On September 10, 2025, a horrible event shook the American educational and political landscape: Charlie Kirk — co-founder of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) and a prominent voice for young conservative activism — was fatally shot during a public speaking event at Utah Valley University. Since that day, the shock, outrage, and grief over his death have reverberated across the nation, if not the world. For thousands of college students who had encountered him through TPUSA, his books, or his speaking tours, the tragedy was not merely the loss of a personality but the silencing of a voice that had helped shape how many young Americans understood freedom, faith, and public discourse.
Of deepest concern are Erika Kirk and her children. A young wife has lost her husband, and children are left without their father. Our hearts pray for Erika as she and her family walk through the dark valley of this tragic new reality. As a nation — and even more so as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ — we bear a sacred responsibility to surround her with every measure of support, care, and encouragement that she will need in the days ahead. May the Great Comforter and Sustainer pour out His merciful presence, bringing healing, strength, and peace to the Kirk family.
Our concern also extends to our nation, and particularly to the college students who witnessed this horrific event with their own eyes. We can scarcely imagine the terror and trauma that overwhelmed those young adults as they saw Charlie Kirk struck down and the chaos that followed. For them, we also pray, asking God in His mercy to bring comfort, healing, and hope to every student scarred by this tragedy.
A Legacy of Freedom and Truth
From its founding in 2012, Turning Point USA grew into one of the largest conservative student organizations in the country. Under Kirk’s leadership, TPUSA established hundreds of campus chapters and gave a platform to students who often felt marginalized in the ideological climate of higher education. His trademark “Prove Me Wrong” debates, campus tours, and chapter meetings provided spaces where young people could articulate their convictions, confront prevailing assumptions, and exercise their voices in an environment that was often hostile to dissenting views.
Kirk understood the college campus is a battleground of ideas where worldviews are tested and solidified. He argued that many universities had become monocultures of thought, discouraging ideological diversity and punishing dissent. His mission was to create a counter-movement — a space for students to think critically, challenge cultural orthodoxies, and rediscover what he saw as the God-given foundations of liberty. While critics accused him of being polarizing, there is no debate that he gave students the courage to speak with conviction and the organizational tools to mobilize effectively.
The Role of Faith in Kirk’s Vision
Central to Kirk’s public life was his Christian faith. He consistently linked his advocacy for freedom and civil discourse to biblical convictions. For him, true freedom could not be separated from responsibility to God — freedom was never license for selfishness, but a calling to serve truth, to love neighbor, and to live faithfully under God’s authority.
This theological grounding also shaped his approach to speech and debate. Kirk emphasized that words, even when pointed or controversial, must never become dehumanizing. He saw free speech as more than a constitutional principle: it was a Christian discipline rooted in the truth that every person bears the image of God and therefore deserves dignity. For Kirk, civility was not weakness; it was strength born of faith. Even in heated exchanges, he called students to argue their ideas vigorously while respecting their opponents as fellow image-bearers.
Faith, Freedom, Truth
At the core of Kirk’s influence was his conviction that faith, freedom, and truth are inseparably bound together. For him, Christian faith was not a private compartment of life but the foundation upon which society itself must rest. He reminded students that freedom cannot endure apart from faith in God, because liberty divorced from moral responsibility inevitably collapses into chaos or tyranny.
Freedom, in Kirk’s understanding, was a sacred stewardship entrusted by God — not the right to gratify every appetite, but the calling to live responsibly before the Creator and in service to others.
This conviction led him to emphasize the objectivity of truth. In a cultural climate that often insists truth is relative or personally constructed, he pointed back to the biblical reality that truth is rooted in the unchanging character of God. Human beings do not invent truth; they discover it in God’s revelation, supremely in Jesus Christ, who declared, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). For Kirk, this meant that civil discourse could not be reduced to competing preferences or power struggles. Debates on campus and in culture were opportunities to bear gospel witness to truths that are objective, enduring, and life-giving.
This same integration of faith, freedom, and truth is central to the mission of Williams Baptist University. Our mission cultivates Christ-centered leaders – graduates who know that their freedom must be exercised under God’s rule, and that truth is not changing but eternal. By shaping students in the context of faith, Williams equips them to resist cultural relativism, defend liberty with responsibility, and speak truth with courage and love.
The Assassination: A National Turning Point
The violence that ended Kirk’s life at a university exposed the fragility of civil discourse in America. His assassination was not only an attack on an individual but on the very principles he championed: the ability to speak freely, to disagree openly, and to resolve conflicts without violence.
For students, the event was deeply unsettling. It revealed how political and cultural polarization has eroded the willingness to hear opposing voices. It also raised sobering questions for universities: How will institutions protect both safety and free expression? How will they cultivate environments where disagreement sharpens minds rather than breeding contempt?
Implications for Williams Baptist University
For Williams Baptist University, this tragedy underscores the urgency of our mission. WBU exists to cultivate Christ-centered leaders who will make a difference through their life work. That mission speaks directly to the issues that caused Kirk’s death and to the cultural moment in which students are coming of age.
- Freedom Under God’s Authority. Williams affirms that freedom is a divine gift, not merely a political arrangement. Students must learn that liberty is inseparable from responsibility — the responsibility to serve God, to live in holiness, and to bless others. Williams seeks to form graduates who see liberty as a calling to glorify Christ in every area of life.
- Civil Discourse as Christian Witness. A faith-shaped view of discourse resonates with WBU’s commitment to preparing leaders who speak the truth in love. In a polarized culture, Williams equips students not only to hold convictions but to communicate them with humility, grace, and courage.
- Courage in a Time of Fear. The assassination highlights how costly conviction can be. WBU calls students to the Williams Way of leadership — Christ-centered purpose, unwavering tenacity, courageous faith, selfless sacrifice, and work as mission. Each trait equips students to stand firm when cultural tides turn against them.
Mission Fidelity in a Time of Testing
Charlie Kirk’s life and death present both a warning and a challenge. They reveal the dangers of a culture where ideological hostility escalates into violence, but they also testify to the power of conviction rooted in faith. Kirk believed freedom was a sacred trust and that civil discourse was essential to a healthy society. He reminded students that their voices mattered — that their role in shaping culture was real and immediate.
Williams Baptist University carries forward that same imperative, though with an even deeper grounding: the lordship of Jesus Christ. Its mission is to cultivate leaders who not only engage the public square but do so as disciples, speaking truth with grace, practicing freedom with responsibility, and building communities shaped by the Gospel.
In the wake of Kirk’s assassination, WBU’s purpose is not diminished but intensified. The world urgently needs graduates who understand that freedom flows from faith, that civil discourse is a Christian discipline, and that courageous leadership is the antidote to fear. By God’s grace, Williams Baptist University will continue to raise up such leaders for a world desperate for truth, love, and hope.
Kirk’s death is a wakeup call for Christian universities, and especially for Williams, to remain steadfastly committed to our mission – to cultivate Christ-centered, biblically grounded, Gospel focused, truth believing, freedom loving leaders.
We pray for the Kirk family. We pray for the students who witnessed this tragedy. We pray for our nation. May God, in His mercy, transform what one man intended for evil into an occasion for healing, justice, righteousness, and revival for our nation and for our college campuses.