They came from states, and countries, amassing in Arizona, filling the State Farm Stadium to capacity with about 73,000, and approximately another 127,000 watching in overflow venues, according to sources, all to honor the life of Charlie Kirk.
Later, White House Communications Director, Steven Cheung shared TV images of the memorial service. Noting the coverage he said, “Every single network across America and many around the world took this revival live.”
Andrew Kolvet, producer of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” told of some more eye popping numbers. “There were over 100 million streamers for the tribute. Over 100 million people heard the Gospel again and again by speaker after speaker. Truly remarkable.”
Yet, leftists were desperate for a festival of anger and fear from Charlie Kirk’s packed memorial service on that Sunday in September.
Newsrooms and pundits throughout the land were no doubt salivating at the sight of a Republican gathering they could mock as a “Nazi” rally, another Nuremberg, a gathering of hatred in memory of a man they despised.
What they got was worship instead — and on a scale rarely seen in human history.
Journalist and author Saleno Zito captured the moment perfectly:
“The left & the press & the Never Trump folks were expecting a Wellstone moment. (Look it up),” she wrote in a post on the social media platform X.
“What they got was a revival. An Awakening. Likely the most viewed gospel presentation ever in the history of the country perhaps the [world emoji]. They really have no idea what has been unleashed.”
Zito’s “Wellstone moment” was a reference to the 2002 memorial service for Minnesota Democratic senator Paul Wellstone, which degenerated so disgracefully into a political rally that a writer for the liberal website Slate noted the service had been “overshadowed” by “the angry piety of populism.”
What came out at the Kirk service was Christianity — those gathered at Kirk’s service in Glendale, Arizona, were overwhelmingly politically conservative, yes, but Christianity came first.
There was the altar call early on from Pastor Rob McCoy, the man known as Charlie Kirk’s pastor.
There was Frank Turek, the Christian apologist and close friend of Kirk, a man who witnessed Kirk’s final moments on this earth, describing the essential platform of the Christian faith.
Kirk is in heaven, Turek said, “not because he sacrificed himself for his Savior. Charlie Kirk is in heaven because his Savior sacrificed Himself for Charlie Kirk.”
Vice President JD Vance, very close to the Kirk family, called him a “hero to the United States of America,” noting that he was a “martyr for the Christian faith.” Secretary Hegseth pointed out what is evident to so many of us that “this is not a political war. It’s not even a cultural war. It’s a spiritual war: faith and family first.”
President Donald Trump said, “None of us will ever forget Charlie Kirk and neither, now, will history.” He spoke of Charlie’s impact throughout the world, adding that the “lesson of Charlie’s life is that you should never underestimate what one person can do with a good heart, a righteous cause, a cheerful spirit and the will to ‘Fight, Fight, Fight!’
And then there was Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, delivering her own haunting version of Jesus’ words on the cross, except applied to the man facing the death sentence for murdering her husband:
“On the cross, our Savior said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they not know what they do,” she said. “That man, that young man — I forgive him.”
The crowd responded with a standing ovation.
“I forgive him because it was what Christ did and is what Charlie would do,” she said. “The answer to hate 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.”
Theologian and Christian commentator Owen Strachan summed it up in a post describing how the gospel was woven throughout the hours-long ceremony — and summed up its effect in one word: “WOW.”
It wasn’t at all what the left wanted. It wasn’t even close to the carnival of pettiness and spite that came to dominate the Democratic Party at Paul Wellstone’s memorial service two decades ago.
It was a testament, in a literal sense, to Kirk’s own public priorities when it came to faith and politics.
Reading CNN coverage, with its obligatory jabs at President Donald Trump, the disappointment was almost palpable, along with a slight grudging admiration.
But it’s what the country — and the world — got. And it was exactly what was needed.