I entered the day to the expression in news reports of "Iran's existential crisis." I wondered what this meant, so I did a bit of digging as I don't like expressions that I do not understand to fly past me. I write with no political position on the present conflict but ask, what does that expression mean? In political language, that phrase means more than battlefield damage or diplomatic tension. It suggests that the survival of the state—or at least the survival of its present ruling system—is perceived to be at risk. When leaders use such language, they imply that the very continuation of their authority, stability, and national identity is threatened.
History teaches us that when nations feel cornered, they often respond with heightened resolve rather than retreat. An existential crisis does not typically produce surrender; it produces intensity. Governments consolidate power. Citizens rally, whether out of patriotism, fear, or both. The danger in such a moment is escalation. When survival is believed to be at stake, compromise becomes harder, and measured responses give way to sweeping ones.
Yet political structures are only part of the story. Beneath the language of strategy and deterrence are ordinary people—families, workers, children—who bear the weight of decisions made far above them. An existential crisis for a government quickly becomes uncertainty, anxiety, and deprivation for its citizens. Infrastructure falters. Markets tremble. Young men face mobilization. Parents fear for their sons. The rhetoric of survival translates into sleepless nights.
There is another dimension rarely discussed openly but quietly present. In recent years, reports have circulated that many Iranians have shown interest in Christianity, often in discreet and private ways. Much of this spiritual movement takes place quietly, even surreptitiously, because of social and legal pressures. Whether those reports are large or small in scale, they suggest something deeper than politics: a spiritual searching within a people whose history is rich, ancient, and complex.
War has a strange effect on faith. Sometimes it hardens conviction; sometimes it softens hearts. Crisis strips away illusion. When political systems shake, people often ask deeper questions about hope, truth, meaning, and the future. It is not for outsiders to judge the authenticity or motivation of such spiritual movements. But it is worth noting that existential language in politics often coincides with existential searching in the human soul.
How all this will unfold is impossible to predict with certainty. Military analysts will speak of deterrence, regional balance, and strategic objectives. Economists will weigh sanctions and oil flows. Diplomats will calculate leverage. But history shows that once conflict reaches the stage where survival is invoked, the path forward becomes less predictable.
My only wish is that this nation—and all nations involved—may find a way toward peace. Not a fragile pause between retaliations, but a peace that allows people to live without fear. A peace that gives room for conscience, for faith, for honest inquiry, and for ordinary life to flourish again.
In times when governments speak of survival, it is worth remembering that survival alone is not the highest good. Peace, dignity, and freedom of the soul matter as well. However, this crisis unfolds, one can only hope that the outcome bends toward restraint, toward mercy, and toward a future where the word “existential” no longer hangs so heavily over an entire people. I pray for these ordinary people.
And each one will sit under their vine and fig tree
with no one to frighten them . For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Micah 4:4