What has the recent killings of a young Ukrainian refugee and conservative activist Charlie Kirk taught us?
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #225 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.
“Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska looked up at her killer with terror in her eyes after he repeatedly stabbed her with a pocketknife, as no light-rail passengers came immediately to her aid.”
“The Aug. 22 attack on the Lynx Blue Line train in Charlotte, North Carolina, shows the 23-year-old cowering in fear and covering her face with her hands after the shocking, unprovoked attack, allegedly carried out by homeless repeat felon.” The entire horrible violence is available for all to see on train video, including her collapse to the floor and the killer’s aimless walking about the train for several minutes as other passengers simply watch. Only one man eventually tried to help Iryna.
Sept 10, 2025, Charlie “Kirk, the conservative activist and co-founder of Turning Point USA, was giving a presentation at Utah Valley University when he was fatally shot” from long distance with a high-powered rifle. He was sitting under an open-air tent canopy responding to a student question in front of a crowd of some 3,000 students. The entire horrible violence is available on video, including Charlie recoiling from the hit, bleeding, and falling to the ground.
Understandably, these killings, more than others that occur every day, have captured America’s attention. Why is that?
One, because they are on video. This isn’t cinema; it’s real. And two, because both these bloody assaults on human life portray senseless, sad, sick, sinful, unprovoked violence that could happen to any of us.
Iryna was simply riding a commuter train, reading her phone and was attacked from behind. Charlie was a public figure in a public venue.
He was doing what all those anchor people on cable news, celebrities, entertainment figures, and politicians regularly do—speaking into a microphone with nothing between him and a bullet. The news anchors know this, especially the ones on Fox News who knew Charlie well. This could be them. Understandably, you can hear the frustration and fear in their voices. As Bret Baier said on his evening report, “This one feels different.”
It was like that after 9/11, the anniversary of which ironically came the day after Charlie was martyred. I remember watching David Letterman and Dan Rather talking on air a night or two after. Tough-persona Dan was visibly shaken, and prince of goofiness David was uncharacteristically quiet. This was too close. Their world had been shaken. They did not know what to say or do, had no explanations.
This Charlie Kirk tragedy is like that. As Bret said, “This feels different.”
I’ve written and presented two podcasts along the way called “The Death of Discussion” and “Revisiting the Death of Discussion.” In those podcasts, I noted that we now live in a “post-truth culture in which politics and polarization are so pronounced we can no longer communicate, resulting in a virtual inability to discuss, much less debate, any social-political issue without it exploding into defensive partisanship, ideological condemnation, or lack of civility.” And that “the death of discussion is a real and a sad phenomenon, a capitulation to a disappearing understanding among the public of what Freedom of Speech means in a constitutional republic.”
How do we conduct discussions in fear of our lives?
The murder of Iryna Zarutska feels like the death of public safety. The assassination of Charlie Kirk feels like the death of free speech.
Political violence, once the experience of Third World countries, is increasing in the United States.
Shortly after Kirk was shot, former Democratic Rep Gabby Giffords said, “Democratic societies will always have political disagreements, but we must never allow America to become a country that confronts those disagreements with violence.” Giffords herself was shot in the head by a gunman in 2011. In the 14 years since, attacks and threats against political figures have surged. Just three months ago, a masked gunman shot two Minnesota state lawmakers, killing one.
Two months before that, an arsonist set fire to the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion while Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family slept inside…In the heat of the (2020) presidential campaign, (then candidate Donald J.) Trump was twice targeted by serious assassination attempts,” one coming within a centimeter of taking his life.
The murder of “Charlie Kirk marks a watershed moment in a surge of U.S. political violence, one that some experts fear will inflame an already-fractured country and inspire more unrest…In the first six months of the year, the U.S. experienced about 150 politically-motivated attacks — nearly twice as many as over the same period last year…Last year at least 300 cases of political violence across the U.S. between the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and the 2024 presidential election, marking the most significant and sustained surge in such violence since the 1970s.”
As they often do about school shootings, political leaders generally end their comments about these tragic shooting and killing events with the statement, “This has to end.” Agreed. But what is causing it and how do we stop it?
We can point to multiple sources of such crimes: polarization in the American political system, increasingly heated political rhetoric that takes on tones of personal animosity, more people in the US who do not embrace fundamental American values about life and liberty, a growing tendency to hold political viewpoints with a “religious,” i.e., uncompromising, morally superior, zeal, and a philosophy that divides American society into oppressors and the oppressed or victims.
From a Christian perspective, we may conclude that any culture like our own that rejects God and denies the existence of truth, i.e., embraces moral relativism, will begin to fall apart.
Prov. 29:18 says, “Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.” Without a foundation for our public moral consensus, there is no consensus. We’re left with no center, just centripetal forces tearing us apart.
And in recent years, like Europe before us, many American leaders have promoted the weak philosophy of “multiculturalism,” the idea that all cultures, values, and practices, are relative and none can be judged or determined to be wrong, bad, or unhealthy. This along with open borders means we end up with a mish mash of people who hold disjunctive worldviews, some of which are dangerous, even deadly, and, well, there’s not much we can say or do about it.
We just need to tolerate, live and let live.
Problem with this is that some of those cultures do not themselves believe in tolerance, live and let live, and adherents from time to time act out their views in crime and violence. This is what’s happening now in Europe, and this is what’s beginning to happen in the USA.
But this country was founded and flourished upon clearly understood Judeo-Christian values that valued life and liberty, believed in the Ten Commandments and certainly considered murder a reprehensible wrong, believed in accountability and justice, and promoted freedom of speech.
Charlie Kirk believed in these things and in the providence of God gave his life for them.
We need to recover our moral center, for without it there will be more unrest and more violence. God grant America a spiritual great awakening, and a revival of biblical values and civility.
Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. For more Christian commentary, see my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com, or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers.
And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2025
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