It doesn’t take reading many headlines to get the sense that darkness, confusion, and hopelessness seem to be on the rise in our culture. The signs are pretty much everywhere – ever-rising vitriol and outrage online, rising rates of gender dysphoria, drug addiction, increased incidences of suicide, and, most recently, the awful shootings in El Paso and Dayton.

Most people’s instinct is that there’s a straightforward fix – a law, an educational campaign, a social media meme or slogan. But here’s something I’ve become increasingly convinced of: This isn’t a situation that we can legislate away, or educate people out of in the public schools, or sloganeer into retreat. What we’re seeing en masse is a poverty of the heart…a sickness of the soul. The core of this widespread malady exists in the spiritual realm – the “powers and principalities” – and that’s where the solution lies.

Now, perhaps in the past we could have rallied around “the common good”, but there’s no longer any sense of “the common good” when “truth” and “good” have been reduced to subjective preferences. What we’re left with instead is tribal loyalties – us vs. them – where whoever isn’t “us” on any particular issue is clearly evil and must be punished or destroyed. Pursuing solutions on that level will only deepen the spiritual darkness.

I just read Jon Foreman’s (of the band Switchfoot) response to the recent shootings. It’s heartfelt. It’s passionate. And it fails to mention the last, best hope for healing. It fails to mention Jesus.

To be sure, Jesus – at least the real Jesus, as described in scripture, and who said “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6) – is anything but politically correct in our current milieu. By today’s cultural standards, Jesus is a closed-minded bigot. And so to mention Him in this context is pretty much taboo.

But here’s the thing: Jesus has already won against the forces of darkness. Sure, there are still battles being waged by the evil one on a variety of fronts, because he’s not going down quietly and aims to take as many with him to that final end as he can. But the war has been won. Jesus is waiting for the proper time to come back and claim His victory as King. But in the meantime, we can claim that victory now, and through the power of the Holy Spirit begin to live victoriously over the powers of darkness. Even better, we can have the privilege of leading others to that victory as well. But not if we don’t – unambiguously – point the way.

Although we know Who wins in the end, the short term prospects are pretty precarious. And in the short- to mid-term, I honestly believe that it’s revival or bust. So I’m praying for revival. A good, old-fashioned, Spirit-led revival. Because the alternative I see coming is not a world I want the people I care about, or their kids, or their grandkids, to live in.

I invite anyone who shares those concerns to pray likewise. And speak Truth.