A Turning Point for USA?

It is September 11 as I write this, well past what was supposed to be my deadline. It is the 24th anniversary of the horrific terrorist attacks on the US in 2001. It is also one day after the brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk, a 31-year-old husband and father of two young children, as well as a well-known conservative influencer.

In recent days, Americans have been inundated with footage of the chilling and seemingly random murder of Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian woman living in Charlotte, NC, after fleeing her war-torn homeland. This story followed closely on the heels of a mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, in which 17 people were injured and two schoolchildren were killed. Sadly, these stories are far from isolated instances of unspeakable violence in our nation.

A Breakpoint article by Abdu Murray describes a shift from “cancel culture” to what is now being referred to as “assassination culture” this way:

“Where cancel culture sought to erase voices and reputations through social pressure in the digital arena, assassination culture seeks to eradicate adversaries through violence in the physical world.” (From Cancel Culture to Assassination Culture? https://colsoncenter.org/breakpoint/from-cancel-culture-to-assassination-culture)

Kirk was the most prominent and influential conservative voice of his generation, having founded Turning Point USA (TPUSA) in 2012, at just 18 years old. According to the TPUSA website, “The organization’s mission is to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government,” and Kirk sought to do this largely through open-air debates on college campuses. It was at just such an event on Wednesday, September 10, that Kirk was shot in the neck and killed.

Without question, Kirk was murdered by someone who sought “to eradicate adversaries through violence in the physical world.” He was killed for speaking his convictions in a world that is decreasingly willing to tolerate such things. A rash of ghoulish comments in response to the announcement of his death emphasized it, echoing a common sentiment: he got what he deserved, because we consider his words and beliefs despicable.

As we consider all of these acts of evil, we must understand them as such. Such monstrous evil cannot rightly be understood apart from a Christian biblical worldview. This is the nature of sin; it hates, kills, destroys. The modern secularists’ attempts to explain away evil as a result of mental illness, economic inequality, or marginalized people groups is naïve and insufficient at best. Sin rejects the rule of God. This is the core of every evil thing, whether perceived as small by human assessment or the deliberate murder of innocents.

David recognized this root of wickedness in his own evil behaviors as he confessed to the Lord, “Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight….” (Psalm 51:4)

In a sinful world, sinful people do sinful things; to think otherwise is folly of the highest order. That will continue to be true until Christ returns, yet the Lord has delegated authority within various structures to enact justice and restrain evil. Included in these structures are government, church, and—most foundationally—family. The more the values of a society and of the authority structures within it are severed from the truth of the Bible, the more calloused toward sin the society becomes. As a society becomes acclimated to sin, it loses its sense of shock and shame, and the things that grieve the heart of God no longer grieve the hearts of people. We begin to discern right and wrong according to our own wisdom and worldly thinking, rather than according to God’s commands and biblical wisdom. When this happens in the church, among those who are to be salt and light in Jesus’ name (Matthew 5:13-16), then we lose our saltiness, and we fail to reflect the light of Christ. We become no more useful to this world than the sinful unbelievers we should be impacting.

As evil as each of these murders was, notice the responses that followed:

When government officials and others called for prayer following the Annunciation shooting, they were openly mocked by many who viewed prayer as a cop-out, specifically claiming that human action is far more important than prayer.

Iryna Zarutska was stabbed multiple times while surrounded by other passengers on the train, who not only refused to intervene or restrain the perpetrator, they turned away in indifference or fear while she sobbed and bled to death. When some eventually moved to help, it was too late.

In the immediate aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, many who opposed his viewpoints—not only social media trolls, but such “respectable” people as a cable news personality and a governor—spewed vile, hateful commentary, intimating or proclaiming outright that he deserved to be shot for the things he said and believed.

In each of these heinous acts and countless more, the response to the situation says more about us as a people than the evil act itself. The responses reflect a culture in steep moral decline. There is in each case a screaming absence of what used to be considered basic human decency.

The horror of the aforementioned events should be obvious, but far too many among us do not recognize it. As Christ-followers, we cannot allow that to be true of us. We must be shocked. We must be horrified. We must be outraged. And through it all, we must reflect the reality of Christ…the fullness of grace and truth.

It is right to be angry over sin, but let us not become sinful in response. (Ephesians 4:26-27) Let us not become inflamed as the world does, so that we spout off humanly justifiable opinions or jump to humanly justifiable actions that fail to honor God with righteous living. (James 1:19-21) We must never give in to the temptation to lean on our own understanding, rather than trusting in the Lord with our whole heart. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

While much of the response to these different acts of evil is lamentable and shameful, there are many others who appear galvanized by them—especially by the very public assassination of a very public figure over matters of thought, speech, and conviction. Many do feel a righteous shock, horror, and outrage, much like this nation felt after watching the Twin Towers fall and thousands die at the hands of terrorists in 2001. Now, as then, we have the opportunity to turn tragedy and evil into a turning point for the soul of our nation. This can be our pivot point, or we can give in to the darkness. I firmly believe that the difference hinges on what we, the Body of Christ, do as His ambassadors in this world, as we carry out His ministry of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:11-21)

Let us take what was meant for evil and turn it for good in Jesus' name by standing boldly—even courageously—for Scriptural truth in a world of lies, by demonstrating the love and grace of God to those who disagree with us without compromising that truth, and by not allowing ourselves to become comfortable with or calloused toward sin. Let us not fail to pray for those in leadership, for those in pain and need (like the families of those bereaved by these malevolent acts, including Charlie Kirk’s widow and young children), and for those who may persecute us and treat us as enemies. (1 Timothy 2:1-2, Isaiah 1:17, Matthew 5:44) May the world around us be profoundly affected by the Gospel’s salt and light in us as we reflect the reality of Christ through relationships.