Perhaps the most popular among the scores of newly viral Charlie Kirk clips is his answer when asked what he’d tell a wounded man with 30 seconds to live.
“In 30 seconds you are going to meet eternal judgment, and there’s only one way that you can get bailed out of that. It’s not all the good things you did or the moral scorecard. It’s whether or not you have Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior,” Kirk said. “That’s the only thing that’s gonna matter.”
We would do Kirk wrong to reduce the sum of his life to a renewed push for criminal justice, or political reckoning, or new victories against leftism. His 31 years on earth cannot be remembered for “we,” “us,” or “them.” It must be about those most important 30 seconds, about “him.” As Kirk wrote on social media a month ago, “It’s all about Jesus.”
When Charlie is laid to rest on Sunday, the final and lasting message must be that America needs Jesus above all else. And this is not necessarily in concert with political reform, but potentially and very likely at its expense and that of literally every other message.
A society ruled by the people is only as good as the people. If we desire any real change to come of Kirk’s bodily death, we need to call the American populace out of its spiritual death. No political corollary can accomplish this. It is the shepherd alone, not a popular solution of the other 99 sheep, who brings the missing one home. Those 30 seconds cannot share a seat, much less take a backseat, to anything else. Our sole answer must be Christ, and Christ alone.
Many will call this an oversimplified solution, and it is. We cannot actually abstain from politics until Jesus is exalted across every corner of our country. But for American Christians, this attitude of “Christ alone” comes far closer to how we should relate to our culture at present. To the degree the two are separable, we need far greater regard for the souls of our fellow men than the political issues of our country.
The best example is Charlie Kirk in his least viral moments, the ones in which he forfeited the political victories of virality for Christian humility. Instead of dismissing interlocutors who wished harm upon him and his family with vitriolic one-liners, Kirk said respectful goodbyes and prayed for them. Instead of screaming condemnations upon pornography actresses who mocked him, Kirk sat on a hostile podcast and humbly shared the Gospel with them. Instead of shaming American women for their shortcomings, Kirk encouraged them to emulate the virtues of the Virgin Mary.
Our culture’s idolatrous spirit saw this selfless Christian overshadowed by his own political practice. Brilliant as that practice was, it will continue to overshadow the truest Kirk so long as we feed it. In the newly prominent sphere of conservative Christianity, we need people like Kirk to sideline political talent for Christian love. We need people like him to stand before a movement marked by “Jesus first” and respond inconveniently with “Jesus alone.” The god of political expedience cannot revive nor renew us — only the God of spiritual resurrection.
Charlie Kirk set a faithful example of a man zealous to see God glorified on college campuses and beyond. We would do better to emulate that than to launch any number of political skirmishes in his name. It is by Christ alone that Kirk now lives anew and eternal. If we truly desire the good of our nation, we must diminish our political ends and preach Christ in hopes of nothing less.
Lewis Thune is a senior studying politics.
