When Nations Rage
Following Jesus in a World on Edge
A Monday Morning in a World on Alert
The notification comes before the coffee finishes brewing.
Your phone lights up: overnight strikes, new images from Gaza or Ukraine, another warning about the Red Sea, a headline about “critical infrastructure” hit by hackers. A message from a friend: “Please pray—our relatives are sheltering again tonight.”
You glance at your calendar.
Staff meeting at nine.
Budget review for the new year.
Small group tonight where someone will inevitably ask, “Is this it? Are we heading for the end?”
If you are a pastor, a manager, a team lead, a parent, you live in this strange double exposure: spreadsheets and sermon notes overlaid with missile trails and maps. You are trying to plan a normal week while the language of “escalation,” “ceasefire,” “nuclear rhetoric,” and “cyber attack” pulses through every feed.
It is not your imagination that the world feels more fragile. By the end of 2024, about 123 million people were forcibly displaced by conflict and persecution—more than in any previous year on record.[1] A major global risks survey of over 900 experts now ranks state-based conflict as the top immediate danger facing the world in 2025, elevated from eighth place the year before.[2]
And yet, as you lock the front door and drive to work, the school drop-off line still moves. Groceries still arrive. The church still gathers on Sunday.
How do we live as the people of God when the background hum of life is sirens, breaking news banners, and a Doomsday Clock set to 89 seconds before midnight[3]—and yet the dog still needs walking and the budget still needs balancing?
This article is a pastoral attempt to stand there with you—between the pulpit and the push alert, between the meeting agenda and the latest war map—and to listen again for the voice of Jesus.
What We Know About This Moment
Scripture never asks us to close our eyes to reality, so a brief, sober look matters.
Armed conflict has intensified.
The latest summary from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute notes that conflict-related fatalities rose to an estimated 239,000 in 2024, the highest annual total since at least 2018.[4] Five major wars—Israel–Hamas, Russia–Ukraine, and civil wars in Sudan, Myanmar, and one other state—each caused more than 10,000 deaths in a single year.[4] SIPRI
Civilians bear a devastating share of the cost.
One global review of explosive violence reports over 61,000 civilians killed or injured by explosive weapons in 2024—a 67 percent increase from the year before—driven heavily by airstrikes in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, and elsewhere.[5]
Displacement is now a defining feature of our age.
UNHCR’s Global Trends report counts 123.2 million people forcibly displaced at the end of 2024, the vast majority because of war, violence, and human rights violations.[1] That is roughly one in every 65 people on the planet living away from home because of danger.
Nuclear risk has inched closer.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the symbolic Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds before midnight in January 2025, citing escalating nuclear rhetoric, eroding arms control, regional flashpoints, and the uncertain role of AI in military systems.[3]
Threats now move through code as well as missiles.
An intelligence assessment of worldwide ransomware counted 5,289 attacks in 2024, a 15 percent increase from 2023 and roughly double the number in 2022; about half targeted organizations in the United States.[6] Many of these incidents struck hospitals, logistics companies, and other critical services—reminding us that war can come through a server farm as easily as a ship or a tank.
None of this means that catastrophe is inevitable. But it does mean that your sense of unease is not simply “too much news.” You are living, ministering, and parenting in a genuinely dangerous moment of history.
Scripture in an Age of Sirens and Screens
If you were to ask Scripture, “What passage belongs on the wall of a pastor’s study in 2025?” Psalm 46 would be a strong contender.
“God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear when earthquakes come
and the mountains crumble into the sea.
… Nations are in chaos, and their kingdoms crumble.
God’s voice thunders, and the earth melts!
The LORD of Heaven’s Armies is here among us;
the God of Israel is our fortress.” (Ps. 46:1–2, 6–7 NLT)
Psalm 46 does three crucial things for Christians in a world of rolling conflict.
First, it names the chaos without flinching.
The psalmist does not pretend the waters are calm. He imagines mountains sliding into the sea, nations raging, kingdoms tottering. The Bible refuses the illusion that “peace” is simply the absence of visible violence. It understands that spiritual, political, and environmental upheaval often come together.
Second, it relocates ultimate security.
Security in Psalm 46 does not rest on borders, missiles, or alliances. It rests on the presence of God: “The LORD of Heaven’s Armies is here among us.” In other words, even when “the nations rage,” the people of God are invited to anchor their peace somewhere deeper than news cycles or stock indices.
Third, it opens a horizon beyond war.
Later prophets echo this. Isaiah envisions a day when the nations “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks,” learning war no more (Isa. 2:4). Micah repeats the same image (Mic. 4:3–4). The New Testament gathers up those promises in the crucified and risen Jesus, who “is himself our peace,” breaking down the dividing wall of hostility and creating “one new humanity” out of enemies (Eph. 2:14–16).
The Bible’s honesty about violence is matched only by its stubborn insistence that violence does not get the last word.
Three Quiet Temptations for the People of God
In this age of war, nuclear risk, cyber attacks, and trade wars, the church faces at least three spiritual temptations.
1. From Trust to Fearful Control
When the world feels out of control, our reflex is to grasp for whatever we can manage. In congregational life that can mean retreating into purely internal concerns, building emotional bunkers, or fusing discipleship with a particular national or partisan project that promises “strength.”
Yet Psalm 46 leads us instead to the simple command, “Be still, and know that I am God!” (Ps. 46:10). That stillness is not passivity. It is the refusal to let fear dictate our loves, our alliances, or our ethics.
Where fear says, “Secure yourself at any cost,” trust in Christ asks, “What does faithfulness look like here—even if it seems less efficient or less safe?”
2. From Lament to Numb Distraction
The sheer scale of suffering is overwhelming. Hundreds of thousands killed in conflicts in a single year. Tens of millions pushed from their homes. Civilian casualties from explosive weapons at the highest level in more than a decade.[5]
Our nervous systems were not built for this much information. One common survival strategy is numbness. We keep scrolling, shrugging, making jokes about “doomscrolling” because actually feeling the grief would break us.
Yet the biblical response to violence is not distraction; it is lament. The psalms cry out, “How long, O Lord?” The prophets wail over ruined cities. Jesus weeps over Jerusalem. Lament is not a lack of faith. It is a form of faith that refuses to accept violence as normal or inevitable.
A church that forgets how to lament will slowly forget how to love.
3. From Enemy-Love to Tribal Loyalty
In highly polarized conflicts, every side offers a simple script: “If you are compassionate, you will stand with us and see them as the problem.”
The kingdom of God does not give us that option. Jesus calls his followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them (Matt. 5:43–48). The cross is the place where God absorbs violence rather than repay it.
This does not mean moral relativism. The prophets name injustice. The New Testament speaks clearly about oppression and cruelty. But it insists that even the enemy is not disposable. In a world where public language about opponents easily slides into exterminationist fantasies, Christians are summoned back to the scandalous practice of praying for all sides and insisting on the image of God in every person who bleeds.
Practices for Churches and Households in a Violent World
The question, then, is how communities actually live this out between Sunday services and headlines. Here are several practices that can help congregations, small groups, and families inhabit a non-anxious, Christ-shaped posture in this age of conflict.
1. Curate, Do Not Drown, in the News
You cannot carry the world on your shoulders, and your nervous system cannot metabolize an endless stream of horror. Consider simple structures:
Choose one or two trusted sources and check them at set times of day instead of grazing constantly.
Pair news intake with prayer, not just more scrolling. Read a short report, then light a candle and pray specifically for that region.
Model this publicly. From the pulpit or in staff meetings, name your own disciplines: “Here is how I am limiting my intake so that I can stay present to God and to you.”
Limitation here is not apathy; it is stewardship of attention so that we can remain responsive rather than reactive.
2. Recover Rhythms of Lament and Intercession
Churches can re-learn to pray with the Bible’s grammar of grief and hope.
Integrate short laments into Sunday worship—praying for specific conflicts, displaced people, and leaders.
Use psalms of lament (e.g., Psalms 10, 13, 46, 79) in corporate prayer, allowing silence for people to bring their own pain before God.
Create small, regular spaces—perhaps a monthly evening prayer—for focused intercession around global violence, led by people with pastoral sensitivity rather than political agendas.
When congregations see their leaders weeping with those who weep and bringing global pain into the presence of God, it slowly trains hearts to respond with compassion rather than cynicism.
3. Welcome the Displaced at Your Doorstep
The statistics on displacement are global; the implications are local. Many cities and towns now receive refugees, asylum seekers, or internally displaced families.[1]
Churches can ask:
Are there local agencies resettling families whom we can support with language classes, childcare, transportation, or friendship?
Can our building host a weekly gathering for newcomers, pairing practical help with genuine listening?
How might our preaching and teaching center the voices of believers who have fled war, allowing them to shape our understanding of Scripture and suffering?
Hospitality does not solve the wars that displace people. But it enacts a different kingdom, where the stranger is treated as kin because Christ himself was a refugee and now meets us in those who are far from home.
4. Teach a Theology of Peacemaking, Not Just a Politics of Peace
Many Christians have inherited either a quietist posture (“We don’t talk about these things”) or a partisan one (“Our side is God’s side”). The New Testament offers a richer way.
Peacemaking is a core beatitude identity: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matt. 5:9). That vocation touches every sphere of life—how we talk about international conflicts, how we handle congregational disputes, how we speak about people who disagree with us online.
Consider:
Teaching series on biblical peacemaking that connects global violence to everyday reconciliation.
Encouraging members with expertise in diplomacy, international law, or humanitarian work to share how their vocations express Christ’s peace in conflicted spaces.
Practicing concrete skills in nonviolent communication, conflict mediation, and confession/forgiveness as part of discipleship.
When believers are trained as peacemakers in their marriages, workplaces, and neighborhoods, they are less likely to cheer for violence at scale.
5. Guard the Community from Disinformation and Despair
The same report that highlights conflict as a top global risk also underscores the role of misinformation and disinformation in fueling instability.[2]
Pastors and lay leaders may not be cybersecurity experts, but they are shepherds of imagination and trust. Churches can:
Teach basic digital discernment—how to evaluate sources, resist conspiracy narratives, and refuse to share unverified claims.
Make clear that bearing false witness online is also a violation of the ninth commandment.
Continually distinguish Christian hope from naïve optimism. Hope looks squarely at risk and suffering and still insists that Christ is risen and present; optimism simply assumes “it will probably be fine.”
In a culture where both panic and denial are easy to monetize, Christian communities can model a third way: clear-eyed, truth-telling, grounded in resurrection.
A Hope That Does Not Flinch
The early church recited the news, in its own way:
“Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus” (Acts 4:27).
They named conspiracy, injustice, and imperial violence. But they did so in prayer, before a sovereign God, with the cross and resurrection as the interpretive center.
Our headlines are different, but the spiritual geography is similar. Nuclear rhetoric, cyber attacks on hospitals, cities choked with smoke or rubble, families fleeing with what they can carry—these are not outside the story of God. They are locations where the crucified and risen Christ still bears wounds and still breathes peace.
As we move toward 2026, conflict and global security will remain near the top of any honest worry list. Yet they do not have to dominate the imagination of the church.
We are invited to a different posture:
Eyes open to the realities of war and displacement.
Hearts broken in lament rather than hardened in apathy.
Hands open in hospitality and peacemaking.
Ears tuned to the quiet but steady voice that still says, “Be still, and know that I am God… The LORD of Heaven’s Armies is here among us; the God of Israel is our fortress” (Ps. 46:10–11).
Hope, in this sense, is not the denial of danger. It is the stubborn trust that even in a world on edge, the crucified and risen Christ stands in the middle of the room and speaks, “Peace be with you.”
Sources & Further Reading
UNHCR. Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2024. Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2025.
World Economic Forum. The Global Risks Report 2025: 20th Edition. Geneva: World Economic Forum, 2025.
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “2025 Doomsday Clock Statement.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 28, 2025.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. SIPRI Yearbook 2025: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security – Summary. Solna: SIPRI, 2025.
Action on Armed Violence. Explosive Violence Monitor 2024 (summary reported in The Guardian, January 14, 2025).
Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center. Worldwide Ransomware, 2024: Increasing Rate of Attacks Tempered by Law Enforcement Disruptions. Washington, DC: ODNI, 2025.
UNHCR. Mid-Year Trends 2024. Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2024.