The Church of Outrage and Its Willing Martyrs

Watching recent videos of protesters screaming at federal officers: “Shoot me, shoot me, you cowards”, brought a realization into focus that had been forming for a while. Not about immigration policy. Not about ICE tactics. About fundamentalism. Specifically, how dangerous it gets when people are duped to believe things with religious-level certainty that they cannot possibly know to be true, or that are outright falsehoods.

And yes, I say that as someone who used to be a card-carrying religious fundamentalist. I raised my family in it. I lived it at First Baptist Jacksonville. I believed deeply, sincerely, and confidently. I made decisions, sometimes big ones, based on convictions that I assumed were true because I was told they were true, wanted them to be true because there was a bible verse attached, and I had very convincing and maybe even sincere pastors confirming by beliefs.

Here’s the uncomfortable realization: the modern left has created its own version of religious fundamentalism, and the parallels are eerie.

These protesters didn’t wake up one morning and decide, “I think I’ll charge federal officers today.” They’ve been catechized. Indoctrinated. Told over and over by their "preachers" that ICE is the modern Gestapo, that federal agents are essentially Hitler’s stormtroopers, and that mass roundups are happening indiscriminately, with no law, no process, no restraint. Say it often enough. Say it loudly enough. Wrap it in moral outrage. Eventually, people believe it.

That’s fundamentalism. And the preachers are the leftist politicians in Minnesota and Congress and their allies in legacy media.

When you believe something absolutely, without evidence, without nuance, without the ability to question, you stop thinking. You train your brain to believe things that aren't true that you wish were true, or that must be true to maintain your belief structure. You start acting. And that’s where things get dangerous.

Let me be clear: there is nothing wrong with having strong convictions. There is nothing wrong with opposing immigration policy. There is nothing wrong with thinking ICE is heavy-handed, misguided, or even wrong. Adults can disagree about policy. That’s normal. That’s healthy.

What’s not healthy is believing, without proof, contrary to available evidence, that ICE agents are literal Nazis, and then acting as if that belief justifies screaming in their faces, physically interfering with them, resisting arrest, or, in some cases, bringing weapons into the mix. At that point, you’re not protesting policy; you’re role-playing a dystopian fantasy that someone else wrote for you.

I recognize this because I’ve seen it before; just with a different flag and different slogans.

Religious fundamentalists do this all the time. I've seen it happen to people I love. They make objectively bad life decisions because they’re convinced “God will work it out.” No planning. No wisdom. Ignoring evidence, ignoring "common knowledge" of human behavior. They seek out confirmation and ratification from fellow believers. Just blind confidence that the universe will bend around their beliefs. When it doesn’t, they’re shocked. Offended. Angry. Someone else must be to blame, and they're left to pick up the pieces and make sense of what happened to them.

Now watch the left-wing version unfold in real time.

Religious fundamentalism has always followed a predictable structure, and that’s exactly why it’s so easy to spot once you’ve lived inside it. There are the preachers, the authoritative voices who tell you what is true and what must never be questioned. There are the elders and enforcers, the ones with institutional power who decide who’s in and who’s out. There are the faithful, repeating the approved language, and the converts, freshly awakened and often the most zealous of all. There are the slogans; short, emotionally loaded phrases that substitute for thinking. There are the sacred beliefs, declared to be rock-solid facts even when they rest on little more than repetition and moral intimidation. And, of course, there are the heretics; anyone who questions the narrative is treated as dangerous, immoral, or evil. Strip away the Bible verses and replace them with activist talking points, trade pastors for politicians and influencers, and swap altar calls for TikTok videos, and you’re looking at the exact same religious system. Different scripture. Same unquestioned certainty. Same demand for obedience.

Truth is federal officers are executing lawful duties. You may hate the law. You may hate the policy. But they are not freelance vigilantes. When protesters physically interfere with law enforcement, wrestling, resisting, blocking vehicles, screaming provocations, they’re not engaging in civil disobedience. They’re gambling with reality. And reality doesn’t care how righteous you feel. You won't find me in any circumstance wrestling one of our JSO officers, as I know where that will lead.

What, exactly, do they think is going to happen when you rush armed officers? That they’ll drop their badges, join hands, and sing protest songs? That the law will suddenly evaporate because you feel strongly enough?

This is what happens when moral certainty replaces critical thinking.

And here’s where the irony gets rich.

The only modern president who actually sent armed federal agents to seize a terrified child at gunpoint on live television, was Bill Clinton, during the seizure of Elian González. A five-year-old. Guns drawn. Door kicked in. Photo for the history books. That is not what is happening today in Minnesota, but the leftist faithful are told it is.

Funny how that part of history never seems to make the protest posters.

Instead, we get hyperventilated analogies, historical illiteracy, and the moral equivalent of speaking in tongues, lots of noise, zero clarity. Political "preachers" jazzing up the religious leftist faithful into making really bad choices.

I’m not defending ICE as flawless. I’m not sanctifying federal power. I’m pointing out something far more unsettling: when people are trained to believe lies with absolute conviction, they will eventually act on them. And when that happens, whether in churches or on the streets, people get hurt.

Fundamentalism isn’t confined to pews anymore. It just changed costumes.

And that should worry all of us.

The Pastor Who Doesn’t Fake It: Why Joby Outshines the Polished Performers

Let me go ahead and spoil the ending: Joby Martin is good at preaching because Joby Martin is good at people. You don’t need a PhD in homiletics to see it. No, Joby has something far rarer in modern American evangelicalism: he sounds like a man who actually likes the people he’s talking to.

This is why your typical pew-sitter: tired dad, stressed mom, skeptical twenty-year-old, guy who hasn’t cracked a Bible since the Bush administration, will sit there and listen to him. Gladly. And unlike some pulpits in Jacksonville, they’ll come back without needing a guilt-driven donor letter to remind them.

But here’s the theory I want to put on the table: Joby is this good because he spends an insane number of hours actually talking to people, out loud, every single week.

The man is a communication factory.

He’s got Deepen, his main podcast: deep dives, personal stories, Bible, culture, philosophy, you name it, all conversational style with at least two other people in on the conversation. Then there’s Built for More, another long-form conversational platform. Then all the outside podcasts, guest appearances, panels, interviews, and discussions he drops into. Add it up, and this guy may legitimately log tens of hours of spoken content every week.

But it’s not just the volume of Joby’s communication, it’s the quality of it. Because when you talk that much, about real things, with real people, you get good at sounding, well, real. When Joby gets to the pulpit, he isn’t “presenting a sermon.” He’s stepping into a conversation he’s already processed twenty different ways during the week. It comes across natural, conversational, lived-in. He applies Scripture to life because he’s already been talking about life non-stop.

And here’s where his recent comment on his podcast comes in, a comment that exposes the whole paradigm:

Joby says his leadership style is to lead with hope and faith.

He contrasted it with other leaders who may be competent, but who lead out of fear, anxiety, and panic over what might happen to their ministries.

Let’s pause on that.

If you’ve spent any time in Baptist-land, you know exactly the type he’s describing. The leader who treats every budget shortfall like an existential crisis. The leader whose sermon volume (as in decibels) goes up as giving goes down. The leader who thinks the sheep exist for the shepherd, not the other way around. The leader who can’t preach a passage without somehow steering it toward your wallet.

Joby? He’s not operating out of fear. He’s not sweating about losing control of the church. He’s not waking up in the night in a cold sweat about whether the people will love him enough to tithe. The man genuinely believes, and it shows. He leads with hope, faith, and yes, love. And preaching that flows from actual hope and actual love connects in a way fear-based leadership never will.

I’ve said it before on this blog: people can smell authenticity a mile away. They can smell performance just as quickly. With Joby, you get the unmistakable sense that he cares. That he’s trying to help, not manage. That he’s talking to people, not at them. That he’s not burdened by insecurity, which is why he doesn’t need to burden you with guilt.

That’s the secret.

Not production value. Not brand strategy. Not theological gymnastics. He doesn't stare you down, jerk off his glasses (ok he doesn't wear glasses), nor will he amen himself if he doesn't get crowd feedback.

Just a preacher who talks like a human being because he’s spent thousands of hours talking to human beings. A preacher who leads with faith and hope instead of fear and manipulation. A preacher who treats his listeners like actual people rather than revenue streams.

If other pastors want to know why their sermons aren’t landing, maybe they should stop huddling around spreadsheets, step away from the tithing passages, and start talking to people again. Or better yet, start leading with hope instead of panic.

It seems to be working pretty well for Joby and his church.

An American Hero's Story - Uncle Ed, Mario Edwin Pacheco

This Veteran's Day, I’ve found myself thinking about what makes an American hero. This past spring, just days before Memorial Day, we laid to rest a true American hero, Mario Edwin Pacheco, my wife’s uncle on her mother's side, a man whose life exemplified the kind of heroism we don't see highlighted by the media or those in popular culture.

Uncle Ed, as we called him, was born in Puerto Rico, served 22 years in the United States Air Force including active time in Vietnam, earned a college degree and went on to become a successful businessman. But if that’s all I told you, you’d miss what really made him a hero.

What stood out at his memorial service is that Ed was the original American hero. The kind that never asks for recognition but earns it every single day. Married to the love of his life for 65 years, Ed and his wife raised four boys. He stayed involved in their lives, stayed close, stayed relevant - a word I’ve come to hold close in these later years of my own life. That’s what I want: to stay relevant, to be close, to matter in the lives of my children and grandchildren.

Ed mattered. And his family knew it. In the final year of his life, after a stroke left him homebound, his wife cared for him with a love and strength that is nothing short of heroic itself. And when the end was near they had a plan - just a simple text code his wife would send their boys. She sent it. And within ten minutes of his passing one night in April, all four sons were at his bedside 

That’s a life well-lived. That’s a legacy. Ed was the kind of man this nation should honor.

One of the clearest expressions of Ed’s love for his family came before he even set foot in Vietnam. In the early 1970s, as he prepared to deploy with the Air Force, he made the decision to move his entire family from New York, back to Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. He wanted them living right next door to his sister’s family; my wife’s mother and father. He left clear instructions: if something were to happen to him, he wanted his sister and brother-in-law to step in and care for his family. Of course, they would have done so without question. But the fact that he made that move to make sure his wife and sons would be surrounded by love and support in case the unthinkable happened, speaks volumes. That kind of sacrifice isn’t flashy, but it’s profound. And that act had a lasting impact, my wife and her sisters grew up with their cousins like siblings, and the bond between the two families remains strong to this day. That’s the kind of man Ed was. Always thinking ahead. Always doing the hard thing, quietly, for the good of others. You don’t see that kind of character much anymore. But that’s what made his generation different.

One of Ed's sons gave a moving eulogy, and told us what we knew, that Ed was a man who sacrificed not just for his country, but for his family. For decades. And what gave his family comfort in those final days was knowing that Ed was a man of faith. A Christian man. He read his Bible. He loved God. And he lived out his faith in the way that matters most: not with showy religiosity, but with quiet strength, daily integrity and positivity, and unwavering commitment. He didn’t preach at people. He simply lived the kind of life that made people want to know what he believed.

And then there was this small but to me a striking moment in the eulogy: his son mentioned that Ed never left the house without a tie. In today’s world of Crocs and pajama pants in the grocery store and CEOs in hoodies, that may seem like a minor point. But it’s not. It speaks to a generation of men who believed that how you present yourself mattered. It wasn’t about vanity for them. It was about dignity. About respect. My dad was the same. It was about always striving to be your best, because that’s what men of Ed's generation did. Ed brought that mindset to everything: as a husband, as a father, as a serviceman, and as a businessman. There was no “good enough” with him. There was only, “Be the best you can be.” And even if you couldn’t be the best, by God, you’d better try to be the best you could possibly be. That was Ed. That was his generation.

During my years in corporate America and in government civil service with the Navy and even in high school and post-secondary education, I always noticed a pattern: the men and women who impressed me most, who were disciplined, level-headed, steady, wise; they were almost always veterans who had long military careers. There’s something about military service that forms a person in a way nothing else does. And for those of us who haven’t served, I think we instinctively know it. We can’t always describe it, but we see it. There’s a depth of character, a quiet strength, a perspective that doesn’t come from boardrooms or degrees. It’s forged through sacrifice, through brotherhood, through hardship and discipline of military service. You can’t teach it in a classroom. You can’t simulate it in a corporate workshop. And I dare say, there’s something uniquely American about it.

And through it all, Ed had a simple mantra: “The best is yet to come.” He said it often, and he meant it. That kind of optimism is contagious, especially when it comes from a man who’d walked through war, built a life from the ground up, and finished his race surrounded by the love of his family. And as a man of faith, he believed those words were true even in his final days. Because for him, the best truly was yet to come.

The most moving part of the memorial service, for me, was the military honors. Two young men in crisp Air Force dress blues slowly and reverently unfolded the American flag. Then came the solemn notes of “Taps,” echoing like a final goodbye. A rifle squad fired their salute, jarring in the best possible way. And then, with the same careful precision, the flag was refolded and presented. One of the Airmen knelt before Ed’s wife, looked her in the eye, and expressed the nation’s gratitude for her husband’s faithful service. It was a sacred moment, simple, dignified, unforgettable.

So today, while we honor our military service men and women and express our national gratitude, I hope we also remember the quiet heroes. The ones like Ed who never made the news, never wrote a book, never ran for office. The ones who served, then came home and kept serving: at dinner tables, in small businesses, on ballfields, and in the steady routines of family and faith.

Men like Uncle Ed, Edwin Mario Pacheco.

The loudest kind of heroism is often quiet. This Veteran's Day, I give thanks for men like Uncle Ed who lived it every day.

Joby Martin - This Generation's "Homer Lindsey, Jr." in Jacksonville

Joby Martin is just about everywhere these days. He’s doing, what, five or more podcasts every week? My YouTube feed seems to think I’m on staff at Church of Eleven22 because it serves me new Joby clips daily. But I’ll be honest with you, I don’t skip them.

I’ve been watching pastors for more than thirty years. I’ve seen the good ones, the bad ones, and the phony-baloney ones who could sell ice to an Eskimo if it came with a church logo on it. And the more I see of Joby Martin, the more I appreciate the man.

Here’s one simple contrast between Joby and the last megachurch pastor I personally experienced (and many of you longtime readers know exactly who I’m talking about). Joby loves Jacksonville. He’s not using this city as a stepping-stone to a bigger stage or a book deal or his next mega gig. He's not here for the short-term. He came here to serve as a youth pastor at a small Baptist church in Jax Beach, and then the pastor there helped launch Joby to start 11:22, and he loves this town. I watched him recently on The Speakeasy podcast with Daniel Davis, and he talked about how much he loves this city; the people, the water, the weather, the hunting, the fishing, everything about it. He said he plans to stay here for the rest of his life. Imagine that: a megachurch pastor who actually wants to live among the people he’s serving.

That’s rare. Too many of these big-name guys parachute in from out of town, or they ride the tithes while they can, and bolt the minute the heat turns up or the money slows down. We’ve seen that play out right here in Jacksonville at multiple megachurches in the last 10 years. But Joby Martin? He reminds me of Homer Lindsay. And no, they’re far from carbon copies obviously, but both men share a genuine love for this city and its people and they are building a church to help the people in this city. Homer built FBC Jacksonville because he loved Jacksonville. Joby is doing the same thing in his own way at Eleven22 and he is absolutely crushing it. 

He’s also a family man. You can hear it when he talks about his marriage and kids. There’s no fake piety  or fake humility; just a dad and husband who loves his family and tries to lead by example. And the man can preach. Most megachurch preachers are fine as long as the sermon is scripted and the lights are perfect. But Joby shines best when he’s unscripted, when someone throws him a question about life or faith or wisdom, and he just talks. No pretense. No catchphrases. Just truth, delivered with heart and clarity. I guarantee you the typical megachurch showman can't do what Joby does. Most of these megachurch pastors are phony and empty vessels if you sit them down and make them answer questions and apply Christianity to everyday life. 

We’ve had our share of pastors in Jacksonville who left wreckage behind: churches divided, reputations ruined, faith shaken. I don’t see that coming from Joby Martin. He’s grounded. He’s consistent. And, more importantly, he’s real.

So yes, I’ll say it again: Joby Martin is this generation’s Homer Lindsay.

We’ve got something special here in Jacksonville with Joby Martin and Church of 11:22.

Joby Martin Might Be the Real Deal — And That’s Saying Something in This Town

Let me start with something you don't often hear on this blog: I'm impressed.

No, not the usual “megachurch-pastor-said-something-slick” kind of impressed. I mean genuinely, cautiously, “this-guy-might-actually-be-legit” impressed. And I’m talking about none other than Jacksonville’s own redneck revivalist—Pastor Joby Martin of Church of Eleven22.

Jacksonville has seen its share of frauds in megachurch pulpits. I've chronicled at least 10 of them on this blog. Money grubbers, sexual deviants, those who covered for and protected sexual deviants, and just plain off-your-rocker nutjobs - even one that used the church resources to build a hotel right next to the church that is family could run. It's time Jacksonville has a megachurch pastor that is legit. 

Now don’t get me wrong. I’ve got another post in the works—almost finished—that dives into what Joby has accomplished in building one of the most explosive church movements this city has seen since the glory days of Homer Lindsay. That post will analyze the numbers, the reach, the culture, the empire. But before we even get to the empire, I need to pause and say this: the guy can preach.

And I don’t mean he can tell a good story and yank a few tears. I mean the guy can actually preach the Bible—without sounding like he’s been rehearsing in front of a mirror for six hours while sipping a caramel macchiato. He’s raw. He’s real. And oddly enough, he’s refreshingly redneck in all the best ways. You can tell he’s not trying to impress the seminary elites. He just genuinely wants to help people understand the Bible and apply it to their lives.

But what seals it for me—what separates Joby from the rest of the stage-act pulpiteers—is what he does after the sermon. You’ve got to watch the church's YouTube podcast called Deepen with Pastor Joby. Every week—usually posted the Monday after the weekend services—Joby sits down for a solid hour with one of his associate pastors (forgive me, I still don’t know the guy’s name, but he does a great job moderating), and often one or two other team members or guests. They talk through the sermon. Not just the three points and a poem, but the Scripture. It is conversational but not forced, and they're not jokesters trying to be hip and funny and cool.  But neither are they super theological spiritual in the clouds. They try to apply Christianity to real life. All of it—with an open Bible and no notes.

It’s not fluff. It’s not show. It’s not a branding exercise. It’s the kind of pastoral unpacking and reflection that shows a man who understands what he preached, who knows how to expand on it without contradicting himself, and who’s genuinely interested in making sure the people at his church don’t just hear the Word—they get it. And I challenge you to find me any megachurch pulpiteer who can preach a 45-minute sermon and then sit down and talk about what he just preached as clearly and plainly as Joby. If you know of one, let me know.

I’ve watched a lot of megachurch pastors in my time. I’ve seen the ones who can strut across a stage, tell history lessons, impress with their dress, and hoot and holler and perform. I’ve seen the ones who turn every sermon into a TED Talk with a Bible verse stapled to the back end. But this is different. Joby isn’t up there trying to impress you—he’s trying to help you yet isn't afraid to offend you. And for that, he’s earned my respect.

Stay tuned—I’ve got a full breakdown coming soon on what he’s built at Church of Eleven22, why it matters, and why I think he just might be the closest thing Jacksonville’s seen to a modern-day Homer Lindsay, Jr. But for now, let’s give credit where it’s due.

Joby Martin can preach—and he does it for the right reasons.