If my previous essay asked, “What kind of people should we be in moments of cultural crisis?”, this one answers:
“What does that actually look like on the ground, in real time, with real people?”
Redemptive Resistance is not merely a posture we hold—it is a posture we embody through words, actions, habits, and responses. It’s tempting to remain in the abstract because principles and ideas are inspiring, but practice is always messy and inconvenient.
There is no checklist or formula to work through in a crisis. We default to what is and has been forming us. What follows is also not a strategy to win, but my best attempt to illustrate a few ways we might practice what we preach.
You cannot solve the world’s problems. Sheesh, I can barely get a hold of my own life, much less think about solving problems that are 1,000 miles away. However, we can commit to a few practices that, over time, shape us into a people capable of faithful presence—and that, collectively, matters more than we realize.
1. Practice Discernment Slowly
The pressure to offer a hot take and post (or repost) something can be overwhelming. It’s a demonstrably false need that is reflective of what we can do in modern times, not necessarily what we should do. When a video can be filmed and shared with millions of people in a matter of seconds, the temptation to evaluate and make an immediate judgment is not just prevalent, but expected. Online influencers seek to guilt you into their form of activism, because building a tidal wave of response and emotion fuels the agenda.
Alternatively, we can create space for prayer, Scripture, and communal wisdom. We can learn to practice lament, before making proclamations. Lament names pain truthfully before God before it names blame publicly before others. We can begin our dialogue with real people, before sending our message out to strangers and acquaintances on the internet.
A better question than, “What would effectiveness look like here?” might be “What would faithfulness look like?”
We can’t all be experts in matters of international diplomacy, global poverty dynamics, economic implications of tariffs, or historical theology. We should speak out on matters of injustice, public integrity, and so forth. But you simply cannot be informed sufficiently to speak wisely on everything. Embrace your limitations and practice discernment slowly.
2. Practice Truthful Speech
Followers of Jesus should be quick to reject exaggeration, selective outrage, and narrative convenience. Integrity requires that we refuse to avoid the complexities that truth brings about. To speak the truth about the other side, but to be silent about the truth of our side, is to fundamentally be dishonest through omission.
Is it effective in winning an argument? Yes. Does it break the Ninth Commandment to “not bear false witness against your neighbor”? Absolutely.
Truthful speech, in the way of Jesus, also emphasizes clarity while refusing cruelty. Our culture celebrates the hurling of the most devastating of insults. If Jesus were speaking to us today, He might say something like He once said to his disciples:
“It must not be like that among you…” – Matthew 20:26
3. Practice Embodied Presence
The global nature of the internet makes it all too easy to turn people into caricatures, statistics, and symbols. A revival of the local, incarnational, and relational life is in order. If we’re engaged in national and global matters, but disengaged in our local community, it might be a sign that we’ve exchanged embodied presence for a digital counterfeit existence.
After the extraction and arrest of Nicolás Maduro, there was instant commentary, opinions, and assessments made by a wide swath of people. Some were pro-U.S. intervention, some were against. My personal knowledge of the Venezuelan political crisis was limited at best. Before I developed or offered any opinion, I first asked a friend, who is a first generation Venezuelan immigrant, to give me his thoughts on the matter. We would be wise to let proximity and embodied presence shape our perspectives. Proximity doesn’t guarantee correctness, but distance almost always guarantees distortion.
4. Practice Non-Anxious Engagement
Much of modern activism is fear-driven. There are powers at play, who are using our society’s increasing anxiety to maximize their propaganda goals. They cultivate panic-fueled responses. One of the key tenets of modern activism is to view everything and everyone through the lens of friend or enemy. Anxiety doesn’t just distort our thinking – it reshapes our loves, training us to see neighbors as threats.
For example, on the issue of immigration, the prevailing narratives get reduced to pro-law and security, or pro-immigrant. Powerful forces benefit from this reductionism. There is a verifiable immigration crisis in Europe and the USA. There are multiple causes, including unstable governments in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. Ineffective and complex immigration procedures incentivize illegal immigration. These are real issues, affecting millions of real people – who are image bearers of God.
We can and should be able to address these matters of justice and injustice without becoming reactive or brittle. Followers of Jesus can model a different emotional tone in a culture addicted to outrage.
Write to your elected officials. Express your views. Engage in non-violent protest against injustice where your conscience guides you. Do so, not from a place of reactivity, but principled response. Be civil and honoring. Be truthful and direct.
5. Practice Costly Love
If you practice Redemptive Resistance – rest assured – you will be misunderstood. To some, you’ll be ‘woke’. To others, you’ll be ‘naïve’. Jesus and His early followers walked this path long before us. Forget trying to “be on the right side of history.” Instead, let’s align ourselves with Jesus and His Kingdom. Costly love means that we are willing to lose social capital, platform, or certainty – because obedience to our King requires it.
Love your neighbor – your MAGA neighbor, your Bernie Sanders fan club neighbor, your rich neighbor, your poor neighbor – without demanding agreement as a prerequisite.
Get involved in serving a marginalized community or an underserved school. Use your connection and charisma to run for local public office as an alternative to the tribal establishment. Open your home to radical hospitality.
A Final Word
These suggestions will never satisfy ideological extremes. They may feel “too slow” for activists and “too disruptive” for traditionalists who prefer a passive approach. Faithfulness often lives in this uncomfortable “in-between”. Not the center or the mushy middle, but the space between the easy, clean, and black & white visions of life.
The goal of becoming a Redemptive Resistance is not to fix everything, control the narrative, or emerge victorious. The goal is to become the kind of people who bear faithful witness to Jesus in the midst of a fractured world.
People whose lives quietly insist that another way is possible. May it be so.
Next up: In part 3, I’ll explore why the practice of Benevolent Detachment is essential for the well-being of your soul and witness.
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