We live in a culture that is increasingly hostile to the gospel.

Not hostile in obvious or dramatic ways—but subtle, formative ways. The kind that shape how we see, feel, react, and relate long before we stop to reflect.

At the heart of the gospel is love. Not sentimental love. Not performative love. But true, sacrificial love—a yearning to be with another, and a willingness to lay down one’s life to make that possible. The gospel reveals a God who moves toward us, who absorbs the cost, who bears the suffering, so that relationship can exist.

At the heart of American culture, however, is something very different: contempt.

Contempt is everywhere. It fills social media feeds. It drives mainstream media. It leaks into marriages, parenting, church life, and even our inner dialogue. Contempt says, You are beneath me. You are the problem. You are not worth my curiosity or care.

And this matters spiritually, because the essence of sin is not merely moral failure—it is contempt for God. It is the posture of I do not need you, I do not fear you, I will define reality on my own terms. When contempt becomes the air we breathe, reverence becomes foreign.

Here’s the dilemma:

We need to know the gospel—not just intellectually, but embodied. We need to learn it the way a musician knows music or the way a native speaker knows a language. Not something we translate in our heads, but something that flows naturally out of us. “Out of the heart flows…?” “A good tree produces…?”

At the very same time, our autonomic nervous system is being shaped—daily, relentlessly—by a culture that is anti-gospel.

Our bodies are learning vigilance, not safety.
Our reflexes are learning defense and fear, not trust.
Our instincts are learning contempt, not love.

So we find ourselves in a profound tension. A dilemma.

We need to become fluent in the language of grace while being immersed in a culture of contempt. We are called to embody sacrificial love while our nervous systems are conditioned for outrage, fear, and self-protection. We aim to create a gospel culture while immersed in forces that shape us in the opposite direction.

This is not a small challenge. It is a formation problem.

Knowing the gospel, in this moment, requires more than knowledge. It requires practice. It requires intentional re-formation of the body, the mind, and the heart. It requires spaces, rhythms, and relationships where love—not contempt—is the dominant language.

The question is not whether the gospel is true.
The question is whether we are becoming fluent in it—
in a world determined to teach us another tongue.

Disclosure: Drafted with assistance from ChatGPT from my original reflections; final edits are mine.