https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk
By Alexander G. Colombos, CRC, MA, MPS, MA
Master's-Level Psychologist, Certified Rehabilitation Counselor, Educator, Historian, and doctoral candidate of Biblical Archaeology
It's really incredible that a 31-year-old loses his life because he talks about Jesus in the 21st century and not in the Middle East, not in a third-world country, but in the USA! And, perhaps, it's not an accident that the most systemic and infamous but also influential and popular website to find knowledge, Wikipedia, has an audio with only a few words, a few sentences it picks as the most representative of all his speeches, ideas, and manifestations of his character and personality, and-who knows?-maybe the reason, according to Wikipedia or many more, of his death!!!
And those words, which may have contributed or even led to his death, are nothing but a praise of religion, Jesus, and the Greek spirit, language, and culture from Ancient Greece to New Testament Greek!!! And he does that by tracing the historical roots of the theological term ECCLESIA, which is in the New Testament, originally written in Greek. He pronounces it perfectly! Even better than some Greek-Americans who can hardly utter a few Greek words, but they easily call themselves Greeks! Kirk is cognizant of the fact that language and culture are intertwined, and a pivotal, vital, and, of course, crucial part of culture is religion. So he goes on saying that ecclesia is not just the four walls of the building of a religious isntitution, it's not just a church, but goes back to the pubic gathering of the people in the agora, the market place, and of course Pnyka and the Areios Pagos, which was dedicated to Ares, the god of war, but also defense of one's homeland, values, and traditions and there was a pontium to deliver a speech, but also in the times of St Paul, there was an altar dedicated to the "Unknown God". This one actually has been found by the archaeologists! So there one could take the lead the speak in public about the matters of the city.
Therefore, a good citizen is a citizen who, of course, participates in fasting and prayer, especially in Athens of the 5th century BC, when Athens was the most religious and pious city surrounded by statues! This picture remained the same even in the Roman imperial Times and even in the times of St Paul who after he visited Athens, he shocked from the many statues of Gods and Goddesses, deities, and deified Emperors, calling it "kateidolos" (full of idols), though the ancient Greeks were nto really idolaters, they were ideolaters or lovers of ideas and their use of statues continued in the Catholic Church, but in the Greek and other orthodox churches the statues were replaced by the icons. Still, art was a religious and spiritual means. So Kirk deduces and insinuates that a good citizen is a religious citizen, who cherishes and preserves the traditions and the values of his homeland, as American Democracy is based on Athenian Demcracy and the classical values and, since he started with the biblical scene in New Testament, hiw favorite, as he said, where Jesus brings his disciples to the mouth of the Jordan River and asked them who the people say Iam, because others said He is John the Baptist, others said He is Elizah (Prophet Elias), Jesus said and told them that theya re ecclesia he is the head of the ecclesia.
Kirk quotes from Jeremiah (29,7), which says that the most important thing is that the people are tied to their nation. Kirk concludes that the other most important thing si t create biblical citizens insnuating that these citizens need to preserve the religious and cultural foundations of their nation and those for America, as we may see by going back to our Founding Fathers f this nation, are the Christian values, based on the Bible, including the New Testament that was written in Greek, and of course the classical/Western values and paideia (learning, erudition)! He said these words, a 31-year-old man, and now this man is dead, assassinated by those who want to eliminate not only Christianity, but the Western values and tradition whose cradle is Greece!
I, therefore, propose that every church and especially every Greek Orthodox church should have a memorial service to honor this man who tragically and unfairly died by those who want to call themselves bearers of democracy, free mind, and progress, those who claim that they care for other people's lives, that ther people's lives matter, but not the lives of the people who remain close to the traditions and origins of this country! He was assassinated by those who called themselves liberals and progressivists, but their actions are rather anarchist and bring chaos and enslavement of the mind, rather than freedom! What a shame for all of us that in 21st-century America, a young man loses his life just because he talks about Jesus! But let me tell you something! We have to ask ourselves what we do about that! And I am not referring to what happened to Kirk, but what do we do when we see Christianity being oppressed?
Let me tell you a story! A personal one! Yesterday, I was getting my haircut at a barbershop in my neighborhood, which is full of radical Muslims and even Taliban! This establishment is located at the Diversity Plaza in Jackson Heights. At the Diversity Plaza, I had never witnessed before all these almost 20 years in thsi neighborhood,, after all these events, concerts, and speeches, a single Christian one! Diversity Plaza! What an irony! There is no diversity there! Most of them are Bangladeshi and Pakistani, with many Indians, Tibetans, and Nepalis. Most of the events are Muslim festivals, and a few times, Hindu ones. When I walk there, I am probably the only white or even light-skinned person! They often look at me differently than they look at others. Merchants who sell their merchandise bombard me with advertising of their goods, unlike others, who let them pass by without even looking at them! Beggars flank me, asking for money, sometimes like I owe them just because of the way I look! Barbers of Baglandeshi or Pakistani, or other South Asian origin, come out of their barbershop and tell me to prefer their shop. Once, one charged him $40 for a haircut while he charged his copatriot only $12!
Yesterday, there was a Christian event at the Diversity Plaza! A young South Asian looking lad was on stage speaking fervently about Jesus. There were only very few chairs filled with people among the myriads of empty chairs. Some people were standing listening just out of curiosity, and others were passing by indifferently. But what I found most surprising was a morbid, the Hispanic barbershop where I went to, mostly Colombian and Puerto Rican, the barbers were making fun in Spanish of the young speaker shouting "Jesu Christo, Jesu Christo", "Yeah! Jesus baby!" laughing at him, chuckling, and making fun of him. They were annoyed just because he was too loud on the speakers, so they made fun of his and their own cultural and national values! I must say that I have special ties to the Hispanic culture, because of my late godmother, who was half from Chios island, Greece, and half Puerto Rican, and I felt her as my second mother, and my late godfather, also from Chios, as my second father, may God rest their souls. Also, many Latinos and Hispanics speak beautiful Greek and they know Greek culture, mythology, philosophy, and the arts better than many Greeks and Greek-Americans who don't even care about their culture. They think it's a given since they were born to Greek parents, that they are Greek and do nothing to learn about the Greek language and culture, and teach their kids responsibly and take Greek school seriously. Of course, not all of them are like that, only a few. Also, Hispanics and Latinos, many of them, have many large and strong churches and congregations, and have deep Christian roots and foundations, and family values like few cultures have. So I was shocked that even Christian-born people were making fun of a Christian speaker, and during their work, where they were supposed to be professional, unlike the fact that they are great barbers and I would even say artists, and I see that when people compliment my haircut! The thing is, no one dares to attack Muslims, Jews, Hindus, or other religions, not even to make a joke against them, but everybody attacks Christians, even Christians themselves!!!
I don't single out anyone here; this is just an example. I am just trying to say that change starts with each and every one of us. If we tolerate and even copy anti-Christian, anti-American, and anti-Western behaviors, we should not blame others for being in a world full of contradictions and inequalities, a world of injustice, a paradoxical and surreal world where we boast that we live in the country of freedom and in the 21st century and yet incidents like this one of Kirk's assassination reminds us how far away we are from being a first-world country or "the country of the free"!
We are destined to live by choice our self-designed Hell on Earth just because we don't unroot all these weeds, including weed that destroys the nervous system and sanity, especially of young people, and all the weeds of terror, fear, and dictatorship that the ultra-liberal atheists, anti-Greek and anti-West racists preach, which are democracy-killing and basically are killing freedom of speech and religious intolerance! They are killing America! They are killing hope!!! May his soul rest in peace, and may his sacrifice not be in vain but pave the way to a global awakening!! Amen.