Pastor Mark Harper Reflects on Charlie Kirk's Assassination and the Revival It Could Spark
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Pastor Mark Harper Reflects on Charlie Kirk's Assassination and the Revival It Could Spark
Pastor Mark Harper shares his profound reaction to the shocking assassination of Charlie Kirk, reflecting on what it means to grieve for someone you admired but never personally knew. Drawing parallels to the Minneapolis riots and Detroit's 1967 upheaval, Harper explores how this tragedy revealed something deeper: not just grief for one man, but grief for a nation divided by hate. Through an unexpected source—Tyrus from the Gutfeld Show—he finds hope that Charlie's authentic faith and willingness to engage with those who disagreed with him might ignite a spiritual awakening among Generation Z and beyond. This is a call to lay down self-will, walk in love despite the hate, and become the kind of authentic Christian witness that even skeptics can't ignore.
I was in shock when I heard about the shooting of Charlie Kirk. I was sitting at my desk doing some writing on my computer and something popped up on social media, a pastor friend of mine saying basically, "Pray for Charlie Kirk. He's been shot." And this was somebody that I trusted. And so I immediately started to pray. And I stood up and just I like to walk and pray. And I'm walking around the room and I'm praying for Charlie. I'm praying that he'll live and not die. I'm praying for his family. I'm praying for his nation.
And then it was about 15 minutes later that we heard that Charlie had passed onto the other side. And at that point, I was numb. I went from being shocked to just being numb. We started watching the different news reports of what they were saying. Both Deb and I just sat there for I don't know how long, maybe an hour or two just weeping. Just I couldn't believe it. I didn't know what to do. I just took the rest of the day off and withdrew. And I just really wanted to curl up in my bed and just withdraw. I wanted to withdraw from this hate-filled world, which in our world and especially in our nation right now, there's just so much hate. There's so much misunderstanding.
Grieving Someone We Never Knew
I wondered I asked myself this question as both Deb and I were grieving Charlie who we really didn't even know. Now I had followed Charlie for a year or two. I got familiar with him for his reels that would pop up on Facebook. The first couple that I saw, he was I saw him in the little tent there, prove me wrong on the college campuses and there would be people to come up on the microphone and make fun of his faith, challenge his Christianity, make fun of the fact that he believed in the Bible. And I just loved his quick wit, his response to those questions. And then he would always have a way to get the individual not to put them down, but to challenge what they were thinking. And he always had a way to flip it back on them. But he wasn't cruel or mean or disrespectful. And he stayed calm. And I'm just like, there's no way I've never seen anybody function like this. And so I was just so impressed.
Of course, at that time, I didn't realize that he also was very active politically. I began to see those reels as well. So, we love Deb and I love Charlie Kirk. We respected him. We looked up to him. I think the thing we loved the most was that he was willing to go into the lion's den on the college campuses where quite frankly there's just group thinking on our college campuses. Really atheistic worldview is promoted in pretty much every one of our secular universities. But he's willing to go there and challenge that and did it in a calm way. And so just the utmost respect for this guy and his love, you could see the love that he had for the kids, for this generation and the fact that he himself was quite young.
We loved Charlie. We respected him. We admired. We saw the hand of God on him, but we didn't know him. And so here Deb and I are both just weeping for Charlie like we lost a family member. And I asked myself, I said, "Why am I crying like this? It's just awkward."
Minneapolis, Detroit, and the Loss of Innocence
And it reminded me, it took me back to 2020. Minneapolis was burning. And I'm watching the city that I called home for the past three decades burn. And I just remember the lack of self-control. I remember that period of time where they, you know, a lot of the stores, especially the Target stores, which were being attacked and vandalized and burned. All the Target stores throughout the Twin Cities shut down. And it wasn't just Target. A lot of the Walmarts and you, it felt like Minneapolis during that time felt like a war zone.
And I remember my brother Scott who pastors Clare Assembly of God in Clare Michigan. He called me up and he said, "Mark, how are you doing?" And I kind of froze when he asked me that question. I didn't Nobody had asked me that question. He said, "How are you doing?" And I started to cry. And I it was like I couldn't talk for a minute. You've all experienced that emotion where we can't talk. Maybe we're embarrassed to cry. Whatever it is. I didn't say anything for like a minute or two and then I said, "Well, I guess I'm not doing so good." I hadn't really thought about it how I'm doing till you asked that question. And so, we talked about what was happening and Scott prayed for me, but it was just that realization that I wasn't doing so good and I was grieving. And what was I grieving for? Well, I was grieving for the loss of my city. I knew that I was losing something. That Minneapolis would never be the same again. And that was a loss.
This reminded me of that. I wasn't grieving for buildings that was burning down, but I was grieving for that loss. And that was similar something I experienced as a child. 1967, I grew up in Detroit area. And so I was 8 years old when the riots broke out in Detroit. And Detroit never recovered from those riots. Detroit's actually doing better now, especially the downtown area is doing better than it has in decades. But the city of Detroit never recovered from those riots. Used to be a place that people would go and shop, retail all down Woodward Avenue and all that went away. Fear took over that city and people didn't want to go to the city of Detroit anymore. There was a loss there. I lost something as a child. There was an innocence that was lost.
And so watching Minneapolis burn, I knew that I had lost something. And then what happened here with Charlie Kirk? Yes, it's one man, but I realized I'm not just grieving for Charlie. I'm grieving for our nation. And I just began to pray. And I just began to weep. And I began to intercede. Prayer of intercession. Intercede means to stand in the gap. I began to intercede for America and for this next generation. And didn't really know still what to do other than to pray.
Hope From an Unexpected Source
But hope came, interestingly enough, not through another pastor or believer, but from somebody that didn't believe in God as he was sharing his memories of Charlie Kirk. And that was Tyrus on the Gutfeld show. He's one of the more regular guests that Gutfeld has on his show.
Tyrus shared: "This has been difficult because I feel bad because I didn't like what Charlie was doing. I'm not a religious person. And I find unfortunately in my life experiences that most people that put God in front of them were full of it and dangerous. And Charlie in his death, I learned that his faith was unbelievable. And I can't relate to that. So it bothers me on a certain level because I didn't think the risk was worth certain things in this world unfortunately in our country we can't discuss. And he took three things that were death sentences with this country. He talked about religion, he talked about gender, and he talked about politics."
He continued: "How many buildings burned last night? Not one. How many people were dragged in the street for looking like they maybe were the shooter? Not one. How many police officer was spit on for not doing their job in part? Not one. The hate, the negativity. Even for a person, I met him a couple times. I think he did this show with us. But the things that him and I have in common, his little girls are never going to see their dad again because he had principles and accountability. And that used to be something in this country that we admired. To be different to speak your heart and he did something that most of us he had a patience that I didn't understand. This dude would give the microphone to any that would want to say anything. We won't even let our audience talk. And they might be saying Tyrus, I love you. Get out. And he would give the mic knowing that they were there to call him every name in the book and this that whatever."
"I just for a guy who didn't buy into the religious thing and that's on that's me that's I'm not going to lie I you just can't lie about these things I didn't understand his commitment and I really wish I would have learned the lesson better than in his being murdered unless he was murdered and the side I don't think they're going to get the result that they wanted because they didn't get a violent response from the MAGA. But you just inspired millions of Charlie Kirks. So, you couldn't stand him. I hope they finish his tour. I hope people of faith that want to they continue his tour, they continue his legacy and they'll be wishing that they just had the one big voice because I really think he's going to inspire a generation."
What It Means to Be a True Christian
As I was listening to Tyrus, I realized that he encountered in Charlie for the first time perhaps in his life what he considered to be a true Christian. Now what is a true Christian? Of course ultimately the Lord is the judge of that. But Jesus told us what a true Christian is. He says if you want to follow me you need to be willing to lay down your life, pick up your cross and follow me. If you want to hang on to your life, you're going to lose it. But if you're willing to lay down your life, you will save it.
Of course, Christianity was birthed in martyrdom. When you stop and think about it, 11 of the 12 disciples were martyred. They gave their life to Christ. We don't really think about that because in America anyway, we don't see martyrs. That does happen in other countries around the world. There is, especially Islamic nations, there's Christians that die for their faith with some frequency, but we don't see that in America. We're not familiar with that. Somebody that gave their life for what they believed in, but Charlie did that.
And you could see that Tyrus was he was struggling with that. He couldn't comprehend that. He said it wasn't worth the risk. But as he was talking about Charlie and he was saying like his this guy was the real deal. This guy his faith was unbelievable. This wasn't some fake thing. This guy's faith was real. And I don't think there's any better compliment. You know when he said that that's what I hope that people say about me, especially unbelievers. What unbelievers say about you? What do they say about me? There's really only one thing that I care about is that Mark was the real deal. He wasn't perfect, but he was the real deal. He believed in God.
How We Lay Down Our Lives Today
So, how do we lay down our life today? Now, of course, I'm not asking you or me to be martyrs, but the way that we lay down our life every single day is we pray that prayer, the same prayer that Jesus prayed, which was not my will, but yours be done. Lay down your self-will, the things that you want to do. Are there things, areas of disobedience in your life where you're not obeying God? Let me just say this. You can be doing good things. There's times in my life where I got excited about some big things, some big visions that I wanted to do. And quite frankly, there's times I heard from God, but there's definitely times that I missed it because I wanted to do this thing and it was exciting and it was big and it was ministry but it wasn't something the Lord asked me to do and so I think we've all done that but we need to pray that prayer every day laid down our self-will not my will but yours be done.
The Ripple Effect of One Life
But what Tyrus did is I realized that if he's being impacted by Charlie's sacrifice think about the kids on the college campuses and even people that disagreed with Charlie. You know, there's people that hated him, I'm sure. And we see the manifestation of that all over social media, but there's a lot of people that loved him and even people that disagreed with him respected the fact that he came on the campus and he would listen to their point of view and debate with them. You didn't see anybody else doing that, left or right. You didn't see anybody else coming on the college campuses and handing a microphone to someone that they disagreed with and sit there and listen to them and debate and have an open debate with them.
And so even before this assassination, they were saying that with generation Z that is the first generation in decades where they are coming back to church. In other words, the numbers of generations either that are coming to church are increasing. For years, going all the way back to my parents' generation, every generation, those numbers have been decreasing slowly. More recently, faster. But generation Z, the college kids of today, they're turning the tide. And that had already started happening.
So, is this the trigger that's going to start revival in our nation? I don't know. But I do know this. This past Sunday, almost every church I talked to had record attendance. And when I say record attendance, they had Easter-like numbers. You know, Easter Sunday was always the biggest Sunday numerically in attendance. They had those kinds of numbers. Many churches did. People are searching. They're hurting. And they're hurting because they're concerned about their nation. They're concerned about their family. They're concerned about their situation. They don't like the hate that they see.
Be the Light
Now, I can't stop anybody else from hating, but I can recognize that there's other people that are hurting around me that don't want to participate in the hate. And I can be a bright light for them. Just like Charlie was a bright light, you and I can be a bright light simply by being committed to Christ, by willing to take the risk, by saying things that are truth that maybe perhaps people don't want to hear, by listening, by taking the time to listen to people's concerns, by praying with people.
You know, I'm 66. A lot of my peers are retiring. I can't do as much as I did when I was 30 or 40 or 50, but I can do something. And so, that's what I'm asking you to do. I'm asking you to you can't control whether somebody else has hate or not. You can't control whether somebody else is violent or not. As a Christian, we are called to not participate in hate. Jesus even warned us and said, "You know what? They hated me." This is what he said to his disciples. And you and I are his disciples. He said, "If they hated me, they're going to hate you. People are going to hate you, but you can't return the hate as a follower of Christ. We need to walk in love.
Why do we do that? Because there's people like Tyrus that are hurting. And what are they looking for? They're looking for somebody whose faith is unbelievable. Will you be one of those people that lays down your life for the Lord and for the people that Jesus died for? What do you need to do? I'm asking you to get down on your knees, pray, talk to God, get quiet, listen to him, and do what he says.
