I’m scrolling on my phone at the kitchen counter when Ben

comes up behind me. Ben is eight years old. You know

the one. Same blue striped shirt every Sunday. His church

shirt—the one he will wear. Before I even realize he’s there

(don’t judge me), a video starts playing, one of those viral

clips that the algorithms feed us. It’s a preacher, red-faced,

pounding the pulpit, shouting about the need to defend

pure faith from its godless enemies. His voice is sharp. His

gestures are aggressive. It goes on for maybe ten seconds

before I can close it.

Ben is quiet. Then he tugs my sleeve. “Dad, was that a

preacher yelling? You don’t yell, right?”

I tell him he’s right. Not really my style. He waits a moment.

Then: “Dad, should you yell more? That guy has like 80,000

views!” Fair enough.

At a deep level, Ben put his finger on something we cannot

ignore. In many Christian communities, the gospel has

given way to anger-fueled messages of conquering faith,

faith defended from its godless enemies. And if you are not

yelling, your faith must be weak.

What does strength look like for followers of Jesus?

You see, that preacher Ben saw isn’t an outlier. There’s a

movement gaining ground that claims that true faith is

Christian dominion, which means eviscerating your enemies

and conquering every sphere of society. Following Jesus

becomes a campaign to control culture rather than take up

the cross.

But when we trade the cross for conquest, we don’t just

get shallow faith. We fashion a false Christ to bless what

Jesus condemned, drafted into service of political power.

We consecrate our resentments. We baptize our rage. This

is idolatry.

The gospel demands more. Paul writes: Let the same mind

be in you that was in Christ Jesus.

Real strength. Christ, who was in the very form of God, did

not weaponize that identity. He emptied himself. He took the

form of a servant. He humbled himself to the point of death

on a cross. Self-emptying, not self-exaltation. The cross, not

the crown.

Time and again, Jesus rejects every opportunity to seize

political power. Crowds following him wanted to make

him ruler by force. Satan, tempting him, offered him all

the kingdoms of the world. The religious establishment

expected a conquering messiah riding the war horse. And

Jesus said no to all of it. Why? God’s kingdom does not run

on the logic of conquest. It runs on the logic of the cross.

You need to know why Paul’s letter is so subversive. Philippi

was a Roman colony. It was fiercely loyal to the emperor.

And so, Paul borrows language. “Every knee should bow.”

“Jesus Christ is Lord.” This was the very imperial language

used to worship Caesar as lord and god. But Paul says, “No.

The crucified one is Lord.” Not the conquering emperor. The

one who offered his life in humility.

The cross is not the end. Paul goes on. God vindicates the

way of the cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him. At

the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue

should confess.

This is the gospel’s audacious claim: that the cruciform way

is how God’s kingdom comes—it’s the power that defeats

death. Not Caesar’s coercive force demanding submission

through threat. But the power of sacrificial love.

This same tension persists. Today, some Christian leaders

with large platforms promote what they call “Christian

dominion,” demanding through state law the very powe

Christ rejected. It’s the logic of Rome cloaked in the

language of faith—and it’s growing in places of power and

especially online.

Theologian Howard Thurman prophetically warned us, “The

bitter truth is that the Church has permitted hate-inspired

groups to establish squatters rights in the minds of believers

because there has not been adequate teaching of the faith

in terms of human dignity.” And when human dignity is not

taught, human beings get crushed. The vulnerable. The

stranger. The ones Jesus claimed “the least of these who

are my family.” Conquest theology always needs enemies to

vanquish and outsiders to exclude. Here’s what’s at stake:

If we don’t actively, intentionally form people in the way of

Jesus, if we are silent, if we think we can avoid this choice,

the watching world will assume we’re all the same. Our

children will see no difference between Christ and Caesar.

And they will be right to walk away.

Which brings me back to Ben—and to Henry and Coen,

these two precious babies we just baptized. You see, I need

to answer Ben’s question not just with my words, but with

the kind of faith I’m passing on to him. And we all must ask:

What gospel are we forming in our children? What vision

of Christ is being taught here? Are we forming them in a

faith where anger masquerades as conviction and following

Jesus means dominating others?

I don’t want these precious children—I don’t want my own

sons—to inherit a faith hollowed out by vengeance. I want

them to know the joy of following Jesus. I want them to

know that you don’t need enemies to feel alive. I want them

to know that you measure faithfulness not by how loudly

someone claims to know Christ but by how much they look

like him. I pray that when they hear calls to conquest, they

cling to the cross.

Don’t be misled. Paul is not naive. An emperor sits on the

throne. Philippi is overrun by imperial forces. Christians there

cannot conquer the empire with the weapons of war.

So Paul gives them something far more subversive: these

practices that form people into the kind of people who can’t

be conscripted by empire, whose citizenship is in heaven

even while living under Roman rule. His commands are

as simple as they are radical. Take the forms of servants.

Humble yourselves. Regard others as better than yourselves.

Have the mind of Christ.

What Paul recommends here are not small acts of kindness

to make the world a nicer place. They are disciplines that

will reshape your identity over time, so that you cannot

participate in a conquest theology.

Having been so shaped, our work becomes clear. To speak

for those who are being demeaned and dehumanized—

even when it costs you something. To welcome the

stranger to the safety of your table. Don’t let anyone turn

your neighbor into an enemy. Let your whole life declare

allegiance to the crucified Christ, not the powers that

promise you dominion.

These practices will fashion us into a people the shallow

gospel simply cannot use. We become a kind of outpost

of sacrificial love in a culture of domination, a community

practicing the mind of Christ even as the world practices

conquest. This cross-shaped conviction is the only strength

that will sustain us.

So Ben, I’ve had some time to think it over, and here’s my

answer. No, buddy, I shouldn’t yell more. But here’s why.

Real strength does not make people afraid. It’s being brave

enough to be kind, bold enough to forgive, faithful enough

to listen. Real strength looks like Jesus, not empire. And son,

that’s what I’m trying—with all my strength—to teach you

now—and what I’m trying to learn myself.

And by the way, Ben, I saw you live it this week. We were at

Sleeping Bear Dunes in Michigan on fall break, and I asked

if you wanted to write something in the sand, something

that others could read. I noticed that some kids had written

their names in the sand, and I asked you if you wanted to

write anything. And true to your nature, you didn’t hesitate.

You ran up that hill, and you wrote with intensity and as big

as you could: “BE KIND.”

That’s it. That’s the mind of Christ reflected in the choice

of an eight-year-old. That’s it. That’s what happens when

you’re being formed in the cruciform way—you don’t need

to shout down your enemies. You will refuse to take up the

weapons of empire. Because you will write kindness into the

world as large as you can make it because this is the way of

God’s kingdom.

Second Church, take your baptismal promises seriously.

It matters. The gentleness you practice, the welcome you

extend to children and strangers, the care you show for the

vulnerable and the overlooked—the kindness you show. This

is Christlike resistance to the cruelty of our age. It is how we

form souls for deep faith.

Because I don’t need to tell you, this isn’t just a question for

baptized babies or eight-year-old kids. Every single one of

us is making this choice each day. In how we speak, in what

we post and share, in how we live in community with each

other. We are choosing again and again which way to follow.

We can chase the gospel of conquest—where faith becomes

tribal rage, where we worship a messiah tailor-made to

bless our resentments and we burden our children with a

shallow faith they will rightly abandon. If we are silent while

Christian faith is turned into a weapon of political power, we

will have no one to blame but ourselves.

There is another way. We can follow the crucified Christ.

The one who emptied himself for us, who chose descent

over dominion.

Second Church, I believe this with all my heart. This is a

moment to choose, to become an outpost of cruciform living

in empire’s shadow, so rooted in Christ that nothing can

shake our faith. The way of the cross leads to life.

Our children are watching. They will know which way we

chose. Not by the battles we win, but by how we love. False

gods always fall. The choice is whether or not we will fall with

them. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.

Pray with me: Holy One, form in us the mind of Christ. Give us

courage to choose the way of the cross. Amen.