Church and Culture | Life-Giving Water

Read 1 John 4:1–6

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” (Romans 12:2, NLT)

Symbols carry memory and meaning far beyond words. The Church has always leaned on them—sometimes hidden in plain sight, sometimes dismissed or distorted. Yet the most powerful symbols are those that subvert the world’s expectations and draw us back to the radical heart of the Gospel. In this series, we’ve looked closely at sacred signs that unsettle, confront, and ultimately reveal where Christ still calls the Church to deeper honesty.

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 29: Pentagram” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 29: Pentagram. Let’s begin with what most people think they already know.

For many Christians, the pentagram is not a symbol to be examined but a verdict already rendered. It is assumed to be Satanic, dangerous, corrupt—something to fear, reject, and condemn without hesitation. No context. No curiosity. No discernment. The reaction is immediate, visceral, and absolute.

And that reaction tells us something.

Historically, the pentagram did not begin as a symbol of evil. Long before modern panic attached itself to five points and intersecting lines, the symbol appeared across cultures as a sign of harmony, order, and human embodiment. In ancient mathematics and cosmology, it reflected proportion and balance. In Jewish and early Christian traditions, it was associated with protection and divine order. For medieval Christians, it could signify the five wounds of Christ—hands, feet, and side—marking the body as the place where divine love absorbed violence without returning it.

None of this required secrecy. None of it required rebellion. None of it required fear.

Symbols, however, rarely remain static. They migrate. They are reinterpreted. They are claimed, rejected, reclaimed, and re-signified over time. Christianity itself is no exception to this process. The Church has never existed in a vacuum, and it has never been symbolically pure. The cross—now the central emblem of Christian faith—was once a Roman execution device. Halo imagery draws from Greco-Roman depictions of divine radiance. Basilicas were repurposed civic buildings. Incense, vestments, sacred days, even the timing of major feasts reflect a long history of adaptation rather than invention.

Symbols move. Meaning is shaped by use.

In modern contexts, the pentagram is most commonly associated with Wicca and contemporary Neo-Pagan traditions. In those communities, it often represents connection to nature, the elements, or the balance of life. That usage should be acknowledged honestly. It should not be caricatured, mocked, or erased. Nor does acknowledging it require adopting its theology or collapsing all meanings into one.

What matters is not who currently uses a symbol—but how fear responds when control is lost.

The Church’s relationship with the pentagram reveals a familiar pattern. When a symbol is no longer exclusively governed by Christian authority, it is quickly rebranded as dangerous. Once meaning escapes institutional boundaries, panic steps in to do the interpreting. Fear replaces discernment. Labels replace listening. Accusation replaces understanding.

Scripture warns us against this reflex.

“Dear friends,” John writes, “do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them.” Testing requires patience. It requires discernment. It requires refusing the temptation to decide in advance who is safe and who is not. John does not tell the Church to fear what is unfamiliar; he tells them to examine the spirit behind it. And examination is slower than condemnation.

This is where the symbol becomes subversive—not because of what it is, but because of what it exposes.

The real danger has never been the pentagram. The danger is how easily we outsource evil to whatever unsettles us, rather than confronting the fear within ourselves. It is easier to label a symbol demonic than to ask why we need an enemy to feel secure. It is easier to project threat outward than to examine how power, certainty, and control shape our theology.

Paul’s words in Romans press this uncomfortably close: transformation begins with renewed minds, not reinforced reflexes. When fear dictates interpretation, conformity has already won. When panic replaces discernment, the world has shaped the Church more than the Gospel has.

Christ does not fear symbols. Christ unmasks hearts.

Throughout this series, the signs have pointed to the same truth again and again: the Gospel does not thrive on domination, certainty, or scapegoating. It exposes them. The pentagram, more than almost any other symbol, reveals how quickly fear turns difference into danger and how eagerly the Church participates in that transformation.

This is not a call to rehabilitate a symbol. It is a call to reclaim discernment.

Before we decide what something means, we are invited to ask why it frightens us. Before we condemn what we do not control, we are called to examine what we are protecting. Before we name something demonic, we are asked to test the spirits—including our own.

The final subversion is this: the pentagram does not threaten the Gospel. Fear does. And Christ comes not to defend boundaries, but to free us from the lies we tell ourselves to keep them intact.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Fear often reveals itself most clearly in the symbols we refuse to understand.

PRAYER
God of truth and discernment, slow our reflexes when fear rises and sharpen our hearts for wisdom instead. Free us from the urge to label what we do not understand and from the comfort of certainty that resists transformation. Teach us to test the spirits with humility, to examine our own fears honestly, and to follow Christ without scapegoats or suspicion. Renew our minds, that we may see clearly and love faithfully. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Read Galatians 1:6-10

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“You must not have any other god but me.” (Exodus 20:3 NLT)

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “When Leaders Become Idols” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Images carry memory. They do more than decorate; they shape what we remember, how we interpret it, and what we pass on. In the wake of someone’s death, images become especially powerful. They can comfort us, stir hope, or even rewrite legacies. Yesterday, Charlie Kirk was laid to rest. His death is a tragedy. No matter where one stood on his views, his life bore sacred worth because every human life does. As Christians, we grieve that worth is no longer among us, and we entrust him, like all of us, to the mercy of God.

But as I watched the days following his death unfold, the images being shared caught my attention. One came from an individual Christian’s page: a meme depicting Charlie standing with Jesus. The caption reads, “Lord, I could have led more to you.” To which Jesus responds, “Son, you have no idea how many you just did.” It is sentimental, heartfelt, and born of grief—a way for friends and followers to express hope and consolation.

And yet, this is terrible theology. At its most basic level, it implies that Charlie’s most successful method of leading people to Jesus was being shot. Few pause to consider what such words actually mean. More troubling still is the assumption beneath the image—that Kirk’s daily mode of operation was genuinely bringing people to Christ. We can grant that he may have sincerely believed that he was. But sincerity alone does not make something true. Nowhere does Jesus, Paul, or any of the apostles call us to partisanship as the divine message of Christ. Quite the opposite. And yet, the public fruit of Charlie’s message so often pointed people not to the kingdom of God, but to a political movement wrapped in loyalty to a President and a party.

That message also leaned heavily on “us versus them” thinking. Instead of Christ’s call to love our neighbor, it sharpened lines between insiders and outsiders, friends and enemies. Misunderstanding was pushed into fear, and fear was turned into fuel. But Scripture tells us plainly, “There is no fear in love. Perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18). When the gospel is twisted into a weapon of division, it ceases to be good news at all.

A second image came from Reformed Sage, a Christian business and influencer brand. Their meme declared, “Charlie Kirk, martyred for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, now wears the crown in glory. His work has just begun.” Unlike the personal meme born of grief, this one was not simply comfort—it was propaganda, framing Charlie as a martyr and rallying followers to double down in the culture wars.

Here lies the danger. Images like these reveal how easily leaders can be mythologized, sanctified, even idolized. When we place leaders at the center, we risk confusing the faith once delivered to the saints with the culture wars of our age. Paul told the Corinthians, “One of you says, ‘I follow Paul’; another, ‘I follow Apollos’… Is Christ divided?” (1 Corinthians 1:12–13). Our allegiance is not to personalities, no matter how charismatic or influential. The first commandment is equally clear: “You must not have any other god but me.”

As Christians, we must take care not to canonize public figures whose legacies are complicated. Christianity does not need celebrity martyrs or culture-war champions. It needs Christ. When our symbols glorify leaders more than the Lord, we risk exchanging the cross for an idol. When our grief turns into rallying cries for ideology, we risk forgetting that the only crown that matters is the one Christ bore on Calvary.

So how do we respond? First, with compassion. We mourn Charlie’s death and pray for his family and loved ones. We affirm his life mattered, as all lives do. Second, with discernment. We refuse to let images, however sentimental or stirring, distract us from Christ’s call to love mercy, do justice, and walk humbly. And third, with courage. We must not confuse loud platforms with faithful witness. The measure of the gospel is not the number of followers one amasses, but the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22–23).

Let us grieve as Christians who hope, but let us also guard the gospel entrusted to us. Christ alone is Lord. No leader—no matter how loved or influential—can bear that title.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The gospel is not advanced by platforms or politics, but by lives that bear the fruit of Christ’s Spirit.

PRAYER
Merciful God, you alone are worthy of our allegiance. Teach us to honor life without idolizing leaders. In our grief, give us compassion; in our confusion, give us discernment; in our witness, give us courage. Keep us centered on Christ alone, who is the way, the truth, and the life. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

A biweekly devotional