Guidance for Confusing Times

Tradition tends to get treated as the thing we`re supposed to outgrow. Jeremiah treats it as the way home.

"Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls." — Jeremiah 6:16

That`s the move Pete Wehner keeps returning to in our latest conversation. When the cultural currents are pulling this hard, the wisdom isn`t to invent something new. It`s to stand at the crossroads and ask for the older, deeper path we may have walked right past.

Thousands of denominations. One Bible. That gap is the whole conversation.

"The trouble with sola scriptura is that it often assumes, implicitly if not explicitly, that the Bible is self-evident and easy to interpret. And I would say it`s not."
— Pete Wehner

We sat down with Pete to talk about what Protestants may have lost along the way, and why so many are quietly looking across the aisle to the Catholic tradition to find it again. This one stretched us.

New episode out now. Listen in.

Russell’s recent words in Christianity Today on the importance of character have stuck with us.

We rarely trade character for policy in a single decision. It happens gradually, through a series of small justifications that each feel reasonable in the moment—the stakes are too high, the other side is worse, this is just how things work now. And underneath every one of those justifications is usually something we want badly enough that we`ve stopped asking questions about the person promising it to us.
That`s what makes the question of "does character matter in public office?" worth sitting with. Because the honest version of that question isn`t whether character matters—most of us would answer yes without hesitation. The honest version is whether there are places where we`ve already begun making quiet compromises around character, and haven`t yet let ourselves see them.

The week after the Fourth, you might be feeling it—the fear about what comes next, about the state of the country, about whether we can actually get along, and fear makes you defensive, tribal, reactive. But you weren`t made for that. You were made for power, love, and a clear head. So which spirit are you actually operating from right now? Not which spirit you wish you had, but which one is actually driving your choices today—your words, your votes, your heart?

The fireworks have faded, and you`re left with the harder question: what comes next?

Lincoln answered it when he could have demanded revenge but chose to heal instead, with malice toward none, with charity for all, let us bind up the nation`s wounds. This is the work of the week after the Fourth, the work of deciding who you`re actually going to be when the celebration ends and the real work begins. It`s not the easy patriotism. It`s the one that costs something.

Christopher Nolan`s Odyssey is about to put an ancient story in every theater in the country. This line from our latest episode with Jessica Hooten Wilson about the classic tale is the one that`s stuck with us most.

"The reality is that all of us, either intentionally or unintentionally, are telling stories constantly about what has happened, who we are, and whether we`re good people."

Jessica said that about Odysseus, but it`s not really about Odysseus. Listen in for more.

Politics is downstream from culture, and that`s the whole game right there because it changes where the real work actually is. Most of us think the battle is in Washington, in elections, in policy, but the real battle is in how you live, how you treat people, what you believe about power and love and belonging. That`s the soil. So what kind of soil are you actually tending right now?