Are you shaken? Me too. And I will be for a good while for several reasons.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? Add your comments below...
First, Charlie Kirk wasn’t a radical. He was an ordinary conservative Christian who said what so many of us believe better than we could. He was a faithful representation of our opinions about Christ, culture, and the Constitution. He was targeted not because he was extreme, but because he was effectively communicating what millions of average conservatives believe. That’s why the “I am Charlie Kirk” shirts are flying off the shelves.
Second, his death was graphic and gruesome. We’ve known for a long time that we were at war. But we thought it was a war of ideas alone. Turns out it’s a flesh-and-blood war as well. One might think such violence would sober a nation. Instead, it revealed something darker.
It was the glee, the celebration, the “he got what he deserved” from large swaths of the left that shook me to my core. Not so much the top-tier Democrat leaders, who mostly said the right thing. But from students, teachers, nurses, lawyers, and progressive friends. It was the recognition that the people whose vacation pictures we like, who attend class with us, and who are administering our anesthesia, would be happy if we were dead too. Because what Charlie believed was indistinguishable from what we believe. He was just braver than most of us.
I’m not saying that those on the Right aren’t capable of violence. But what has been made clear over the last week is that huge swaths of those on the left are eager to rationalize and even celebrate violence against their political enemies.
We’re at the place where we have to recognize that this isn’t a problem with “both sides.” The left has become so illiberal that they are now the fascists they claim to denounce.
The polling data confirms it. Leftists are far more comfortable with political violence than conservatives. The myth that “both sides are just as bad” collapses under the numbers.
That leaves us with the unavoidable question: in the face of bullets and applause at conservative deaths, what now? We are at war. Just as on the physical battlefield, we now have two options. We can retreat. Or we can advance.
What does retreat look like?
- Failing to recognize the realities on the ground and thereby giving ground. Defaulting to the “there are extremists on the Left and Right” talking point. That is a cowardly attempt to appear above the fray when your actual place is in the fray. Refusing to engage only ensures casualties—direct or collateral.
- Going silent. The whole point of political violence is, like terrorism, to intimidate. Every one of us, from our kids heading back to school to those with public social media pages, understands that the target on our backs is real. And the temptation to shut up is strong. The other side quips that silence is violence. The reality is, silence is surrender.
- Leaving forces behind. There will be people who continue to fight, but in the name of self-preservation, are we going to let them absorb all the hits because we are unwilling to do battle ourselves? Or will more of us enter the battlefield and “share the arrows”?
Retreat is an option. It’s just not the one I’m taking.
Instead, we need to advance. Here’s how.
Mark out your turf. How do you know what your turf is? It’s anything that is true. If it is true, it belongs to you. Here are a few areas that specifically need to be marked out and defended:
- The truth about the nature of God, that he is a tri-unity, that Christ is his one and only begotten Son, and through him alone do we find salvation. That we, his people, are to be active participants in the world for the sake of light-giving and cultural preservation.
- The truth about the nature of man. We are made male or female, we have a right to life from conception to natural death, the weak deserve protection, marriage is the lifelong union of a man and woman, and children have a right to their own mother and father.
- The truth of our nation, its history, and its constitutional foundation. The government exists to protect, not provide, our rights. Law and order and private property are foundational to a thriving society.
These aren’t opinions—they are objective realities. And if we don’t defend them, lies will occupy the ground by default. Plant your feet on this truth turf and do not move.
If I’ve learned anything from the response to Charlie’s assassination, it’s that the world, especially Gen Z, is hungry for clear, compassionate, and courageous answers to the most pressing cultural issues of our day. They want more direct talk and less pussyfooting. They want to be challenged to do hard things, not lulled with lower expectations. They want more depth of insight and fewer surface-level responses.
You have the truth. Give it to them.
But advancing involves more than refusing to give ground. It means retaking lost ground.
And advancing isn’t only about holding the line in conversation; it’s about who controls classrooms, cameras, and courts. Culture flows downstream from institutions, and right now, those streams are poisoned.
For too long, Christians and conservatives have abandoned education, entertainment, media, universities, and the arts. Those institutions serve critical functions within a society. And it’s time to take them back.
Whether it is infiltrating existing institutions or creating the parallel polis, Christians and conservatives need to re-engage.
That means creating great art that communicates truth, rising through the ranks of academia without compromise, starting new schools to offer K–12 alternatives, and running for your local school board or state Senate. Those institutions need to be infused with Conservative and Christian values.
Of course, there’s one institution we abandoned 10 years ago that Them Before Us is committed to retaking. The most foundational institution of all—marriage.
Without fortifying this institution, it does not matter whether we retake government, education, entertainment, the arts, the courts, or the schools.
Because if marriage is redefined, then motherhood and fatherhood are redefined. And if the family is dismantled, every other institution—from schools to courts—will crumble under the weight.
Charlie Kirk was one of the most effective apologists in advocating for embracing the responsibility of marriage early and seriously. But not even he understood the connection between the redefinition of marriage and the commodification of children.
I reached out to Charlie’s producer about his participation in our campaign to challenge gay marriage and was awaiting a response when the news of his death filled my group chats. Now, after watching and re-watching so many of his reels, I know he would’ve been an enthusiastic participant. We will have to carry on and double our efforts without him.
Last week, my 18-year-old son asked,
“How can I be like Charlie?”
And the truth is, very few of us can. I certainly can’t. That level of faith, encyclopedic knowledge, debate skills, genuine love for humanity, and natural charm is a rare combination.
So the question is not how can he or I or you become Charlie. The question is, how do you become the most powerful and effective version of Tim, Jeanette, Devon, or Ava? And how do you use your God-given interests, talents, and passions to stand firm on the truth and retake our institutions?
That’s how we honor Charlie: by consecrating our own gifts to the same unflinching truth he lived and died for—and by refusing to surrender a single inch of this country to those who would destroy it.
Katy Faust is the founder and director of the children's rights organization, Them Before Us, which is dedicated to defending children's rights around the world.
