The inadequate response of Christian leaders to Charlie Kirk’s death

It has been very heartening to see all the clips online of people saying they are going back to church for the first time in ages – or going for the first time ever – because of Charlie Kirk. They’re picking up Bibles, even leaving the left. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the Charlie phenomenon is going global. You should also know that in some of the European media, he is being described as a right-wing extremist and freak (strong implication: who had it coming). Felix Nmecha, a Christian soccer player for a leading German team, got in trouble for posting mild, apolitical support for Charlie.

“Rest in peace with God. Such a sad day,” wrote Nmecha. He later changed that to: “May the Lord assist the Kirk family with special grace at this time. Jesus is the true way to peace and love.” And added: “Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Celebrating the murder of a father of two, a husband and a man who peacefully stood up for his beliefs and values is truly evil and shows how much we need Christ. May God have mercy and open our eyes and hearts, in the name of Jesus.”

This outraged some fans, and has prompted the team to say they are going to be having a talk with Nmecha. And you wonder why Europe is in so much trouble.

On the day of the assassination, the Pope tweeted not about Charlie, truth, or martyrdom, but about migrants

But Nmecha is right. Charlie showed young Christians and young Republicans they were not alone and that they could and should stand up for themselves. He was willing to suffer the scorn of campus haters for the sake of engaging them in public debate. Indeed, he said many times that the alternative to debate is violence. He paid for that conviction with his life. I don’t feel comfortable calling him a Christian martyr, because he was not murdered for his faith per se. But he was absolutely a martyr for free speech, and now we see very many people who were afraid no longer willing to be silent.

I have also heard a lot of people complaining that their churches were packed over the weekend, but their pastors said nothing at all about Charlie’s murder. To be fair, I don’t believe clergy are obligated to preach on current events. But this one? My God, it was news around the world, and had so much to do with faith and courage and the wages of sin. And so many pastors, it appears, blew it. How out of touch with your flock can you be? I am reminded of the Orthodox priest I once met who refused to talk about gender ideology to his congregation, even though parents in it were confused, because he didn’t want to be “political.”

Men of God, sack up! People need to know that church is a place they can go for wisdom and leadership on how to live godly lives in a world that has turned its back on Him. If all you can provide are canned sermons that have little or nothing to do with the lives people live, you are failing.

Gender ideology is a lie, and Tyler Robinson, Charlie’s alleged assassin, was living that lie. He was in a romantic partnership with a man who is thought to be transitioning to female and who is also, it seems, a “furry” (a weird subculture of people who dress up as animals and often sexualise their costumed selves). Robinson and his partner were ex-Mormons, raised in conservative families, who were radicalized by going deep online and living there as if it were reality. I believe that among the things the state should do is to ban all gender transition. Close the clinics. Forbid cross-sex hormones and prosecute doctors who persist. If that is politically untenable, then strictly forbid it to anyone under the age of 30. We must abnormalize this condition again.

We must also abnormalize giving children computers and smartphones. In 2013 Robinson’s mother posted an image that ought to be on the minds of every parent in America. It shows a young Tyler gaming on a computer, with the caption: “Almost forgot Tyler! He can totally avoid us now that he got all of the computer accessories he’s been wanting.”

The American pope had nothing to say about Robinson; no light in the dark for all the other disturbed young Americans living lies online. On the day of the assassination, Pope Leo tweeted not about Charlie, or truth, or martyrdom, but about migrants on the island of Lampedusa. His only mention of Charlie came two days later in a private conversation with the new US ambassador to the Vatican, in which he expressed his condolences and warned that “political differences must never be resolved with violence.” A diplomatic platitude, whispered in private, while the nation chanted in the streets.

Leo has also indicated that his first foreign trip – like his predecessor’s – will be to Lampedusa. If so, it’s a signal that nothing much is going to change in this pontificate.

Would that Leo go to Lyon to comfort the family of the wheelchair-bound Chaldean Catholic who fled his native Iraq to escape ISIS persecution and was slaughtered on a livestream by a machete-wielding Islamist for the crime of preaching the Gospel? Ashur Sarnaya, who was killed the same day as Charlie while live-streaming about Christianity, was martyred by the same sort of person Pope Leo is urging Europe to keep letting in, and whose violent presence is driving the continent to the brink of civil war. Such is the pastoral wisdom of so many Christian leaders. Europe, and all the West, ought to be a haven for Christians fleeing Islamist persecution.

Since Charlie’s assassination we are seeing who people are – and who they are not. We are seeing Good, and we are seeing Evil. We are seeing ourselves, too. The words, or lack of words, from religious leaders say nothing to us, or are even counsels of despair. But the blood of those who have died shouts to us: You must change your life!

Tertullian said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Strictly speaking, Sarnaya is the only true Christian martyr here. But there is not a Christian alive – not a person of conscience anywhere – who cannot read these signs, and choose to live in a different, braver way. Me too. Bob Dylan expressed it well two generations ago:

For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin’
Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times, they are a-changin’

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s September 29, 2025 World edition.