Rational progress is my favorite false gospel. It goes this way: though Jesus definitely helps, people can see the truth apart from him (ignore, for a second, Jesus’s own thoughts on this), and when they do, they’ll do the right thing. Good information saves the world. Silly, right? Indeed. But no more so than the other false gospels, which are, in effect, alternative salvation strategies. Everybody has one.

Jonathan Tremaine Thomas is an actor, activist, pastor, producer, social entrepreneur, fifth generation “preacher’s kid,” and the grand-nephew of the legendary civil rights artist Dr. Nina Simone. He’s also the founder of Civil Righteousness, an organization committed to racial justice and reconciliation through Jesus. In this conversation, we sat down to talk about Jesus’s unique justice agenda, and the way we play our part.

If you want to nourish your soul, adopt simple, real practices and do them. I love cutting firewood. The tools are straightforward and the motions are simple. Most guys can split a block without hurting themselves. And there’s still plenty to know because, like learning to kiss or throw a punch, you’ve got to get the basics down or you’ll get yourself in trouble.

We’re living in a stressful time where the people and systems we trusted to save us are being shaken and many of us are wondering what, exactly, we’re supposed to do. How do you fix humanity? How do you change the human heart? How do you change the world? The answer may surprise you. At least, it’s surprised saints throughout the ages. Love Jesus. Fall in love with him again. Let him seed a change in your heart that will indeed transform the world.

I mean, really. Sometimes I think our digital environments are an experiment—designed by a misanthropic robot—sprung on the West to see how much hatred people will communicate before they give up and sign off. Online, you are not a person. Consider, for example, your Facebook feed. When people talk there, what are they concerned about?

I’d come to the mountains to restore my soul. It wasn’t working, though God was doing his everyday thing and filling the world with riches. As I spent some time thinking about why it wasn’t working, I came back around to an inescapable discipline, one of the ways God shows a person he loves them: fasting.

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This is an opportunity. You can do more than survive. You can do more than wash your hands. You can offer life, generosity, and hope to a world shaking with fear. You can do this in a hundred ways if you’ll accept the call to action. Stop retreating. Turn around. Walk toward the darkness. View this as your moment.

Something I like about wild pigs: The first hogs to run wild in America escaped from Hernando de Soto’s expedition, something it’s hard to blame them for doing. They flourished in the swamps and—like most animals living in swamps—kept to themselves. Five hundred years went by.

Our world is extraordinary, and desperate, and there ain’t nothing going to say that quite so well as a steelhead, tarpon, or 21” rainbow. Check out these fly-fishing photographer’s websites; the beauty alone will heal your soul and bring inspiration to all those winter-lost dreams.

God can, and does, transform human hearts. It is therefore possible to not only resist a sex marketplace but also actively eliminate the demand. Such reformation is the final incarnation of a counter-trafficking effort.

The demolition of the sex industry would be among the greatest revolutions in history. It could only be accomplished by a reformation of desire. And that reformation is central to the mission of God in the world.

What would a magazine for men be without some regular conversation about women, or The Woman, or beauty, or the waterfall called relationship?

(Long, I-just-don’t-know-if-we-can-get-that-bent-wheel-off-the-car kind of pause men are familiar with.) Where to begin? Where to pick up with the dilemma? While we will give two helpful hints for navigating the whitewaters of Eve, we’re not going to start with the girl.