MEET JOHN PAVLOVITZ

THE PASTOR WHO DROPPED THE FILTER AND PICKED UP THE BULLHORN

You don’t need to believe in God to appreciate John Pavlovitz.

You just need to believe in not being a coward.

Pavlovitz is what happens when a megachurch pastor survives a spiritual exorcism—his own—and comes out of it less interested in collecting tithes and more determined to call out tyranny, cruelty, and religious hypocrisy wherever it festers. Especially when it’s wearing a flag pin and quoting Leviticus out of context.

He used to work inside the machine. Then he got fired for being too loving. No, seriously.

Back in 2014, he lost his church job after writing a viral essay about how he'd support his children if they came out as gay. Apparently, that level of basic decency was too spicy for Jesus, Inc.

So he did what prophets and punks have always done—he left the institution, kept his soul, and started writing. Loudly.

And people listened.

Not just the deconstructed Christians, the exvangelicals, and the spiritual burnouts—but also the exhausted moms in Tennessee, the retired social workers in Oregon, the hospice nurses who still believe in grace, and the suburban dads who finally realized that quoting Dietrich Bonhoeffer doesn’t count unless you actually resist.

Pavlovitz became a rallying point for anyone who still wants to believe that morality doesn’t require permission—and that silence is the first language of authoritarianism.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE.

Before preaching, he was a graphic designer. So yes, he knows how to make his words look good while they’re punching you in the sternum.

He also writes about grief like someone who’s buried things that mattered. His essays on loss, parenting, and pain are raw and gorgeous. They don’t ask you to smile through it—they just sit with you in the dark until you’re ready to move.

WHICH BRINGS US TO YOU.

Pavlovitz recently dropped a piece titled:

Here's Why You Need To Be An Activist—Right. F*cking. Now.

Spoiler: it’s not subtle.

It opens with empathy, then grabs you by the collar and drags you out of your comfort zone like someone pulling weeds from a garden. It tells you, with holy fire and zero apology, that people are disappearing. Right now. And your silence doesn’t protect you. It just makes the job easier for the people doing the erasing.

So here’s the question—and it’s not rhetorical:

ARE YOU AN ACTIVIST?

Or are you an inactivist?

Are you waiting for the right time, the perfect cause, the safer moment?
Or are you standing up now—bruises, backlash, and all?

Do you want to be the person who helped when it got dark?

Or the person who posted a sad emoji and went back to brunch?

There’s no middle ground anymore.

There’s showing up.

And there’s shrinking down.

Which one are you?

John Pavlovitz isn’t perfect. But he’s loud in all the right ways.

And when history asks what you did when people started vanishing,
"kept scrolling" is going to sound a lot like surrender.

Time to speak.

Time to rise.

Time to choose.

Your move.

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