Democrat-Gazette online

I first heard of Charlie Kirk from author Tim Alberta, in his book "The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism." Alberta, a Christian and son of a pastor, became concerned about the movement toward extremism among American evangelicals when, at his father's funeral, church members he considered lifelong family friends accosted him and accused him of being an instrument of the devil because some of his writing was critical of Trump.

Like me in my experience running for office as a Democrat, Alberta was blindsided by this phenomenon that seemed to have taken over a group of people he saw as his family of faith. His book was a result of spending four years studying the movement in order to try to understand what happened and what it all means. Alberta comes from the same perspective I have, which is grief for God's people and his own alienation from his church home--a world he loved, the only world he had ever known.

Alberta encountered Charlie Kirk at Dream City Church, one of the nation's largest evangelical megachurches, located in Phoenix, Ariz. It was the first Wednesday night of the month, and 2,000 people were gathered for "Freedom Night," which the pastor said was a chance to "talk about what's happening in our nation," and "draw a line in the sand" to preserve its traditional Christian values. Pastor Luke Barnett said he couldn't take credit for the idea. Freedom Night was the brainchild of Charlie Kirk, who was there to speak to the crowd.

From Alberta, I learned that Kirk was a "profiteer of the American culture wars." He started a youth-activist organization called Turning Point USA in 2012 and grew it into an empire, with 7 million social media followers, a penchant for........

© Arkansas Online