From a Living City
October 26, 2026
This has been a blessed week of trials. An ominous feeling hangs in the air, and heavier than usual. It has been quite terrifying in a number of ways. In the wake of current events, my continued solitude and above all the infinite mystery of the hand of the Almighty, I feel very tiny indeed.
This is another one of those blurbs that has been hanging out in my head for some time, getting stronger and stronger. Yet this week, the world has never seemed so enormous. The very foundations of my faith and mission have been hammered by storms, and for a while I doubted whether my message here was anything more than dust in the wind.
The storms have not beaten me. I have clung to the robe of my Shepherd. And he reminded me that this blurb is a reflection of all these long years of hope and Joy and suffering and grace.
He reminded me that I am very small, that he is infinite, and that trials do not alter your path or your vision.
And so here is the blurb, and I pray that the Holy Spirit will help it live up to the hype I have given it.
If there is one event in the last hundred years whose spiritual lessons and applications for us today are simply bottomless, it is the Battle of Stalingrad. Stalingrad was the bloodiest battle in human history, with most historians estimating a death toll approaching two million people. It was the butting of heads of two of the most evil tyrants of all time, neither refusing to yield even at the cost of the most horrific loss of life in the history of armed combat.
My ADHD-rattled brain is begging my heart to alter my course into a hundred different directions. As I said, for any Christian who would study this cataclysm from a godly perspective, Stalingrad is a goldmine of tactical intelligence for spiritual warfare. But I will stick to my original objective, and describe the turning point in this battle (and World War Two) and what it means to us today.
By November of 1942, the German offensive against the city of Stalingrad was almost complete. The Soviet Red Army had put up a fearless and brutal resistance, but the ruthless onslaught of the German 6th Army was as unstoppable as ever. Only a thin strip of the city remained, and in a short time the Nazis would claim an extremely valuable prize.
Until November the 19th, when the unimaginable happened.
A massive Soviet counterattack, codenamed Operation Uran, took the Germans by total surprise. With the 6th Army focused entirely on their central thrust into the city, two enormous Soviet forces thundered out of nowhere and devastated their vulnerable flanks. In just four days, the Soviets had completely surrounded the 6th Army and the battle had been turned completely on its head. The 6th Army would surrender after two and a half months of bitter cold and starvation, and the military dominance of the European Axis powers was broken and would never recover.
So what made Operation Uran such a resounding triumph? Why did the Red Army succeed at Stalingrad where virtually all other efforts to resist German aggression had failed?
One key factor is one of the most unwavering weaknesses of the Nazi Empire: the murky darkness of racial pride.
The Russians were seen by the Nazis as racially inferior; a crude, primitive rabble who lacked any ability to properly defend against the refined precision and sophistication of the Aryans. As such, they made massive tactical errors in their invasion of Russia and most especially Stalingrad, critically underestimating their enemy in their simplistic strategies in attacking the city. How humiliating it must have been for the 6th Army, to be inches from victory over this ‘inferior race’ only to be overwhelmed and surrounded by them almost literally overnight.
Christ's enemies are smug in their triumph. I must admit, I can't entirely blame them; we haven't given them much to be afraid of lately. But I also can't help smiling at the idea that they think they have defeated God and his people. God is using their arrogance to draw them straight into the trap of his counterattack, and that counterattack will be a masterpiece of nonviolent destruction of the empire they have built.
I do not know how, I do not know when. But it's going to happen, and we, God's children, should be proud to play our humble roles.
The other key factor of Operation Uran that made it succeed so brilliantly is the nature of the counteroffensive itself: it was a blitzkrieg manoeuvre.
Blitzkrieg was a revolutionary battle tactic developed by the Germans for the Battle of France in 1940. It utilized the speed of modern military vehicles like the fighter plane and the tank, overwhelming the enemy in a tsunami of rapid destruction and neutralizing them before they could properly react.
This very innovation would prove to be their downfall at Stalingrad when the Soviets stole it, and employed it so flawlessly that it broke the back of the Nazi war machine forever.
The western Church is fighting an enemy it has very loudly chosen not to understand. Her sole tactic is a blanket policy of ignorance and prejudice and xenophobia, and her intelligence and spy networks are more or less nonexistent. We are at war, brothers and sisters! No war was ever won without intelligence. No army is more certainly doomed to defeat than one who does not understand the enemy it is fighting. And even the most fearsome marching force will waste away on extended campaigns unless it plunders weapons, supplies and even tactics from the enemy.
The Church is doing none of these things. We are not thinking like soldiers. War has rules, and we need to start following those rules.
So venture neck-deep into secular culture. Study it. Learn its secrets. As long as you bring your Bible with you there is nothing to fear. The culture war is the front line of the battle of our time, and we must understand it if we are to be ready to invade it.
This is perfectly Christian behavior, my dear friend. All missionaries study the cultures into which God is sending them. We merely have the unprecedented (and believe me, very very fun) task of studying pop-culture. You will be astounded at what you will find. Nothing would confound God’s enemies more than a blitzkrieg of Christian soldiers who understand and respect their culture.
I no longer study the Second World War merely because it is exciting and inspiring. I study it because it is the Old Testament of modern spiritual warfare. It is an array of prophetic lessons that will prepare us for the conflict to come. It is this most gargantuan of wars within the temporal world that can provide us the crucial education we need to follow our Great Captain Jesus Christ into battle as peacemakers in the spiritual world.
From the speeches of Winston Churchill to the captivating story of the United States’ journey from neutrality to saviour (there's a lure for you) studying the greatest event in history from an explicitly Christian perspective will completely transform you. How privileged are we that we should be able to honour those who fought and died in service to God and country, by letting their stories teach us to do the same.
Peace.
October 26, 2026
This has been a blessed week of trials. An ominous feeling hangs in the air, and heavier than usual. It has been quite terrifying in a number of ways. In the wake of current events, my continued solitude and above all the infinite mystery of the hand of the Almighty, I feel very tiny indeed.
This is another one of those blurbs that has been hanging out in my head for some time, getting stronger and stronger. Yet this week, the world has never seemed so enormous. The very foundations of my faith and mission have been hammered by storms, and for a while I doubted whether my message here was anything more than dust in the wind.
The storms have not beaten me. I have clung to the robe of my Shepherd. And he reminded me that this blurb is a reflection of all these long years of hope and Joy and suffering and grace.
He reminded me that I am very small, that he is infinite, and that trials do not alter your path or your vision.
And so here is the blurb, and I pray that the Holy Spirit will help it live up to the hype I have given it.
If there is one event in the last hundred years whose spiritual lessons and applications for us today are simply bottomless, it is the Battle of Stalingrad. Stalingrad was the bloodiest battle in human history, with most historians estimating a death toll approaching two million people. It was the butting of heads of two of the most evil tyrants of all time, neither refusing to yield even at the cost of the most horrific loss of life in the history of armed combat.
My ADHD-rattled brain is begging my heart to alter my course into a hundred different directions. As I said, for any Christian who would study this cataclysm from a godly perspective, Stalingrad is a goldmine of tactical intelligence for spiritual warfare. But I will stick to my original objective, and describe the turning point in this battle (and World War Two) and what it means to us today.
By November of 1942, the German offensive against the city of Stalingrad was almost complete. The Soviet Red Army had put up a fearless and brutal resistance, but the ruthless onslaught of the German 6th Army was as unstoppable as ever. Only a thin strip of the city remained, and in a short time the Nazis would claim an extremely valuable prize.
Until November the 19th, when the unimaginable happened.
A massive Soviet counterattack, codenamed Operation Uran, took the Germans by total surprise. With the 6th Army focused entirely on their central thrust into the city, two enormous Soviet forces thundered out of nowhere and devastated their vulnerable flanks. In just four days, the Soviets had completely surrounded the 6th Army and the battle had been turned completely on its head. The 6th Army would surrender after two and a half months of bitter cold and starvation, and the military dominance of the European Axis powers was broken and would never recover.
So what made Operation Uran such a resounding triumph? Why did the Red Army succeed at Stalingrad where virtually all other efforts to resist German aggression had failed?
One key factor is one of the most unwavering weaknesses of the Nazi Empire: the murky darkness of racial pride.
The Russians were seen by the Nazis as racially inferior; a crude, primitive rabble who lacked any ability to properly defend against the refined precision and sophistication of the Aryans. As such, they made massive tactical errors in their invasion of Russia and most especially Stalingrad, critically underestimating their enemy in their simplistic strategies in attacking the city. How humiliating it must have been for the 6th Army, to be inches from victory over this ‘inferior race’ only to be overwhelmed and surrounded by them almost literally overnight.
Christ's enemies are smug in their triumph. I must admit, I can't entirely blame them; we haven't given them much to be afraid of lately. But I also can't help smiling at the idea that they think they have defeated God and his people. God is using their arrogance to draw them straight into the trap of his counterattack, and that counterattack will be a masterpiece of nonviolent destruction of the empire they have built.
I do not know how, I do not know when. But it's going to happen, and we, God's children, should be proud to play our humble roles.
The other key factor of Operation Uran that made it succeed so brilliantly is the nature of the counteroffensive itself: it was a blitzkrieg manoeuvre.
Blitzkrieg was a revolutionary battle tactic developed by the Germans for the Battle of France in 1940. It utilized the speed of modern military vehicles like the fighter plane and the tank, overwhelming the enemy in a tsunami of rapid destruction and neutralizing them before they could properly react.
This very innovation would prove to be their downfall at Stalingrad when the Soviets stole it, and employed it so flawlessly that it broke the back of the Nazi war machine forever.
The western Church is fighting an enemy it has very loudly chosen not to understand. Her sole tactic is a blanket policy of ignorance and prejudice and xenophobia, and her intelligence and spy networks are more or less nonexistent. We are at war, brothers and sisters! No war was ever won without intelligence. No army is more certainly doomed to defeat than one who does not understand the enemy it is fighting. And even the most fearsome marching force will waste away on extended campaigns unless it plunders weapons, supplies and even tactics from the enemy.
The Church is doing none of these things. We are not thinking like soldiers. War has rules, and we need to start following those rules.
So venture neck-deep into secular culture. Study it. Learn its secrets. As long as you bring your Bible with you there is nothing to fear. The culture war is the front line of the battle of our time, and we must understand it if we are to be ready to invade it.
This is perfectly Christian behavior, my dear friend. All missionaries study the cultures into which God is sending them. We merely have the unprecedented (and believe me, very very fun) task of studying pop-culture. You will be astounded at what you will find. Nothing would confound God’s enemies more than a blitzkrieg of Christian soldiers who understand and respect their culture.
I no longer study the Second World War merely because it is exciting and inspiring. I study it because it is the Old Testament of modern spiritual warfare. It is an array of prophetic lessons that will prepare us for the conflict to come. It is this most gargantuan of wars within the temporal world that can provide us the crucial education we need to follow our Great Captain Jesus Christ into battle as peacemakers in the spiritual world.
From the speeches of Winston Churchill to the captivating story of the United States’ journey from neutrality to saviour (there's a lure for you) studying the greatest event in history from an explicitly Christian perspective will completely transform you. How privileged are we that we should be able to honour those who fought and died in service to God and country, by letting their stories teach us to do the same.
Peace.
