WHY YOUR LIFE HACKS ARE NOT WORKING

We Need A Renovation, Not A Filter

We live in an age that is effectively "unhinged." I made the case for this in a previous blog. We are simultaneously obsessed with "authenticity" and addicted to image management. We track habits, we "hack" our dopamine, we color-code our calendars, and we buy leather-bound journals hoping God will be impressed by the smell of fresh paper. Yet, if we are honest, a lot of us remain anxious, easily angered, and addicted to comfort. We are spiritually exhausted, not because we are doing too much, but because we are being too little.

A master carpenter can ruin your day in about five seconds. You show him a table you’re proud of—gorgeous finish, smooth legs, the kind of piece you’d post on Instagram with the caption “Blessed”. He nods politely, runs his hand along the edge… and then he flips it over. He doesn’t stare at the finish. He stares at the joints.

To the untrained eye, the surface is the whole story. But a craftsman knows the truth: the hidden joinery (structural integrity and strength) determines whether the table stands for a century or collapses the first time somebody plops down a crockpot full of roast and a plate of corn bread.

That is character. It’s not your “finish.” It’s not your spiritual filter. It’s not your ability to smile and say “I’m doing fine!” while your soul is doing donuts in the parking lot. Character is the joinery of the soul—the unseen architecture that determines whether you stand when the load gets heavy. And right now, in a culture that rewards the shiny surface over the sturdy joint, we are seeing a lot of tables collapse.

The Crisis Of The Empty Chest

Why are we collapsing? C.S. Lewis, in The Abolition of Man, diagnosed our modern condition as "men without chests."¹  I offer no apology for the continual use of this analogy, there is not a more apt description. Here Lewis states that we have cultivated bright, technical minds ("Head") and we are ruled by our visceral appetites and desires ("Belly"), but we lack the stabilizing moral center ("Heart" or "Chest") to regulate them. We oscillate between being smart enough to build nuclear weapons and hedonistic enough to use them, with no character to restrain us.

Lewis provides a haunting illustration of this in The Great Divorce through the figures of the Dwarf and the Tragedian.²  A soul arrives in heaven as a grotesque duo: a tiny, shrinking Dwarf (the shriveled, authentic self) holding a chain attached to a tall, theatrical Tragedian (the fake persona used to manipulate others). The Tragedian does all the talking, feigning hurt and offense, while the Dwarf—the actual human soul—shrinks until it vanishes.

This is the perfect picture of our modern character crisis. We have spent decades polishing the Tragedian—our brand, our reputation, our "public self"—while the Dwarf within has starved. We don't need a new "life hack" or a spiritual "oil change". We need the Spirit to "thicken" the Dwarf into a solid human being. We need a renovation, not a paint job.

Character Is Not Just “Being Nice”

So, if we stop sanding the surface and start checking the joints, what exactly are we looking for? What is character?

It is easy to confuse character with personality. But character is not a personality type. Some "nice" people are spiritually hollow, and some "gruff" people are deeply faithful. Nor is it simple rule-keeping; the Pharisees were excellent at rules but dead inside.

Habitual Capability

Dallas Willard, a philosopher who thought about this more deeply than perhaps anyone in the last century (my opinion), defined character as habitual capability.  It is the result of thousands of small choices that have calcified into a permanent shape.³  It is who you are in the dark.

Thomas Aquinas, the heavyweight champion of medieval theology, put it this way: Virtue is a "good operative habit".⁴  It is a settled disposition. It is what you do without thinking.

Here is the test: If you stand in front of a lost wallet for ten minutes debating whether to keep it, you might be honest in that moment, but you do not yet have the virtue of honesty. You are still fighting the civil war of the soul. The virtuous person returns the wallet before their brain even has time to formulate a temptation. They don’t have to “hack” their willpower because honesty has become their nature.

Christian character is the stable, Christlike shape of a whole person—Head, Heart, and Hands—formed by the Spirit over time. It is the kind of person who tells the truth when lying would be easier, forgives when revenge would feel delicious, and serves when nobody claps.

Why Christian Character Is Superior

"But wait," I hear you ask. "My atheist neighbor returns his shopping cart, donates to the Salvation Army, pulls his trashcan from the curb within six hours of the trash truck coming by, and…and composts! Can’t you have character without Jesus?"

Sure. You can have civic virtue. You can have grit. The Stoics were experts at this. But Christian Character is distinct—and yes, superior—in both its Source and its Goal.

Union, Not Willpower

Secular virtue is powered by willpower. It is "white-knuckling." It is the mantra of "Try Harder". But Christian character is powered by union with Christ. The New Testament doesn’t command us to manufacture fruit; it commands us to stay connected to the Vine.

If your plan for holiness is “white-knuckle it and hope for the best,” I admire your optimism, but that’s not Christianity. As Dallas Willard noted, grace is not opposed to effort, but it is opposed to earning.⁵  We train, but we train in the power of Another. Christian character is "fruit"—organic, slow, and impossible to produce without life-sap from the Spirit.

Glory, Not Just "Good Citizenship"

Secular virtue aims at "self-actualization" or being a "productive citizen". Christian character aims at glory. It aims to make you a person, as John Piper often alludes, who can stand in the blazing presence of God and not burn up.⁶

As C.S. Lewis famously said in the Screwtape Letters, the goal isn't just to make a horse jump better, but to turn a horse into a winged creature.⁷  Here we are now looking beyond renovation; we are looking for resurrection. We are becoming "little Christs".

The Anatomy Of Christian Character: A Tree In The Soil

How do we build this? We need a mental map. I’ll confess, this part has been very hard for me to picture, let alone write. I have lost track of the number of times I have started over. Truthfully, I felt like giving up. Yet, I reminded myself that for this blog, this is just a map – a snapshot of the anatomy of Christian Character. More will come on each of these in the future. 

For most people, visuals help. So imagine a massive, ancient tree. This is the structure of Christian Character. It synthesizes the Transcendentals, the Beatitudes, the Virtues, and the Fruit of the Spirit. 

One other thing. I hold the right to come back and do updates. I still feel like a novice when it comes to understanding, appreciating and applying Christian Character.  As we look into each of these different aspects, I have the feeling that some statements I have written and the visuals that I have supplied will need to be amended to reflect a more robust representation of Christian Character.

With that clarification out of the way, let us look at the foundation of reality in which godly character must be rooted. 

The Soil: The Transcendentals (Truth, Goodness, Beauty)

The tree doesn’t hang in mid-air. It is rooted in reality. In classical Christian thought, reality is anchored in the Transcendentals—objective properties of God Himself. If you read the previous two blogs you encountered a treatment of them in our modern culture, both in and outside of the church. Speaking of culture, if you try to grow your character in the shifting sands of cultural relativism, the tree will topple. 

• The True (Head): We submit our minds to reality as God defines it, not "my truth" or "your truth". Without this soil, we end up in narcissism.

• The Beautiful (Heart): We re-order our loves. As Jonathan Edwards taught, true religion consists largely in "holy affections".⁸  We sin because we are enchanted by lesser beauties. Character is finding Jesus more beautiful than our idols.

• The Good (Hands): These are embodied habits. Good soil isn't something the tree does; it is what the tree receives.

The Roots: The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1–12)

Hidden underground are the Roots—the internal spiritual states found in the Beatitudes. These are largely invisible to the public eye, but they absorb the "nutrients" of grace. You can’t have a healthy tree with rotten roots.

Each Beatitude acts as a feeder root for a specific virtue in the "soil" (based on 2 Peter 1:3-11):

• Poor in Spirit → Faith: Admitting spiritual bankruptcy is the only way to draw up grace.

• Mourning → Virtue: You only grow in moral excellence (virtue) when you truly grieve the ugliness of your sin.

• Meekness → Knowledge: Only a submissive heart can receive true knowledge without arrogance.

• Hunger for Righteousness → Self-Control: You will only control your lower appetites if you have a superior hunger for God.

• The Merciful → Steadfastness: Practicing constant forgiveness builds the muscle of enduring compassion.

• Pure in Heart → Godliness: Singleness of focus is the essence of practicing God’s presence. 

• The Peacemakers → Brotherly Kindness: Reconciliation is the practical outworking of kindness.

• Persecuted for Righteousness → Love: This is the summit. Enduring suffering for Jesus is the ultimate test of sacrificial Love. It is easy to love when the sun is shining; it takes a root deep in Christ to love when the world is burning you down.

The Trunk: The Cardinal Virtues

Rising from the ground is the Trunk, providing the structural strength. This is where we dust off the "Classical Toolbox" that modern evangelicals often leave in the barn.⁹  These are the Cardinal Virtues (from the Latin cardo, meaning "hinge"), the pivots on which all moral life swings.¹⁰

• Prudence: This is not just "caution." It is practical wisdom—knowing what to do and when to do it. It is the driver of the other virtues.

• Justice: This is the constant will to give God and neighbor their due. It is not just a sentiment; it is an obligation.

• Temperance: Self-control. It is the ability to enjoy good things (food, drink, rest) without worshipping them. It puts the brakes on our "lizards".

• Courage (Fortitude): Steadfastness. As Lewis noted, courage is just "every virtue at the testing point". It is the ability to keep going when obedience stops being interesting.¹¹

The Limbs: The Theological Virtues

Reaching up to the sky are the Theological Virtues: Faith, Hope, and Love. Aquinas reminds us that while we can practice the cardinal virtues (even pagans can be brave), these theological virtues must be "infused" by grace. They connect us directly to God.¹²  They are the branches that provide shade to the community.

The Sap: The Spirit & The Word

What moves from the roots to the branches? The Spirit of God, working through the Word of God. Without the sap, the tree is just firewood.

We keep the sap flowing through "spiritual disciplines"—reading Scripture, prayer, fasting, service, silence and solitude. These aren't chores; they are how we keep our vascular system open to God’s life. You don’t read the Bible just to check a box; you read it to keep the sap moving.

The Fruit: Christlikeness

Finally, the result. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22–23).

Notice the Bible calls it fruit, not factory output. Fruit happens naturally when the tree is healthy. You don’t see apple trees straining and grunting to produce apples. They just... apple. Because that is what they are.

When the "Soil" of Truth, Goodness and Beauty is rejected, we get the "Works of the Flesh" (Galatians 5:19)—a chaotic plurality of "biting and devouring". But when the system is aligned, we get organic unity. The "Lizard" of lust is transformed into the "Stallion" of holy desire.¹³

The Carpenter is at Work

Christian character is the stable, Christlike shape of a whole person—Head, Heart, and Hands—formed by the Spirit over time. It is the process where the Spirit does what Eustace Scrubb (the boy-turned-dragon in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) could not do for himself: He tears off the dragon skin and makes us into sons and daughters of the King.

Eustace tried to scrape it off himself, but he just found more dragon scales underneath. It took the Lion (Aslan/Christ) to tear deep—painfully deep—to remove the crust of the old self and reveal the new.

This might feel overwhelming. You might be looking at your own "joinery" and seeing a lot of wobble. So do I and that is okay. You can’t grow this tree overnight. Actually you can only grow it as fast as you stay in step with the Spirit. 

In the coming blogs, I am going to explain this further. I will dedicate future blogs to digging deep into the Soil and Roots (what is real and how to re-order your loves), constructing the Trunk (a deep dive into those Cardinal Virtues), expanding the Branches (infusing the Theological Virtues) and inspecting the Fruit.

For now, know this: The Carpenter is already at work in you and for you. He isn't afraid of your wobbly joints. He knows exactly what He’s doing.

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End Notes

 ¹Lewis, C. S. The Abolition of Man or Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools. HarperOne, 2001, Ch. 1.

 ²Lewis, C. S. The Great Divorce: A Dream. HarperOne, 2001, Chapters. 12-13. 

 ³Willard, Dallas. Renovation of the Heart. NavPress, 2002. P.142. 

 ⁴Saint Thomas Aquinas. The Summa Theologica. Edited by Mortimer J. Adler et al., Translated by Laurence Shapcote, Second Edition, vol. 18, Robert P. Gwinn; Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1990, p. 28.

 ⁵Willard, Dallas. The Great Omission. HarperOne, 2006. P.166.

⁶https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/a-kingdom-that-cannot-be-shaken?utm_source=chatgpt.com

 ⁷Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. HarperOne, 2001, p. 216.

 ⁸Edwards, Jonathan. A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections: In Three Parts ... Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1996, p. 2.

 ⁹Kreeft, Peter. Back to Virtue: Traditional Moral Wisdom for Modern Moral Confusion. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992.

¹⁰Ibid, p. 59.

¹¹Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Letters. HarperOne, 2001, p. 161. (Letter 29).

¹²Saint Thomas Aquinas. The Summa Theologica. Edited by Mortimer J. Adler et al., Translated by Laurence Shapcote, Second Edition, vol. 18, Robert P. Gwinn; Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1990, p. 60.

¹³Lewis, C. S. The Great Divorce: A Dream. HarperOne, 2001, pp. 111–12.

THE GATES OF HELL DO NOT FEAR OUR SPREADSHEETS

We learned to count everything–except what counts. 

The Bus and the Body Count: A Cautionary Tale

In the early 2000s, there was no hotter ticket in evangelicalism than Mars Hill Church in Seattle. In fact, Christianity Today chronicled the saga of this church in their podcast, “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.” 

Mars Hill was the epitome of the "We Build" model—aggressive, culturally relevant, and exploding with numerical growth. At its helm was Mark Driscoll, a leader with a preacher’s gift and a CEO’s ruthlessness. The metrics were staggering: 15,000 weekly attendees, a global podcast audience, and a brand that seemed invincible.

But beneath the hood of this high-performance vehicle, the engine was running on a toxic fuel mix of narcissism and utility. Driscoll famously described the church not as a body or a family, but as a bus. He told his leaders that the bus had a destination, and if anyone got in the way, the bus would run them over. "There is a pile of bodies behind the bus," he once said, "and by God’s grace, it’ll be a mountain by the time we’re done."¹

He was building a movement. He was building a brand. He was building a legacy. But was he building the church?

In 2014, the wheels didn't just come off; the entire chassis disintegrated. The collapse of Mars Hill wasn't just a leadership failure; it was a structural inevitability. When the foundation is human personality ("Petros") rather than divine confession ("Petra"), the gates of hell don't even need to attack. They just have to wait for the mortar to crack. The church dissolved, the campuses fractured, and thousands of believers were left spiritually homeless, victims of a "We Build" project that mistook adrenaline for the Holy Spirit.

This story is not an anomaly. It is the logical conclusion of a theology that believes we are the ones doing the heavy lifting.

The Great Divergence: The Carpenter vs. The Contractor

In Matthew 16:18, Jesus makes a statement that serves as the exclusive franchise agreement for the Kingdom of God: "I will build my church."

Notice the pronoun. I. Not we. Not you. Not us.

Jesus is the Builder. He is the Architect. He is the Construction Supervisor.

Yet, walk into the average church growth conference or Christian leadership meeting this year, and you will hear a different gospel. You will hear the gospel of the Contractor. This is the subtle, pervasive belief that Jesus provided the raw materials—salvation, the Bible, the Holy Spirit—but He left the actual construction up to our ingenuity. We have become the General Contractors of the Kingdom, sub-contracting Jesus out for the "spiritual stuff" while we handle the marketing, the strategy, and the metrics. 

You may protest. But think for a moment. Maybe read the previous paragraph again before you read the next provocative statement.

The difference between a church built by the Carpenter and a church built by Contractors is not just semantics; it is the difference between a sanctuary and a shopping mall.

With that said, I want you to understand what I am not saying. I am not saying that outward growth does not matter. It does. The early church counted how many were saved in their first service, about three thousand souls in the Book of Acts, chapter 2. There are multiple references to the number of people at different gatherings in the New Testament.  Even in the Old Testament, there is a book by the name of Numbers! Numbers are important and so is outward growth. 

If we deny that outward growth matters, we end up sanctifying mediocrity and baptizing apathy. Faithfulness and fruitfulness are not enemies.

We need to organize. We need to plan. I am not saying we don’t. 

But here is the pivot: What you measure shapes what you value; what you value shapes what you become. If the most celebrated outcomes are the easiest to report, then leaders will naturally shape churches to favor these outcomes. Over time, a church can become an institution that excels at production while slowly starving formation. And the institution must be protected at all costs, even if it means sacrificing some of its members. 

To demonstrate my point, I present to you a working contrast of the two models. However, remember these are “characterizations.” I am not making a statement that every church is this way, but in my experience, many churches in our Southern Baptist Convention have a tendency toward the “contractor” model, and could use some reflection and correction. These are broad descriptions and sweeping claims, but valid nonetheless. 

Read the difference and weep. 

The Contractor’s Model: "Success"

In the "We Build" paradigm, the church is an enterprise. Its goal is market share. Its method is anxiety-inducing pragmatism.

• The Metric: The "Holy Trinity" of the Contractor is Bodies, Budgets, and Buildings. If these numbers are up, God is present. If they are down, we need a new strategy.

• The Leader: The pastor functions as a CEO or a brand manager. Charisma is valued over character because charisma fills seats.

• The People: They are "resources" to be deployed or "customers" to be retained.

The Carpenter’s Model: "Faithfulness"

In the "Jesus Builds" paradigm, the church is a body. Its goal is maturity. Its method is faithful obedience.

• The Metric: The Fruit of the Spirit. Are people becoming more patient, kind, and self-controlled? These are "lead measures" that predict future health, unlike attendance, which is a "lag measure" of past performance.

• The Leader: The pastor is a shepherd, smelling of sheep, often inefficient with their time because they are busy with the slow work of soul care.

• The People: They are "living stones" (1 Peter 2:5) being fitted together by God, often through friction and conflict, into a holy temple.

When we try to do Jesus' job (building), we end up exhausted. When we neglect our job (abiding), we end up empty. As Dallas Willard famously quipped about the modern church's obsession with growth hacks, "We are not only saved by grace; we are paralyzed by it." We expect God to zap us with growth while we ignore the disciplines of the Master Builder. ²

The Difference at Ground Level

How does this theological shift play out in the real world? Glad you asked. I will tell you how. It changes the very atmosphere of the church. The result is not merely a different leadership style. It is often a different kind of church. One that Peter, Paul and Timothy would not recognize. 

This shift alters the Transcendentals—those timeless properties of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty that reflect God’s nature which I introduced in the previous blog. There I applied them to the general culture, here I apply them to the church we build - The Contractor’s Church and the church Christ builds - The Carpenter’s Church. 

Truth: From Revelation to Relevance

In the Contractor’s Church: Truth is often curated for Relevance. The Contractor asks, "Will this sermon series preach? Will it offend the target demographic?" Truth becomes a product feature, optimized for user experience. We see this in the rise of "hologram preaching" and content that mimics the pacing of TikTok—fast, episodic, and designed to hold attention rather than transform the heart.³ The goal is to lower the barrier to entry so low that we forget we are entering a holy space.

In the Carpenter’s Church: Truth is valued as Revelation. It is the "North Star" that guides us, regardless of the cultural weather. The Carpenter’s church isn't afraid to be "weird" or "untimely." As the famous dictum goes, a church that marries the spirit of the age will find itself a widow in the next. The "Jesus Builds" model trusts that the naked Word of God has the power to build "Men with Chests"—people of conviction who don't need a smoke machine to feel the Spirit.⁴ (For many churches with online services, I appreciate that a smoke machine adds depth and richness to the video presentation. I am just making a point that I hope you will appreciate none the less.)

Goodness: From Virtue to Utility

In the Contractor’s Church: Goodness is redefined as Utility. A person is "good" if they volunteer, tithe, and don't cause trouble. A leader is "good" if they produce results, even if they leave a trail of emotional debris behind them (the "bus" analogy again). This leads to "Vampire Christianity"—a term Dallas Willard used to describe people who want just enough of Jesus' blood to save them from hell, but none of His life to change how they treat their neighbor.⁵ It produces a culture of functional deism where we claim to trust God but operate entirely on human horsepower.

In the Carpenter’s Church: Goodness is understood as Virtue. It is the slow, often invisible formation of Christian character. Success is defined not by how many people attend, but by who those people are becoming. Are the husbands loving their wives? Are the business owners treating their employees with dignity? Are the singles living with purity and purpose? Have they really become salt and light? The Carpenter is building saints, not just consumers. He is interested in the "interior castle" of the soul, not just the curb appeal of the Sunday service.

Beauty: From Glitz to Glory

In the Contractor’s Church: Beauty is flattened into Glitz. The architecture mimics the shopping mall or the convention center—neutral, safe, and indistinguishable from the secular world.⁶ The "Green Room" culture separates the "talent" from the "audience," turning worship into a spectator sport where we watch professionals perform intimacy with God.⁷  It is the aesthetic of the "cool," which is always fleeting.

In the Carpenter’s Church: Beauty is valued as Glory. Roger Scruton, the philosopher of aesthetics, argued that true beauty is a "call to the divine"—it arrests us and forces us to look up.⁸ A church built by Jesus values the beauty of holiness. It might meet in a living room or a cathedral, but the aesthetic is one of reverence. It resists the "desecration" of modern utility. It refuses to turn the bride of Christ into a brand. As Scruton noted, "Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live as though it does not matter." ⁹ The Carpenter’s church restores beauty by being a place where the broken are made beautiful, not just where the beautiful are celebrated.

What We Lose When We Build

The divergence between these two models hits the ledger and the calendar.

The Cost of Labor: In the "We Build" model, burnout is the standard operating procedure. Pastors are quitting in record numbers because the burden of being the "Chief Energy Officer" is crushing.¹⁰ You cannot sustain a supernatural movement with natural energy. When we try to manufacture the wind of the Spirit with industrial fans, we just blow everyone away.

In the "Jesus Builds" model, the yoke is easy and the burden is light (Matthew 11:30). This does not mean there is no work; it means the work is fueled by grace, not grind. It is the difference between a rowboat (human effort) and a sailboat (harnessing the wind).

The Cost of Finance: The Contractor’s budget is heavy on "Presentation"—lights, stage, marketing, and the "Sunday Experience." The Carpenter’s budget is heavy on "People"—benevolence, mission, and discipleship. We see this in the shift of churches like The Village Church, which voluntarily slashed its budget by millions to move from a centralized "empire" model to a decentralized "multiplying" model.¹¹ Redeemer Church, founded by Tim Keller made a similar move beginning in 2016 and completed that in 2022.¹² They realized that reproduction (biological life) is cheaper and healthier than replication (franchise expansion).

The Cost of Fellowship: The "We Build" model offers "connections"—loose, low-commitment social networks. The "Jesus Builds" model offers "communion"—deep, covenantal relationships that can withstand offense. It is the difference between a "content-based" gathering and a "table-based" community. The emerging "Dinner Church" movement is a prime example of this return to the table, where the cost of entry is vulnerability, not just a ticket.¹³

Are You Building a Tower or a Temple?

This isn't just a critique of megachurch pastors. It is a mirror for every individual Christian. We all have an "Inner Contractor" that wants to build a life that looks impressive to the neighbors.

We measure our spiritual lives by lag metrics: How many chapters did I read? How much did I give? How many services did I attend? Jesus measures our spiritual lives by lead metrics: Am I growing in love? Is my anxiety decreasing as my trust increases? Am I becoming the kind of person who naturally does what Jesus would do if He were me?¹⁴

The Virtue of Temperance: To move from Contractor to Carpenter, we need the virtue of temperance—the ability to say "no" to growth that compromises our soul. We need to ruthlessly eliminate hurry, as Willard advised, “Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life.”¹⁵ We need to stop trying to be "original" and start being "faithful." As C.S. Lewis wrote, "No man who values originality will ever be original. But try to tell the truth as you see it... and what men call originality will come unsought."¹⁶

Resigning as General Manager of the Universe

The promise of Matthew 16:18 is offensive to our pride but a balm to our anxiety. "I will build my church."

The gates of hell—death, despair, and decay of culture—will not prevail against the church Jesus builds. But they will prevail against the church we build. To coin a phrase–They eat our marketing plans for breakfast. They are not scared of our fog machines. (Here I go again with the fog machines!) They are not threatened by our vision statements. They do not fear our spreadsheets. 

But they tremble before a group of people who have resigned from the job of building the church and have taken up the job of being the church.

This year, 2026, let’s hand the hard hat back to the Carpenter. Let’s stop trying to build a tower to heaven to make a name for ourselves (Genesis 11) and start building a table on earth to welcome the stranger. Let’s stop measuring the height of our steeple and start measuring the depth of our roots.

Jesus is a better Builder than we are. And His warranty lasts forever.

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End Notes

¹https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361446686_Spiritual_Tyranny_at_Mars_Hill_A_Rhetorical_Analysis_of_Mark_Driscoll's_Relational_Metaphors

²Willard, Dallas. The Great Omission. HarperOne. 2006. p.166.

³https://anglicancatholicliturgyandtheology.wordpress.com/2019/08/19/holy-hologram/

⁴Lewis, C. S. The Abolition of Man or Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools. HarperOne, 2001, Ch. 1. 

⁵https://dwillard.org/resources/articles/why-bother-with-discipleship. This is also found in Willard’s book, The Great Omission. HarperOne. 2006. P.14.

⁶https://hyperallergic.com/house-of-worship-or-shopping-mall-the-drab-architecture-of-megachurches/

⁷https://www.alessifamilybusiness.com/exposing-the-green-room-effect-why-we-say-no-to-celebrity-church-culture/

⁸https://www.eighthdayinstitute.org/beauty-a-very-short-introduction

⁹https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/desecration-beauty/

¹⁰https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360826993_REIMAGINING_PASTORAL_EDUCATION_AND_TRAINING_DEFEATING_PASTORAL_BURNOUT_AND_DROPOUT_THROUGH_UNITING_THE_UNIVERSITY_MODEL_THE_APPRENTICESHIP_MODEL_AND_MULTI-MODEL_THEOLOGICAL_HIGHER_EDUCATION

¹¹https://www.christianpost.com/news/multisite-churches-now-autonomous-congregations.html

¹²https://www.redeemer.com/learn/about_us/redeemer_history 

¹³https://missioalliance.org/three-ways-declining-churches-become-thriving-churches-an-invitation-to-explore-fresh-expressions/

¹⁴Willard, Dallas. The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God. Harper, 1988. p. 283. 

¹⁵Comer, John Mark. The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. Waterbrook, 2019. p. 19.

¹⁶Lewis, C. S. The Weight of Glory: And Other Addresses. HarperOne, 2001. p. 175.

THE UNHINGED AGE

The Fog and the Iron

It was the iron that betrayed them.

When the RMS Tayleur launched in 1854, she was a miracle of the modern world.¹ Her hull was a fortress of riveted iron plates, designed to shrug off the Atlantic waves that turned wooden ships to matchsticks. She was faster, bigger, and stronger than anything that had come before. She was the Titanic of her day, six decades before that name would become a synonym for hubris.

But as she sailed down the Irish Sea, carrying her cargo of hopeful emigrants and gold-seekers, a silent catastrophe was unfolding on the bridge. The compass needle, that ancient and faithful guide, had been seduced. The massive iron body of the ship was exerting a magnetic pull, dragging the needle away from the true north. The captain, standing on the deck of his technological marvel, believed he was sailing south into open water. In reality, he was sailing west, into the dark.

The Tayleur smashed into Lambay Island not because she was weak, but because she was disoriented. She possessed power without perception. She had speed without direction. And when the rocks tore through her iron skin, she sank with a terrifying swiftness, taking nearly four hundred souls down with her.

We are all sailors on the Tayleur now.

We live in an age of miracles. We carry the sum of human knowledge in rectangles of glass and silicon in our pockets. We have conquered diseases that once decimated empires. We have built a civilization of iron-clad certainty, a "Machine" of unprecedented efficiency. Yet, look around. Do you feel safe? Do you feel oriented?

Or do you feel the wobble?

Pew Research Center reports large majorities of Americans saying political debate has become less respectful and less fact-based over the last several years.² Gallup reports historically low confidence levels in major institutions, with Americans’ average confidence in the set of institutions it tracks remaining near record lows.³ Whatever you think the causes are, the effect is hard to deny: people are increasingly unsure whom to trust—and increasingly tempted to trust whatever confirms their existing fears.

That’s what unhinged means. . . and we are living in the Unhinged Age. It is not merely that we are divided; it is that the compass itself has broken. We have lost the ability to agree on which way is North. We possess more data than any generation in history (and “data centers” are going up all over the place). And yet we suffer, as my favorite philosopher Dallas Willard diagnosed, from a "disappearance of moral knowledge."⁴ We can tell you the chemical composition of a tear, but we cannot tell you why it is tragic. We can map the neurons of the brain, but we cannot find the location of the soul.

The door has slipped its hinge. The frame is warped. And when the frame breaks, the door doesn't just stick; it slams.

The Men Without Chests

As you scroll through the digital public square known as social media, you will see the casualties of this disorientation. You will see, as in the previous blog, what C.S. Lewis called "Men without Chests."⁵ It is as contagious as the flu in winter. 

Lewis warned us decades ago that if we debunked the "Tao"—the objective moral law that spans human history—we would not produce a race of liberated supermen.⁶ We would produce spiritual amputees. We would create a society of people with big Heads (intellects sharp enough to rationalize anything) and big Bellies (appetites demanding to be fed everything), but with no Chests—no trained affections, no stable character to mediate between the thought and the urge.

Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist wrote, 

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”⁷ 

Frankl is telling us, and rightly so, that to not be at the mercy of our impulses, we must focus on increasing our “space.” We lose that space if we do not internalize the “Tao” in our “Chests.” The alternative to filling it with the Good, the True and the Beautiful is it being filled with a confusing and empty fog. 

The modern "Empty Self," as J.P. Moreland diagnosed it; is the fulfillment of Lewis’ prediction.⁸ We are Infantile; demanding that the universe swaddle us in comfort and shield us from the "suffering" of disagreement. We are Narcissistic; treating God like a cosmic vending machine and our neighbors like background characters in the movie of our lives. We are Passive; outsourcing our conscience to Silicon Valley, catching the latest moral outrage like a common cold—not because we truly care, but because we are too bored and lazy to form an immune system of our own. (Apologies for another "disease" analogy!)

We are Hurried; running from silence because in the silence we might hear echoes of the hollowness of our lives. We are terrified of the dark, not because of monsters, but because without the "likes" and the "shares" and the constant reflection of the screen, we are not sure that we matter, or more frightening, that we exist at all.

The Transcendentals

This is where the transcendentals come in. 

Most Christian people have never heard the word “transcendentals,” and that is fine. We don’t need the word to need the reality.

The basic idea is simple:

• Truth is what corresponds to reality as God made it.

• Goodness is what aligns with God’s moral order and purposes.

• Beauty is Truth and Goodness with the lights turned on. It isn't just a decoration; it is an undeniable signal that catches the eye, captures the heart, and forces the soul to look up.

In the classical Christian tradition, thinkers often spoke of “the true” and “the good” as inseparable from being itself—deep features of reality, not mere preference.⁹ That matters because modern people are tempted to treat truth as a personal possession (my truth), goodness as a negotiated contract (what our tribe approves), and beauty as a marketing category (what performs well).

But when truth becomes personal and goodness becomes tribal, beauty becomes manipulative. It becomes propaganda with an annoying soundtrack.

The Bible refuses that collapse.

It tells us that truth has a name (“your word is truth,” John 17:17), and goodness has a source (“no one is good except God alone,” Mark 10:18), and beauty is not merely aesthetic but moral (“worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness,” Psalm 29:2). Even when Scripture doesn’t use the philosophical vocabulary, it insists on the reality.

And then the Apostle Paul does something that feels almost subversive in a distracted age: he tells Christians what to think about.

“Whatever is true… honorable… just… pure… lovely… commendable… if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8, ESV).

That verse is not a greeting card from Dollar Tree. It is a strategy for soul survival. It is a refusal to let the mind be discipled by ugliness.

The Fog of Tashlan

In the final days of Narnia, the end didn't come with a bang. It came with a fog.

A clever Ape named Shift told the Narnians that "Aslan"—the Christ-figure, the Lion of Judah—and "Tash"—the multi-armed demon god of Calormen—were the same person. "Tashlan," he called it.¹⁰

It was a masterstroke of the Unhinged Age. The Ape didn't ask the Narnians to become atheists. He just asked them to be "nuanced." He asked them to accept that truth was fluid, that good and evil were just different cultural expressions of the same divine reality. He blurred the lines until the Narnians were too exhausted to fight. They stopped looking for the True North because they had been convinced that all directions were valid.

This is the "Fog Test" of our time. We are surrounded by a culture that conflates the True with the Loud, the Good with the Popular, and the Beautiful with the Arousing. We are told that "Love" means affirming every impulse, and that "Freedom" means having no master. 

But true freedom is not the absence of a master; it is the choice of the right master. The compass needle is only free when it is enslaved to the magnetic pole. If it is "free" to point anywhere, it is useless.

Love the Lovely, Hate the Vile

We finally come to the big question on our minds: how do we fix the direction of the ship? How do we recalibrate the compass before we hit the rocks?

We must reject, as Willard did, the "Gospel of Sin Management"—the vampire Christianity that wants Jesus’s blood for forgiveness but not His life for renovation.¹¹ We must realize that the "fog" is a lie.

We must become Unshaken.

To be Unshaken is to have a "Chest." It is to be a person who has trained their heart to love what is lovely and hate what is vile. It is to practice the "VIM" of discipleship: a Vision of the Kingdom that is more beautiful than the world's machine; an Intention to obey that is stronger than the impulse to drift; and the Means of grace that anchor the soul in the deep waters of God.¹²

It means recovering the "Magic" of the Shire. In Tolkien’s epic, the world is saved not by the mighty, but by the small.¹³ It is saved by Hobbits—by people who love simple things, who keep their promises, who refuse the power of the Ring because they know that character is more important than control.

Appreciating Values

This is where “values” enter the conversation, not as a trendy buzzword, but as a diagnostic tool.

Philosophers use “value theory” (axiology) to ask what things are good and how goods should be ranked.¹⁴ You don’t need the academic term, but you do need the insight: every life ranks goods. Every person says, with their time and attention and money and stress, “This matters most.”

In an unhinged age, people often “rank” or “value” not only the wrong things, but also right things in the wrong order.

And then we wonder why character collapses.

Because character is values not only made visible, but also durable.

If you value comfort above holiness, you will not develop courage.

If you value approval above truth, you will not develop integrity.

If you value self above neighbor, you will not develop love.

This is why the next posts will keep returning to a simple principle: you cannot change your life long-term without addressing what you love. Long-term change is impossible unless it is rooted in something you love.

The Goal is Not Critique, but Formation

The purpose of this series is not to make you a better critic of culture. The purpose is to make you a better disciple of Christ.

It is possible to hate the world’s confusion and still be shaped by the world’s formation.

A Christian can be “against” the world and still operate with the world’s values: outrage as identity, consumption as comfort, suspicion as wisdom, cynicism as sophistication. As a pastor I’ve seen it in the church. As a denominational worker, I’ve seen it at all levels. 

A former mentor described it as, “Picking up the devil’s tools to do God’s work.” 

We are going to do something different.

We are going to rebuild the hinge.

We are going to recover truth, goodness, and beauty—not as museum pieces, but as discipleship essentials. We will talk about values because they are the compass. We will talk about virtues because they are the habits that train the compass to hold steady.

And we will do all of it under one banner: becoming like Jesus in the heart, head, and hands.

Because Jesus does not merely win arguments. He forms people.

Caution

The Tayleur sank because her iron heart blinded her to the stars. We do not have to follow her down. The stars are still there. The True, the Good, and the Beautiful have not moved.

The King has not abdicated.

We just need to clear the iron from our souls, look up, and steer.

Endnotes

¹RMS Tayleur, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Tayleur, accessed January 14, 2026.

²Americans’ feelings about politics, polarization and the tone of political discourse, Pew Research Center, https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/americans-feelings-about-politics-polarization-and-the-tone-of-political-discourse/?utm.com. Accessed January 3, 2026.

³Democrats' Confidence in U.S. Institutions Sinks to New Low, Gallop, https://news.gallup.com/poll/692633/democrats-confidence-institutions-sinks-new-low.aspx?utm. Accessed, January 1, 2026.

⁴Willard, Dallas. The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge. Routledge, 2018. 

⁵Lewis, C. S. The Abolition of Man or Reflections on Education with Special Reference

   to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools. HarperOne, 2001

⁶Ibid.

⁷Frankl, Victor. Man’s Search for Meaning. Beacon Press, 2006.

⁸Moreland, J. P. Love God With All Your Mind. NavPress, Revised 2014. 

⁹Medieval Theories of Transcendentals. Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy.

https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2024/entries/transcendentals-medieval/?utm.com. Accessed January 10, 2026.

¹⁰Lewis, C.S. The Last Battle. Collier Books Edition, 1970.

¹¹Willard, Dallas. The Divine Conspiracy. Harper, 1998. (One of the most influential

   books I have read). 

¹²Willard, Dallas. Renovation of the Heart. NavPress, 2002. 

¹³Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings. William Morrow, Illustrated Edition, 2021

¹⁴Value Theory. Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy.  

    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/value-theory/?utm_.com. Accessed

   January 14, 2026.

¹⁵Seven Virtues. Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/seven-virtues. Accessed

   January 14, 2026.