The currency of our culture today is fear. It generates political activity and holds people in power. To the “right” or to the “left,” the currency of our political religions is fear. It raises money fast. It gets people to vote. And all of that is going to lead to power and control.

This is not the way of Christ. This is not the way of his Kingdom.

Tim Alberta’s The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, is a tough read. He doesn’t write as an “outsider,” either. He grew up in the evangelical culture that is going haywire today. I am also grateful that in his reporting he didn’t come away with just bad news. There are pockets of hope. There are truly thousands of believers, like me, fed up with the clawing after political power and nostalgia. There are believers still clinging to Christ, jettisoning the nastiness of the political religion, and getting focused on the mission of the Kingdom of God.

One such place striving to be more on mission is Wheaton College. Alberta reported from a conference held there a few years ago and one speaker focused on the next generation. We need to be mindful of what is ahead for the Kingdom of God, and what is at stake.

There are people looking for this:

“They want to know if we love Jesus first”—more than money, more than social status, more than a political party, more than a country.

I can think of no better way to move into a new calendar year. Let us lead with a question about love. Not fear.

And let us lead with love in our lives.