Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Unsurprisingly, on September the 11th, 2001, I wept. I also wept unexpectedly on September

the 11th, 2011. Perhaps it was delayed grief, but mostly it was delayed realization.

Sitting that Sunday morning with my young daughters, who were only six, four, and two at the time,

it struck me just how differently their world was from the one that I wanted for them.

I had that same sense strike me this week on September the 10th. The assassination of

Charlie Kirk seems to mark a new era, a world that no one wants, but may very well be here anyway.

Calling the murder a tragedy for all of us, UK comedian and commentator Constantine Kisson,

wrote this, quote, I hope I'm wrong, but tonight feels like some

sort of invisible line has been crossed, that we didn't even know was there. To murder a young father,

simply for doing debates and mobilizing young people to vote for a party that represents

half of America, that's something else. Charlie's death is a tragedy for his wife, his children, and his family.

I don't pray often, he says, but I praying for them tonight. But I fear his murder will be a tragedy

for all of us in ways we will only understand as time unfolds. I hope I'm wrong. I fear I'm not,

end quote. Well, Kissen is not wrong. That lines have been crossed, though the Christian must not fear.

We must, however, squarely face the sober realities of this cultural moment.

Kirk's murder followed another this week in Charlotte of a young woman from Ukraine riding a

public train.

Irina Zerutska was stabbed by a man who should have been in prison, or at least institutionalized,

and she was then left to die by people too engrossed in their screens to notice or too jaded

to care. Together, these atrocities reveal realities about our culture and how it shaped those within it

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