Posted March 18, 2026
In April 2025, Pastor William Schonemann of New River Bible Chapel in Arizona was found dead inside his home. His arms were outstretched and his hands pinned to a wall in a position authorities described as resembling crucifixion. Authorities later said the killing was part of a larger plot to target multiple Christian leaders.
Last week, the man accused of killing the pastor asked a court to sentence him to death. He stated, “It’s an undisputable fact that the crime was heinous in nature. I intended it to be heinous.” He allegedly intended to target fourteen pastors or priests across the US; investigators say the victim was chosen because of his Christian faith.
Our faith does not exempt us from living in a fallen world, a fact my dear friends in Cuba are experiencing as the power crisis gripping their nation continues to worsen. Believers are as affected by severe weather across the US this week as anyone else. Christians are as endangered as others who also live in Iran, Israel, or one of the other twenty-six places identified by the Council on Foreign Relations as a “global conflict” site.
But when we suffer because we are believers, we can especially question the reality and relevance of our faith. It feels grossly unfair for God to call us to follow and serve him, then allow us to be persecuted for obeying his call.
However, it is also such suffering that affords us an opportunity to know and honor our Lord in ways we cannot otherwise.
During times of crisis, we sometimes feel the absence of God’s presence.
In A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis reflected on the death of his wife, Joy Davidman, to cancer at the age of forty-five. Lewis was transparent with his suffering and the faith struggles that ensued:
Go to [God] when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become.
There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as thorough as this. What can this mean? Why is he so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?
At such times, we feel God’s absence in ways that can be overwhelming. The night my father died, I went into our backyard, stared into the starry sky, and shook my fist at God. When our older son was diagnosed with cancer, I went for a long walk the next morning to tell God how disappointed I was with him.
Both times, it was his absence, his silence, the apparent lack of his presence and provision that grieved my soul.
At other times, however, we feel more the presence of his absence.
We sense that our Lord is with us in our pain. We feel the weight of his promise, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2). As we shuffle through “the valley of the shadow of death,” we know somehow that he is with us in the darkness (Psalm 23:4).
But still, there are no answers to our questions, no explanations for our pain. In some ways, this is even harder.
If our Father is an absentee parent, at least we cannot blame him for refusing to help us with our hurt. But if he is at our side but refuses to help, what does this say about him?
About us?
Christians face the same decision every moment of every day: whether we will measure God’s character by our circumstances or our circumstances by his character.
When all is well, we might choose the former and assume that ours is a Father who blesses his children. But when life caves in, what are we to believe about the God who allows our pain?
We can, however, choose to measure our circumstances by his character. When we face unexplained suffering, we can determine that the fault lies not with his ability to explain our pain but with our ability to understand his explanation. Like a first-grader who cannot understand trigonometry, our finite and fallen minds cannot comprehend the ways of an omniscient, infinite Supreme Being (cf. Isaiah 55:8–9).
As time went by, Lewis’s sense of God’s silence in his grief changed:
When I lay these questions before God, I get no answer. But a rather special sort of “No answer.” It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though he shook his head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, “Peace, child, you don’t understand.”
When we suffer for our faith, we have the terrible privilege of trusting a Father we don’t understand and worshiping a God whose call to obedience has led to our pain. But such a choice shows that we love God for who he is, not just what he does, and that our faith is not a business transaction but the commitment of a child to their Father.
I have learned a hard lesson over the years: We discover who our friends truly are when we can do nothing for them. Our Father might say the same of us.
Dr. Duane Brooks is the longtime pastor of Tallowood Baptist Church in Houston and a trusted personal friend. In his email devotional, he recently quoted a song by the author, podcaster, and musician Michael Card:
Could it be You make Your presence known
So often by Your absence?
Could it be that questions tell us more
Than answers ever do?
Could it be that You would really rather die
Than live without us?
Could it be the only answer
That means anything is You?
Could it be?
“Storms make trees take deeper roots.” —Dolly Parton
The post Man accused of crucifying pastor asks for death penalty appeared first on Denison Forum.
