The Clarifying Effect of Charlie Kirk’s Life and Legacy
In only a month, the tragic death of Charlie Kirk has already gained enormous historical significance. Its direct political impact on the United States is striking. Besides, it has a sharp awakening effect on all Western societies we traditionally refer to as the “Free World.”
The mission of Charlie’s life was Freedom; his conviction – that free speech and civilized debate are the guarantee of its existence. “When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence,” was Charlie’s motto. “I am here to tell young people that there is a better way than Big Government and Old School corruption.” Thus, Charlie briefly presented Turning Point USA, the organization that is changing the U.S. political landscape before our eyes.
Today, Charlie Kirk would have celebrated his 32nd birthday. Instead, he stood by American martyrs as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. His name is among those in history who viewed Christianity as a prerequisite for our Nation’s greatness. The first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, saw the American experiment as a “shining city on a hill” if only people followed God. In his farewell address, George Washington asserted that to succeed, the new Nation must preserve the “religious principle”. The 6th president John Quincy Adams firmly believed that “the moral principles and precepts found in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of our civil constitutions and laws.” Abraham Lincoln directed that “… this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.” Under the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower, “One Nation Under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance, and “In God We Trust” was declared as the Nation’s official moto. In 1983, Ronald Reagan’s famous “Evil Empire” speech echoed the Founding Fathers’ belief that “If we will not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants.” Within that speech, Reagan reminded the need for “rule of law under God”, backed the restoration of prayer to public schools, and raised his voice against “modern-day secularism.
“The body politic of America was so Christian and was so Protestant that our form and structure of government was built for the people that believed in Christ our Lord”, Charlie unapologetically asserted. The freedoms of religion and of free speech are declared by the First Amendment of the American Constitution as absolute rights, both stemming from God, so that no man can restrict them. This uniquely American understanding of Freedom, which unleashes the creative energy and talents of millions coming here from all nationalities and cultures, is the real reason why the United States has become the most prosperous and powerful nation in less than 200 years.
But the radical left opposes this view of America. To them, she is evil, borders are oppressive, meritocracy is racist, law and order are unfair, and Trump and his followers are fascists. Charlie Kirk’s prediction of what happens when people “stop talking” became prophetically accurate. Leftists who refuse to speak with political opponents vandalize federal buildings, ignite street riots, loot businesses, and shoot at ICE officers; they attempted to assassinate Trump twice. The same ones replied to Charlie’s debate offer by taking his life.
In Europe, the prevailing reaction to U.S. politics and recent tragic events resembles the radical left’s anti-Americanism. Though we assume that the U.S. and (Western) Europe share a common understanding of Freedom, it is becoming clear that they are different, and this is not a recent trend. At about the same time, the American Founding Fathers were openly praying for divine guidance, seeking God’s assistance in establishing the new Nation, the bloody French Revolution marked the beginning of a new European era of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) laid the foundations of the modern European constitutional tradition of government “guaranteeing” free speech and Freedom of religion, limiting both “in the interests of public order.” A few have heard of the Declaration, but most are aware of the French guillotine that beheaded thousands of opponents of the new political regime in power. The French still praise the Revolution, and the day that sparked it is their National Day.
The culmination of the European political tradition of government-controlled speech and religion is the present Convention on Human Rights, which grants the government unfettered authority to restrict these rights for any plausible pretext, including the “protection of the rights and freedoms of others.” A triumph of political expediency, where the elites are shaping the minds of the people, and their failures are becoming catastrophes for the nations. Since the French Revolution, elites’ political engineering in Europe led to dozens of bloody local wars, two world wars, the Holocaust, Nazi and Communist species of the virus of Socialism, and now is holding the Old Continent hostage to its sophisticated, globalist strain.
That is why today in Europe, you face imprisonment for preaching the Bible in public, arrest for exchanging “politically inappropriate content” on social media, or a hefty fine for “hate speech”. Europe does not stand for the free, but rather for the “good” speech, as defined by those in power. Sadly, in the age of AI and infinite knowledge, a highly educated “analyst” is often more ignorant than a medieval illiterate – by simply avoiding “controversial” subjects and digging in the allowed, comfortable ideological bubble. The practical result of this self-inflicted brainwashing is a distorted reality in which Freedom is a danger, Christianity discriminates, nationalism equals extremism, Israel commits genocide, America is racist, and Trump is a fascist. Most Europeans today – completely dismissing any notion of EU cultural and demographic collapse, persecuted free speech, disappearing Freedom, and suicidal distancing from Christianity – are devoted to fact-checking Trump, and chanting “Glory to Ukraine”.
The deepening pathology of today’s serial deniers of Trump’s America is not an intellectual issue. No one is so silly as to believe the leftists propaganda machine on both sides of the Atlantic – unless they deliberately choose to, totally ignoring facts and common sense. As it has always been in human history, the most significant tragedies were inflicted by the demons inside men. Those whom Jesus cast out two thousand years ago. Following his Savior, Charlie Kirk confronted the demons of systematic brainwashing and aggressive ignorance possessing college campuses all across the U.S. The bullet did not stop his message, but made it stronger – and this is just the beginning.
Within a month of his death, Charlie’s life and legacy make the choices before the Western World crystal clear: America’s awakening, or the progressing downfall of Europe; more freedom, or further compliance; the whole truth, or only the “good” one; keep debating, or shutting down the dissenters; the guillotine, or Jesus’ Cross; more of Christ, or banning the Gospel?
Charlie’s march for Freedom was rooted in his believe that “The truth will set you free” (John 8:32). He knew, that Jesus Christ is speaking “Word of Life” (1 John 1:1), and that God gave the ultimate choice of men, as well as the Nation in Deuteronomy 30:19: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore, choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.”
Charlie chose truth and life – in his short term in this world, and in Eternity with the Lord. When asked about the most important thing he wants to be remembered for, he swiftly replied: “The courage for my faith”.
And he will be – by the free American generations to come.
