“Aslan is on the move”

I didn’t know Charlie Kirk. I never met the man. I certainly am not going to say he never said anything wrong or even inaccurate. I know he did. He’s human like all the rest of us, and all have sinned (Romans 3:23). But here’s what I saw in Charlie Kirk: I saw a young man, full of passion, strong in the convictions of his belief. He was someone who proved the old adage “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” actually can happen. He was self-made. Far too young to be as influential and successful in life as he was. And yet he was, because he worked hard, had vision, and didn’t give up. And unlike many, he was someone who didn’t just believe something; he believed it because he did his homework and knew WHY he believed it, which meant he could defend it. He was also eloquent and knowledgeable and rarely gave a short answer to a question. He was cursed with the need to explain himself, to ensure he was not misquoted or misunderstood. Of course, the downside with speaking such long answers is that someone might come along and rip a single sentence out of its context and reshape those words in a way that makes you sound monstrous or uncaring.

I’ve been terribly disheartened to read words from people I know who just believe what they’re told, who don’t do their own study, and who are convinced of a thing before being confronted by the reality of that thing. They share twisted quotes, partial quotes, or even entirely erroneous quotes. They offer remorse over his death, tempered by words like “that said…” and “however…” which all but justify his death as a thing he “had coming.” They do this because they are slaves to their preconceived notions.

Charlie Kirk was a very (very) political person, and in the modern USA, being political means making yourself the enemy to everyone who is very (very) political on the other side of the ideological spectrum. But I’m not writing all of this because of politics, Kirk’s politics, my politics, your politics, or anything else like that. I’m writing this because Kirk wasn’t just political, nor did he just advocate for his brand of politics. He was also deeply concerned about moral issues. He confidently, bravely, and boldly went to college campuses and talked to them, not just about Republican vs Democrat policies, but about things he perceived as moral vs immoral, Biblical vs unBiblical, etc, and if you ever watched those debates on YouTube, you saw just as immoral and unBiblical his debate opponents (mostly typical college kids, but some professors) could be.

I suppose his death affects me as much as it does because I recognize that so much of modern society insists that if you tell someone they are doing wrong, or if you try to inform someone about a Divine standard of morality, then you are “bad” and “hateful” and “must be silenced,” etc… and the entire idea that there is a moral standard—that some things are wrong, that people sometimes do wrong and become wrong, and that we should go to each other to tell each other about our wrongs—is FOUNDATIONAL to the Gospel. It is the essence of evangelism… and godless people in our godless culture say “that’s bad. You can’t do that any more, and if you continue, we’ll silence you, and if you keep speaking, someone will come along and kill you, and then they’ll say ‘we’ll that’s too bad but you shouldn’t have been saying those things.'”

So yeah. I’m a bit sensitive to everything that’s happened. In the words of the Apostle…