Book Review: Stop, in the Name of God

Prior to his assassination in September 2025, famed conservative Christian and political speaker and organizer Charlie Kirk had said he wanted most of all to be remembered for courage for his faith. In line with that came his remarkable final legacy, a book he’d been working on about a life discovery he wanted to share with the world—titled Stop, in the Name of God: Why Honoring the Sabbath Will Transform Your Life. Published a few months after he died, it quickly became a best seller.

Against the idea of the Sabbath as something quaint, old-fashioned and unnecessary, he counters that “the Sabbath is not the fringe—it is the frame. It holds life together” (p. xiv). He shows how God’s gift of the Sabbath in its context relates to many aspects of life and keeps us focused on what’s important.

The book is eminently quotable, filled with one profound declaration after another. Yet while there is much to appreciate and take to heart, there are some distracting elements that will put some readers off. There are also contrary positions in tension. And there are in some cases significant misunderstandings about what is forbidden and allowed on the Sabbath.

While the book is helpful in showing the comprehensive nature of God’s Sabbath command and the need to align our lives with this divinely established pattern, it ends up adding some unnecessary restrictions and, more broadly, compromising on biblical teaching. Yet it’s hoped that many being introduced to the Sabbath through the book will pursue the matter further in Scripture.

The need to stop and worship through history

The book’s prologue notes that “the Sabbath is not man made—it is God breathed. It is not legalism—it is liberation. And in rejecting it, we have not just dismissed a day—we have denied a pattern, and we are now reaping the consequences . . . We are, in many ways, a Sabbathless people: wandering, overworked, and longing—without even knowing for what” (ibid.).

Initial chapters of the book focus on the context of creation when the Sabbath was first given, presenting proofs of God as the Creator. Contrast is shown with nature worship and the extremes of the environmental movement springing from it. The absurdity of atheism is presented well.

It’s pointed out that the Sabbath appears more than 100 times in the Hebrew Bible. God Himself set the example in observing it, and it’s commanded to all creation. The Sabbath command is the longest of the Ten Commandments, its placement here showing “that the sanctification of time is not ancillary to moral life, but essential to it” (pp. 60-61).

Kirk later notes that “the gravity of the Sabbath in ancient Israel is hard to overstate . . . To violate the Sabbath wasn’t a casual mistake—it was a capital crime. This wasn’t just about taking a break; it was about allegiance, about covenant, about who ruled time itself” (p. 188).

For the Jewish people, the Sabbath is shown to be “more than a day; it is an act of covenantal continuity. It has been the spiritual glue that held the people together when everything else fell apart” (p. 66). A fair amount is said about Jewish traditional observance, yet the addition of many meticulous rules made it burdensome in respects. Jesus, it’s explained, “did not discard the Sabbath, but stripped it of human legalism to recover divine intent” (p. 67).

Lamentably, the book errs in saying that the early Christians began observing Sunday as a day of assembly in honor of Jesus’ resurrection, though not for a while as a day of rest—but that imperial and church rulings eventually led to Sunday becoming the rest day. While the latter is true, the early Church did not observe Sunday as a worship day. It continued to observe the seventh-day Sabbath.

Later Christendom did wrongly embrace Sunday observance in place of the Sabbath. As the book lays out, with the emergence of Protestantism, Sunday was not considered to be the Sabbath—as leaders like Luther and Calvin saw that as legalistic in perspective, but accepted it as meeting a practical need of regular worship. Yet among many Protestants, especially the Puritans, it was thought that Sunday should take on characteristics of former Sabbath observance.

Kirk’s book treats this as Sabbath-keeping, though it actually isn’t. Yet it should be noted that even though Sunday is the wrong day for worship, the general cultural practice of Sunday observance in the Western world, with “blue laws” prohibiting business on that day, brought people weekly Bible instruction and moral peer pressure. As that has faded, so has societal morality.

A couple of chapters follow on the matter of what we worship. Counterfeit gods are explored—earth worship as climate justice, self and narcissism, scientism, materialism and accumulation, human government. There are several excursions here into what many will deem politically partisan, especially with recent history used to illustrate some of the issues.

Kirk makes the important point, “If you wonder what you worship, look at what you sacrifice for,” noting that people sacrifice the Sabbath for extra work and shopping, sacrificing time with family for promotions and higher status. “Many sacrifice their financial peace to purchase things they don’t need to impress people they don’t even like . . . A true Sabbath . . . stands as a bold rebuke to the worship of stuff. It interrupts the machine. It says no to the unrelenting demands of the marketplace” (p. 107).

A lot of space is given to the topic of Sabbath rejuvenation being great for human health—physically and mentally, as backed up by medical studies. And there’s also a chapter on the need for regular sleep.

The substance of the command, and if Christians must obey

In terms of the Sabbath command itself, it’s noted that “the commandment is not simply about ceasing from labor. It is about ordering one’s entire life around the rhythm of creation, justice, humility, and reverence” (p. 158).

God’s command includes working during the week and then resting at the end. It’s a “rebuke to both laziness and idolatrous overwork” (ibid.). It’s further pointed out how the Sabbath command includes the resting of work animals and all within one’s area of control, including servants—which was revolutionary in the ancient world. The expression of the commandment in Deuteronomy 5 presents freedom from slavery as a reason for Sabbath observance.

“When we Sabbath, we remember who God is: not a taskmaster, but the Redeemer. We remember who we are: not commodities, but covenant people. We remember where we came from: a land of slavery. And we remember where we are going: a land of promise, where all things are made new. That is why Sabbath matters. That is why it is not optional” (p. 139).

Yet that last statement, made in various ways in the book, is not sufficiently defended. Two chapters are devoted to the question of whether Christians are bound to observe the Sabbath, with Kirk admitting he had struggled with the issue. The first of these chapters gives 10 reasons Christians should be obeying the Sabbath command. The second gives 10 reasons Christians don’t really need to do that since, in the mainstream Christian conception, the Sabbath is fulfilled in our new life in Jesus.

Kirk himself saw the requirement for weekly observance, but made this statement: “As someone who now observes a Saturday Sabbath, I want to be clear: I don’t think the specific day—Saturday or Sunday—is of primary importance. Paul himself says, ‘One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike’ (Romans 14:5). I grant that. The heart behind the day matters more than the day itself” (p. 194).

But this is totally wrong. Romans 14, which he quotes, is not talking about the Sabbath at all. If God has established the day, where is the authority to choose another day instead? Kirk himself seems to make this point later in stating that God “blessed the seventh day—not the first, not the sixth—the seventh” (p. 249).

The 10 reasons he gives for observing the Sabbath are all very strong. And much more biblical evidence can be marshaled. The 10 points for not needing to observe the Sabbath all have easy answers—but Kirk does not push back on any of them. It appears he may have been compromising here to not antagonize the broader evangelical community. Or perhaps he just thought he was opening a pathway to further dialogue—which sadly never came about, since he was killed.

It’s also sad to see him, in brief mention, group the biblical festivals with ceremonial laws of Israel as having been rendered obsolete. Like the weekly Sabbath, these feasts look back as well as forward to future fulfillment and have great meaning for Christians, teaching about Christ’s role in salvation.

He closes this section by returning to the question of whether Christians are bound to keep the Sabbath and comes very close to saying yes, though not regarding disobeying the Sabbath command as a sin—even though disobeying God’s law is the very definition of sin (1 John 3:4). He says that “to live without Sabbath is not neutral—it’s dangerous” (p. 223). He further says that “working for seven days a week without pause is not just unhealthy—it is an act of spiritual arrogance. It says, ‘I don’t need the rhythm God created. I’ll make my own.’ But we are not our own” (p. 224).

Adding to what’s required, and final challenge

Charlie Kirk was very focused on safeguarding his Sabbath observance on Friday night and Saturday. For him this entailed disconnecting from his phone and computer, more time with family, personal time studying and enjoying nature, and just experiencing peace. It appears that he and his family continued to attend church on Sundays—dissociating congregational worship from the Sabbath. Yet God gave the Sabbath as a time for congregational worship—it being a holy convocation or commanded assembly (Leviticus 23:3). The book does acknowledge that as Jewish practice and for those who regarded Sunday as a Christian Sabbath.

It’s further noted that in the few times a year major event work cut into his Sabbath, Kirk would instead take Sunday as his Sabbath or take extra time the next week. But the Sabbath does not work that way. People should not be doing regular work on it unless there is a legitimate emergency situation.

On the issue of phones, TVs and other electronic devices, the book devotes a lot of space to the need to unplug from technology on the Sabbath—and having visitors for Sabbath meals drop their phones in a basket. Yet that is not a biblical requirement. It’s a man-made regulation. This idea initially sprang from the Jewish regulation of not using electricity on the Sabbath—part of the categories of work seen as forbidden on the day. This one was reasoned from the law about not building a fire on the Sabbath (Exodus 35:3)—though that was in the context of tabernacle construction and evidently concerned industrial fires.

It’s true that people spend far too much time on electronic devices, as the book details. Many people are addicted to phone apps and social media, gaining dopamine hits from them. This is all indeed a problem, and it would be wise to cut down—especially on the Sabbath, and especially if the person has a problem. But we don’t need to completely unplug from electronics on the Sabbath.

Missed in all this is talking to distant friends on the phone, writing an encouraging email letter, reading the Bible on an app, or watching a Bible or nature program on TV. These can all be time well spent on the Sabbath.

On the opposite end is what Kirk pronounced as allowable. For those with the excuse of not being able to keep the Sabbath because of their kids’ sports tournaments, he said there is no conflict—that attending kids’ league sports games and not scrolling on one’s phone there is a good use of the Sabbath. For all the discussion of peace and calm and focus, this is rather incongruous. Missing is discussion about Isaiah 58:13-14, where God tells us not to be seeking our own ways or doing as we please on His holy day.

More legitimate is the response to the excuse of some that they will start considering Sabbath observance when things calm down—when they’re not so busy. “Sabbath is not about having time; it’s about making a decision to stop even when everything else tells you to keep going . . . You will never not be busy . . . The work doesn’t stop, but you can” (p. 229).

The concluding pages give a picture of a whole culture reoriented to the Sabbath as a means of national healing. It’s pointed out that “we are not designed to operate at the pace we’re currently going . . . It’s only going to get worse . . . The Sabbath is God’s answer to a culture spinning out of control . . . On the seventh day, we stop . . . We rest because we’re obedient” (pp. 261-262).

And that’s also as a witness. “Remember,” it was earlier stated, “your Sabbath is not just about you. It is not a private act of self-care, but a public declaration of allegiance to another kingdom” (p. 236). Indeed!

The book’s closing words make a final appeal: “Let the people of God be the ones who pause. Who breathe. Who say, ‘This day belongs to the Lord’ . . . Failing to honor the Sabbath is, quietly, to wage war on your own design—and the consequences of that are all around us . . . Stop, in God’s name” (p. 265).

There are so many positive exhortations here—among significant error. It’s hoped that those introduced to the Sabbath through this book will study further and come to a fuller biblical perspective—to experience the great blessings that true obedience to God’s command brings!