In a postmodern age awash in what Jacques Maritain called
“practical atheism,” Charlie Kirk had several strikes called against him before
he was assassinated at a crowded college campus in Utah.
A partial listing of strikes would include 1) a loving
marriage to his wife. Really, who in an age of twinkling celebrities and star
power politicians remains married to the same woman until “death they do part
and boasts of it publicly? 2) Kirk was an unapologetic Christian fundamentalist
at a time in which the profession of belief in any firm religious doctrine is
frowned upon by all the right people, perhaps even your local pastor, not to
mention the editorial page editor of your local newspaper. 3) In Kirk’s
ordering of highly important matters, politics falls behind faith and marriage,
a lamentable disordering in an age of post-pagan paganism.
The post-modern post-Christian pagan has leaned to tolerate
brief periods of religious eruptions pretty much the same way Pontius Pilate
tolerated them, with large dollops of pagan sangfroid. In John’s gospel
rendering of Pontius Pilot’s trial of Jesus, Pilot, a typical Roman politician,
at first suspects that Jesus is a political savior, but quickly loses interest
on discovering that his kingdom is “not of this world.”
The left in the US could never forgive Kirk for having
successfully penetrated high schools and colleges, an ideological castle whose
thus far unreachable walls they are determined to defend to the last
pedagogical warlord. Kirk began his sapping work when he was eighteen years of
age and, by the time he was bloodily assassinated, he had managed to insert
Turning Point USA (TPUSA) chapters in 900 colleges and 1,200 high schools. He
had tapped into a powerful and persistent undercurrent in American history and
ventured out into the world to share his finding with doubtful young people.
Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of "The Charlie Kirk Show," tells
us that (TPUSA) has received more than 54,000 inquiries from people wanting to
start new campus chapters.
Following Kirk’s assassination, the internet crackled with
some surprisingly reassuring commentary. Mark Twain once said of his widely
reported but false obituary, “Reports of my death have been greatly
exaggerated. So too, it must be said, with reports of the death of
Christianity, often reported by false neo-progressive prophets.
Bishop
Robert Barron viewed Kirk “as a kind of apostle of civil discourse, but
above all, as a man who loved Jesus Christ.”
Andrew Fowler is the Communications
Specialist at Connecticut’s Yankee Institute and editor of RealClear Religion.
In an essay on the utility of prayer, Fowler writes, “In the wake of mass
shootings, policymakers and media personnel often advocate for gun or mental
health reforms. While these may be well-intentioned, they mask the persistent
underlying ‘happiness crisis’ confronting Americans. Beyond the physical
realities, as scientific studies have demonstrated, prayer’s metaphysical and
spiritual fruits are more transformative to mind, body, and soul, deepening our
filial trust in our Creator. In prayer, we know God loves us — even in the
darkest trials of life.”
For many students, Kirk represents that point in the human
soul where religion and politics meet and must meet to assure sanity of both. In
the course of his private meditations and very public interactions with
students, Kirk had developed a language and presentation that can only be
described – even by those who disagreed with him – as persuasive and convincing.
But, as we’ve always known, sound arguments may always be
met with the assassination of truth. Metaphorically, Kirk stands on the same
ground as Saint Paul and other martyrs of the Christian church. In February 303AD,
the Christian church was nearly wiped out by Diocletian, a Roman emperor whose
pagan belief in the separation of religion and state was considerably more
energetic than that of our postmodern practical atheists.
Diocletian’s edict ordered the closure of all churches, the
burning of sacred Christian texts, and severe penalties for Christians,
signaling the start of what is now known as the Great Persecution. Diocletian
aimed to unify a crumbling anti-republican Roman Empire under the old pagan
gods. The Great Persecution was the most intense and systematic attempt by the
Roman state to eliminate Christianity. Rome fell. Christianity did not. In
northern Africa, Bishop Augustine wept when news was brought to him of the sack
of Rome and later wrote The City of God.
All the canonical disciples were martyred, but for Saint
John, exiled to the island of Patmos, where he wrote the three Letters of John,
the Fourth Gospel, and possibly the Revelation to John in the New Testament.
John’s first letter to a disheartened church denounced false
prophets who had embraced a heresy that had found favor among the pagans. The
heretics, who denied the incarnation of Jesus, claimed to have had profound
mystical experiences, professed to be without sin and exalted themselves above
the commandments, thus sanctioning moral laxity. John’s letter urges Christians
to hold fast to what they had been taught and persevere in leading a moral
life.
All this sounds too familiar. There are powerful cross
currents between John the apostle and Kirk, who held fast to his faith. That
current is where the Christian faith meets a Diocletian-like politics.
Christians and Jews know where final victory lies: If God is for us, who can be against us?
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