If you spent any time online lately, you’ve probably noticed everyone is buzzing about the latest season of Black Mirror on Netflix. Our culture’s appetite for dystopian stories seems insatiable—every few years, it feels like a new wave of bleak futures floods our screens and bookshelves. Like many in my generation, I grew up on these cautionary tales: plug into grim cyber-worlds in The Matrix, watch masked rebels stand up to tyranny in V for Vendetta, and read Orwell’s 1984 in school.Dystopia is everywhere—and it’s become so familiar, so meme-able, that pointing it out almost feels cliché. But here’s the irony: while we eagerly binge the latest Black Mirror episode and assure ourselves that these twisted realities could never really happen to us, we turn a blind eye to the creeping dystopia shaping our own daily lives.
Our world is the dystopian novel. Infants are discarded as “choice,” generations are raised worshipping plastic gods and Disney princesses in spandex. Minds atrophy in digital cribs while borders dissolve, traditions rot, and native populations wither—all cheered on by progressive elites who brand resistance as hate.
Grown men paint their identities in Marvel slogans while algorithms strip-mine their souls, addicting them to rage and casual porn. We beg for heroes, but the void answers with influencers and bureaucrats.
Culture collapses into a meme, families into statistics, truth into lies laundered as “lived experience.” We drone on, fattened by convenience yet hollowed by despair, too coddled to revolt, too nihilistic to try. Dystopia doesn’t need boots on necks; it just makes sure we never stop scrolling.
No revolution required—we built this hell ourselves.
Take a closer look at the headlines—not just the fiction streaming on your screen, but the reality scrolling past. In the UK, ordinary people have found themselves arrested for what’s labeled as “hate speech” on social media—even when it amounts to little more than an offensive joke or an opinion that falls out of step with the current orthodoxy. In the United States, hastily expanded “antisemitism” laws are already being used to silence critics of a foreign regime, criminalizing dissent and setting a dangerous precedent for restricting free speech. The very freedoms our parents took for granted are eroded overnight, often cheered on by those convinced it could never, ever go too far.
Yet, amidst all this, there’s a stubborn ember the machine cannot extinguish: human hope. For all our frustrations and failings, people remain defiant, even when the odds seem impossible. Rebellion is not just battle cries—it is the quiet resistance of telling the truth in a world of lies, of raising a child to love growing things, of refusing to let kindness be crushed by cynicism. In these acts, however small, we see sparks fly against the shadows.
The future isn’t fixed. Dystopia isn’t destiny. It can only claim victory if we play our assigned parts without question and forget that, at any moment, the story can change. We are the wild card that authors and algorithms can never fully predict.
There is, as always, a plot twist.
What is it that sustains those sparks of hope in a world seemingly so determined to snuff them out? For many, it’s not blind optimism, and it’s more than simple stubbornness or contrarian grit. The roots run deeper—down to the soul, where the world’s noise can’t quite reach. It’s here that faith enters. And for countless people throughout history, faith in Jesus has been the enduring antidote to despair.
While the surrounding culture preaches self-worship, endless progress, and “you do you” morality, faith in Christ offers something beautifully subversive: the assurance that you are not your own god, the promise that suffering isn’t meaningless, and the hope that love does indeed win—not as a slogan, but as a reality grounded in the cross and the empty tomb.
In the darkest chapters of human history, it’s often Christians—rooted not in their own strength, but in Christ’s—who have quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, sparked revolutions of justice, mercy, and truth. The early followers of Jesus faced the might of the Roman Empire, yet held out a hope that could not be killed with the sword. Slaves and prisoners, kings and beggars alike, discovered in Christ a freedom and dignity greater than any state or system could bestow or steal. The biggest plot twist of history turned on the resurrection—the ultimate subversion of a world built on death and despair.
In our own age of digital distractions, collapsing traditions, and hollow amusements, faith in Christ remains a revolutionary hope. In Christ, you are called to be more than a consumer, an algorithm’s target, or a passive observer. You become a beloved child of God, equipped not only to resist the darkness but to redeem it—one act of love, mercy, and truth at a time.
Jesus doesn’t promise escape from the troubles of the world—He bids us take up our cross and follow Him, even through shadowed valleys. But He also promises that this world’s story is not the final word. Behold, I am making all things new. That’s the counter-narrative Christianity offers in a time when so many believe the die is cast and the ending unwritten.
So, if you’re weary of dystopia—if you’re tired of the lies, of the hollow idols, of the restless hunger—come to the One who promises rest for your soul. In Him, every defiant act of kindness, every honest word, every seed planted, and every broken heart mended has meaning beyond what this world can see.
Faith in Jesus is the ultimate plot twist—a hope stronger than darkness, a love deeper than despair, and a victory promised, whatever the age. The dystopia fails the moment even one soul whispers, “Thy will be done,” and steps into the light. In Him, the machines don’t win. Hell is not inevitable. And the story—your story—can turn toward redemption.
In Christ, we meet the Author of the story Himself, and discover that even now, even here, there is hope worth living for.
Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab AI Inc
Christ is King
