A recent article by Spencer Kashmanian (2025), titled "It Is Faith, Not Free Speech, That Makes Martyrs," presents a thesis to be discussed hereafter. The text analyzes the murder of the conservative Christian commentator Charlie Kirk, arguing that his death should not be framed as a martyrdom for "free speech," as many on the right have allegedly suggested. For Kashmanian, this interpretation honors the means—civil debate—at the expense of the end, which is the pursuit of truth and submission to an objective moral order. He contends that Kirk was killed not for defending a process of idea exchange, but because of the content of his convictions: his explicit faith in Jesus Christ and his defense of Western civilization. The author reflects on how the hostility directed at Kirk is, by extension, directed at all conservative Christians who share the same beliefs, including himself. He concludes that "dialogue" is not an end in itself and that a social truce based on silence about the truth is unsustainable. The true cause of martyrdom, therefore, is not the defense of a procedural liberty but the proclamation of faith, and Christians must be prepared for persecution, whether violent or subtle, as the price for their fidelity to the truth.
The analysis proposed by Kashmanian (2025) is insightful and fundamental, for it correctly identifies the core of the issue afflicting contemporary Western civilization. The error of framing Kirk's murder as an attack on "free speech" is a symptom of the profound theological confusion that Liberty itself, the god that failed, has imposed upon us. It is a failure to recognize that the ongoing conflict is not between differing political opinions within a neutral arena, but rather between two antagonistic faiths: faith in Christ the King and faith in the secular State and its dogmas.📜 The Tool and the Temple
The distinction between the tool (free speech) and the temple (the Christian social order) is crucial. "Free speech," as conceived by the Enlightenment and enshrined in the American political structure, was never a neutral principle. It is, in fact, one of the chief articles of faith of the civil religion that Liberty established. This notion of freedom is not Christian liberty—the liberation from sin to live in virtue—but rather the Lockean definition: the mere absence of restraint on human action, limited only to prevent physical harm and protect property (Ferrara, 2012).
Within this framework, all "truths" are reduced to mere opinions competing in a "marketplace of ideas." The State, acting as a "neutral" arbiter, ensures that no "truth"—especially the truth of the Gospel—can lay claim to authority over the public order. Thus, by defending Kirk as a martyr for "free speech," well-intentioned conservatives unwittingly pay homage to the very system that produced his assassin. They are defending the altar of the god who killed him. Kirk did not die defending an atheist's right to deny God or a progressive's right to subvert morality; he died for asserting a Truth that transcends and judges the "free interchange of ideas." He died for proclaiming that the temple of objective moral order cannot be demolished to make way for the tools of human convenience.
⚔️ The Theology of the Conflict
It is rightly argued that the antagonism toward Kirk is, in essence, theological. All human differences are, ultimately, religious ones (Ferrara, 2012). Kirk's murder was not a random act of political violence but an act of secular religious fervor. The "high priests of progressivism" who occupy our elite institutions do not view traditional Christian beliefs as mere incorrect opinions, but as blasphemies against their own god—the Sovereign Will of the People, the Liberty to define one's own existence, the radical equality that denies any natural or divine hierarchy.
The secular state, far from being neutral, is in fact an American Confessional State. It professes a faith, enforces an orthodoxy, and punishes heresy (Ferrara, 2012). The heresy, in this case, is the Christian insistence that there is an authority higher than the will of the majority, a law superior to the Constitution, and a King to whom all presidents and peoples owe submission. Kirk was executed as a heretic against the religion of Liberty. His crime was not speaking, but what he spoke: that "there is a God of the nations before whom man must bend the knee." This assertion is a declaration of war against the secular State, which tolerates no rivals to its throne.
⚖️ The Failure of Dialogue and Martyrdom
The thesis that "dialogue is not an end in itself" exposes the fraud of Locke's "Law of Toleration," which requires all religions to bow to the dogma of tolerance in order to be tolerated (Ferrara, 2012). The liberal insistence on "civilized debate" and "agreeing to disagree" is not an invitation to the pursuit of truth, but a demand that Christians treat the truths of the faith as if they were mere negotiable opinions. It is a demand to remain silent on the nature of sin, the exclusivity of Christ, and the eternal consequences of unbelief. Maintaining peace, as Kashmanian (2025) notes, is only possible "as long as we refrain from telling each other the truth."
This is the peace of the tomb, the peace of a civilization that has abandoned the Truth that created it. Faith, not the defense of a liberal process, is what makes martyrs. The martyrs of the early Church did not die defending the right of pagans to worship their idols; they died for refusing to burn incense to Caesar. Likewise, Kirk was not martyred for defending the forum, but for insisting on the sovereignty of the Cross over the forum. The persecution that befalls Christians today—whether an assassin's bullet or the "subtler persecutions" mentioned—is the inevitable consequence of refusing to render homage to the "god that failed." It is the price of insisting that salvation comes from Christ, not the Constitution, and that true freedom is found in obedience to God, not in the license granted by the State.
References
Ferrara, Christopher A. Liberty, the God that failed: policing the sacred and the myth-making of the secular state, from Locke to Obama. New York: Angelico Press, 2012.
Kashmanian, Spencer. It Is Faith, Not Free Speech, That Makes Martyrs. Crisis Magazine, 19 Sept. 2025.