Do you think Charlie Kirk's assassination will have a lasting impact on the direction of our nation?

Did Josiah’s reforms after his obvious repentance make a “lasting impact” on the nation of Israel? God promised him the judgment would not take place in his lifetime, and it was put off a few years, but after him, more kings arose who did that which was evil in God’s sight.

I hope there will be a significant impact from the reaction to Charlie’s death, but I don’t really have any hope it will be noticed much past a few years from now, if it even lasts that long. For a real change, we need something like the first Great Awakening, where people were saved and turned to Jesus. However, even that will last only a generation or two.

14 years passed after Lovejoy's murder before the Civil War started, but his death stoked the fires and convinced people like John Brown to take up arms. When we were little most of us were told "it takes two to fight" but that's not true. It takes two to make peace--only one to fight. And once a significant number of people become convinced that the other side wants them dead, peace gets awfully hard to find.

Both Revelation and Amos warn about the wrath of God coming upon those who are unrepentant and in both books, there is an offer of peace before the wrath is poured out. In Revelation 1:4-5 we read:

Revelation 1:4-5 NASB 4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come; and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne; 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us, and released us from our sins by His blood,

In Amos we read:

Amos 5:4-6 NASB 4 For thus says the LORD to the house of Israel, "Seek Me that you may live. 5 "But do not resort to Bethel, And do not come to Gilgal, Nor cross over to Beersheba; For Gilgal will certainly go into captivity, And Bethel will come to trouble. 6 "Seek the LORD that you may live, Lest He break forth like a fire, O house of Joseph, And it consume with none to quench it for Bethel,

The gospel was clearly presented multiple times at the Charlie Kirk memorial. Over 100 million tuned in, but that only counts the devices that were tuned in. If multiple people were watching a single device, the number is far larger. Further, the memorial was watched later and so are many clips of Charlie himself sharing the gospel. It is not unreasonable to suggest that over half the population of the United States heard the gospel as the result of Charlie's death.

God is spreading the gospel throughout our land and to other lands. He is giving the offer of peace. Will our nation be like Nineveh at the time of Jonah and repent, or will we be like those in Israel at the time of Amos who said, "Keep quiet. For the name of the LORD is not to be mentioned." (End of Amos 6:10)

As I hear many mocking prayer at times of tragedy, it is obvious that there are a lot of people in our country like those in Israel at the time of Amos when he was warning about God's wrath upon them. Let us do our part to not hide the name of God and to spread the warning to those who have not yet heard.

I have no idea what God will do, but he will be just in his decision no matter what. It is possible that we will have a revival for a time and that our generation will be spared his wrath. It is also possible that he will say his patience has run out and that for not just 3 transgressions, but for 4 he will send his wrath.

Regardless, it is time to warn people that the wrath of God is real. For too long too many churches have only spoken of the warm and fuzzy's that God provides without talking about the wrath that will come.

His wrath is a great way to talk about his love and grace. Sin requires the wrath of God. That wrath was poured out on Jesus Christ so we could live. But we have to seek him and live. We have to surrender to him when he gives the peace offer so that our name may be written in the Lamb's book of life. Without our names written there, the full wrath of God will be poured upon us as we are sent to the lake of fire. But with Jesus, we are not appointed to wrath.

1 Thessalonians 5:9 NASB 9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

Jesus will return and Revelation 19 shows that he will come with wrath upon those who reject him. The gospel has clearly gone out. They will not have an excuse. I want to keep warning until he comes. Perhaps some can be pulled out of the fire hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. (Jude 1:23)

I appreciate that the gospel was shared at the memorial and at some of Charlie Kirk's events. While the right words were shared, I wonder if it is really the right way to share the gospel. While any opportunity to share the gospel is good, I struggle to align it with the current model of sharing the gospel, which is a merging of the gospel and MAGA political and social idealogies. Charlie Kirk made his riches, which were quite substantial on this earth through the model of merging the gospel with MAGA ideologies. It was confrontational in style and sometimes in style. He leveraged it to create a brand. Those that shared the gospel at the Kirk memorial were probably more driven in their own exultation within their groups to enhance their brand, their electability or to promote themselves within this ideological circle. While I will reiterate it is great to see the gospel shared, I question whether this type of gospel sharing was what was envisioned by Christ, or that it has real staying power. Were these people sharing the gospel, or were they gaining the adulation and riches of this world?

How dare anyone share a political view while talking about the gospel unless that political view makes the republicans look bad (sarcasm). Ironically, Charlie Kirk was willing to share political views that did not always line up with other republicans if he felt there was a Biblical reason to do so. Those of us on the political right here on SI are also in that category, but unless we agree that the conservative political movement must be stopped, we are castigated. Many of us are tired of that.

>>While I will reiterate it is great to see the gospel shared, I question whether this type of gospel sharing was what was envisioned by Christ, or that it has real staying power. Were these people sharing the gospel, or were they gaining the adulation and riches of this world?<<

No doubt in my mind that both types of people were present. I certainly have no expectation that all of those speakers that shared scripture or even the full Gospel at the memorial were believers. However, I maintain my earlier position on this, expressed in the other thread:

“What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.” - Philippians 1:18.

Of course, those who present the Gospel without themselves believing in it will have no lasting benefit from it. No one here claims otherwise. But God’s Word is powerful regardless of who speaks it, and God can and will use it as he chooses.

Also, you have repeated multiple times your opinion that the main reason Charlie was doing what he was doing for material gain. The devil made the same claim about Job’s riches, accusing him of only serving the Lord because of those riches. Within our lifetimes, there have certainly been plenty of “tv preachers,” who fleeced people for money, so I get the skepticism. However, I’m going to need to see a lot more evidence than “having money” to convince me that Charlie was no different from one of them.

I cannot speak to the motives deep in Charlie's heart. Maybe no one can. My emphasis is to balance out the deification of Charlie that many on the right have about him. I am not claiming anyone on here has that view or not. But in the end Charlie was creating a brand more than anything else. It was a brand that was curated by teams of people employed by the various ventures under Charlie's control. He garnered power through association with many powerful people in this world. His brand created arguably one of the most powerful entities on this planet bringing in nearly $100M a year and providing Charlie with multiple mult-million dollar homes and exposure and access to the most powerful people on the planet. Yes, he shared the gospel. He didn't start out that way, but his brand evolved around that, as it resonated with his base. I am just skeptical when the reward is great wealth and great power through suffering in Christ. Can someone be rich and follow Christ? Sure. Abraham surely was. My skepticism is not on the wealth in and of itself, but that it was collect solely as a result of his brand. A brand that was arguably Christian Nationalist or at least was aligned to many Christian Nationalist ideas. Charlie Kirk started aligned to the Tea Party Movement, but in recent years moved more and more into the Christian right. I am not sure if that is out of conviction or that it resonated with a base that raised significant funds for him. Charlie brought up many of the ideas of the NAR including the seven mountain mandate. Kirk was originally vocal about the separation of church and state, but in the last few years, on campuses and other venues touted that there was no such concept in the Constitution. Charlie Kirk in 2018 was very different from Charlie in 2025. Many of the political/religious elements that he conflates, are ones in which mainstream denominations have denounced in their Christian Nationalism statements, such as the SBC last year.

All I am saying is we have to be careful before we hook our train car to his train. So many of acquaintances that I know are telling our young people they need to be more like Charlie Kirk. We need to be careful that we just don't focus on the fact that he shared his faith and gloss over the significant challenges that he did have. My focus to my children is not that they need to focus on using Christ to redeem society but that they focus on using Christ to share the gospel so that Christ can redeem their souls.

I don’t know Charlie’s true motives either. Only God knows those. Before the assassination, I could have counted on one hand the number of times I had heard something Charlie said, and probably on two hands the number of times I had even heard anything about him other than his name. I wasn’t a follower, or even in his target audience. My comments here have not been either to praise him or to bury him. It’s mostly been in response to the attempts from some Christians to try to somehow paint him as ungenuine or even worse for the cause of the Gospel than saying nothing at all. It’s as if the friendly fire has gotten almost as bad as that from those who opposed anything he said.

The conversation among Christians has reminded me of nothing as much as this incident in the gospels:

“Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me. And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is on our part.” - Mark 9:37-40.