The Blood of a Martyr : Lessons of Charlie Kirk

The sun rises on September 11, 2025 with the sorrow of millions of Americans who mourn the loss of a political force, a charismatic leader and more vital than that, a loving husband and father.

Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, was shot in the neck and killed during a college campus event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.

At the age of 31 Kirk had accomplished what many couldn't in a lifetime of effort. From building a conservative coalition powerful enough to swing elections, to founding one of the largest political organizations in history with Turning Point USA to authoring multiple books and touring the country many times over to sway the hearts and minds of young Americans, Charlie was a front line soldier in a cultural and political war for the minds of our nation.

And yet, high above the achievements that lit up headlines on Fox News and social media are the ones he took the most pride in. Charlie was known by everyone who met him as a fierce friend, a loving husband and a devoted father to two young children. His first wish and hope in life was to be remembered as a man who served God by spreading His word, honoring his wife, protecting and caring for his children and spreading love and truth in his community.

The echoes of those crowing over his death will cease in time, but the lessons of his life will be forever imprinted on the American mind. They will outlast the putrid bile of those celebrating his murder because his words and mission were grounded in something far stronger than ideology and political lines. They were grounded in truth.

I write today to express some of the many lessons he inscribed in the hearts of Americans :

1. Set your priorities : Faith, Family, Community.

   
   

   One of the last social media posts Charlie ever put out in early September was a message of encouragement for young Americans to prioritize their faith, then their family and then their country. He understood that a life well lived must be solid on a foundation of faith which would provide the strength to lead and love a family and from that fortress of virtue and responsibility to promote the most good in the community and country. He knew that the world was changed most effectively not from the podium or a sniper's bullet but from the hearth and home in which children laugh and spouses embrace.

   
   

2. The truth moves slower and speaks softer but will burn longer and in the hearts of those who hear it.

   
   

   Charlie said in several interviews that he prayed before his events asking God to give him the words He most needed the young men and women listening to hear. He trusted in the Author of Truth to provide all that needed be said and did not hesitate to speak it. Not only did he provide the truth, he wasn't afraid to hand the microphone over to those who disagreed with him to try to change his mind. In many cases, as you can witness online, their voices were higher, louder, more shrill and far more aggressive. Their talking points dripped from every news anchor, every corporation and every Hollywood camera. It prevailed for many years as Charlie made his rise in American culture. And yet the truth prevailed. The largest political movement in American history, in the form of Turning Point USA, swept the nation and instilled in millions of American youths, the pursuit of truth and rejection of narrative. His message outlasted the screams and denials of basic reality and logic.

   
   

3. Love learning at every level.

   
   

   Kirk never went to college. He never earned a masters degree. He never took the time to get an educational certification and there were not doctorate letters next to his name on any placard you could find. But everyone who knew him and all who spoke to him will attest that he was more educated, more voracious in his hunger to learn and more open minded than any illustrious professor in flowing gowns and tweed jackets. He was an avid reader, accomplished author and humble student of the greatest minds of history. He showed the youth of the world that an education can be achieved outside the ivy walls and ivory towers of the elite and that intelligence meant nothing without humility and wisdom. He never stopped learning. Judging by the trends of America's rising generation, they took notice. College enrollment is down from decades past. Home schooling and private schooling are on the incline. And alternate education opportunities are developing every year. Charlie took the road less traveled by his peers, the world noticed, and many followed suit.

   
   

4. Take joy in the fight God lays before you.

   
   

   Charlie was relentless. He walked into crowds that openly screamed at him, mocked him, spat at him and tried to bully him into submission. His early career was marked with standing toe to toe with angry mobs of college students filling the air with outrage. Go back and look at all of these videos online.

   What do you notice about Charlie?

   His smile.

   Through every event, Charlie was joyfully countering leftist talking points, poking holes in liberal logic and calmly expressing his love for Christ and pursuit of family and family values. He saw it as his mission to fight at all hours and in every part of the country for his beliefs in what he understood as a cultural war.

   And yet he smiled. He laughed. He took the fight God placed him in and embraced the cross with joy and hope and trust in Jesus Christ. His example reminds the world of the martyrs raising their hands in prayer in the Colosseum as they shed their blood under the swords of Romans and jaws of lions.

   
   

5. Pray then Take Action!

   
   

   Charlie never allowed the perfect to become the enemy of the good. He didn't spend ten years learning the ins and outs of the political system. He didn't clerk under political leaders before jumping into the social and cultural rivers swaying our elections. He saw the needs of a nation failing in it's greatness and he jumped in at the age of eighteen. Immediately after high school, he began corralling people and donors to found Turning Point USA and stepped into the breech without waiting for those of more experience or higher pedigree. He made mistakes. He didn't land every punch. He wasn't perfect. But he learned quickly, he made fast friends everywhere he went, he kept an open mind to those willing to speak to him and he didn't allow the well walked path of others to distract him from the one God laid before him. He didn't fight for a seat at someone's table. He built his own. And it's a table that has given a seat to a new generation of hungry and sharp minds, ready to spread truth, reason and discussion to the world for centuries to come.

   
   

   The world is not the same with Charlie Kirk gone. But perhaps he would argue, it still very much is the same. We are at war. A war of the spirit. A war over the culture and the very soul of America. Mr. Kirk realized that as a young man in his teens, grabbed the standard of our nation in his hands and charged to the front lines. But in that process he brought millions more with him to the front. He led a movement that will long outlast the bellows of protest against him and his blood is not in vain. The millions of prayers echoing across Heaven for Charlie and his family are testament to this fight and his immortal place in it.

   
   

   God bless Charlie Kirk and as for me and my house, we will follow Charlie's example and serve and fight for the Lord.

   
   

   With love for Charlie Kirk, Michael Hernandez