Author: John Pavlovitz

I had just finished a speaking event a couple of months ago, and was meeting with people who had stayed after to say hello, have a copy of my book signed, or share some thoughts about the evening. After saying goodbye to the man I was been talking to, I lifted my head and my eyes locked with a middle-aged woman who had been standing behind him. Her wide smile dissolved almost immediately, and tears welled up in her eyes as she leaned in to speak. “I am a Fox News orphan,” she blurted out as she grabbed my...

You have probably seen the ubiquitous meme floating around, or at one point or another you’ve posted or expressed the thought contained in it: I CAN’T ADULT TODAY. It’s the idea that whatever it is that is required of proper responsible grown-up human beings, one is simply not presently capable of it. I have been a Christian for most of my forty-nine years, a pastor in the local church for twenty-two of them. And on far too many mornings recently, I’ve woken up, checked Twitter or watched the news or walked away from family conversations or church gatherings, and...

I really don’t care about him. I know you think I do, but my sadness really has nothing to do with him. I know who he is — and more accurately, I know what he is. I know that he is just a mirror. He has simply revealed clearly the disfigured ugliness of the place I call home and the people I live here alongside — and that is the thing I grieve over. And this is not the mourning over a singular loss, it is a daily grieving. I grieve when I see elementary school teachers dressed up...

As I watched the funeral and memorials for President George H.W. Bush, I couldn’t help but think about how powerless he was during it all. Conversations were taking place, tributes and critiques being offered, events of his life being dissected in great detail — and he couldn’t do a thing about any of it. He was being defined and summarized, all without his consent. You’re probably not a former President, but you will surely find yourself in a similar situation, albeit on a smaller scale. There will come a day, when you will cease to be. One day there...

Yes, there is a war on Christmas in America. The Evangelicals were right. The pulpit-pounding preachers were right. Franklin Graham was right. The Republicans were right. Donald Trump was right. Fox News was right. The Religious Right was right. Every single one of them was speaking gospel truth. They have all been warning me for years, and I did not want to believe them, lest hopelessness set in—but the proof is unavoidable now, and I need to confess they were right and I was wrong. I once was blind and now I see it clearly. They told me Christianity...

We’re all worried about Tuesday, America. It is the place our minds and hearts are solely fixed on. Right now our energies are understandably marshaled and our hopes pinned to this singular day ahead, as if at the end of it we will have some resolution, some sense of closure — as if healing and rest will finally come. But what if things don’t go that way? What if the news is bad? At a recent tour stop, a visibly exasperated woman asked me, through a breaking voice, “What if everything goes wrong on Tuesday? What do we do...