September 17, 2025

Hello, fellow wayfarers … Why I think the pull to political violence is satanic … Where I saw signs of grace in a dark week … What has changed recently on the question of how smartphones are making us sad and lonely and mad … How you can join Lecrae and me for a discussion about staying Christian in crazy times … A Hoosier Desert Island Playlist … This is this week’s Moore to the Point.

How We Convince Ourselves to Accept Political Violence—and How to Stop

After the shocking assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, I described the violence not merely as immoral and un-American but also as satanic. A friend objected to that word. I stand by it—and here’s why.

The Bible explicitly defines murder as the way of the Devil (1 John 3:10–12). But when it comes to political violence in particular, satanic is the only word I know that can describe the combination of calculated self-idolatry with senseless self-sabotage.

When a health-care executive was murdered, some, mostly on the left, cheered and wrote songs and memes of devotion about the alleged killer. When a former speaker of the House’s husband was attacked with a hammer, some, mostly on the right, laughed and castigated the victim.

Now here we are, at the end of a summer in which we’ve seen the murders of some of the highest elected officials in Minnesota, as well as the murder—on video before the eyes of countless watchers—of one of the most recognizable political activists in the country.

For some of us, this brings a sense of foreboding that goes beyond the deaths of these human beings made in the image of God. It portends a country seemingly on the brink of something unspeakably dark.

On one level, this push toward violence seems coldly intentional. Over the past week, many have cited Amanda Ripley’s apt designation of “conflict entrepreneurs,” those in whose interest it is to tip disagreement over into what Ripley calls “high conflict.” We are in an atmosphere charged with revenge—to the point of having algorithms and online subcultures whose entire business model is to activate the most primal depths of the limbic system.

Within a Christian vision of reality, the ways that our fallenness can be exploited should be of no surprise, including the fact that we are vulnerable to invisible forces that take advantage of our brokenness and propel our own destruction. Even the most convinced materialist must at least recognize the analogy behind what the apostle Paul called “the prince of the power of the air,” who drives people along invisibly by appealing to what is already in them—the passions and desires of the flesh and of the mind (Eph. 2:2–3).

Some of the conflict entrepreneurs actually want civil war—and sell it to a people so deadened by affluence and spiritual alienation that the feeling of hate is the closest imitation they can find to life and purpose. Some of them want an enemy to blame that’s big enough to justify the crushing of their enemies. And many know that, in this sort of global moment, the thirst for retribution sells.

This would seem to have a logic to it. What could seem more reasonable, from the standpoint of evolutionary survival and tribal loyalty, than to say that one would fight for one’s friend to the point of shedding the blood of one’s enemies?

At Caesarea Philippi, the apostle Peter believed just that when he said, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you,” after he learned what Jesus’ enemies would do to the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus responded, “Get behind me, Satan!” (Matt. 16:23, ESV throughout).

When Peter would later enact his previous vow by attacking the one coming to arrest Jesus, our Lord spoke not only to the immorality of the attempt but to its senselessness: “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (26:52). Jesus spoke there to the kind of high conflict of which Paul later warned the church at Galatia: “If you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another” (Gal. 5:15).

Political violence is morally wrong. No authority is granted the rightness of vigilantism. That’s true of people with whom one agrees as well as of those with whom one strongly disagrees.

But political violence is also self-defeating. History has proven this over and over. Hate gives way to hate, retribution to more retribution. If one believes a cause to be furthered by murder and terror, then whether that cause is good or evil, it will harm itself in the process.

In that way, political violence is satanic. After all, Scripture tells us that spiritual beings opposed to the ways of God know the outcome of history as well as, or better than, any human religion or philosophy—and they shudder before it (James 2:19). And yet the same Scriptures tell us that the Devil rages all the more “because he knows that his time is short” (Rev. 12:12).

Evil—even cold, rationalistic evil—is crazed and self-destructive. It relies on the kind of passion that is driven by jealousy, selfish ambition, and disorder—the kind of “wisdom” our Lord’s brother described as earthly, unspiritual, and, yes, demonic (James 3:15–16).

We are in great danger here. When we surrender the question of how for merely the question of what we want and who we support, violence is no longer unthinkable but instead inevitable. And after a while, we are conformed to that pattern of being. We start to accept it as normal.

We must not. Wherever you are on the political spectrum, you will be pulled at some time or other to think the stakes are so high, the enemies so irredeemable, that moral norms must yield to animalistic cruelty and revenge, even to the point of shedding blood.

When that moment comes to your mind, there is only one thing to say: “Get behind me, Satan.”

A Sign of Grace in a Dark Week

I mentioned on the podcast that I’ve been working on a project at night, just before bed, that initially was a way to sort of quiet down my mind. I found boxes and boxes of old notebooks and journals, from when I was 14 years old until now, and I decided to transcribe them into digital form. It has turned out to be a much bigger project than I imagined because there are literally thousands of pages of them—and I am nowhere near the halfway point.

At each point, I would find myself reliving whatever era of my life was recorded in the notebook from which I was reading. And I found myself almost exhausted reading the notes from my time in college, just because I lived such a weird life.

I was at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, but at the same time, was on staff with my boss, then–US congressman Gene Taylor. I would be managing classes and papers while writing press releases, holding press conferences, penning position papers and speeches, and traveling with my boss all over south Mississippi getting votes to reelect him. And it was one of the best and most formative experiences of my life.

A lot of that has to do with the fact that Gene Taylor was a lifelong antidote to cynicism. He was exactly the same in the car driving from a VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) hall in Hancock County to a glove factory in Wayne County as he was in his TV ads. I saw him stand by what he believed—he voted to impeach a president of his own party, for instance, and didn’t even flinch in doing what he thought was right. There’s a reason our youngest son is named Taylor Eugene.

I have been back in south Mississippi this week, delivering lectures at my alma mater, USM. I walked around the campus—buzzing with life—and remembered those good years here. Right before I went up to speak, I looked up to see, coming down the aisle of the lecture hall, my old boss Gene Taylor and his wife, Margaret, there to hear me speak. I cannot even convey how much that meant to me.

The entire day turned out to be one of the most life-giving things I’ve done in a long, long, long time. Earlier in the day, I met with campus ministry leaders, faculty, a couple of missionaries on furlough, and lots and lots of you, for whom I am grateful for coming out to say hello. I also talked with countless atheist and agnostic and Muslim students, as well as many committed Christians and some who aren’t sure where they are spiritually—all of whom asked good, curious, thoughtful questions.

I was reminded in all of this that, even in this sad and twisted time, grace is everywhere.

Jonathan Haidt on What’s Changed Recently with Smartphone Anxiety Culture—and What Hasn’t

One of our listeners’ all-time favorite frequent guests on the podcast is an atheist. In some ways that’s unusual, and in some ways it’s not.

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, though not a believer, is perhaps the world’s foremost thinker on issues Christians face every day: the digital war on our attention spans, how technology is making us anxious, how removing obstacles and pain points from our children hurts them, and why we all seem to hate each other so much.

Because the tech situation—and what we know about how human minds and cultures are changing in response to it—is so fast-moving, I like to check in with Jon every once in a while to see what we need to know now about maintaining attention, combating loneliness and anxiety, and learning ways that people, families, and churches are pioneering to push back against it all.

So this week, I welcomed Jon back to ask him how things have changed in recent months in the rapidly evolving landscape of technology and its impact on faith communities. As the author of The Anxious Generation, The Coddling of the American Mind, and The Righteous Mind, he shares his latest observations and updated insights since we last spoke.

This is a fresh, new conversation, building off of the previous ones. As the digital world shifts at breakneck speed, Jon offers new analysis on what he’s witnessing on the frontlines: how smartphones and social media are reshaping our capacity for prayer and Bible reading, the escalating influence of TikTok and short-form video, and emerging concerns about AI in church settings.

From practical questions about phone-free churches to broader concerns about protecting children in digital environments, this conversation bridges scientific insight with pastoral care.

You’ll hear Jon’s surprising predictions about AI’s future, discover which social media platform he considers most harmful, and learn his single most important piece of advice for church leaders seeking to preserve human connection in our high-tech age.

You can listen here.

Join Lecrae and Me to Talk About Why and How to Stay Christian in Crazy Times

CT is rolling out a bunch of new features that are unique to subscribers. Here’s the first of them.

Lecrae and I are going to host a live online discussion where we think through what he’s learned about staying Christian when tempted to disillusionment or cynicism. We’ll then take your questions. It’s on Wednesday, September 24 from 3:30 to 4:15 p.m. EDT. If you are a member, join us.

Not a member yet? Not a problem. Subscribe by September 22 with promo code LECRAE to receive 25 percent off CT and unlock access to this members-only event.

Hope to see many of y’all there.

Desert island Playlist

Every other week, I share a playlist of songs one of you says you’d want to have on hand if you were stranded on a desert island. This week’s submission comes from reader Gary Maze from Greenwood, Indiana, who writes:

Thank you for the wonderful newsletter. It is an uplifting moment for me every week, even on weeks it does not come out, since I have saved them and if there is not one, I can go back and read an old one. It keeps me encouraged and pointed to the better way of Jesus in these troubled political times.

I had been debating about sending this list for a while, but then I realized that I have found so many great songs because of your Island Playlists that I needed to return the favor, so maybe someone else could find something new from my list.

Here’s Gary’s playlist:

Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor by J. S. Bach, performed by Kevin Bowyer: I love Baroque music and especially J. S. Bach. I could listen to any Bach piece, but I picked this one because it is considered one of his great organ works. It is over 12 minutes long, which would help on a desert island to keep the repetitions down. If not, then the entire Easter Oratorio. When I listen to this, I sometimes imagine what it would have been like to sit in a church and hear Herr Bach playing this for a worship service prelude.
“Stranger Things Have Happened” by Claire Lynch: I love a good story song, or a great hook in a song. I read a review about this song once that said, “You may never hear Patty Hearst and the SLA mentioned in any other song.”
“Valse Lente” by Claude Bolling: In high school, we needed some music for a play, and I pulled this o