Send us Fan Mail On Saturday evening, October 17, the bell tower of the town hall in Limoges, France, fell into the fire. A building with a bell The Hôtel de Ville in Limoges opened in 1883. That afternoon, masked rioters broke in and set it on fire. The roof and the bell tower collapsed (Euronews, 2026). It happened on a day when more than half a million people marched across France over school conditions and the high cost of living. Most of them marched in peace. Some did not. Shops were looted in several cities, and at least 2,500 people were arrested (Al Jazeera, 2026). I want to say this plainly. Burning a town hall is wrong. So is looting a family's shop. Someone built that hall with their hands. Someone else swept its floors for 143 years. Grief is the right response. Watching it on the news This week I watched a Fox News segment on the riots. The host and his guests were angry. Some of that anger I share. They see the fire as part of a larger war on Western civilization. One guest blamed an alliance of far-left activists and Islamists. The host spoke of open gates and "barbarians." Every newsroom has a theology of its own, whether it admits it or not. It carries assumptions about what is wrong with the world and who can fix it. So we listen carefully. We check the facts, and we filter the presuppositions. Some of what they said checks out. Three days after the fire, police arrested a man known as a radical left-wing threat (blue News, 2026). Other claims are disputed. President Macron said he saw no visible foreign interference. He also called some foreign leaders' comments "stupid" (Al Jazeera, 2026). I cannot settle that debate from across an ocean. I have put what I could and could not verify in a note below. The concern behind the segment is not new, and it deserves a serious hearing. In 2010, Angela Merkel said Germany's multicultural model had failed (Reuters, 2010). The next year, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy said much the same (Neuding, 2011). In 2025, Britain's government moved toward Denmark's stricter immigration model (Ara, 2025). So it would be naive to say this unrest has nothing to do with immigration and integration policy. The first wave of unrest in early October began in Paris suburbs with large immigrant populations (i24NEWS, 2026). But we do not yet know how large a cause it is. France does not record the backgrounds of those arrested, and the Limoges suspect is a French far-left activist (The Korea Times, 2026). Criticizing a policy is fair. The trouble comes when that criticism turns into words about whole peoples. What I can speak to is the language. What happened in Limoges was criminal, and some of it was barbaric. Mob, looters, arsonists: these are honest words, and I would use them. But the segment reached for "hordes" and "barbarians" and aimed them at whole peoples by where they came from. Brené Brown writes that "dehumanizing always starts with language" (Brown, 2018). As a 1.5-generation Korean American, I read words like these slowly. Rome burned too In AD 410, the Visigoths sacked Rome. People called Rome the eternal city, so the shock was deep. Some blamed the Christians, who would not worship Rome's gods (Nichols, 2014). Augustine answered them. He spent fourteen years, from 413 to 427, writing The City of God. He described two cities that live side by side until the last day (Mathison, 2009). "Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self." Augustine, The City of God, XIV.28 (M. Dods, Trans.) Augustine did not say Rome was worthless. He said Rome was never our hope. Those are two different things. Scripture holds both. Jeremiah wrote to the exiles in Babylon: "But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare." Jeremiah 29:7, ESV Babylon. The city that burned their temple. Even there, God's people were to pray. Paul reminds us where our true home is: "But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Philippians 3:20, ESV). And Hebrews tells us what we have already received: "Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe." Hebrews 12:28, ESV So we can do both. We grieve the bell. We pray for France. We pray for the shopkeepers, the police, and the firefighters. We pray for the young people on the streets. We pray even for the man in custody. The part of us that wants someone to blame IFS lens News like this wakes our protective parts. In Internal Family Systems, firefighter parts rush in when we feel threatened. They want a name to blame, and they want it fast. Richard Schwartz teaches that protectors carry good intentions (Schwartz, 2021). The part of you that is furious about Limoges loves something good: beauty, order, and the memory of the people who built it. But when a protector takes over, fear starts reading every face in a crowd as an enemy. David Powlison wrote a whole book on how God redeems our anger, irritation, and complaining (Powlison, 2016). Anger is not the end of the story. A Reformed corrective IFS speaks of a calm, curious Self that leads the inner system. We value those eight C's. But the Self is not our savior. Augustine's two loves point deeper. What our heart loves most shows which city we live in, and only God can reorder those loves. "For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13, ESV). Jesus wept over a city "And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it" (Luke 19:41, ESV). Jesus knew Jerusalem would fall. And He wept. He did not gloat. He did not shrug. Then He went to the cross for the people of that city, and for us. Our citizenship is in a city that will not burn. Limoges may rebuild its bell tower. I hope it does. Either way, the city we are waiting for is safe. Support the show
