The rise of strongman leaders is typically explained through psychological frameworks or political analysis—we examine personality traits that drive their hunger for power, or we study the institutional vulnerabilities they exploit. These explanations are valuable but incomplete. Perhaps there's another dimension worth exploring: the theological architecture of authoritarianism. What if these figures aren't merely political opportunists but manifestations of something deeper in our collective spiritual condition? After all, these men, and they are often men, don't simply seize power in otherwise healthy systems; rather, they crystallise tendencies already present—making visible what was previously hidden within our institutions and ourselves.

What holds us transfixed before these men isn't merely their authority but how perfectly they perform our own hidden longings. They are not aberrations but amplifications, not anomalies but archetypes. I watch them on screens that grow ever smaller while their shadows somehow lengthen. Bolsonaro standing defiant in the Amazon's ashes. Erdoğan claiming Istanbul like a lover who refuses to accept rejection. Netanyahu, presiding over a relentless expansion of illegal West Bank settlements, redraws borders with bulldozers and outposts. Trump towering over Capitol crowds, his outstretched arms conducting an orchestra of grievance. Xi gazing over Tiananmen with the patient certainty of a man who has outlasted time itself. Their faces blur together in my mind—not because they are the same, but because they draw from the same ancient well

In moment of clarity, I wonder: what wounded child still lives within the strongman who cannot bear to lose an election? What force lives in me that might do the same, if I had the chance?

What primal terror haunts the man who changes constitutions rather than relinquish power? Looking beyond the façade—beyond the propaganda and bombast—we see the source of concupiscence itself: not merely a wound but a willful rejection, a fundamental refusal to acknowledge any authority beyond the self. Here stands the man of unfaith, who has appointed himself god of his own diminished universe.

Augustine, that brilliant and tormented African theologian, saw our predicament with devastating clarity. He named what these strongmen exploit: our incurvatus in se—the soul curved inward upon itself. This isn't mere selfishness but something more profound—a gravitational collapse of the spirit, where our deepest anxiety, our fear of annihilation, becomes the centre around which everything else orbits.

How does a spine meant for standing upright before God curl into itself until the forehead touches the navel? One vertebra at a time. One small submission to fear after another.

We begin with the primal terror: the void that waits. Not the absence of things, but the absence of being—the nothingness that lurks beneath every moment, behind every heartbeat, between every atom of our fragile existence. This terror seeps into our marrow, bending our souls inward in what Augustine named incurvatus in se—the human spirit curved in upon itself. From this inward curvature springs concupiscence—that ancient hunger Augustine identified as the wounded quality of our nature, the "tinder for sin" that consumes without satisfying, that grasps without ever holding. These are not separate maladies but a single spiritual contortion: our fear of nothingness causes us to curve inward, and from this twisted posture blooms our desperate grasping—concupiscence.

Consider how we grasp
for what isn't ours—
status, land, love—
believing possession
might calm the tremors
of our own mortality.

Our concupiscent nature blooms in this twisted soil, not merely wanting what belongs to others but convincing ourselves it rightfully belongs to us, transforming desire into entitled demand. We mistake accumulation for immortality, believing somehow that owning more might mean disappearing less. Each possession becomes a tiny rebellion against non-existence, each acquisition a talisman against the void. The terror whispers that resources and significance are finite commodities and must be hoarded, that another's fullness threatens our own. And so we grasp—not for objects but for being itself, not for wealth but for solidity against the terrifying weightlessness of nothing.

A desperate conviction grows that we need more than others to survive, that mortality can be staved off through accumulation—as if possessions could form a barricade against our inevitable dissolution. We devour what belongs to others, convincing ourselves it was meant for us all along, each stolen pleasure becoming a temporary bulwark against the void—a frantic attempt to treat our terminal condition. In this desperate calculation, my neighbour transforms from fellow creature into competitor. Their breath becomes the air I cannot have; their joy becomes the joy I have been denied. This is not mere greed but existential panic, not just wanting what glitters, but believing the wanting itself makes it ours—concupiscence's twisted geometry where we believe we can gain a temporal immortality by taking from others.

The irony cuts bone-deep: our defence against annihilation becomes its own kind of death. Each fortification against fear, each inward curl builds another wall between ourselves and life's wild abundance. We become gargoyles of our former selves, stone sentinels guarding empty vaults—kings and queens of kingdoms no larger than a casket.

Our spines, meant for upright wonder,
calcify into protective hunching.
Defence against annihilation
becomes its own kind of death.

And then come the strongmen, performing this spiritual malformation on the grand stages of history.

Their gilded palaces and military parades—what are these but concupiscence writ large, private hoarding blown to national scale? Watch how they clutch at borders, resources, loyalty oaths, their hands perpetually grasping for what is not theirs to calm the howling void within. These men who build walls and promise strength are merely enacting their own terror with bigger toys.

From Putin's calculating gaze across Moscow's Red Square to Modi's spectral appearances at temple inaugurations—these men bend democracy's backbone until it breaks at the precise angle of their ambition. Their rallies and cult-like followings feed a hunger that cannot be satiated. Trump’s rallies pulse with this same primal energy, a theatre of grievance where applause becomes sacrament and loyalty is measured in applause.

The same desperate arithmetic that drives us to check our phones at midnight drives them to annex territories and imprison dissenters. This compulsion—this concupiscent hunger—differs only in scale, not in theological origin. We refresh our feeds seeking validation, connection, some digital evidence that we matter in this vast universe. They dispatch troops across borders, silence journalists, and manipulate election results—all desperate calculations to stave off the void of insignificance that haunts every human heart.

Our midnight scrolling seeks to fill the emptiness with digital dopamine hits—likes, shares, comments that temporarily soothe our existential dread. Their midnight decrees seek to fill nations with monuments to their egos, histories rewritten in their image, crowds chanting their names. Both are manifestations of Augustine's incurvatus in se—souls curved inward upon themselves, frantically trying to bend reality around the fragile self

Watch how they clutch at borders,
resources, loyalty oaths,
their hands perpetually grasping
for what is not theirs
to calm the howling void within.

Look closely at their ascent to power and you will find an identical pattern—a methodical origami of democratic institutions folded into pocket-sized ornaments.

First, they seize executive authority. Next, they silence the legislature's voice. Finally, they capture the judiciary's independence. Putin refolding Russia's constitution into a Möbius strip of perpetual rule. Xi Jinping's China inking its judiciary into origami cranes—delicate, beautiful, and flightless. Orbán's Hungary rewriting laws until parliament becomes a hall of mirrors reflecting only his face.

Each strongman recognises media not as democracy's immune system but its nervous system—to be severed and rewired according to power's appetite. Their "firehose of falsehood" overwhelms citizens with inconsistent, surreal disinformation until truth itself becomes partisan. What shared reality can persist when Putin's state TV claims Kyiv's maternity wards are Nazi bunkers, and Trump's Truth Social rebrands insurrection as patriotism?

The news transforms from window to mirror, reflecting not reality but our deepest fears—manufactured anxieties that only the strongman can soothe. In this panic, citizens curl inward, clutching screens like rosaries, mistaking algorithmic whispers for divine revelation.

Their rhetoric transforms dissent into treason with surgical precision. Erdogan's çapulcu (hooligans), Trump's "enemy from within," Modi's "urban Naxals"—these lexical scalpels excise opposition from the body politic. Italian Prime Minister Meloni baptises Mediterranean refugees as "invaders," Orbán recasts George Soros as an antisemitic caricature, and Putin labels pacifists "Western agents." Netanyahu, meanwhile, brands mass protests against his policies as "anarchy" and accuses opposition leaders of "sowing sedition," weaponising fear to delegitimise dissent and consolidate his grip on power.

These men, mortal yet messianic, offer their own flesh as communion. Putin's shirtless horseback rides, Trump's spray-tanned defiance, Modi's spectral glow at religious ceremonies—all divine incantations for the starved soul. The terrible irony cuts deep: they promise economic salvation while wealth gaps widen beneath their rule; they rally against elites while becoming the ultimate elite; they claim to fight corruption while institutionalising it.

Extortion serves as their sacrament—a ritual that embodies concupiscence in governance. They transform theft-by-threat into statecraft, employing intimidation to create criminal monopolies that usurp legitimate authority. Witness Putin's Russia, where Paul Whelan languishes in a prison colony—a human bargaining chip in Moscow's geopolitical extortion scheme. In Bulgaria, former Prime Minister Borisov's bedroom nightstand overflows with cash and gold bars beside a gun in "true mafia style." El Salvador's Bukele enters parliament flanked by armed soldiers to demand security funding.

We surrender to it in increments so small they're hardly noticeable—an eye-roll instead of outrage, a shrug instead of resistance. We tell ourselves: This is just human nature. This is temporary. This is survivable.

The crowds gather seeking not just a leader but a father, faces lit with hunger I recognise from my own heart's cravings: to be safe, to be above, to be here forever. Salvation through strongmen. Redemption through tribal loyalty. The old human story rewritten as political theology.

Their noise drowns truth itself
until citizens, gasping for certainty,
accept the strongman's hand
pulling them from depths
he himself created.

What haunts me most is not their concupiscence but how perfectly it aligns with our own.

What haunts me most is not the strongman’s concupiscence—his lust for power, wealth, or control—but how perfectly it aligns with our own. The strongman, whether in the pulpit, the boardroom, or the gilded halls of oligarchy, does not rise in isolation. He is a mirror held up to our collective desires: for certainty in chaos, for dominance disguised as protection, for a father who will both discipline and absolve.

In churches, we see pastors who wield scripture like a cudgel, their charisma mistaken for anointing. They preach humility but demand submission, their authority sacralised by congregations desperate for clarity in a fractured world. These men, again, mostly men, cloak their control in the language of care. But beneath the rhetoric lies a hunger for dominion that mirrors the very systems they claim to oppose.

Corporations are no different. The CEO as saviour archetype thrives on our willingness to conflate leadership with omnipotence. We celebrate the billionaire who “disrupts” industries while ignoring the exploitation that funds his ascent. Elon Musk “tweets”, you know what I mean, into the void, and we mistake his erratic proclamations for vision. His wealth insulates him from consequence, but it is our adulation that grants him power. We want him to succeed because his success validates our own aspirations—our belief that greatness justifies any means.

As a father and husband, I see this dynamic play out in microcosm. The temptation to control—to dictate rather than dialogue—is ever-present. It is easier to demand obedience than to foster trust, easier to assert authority than to admit vulnerability. Yet this path leads not to strength but to isolation, not to leadership but to tyranny.

It terrifies me how these figures do not impose themselves upon us; we invite them in. The strongman thrives because we are complicit in his mythos. We crave their certainty because it absolves us of our own indecision. We admire his ruthlessness because it achieves what our compromises cannot. And we excuse his flaws because they reflect our own.

The strongman’s rise is not an aberration but a symptom—a reflection of our collective failure to embrace interdependence over domination, humility over hubris. Until we confront this within ourselves, the strongman will remain among us: in our churches, our corporations, our governments—and in our homes.

How do we live in such times, when strongmen's names roll off our tongues as easily as prayers once did, when fear feels sturdier than hope?

Paul's admonition echoes faintly: "Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is near" (Philippians 4:5). Reasonableness—a word so quiet it barely registers against our age's roar. What does it mean to be sober-minded when the world demands intoxication with outrage?

To be reasonable is not to retreat into passivity but to stand upright amidst the inward curve, to unclench fists that grasp for control and let them open toward something greater. Perhaps nearness is not comfort but confrontation, not reassurance but a call to reckon with our complicity. To live in such times is to recognise that resistance begins with small refusals—the refusal to let fear dictate our posture, the refusal to see others as threats rather than neighbours.

We resist by remembering that anxiety is not destiny. We resist by cultivating an unreasonable generosity—a generosity that defies self-preservation's logic. We resist by refusing to let strongmen reshape our imaginations, by refusing to let their fear become ours. We resist by reclaiming truth not as weaponry but as shared ground on which we stand together.

Yet resistance does not promise resolution. There is no Hollywood ending here, no triumphant crescendo where democracy prevails and concupiscence dissolves into light. To live soberly in such times is to accept that victory may not come in our lifetime—or at all—and still choose to act as though it might. It is to plant seeds in soil we may never see bloom, trusting that faithfulness matters more than results.

Perhaps this is what Paul meant: reasonableness is not resignation but resilience. It is the quiet strength of those who refuse to bend inward even as the world folds into itself. It is the courage to stand upright—not in defiance but in hope, not in triumph but in trust. The Lord is near—not as escape from this broken world but as presence within it, calling us to live as though another way is possible.

And so we live—not with certainty but with conviction, not with answers but with questions. We live as though reasonableness might yet be contagious, as though generosity might yet take root in hearts hardened by fear. We live as though nearness might yet become vision—not distant theory but present reality.