by Matthew Steven Bracey and Phillip T. Morgan
Charlie Kirk was assassinated precisely one week ago today. In this post, we reflect on this sad situation. Although articles on the Helwys Society Forum do not normally focus on current events, this one demands our attention because no current event in recent memory has so impacted—so traumatized—the people with whom we talk daily as this one has. We hope these few thoughts provide some solace and counsel for such difficult days.
Matthew Steven Bracey
Upon hearing the news of Charlie Kirk’s assassination last week, I immediately suspected something significant had just occurred: this event would loom large on the American (and Western) social imagination for weeks, months, and years to come. I also felt immense sadness and anger at the fact that this tragedy has left a wife without a husband and two young children without a father.
I was with a student when the word came that Kirk was dead: the look on her face was one of utter devastation as she fought to maintain her composure. Some days later, a graduate told me: “A few years ago, a shooting at The Covenant School resulted in the deaths of a half-dozen school children and administrators. A few weeks ago, a shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church resulted in the deaths of two children. Now, Kirk has been murdered. People are increasingly being killed for believing basically the same things I believe.” Over the past week, numerous people have expressed to me their regret over watching the video of the assassination, several of them not realizing what they were getting ready to see; some are even going to counseling for it.
All of us reach a stage of psychological development in our mid-to-late teenage years or early twenties when we begin to take an interest in the events of the world; we begin paying attention to politics and culture more broadly, and we often look up to certain people, certain voices. For younger generations of Christians and conservatives, especially men, they have looked up to Kirk. He was bold and convictional, and he acted in good faith even towards those who disagreed him. For some, this tragic event will mark the division between adolescence and adulthood, analogous to how previous generations experienced the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the disaster of the Space Shuttle Challenger, or the 9/11 terrorist attacks. We should take stock of the significance of this event.
Mourning
As I have reflected on this tragedy for the last week, several thoughts have come to mind. Firstly, we should mourn Kirk’s passing and weep alongside his family and friends. “Weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15, NASB95). This point is heightened by the fact he was a committed Christian. Irrespective of how we feel about his politics, he was a brother in Christ, and we are spiritually united to him by the blood of Christ. More broadly, irrespective of how we feel about any true believer’s religious or political sensibilities, we are spiritually united to them, and we ought to feel deep sadness when they are murdered. May God so cultivate our spirits.
Martyrdom
I have also found myself thinking about martyrdom. Some people are resisting that topic. For many Christians in the States, martyrdom as a concept is abstract: it happened in the past, or it happens far away, but it does not happen here. However, hard circumstances prompt hard questions. “Was Charlie Kirk a martyr?” In the technical sense, he was certainly a martyr. A martyr is a witness, and Kirk was a witness to his beliefs.
“But was he a Christian martyr?” Based on what we know, I would say yes. A Christian martyr is a person who is murdered for his or her Christian beliefs, and the available evidence supports the conclusion that Kirk was murdered for his Christian beliefs, that is, his witness to the truth. I recognize that evidence is still forthcoming, but barring sufficient evidence to the contrary, that is my position.
Although some people think of Kirk firstly as a political figure, the truth is that he was much more than that. He spoke broadly on the issues of Christianity and culture, and consequently he conversed with people on all manner of topics: abortion, adulthood, church, education, family, femininity, gender, immigration, liberty, marriage, masculinity, politics, pornography, religion, etc. In summary, we might say he conversed with people about his Christian worldview. So yes, he engaged in political speech but not just political speech, and he viewed all his speech as a manifestation of his commitment to the Great Commission.[1]
This account of martyrdom is consistent with what we see in the Bible and church history. John the Baptist, for example, was martyred because of political speech: he criticized Herod’s marriage (Matthew 14:3–5, 10). All throughout Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and The Voice of the Martyrs, we read accounts of Christian martyrs who were murdered not simply because they preached Jesus but also because they taught the implications of the gospel in relation to the cultural and political issues of the day. I cannot help but wonder whether people who were contemporaries to these figures but disagreed with their cultural or political sensibilities demonstrated any hesitancy to call them what they were: martyrs.
The question of martyrdom does not depend on any one person’s subjective evaluation of a person because man is not the measure of all things; rather, it depends on the objective reality of the circumstance. Additionally, the hesitancy to identify some people as martyrs may reveal a divided field of knowledge that improperly separates the truth of the gospel from the spheres of culture. By all accounts, Kirk’s cultural, including political, sensibilities were downstream from his Christian commitments.
I would not conflate the apostle Paul with Charlie Kirk; they were different people with different callings. Nonetheless, I see some parallels. The book of Acts records that Paul traveled from city to city, and he invited people to converse with him. He preached the gospel, and he teased out the gospel’s cultural implications, and time and again, he was run out of town under threat of his life until eventually, he was martyred for it. Similarly, Kirk traveled from city to city, inviting people to have conversations with him. He talked about more than politics; he talked about life, and yes, he talked about the gospel, even inviting people to give their lives to Christ.
Kirk differed from many of the popular Christian and conservative voices because, like Paul, he went into hostile environments to meet the lost on their own terms. Oh, that we would have such courage. Standing for the truth and getting attention for it is dangerous in a world that is hostile to the truth (John 15:18–19). Quite literally, it could kill you. But integrity to God and His Word, even to the point of death, is better than all the admiration the world can offer. “The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:17).
Judgment
Finally, I have found myself thinking about judgment. The state of affairs that turns wives into widows and leaves children fatherless rightly provokes indignation within us. The blood of Abel—the blood of the innocents—cries out to the Lord for justice (Genesis 4:10–11). “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man” (Genesis 9:6). We do not hate evildoers or curse them; we love them, and we pray for them and hope for them (Matthew 5:44; Romans 12:14). But we also pray for true justice—we pray for the sword (Romans 13:4)—knowing that, if it does not take place in this life, it will take place in the next (Luke 18:7; Romans 12:19).
This event is a watershed moment. I hope that influencers and commentators will talk responsibly about it. However, I am not encouraged by much of the rhetoric from the last week: falsely attributing viewpoints to Kirk that mischaracterize his beliefs; sensationally discussing the topic in ways that are unhelpful and unwise; even gleefully expressing joy at his assassination, which is godless and evidences a culture of death. These people have a profound opportunity to direct the national conversation in a healthy direction; but many of them have not (yet?) risen to the challenge. We should all of us recognize we will incur a greater judgment if we are people of influence according to how precisely we influence others, whether for good or for bad (James 3:1).
Times like this one remind us the world is not as it should be. It is filled with wickedness; it is filled with the spirit of antichrist. We appreciate the good gifts from the Father of lights (James 1:17), but we also pray for Jesus’ return to right the wrongs and to set this world in order. Thank you Lord Jesus that You are with us all the days unto the end of the age (Matthew 28:20); even so, we pray You come back soon (John 14:3; Revelation 22:20).
Phillip T. Morgan
Brokenness
O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not hear?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
And you will not save?
Why do you make me see iniquity,
And why do you idly look at wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me strife and contention arise.
Habakkuk 1:2–3, ESV
When I was young, I found the persistent strain of melancholy in the Psalms and prophets unsettling. I had a good life in a healthy family that knew the meaning of frugality but was not wanting for anything necessary. We had no major health problems, and our little corner of rural America was quite peaceful. So, the gut-wrenching cries of anguish from the Old Testament poets disturbed my spirit, and I tended to skim over those bits to get to happier fair.
Then came adulthood with the slow realization of the depth of the brokenness in our world. There were the personal tragedies I witnessed as friends succumbed to drug abuse and addiction, experienced divorce, or died in horrific car crashes, or when my mother was run over by an unknown automobile driver on the highway and left for dead; she survived (barely), but the driver was never found. Then there were the culture-defining events like 9/11 when I was seventeen, the housing-market collapse and ensuing recession when I was graduating college, and the Obergefell v. Hodges decision soon after I became a father and was ordained to the ministry. Slowly, I began to understand. “O Lord, how long,” indeed! Will you not save the righteous in the day of trouble? Why have I been given this time to live? Why couldn’t I have had it easier, like my parents?
Suddenly, the wails of Job, David, the Qoheleth, and Habakkuk made sense. The world is desperately broken! Man’s life is a vale of tears, and death comes to all men soon or late. The pleasures and comforts of life are but a mirage. But God remains faithful amidst the suffering. He has never forsaken His people, even when He has called them to face horribly difficult days. Our comfort and hope find sure rest only in God’s unblemished record of faithfulness. God knows this fact and instructs His people repeatedly to remember His works so that they will not fall into sin. Studying God’s faithfulness in time and space teaches us that no generation has had it easy. When we are tempted to think our time is uniquely difficult, we are served by recalling the generations of Israelites who suffered under the slavery of the Egyptians, the unremitting woe of Jeremiah’s life and ministry, the political strife and material suffering of the generation who lived through the American Civil War, and those who sought to maintain Christian faithfulness during the cultural revolution of the 1960s in the West.
Coming of Age
The assassination of Charlie Kirk was horrific for all sensible people in our country and around the globe. But those affected most, outside of Kirk’s family and close friends, have been his legion of young followers, who are just coming into adulthood. Like me in the 2000s and 2010s, they are coming to grips with the persistent tragedy of the post-Fall world and asking hard questions as a result. For those struggling in the high-seas of life for the first time, I encourage you to seek solace where God’s people have always found it—God’s Word and faithfulness. There is indeed a balm in Gilead free to all who believe (Jeremiah 8:21–22).
In addition, I encourage you to cultivate the cardinal virtue of fortitude. Our generation has been handed a task that has been carried out by the faithful since the Fall. We must hold forth the truth to a dying world with boldness despite fear. Charlie Kirk understood that, while he was carrying the light for his generation, it was never his light. He had received it from his forebears, and one day he would pass the torch to others. That day came sooner than anyone expected, but God will raise up more men and women to bear the truth in love to a lost and dying world. If you do not participate, God will raise up salvation for His people from someone else.
For those who are older and more accustomed to the suffering ingrained in the warp and woof of life, do not think that the struggles of our younger friends are signs of weakness or foolishness. Some first learned of Charlie Kirk when he was assassinated. The splintered nature of modern media means that major figures and events in our culture can go completely unnoticed at times. Do not be tempted to think that simply because you may not have heard of Kirk before last week, others are wrong for taking his death so hard. Furthermore, remember what it meant to be young and discover these horrible truths for the first time—not to mention the horror of seeing a video of a man killed. If we turn away the concerns of those struggling to reckon with Kirk’s death, we will break the bond of trust with the next generation, perhaps irrevocably.
[1] “Charlie Kirk, A Warrior for God,” Sept. 11, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/shorts/iN9NzxUljKI.
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