To the 2025 Christian Graduate

Dear graduate:

As you stand at the edge of adulthood, and the journey of your life stretches out before you, please take a moment to consider the words of someone a few years ahead of you:

Everything is horrible, and we are all going to die.

But there is bad news, too. Some of us won’t die right away. We will linger in the hellscape, twisting and withering like blades of grass shrinking from an approaching fire. We are the cursed ones, condemned to wander the charred earth paying bills and slowly turning into our parents. This is what adulthood is.

Probably the worst thing you can do is to try. One of two things will happen: you could fail, and I usually enjoy watching other people fail, and I will also enjoy watching you fail, but just know that failing is a possibility. I forgot what the other possibility is.

Marry quickly. Lower all of your standards except for physical beauty, because you can always teach a hot person how to be holy later on, this is what my wife did to me. Hurry. Remember that Jesus could come back at any time, so blurt out the vows and grab handfuls of privates. Have frenetic, awkward evangelical sex and create babies as fast as possible, because this is easier than changing the world. This is what children are: you point to them and make some vague platitude to yourself about sacrifice, and then you don’t have to think about when you were 19 and made a promise that your Christian shoegaze band was going to finish what Starflyer 59 started.

Buy a house. Develop opinions on shrubs. Slowly become more conservative, even if you don’t admit this to yourself. You don’t have to be a MAGA Republican, but one day you will find yourself enraged by the British monarchy or complaining that SNL isn’t funny anymore. Your children will be horrified by this, and will rebel by becoming progressive. Or, you can go the other way, and try to be one of the Cool Parents who wear clear frame glasses and pretend to like popular music. But your kids will find this just as horrifying, and will rebel by becoming conservative.

You will go through a phase where you think you don’t need to go to church anymore. This phase could last 20-25 years. Then, you will wake up one day and realize that your teenagers do not have the same protective barrier of repressed youth group weirdos that you did. You will rush back to church and tell the pastor “we need to belong somewhere, for weddings and funerals,” and he will say “ah yes, you just turned 41, come right this way.”

All along the way, it will feel like things are getting worse. Like the world has never been this bad. Here’s the good news: none of this is true. The world has always been this bad. Humans were stabbing each other with sticks and rocks before you got here, and humans will stab each other with sticks and rocks¹ until Jesus comes back.

Graduate, do not lose sight of what is truly important. One day you will stand before God to give an account for your days. There, in front of all the saints and angels, you will be asked one simple question about your time on earth: did you have a brand? This is why I am always telling the restoration committee that, yes, I may have committed several heinous sins, but my brand must be protected. Besides, I have various children, and that is a sacrifice.

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1. using AI