Month: September 2025

Dear Gen Z Christian

Published by Daniel on September 20, 2025

Dear Gen Z Christ-follower,

It has been just over a week since a bullet exploded across a college campus in Utah and shook the world.

You witnessed the reality of murder played out before your very eyes.

You saw an act of pure, unadulterated evil.

But evil didn’t stop there.

Since Charlie Kirk’s bloody assassination just over one week ago, you have continued to watch evil march across this nation.

Evil has not stopped with that assassin’s bullet.

This last week, you’ve watched evil openly celebrate Kirk’s murder or at least somehow justify it. I wish I could say these celebrations came from deranged fringe groups. Instead, it was medical doctors, nurses, government officials, fire fighters, professors and even elementary and high school teachers—the very groups you depend on for health care, law and order, emergencies, and education.

This last week, you’ve watched evil kick over, stomp on, and vandalize Charlie Kirk memorials, including the one in front of the Turning Point USA headquarters. You’ve watched evil interrupt prayer vigils by shouting “Bella Ciao!” (a lyric from a World War II anti-fascist song which, by the way, was etched into one of Kirk’s shooter’s bullet casing), as well as singing little ditties with lyrics like “I don’t want your salvation. I want you to f*****g die. We’re not going to give you a second chance, even when you beg for it.”

You’ve watched evil’s art of deception as the media and “influencers” attempted to establish the lie that insisted the shooter’s motives are still unknown or that he was a white, Christian, and straight even though the Orem police and the Utah governor have confirmed that he had a trans lover and had been radicalized by leftist ideology.

You’ve watched evil deflect and attempt to shift blame: trying to push the “both sides do it” argument or steering the debate to gun control, blaming Trump or those who voted for him, playing victim and establishing a martyr for their own cause (enter here: Jimmy Kimmel).

In short, you’ve watched evil spew chaos.

Currently, you are watching evil march across the hearts of far too many people.

I know it seems confusing and hopeless.

However, in one week, you have learned what it means when Jesus said that the world hates us because it hated him first (John 15:18).

You learned this last week that if you stand for truth, there are far too many on the left that believes it would be okay to kill you where you stand.

You’ve what happens when moral clarity is lost.

You’ve seen the outcome played out when the serpent tempts Eve that she would become like God, knowing good and evil.

Have you ever wondered why the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden was called the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”?

Does that mean even “good” knowledge is bad? Does that mean that the Bible is anti-intellectual and that God wants you stupid?

Far from it.

The serpent’s temptation takes Eve’s eyes off of God as the origin of all things in the universe—including the moral code—and makes her look within herself as the creator.

By eating of the fruit from that tree, Eve alone gets to decide what is good and what is evil. She no longer needs God the moral author to define good and evil. She now gets to that all by her little own self.

Now multiply that by the billions of people who have lived on this planet.

Each one truly believing that he or she fully has the capacity to define what is good or evil to them—no matter how asinine, bizarre, or contradictory.

Where murder is ok so long as it is the right person getting shot.

Where your opinion or worldview can earn you a death sentence.

And where the logic wouldn’t apply if it were reversed (say, my definition of right and wrong would justify me shooting you because I find you abhorrent).

Where free speech is suddenly an issue when one loses their job for saying something vile on social media yet it wasn’t when someone loses their life for crime of speaking. (The irony is thick so here.)

Where Jimmy Kimmel becomes a martyr of free speech for his show being suspended yet Kirk is not for his life being terminated.

Where nearly two weeks following the assassination, after police release incontrovertible evidence as to the killer’s motive, the left as well as the media is twisting themselves into pretzels to maintain the motive remains unclear.

We live in difficult and confusing times, where truth is bent to the narrative.

Gen Z believer, you have unfortunately been called to traverse this dumpster fire called Planet Earth. You have seen—and continue to stare into—the face of evil, and you are called to be the salt and the light.

And believe you me: we are in a dark and spoilt world. It might feel easier and safer to hide.

No. You must press forward.

Satan will try to move the world passed this as quickly as possible.

Don’t let him.

In Luke’s Gospel, after Jesus’s disciples returned from being sent out, they were amazed that “even the demons submit to us in your name.” Jesus replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.” (Luke 10:17-19)

Now, Gen Z Christ-follower, it is on you. Be strong. Fight the good fight.

As one who has worked closely with Gen Zers, I believe in you. I see your heart. I have seen how the face of evil has effected you. Sometimes, I have seen you overwhelmed by shyness or a lack of confidence. But I also have seen you break out of apprehension and overcome in a big way. I have seen you pursue the face of God and do everything to make him real in your life.

The world needs you to do it now.

Evil is spreading.

The only way to fight it is Jesus, a name by which the demons flee and the captives go free.

I have zero hesitation that you will step up to the challenge.

Let me know what I can do to pour fuel on the fire.

In the name of Jesus, before whom every knee shall bow,

Dan

When sadness overcomes the anger

Published by Daniel on September 16, 2025

It’s midnight.

I am out in the woods during our annual high school retreat.

Its quiet and tranquility is overwhelming and refreshing.

It was a day filled with worship, games, and laughter (I have always been a fan of high school retreats).

And now, in the heavy darkness under a Montana sky, amidst the heavy slumber of a cabin full of high school boys, I am awake.

It’s been nearly a week since the brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk.

The gruesome video continues to play over and over in my mind. I am still unable to wrap my head around it.

Since that horrible event, I have responded with anger.

Deep anger.

I felt it was the only emotion I heart was able to process at that moment. My anger lashed out at the political left for their excuses, deflections, and worthless justifications.

Now, away from the normal routines of life, tucked away in the Montana forest, after a day of the laughter and worship of these precious students, midnight settles in.

And now, having finally been able to catch my breath, I find myself unexpectedly washed over in a wave of sadness.

It’s the first time I felt sadness since last Wednesday’s gruesome tragedy.

I was honestly surprised that I wasn’t feeling that emotion earlier. After all, isn’t that what “normal” Christians should feel at the start?

Everyone processes their shock differently, I guess.

I am saddened by Kirk’s murder, a sight that no soul is designed to see. I am saddened that a woman half my age now has to navigate a world vomiting hatred toward her as she has to carry two very young children with her.

Most of the anger I have felt this last week surprisingly was not turned toward the shooter. I felt sorry for him. I grieved the deception under which this young man fell as well as the indoctrination that twisted his fragile mind. I cannot imagine what the shooter’s family is currently going through or even his “partner” who has already traversed down the river of Satan’s deception.

Their worlds are shattered in ways that could never be repaired save the redemption of Christ.

Further, I feel sad that there is actually a worldview that truly thinks it’s okay to murder someone because they have a different point of view. One with both a lost moral compass and lost heart can only be so callous.

Mostly, I am disheartened how Satan has infiltrated the church to such a degree that some pastors preached or at the very least implied justification for Kirk’s murder as well as far too many supposed followers of Jesus who are condemning or discouraging others for praying for the Kirk family.

Encouraging fellow believers not to pray for someone is a very shallow understanding of prayer and a move of Satan himself.

I think one of the things that made me so angry this past week was that no one on the left, Christian or not, say “I’m sorry.” No “both sides do it.” No gun control debates. No justifying it. No idiotic twisting of the narrative.

Just human beings being human.

Apparently, that is too much to ask.

I grieve those remaining silent just because—in their clouded eyes—the right guy got killed. As Texas Senator Ted Cruz recently said, “They don’t kill you because you’re a Nazi, they call you a Nazi* so they can kill you.” (* you can include “fascist” and “evil” as well)

I am so heartbroken that the body of Christ is now torn apart by such division that folks within the flock have justified division, hatred, and spite. These individuals have allowed themselves to be so influenced by Satan. How could people who claim the name of Christ really think they are doing God’s word with back-biting, vision-killing, and whipping up division the body.

They are not doing God’s work.

Far from it.

They have allowed themselves to be tools of the greatest adversary of the kingdom of God.

God help the body of Christ.

Sadness overwhelmed me all night and morning.

However, in the midst of this sadness, I see great beams of the breaking through the darkness. Hundreds of thousands—or even millions—of Brits marched in London over the weekend in what at first was meant to be an anti-immigration march that morphed into a Charlie Kirk vigil. Prayer vigils with numbers in the thousands are breaking out in France, Germany, Australia, Canada. Recently, I saw the Māori people honor Kirk’s martyrdom with a Haka dance in New Zealand.

Sunday saw a wave of new worshippers attend church—some for the first time. I have heard of some reports of Bibles flying off the shelves. A friend reported her church in Salt Lake City had over 1800 in attendance and ran out of Bibles to give away, ordering another three hundred.

Something might be happening. Only time will tell if the Holy Spirit will continue to pour fuel on the fire.

I pray that fire continues to burn.

Currently, I am sitting watching the smiles on students’ faces and hearing the laughter as they play a game called “Switch.” In a way, it serves as a reminder of God is saying, “I got this.”

That certainly helps to deal with the sadness covering me the last eighteen hours.

All things considered; after having been able to take a deep breath in the stillness of the Montana countryside, I am finding sadness is better than anger. Anger is reactionary; sadness empathizes. Maybe there is a place for both, provided the anger remains a righteous one. Righteous anger demands action; sadness reminds us of our human brokenness. The sadness weighing me down in the last hours has forced me to think of everyone as humans again—lost, deceived, broken souls desperately seeking moral clarity.

In a way, this last week has been a whole lot of both.

God help us in the weeks to come.

A week of assassination and evil

Published by Daniel on September 11, 2025

It’s Sunday morning.

A Sunday following a very difficult and heavy week. A week which admittedly left me sad and very angry.

I wish I could say it was a righteous anger—and maybe for the most part it was.

But at times, it was not. It was filled with rage.

On Wednesday, I watched Charlie Kirk’s neck explode. (I inadvertently watched the video showing the murder from the side of the exit wound. I do not recommend watching it, and I pray it will miraculously disappear from the internet forever.)

On Wednesday, the country was preparing to remember the 9/11 attacks the next day.

Now I watched a live feed throughout the afternoon as students prayed, waiting for word that he might miraculously survive this.

That moment stirred memories of the morning of September 11, 2001—24 years earlier.

I remembered watching the first tower burn in New York City, praying it was an accident or was not as bad as it looked on our screens.

Then we saw the second plane hit the second tower.

I remember the fog, my mind trying desperately to process what my eyes were seeing. I remember the words of the local announcer when the south tower collapsed (I was driving at this moment): “Ladies and gentlemen, the New York skyline has changed forever.”

I remember feeling vulnerable.

And then came the anger.

24 years later, those feelings returned when Fox News’ Will Cain announced, “It is my great dishonor to confirm that Charlie Kirk has died.”

In the midst of that mental fog, anger began to rise.

I had been warning of this outcome for years, even turning it up after Trump got shot in 2024.

For the last decade, people who held conservatives views have been called “Nazis,” “fascists,” “full of hate,” and “evil.”

At first, the left’s name-calling, insults, and narrative-spinning was a source of humor to us on the right. The left, we shrugged, had become a parody of themselves.

Not anymore.

Former president Joe Biden frequently used the phrase “an existential threat to democracy.” He even said, “It’s time to put Trump in a bull’s-eye,” and joked, “if I were in high school, I’d take him behind the barn and beat the hell out of him.” And he called conservative voters “garbage.”

Kamala Harris point-blank used the phrase “fascist” to call Trump.

Hillary Clinton called conservative voters “a basket of deplorables.”

A poll came out five months ago where 48.6% of the left said that assassinating Elon Musk was justified, and 55.2% of that group said it was justified in assassinating Donald Trump.

Two days ago, a YouGov poll said that are “Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say it is acceptable to celebrate the death of a public figure.”

This insanity is not limited to the “world.” I have heard progressives Christians point out an apparent irony of a cross hanging from the neck or tattooed on the arm of “evil” Christ-followers, such as Karoline Leavitt or Pete Hagseth, as if accusers are somehow no longer in need the cross.

Yesterday, Christian artist Chris Tomlin posted a request for prayer for Kirk’s widow and children. The first response to this post was criticism to Tomlin by requesting a prayer for the death of a person so full of “hate and bigotry.”

I don’t care if that responder was from a Christ-follower or not, but that comment was demonic.

In the name of “compassion,” that comment was wicked. In the name of “social justice,” the Democratic Party has lost its heart, moral compass, and it’s soul.

Moments after Kirk’s widow made her first public statement, accusations flooded social media accusing this 72-hour-old widow as trying to take advantage of Kirk’s death–this is demonic.

When fire fighters, public leaders, bureaucrats, doctors and nurses, and individuals educating your children celebrate Kirk’s death—this is demonic.

When in the heat of the grieving and loss, individuals try to spin it about “gun control”—and try to guilt you as the heartless one because you don’t go along with their policies—that is demonic.

Promoting chaos—that is demonic.

When Christ-followers on the left did not openly and publically call out this rhetoric and demand that it stop—that is demonic.

The justification for the murder of anyone–implied or in the open–that is demonic.

This is what happens when the left demonize conservatives over the last ten years.

The left’s typical response has been “both sides do it.”

Then as an example, they come up January 6—an event occurring four years ago—and Charlottesville years before that. Both events, by the way, were widely condemned by national conservative commentators. Next, comes: “but Trump pardoned all of them.” Never mind the fact that Biden’s auto-pen pardoned scores of killers.

No, we are not the same.

I have been warning of Wednesday’s outcome for years. I have seen the writing on the wall.

So, yes, I am angry. Perhaps some of that might come from a righteous anger. Admittedly, a lot of it came from my flesh.

There but for the grace of God go I.

Now, on this Sunday morning, this country has reached a turning point. Frankly, I am deeply concerned about this.

About those on the left doubling-down on this rhetoric.

And about those on the right responding to the left’s violence with violence.

That must also be condemned without reservation and without nuance.

We Christ-followers in the right must remember to FIGHT THE CORRECT FIGHT.

Do not confuse the two.

Heed the words of Paul:

“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” — Ephesians 6