The head of the Utah Republican Party stood up Sunday in front of like-minded Utahns congregated to watch Charlie Kirk’s funeral service — a gathering he called “sanctified.”
In front of him sat elected Republicans like U.S. Rep. Burgess Owens, state Attorney General Derek Brown and Auditor Tina Cannon. A handful of Utah’s other top Republicans, like Gov. Spencer Cox and Sen. Mike Lee, traveled the 500 miles to Arizona to join the memorial in person.
There, President Donald Trump labeled the controversial conservative activist a “martyr,” and called him “our greatest evangelist for American liberty.”
“We have to bring back religion to America — because without borders, law and order and religion, you really don’t have a country anymore,” Trump told the audience.
And Kirk’s death, the president continued, is working to accelerate that cause: “Within minutes of the gunshot in Utah, millions of Americans, young and old, heard the news and dropped to their knees and started praying.”
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) People cover their hearts with their hands during the national anthem as they watch the funeral services for Charlie Kirk during an event at the Utah Valley Convention Center in Provo on Sunday, Sept. 21, 2025.
Ahead of the five-hour-long service, Utah GOP Chair Robert Axson spoke to a grieving and galvanized crowd at a Provo convention center just a few miles from Utah Valley University, where the Kirk was shot and killed. He introduced the broadcast with a distinctly Utah appeal.
“Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not,” Axson said, quoting from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ 19th-century Doctrine and Covenants.
“That’s what we need to do,” Axson continued. ”We need to be devoted to building community and turning to our savior, Jesus Christ. That’s the lesson I’ve learned from my friend Charlie Kirk.”
Then, tapped by the party, Brown — also a Latter-day Saint — prayed.
“We give thanks for this country that we have,” the attorney general said, his head bowed. “For almost 250 years, we’ve had the opportunity to be active participants in this government, which was established on the idea that our rights come from thee, and that they can’t be taken away.”
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) People listen as they watch the memorial services for Charlie Kirk during an event at the Utah Valley Convention Center in Provo on Sunday, Sept. 21, 2025.
Wearing white shirts and ties, dresses and skirts, many in the crowd of a few hundred had come from church meetings to the convention center in Provo — a locality with one of the highest concentrations of Latter-day Saints in the world.
(According to the Public Religion Research Institute, with 81% identifying as Latter-day Saints, Utah County is only beat by Madison County, Idaho, in the proportion of residents who are members of the faith.)
The stream of speakers that followed included the most influential figures on the American political right, several members of President Donald Trump’s administration and the president himself, who was greeted at the Utah gathering with a standing ovation.
Trump on Sunday credited the often inflammatory Kirk as being “among the most influential figures in the most important election of the history of our country,” referring to his own victory last November. On election night, Trump said Kirk cried, and told the president-elect, “I am humbled by God’s grace.”
Kirk’s political advocacy organization, Turning Point USA, operates with a focus on recruiting and influencing young men. Its political campaigning group, Turning Point Action, is led by Latter-day Saint Tyler Bowyer, and helped form a “Latter-day Saints for Trump” coalition.
A banner at the bottom of the broadcast urged viewers to donate to Turning Point USA, or start a local chapter.
A Sunday service
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Erika Kirk, wife of Charlie Kirk and new CEO of Turning Point USA, appears on screen as people watch the memorial services for Charlie Kirk during an event at the Utah Valley Convention Center in Provo on Sunday, Sept. 21, 2025.
Many of the speakers on the Christian Sabbath incorporated a version of the Christian nationalism that Kirk advocated for — and many of them called him a martyr for that cause. Those sentiments earned applause from the Provo crowd.
Kirk, himself, was an Evangelical Christian.
When Kirk was assassinated on the first stop of his “American Comeback Tour” at Utah Valley University, his wife Erika Kirk, who was reunited with his body at a Utah hospital, said he was in the midst of “fighting for the gospel.”
His view of a Christian gospel included opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, calling members of the community and their allies the “alphabet mafia,” an objection to gun control, and criticism of efforts toward equity for diverse populations.
He also denigrated prominent Black women’s intelligence and echoed white supremacist ideas like “the great replacement theory” — the belief that immigrants will take the place of white Americans.
After alleged Kirk shooter Tyler James Robinson told his roommate, who law enforcement officials say is transitioning to become a woman, about what he had done, investigators say Robinson sent a message saying, “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”
“I forgive him,” Erika Kirk said of Robinson during the funeral, “because it was what Christ did, and is what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the gospel is love — it is always love.”
Local prosecutors have indicated to a Utah district court that they will seek the death penalty for Robinson. “God willing, he will receive the full and ultimate punishment for his horrific crime,” Trump said Sunday.
The widow will lead Turning Point USA as it continues Kirk’s work, and his unfinished tour. The “American Comeback Tour” will stop in Utah again on Sept. 30 at Utah State University.
‘Radical left maniacs’
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) President Donald Trump appears on screen as people watch the memorial services for Charlie Kirk during an event at the Utah Valley Convention Center in Provo on Sunday, Sept. 21, 2025.
One of the last series of debates Kirk engaged in as part of his question-and-answer “prove me wrong” format was about the accuracy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ beliefs versus wider Protestantism.
The mostly Latter-day Saint crowd in Orem earlier this month cheered on the attendee as he posed the question, and a debate ensued. But Kirk finished, telling his opponent, “God bless you, I love Mormons.”
Similarly, the group at the Provo broadcast clapped Sunday when they heard former Republican presidential candidate and White House official Ben Carson mention a familiar name — late conservative Latter-day Saint author W. Cleon Skousen.
Citing Skousen’s “The Naked Communist,” Carson said political opponents are working to stop America’s government from adhering to Judeo-Christian principles, and the 1958 book “exposed” that.
Trump has responded to Kirk’s slaying with similar claims that there are conspiracies on the political left, and has urged federal law enforcement to probe left-leaning organizations. The president repeated those threats Sunday.
“The Department of Justice is also investigating networks of radical left maniacs who fund, organize, fuel and perpetrate political violence,” Trump said. ”We think we know who many of them are, but law enforcement can only be the beginning of our response to Charlie’s murder.”