. The gods required payment.
We can’t remove our crosses or the reality of our deaths. Only Jesus can.
People everywhere, every day, feel God’s wrath—and not as merely an afterlife threat but as a present reality.
When Dostoevsky died on February 9, 1881, he left behind novels that refuse to flatter the reader or simplify the human condition.
We believe in a Savior who raises the dead: this is why the church is the one place on earth that can speak plainly about abortion without collapsing into despair.
This is an excerpt from the introduction of Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Christopher Richmann (1517 Publishing, 2026).
American religion did not become optional because the gospel failed. It became optional because religion slowly redefined itself around usefulness.
Salvation is not merely to be put in “safety” but to be put into Christ.
His provision always flows downward, furnishing and filling us with his grace and truth right where we are.
The crisis is not merely that people are leaving. The crisis is that we have relinquished what is uniquely Lutheran and deeply needed.
Christmas is not only about a cradle in Bethlehem, it’s also about a cross outside Jerusalem where salvation was won for us.
Merry Christmas, Christ has spoken, and his verdict stands.