Like many in our nation, I’ve watched the burning and violence of Portland, Oregon, with varying amounts of frustration, anger, and confusion. These things aren’t happening just in Portland, of course. Rioting, burning, looting, and violence have happened—and currently is happening—in a number of American cities this year. Portland, however, has been especially interesting to me, because it is, in my mind, Ground Zero for one of the larger failures of the American church.

In Portland we find a hub of the violent organization, Antifa—an abbreviation for “anti-fascist.” Dressed in all black, wielding skateboards as weapons, Antifa fancies themselves as warriors for economic justice, crying that all corporations are evil and the way forward is only found through descent into anarchy. Admittedly, its philosophy and the group’s behavior are not entirely cogent. Members tend to film the action of the day using their iPhones (so much for evil corporations) and demand complete conformity (so much for anarchy). And yet droves of young—predominantly white—people have joined, and they continue to join.

Across from Antifa we find the resurgent armed militias. Most recently, a caravan of MAGA militia members rode into Portland and an armed showdown of sorts took place, leaving a member of the militia dead in the Portland street—presumably dead at the hand of Antifa member, although that remains unclear, at least to me. Just days before that, a similar sort of confrontation took place in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where a white 17 year-old, Kyle Rittenhouse, killed two rioters (also potentially Antifa members) and wounded another. These militia members see themselves as defenders of good, of right, of the American Way. Similar to Antifa, there is no shortage of young—predominantly white—people joining these armed militias.

For all of the ideological differences these groups might represent, they are in many ways quite similar. They are mostly white. They are violent. They are extremist. And—most notably—they provide meaning to their members.

And there we find the failure of the—predominantly white—American church I spoke of earlier.

Why are so many of our young people finding their ways into the arms of extremists?

In a word: Meaning.

Humans stand alone among the animal kingdom in one significant way: We hunger for meaning. We want to know why it is that we exist. By extension, we are story-ing creatures. If we live to be old enough, we each will adopt a story in order to make sense of the world. The stories may vary, but the act of adopting a story in which we see ourselves as participants is universal.

Some adopt the story of pure chance. This world is without purpose, the story goes, so I can do whatever I want. Others adopt a more politically-motivated story—existence is driven by amassing—or redistributing—capital or power. And on and on it goes. If you’re reading this, chances are you have a story you are following, a story you are attempting to live. It’s the most human thing we do.

Antifa and the armed militias also have stories—stories of a conflict of right versus wrong, of good versus bad, of something larger than self. These are compelling stories, so they attract followers—particularly people who are searching for a story.

Which leads me to the church: I am a Christian by choice. By that, I mean that I went through a complete deconstruction of my faith when I was a much younger man, and I re-examined everything I believed about, well, pretty much everything. After mountains of reading, hours of question-filled conversations, and plenty of soul searching, I re-settled my heart on Christianity.

Why? Two reasons: First, I became firmly convinced that Jesus was indeed God Incarnate.

Secondly, and more importantly for this discussion, I believed the Christian Story to be the most compelling way to live in this world. The Christian story says that there is a God who has created, who has given us love and meaning and purpose, who intends the redemption of all things (including us!), and that we are part of that redemption as we bring proclamation of Jesus and as we carry love, peace, beauty, and truth into this world in his name.

If it is such a compelling story, then, why are so many finding alternative ways of finding meaning? I present two thoughts:

First, the church has too often not trusted her own story. She has—over the years—attempted to combine her story with different theologies assuring money and health, or with politics and power in order to be part of setting a policy agenda, or with various aspects of culture in an attempt to maintain relevance, or with a hard rejection of culture in an attempt to appear holy. In each of these—and yet others—the church has forgotten the power and the beauty of the gospel—that God is in Christ reconciling the all things—and that such a reconciliation does not need to be combined with any other narrative. The Christian story is enough, because the work of God in the world is enough. It is enough to find purpose and meaning in bringing His light and love and gospel into your sliver of the world, because in this bringing, you have the Presence.

Second, the church has too often proclaimed another story instead of Jesus. The story, at its root, is that of Grace—of a God that is so radically accepting of people that His acceptance is scandalous. Too often we have forgotten this scandalous, promiscuous grace of Jesus. When I read the gospels with fresh eyes, Jesus is incredibly controversial. He crosses every imaginable social line in order to bring people into the knowledge of the goodness and love of God. When he is harsh, it is not with “sinners,” but instead with the religious people of the day for attempting to limit the boundaries of grace. But this cannot be done. Once you have truly encountered grace, you realize there are no boundaries, no limits.

You’re looking for meaning? Grace is the ultimate. Grace is free. Grace is unmerited. Grace is there for the taking, no matter who you are, no matter what you have done. I can see no purpose or meaning higher than Grace. Grace is John Coltrane; it is a love supreme.

Grace will take anyone in her path—even members of Antifa and armed militias. Those individuals may be bent on violence today, but grace has a way of changing us once we truly taste it. Grace rolling over our lips rewires the way we think, overturns the way we interact, clarifies the way we perceive others. And it is Grace alone that can do this. As Robert Farrar Capon says, “Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale.”

It is grace alone that gives us the eyes of God, that allows us to love those in our paths with the heart of God.

It is grace alone that fuels our own transformation, discovering how God deeply loves us.

It is grace alone that drives God to reconcile the world unto Himself.

It is grace alone that fuels our Story.

May we tell it. May we live it.

Grace alone.