Above Photo:
Screenshot from the Memorial service broadcast,
of a key verse for Charlie Kirk that was put on the screen at his memorial service,
and remains a challenge to us all.
Millions of people around the world who watched and listened to Charlie Kirk in person or online with his unashamed, courageous stand for truth and the gospel and willingness to debate with those who disagreed with him, were shocked and horrified when on September 10th he was shot dead with one bullet in the neck. It was in the middle of answering a question in a live and open-air 'Prove me wrong' student event at Utah Valley University in the USA. The President of the USA ordered flags to be flown at half-mast and announced he will award Charlie Kirk the Medal of Freedom posthumously. TV networks were filled with interviews and comments related to it. It has been said that this could be another 'Martin Luther King moment'. A suspect was identified and arrested within 33 hours with amazing work from all levels of law-enforcement. A memorial service was held at which hundreds of thousands of people travelled to Arizona for, and an estimated 100million watched online around the world.
The shooter carried out his deed only a day before America remembered 9/11, and as they move toward their 250th anniversary as a country. This was a monumental event at a poignant moment in history and there is much that is being stirred up because of it, and much could be said about it. I will just choose a couple of comments I came across in recent days.
The first is:
Watching some of the YouTube 'Turning Point' videos, and the news of his assassination, has meant even more of his videos have appeared on my YouTube feed. One of them included the following statement of Charlie's as part of his response to a young guy's question:
"You are playing into this narrative that gender exists. We reject that paradigm completely. Because 'gender' has led us to this place where your own personal self-expression matters to your core identity …infinite personalities, no genders, two sexes - and we must live in reality not in the delusions of the heads of people that want to us to accommodate their fantasy.'
Charlie Kirk Debates Liberal Student on Identity, Reality, and Truth 🔥 - YouTube
This exemplifies Charlie Kirk's bold clarity on such matters, but also takes us straight to the foundational issues at stake…the issues of 'core identity'. We can often feel we should avoid the topic of 'identity' because of the distortion of the issue in 'identity politics'. But aversion to the problems of 'identity politics' can lead us to rejecting the whole identity issue and prevent us from recognising the important significance of identity and bringing the gospel to reveal the truth about identity.
Then….the second is:
Along with this above quote of Charlie Kirk's, I want to bring our attention to a comment by the Speaker of Congress after the assassination:
"Part of the dynamic now that did not exist in previous generations is social media, It's really been a toxin in politics, It's made it a much more hostile environment to have those kinds of discussions and debates. We lament that, its a sad development, but we have to develop as the technology does. We have to address it, we have to address the humanity of people. We have to recognise that there is this sort of level of civility that we have we have to maintain."
Speaker Johnson on Charlie Kirk's assassination: 'Something changed today' - YouTube
Sadly, a belief in evolution as the origin of life, compounded by a psychological view of life, both of which ignore and reject God, has robbed us of a confidence in our created innate honour as human beings.
We were created totally different from the animals as we were the only part of creation made in God's image, and into which God 'breathed' in order to give life. A belief of our humanity being rooted in being created with purpose and honour by God, gives us as humans, all equal value as human beings.
But if we cut God out of the picture, and replace the source of our existence with having evolved by chance, we remove our human value. We then culturally only remain with honour that can be achieved by us in competition against others who are also fighting and striving for honour. We then strive for gaining honour by trying to show we are 'greater' than others or 'better' than others, or 'more significant' than others and should be given some kind of special consideration and appreciation. We no longer are able to rest in the honour that God has ascribed to each one of us, and are left to find our honour by our own devices.
Civility as we might call it, is at its core, a valuing of others and love for others that evidences itself in kindness for others. It only comes when we don't find a need to 'win', to get our own way or require 'affirmation' or elevate ourselves over and above others to gain our sense of honour (whether significance, status, stability, security, satisfaction), but instead are willing to humble ourselves and serve one another and bless others rather than just seek for our own blessings. We can only come from that point of humility, when we find our innate foundational honour in acknowledging God as our creator and being his creation with thankfulness.
Furthermore it then is only sustainable, when we understand that our destiny of eternal honour is secure in Christ.
When we belong to Christ, we have no need to fear threats of loss of earthly honour. We instead find our honour in God through Christ and not from people - whether those people are others or ourselves. People as individuals or groups (whether political, or scholastic, or pleasure, or social) will never be able to properly satisfy us even though we will fight with dedication and zeal to protect any sense of honour we are gaining from people or group identities.
And pretending we can gain honour without Christ and just by saying we ignore people's opinions and are our own judge and decider of our own 'truth', will only fool ourselves. As the reality is, we then want others to affirm our own opinion of ourselves and get angry or offended if they don't.
Those who seek to find their foundational innate ascribed honour in self-appointed status (such as 'self-identified gender'), are also desperate to seek the affirmation from some external source, and without the external affirmation we still feel incomplete. That is because we were designed not to 'self-identify' and live as an unattached individual, but to receive our identity from an external source that is above and outside the human 'level' of existence. We especially seek affirmation from those we consider 'higher' or superior to us, whether that be parents, community or school leaders, or government. So those who seek honour this way will fight to get such 'superiors' to affirm them whether via their speech or laws or actions. However, even those will not satisfy, as we have been made to only find such fulfilment in God as we honour Him as God and give thanks to Him (Romans 1:21)
As Charlie Kirk said, we are totally mis-understanding life when we think that 'self-expression matters to your core identity'. Anything self-determined outside or without God's word, will and purpose will fail us. But meantime it will consume us, addict us, control us, bind us, while continuing to disappoint and cheat us from the real identity we were meant to have.
Let us remember in whom the only true identity can be found…the Lord Jesus Christ. And let us be like Charlie Kirk in courageously being willing to say 'Here am I, send me' to share that message with the world.
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