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Could Charlie Kirk’s death be a “turning point” for America? · The Daily Article

• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Good morning, and welcome to Denison Forms Daily Article Podcast.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's Tuesday, September 16th, 2025.
• 0:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Connor Jones, co-host of the Culture Brief Podcast here at Denison Form, filling in for Chris Elkins, and narrating today's Daily Article, authored by our co-founder and CEO, Dr. Jim Denison.
• 0:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: To paraphrase Shakespeare, there are times when you need to fight fire with fire.
• 0:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: When Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, refusing to respond, would only have encouraged more attacks on Americans, Russia's recent drone incursions in NATO countries, Poland, and now Romania, are raising fears of war.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Poland's Prime Minister said his country is the closest we have been to open conflict since World War II.
• 0:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ignoring such aggression is likely to encourage further aggression.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, there are other times when fighting fire with fire only accelerates the configuration.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: For evangelical Christians in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination, this is one of those times.
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: House Speaker Mike Johnson told face the nation with Margaret Brennan on Sunday, I think this could be a turning point for our country.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: He urged leaders to turn down the rhetoric, omitted divisive political climate, saying lawmakers should stop treating public policy disputes as an existential threat to democracy or the Republic.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Johnson continued, saying that calling people Nazis and fascists is not helpful.
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are some deranged people in society, and when they see leaders using that kind of
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have to recognize that reality and address it appropriately.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: He added that he's heartened to know that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are stepping up and saying that and addressing it.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Charlie Kirk would agree.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: A commentator who knew him personally for many years wrote on the day he was killed.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: If I had a single word to capture him, it would be gracious.
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: We could disagree about anything, and we did.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: But he would, without fail, engage civilly and explain his point of view.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Others have described him in the same way.
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would like to respond by simply encouraging our nation to follow Charlie Kirk's example, but our device of culture has gotten where we are for a reason, and it's not from my lack of examples of the contrary.
• 2:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Paul King's North is an Oxford graduate, novelist, poet, and cultural commentator who has been called England's greatest living writer.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: In a recent free press article, he explains how the West lost its soul.
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: In essence, he says, we've abandoned the founding religious story that sustained us for
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: The result is the greatest age of abundance we've ever known, and a complete lack of meaning.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: His brilliant essay is an excerpt from his upcoming book, which I've already ordered.
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I urge you to read the article in its entirety, but for our purposes I'll focus on this assertion.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: The modern experiment has been the act of dethroning both literal human sovereigns and the representatives of the sacred order, and replacing them with purely human and purely abstract notions.
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: He shows that the secularism of our culture, while rejecting the unifying moral compass of Christendom, has nothing with which to replace it.
• 3:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thus, as scholar Ryan Burj notes, we are left with a post-truth society in which our politics have become religion.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Political parties have replaced denominations, some speeches have the feel of a tint to revival, and donating to candidates is like tithing.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: But unlike biblical religion, political religion is a zero-sum battle, in which the other side is dangerous, and our side must do whatever it takes to win.
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: The future of the nation is at stake, we tell ourselves.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we're right, but for the wrong reasons.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: If America's decide that those with whom we disagree are enemies, our decision becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: When we treat people like enemies, we make them enemies.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: When they treat us the same way, a vicious cycle of vengeance and retribution affects our politics and rhetoric and leads to violence and more violence.
• 3:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've been here before.
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the immortal conclusion to his first inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln pleaded with a nation on the brink of civil war.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: We are not enemies, but friends.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: We must not be enemies.
• 4:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Though passion may have strained it, must not break the bonds of affection.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: The mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and heart stone all over this broad land will yet swell the course of the union.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: When again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the better angels of our nature did not arrive, and the nation descended into the most devastating war in our history.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is because our nature is the cause of our division, not its solution.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: From Eden to today, our will to power has driven us to be our own gods at the expense of any who would you serve our throne.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is why the gospel is still our only hope.
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: The transforming power of God's Spirit alone can cleanse our brightful hearts, replace our quest for power with a passion for service, and turn us into carriers of forgiveness and grace.
• 4:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Speaking truth in love, as said in Ephesians 415, is our only way forward.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: But to do either, much less both, we must be empowered by the one who is the truth, and who is love.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Jesus wants our love for others to be as unconditional as his love for us.
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: In Luke 2334, He prayed for His fathers forgiveness for those who crucified him.
• 5:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: In Acts 760, we read that Stephen prayed for His executioners to be forgiven as well.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here's a hard question.
• 5:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can you pray for God to forgive the alleged murderer of Charlie Kirk and save his soul?
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not suggesting that the shooter should not face legal consequences for his crime.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I am asking you if you can ask your father to make a child of God and new creation in Christ as we see in 2 Corinthians 517.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is as hard for me as I assume it is for you.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus' command in Matthew 544 to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you as no loopholes or exceptions.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I am asking God to do four things.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Number one, to lead his people to submit our hearts, to his spirit and manifest his love
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Number two, help us pray for the alleged killer and all others who foment, infirmant, hatred and animosity in our culture.
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Number three, empower us to break the cycle of vengeance with the radical gift of forgiveness.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And number four, make us catalyst for a movement of grace that leads the West to find its soul again.
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Will you join me today?