Unpacking the Impact: Why Charlie Kirk's Assassination Shook Us All

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Welcome to another edition of the Wrap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rappaport, the Executive Director of Striving for Eternity and the

Christian Podcast Community, of which this podcast is a proud member. A little bit more of a somber episode that we have today.

I will be covering the issue of the murder of Charlie Kirk, the assassination that occurred.

I'm sure that everybody in the audience in America has already heard of this. It is not new news.

It is, by the time you hear this one week later from the event, it is something that has been known and people are aware of around the world.

What I'd like to do is take a little bit of a different take. There's a lot of people talking about this, like, seems like almost everyone, but what

I want to do different than everybody else is try to answer the question, why are so many people affected by the assassination of Charlie Kirk?

Now I knew of Charlie Kirk, I didn't really follow him much. I started in recent months seeing more and more of his engagements from YouTube that I would see, people would share, and I looked at this and was not really following him, but it was something that as I followed more and more,

I see that more of what he was saying, I really liked his demeanor,

I liked that he would go on campuses, have free discussion, he would let people who disagreed with him come up to the mics first, he would give them opportunity to speak.

And so, this is something I'm going to do on both this podcast and the next day after this releases, tomorrow night on Apologetics Live, and I will keep them probably with a similar title.

So, if you listen to this when it first drops, and you want to go and get some questions answered on this, you could go the very next night, or if you listen next day, or you just come in any

Thursday night on Apologetics Live, you can ask about it, but I'm going to cover it on both because I think that it's important for us to understand why his assassination has had such an impact on so many people.

There's some reasons I think that this is. I think that when we think about Charlie Kirk, what he's known for is the fact that he allowed people and wanted people to speak.

His thing was to have free speech. So, one of the things that I saw with this, and I have several different reasons why

I think this assassination has impacted so many,

I would be, I'd fail to not point out the differences between when we have someone assassinated, such as Charlie Kirk, versus a drug addict who overdosed on fentanyl, who was, who had died and, you know, while being arrested by the police, you just notice the difference.

We're not seeing two years of riots, cities burning, people angry.

You're seeing prayer vigils. I want that difference to set in. People are praying.

They're sad. They also are speaking out, and I'm going to get to what we should do, especially as Christians, in response is how should we respond?

How should we behave? But why does

Charlie Kirk's assassination have such an effect on people? The first reason

I think of is because many people saw the shot that killed him.

It was recorded by hundreds, if not thousands of people.

There's, I forget how many thousand people out there, maybe 3 ,000 people.

Many of them recording it. The first video that I saw was a shot far away, but you could see he was shot.

And from even from the distance, he probably wasn't going to survive.

But then there was the video that many saw in 4K up close, the bullet hitting him, going through his jugular, and as he was answering a question, he was shot.

You saw the blood come out of his neck and his head wobble.

I am sure when I saw that, I thought he was instantly dead. Now, there was some hope.

There were some people saying he was in the hospital. He was stable. There seemed to be reports that say there was no pulse by the time they got him to the

SUV to take him to the hospital. Now, when we see this, and it's something you can't unsee,

I remember calling my bride and telling her that Charlie Kirk was shot. She turned on the news.

She's the one that told me that they said he was stable. And I said, I find that hard to believe.

I saw the shot. I did not think he survived, nor I didn't think he would be able to survive if they made it to the hospital.

But I think the first thing we have to recognize is many people saw that shot.

That was something hard to unsee. It disturbed me quite a bit.

And think back just earlier that week that there was a girl who had been stabbed in the subway by the black guy that was walking around saying,

I stabbed that white girl. The media, first off, that was two weeks prior.

So it's just that the media finally got the video. They blurred things out.

People didn't want to show the woman actually being stabbed. Even when they did it, they would blur it out so you can't see her be stabbed.

You can't see her fall to the ground. You see it all blurred out. Why is that?

Well, part of the reason is when we see something like that, it has an impact. There's one thing if you see someone in a movie and you know it's not real or in a video game, something else to realize that when he got shot, you saw that shot hit and you knew his life was over.

Now, I know that they've taken down many of those videos, but the point is that seeing that was an evidence of evil.

We saw what evil looked like. See, in that blurred video that we saw days before of the woman that was just trying to get home from work, that was murdered, that didn't have the impact.

One reason is we didn't actually see her get stabbed. With Charlie Kirk, we actually saw the shot.

And I think that's very hard. If you saw that, you understand,

I believe, what I mean. So the first thing is we actually saw that the shot, the death shot.

A second is that Charlie Kirk was not a politician. He promoted his views of politics, but he wasn't in office.

And yet this was a political assassination because this is something that they said they did not like Charlie Kirk's political views.

If you think about that, Charlie Kirk was one who wanted everyone to have a voice.

He wanted there to be free speech. He believed in letting people speak freely because he knew that he had answers.

He knew that with God's word, he could provide a better argument than anyone else.

He'd studied a lot. He had a lot of history on his side because he would read a lot and he understood facts.

He remembered things. And so he would go on these campuses being challenged about anything.

And in all the videos I've seen, I've never once seen any video where he's yelling and angry.

In the videos I've seen, he's smiling. He's cordial. He's trying to help people see a different point of view.

But there's some who hate that idea. There's some who do not want anything but their view to be heard.

And because of that, we know that those people cannot wage into the waters of ideas.

Of debate, of free thinking. Their arguments are so lacking that the only way that they've had to win arguments is by censorship and silence.

And Charlie Kirk was not a politician, but they silenced him in a political assassination.

Because they could not defeat his arguments, because they did not like that he was having an impact on the way people think.

They did not like the politics, so they assassinated him.

That is silencing. He allowed others to speak.

And that's why I think my third point is the fact that what bothers so many of us is that his assassination, though the media wants to say he's a right winger and he hates blacks and he hates transgenders, they do all these things.

And yet, when you actually listen to the videos where they make these claims of what he said, they never play what he says.

They just make the claim. Why? Because in every instance that I saw where they said he was racist, he hates transgenders, he thinks transgenders should be killed, he thinks that children should be killed, all these arguments.

When you actually listen to what he said, he says the exact opposite. So the fact of number three is that he allowed others to speak.

Why is that a thing that impacts so many? Because so many saw that really the assassination of Charlie Kirk was an attack on freedom of speech.

They wanted to silence anyone whose arguments they cannot compete with.

And the only way to silence Charlie Kirk was to end his life.

Now, did that actually silence Charlie Kirk? Well, we will get to that at the end of this episode and more detail on Apologex Live.

But I would say no. Him as an individual, yes. His message, no.

So we got to see the actual death shot. The fact that he wasn't a politician, yet politically assassinated.

The fact that we recognize that he constantly was promoting freedom of speech. He would allow people to voice their opinion.

Something I do weekly on Apologex Live when people come in and disagree with me.

I let them voice their opinion. I think of an episode of a guy who wanted to promote a affirming

Christianity where he said that the Bible doesn't deny homosexuality.

And he said afterwards that me and my co -host talked over him and wouldn't let him speak at all.

And I ran the numbers. It's a two hour show. The first hour, he spoke twice as long as me and my co -host combined.

In the second hour, we provided answers. And he spoke equal time to me and my co -host combined.

So he spoke longer than the two of us. And yet he says we wouldn't let him speak.

You have to understand that when you have people that can't defeat arguments, they see that as you not letting them voice their views.

Somehow you prevented them. You stopped them because their arguments didn't carry weight.

And it must be your fault, not theirs. It's not that their arguments are bad. It must be your fault. I've seen that on Apologetics Live.

And that's a thing why I say freedom of speech was under attack. And it bothers us because many of us believe firmly in a freedom of speech in America.

It is what founded this country. It is important to the fabric of this country.

If we don't have a freedom of speech, then whoever is in power will silence the opposition.

Many of us remember that in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023.

You remember those times? Many of us were kicked off of social media, YouTube shut down because you dared to say things that were common sense, like masks don't prevent viruses.

It actually said so on the box that you'd buy for the mask. So we look at things now that we said and we were silenced for, we're censored.

So we remember that type of silencing of free speech, but now the attacks have upped its game to killing people when you don't like what they say.

That's un -American. It's also inhumane. Another reason

I think that so many have been moved by the assassination of Charlie Kirk is that he was an outspoken

Christian under the Biden administration. I mean, just earlier that week that Charlie Kirk had been assassinated, just that week, we got the report that the

Biden administration had been targeting Christians. It was purposeful to go after Christians and look to arrest them and target them.

So I think for many of us, we remember this time. We remember what it was like under the government when they were looking to target

Christians. And so because of that, many of us that are

Christian, and I'm going to use Christian in a very broad sense, because you're seeing many

Roman Catholics that were affected by this and speak about his

Christianity. It was interesting to listen to Ben Shapiro, an

Orthodox Jewish individual who was claimed several times on his episode of his podcast that Charlie Kirk is in heaven.

He knew that Charlie believed he was in heaven. And so it's interesting because even a

Jewish individual could recognize that Charlie was a devout Christian. See, what grounded all the political arguments

Charlie made and the arguments against the social ethics and issues of the society was

God's word. Now, he was not a theologian. He has said that, but he liked to learn and study.

He would sit down with people, his pastor or others who were theologians, and learn.

And so what you see is that he was someone who wanted to have a deep understanding of God's word and how it lived out in our lives.

He didn't just go to church and read the Bible. He practiced Christianity.

He lived it out. He wasn't a nominal

Christian. He's a Christian that went out in the public square and dared to speak the name of Christ and say that the word of God is the underlying answer for everything we have in society.

That we go to God and his word for the answers to the societal issues.

And I think for many, they recognize that and recognize that he was assassinated also because he's an outspoken

Christian. Another thing that I think is that he spoke for many of us who remain silent.

And I hope we remain silent no more. But many of us wouldn't go into public square and proclaim the gospel.

I'm glad that just earlier, before the assassination of Charlie Kirk, he was able to share the gospel in Utah where there's many

Mormons. He shared the gospel with somebody. He was willing to go out and speak and be ridiculed and attacked and threatened because he wanted to share what

God's word says to lost and dying people. Many of us would not speak the name of Christ at our job site in fear of retribution or losing our job.

And we would justify it by saying, oh, well, I need to keep my job to provide for my family.

Charlie didn't worry about trying to keep his job to provide for his family. No, he went out and did what he needed to do to share the gospel and did not worry about how people would respond.

It seemed to be something he was known for. And so as we look at this and think about this, we realize that Charlie Kirk spoke up where many of us would not.

And that is something that I think affects many. I think that he openly stated, and this is another point, he openly stated what so many in America believe, but were just too scared and afraid to say.

Many of the things he said, we believe. And yet what we see is that he was willing to be brave.

His boldness in going out and speaking gave others the courage to speak on their college campuses, at their job sites, in other public places.

You know, I think of my friend Ray Comfort, who has for nine, 40 years now been sharing the gospel in the open air and does these videos, and how many people have been emboldened to go out and share the gospel in the open air because they see this little

Kiwi doing it with a funny accent and they listen to him and say,

I can do that too. What Charlie Kirk did for many was to provide that same idea.

I can do that too. Many people were emboldened to do what

Charlie Kirk did. Maybe not with the crowds he did, maybe not doing it as well as he did.

I don't know if there'll be another person in a long time. He's like a once in a lifetime type of person that would be able to do what he did.

He never seemed to get upset. I can't say that. I mean, I do a lot of open air evangelism.

I can't say there haven't been times that I didn't let my pride get the better of me, that I didn't lose my cool, say things

I shouldn't have said, cut someone off, get upset because someone asked something

I didn't know the answer to, or they embarrassed me. I never saw that in any of the videos of Charlie Kirk.

And trust me, if there were videos like that, the liberals would have been playing them. They would be nonstop wall to wall on all of the major media,

CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, all of them would have been playing nonstop if there were some videos of Charlie Kirk losing his cool or anything that would actually support what they claimed he did, the fact that they only say what he says and they don't actually play it is some of the proof that he never did it because they would have played the video because the video would have the better impact if it's actually true what they said.

And so he emboldened many of us. And I want to take that as an action item for all of us.

And I think this is something his wife said, what they did in trying to silence him has to unleash something far greater because now

Charlie Kirk, though he is gone, there's many who are rising up to continue the work.

In fact, I believe that the Turning Point organization had on high school and college campuses,

I think it was about 3 ,000 to 4 ,000 chapters or that's what they were looking for as a goal.

I don't remember which. I think it was that they have 1 ,200 chapters and they were trying to get to 3 ,000 to 4 ,000.

And after his death, they had over 30 ,000 requests for chapters.

Well, their goal was blown away 10 times more than what they thought their goal would be.

We need to be part of that. We need to speak up. We need to do what, as Christians, what

Christ told us to do. We need to step up and share the gospel. Hopefully we will be silent no more.

Take the boldness. Rather than complaining about the culture, we have an opportunity to do something.

We have an opportunity to get out into the culture, share the gospel that those may come to know, that people could come to know

Jesus Christ. May we do that. Those were some of the positives on why

Charlie Kirk's death influenced us, many of us so much. But what are the negative reasons?

Well, as much as the left and the media wanted to depict him as extreme, they couldn't get away from the fact that he was polite.

He wanted open dialogue. He wanted free speech. Without attacking others.

And this is what he was silenced for. This is what he was silenced for.

And so the media reaction is something that I would like to discuss.

Because the media reaction to him, they are celebrating his death.

There were many that when he died, was murdered, assassinated, what you saw from the left, was they still referred to him as this extremist, this racist, this homophobe, someone that wanted to kill children.

These are the ways they would depict him. Not as a polite individual who wanted open and free, open dialogue and free speech.

No, they referred to him as being hateful.

Why? Why are they rejoicing? Why is the left thrilled that Charlie Kirk is gone?

Because Charlie Kirk threatened the Marxist agenda. What he was doing in giving dialogue was helping people to see that they have been brainwashed by a bunch of Marxists.

That they weren't free thinking anymore, if ever. They were following the

Marxist party line. And he gave them a way to think about things.

And that thought was a threat to the Marxist agenda. And so the

Marxists have been rising up because they want to try to get convinced everybody and gaslight everybody into believing that Charlie Kirk was the exact opposite of who he was.

They need to do that because what has happened, what we have seen, the outpouring of this effect of Charlie Kirk's assassination that I'm talking about, is the fact that Charlie Kirk's YouTube videos have doubled in one week of his death.

His subscribers, the subscribers to his channel doubled. His podcast downloads increased.

The number of videos, I've seen more Charlie Kirk videos in this last week than I have seen in the last 10 years.

His videos are being shared far more now than ever before. And his videos are showing the fact that he was a threat to the

Marxist agenda. They want to silence him. Death did not succeed in silencing him.

Which tells us that we should be finding ways to get the gospel message out, use the different medium, use videos, use podcasts, go into the streets, go on to college campuses, go where you can go to share the message of the

Bible. Because that is an anti -Marxist message. The Marxists need to attack

Christianity. They need to silence Christianity. Look at what's happening with Charlie Kirk.

Charlie Kirk is having a greater impact than ever before.

And he's not here to know about it. So the negative, the first of the negatives is that why this affects us so much is that he is threatening the

Marxist agenda. The Marxists are affected by it because they hate that idea. And those of us who have, well, common sense and open -mindedness, we are rejoicing in the fact that the

Marxist agenda is being, it's having the impact on it and because of what

Charlie had done while he was alive, that has impacted those of us conservatives to want to push that message more.

As his wife had said that they don't know what they've done in unleashing a fire that they may not be able, they're probably not gonna be able to put out.

I also think that the reason this impacted so many is that this was a declaration of war on conservatives.

We had years of being silenced, being told we can't speak, we have to be hushed up.

And so this was something we have seen, some of us felt, and the impact of this is that now we see it's not enough to censor us.

When they can't do that, they're looking to kill us. See, Charlie Kirk was just the public figure, but what we saw, not just by the person who assassinated him and the persons who helped organize it, but with the many, many people that rejoiced and celebrated, you see what they view things.

They think the murder of conservatives are something to celebrate and party on for.

In fact, a poll came out where they looked at liberals, the left and the far left, the right and the far right, and they asked the question of, are you happy when someone of the opposite party dies?

To the left, it was like 8%, or sorry, it was 16 % for the left, and to the far left, 24%, 24 % of the far left is happy when someone of the opposite party dies.

Where on the right, that was 8%, or sorry, it was 4 % for the right, and for the far right, 8%.

Now, another question they asked is, do you think that murdering political opponents is acceptable, that violence is really,

I think the question was, were violence acceptable against political opponents? More pointed question, but still, the left had 8 % that thought that that was acceptable, and the far left was like 12 % or 14%, where the right was 3 % thought that was acceptable, and the far right, 4%.

You see what this shows is that on the left, they are far more, six times more likely to accept violence and rejoice in the death or be happy in the death of their political opponents.

This was a shot heard around the world. The last we heard of a shot heard around the world, it led to a world war, but this was a declaration of war on conservatives, and for that reason, it impacts us.

I also think before we get to conclusions and where I think we need to go moving forward, my last point is, it was yet another recent wake -up call.

I think we had three major wake -up calls in the last five years.

The first was COVID. COVID was a wake -up call for many when they saw churches being shut down, but mosques being open.

Churches shut down while liquor stores, strip joints, they're allowed to be open because they were essential businesses.

A strip joint is an essential business. Their argument for that was because if people didn't go to see women undress, they're going to be violent with their spouses.

That is a really bad precedent to say, oh, well, we need to allow women to be allowed to sin because otherwise people might sin worse.

How about restricting them from sinning in the first place? But the reality is we saw under COVID the tyranny of the

Marxists as they tried to lock us away, keep us from being able to go to church while allowing all the sin in the society to continue.

You couldn't go to church or synagogue, but you can go to a mosque.

The same state of New York that chased people and arrested Orthodox Jews for going to a funeral outside is the same one that went inside the mosques to mark off six feet so that they could go inside to worship during Ramadan and had 75 locations where the city would provide food for them.

Why? Because they can't cook in their homes during Ramadan? No. COVID was a wake -up call.

Many people who are sitting idle and silent realized there was a battle and they got in it.

There was a second big wake -up call and that was the first assassination attempt of Donald Trump.

That had a major impact. In fact, that's the very thing that got Elon Musk so motivated that he got politically active.

That's when he decided he would endorse Trump. Remember, he wasn't Republican, neither was

Trump, by the way. They're libertarians, socially liberal, but seeing the assassination attempt on Donald Trump's life, it was a wake -up call to many and many realized, there were even many

Democrats that realized, wait, this is the party. They saw their party that was going and doing these things and they couldn't believe it, and so this is what we end up seeing, that there is these two previous wake -up calls, obviously, you know, the third,

Charlie Kirk's assassination, for all the reasons I've given why this was the wake -up call.

And so many now are starting to speak out publicly and openly. And my challenge to us is to do exactly that.

Let's speak up. Let's speak out.

Why did Charlie Kirk's death affect so many?

Simply put, because people watched more of his videos in the past one week than ever before and realized that the media has lied again.

More and more people are seeing this over and over. And so let me ask the question, was

Charlie Kirk, was this a political assassination or was he a

Christian martyr? It's an interesting question. My answer,

I think, is both. He was hated because he was a Christian.

He was killed, not just because he was a

Christian, but also for his political views. I think both are true.

He was both a political, it was both a political assassination and he was a

Christian martyr. I think it is time for us to stand up.

We must react. We must not let what

Charlie Kirk did die with Charlie Kirk. We must stand up because like Charlie, we have the greatest message in the world to proclaim, and that is what we should do.

We must not fear. We must not tremble. We must not avoid. We must take on the challenge head on.

That's what we should do. Now with this, there's a lot of things

I saw online that I do want to address. Challenges of if your pastor did not mention

Charlie Kirk assassination on Sunday, you need to find a new church.

I don't think that's right nor fair. I think that it is something that for many, they criticize those churches that brought up George Floyd.

I was one of them. I don't think George Floyd, who is a career criminal and killed himself by overdosing on fentanyl, deserved to be held as a hero or a martyr.

Oh, Christianity Today, they said he left a gospel legacy. Not sure what legacy that was, but when it came to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Christianity Today referred to him as dying for his far right radical views.

They, like the rest of the media, couldn't help but to depict him negatively.

I don't think that churches had to mention it. I think it's something that impacted the nation.

And if a church chose to, I don't know that I'd, I would need to understand the context to see if it's appropriate.

See, George Floyd was not a Christian. They tried to make him out as one after he died, like he was some martyr, but he wasn't a

Christian and I don't think it appropriate to hold him up in church.

As a model, Charlie Kirk, however, was a Christian who shared the gospel many, many times publicly on campuses.

And there could be reasons to, in church, mention him in the context of a worship service, if it's redirecting the focus to Christ, not politics and not

Charlie Kirk. And I would argue, I think Charlie Kirk would agree with me on that. So if you are one who demanded that churches mentioned

Charlie Kirk or that's not a church, then you've lost the focus of church.

The church is about Jesus Christ, not politics.

When we mention a Christian who is martyred, yes, that might be appropriate in church, but are you saying it must be mentioned because he's the

Christian martyr or is it because of the politics? For far too many, it's the politics.

So I don't think it's appropriate in most cases to mention Charlie Kirk on a

Sunday service. It could be, but to demand it,

I would say is just as wrong as those that demanded the mentioning of George Floyd.

This has been a more sober episode, not as lighthearted as I usually would be.

After all, we have seen the two years of BLM and Antifa riots burning the cities causing $2 billion of insurable damages.

The Tesla arsonists that were destroying people's property because they didn't like what the founder of the company was doing, they weren't hurting him.

Well, they were trying to because they just wanted people to not buy Teslas anymore because they figured that would hurt him,

President Trump being shot. Charlie Kirk now assassinated,

ICE officers being attacked, Christian schools, churches being shot up by people that are transgenders.

Oh, by the way, Charlie was assassinated by one. The political violence is not going away and it's all from one side.

The guns are not the problem. The Republicans aren't the problem. The radical left is the problem.

So what do we do? Do we chant on the streets?

Do we burn the cities and chant, say his name, Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk, we say his name.

Is that what we need to do or what we should be doing is having vigils going on campuses and having public discussions, sharing the gospel where you can.

Now I will close with this. I understand the sentiment. Many people are out wearing shirts saying I am

Charlie Kirk. And the idea of that is to say that yes, Charlie Kirk has been assassinated and is dead and is with his savior,

Jesus Christ, but they, that the left will not silence what he did.

And for that, yes, we should rise up. We should proclaim the gospel. We should proclaim

God's word for the answers to the societal issues. But instead of saying,

I am Charlie Kirk, we should say, and I think

Charlie Kirk would agree with me. I am of Jesus Christ.