I didn’t know what to say about these past twelve days. I made a few feeble attempts.1 I literally wrote something each day and deleted it. Each day felt like a year’s worth of change.2 Hot takes are all you can get on that kind of timeline, and they rarely age well.
So I waited.
Would it be about politics? Faith? Cancel culture vs. consequence culture? Free speech? What did it mean that millions were saying, “I am Charlie Kirk?”
Many people had a lot to say; some were quick to make a point that they were close friends or post any photo they had to prove they knew Charlie. I had mixed feelings about our tendency to make it about ourselves, so I just waited.3 I didn’t know Charlie. I’d only seen a few of his videos. At most, I carried around a Turning Point pocket Constitution booklet in my purse, something I started doing during 2021 when it seemed like we were going to have to show our papers just to be allowed entrance to public life.
Several people in my acquaintance circle had texted or messaged me, simply asking, “Hey, Charlie Kirk’s murder really broke me. Am I alone in how this affected me?” I assured them they were not; I’d been crying, too. It was hard to focus on regular daily life and work.
Yesterday was Charlie’s memorial, and it was powerful. It was also a good sending-forward service. We can mourn in the moments it hits us, but now we step forward in action and living.
What happens next depends on the soil.
Initial emotions—extremes of joy or sadness—always revert to our status quo unless we take action to change it. It’s not a bad thing to have a status quo, or we’d always be bouncing between extremes, but it does make it hard to make the necessary changes in life.
Matthew 13:1-23 always whispers in my head when something momentous happens. It’s the parable of the sower and seeds in which Jesus tells us about what can happen to seeds.
Some seed falls along the path, and the birds eat it up quickly. This is a person who heard the Gospel but didn’t understand it. The enemy comes along and steals away what was sown in their heart.
Some seeds fall in rocky places with little soil. A plant springs up quickly because the soil is shallow, but when the sun and heat come up, the plant withers because it has no roots. This is a person who hears the Gospel with joy and receives it, but they don’t root themselves deeply through the habits of faith (which we’ll talk about in a bit), and when trouble comes along, they fall away.
Some seeds fall among thorns, which grow alongside the plants and eventually choke them out. This is a person who hears the word, but the worries of life, bad friends and habits, and the deceitfulness of wealth choke out the Gospel, and they are unfruitful.
Some seeds fall on good soil and produce a crop, generating many more seeds. This is someone who hears the Gospel, understands it, and sets about living a life to produce more seeds.
I’m not going to waste my time talking about those who oppose what Charlie stood for and have spent the past ten days mocking, hating, “yeah but” responding, pretending it didn’t matter—I have no interest in throwing pearls after swine. In Matthew 24:12, a passage in which Jesus discusses the end of time, we learn that the love of most people will grow cold. We have significant numbers of people of all ages who have fallen into what is described in Romans 1:24-28; that is, they have pursued sin and disgusting desires so completely that God has given them over to it. These people will not be reasoned with; they are driven by a dark heart that is cold.
No, my concern right now is not those people. I am concerned about the parable of the sower and the seeds and the sudden upsurge of people interested in church, in the Gospel, and in changing their life to be more directed towards God after Charlie’s example.
The seed is good, but what is the soil like?
My question, with that in mind, is how do we live now? As the emotion and memory fade in the next news cycle and with distraction, how do you avoid wasting the momentum? How do you find a way to change your status quo to something better when it’s not trending anymore?
What does it mean to say, “I am Charlie Kirk?”
Let’s take a look at Charlie’s life and see if his example might help (1 Corinthians 11:1).
It seemed as if Charlie was rooted and anchored in Jesus Christ, as well as in the Word and in daily prayer.4 I make this assumption based on the overabundance of the fruit of the Spirit present in Charlie’s life and in many of his followers. He had a joyousness about him, even in the heat of debate. He didn’t come across as vengeful, angry, or hateful.
Having fruit means propagation, something future to come. Life in the flesh is a dead end. Real fruit only comes from a real relationship in Christ.
Not only was that his foundation, but it was his most important relationship. It seemed that Charlie had a daily living relationship with Jesus Christ, for which there is no substitute.
Faith is a habit, not a magical emotional feeling. As a follower of Christ since childhood, I can attest to this. There are hard, hard times where you don’t feel what you think you should feel, but you do the habits of faith—reading and studying the Bible, constant prayer with God, connection with other believers—whether you feel it or not.
You can incorporate all the crosses, ceremonies, symbols, creeds, histories, and traditions into your spiritual life, in your words, on your social media profiles, and around your home, but it means nothing. You can invoke the name of God and be moral, you can say Christ is King and wave a cross, but without truly bending a knee to Jesus and committing to that relationship, it’s nothing. Intellectual approaches to understanding God are not a saving relationship.
It seemed as if Charlie was a bridge builder politically, but he also put up gates.
Guard your heart (Proverbs 4:23). Calls for unity are not blank checks. You don’t put new wine into old wineskins (Matthew 9:17). You don’t try to unite what is opposed, what cannot exist together. Charlie said that he wanted to be known for courage and his faith. He did not say he wanted to be known for his politics. Christians are part of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, and the limp cries for political “unity” come with a warning for those with faith: do not be unequally yoked (2 Corinthians 6:14).
But bridge-building politically while staying in the Kingdom is hard. Political connections should not be mistaken for spiritual connections.
We can see this in the grotesque behavior of some far-right influencers.5 Charlie didn’t seem to cast aside friendships overtly, but it seemed that he was able to identify when the nature of it had changed. God seems to have given him the wisdom—directly, or in the form of wise spiritual counsel—to take inobtrusive actions that necessitated those quietly erected gates. The professional or amiable political connection remained, but a gate was placed in front of deeper personal or spiritual connection.
In that sense, I’m guessing Charlie prayed for godly wisdom every day, because he seemed unwilling to dwell in the company of mockers, and instead, seemed to dwell in what was godly (Psalm 1).
Monitor your own life accordingly. Your inputs will steer your ship.
Charlie had adopted the Sabbath in terms of technology, in which he put his phone away from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. A good way to reduce harmful inputs is to reduce them all to two: God and family.
Right now, there’s a lot of anger, so we have to address that. If you feel anger, focus it on something good, something Stephen Miller said when J.D. Vance hosted The Charlie Kirk Show’s first episode after Kirk’s death. Righteous anger is always carefully controlled anger, though carefully controlled anger is not always righteous anger.
But seriously, what do we do?
That’s all well and good, but if you’re like me, you like specific marching orders. It’s why I wrote the New Year’s post about small habits changing trajectory in a big way.
Get a Bible, and read it. Start in the book of John if you’ve not read the Bible before. Talk to God while you read His Word. Read it without bringing your misconceptions and expectations to it. Ask God for wisdom and guidance.
Turn off social media. Try a technology Sabbath. Don’t give your eyes, mind, and heart over to addictive gaming, online forums, mindless entertainment, or social media, or you will lose the ability to discern when you are being manipulated.
Charlie educated himself well, without college. Value self-education and learning. Keep your mind active and educated.6 At the memorial service, Larry Arn, from Hillsdale College, said he told a young Charlie to start with the Bible, read the classics, and study the founding of our country. But, Arn warned, you will have to suffer, study, and think. Charlie ended up doing 31 online courses at Hillsdale.
Work to rewire your brain not for mindless technology, but for sharp thinking. Study to show yourself approved unto God. (2 Timothy 2:15). Make the practices and habits that help you lose taste for the low things in life that infect your mind and spirit. Avoid excessive conspiracy theory; don’t let your distrust in government exceed your trust in God.
Take pride in meaningful work in daily life. You may be called to pick up a mic and do what Charlie did, but probably not. As G.K. Chesterton noted, the life of the ordinary person living an everyday and productive life of virtue is of extreme value. So do that. Wash the dishes. Mow the lawn. Pay your taxes. Be a good husband or wife or son or daughter. That is not a low calling or boring life; it’s the highest calling. The ocean isn’t made of the flashy whitecaps, but of countless numbers of water molecules. The accumulation of this makes a great nation. In your daily life, consider the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20). A million average people living lives that honor God has a huge impact.
Have courage, and be kind. Care about people beyond the surface. Speak the Truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). Have conversations and debates with joy instead of anger. Seek the Kingdom instead of the dollar. We shouldn’t be transactional people, where our interactions are solely about getting what we want from a person before moving on.
Make a choice for what is good. Erika Kirk, in her powerful speech at the memorial, said we should choose prayer, courage, beauty, adventure, family, a life of faith, but most of all, to choose Christ.
Don’t be afraid to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. On Charlie’s desk, there was a framed verse that he’d look at every day:
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? — Micah 6:8
That’s pretty good advice.
Epilogue: This is not my greatest writing. I felt that I couldn’t move forward with this blog without discussing this event, although I’m still unsure about its significance and meaning as of now.
I said a few things on social media and on Substack notes. I wrote about my initial reaction to the assassination, and when the shooter was turned in by his father. Then I wrote about the destructive power of trans and antisemitic ideology (the latter of which would rear its ugly head quickly, sadly). I commented on frustrations I had about how people were begrudgingly trying not to condone Kirk’s assassination, but also hinting they thought it was deserved. I wrote about a little run-in I had with folks in a coffee shop. not exactly mourning Kirk’s death. And I shared a quick photo from my tiny hometown that made me so proud of where I came from.
On September 10, Charlie Kirk was assassinated for his political beliefs and martyred for his faith. Flags went half-mast.
On September 11, a shocked country tried to remember the horrors of 24 years ago while processing the horror of the day before. Charlie’s body was flown from Utah to Arizona on Air Force 2, accompanied by Vice President J.D. Vance.
On September 12, word broke that a father had turned his son in for the assassination, a young man allegedly caught up in transgender and furry extremism. Charlie’s widow, Erika, gave a speech from Turning Point headquarters in Arizona, vowing to continue the work Charlie had started, ensuring his name would not be forgotten.
On September 13, London was filled with over one million people taking to the streets for freedom and immigration concerns, marking the culmination of the “Raise The Colours” movement, which came together for “Unite The Kingdom.” Charlie Kirk’s name and face were held high, along with crosses and a sea of Union Jacks.
On September 14, social media was flooded with people discussing new interest in reading the Bible or going to church. Turning Point announced his videos had been streamed over two billion times since his assassination. That night, a memorial service at the Kennedy Center in D.C. saw people lining up hours before, the building so packed that many were left outside because there was no room.
On September 18, Erika Kirk was named the new CEO of Turning Point.
On September 21, Charlie’s memorial service was at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. The stadium and overflow were packed (74K people), and tens of thousands outside who couldn’t get in. It was watched by 100 million people and packed with the Gospel. Trump’s cabinet was there, and the Gospel of Christ was repeated many times.
I also have mixed feelings about taking selfies at the memorial and posting on social media, but I’ll just let that go.
His wife, Erika Kirk, the new CEO of Turning Point, had a ministry to help people read through the entire Word of God. I encourage you to sign up today at Biblein365. Start your daily relationship with Jesus Christ right now.
His bridge-building is now being used as proof of support for the wicked ideas of the truly far right (which has some overlap with the far left, a.k.a. the Horseshoe Theory). Admittedly, some seemed to be using the presence of the bridge as proof that he was crossing it. They do not recognize the gate he put up. Perhaps burning bridges has a place going forward, because again, we cannot be united with what is evil.
Hillsdale College offers excellent online courses at no cost. Frank Turek, who was Charlie’s mentor and there when he was killed, has online apologetics classes. Answers in Genesis has several online courses.