Monday, September 22, 2025

Part I

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The Remarkable Memorial Service for Charlie Kirk: Astounding Gospel Witness and Christian Testimony at One of the Largest Funerals in U.S. History

It was one of the largest funerals in American history. The memorial service for Charlie Kirk held yesterday in Phoenix, was attended by almost 200,000 people by most estimates. The crowd filled the Arizona Cardinal Stadium, known as State Farm Stadium, and overflow crowds amounted to the tens of thousands. It was also a long event, just over five hours in duration. And just to note the historic nature of the event, virtually the entire cabinet of the president of the United States was there. The Vice President of the United States and the President of the United States spoke at the event. It was one of those developments that could not have been foreseen until all of a sudden it was upon us, and of course, foisted upon us by a grotesque act of violence in the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a major figure in American politics and in American culture, that was indicated by the scale of the event yesterday.

I think many people looking at this would first note the massive scale of the event because things like this just happen very, very rarely. As a matter of fact, it’s hard to come up with any precedent for a non-governmental figure that would have a funeral anywhere near this size in magnitude. In terms of recent events, funerals of former presidents or memorial services for such events, or for popes there at the Vatican, they’re the only parallel kind of events you can think of along these lines. That shows you something of the cultural importance of what took place in Phoenix yesterday.

But I think in theological terms, it was a far more significant event than most people might understand. What took place yesterday, not only for the five hours, not only for the 200,000 or so people gathered there, it was a very long, continuous testimony to the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ and to the personal Christian convictions that Charlie Kirk held. He also taught, he gave testimony of them pervasively, and clearly they were shared by the vast majority of those who gathered in that stadium yesterday.

The entire event started out with a very strong gospel testimony coming from Pastor Rob McCoy. In the midst of his comments, he made very clear not only what the gospel is, but how persons can come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ as savior.

Speaking of Charlie Kirk, the pastor said this, “Charlie was never afraid because he knew his life was secure in the hand of God. Jesus left the glory of heaven’s throne for the humiliation of an Earthly cross. He was fully tempted, yet was without sin. For those of you who struggle with the word sin, it’s real simple, it’s an archer’s term,” he said, “where the bull’s eye is and where the arrow lands, that’s called the sin distance.” These are his words, “How far you’ve fallen from perfection. And there are none righteous, no, not one. We all miss the mark, the bullseye, and we try to get to God by our efforts, but there is no effort that will bring us back to the presence of a righteous God. You see, the wages of sin is death. Charlie knew this and at an early age, he entrusted his life to the Savior of the world.”

Pastor McCoy, long associated with the Calvary Chapel movement, went on to present the gospel and to call for a response, and it was a very clear presentation of the gospel. We also have the fact that speaker after speaker came back to the same story, to the claims of Christ, to the Christian faith that was the center of Charlie Kirk’s life and also was at the center of his teaching, increasingly so even in recent years.

And if there was any one astounding factor about the memorial service, all five-plus hours of it, was how much of it was explicitly committed to Christian testimony, and to the presentation of the gospel, and to the invocation of the Christian faith, and to specific doctrinal statements. Andrew Kolvet, who is the producer of the Charlie Kirk program, gave a very moving presentation about Charlie Kirk. He said at one point, “You see, I see now clearly that Charlie was a prophet, not the fortune-telling kind that would predict the future, but the biblical kind. He confronted evil and proclaimed the truth and called us to repent and be saved. Amen. And he wasn’t mean about it. He was kind and he was loving, and you could hear in his voice that he desperately wanted the best for you and for all of us.”

He went on to cite Scripture, “Oh, death, where is your sting? Christ has overcome death.” And then he just spoke directly to his memories of Charlie Kirk. Once again, it was a recurring pattern, a very clear declaration of the gospel of Jesus Christ at the center of Charlie Kirk’s life and message and of the movement that he began.

The same thing was spoken by many other of those who made presentations. One of the most important was by Frank Turek, an apologist, and he spoke very specifically about Charlie Kirk’s faith, but he also spoke extremely specifically about the Christian faith itself. He presented the truth claims of Christ, and even in speaking of the atonement, spoke specifically of substitutionary atonement, the penal substitutionary understanding of the cross. That is a depth of theological understanding that quite honestly is missing or at least absent from many Christian services, from many declarations of the gospel. What took place yesterday was different even than what would be considered normal in many Christian memorial services or funerals.

Frank Turek went on to say about the gospel, he spoke of the innocent substitute, Jesus Christ, who died in our place. He went on to speak of the Father saying, “Where can he find an innocent substitute among us? He can’t. We’re all fallen. So, what does this infinitely just and infinitely loving God do? He adds humanity to his deity. [meaning Christ]. He comes to Earth. He allows the creatures that rebelled against him to torture and kill him so he could place their punishment upon Himself. And then by trusting in him, every one of us can be forgiven and thus given His,” that means Christ’s, “righteousness.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Turek, “this is the greatest story ever told, and it happens to be true. There’s evidence for this, and Charlie knew it.” And then he went on to say, “Watch his videos.” Indeed, Charlie Kirk spoke often about the nature of the gospel, the content of the gospel, the declaration of the gospel, and the meaning of the gospel. Turek spoke of the Law coming through Moses, but grace and truth come to us through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

So many of the speakers in yesterday’s event went on to speak of the nature of Charlie’s effort, Charlie Kirk’s effort, as one marked by a form of spiritual warfare, and that was a recurrent theme. And you had people saying such things as, “Charlie knew that we’re in a spiritual war for the heart, soul, and future of America, and he was ultimately killed because of it.” And that’s, of course, a part of the story here. And there was a very clear claim of martyrdom for Charlie Kirk, not so much for his political ideas, but rather for his Christian faith and for the boldness of his Christian declaration.

There’s much more to be said here. I think some of the most important of the comments made came unexpectedly from figures who aren’t known primarily for making theological statements. For instance, this statement from Tucker Carlson, “But the main thing about Charlie and his message, he was bringing the gospel to the country. He was doing the thing that the people in charge hate most, which is calling for them to repent. So, how is Charlie’s message different? And Charlie was a political person who was deeply interested in coalition building and in getting the right people in office because he knew that vast improvements are possible politically.” And this is continuing, the quote from Tucker Carlson, “But he also knew that politics is not the final answer. It can’t answer the deepest questions actually, that the only real solution is Jesus.” Again, a remarkable Christian testimony coming from someone for whom this is not the expected everyday conversation nor broadcasting subject. 

Tulsi Gabbard, director of National Intelligence, spoke of what Paul gave as testimony in 1 Corinthians 15, and the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, also spoke very clearly not only of Charlie Kirk’s very personal Christian faith and his Christian testimony, but also of his own Christian affirmation. He recited the gospel story. He went on to say, and remember, this is the secretary of state of the United States, “But then sin entered the world and separated us from our creator. And so, God took on the form of a man and came down and lived among us, and he suffered like men and he died like a man. But on the third day, he rose, unlike any mortal man, and then to prove any doubters wrong, he ate with his disciples so they could see and they touched his wounds. He didn’t rise as a ghost or as a spirit but as flesh. And then he rose to the heavens, but he promised he would return and he will.” Now, that’s not the precise language I would use, but those are the very points I would want to make and I think it’s remarkable language coming from the secretary of state of the United States.

He went on to make the promise found in Scripture of a new heaven and a new Earth, and he expressed this as part of his confidence related to Charlie Kirk and to himself, “We will all be together and we will be going to have a great reunion there again with Charlie and all the people we love.” And with that, the secretary of state concluded, “Thank you and God bless you.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said of Charlie Kirk, “More importantly, he was a true believer. Only Christ is king, our Lord and savior, our sins are washed away by the blood of Jesus. Fear God and fear no man. That was Charlie Kirk,” said Secretary Hegseth. He went on to say, by the way, “We’re sinners saved only by grace in need of the gospel.” And he concluded by testimony to Charlie Kirk as, “A citizen who had the biblical heart of a soldier, of the faith, who put on every single day the full armor of God with a smile as the Scriptures tell us all Christ followers are to do.” 

Donald Trump Jr. took the stage and went on to say that Charlie Kirk knew far more of the Bible than he did. He said that was an understatement. At the same time, Donald Trump Jr. went on to speak out of the Book of Acts, of Stephen as the first martyr of the Christian Church. Later in the statement he said, “The Bible says over 100 times in the pages of Scripture, ‘Do not be afraid.'” 

One of the most moving portions of the service came in statements made by J.D. Vance, the vice president of the United States. The vice president said, “I was telling somebody backstage that I always felt a little uncomfortable talking about my faith in public, as much as I love the Lord and as much as it was an important part of my life.” He then went on to say, “I have talked more about Jesus Christ in the past two weeks than I have my entire time in public life.” 

Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow, very movingly, picked up on the very same theme speaking of what had come in the aftermath of her husband’s assassination. She said, “This past week, we saw people open a Bible for the first time in a decade. We saw people pray for the first time since they were children.” She went on, “We saw people go to a church service for the first time in their entire lives.” Erika Kirk, also very movingly, spoke of Charlie Kirk’s role as her husband and the father of their children, and then she went on to say that at the very heart of Charlie Kirk’s passion, especially in recent years, was the affirmation of the family. She said, “The greatest cause in Charlie’s life was trying to revive the American family.” She continued, “When he spoke to young people, he was always eager to tell them about God’s vision for marriage and how they should just dare to live it out. It would enrich every of their life in the same way it enriched ours.”

In an incredibly moving turn in her comments, she spoke of Charlie’s passion to, “save young men.” Okay, that made a lot of sense, and she means here in terms of his leadership in their lives, pointing them to Christ, pointing them to marriage, pointing them to fatherhood, pointing them to service for country, to conservative principles, but that’s not all she meant there. She said, “He wanted to save young men just like the one who took his life.”

She then spoke of the young man, Tyler Robinson, arrested and charged with her husband’s death and said, “Young man, that young man on the cross our savior said, ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.'” She went on to speak of the young man who is now arrested and charged with the death of her husband, and she said, “I forgive him.” She said, “I forgive him because it’s what Christ did and is what Charlie would do. The answer to hate,” she said, “is not hate. The answer we know from the gospel is love and always love. Love for enemies,” she said, “and love for those who persecute us.” And then she went on to speak of continuing that commitment and its message in her husband’s organization, Turning Point USA. Later, Erica Kirk said this, “Charlie died with incomplete work but not with unfinished business.” A particularly apt and appropriate line.

President Donald J. Trump, who looked to Charlie Kirk as a political organizer and advisor, and whom he credited with the margin of victory in terms of his especially political movement among young Americans and young men in particular. President Trump spoke very movingly of the event and of his personal affection for Charlie and Erika Kirk, and he said, “This is like an old time revival, isn’t it?” Now, I’m not exactly sure what experience President Trump has with an old-fashioned revival, but I’ll say this, he certainly wasn’t wrong.

Unsurprisingly, President Trump’s comments were both laudatory of Charlie Kirk and of the principles that they shared together, but it was also more explicitly political than most of the other remarks made. It brought a conclusion to the event, and once again, it made the emphatic point that not only was the larger part of the president’s cabinet visible and there for the event, not only was the Speaker of the US House of Representatives there for the event, not only the Vice President of the United States, but the President of the United States. It was a truly unprecedented event.

Part II

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What to Make of Charlie Kirk’s Funeral: This Was Not Just Civil Religion

Now, how will it be considered in terms of American history and the American context? In Christian worldview terms, what should we make of it? Well, I’ll tell you one of the first impulses, especially coming from say, academia, coming from the world of the university and the academic elites, those who are aware of such things are likely to argue that what took place yesterday was a display of what is often called civil religion. This was a term basically invented in the 20th century by sociologist Robert Bellah. It became widely adopted, and I think you can understand the usefulness of the concept.

It is the fact that the United States, in particular, perhaps more even than other nations, has a certain religious sense about itself even when it comes to, say, the founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, there’s almost a religious dimension that is attached to them even by people who don’t have any particular religious beliefs.

There is a generalized religious affirmation of the spiritual importance of the United States of America. This is often infused with what might be described as a form of spiritual patriotism, and there will be those who will try to say, what you saw yesterday in Phoenix was just five hours of civil religion. I raised that because I know it’s going to be said, but I think in this case, even though civil religion was certainly there, red, white and blue, the banners, the fireworks and all the rest, the reality is it was far more than civil religion, because here’s the thing, civil religion when it comes to doctrine is absolutely minimalistic and seeks at every point not to be offensive. That is to say civil religion in terms of its essence is entirely inclusive.

That’s not exactly what happened yesterday. As a matter of fact, that’s not what happened at all. Specific Christian doctrines were affirmed. The gospel of Jesus Christ was affirmed in its specificity. This was not just some kind of religious event. It was an explicitly Christian event. It was a Christian event that pointed to the gospel and at more than one point invited those who attended and those who were hearing and observing to come to Christ in terms of their own personal faith and affirmation.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and I’m going to make an argument, and the argument is this. I think there are many people who might’ve tuned into this event because they knew it was going to be big, they knew it was going to be important, and they knew there might be things said that will be discussed in the larger culture, perhaps in the media, the talking head programs and all the rest.

I think most of the people who probably tuned in with that in mind were thinking of Charlie Kirk, the political activist and the figure in American electoral politics. I think what they got, what they observed, what they saw and heard, in contrast, was basically a testimony to Charlie Kirk the Christian. Yes, a Christian who was head of an activist organization and who contended very, very firmly for his own principles and convictions and helped to inculcate that in a generation of young adults, but at the same time, I think it was perhaps shocking to most people in how explicitly Christian it was.

I want to suggest to you something that as Christians, you should listen for, and that is that if people want a lowest common denominator, they can pretty quickly get there. It is not necessary for people to say as much as they said at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service. They could have gotten by, and frankly, without much comment, if they had said far less.

I have to look back at that event and think, and I’m not alone in this, that it was a remarkable occasion, remarkable for so many reasons, for so many different statements, but just to hear the Vice President of the United States say, “I’ve talked more about Jesus Christ in the past two weeks than I have in my entire time in public life.” Let’s just state emphatically, Vice President Vance did not have to say that. He said it because he clearly meant it, and he was saying something that disclosed himself in a way even as he spoke in honor of his friend to Charlie Kirk. That’s a very important thing, and it ought to last rather long in our memory.

Part III

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The Suspension of Jimmy Kimmel: He Did Not Lose First Amendment Rights

But next, simply because of the importance of this issue in national conversation, especially over the weekend, I want to go back to the fact that entertainer, Jimmy Kimmel, had himself and his program put on indefinite hold by ABC, and in the background to that is the Disney Corporation, largely because of public response to statements that he made in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Looking at the statements, I have to say, I don’t think they age very well. The longer I look at them, the more offensive they become.

But the big issue here is really, well, let’s say it’s twofold. And the background, one of the things is that there are people saying, look, the putting of the program on indefinite hold is because of political pressure, and that’s a sign of impending autocracy. Well, I don’t believe that’s actually the cause of this at all. I think when you look at the consumer pressure that was coming from the base, and that includes those of local affiliates, ABC affiliates, and many others, when you look at the pressure that undoubtedly was and would’ve been put on Disney and ABC, it’s a quite reasonable response on the part of the network to have put the program and Jimmy Kimmel in terms of that program on indefinite hold.

But it’s also true that we would not want government to play too heavy a hand in this. It’s also important that we recognize government really doesn’t have to. Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, spoke to this. In the aftermath he said something like, “We can do it the hard way or the easy way.” Senator Ted Cruz, conservative Republican from Texas, spoke very clearly against that statement. I’ll just say it was unfortunate, and part of the reason why it’s unfortunate is because I think it would’ve been unnecessary. I think public pressure coming from viewers and other shareholders in Disney and just public comment would’ve likely led to the same effect.

And so we’re looking at the fact that people are crying out First Amendment rights. Well, let’s ask the question. Was Jimmy Kimmel denied his First Amendment rights? The answer is no, he was not. No one is saying that it is, or in any case, should be illegal for Jimmy Kimmel to say the things that he wants to say. Frankly, he can say just about anything he wants to say without any fear of legal retribution. That doesn’t mean he’s owed a job. That job is extended to him by ABC. That job is extended to him on certain expectations. If it isn’t serving the purposes of ABC, and beyond that the parent company, Disney, then there should be no job. And quite honestly, that is measured in the cost of the program versus income, and once again, there’s evidence of the fact that the math just didn’t add up for the program.

There is also no doubt that there was a political context that led to the fact that his program was put on indefinite hold. And so, let’s just remember that the First Amendment applies to all citizens. We have the First Amendment, we have the First Amendment rights of freedom of speech, but that doesn’t mean that someone owes us a job. By the way, the First Amendment has a lot to do with the fact that for instance, a newspaper has the right to print, it also has the right to employ whom it wants to employ, and the same thing is true for a television network, entertainment company, you go on down.

There are all kinds of issues that come into play here, but I don’t think it’s necessary for government to play a particularly heavy hand here, and I think conservatives should be quite concerned about that because there will be a Democratic administration who could use that same power against conservatives. 

Part IV

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Big Conservative Alarms About ‘Hate Speech’: Conservatives Need to Make Very Careful Arguments

That also leads to a statement that was made by Attorney General Pam Bondi against hate speech and the fact that the Justice Department would go after hate speech. That immediately led to conservative backlash, and honestly, it is because conservatives have had to make the point over the last several decades that hate speech is wrongly defined in legal terms. The very category of hate speech becomes something that’s very imprecise, very ambiguous, and so politically volatile that it is very likely to be used against us.

To put the matter just as clearly as I can, there are those who would like to use the category of hate speech to say that any opposition to the LGBTQ agenda is a form of hate, that any opposition to the transgender revolution is a form of hate, and therefore, it is to be prosecuted or marginalized by the government. I’m thankful that there was a very strong conservative response. Conservatives need to remember that we’re the ones who don’t want to emotionalize the political construct of hate speech. We want to be very clear that whoever gets to define speech as hate speech, if that has legal significance, they’ve already largely won the battle.

For Christians, let’s just underline something of urgent importance. There are those who would like to define the gospel of Jesus Christ and the words of Scripture as hate speech, and that’s exactly what has happened in some Scandinavian countries where those who have simply offered and repeated a scriptural verse have been accused and arrested for hate speech. That’s not hypothetical. We need to keep that very much in mind.

One final thought about all of that. It’s very interesting that you have so many people coming back and saying, look, these late-night comedy programs were losing tons of money to begin with. We’re talking about multiple millions of dollars. One program alone, it’s estimated Stephen Colbert’s program may have lost CBS about $16 million a year. Well, then why in the world was it on? What was CBS getting in response? And it has to be the fact that what they had was the adulation and the appreciation, the support of the far left, but it turns out that wasn’t a winning formula even in the math.

That tells us a couple of very interesting things, and one of them is that late night television entertainment was radically redefined in this generation from what it had been. There were always political jokes, but they were, by comparison, very tame and often genuinely nonpartisan. Basically, they were jokes against whomever was in the Oval Office. That wasn’t so much a partisan issue.

Now, Hollywood’s always been more liberal than Middle America, but still, Hollywood was at least knowledgeable with the fact that at least for generations, they were trying to sell their product to Middle America. When you look at what’s happened with so many of these late night comedians on the far left, it’s clear they really don’t care about Middle America, they’re speaking to the two coasts. But it turns out, as I say, that math doesn’t add up, and that means that time was about to run out and conservative pressure here was at least part of clarifying that picture.

But again, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel, anyone, they have the right, you have the right to create a platform and say whatever you want to say, and then we’ll see if you have an audience. No one has a right to an audience owned by someone else. That’s a very different thing. The one who owns the platform gets to determine what is and is not said, and who does and does not say it.

One big shift we need to note in all of this is so much of the culture and in particular the artistic culture, so much of comedy towards what’s described as transgressive, it takes as a matter of pride now, so many of these comedians take as a matter of pride that they are transgressing former boundaries. Well, guess what? It turns out, sometimes those boundaries press back. By any measure, let’s just say it’s been a remarkable weekend.