A fading effect?

Americans are, like the ancient Israelites, a stiff-necked people. Give us an abundance of gold, and we’ll fashion a calf. No matter the miracles God performs, no matter the signs He sends, we always seem to find a way back to our comfortable patterns of sin and apathy. We might rally admirably for a little while, but the pendulum will always swing back before too long.

Sadly, the assassination of Charlie Kirk is no different. As ghastly as it was: a Christian, a husband, and young father of two gunned down by the exact kind of kid he was trying to reach with his visits to campus colleges across the country; as sickening as the response was: media justifications and TikTok celebrations of the death of a conservative activist with views not dissimilar from my own and half of the country; as uplifting as the memorial service was: Cabinet members preaching the gospel and delivering altar calls, Erika Kirk offering her husband’s assassin the same forgiveness that Christ offers to all who call upon His name—only a rock could be unmoved by the events of the last month, and yet this too shall pass.

Who could witness all of these things and not feel the call to give their life to something higher, something greater? Praise be to God, some are doing so now. According to Fox News, pastors across the country are seeing a budding revival as a result of what they are calling the “Charlie Kirk effect.” Matt Zerrusen, who helped found a Catholic nonprofit that operates on more than 200 campuses across the country, says that every single ministry he works with has seen new faces and larger crowds at services, some reporting increases of as much as 15 percent. For a faith that teaches us that heaven’s angels celebrate the repentance of a single sinner, this—no matter how short-lived—is reason for rejoicing.

Yet even as we rejoice over these fruits of Kirk’s ministry in life and death, we must also remain sober and clear-minded (1 Peter 4:7). If history is anything to go by, the measurable results of Kirk’s passing will quickly fade. In the aftermath of the deadliest terrorist attack in our nation’s history, Americans briefly turned to God en masse. Five days after Al Qaeda flew planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and, but for the bravery of the passengers of Flight 93, the U.S. Capitol, half of the country sought consolation in church. But just two months after Americans resolved that we would “never forget” what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, we were back to our old habits.

The numbers from America’s 20th century religious revivals are no more reassuring. Billy Graham estimated that only one in four people who professed faith at his crusades became faithful Christians. Statistical surveys are much bleaker, showing that only a small fraction of that faithful quarter even end up joining a church, let alone regularly attending one more than a year after giving their life to Christ at a revival. Even still, Graham would have been undaunted by that fact: “For various reasons, they’ll drop out. Maybe the pressure and the allurements of the world, or maybe the materialism, or whatever it may be will wipe all that out. And Jesus spelled that out very carefully in the Gospels.”

The Charlie Kirk effect might last a few more months, or it might already be waning. It could become the defining moment in our political and religious consciousness for years to come, or it might get lumped in with other recent, high-profile murders like UnitedHealthcare’s Brian Thompson and Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska. Many of those looking for the beginnings of a religious revival want an irrefutable sign of the Spirit’s redeeming presence in the terror of the present, but “the coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed” and “the wind blows wherever it pleases” (Luke 17:20; John 3:8).

Even still, those with eyes to see may yet find in Kirk’s life a love that is as strong as death. Gerard Manley Hopkins once wrote that “Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his.” Erika Kirk has demonstrated this love to a watching world, forgiving her husband’s murderer “because it was what Christ did and is what Charlie would do.” In her gracious words, some are finding the “Father through the features of men’s faces” for the first time in 60 years.

The Charlie Kirk effect may fade, but the word of our God will stand forever. As Billy Graham knew, and as I think Charlie and Erika Kirk know as well, that is more than enough.