Churches Play AI-Generated Clips of Charlie Kirk Saying Things He Never Said: ‘Death Is Not the End, It’s a Promotion’

Screenshot via Facebook.

Several churches played AI-generated clips of Charlie Kirk at their services this past weekend, featuring a digital recreation of Kirk’s voice saying things he never said in life.

Kirk, 31, founded Turning Point USA in 2012. He was speaking at a TPUSA event at Utah Valley University on September 10 when he was fatally shot. Tyler Robinson, 22, was arrested last Friday for Kirk’s murder and is facing seven charges, including the capital felony of aggravated murder.

In the wake of Kirk’s death, social media has been inundated with memes, as well as AI-generated images and videos memorializing him. At least three large churches took a similar approach to honoring Kirk’s memory, as reported by Jack Jenkins at Religion News Service.

One of the clips cited by Jenkins showed Jack Graham, the pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, speaking about Kirk and then introducing a clip he tells his congregation was “created on AI, artificial intelligence, from the words of Charlie Kirk” and that he was “so moved” when he watched it himself.

“I want you to watch this clip and hear what Charlie is saying, regarding what happened to him this past week,” said Graham.

A photo of Kirk was shown on the video screens above the stage. Kirk spoke about his Christian faith with increasing frequency in recent years, but these are not comments he ever said in life. A transcript of the AI Kirk’s words:

First, I want you to know, I’m fine. Not because my body is fine, but because my soul is secure in Christ. Death is not the end. It’s a promotion. Don’t waste one second mourning me. I knew the risks of standing up in this cultural moment, and I’d do it all over again.

Second, do not let this violence divide us further. The enemy wants chaos, fear, and retaliation. Don’t give it to them. Instead, double down on truth, double down on courage, double down on your faith and on your families. That is how you honor me.

Third, remember this: America is worth it. Free speech is worth it. Fighting for the unborn, for families, for sanity in a culture gone mad — it is all worth it.

So dry your tears, pick up your cross, and get back in the fight. Do it with joy, do it with strength, and never ever let evil think it won.

The congregation responded with a standing ovation.

“It’s unclear where the video originated,” wrote Jenkins, “but at least two other large evangelical Protestant churches — Dream City Church in Arizona and Awaken Church, San Marcos in California — also played it during their services that day. Pastors at both churches made clear the clips were AI; even so, the segment triggered applause each time.”

As Jenkins noted, these expressions of “digital grief” through Kirk’s “AI resurrection” were “part of a wave of AI-generated content that flooded social media in the wake of Kirk’s killing, with supporters and even Kirk’s former colleagues sharing images, videos and audio messages that featured the felled activist and that were made by artificial intelligence,” a development that “showcased a new form of public mourning and remembrance, one in which the dead are grieved with hyperreal but entirely fictional reconstructions crafted in seconds by AI services.”

One such viral video had an AI-generated Kirk saying, “My faith cost me my life, but now I stand forever in glory,” before introducing several historical Christian martyrs and saints, and then ending with a message urging viewers to join a “Bible-believing church” to engage in a “spiritual” battle and “overwhelm the world with Jesus.”

Another AI video shows Kirk speaking in the tent on the college campus where he was fatally shot as angels swoop in, and Kirk runs up stairs to heaven towards a waiting Jesus.

Other AI images and videos showed Kirk comforting Iryna Zarutska in the Charlotte light rain train car where she was fatally stabbed, and taking selfies in heaven with Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and John F. Kennedy Jr. 

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