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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When we despair of ourselves, we repent of these self-justifying schemes and allow ourselves to be shaped by God, covered in Christ’s righteousness, and reborn with a new heart.
The Bible isn’t a set of moral examples or religious insights. It’s the record of God’s saving work, fulfilled in Christ, delivered now through words spoken and heard.
The Scriptures consistently speak about sanctification as a sure gift for the Christian.
What do such callings look like? They are ordinary and everyday.
American religion did not become optional because the gospel failed. It became optional because religion slowly redefined itself around usefulness.
Bringing your family to church to receive “the one thing needful” (Luke 10:42) in Word and Sacrament honors and pleases God.
There’s a difference between refusing revenge and refusing responsibility.
This is the first in a series meant to let the Christian tradition speak for itself, the way it has carried Christians through long winters, confusion, and joy for centuries.
The crisis is not merely that people are leaving. The crisis is that we have relinquished what is uniquely Lutheran and deeply needed.
The ethos of the church’s worship is found in poor, needy, and desperate sinners finding solace and relief in the God of their salvation.
Wake Up Dead Man is not ultimately a story about mystery, exposure, or even justice. It is a story about what happens when mercy speaks to death—and death listens.
Wade Johnston, Life Under the Cross: A Biography of the Reformer Matthias Flacius Illyricus, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis: MO, 2025.