By Tony Perkins, CP Op-Ed Contributor Monday, September 22, 2025iStock/wildpixelIn the aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, many are asking whether incendiary words are fueling violent deeds. A recent Reuters poll found roughly two in three Americans believe harsh political rhetoric encourages violence. And when U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said on a podcast that the Trump administration would target “hate speech,” the backlash from conservatives was swift; she later clarified that any focus must be on true threats of violence, not the nebulous catch-all of “hate speech.”But is speech the core problem? Jesus taught, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). Words reveal what is inside; they do not create it. If the heart is diseased, our discourse will be too. Our descent into violence did not begin with profanity-laced accusations on the floor of Congress. It began when our leaders — and many others — abandoned the founding truth that rights come from God, not government. The Declaration of Independence asserts that we are “endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” That conviction restrains the government from becoming tyrannical and restrains citizens from taking justice into their own hands. When rights are treated as government-issued rather than God-given, they can be revoked when inconvenient — and trampled by those willing to intimidate.That rejection rests on a deeper shift: the denial of transcendent truth. The founders called some truths “self-evident” — fixed, enduring, above politics. Today, truth is too often reduced to preference or power. In that vacuum, disagreement is not argued; it is punished. Without a shared standard, the loudest crowd, the angriest rhetoric, or the most ruthless actor prevails. Violence becomes the ultimate argument.Beneath even that lies the loss of God as Creator. If we are not made in His image, human life has no inherent worth. If He is not the Author of life, life can be discarded whenever it is inconvenient or intolerable. Remove God from public life, and the ground under human dignity crumbles; nothing durable remains to resist the slide into total lawlessness.History offers sobering case studies. The blood-soaked revolutions and regimes of the 20th century — Soviet communism, Maoism, Nazism — were driven by ideologies that denied God, discarded objective truth, and devalued people. Once God was rejected, persons became expendable, and mass violence followed. We are not immune to similar consequences if we persist down this path.That is why this moment calls us back — not merely to America’s first principles, but to the eternal foundation beneath them. We must recover the conviction that there is a Creator who gives life, endows rights, and establishes truth. From that foundation, we can demand just laws, reject political revenge, and rebuild a culture where freedom and justice flourish. This renewal begins close to home: pastors preaching without fear or favor, parents shaping tender consciences, neighbors refusing to dehumanize opponents, and citizens insisting that every person bears the image of God.So let us pray, speak the truth in love, and stand with courage — calling our nation back to the God who alone secures both our liberty and our peace.Tony Perkins is president of Family Research Council and executive editor of The Washington Stand.
What really drives ‘assassination culture’
