Charlie Kirk, a young husband, father, and fearless Christian voice, was gunned down for defending faith and family—his murder exposes America’s battle over truth and survival.
This editorial ran in the Tuesday 23 September 2025 edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.
Charlie Kirk’s assassination was not random. It was not a political grudge like the attempts on Trump’s life, nor an attack on wealth like the threats against Elon Musk. It was an attack on something deeper: the Christian faith and the God-ordained family structure that Kirk defended in public. His life and his murder point to the cultural crisis facing America.
Charlie was more than a campus debater, cultural commentator, or conservative activist; he was a Christian evangelist. His first commitment was to the gospel of Christ, and every cause he championed flowed from that conviction. As Spurgeon once said of John Bunyan, “If you cut him, he would bleed Scripture.” The same could be said of Charlie Kirk. He believed what Niebuhr called “Christ transforming culture” Grace renews a fallen world, transforming individuals, families, institutions, governments, and the whole fabric of culture.
That vision drove him to create TPUSA Faith, a branch of Turning Point USA, to equip the church to stand boldly for biblical truth in public life. His worldview was rooted in classical Trinitarian Protestantism, the same faith that animated America’s founders and gave rise to the freedoms we claim to cherish. This wasn’t the liberal Christianity that echoes today’s progressive agenda. It was the historic, biblical faith that upholds truth, goodness, and beauty.
He also waded directly into the three taboos modern Christians are told to publicly avoid: politics, sex, and faith. Charlie did not dodge these issues; he confronted them head-on with courage and clarity.
He told young people, “Trust Christ. Go to church. Get married. Have babies. Leave a legacy.” From his Christian convictions came his defense of biblical marriage between one man and one woman, his encouragement for young couples to raise children, and his insistence that mothers caring for their babies at home is not oppression but a high and noble calling. He affirmed what was once obvious: two sexes, boys don’t belong in girls’ bathrooms, and men don’t compete in women’s sports. He stood against the wickedness of our age: abortion genocide, sexual immorality, racial and ethnic hatred, lawlessness, and the corruption of justice. For that stand he, like other faithful Christians, was slandered as a fascist, a racist, a bigot, a Nazi.
Charlie lived this out on his “Prove Me Wrong” tour, where he invited students who disagreed with him to the microphone for open debate. He used the Socratic method, asking questions that drew out their reasoning and exposed contradictions, rather than shutting them down. He welcomed hard questions because he believed that’s what makes America great: the clash of ideas in the public square. A university campus should be the place for such exchange; instead, it has become a place for deplatforming those who do not toe the progressive line.
Charlie often said, “When discourse ends, violence begins.” One side is willing to talk; the other side pulls the trigger when they do. The left has inverted the principle entirely, branding words they dislike as “violence” while excusing actual violence as political expression. Fascists don’t hand the mic to their critics; deplatformers are the real fascists. Charlie’s real threat was not extremism, but his effectiveness at persuading the young.
Kirk died a martyr. While Trump embodies political power and Musk represents financial power, Kirk’s strength was cultural and spiritual: even more threatening to the left’s project of remaking America. He was a moderate, which terrified them. He was young, with years ahead of him, which frightened them even more.
As the early church father Tertullian wrote, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Charlie Kirk’s assassination will not silence his message but multiply it. You cannot silence the truth by ending a life. You only prove its weight.
Acts records the death of Stephen, the church’s first martyr. His blood was not the end, but the beginning: his death scattered the church and spread the gospel. In the same way, Kirk’s death will strengthen Christians to stand firm and carry his work forward.
Many of us have been shocked to see thousands justify and even celebrate the murder of this young husband and father of two. In such a time, Christians must not shrink back. We must stand strong and bold in the face of threats, holding fast to the Christian faith and God’s truth. Or as Charlie Kirk himself urged: “Get married. Have children. Build a legacy. Pass down your values. Pursue the eternal. Seek true joy.”