Pastors, Evangelical leaders react to the killing of Charlie Kirk: 'A Christian martyr'

Michie · Sep 11, 2025

Christian pastors and Evangelical leaders are joining the chorus of Americans nationwide who are mourning the loss of Christian social activist Charlie Kirk.

While expressing shared grief over the significant loss for his millions of followers, and, more importantly, his family and close friends, many are reflecting on God's promise of salvation through Christ and everlasting life for those who believe in Him.

Several questions remain about the identity of the shooter who, with one lone bullet, killed Kirk during a Q&A with attendees at TPUSA's "The American Comeback Tour" stop at Utah Valley University at 12:20 p.m. local time on Wednesday.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox described the fatal shooting as a targeted "political assassination" and warned that his state still has the death penalty.

Continued below.

Pastors, Evangelical leaders react to the killing of Charlie Kirk: 'A Christian martyr'

Christian pastors and Evangelical leaders are joining the chorus of Americans nationwide who are mourning the loss of Christian social activist Charlie Kirk

www.christianpost.com

The Lone Ranger · Sep 12, 2025

What a tragedy. Thanks for his faithful service. Wish it turned out better. Glad his family will be looked after.

iarwain · Sep 12, 2025

I've been reading all sorts of stuff from people over the last few days. People saying Charlie Kirk was not a true Christian, or that he was a hate monger, or that he deserved to be shot because he supported the 2nd amendment, or that they were glad he was killed and listed other people they wanted to see shot next.

I sincerely believe Charlie Kirk was a Christian martyr. And I also believe there is a demonic spirt of hate an violence that is attacking our country through the current culture of toxic politics. We must all be on our guard against it. When I see people gleefully celebrating - there are probably millions of people in the country gleefully celebrating a man getting shot - it really makes me sick.

RileyG · Saturday at 2:18 PM

The Lone Ranger said:
What a tragedy. Thanks for his faithful service. Wish it turned out better. Glad his family will be looked after.

Amen!

rambot · Wednesday at 4:58 PM

Wow. I sincerely hope not.

There are a lot of aspects of his life that do no coincide with how I think christians should comport themselves.

FireDragon76 · 2025-09-18T01:46:19-0500

rambot said:
Wow. I sincerely hope not.

There are a lot of aspects of his life that do no coincide with how I think christians should comport themselves.

American Evangelicals have mostly been colonized by the Republican Party/MAGA, to the point they conflate advocating against immigrants and trans people with Christian witness.

iarwain · 2025-09-18T14:53:27-0500

rambot said:
Wow. I sincerely hope not.

There are a lot of aspects of his life that do no coincide with how I think christians should comport themselves.

There are no perfect Christians. And there are no perfect non-Christians.

Although I notice that most liberals who try to use Christ as an argument for how right wingers should conduct themselves are not usually believers themselves. I'm not saying that as my own impression, they will tell you straight out.

rambot · 2025-09-18T14:59:09-0500

iarwain said:
There are no perfect Christians. And there are no perfect non-Christians.

There are GOOD people who are christians and there are NOT GOOD people who are christians. I'm not calling his faith into question. I'm saying he shouldnt' be a martyr because his failings were too profound.

Fred Rogers is THE American every American christians should try to emulate in my humble opinion.

iarwain said:
Although I notice that most liberals who try to use Christ as an argument for how right wingers should conduct themselves are not usually believers themselves. I'm not saying that as my own impression, they will tell you straight out.

Wait what?
Is there a reason why conducting yourself in a Christ-like manner would be problematic?

seeking.IAM · 2025-09-18T15:19:21-0500

A political martyr, yes. A martyr who was a Christian, yes. But calling him a Christian martyr to me suggests he was martyred for the faith. That's not how I see it based upon what I have read.

rambot · 2025-09-18T15:25:40-0500

seeking.IAM said:
A political martyr, yes. A martyr who was a Christian, yes. But calling him a Christian martyr to me suggests he was martyred for the faith. That's not how I see it based upon what I have read.

Hmmm....maaaaybe this is a better way of expressing my thoughts....maybe.

iarwain · 2025-09-18T19:16:42-0500

seeking.IAM said:
A political martyr, yes. A martyr who was a Christian, yes. But calling him a Christian martyr to me suggests he was martyred for the faith. That's not how I see it based upon what I have read.

I disagree, I think he was killed more for his Christian views, which would be that LGBTQ behaviors are sinful. That is a Christian view. As a Republican, he certainly did not turn away gay or trans people from wanting to be conservatives.

iarwain · 2025-09-18T19:20:39-0500

rambot said:
Wait what?
Is there a reason why conducting yourself in a Christ-like manner would be problematic?

I am saying I have heard many a leftist try to use Christ as a way to manipulate conservatives, but they are not believers themselves. And as such, of course, most of them don't really understand Christianity. A common way they do this is to say "Jesus never brought up homosexuality" while ignoring the rest of the Word of God. Or they point out Christ forgave the adulterer, while ignoring that He told her to "Go and sin no more".

rambot · 2025-09-18T20:10:35-0500

iarwain said:
I am saying I have heard many a leftist try to use Christ as a way to manipulate conservatives, but they are not believers themselves. And as such, of course, most of them don't really understand Christianity. A common way they do this is to say "Jesus never brought up homosexuality"

1. That is a factual statement. Jesus never did. If the sin was so outrageously damnable I would think in His wisdom, He would tell us.

iarwain said:
while ignoring the rest of the Word of God.

"The rest of the word of god"? Nah. Theres a handful of verses and there are some pretty well known translation issues in Pauline letters dealing with this.

iarwain said:
Or they point out Christ forgave the adulterer, while ignoring that He told her to "Go and sin no more".

Jesus commands that of everyone.

And yet it keeps happenning. Have you stopped?

It's why we need His grace.

FireDragon76 · 2025-09-18T20:25:40-0500

iarwain said:
There are no perfect Christians. And there are no perfect non-Christians.

Although I notice that most liberals who try to use Christ as an argument for how right wingers should conduct themselves are not usually believers themselves. I'm not saying that as my own impression, they will tell you straight out.

That doesn't invalidate their critique.

Also, the perception that people on the left are "unbelievers" is debatable. It depends on what you mean by evidence of sufficient belief, after all. Not adhering to a creed isn't necessarily evidence of unbelief. Neither is not belonging to a religious organization.

Job 33:6 · 2025-09-18T20:40:21-0500

It's difficult because the content of Charlie Kirk's podcast is just so controversial. Calling the civil rights act "a huge mistake", or calling MLKJ "awful" and "a bad person".

Was he a Martyr for Christianity? Or a Martyr for something else, who happened to also be Christian? For most of his career he never uttered a word about Jesus in his podcast.

FireDragon76 · 2025-09-18T21:15:37-0500

Job 33:6 said:
It's difficult because the content of Charlie Kirk's podcast is just so controversial. Calling the civil rights act "a huge mistake", or calling MLKJ "awful" and "a bad person".

Was he a Martyr for Christianity? Or a Martyr for something else, who happened to also be Christian? For most of his career he never uttered a word about Jesus in his podcast.

In the last 2-4 years or so, he did seem to be expressing more sincerity, even if his understanding of Christianity seemed quite shallow or warped much of the time. But the main beat, overwhelmingly, was always "Christian nationalism" and reactionary politics.

Malleeboy · 2025-09-18T22:16:30-0500

MLK had real challenges in terms of personal morality, we all fall short of God's standards, but MLK had tele-evangelist level of moral issues.
I will grant the level of emotional and psychological stress he was under, and fame always means increased availability of temptations.
This comes not from Wikipedia level but from my reading of Bearing the Cross - Wikipedia
As a significant Christian leader, for better or worse, he should be held to a higher standard.
How you value personal moral integrity verses public good, is something that people can differ on.
Kirk as far as we know was exemplarily in terms of his personal moral standards.

Jesus didn't address a multitude of sins, certainly I am not aware of "furries" being something that a 1st century Jew would have ever had to mind.
An absence of Jesus addressing a particular sin, does not mean that action is definitely not a sin.
There are videos of Kirk interacting with a gay conservative with a level of civility and even empathy that most people with conservative views could muster. I think Kirk followed Jesus example, in loving the sinner but hating the sin. As a Protestant, I am bond to treat scripture as the only infallible rule for faith and morals, but the witness and the traditions of the followers of Christ IMHO should not be lightly laid aside, unless they expressly contradict scripture.

I think the way in which Orthodox and Catholics have warmly praised his work as an avowed Protestant, when Protestants are so often disparaged on online has been extremely heartening to me as a Protestant. Protestants have no magisterium or conciliar method of declaring martyrs, but IMHO as a Christian from a Commonwealth Realm, he was a martyr for the faith.

iarwain · 2025-09-18T22:43:19-0500

FireDragon76 said:
Also, the perception that people on the left are "unbelievers" is debatable.

I didn't say the left are unbelievers. I said that most leftists that I have heard try to use Christ as an argument against right wing ideas have also said themselves that they were unbelievers. Therefore it's hard to take their criticism seriously since it is usually out of context.

iarwain · 2025-09-18T22:50:22-0500

rambot said:
That is a factual statement. Jesus never did. If the sin was so outrageously damnable I would think in His wisdom, He would tell us.

All sin is outrageously damnable, nothing special about homosexuality that I'm aware of. But the argument that homosexuality is not a sin because Jesus did not discuss it doesn't hold water. We have the rest of Scripture to tell us. Jesus was a Jew, and believed in and quoted Scripture freely. The Bible is very consistent on gay/trans issues (not merely in the New Testament), and they are always portrayed as sinful and in a negative light. There is zero reason to think Jesus thought otherwise. In fact, the last I heard, arguing that homosexuality is not sinful was against forum policy, because that argument does not hold water.

Servus · 2025-09-19T00:17:28-0500

rambot said:
1. That is a factual statement. Jesus never did. If the sin was so outrageously damnable I would think in His wisdom, He would tell us.

God said it. Are you arguing that Jesus is not God? Also that's an argument from silence fallacy. Jesus didn't bring up several specific acts of sexual immorality God has condemned such as incest and beastiality. That's doesn't mean those acts are okay either.

rambot said:
"The rest of the word of god"? Nah. Theres a handful of verses and there are some pretty well known translation issues in Pauline letters dealing with this.

That is only claimed by those arguing in favor of sexual immorality being acceptable within Christianity.

rambot said:
Jesus commands that of everyone.

And yet it keeps happenning. Have you stopped?

It's why we need His grace.

Grace does not cover unrepentant willful acts of continuous sin.

Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 1 Corinthians 6:9

Pastors, Evangelical leaders react to the killing of Charlie Kirk: 'A Christian martyr'

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