Charlie Kirk’s funeral serves as a conservative ‘revival,’ mixing calls for forgiveness and vengeance

What unfolded in Arizona on Sunday was no ordinary funeral. Tens of thousands filled State Farm Stadium in Glendale to honor Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old activist who was assassinated earlier this month. But what might have been a day of mourning turned into something much larger — a rallying point for faith, freedom, and a renewed conservative cause.

The nation’s top leaders in the MAGA movement were there. President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, senior Cabinet officials, even Elon Musk stood among the crowd, joined by tens of thousands of ordinary Americans. The tone was not of defeat, but of revival. “The evil murderer who took Charlie from us expected us to have a funeral today, and instead, my friends, we have had a revival in celebration of Charlie Kirk,” Vance declared.

Speaker after speaker invoked not just Charlie’s legacy, but a broader mission. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told the audience, “The day that Charlie died, the angels wept, but those tears have been turned into fire in our hearts. And that fire burns with a righteous fury that our enemies cannot comprehend or understand.” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth echoed the theme, saying, “Charlie started a political movement but unleashed a spiritual revival.” Even Trump, no stranger to blunt political talk, called the gathering “an old-time revival.”

Charlie’s death was the work of a single gunman, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, who has been charged with aggravated murder. Authorities say he targeted Kirk because of his political expression. His own mother admitted her son had become more political in recent years and leaned left. Whatever his individual motives, the act fits into a larger trend conservatives have long warned about: political violence that springs from a culture where the left insists on controlling speech, thought, and belief. As Trump put it, “No side in American politics has a monopoly on disturbed or misguided people, but there’s one part of our political community which believes they have a monopoly on truth, goodness and virtue and concludes they have also a monopoly on power, thought and speech. Well, that’s not happening anymore.”

For Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow, the day was both deeply personal and deeply symbolic. She stood before the crowd and said of her husband, “Charlie passionately wanted to reach and save the lost boys of the West, young men who feel like they have no direction, no purpose, no faith and no reason to live. The men wasting their lives on distractions and the men consumed with resentment, anger and hate, Charlie wanted to help them.” Her words struck even deeper when she added that her husband “wanted to save young men just like the one who took his life.” With extraordinary grace, she concluded, “That young man, I forgive him. I forgive him because it was what Christ did and what Charlie would do. The answer is not hate. The answer we know from the Gospel is love and always love, love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”

Trump himself offered a different but equally passionate perspective. Calling Kirk “a missionary with a noble spirit and a great, great purpose,” Trump admitted, “He did not hate his opponents; he wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagree with Charlie. I hate my opponent. And I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Erika. But now maybe Erika can talk to me and the whole group, and maybe they can convince me that that’s not right. But I can’t stand my opponent.” His bluntness drew laughter and applause, but his larger point was unmistakable: America is in a fight, and Kirk’s death only sharpened the stakes.

The service was rich with tributes from conservative voices. Tucker Carlson called Kirk a “Christian evangelist” who was “doing the thing that the people in charge hate most, which is calling for them to repent.” Benny Johnson called him “a martyr in the true Christian tradition.” Hegseth summed it up best when he said this is not merely political or cultural, but “a spiritual war, faith and family.”

Yet it was not all fire and fury. Donald Trump Jr. reminded the crowd that Charlie “embodied something at the very core of our movement: When people disagree with us, we don’t silence them, we don’t destroy them, and we certainly don’t sink to violence. Charlie delighted in his belief that people could be persuaded. He believed the way to win hearts was with truth, with courage and with conversation.”

Charlie’s path to influence reflected the larger story of the conservative movement in recent years. He rose from campus debates to a national platform through Turning Point USA, a group he co-founded. The pandemic, Joe Biden’s presidency, and the explosion of digital media only fueled his rise. By the early 2020s, he had embraced a more openly faith-driven conservatism, co-founding TPUSA Faith and declaring there is “no separation of church and state.” His work resonated with a new generation of conservatives who saw in him a rare combination of unapologetic truth-telling and Gospel conviction.

The critics never stopped attacking him, of course. They accused him of being too harsh, too divisive, too bold. But as Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at the memorial, “The irony in all this is that what our nation needs, one of the many things it needs, is the ability to discuss our differences openly, honestly, peacefully, respectfully.”

Sunday’s gathering was not only about grief. It was a signal — that religious conservatives are prepared to fight harder, pray deeper, and carry forward the cause that Charlie Kirk gave his life for. His death was not the end of a movement, but the beginning of what many now see as a revival. For tens of thousands in Arizona, and millions more watching across the country, the message was unmistakable: Charlie’s voice may have been silenced, but his mission lives on.