At our weekly Wednesday vespers service last night, I took the opportunity to say a few words about the murder of Charlie Kirk. Some of that is reproduced here.
I have not followed Charlie’s work closely all that long, but I have been greatly impressed by him, especially as it was obvious that he had matured a lot in his faith in recent years. Over the last few months, I watched interviews he did with Doug Wilson and Tucker Carlson, and both were superb. One thing that struck me in listening to him is not just how smart or courageous he was, but how eminently likable he was as a person. I never met Charlie, but I wish I had. It’s odd that you can miss someone you never really knew personally, but I feel that way about Charlie. He was a true American hero. It’s a shame we will never get to see what an even older, wiser Charlie could have accomplished.
Charlie did things the right way. He went into the belly of the progressive beast – the university campus – and had friendly but firm dialogue with people on the opposite end of the political spectrum. He was willing to debate anyone anytime because he understood that a free exchange of ideas is crucial to a free society. “When we stop talking to one another, the bullets start flying,” he once said. Ironically, he pursued his on-campus work as an alternative to violence.
In all the clips I’ve seen of Charlie’s engagement with others who disagreed with him, he was never overly combative or antagonistic; he never ridiculed or insulted those with different views even though they sometimes mocked him. He was looking for debate because he wanted our differences settled in an American way – through discussion of ideas in the public square. Charlie wanted to use persuasion, not force, to bring about his political vision. Charlie was a superb debater, partly because he was so knowledgeable on a wide range of topics, but also because he always kept his cool. He exposed the folly of the left in a friendly, humble, unassuming way. Sadly, since they could not answer Charlie’s reasoned arguments, they silenced him another way.
Charlie was an outspoken defender of the gospel, a defender of Christian politics, a defender of Western civilization, a defender of life in the womb, and a defender of God’s design for the family. His message for young people was convicting and compelling – and exactly what college students needed to hear: stop wasting your life with parties and hookups, get married young, have kids, work hard. He was brilliant, quick on his feet, extraordinarily gifted as an apologist/evangelist, and an influencer in the best sense of that word. He radiated joy and confidence in the Lord. Charlie died as a martyr and there is no doubt he heard “well done, good and faithful servant,” as he entered heavenly glory.
His death is tragic at a cultural and political level. His death is obviously also tragic at a personal level, as he leaves behind a wife and two children. Charlie consistently emphasized that what matters most in life is not money or fame, but faith in Jesus and love for family. Though he was cut down way too young, his legacy will endure. The left cannot beat the right in debate so it is resorting to violence (as it has always done). But if progressives expect Christians to quietly cower in fear, they are badly mistaken. I am confident Charlie’s martyrdom will only increase the boldness of others who share his views. As I have talked to several friends about his death, I do not find anyone caving in to fear; instead, I find renewed resolve to fix what is broken in our nation, no matter how difficult or dangerous.
Charlie was not some unhinged rightwing radical. His views were firmly inside historic Christian (and American) conservatism. He was calm and poised in public debate. He never said anything that could have provoked those on “his side” to resort to violence against political opponents. While many on the left are taking delight in his death, I am fully confident Charlie would want his supporters to take the high road. Do not return evil with evil. Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you.
I wonder how many people who had never heard of, much less listened to, Charlie before yesterday, will look into his work after hearing about his tragic and untimely death. How many of those people will find him convincing and compelling? Charlie’s influence is not finished – not by a long shot. I have no doubt there are many Gen Z young men who are chomping at the bit and working hard to become the next Charlie Kirk.
We should pray the perpetrator of this great wickedness is brought to justice speedily. And by justice, I mean the death penalty. One reason we are seeing an explosion of violent crimes is because so many of our magistrates have completely failed. The job of a civil ruler is to be a terror to the evil doer and a blessing to the righteous. The idiotic blindness of the Democratic Party has allowed evil to run wild. In their demented view, the villains are actually victims. They’ve been soft on crime, they’ve defunded police, they’ve destroyed the rule of law in many places in our country, and they’ve excused the worst forms of evil. And so it’s not a surprise we are seeing an explosion of evil, particularly racially and politically motivated evil. Add to that the kind of unhinged rhetoric of many Democrat Party leaders and widespread mental illness among progressives, and it’s no wonder we are seeing an upsurge of violence from the left.
The so-called culture war and the spiritual war almost completely overlap at this point. Whatever the problems are on the political and cultural right (and there are some significant ones, as Charlie did not hesitate to point out), they are minuscule compared to the left. The scales do not balance; the weight of depravity tips heavily to the left. The Democratic Party is functionally a tool of Satan at this point. Democrats openly disdain God and mock prayer. They murder babies and cut off the genitals of healthy youth. The vast majority of political violence today comes from the left. And so on. There can be no compromise with this kind of evil. It is demonic. It is Satanic. It must be stopped. A few generations ago, our nation summoned up the demons that Christendom had driven out of the West, for the most part, long ago. The demons answered the call, and here we are. More than anything else, we need a national exorcism. Charlie was doing his part to bring that about.
Is it right to be angry in light of Charlie’s murder and other recent atrocities? Scripture commands us to be slow to anger. But there is most certainly a time for righteous anger. We should be angry in a way the mirrors God’s own anger at widespread wickedness. In our anger, we must not become vigilantes who resort to violence but neither can we afford to be passive. Great evil needs to be confronted and dealt with. Perhaps the best way to honor Charlie is to do what Charlie was doing – trust God, love truth, care for your family, defend the Bible boldly in public, and work to to promote the Christianization of our nation in whatever ways you can.
We must pray and we must work. Last night at vespers we chanted Psalm 2 and sang a metrical version of Psalm 94. These imprecatory psalms are well suited to our situation. Our prayer is that God would crush the left, smash wokeness, and dash progressivism to pieces. Our prayer is that Christ would inherit the nations he purchased with his blood, including our nation. We want to see God open eyes and grant repentance. We want to see the gospel of the kingdom advance. We want to see God restore biblical civil justice to our land. We want to see sinners persuaded of their need for a Savior. We want to see young people drawn back to faithful churches. We want to see America’s Christian heritage honored, recovered, and improved upon.
While we do not know who killed Charlie, it’s not hard to figure out how his death fits a pattern of leftwing violence. No doubt, Charlie’s blood cries out for vengeance. But we should also remember the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Charlie did not die in vain anymore than he lived in vain. His death will be used for good as God sees fit. Charlie called his ministry Turning Point; perhaps the Lord will make his death to be a real turning point in our nation’s history.
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They couldn’t answer Stephen’s arguments so they killed him.
“[54] Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. [55] But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. [56] And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” [57] But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. [58] Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. [59] And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” [60] And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.”
— Acts 7:54-60
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The right is the dominant political force in America for the first time in a long time. This is a crucial moment. Events like yesterday’s murder/martyrdom of Charlie Kirk will only solidify that, especially amongst red-blooded young men. But other demographics are also having their eyes opened. The only way the right can lose its cultural and political momentum is if people on the right do something dumb. The moral bankruptcy of the left is plain for all sensible people to see. The right has the best leadership, influencers, and spokesmen. The right has all the political talent. Yes, the left still rules institutions like the university and mainstream media – but those are precisely the institutions that are losing their grip and declining in power.
The best way to honor Charlie Kirk’s legacy is not to return evil for evil. Instead, we should work at raising up 100, even 1000, more Charlie Kirks who can give persuasive testimony to the truth in the public square. We should ask, “What would Charlie do?” He would tell us to use all the spiritual weapons and political tools at our disposal to keep pushing the culture in a Christian direction. What would Charlie want us to do? He would want us to keep destroying every argument and opinion raised up against the knowledge of God and his Word.
“[3] For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. [4] For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. [5] We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.”
— 2 Corinthians 10:3-6
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Looking back over the last 5+ years, it’s really impressive how conservatives/the right/Christians did not simply throw in the towel and swallow the black pill back in January 2021. Instead, we fought back and have totally shifted the momentum in the country. It’s like Chesterton said: “The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God’s paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle – and not lose it.” That’s what we’ve done: everything looked lost, we fought back anyway, and found that we really can turn our country around. Yes, there is a lot more work to be done. We’re only in the beginning stages of what needs to be accomplished. But just when it looked like the culture war was over, and the left could declare total victory, the right staged an astounding comeback. This chapter of our nation’s story will make exciting fodder for historians in the future. The right was a heavy underdog, but pulled off a huge upset. Who knows what the future holds, but there are countless reasons for optimism right now.
Every political movement has its flaws and its riffraff (see, eg, David’s band of outlaws who joined his movement in the wilderness in 1 Samuel 22). That’s true of our movement too. But the quality of leadership, the widespread respect for the Bible and the church, and the kind of cultural/political discussions taking place on the right (like overturning Obergefell) are in sharp contrast to the explicit “celebration” of perversion and the total lack of leadership in the Democratic Party. The differences really could not be more stark. The left has no vision for the country. They have no love for America and her heritage. They want to drive God and prayer out of public life. The left is all about promoting sexual deviance and the coming climate catastrophe. It’s all about accusing normal, decent people of being racists and bigots. It’s all about advocating for the most shallow form of racial identity politics and the divisiveness of cultural Marxism. It’s all about government-run grocery stores (like that’s never been tried!) and the willingness to use political violence, including mobs, riots, and shootings. The two sides of the political spectrum are further apart than at any time in our nation’s history (including the War Between the States, when at least both sides professed to worship the same God).
But the contrast of right vs left is not the only contrast worth noting. The right of 2025 is completely different from the right of previous generations – and it’s so, so much better on the whole. This is why I think today’s right is so much more potent than in the past. We are better historically informed, more widely grounded in the Christian faith, and more willing to actually fight back instead of getting steered and manipulated by the left’s false accusations. And now that left’s accusations are no longer working, the total lack of substance on the left is being fully exposed. The left is morally and intellectually bankrupt. The right has a treasure of riches.
Charlie Kirk deserves a lot of credit for the vibe shift that has taken place, especially among young men. Kirk’s martyrdom likely cemented a whole generation of men to the right. Kirk’s role in the 2024 election cannot be overstated. What I appreciate most about Kirk is that he presented a fully integrated worldview at just the time when many Big Eva-type leaders were telling us we needed to go silent on political issues for the sake of evangelism. Kirk took the opposite approach, constantly mixing evangelism and politics, and it paid huge dividends. He proved that fighting the culture war and evangelizing the lost go hand in hand. He showed how the Christian faith answers not just the “How do I get my sins forgiven?” question, but all the other major cultural and political questions of our day. He could move seamlessly from talking about Jesus as the only way of salvation to talking about the importance of marriage and the wisdom of the second amendment. In Kirk’s on-campus apologetics, as well as in his life, everything was integrated under Christ’s lordship. May God give us more like him.
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TPC family,
I am sure many of you are still reeling from the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk last week. Charlie is a true American martyr – not many Christians in our country have died for their Christian faith but Charlie now takes his place among those believers throughout the ages who have paid the ultimate price for their loyalty to Christ. As far as I know, our nation has never experienced anything of this nature. We have seen Christians killed for their faith in church shootings and in attacks on Christian schools, but never anything quite like Charlie’s public murder. I would urge you to pray for Charlie’s wife and kids, the direction of TPUSA, the state of our nation, the overthrow of the wicked, and that God would raise up many who can take his place and carry on his work as public evangelists/apologists. Obviously, no words can capture the magnitude of this horrific event – and yet we are also comforted, knowing God uses the suffering of his saints to advance his kingdom. There have been countless worthwhile pieces written in the wake of last week’s tragedy, but here are a few:
- Joe Rigney and James Wood (speakers from our 2024 TPC Conference) have articles in World Magazine
- I highly recommend watching this tribute to Charlie by Vice President J. D. Vance. It has a bit of language, but it’s impressive to see our nation’s VP recite the Lord’s Prayer and Nicene Creed.
- Katy Faust shares some good thoughts in the aftermath of Charlie’s martyrdom here and Suzanne Venker reflects on his courageous counter-cultural message here.
- Jeremy Carl has some good thoughts here.
- I have some thoughts on my blog here (similar to what I shared last Wednesday night) and Bryan Dawson and I recorded an 1819News podcast yesterday that should be out this afternoon. I also recorded a Reformation Red Pill podcast with Joshua Haymes yesterday. Since Charlie’s death brings to the fore the use of imprecatory psalms against the church’s enemies, here’s an old podcast on those psalms.
A couple more notes:
- If you are interested in studying Romans 2 further after last Sunday’s sermon, you can find an old sermon here or a longer essay here.
- If you are interested in further study of 1-2 Samuel, I have some notes, including a lot of really cool chiastic outlines, here.
Blessings,
Pastor Rich
TPC Pastor's Page 