What Charlie Kirk And Other Good Men Have Done For Gen Z
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” This is a quote that is often attributed to Edmund Burk, one of the pillars in Conservative philosophical thought. And it rings true today in light of the murder of Charlie Kirk. Kirk was an example of a good man who did something so that evil would not triumph in the modern age. He spoke the truth with conviction and vigor, debating his opponents with civility and honor, while never surrendering his conviction – Charlie Kirk was one of the few examples of a Conservative who spoke and lived in accordance with his Biblical values.
I am a 26-year-old Gen Zer who grew up in Madison, WI. A city that is often called the “Portland of the Midwest”. A city that has been run awry with progressive policy and ideology for decades and one that is, at its core, hostile to Christianity and Conservatism. Growing up in a Christian household in which my dad was staunchly Evangelical in his theological conviction and Conservative in his political orientation, the expectation was that I would speak the truth regardless of what the progressive scavengers in my city thought of me. Growing up this way was not easy – the government schools in Madison are brutal towards people like me; people who believe that the Bible is true and that political Conservatism is right. I was mocked on countless occasions by teachers and was treated by faculty like a second-rate citizen for daring to speak up about my convictions and being willing to take a bad grade (or two or three) for doing so.
Now I won’t play the martyr as, while I grew older in this system, I began to become resentful and angry towards authority. My disposition became that of the very system I claimed to hate; liberal, nihilistic, and Rousseauian. I started to disregard the Christian doctrine of human dignity and began to treat other people as only a means to some sort of hedonistic end. My life trajectory was rocky, and I began to give up on Christianity in function even though I claimed to believe in God with my lips – I was a liar. It really seemed to me that this was all life had to offer: hedonistic pleasure and Marxist power games.
It wasn’t until, in 2016, I stumbled across a couple of brave men who spoke the truth at the cost of everything. Three specific men come to mind: Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, and Charlie Kirk. At the time I was a 16-year-old and though the YouTube videos and clips of these men didn’t fully grasp me, it was only a matter of time before I gave my life back to Christ and decided to live in accordance with His Word and Will. I remember watching videos of Charlie Kirk online debating young people and convincing them to get married, have kids, and believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I remember seeing Jordan Peterson refuse to have his tongue controlled by an authoritarian government simply because he believed deeply in the values of Western thought and knew of the horrors of authoritarianism. And I remember reading Ben Shapiro’s book, ‘The Right Side of History’, as a 21-year-old and crying at the end out of both conviction and gratitude. Conviction because I knew that I needed to get married and have children and gratitude because I felt like I was gifted the most wonderful understanding of Western thought that was stolen from me in my youth.
Within the next year after reading that book, I got married and a year after that we had our first child – then our second child – and our third is now on the way. I worked odd jobs to help pay the bills and we lived in our friend’s basement for a while, then a small 125-year-old home in a small town outside of Madison, and now in a nicer home near my parents (because we need help with all these kids). My life had taken a turn for the better when it could have turned toward eternal resentment and meaninglessness. This is ultimately thanks to my Christian faith – but it’s also thanks to these men who, in the case of Jordan Peterson, risked their entire career to speak the truth. And in the case of Ben Shapiro, has risked being one of the most hated men in America to speak the truth. And finally, in the case of Charlie Kirk, gave his life to the pursuit of truth unto death.
When I heard the news that Charlie Kirk was murdered, I was sad and angry. My wife and I prayed for his family and cried. It’s no mystery that the political left is a dangerous group in the modern age. One that is willing to murder its opponents because of their own inability to articulate a coherent argument and one that will praise the slaughter of an innocent man with a wife and two children simply because they disagree with him. I am not naive to the political, institutional, and ideological rot that has so deeply embedded itself into this country. I’m not blind to the fact that the Christian church, what Diedrich Bonhoeffer called the “conscience of the state”, has become undeniably ineffective and sickeningly deadened by their lust for comfort and prosperity. These are no longer dark secrets deeply hidden in the depths of the American regime. These are widely accepted facts about the current state of our union.
And yet, when I think and pray, I feel hopeful. Not because things are going well. It’s because even though things are going just as poorly in this Republic as we can imagine, there are still good men willing to give their lives for the truth. Good men like Charlie Kirk who spent his life in dialogue and debate with thousands of young people and convinced them to marry and have children, to repent and believe in Christ, and to live for the self-sacrificial flourishing of others.
We’re in a dark moment in the history of America. It’s hard to say how this chapter will end – but it will end, and those men who did something in the face of evil and spoke truth in the midst of battle will be the ones that history remembers. I think of the great battle for Middle-Earth and the wise words of Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings,
“It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something. That there is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.”
If Charlie Kirk is remembered for anything, let it be that he never gave up because there is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for. What happened yesterday to Charlie Kirk is not a wakeup call – it’s a call to battle. A call to fight. The blood of a martyr is the bedrock of truth. If Gen Z can learn anything, let it be that redemption is possible and that the road ahead is dark, but truth will light the way.