Dear Reader,

Not long ago, I paid a “newsletter growth expert” a fairly alarming amount of money to help me figure out how to grow this ministry.

Their advice was very confident and probably very effective.

They told me the secret is to find people’s pain, keep it emotionally activated, and repeatedly remind them why they should feel anxious until they subscribe for relief.

And to be fair… that strategy clearly works all over the internet.

The problem is, I started this ministry because people already feel overwhelmed.

I cannot spend my daywriting about spiritual steadiness, compassion, and freedom from fear while quietly building a business model around keeping people emotionally agitated enough to drive engagement.

That would eat away at my soul, and be a betrayal of the Gospel.

So Message From the Margins runs on a different idea instead.

Most reflections remain free because I genuinely believe the Gospel should remain accessible. The ministry is sustained by readers who find value here and choose to help carry the work forward together.

No ads for gold investments.
No urgent offers for survival food slop buckets.
No outrage treadmill.
No “civilization will collapse by Thursday unless you upgrade to premium.”

Just ordinary people trying to remain human, compassionate, thoughtful, and faithful in a very noisy world.

And honestly, I think the Church needs more spaces like that.

If you’re in a position to contribute ten bucks a month, I can’t tell you how much I would appreciate you becoming a supporting member. We are going to do great work, but it’ll only work if we do it together.

Yes, I can be a Supporter.

Be Careful What Fear Turns Us Into

Christians cannot build a faithful life on outrage, caricature, and false witness, even when the culture feels unstable.

A few nights ago I made the mistake of scrolling social media too late.

You probably know the kind of night I mean. You tell yourself you’re just checking notifications for a minute, and suddenly forty-five minutes have disappeared into a stream of outrage clips, political commentary, AI-generated nonsense, and people screaming at one another through ring lights.

One video in particular stuck with me. It showed a cartoonishly exaggerated transgender person in rainbow clothing screaming outside a women’s restroom while a man in a MAGA hat blocked the doorway to “protect his daughter.”

The comments underneath were vicious. Thousands of them. People treating the clip as proof that civilization itself was collapsing.

The problem was that the video was fake.

Not misleading. Not selectively edited. Entirely fake. AI-generated rage bait designed to trigger fear and keep people emotionally engaged long enough to feed the algorithm another few hours of their life.

And it worked.

What struck me was not merely that people believed it. Human beings have always been vulnerable to fear. What struck me was how eager many Christians were to emotionally inhabit the lie because the lie confirmed an existing narrative.

That troubled me deeply.

Partly because I understand why people feel anxious right now. The pace of cultural change has been dizzying. Many people feel disoriented, exhausted, and distrustful of institutions. Some progressive spaces genuinely did become rigid, performative, coercive, and detached from ordinary life. There were absolutely moments where disagreement was treated as moral contamination and where public shaming replaced persuasion.

A backlash was inevitable.

But something has happened in the backlash itself.

The anti-woke movement, at least in many corners of our culture, has slowly absorbed the very behaviors it originally condemned.

Obsessive language policing.

Purity tests.

Public ritual shaming.

Fear-driven social conformity.

Treating disagreement as evidence of corruption.

Constant outrage as identity.

The word “woke” itself has become almost impossible to define clearly now. Depending on who is using it, it can mean anything from basic human empathy to progressive authoritarianism to simply “someone I dislike politically.”

That ambiguity has consequences.

Once a word becomes emotionally expansive enough, almost anything can be placed inside it. Diversity programs. Public libraries. Teachers. Gay people existing in commercials. Climate science. Public health messaging. Universities. Social workers. Therapists. Entire federal agencies.

Eventually people stop evaluating things individually and begin reacting to a generalized feeling of threat.

That is how anxious systems behave.

Family Systems Theory has a term for part of this dynamic: the firefighter response. Firefighters are reactive protectors. When a system feels overwhelmed or endangered, firefighters rush in urgently, emotionally, and aggressively to extinguish the perceived threat.

They are trying to protect the system.

But when fear overtakes discernment, firefighters can burn the whole house down while trying to save it.

I see that dynamic constantly online now. Entire ecosystems built around keeping people emotionally activated every hour of the day. Influencers monetizing panic. Politicians turning neighbors into symbols. Algorithms feeding increasingly extreme content because outrage keeps people scrolling longer than peace ever could.

People begin consuming a steady drip-feed of emotionally manipulative clips until they feel surrounded by danger everywhere.

One unstable activist becomes representative of millions of people.

One bizarre TikTok becomes proof of civilizational collapse.

One AI-generated caricature becomes emotionally “true” enough to share without verification.

Christians especially should be very careful here.

We cannot lie for Jesus.

A strange thing happens when you refuse to emotionally manipulate people online.

Growth gets slower, yes.

But we build a relationship based on mutual trust.

I understand why so much media, including religious media, runs on outrage now. Fear is effective. Panic spreads quickly. Human beings are vulnerable creatures.

But I cannot spend an essay warning people about fear-based formation while quietly building a ministry around emotional activation.

Readers often tell me these reflections help them “reset and refocus my tired soul.” (that’s a very real quote) I carry words like that carefully.

Paid subscribers help keep this publication independent, accessible, ad-free, and rooted in something steadier than algorithmic panic.

And honestly, I’m deeply grateful for that.

Yes, I can support this work.

The moment Christians decide that truthfulness is optional because the enemy feels dangerous enough, we have already surrendered something essential.

Scripture is not ambiguous about false witness. The Ninth Commandment does not suddenly disappear because the algorithm rewards panic. Sharing manipulated videos, spreading rumors we have not verified, caricaturing entire groups of people, or presenting fringe behavior as representative reality may help our tribe emotionally, but it does not make us holy.

Fear distorts perception.

And fear is profitable.

That combination is spiritually dangerous.

I have also been thinking lately about how different the emotional posture of the early Church was compared to modern outrage culture.

The first Christians lived under Rome. They lived amidst political instability, moral confusion, public paganism, corruption, violence, and deep disagreement about how human beings should live. They did not inhabit a society organized around Christian values and often had very little cultural power.

Yet the Apostles rarely sound panicked.

Paul especially carries this almost weary realism in parts of his letters. The world is disordered. Empires are unstable. People behave badly. Governments disappoint. Live faithfully anyway.

That is a very different spiritual posture than the permanent emergency mode that dominates modern politics.

The Gospel does not require Christians to control every aspect of public life in order to remain faithful.

Christianity survived Nero.

It can survive a toothbrush commercial.

And yes, I know some readers will immediately jump to concerns about children. I understand that instinct. Children matter profoundly. Formation matters profoundly. Parents should be engaged in the moral and spiritual lives of their children.

But exposure is not conversion.

Seeing an LGBTQ family in a commercial is unlikely to “turn” a child gay. What it may do is help a child who would naturally grow up to be gay feel a little less afraid. And for children who are not gay, it simply helps prepare them for the actual world they will inhabit, a world where they will work, serve, collaborate, and build relationships alongside many different kinds of people.

That is not indoctrination. That is social literacy.

I learned about the Puritans in school without becoming a Puritan. I learned about the Mongol Empire without developing an urge to invade China. I learned about Islam without converting to Islam. What shaped me most deeply was not exposure to difference. It was the steady formation of family, church, values, and lived faith.

Stable formation is stronger than mere exposure.

And honestly, I sometimes think modern Christians underestimate the resilience of both their children and their faith.

Jesus Himself consistently moved toward people that anxious religious systems tried to avoid. Lepers. Tax collectors. Sex workers. Samaritans. Outsiders. The ritually unclean. He challenged rigid purity structures constantly.

But Christ also did not build His ministry around fear of contamination.

That is deeply important.

Modern culture wars often present only two options: total affirmation or total hostility. But ordinary human life has always contained a much larger middle territory called coexistence.

You do not need to celebrate every belief, identity, ideology, or lifestyle you encounter.

But you also do not need to make another person’s life unnecessarily difficult as a statement of faith.

Your transgender neighbor is still your neighbor.

Your MAGA neighbor is still your neighbor.

The immigrant is your neighbor.

The activist is your neighbor.

The conservative Christian is your neighbor.

And neighbors are not abstractions in a culture war. They are human beings made in the image of God.

A healthy society does not require universal agreement. It requires enough shared restraint and maturity for people to live beside one another without turning difference into permanent warfare.

Frankly, I think many people are exhausted by all of this. Exhausted by the screaming. Exhausted by the constant suspicion. Exhausted by every disagreement becoming apocalyptic. Exhausted by living inside emotional systems designed to keep human beings frightened and reactive.

I understand that exhaustion.

I feel it too sometimes.

Which is why Christians need to become people who can remain grounded while everyone else is spiraling. People capable of truthfulness without cruelty. Conviction without hysteria. Moral seriousness without dehumanization.

The Gospel calls us toward that kind of maturity.

Not toward algorithmic possession.

A Few Practices for This Week

1. Before sharing an outrage story online, verify it from at least two credible sources. Especially if it immediately confirms your fears.

2. Read Galatians 5 slowly this week. Pay attention to the difference between the “acts of the flesh” and the “fruit of the Spirit.” Ask honestly which emotional ecosystem your media diet is producing in you.

3. Spend one full evening without outrage content. No doomscrolling. No political videos. Let your nervous system remember what peace feels like.

4. Have one normal human conversation with someone whose politics differ from yours without trying to win or correct them.

5. Pray each morning this week: “Lord, help me see people as human beings before I see them as categories.”

If this reflection resonated with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. I suspect many people are trying to figure out how to remain thoughtful, compassionate, and spiritually grounded in a culture that increasingly rewards outrage over wisdom.

And if you know someone exhausted by culture-war Christianity or fear-driven politics, consider sharing this post with them. Communities built on honesty and neighborliness matter right now.

Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ,

You lived in a world full of conflict, fear, political tension, religious division, and public cruelty. You understood what it meant to walk among anxious crowds and angry leaders. Yet You never surrendered Yourself to hysteria or hatred.

Teach us how to live faithfully in anxious times.

Protect us from the temptation to build our identities around fear. Keep us from becoming cruel while convincing ourselves we are being righteous. Guard our hearts from false witness, manipulation, and the addictive pull of outrage.

Give us wisdom to discern truth carefully. Give us courage to hold convictions without dehumanizing others. Give us compassion strong enough to recognize the humanity of people we do not fully understand.

Help us love our neighbors honestly, not sentimentally. Help us remain rooted in Your Spirit rather than in algorithms, political tribes, or endless panic.

And when we feel overwhelmed by the noise of this world, remind us that Your Kingdom has endured empires before and will endure long after our present anxieties pass away.

Teach us how to live with steadiness, integrity, mercy, and hope.

Amen.

Before you go, I want to say thank you to the paid subscribers who quietly sustain this work every month.

Truly.

You are helping create a different kind of Christian space online. One that does not depend on panic, humiliation, conspiracy spirals, or keeping people angry enough to refresh their phones every seven minutes.

That may sound like a low bar, but here we are.

One reader recently wrote that these reflections help them “reset, refocus, and rest my tired soul.” Another said this space helped them recover “hope and a renewed faith.”

I do not take words like that lightly.

Most essays here will remain free because I believe spiritually grounding work should remain accessible. But paid members help sustain the deeper work behind the scenes:
courses, future podcasts, community gatherings, the ebook library, and the ongoing effort to build a healthier form of public Christianity online.

If this space has helped steady you in some way, and you are able, I’d be honored to have you help carry the work forward.

I can become a supporting Member.