There are two very different messages competing for the soul of our nation right now. One message lifts us up. The other message drags us down. The question of which message will succeed depends on whether we have the power to repair the torn fabric of our society, or whether we are so weakened that we are content to watch it unravel even further.
The first message came from NASA astronaut Victor Glover, the mission specialist on Artemis II. When this accomplished American hero returned home, still in his flight suit, he was greeted by his entire neighborhood. He stood before them and spoke words straight from the Bible: “Let us be this more. Let us be neighbors. God has told us to love Him with all that we are and to love our neighbors as ourselves.”
That is the message America so desperately needs. It’s modest. It’s biblical. It’s unifying. It calls each of us, regardless of race, background or neighborhood, to the kind of charity that builds strong families, safe streets and thriving communities.
Victor Glover represents what is possible when faith, discipline, excellence and personal responsibility come together. He is living proof that the ladders of opportunity are still there for anyone willing to climb them.
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Yet sometimes the simplest and truest of all messages is the hardest to follow. Why is that?
The second message plays out far too often on the streets of Chicago. Just weeks ago, 25-year-old Alexander Kazanowski, a young father expecting his second child and already raising a little girl named Thea, was brutally beaten to death outside a bar in the Avondale neighborhood. He was an entrepreneur who started his first business at the age of 19, a wrestler, a model, a man full of strength and promise. Now his unborn son will grow up without a father, and his family must mourn a life stolen in a moment of senseless violence.
Real righteousness is biblical righteousness. It protects the innocent. It punishes the guilty without apology. It demands accountability from every citizen, regardless of his or her background.
The police are still looking for the suspects, four interested parties, including three men and a woman. Another innocent life gone. Another family broken up. Another reminder that evil doesn’t care about skin color, political slogans, or excuses.
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This is the deadly result when we choose dysfunction over discipline. When we protect violence instead of fighting it. When we apologize for those who violate the most basic social contract: that we do not harm the innocent, that we do not destroy what others have built, that we do not turn our neighborhoods into war zones.
Artemis II crew hugs during the welcome ceremony on Saturday, April 11, 2026. (KRIV)
As a pastor who has buried too many young men on Chicago’s South Side, I say this clearly: We cannot continue to tolerate or excuse the culture of lawlessness and then react in shock when it claims more victims, whether they are teenagers in Englewood or a young father in Avondale. Real righteousness is biblical righteousness. It protects the innocent. It punishes the guilty without apology. It demands accountability from every citizen, regardless of his or her background.
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We need a sanctuary for all, we need safe communities where fathers can walk home at night, where children can play without fear, where families can build a future instead of burying them. That refuge will never come from more government programs, more victim stories, or more soft bigotry with low expectations. It won’t come until Victor Glover’s message wins: love God. Love your neighbor. Speak the truth. Enforce consequences. Reject excuses.
Astronauts Jeremy Hansen, Christina Koch, Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover attend a welcome ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 27, 2026, ahead of the launch of the Artemis II mission, scheduled for April 1, 2026. (Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/AFP)
My Walk Across America showed me that most of this country still believes in Glover’s vision of faith, family, hard work and true charity. But in too many of our cities, a different current flows: one of immediate retribution, fatherlessness, glorification of the streets and a refusal to call evil by its name.
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We must reverse that flow. The choice is that simple, and yet so difficult.
Victor Glover’s son will grow up knowing his father. Alexander Kazanowski’s son will not do that. That’s the difference between these two messages. That is what is actually at stake.
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Glover said it clearly: love God. Love your neighbor. That’s not a slogan. It is the only foundation on which a true sanctuary – for every race, every family, every child – has ever been built.
Choose that. Fight for that. God bless you, and God bless America.
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