{"id":14520,"date":"2025-12-31T17:04:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T17:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=14520"},"modified":"2025-12-31T17:04:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T17:04:04","slug":"lets-evaluate-the-charlie-kirk-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=14520","title":{"rendered":"Let’s evaluate the ‘Charlie Kirk effect’"},"content":{"rendered":"


By John Stonestreet<\/span><\/span>, Op-ed contributor Monday, December 29, 2025<\/span>\u00a0<\/span> | Joe Raedle\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n

During\u00a0the\u00a0memorial service\u00a0for Charlie Kirk, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, \u201cCharlie started a political movement but unleashed a spiritual revival.\u201d Many people have, in fact, used the word revival to describe what has happened, especially among young people, since the September 10th\u00a0assassination of the Turning Point USA founder.<\/p>\n

According to a FOX News article published a few weeks after his death, pastors and religious leaders across the U.S., including Arizona where Kirk was based, reported\u00a0a 15% to 30% increase in church attendance, and many of the new attendees referred to Kirk\u2019s death as a wake-up call about mortality and faith.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

JP De Gance, the founder and president of Communio, a ministry that helps churches strengthen marriages, told The Christian Post,\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

[There has been] a lot of anecdotal feedback from churches in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Douglas County, Colorado, reporting that\u00a0they\u2019ve\u00a0seen an increase [in attendance] over the last two Sundays.\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s\u00a0one church in Michigan that said\u00a0a number of\u00a0young adults who were raised in the church [but] who\u00a0hadn\u2019t\u00a0been there, and people\u00a0hadn\u2019t\u00a0seen them for years, showed back up.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Also,\u00a0Bible sales\u00a0in\u00a0the month of\u00a0September\u00a0were\u00a036%\u00a0higher\u00a0than\u00a0last\u00a0year,\u00a0according to\u00a0Nielsen BookScan. Mark Schoenwald, president and chief executive of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, was one of several book publishing experts who attributed the surge of Bible sales to Kirk\u2019s death. As he told\u00a0Decision magazine,\u00a0Kirk\u2019s shooting\u00a0\u201cawakened a lot of people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, every aspect of the Turning Point organization has seen an incredible surge of interest in the wake of Kirk\u2019s death, and\u00a0that includes\u00a0TPUSA Faith, a group that helps churches put their faith into action. Its church network has essentially doubled to 8,000 churches, and an additional 200,000\u00a0Christians\u00a0are now\u00a0involved with the organization.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0most\u00a0substantial evidence of\u00a0whether we are in a time of\u00a0Christian revival\u00a0remains\u00a0to be seen.\u00a0Specifically,\u00a0it\u00a0remains to be seen if\u00a0what many are calling \u201cThe Kirk Effect\u201d will prove to be\u00a0only\u00a0short-term,\u00a0like\u00a0the wave of patriotism that followed 9\/11.\u00a0Last month, statistician\u00a0Ryan Burge\u00a0told\u00a0the\u00a0Daily Signal, \u201cThere\u2019s no evidence of a massive return to religion,\u201d\u00a0though he also\u00a0stated\u00a0that it was too early to know\u00a0all\u00a0the\u00a0relevant data.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

If there\u00a0is\u00a0a\u00a0significant work of the Lord\u00a0brewing in our country, there are two surefire ways to miss it. The first\u00a0way is to presume that\u00a0God\u00a0could never work in the way He is working.\u00a0Many have presumed as much about Christians who are\u00a0deemed\u00a0to be too political, especially someone with the public profile that Charlie Kirk had in life and, even more, in death.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mixing politics and evangelism, as Charlie Kirk did, is risky. He did not always do it well. However, it seems that as he matured and sought out mentors, Charlie became\u00a0more\u00a0<\/em>Christian and more politically measured, even as he remained\u00a0bold. To those who think Christianity must never be mixed with political activism, there are the words of evangelist D. L. Moody, who once\u00a0told\u00a0a\u00a0critic of\u00a0how\u00a0he\u00a0evangelized, \u201cI like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The second way to miss God\u2019s working in this moment is to\u00a0spend\u00a0all of\u00a0our time and energy saying some version of \u201cI told you so,\u201d rather than wait on the Lord with thankfulness and praise.\u00a0Revivals are fed by growing awareness, first of the glory of God and second of the seriousness of sin.\u00a0Attempts to seize a platform, claim credit, or manufacture internal change\u00a0will never achieve eternal ends.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We can rejoice that there seems to be a growing awareness of spiritual things, a growing rejection of some of the terrible ideas that have poisoned our culture, and a growing groundswell of courage among God\u2019s people. Our choice is to join this work, faithful to what is true and good.<\/p>\n

Originally published at BreakPoint.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

John Stonestreet serves as president of the Colson Center, equipping Christians to live with clarity, confidence, and courage in today’s cultural moment. A sought-after speaker and author on faith, culture, theology, worldview, education, and apologetics, he has co-authored five books, including A Practical Guide to Culture, A Student\u2019s Guide to Culture, and Restoring All Things. John hosts Breakpoint, the nationally syndicated commentary founded by Chuck Colson, and The Point, a daily one-minute feature on worldview and cultural issues. Previously, he held leadership roles at Summit Ministries and taught biblical studies at Bryan College (TN). He lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with his wife, Sarah, and their four children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By John Stonestreet, Op-ed contributor Monday, December 29, 2025\u00a0 | Joe Raedle\/Getty Images During\u00a0the\u00a0memorial service\u00a0for Charlie Kirk, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, \u201cCharlie started a political movement but unleashed a spiritual revival.\u201d Many people have, in fact, used the word revival to describe what has happened, especially among young people, since the September 10th\u00a0assassination of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[372,4337,4336,373,3784],"class_list":["post-14520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-charlie","tag-effect","tag-evaluate","tag-kirk","tag-lets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}