Charlie Kirk's murder: Does something feel different this time? Emphatically, yes.

By Gary Abernathy

Our nation often seems desensitized to violence, but Kirk’s shocking, senseless assassination will galvanize Christians

Charlie Kirk addresses the annual AmericaFest! celebration. (Turning Point USA)

In the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, many friends and acquaintances have asked me, “Don’t you think that something feels different about this?”

By that they mean that while murders, attempted murders and other acts of violence — some with firearms, some with other weapons — are always disturbing, it seems that there was something particularly monumental about Kirk’s cold-blooded murder.

I have to agree, even though I did not consider myself a Charlie Kirk acolyte. I admired what he had achieved, I knew the importance of his Turning Point USA organization, but I’m outside the demographic that Kirk was targeting, particularly with his college campus appearances. And yet, I well know that some members of both my immediate and extended family were close followers of Kirk’s and admirers of his ideas, boldness and courage. He was hugely influential to millions.

Like many people in recent years, while perusing YouTube (others caught him on other platforms) I would occasionally stop and watch a few minutes of his videos where he debated liberal students on their campuses. I remember thinking more than once that he was in a vulnerable position surrounded by many hostile observers and questioners (as well as by supporters, depending on the campus).

It’s been said, correctly, that Kirk was performing politics the right way, with open debates and civil discourse. The trouble is, too many on the left are increasingly uninterested in civil discourse. They just want to shut down the right and label us haters or bigots — especially the Christian right and, let’s be honest, especially the white Christian right.

Kirk Displayed Boldness, Courage

To be clear, Charlie Kirk’s message was not just one of conservatism. It was one of political conservatism based on a foundation in Christianity. This would have been relatively non-controversial throughout much of our nation’s history, but the rise of the Godless, humanistic far-left movement that has permeated our society, our universities and our media (both news and entertainment) in recent years means his message represented a dangerous threat to the liberal New World Order.

Boldly and straightforwardly — but with love and compassion — Kirk espoused a very traditional, Bible-based Christian-Judeo ethos. I didn’t agree with his take on every issue, especially on the subtleties of race issues. But he did not sugarcoat biblical viewpoints on homosexuality, transsexuality, abortion, etc., etc., that are the antitheses of the teachings of our modern society. He embraced the entirety of scripture, not just the select few “love” passages carefully memorized by liberals (as important as they are). And for simply sharing standard and traditional Bible principles, Charlie Kirk was accused of preaching “hate.”

I’m far from being a preacher and I make no claim to being a biblical scholar, although, like many Christians, I enjoy reading scholarly books on the Bible and participating in Bible studies that go in-depth into scripture. But we should all acknowledge of ourselves, as the apostle Paul humbly said, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.” (1 Tim. 1:15). I am, like millions of other Americans with all our faults and sins, a standard-issue Christian who considers the Bible to be the authoritative and infallible word of God. And I am in daily need of repentance, forgiveness and grace.

There’s no judgment being leveled here. We are all sinners. I have been friends with people guilty of some of the sins that Charlie Kirk spoke out about, and I’m grateful they were willing to be friends with this old sinner. But let’s don’t try to justify sin by calling it something positive, something it’s not — which is exactly what our modern liberal society attempts to do. The goal of us all should be to repent and move away from sin (which often results in failure, but we keep trying), ask God for forgiveness, and express gratitude for the grace of Jesus Christ that, for believers, washes away all sin. It is true — God loves the sinner, hates the sin.

I’m someone who has argued that Christians should not focus too intently on convincing this world, or even the United States, to behave as a purely Christian nation. The freedom of speech and religion that guarantees the practice of Christianity also guarantees the practice of other beliefs, or no beliefs at all. We do not want to turn the United States into a theocracy. At least I hope we don’t. And our minds should always be fixed more on the next world than on this one.

But there are some obvious truths that cannot and should not be ignored when it comes to our great nation. While they did not all subscribe to the same exact belief system, our founders shared a recognition that we were a country being guided by the hand of God — or “Providence,” as they sometimes said — and they considered that guidance and protection crucial to the new nation’s success.

Our Constitution is for the Religious

In his Sunday lesson, our pastor reminded everyone of a quote from our second president, John Adams — a key contributor to our nation’s founding and our Constitution — words that are fairly well known but worth revisiting.

In a letter to the Massachusetts Militia in October 1798, Adams, while president, wrote, “We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Again: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Throughout most of our history, Americans shared the belief in being a moral and religious people. Please spare us from clapping back with the obvious fact that Christians throughout history have often been hypocritical, immoral and sinful. Of course they have, and always will be. That’s why we need the grace of Jesus Christ. The point is that the dominant American belief and practice was to aspire to be better, based on a belief in a God of love, authority and judgment.

Our downward turn as a nation and our stark political divide so easily follows a falloff in church attendance that it is foolish to debate the point. Gallup has tracked such things for several decades. Church attendance in the U.S. was in the 70-80 percent range from the 1930s through the mid-1980s. It clung to the upper 60-percent mark until around 2000, when a precipitous drop-off steadily began (concurrent, I would argue, with the rise of the internet, 24-hour cable news, social media, humanism and the takeover of news and entertainment by the Godless left), landing us at today’s low point of only 47 percent of Americans who claim church membership.

Few are subjected to more ridicule in the general society today than Bible-believing Christians. We are accused of being hateful, racist, ignorant, backward science-deniers. It seems like half the TV shows and movies being produced feature villains who have been driven mad by their belief in fundamentalist Bible teachings.

Again: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Subsequently, belief in God has dipped to an all-time low of 81 percent (much higher than church attendance — obviously, the overriding attitude is to believe in God but not attend church, which is a problem). But even on that question the divide between the left and right is stark, with 92 percent of Republicans holding a belief in God, compared to just 72 percent of Democrats. Even more telling is identifying the divide by political philosophy, where we find that 94 percent of self-described conservatives believe in God, compared to just 62 percent of self-described liberals.

But verbally professing to believe in God is easy; actually demonstrating such belief is obviously at an all-time low. It is startling that only 62 percent of liberals could find it within themselves to muster the word “yes” when asked the question, “Do you believe in God?” An interesting follow-up question — pertinent to all of us — might have asked, “How do you put such belief into action?” Charlie Kirk’s life offered numerous examples.

For most of us, it’s tempting to put our own opinions ahead of biblical teachings. Frankly, the Bible says a lot of things I wish it didn’t. I don’t personally agree with some of the admonitions found in scripture. But as a Christian, I have to put aside my own opinions and subject myself to God’s will. He is God. I am not. We are created in his image, but we are entirely incapable of understanding everything the Bible teaches or requires. We believe by faith — which must exist without requiring proof. We trust in God — which requires subverting our egos to something greater.

We don’t live in a world where subjecting ourselves to God’s will is what we are encouraged to do. We are encouraged to be prideful and self-absorbed — the opposite of what Christians are supposed to be.

Which movement — God-believing or Godless — has become dominant in our media and overall culture? Which side’s messaging in movies, television, “mainstream” news and other forms of mass media are the most pervasive?

Easy answer. At the Emmy awards on Sunday, was there a moment of silence for Charlie Kirk, as there would have been for any liberal icon senselessly gunned down? No, but there was rapturous celebration for the anti-Trump, anti-Republican, uber-liberal Stephen Colbert show when it predictably won the Emmy for best talk show in the wake of its cancelation by CBS.

Consider this: We live in a satanic world where crowds openly cheer for accused murderers, as we saw this week after a hearing for a man accused of gunning down a health care executive. And where a network TV reporter calls texts between Kirk’s accused assassin and the suspect’s transsexual lover “very touching.”

‘Tolerance’ Not Enough for the Left

Throughout most of U.S. history, conservatives have watched our nation dramatically change for the worse thanks to the encroachment of liberal thought in society, higher education and media. Many Christians responded by embracing a position of tolerance. That is what was being requested. We must tolerate those who are different, even if those differences are in many cases in direct conflict with biblical teachings and traditional American values.

To this day, many Christians, myself included, still believe we must indeed be tolerant even of people with lifestyles and beliefs that are clearly antithetical to traditional Christianity because we are all sinners and we do not live in a theocracy. We all have to share our limited space as civilly as possible.

But again: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Eventually, the left crossed a line several years ago when tolerance was no longer what they were asking. They instead began demanding acceptance and even advocacy for aberrant and destructive behavior — for sinful behavior — all in the name of “diversity” and in order for us to avoid being accused of practicing “hate.” Efforts were made, often successfully, to cancel, fire or disgrace anyone who voiced opposition to the leftward movement or stood up for traditional values.

It reached the point where merely vocalizing traditional biblical beliefs — by simply quoting scripture — is today described by the left as “hateful.” Charlie Kirk was and is accused of spreading hate, because he was bold in sharing what the Bible teaches about sin — things this world describes as “alternative lifestyles,” “diverse identities” or “evolving social norms.”

To reiterate: God loves each of us, even though we are all sinners. But sinful behavior should be acknowledged as such. It should not be reclassified or mislabeled as “alternative lifestyles” or just an unavoidable part of “evolving norms.” When we start buying into such thinking, we become complicit in perpetuating further damage to our society.

“It’s not who we are,” former U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin told Fox News’ Bret Baier this week in regard to the Kirk assassination. But of course it is exactly what the United States has become.

“We’ve got to turn down the heat,” politicians and other pundits are saying. “We have to heal our divide.” “We need to respect each other more.” I often wrote such things over the years.

This time is different.

Trump’s Election Signaled a Reset

In the U.S., it appeared for decades that the far left was on its way to burying the traditional right until the election of 2016, when a huge backlash occurred and Americans said, “Not so fast.”

In accordance with the Christian-Judeo tradition, Donald Trump is just the latest in a long line of very personally flawed people who were chosen by God to lead a movement to defeat the humanistic anti-God forces. His boldness and bluntness in taking on the far left, while striking many of us as rude and crude, in fact emboldened others to stand up for themselves and push back against a world they were barely recognizing anymore.

There is some simple math at play here that Christians should not ignore. In its 2023-24 survey, the Pew Research Center found that 62 percent of Americans identify as Christians. That includes 40 percent who are Protestants and 19 percent who are Catholics (and three percent “other”). Among the faiths practiced by non-Christian Americans, five percent are atheists, six percent agnostic, and 19 percent “nothing in particular.” Finally, there are: Jewish, 1.7 percent; Muslim, 1.2 percent; Buddhist, 1.1 percent; and Hindu, 0.9 percent.

In other words, Christians still, by far, represent the largest number of Americans of any religion or non-religion. And even though not all Christians would identify with Charlie Kirk or Donald Trump, millions of them do — by whatever percentage you want to suggest, they will still far outnumber everyone else in such surveys.

Despite the fall-off in church attendance, the reality is that we are a Christian nation, and the odds are that churches and Christianity are about to surge and grow in record numbers for modern times. And it is self-defeating to pretend that we do not have strength in numbers.

No, might does not make right. We must stop short of advocating for Christian nationalism, and we must protect the rights of the minority. Again — and it cannot be stressed enough — we do not want the U.S. to become a theocracy. Christians who think they might like that would soon realize they do not.

While we can try to convert people to our thinking, as Christians are supposed to do, we cannot and should not impose by force or coercion the rules and practices of the church on society at large, as much as Christians might like to, or even think is justified.

But we also no longer need to succumb to attitudes, practices and environments that ridicule or belittle Christians and Christianity, as has been happening for many decades.

Again: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Three Important Declarations

The time has come — and Charlie Kirk’s murder may well have been the tipping point — when Christians en masse should say three important things:

1. We are going to stand up for our faith, without apology.

2. We are going to preach our faith as the Bible teaches it, even when it is politically incorrect by the standards of this world.

3. We will no longer be cowered by accusations that we are preaching “hate” when in fact we are preaching the greatest love in the universe — God’s truth.

It’s also time for those of us who have clung to the hope that our legacy media outlets might return to a posture of fairness, balance and respect to give up that pipedream. The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC (MSNOW), the Associated Press and so many others have proven themselves dedicated components of the liberal ecosystem, obedient water carriers for the radical left, and far removed from the mainstream of American thought.

I’m tired of pretending that the above-mentioned propaganda outlets for the radical left are anything more than that, and I won’t waste my time on them anymore as part of my daily news media routine (which means canceling subscriptions). It’s sad what they’ve become. As a journalist, I sincerely mourn their loss as objective news sources. But it is self-inflicted.

It is my guess that Charlie Kirk’s murder will unleash a Christian revival in America and that those celebrating his death — and that’s what has been happening from MANY on the left — will be astounded when they see it. As his widow, Erika, proclaimed, “You have no idea what you just have unleashed across this entire country, and this world.”

And it will be a movement led by young people. Already, reports indicate that since Kirk’s assassination, Turning Point USA has received around 37,000 new chapter requests from high schools and colleges, “which would increase TPUSA’s presence on campuses twentyfold,” according to the New York Post.

What will it look like in the end? Ideally, the overall society and what will be a new “mainstream media” will look a lot more like the actual makeup of the nation, with Christians and traditional Christian beliefs much more measurably and favorably represented in movies, TV shows, social media, etc.

Hopefully, we will no longer be channel surfing or scrolling and come across image after image of anti-Christian portrayals. Let the irreligious left be relegated to the small percentage of representation that is more realistically appropriate based on their actual numbers, rather than the outsized presence they have enjoyed in recent decades.

We will restore a balance in this country of promoting more of the values that make this nation strong. Repairing the fabric of our nation will become more important than worrying about complaints and accusations from far-flung corners of radical-left society.

Why? “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

If our Constitution seems tattered right now, if Americans worry about a coming “constitutional crisis,” it is not because of Donald Trump. It is because “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Our Constitution is only capable of functioning for a moral and religious people. It should not be surprising that it does not function effectively for the world in which we are currently living.

Why is This Moment Different?

One of the acquaintances who asked me if the Kirk assassination seemed different offered his own reason. As Christians, he said, we are all part of the body of Christ. And when something terrible happens to such an outspoken and visible part of that body, we all feel it more sensitively.

My own Christian practice generally does not include such mystical thinking. But I was moved by his take on it, and I wonder if there might be something to it. Charlie Kirk had the boldness, courage, intelligence and determination to stand up loudly and proudly for what he believed, for what millions of Christians believe but lack his drive and initiative to share. That he was gunned down for doing what we all should be doing strikes a nerve and makes us feel shameful about our comparative timidity.

The alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson, reportedly expressed hatred for Charlie Kirk and what he stood for. By extension, he felt that hatred for all of us who largely agreed with Charlie Kirk. The alleged killer was reportedly in a romantic relationship with a transgender roommate, a subject on which Kirk had been clear in his beliefs. Robinson wrote words such as “Hey fascist! Catch!” on bullets, much like the shooter in the Minneapolis Catholic school slaughter wrote “Kill Donald Trump” and other hateful messages on gun magazines.

The “mainstream media” is, of course, searching for a motive, willfully blind to this indisputable fact: The assassin desperately wanted to shut up Charlie Kirk because of the beliefs Kirk expressed.

Charlie Kirk was silenced. But things are about to get a whole lot louder.