The mission of Issues in Perspective is to provide thoughtful, historical and biblically-centered perspectives on current ethical and cultural issues.

It has been several weeks since Turning Point USA founder, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated on 10 September 2025 on the campus of Utah Valley University.  Much has happened since then, including a memorial service for him in Arizona.   I have been thinking about and reflecting upon this momentous event.

A few important facts about Kirk:

• Kirk was a husband to Erika and the father of two small children. He was also a hero to countless conservative college students.
• He helped found Turning Point USA in 2012 and built it into the most influential conservative youth organization in the United States.
• He put together a vast get-out-the-vote operation for the 2024 election and hosted a popular podcast.
• As Emily Jashinsky, a Washington correspondent for Unherd, put it on X: “Charlie Kirk is a fixture of the Gen Z social media diet. People feel like they know him. This will hit very, very close to home in ways we are not prepared for.”
• David French comments that “That’s one thing I respected about Charlie—and it’s worth emphasizing because the assassin attacked him as he spoke on campus—he wasn’t afraid of a debate. He was willing to talk to anyone. And when he was shot in the middle of a debate, the assassin didn’t just take aim at a precious human being, created in the image of God, he took aim at the American experiment itself.”

Isaac Stanley-Becker of The Atlantic captures the essence of Charlie Kirk’s legacy.  He interviewed him in September 2022 and summarized that interview in a recent article:   “. . .  I want to explain a few things that I learned about Kirk that day. The interview was off the record . . .  Over the course of an hour with me, Kirk reflected candidly on his priorities and—it’s strange to write this now—on his own legacy. He wasn’t trying to win the next election, he made clear to me, so much as an entire generation.  Kirk didn’t want to be seen principally as a political activist . . .  He didn’t just want to change how people voted; he wanted to change how they thought . . . ‘I’m more focused on educational, transformational, multi-decade change.’  I believed him. This is why Kirk spent hours each week ministering to young people on his podcast, The Charlie Kirk Show. It’s why he steered his conservative youth organization, Turning Point USA, to churches and schools, not just to voting booths.”

• “With missionary zeal, he laid out his catechism for me: ‘What does it mean to be a biblical citizen? Where do rights come from? What kind of form of government is best? Who are you as a human being? Why does that matter? Does the Bible have an intent to how we actually create a system of order?’ He dispensed with one-line answers and spoke in full paragraphs, showcasing the rhetorical style that made him appealing to his followers. ‘Was the founding of the nation a deist roll of the dice, or was there a robust Protestant movement,’ he asked, ‘actually laid into this complex, incredible experiment that we still live through?’”
• “Kirk aimed to create a modern-day religious revival that would convert unbelievers into biblical citizens. On his podcast and in his public appearances, he launched blistering attacks on Muslims, racial minorities, and transgender identity . . .  He argued that America was being threatened by immigration, affirmative action, feminism, environmental regulation, and the separation of Church and state—and that it could be saved only through a recommitment to the Bible, faith, and family. ‘That’s my passion,’     he told me.”
• “Kirk had even bigger ambitions. In the months before I spoke with him, he introduced a new educational initiative, Turning Point Academy, which pledged to combat what it called ‘woke ideology’ in public education by forming Christian schools ‘where all areas of study are rooted in God’s truth.’ The project promised to transform Turning Point’s education work from recruiting at existing schools—encouraging students to engage in political activism and change their community—into creating an alternative. There would be ‘teacher training, curriculum, podschooling, homeschooling,’ he said, marketed to ‘people who believe in a free society, the constitutional order, all the stuff we believe in.’ It would offer a nine-month Prep Year’ program for high-school graduates.”

R.R. Reno of First Things observes that “when I heard the terrible news that Charlie Kirk had been shot and killed, I thought again of Martin Luther King Jr.  Don’t get me wrong. King and Kirk lived in different times and held very different beliefs. My point is this: Both men represented movements that were upending the status quo.”

• “The civil rights movement triggered a revolution in American public life. It overturned a longstanding consensus about race, and thankfully so. However, the movement’s success led to disbelief, anger, and bitterness among many whites.”
• “We are living through another revolution in American public life. The multicultural, open society consensus that has dominated for many decades is being challenged . . .  His ambition was to turn young people away from the left’s agenda and toward a conservative outlook. In recent years, he was pushing on an open door. Polling suggests a rightward tilt in Gen Z attitudes. And his arena was the university, the implacable Vatican of the now-dying multicultural and open society consensus.”

All of this begs the question of why a bright student from a faithful Mormon family would murder Charlie Kirk?  Allysia Finely of the Wall Street Journal offers a superb overview of Tyler Robinson.  “How did a high-school whiz kid devolve into an assassin?,” she asks.  “Such spirals aren’t so uncommon among young men, even if Mr. Robinson’s played out in a more calamitous and public way than most. Political violence is a problem. But so is the atomized culture in which young men retreat into confused inner worlds and virtual realities, which can be as addictive and destructive as any drug.  At some point, he appears to have become steeped in a dark digital world and videogames. He inscribed ammunition with obscure online memes (‘Notices bulges OwO what’s this?’), lyrics to an anti-Fascist Italian song, and an apparent reference to the videogame ‘Helldivers 2,’ a satire of a fascist interstellar empire inspired by the 1997 movie ‘Starship Troopers.’”

“A broader problem, as Jonathan Haidt explains in his book The Anxious Generation, is that videogames cause boys to get lost in cyberspace. They have ‘put some users into a vicious cycle because they used gaming to distract themselves from feelings of loneliness,’ Mr. Haidt notes. ‘Over time they developed a reliance on the games instead of forming long-term friendships.’ They ‘retreat to their bedrooms rather than doing the hard work of maturing in the real world.’ The same is true of social-media platforms like Discord and Reddit, where young men often seek fraternity under pseudonyms. The platforms become substitutes for real-world camaraderie and can lead men down dark holes. Frequent social-media use has been found to rewire neurological pathways in young brains and compromise judgment.”

“Videogames and the digital world may not cause mental illness, but they can be a form of self-medication that provides illusory relief from emotional troubles even as they propel antisocial behavior . . . Lost boys pose a broader cultural problem. The share of men 20 to 34 who work has been declining over the past 30 years, even as employment among young women has increased. Too many young men spend their days playing videogames, watching porn, smoking pot and trolling the internet rather than engaging with the real world.  Mr. Kirk sought to bring young people like Mr. Robinson out of their virtual caves. It’s harder to hate someone you meet in the flesh than an avatar in a digital dystopia.”

One final comment.  At Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, his wife, Erika, declared: “My husband, Charlie, he wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life,” Erika said. “Our Savior said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they not know what they do.’ That young man . . . I forgive him,” she continued through tears. “I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and it’s what Charlie would do.”  “The answer to hate is not hate,” Erika continued. “The answer we know from the gospel is love and always love. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”

Shortly thereafter the President of the United States declared, “Charlie Kirk truly was . . .  he was a missionary with a noble spirit and a great, great purpose,” Trump said. “He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them.” “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie,” he continued. “I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry, I am sorry, Erika. But now Erika can talk to me and the whole group and maybe they can convince me that’s not right, but I cannot stand my opponent.”  Trump concluded by noting, “Charlie’s angry, looking down, he’s angry at me now.”

What a contrast between the wife of a fallen believer and Donald Trump.  His comments do not reflect a Christian worldview and do not reflect the teachings or the life of Jesus Christ.  Erika’s did!  When a national tragedy occurs in the US, citizens look to the president to model a soothing, healing temperament.  But Donald Trump does not have the capacity to do that.  His obsession is for vengeance, retribution and hate.  Every Christian should take note of his words.  He is not sowing the seeds of healing; he is fostering hate, divisiveness and vengeance.  May God help us!

See David French in the New York Times (14 September 2025); R.R. Reno, “A Turning Point for America” First Things (10 September 2025); Isaac Stanley-Becker “What Charlie Kirk Told Me About His Legacy” in The Atlantic (16 September 2025); Allysia Finely in the Wall Street Journal (15 September 2025).