I hadn't meant to completely skip 2025. But when I tried to log in toward the end of the year, just to get something posted, I discovered that I'd forgotten the login credentials. Found them later.
The Church lost more giants in 2025. John MacArthur, Voddie Baucham, James Dobson, Charlie Kirk. Kirk's murder hit especially hard, and not just because he was the youngest of them and the only one who died because of someone else's malice.
Kirk's murder exposed a deep ugliness in society. I'd been saying for years that I dread Donald Trump's death, not because I'm a fan of his, but because it's going to open a floodgate of hateful glee that lays bare the sheer awfulness of a whole lot of people.
There will be rejoicing and dancing on his grave, by people who think it's because he wasn't nearly as nice as they are.
I lost personal friends because of Kirk's murder, in some cases people I'd been close to since junior high school. They were openly rejoicing over the assassination, and loudly proclaiming it was because Kirk was a Christian.
They didn't frame it that way, of course, No, it was because he opposed this, and spoke out against that, and believed this other "bad thing."
All of this wrongthink simply reflected that he was a Christian. And for these beliefs, they said, his wife richly deserves to be a widow and his children richly deserve to grow up without their Dad.
They were justifying the murder of Christians. Again, these included longtime personal friends who know full well that I'm a Christian (and in some cases, they used to claim to be).
I reached out, and tried to explain that they were effectively calling for my murder as well. "Oh, no", they gasped, "You're one of the good ones. I'd never want you to be harmed."
It doesn't work that way. When you've decided to join a bloodthirsty mob, you can't steer it away from targets you've personally and magnanimously deemed exempt from their wrath.
Finally, someone who has at times been one of my closest friends, someone who has called me when he was suicidal to get reassured that someone cared about him, someone who only a few days earlier had asked me for prayer because he was going through a crisis, told me we were just going to need to "agree to disagree" about this.
We can't "agree to disagree" when the question is whether it's OK to kill people you disagree with.
I mourn the loss of the decent person that friend used to be. I don't recognize the hate-driven creature that's replaced him.
I told him I'm still here, hoping that one day he returns.
He stopped answering me.
That's where the world is at the dawn of 2026. Sheer madness.
Enough rambling. Here's a picture of accidental truth.
