It will be a tragic moment I will never forget. I was nearly finished teaching a class, ironically, on Christianity and culture to an eager group of Christian young people, when a text came across my iPad with the news that Charlie Kirk, champion for Christ, communicator of conservative values and patriot, was shot at a rally at a college in Utah.
My reaction was and is one of shock and horror. Here is a good young man, a husband and father, assassinated in the prime of his life. The tragic irony was that he was killed while engaging people with whom he disagreed.
As the news of Charlie’s passing was confirmed, I sat at my desk and wept. I never met him, but I wept for him. I wept for his wife and precious children. I wept for the country.
I know so many hundreds of young people — in my family, classroom, at the campuses where I speak — who looked up to Charlie. They loved him, not merely for his bold stand for truth in the culture, but for his outspoken faith in Jesus Christ. As journalist Dave Weigel said, “Pulled this quote from my last in-person interview with Kirk. His pitch wasn’t just ‘join the GOP, you’ll get lower taxes’ – it was that you could give yourself to Jesus Christ and have a life worth living.”
In the end, though Kirk was unashamedly outspoken on important issues such as the sanctity of life and the goodness of God’s design for the family, his most important message was that Jesus Christ is the answer for life. He wanted people to know they could have a relationship with God because of the death, burial and resurrection of the Son of God. He encouraged his generation and the ones after to get involved in politics, but beyond that he encouraged them to know Jesus and follow Him with all their lives. This will be his legacy.
This is a sad and worrisome moment in the nation. It seems Kirk was targeted for his outspoken views and for his faith. It was a despicable act fueled by radical rhetoric. Americans will always have political differences, but we debate those in public. We take them to the ballot box. Settling them with violence is never the answer.
Scripture teaches another way, that every human being has dignity and worth. That we are to love our enemies and pray for them. Our country, and our broken culture, is desperate for revival. Every Christian everywhere should be on our knees before the Almighty, praying for repentance and healing in our land.
Charlie Kirk’s assassination pulls back the curtain on the depth of evil in human hearts. The Christian story tells us that death is the work of the enemy. Jesus, John 11 tells us, wept and was angry at the death of his friend Lazarus. We should mourn death. We should rage at evil. And yet we know that death has been defeated.
Where, death, is your victory?
Where, death, is your sting?
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:55-57).
Evil will not have the final word, in Charlie’s life or in the world. He is in Heaven with the Savior he loved so much. While we grieve, he hears the words, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
In one of his final tweets, Kirk wrote: “Jesus defeated death, so you can live.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE — Daniel Darling is the director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a bestselling author.)
