"For such a time as this..."
Those are the words of Mordecai to his orphaned cousin Esther when he was urging her to appear uninvited before the king to plead the plight of her Jewish people.
13…Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. 14For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this? (Esther 5)
Queen Esther was faced with the stark reality of both death through silence and death through speaking. It’s risky business to speak up. The world witnessed that just a few short days ago with Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Yet ironically, that unspeakable loss for us remaining has seeded what I pray will be a real “turning point.” Indeed, as his widow Erika said last evening, “You have no idea what you have just unleashed across this entire country and this world.”
Speaking up is costly, and sometimes deadly. Yet staying silent is equally so. None of us will ever achieve the impact that Charlie had. Our kingdoms—those areas over which God has called each of us to reign—are all different. I read recently of both Eric Metaxas and Dr. James Dobson reflecting on their friendship with Charlie and his global influence, yet Charlie acknowledging that his early years were forged by both of them. This reciprocity is just a small window into the intersecting “kingdoms” God has gifted each of us with, and we do well to pause and reflect on what that means for each of us individually.
With that as a backdrop, LuAnne and I have just finished virtually attending the 82nd annual conference of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. For those not familiar with AAPS, it is an alternative to the AMA (American Medical Association) and has been the voice of private physicians (such as us) since 1943.
I’m not used to thinking of medical conferences as “inspiring.” This one truly was! AAPS is not a Christian organization per se, yet it’s “dedicat[ion] to the highest ethical standards of the Oath of Hippocrates and to preserving the sanctity of the patient-physician relationship and the practice of private medicine” draws a lot of Christian physicians and therefore has a strong Christian orientation. For example:
US Attorney Ed Martin concluded his introductory legal update presentation with “God is good all the time.”
Profound expressions of gratitude for President Trump, Secretary Kennedy, and the life and legacy of Charlie Kirk.
“Religious discrimination is just as repugnant as racial discrimination.”
“The war on children came from the war on words” (this in reference to transgender medicine being rooted in verbal engineering which precedes social engineering).
“My God is an awesome God…He reigns.” One of the speakers admitted to feeling apprehensive about her talk which revealed some of the historical horrors in modern psychiatry.
The conference ended with a 45-year veteran of medical practice. He admitted that sometimes practice can be discouraging, but we have to remind ourselves of what God requires of us—to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God. He then closed the conference with prayer, “in Jesus’ name.”
LuAnne and I have been to many conferences in our time—but this one was truly unique. And it got me to thinking about my kingdom and what it is that God has called me to do. So many unprecedented and exciting things have been happening in the world and particularly in health and medicine recently. A few days prior to the conference, I wanted to cancel patients and just write about this! But the kingdom duties called, and the writing was delayed. Now, with Charlie Kirk’s assassination, what I had intended to write has shifted a bit.
While I never knew Charlie personally, we did hear him speak in Lancaster, PA a few years ago. He was brilliant, quick-witted, and not afraid to tackle the cultural and spiritual issues of our day head on. The mainstream media has portrayed him as a “right wing activist.” Others have accused him of hate speech. Even some Christians have tried to defend or explain why Democrats in the US House shouted “no” when a moment of silence was requested the afternoon of his assassination. Others have had strange explanations of why national grief shouldn’t eclipse the ministry of the local church.
All of this strikes me as feckless, fickle, and most importantly false. Those who followed his life and ministry know that they are gross distortions of his ministry. The reality is that one of the most ardent and eloquent defenders of Truth—something Christians are supposed to care about—has been assassinated as both a political and religious martyr.
And while Christians are squabbling about the above and some refusing to defend his life (a discussion we shouldn’t even be having!), a widow shoulders unspeakable grief and two children will never know their father. Nancy Pearcey (America’s foremost female Christian intellectual) rightly calls out Christianity Today1:
Eric Metaxas pointed out yesterday that pastors’ cowardice has been partially responsible for Charlie being viewed as a radical.
Those who are critiquing Charlie Kirk didn’t understand or comprehend his mission. But millions did. As Tertullian said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” And in that spirit, countless others are stepping forward. Here are just two young men that I’ve encountered in the last 24 hours (click on picture to watch):
And this just came into my email as I’m writing…a viral video on TikTok with nearly 123k likes:
My dear readers, amazing things are happening through this tragedy! God is emboldening His people. The message of Jesus, the reliability of the Word, and the importance of family and freedom are being unapologetically proclaimed. Personally, I feel a renewed energy to speak Truth without fear or compromise. Let us always do so, full of “grace and truth.” May none of us stand in the way of these messages with critiques and insensitivities.
The following images were screenshots from X that I took late afternoon on the day of his assassination—messages that spoke to me in the midst of profound grief.
And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this? What is your kingdom? What is your time?
It should be noted that Christianity Today has long since abandoned Christian orthodoxy and has adopted the language of religious wokespeak. I stopped reading it at least a decade or so ago. See John West’s critique in Stockholm Syndrome Christianity: Why Christian Leaders Are Failing—and What We Can Do About It (2025).