This week was disturbing for so many people. Charlie Kirk, a man long admired for his Christian faith, intelligence, and willingness to debate college students on campuses across the country, was brutally murdered in front of hundreds of people. Much has already been said across various social media platforms, in local churches, and across our mainstream media, so I won’t spend a lot of time repeating it all. We know we should condemn this vicious act, and Christians have spent a lot of time in the past few days speaking publicly about the need for peaceful debate and freedom of speech. We’ve heard a lot about how the media must “turn down the heat” with their rhetoric, which has been inciting violence nationwide, and we have heard much about how the country must unite in agreement about common decency and acceptable reactions to ideas.
These are all valid discussions we need to have, but what we really need to be asking ourselves is how we got here in the first place, and how we can change direction. We need to identify the root cause of this issue, as failing to do so will mean the problem persists. We often find ourselves caught up in debates about the various branches of this societal tree –things that happen to draw our attention in the moment. We notice the media, problems in politics, the law, and higher education—and it distracts us from the root problem, the rot, that is poisoning this entire tree. One particular ideology isn’t the root of this problem, and even if we eliminate hateful rhetoric from the media tomorrow, we’d still be stuck in the same societal place.
How can we go from an America where people are threatened with death for their viewpoints and are murdered for their faith to any other, better type of America? Some call Kirk’s death a political assassination, and it is that too, but do not be mistaken, Charlie Kirk’s political beliefs were merely the expression of his biblical ones. He was not murdered simply for being political. He was murdered because his beliefs were Christian, and he was influencing people with fundamentally Christian ideas. He believed in the value of life from conception because the Bible states that is when life begins. He believed marriage should be between one man and one woman because that is what God has decreed in Scripture. He was against trans ideology because the belief that you’re born in the wrong body is contrary to the Word of God. For Charlie, his Christian faith came first, and his political identity came second and was only a reflection of his first priority.
We find ourselves surrounded by all sorts of “extremist” viewpoints and a whole lot of young people whose response to opinions contrary to their own is to shout them down or kill them. Recently, a poll conducted by FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) surveyed over 68,000 college students over six years about their willingness to resort to violence over campus speech. They discovered that in only six years, we have gone from 1 in 5 students to 1 in 3 students agreeing that violence is sometimes an appropriate response to free speech on campus.[1] That means that 1/3 of college students agree it is appropriate to sometimes be violent against someone you disagree with. What an astronomical number! So the question again is, why are we in this situation societally, and how can we change course?
We have given our children over to other people for the majority of their childhood and handed them over to screens the rest of the time, raising them on pop culture instead of God’s Word and allowing their main diet to be the lies of society. We have played no active role in their education (spiritual or mental) whatsoever. We have abandoned our parental responsibilities for the sake of our convenience and careers. We have done so, allowing them to be constantly formed by outside forces which, by now, we must accept are clearly contrary to truth and to God. We have done this and then marveled at the consequences. Most children are abandoning their faith before they even leave home. Did you know that? Before most Christian children go to college, they are leaving their Christian faith—right under their parents’ noses. The Institute for Family Studies, Lifeway Research, and Monitoring the Future survey series all have information on the various studies and surveys that have been done on this.
This is because children are being taught how to behave, what to think, value, and how to act by other people and the internet most of the day, every day. And what they are often being taught is contrary to God’s Word, contrary to reality, and contrary to the truth. No more. We can no longer continue down this path. We cannot keep turning out more children radicalized, hateful, and unaware of the truth. We are the parents. We are called to teach our children the truth about God. We are called to guard our children’s hearts and minds. They are our responsibility, and no one else’s. Even if your child attends school, you cannot give up your calling to teach them. You must ensure they know the truth. You must take responsibility for their Christian faith and their knowledge of their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You must protect them from social media and the poison on the internet that seeks to draw them into a dark web of lies. You—yes, you—are at the forefront of this spiritual and societal battle. You are the most important part of a tidal change. Draw the sword of God’s Word, then, and defend your children with it. Learn from Charlie to be courageous, and help your children grow up strong in word and deed, in the name of the Lord.
[1] https://www.thefire.org/news/2026-college-free-speech-rankings-americas-colleges-get-f-poor-free-speech-climate
