Please pray for the people of Gaza and the West Bank.
Soon after Charlie Kirk’s murder, I heard an Orthodox priest say it would be wise to wait forty days before saying anything about it – time for the tumult and shouting to die, to use an overworked but appropriate phrase, because there has been a lot of of both.
Unfortunately, during those forty days, some have celebrated his death – many of whom have lost their jobs. Others, for example, both the Catholic Vice President and the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, stated that Kirk is now a Martyr for the Faith. They have kept their jobs.
Before we get into that, let’s be clear that the murder of Charlie Kirk was an evil, despicable thing. Nobody should die that way. * Kirk’s murder was particularly gruesome – on stage, in the presence of his wife and many others, immediately available online for people all over the world to watch. (I have not.) A young man, leaving a young family behind. Agree with him or not, anyone who celebrates his murder is also despicable.
- Nor should the thousands of other Americans who die by gunfire each year, but that’s not today’s subject.
However, one transcendently beautiful thing came out of his death. At his funeral his wife said of his murderer: “I forgive him because it was what Christ did and is what Charlie would do,” she said. “The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the Gospel is love and always love. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.” *
- Mr Trump added: “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponents and I don’t want the best for them.” There is also another Person Mr Trump disagrees with.
What should we make of Charlie Kirk?
It is now well over forty days since Kirk’s death, during which time I hope we all have gained some perspective.
I had scarcely heard of Charlie Kirk. I, who thought I was still somewhat in touch with the world, had no idea the major effect he was having on the younger generation. So in the past weeks I have tried to catch up.
Charlie Kirk’s Religion
Inasmuch as this is a religious Blog, this seems the right place to begin.
Charlie Kirk was raised Presbyterian. In 2020 he became a member of Dream City Church in Scottsdale, Arizona, which appears to be a typical Pentecostal mega-church: extremely informal services – guitar music up front, preacher sometimes in blue jeans, with at the end an emotional appeal to “give your life to Jesus” – the sort of thing that draws large crowds these days. Search for “Dream City Church, 11:15 a.m. Service”.
However, check out their teachings, and we Orthodox will find a lot (certainly not all) to agree with: https://www.dreamcitychurch.us/about-dream-city/our-beliefs/
Kirk said: “I started to come in a much closer relationship with Jesus Christ and reading my Bible more and becoming more, essentially, unapologetic about my Christianity… I was given a choice; I could try to descend more into this kind of secular world, or reaffirm my faith, and that’s exactly what I did.”
Charlie Kirk’s Social Views
In the Protestant world, we know pretty much what to expect. Liberal Christians have liberal politics. Conservative Christians have conservative politics. Kirk fit the pattern: He was opposed to abortion, gun control, DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs, LGBTQ rights, and affirmative action. He believed in the “replacement theory”, that hidden forces are actively trying to replace white Americans with people of color. He did not believe in climate change/global warming, claiming there was no scientific consensus about it. * He supported Israel’s destruction of Gaza. This may have been connected with the fact that he called Islam a “danger to America”. He supported the claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Mr Trump. There’s more, but this is the gist of it.
- Wrong.
Only a few years ago, some of his beliefs would have been considered extreme right wing. Now they are main-stream Republican. Was Kirk a racist? As I see it, he was a racist in reverse, so to speak: He was pro-white.
Charlie Kirk’s Activities
He was a talented organizer and communicator.
While he was still in his teens, he founded a group called “Turning Point USA”, originally concerned chiefly with promoting limited government and free market, but which then become focused more on social and religious matters. Out of TPUSA came Turning Point USA Faith, whose mission was to “eliminate wokeism from the American pulpit”. TPUSA published “watch lists” of college professors, high school teachers, members of school boards and others who they said taught Marxism or other leftist ideology. TPUSA was funded by a number of conservative organizations and Republican politicians.
He hosted “The Charlie Kirk Show”, livestream and podcast, a daily three-hour talk show. I listened to a little. On some episodes I thought his tone was (what’s the word?) “nasty”. However, on another I saw him interview an Orthodox priest. Kirk was mannerly, showed a considerable knowledge of religion, and seemed genuinely curious.
Charlie Kirk also regularly sponsored a series called “Prove Me Wrong”, where he bravely appeared on college campuses and similar places which he knew would be hostile to him. Here students who disagreed with him would challenge him. He said (I have lost his exact words) that we have to get back to the point where we can disagree without being violent about it.
My evaluation of “Prove Me Wrong”, from what I’ve watched: Kirk clearly enjoyed telling students that a college education was useless! (He had dropped out after one semester.) He had an amazing amount of information (not all of it correct) ready to produce at a moment’s notice. He was a clever debater: Often he turned the debate back onto the questioner, who almost always lost. It was a good way to win a debate, but not always a good way to get at the truth.
In another venue, Governor Gavin Newsome of California interviewed Kirk. All was mannerly. Kirk answered a few questions, but turned almost everything else back of Newsome and, in my opinion, made hash of him.
These were not all his activities. Those I’ve listed leave me out of breath, just writing about it!
Charlie Kirk’s Controversial Comments
Almost immediately after Kirk’s death, his many opponents began to quote him saying outrageous things. His supporters contended that much of what he had said was now being taken out of context.
That made me wonder exactly what he had said, so I did some research. If any of you want documentation for the following, it is not hard to find online, though it does take some time. If you think I have made any errors, please let me know in the Comments below, and I will make corrections.
I have used exact quotations when possible. Sometimes what he said was more complicated than can be reduced to a short quote.
What Charlie Kirk said:
1 “We must ban trans-affirming care — the entire country. Donald Trump needs to run on this issue.”
2 “Some gun deaths are worth it, in order to preserve Second Amendment rights.” (Who could have imagined he would be one of them?)
3 “Feminism has become much more about hating men than empowering women… For a culture to survive we need strong men and women—not strong women and weak men.” He later corrected his comment to say he meant “hyper-feminism” which puts men down.
4 “Joe Biden is a bumbling, dementia-filled Alzheimer’s, corrupt, tyrant who should honestly be put in prison and/or given the death penalty for crimes against America.” Yes. He did say that.
5 “I have a very, very radical view on this, but I can defend it, and I’ve thought about it. We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the mid-1960s.”
6 ”Martin Luther King was awful. He’s not a good person.” Previously he had said positive things about MLK. When asked about it, he said “I’ve changed my mind.”
7 “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage.”
8 He was a strong supporter of Israel. However, on various podcasts Kirk said that “Jewish dollars” were funding Marxist ideas in education and policy and contributing to opening the borders.
9 Referring to Michelle Obama and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, he said: “[Except for affirmative action] you do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. * You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”
- Fact check: Michelle Obama graduated from Princeton University with honors cum laude in 1985. Ketanji Brown Jackson earned her Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Harvard Law School in 1996, graduating cum laude.
Orthodox Teachings on current issues
Before we go further I’ll try to give an Orthodox “take” on some of the matters above. Please correct me if I’m have made any errors in what follows.
Of course, the Orthodox Church has social and moral teachings, and has the duty to speak about these both within the Church and in “the public forum”, as some call it.
The first of these moral principles, of course, is “Love your neighbor as yourself”.
How does the Orthodox Church apply our principles? By grace and with love, not as laws. Father Alexander Schmemann wrote: “The forces of the law cannot create anything; they remain without grace, ambiguous and even destructive.”
The Orthodox Church endorses no political party or organization and does not take contributions from any of them. She does not tell her people how to apply our principles or how to vote. *
- In my opinion, if Orthodox clergy publicly support political parties or candidates or take money from them, they should be disciplined by their bishops. (I’m waiting for the day…) The same should apply to an Orthodox parishes.
Nor, so far as I know, does the Orthodox Church endorse any political theory or system. She has lived under and survived a great many of them. However the Church opposes any which seek to remove God and religion from society (Soviet Communism, for example) or which do not promote social responsibility.
Here is the Orthodox stance regarding The Taking of Human Life, from the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America – June 19, 2022 “Any deliberate ending of human life is a rejection of its sacredness and inviolability and is unacceptable. This includes the death of the unborn by abortion, murder in peacetime or in war, suicide, and euthanasia. The Church mourns the premature end of a human life, and we seek to minister with compassion and mercy in these situations.”
The Orthodox Church teaches that homosexuality is disordered, not in accordance with God’s will, and that homosexual activity is sinful and destructive of the human person.
So far as I can find, no Orthodox council of Bishops has made a statement regarding trans-gender matters. (Please inform me if I’m wrong.) However, I think the general consensus is that people are born with a God-given gender and any variation from this is disordered. However, in all situations we are commanded by Christ to love persons, not condemn them, to treat them with compassion and gently try to help them to find their true identity..
The same Assembly of Bishops (above) has condemned racism and in particular condemned “the hateful violence and … the loss of life that resulted from the shameful efforts to promote racial bigotry and white supremacist ideology in Charlottesville, Virginia” in 2017. Because of this, one of the organizers of that rally was excommunicated from a parish in the Antiochian Orthodox Diocsese. Sadly he was then welcomed by a parish of a non-canonical church.
When a couple of Greek bishops made anti-Semitic * comments, these were immediately condemned by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and other Orthodox authorities. On November 7, 2023, Orthodox Patriarch Theopholis of Jerusalem stated that the Christians of the Holy Land condemn both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Greek Archbishop Elpidophoros of America said: “Evil has a name…it’s called fascism and Nazism”.
- or rather “anti-Jewish”. Arabs are also semitic peoples.
Various Orthodox hierarchs have expressed Orthodox principles in different ways: Many of our hierarchs have condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza. I know of none who have supported it. Greek Orthodox Archbishop Iakovos marched with Dr Martin Luther King at Selma. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has led the Church (and in many ways the world) in advocating for environmental protections.
Christian Nationalism
Let’s define terms.
Christian Nationalism is the belief that a nation should be a Christian theocracy, and that the government should take active steps to make it that way.
American Christian Nationalism usually begins with the belief that the United States of America was founded to be a Christian Nation. (It was not. Read the Constitution.)
Charlie Kirk advocated for something even narrower: American Pentecostal Protestant Christian “conservative Republican” * Nationalism. He identified with this very circumscribed kind of Christian Faith with this equally circumscribed kind of politics.
- “Conservative Republican” today is very different, in some ways the opposite of what it was fifty ago. (I was there.) The same can be said for “liberal Democrat”, but that’s another story.
I cannot find anywhere that Charlie Kirk titled himself a “Christian Nationalist”. But if he wasn’t, what was he doing hanging around the White House all the time? In many circles, Kirk was credited with winning the youth of “Generation Z” for Trump, thus swinging the 2024 election to him – all the while promoting Jesus Christ. Charlie Kirk’s funeral, presided over by Pentecostal pastors with pop Evangelical music, with speeches by Donald Trump, J.D. Vance and Stephen Miller, was the perfect expression of Christian Nationalism, the complete integration of Christianity with politics.
American Christian Republican Nationalists today seek to make their ideology dominant in the United States by taking control (in one way or another) of the following: government (including the military), religion and the churches, family, education, , the media, arts and entertainment and business. That process is well underway, as is easily seen if we keep up with current events.
Here is the First Article of the Constitution of the United States of America: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Christian Nationalism is a big problem for the United States, because it seeks to make this country into what it was never intended to be. Certainly Christians should be free to promote and advocate the teachings of our Faith. But to control the United States, so that non-Christians have not that right? to control our country and its psople? Do they intend to repeal the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
Christian Nationalism presents an even bigger problem for Christianity.
Let me quote something from David Brooks’ column in the New York Times, November 13, 2025.
“On the one side are the Christian nationalists *, who practice a debauched form of their faith. Christian nationalism is particular rather than universal. It is about protecting “us” against “them” — the native versus the immigrant. It is about power more than love. It is about threat more than hope. It is rigid and pharisaical rather than personal and merciful.”
- In the article Brooks was equally critical of “the exhausted remains of secular humanism”, but that’s not the topic here. Look it up for yourself.
Charlie Kirk: Here’s what I think.
Kirk was a talented, intelligent, charismatic, principled, well intentioned young man. However, in my opinion, he overstretched himself too early, got in too deep before he was mature enough to handle it, and it looks to me like he fell to the temptations of popularity and power. (And possibly greed? He was worth almost $5 million when he died.)
If he had had a competent spiritual father or mother, he might have been warned against these traps and moved more slowly and more warily. He might have taken time to become better educated and think more deeply and speak more carefully. And who knows what good things he might have done? We’ll never know.
Was Charlie Kirk a Christian martyr? No, he was not. His assassin killed him only because of his “anti-trans rhetoric”, which might have come from any conservative. Immediately after, President Trump called for a crackdown on “leftists” in general. Charlie Trump was a martyr for right wing politics.
There is now a well financed attempt to establish branches of Turning Point USA on every American college campus. Will it succeed? Will Charlie Kirk have a permanent influence on his generation or was he only a “flash in the pan”. The latter would be my guess. Media personalities come and go very quickly these days. I don’t see much online about him online now, or in the news, but probably I just don’t know where to look.
Pray for the soul of Charlie Kirk. May he rest in peace. He surely can use some. Pray for his wife Erika, their daughter and their son. They saw so little of him while he was alive.
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There. I said I’d write about Charlie Kirk, and I’ve done it. I learned a lot and thought a lot and wrote too much in the process. I’m glad it’s over with.
If you disagree (or even better, agree!) with anything I’ve said, please Comment below.
Next Friday, the day after Thanksgiving: from my old series on the Seven Deadly Sins – Gluttony
Week after Next: My Adventures with Saint Nicholas