Charlie Kirk didn’t begin his political activism from a Christian point of view.
He, like many others, thought that religion could be held separate from the political sphere, a self-imposed separation of church and state.
But, the more he became involved in conservative politics and policies, the more he changed his views on the role of Christianity in every sphere of life.
“Everything I do incorporates Jesus Christ,” he said. “The mechanisms of a religious society are good for everybody. When somebody walks around and thinks that you were created and that you’re not God, you tend to have better citizens.”
Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Boyce College, recently wrote about the dramatic change in Charlie’s approach to public discourse: “He began to argue with consistency that a recovery of Christian truth was essential for a lasting conservatism. He was right.”
Conservatism was the door through which he fully embraced the Gospel of Christ and advocated for that Gospel to be the governing rule of our nation.
As he examined the issues of marriage and family, life, gender identity, the role of government in the life of the individual, and gun laws, he grew in his faith. A trip to Israel when the U.S. embassy moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem sparked a growing interest in faith matters, and soon, he was talking with pastor Rob McCoy about the Christian foundation of the United States of America.
Even NBC described his transformation as a “metamorphosis” when they wrote about what they termed his “Christian nationalism” in 2024.
Suddenly, political activism and achievement were no longer Charlie’s primary goals.
“God calls you to care about your nation’s welfare. I never say it’s the most important thing. It’s not. The most important thing is giving your life to Christ. I say that I’m doing the second most important thing, which is to make sure you can do the first thing. We need to continue to be able to create Biblical citizens, and that’s what I’m focused on,” he said in 2022.
And for that, he was assassinated. Brutally. Publically. Ruthlessly.
I am a Christian in the United States of America. I believe many of the things Charlie Kirk espoused after his metamorphosis. Sometimes, if I happen to voice my views or, more rarely, post them on social media, I am verbally attacked. I see it happening to my Christian friends.
Charlie’s murder brings to mind every time a college professor told us to sit down and shut up. Everytime our family members said they weren’t comfortable having us at their Thanksgiving dinner. Everytime we’ve been called hateful, judgmental, hypocritical, and evil because we voiced a Biblical worldview and dared to apply the Gospel to our politics.
Yet, we hold to what the Bible says. We trust in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We love our enemies. We want to conserve the institutions and values of our nation so that more people can have the life, liberty, and domestic tranquility that we have enjoyed, but more importantly, so that more people will have the freedom to accept the Gospel and be changed by it.
If we don’t conserve the basic building blocks of our society- marriage, family, free exercise of religion, freedom of speech- then we have a hand in ruining the framework through which Charlie Kirk and generations of Americans have heard, experienced, and grown in the Gospel.
We love others without threatening, belittling, or lying to them, yet we remain firm in our convictions, sharing Truth in conversation, in how we vote, and in how we live our lives.
We hold out our hands to a dying nation, just as God did to His people Israel: “I held out My hands all the day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own imaginations; a people who provoke Me to My face continually…”
Charlie Kirk did the same thing in recent years.
He knew that the only thing that those who opposed him could do was to kill his body. They have not killed his soul.
They have not killed the soul of our nation either because he, and others like him, have been willing to take a bold stance for the Gospel of Jesus in every sphere of life. Let’s continue to do so as well, no matter the cost.
Sarah Dixon Young 