We Are Christian First, Everything Else Second

Outrage is loud, but clarity changes people. We open with a hard look at a dehumanizing image of Barack and Michelle Obama that traveled through channels of power, then move past the news cycle to ask a deeper question: what is forming our instincts? When Christians minimize cruelty because it helps their side, something fundamental has slipped out of order—and that disorder isn’t primarily political. It’s spiritual.

Across this conversation, we trace how dehumanization works, why it never stays “just a joke,” and how silence slowly tutors the church into defending what once grieved us. We talk about media habits that shape reflexes, the difference between discernment and numbness, and why “Christians first, then Americans” is not a slogan but a needed reordering of loves. We name Christian nationalism as a spiritual disorder that fuses faith to national identity, making cruelty feel excusable if it promises a win. Then we turn to the way of Jesus: refusing domination, protecting dignity, and aligning means with ends so our public witness matches our message.

You’ll walk away with five practical moves for a Christ-shaped response: don’t laugh at cruelty, critique your own side, slow down false urgency, guard dignity while you disagree, and choose witness over winning. Along the way, we draw from history, the early church, and the Beatitudes to show that restraint is not surrender—it’s strength grounded in identity. If you’ve felt torn between silence and outrage, or weary of faith being used as a weapon, this is a path back to calm conviction and credible hope.

If this conversation helps you see more clearly, share it with a friend, subscribe, and leave a review so others can find it. Your voice helps build a different kind of public square—one that tells the truth without losing our soul.

Transcript

Slowing Down For Clarity

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I want to begin today by slowing everything down, not because this moment isn't urgent, but because urgency without clarity is how people lose their way. And I feel like there are times when reacting quickly feels righteous. And then there are times when reacting quickly is the very thing that forms us in the wrong direction. This is one of those moments where how we respond matters just as much as what we say. Okay. So what I want to talk to you about today is recently there was an image that circulated online that depicted former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as guerrillas. And the image was shared through channels connected to political power, and it spread rapidly across social media and news outlets. I'm going to say this, it came from the White House. So I want to be very clear from the start. This kind of imagery is not neutral. It's not harmless, guys. And it's not something that Christians can dismiss, excuse, or laugh off without consequence. There's a long and painful history of black Americans being dehumanized through animal imagery. And that history is not complicated. It's actually well documented, and it has always served the same purpose to strip people of dignity so cruelty feels justified. So let me say this plainly: depicting human beings, any form, any human beings, as less than human is wrong. It's wrong no matter who does it, and it's wrong no matter who it targets, and it's wrong no matter what political outcome someone hopes to achieve. And that statement should not be controversial. And the fact that it feels controversial to some of us is already telling. But this episode is not primarily about the Obamas, and it's not primarily about President Trump. It's not a partisan episode, and it's not an attempt to score points or inflame outrage. This episode's about something deeper because the most troubling part of this moment is not the image itself. It is how quickly many people who claim the name of Christ rushed to excuse it, defend it, minimize it, or mock those who were rightly disturbed by it. And that response reveals a formation problem. What we're witnessing right now is not merely a political crisis, it's a discipleship crisis. It's what happens when power becomes more important than witness, when winning becomes more important than truth, when loyalty to a nation, a party, or a leader quietly overtakes loyalty to Christ. And I want to say something that may feel uncomfortable, but it needs to be said. When Christians find themselves justifying cruelty because it serves their side, something has gone out of order. And when that disorder goes unexamined, it does not stay contained. It shapes how we see people, it shapes how we speak, it reshapes what we are willing to excuse. So this episode exists because I believe we are at a crossroads, not politically, but spiritually. A crossroads where the church must decide whether it will continue down a path of outrage, dominance, and tribal loyalty, or whether it will recover a different way of being in the world. A way rooted in truth, a way rooted in dignity, a way rooted in what the gospel actually produces in us as human beings. Because the gospel was never meant to make us more ruthless. It was meant to make us more human. And yet, here we are watching people baptized in religious language defend things that flatten human dignity in the name of political victory. So today, I want to do three things. First, I want to name what happened honestly and without theatrics. Second, I want to talk to you about why this moment matters far beyond a single image or a single administration. And thirdly, I want to offer a way forward, a better way that actually sounds like good news. Not good news that ignores reality, not good news that pretends everything is fine, but good news that tells the truth without losing our soul. Because here's what I know: we are living in confusing times. People, because of news, social media, they are disoriented. Trust is thin. And many believers feel trapped between silence and outrage, unsure how to respond without becoming the very thing they're disturbed by. This podcast exists for moments like this, not to tell you what to think, but to help you see more clearly, to help you remember who you are and to help you remain human when others are not. We are Christians first, then Americans. And guys, we can never let that order go backwards. Because the moment we do, the gospel stops sounding like good news and it starts sounding like just another tool of power. So let's talk about what happened. Okay. Let's talk about why it matters. And let's talk about how people shaped by Christ can respond without losing their integrity. That's where we're going today. Okay. Now, before we talk about meaning formation or what this moment reveals about us, we need to be clear about what actually happened. The reason why I say that is because clarity matters, because confusion is where manipulation thrives. Recently, an image circulated online depicting our former president Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as gorillas. The image was shared publicly through channels connected to political authority, amplified by social media, and quickly picked up by major news outlets everywhere. And this wasn't a random internet troll. This wasn't an obscure meme hiding in a dark corner of the internet. This image moved through the bloodstream of power, and that matters. And I want to say this carefully because precision here is important. The issue is not simply that the image was offensive. The issue is that it relied on a form of dehumanization with a long and violent history. Guys, for centuries, black men and women have been portrayed as animals in order to justify mistreatment, exclusion, and brutality. Guys, this type of imagery has never been accidental. I don't care what anybody says. It's never been accidental. It's always served a purpose. And when you strip someone of their humanity, you make cruelty feel reasonable. You make mockery feel like it's harmless. And you make injustice easier to swallow. And guys, that's why this kind of imagery carries weight far beyond humor or satire. So again, let me be very, very, very clear. This was wrong. Not just politically wrong, not strategically unwise, but morally wrong. Okay. And here's the part that we cannot skip over when Christians hesitate to say that plain to say what I'm saying plainly, something has already gone wrong inside of us. Because the gospel trains us to see people as image bearers before we see them as enemies or opponents or symbols. Now, some people responded this moment by immediately shifting the conversation. So they said things like, Well, what about when the other side did this? Or you're just being too sensitive, or it's just a joke, or you're letting the media manipulate you. But notice what all those responses have in common. They avoid the moral question. They rush past the formation issue. They protect loyalty at the expense of integrity. And this is where we've got to slow things down. Because the danger here isn't disagreement. Guys, social media speeds things up so fast that we get lost in the details. And the danger of that is desensitization, okay? The danger is how quickly we can become people who excuse what we would once have named as wrong simply because it benefits our tribe. That shift does something to us. It trains us to see people not as neighbors, but as obstacles, not as humans, but as symbols, not as worthy of dignity, but as tools in a larger battle. And that training does not stay contained in politics. It bleeds into how we talk to our spouses, how we talk about immigrants, how we talk about the poor, how we talk about people who don't vote like us, worship like us, or live like us. Guys, formation is always happening. The only question is what is forming us? So I want to say something that might feel challenging. Moments like this don't reveal whether we are conservative or progressive. They reveal whether we are formed into the image of Christ or this world. It reveals whether our faith has shaped our instincts or whether our instincts are being shaped somewhere else. Because here's the truth: you don't have to agree with the Obamas politically to recognize their humanity. You don't have to admire their leadership to reject dehumanization. You don't have to share someone's worldview to refuse to mock their dignity. Guys, that's not weakness. That's that's just gospel clarity. And gospel clarity is one of the first things we lose when power becomes more important than witness. See, what troubled me the most about the moment was not the existence of the image. It was how many Christians responded by saying nothing or worse, by laughing. Guys, silence can be a strategy, but silence can also be a teacher. And it teaches us what we're willing to live with. It teaches us what we're willing to normalize. And over time, what we normalize becomes what we defend. Guys, this is how society drifts. Not all at once, not dramatically, but incrementally through a thousand small justifications. And that's why this episode matters. This is why we do the Mark Casto program. I want you to look at culture through a Christological lens because this is not about one image. It's about what kind of people we're becoming when cruelty feels excusable as long as it serves the right cause. And if we're honest, many Christians today are deeply confused. They love Jesus, they love their country, and they feel pressured to choose sides in a culture that demands total loyalty. So when something like this happens, they freeze. They don't know how to speak without feeling like they're betraying someone. They don't know how to name wrong without being accused of weakness. They don't know how to tell the truth without losing their tribe. Guys, that confusion is real. I've felt it. I know you have too. And that's why this podcast exists, because there's a way to respond that doesn't require outrage, denial, or compromise. There is a way to hold gospel clarity without becoming cruel. There is a way to remain faithful without becoming tribal. But it requires something that many of us were never taught. It requires knowing the order. We are Christians first, then Americans. And the moment that order flips, everything else starts to slide. See, when faith becomes a servant of power instead of a witness to truth, it stops sounding like good news. It starts sounding like justification. So before we go any further, let me pause right here because some of you listening feel that tension. You feel pulled. At times you feel disoriented. You feel like the loudest voices don't reflect the faith that you actually believe. And I want you to know you're not crazy. You're not weak. You're not naive. You're sensing that something is off. And that sensing is worth honoring. So before we go on, I want to take a quick moment to speak directly to those of you who feel overwhelmed by the noise right now. Guys, you're watching Minnesota, you're watching what's happening on the news, you're watching issues like what we're talking about today. And many of you, if you're tired of shallow takes and reactionary content and a media environment that rewards outrage instead of wisdom, this is exactly why we built this podcast and why we also built Long Path Creator Academy. Guys, Longpath Creator Academy exists for people who want to shape culture without becoming consumed by it. Guys, this is a space for leaders, creators, pastors, and thinkers who want to build something meaningful. I'm talking content, I'm talking businesses, how to build social media platforms rooted in clarity, integrity, and long-term impact. Guys, when you sign up to become a part of Longpath Creator Academy, we're not in there teaching you how to chase trends. We're not there. We don't inflame for clicks. Like we're not clickbait type people. We focus on formation, wisdom, and building things that actually last. So, guys, if you feel called to be a part of that kind of work, you can learn more. Guys, you can jump right in. I've actually taken this program. It was a$5,000 program, and I've made it available to every one of you for absolutely free. So if you want the link to Longpath Creator Academy, just click the link below in the show notes. If you're listening to this, it's in the podcast description. If you're watching on YouTube, it's there in the description below. I want to stay with this for a moment longer because if we rush past it, we miss what's really happening beneath the surface. Okay. Dehumanization is never the end of the story. It's always the beginning. Guys, no society wakes up one morning and decides to commit injustice. No culture starts out with cruelty. Cruelty always needs preparation. And that preparation almost always takes the same form, reducing people to something less than human. That's why we can't just let this moment pass and not actually address it. We can't just join Fox News talking points. We can't just jump over here and agree with CNN. We've got to think about these things clearly and deeply. Guys, history shows us this pattern again and again. They did it to the Jews right before the Holocaust. Like this is the kind of stuff that happens and is repeated all throughout history. Before people are harmed, they are mocked. Before they are excluded, they are caricatured. Okay. Before they are mistreated, they're turned into symbols instead of neighbors. Guys, that's why the story matters. That's why imagery matters. Images shape imagination. Imagination helps shape our conscience. And conscience shapes what we're willing to tolerate. Guys, this is not about being fragile. It's about being honest about how human beings actually work and how you and I, as believers, should be seeing this through a Christocentric lens. So, guys, once a group of people is betrayed as animals or parasites or threats or jokes, something subtle but dangerous happens. Okay? Empathy begins to weaken. Restraint erodes. Cruelty feels lighter. And the most alarming part is people often don't notice it happening. They tell themselves, guys, it's just humor. They tell themselves, ah, it's strategy. They tell themselves it's necessary. But guys, formation doesn't ask permission. It just does its work. And guys, I think this is important because the political climate that we're dealing with in America, we are seeing that we are far beyond words now. People are starting to we we've seen like two assassination attempts. We've seen one political assassination in the past year. So, guys, we've moved beyond words, and now we're now action is being fueled because of these words. So let me speak very directly to all my Christian brothers and sisters for a moment. The gospel trains us to move in the opposite direction. When the world simplifies, the gospel deepens. Where the world dehumanizes, the gospel restores humanity. Where the world divides us into us and them, the gospel refuses to let us forget that them is made of people. That's why moments like this are such powerful, powerful test, because they reveal whether our instincts, again, I've said this before, I'm gonna say it again. It reveals whether our instincts are being shaped by Christ, which is proof of the renewed mind, or by something else wearing religious language. So here's a question we're sitting with. When you saw that image, or you heard about it, what was your first instinct? I want you to be really honest, okay? When you first saw that image and it was shared, especially shared from the White House, what was your first instinct? Was it grief? Was it concern? Maybe it was discomfort or was it defensiveness? Let me ask you this. Did you feel the need to explain it away? Maybe somebody brought it up and you downplayed it. Did you downplay it? Guys, to shift the focus immediately to someone else's wrongdoing is wrong in of itself. Like, did you justify it because of something that the the Obamas did years ago? And the reason why I'm asking those questions is because many times we don't slow down enough to ask ourselves those questions. Those instincts matter. Not because they determine your political alignment, but because they reveal what has been forming you. Information doesn't happen in a vacuum, it happens through rep reputation, okay? Through habits, through the voices that we trust, through the communities that we belong to, through the media we consume. Like the, I mean, guys, our instincts, I can almost tell people whether they watch Fox News or CNN or if they watch TBN or Daystar, whether they watch certain YouTube channels or listen to podcasts. Guys, the media we consume matters. And if we're constantly fed outrage, we then we become an outraged people. If we're constantly fed fear, we become fearful people. And if we're constantly fed like tribal loyalty, we become people who excuse anything for the sake of belonging. And this is how faith quietly shifts. Not by abandoning Jesus outrightly, but by redefining what faithfulness to Jesus looks like. See, we have allowed America to become the we are now officially what I call American Christians. And so faithfulness becomes winning. Faithfulness becomes protecting our side. Faithfulness becomes silence when speaking would cost us status. And over time, Jesus becomes a symbol instead of a guide. That's why I always, my biggest pet peeve is people who don't have the fruit of Christ, but yet they love to wear the cross. It's like that's just a symbol to you. It doesn't really mean anything. So Jesus becomes a symbol instead of a guide. He's a banner instead of a teacher. And this is why dehumanization is such a serious issue for Christians. Because once we allow ourselves to see others as less than fully human, we are no longer operating from the center of the gospel, even if we still use its language. Now, I want to acknowledge something important. Many people listen to this podcast feel caught in the middle. They don't, they absolutely don't support racist imagery. They don't want to excuse cruelty, but they're exhausted by what feels like constant moral outrage. It's guys, the media is doing this to us. Social media is doing this to us. And so you find yourself, you're tired of being told that every issue is the end of the world. That maybe you're watching this and you're you're just wary of manipulation. Guys, at the end of the day, all of us, we don't want to be used. And friend, can I be honest with you? That caution makes sense. That means you have some mental health. But here's the difference between discernment and numbness. And I think this is an important conversation for us to have. Discernment helps you see clearly. Numbness helps you survive by feeling less. And numbness is not neutral. Numbness always favors the powerful, it always protects the status quo. It always dulls moral and gospel imagination. And that's why silence in moments like this is not harmless. Silence teaches us what we are willing to live with. And eventually. What we are willing to live with becomes what we are willing to defend. Guys, I've been sitting on this issue for days. I've watched the commentary, I've watched voices, and on both sides of this issue. And guys, I'm one of those people that's just absolutely exhausted by every little thing that comes out turns into a conservative versus progressive, left versus right issue. And I'm sick of it too. So this brings us to the deeper issue that we need to name. This moment didn't create a problem, it revealed one. It revealed what happens when Christian identity becomes entangled with national identity in a way that confuses allegiance. See, when faith is expected to serve power instead of critique it, when loyalty to a nation quietly outranks loyalty to Christ, guys, we've got issues here. When protecting our side feels more urgent than protecting human dignity, guys, that confusion doesn't announce itself loudly. Guys, many people look at this moment, it feels reasonable, it feels justified. Maybe some of you are even listening to this, it feels necessary. But can I tell you, friend, it absolutely carries a cost. And what is that cost? Well, simple. It costs us credibility, it costs us gospel clarity, and eventually it costs us our witness. Because the world can spot hypocrisy faster than the church often realizes. And nothing undermines the message of Christ faster than followers who defend what he consistently refused to do. Dehumanize those he disagreed with. Jesus never needed to reduce people to caricatures to confront injustice. He never needed to mock dignity to speak truth. He never needed to dominate in order to lead. Friend, that's not weakness. That's strength anchored in identity. And that's the part we've lost touch with. Many Christians today feel like they must choose between being faithful and being forceful, between being truthful and being kind, between standing firm and remaining humane. But friend, that's not a false choice. It's not real. It's a choice created by fear, not by the gospel. And guys, can I be honest with you? Fear is a terrible teacher. Fear tells us that if we don't strike first, we'll lose everything. Fear tells us that restraint is surrender. Fear tells us that cruelty is justified if the stakes are high enough. But fear has never produced good news. Only clarity does, only courage does, only a deep settled confidence in who we are and what we're here to do. And this is where the conversation has to turn. Because if we don't understand why this keeps happening, why Christians keep excusing what contradicts their own faith, we won't know how to move forward. So, guys, I want to jump into the next thing. I want to talk about the deeper disorder underneath all of this. Not just political behavior, not just cultural drift, but what happens when faith loses its proper order and how that disorder reshapes everything. And if we want to understand why moments like this keep happening, why Christians keep excusing behavior that contradicts their own faith, we have to talk about order. Not political order, but gospel order. Every life is shaped by what it loves most. Every community is shaped by what it protects first. Every movement is revealed by what it is willing to sacrifice. And order always tells the truth. When something's out of order, the symptoms show up everywhere. You can see it in a family when career eclipses the actual presence of a father. You can see it in a business when profit eclipses people and the employees. And you can see it in the church when power eclipses our witness. And what we're seeing right now is not primarily a failure of belief, it is a failure of ordered love. Christians have not stopped believing in Jesus. They've stopped letting Jesus sit at the center. Instead, something else has quietly moved into that place. For many, it's fear. For many, it's belonging. For many, it's national identity. And when that happens, when those things begin to take precedence, faith doesn't dis it faith doesn't just evaporate, it gets repurposed and it becomes a tool instead of a guide, a justification instead of a transformation, a banner that we wear instead of a way of life. And this is where the confusion begins, because patriotism itself is not wrong. Gratitude for one's country is not sinful. Caring about the future of your nation is not a problem. The problem arises when love of country becomes a substitute for allegiance to Christ, when national success becomes more important than gospel faithfulness, when protecting our people becomes more important than protecting human dignity. See, when the gospel is expected to serve the nation instead of shape its conscience, that's when the order flips. And when the order flips, faith starts to sound like something else entirely. It starts to sound defensive, it starts to sound angry, it starts to sound brittle. It loses its capacity to absorb complexity. It loses its ability to critique its own side. It loses its credibility with anyone outside the tribe. And this is why I've been saying Christian nationalism is not primarily a political ideology. It's a spiritual disorder. It's what happens when faith is fused to national identity in a way that makes the nation untouchable, not accountable, not critiquable, not subject to examination. And once that fusion happens, everything else follows naturally. Cruelty becomes excusable if it protects the nation. Dehumanization becomes tolerable if it advances the cause. Silence becomes virtuous if speaking would threaten power. Guys, this is not new. History is full of moments where religious language was used to bless what the gospel itself would never bless. And what makes this moment dangerous is not that Christians care about politics. It's that many Christians have been taught implicitly or explicitly that political victory is a form of faithfulness. Guys, and that belief changes people. It trains them to measure success by domination instead of transformation, by control instead of credibility, by outcomes instead of character. So when something like a dehumanizing image appears, the instinct is not to ask, is this Christ-like? The instinct is to ask, does this help us win? And that single shift, almost imperceptible, is where everything begins to unravel. Because Jesus never framed faithfulness in terms of winning. He framed it in terms of becoming. Guys, you got to hear this. He framed it in terms of becoming just like him. Hello, uh, the Beatitudes, becoming peacemakers, becoming people of love, becoming a light, not a hammer. And the early Christians, they did not try to outmaneuver the Roman Empire. They outlived its logic. They refused to mirror Rome's cruelty. They refused to bow to Roman power. They refused to worship the power that the Romans, the Roman Empire could give them. They refused to confuse citizenship with allegiance. And that refusal changed the world. But guys, can I be honest with you? It only worked because they were clear about the order. It was Christ first and everything else second. Not Christ and Caesar. Not Christ for Caesar. Christ above Caesar. And here's the uncomfortable truth. When Christians today feel compelled to defend cruelty in order to protect national identity, it is a sign that Christ has been moved quietly but decisively from the center. Now, I'm not saying he's been utterly rejected. I'm saying some things got rearranged. So it's still spoken about. Jesus is still referenced, but, and this is a big but right here, but no longer allowed to challenge the deepest loyalties. That's why this moment matters so much, because the image itself is not the real issue. The real issue is what we are becoming willing to live with. What are we becoming willing to excuse? What are we becoming willing to baptize in the name of American Christianity? And once we excuse dehumanization for the sake of power, we lose the moral ground to speak credibly about justice, dignity, or truth anywhere else. And the world sees it immediately. They may not understand our theology, but they understand our hypocrisy. They understand when faith is being used to protect influence instead of embody love. And when that happens, the gospel doesn't sound like the good news. It sounds like propaganda. And this is why I keep returning to the order. Christians are not called to be the moral police of the nation. We're called to be a distinct people within our nation, a people who refuse to dehumanize, a people who refuse to justify cruelty, a people who refuse to trade witness for power. Guys, that doesn't make us weak. It makes us free, free from panic, free from tribal loyalty, free from the fear that if our side loses, everything's over. Because the gospel does not rise and fall on election cycles. And when we remember that, truly remember that, we regain our footing. But when we forget it, we start grasping, grasping for control, grasping for dominance, grasping for shortcuts. And grasping always leads to distortion. So if we want to understand this moment honestly, we have to stop asking, how do we defend ourselves and start asking, what does faithfulness to Christ look like when power is tempting us to compromise? And that question doesn't have to be a partisan answer. It can be a gospel answer. It can be a human one. And that's where we're headed next, okay? Because once we understand the disorder, we can finally talk about the alternative. And guys, I'm not talking about a strategy, not a counter movement, but a different way of being in the world, one that Jesus modeled from the very beginning. And before we move into that, I want to pause and speak to those of you who are grateful that conversations like this exist at all. Episodes like this don't happen by accident. They require time, care, research, and the freedom to speak honestly without bending to outrage or pressure from either side. Guys, that's why I'm so thankful for Longpath Studios. I'm thankful that this place exists. Longpath is a media initiative built to fund thoughtful, Christ-centered conversations that refuse to dehumanize and refuse to inflame. If this podcast has helped you think more clearly, stay grounded, remain hopeful in confusing times, I want to take this time to invite you to support this work. You can become a supporter and help sustain this kind of content at markcasto.co backslash donate. That's markcasto.co backslash donate. And your support doesn't just fund a podcast, it helps build a different kind of media presence in the world. Okay. So let's just let's jump back in. Once we disname, once we name the disorder, the next question becomes unavoidable. Okay. If power first faith is the problem, then what does a Christ-shaped faith actually look like in moments like this? Guys, at the end of the day, we know what political power looks like. We know how easily fear and loyalty can be exploited. And Jesus consistently refuses the tools everyone else assumed were necessary. He refused dehumanization. He refused domination. He refused the logic that says if we don't crush them first, we'll lose everything. See, Jesus did not confront injustice by becoming ruthless. He confronted it by becoming unmistakably different. This is the part of the gospel that I think many people have forgotten. Jesus was never trying to seize control of Rome. He was forming a people who could not be controlled by Rome's logic. And that distinction matters because power first faith asks one question above all others: how do we win? But Jesus asks a very different question. What kind of people are we becoming? See, power first faith is obsessed with outcomes. Jesus was obsessed with formation. See, power first faith says, ends justify the means. Jesus said, the means reveal the ends. And you can hear the difference immediately. Power first faith says, humiliate them before they humiliate us. Strike first, control the narrative, protect our influence at all cost. Jesus says, love your enemies, tell the truth, refuse to dehumanize, trust that faithfulness outlasts force. That doesn't mean Jesus was passive. He confronted hypocrisy directly. He exposed injustice publicly. He spoke with clarity and courage, but he never abandoned dignity to do it. He never needed to mock someone else's humanity to challenge their behavior. He never needed to caricature people to reveal truth. He never needed to dominate in order to lead. And that's not softness. That's strength, again, anchored in identity. And identity is the key here. Jesus didn't need power to validate him. He knew who he was. And because he knew who he was, he could refuse every shortcut that promised control at the cost of integrity. And this is where so many Christians today feel lost. They feel like if they don't adopt the tactics of the world, they'll be ignored. They feel like if they don't fight fire with fire, they'll be consumed. They feel like restraint equals surrender. But restraint is not surrender when your identity is secure. Restraint is clarity. It's the ability to say, I don't need to win this moment if it costs me who I am. And that kind of clarity is rare right now. Most public voices are either inflaming outrage or they're retreating into silence. Few are modeling what it looks like to speak truthfully without becoming cruel. And Jesus shows us that way, not by offering a political strategy, but by offering a different posture, a posture that says, I will not dehumanize you, even if you dehumanize me. I will not mirror your cruelty even if it costs me influence. I will not confuse strength with dominance. And that posture is what changed the early world. The early Christians didn't overthrow the Roman Empire by force. They outlived it by refusing to become like it. They cared for the sick when others fled. They honored women and children in a culture that constantly discarded them. They refused to worship power, even when it cost them safety. And over time, their way of being exposed, like their way of being, really exposed the emptiness of the Empire's values. And that's how real change happens. Not through domination, through demonstration of a life lived to Christ. And this is what we've lost sight of in the age of outrage. We've mistaken volume for authority, aggression for courage, cruelty for strength, but none of those things produce good news. They produce fear. And fear is a terrible foundation for faith. Fear-based faith always needs an enemy. It always needs somebody to blame. It always needs a reason to justify its own excesses. And Jesus offers something else. He offers a faith rooted in trust, not panic. Trust that truth doesn't need distortion to stand. Trust that dignity doesn't weaken witness. Trust that love is not fragile. And guys, this doesn't mean we ignore injustice. It means we confront it without becoming unjust ourselves. This doesn't mean we avoid hard conversations. It means we refuse to let those converse those conversations strip us of our humanity. This doesn't mean we disengage from the public square. It means we enter it as people who belong to something deeper than any nation. And that's the difference between power first faith and Christ-shaped faith. One grasps, the other stands. One fears losing control, the other trusts that faithfulness is enough. One needs to dehumanize to survive. The other refuses because it knows who it is. And friend, here is the good news. This way of being is still possible. Guys, I remember uh in 2020 when we were going through COVID and we went through the the George Floyd issue, and everybody had to pick a side in that issue. Guys, everybody had to pick a side. Okay. And um, I remember talking about the issue with friends of mine, both white, black, Hispanic, just talking about that issue in general. And I remember saying, this one person saying in particular, you know, Mark, there doesn't have to be just two options. There's actually a third option, and it's called the kingdom. I thought that was really powerful. So, guys, the good news is there's a third option. It hasn't disappeared. It's just been drowned out by louder, angrier voices, but people are getting hungry for it. They're tired of being whipped into outrage. They're tired of choosing between silence and cruelty. They're tired of faith being used as a weapon instead of a refuge. They want to know if it's possible to follow Jesus and remain fully human in a world that rewards the opposite. And the answer is yes, but it requires courage of a different kind. The courage to refuse easy enemies, the courage to speak clearly without shouting, the courage to lose status rather than to lose integrity. And that courage doesn't come from strategy, it comes from knowing who you belong to. And when that's settled, I mean truly settled, everything else begins to realign. And that's where the way forward starts, not with tactics or talking points, but with a recovered confidence that the gospel really is good news and it doesn't need cruelty to prove it. So now the question becomes practical. If power first faith deforms us, and if Jesus offers a different way of being human, what does that actually look like when moments like this happen? I'm not talking about in theory or in a classroom, but in real time, on our phones, in our conversations, in our churches, at our dinner tables, because most people don't fail in moments like this because they're evil. They fail because they're unprepared. They haven't been given a framework for how to respond without panicking or posturing or going silent. So I want to slow this down just a little bit and make it simple. Here are a few marks of what a Christ-shaped response actually looks like. Okay, let's begin first. Christ-shaped people refuse to laugh at cruelty. And I know that sounds like obvious, but it's actually harder than it seems because laughter is often a test of belonging. When a group laughs together, they're signaling loyalty. And when you refuse to laugh, you risk as being seen as disloyal. But here's the truth. If something requires another person's dignity to be, to be diminished in order to be funny, it's not humor. That's just decay. And Christians are not called to participate in the decay of people. You don't have to make a speech, you don't have to post a manifesto. Sometimes faithfulness looks like simply not sharing the meme, not adding the laughing, laughing emoji, not participating in the slow erosion of empathy. And that restraint matters more than most people realize. Secondly, Christ-shaped people are harder on their own side than on the other. And this is one of the clearest marks of integrity. Friend, it is easy to critique your opponents. It's much harder to confront distortion among your own friends. But see, gospel authority is actually built in that space. Anyone can point out hypocrisy across the aisle. Only formed people are willing to say, this is wrong, even when it benefits us. And that doesn't mean you agree with the other side. It just means that you refuse to surrender your consciousness for the sake of belonging. And that kind of honesty is deeply needed right now. Because when Christians only confront wrongdoing out there, the world stops listening. But when we demonstrate that our commitments are deeper than our tribe, people start to take notice. Thirdly, Christ shaped people slow down the moment. Outrage thrives on speech. But wisdom requires time. And most of the damage done in moments like this happened in the first few hours, when reactions are sharp, identities are threatened, and people feel pressured to take aside immediately. But see, Jesus consistently slowed moments down. He asked better questions. He disrupted false urgency. He refused to be rushed into someone else's frame. Friend, you are allowed to pause. You're allowed to say, hey, I need a little time to think about this. You're allowed to resist the demand to perform instant allegiance. See, slowing down doesn't mean disengaging. It means refusing to be manipulated. Okay? Fourthly, Christ-shaped people protect human dignity even when they disagree deeply. And this is where many people get confused. They think that dignity requires agreement, like it requires agreement. It doesn't. Dignity means refusing to reduce people to symbols, refusing to flatten them into caricatures, refusing to speak about them in ways you wouldn't tolerate if the roles were reversed. See, you can disagree strongly and still speak humanly. In fact, that's what makes disagreement credible. We can't even do this anymore in our culture. Once dignity's gone, nothing productive remains. And here's an important truth: you don't lose influence by protecting dignity. You lose influence by abandoning it. Guys, join the club. People may not agree with you, but when you live this way, they will trust you. And trust is far more powerful than outrage. Okay? Fifth. Fifth thing here. Christ-shaped people choose witness over winning. This may be the hardest one because winning feels urgent. It feels necessary. It feels like survival. But friend, witness works on a different timeline. Witness asks, what story does my response tell about the God I claim to follow? Winning asks, how do I defeat my opponent? And see, when we look at the life of Jesus, Jesus consistently chose his witness, even when it cost him popularity, even when it cost him misunderstanding, even when it cost him his life, friend, and that witness outlasted every empire that tried to silence it. So here's the uncomfortable question that we all have to face. If someone formed their understanding of Jesus entirely by watching how we respond to moments like this, what kind of Jesus would they imagine? A fearful one? An angry one? A sarcastic one? Or a grounded one? A courageous one, a deeply human one. And guys, I'm not asking that question. I'm certainly not asking that question. Uh, it's not meant to shame anyone, but it is to make you pause and think and clarify. Because, guys, the world is not primarily listening to what Christians say they believe. Guys, for years and years and years, we have been telling people what we believe, what we believe, what we believe. But guys, now they're watching what those beliefs produce. Jesus didn't say you'd be known by your beliefs. Jesus didn't say you'd be known by your gifts. Jesus didn't say you'd be known by your personality. Jesus said you would be known by your fruit, and the fruit is love. Guys, and right now, many people, they're not rejecting Christ. Like I think we have this idea in our mind that in American culture, everybody's rejecting Christ. Guys, they're not rejecting Christ. What they are rejecting is the distorted version of him that they see reflected in our churches and in and in his followers. Guys, and as a pastor and a leader, that's painful to admit because it's just difficult. But it's also hopeful because it means the problem is not that the gospel has lost its power. It's that we've forgotten how to live it publicly. But that is beginning to change, guys. The good news is that we can recover it and we are recovering it. Guys, we can choose restraint over reaction. We can choose clarity over cruelty. We can choose formation over the frenzy that we see online. And none of that requires perfection. Guys, of all people I know, I'm not, I'm not a perfect man on any level. It, but but what we can say is we can put some intentionality behind it. And and and guys, that requires us remembering the order. It is Christ first, everything else second. And when that order is restored, responses like this become clearer. Guys, you don't have to calculate every move. You don't have to fear every outcome. You simply ask one steady question. What does faithfulness look like here? And then once you have that qualified, once you have that clarity, then you can act accordingly, even if it costs you approval. Because, guys, the reality is, I know this, it doesn't matter how amazing you are, how gifted you are, how talented you are, guys, approval fades. But if you live a life of integrity to the best of your ability, that integrity compounds. And that brings us to the final movement that I want to talk about in this episode. Because this is not just about one incident. It's about the kind of church we're becoming and the kind of future that we're shaping. So as I begin to close, I want us to lift our eyes just for a moment. Because if we stay focused only on what's broken, we're going to miss what's possible. One of my favorite things about the story of Noah is it says in Genesis 6 that the earth was filled with violence and injustice. And um, and that God even repented for creating humanity because of how evil that we had become. And I've read that story time and time again, but then if you go into the New Testament, it calls Noah a preacher of righteousness. And I'm like, man, how did he preach a sermon? And the the reality is his life was preaching a message. He didn't go out and protest the injustice. It says the whole earth was filled with violence and injustice. And Noah didn't go become a preacher of righteousness by trying to fix everybody, get in the streets, protest, do this and that, hold tent revivals, crusades, blah, blah, blah. No, he built what God told him to build. And how did he do that? The scripture says he must have lifted his eyes from the chaos of humanity. And the Bible says he found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And I believe this is a moment where you and I can lift our eyes above the chaos. I encourage you, shut off the news, man. Like, shut it off. It's just producing fear in you. It's confusing your eschatology. It's confusing the good news. Like, just shut it off. And let's lift our eyes. And I believe, like Noah, we'll be able to lift up our eyes and find grace in the eyes of the Lord. Guys, this episode has not been about shaming Christians. Like, that's not my art at all. It has not been about diagnosing failure for the sake of critique. And really, it's not about declaring the church hopeless. It's about calling us back, back to clarity, back to order, back to a way of being in the world that actually sounds like good news. Because despite everything that we see online, I still believe this. The church does not need more outrage. It needs more formed people, people who are not easily manipulated, people who are not ruled by fear, people who are steady enough to tell the truth without losing their humanity. That kind of people changes the temperature of a room. They don't escalate chaos. They don't inflame division. They don't mirror the worst instincts of the age. They bring something else with them: the presence and perspective and the peace of Jesus. Peace that doesn't depend on denial. And that is what it means to be a good news people. Not people who pretend everything's fine. We all know, like we can look around and go, hey, it's it's not quite paradise yet. But people who believe that, even in broken systems, if they believe in the good news, they know there is a better way to be a human in Christ. And that belief is radical right now. Because the world's loud, it's anxious, it's addicted to outrage. And in that environment, calm conviction stands out. Isn't that wild that you could be calm and stand out in a crowd? But when Christians respond to moments like this with clarity instead of cruelty, people notice. And when we refuse to laugh at dehumanization, people notice. And when we confront wrongdoing on our own side, people notice. And when we speak without panic, people notice. Not because we're perfect. Not because, not, not, not because we got it all together, but because we are different. And that difference is the beginning of witness. And that witness doesn't require a microphone. Guys, it shows up in conversations, in comment sections, in living rooms, in churches, and how parents talk to their children about what's happening in the world. Guys, witness, the Christ-formed witness happens when people see that following Jesus produces a kind of person. And a kind of person that the world doesn't know how to categorize. Not easily outraged, not easily co-opted, not easily reduced, just grounded. And grounded people are dangerous in the best possible way because they can't be easily used. They don't need enemies to feel righteous. They don't need domination to feel secure. They don't need to win every argument to remain faithful. They know who they are. And that knowledge frees us, man. And I want to speak directly to those of you who feel weary right now. You feel like the loudest Christian voices don't reflect the faith that you actually believe. You feel that pressure to either shout or disappear. You feel caught between loyalty and integrity. And I want you to hear this clearly. Guys, you are not alone. I remember when Elijah thought in the scriptures he was all alone. And yet in his depression, God said, there's 7,000 just like you. You're not alone. And you're not imagining the tension. Something's off, and your discomfort is a sign of formation, not weakness. The answer is not to disengage, and the answer is not to harden. The answer is to become more deeply rooted, to let Christ, not fear, not politics, not tribal identity, reclaim the center. Because when Christ is first, everything else finds its proper place. You can love your country without worshiping it. You can care about justice without becoming cruel. You can speak truth without sacrificing dignity. And friend, that's not naive. That's mature. That's not naivety. That's maturity. And maturity is what this moment requires. Guys, the future of Christian witness will not be shaped by who shouts the loudest. It will be shaped by who remains Christ-centered, human under pressure, by who refuses shortcuts, by who chooses faithfulness over the frenzy, by who believes that the gospel really is good news and lives like it. See, that's the invitation of this episode, not to win a debate, but to recover a way of life. So before we close, I want to invite you into a more ongoing conversation. Each week, I send emails reflecting on culture and leadership and faith and what it looks like to stay grounded in confusing times. No hype, no outrage, just clarity, perspective, and encouragement for people who want to live thoughtfully and faithfully in a world that we're actually in. And if that sounds helpful for you, all you have to do is go to marccasto.co. It's not.com, it's dot co. Marccasto, M-A-R-K-C-A-S D-O.co. And guys, go to the bottom, scroll to the bottom. It's a simple way to stay connected beyond this episode. And as we wrap up, let me return to where we began. Moments like the one that we've discussed today are not just news stories, they are mirrors. Okay. They show us who we are becoming. And while that can be sobering, it can also be hopeful. Because becoming is not finished. We can still choose a better way. We can still refuse to let fear set the agenda. We can still reject guys, we can still I want to say this again. We can still refuse to let fear set the agenda. We can still reject dehumanization in all of its forms. We can still insist that faith sounds like good news even when it tells the truth. See, friend, good news does not mean pretending everything is fine. It means believing that there is still a better way to be human, a God way of being human and choosing it anyway. So wherever you are, whether you're listening to this or watching this, wherever you are today, my hope is simple that you leave this episode just a little more grounded, a little more clear, a little more confident that following Jesus still makes sense even now. Say it to you one last time. We are Christians first, everything else second. And when we keep that order, we don't lose our way. We become who we were meant to be. I'll catch you in the next episode.