Charlie Kirk, the conservative commentator and apologist, was killed last week while debating college students at Utah Valley University. Kirk was a frequent visitor to college campuses, where he engaged with students on cultural and political matters. In institutions dominated by left wing professors and groupthink, Kirk provided a rare opportunity for students to debate with someone holding opposing views.

Many of these exchanges have been posted on YouTube. Ignore the clickbait titles and watch the clips themselves. Kirk emphasized the importance of dialogue as the proper expression and dissemination of ideas and beliefs. He was an old fashioned conservative who believed in God, country and family. Although to many his views seemed out of date, he drew people of all stripes to him, and persuaded some to re-evaluate what they had learned at school and in college.

I think that will be his abiding legacy. In his campus encounters, Kirk challenges the students to think for themselves, to justify and explain their ideological positions. Are they consistent with the other values they hold? For example, do they believe in men competing in women’s sports? He asks them the question that is kryptonite to the liberal mind: “what is a woman?” Sometimes, as their ideological positions crumble, the students become angry and respond with insults and abuse. They have been taught what to think, not how to think. Kirk never responds in kind, because he is more interested in discussing ideas and in teaching the students to think critically and truthfully. 

Although not a congressman or a traditional politician, Kirk was an enthusiastic participant in American political life. In a world where young men are taught that masculinity is toxic and that the world is divided into categories of oppressors and victims - with men being the oppressors - it came as no surprise to learn that Kirk’s more positive views, grounded in traditional values, should appeal to a lost generation of men. 

It takes courage to challenge orthodoxy. It is a feature peculiar to our time that the children of left wing 1960s students who rebelled against the “system” now occupy the places of influence and power within it, such as education, the media, the arts and much of corporate America. What they now control embodies an even greater ideological conformity; thus it is no surprise that the positions have changed, and it is conservative students who are the modern rebels, questioning left wing dogma and resisting professors and teachers who try to enforce cultural and academic “norms”. 

One of those norms is “diversity”, by which is meant everyone looking different but thinking the same. Kirk challenged this conformism and many of the shibboleths of the left, winning both friends and enemies in the process. He encouraged conservative students to speak out in the face of intimidation. He gave a voice to those who had been told they were racist simply by being born white. He didn’t give in to the crybullies who wanted to ban him from speaking at campuses. 

His enemies accused him of hate speech, which is speech they hate to hear. After his death, they smeared his name with falsehoods in the New York Times and The Nation. (The NYT later published a correction.) It is significant that Kirk was killed while engaging in dialogue with another person. The suppression of free speech through violence is characteristic of anarchist, fascist or communist movements. His assassin thought he was striking a blow against fascism - a perfect example of what Kirk came to challenge. The idea that to stop fascism you act like a fascist. What a combination of evil and stupidity!

There was worse to come. Kirk’s enemies crawled out from under their rocks after his death, posting their approval of his assassination on social media under the common theme, “he deserved it.” In many people’s minds, if you hold different opinions, you are fair game for an assassin’s bullet. Sadly, these sentiments were expressed not by a handful of crazed, extremist bloggers, but by “moderate” people in their hundreds of thousands. 

I am not going to say it is the same on both sides. That is not true. When Democratic Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed by a lunatic gunman in June 2025, there was no outpouring of rejoicing from conservatives. On the contrary, the killings were universally condemned. However, when Charlie Kirk was murdered in cold blood, the gloating by so many people on the left was sickening.

To my mind, the worst example is George Abaraonye. Earlier this year Charlie Kirk visited Cambridge and Oxford, England to take part in university debates. It is instructive to watch these debates to see how Kirk engages with so many different opponents over a variety of topics. One of the persons Kirk debated was George Abaraonye, who was recently elected president of the Oxford Union. Last week, when news of Kirk’s death became known, Abaraonye tweeted joyfully, “Charlie Kirk got shot loool.” The man whom you met face to face, a husband and father of two young children, has been murdered, and you laugh? If this poor excuse for a human being is an example of Britain’s future leadership class, God help them.

As a minister of the church, this is where I am supposed to say that all of us need to come together. Although I know this is the right thing, I struggle to say so. I cannot simply shrug my shoulders and say, "let’s move on.” The sheer scale of the inhuman rejoicing at Kirk’s death has taken me aback. I am reassured by those on the left who have not joined in but who have spoken out, such the actor and director Tim Robbins, who posted on X,

“Assassinating a man for his political beliefs is an act of evil and anyone justifying or celebrating this man’s death is truly sick and has lost their humanity. What do these heartless, soulless ghouls hope to achieve other than chaos and division and further violence? Or is that the algorithmic point to all of this? Please don’t get sucked into this hell on earth. I pray for peace, reason, kindness, and dialogue and for his wife and children who will carry the weight of this loss for their lifetimes.”

Another angle was provided by the Australian human rights activist Drew Pavlou. He writes,

“He [Kirk] had the exact same views as my Trump supporting parents who l love. He had the exact same views as half my extended family. Just regular Boomer conservatism. And thousands of leftists celebrate him being shot in the neck and bleeding out in front of his three year old daughter. If they want that for Charlie Kirk, they want that for my parents and my other loved ones. And I won't stand for it…I love the people who raised me and I'm loyal to them and I won't ally myself with people who want to murder them just because they have old fashioned values that were completely common throughout 99% of modern history - a love of faith, family, church, nation.”

Those Christians celebrating Kirk’s death need to hold up a mirror and ask themselves what kind of people they are. Are you one of them? Tell me how we can move forward together, while you nurse murderous hatred in your heart for the person who does not share your views. Will you tell me that Jesus is your Lord while you approve of those who act like devils? On Sunday, as you leave church, will you smile and shake my hand and wish that I, too, were dead?

Father David