We are approaching September 10, one year since Charlie Kirk was assassinated – a date that has become a living hell for so many of us over this past year.
My relationship with Charlie was that of a close family friend. This gave me the extraordinary privilege of watching Charlie up close during some of his most formative years, from his leading the most influential conservative youth movement in America to his becoming what I came to see as a “Solomonic” figure.
He was increasingly consumed with the deeper questions of theology and philosophy: What is truth? What is good? What is beautiful?
Those questions, along with his love of the Bible – the Torah and the New Testament – fueled his formation and growth. They led him from being a conservative political activist to becoming a theologian, philosopher, statesman, and, ultimately, a voice that impacted the world.
Charlie’s voice was heard more than a billion times on social media. Millions learned from Charlie.
On college campuses, he would pick up the microphone with conviction and courage, coupled with the rare ability to communicate complex issues in a clear and concise manner. But in debate, he also knew when to put that microphone down – to listen, to understand, to learn, to grow, and to demonstrate empathy and compassion.
Charlie Kirk was the teacher of our time, but not without extraordinary personal cost. He lived under constant death threats.
When I think of Charlie, I often think of him as a heavyweight boxer in the ring, taking monstrous personal blows while the crowd around him cheered for his defeat. Knocked down again and again, he would get back up. He simply refused to quit.
Why?
Because Charlie believed that if truth were given a fair hearing, it could heal not only an individual soul but a nation – and even the world. It was because of this belief that Charlie was willing to take the blows – in the name of truth. In the name of love. In the name of Jesus. In the name of the hope that exists for all of us.
My last face-to-face conversation with Charlie was just a few weeks before he was viciously murdered. He had just flown in from Colorado after attending a board meeting as a member of the US Air Force Academy Board of Visitors, appointed by US President Donald Trump.
He was full of joy and bright-eyed as he said, “Greg, tonight I am going to talk about Muhammadanism!” He was deeply concerned by what he saw as the systematic advancement of values contrary to Western civilization, and he told me that exposing this threat was his next goal.
The conversation quickly turned to the importance of standing with Israel, which he saw as being on the front lines of this battle. We spoke about Israel’s right to national self-determination in its ancestral homeland, a right he supported without reservation.
During the half hour we spent together before his speech, Trump called him twice.
Course correction
I was with Charlie on five different Southern California college campuses. I remember at UCLA, a group of approximately 150 students walked by, chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” I can still see it in my mind’s eye. Something awakened in Charlie.
With a kind of holy fire in his eyes, Charlie yelled, “The Nazis of our time, everybody!” Again and again, on college campuses, Charlie exposed the scam of the century: the Palestinian liberation movement.
Charlie knew full well the toxic lie spreading across the globe and infecting hearts and minds was that humanity’s problems can somehow be traced to one people – the Jews.
He warned, “There is a corner of the internet of people who want to point and blame the Jews for all their problems ... Everybody, this is demonic, and it’s from the pit of hell, and it should not be tolerated, period.”
He understood our enemies’ strategy: Cut Jews off. Cripple Israel. Turn Zionism into a crime.
New York Times bestselling author Eric Metaxas, who penned the definitive work on the German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, said that “Charlie Kirk was the Bonhoeffer of our time.”
Bonhoeffer boldly stood against Adolf Hitler and called the church to awaken to the evil of antisemitism, urging those who followed Jesus to stand with and protect Jews, who were being systematically isolated and persecuted.
We are living in a Bonhoeffer moment, and we cannot fail to see what is happening. Antisemitism and anti-Zionism are skyrocketing. May Christians be the first to confront these evils, ensuring that our Jewish friends and the nation of Israel know more than ever that they are not alone.
All the more so because, as Josh Hammer, senior editor at large at Newsweek, noted, Charlie was “holding back some really nasty stuff” brewing in very young, far-right online circles, including increasingly open antisemitism. Hammer said that Charlie was doing “more than maybe anyone in the country” to contain it.
Now, Hammer admits that he “worries ... what that energy does from here in his absence.”
The first conversation I ever had with Charlie took place alone in a car as I drove him to the church I pastor in San Diego, California, to speak. We talked about how a Christian’s identity is rooted in the unfolding story of Israel and the Messiah of Israel, and how Jesus asked His followers never to forget it.
We talked about how rediscovering the biblical context of our faith, rooted in Passover, could bring a needed course correction to the church and perhaps even to history.
Passover was the day Jesus led a Passover Seder with His disciples just before His death, during which He said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Jesus also promised that He would celebrate Passover again with His disciples at the time of its fulfillment when His kingdom fully comes.
I said to him, “Charlie, remember Nisan 14. Never forget it. Because if we remember, it could bring a needed course correction to the church and course correct history as Jesus intended.”
Five years after that conversation, just a few months before Charlie went to heaven, I got up from a conversation with him on a beach in Coronado, California. As I walked away, I heard his voice call out to me.
I turned around.
With a big Charlie Kirk smile, he said, “Nisan 14!”
He remembered.
And so will I.
Until we meet again, Charlie, at Passover, fulfilled in the kingdom.
The writer is the pastor of Rise Church in San Marcos, California, and the founder of Pastors Alliance for Israel.