Lasting Effects

Friday, September 19, 2025

The producer did some math and concludes that there are a lot of people turning to Christ in the wake of the Kirk assassination.  He uses the language of “conversions” –  which raises the eyebrows of this old former youth ministry worker.  Conversions or “decisions for Christ” are the currency of evangelical ministry.  When Billy Graham gave an altar call, heads were counted and celebrated.  Many a fund-raising letter has gone out claiming, “our ministry has resulted in X decisions for Christ, help us get more!”  But there are decisions and then there are decisions.

Way too often – I mean way, way too often – in my youth ministry days I prayed “the sinners prayer” with kids (another marker of a decision in evango-speak) only to watch that kid over the course of the next few months forget it had ever happened.  It broke my heart every time.  I think it broke God’s heart too.  I soon ceased to be interested in conversions and started to seek ways to do ministry that produced genuine and lasting change.  And thus I left the world of professional ministry, joined the normal working world and tried instead to make and maintain long-term relationships through which God could work in the lives of those around me.  I remind myself to this day that Christ chose to be close to just twelve people – He did not choose mass ministry.

And so we come to the reported spiritual awakening in the wake of the Kirk assassination.  I don’t doubt the numbers.  I don’t need to calculate the probabilities to test for the reality of it.  It’s real.  The question is “Will it last?”  Will it produce a trend or a change?  Trends fade, but change is to be cherished.

There are a lot of factors going forward that will decide what happens.  The host and Geraghty talked yesterday about “hijacking” the memorial service.  Kirk was both a political and spiritual figure.  In this time, politics seems to swallow everything.  Not only could it swallow the memorial service – it could swallow this seeming spiritual surge just as easily.

Then there is the lack of institutional underpinning to support a genuine movement.  A lot of the surge is happening in the world of independent Evangelical congregations, the kind that come and go with the rise and fall of a dynamic leader.  You need institutions designed to survive for ages for genuine change to take hold.  But with the Protestant denominations mostly lost at sea, swallowed by liberal politics to the point of theological poison, only the Roman Catholic Church can stand tall here.  And it is severely weakened by shortages of priests, and still recovering from much scandal.

I love reading and hearing all the reports of churches bursting at the seams in the wake of the Kirk assassination.  They give me hope, but my hope is tempered.  Jesus did not come to create a trend – He came to save souls and thereby save the world.  Kirk clearly loved the Lord.  If his legacy is to be honored, the measure will not be in the weeks and months ahead – it will be in the years ahead.  Were lives made better, not just today but for the rest of the life?

The funny thing is, if we prioritize the spiritual the political will take care of itself.