Let Psalms 88-89 encourage you. Remember, when our peace is in jeopardy and pain threatens our joy, the way forward is through prayer and praise. It is Christ, our good Shepherd, who gives us joy and peace in the midst of our pain.     

Have there been times in your life when you wanted to sing of the love of the Lord, but you felt paralyzed by pain, or choked by chaos? This has certainly been the case for me. Thankfully, when my peace is in jeopardy and pain threatens my joy, the psalms point me again to Christ. This is especially the case with Psalms 88 and 89, which teach us that the way through pain is prayer and praise. Ultimately, it is Christ who gives us joy and peace in the midst of our suffering.
Psalm 88
Troubled Soul
The psalmist begins by crying out to the God of his salvation in the midst of suffering (Ps. 88:1-12). His “soul is full of troubles” (v. 3) and he “has no strength” (v. 4). He cries to the Lord, “You have put me in the depths of the pit” (v. 6) and “Your wrath lies heavy upon me” (v. 7). Like the psalmist, but in a far greater way, Jesus’s soul was full of troubles; His Father and His closest companions shunned him. God’s wrath was laid heavy upon Him “so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). Let us, then, in the midst of our suffering cry out day and night to the God of our salvation.
Tireless Supplication
In the midst of his sincere questions arising from his severe suffering, the psalmist perseveres in prayer (Ps. 88:13-18). Suffering has been his companion since his youth and the duration, along with the severity, has resulted in darkness being his only friend. In fact, the psalm ends on a note of darkness, “You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness” (v. 18). But this darkness serves to reveal the need for light. And when Christ came as the light of the world He fulfilled this need. Seen through the lens of the cross, then, Psalm 88 gives us hope without minimizing the pain and darkness that is the experience of every believer.
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If the chief end of you is you – then there can be no telos beyond that. Sure a conservative vision of what that looks like may fit your framework a whole lot more snugly and neatly than a progressive vision, but really, who is to say? Who can challenge you on that? That’s why, as those who challenged the surrogacy issue among conservative gay men found out, the progressives and conservatives are on the same page.

Pink Elephants
You know the funny little trick: “Quick! Don’t think about pink elephants!”
And suddenly, a herd of pachyderm of a particular colour palette are all that you can think about. Try as you might you cannot block them out, loud and incessant as they are with all of their florid trumpeting and vaguely violet stampeding. out of your.
Go on, give it a try: Think of pink elephants and then try not to. You know that you want to.
But, if you will allow me, now that pink elephants are firmly lodged in your grey matter, let’s keep the idea of them the boil. Let’s talk about the pink elephants of conservative politics and their alignment with Christian conservatives, (and I’m nailing my own colours to the mast here).
It’s been a good year or so for conservative Christians in terms of the air cover being provided to them by a whole range of secular conservatives, including a raft of what I will call “Pink Elephants”, namely politically conservative types (in the USA the Republican Party’s animal symbol is an elephant), who nevertheless have cherry-picked the Sexular Age, albeit it’s more modest – indeed conservative expressions.
And this is something picked up by the excellent Bethel McGrew, who has just written a timely article on the matter, in which she highlights what is going to be a growing divide among a group that for a brief moment has made for strange bedfellows – gay conservatives and conservative, orthodox Christians. You can read her article here, and I’ll refer to it more later on.
But here’s the context: Christians are finding that the likes of public intellect and author Douglas Murray (English so not technically an elephant), who is a gay man, goes in to bat for freedoms that Christians need, while all the time mocking the more outlandish expressions of the progressive “woke” framework in texts like his excellent The Madness of Crowds.
Indeed at the recent conservative ARC think-tank conference in London, Murray was one of the stars. Many Christians sat listening to him with rapt attention. He has much to say that is good and wise, and above all, sensible, in an age that has seemingly lost its sensibilities.
Meanwhile over there in Pink Elephant land itself, the likes of Dave Rubin, a gay married man with twins born through surrogacy, has been making an ass out of the Donkeys on the far left of the Democrats. I love listening to Rubin, he’s got an ease of style and a skewering sense of right and wrong (well, to a point).
Both men – along with the formidable Jewish journalist, Bari Weiss, a lesbian woman who is also married and has children with her partner, have bravely gone in to bat against all sorts of critical theory nonsense, as well as the chilling of free speech and freedom of association.
And these people, are championed by Christians who often find that their own faith is Kryptonite in the public square – a case of “But of course you’d say that, you’re one of those backward believers” and the like. It’s very hard to get a voice in a secular setting if you come with a Christian megaphone. The shibboleths and the rules of engagement are against you from the start. So to have such secular, conservative public credibility in your corner (and by credibility I mean non-heterosexual credibility) when debating the crazies, seems almost too good to be true.
When Pink Elephants Go Rogue
But here’s the problem. Pink Elephants are starting to go rogue. And they’re going rogue over the one thing that – you guessed it – sets secular conservatism apart from Christian orthodoxy. While acknowledging transcendence, secular conservative is primarily fuelled by the immanent frame of the “this is all there is” campaign that secular progressives assume, and upon which they are building a case for an earth-bound utopia.
There is a coming split among secular conservatives and orthodox Christians, and it simply be another battle around the same old, same old; The Sexular Age, only this time in the politically conservative camp.
McGrew’s article reports on a growing feud among conservatives in the USA, in which several orthodox Christians in the herd called out the pinkness of the elephant, and challenged the sexual framework that was underwriting cultural conservatives who celebrated the surrogacy births of gay men. And as you read her article, you realise that that got pretty hot pretty quick on all of the socials.
A celebration of the goodness of a surrogacy pregnancy was shot down by a conservative Christian in the mix who asked why we are celebrating this at all.
As I said, read the article to get the full context, but in considering the stoush, McGrew posits this excellent query: Should all conservatives, in the post same-sex-marriage age across the West, simply leave that issue behind and get on with creating a better society according to newly minted conservative values?
Should they, according to the vision of all elephants – be they pink or grey – simply shrug their shoulders before putting those wrinkly shoulders to the wheel and then, working together, try to shift society with the cultural materials that are still permitted to us by the progressives?
Is gay marriage a real thing that we should just hold a hand up to and make a secondary issue for the conservative vision? Or is it, in the words of Douglas Wilson (who I here quote approvingly), a case of same-sex-mirage?
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Dan Herron, a PCA pastor—or teaching elder—accused of sexual harassment, says the women making claims against him are lying and has sued them for defamation. Several presbyteries have passed measures requesting the PCA intervene. “For an accused teaching elder to sue his accusers in a civil court—it is ugly,” said Steve Marusich, a pastor in the Central Indiana Presbytery who has been closely involved in the presbytery’s investigation.

As the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) discusses its response to abuse at its annual General Assembly this week, a case involving a pastor suing former congregants over allegations against him is making its way through civil court and the denomination’s own system.
Dan Herron, a PCA pastor—or teaching elder—accused of sexual harassment, says the women making claims against him are lying and has sued them for defamation. Several presbyteries have passed measures requesting the PCA intervene.
“For an accused teaching elder to sue his accusers in a civil court—it is ugly,” said Steve Marusich, a pastor in the Central Indiana Presbytery who has been closely involved in the presbytery’s investigation.
The country got a glimpse of defamation cases around abuse allegations with the recent Johnny Depp–Amber Heard trial, where the actor accused his former spouse of defamation over an op-ed that implied he had abused her.
After the ruling awarding Depp $10 million in damages, some legal experts worried that more abusers would use defamation as a strategy to silence victims. The threat of such lawsuits could discourage victims from coming forward.
While church disputes don’t usually turn into legal fights, Herron is among several pastors and ministry leaders who have filed defamation suits in recent years. These kinds of cases are costly and often drag out for years, grinding down victims and denominations trying to separately enforce church discipline. Civil proceedings during a church trial mean that witnesses in the church trial might be afraid of testifying for fear of being sued, or of other consequences in the civil trial. Civil cases also require extensive evidence gathering that might interfere with a church prosecutor’s investigation.
“Filing a civil suit—we just do not do that,” said Dave Haigler, a PCA ruling elder who works as a federal administrative law judge. “I don’t think there’s even anything in the BCO [the PCA’s Book of Church Order] about that; it just violates Scripture.” Elders referenced among other Scriptures the admonition in 1 Corinthians 6 to not take believers to court.
Haigler previously served for two terms on the PCA’s Standing Judicial Commission (SJC), which is essentially a high court for presbytery disputes. Haigler can’t remember the SJC taking original jurisdiction in a case like this, but this month the SJC agreed to try the case against Herron. That ecclesiastical investigation and trial will coincide with pastor’s civil case.
Over the past year, as more congregants are speaking up about sexual abuse and spiritual abuse, some of the accused are likewise pushing back in court.
In March, Colorado megachurch pastor Jonathan Wiggins of Rez.Church sued former staff and members for defamation over accusations that he was in a sexual relationship with an assistant pastor, among other allegations. The church leadership told the congregation it found “no moral, financial, or doctrinal failure” on Wiggins’s part.
In June, a Maryland pastor filed suit against three people, his son-in-law among them, over a blog full of allegations against him, including that he had urged a victim of domestic abuse to stay with her husband.
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