25 Oct A Church That Lost Its Nerve
A Church That Lost Its Nerve: Charlie Kirk, Fault Lines, and the Crisis of Evangelical Courage
As a mobilizer who has devoted his life to recruiting young men and women into the ministry, I am concerned by what I see taking place in the modern evangelical Church. Michael Clary, in his widely discussed article responding to the backlash against Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point Faith movement, touched a nerve that few have been willing to expose. He noted that Kirk, though not a pastor or seminary graduate, has awakened thousands of young believers through unapologetic boldness and moral clarity—something the established evangelical world has often failed to model. Clary’s reflection reveals what many ministry leaders have ignored for too long: there is a rising generation of young men desperate for strength, conviction, and truth. They are not inspired by conference panels, nuanced podcasts, or carefully worded statements designed to offend no one.
They are longing for leaders who stand where Scripture stands, who speak plainly, and who are not afraid to confront the darkness of this present age. Charlie Kirk did not come through the traditional pipeline of evangelical legitimacy. He did not climb the ladder of denominational systems or receive approval from academic gatekeepers. Yet God used him to catalyze one of the largest evangelical gatherings in the Western world in decades. That alone should make the Church stop and ask serious questions. Why did such an awakening come through someone outside the institutional structures? Perhaps because those structures have become too safe, too cautious, and too concerned with respectability to produce bold witnesses.
Clary’s critique is not simply about the silence that followed Kirk’s criticism. It is about a deeper problem. Many pastors, professors, and ministry leaders have been trained to avoid offense at all costs. What we call “winsomeness” has quietly become cowardice. The respectable Christian leader today is one who is careful, cautious, and perpetually apologetic, especially to the cultural left. But that is not the posture of the prophets. It is not the voice of Paul in Acts 4:29, who prayed, “Lord, enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.” Nor is it the tone of Jesus Christ when He confronted hypocrisy in Matthew 23.
The seminaries have produced agreeable personalities but few men of courage. They have taught leaders to be polite when the moment calls for prophets. Yet Scripture warns that silence is not neutrality. Ezekiel 33:6 declares, “If the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.” In a world collapsing under moral confusion, silence is not compassion; it is neglect.
This is the same fracture that Voddie Baucham exposes in Fault Lines. He shows how Critical Social Justice and its related ideologies have seeped into the Church, not through persecution, but through the manipulation of compassion and empathy separated from truth. The Church adopted emotional language about love and justice but lost the biblical framework to discern right from wrong. In Ephesians 4:15, we are commanded to “speak the truth in love,” yet the modern Church has settled for speaking love without truth. The result is a counterfeit gospel that feels kind but lacks power.
Meanwhile, evil advances almost uncontested. Our borders were thrown wide open; the working class is being drained to serve the global elite; children are being indoctrinated and mutilated in the name of progress; and our pulpits are filled with soft words about unity and tone. Isaiah 5:20 warns, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.” Yet the Church remains quiet, afraid to sound too political or too harsh, while the enemy boldly reshapes the moral landscape.
This weak Christianity is not only a theological tragedy; it is a mobilization crisis. Who would want to join an army of chocolate soldiers that melt at the first sign of adversity? C. T. Studd wrote, “Chocolate soldiers melt at the smell of fire. Real soldiers are made in the heat of battle.” The next generation of missionaries and disciple-makers will not be recruited by institutions that fear conflict. They will not give their lives to a movement that bows before cultural approval. They will follow leaders who burn with conviction, who suffer for truth, and who embody the courage of Christ.
Mission mobilization depends on moral clarity and spiritual backbone. When leaders lose their nerve, they lose their credibility. The nations do not need polite Christianity; they need a prophetic Church filled with men and women who believe that the gospel is worth their lives. The Great Commission requires warriors, not appeasers. 1 Corinthians 16:13 says, “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.”
This is the connection between Clary’s observation about Charlie Kirk and Baucham’s warning in Fault Lines. The Church stands on a fault line not because the world is strong, but because its shepherds have been trained to be weak. Yet God is not finished. He is raising up voices outside the formal halls of power, men and women who have not been tamed by institutions, who will not melt when the heat rises, and who will carry the gospel with fire into the darkest corners of the world.
The future of mission belongs to the courageous. The only question is whether the Church will be led by them, or be shamed by them.
About the Author
Mike Krieg is the founder and executive director of Storyline, a 501(c)(3) non-profit ministry that equips frontier church leaders in mission mobilization and leadership to fulfill the Great Commission. Storyline partners globally to train, resource, and inspire the next generation of disciple-makers and church planters in regions of the world where the gospel witness remains weak or unreached.
References
Clary, Michael. “Charlie Kirk and the Evangelical Mind: A Response to Evangelical Criticism of Turning Point Faith.” Substack, Honest to God, February 26, 2024.
https://michaelclary.substack.com/p/charlie-kirk-and-the-evangelical-mind
Baucham, Voddie T. Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe. Washington, D.C.: Salem Books, 2021.
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