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Stop, in the Name of God: Why Honoring the Sabbath Will Transform Your Life
Stop, in the Name of God: Why Honoring the Sabbath Will Transform Your Life will help you discover how observing the Sabbath isn't a rejection of modern life but a rebellion against busyness and a pathway to genuine connection, peace, and presence. Through Stop in the Name of God, bestselling author Charlie Kirk guides you on how to unplug, recharge, and reconnect with God, family, and yourself in a way that nurtures your soul. In a world dominated by screens and constant noise, Stop in the Name of God presents the Sabbath as a radical act of resistance. Packed with practical insights and spiritual wisdom, Charlie Kirk demonstrates how honoring the Sabbath restores balance, reduces anxiety, and nourishes your soul. It's not just a day of rest-it's a lifeline to reclaiming what truly matters.
267 pages, Hardcover
First published December 9, 2025
969 people are currently reading
6402 people want to read
About the author
Charlie Kirk
17 books875 followersCharlie Kirk was the Founder and President of Turning Point USA, a national student movement dedicated to identifying, organizing, and empowering young people to promote the principles of free markets and limited government.
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September 13, 2025RIP Charlie Kirk
My prayer is that when I die, all of hell rejoices that I am out of the fight. C.S.Lewis.
My prayer is that when I die, all of hell rejoices that I am out of the fight. C.S.Lewis.
December 10, 2025
I have kept the Sabbath for years... but this book brings me to a new level of intimacy with our Creator. Thank you, God for inspiring Charlie to write this book in Your timing and with Your great grace. May it touch the hearts of those who are yearning to come closer to Your life and Your light.
March 21, 2026
He stood unshaken, a voice in the storm
A man of conviction, a heart reborn
He spoke the truth when the cost was high
He lived for Jesus, unafraid to die
We are Charlie Kirk, we carry the flame
We'll fight for the Gospel, we'll honor his name
We are Charlie Kirk, his courage, our own
Together unbroken, we'll make Heaven known
A husband, a father, his family held near
A home built on scripture, on faith, without fear
The world tried to silence but his voice remains
In us, it echoes, in Christ, it sustains
We are Charlie Kirk, we carry the flame
We'll fight for the Gospel, we'll honor his name
We are Charlie Kirk, his courage, our own
Together unbroken, we'll make Heaven known
The battle is raging, the darkness will fall
We rise with his spirit, we answer the call
The truth is eternal, the cross is our guide
With God as our captain, we march side by side
We are Charlie Kirk, we carry the flame
We'll fight for the Gospel, we'll honor his name
We are Charlie Kirk, his courage, our own
Together unbroken, we'll make Heaven known
We are Charlie Kirk
Forever alive
We are Charlie Kirk
With God, we will rise
A man of conviction, a heart reborn
He spoke the truth when the cost was high
He lived for Jesus, unafraid to die
We are Charlie Kirk, we carry the flame
We'll fight for the Gospel, we'll honor his name
We are Charlie Kirk, his courage, our own
Together unbroken, we'll make Heaven known
A husband, a father, his family held near
A home built on scripture, on faith, without fear
The world tried to silence but his voice remains
In us, it echoes, in Christ, it sustains
We are Charlie Kirk, we carry the flame
We'll fight for the Gospel, we'll honor his name
We are Charlie Kirk, his courage, our own
Together unbroken, we'll make Heaven known
The battle is raging, the darkness will fall
We rise with his spirit, we answer the call
The truth is eternal, the cross is our guide
With God as our captain, we march side by side
We are Charlie Kirk, we carry the flame
We'll fight for the Gospel, we'll honor his name
We are Charlie Kirk, his courage, our own
Together unbroken, we'll make Heaven known
We are Charlie Kirk
Forever alive
We are Charlie Kirk
With God, we will rise
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 20, 2025
I began personally observing the Sabbath rest several weeks before Charlie was assassinated.
In my desire to learn more about what he stood for, I looked into any books he had published, and coincidentally (I don't believe in coincidences) this book stood out to me as a guide to something I was seeking God's wisdom and leading on.
It was a great wake up call and a great encouragement. Sabbath rest is one of the Big Ten, a clear command from God to honor the sabbath day every week and keep it holy, which means set apart from the rest of the week. In the hustle culture of social media and the American world around us, rest is something to mock, something to be ashamed of.
Charlie challenges that perspectives and helps shine a light on the freedom we gain when we are in line with God's commandments, and how richly we can live our lives when we seek God's design in our lives. I would like to read this book at least once a year to continue to embrace slowing down and practically holding myself accountable.
Highly recommend this read to any Christian who is curious about a modern explanation on what could be seen as an outdated tradition. We need it now more than ever.
In my desire to learn more about what he stood for, I looked into any books he had published, and coincidentally (I don't believe in coincidences) this book stood out to me as a guide to something I was seeking God's wisdom and leading on.
It was a great wake up call and a great encouragement. Sabbath rest is one of the Big Ten, a clear command from God to honor the sabbath day every week and keep it holy, which means set apart from the rest of the week. In the hustle culture of social media and the American world around us, rest is something to mock, something to be ashamed of.
Charlie challenges that perspectives and helps shine a light on the freedom we gain when we are in line with God's commandments, and how richly we can live our lives when we seek God's design in our lives. I would like to read this book at least once a year to continue to embrace slowing down and practically holding myself accountable.
Highly recommend this read to any Christian who is curious about a modern explanation on what could be seen as an outdated tradition. We need it now more than ever.
December 20, 2025
“How can it be that in an age of abundance, our youth feel more worthless than ever? It is because material progress cannot fill a spiritual void. We have given them everything except the one thing they were made for: meaning. When a culture denies its Creator, it also denies its children the ability to know who they are, why they exist, and what they are worth. The result is not liberation—it is devastation. We have everything to live with but nothing to live for.”
“The Sabbath is not a cultural artifact. It is a covenantal gift. It was not man’s idea, but God’s. It is not rooted in utility, but in revelation. And as long as there are people weary of the world’s pace, there will be a remnant who hear its call. The real question, then, is not whether the Sabbath will survive. It will. The question is whether we will remember. Whether we will reclaim what was given—not as a rule to restrict us, but as a mercy to restore us. Whether we will trust that our worth is not measured in output, but in being known by God. Whether we will dare to stop—not as an act of laziness, but as an act of rebellion against the cult of ceaseless striving. To keep the Sabbath in an age of frenzy is to declare this with your body and your time: I am not my own. I am not a machine. I will rest, because God rested. I will remember, because He remembered me. Let the world race on. But as for me and my house—we will stop.”
An absolutely beautiful and increasingly important book.
“The Sabbath is not a cultural artifact. It is a covenantal gift. It was not man’s idea, but God’s. It is not rooted in utility, but in revelation. And as long as there are people weary of the world’s pace, there will be a remnant who hear its call. The real question, then, is not whether the Sabbath will survive. It will. The question is whether we will remember. Whether we will reclaim what was given—not as a rule to restrict us, but as a mercy to restore us. Whether we will trust that our worth is not measured in output, but in being known by God. Whether we will dare to stop—not as an act of laziness, but as an act of rebellion against the cult of ceaseless striving. To keep the Sabbath in an age of frenzy is to declare this with your body and your time: I am not my own. I am not a machine. I will rest, because God rested. I will remember, because He remembered me. Let the world race on. But as for me and my house—we will stop.”
An absolutely beautiful and increasingly important book.
December 21, 2025
Could not put this down. Convicting and full of truth. Charlie’s final words did not disappoint
January 1, 2026
This one hurt. Charlie wrote the way he spoke. You can hear his unmistakable cadence, his crisp delivery and perfect word choices in every sentence. And his message in this last written work is the same one he delivered in person. We are made by God for His glory.
The theme of this book is simple: the sabbath was created for man, not man for the sabbath. It is a rhythm designed to bring you closer to God; to remind you of the spiritual realm: to keep you from falling into the idolatry of endless materialism; to remind you that you are no longer a slave, but free in mind and spirit.
I hope you will buy this book so that it cannot be ignored by bestseller lists. But I also hope you will read it with a sense of grief and sadness, righteous anger and unshakable resolve. Charlie’s assassination has not yet been digested, its impact still to be revealed.
It’s hard to read this book and not hear a lone fiddle in the mist of your mind. “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord…”. Buy it at retail, in hardback. Send a message. And then read it with an open heart. You’ll be glad you did.
The theme of this book is simple: the sabbath was created for man, not man for the sabbath. It is a rhythm designed to bring you closer to God; to remind you of the spiritual realm: to keep you from falling into the idolatry of endless materialism; to remind you that you are no longer a slave, but free in mind and spirit.
I hope you will buy this book so that it cannot be ignored by bestseller lists. But I also hope you will read it with a sense of grief and sadness, righteous anger and unshakable resolve. Charlie’s assassination has not yet been digested, its impact still to be revealed.
It’s hard to read this book and not hear a lone fiddle in the mist of your mind. “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord…”. Buy it at retail, in hardback. Send a message. And then read it with an open heart. You’ll be glad you did.
March 25, 2026
I dedicate this review to Caroline who took the time to comment on several of my reviews that she didn’t care what I thought.
Charlie Kirk complains (as he was one to do) that church attendance and identification with a church has gone down. He proposes a return to the Sabbath with the exhortation of a self-help book promising any number of positive changes including weight loss. (118)
He attributes this decline to the same list of causes that everyone else complaining about religious practice has ever noted: Modernity! “Our modern gods are autonomy, affirmation, and endless choice.” (P.3) I actually believe there is something to this but not in the way Charlie wrote.
For almost the past half century the mainstream political position of both major political parties and the entire Western world has been neoliberalism. In Margaret Thatcher’s words:
“there are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.”
Contrary to Charlie’s assertions over the years of “Woke,” or “Marxism,” or “socialism” the neoliberalism espoused by Margaret Thatcher is all there is.
One of the enduring ironies of today’s far-right is that they got nearly everything they wanted… except! in largely dismantling the state to its most minimal function of protecting private property they expected that organized churches would step into the vacuum and take over those social services vacated by governments. Instead what happened is that religion has been commodified as well. “Autonomy, affirmation, and endless choice…” the Market couldn’t guarantee eternal life at the Lord’s table but it can give you everything you’d never want in ‘Cool Ranch flavor.’ Joel Osteen and Kenneth Copeland were just savvy and fused the two.
It never gets old seeing the far-right flabbergasted that The Market doesn’t mark the Sabbath and keep it holy.
I wouldn’t necessarily consider neoliberalism the sole reason for the decline of church attendance and I do have another theory.
On April 9th, 2022 a man named Jonathan Neo of Singapore posted an instagram video of himself hijacking a plane. No, he didn’t have a bomb-that would have only been too merciful. Instead, he whipped out a guitar and began singing Christian hymns while his hostages-er-audience looked away or plugged their ears. The same group had previously spent some time singing to Ukrainian refugees (another moment he was sure to record and post).
When I saw this for the first time I got to thinking that being in the United States right now is a little like being trapped at 30,000 feet with that proselytizing douchebag and his guitar.
Every year beginning around Thanksgiving the Right Wing Outrage Machine sounds out the battle lines in an ongoing “War on Christmas.” The bugle is then taken up in statehouses, by newspapers, and television networks. Every year it is said, defeat is imminent. “Merry Christmas,” has been banned. Socialists such as myself are on rooftops with Santa Claus in our rifle scopes.
Every time Disney releases a new movie this same Outrage Machine will scour the movie frame by frame for something with which to find offence to their faith.
School bus backup lights actually have Luciferian symbols in them.
Jews are putting the blood of Christian children into fast food.
Earthquakes are God’s displeasure after Charlie’s assassination.
Hurricanes are because of gay marriage.
John Cena was performing a satanic ritual.
The Olympic Games are mocking Christianity.
And so it goes.
This might all be overlooked as merely obnoxious were it not for the fact that these same people are writing, enforcing, and interpreting laws in their favor.
The reason I mention all of these examples is that since Christianity has not gone anywhere and is instead more prominent and influential in our public life than it has likely ever been (there is now a White House Faith Office a successor to a Bush II era creation) I attribute a decline in church identification and religion to most Americans being sick of the never-ending Culture War bullshit espoused by self-proclaimed Christians the late-Charlie Kirk included. No amount of Bible study or Sabbath honoring by everyone else is going to erase the fact that the Grindr app goes down when evangelicals meet en masse to oppose the right to women’s suffrage.
I am not an opponent of Christianity by any means-I am a Lutheran and a member of a church but, a central part of these mainline Protestant churches that I like and also believe should be more prevalent is ‘Shutting up about it.’ I don’t believe that bragging out loud about honoring the Sabbath glorifies God when these days prayer is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Charlie Kirk complains (as he was one to do) that church attendance and identification with a church has gone down. He proposes a return to the Sabbath with the exhortation of a self-help book promising any number of positive changes including weight loss. (118)
He attributes this decline to the same list of causes that everyone else complaining about religious practice has ever noted: Modernity! “Our modern gods are autonomy, affirmation, and endless choice.” (P.3) I actually believe there is something to this but not in the way Charlie wrote.
For almost the past half century the mainstream political position of both major political parties and the entire Western world has been neoliberalism. In Margaret Thatcher’s words:
“there are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.”
Contrary to Charlie’s assertions over the years of “Woke,” or “Marxism,” or “socialism” the neoliberalism espoused by Margaret Thatcher is all there is.
One of the enduring ironies of today’s far-right is that they got nearly everything they wanted… except! in largely dismantling the state to its most minimal function of protecting private property they expected that organized churches would step into the vacuum and take over those social services vacated by governments. Instead what happened is that religion has been commodified as well. “Autonomy, affirmation, and endless choice…” the Market couldn’t guarantee eternal life at the Lord’s table but it can give you everything you’d never want in ‘Cool Ranch flavor.’ Joel Osteen and Kenneth Copeland were just savvy and fused the two.
It never gets old seeing the far-right flabbergasted that The Market doesn’t mark the Sabbath and keep it holy.
I wouldn’t necessarily consider neoliberalism the sole reason for the decline of church attendance and I do have another theory.
On April 9th, 2022 a man named Jonathan Neo of Singapore posted an instagram video of himself hijacking a plane. No, he didn’t have a bomb-that would have only been too merciful. Instead, he whipped out a guitar and began singing Christian hymns while his hostages-er-audience looked away or plugged their ears. The same group had previously spent some time singing to Ukrainian refugees (another moment he was sure to record and post).
When I saw this for the first time I got to thinking that being in the United States right now is a little like being trapped at 30,000 feet with that proselytizing douchebag and his guitar.
Every year beginning around Thanksgiving the Right Wing Outrage Machine sounds out the battle lines in an ongoing “War on Christmas.” The bugle is then taken up in statehouses, by newspapers, and television networks. Every year it is said, defeat is imminent. “Merry Christmas,” has been banned. Socialists such as myself are on rooftops with Santa Claus in our rifle scopes.
Every time Disney releases a new movie this same Outrage Machine will scour the movie frame by frame for something with which to find offence to their faith.
School bus backup lights actually have Luciferian symbols in them.
Jews are putting the blood of Christian children into fast food.
Earthquakes are God’s displeasure after Charlie’s assassination.
Hurricanes are because of gay marriage.
John Cena was performing a satanic ritual.
The Olympic Games are mocking Christianity.
And so it goes.
This might all be overlooked as merely obnoxious were it not for the fact that these same people are writing, enforcing, and interpreting laws in their favor.
The reason I mention all of these examples is that since Christianity has not gone anywhere and is instead more prominent and influential in our public life than it has likely ever been (there is now a White House Faith Office a successor to a Bush II era creation) I attribute a decline in church identification and religion to most Americans being sick of the never-ending Culture War bullshit espoused by self-proclaimed Christians the late-Charlie Kirk included. No amount of Bible study or Sabbath honoring by everyone else is going to erase the fact that the Grindr app goes down when evangelicals meet en masse to oppose the right to women’s suffrage.
I am not an opponent of Christianity by any means-I am a Lutheran and a member of a church but, a central part of these mainline Protestant churches that I like and also believe should be more prevalent is ‘Shutting up about it.’ I don’t believe that bragging out loud about honoring the Sabbath glorifies God when these days prayer is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
December 24, 2025
Charlie is a smart Godly man. At times his intellect was way over my head but for the most part he really got me thinking that I need to honor a 24 hour Sabbath and unplug. Technology is good but also gets in the way of so many interpersonal situations. I’m gonna give it a try.
December 28, 2025
Not helpful
January 7, 2026
The assassination of Charlie Kirk was a disgusting and shocking moment for many last year, myself included. Here was a guy the same age as me, who I’d followed online for a long time, and had similar convictions about the world. His arguments played a big part in bringing me back into contemporary conservative politics and also gave encouragement to my faith—then one day he was gone. Why? What happened? Can we not have civil debate anymore, without trying to kill each other across political and cultural divides? I’m still trying to make sense of it. But one thing’s for sure, it impacted me and gave me increased resolve for attending Mass every Sunday and doubling down on the way I want to live my life: traditionally, conservatively, putting God and my family and my community first, over the manifold distractions of the world.
In that spirit I picked up this latest, and sadly, final, book by Kirk, the topic of which is keeping a weekly Sabbath. Kirk looks at the fourth commandment of the decalogue in the Old Testament, Exodus 20:8-11:
Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
While accepting that Christ in the New Testament started a new covenant, with the early church fathers replacing the Jewish Saturday Sabbath with the weekly worship rhythm of Sunday as the Lord’s Day, being the day that God made the world and the day of Christ’s resurrection, Kirk nevertheless encourages us to embrace the idea of switching off from the demands of the world, from work, from emails and Slack and Microsoft Teams, and also from our smartphones and social media, to have a proper day of rest: a Sabbath. He says, ‘In a world obsessed with doing everything, and obsessed with doing nothing, the Sabbath is God’s ancient, enduring answer’. He explains this understanding helped him take a rest despite his busy life leading two major political campaign organisations in Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action, and raising his young family, and that he would invite friends and relatives for lunch or dinner where they would put their smartphones in a basket by the door and engage in genuine and meaningful interactions without screens. He claims that this made a wonderful difference in his life, with him reporting better health, relationships, and spiritual fulfillment. Well, it all sounds good to me, and if someone as busy as Kirk could do it, I want to try it too.
This book goes deep into the biblical and theological ideas behind the Sabbath, looking at it from the classic Jewish perspective and also from the viewpoints of different Christians of various denominations, but Kirk sometimes loses focus and in the middle section he departs from looking at the Sabbath and how Christians can take a kind of Sabbath today, instead addressing the current political and cultural climate. He rails against the screen-addicted modern generations, who report higher levels of stress and anxiety than previous generations who came before the internet and smartphones. He also addresses the idea that instead of God we are setting up false idols again, like ancient pagans, in the form of self-glorification and vanity on social media, chasing career success and wealth, and losing ourselves in pleasure of various kinds. While I do generally agree and enjoy reading his riffs on the ills of the present day in the West, I think the topic of the book got away from him a little, perhaps deliberately so that he could pad it out. Still, if you do consider yourself to be aligned with Kirk, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it just becomes tangential and a repetition of ideas he often voiced on his radio show and YouTube videos from campus debates.
Overall this is an important read for Christians and I think hearing Kirk’s ideas on this topic that was so personal to him is a great way to commemorate his life. It’s incredibly sad to think this bold, moral voice will never speak again but the 32 years he did live were lived to the full and the young people he inspired will continue to carry out his Turning Point mission of fixing the broken, brainwashed youth. That at least is comforting.
In that spirit I picked up this latest, and sadly, final, book by Kirk, the topic of which is keeping a weekly Sabbath. Kirk looks at the fourth commandment of the decalogue in the Old Testament, Exodus 20:8-11:
Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
While accepting that Christ in the New Testament started a new covenant, with the early church fathers replacing the Jewish Saturday Sabbath with the weekly worship rhythm of Sunday as the Lord’s Day, being the day that God made the world and the day of Christ’s resurrection, Kirk nevertheless encourages us to embrace the idea of switching off from the demands of the world, from work, from emails and Slack and Microsoft Teams, and also from our smartphones and social media, to have a proper day of rest: a Sabbath. He says, ‘In a world obsessed with doing everything, and obsessed with doing nothing, the Sabbath is God’s ancient, enduring answer’. He explains this understanding helped him take a rest despite his busy life leading two major political campaign organisations in Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action, and raising his young family, and that he would invite friends and relatives for lunch or dinner where they would put their smartphones in a basket by the door and engage in genuine and meaningful interactions without screens. He claims that this made a wonderful difference in his life, with him reporting better health, relationships, and spiritual fulfillment. Well, it all sounds good to me, and if someone as busy as Kirk could do it, I want to try it too.
This book goes deep into the biblical and theological ideas behind the Sabbath, looking at it from the classic Jewish perspective and also from the viewpoints of different Christians of various denominations, but Kirk sometimes loses focus and in the middle section he departs from looking at the Sabbath and how Christians can take a kind of Sabbath today, instead addressing the current political and cultural climate. He rails against the screen-addicted modern generations, who report higher levels of stress and anxiety than previous generations who came before the internet and smartphones. He also addresses the idea that instead of God we are setting up false idols again, like ancient pagans, in the form of self-glorification and vanity on social media, chasing career success and wealth, and losing ourselves in pleasure of various kinds. While I do generally agree and enjoy reading his riffs on the ills of the present day in the West, I think the topic of the book got away from him a little, perhaps deliberately so that he could pad it out. Still, if you do consider yourself to be aligned with Kirk, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it just becomes tangential and a repetition of ideas he often voiced on his radio show and YouTube videos from campus debates.
Overall this is an important read for Christians and I think hearing Kirk’s ideas on this topic that was so personal to him is a great way to commemorate his life. It’s incredibly sad to think this bold, moral voice will never speak again but the 32 years he did live were lived to the full and the young people he inspired will continue to carry out his Turning Point mission of fixing the broken, brainwashed youth. That at least is comforting.
January 30, 2026
4 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Honor the Sabbath is the theme of Charlie Kirk’s last book before he died.
It is thought provoking and reminds me to lift my eyes up to what is important. The Sabbath is a day of rest. A gift given to us by God. A day to be still, to reflect on the goodness of God. A day to disconnect from schedules, errands, phones. God is enough. His grace is sufficient. We can rest.
Sundays have become eroded by culture. Be aware of life’s demands, but put them aside one day a week to center on God as our purpose for living. To remember the Sabbath is to remember who God is.
Excerpt: C.S. Lewis, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.”
Honor the Sabbath is the theme of Charlie Kirk’s last book before he died.
It is thought provoking and reminds me to lift my eyes up to what is important. The Sabbath is a day of rest. A gift given to us by God. A day to be still, to reflect on the goodness of God. A day to disconnect from schedules, errands, phones. God is enough. His grace is sufficient. We can rest.
Sundays have become eroded by culture. Be aware of life’s demands, but put them aside one day a week to center on God as our purpose for living. To remember the Sabbath is to remember who God is.
Excerpt: C.S. Lewis, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.”
January 14, 2026
It hurts me to write this review. I absolutely LOVED CK. I think he was such an inspiration to so many people, and he brought so many people to God. I have a FREEDOM hat and a FREEDOM shirt, and I bought a CK hat from his store as well. All of this to say, don't attack me because of my review, because I've read other reviews and people just get torn apart for saying anything negative about this book. My review has NOTHING to do with how I feel about him as a human being (it's the complete opposite).
But guys. Those negative reviews are RIGHT. This book is not good. If you read The College Scam and enjoyed it, you'd have some serious reservations as I do as to if he even wrote this book. The writing is NOT at all like TCS, nor does it sound like him at all. The second half of the book is more aligned with his writing style than the first half, which is almost impossible to even get through. The first half is written as a scholarly article aimed towards 70 year old professors (generalizing here, trying to find an example of who would have enjoyed it). It's not written to HIS audience, which is college aged kids and/or young adults. The first book was completely written in his talking style, which was easy to comprehend. This book, the first half is nearly impossible and the second half is just okay.
If I had to guess, I'd say he had a VERY rough draft going to which it was almost completely wrecked. There must have been at LEAST 25 times where he quoted Genesis 2:2, and wrote out the entire verse each time. I think that perhaps that could have been just written with just "Genesis 2:2" after the first five times I read it. As someone else mentioned, the repetitiveness is literally cringeworthy, and hard to read. On one page will be a direct quote, and on the NEXT page the same exact quote (see pages 70 & 71). If he DID in fact write the entire thing, I think it was meant to be edited but someone didn't want to remove any of his words without permission, so they just published as is.
I was both interested in reading the book because of who he was, but also because I was genuinely interested in learning more about observing the Sabbath. This book leaves MUCH to the imagination when it comes to how to actually observe the Sabbath, with only the last few pages with "tips" for observing it. I felt a complete lack of promise.
Overall, I am EXTREMELY disappointed, because like I mentioned above, I REALLY liked CK. I still think he leaves behind an amazing legacy, I just think that this book won't be part of it.
But guys. Those negative reviews are RIGHT. This book is not good. If you read The College Scam and enjoyed it, you'd have some serious reservations as I do as to if he even wrote this book. The writing is NOT at all like TCS, nor does it sound like him at all. The second half of the book is more aligned with his writing style than the first half, which is almost impossible to even get through. The first half is written as a scholarly article aimed towards 70 year old professors (generalizing here, trying to find an example of who would have enjoyed it). It's not written to HIS audience, which is college aged kids and/or young adults. The first book was completely written in his talking style, which was easy to comprehend. This book, the first half is nearly impossible and the second half is just okay.
If I had to guess, I'd say he had a VERY rough draft going to which it was almost completely wrecked. There must have been at LEAST 25 times where he quoted Genesis 2:2, and wrote out the entire verse each time. I think that perhaps that could have been just written with just "Genesis 2:2" after the first five times I read it. As someone else mentioned, the repetitiveness is literally cringeworthy, and hard to read. On one page will be a direct quote, and on the NEXT page the same exact quote (see pages 70 & 71). If he DID in fact write the entire thing, I think it was meant to be edited but someone didn't want to remove any of his words without permission, so they just published as is.
I was both interested in reading the book because of who he was, but also because I was genuinely interested in learning more about observing the Sabbath. This book leaves MUCH to the imagination when it comes to how to actually observe the Sabbath, with only the last few pages with "tips" for observing it. I felt a complete lack of promise.
Overall, I am EXTREMELY disappointed, because like I mentioned above, I REALLY liked CK. I still think he leaves behind an amazing legacy, I just think that this book won't be part of it.
January 7, 2026
If I could give this book more than 5 stars I would. This book was truly life-changing for me. I make an effort to put my phone away and live in the moment a good amount, but I know I can and should be doing more to disconnect and honor God by spending more time with Him and the beautiful world He has created and with others. I will be making a stronger effort going forward in life and can’t wait to see and feel the peace that brings. Read this book. You will not regret it.
Read
December 16, 2025One of this year’s hottest books comes trailing clouds of sorrow.
On Sept. 10, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot dead while speaking at Utah Valley University. This week, his final book, “Stop, in the Name of God,” was released by Winning Team, the publishing house co-founded by Donald Trump Jr.
Despite a reported first printing of 200,000, the book was almost immediately out of stock on Amazon, where it was the No. 1 bestseller for several days.
Given the politically aggressive nature of Kirk’s work, even alongside his frequent invocations of Christian faith, “Stop” — subtitled “Why Honoring the Sabbath Will Transform Your Life” — often feels composed in a different register. “The following pages,” he says at one point, “are not written from a mountaintop of certainty, but from a well-worn path of seeking.”
Indeed, much of this posthumously published book is committed to theological arguments, devotional reflections and practical advice on reclaiming the Sabbath to restore spiritual balance in a culture overstimulated by technology and consumerism. Throughout, he expresses heartfelt admiration for Hebrew scripture and Jewish tradition. Christians eager to consider whether Jesus Christ’s new covenant means they’re bound to Sabbath observance will find here chapter and verse.
Although I have no sympathy for the political agenda Kirk espoused, as an overworked, chronically distracted person of faith who rarely enjoys a holy day of rest, I’m inspired by his book’s admonition to take the Fourth Commandment seriously.
But “Stop” is also a strange, uneven volume that sometimes gets lost in the wilderness.
In chapter 1, we read: “Growing up, atheism was fashionable,” which makes me pine for a photo of toddler atheism in chic short pants. And the book is padded with numbing repetition, including verbatim redundancies that spark a disorienting sense of deja vu. On p. 70, for instance, Kirk writes, “Historian Daniel Boorstin observed, ‘In no other civilization has a day of rest been so deeply institutionalized,” and on the next page he tells us, “Historian Daniel Boorstin observed that in no other civilization had a day of rest been so deeply institutionalized.”
Better copyediting could have corrected those flaws, but Kirk’s prose is more deeply marred by a rhetorical strategy that poses as clarifying but soon feels like a tic. Again and again, he claims that something is not this, it’s that:
• “The Sabbath is not primarily a legal command — it is a cosmic declaration.”
• “Genesis 1:1 is not just an origin story — it is the first step in a divine arc.”
• “These are not just buildings; they are theological statements.”
Leaning so heavily on this binary frame suggests the central weakness of Kirk’s approach: his substitution of stylistic flourish for nuanced argument. That habit becomes particularly troublesome when he attempts to prove the divine origin of the Sabbath or to disprove the possibility of morality without God.
In an effort to sound supremely confident — “Millions follow me for clarity on the great and most pressing issues of our time” — Kirk sounds merely out of his depth. His grasp of world history and religious history is spotty; his philosophical analysis displays the rigor of a late-night bull session after the pizza has grown cold. False choices, straw man arguments, cosmic leaps — it’s a Macy’s parade of inflated fallacies. When he speaks from the heart about the blessings of setting aside a day every week, he can be genuinely moving; when he tries to make a case for Intelligent Design, he should be moving on.
In a book about the importance of periodically withdrawing from the cycle of getting and spending, it’s no surprise to find....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post's free email newsletter, The Book Club:
https://s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw...
On Sept. 10, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot dead while speaking at Utah Valley University. This week, his final book, “Stop, in the Name of God,” was released by Winning Team, the publishing house co-founded by Donald Trump Jr.
Despite a reported first printing of 200,000, the book was almost immediately out of stock on Amazon, where it was the No. 1 bestseller for several days.
Given the politically aggressive nature of Kirk’s work, even alongside his frequent invocations of Christian faith, “Stop” — subtitled “Why Honoring the Sabbath Will Transform Your Life” — often feels composed in a different register. “The following pages,” he says at one point, “are not written from a mountaintop of certainty, but from a well-worn path of seeking.”
Indeed, much of this posthumously published book is committed to theological arguments, devotional reflections and practical advice on reclaiming the Sabbath to restore spiritual balance in a culture overstimulated by technology and consumerism. Throughout, he expresses heartfelt admiration for Hebrew scripture and Jewish tradition. Christians eager to consider whether Jesus Christ’s new covenant means they’re bound to Sabbath observance will find here chapter and verse.
Although I have no sympathy for the political agenda Kirk espoused, as an overworked, chronically distracted person of faith who rarely enjoys a holy day of rest, I’m inspired by his book’s admonition to take the Fourth Commandment seriously.
But “Stop” is also a strange, uneven volume that sometimes gets lost in the wilderness.
In chapter 1, we read: “Growing up, atheism was fashionable,” which makes me pine for a photo of toddler atheism in chic short pants. And the book is padded with numbing repetition, including verbatim redundancies that spark a disorienting sense of deja vu. On p. 70, for instance, Kirk writes, “Historian Daniel Boorstin observed, ‘In no other civilization has a day of rest been so deeply institutionalized,” and on the next page he tells us, “Historian Daniel Boorstin observed that in no other civilization had a day of rest been so deeply institutionalized.”
Better copyediting could have corrected those flaws, but Kirk’s prose is more deeply marred by a rhetorical strategy that poses as clarifying but soon feels like a tic. Again and again, he claims that something is not this, it’s that:
• “The Sabbath is not primarily a legal command — it is a cosmic declaration.”
• “Genesis 1:1 is not just an origin story — it is the first step in a divine arc.”
• “These are not just buildings; they are theological statements.”
Leaning so heavily on this binary frame suggests the central weakness of Kirk’s approach: his substitution of stylistic flourish for nuanced argument. That habit becomes particularly troublesome when he attempts to prove the divine origin of the Sabbath or to disprove the possibility of morality without God.
In an effort to sound supremely confident — “Millions follow me for clarity on the great and most pressing issues of our time” — Kirk sounds merely out of his depth. His grasp of world history and religious history is spotty; his philosophical analysis displays the rigor of a late-night bull session after the pizza has grown cold. False choices, straw man arguments, cosmic leaps — it’s a Macy’s parade of inflated fallacies. When he speaks from the heart about the blessings of setting aside a day every week, he can be genuinely moving; when he tries to make a case for Intelligent Design, he should be moving on.
In a book about the importance of periodically withdrawing from the cycle of getting and spending, it’s no surprise to find....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post's free email newsletter, The Book Club:
https://s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw...
February 28, 2026
Charlie admitted that he was not a preacher; however, he has successfully written an outstanding book on the why Christians should adhere to the Sabbath.
"I desire to bring all humanity back to God's design to rest for an entire day. To cease working, to STOP, in the name of GOD."
Charlie's masterful use of the English language has contributed, also, to success of his thesis. "Throughout this book, we have laid out a robust case for why the Sabbath can truly transform your life-not as a burdensome rule, but as a lifeline of renewal." Charlie further writes: "The Sabbath is not passive; it is a form of resistance. It is a rebellion against the idol of productivity and the tyranny of busyness, I am not a machine. I am not defined by what I produce." " I am a soul, created by God, made for rest, worship, and communion". Another example of his mastery of English: "We live in a world of fractured minds, anxious hearts, and endless motion. But Sabbath is our rebellion. Our resistance. Our return. It is the declaration that we are not slaves, not to Egypt, not to Pharaoh, not to modernity. We are a free people. And free people rest."
"I desire to bring all humanity back to God's design to rest for an entire day. To cease working, to STOP, in the name of GOD."
Charlie's masterful use of the English language has contributed, also, to success of his thesis. "Throughout this book, we have laid out a robust case for why the Sabbath can truly transform your life-not as a burdensome rule, but as a lifeline of renewal." Charlie further writes: "The Sabbath is not passive; it is a form of resistance. It is a rebellion against the idol of productivity and the tyranny of busyness, I am not a machine. I am not defined by what I produce." " I am a soul, created by God, made for rest, worship, and communion". Another example of his mastery of English: "We live in a world of fractured minds, anxious hearts, and endless motion. But Sabbath is our rebellion. Our resistance. Our return. It is the declaration that we are not slaves, not to Egypt, not to Pharaoh, not to modernity. We are a free people. And free people rest."
January 16, 2026
I wanted to love this, especially as Charlie Kirk's last book.
But in the end, I can only acknowledge that while the book made some excellent points, it is largely misguided by a starstruck view of Jewish tradition and Mosaic Law.
Yes, a day of rest is an essential re-orientation of our hearts toward God. Humanity was never made to be measured by output, productivity, and efficiency. We require rest. What is NOT required are the rules, the braided candles, the veto on cooking, electricity, and driving a car. What Charlie terms as "beauty" is a heartbreaking adherence to the ceremonial laws of the Old Covenant when a new and better Covenant has already been purchased and established.
Did Christ or did He not fulfil all aspects of the Law - including ceremonial law - perfectly? So rest on the Lord's Day. Yes, turn off your phone for respite from the chaos. But not because the Jewish culture knows something Christianity doesn't. Not because the Mosaic Law commands it. But as a reminder of our finitude - that Christ is Lord and we are not.
"For Freedom, Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." ~ Galatians 5:1
But in the end, I can only acknowledge that while the book made some excellent points, it is largely misguided by a starstruck view of Jewish tradition and Mosaic Law.
Yes, a day of rest is an essential re-orientation of our hearts toward God. Humanity was never made to be measured by output, productivity, and efficiency. We require rest. What is NOT required are the rules, the braided candles, the veto on cooking, electricity, and driving a car. What Charlie terms as "beauty" is a heartbreaking adherence to the ceremonial laws of the Old Covenant when a new and better Covenant has already been purchased and established.
Did Christ or did He not fulfil all aspects of the Law - including ceremonial law - perfectly? So rest on the Lord's Day. Yes, turn off your phone for respite from the chaos. But not because the Jewish culture knows something Christianity doesn't. Not because the Mosaic Law commands it. But as a reminder of our finitude - that Christ is Lord and we are not.
"For Freedom, Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." ~ Galatians 5:1
October 3, 2025
Interesting, thought provoking
March 20, 2026
I have kept the Saturday Sabbath since 1972. I agree with most of everything that Charlie Kirk has said in this book. he gives fine scriptural references for his belief. I have been able to say no to many things and really change what I do on the Sabbath. it's been a good way to stay close to God and what God wants of us. highly recommend.
January 10, 2026
This book does a good job at why you should take a good day of rest, real rest. His empirical evidence regarding an improvement of your physical and mental health when taking a day of rest from everything is phenomenal. Stuff like taking a break from tech and spending more time with friends and neighbors in honor of God.
BUT the theological arguments for why (specifically Christians) we should honor the Sabbath feels very flawed and one sided. Granted he does provide two sides to Christians’ ideologies of the Sabbath but the side in favor of honoring the Sabbath feels more put together and thought out than the argument against honoring the Sabbath. There is also sort of an inherent bias to the side in favor of honoring the Sabbath because he had been honoring it before writing this book. One thing i also noticed that sort of detracts from his argument for why Christians specifically should honor the Sabbath was how many Judaic scholars he quoted regarding that topic. Sure Christianity has Jewish roots but what does a Jewish person or Judaic scholar know about the Sabbath in regard to Christianity?
As a Catholic whenever Charlie went about describing the Jewish customs of celebrating the Sabbath, i saw a LOT of parallels between that and the Holy Mass. This just kept making me think “why not just celebrate Mass on Sunday and use that as your day of full spiritual rest” or “why not make this book about becoming Catholic”? I know he wasn’t Catholic but these parallels just make me think that if he were alive today that he would have converted to Catholicism due to how close of a parallel there is (which he would have noticed) between the Sabbath rituals and the Catholic Mass.
On a less theological note, a lot of this book has some repeated wordage to the point where if i saw the same thing i would literally skip it. It also felt like there were a decent bit of conflicting statements that he would make throughout the book, one that comes to mind is that “oh we’re not making this about the law” but then mentions something about the law in support of his argument.
Overall, this book is a good read that diagnoses today’s current digital/hustle culture and its pit falls and provides a good solution for it. I know a lot of people won’t care but it is a little theologically lacking (especially since that is what he seems to make the book about in the first half). I 100% am not saying that people should become Catholic for a solution (maybe a little lol), rather what’s important is that the solution to the mental health epidemic we are seeing among ourselves, is to rest. How you rest is entirely up to you!
BUT the theological arguments for why (specifically Christians) we should honor the Sabbath feels very flawed and one sided. Granted he does provide two sides to Christians’ ideologies of the Sabbath but the side in favor of honoring the Sabbath feels more put together and thought out than the argument against honoring the Sabbath. There is also sort of an inherent bias to the side in favor of honoring the Sabbath because he had been honoring it before writing this book. One thing i also noticed that sort of detracts from his argument for why Christians specifically should honor the Sabbath was how many Judaic scholars he quoted regarding that topic. Sure Christianity has Jewish roots but what does a Jewish person or Judaic scholar know about the Sabbath in regard to Christianity?
As a Catholic whenever Charlie went about describing the Jewish customs of celebrating the Sabbath, i saw a LOT of parallels between that and the Holy Mass. This just kept making me think “why not just celebrate Mass on Sunday and use that as your day of full spiritual rest” or “why not make this book about becoming Catholic”? I know he wasn’t Catholic but these parallels just make me think that if he were alive today that he would have converted to Catholicism due to how close of a parallel there is (which he would have noticed) between the Sabbath rituals and the Catholic Mass.
On a less theological note, a lot of this book has some repeated wordage to the point where if i saw the same thing i would literally skip it. It also felt like there were a decent bit of conflicting statements that he would make throughout the book, one that comes to mind is that “oh we’re not making this about the law” but then mentions something about the law in support of his argument.
Overall, this book is a good read that diagnoses today’s current digital/hustle culture and its pit falls and provides a good solution for it. I know a lot of people won’t care but it is a little theologically lacking (especially since that is what he seems to make the book about in the first half). I 100% am not saying that people should become Catholic for a solution (maybe a little lol), rather what’s important is that the solution to the mental health epidemic we are seeing among ourselves, is to rest. How you rest is entirely up to you!
March 14, 2026
In this book we explore the observation of the Sabbath, both as a way to find rest and to honor God. We learn how, from the very beginning of creation, God set in place a separate time to cease from working. God "rested" on the seventh day of creation, not because He was tired, but because the work was complete. The whole first chapter talks about creation, and how believing in a Creator God changes our entire perspective on life, knowing that we have a purpose and our work in life also "finds purpose when it moves toward rest." The author describes the Sabbath as a "cathedral in time." A time of beauty and sanctuary where we can meet God.
There is a really sweet foreword written by Erica Kirk that I found very touching, and it shows how Charlie Kirk and his family really lived out what they preached about honoring the Sabbath and finding rest in God's peace. They advocate taking time to contemplate and communicate and connect, instead of rushing from one thing to another glued to our phones.
I really liked that this book establishes a foundation of faith, first proving that God does exist, and examining who God is and what He expects from us. From there, we can find rest in His loving commandments, including the commandment to "Be still and know that I am God."
There was one quote that I really loved that says, "Freedom is not the absence of structure - it's the presence of the right structure." A time of Sabbath rest that is set aside for worship is the structure that God has designed for us to flourish. Resting in God helps us to recover the meaning in our lives as we walk in step with Him.
We get to explore the history of the Sabbath and how it was transformed into a Sunday celebration of Christ's resurrection, leaving behind all the Mosaic restrictions and laws. We get a lot of beautifully scholarly history and quotes from famous Christian thinkers of history. I especially liked the sections about how Christ is the fulfillment of the Sabbath promise for deep spiritual rest. Christ calls us to rest in Him. He is our Prince of Peace! A Sabbath time of rest can give us outward rest to match the inner spiritual rest of Christ.
The author says that "The Sabbath is a sanctified protest against the tyranny of constant motion." Our time is not our own, it is a gift from God, a sacred trust of communion and worship. Sometimes we worship with work, sometimes we worship with quiet rest. But we should not worship the work or worship our own abilities. The Sabbath reminds us that we are helpless without God. It is a surrender, laying down our weapons and saying, God is God, and I am not. I will obey His commands, including the command to rest. We have to trust that our life will not fall apart if we stop moving, because it is God that holds us together.
There is a whole chapter that explores what modern people worship instead of worshipping God. They worship money, the environment, their political party, their social reform cause, and mostly they worship themselves. All those things do not bring rest, they only bring more work, more loneliness, and more anxiety, because there is no meaning without Christ. Only in Christ can we be restored and healed, and the Sabbath is a way to enter into that restoration on a deeper level.
I was very intrigued by the chapter examining what a consistent Sabbath or Sunday time of rest will do for your health. The author quotes from scientific studies that have found that communities and churches with a strong belief in sacred rest have fewer health problems, better mental health, lower cortisol, less inflammation, better sleep, and more resilience to stress. But the Sabbath isn't just a self-care hack. It's part of a deeply personal relationship with God that brings health and healing.
I was really convicted by the section about smartphone addiction, and how it is literally rotting our brains and stunting our maturity. Little by little over the years, I've been using my phone less and less, and staying off social media for the most part, but this section inspired me to detox even further and really get unplugged so that I can give more attention to what matters - connecting with God and friends and family. That's what the Sabbath is all about!
An interesting analogy is found in the Sabbath commandment when the people of Israel were commanded to rest on the seventh day BECAUSE they used to be slaves in Egypt. The implication is that you are not slaves anymore. A slave has to work and work with no rest. In God we have the freedom to rest. I am not relying on my own labor to provide for my life; I am relying on God to provide. So I can stop the endless striving. The work that I do in six days will be enough, and I trust God for the rest of it.
The author talks about sleep quality and how important it is to get not just adequate sleep, but truly restorative sleep. He mentions a lot of places in the Bible where sleep is prioritized. Even Jesus took a nap on the boat during a storm! Christ teaches us that resting is the ultimate expression of faith. We don't have to earn our rest. It is a gift, a sacred covenant with God.
Taking time to rest on the Sabbath or Sunday is encouraged as a protection for what is most precious in your life, not as a burden or a strict set of rules to be followed. The focus is on what we embrace, not on what we avoid during that sacred time. It's about enjoying the presence of God, recalibrating your health, reconnecting with your family, and worshipping with your spiritual community.
The final chapters give two sides of the argument about whether or not Christians are morally bound to observe the Sabbath, either on Saturday or Sunday. I really liked that the author presented both sides of the argument with clear reasons for each viewpoint, and then left it to the reader to make their own decision. I myself think I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't think that Christians are bound to the Sabbath as a commandment, because our rest is complete in Christ, but I do think that it is wise to take the Sabbath or Sunday as a day of rest and worship because God created us to thrive in that holy rhythm that He instituted at creation.
I was especially inspired by the final section that examines all the excuses we make for ourselves about why we think we don't have time to observe the Sabbath or Sunday. One of the biggest ones for me is perfectly described in this quote, "...silence exposes things we'd rather avoid - fear, anxiety, a lack of trust. So we keep moving, convincing ourselves that one day we'll slow down. But we rarely do. ... Rest requires courage. It means confronting our fear that the world will fall apart if we stop working. It means choosing trust over control." That really convicted me about my own lack of trust in God, and I immediately started praying for more faith, more courage, and more rest. Resting can feel kind of vulnerable in a way, like a loss of control. But of course, all control is an illusion. Only God is in control, and we can only find true rest in His Love. If our identity is anchored in our work, resting feels like a loss. If our identity is anchored in Christ, resting is the ultimate gain. We gain all the peace and blessing that comes with a close walk with God.
This book is so beautiful and meaningful, and I loved every chapter!
There is a really sweet foreword written by Erica Kirk that I found very touching, and it shows how Charlie Kirk and his family really lived out what they preached about honoring the Sabbath and finding rest in God's peace. They advocate taking time to contemplate and communicate and connect, instead of rushing from one thing to another glued to our phones.
I really liked that this book establishes a foundation of faith, first proving that God does exist, and examining who God is and what He expects from us. From there, we can find rest in His loving commandments, including the commandment to "Be still and know that I am God."
There was one quote that I really loved that says, "Freedom is not the absence of structure - it's the presence of the right structure." A time of Sabbath rest that is set aside for worship is the structure that God has designed for us to flourish. Resting in God helps us to recover the meaning in our lives as we walk in step with Him.
We get to explore the history of the Sabbath and how it was transformed into a Sunday celebration of Christ's resurrection, leaving behind all the Mosaic restrictions and laws. We get a lot of beautifully scholarly history and quotes from famous Christian thinkers of history. I especially liked the sections about how Christ is the fulfillment of the Sabbath promise for deep spiritual rest. Christ calls us to rest in Him. He is our Prince of Peace! A Sabbath time of rest can give us outward rest to match the inner spiritual rest of Christ.
The author says that "The Sabbath is a sanctified protest against the tyranny of constant motion." Our time is not our own, it is a gift from God, a sacred trust of communion and worship. Sometimes we worship with work, sometimes we worship with quiet rest. But we should not worship the work or worship our own abilities. The Sabbath reminds us that we are helpless without God. It is a surrender, laying down our weapons and saying, God is God, and I am not. I will obey His commands, including the command to rest. We have to trust that our life will not fall apart if we stop moving, because it is God that holds us together.
There is a whole chapter that explores what modern people worship instead of worshipping God. They worship money, the environment, their political party, their social reform cause, and mostly they worship themselves. All those things do not bring rest, they only bring more work, more loneliness, and more anxiety, because there is no meaning without Christ. Only in Christ can we be restored and healed, and the Sabbath is a way to enter into that restoration on a deeper level.
I was very intrigued by the chapter examining what a consistent Sabbath or Sunday time of rest will do for your health. The author quotes from scientific studies that have found that communities and churches with a strong belief in sacred rest have fewer health problems, better mental health, lower cortisol, less inflammation, better sleep, and more resilience to stress. But the Sabbath isn't just a self-care hack. It's part of a deeply personal relationship with God that brings health and healing.
I was really convicted by the section about smartphone addiction, and how it is literally rotting our brains and stunting our maturity. Little by little over the years, I've been using my phone less and less, and staying off social media for the most part, but this section inspired me to detox even further and really get unplugged so that I can give more attention to what matters - connecting with God and friends and family. That's what the Sabbath is all about!
An interesting analogy is found in the Sabbath commandment when the people of Israel were commanded to rest on the seventh day BECAUSE they used to be slaves in Egypt. The implication is that you are not slaves anymore. A slave has to work and work with no rest. In God we have the freedom to rest. I am not relying on my own labor to provide for my life; I am relying on God to provide. So I can stop the endless striving. The work that I do in six days will be enough, and I trust God for the rest of it.
The author talks about sleep quality and how important it is to get not just adequate sleep, but truly restorative sleep. He mentions a lot of places in the Bible where sleep is prioritized. Even Jesus took a nap on the boat during a storm! Christ teaches us that resting is the ultimate expression of faith. We don't have to earn our rest. It is a gift, a sacred covenant with God.
Taking time to rest on the Sabbath or Sunday is encouraged as a protection for what is most precious in your life, not as a burden or a strict set of rules to be followed. The focus is on what we embrace, not on what we avoid during that sacred time. It's about enjoying the presence of God, recalibrating your health, reconnecting with your family, and worshipping with your spiritual community.
The final chapters give two sides of the argument about whether or not Christians are morally bound to observe the Sabbath, either on Saturday or Sunday. I really liked that the author presented both sides of the argument with clear reasons for each viewpoint, and then left it to the reader to make their own decision. I myself think I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't think that Christians are bound to the Sabbath as a commandment, because our rest is complete in Christ, but I do think that it is wise to take the Sabbath or Sunday as a day of rest and worship because God created us to thrive in that holy rhythm that He instituted at creation.
I was especially inspired by the final section that examines all the excuses we make for ourselves about why we think we don't have time to observe the Sabbath or Sunday. One of the biggest ones for me is perfectly described in this quote, "...silence exposes things we'd rather avoid - fear, anxiety, a lack of trust. So we keep moving, convincing ourselves that one day we'll slow down. But we rarely do. ... Rest requires courage. It means confronting our fear that the world will fall apart if we stop working. It means choosing trust over control." That really convicted me about my own lack of trust in God, and I immediately started praying for more faith, more courage, and more rest. Resting can feel kind of vulnerable in a way, like a loss of control. But of course, all control is an illusion. Only God is in control, and we can only find true rest in His Love. If our identity is anchored in our work, resting feels like a loss. If our identity is anchored in Christ, resting is the ultimate gain. We gain all the peace and blessing that comes with a close walk with God.
This book is so beautiful and meaningful, and I loved every chapter!
January 4, 2026
I've been increasingly interested in Sabbath recently, so I was excited to find a recent book on it written from the Christian perspective.
This book is written for both Christians and non-Christians, as Kirk spends the first few chapters explaining his Christian beliefs and justifying the choice to follow Scripture. If you've been a Christian for a while, you might skim/scan some of these chapters, as a lot of it is info you might already know (I skimmed a few chapters).
What I appreciated most about this book is it isn't just Kirk's opinion on Sabbath. He provided statistics and information on the following:
- Rest from a secular perspective
- Historical/biblical Jewish Sabbath
- Support for Christians honoring Sabbath
- Support for Christians not honoring Sabbath
- Lots of research
- Lots of Bible references
- Personal reflection and anecdotes
For any Christians contemplating Sabbath and the case for/against it, I highly recommend this book.
This book is written for both Christians and non-Christians, as Kirk spends the first few chapters explaining his Christian beliefs and justifying the choice to follow Scripture. If you've been a Christian for a while, you might skim/scan some of these chapters, as a lot of it is info you might already know (I skimmed a few chapters).
What I appreciated most about this book is it isn't just Kirk's opinion on Sabbath. He provided statistics and information on the following:
- Rest from a secular perspective
- Historical/biblical Jewish Sabbath
- Support for Christians honoring Sabbath
- Support for Christians not honoring Sabbath
- Lots of research
- Lots of Bible references
- Personal reflection and anecdotes
For any Christians contemplating Sabbath and the case for/against it, I highly recommend this book.
January 3, 2026
greatly missed here on earth. thankful for his last message.
March 21, 2026
I was pleasantly surprised with how good this book is. There are certainly deeper theological treatments of the sabbath, and there are plenty of secular social science books that trace the modern American ills brought about by business, overwork, and smartphones. What makes this book particularly useful is Charlie threads both the theological and the practical together, while making his points pertinent to 21st century Christian’s, in particular. My only complaints about the book are 1. There were points that could use a bit more editing. Some paragraphs were almost verbatim repeated a page or two later. I’m all for repetition, but there were some sections that could have been cut down. 2. Because Charlie was trying to make a pretty broad appeal, he sacrificed a bit of theological depth and conviction. But all in all, maybe the most readable and practical books on the sabbath I have read. An excellent initial primer on the subject
Truth: 4/5
I had a couple minor disagreements with parts of Charlie’s arguments, but I was pleasantly surprised with the diverse Christian and Jewish sources he pulled from. I would prefer if he included endnotes for citations or at least a bibliography at the end, however
Structure: 5/5
Very well written and each chapter builds on the next. The overall argument of the book is logical and progresses clearly. The last couple chapters end on an incredibly practical note for 21st Americans
Usefulness: 5/5
Ultimately, Charlie’s goals are not just making an intellectual or theological case but to bring about practical change. He succeeds I think most in making sabbath keeping both appealing and implementable.
Truth: 4/5
I had a couple minor disagreements with parts of Charlie’s arguments, but I was pleasantly surprised with the diverse Christian and Jewish sources he pulled from. I would prefer if he included endnotes for citations or at least a bibliography at the end, however
Structure: 5/5
Very well written and each chapter builds on the next. The overall argument of the book is logical and progresses clearly. The last couple chapters end on an incredibly practical note for 21st Americans
Usefulness: 5/5
Ultimately, Charlie’s goals are not just making an intellectual or theological case but to bring about practical change. He succeeds I think most in making sabbath keeping both appealing and implementable.
March 3, 2026
Let me be clear… This is not a political book! READ IT!! It took me until about chapter 6 to really get into it, but it is eye opening and each chapter hits home. What will your children say about your life one day? That you were always busy, always distracted, always stressed?
Enter the Sabbath.
Walk in the woods, UNPLUG YOUR PHONE, eat long meals, laugh with your kids, sing songs, sleep deeply, read slowly. Do it with joy. Honor the Sabbath, and you won’t just find rest, you will find yourself, and God there waiting for you ❤️✝️
Enter the Sabbath.
Walk in the woods, UNPLUG YOUR PHONE, eat long meals, laugh with your kids, sing songs, sleep deeply, read slowly. Do it with joy. Honor the Sabbath, and you won’t just find rest, you will find yourself, and God there waiting for you ❤️✝️
December 24, 2025
This book by American Hero Charlie Kirk is an amazing study on rest and the effects on our well being. Taking a multifaceted approach, sourcing from religion, science, and philosophy, Kirk shows the physical and mental benefits of religion on humanity. Considering the tumultuous times, this cure is exactly what Americans need right now.
December 23, 2025
We miss you Charlie! This book had many good points. It has left me with a lot of work to do on myself
March 18, 2026
This was such a beautifully moving and motivating read! I’m so thankful Charlie was able to leave this behind for us before he went to be with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I was sad to reach the end of the book, and I’m sure I’ll be re-reading this in the future.
This is the text I sent to my friends immediately after finishing the book:
“You guys, I just finished reading Stop, In The Name of God by Charlie Kirk and it was sooo good. It’s one of my top non-fiction reads now for sure. He talks about the importance of keeping the Sabbath as designed by God for human flourishing, but not in a legalistic way… in a way that follows Scripture, honors God, strengthens our relationship with God and our loved ones, and it’s a way to resist the pull of modern society’s demands of constant productivity and output and it’s way to declare instead that we belong to God, that God is in control and that we are not God.
It is such a great reminder of how important it is to pause and regularly pull away from technology and the world/machine which tells us to constantly produce, and screens that feed us algorithms… to remember that we are “image-bearers of God, called not just to labor, but to rest, reflect, worship, and be.”
Everything Charlie presents in the book is backed up with Scripture and studies. He gives the history of the Sabbath and how its meaning and practices have evolved over the years and how it’s practiced by different groups of Christians/Jews. He gives biblical arguments for both sides of why some Christians believe in practicing the Sabbath while others believe it’s already been fulfilled, and where he lands after much prayer and time in the Word. I highly recommend it.
This is the text I sent to my friends immediately after finishing the book:
“You guys, I just finished reading Stop, In The Name of God by Charlie Kirk and it was sooo good. It’s one of my top non-fiction reads now for sure. He talks about the importance of keeping the Sabbath as designed by God for human flourishing, but not in a legalistic way… in a way that follows Scripture, honors God, strengthens our relationship with God and our loved ones, and it’s a way to resist the pull of modern society’s demands of constant productivity and output and it’s way to declare instead that we belong to God, that God is in control and that we are not God.
It is such a great reminder of how important it is to pause and regularly pull away from technology and the world/machine which tells us to constantly produce, and screens that feed us algorithms… to remember that we are “image-bearers of God, called not just to labor, but to rest, reflect, worship, and be.”
Everything Charlie presents in the book is backed up with Scripture and studies. He gives the history of the Sabbath and how its meaning and practices have evolved over the years and how it’s practiced by different groups of Christians/Jews. He gives biblical arguments for both sides of why some Christians believe in practicing the Sabbath while others believe it’s already been fulfilled, and where he lands after much prayer and time in the Word. I highly recommend it.
February 4, 2026
This book will make you want to chuck your phone out the window, at least for 1 day/week! It is a topic I hadn’t thought deeply about. Kirk argues the sabbath is the most ignored commandment by modern Christians, although he confirms it is not a burden to bear but a grace to embrace. He reminds us not only to rest, but why we work in the first place. I loved the quick hit of apologetics in the beginning. Favorite quotes:
“In a world governed by unrelenting drive, by the mantras of “faster,” “harder,” and “more,” the divine voice says something astonishing: stop. In His name, cease. Cease striving. Cease earning. Cease proving. Cease buying and selling and producing. This is not a suggestion. It is a divine imperative.”
“Before there were empires or economies, before toil had entered the world, there was rest. The Sabbath was not reasoned into existence - it was revealed. It did not arise from human exhaustion, but from divine completion.”
“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” - C.S. Lewis
“We must cultivate gratitude - a heart posture that recognizes every good thing as a gift rather than an entitlement. Gratitude shifts our gaze upward.”
“Americans own more personal possessions and consumer goods per capita than any other nation, yet report more stress, anxiety, and dissatisfaction compared to many less materially wealthy countries… The drive to accumulate has not delivered peace; it has delivered exhaustion.”
“God didn’t rest because He was tired. He rested because the work was complete. He rested to bless creation with a pattern: a world not run by endless striving, but by trust. You can stop, and it will be enough.”
“The Sabbath doesn’t diminish work – it dignifies it by setting its limits. It says, “Work hard. But remember: you are not God.”
“In a world governed by unrelenting drive, by the mantras of “faster,” “harder,” and “more,” the divine voice says something astonishing: stop. In His name, cease. Cease striving. Cease earning. Cease proving. Cease buying and selling and producing. This is not a suggestion. It is a divine imperative.”
“Before there were empires or economies, before toil had entered the world, there was rest. The Sabbath was not reasoned into existence - it was revealed. It did not arise from human exhaustion, but from divine completion.”
“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” - C.S. Lewis
“We must cultivate gratitude - a heart posture that recognizes every good thing as a gift rather than an entitlement. Gratitude shifts our gaze upward.”
“Americans own more personal possessions and consumer goods per capita than any other nation, yet report more stress, anxiety, and dissatisfaction compared to many less materially wealthy countries… The drive to accumulate has not delivered peace; it has delivered exhaustion.”
“God didn’t rest because He was tired. He rested because the work was complete. He rested to bless creation with a pattern: a world not run by endless striving, but by trust. You can stop, and it will be enough.”
“The Sabbath doesn’t diminish work – it dignifies it by setting its limits. It says, “Work hard. But remember: you are not God.”
January 31, 2026
This book was not what I expected. I have been trying to be very intentional with implementing a Sabbath so I was excited to read this book. Most of the book was pretty repetitive about the history of the Sabbath and how other people honor the Sabbath, especially the Jewish community. While there were Bible verses used in this book I feel like the main focus was more on the history of the Sabbath specifically in the United States and how the Jewish community honors the Sabbath. That was just not what I was expecting to read when picking up this book. It was also not very well written and certain lines were repeated in the book. The last 2 chapters were practical and encouraging though. I have not read any of Charlie’s other books, so I’m not sure if this is his writing style or not, but I was not a fan unfortunately:(
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