No More Illusions: Standing Firm in a Culture of Death
The Fight Ahead Isn’t Just Out There — It’s in Us
The news of Charlie Kirk’s assassination leaves a dull, heavy ache. It is the kind that makes you stop scrolling and actually think about what we are doing here and why it matters. Whatever your politics, the moment forces a reckoning. The ideological fight around us is not something you can shrug off anymore. It has consequences, and sometimes deadly ones.
Anger and fear are natural reactions. They are useful only when they point us to something better. The most useful response I can think of is not another tweet storm or a louder rant. It is the quieter and tougher work of looking inward and getting honest about the things that make us weak.
Here is what I mean. None of us shows up to the fight at full strength if our own inner life is a mess. Pride, hypocrisy, broken promises to God and family, those things are not private peccadilloes. They are cracks in our armor. You can shout at an injustice from the street all you want, but if you are hiding bitterness, secret sins, or cowardice at home, your voice will not last. It will not land. It will not persuade. It will not heal.
Charlie’s public life and faith, and now his violent death, have been a personal catalyst for me. It reminded me to be less casual about prayer, more intentional about how I love Becky, and more disciplined about modeling faith for others. His witness pushes me to make my life match my words, to make my faith visible where it matters most, in the quiet parts of life, not just in the public moments.
Let us be perfectly clear. The assassination of Charlie Kirk shattered any illusion that we can quietly agree to disagree with ideologies built on death and destruction. That illusion is gone. What happened was not random or meaningless. It was a deliberate strike in a much larger spiritual conflict. The people behind this kind of evil are not looking for dialogue, compromise, or peace. Their goal is domination. That means our response cannot be soft words or wishful calls for unity. Our response has to be clarity, conviction, and courage. We have to name evil for what it is and refuse to bend to it.
When we talk about responding to evil, we need to be precise. Saying “stand strong” or “fight back” is not an invitation to violence. It is a call to moral clarity and relentless personal integrity. The real enemy is not people we disagree with. The real enemy is whatever corrodes our ability to love, defend the vulnerable, and hold to truth. Apathy, cowardice, sloth, and hypocrisy are the things that wreck movements from the inside out.
So what does this look like in practice? A few straightforward and gritty steps you can walk into today:
Start with honesty. Spend time in prayer or reflection and ask what is soft, secret, or showy in your life. Name it. Do not sanitize it.
Clean house at home. Lead the prayer, have the hard conversations, and show up to what your family actually needs, not just what looks good on social media.
Quit tolerating small compromises. If something in you is normalizing behavior that undermines your witness, it needs to go. Habits matter. Character matters more.
Train for endurance. Spiritual courage is not a single heroic act. It is a thousand little choices to do the right thing when no one is applauding.
Love people practically. Protect kids, defend truth gently, and help a neighbor. Bravery without kindness is still broken.
If enough of us did that hard inward work, the public fight would look very different. Politics and protests may trim branches, but root rot gets the last word unless we address it at the source, which is our own lives. Personal holiness and civic responsibility are not separate tracks. They feed each other. A disciplined household becomes a disciplined community. A community of disciplined people is a real antidote to cultural decay.
This is not comfortable. It is not glamorous. It is inconvenient, slow, and sometimes humiliating. But if you want to be the kind of person who can stand steadfast when ugly things happen, this is the training ground.
Armor up, not with slogans but with practice. Get to work on the small, private things that build unshakeable character. Do it relentlessly. Do it kindly. Do it now.
When public storms hit next, we will be less likely to break and more likely to build. That is the kind of witness that changes hearts, saves families, and, in time, reshapes a culture.