More than 500 people gathered in Winchester on Wednesday evening in memory of Charlie Kirk, co-founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA who was murdered in Utah last week. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
People carried umbrellas, candles, and American flags as they packed into the courtyard outside of the Shenandoah Valley Civil War Museum on Winchester's pedestrian mall. Speakers focused largely on a Christian message, singing hymns and reciting scripture.
[crowd singing "It Is Well With My Soul" in the rain]
Organizer Willie Deutsch, a member of Grace Anglican Church in Clarke County, asked those gathered to pray for the country, the Kirk family, and for the salvation of the suspected gunman, Tyler Robinson.
WILLIE DEUTSCH: More than anything, Charlie wanted to be remembered for his bold Christian faith, and he was expectantly looking forward to being in heaven with Jesus, where he is right now. He wanted people to do four things, which I hope we'll all remember to do. He wanted us to read our Bible, pray to God, go to church, and get married and have kids. [crowd chuckles]
Wayne Schneider, of Yahuah Shalom Ministries in Winchester, brought a shofar – a ram's horn blown like a trumpet in certain Jewish rituals.
WAYNE SCHNEIDER: This is a ram's horn that Yahuah is once again anointing in these end times to cause us to hear it and be ready for our Messiah's reappearing in the sky.
[blows horn]
SCHNEIDER: Hallelujah!
CROWD: Hallelujah!
Tricia Lawrence, the development director of AbbaCare Pregnancy Resource Center, which has clinics in Winchester and Martinsburg, West Virginia, said Kirk believed life began at conception, and so does her organization.
TRICIA LAWRENCE: He once shared that the one thing that he wanted to be remembered for in death was his faith, and I think he most certainly is being remembered for that. I don't believe he said or did things to intentionally cause contention among people. He was simply being obedient to what the Lord had called him to do, and he did it well.
Kirk made a number of statements on his podcast and at public speaking events that have come under renewed scrutiny since his death, such as "all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people," and "the left literally needs endless, constantly increasing migration from the 'third world' … The great replacement strategy, which is well underway every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different. … They hate those of you that live in rural and small America."
But the vigil attendees I spoke with were focused on Kirk's religious faith, including Dayle Disque and Derrick Rosslee.
DAYLE DISQUE: Charlie Kirk's courage, and his belief in Jesus, and how he wanted everyone to know and be saved.
When I asked, generally, about his more divisive positions –
DISQUE: I don't feel knowledgeable enough about that.
DERRICK ROSSLEE: We're not here for political reasons. I'm here to share in both the pain and the happiness, so that's what we're here for. So nothing else.
DISQUE: Nothing else.
Jeremy Jenkins, who attended from Inwood, West Virginia, told me he wasn't sure how to summarize the central messages of Kirk's beliefs.
JEREMY JENKINS: He didn't take "no" for an answer. I mean, he kept – what he believed in, he was true to it. So he just stayed with all his beliefs and he didn't let anybody persuade him any other way.
Kristy Horner said she and her family had followed Kirk's career for a long time.
KRISTY HORNER: I just really felt like it was always tactful, and honest, and I know sometimes that's hard to swallow. I can't say that we always believed 100% of what he did believe, but I appreciated the way he did it.
I asked what she thought about the trajectory of political violence in America, in the wake of Kirk's assassination and that of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark.
HORNER: Any time that we can all come out and just experience any type of political or faith-based action without being violent, that's a positive. … And I think that's something that makes America different, and that's important, too.
Willie Deutsch said we need to embrace disagreement to counter political violence.
DEUTSCH: It is definitely on the rise, and it's a huge problem, right? And it comes from this idea that words are violence. When people believe that words are violence, then actual violence in response to words I don't like is justified.
He thinks many of the people upset with Kirk's statements have taken them out of context.
DEUTSCH: Charlie went very viral, but he wasn't purely speaking for the soundbite. He was trying to get to the heart of an issue. And so, in the course of laying things out, he might have a sentence or two that sounded crazy, but he was trying to set out the context of situations. But yeah, I mean, look, when people speak truth, there are going to be things that people disagree with, and disagreement is part of political discourse. … If we only preserve the speech we like, we're not protecting free speech.
Deutsch hopes the vigil pointed people towards Jesus.
DEUTSCH: It takes something supernatural and outside of politics to really change things and bring hope and a difference to this world.
Tyler Robinson was charged with the aggravated murder of Charlie Kirk and other felonies related to the shooting earlier this week.
