Grand Rapids Church dedicates Sunday service to the life and legacy of Charlie Kirk

Some of the Grand Rapids-based commercial news agencies have posted stories about the death of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. 

One story from MLive was about an Office Depot employee who was fired for refusing to print copies of a poster for a vigil being organized for Kirk. Another MLive story simply announces that the Michigan Republican Party was hosting a rally “to pay homage to prominent conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.” The rally was at the Lansing State Capitol at 4pm on September 15th.

WOODTV8 also ran a story about a Grand Rapids pastor who knew Charlie Kirk, and hosted the far-right campus organizer at his church. The pastor’s name is Cody Kuehl and the name of the church that he is the pastor at is GR.Church.  

Curious to know more about this church, I then checked out GR.Church and found out that they were going to center the life of Charlie Kirk during their Sunday morning service. On the church’s Facebook page you can watch the service from Sunday morning, which as of 5pm on September 14th there were already 1,400 views. Twelve minutes into this video there is a video compilation celebrating Kirk, followed by the pastor’s sermon that also uses the life of Charlie Kirk as a model for what it means to be a Christian. GR.Church is located just south of 44th Street between Kalamazoo and Breton. 

Now, I wouldn’t recommend that you watch the sermon which included a great deal of praise for Charlie Kirk, even some video clips featuring the far right founder of Turning Point USA, since it was difficult to sit through…..unless you have some good bourbon. At one point the pastor said that the US was the greatest country in the history of the planet and that Charlie Kirk was killed because of his faith in God. What I take away for the sermon and the service at GR.Church is that people will use the Christian bible to justify whatever they want.

Pastor Kuehl noted during his sermon that WOODTV8 was present and they did run a follow up story. Unfortunately, the story that channel 8 ran later on Sunday was nothing more than stenography journalism, citing the pastor a few times without any verification of the claims made or critical inquiry into the impact that Kirk and Turning Point USA had around the country.

However, for thinking people, here are some resources to counter the media frenzy around the death of Charlie Kirk and the function of Turning Point USA.

• Charlie Kirk’s Legacy Deserves No Mourning
• Nothing Will Stop Trump From Weaponizing Charlie Kirk’s Killing to Attack the Left
• The Center for Media and Democracy 
• Souther Poverty Law Center 
• Right Wing Watch 

Lastly, I wanted to say that we have to come to terms with the fact that millions of people in the US and thousands in the Grand Rapids area embrace the same ideological framework that Charlie Kirk embraced. The people at GR.Church who praised Charlie Kirk are not an anomaly, they are a significant percent of the public, especially the public that is mobilized to fight against Black people, Trans people, immigrants, people who would criticize Israel and condemn genocide, and those who support reproductive justice and abortion.