The Sunday memorial of slain conservative intellectual Charlie Kirk added a much-needed dose of Christianity into America’s broken culture. And with it came a profound message concerning the nation’s future male leaders.
The pivotal moment came during remarks by Vice President J.D. Vance. While eulogizing his deceased friend, the Ohio native cited Christ’s teachings to offer poignant advice for young men seeking some semblance of purpose in life.
“It is better to die a young man in this world than to sell your soul for an easy life with no purpose, no risk, no love, and no truth,” Vance said. “Christ told us in the Gospel of John: ‘I have said these things to you that in Me, you may have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation. But take heart. I have overcome the world.'”
For years, major American institutions and figures have routinely degraded young men for displaying and promoting the positive masculine behaviors Vance described (and Kirk embodied). To see the vice president of the United States openly and unapologetically preach the gospel in refutation of those ill-fated attacks is, to say the least, a breath of fresh air.
But what’s equally important about Vance’s comments is that they offer a biblically sound contrast to the pathetic “compromise Christianity” preached in too many pulpits and pews across America. That is, that these positive masculine behaviors — which are derived from Christian doctrine — must be rejected in order to conform to the current culture and its demands.
While doing so may seem like an “easy” avenue to avoiding the wrath of modern society, abandoning core Christian beliefs for the sake of popularity does not lead to a meaningful life in Christ. In fact, such a worldview is the exact opposite of what Christ teaches.
In John 15:18-19, Jesus makes it unequivocally clear that Christians will be hated by the world because “it hated me first,” and that, “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.”
As followers of Christ, we are guaranteed to suffer for following Him. Yet, it is through that persecution that our everlasting relationship with Him becomes stronger.
As the apostle Paul writes in Romans 5:3, “[W]e rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
And it is that kind of unvarnished truth that America’s young men are seeking and must hear. Not a “politically correct” version of the gospel that attempts to play footsie with the modern culture, but a message — the message — that gives them the guidance they need to live out purposeful lives in Christ.
That’s the mission Charlie Kirk fought and died for. And like him, it is incumbent upon the rest of us to continue carrying the torch and spreading the good news wherever and whenever we can.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood