The Assassination of the Truthful
Charlie Kirk's Assassination Will Galvanize the Proclamation of Truth
On September 10, 2025, just after noon, Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old conservative activist, founder of Turning Point USA, and unapologetic Christian, was shot dead on a university stage in Utah. He had barely begun his “Prove Me Wrong” segment, inviting students into debate, when a bullet from a rooftop 200 yards away ripped through his neck. He collapsed in his own blood before horrified students. His security team dragged him offstage, but hours later, doctors pronounced him dead.
Two suspects were arrested swiftly, but they were released for not being involved in the shooting. Motives are still under investigation. That will not stop the endless churn of punditry, speculation, and theories that intoxicate the digital mob. We have grown fond of feeding on rumors. The problem is that speculation is our national opiate, dulling the hard edges of reality. What we know for certain is grim enough: a man is gone, a wife is widowed, and two children will grow up without their father.
This is the America we have chosen. An age wired to outrage, where mobs gather not in public squares but on timelines, where memes replace arguments, and tweets pass for truth. We scream slogans into the ether, slap ourselves on the back for being bold, and mistake noise for persuasion. Then we wrinkle our brows in manufactured shock when the shouting escalates into bullets. But why the shock? As Allan Bloom once put it, almost every student entering university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative. A society that treats truth as a joke will eventually find violence to be its only certainty. Words lose their force, and when words collapse, weapons take their place.
Progressivism is particularly fragile on this front. It rests on the fantasy that truth, identity, morality, and even nature itself are clay to be molded at will. But reality is not infinitely pliable, and the soul made in God’s image will not conform to the whims of ideology. Push too hard against reality and eventually it pushes back. Rage and violence are the inevitable byproducts of a worldview that refuses to bow to what is. As C. S. Lewis warned, when you laugh at honor, do not be surprised if treachery becomes the rule. Likewise, when you laugh at truth, do not be surprised if force becomes the last resort.
This is why modern progressivism, so allergic to dissent, often breeds coercion and bloodshed. It cannot survive contradiction, so it silences, coerces, and, when cornered, lashes out. The Christian worldview, by contrast, is grounded in the Logos, the divine Word, which makes persuasion, reason, and peace possible. But reject the Logos, and only disorder remains. Charlie Kirk was not a faultless man, but he was one of the few willing to say aloud that truth exists, that Christianity matters, and that conservatism is not a slur but an inheritance. For this, he became a target.
His death will mark a watershed moment. The image of his young body crumpled and bleeding in front of students will not fade quickly. It will be remembered alongside other reminders that the covenant of civility in our democracy is breaking. We have long prided ourselves on ballots instead of bullets, but that pride looks increasingly hollow. Gabrielle Giffords once observed that democratic societies will always argue, but they cannot afford to settle those arguments with violence. Yet that is where we are drifting.
Beyond the headlines, there was the man. Charlie Kirk was a husband to Erika, a father to a toddler daughter and an infant son. Those children will not remember this day, but one day they will learn that their father was killed for speaking in public what he believed. The grief of a widow is immeasurable, the wound of children growing up fatherless beyond calculation. Whatever political weight his death carries, its deepest tragedy is domestic.
What, then, does the Church say to a world once more stained in blood? She is no stranger to political violence. From Cain striking down Abel, to Herod’s slaughter of infants, to Rome crucifying Christ, the story has been told before. Yet the Church never tires of proclaiming that violence does not get the last word. St. Paul wrote that we are afflicted but not crushed, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed. The blood of martyrs, political or otherwise, never quenches the light of Christ.
Every act of violence is a counterfeit sacrifice. It sheds blood but offers no redemption. Only the blood of Christ can atone and heal. That is why the Church calls us not to despair, but to prayer. We pray for Kirk’s widow and children. We pray for his soul, now standing before the Judge of the living and the dead. Hebrews reminds us that it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment. Death is never abstract in Christianity; it is always personal and eternal. We pray that God, who is merciful beyond measure, will grant him pardon.
Scripture is not silent here. The Psalmist writes, “Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.” Jesus declares, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” And St. Paul reminds us, “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” Death, even unjust death, does not get the final word. Christ does.
For Erika and the children, the promises are concrete. God Himself promises to be a father to the fatherless and a protector of widows. He binds up the brokenhearted. He strengthens the weak. These are not empty assurances but divine guarantees. For America, however, Kirk’s death is a warning. Our discourse is sick. If we cannot recover truth, we cannot recover peace. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Without repentance, without a return to truth, the fruit will always be blood.
Padre Pio’s counsel rings truer now than ever: “Pray, hope, and don’t worry. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.” That is the Church’s final word in the face of this bloodshed. We pray for Kirk’s soul, we pray for his family, and we pray for America. The cynic says our age is defined by rage. The Christian says our hope is defined by resurrection. The cynic sees only the grave. The Christian sees the empty tomb.
Charlie Kirk is dead. But Christ lives. And because He lives, death itself has been put to death. That is why we pray, why we hope, and why we do not despair.