The last two conversations I have had with Pr. Jason Braaten have been wonderful to record. The church of God faces perils inside and outside but is prevailing and shall prevail over her foes. God’s people know these things and love to be reminded of the victory they have in Christ. It has been a wonderfully fruitful couple of years for our churches as illusions are stripped away and the light of Christ shines more brightly. The more darkness around us, the brighter the light shines.

The sorts of things I have been discussing with Pastor Braaten recently I also discuss weekly with Pastor Jonathan Fisk on A Brief History of Power. Please check that out if you’d like to hear more along the same lines as our recent Gottesdienst Crowd recordings. The work I have done on Lutheran resistance to tyranny you can find here among other places. The reason all of this was recorded because God’s people are waking up afresh to their need to retain and to treasure God’s saving Word and the holy Sacraments. Without them we perish; with them we flourish. No one wants to hear about enduring hardship until hardship comes. Now we face hardship all the more boldly because we are being rooted and renewed in Christ in ways we did not imagine three years ago.

I pray that God’s people may flourish mightily in these times and find the virtue that comes from resistance to slothful ease, the strength that is born out of struggle, the victory that is won through the bearing of every cross. We are more than conquerors, and our times show us this more clearly than ever: Christ is King!