Jesus Christ always spoke and acted out of love, but He never sugar-coated the truth. His words, beliefs, and actions offended so many people that His enemies ultimately executed Him because of them. And He warned his followers, “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first” (John 15:18).

That warning must have been tough for His disciples to hear. It’s tough for us to hear now.

Yet, we’ve seen that special hatred reserved for people of faith at work in the recent attack on Catholic children and teachers in Minnesota and the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah.

This brand of hatred is oddly impersonal. It’s aimed at truth itself — maybe, at Truth Himself — and all who dare to speak the truth to people who “preferred darkness to light” (John 3:19).

How did our culture get to this place?

Not so long ago, men and women of courage, integrity, and firmly held religious convictions drew praise and admiration. Today, they are labeled “haters” who must be silenced, stopped, even killed — just for believing truth exists outside of what you and I think. For believing truth is rooted in God, objective, and binding for all peoples for all time. For daring to defend religious views on human gender and sexuality or the dignity of unborn children.

To those who have bought into the lie that we can and should “live our own truth,” we who hold these religious convictions are the problem. But it is not religious conviction that is harming society; it is the lack of it. Our culture has never been more secular, and it has never faced so many problems. Why can’t we be honest and admit that pushing God to the margins has been an absolute disaster?

We see this in the collapse of family life, the breakdown of marriage, children being raised without fathers and mothers, and the epidemic of loneliness that leaves so many people isolated and despairing.

At the same time, there has never been a greater acceptance and celebration of lifestyles that run contrary to faith. Yet, instead of producing the promised peace or joy, they make the problems facing young people — anxiety, depression, and despair — far worse. And remarkably, the faithless double down and blame these issues on religion.

Our darkness will never turn to light until we accept the fact that these struggles are fundamentally and profoundly spiritual rather than political. The more we reject God, the more our culture’s anger, confusion, and despair will deepen. We don’t need less of God — we need more.

If the world were not so gripped by darkness, we might see more clearly that what we are doing is not working. Humanity has lost its way, but Christ came to rescue us because of His deep love. Still, many prefer darkness. The Gospel unmasks us and calls us to change. In the end, we must choose: to step into the light or to cling to the shadows.

Immaculée Ilibagiza, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, chose the light.

I met with Immaculée the day after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, and though neither of us knew him personally, we spoke sadly of his loss as a defender of the truth.

We also spoke at length about her life’s tragedy: in 1994, after 91 harrowing days in hiding, Immaculée emerged to learn her entire family, except for one brother, had been brutally murdered along with nearly one million of her friends, neighbors, and countrymen. But, by God’s grace, she chose forgiveness and love as her path forward through the sorrow, anger, and unspeakable loss.

Today, Immaculée shares her story as a means of helping others overcome hatred with love through conversion of heart. She radiates the light of Christ, and her life’s story is a witness to the beauty of the truth.

May we, like her, take hope in the promise of the Gospel: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). May this same light shine once again, breaking through our shadows and darkness, bringing God’s peace, presence, and love to our country and our world.

Father Dave Pivonka, TOR, is President of Franciscan University of Steubenville.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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The Light Shines In The Darkness