Imagine this: Martin Luther King Jr. and Charlie Kirk seated at a small café table, breakfast plates before them. After a prayer and some light talk about family life—both as “girl dads”— and beloved husbands, they turn to the issues dividing America in 2025.
This thought experiment asks us to open both head and heart. Each man, assassinated 57 years apart for his convictions, represents a different vision of faith and politics. For faithful American’s across the political spectrum, such a meeting might be imagined as a heavenly dialogue—a sacred conversation in eternal life.
Would Charlie frame the exchange as a “prove me wrong” debate, tossing bold claims as he often did on college campuses—even on that fateful day at Utah Valley University in September 2025? And when Martin responded, after a sip of coffee, would he press Charlie with probing questions, or rise with the cadence of his unforgettable “I Have a Dream” speech from the March on Washington, August 28, 1963?
What matters is less the answers and more the invitation: to reimagine dialogue across time and politics in service of healing wounds, seeking truth, bridging divides, and rekindling the Great American Spirit of Conversation upon which our nation was founded. To Make America Talk Again.
Though King and Kirk spoke from different eras, imagine the power of Dr. King recounting his leadership in Montgomery at age 26, his nonviolent campaigns in Birmingham, and the struggle for voting rights in Selma that led to “Bloody Sunday” and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Would such stories shift Charlie Kirk’s perspective on racial equality? Would their shared faith transcend their racial differences? Would they agree in some areas, and agree to disagree on others? Would the conversation turn into laughter as they commiserate about the challenges of leading social change while raising young families?
How might Charlie’s arguments in defense of family and faith land with Dr. King? How would Charlie’s desire and willingness to engage university students and leaders in sit down conversations to explore different perspectives land with Dr. King? Would their conversation escalate into argument, hatred, and violence?
In truth, both men were fierce defenders of the U.S. Constitution—especially the First Amendment freedoms of speech and assembly. Their lives, example, and legacies show how those freedoms are essential for change.
Neither Kirk nor King sought to silence conversation; both pressed it open, even with adversaries. King, a student of Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue, reminded us in Strength to Love that segregation reduces people to “I-It” objects instead of “I-Thou” persons.
Kirk, a Christian first and conservative second, advocated for the dignity of all human life—that we are all beloved and forgiven children of God. His approach to debate and dialogue offered many young people a message of hope: that despite what the mainstream culture tells them, they are loved and that their life means something.
Perhaps the two men would finally agree on this: that men and women, created in the image of the one true God—honored in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—are equal in dignity and worth.
Surely, in their shared Christian faith, both men would remind us that when societies abandon faith, truth, and morality, they unravel. History shows us the cost. The American democratic experiment is too precious to risk by turning our backs on these stabilizing virtues, or turning our backs on each other. Today, we are called to a better way—a way of dialogue rooted in patience, empathy, and love. Let us choose conversations that heal rather than divide, that honor human dignity, and that keep alive the hope of a more just and faithful nation.
May God Bless our nation and help make our conversations more civil, fruitful, and sacred.
