Paul Random

Please Don’t Stop Praying for the Kirk Family

It’s been six days since Charlie Kirk was struck down in Utah. The shock of all of it remains, along with the candlelight vigils standing as a testimony to his grand memory. Tributes keep pouring in. A formal memorial is scheduled for Sunday in Phoenix.

But the painful aftermath has only just begun.

Tyler Robinson, the suspected assassin of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, is expected to make his first appearance in court Tuesday.

The 22 year-old turned himself into authorities last Thursday night after an intense manhunt. Officials announced plans to charge him with aggravated murder and pursue the death penalty.

At Tuesday’s news conference, Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray shared that it was Charlie Kirk’s politics that fueled Robinson’s evil. According to Robinson’s mother, the assassin “had become more political… more pro-gay and trans rights oriented.”

Tyler Robinson was living with a sexually confused man who had expressed desire to identify as a woman.

As reports began trickling out about Robinson’s arrest last week, we learned that it was his parents who helped orchestrate the surrender.

After the FBI released images of the suspect in question, information reached Matt and Amber Robinson, Tyler’s father and mother. Amber thought the photo looked like her son. Matt Robinson, who runs a custom kitchen counter business in southern Utah, agreed. Earlier reports that claimed Matt Robinson was former law enforcement officer were not accurate. Amber Robinson is a social worker.

Officials said on Tuesday that the Robinsons reached out to their son after seeing the photo. He first claimed he was home sick. He soon threatened to commit suicide, but his parents were able to convince him to come to the family home and talk. The family reached out to a pastor in the family’s Mormon ward. The bishop encouraged Tyler to surrender.

Some outlets are hailing Matt Robinson as the “Father of Justice” for doing the right thing – but such a moniker rings a bit hollow given the pain and anguish of the situation. Other sites have noted how difficult a decision it must have been for the mother and father – as if the prospect of harboring a fugitive is a subject of rationale debate.

Scott Messinger, a former bishop in the family’s church, acknowledged the emotional component facing the parents.

“I’m sure they didn’t want to see their son get the death penalty,” he said. “But what he did was wrong. They turned him in.”

Tragically, what Matt and Amber Robinson encountered and are enduring, while magnified because of the high-profile nature of this crime, is what thousands of mothers and fathers face each year in the United States.

In August, the FBI released preliminary crime statistics for 2024. There was a murder every 31.1 minutes – many at the hands of people with mothers and fathers who are still living, parents who once held that now violent criminal back when they were a baby.

It was King Solomon who wrote, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). We know Proverbs are true – but due to man’s fallen nature and sin, they are not promises. Many heartbroken mothers and fathers do their best to teach, guide and parent according to the Scriptures – and yet sometimes those children as they grow up choose to walk away from God’s truth.

If, as a parent, you find yourself embroiled in a difficult situation with a child who has turned their back on their faith or rebelling in any number of ways, Focus on the Family counselors and resources are available to help you navigate the challenge. Writing for the ministry, Lainey La Shay suggests ten things moms and dads can do when children are deconstructing their faith.

Since Wednesday’s tragedy, millions of Christians have been praying for Ericka Kirk and her children, along with the entire Kirk family and the Turning Point USA team. Erika Kirk has demonstrated incredible resolve and courage. The road she faces is long and difficult. The trauma that family has encountered is unfathomable and heartbreaking. Please don’t stop praying for the Kirks.

Image from Getty.

President Trump’s Top 100 Victories for People of Faith

Since Donald Trump’s first electoral win as president in 2016 to the 2020 campaign and his return to the Oval Office in 2024, the 45th and 47th chief executive has enjoyed the overwhelming support of evangelical Christians.

In each of those three elections, approximately eight in ten have cast a vote for Trump, an extraordinary level of loyalty across eight years and three Novembers.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Trump administration has prioritized pursuing issues and concerns of interest to people who appeal and trust in God. Earlier this month, the White House Faith Office released a list of the “Top 100 Victories for People of Faith.”

In the prologue to the document, we read, “President Trump has protected religious liberty and affirmed faith in America … He is the most pro-faith and pro-religious liberty president in American history.”

Whether America is a Christian nation or nation of Christians has long been the subject of debate. But at our country’s founding in 1776, few doubted Christ’s oversized influence in its formation.

“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity,” wrote John Adams. “I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”

Claims that President Trump has been trying to transform America into a theocracy belie reality and ignore a fundamental fact. One reason the Trump administration has had to deliver on so many promises to people of faith is that Christians, especially, have been suffering a steady and significant erosion of their religious freedoms. Whenever someone steps up to restore anything of significance, it can be incorrectly seen as heavy-handedness.

The full listing of the “top 100 victories” issued last week can be found here, but some highlights include:

  • The establishment of the White House Faith Office, the founding of the Centers for Faith, the launching of the Religious Liberty Commission and the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias.
  • The Trump administration has called for the ending of taxpayer abortion. The Hyde Amendment, which prohibits our tax dollars from going to pay for the slaughter of preborn children, is once again being enforced. The Mexico City Policy has been reinstated. And illegal immigrants are no longer eligible for paid abortions Veterans Affairs hospitals.

President Trump has declared that it’s the official position of the United States that there are two genders, and that men shouldn’t be allowed to play in girl sports. President Trump has declared that no sexually confused minor should be allowed to be sexually mutilated.

School choice and parental right have also been prioritized. The administration has expressed the conviction that parents and their children should be free to opt out of public schools and instead choose private, religious, or charter schools. President Trump has ended the COVID-19 vaccine mandates. In addition to calling for the abolishment of the Department of Education,” the administration recognizes that no secrets should be kept from parents.

The Department of Justice has expressed support for faith-based charter schools. Religious expression is now protected in the workplace. Military chaplains will no longer be censored. The Department of Health and Human Services has vowed to protect healthcare worker’s conscience rights.

A Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism has been launched – a strong counter to the many colleges and universities who employ and tolerate individuals spewing hateful rhetoric.

President Trump has vowed to “end the weaponization of government and free speech.” This involves a series of executive orders that, in addition to championing personal freedom and liberty, call for an end censorship, and prevent financial institutions from discriminating against Christians by refusing to do business with them.

The Trump administration listed numerous “religious days of remembrance” they’ve recognized raging from Easter and Passover to the National Day of Prayer. Numerous proclamations have also been offered including the designation of Jewish American Heritage Month and the Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust.

From the very beginning, it was George Washington who stated our government gives “to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance” – a strong declaration that President Trump and his team appear to fully endorse and wholeheartedly embrace.

Image from Getty.

President Trump: Cheering for 500 Christians to Run for Office

Seated behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump encouraged via video attendees at the North Carolina Pastor Summit to continue encouraging Christians to run for public office.

“I will be cheering you on as you recruit 500 church members to run for office in 2026 and 2028,” he said.

President Trump also shared a laundry list of accomplishments:

“I have ended the radical left war on religious believers, and I stopped the Biden administration’s persecution of Christians and pro-life activists. I created a presidential commission to protect religious liberty, and we established the Department of Justice Task Force to eradicate anti-Christian bias, of which, sadly, there’s a lot, but we have pretty much put it to an end.

“We also restored the fundamental principle that God created two genders, male and female, and we’re keeping men out of women’s sports.”

It’s long been known that many of our Founding Fathers were men of deep Christian faith. Both their convictions and governing philosophy stemmed largely from their devotion to God. After all, it was President John Adams who famously observed, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Three of the founders were ordained ministers. John Witherspoon was a pastor who signed the Declaration of Independence, pastor Lyman Hall was a delegate to the Continental Congress, and Robert Paine was a military chaplain during the American Revolution.

Nine pastors served in the Continental Congress. For the first Congress, Lutheran minister Frederick Muhlenberg served as the first Speaker of the House.

Critics of President Trump, many of whom accuse Christian conservatives of so-called “Christian Nationalism,” seem ignorant to the long history of Christ followers serving in elected office. As evidenced from our nation’s founding, it’s not some new phenomenon.

After Jimmy Carter lost his gubernatorial bid in Georgia in 1966, he became a Southern Baptist missionary. He settled in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, and rented a room at the YMCA. He was there to share the Good News and also plant a church.

Looking back on his time in the small town, the 39th president said the experience affirmed his convictions that “the teachings of Christ could be applied to a secular existence.”

Carter decided to run for governor again in 1970, a race he would win, and then launch his successful bid for president in 1976. Jimmy Carter long held that it was his Christian faith that compelled him to run for office each time.

Back in 1980, speaking to evangelical leaders in Texas, Ronald Reagan told those gathered, “I know this is nonpartisan, so you can’t endorse me, but I want you to know that I endorse you!”

Reagan encouraged those gathered to not only vote but also get involved in the process and community on every level.

Frank Wolf is a former congressman who served Virginia’s 10th district between 1981 and 2015. For decades, he boldly and unapologetically lived his faith very publicly in Congress.

He once declared, “My hope and prayer is that the body of Christ in America will awake with holy boldness, a boldness content neither with silence nor mere words but that backs up those words with action and results. Scripture makes it clear that there is an obligation to speak out on behalf of those being persecuted.”

He also added, “As a follower of Jesus, there is a call to work for justice and reconciliation, and to advocate for those who cannot speak for themselves.”

Rep. Wolf once spoke at Focus on the Family. I had the privilege of driving him to the airport for an early morning flight. I asked him about his early days in politics and he said, “Do you realize how few people decide who actually represents us in Congress?”

I think I said something about only half of the electorate voting, and he replied, “Oh, it’s actually a lot less than that.” He then proceeded to explain that while half of the electorate may vote in a general election, approximately 15% or 20% vote in a primary. But then who decides who runs in the primary? In a caucus state, it’s in the single digits.

Representative Wolf’s main point was Christians can have an oversized impact – but they have to get involved, either by running themselves or voting for believers who do throw their hat in the ring.

As Christians, we’re all called to be involved in public service, whether as voters or as candidates. Praying and cheering for 500 Christians to be running for office is a good start, but we’d all benefit in a mighty way if that milestone was only the beginning of a landslide movement for believers in Jesus Christ to serve.

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Amy Coney Barrett: Wife, Mom and Supreme Court Justice

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett is out with a new book this week, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.

In its review, The New York Times pays the 53-year-old justice a compliment, suggesting the work “Is as careful and disciplined as its author,” but then goes on to describe the book as being “studiously bland.”

Yet one of the most interesting elements of books by members of the High Court usually stems from the interviews the justices grant in their effort to promote their projects. We regularly read their decisions and hear from them on the bench, but they’re historically tight-lipped and often outside the media spotlight. As a result, it’s easy to draw caricatures of the nine members that are often far removed from reality.

Justice Barrett is the first and only female member of the court with school-age children, and seven in all: Emma (22), Vivian (19), Tess (19), John Peter (16), Liam (14), Juliet (12), and Benjamin (11).

In a USA Today interview this past week, we see a real poignant and sentimental side of the 103rd associate justice. She talks about leaving Notre Dame Law School and South Bend, Ind., and especially the private life many take for granted. Justice Barrett describes standing out front of their house during a farewell party, hearing the children playing in the yard, longtime friends coming and going.

“I knew that I would never be able to feel as free with my friends and the people who I was interacting with,” she said. “The hardest thing for us to give up was just that freedom, the ease that you feel with friends you’ve had for a long time, and the freedom that you feel about having a life that’s outside of the public eye.”

Back in 2006, then Professor Barrett spoke to Notre Dame Law School graduates and reminded them that their “fundamental purpose in life is not to be a lawyer, but to know, love, and serve God.”

After being nominated by President Trump in 2020 and confirmed by the United States Senate, life went on for the Barretts in Washington, D.C., of course, only now with a security detail in tow. “My daughter doesn’t really enjoy being picked up from soccer practice in an armored vehicle,” she acknowledged.

Once upon a time, Supreme Court justices were able to walk unrecognized or unbothered out on the Mall during the lunch hour. Early in his tenure on the High Court, Justice Clarence Thomas was known to walk to morning Mass. Still, Justice Barrett works hard to maintain some degree of normalcy.

“I spend my days talking to law clerks about cases and writing and analyzing and reading, and then I leave and I’m on the sidelines of a soccer game or making a grocery run or serving lunch, volunteering at my children’s school,” she reflected.

Asked about how different life is at the Supreme Court or appeals court as compared to her career as a law professor, Justice Barrett pulled back the curtain.

“When you’re a law professor, sure, you’re giving people grades, you’re writing law review articles,” she said. “But when you are a judge, your decisions affect real people. If it’s a criminal case, it’s the liberty of someone. If it’s a capital case, it’s the life of someone.”

Does the burden of the work cause her to lose sleep?

“Sometimes I’m up at night because I’m trying to figure out the right answer, and they’re really hard, and it’s important to get it right,” she said. “Sometimes I’m up in the night because I’m working on an opinion, and it can be difficult to think about how to write the opinion and how to write it in the right way to keep a majority.”

Justice Barrett has brought to the High Court the sensibilities of not only a judge concerned with abiding by the Constitution, but also a wife and mother concerned with real-life challenges. During oral arguments this past January, Barrett pushed back on an attorney who suggested blocking or filtering content negated the need for age-verification software.

“Well, whoa, whoa, whoa,” Barrett said to the lawyer. “Content filtering for all those devices, I can say from personal experience, is difficult to keep up with,” she said. “I think that the explosion of addiction to online porn has shown that content filtering isn’t working.”

During the interview with USA Today, Justice Barrett disclosed that she saw Abigail Adams as a personal hero, and it’s easy to see why.

“She had many children and ran the farm, and she made money for the family because she was a shrewd investor,” Barrett said. “But she couldn’t do this (serve as a Supreme Court justice) because she didn’t have the rights and just because of the way the world was. But now our Constitution has changed and our society has changed in ways that the mother of school-aged children can serve on the Supreme Court.”

Like Barrett, Abigail Adams, wife to President John Adams, was a person of deep Christian faith. Wrote Adams, “He (or she) who neglects his duty to his Maker, may well be expected to be deficient and insincere in his duty towards the public.”

Justice Barrett’s life and testimony makes clear she has prioritized her devotion to the Lord in both word and deed.

Please join us in continuing to pray for Justice Amy Coney Barrett, her husband, Jesse, and their seven children.

Image from Getty.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth Fires Director of ‘Transgender Healthcare’

Pete Hegseth has fired Navy Commander Janelle Marra, who had been serving as “Deputy Medical Director for Transgender Healthcare” at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego.

In announcing the move on Twitter, Secretary Hegseth’s communication was short and blunt, writing:

“Pronouns UPDATED: She/Her/Fired”

If you’re surprised that the United States military even had such a position, especially nearly nine months into the new Trump administration, you wouldn’t be alone.

“My passion for compassionate healthcare is reflected in my focus on women’s and LGBT + health ensuring inclusive and holistic care for all service members,” posted Commander Marra.

Big problem.

Back on January 27, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14183. It was titled, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness” and made clear that the Armed Forces is no place for radical social experimentation:

“The United States military has a clear mission: to protect the American people and our homeland as the world’s most lethal and effective fighting force. Success in this existential mission requires a singular focus on developing the requisite warrior ethos, and the pursuit of military excellence cannot be diluted to accommodate political agendas or other ideologies harmful to unit cohesion.”

“Recently, however, the Armed Forces have been afflicted with radical gender ideology to appease activists unconcerned with the requirements of military service like physical and mental health, selflessness, and unit cohesion. Longstanding Department of Defense (DoD) policy (DoD Instruction (DoDI) 6130.03) provides that it is the policy of the DoD to ensure that service members are “[f]ree of medical conditions or physical defects that may reasonably be expected to require excessive time lost from duty for necessary treatment or hospitalization.” As a result, many mental and physical health conditions are incompatible with active duty, from conditions that require substantial medication or medical treatment to bipolar and related disorders, eating disorders, suicidality, and prior psychiatric hospitalization.”

Not surprisingly, lawsuits quickly followed and lower court judges immediately pounced, initially halting the move. But by a 6-3 vote in May, the Supreme Court issued an unsigned order allowing the federal government to enforce the ban.

In issuing his ban on “trans” troops, President Trump was right.

“Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.”

Back in May, Secretary Hegseth posted, “We are leaving WOKENESS and WEAKNESS behind. No more pronouns, no more climate change obsessions, no more emergency vaccine mandates, no more DUDES IN DRESSES.”

And now, no more “Deputy Medical Director for Transgender Healthcare.”