Peter MacDonald
The assassination of Charlie Kirk is a moment of judgment upon the church. A man who proclaimed Christ’s resurrection and exposed the false ideologies of our age has fallen, and the silence of those who should defend him cries louder than words.
Like Luther before Rome and Bonhoeffer before Hitler, Kirk spoke the truth of God without fear. All three were evangelical Christians with a God-given gift for spreading the Word of God. Each, in their own era, understood that the struggle they faced was not merely political but absolutely and profoundly spiritual: a contest between Christ’s lordship and anti-Christ ideologies, which demand allegiance and seek to replace His will and order for His children.
Bonhoeffer faced totalitarianism and paid with his life. Kirk faced a culture increasingly intolerant of dissenting Christian voices and he, too, was struck down for his convictions. Their contexts differ: the jackboot of fascism, the dominance of mediaeval Rome and the fractured environment of Western democracy, yet their witness converges in a single truth – they proclaimed Christ’s supremacy when silence would have been safer.
Luther nailed his theses for all the world to see. Bonhoeffer preached and wrote in open defiance of a regime bent on bending the church to its will, a regime that ultimately succeeded in isolating him. Kirk, likewise, stood as a relentless and often lone voice. Many others spoke out, but few from the hilltop where Kirk proclaimed the truth to the masses, as Luther and Bonhoeffer once did.
Kirk, using the platforms of the digital age, declared the resurrection of Christ as the centrepiece of his faith and warned of the spiritual danger embedded in the ideologies reshaping our culture. In this lineage, his death is not wasted. Like the martyrs before him, he bore witness, martyria –the Greek word meaning ‘witness’ – actively testifying to the truth of Christ through both his words and actions.
And yet here lies the scandal of our time, surprisingly, the Reformation churches as a whole, from Presbyterian and Reformed to Lutheran and Anglican bodies, along with many other non-Roman denominations, have remained publicly silent. They have not defended Kirk’s rejection of destructive ideologies, nor spoken as their forebears once did. This timid quiet is more than absence: it echoes complicity.
In Bonhoeffer’s day, the church’s silence was betrayal. In Luther’s day, silence was surrender to Rome. Today, the silence across much of the church over Kirk’s death reveals just how far the body of Christ has drifted from its reforming heritage. The reformers used pulpits, tracts and theses to proclaim truth to believers and unbelievers alike. Kirk did the same in our age, through broadcasts and speeches. But where are the voices rising to defend his witness now?
The answer to that question may itself be a judgment on the church. If the heirs of the Reformation cannot speak boldly for Christ when one of their own has fallen, they have forgotten the very costly discipleship that gave them birth. In a sense, many of these churches today lack the faith and courage of earlier Christians, prompting many believers to leave their denominations and return directly to Scripture.
“Come out of Babylon” was God’s clarion call (Revelation 18:4): a call for His people to separate from corruption and idolatry. As Luther taught, every Christian is a priest with direct access to God through His Word. No intermediary is needed to walk faithfully with the Lord. Where two or more gather in His name, Christ is present among them – a simple yet profound truth that many modern churches seem to have forgotten.
