Running with stones.

Holding the line without losing our soul.

It’s starting to feel like the world has gone off the rails.

We’ve watched stores being looted while employees are punished for trying to stop them; we’ve seen chaos at the border that sees fentanyl pour into our neighborhoods and unaccompanied children disappear; we’ve watched late-term abortion literally cheered as “progress,” women’s sports upended by male competitors, and public life applaud kink and fetish that would’ve made Hugh Hefner blush; our phones have even begun offering a pregnant-man emoji, as if biology were a partisan opinion.

In the middle of it all, some neighbors preach more love and inclusion as the solution—a “live and let live” mentality that seems hell bent on setting every institution on fire. Others, intent on halting the decay, too often pay for that order with basic decency, as enforcement descends into theater—packaged for clicks, laced with mockery, and promoted by officials who appear to relish humiliation.

I’m writing for people who want moral order back but refuse to lose their soul in the process.

The Gospel of John

In John chapter 8, a woman “caught in the act of adultery” is brought to Jesus in the temple courts. The teachers of the law cite Moses and demand a ruling. Everyone present holds a rock. Scripture doesn’t say they came for entertainment, but their hypocrisy is obvious: they use the woman as a pawn to trap Jesus, parade her shame in public, and press for a judgment that advances their agenda. That utilization of her humiliation has already turned justice into a spectacle.

Jesus stoops and writes on the ground. When they press Him, He stands and says, “Let the one without sin be first to throw a stone.” He overturns no statute, excuses no sin, despises no law. He forces every accuser to look in the law’s mirror before they lift the law’s hammer. Stones drop. One by one, they leave—not because the law was wrong, but because they were using God’s standard for their own ends. He ends the cruelty without halting justice; He strips away the jeer, the stage, the taste for public degradation masquerading as righteousness.

Then He turns to the woman: “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and leave your life of sin.” No hedging. No euphemism. No fog of “who can really say?” He names the act as sin and commands her to leave it. That clarity matters. Adultery is not a private quirk or a victimless crime; it destroys marriages, fractures households, and corrodes the souls of everyone bound up in it. Mercy that refuses to say so isn’t mercy; it’s abandonment dressed as kindness—the kind that leaves a sinner wandering the wasteland of their decisions.

Notice what He does and how He does it. He literally steps between a person and a crowd ready to harm. He uses His standing to end the humiliation. He shows kindness, builds connection, and earns trust—not for applause or progressive adoration, but for its true purpose: repentance and life abundant. And while He advocates for her as a human being made in God’s image, He speaks with unclouded moral clarity. This is not a formula or a sequence; it is grace and truth at the same time—dignity and justice held together in one Person. The law’s purpose—hearts conformed back to God—is accomplished through kindness and clarity together.

That is the pattern we need now. If you are working to restore order in a culture that tries to guilt trip you into blurring lines, know this: you do not need to apologize for plain speech. Say, “this is sin,” and “this harms people,” and “this destroys families.” Say it without flinching. The protection of the vulnerable depends on moral truth-telling. But do not add derision to your clarity. Do not turn enforcement into a show. Do not treat people as props or confuse severity with holiness. Minimum force is a moral commitment, and humility is a guardrail. When justice becomes performance—or the accused becomes a tool—we have joined the hypocrisy Jesus exposed in that courtyard.

Don’t split the difference

If you recoil at cruelty—and you should—do not let your compassion be stolen and repackaged as relativistic permission. Defending dignity does not require erasure of guilt. Jesus shielded the woman from a public execution, and as her advocate He still said, “Leave your life of sin.” Love insists a person is more than their failure; love also insists that sin must be left, not laundered.

None of this is “splitting the difference.” It is rejecting a false choice. The way forward is dignity and justice together—grace and truth, fully present at once. Christians must restore moral order without cruelty. Removing mockery does not weaken justice; it purifies it. Speaking truth does not cancel mercy; it completes it. Held together, justice can do what God gave it to do: protect the innocent, correct the guilty, and make restoration possible.

This is how we hold the line.