Michael W. Austin

michaelwaustin.substack.com/p/the-biblic...

Link in comments.

Wisdom Wednesday: Augustine on Being in Love with Love In a couple of my classes this past week or so, we’ve coincidentally had a discussion of the same thought from Augustine in his Confessions:

michaelwaustin.substack.com/p/wisdom-wed...

“In America, the law is king. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.”—Thomas Paine

Stephen Miller selling home after fleeing amid peaceful chalk messages on sidewalk White House deputy chief of staff Stephen and his podcaster wife, Katie Miller, have fled their Arlington home after peaceful chalk messages were left on the sidewalk.According to ARLnow, the Millers ...

“White House deputy chief of staff Stephen and his podcaster wife, Katie Miller, have fled their Arlington home after peaceful chalk messages were left on the sidewalk.“
Now imagine if armed, masked men were hunting you and your family like animals.

FACT FOCUS: Trump paints a grim portrait of Portland. The story on the ground is much less extreme There have been nightly protests outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland for months, peaking in June when police declared one demonstration a riot.

For those interested in the actual facts.
apnews.com/article/fact...

A Kingdom-Shaped Politics Transcends Partisanship In October, 2023, I was one of a group of concerned Christians gathered around a table in Denver who formed the J29 Coalition. So I was surprised to see Meghan Basham’s claim in First Things that my c...

blog.j29coalition.com/p/a-kingdom-...

"Our hope is that those congregations develop a political imagination that is not captive to partisanism on the right or the left, but rather captivated by the kingdom of God."

Dallas Willard: "We have knowledge of something when we are representing it (thinking about it, speaking of it, treating it) as it actually is, on an appropriate basis of thought and experience." Knowledge involves truth, accuracy, and is based on adequate evidence or insight. We need it.

Gonna be thinking about this lede for a minute.

“Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire,” @jackjenkins.me reports.

“We could hear them laughing,” Rev. Black said: religionnews.com/2025/10/07/i...

Wisdom Wednesday: Charles Taylor on Conversations We just finished reading a book about Charles Taylor’s book, A Secular Age, in one of my classes.

michaelwaustin.substack.com/p/wisdom-wed...

There Must Be Something More I recently came across this poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins:

michaelwaustin.substack.com/p/there-must...

He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others?"

Radical love of one's enemy is a distinguishing characteristic of the follower of the Way of Jesus:
"You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

We should oppose not only political violence, but all violence, at least if we are following the Way of Jesus.

12 of my books were used by Anthropic, will be interesting to see how the lawsuit and payments play out.

Character matters.

A reminder that the Bible itself says prayer is not enough.

Brief 🧵, as someone who has studied mass shootings for 13 years:

-gender does not cause them
-SSRIs, no
-mental illness, no
-internet/gaming, no

Above can be compounding factors—but motive is complex, often very. The most fundamental combo:

suicidality + rage + isolation + easy access to guns

Prayer and action. That’s our call as followers of the Way.

The cost of our gun idolatry is just too high.

Among the many false gods we should refuse to bow to, one that is all too often taken for granted as the highest good (or one of the highest goods)?

Efficiency.

"The human spirit must triumph over technology."
~Albert Einstein

Wisdom Wednesday: The Malignant Vice “Pride is the deepest root of the malignancy within ourselves.”

“Pride is the deepest root of the malignancy within ourselves.”
Dietrich von Hildebrand

michaelwaustin.substack.com/p/wisdom-wed...

Trump's promise to end vote-by-mail is yet another attack on disabled voters The president credits democracy superfan Vladimir Putin with the idea. Yes, really.

Donald Trump's push to eliminate mail-in ballots is not new.

But each successive crackdown strips voting rights from disabled and aging voters who disproportionately rely on absentee ballots and voter assistance laws to participate in democracy.

Going to write up a response to this soon. TL;DR preview: it’s deeply immoral.

A DOGE kid gets beat up in DC and it’s DefCon1; hundreds of bullets into federal buildings with officer killed in Atlanta and it’s crickets; violent mob attacks Capitol wounding dozens of officers and it’s pardons for all.