Traditions Revealing a Great Divide and The Charlie Kirk Solution
The Memorial Service for Charlie Kirk
Yesterday, the world witnessed the memorial service for Charlie Kirk. If you happened to see it, you know it looked more like a modern Christian concert than a traditional religious service. Different performers came onto the stage and, for many hours, performed various worship songs praising God, while tens of thousands of people gathered in the arena after waiting outside for hours and going through multiple security checks. There were so many great things that people said about Charlie, there were tears, somber pledges to continue his mission, and even laughter. In a profound moment that echoed around the world, Erika Kirk spoke words of forgiveness for the 22 year old who assassinated her husband, stirring up deep emotions in the tens of thousands of people attending, who stood to their feet applauding.
Here’s a link to the full recording of Charlie Kirk’s memorial service if you haven’t seen it yet: https://www.youtube.com/live/yQRM3k_lxbU?si=XSsmqOet6qSJqoZ0
Observing Bulgarian Responses
As someone who studies people and cultures, and originally from Bulgaria, which is an Eastern Orthodox country, I’ve been observing how Bulgarians have been responding to this memorial service. And by this, I mean Bulgarians who are supportive of Charlie Kirk and the MAGA movement, not the detractors. We share the same values as American citizens now, as supporters of the President and the America First movement, but they adhere to Eastern Orthodoxy and relate to God through the prism of the Bulgarian traditional perception of God. Even though I was born in Bulgaria and was baptized as Eastern Orthodox in my teens, when I became 20 I embraced the style of Christianity broadly described as Protestantism. This helps me understand well both sides since I’ve had a religious experience in both.
A Note of Respect
What I’m about to say is not critical or disrespectful. I very much respect the religious feelings and convictions of people who understand God and Christianity in a way different from me. This is not an attempt to make myself look right or like someone who knows everything while disparaging others for being ignorant. I’m simply an observer of people and culture, and I’m reflecting on what I’m seeing. Please don’t take this as a prescription or judgment–each person must discover their own relationship with God.
What Does a Protestant Memorial Service Entail?
To put it bluntly, for people who adhere to the Eastern Orthodox tradition, what we saw yesterday at the memorial service wasn’t all that different from how a memorial service would be done in many Protestant churches in the United States–except it was oversized: a huge arena, many bands, an incredibly large audience, and top VIP presence.
The memorial service went on with different people coming up to the microphone and sharing thoughts and memories of Charlie Kirk–mostly friends, coworkers, colleagues, and partners, including the Vice President and the President of the United States, both of whom Charlie Kirk was close to.
This is what the Protestant tradition actually is. That’s why it’s called a memorial service: because we remember the memory of the deceased. We memorialize the good things that someone demonstrated during their lifetime, their legacy, and who they were.
Biblical Foundations of Thankfulness
The roots of such a tradition are grounded in the biblical understanding of thankfulness. Learning how to be thankful for what’s good, even in the midst of loss, grief, and tragedy, is very much a value, a way of thinking, and a worldview encouraged in the Bible. We realize life is short; we’re grateful for the short time someone was with us; we’re grateful to God for the blessing that they were; and we send them off together as family and friends, grieving together and bringing a chapter in our lives to closure.
How Do Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Traditions Differ?
To my knowledge, no such tradition exists in the Catholic or Eastern Orthodox traditions.
The Eastern Orthodox religion does not encourage a dialogue or exchange of thoughts as part of its liturgy. The liturgy, or service, in Eastern Orthodoxy is centered around a ritual performed by the priest and other liturgical actors. This is very similar to the way the Catholic religion performs its liturgy.
If Charlie Kirk were to be memorialized in the Eastern Orthodox or Catholic tradition, no such memorial service would have taken place like what we saw yesterday. Kudos to his wife, Erika, who was brought up Catholic, and yet she chose to go along with what she knew Charlie Kirk would have wanted.
We don’t know much about Erika and how she understands God or Christianity, but we can only imagine that Charlie, being a Protestant, and Erika, coming from a Catholic background, meant that she followed Charlie in the style of Christianity he was practicing–while he was respectful of her background, and they worked out whatever differences they needed to work out in this beautiful union of two people who came from different backgrounds but became united as one because of their love for God, for America, and for each other.
The Beauty of Protestant Participation
The Protestant tradition, which encourages the participation of all people, is in fact a beautiful tradition. In those difficult moments after losing a loved one, how do you find closure? A memorial service brings together people who loved the deceased, draws out the best from their hearts about this person to share with the family, and helps the family get through the loss–all while giving God thanks and being thankful for the life of the deceased.
This becomes articulated over and over again by the different things friends and family have to say about the lost loved one.
Traditions as Cultural Reflections
The Bible doesn’t prescribe how we should say our last goodbyes to the people we love. Therefore, things like memorial services, weddings, and other similar traditions are simply a reflection of the culture our religion creates.
Protestantism, which broke away from Catholicism in the Middle Ages in Europe, has embraced and championed through the ages a culture of being vocal. The very nature of Protestantism is about voicing your opinion, even to protest.
However, when you think about it, is the essence of sharing life–for example, with your family. If a child doesn’t communicate with its parents, we would consider this child to have developmental problems. We would take this child to get examined by a specialist.
Why Is Communication Essential in Our Relationship with God?
It’s the same way in our relationship with God. There’s something wrong if we don’t talk to God like we would talk with our best friend, or with our parents (if you have, or had a good one).
Jesus said the greatest commandment of all is to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. And the next one like it is to love your neighbor as yourself.
Part of loving God is talking to God. That’s why we have the Book of Psalms, which beautifully shows us the kind of relationship David and other psalmists had with God. We see David speaking from his heart, then writing these words down, and turning them into songs.
The Book of Psalms is literally the worship book of the Hebrews from the time of David–the kind of songs David was singing, and maybe the people were singing too; the kind of prayers that David was praying, and the Jews of his time were praying too. For instance, Psalm 69:1-20 (HNV)
1 For the Chief Musician. On the shoshanim. By David. Save me, God, For the waters have come up to my neck! 2 I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. 3 I am weary with my crying. My throat is dry. My eyes fail, looking for my God. 4 Those who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head. Those who want to cut me off, being my enemies wrongfully, are mighty. I have to restore what I didn’t take away. 5 God, you know my foolishness. My sins aren’t hidden from you. 6 Don’t let those who wait for you be shamed through me, Lord GOD of Hosts. Don’t let those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me, God of Yisra’el. 7 Because for your sake, I have borne reproach. Shame has covered my face. 8 I have become a stranger to my brothers, An alien to my mother’s children. 9 For the zeal of your house consumes me. The reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. 10 When I wept and I fasted, That was to my reproach. 11 When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them. 12 Those who sit in the gate talk about me. I am the song of the drunkards. 13 But as for me, my prayer is to you, LORD, in an acceptable time. God, in the abundance of your loving kindness, answer me in the truth of your salvation. 14 Deliver me out of the mire, and don’t let me sink. Let me be delivered from those who hate me, and out of the deep waters. 15 Don’t let the flood waters overwhelm me, Neither let the deep swallow me up. Don’t let the pit shut its mouth on me. 16 Answer me, LORD, for your loving kindness is good. According to the multitude of your tender mercies, turn to me. 17 Don’t hide your face from your servant, For I am in distress. Answer me speedily! 18 Draw near to my soul, and redeem it. Ransom me because of my enemies. 19 You know my reproach, my shame, and my dishonor. My adversaries are all before you. 20 Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; For comforters, but I found none.
In the New Testament, we see Jesus speaking to God as if He was right there next to Him, and demonstrating how we should pray to God as well–by speaking to Him, not by silently staring at an icon or a statue and struggling to find thoughts in our head about what to think. A prime example is the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13: "This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’”
Prayer is, and always was meant to be, about speaking to God. Our thoughts transform when we speak them out loud. Of course, we can also pray deep in our hearts and minds in our thoughts. All prayer doesn’t have to be out loud.
The Personal Blessing of Heartfelt Prayer
It has been an incredible blessing to my life to be able to speak with the Lord. It is one of the greatest blessings to every day find a quiet place, and in the altar of your heart, pour out from your heart the most sacred thoughts, wishes, desires, prayers, and supplications to God Almighty. It is not an easy thing. It is not an easy habit to form. It’s not an easy mindset to develop, but when you do, it becomes an inseparable part of who you are as a human being.
Teaching Children to Pray
This is why the best time to teach children about prayer is for them to be part of the prayer life of their family as they grow up - to observe how the parents pray from their heart out loud, speaking to God like He was a person sitting in the chair next to you.
Respecting Liturgical Approaches
Some people are drawn to liturgical prayers. I was recently listening to a YouTube video where a Jewish man was talking about converting to Eastern Orthodoxy. In his story, he shared how he didn’t become a Protestant because he didn’t feel like Protestants are reverent enough, and he felt like the Eastern Orthodox liturgy has this element of deep veneration and awe before God.
I can respect that, and I’m perfectly fine with praying to God next to an Orthodox or Catholic person who is part of a liturgy. I have been to such services, and I see absolutely no problem with praying with a Catholic or Orthodox during their liturgy–there’s nothing wrong with that.
However, for someone to decide that this is the only legitimately spiritual way to pray shows me that they are more in love with their religious feelings than with God Himself. Whether someone is chanting an Orthodox chant or a Catholic chant or speaking from their heart, at the end of the day, there is no prescription in the Bible on how to pray these prayers. There is no audio recording for us that has been passed on to hear exactly how Jesus or the apostles were praying–if they were chanting or not–so all of this is speculation. And anyone who takes a speculation and turns it into a dogma, to me, they are dishonest, probably shallow, and maybe more in love with their religion than with God Himself.
How Do You Discover Your Own Voice Before God?
You need to discover your voice before God, like a child who, as part of their normal development, needs to learn how to talk with their parents–learn when to talk respectfully, when to joke. You need to develop the same kind of relationship with God. I can’t do this for you; you need to do this for yourself. And if you didn’t grow up in a family that demonstrated that for you, the next best thing is to befriend someone who has such a relationship with God and hang out with them, because these things–the spiritual dynamics such as heartfelt prayer before God–these things rub off on others. They are transmitted; they’re passed on as we do life with them. They’re not something you just read in a book or watch on YouTube.
Overcoming Divides: Charlie Kirk’s Example
I will conclude with this: Our traditions reveal the big divide between Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox Christianity. We are indeed very different, even though we believe in the general idea of God as Creator and Jesus Christ as the Messiah. There are so many things we differ on. However, Charlie Kirk and his wife Erika, their family, and the entire Turning Point USA ministry were a beautiful example of what happens when you correctly prioritize what’s truly important in life–God, family, friends, and the country you love. When those things are in the correct priority in your heart and mind, then you have a framework to relate to the world, and you can love a spouse who came from a different tradition, or friends who came from a different tradition, or family members who came from a different tradition–because having a good marriage is more important than some tradition; having good family relationships and great friendships is more important than a particular way of praying or not praying; having a great country is more important than all the differences that divide us. That’s the right way to relate to God and our fellow man. This is what Charlie Kirk did and demonstrated, and that’s why he died as a great man of God, a great example to many, many people, and a great inspiration to all of us. He left us an example of how we can overcome the divide and come together to bring the best out of each other to the glory of God.
Traditions Revealing a Great Divide and The Charlie Kirk Solution © 2025 by George Bakalov is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
