Remembering Charlie Kirk (1993-2025)

In September of 2024, almost a year ago exactly, my wife and I met Charlie Kirk at a pro-life event hosted in Tucson, AZ. We had the privilege of meeting him and the Christian apologist and podcaster, Frank Turek. It was an amazing event intended to mobilize conservatives - and especially conservative Christians - for the pro-life cause in Arizona. My wife and I had known about Charlie Kirk for some time from his interactions with college students at his college campus events. He was well-known as a political activist on the Right. But on this particular evening, I saw a young brother in Christ passionately defend pre-born life from an unapologetically Christian perspective. Clips of Kirk sharing the gospel with college students are easy to find on the internet.

Yesterday, September 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk was assassinated in a targeted shooting on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. The news of his death left me feeling stunned and sick to my stomach. My wife called me from work, crying about it. Friends and family members texted me in shock and disbelief. Meanwhile, people I knew from high school and others on social media celebrated this act of cowardice in callous depravity. It was a dark, difficult day.

Charlie Kirk was not just a passionate, effective politically conservative activist and organizer. He was those things, but more than that, he was a brother in Christ and fearless proclaimer of the gospel. In this short post, I want to reflect on his impact and what his being murdered means for the United States and the American church.

Charlie Kirk, the Fearless Proclaimer of Truth

Charlie Kirk was, no doubt, a controversial public figure. I mean "controversial" not in the sense that what he said was, on the whole, extreme. In fact, Charlie Kirk believed what, broadly, about half or more of all Americans believe. His most "controversial" opinion (and, by early indicators, one of the reasons for which he was murdered) is something virtually all human beings have believed prior to about 2015: that there are two, and only two, biological sexes, whatever someone might unfortunately believe about themselves. Not only is this a mainstream position in the culture generally, but virtually every Bible-preaching, Bible-believing church holds this view on the basis of Genesis 1-2. (In fact, at our church, it is in our Statement of Faith.) Charlie Kirk, in spite of constantly receiving threats for his views, continued to fearlessly defend these views on college campuses across the country.

I call Charlie Kirk a "fearless proclaimer of truth" not because I agreed with every claim he ever made. For instance, I've always thought that while he has good points to make in his argument that college is a "scam," his defense of that claim required nuance that he had not yet given. I call him this because, in spite of a political climate in this country increasingly corrupted by the liberty-destroying belief that violence is a proper response to a claim you don't like, Kirk went before people who strongly disagreed with him and interacted with them with considerable respect and grace. Politically, though Kirk was certainly a conservative, perhaps more fundamental were his commitments to free speech and open debate and dialogue. The clip below is getting fresh traction online because of recent events.

As it turns out, these comments were prophetic. At Kirk's campus events, he invited those who disagreed with him to the front of the line to ask questions. For this, he was murdered.

But I don't want readers to miss that along with being politically conservative, Charlie Kirk was also - and more seriously - a passionate follower of Jesus Christ. In a recent Instagram post, one user shared two clips. The first is Kirk's response to a man asking him what Kirk would tell him if he had 30 seconds left to live. Kirk responds by sharing the gospel. In the second clip, he is asked how he would want to be remembered; his answer is that he wants to be remembered "for courage for my faith." Even as I write these words, tears well up because, though the injustice is great in that his life was stolen from him far too soon, Charlie Kirk is in the blessed presence of God right now. In this brother in Christ, we find a tremendous example of courage for one's faith in the midst of an increasingly hostile culture. Kirk was a fearless proclaimer of truth. Let's follow his example.

What This Means for America and the American Church

Many of us have been on an emotional rollercoaster in the last 24 hours. I've felt shock, numbness, and anger (God forgive me if it wasn't righteous anger!). Many of us have found it hard to comprehend what this means for the United States. What does it mean if a young, 31-year-old man gets murdered, in the prime of his life, for the crime of believing things some people don't like? How can open debate and dialogue, values that built this country, continue in light of this?

What I can say is this: Charlie Kirk's impact is perhaps now greater than ever. He has galvanized an entire generation of young people to put Christ first and advocate for their conservative values in the public square. My hope and prayer is that in the aftermath of this, we would become more fearless, not less, and follow his example in that way. My generation is increasingly being characterized with higher church attendance and more traditional values. We're not going anywhere.

If you are a Christian conservative, then your values are Kirk's, and they are what got him killed yesterday. Make no mistake; Kirk's Christian faith was partly the reason for his being murdered. So, what this means for the American church is that we must stop sacrificing truth on the altar of social acceptability. The answer to this is to be bolder in your faith. Communicate the truth clearly, out of love for those who hate Christ and so often hate us because they hate Christ. As Jesus teaches in John 15:18 (CSB):

"'If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me before it hated you.'"

We have the truth of God's Word on our side because our God, the Creator of all things, is sovereign and in control over this world. We know already that "the gates of Hades will not overpower" God's church (Matthew 16:18 CSB). Christ's is the victory. Charlie Kirk can say, now in God's presence, the words of Paul in Philippians 1:21 (CSB):

"For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."

Charlie Kirk has gained. He is in the presence of the Savior.

But his family is broken. Pray for Erika, his wife, and his two young children, who must now grow up without a father. Pray for God's constant presence and comfort in the midst of this darkness that has descended on their lives. And pray for our country. We live in divided and difficult times, but God is on his throne. Church, it is time to seek God's sanctifying work in our lives with renewed humility and fervency and be salt and light, with boldness, in this fallen world and broken culture. May God strengthen us with his grace and the joy of his presence in the days to come.