When I first became a newspaper columnist nearly thirteen years ago, America was a very different place. If you had told me back then that I would be writing about not one but two assassination attempts against the 45th President of the United States, I would very much have believed you to be an utter crackpot and probably possessed of a large collection of tin foil hats.

And yet, here we are.

On Sunday, August 15, Donald Trump was targeted for murder for the second time in as many months. This time, it was from a man who crawled into the trees and bushes of President Trump’s Florida golf course and set up a sniper nest from which to try and kill him. The Secret Service seems to have done at least a bit of a better job on this than they did the attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, that resulted in POTUS 45 being shot in the head, a quarter inch from a savage death. This time, the attempted murderer did not manage to do any harm to President Trump.

But what in the world is happening to our society when this has become the norm? And how are such things now spoken of in such mocking terms? Mere moments after this second attempt at snuffing out the life of a husband, father, grandfather, brother, President, and friend to many, Rachel Vindman, wife of Alexander Vindman, he of Trump impeachment fame and now a U.S. House candidate in Virginia, tweeted on X, “No ears were harmed. Carry on with your Sunday afternoon.”

What little is left of our society is looking pretty bleak, it seems.

So, what can churches and houses of worship everywhere do to stem this downward slide into barbarity?

A good place to start would be for every minister everywhere to reacquaint their congregations with one of God’s most basic rules. The Sixth Commandment, found in Exodus 20:13, states very simply, “Thou Shalt not kill.” This is a prohibition against murder, as the remainder of Scripture makes abundantly clear. And God was so serious about this that the very first tenet of human government that God laid down to a new society beginning to form after the flood was that of the death penalty being exacted for murder. It is found in Genesis 9:6 in the words, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.”

Let’s be honest here. The exact opposite message is being “preached” by a great many politicians, athletes, and actors. They often couch it in teasing terms, but the message is pretty clear: murder is okay if you hate someone bad enough. It will take a concerted effort by ministers everywhere to preach and teach that vile filthiness out of our society.

A second thing churches can do to turn the tide is to help change what people do with their time. Much of media and social media has become a cesspool of anger, bitterness, and hate. At this point, I am not surprised when a person who spends hours a day watching news or talk shows tries to kill Donald Trump; I am surprised when they don’t. Churches, then, are going to need to be way more busy keeping their people busy. A church full of people not just attending services but also going soul-winning, doing mission work, growing community gardens, serving the sick and hurting, interacting with their communities, and tending to the hurting around them will hopefully be too busy and too tired to spend much time pumping their brains full of poison.

A third thing churches can do is to roundly, vocally, and consistently condemn the hatred and the attacks the hatred produces. Every church and minister everywhere should be, both from the pulpit and in the public eye, scalding attacks like this. It is up to us to make the people doing them absolute pariahs, outcasts, and make it embarrassing for people to even consider acting in such a horrible manner.

An often unconsidered fourth thing churches can do to stem the tide is to utilize the power of the purse against such things. The world runs on money, and every church is made up of people who spend money every single day. We need to teach our people to punish bad behavior and reward good behavior by where we put our money. Shows that give their voices to promoting such hatred should find all of their advertisers dropping them because God’s people stop spending any money with them. Call them out by name from the pulpit, company by company. It will not take long before influential voices are way more careful with how they use their influence.

The most important thing we can do to turn the tide is to instruct people everywhere to repent and to truly seek after God again. America has not gotten more righteous over the past thirteen years; she has gotten infinitely more wicked. This has unquestionably resulted in God largely removing his hand of favor and leaving us to our own devices and the terrible consequences that follow. Pulpits in America need to reacquaint themselves with hard, bold, plain preaching against sin. It is my firm belief that we will experience a third Great Awakening, or we will fall as a people.

Let’s step it up, churches.