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The events of the past week have shaken our nation. Charlie Kirk was known for his on-campus debates, championing both conservative political concepts as well as his Christian faith. He was gunned down last week while simply asking people to discuss the issues with him. He was a young father and had so much of his life ahead of him until a bullet shot in hatred ripped him away from his wife and children. True evil.
And now that the assassin has been apprehended, and I'm not happy with that. I'm relieved, to be sure, but I'm not happy.
That's because the killer, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was basically turned in by his father. While it was the right thing to do, but here is another family that will be in anguish over the poisonous fruits of allowing sin to have its way.
As a Christian, I've been thinking a lot about the last week and I know that whole there are many hot takes on the act and its aftermath, the only way I can make true sense of it all is by filtering through my Christianity. That's how it should be for every follower of Jesus, and really how it should be for those who uphold the values of Western society—because Western society only forms from Christian assumptions about the world. So I want to take some time here and delve into all of this. I think it's important to begin to clarify just what brought us to this point, understand what is happening now, and humbly offer some suggestions on how we can move forward in the best way possible, because our reaction to Kirk's slaying may prove to be vital to the survival of our culture.
The Points Upon Which History Turns
There are certain events in the course of history that can be pivotal for a nation. The shot at Lexington or Fort Sumter. Pearl Harbor. September 11, 2001, signaling a point in which America's assumed invulnerability crumbled along with the Twin Towers.
But not all pivotal events of history being on such a large scale. Certainly, the capture of Los Angeles police beating Rodney King on video has reverberated through the last three decades. George Floyd and the BLM movements are simply downstream.
And now we have the assassination of Charlie Kirk. This may well prove to be another pivotal moment, for it lays bare the pestilence that has been seething beneath the skin of our culture. The symptoms of our malady were always noticeable: the continued divisions not simply of policies and ideas as those have always been true, but of our understanding of who each of us is and how we fit into this grand experiment of a united people.
First, it is clear that people today see themselves not as one nation formed from the joining of individuals, but as individuals who happen to inhabit a nation. We no longer gather socially, we separate so we can post on social media. We would react rather than reason. We would rather be outraged than reach out.
Such actions are not new in the human condition. In fact, they are the de facto position. Societies from the beginning of history has always held an us/them dichotomy. The loss of It was only the rise of Christianity, as scholars such as Larry Siedentop, Tom Holland, Rodney Stark and Charles Taylor have so well documented that changed the script. It is Christianity and Christianity alone that gifted with world with not just the idea that all human beings are equally valuable, but that one should defer one's own desires and seek the benefit of others.
But now, we live in a post-Christian society. We've lost the only stabilizing force powerful enough to keep civilization truly civil. As C.S. Lewis said “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”1 Like Nietzsche's madman, we don't realize the effect killing God would have on our interactions. But Kirk's slaying is a clear sign of just how much this infection is mutating our souls.
The Rise of Violence
That there has been a rise in political violence in our society is unarguable. School shootings, church burnings, riots in the streets all have risen in dramatic proportions. The number of domestic terrorist attacks and plots against government targets motivated by partisan political beliefs in the past five years is nearly triple the number of such incidents in the previous 25 years combined.2 Blaming weapons manufacturers for such violence is akin to blaming the corner bakery's display case for your weight problem.
No. Violence, especially political violence, doesn't escalate this quickly in a vacuum. Because we have abandoned community and adopted a radicalized understanding of individual autonomy, we have begun to see ourselves and our feelings as the most important. Colleges are filled with safe spaces to shelter from triggering speech. One may be questioned, detained (end even arrested in the Uk and Canada) for words that make others feel uncomfortable. Charlie Kirk held open air debates, allowing opposing views to speak, and he was labeled a Nazi for it.
As a people become drastically individualized, their moral values also become individualized, and decouple from any grounding higher than themselves. They begin to hold a very high view of their own position and their moral assuredness grows. They therefore adopt not simply a language of division but a viewpoint of moral superiority.
The Politically Faithful
To this point we have seen two things true in culture. First, because we've removed Christianity as the framework through which we interpret society, we've become a morally relativistic society with nothing to ground what is right and what is wrong outside of our own opinions. Yet, human beings are creatures that crave some kind of moral order. Beyond the fact that no culture could ever continue to exist under true anarchy, human beings are simply wire for moral order. We need to know how to classify acts as good or evil. But secondly, because we have splintered and fractured, we have tried to make politics the bastion for creating those identifiers. The result is that in the 21st century we're much more willing to weaponize political stances. And this shows in our political rhetoric.
Again, there has always been name-calling and caricaturing in politics, even at the beginning of this nation. In their contentious battle for the presidency in 1800, the campaign teams for John Adams and Thomas Jefferson got really nasty, accusing one of being a half breed and the other of being a hermaphrodite! Yet, these two famously continued their correspondence and their friendship until their deaths. Such comraderies are deeply conspicuous by their absence today.
The attempt to ground morality in politics becomes a fatal flaw and it has clearly affected all parts of the political spectrum. But it would be a mistake to believe that it affects all factions equally. This is because not all factions have their roots in the same ideals. This is why it becomes crucial to recognize the difference between the philosophies of our political divisions and the way they approach their desired outcomes.
Who Is Really the Enemy?
In politics we seem to simplify groups into the right and the left; the conservatives and the liberals. I understand why the media and the political parties do so—because it becomes easier to talk on broad over-simplifications and allows them to tar everyone who holds a different opinion with the same brush. The constant cries of “Fascist”, “Nazi”, “Ultra-right”, and “Christian Nationalist” has undoubtedly contributed to the climate where anyone like Tyler Robinson, who took those charges seriously, would follow those convictions with action. Would you feel it justified if you could to go back in time and kill Hitler while he was still a teen?
This friend-enemy distinction is one of the first signs of the secular cancer eating away at the soul of our nation. The theory, originally spelled out by Carl Schmitt, holds that everyone views others as either allies or adversaries based on their groups. These are not simply political stances, but they are deeper, more fundamental and pose an existential threat to your particular group. Certainly, given the rhetoric espoused by the Wokist and the Leftists that support them, the friend-enemy distinction has been running rampant throughout our culture. Ironically, Schmitt used his concept to further the Nazi program of the 1930s. It is a sad irony that his thoughts would be adopted by those who use them to so vociferously shout “Nazi” and “fascist” at others. Of course, Schmitt understood where this line of thinking would lead. He wrote in his book, The Concept of the Political “The friend, enemy, and combat concepts receive their real meaning precisely because they refer to the real possibility of physical killing.”3 Now we see just how right he was.
This is why the friend-enemy distinction should be rejected by Christians. This is completely antithetical to what Jesus taught. One cannot turn the other cheek, walk two miles instead of one, or pray for one's enemies of those are consider extentally threatening. It is precisely that our identities don't reside in ourselves but in our status as new creations in Christ that makes the difference, for nothing in this world can remove us from the Father's hand as Jesus promised in John 10:29. Paul reemphasizes this fact in Romans 8:38-39 when he wrote “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Political positions pose no existential threats because when one lives for Christ, even death is gain.
The Lack of Balance in Violence
Even though various political tribes exist, each with its own ideas on how to affect change, it would be naïve to believe that all are morally equal. The whataboutism that many progressives have offered as kind of a scapegoat in response to Kirk's killing is clearly disingenuous, especially when contrasted with the idea of conservatism, for conservatism by its nature revolves around conserving certain aspects of our culture. It champions things like the traditional family structure, existing societal structures, respect for authority, the value of the free exchange of ideas, and the understanding accumulated through centuries of human experience and growth. Charlie Kirk held to the ideals of “free enterprise, individual liberty, small government, freedom of expression, constitutional rights”4 and he said he was conservative because “people should be free to succeed and fail, keep their own stuff, make their own choices without government in the way.”5
He modeled conservatism by his approach of going to universities and seeking to inform people and perhaps change their minds through rational discourse the exchange of ideas. This is the traditional understanding of what should take place at a university. Keeping tradition, values, family, and community are hallmarks of classic conservatism and they are represented much more highly in conservative circles.
Progressivism, on the other hand, has at its core an idea that humanity needs to progress. It should not stay where it is. In fact, conserving societal structures are part of the problem for many progressives. In fact, the individuals who are the most influential in birthing, spreading, and championing the ideals of progressivism believe that it is the continued reliance on old models that is the thing that hinders humans reaching new levels of flourishing.
From its beginnings with Karl Marx, Lenin, and the Frankfurt School, through Derrida, Foucault, and Gramsci, to Che Guevera and Saul Alinsky, disruption is the way progress is made. Progressivism will therefore incorporate revolution, violence and anarchy as important tools in their models for progressing.
We see this increasingly throughout different facets of modern progressivism in the recent BLM movements, the call for equity, the drive to dismantle the patriarchy, the need to overthrow structures of systemic oppression, the breaking down of hegemony, and on and on. Old structures are assumed to be incurably corrupt and therefore cannot be reformed but must be replaced. The way replacement happens is through revolution of some type.
The fruit of the progressive disruption is on display everywhere, whether it be pro-Palestinian protestors blocking a freeway, climate activists defacing artwork, rioters looting a Wal-Mart, or the Democratic legislature and governor of California usurping the natural rights of parents so they may advance their transgender fetishes on children. On campus, progressive college students not only shout down opinions with which they disagree, they seek to remove speakers from being heard—by anyone ever. Is it so far a stretch, then, to think that a faction learning this lesson would extend it to doing so by a bullet instead?
Yes, violence exists across the political spectrum, but it is not a 50/50 problem. Violence in the service to progressive ideals is a feature, while violence in service to conservative activism should be considered a bug. If you doubt this summation, then look at a barometer happening in real time. See the macabre glee so many on the Left have not only claimed, but felt necessary to trumpet across their various social media channels. They cheer because a man who never held a political office was slain and would no longer be able to speak. They celebrate the death of a young human being working within the system to change minds through intellect and debate. Even in one of the surveillance videos showing the assassination, one may see a young man dancing as Kirk was laying on the floor, fighting for his life.
The Christian Model
As I said above, grouping people into only right and left is over simplistic. It can also be calculated step to intentionally mislead. In thinking of a better way to address this issue, we must begin with the question of which model best characterizes to what we should aspire? What embodies the best ideals and promotes the greatest human flourishing?
I think the question is an easy one. If Christianity is the basis for western society, then all the major political philosophies offered today are may be traced back to it. Every one of them has their roots, one way or another, in Christianity but not all of them follow those Christian principles. Many bastardize the fundamentals so as to serve the desires of whomever is championing that latest cause. There is no escaping the impact the teachings of Jesus and his followers have had on western civilization. Marxism could never have developed from an Eastern or Islamic base. It is a heresy of Christianity, but it could only grow in Christian soil.
So, when I survey the landscape and look at the divergent political positions out there, I as a follower of Jesus am called to not be a conservative per se, although believe many of the principles that Kirk voiced above are true and good for society. I am called to be a Christian. Let me emphasize this again. My goal isn't to be aligned with a particular political faction; it is to be aligned with the teaching and principles of Christianity that Jesus modeled and his apostles taught. Does that mean that I don't align myself with a conservative candidate? NO. This is partly because Christianity teaches virtues that stand in direct opposition to the idea of revolution. It shuns the concept of the slaying of a young father or gloating or celebrating his death because it advances one's tribe.
By that same token, because progressivism, Marxism, Wokism, and so much of Leftist ideology sits as both a heresy of Christianity and antithetical to its teachings, I can quickly and vigorously reject their adherents as more dangerous.
Does this also mean that I must only support or vote for Christian candidates who align with all my views? Such an objection is silly on its face. It doesn't follow that if we have two choices running for political office that does not hold all my Christian positions a that I should abstain from voting for him or her if that candidate has a fair chance of winning. The political structure we currently inhabit forces a dichotomous choice upon us, so it is incumbent upon me morally to choose the one who will be closer to the ideal. We all know the famous trolly problem where one is faced with a situation where there is no good choice. That thought experiment shows that the moral thing to do is choose what will be less damaging and more advantageous. We should in our political decisions try to obtain the greatest good available given the real-world circumstances and likely outcome.
Where We Go From Here
Here are some specific points then I want to offer in the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder:
1. Understand our Primary Identity In Christ
This is paramount. Since we are living in a post-Christian world, it should be no surprise that neither party has a record of righteousness. I don't identify as a person belonging to a political party, but a believer belonging to Jesus. Far too many people today have allowed their politics to inform their Christianity instead of making their Christianity inform their politics.
2. Understand the Limitations of Our Political System
Though we are Christians we must still live in this world and our participation here is important. Churchill famously said "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried." I think he's right. The United States was formed on the idea of liberty, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is because we live in a fallen world with sinful people who love power that we will be forced to work within this system and make the most of it. In fact, in Romans13, Paul clearly teaches that the government is an instrument of God to correct. If we understand that this government is ultimately accountable to us, the people, then not being informed and engaged in steering our nation towards a more righteous direction is actually an abdication of our calling by God.
3. Stand Up for Righteousness
Charlie Kirk's legacy was that he went to college campuses and used dialog to try and change minds. That is a laudable goal and it becomes important for all Christians to in someway be prepared to stand up for those truths. Jesus put the responsibility to be salt and light upon all believers. I recently had a conversation with a woman who had asked whether all Christians were called to defend the truth. My response was that yes, we were, but not all in the same way. WI then compared it to evangelizing. All Christians are commanded to evangelize, but not all Christian are called to be evangelists. That is a unique calling and gifting.
Similarly, not all Christians are called to be political activists, but all Christians are called to stand for the truth. There is righteousness in rejecting progressivism and the harms it causes. You can confront your child's teacher if she is spreading woke ideology. You can decry the evil of promoting celebrations in response to the slaying of Kirk. Otherwise, we allow sin to run unchecked, which will lead to even greater evils.
Stephen in Acts 6 and 7 stood boldly before the Sanhedrin and declared how they were wrong. Jesus turned over the tables in the Temple and He called out the Jewish leaders as whitewashed tombs. Identifying immorality is part of the Christian life.
4. Model ourselves after Jesus
a. Be prepared to suffer.
One of the messages we hear far too little of is the call for the suffering that the Christian message brings. Suffering is an unavoidable part of the victorious Christian life. Jesus talked about it throughout the Gospels. When speaking to his disciples before his death, Jesus warned them: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. (Jophn15:18-20)
Suffering is simply a fact of life. I mourn the death of Charlie Kirk, but I also notice how much more powerful his message has become because he died giving it. The early Christians found this to be true so much that Tertullian told the Roman emperor persecuting them “The more you mow us down, the more numerous we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.”
b. Resist the impulse to demonize everyone
I get it. The pro-trans activists want to hurt our children. The pro-Hamas people are complicit in keeping the remaining hostages in captivity. There are many examples where the small faction of hard-left progressives are being sustained by a much larger group of others because they happen to not be on the right. It is tempting to simply group everyone on the left of you as wicked and want to punish them. But punishment shouldn't the motive driving us. Righteousness is.
You may say at this point, “Wait a minute, Lenny. Didn't you just say you should stand up for righteousness?” Yes, I did. But these two things are not mutually exclusive. Let's take the question of reporting those who posted celebratory videos of Charlie Kirk's death on social media. I think such actions are part of the acid eating away at our social fabric. It is robbing Kirk of his humanity and the value that life holds to be celebrating his death. In past eras, bad actions would be mitigated by the fact that people were more community-minded. Everyone belonged so certain social groups and those groups would act as a restraint and a corrective to the individual. Today, because we are so hyper-individuated, those institutions no longer function in that way. So we are again forced to use a flawed means to try and remove that acid from our cultural body before it does more damage. And just as the “fame” of the first school shooters led to further shootings, these celebrations will certainly lead to further violence.
But that doesn't mean I want to get everybody who posted a critique of Kirk. Again, there is a difference between wanting revenge and wanting to remove a cancer.
Here's a biblical example. There was no greater act of political evil that the Sanhedrin capturing and executing Jesus because they were worried about keeping their power. Here was the perfect man, sinless, who was executed for political expediency. If anyone had the right to respond with violence, it was Jesus and his followers. However, we read the opposite happened. When Malchus, the servant of the High Priest, went to take Jesus by force, one of Jesus's disciples drew his sword and sliced off his ear. What did Jesus do? He said No more of this!” And Jesus Healed Malchus's ear.
Don't demonize absolutely everyone who aligns with the progressives. There are so many people who simply have been fed false ideas and they drank the Kool-Aid. They believed the lies. Some have never exposed themselves to alternate explanations.
I've many times gone on college campuses and done open-air forums or taken young people on campus to talk one-on-one with students at institutions such as UC. Berkeley. And we've gotten into some very good conversations. They 've heard things they had never heard before. But that chance goes away as soon as you begin grouping people into an us-them dichotomy. That friend-enemy distinction is unchristian and while we can naturally fall into it. We must resist so doing. Jesus healed Machus's ear. Whose hearts could God heal if we give him a chance?
5. Seek Civilization rather than catharsis
Lastly, we should resist the “gotchas” because it will ultimately undermine the very civilization we are trying to preserve. Let me quote from James Lindsay, who's prescient article makers the point well
We have a choice: catharsis or civilization.
There's no other choice for us. We can have a civilization, where people are civilized enough to live, work, and trade with one another in a productive way, a safe way, a trustworthy enough way, or we can abandon it for the pursuit of letting the negative emotions of the past years, decade, or decades consume us.
There's no other choice.
If we choose catharsis, we let our emotions, our Pathos, get the better of us. We turn to our anger and look to give it more justifications. We turn to our frustration and seek an orgiastic release through whatever deeds vents it. We turn to our oppression, our rage, our despair, our fear, and we let it flow through us until the Pathos pours out and covers the land in what will eventually be fire and blood.
Catharsis is tempting, and stepping into it will be libidinous, orgiastic, elevating, and divine, until we realize that it's the feast of demons upon everything we could have built and everything we could have passed on to our children and our posterity.
Civilization is harder. It's bitter, in fact, in comparison to catharsis. It means swallowing hard and taking all those negative emotions and sublimating them into something productive, something that builds rather than makes us feel better. Civilization feels like injustice, in fact, even though it is the only basis for justice outside of Heaven and Hell.6
I pray for Charlie's family. I pray for Tyler and his family. I pray for our nation. And I pray that I can be someone who walks as Jesus would in trying times such as these. Do you agree or disagree? Is there something I missed? What other thoughts do you have? Et me know down in the comments section and I pray that you and your family will stay safe and be blessed in the coming days. We aren't at the end of this. We are just at the beginning. We therefore have an opportunity to use this point upon which history turns to point others to Jesus. That will be the true victory.
References
1. C. S. Lewis. “The Abolition of Man.” The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics. HarperSanFrancisco, San Francisco, Calif, 2002, 704.
2. Riley McCabe. “The Rising Threat of Anti-Government Domestic Terrorism: What the Data Tells Us.” CSIS Briefs. Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 2024. https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2024-10/241021_McCabe_Domestic_Threat.pdf?VersionId=ObHnpUhl9GVwsySvI.iBzZud4mUOjBqY
3. Carl Schmitt. The Concept of the Political. United Kingdom, University of Chicago Press, 1996. 33.
4. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/752359027141513216
5. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/752357884441219073
6. James Lindsay. “Catharsis or Civilization: A Statement from Our Founder on the Life of Charlie Kirk.” New Discourses, 11 Sept. 2025, https://www.newdiscourses.com/2025/09/catharsis-or-civilization-a-statement-from-our-founder-on-the-life-of-charlie-kirk/.
