The Shape of Strength
A reflection on pride, public power, and the difference between defiant spectacle and strength governed by love.
Published July 4, 2026
The Shape of Strength
Every age develops its own symbols of strength. Some are quiet: shared meals, patient labor, unseen fidelity, the steady courage of a person who refuses to repay hatred with hatred. Others are loud: raised voices, clenched jaws, the theater of defiance performed before watching crowds. In unsettled times, we are especially drawn to the louder kind. We look for figures who appear unbreakable, who seem able to stand against chaos by force of will alone. Yet history suggests that what first feels like stability can mask something far more fragile. Strength, when misread, becomes spectacle, and spectacles invite imitation.
On the Shadow of Defiance
To those who feel the tension of our times: we live in an era of strong men and striking images. When I watched the Trump assassination attempt unfold, I felt what many felt—shock, anger, fear, and then a strange hope. A man had gone down under violence. When he rose again, bloodied and alive, I wanted to see more than survival. I wanted to see a sign of humility, a word that calmed the crowd, a gesture that gathered a wounded country rather than sharpened its divisions. Perhaps I asked too much of a terrible moment. But I had hoped for something like the courage of a servant. Instead, what stood out was defiance.
To many, that defiance looked heroic. I understand why. There is a natural courage in rising after violence. There is also a human hunger to see fear answered with force. But through a Christian lens, the moment remains more complicated. Pain can become what C.S. Lewis called God’s megaphone, not because suffering is good in itself, but because it can break open the illusion that we are self-made and self-sufficient. A brush with death can soften a soul. It can remind a leader, and a nation, that life is received before it is commanded. In such a moment, the deepest strength would have been a call to mercy, restraint, and unity.
Self vs. God
Evil is not merely a distant monster outside us. It is also a condition of the human heart. It is the temptation that arises when freedom turns inward and begins to serve the self above the good of the other. The real battle is not simply against political opponents. It is the inner struggle between self-glorification and God-glorification, between the desire to be seen as invincible and the call to become faithful.
Lewis described pride as the great sin because it is competitive by nature. Pride does not rest in truth; it measures, compares, rises above, and demands recognition. It does not seek peace so much as superiority. When any leader responds to a brush with death not with the humility of a survivor but with the posture of a conqueror, we should be careful about what we applaud. We may be witnessing courage, but we may also be witnessing the adoption of pride as a public virtue.
This is not a partisan warning only. It reaches all of us. Crowds do not cheer what is wholly foreign to them. They cheer what already has a home in the heart. If we are honest, the fist can appeal to our own resentments. It can make anger feel righteous, retaliation feel holy, and domination feel like destiny. But Agape does not teach us to baptize the will to power. It teaches us to order freedom outward, toward the good of the other, even when the other is difficult, mistaken, or hostile.
The Confirmation: Hatred vs. Grace
The deeper concern is not one gesture in one terrible moment. It is the pattern that follows. When public language normalizes hatred, when leaders speak of enemies as objects of contempt rather than neighbors under judgment and mercy, we should recognize the spiritual danger. The way of Christ does not leave us free to cherish hatred as a political right. The command to love our enemies, referenced in , is not sentimental softness. It is one of the hardest disciplines of the Christian life.
At times we have seen, even in public grief, the beauty of Christian forgiveness. We have seen families and communities refuse to let violence have the final word. Against that witness, the language of hatred sounds like another gospel. It promises strength, but it trains the soul in bondage. It gives us permission to keep our wounds open and call that faithfulness.
When we prioritize our right to hate, or our will to fight, above the commandment to love, we enter what Lewis called the Inner Ring. We begin to value belonging, victory, and status more than truth. We trade first things—the formation of the soul, the love of God, the love of neighbor—for second things that cannot save us. Political victory may matter in earthly life, but it becomes demonic when it demands the sacrifice of charity.
The Call for a Freeborn Mind
A truly brave person is not merely one who can stir a crowd to fight. A truly brave person can ask that same crowd to forgive, to restrain itself, to build, and to seek the good of those outside its own camp. That kind of strength does not flatter our anger. It challenges opponents to move society forward constructively rather than remain trapped in permanent conflict. It seeks justice without surrendering mercy. It tells the truth without delighting in humiliation.
We must stop confusing boisterousness with faithfulness. Loudness is not the same as courage. Defiance is not the same as righteousness. If we continue to deify a shadowy strength that refuses to bend the knee to grace, we are not moving toward Heaven. We are entrenching ourselves in the original sin of our own egos.
Let us look instead for the knightly soul: fierce against true evil, yet meek in the presence of the neighbor; willing to protect the vulnerable, yet unwilling to make an idol of force; brave enough to stand, and braver still to reconcile. Until we see leaders who value unity more than the fist-pump, we must remain discerning.
When freedom turns inward, it does not remain private for long. It seeks affirmation, reflection, and finally an audience. It trades humility for posture, service for dominance, and patience for urgency. What begins as an interior disposition slowly takes on public form: gestures meant to rally, language sharpened to divide, symbols crafted to signal strength rather than bear truth. Crowds respond because they recognize the posture; it mirrors the same inward turn within themselves.