WE can always remember him for this: “I want to be remembered for courage for my faith … the most important thing is my faith in my life…”
A single bullet silenced his voice on that platform on September 10, 2025 but it can’t erase his influence, his legacy, and his testimony for Jesus Christ. Just a few days before his death, he posted this: “Jesus defeated death so you can live.” Billy Graham’s son, Franklin noted this about Charlie: “He wasn’t afraid or ashamed to talk about his faith.
Watching him makes me want to be even bolder! I think the devil has overplayed his hand. I pray that tens of thousands of young people will pick up Charlie’s banner and courageously speak truth in a culture that tries to deny God‘s truth”. That fateful week, week Charlie posted, “Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life … Tell someone about Jesus this weekend.” What a challenge for us all who have been lukewarm about the Gospel of Christ!
Indeed the gunshot that silenced the young conservative activist, Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025, changed everything. Incredible as it may sound, the activist’s assassination tornadoed through America’s Christian nationalist movement, which reeled at the loss of one of its greatest warriors in a battle for the soul of America.
Kirk evolved from a secular conservative activist when he founded Turning Point USA (TPUSA) into a theological architect of Christian dominance, embracing the New Apostolic Reformation’s (NAR) Seven Mountain Mandate, which demands Christian control over seven spheres of society: government, education, religion, family, business, media, and entertainment. Kirk built his growing empire along those lines.
Lessons for young and old believers who hardly understand that the country is waiting for the power that their Christian faith can give: Turning Point Action once seized electoral battlegrounds across the country. Churches nationwide welcomed Turning Point Faith’s expanding presence. Turning Point Academy worked to reshape education to conform to Christian values.
The organisation’s media arms including the news outlet Frontlines pumped content across every available platform. At the grassroots level, local TPUSA chapters trained ambitious young Christians, moulding them into the next generation of business leaders through programmess focused on leadership principles and financial responsibility. Each division served a specific conquest target.
Kirk’s murder is now a rallying point for the network of Christian nationalist supporters he had cultivated over those years. Sean Feucht, the controversial Christian nationalist worship leader, tried to seize control of the narrative. Lance Wallnau, the intellectual architect whose Seven Mountain theology had provided Kirk’s framework lent weight to emerging martyrdom claims. Rob McCoy, the California megachurch pastor who had partnered with Kirk to build TPUSA Faith, brought institutional credibility. Andrew Wommack, whose Colorado-based televangelism empire generates over $100 million annually, offered one of the movement’s largest platforms at the Truth & Liberty conference held the day after Kirk’s death, and where Kirk had been scheduled to speak.
Here is the good news for those who didn’t understand Charlie’s remarkable mission and celebrated his death: The assassination of Charlie has sparked a significant response from the Christian community, with many leaders and individuals following spiritual awakening and revival his death has triggered. The Christian Citizenship Prayer Summit, held after Kirk’s death, turned into a powerful call to action, with attendees proclaiming, “We are Charlie Kirk. His boldness is now our mantle. His courage, our compass. His fire, our fuel.” This sentiment has been echoed by various Christian leaders, including Pastor Emmanuel Ihim, who emphasised the need for national healing and spiritual restoration.
The response to Kirk’s assassination has also led to increased interest in church attendance and invitations to church, with some reporting a surge in people seeking Jesus. Kirk’s organisation, Turning Point USA, received 18,000 new chapter requests after his wife, Erika, spoke out, indicating a growing movement. Christian leaders like Pastor Chuck Tate and Bishop E.W. Jackson suggested that Kirk’s death could be a catalyst for revival, with Tate stating, “God is already taking a horrific event…and flipping the script to bring about good”.
Some Christian celebrities, such as Orlando Magic’s Jonathan Isaac and LA Dodgers pitcher Blake Treinen, have also taken bold stances, with Isaac hoping to unite Christians through his actions and Treinen honoring Kirk’s memory. Hollywood actor Chris Pratt has been praying for Kirk’s family and the nation, seeking God’s grace.
Thus the assassination has touched off spiritual awakening, with many Christians advocating for a return to God and a focus on prayer, scripture meditation, and active obedience. As one Christian leader noted, “Revival is never born in comfort…it is born in crisis.”
This sentiment is reflected in the increased interest in Bible reading and Christian discussions online. Alex Murashko reported that on the eve of the first Sunday since the assassination of Christian apologist and political/cultural fireball Charlie Kirk, a spiritual awakening is being witnessed that includes a return to God by those who strayed from Him, and an immeasurable wave of non-believers seeking Jesus.
A global movement is sparking. “God is already taking a horrific event one born out of demonic influence, meant for evil and flipping the script to bring about good,” stated pastor and author Chuck Tate in a message to Think Eternity News. “My son’s girlfriend, Olivia Weldon, a junior in high school, was so moved that she launched a Romans 1:16 challenge on Instagram Reels (similar to the ice bucket challenge).
“She began with these words: ‘This week, evil came and stole the voice of a believer who was not afraid to speak out for the Gospel of Jesus. But neither am I.’ She then quoted Romans 1:16 and nominated three students to do the same. My son Ashton, a senior, was deeply shaken by Charlie Kirk’s death. He accepted the challenge and told me, ‘Dad, it’s going to spread like wildfire!’ And it already is.”
The circumstances surrounding Kirk’s murder are tragic, yet in Christian nationalist circles, mourning has become mobilisation, and grief has been transformed into a call to holy war. Here are more excerpts from leading figures in the Christian Nationalist movement reacting to Kirk’s murder.
Christian nationalist Pastor Doug Wilson, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s spiritual mentor, on September 11, 2025, noted the day after the killing: “Today, we need to realise that these people, no matter where they are, are all the same. They are opponents of order, emissaries of violence, but most of all, they are enemies of the true cross, and we need to be clear: their escalation in violence is not because their influence is increasing or because their power is growing.”
“Catholic integralist and president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, said on September 15, 2025: “The only hope to defeat this demonic evil spreading like a cancer across America is the gospel. It is time for all of us to take these campuses back to Jesus.” Sean Feucht, referring to the gospel, on September 12, 2025: “The attack on Charlie Kirk was much deeper than a political attack on the First Amendment. The attack on Charlie was spiritual in nature and an attack on the very institution of the church.”
Christian nationalist and founder of Pastors for Trump, Pastor Jackson Lahmeyer, Sheridan Church, Oklahoma said on September 15, 2025 : “It’s not liberal versus conservative. It’s moral versus immoral is what it is… this is the condemnation that light has come into the world. And men love darkness more than they loved light, because the light exposed their deeds as evil. And everyone that was of the darkness hates the light.”
Born in a suburb of Chicago in 1993, Charlie Kirk got started early in conservative politics, first penning an essay for right-wing Breitbart News at the age of 18, accusing schools of spreading “propaganda” and “indoctrination”. He caught the eye of Bill Montgomery, a retired businessman and Tea Party activist more than 50 years his senior, who took Kirk under his wing. In 2012 – around the midpoint of Barack Obama’s presidency – the pair founded Turning Point USA, a group, which focused on conservative activism on college campuses, spreading rapidly along with Kirk’s social media following. The group tapped into online media and spread a slickly packaged style of conservatism to young people. It won him a speaking place, aged 22, at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
Kirk’s political views deepened rightward over time. He was against gay marriage and abortion, argued for Christian nationalism. He was quoted famously as saying that gun deaths were “worth it” for the right to own firearms. He was also an opponent of dubious diversity programmes that trumped merit and excellence. It has been revealed that one of the first people JD Vance called before deciding to jump into politics was Charlie Kirk.
“Kirk introduced me to some of the people who would run my Senate campaign and also to Donald Trump Jr,” the vice-president wrote in a powerful tribute he wrote hours after Kirk’s death. Three years after that winning Senate run, when the elder Donald Trump was pondering his choice of presidential running mate, Kirk argued the case for Vance “in public and private”, Vance wrote.
He never ran for office or held an official government position, but Kirk rose from being an unknown activist from the suburbs of Chicago to a standard bearer of Donald Trump’s Making America Great Again (MAGA) Movement. Kirk was President Trump’s bridge to young Republicans, and Trump credited him and his organisation with his victory in 2024. .
What this icon’s profile teaches us is that Christian leaders who believe in transformative agenda of their country should not be aloof about politics of nation building. There is no place for lukewarm Christians who would be using just their pulpits to condemn wrong and corrupt policies without forming or joining great movements for change. That is why I cherish an invitation I just received for an October 5, 2025 church programme under a great theme: ‘Transformational Leadership: Our Nation is waiting for the Church’. This profound topic smacks of a message from the playbook of the Apostle of Christ, Charlie Kirk.
Sleep well, Charlie for showing us how not to be ashamed of the Gospel of the Lord, Jesus. Thank you Charlie for your clear message to all that organic Christianity is consequential, after all. Fare thee well, Charlie for showing us that as Christians we cannot change our world, until we acquire the audacity and integrity to be the ‘light of the world’ through mobilisation and value re-orientation of youths for transformational leadership processes.
- Oloja is former editor of The Guardian newspaper and his column, Inside Stuff, runs on the back page of the newspaper on Sunday. The column appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Monday.