What Charlie Kirk Actually Was

There’s something a bit off about the way the media headlines are reporting on the assassination of Charlie Kirk. They are calling him a “conservative activist” (CNN), a “right-wing activist” (BBC), an “influential figure on the right” (WSJ), a “conservative influencer” (NYT), and a “fearless patriot” (Fox).

It feels to me like they are all dancing around the thing that preceded and grounded all of Kirk’s beliefs.

He was a Christian.

He was a Jesus-follower, a believer, a man of faith. This is not determined or affected by the positions he took on various social and political issues. It was determined by the position he took on the nature of Jesus of Nazareth. Charlie unambiguously called Jesus Lord and Savior.

He was a Christian.

Pretending his faith was irrelevant to his moral viewpoints is like pretending the sun is irrelevant to daylight. Given that it appears that the murderer’s motive was objection to Kirk’s moral views, this was not merely a political act; it was the religious persecution of a Christian who outspokenly preached the message of the gospel. As such, when he was killed for his beliefs, he became a martyr. He is a martyr who died on American soil in a public and grisly way.

So I don’t want us also dancing around two consequences, the way we’re dancing around who he was.

A Consequence For Christians

First, the martyrdom of a Christian on American soil is de facto an attack on all Christians. We are one body. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it (1st Cor. 12:26). We can no longer charge Christians with paranoia when they talk about being persecuted for their faith in America. 

Christians around the world suffer persecution to an extent that most Americans do not imagine. Estimates from the UK Parliament suggest that 1 in every 7 Christians in the world endures some kind of persecution, defining persecution as hostility directed at the target because of their identification with Jesus Christ. The Pew Research Center reports that Christians experience harassment in nearly 75% of countries worldwide. In some countries, they are murdered for their faith or face discrimination that is legally protected.

In America, Christians have enjoyed the status of a majority – influencing laws, education, and culture. Anxiety about persecution among well-to-do, comfortable Christians has largely seemed laughable. Harassment has typically been little more than social bristling.

But now that is not the case. A scale tipped. This is not mockery from the stage or condescension from the university lectern, which Christians have endured for decades. This is murder for faith.

Christians should be aware that we stand on new ground. We are not relieved of Jesus’ command to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, to repay evil with good and bless rather than curse. We are to double down on these things. We also can’t be naive about where we are. More clearly than ever, this is not the Promised Land. This is Babylon. Practice the faith so as to keep it alive in a foreign land.

A Consequence for America

Secondly, there are spiritual consequences for the making of martyrs. It is the cry of the saints that brought down God’s wrath on Pharaoh in the book of Exodus, on Haman in the book of Esther, on Saul when he went after David, on David when he murdered Uriah, on the ruling class when they oppressed the poor, and on Rome when they began martyring Christians.

“The martyrs’ blood is the seed of the church,” said the 2nd century church leader, Tertullian. He knew; he had witnessed the martyrdoms in Carthage. He’s not being poetic when he says this. He’s talking about a spiritual reality that when blood is shed, it calls out from the ground to God, and God gets angry. And God responds.

Secularism in America has taken an evil turn. It is no longer merely the intellectual skepticism of well-mannered agnostics. It has a wing that is seething with hatred and callous towards goodness and towards life.

So let’s be clear. Faith matters when you choose how to conduct your daily life. Faith matters to what you do behind closed doors. Faith matters when you choose who to vote for and when you choose who to date. Faith matters when you decide what to do with your money. It matters to how you form your moral commitments and to what you tell your friends. People of faith can live with deep peace, but we cannot relax. Faith needs to matter in everything we do in Babylon.

Faith must shape our identity, our families, our calling, and our citizenship. Let the people of faith stand up and be counted, unashamed and unafraid, doing everything in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.