Andrea Williams comments on Charlie Kirk’s witness, the Unite the Kingdom march, and the hope of Jesus Christ
Last week, I had the privilege of speaking at the Parliament of Colombia. I was invited there by a 50 strong caucus of pro-life members of Congress to bring the story of what has happened in the United Kingdom; to warn them of what happens when we abandon God’s righteous laws.
It follows recent weeks where we have witnessed the Unite the Kingdom march and a mass outpouring of grief over the death of Charlie Kirk. Charlie truly loved Jesus and wanted to make him known. His widow Erika has witnessed to the world of a love for Christ so potent it speaks forgiveness in the face of the assassination of her husband.
Charlie’s pastor, Rob McCoy, opened the memorial service by calling men and women to salvation and to stand to make a profession of Christ as Saviour and Lord. There were multiple calls to follow Jesus and to make Him known not just personally but in and for the nation. Worship songs of every genre were sung by tens of thousands live, joined by millions of others through the livestream. There was a powerful demonstration and explanation of God’s design for family, marriage and children. There was an unashamed call to live God’s truth and righteousness under the Lordship of Christ.
And this is what those attending the Unite the Kingdom march are truly looking for.
They see the emptiness and chaos of the atheistic secularism our nation has pursued for decades. They know that Britain has lost something, that there is a hole in the heart of our society. Radical Islam is rising to take its place but it is not the answer they want.
They are feeling the long term, cross-generational effects of our nation’s rejection of God. Our foundations are exposed. Only Jesus Christ can restore the nation.
They need the message and example of Charlie and Erika Kirk.
The lostness of the United Kingdom cries out for this kind of bold declaration of Christ’s Truth and his hope.
And this is, and always has been, the heartbeat and longing of my work, our work at Christian Concern. Everything we do is because we love Jesus. We are unashamed of him and we believe that the only way to live is by his truth and righteousness because in Him all truth makes sense. When we pursue his holy laws, we are set free from the tyranny of sin. Oh, what blessed hope! Oh, what a message to bring!
This is why through our Awake Arise events we are calling the Church, God’s people, to rise, to stand unashamed, to refuse to be cowed. The time is now.
The cost of standing
Truth has a cost. Charlie Kirk was gunned down for proclaiming it.
By God’s grace, we have not faced this kind of violence.
For many years at Christian Concern, we have been committed to proclaiming Christ’s truth fearlessly in the public sphere in the face of constant whispers and smears. But that hasn’t deterred us. We have been determined to stand for Christ’s truth at the point it is first under attack. We thank God that he has given us the eyes to see, the courage to stand and the platform to speak.
People often tell me five or ten years later that they now see why those stands were needed.
With the Christian Legal Centre, we’ve taken every single Christian interest case that comes through our doors. We don’t pick and choose, only helping people with clean, simple cases where the facts and law line up to make an unlosable case. If injustice is being done and a Christian freedom or life is at stake, we are there, all-in.
We’ve given critical support to the early stages of other initiatives or campaigns that in time have grown into thriving independent organisations and campaigns.
This costs me and the team time, money and tears. But we have done it all with servant hearts because our love is for fierce for King Jesus.
The opportunities now
This month, we have been working hard in the House of Lords to resist assisted suicide. We have organised two unique and creative visual displays outside P:arliament to show the reality of euthanasia. We have given a voice in the media to various individuals who were predicted to have less than six months to live but have lived for longer; people that might have chosen suicide had the bill been in force. Support for assisted suicide has slowly but surely been dropping in virtually every demographic for 18 months – starting with the first of our well-publicised displays.
At the start of the month, we held our 15th Wilberforce Academy. It was fantastic. Through the Academy we have now trained hundreds of young leaders to unpack and be liberated from the cultural Marxism in which they have been steeped and to boldly live and claim for Christ every sphere of culture in their working lives. I honestly believe that through our Wilberforce Collective we will continue to see a new generation of leaders emerging.
We are also building what’s better and working hard in the education sphere to embolden and equip Christian schools and other initiatives. Our Head of Education, Steve Beegoo, was recently in the United States speaking to hundreds at a major teaching conference in Washington, again bringing them the warning of what has happened in the United Kingdom.
What’s next?
The work is relentless and hard. We have a continual stream of cases. In October, we have the case of the Darlington Nurses who were forced to change in front of a man who says he is a woman in their hospital changing room. The eyes of the nation are on this case.
The second important case of Felix Ngole is in the Employment Appeal Tribunal. In that case the gospel itself was claimed to be harmful to people identifying as LGBTQI. The Christian position on sexuality and gender he holds was ruled to put at risk the mental wellbeing of service users he would come into contact with, throwing into doubt the freedom of any Christian to work in a public-facing position.
There are fields of people, white for harvest. I long for us to bring the true hope of Jesus Christ to our nation – to those who are mourning Charlie Kirk, to those who are drawn to these rallies and to the many others who have a nagging sense that the values they love can’t exist without Jesus Christ, in whom “all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).
Are you able to stand with us in this vision?
I can’t do it alone. The Christian Concern and Christian Legal Centre teams can’t do it alone. We need you to back us in prayer and with money. We need you by our side, taking courageous action in partnership with us.
I would live no other life. It is a privilege to lead this work surrounded by the most amazing, loyal and fearless team.
The gates of hell will not prevail against Christ’s people.
He, alone, is the answer.
“You will be hated by everyone because of my name, but the one who perseveres to the end will be saved” Matthew 10:22
Image: Screenshot from video by Loco Steve licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
