ArticleWhen Erica Kirk said at her husband’s memorial service that she forgave his alleged killer — “it was what Christ did and is what Charlie would do” — it stood out as a truly remarkable moment amid this otherwise horrible series of events. Even in her intense grief, she found and gave voice to grace.
It’s hard to imagine a starker contrast with the vows of vengeance and expressions of outrage that have filled social media over the last two weeks. In a country that remains highly religious, Christian leaders in the United States can play a significant role in determining whether this event will only widen the nation’s already vast political divisions. The leaders of large congregations exert an influence that is hard to fathom in other parts of the secular West. The question is, how will they use that influence?
Certainly, America’s partisan divide has so far been reflected in the responses of Christian leaders to the tragedy. There is universal and unequivocal condemnation of Kirk’s murder — that is not surprising. From there, the responses diverge.
For many, Charlie Kirk was killed because of his Christian faith. According to this narrative, he was fearless in the way he opposed the forces of secularism that had been so ruinous to the institution of the family and the values that sustained America as a “nation under God”. For these leaders, Kirk is a martyr and his death is an attack on Christianity itself.
Luke Barnett, the senior pastor of Dream City Church in Phoenix, Arizona, which Kirk and his family attended, portrayed his killing in vivid spiritual terms. He said in a sermon on the evening of Kirk’s assassination:
What killed [Charlie] today was not his political views. His biblical views of truth killed him today … What the enemy has tried to do today is silence the people of God, silence the men and women of God. Well, you just unleashed the dragon.
Other leaders have been more muted in their assessment of Kirk’s legacy, even as they shared the sorrow and anguish at his loss. Pastor Chris Pritchett of Mount Olympus Presbyterian Church in Utah wrote these words to his congregation:
I know that, for many, Charlie Kirk’s politics and rhetoric were difficult — even painful — to listen to. Others greatly appreciated his efforts to engage young conservatives in public life. Many in our congregation strongly disagreed with his views, and others appreciated him. None of that matters in a moment like this … I am weary of a culture where people see each other as enemies instead of neighbors. And I am weary of a world where guns and gall take the place of dialogue and dignity … [But even in] our weariness, Jesus calls us to be people of compassion and peacemaking. To mourn when any life is taken. To reject hatred, regardless of where it comes from. And to bear witness to a better way — the way of Christ, who prayed for those who opposed him and loved those who disagreed with him.
From the evangelical left, Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners Magazine, wrote:
Beyond the political differences, beyond the bitter debates, at his best, Charlie Kirk attempted to engage in the dialogue that is at the heart of democracy.
But we must be honest with ourselves and with each other. Violence is prevailing over politics today, and has been for a while. We are witnessing a dangerous and devastating failure of our democracy. Violence is never the answer. Political violence is a poison in the bloodstream of democracy. Each violent act, no matter the target, pulls us further from God’s purposes for us as a people. If this continues, it will drive us into a darker and more perilous place than we already are.
There were also responses of those religious leaders, especially among Black Christians, who feel estranged and aggrieved by Kirk’s political rhetoric. So Howard-John Wesley, senior pastor of Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, said in a sermon:
Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be assassinated. But I’m overwhelmed seeing the flags of the United States of America at half-staff calling this nation to honour and venerate a man who was an unapologetic racist and spent all of his life sowing seeds of division and hate into this land.
Charlie Kirk was a popular Christian apologist and evangelist. On his podcast and in debates, he made compelling arguments for the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth and the historical validity of his resurrection, and he strongly promoted the foundational importance of biblical teaching for Western civilisation and contemporary life.
He was also highly political. He was the founder and spokesperson of Turning Point USA, a political organisation designed to rally young conservatives, and a prominent figure in the MAGA movement. He was a vocal proponent of gun ownership and strident critic of affirmative action and immigration. He frequently gave voice to the “great replacement theory”, which has it that shadowy Jewish cabals are conspiring with elite leftists to replace white Americans with non-European immigrants. Just last year, during a rally for Donald Trump in Georgia, Kirk said that Democrats “stand for everything God hates” and that the presidential election was “a spiritual battle”. He went on to lead 10,000 attendees in a chant of “Christ is King! Christ is King!”
It is difficult not to see this entanglement of Christianity with partisan politics as anything but dangerous. But not just because it turns political opponents into the enemies of God. As theologian Stanley Hauerwas once put it, “Surely one of the great betrayals of Christians in America to America is confusing America with the Kingdom of God.”
Returning to Erika Kirk’s words, what would it mean for Christians to respond to this moment — to political violence and the profound social divisions underpinning it — the way Jesus would?
That depends very much on the Jesus you take your cues from. The marriage of American evangelicalism and the political right has birthed some pictures of Jesus that many Christians would find startlingly at odds with the New Testament.
The Republic Party has not always been so closely intertwined with the religious right in America. It was only after the counter-culture movements of the 1960s and the libertarianism of the 1970s that evangelical Protestants began migrating toward the GOP. And it was Roland Reagan who presided over the marriage between political and religious conservatism.
A strong case can be made that this alliance has not been good for either politics or religion — its risks have become increasingly pronounced in the Trump era. The overtly Christian memorial service for Charlie Kirk provided a striking example: the presence of the president and cabinet members gave the occasion the feel of a political rally.
This is hardly the first time that the church has reinvented Christ to fit a more martial culture, rather than the other way around. “Jesus becomes the warrior Christ and he’s going to slay his enemies”, writes Kristin Kobes du Mez in Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. “And so they actually change the Jesus of the Gospels to fit this ideal and in doing so … change Christianity itself.”
To arrive at a ruggedly masculine, singularly table-flipping Jesus requires his followers to ignore quite a lot of what he did and didn’t do and say. The Jesus of the Gospels refused political power. He referred to himself as “gentle and humble in heart” (Matthew 11:29), spurned vengeance, met persecution with grace and called his followers to the same self-denying path. Instead of wielding his messianic power to crush those who opposed him, he laid down his life to make reconciliation between God and humans, and between humans and humans, possible.
The murder of Charlie Kirk may well be indicative of a spiritual battle. But the weapons of engagement, for the Christian, shouldn’t look anything like those routinely wielded in the public square. The New Testament urges the followers of Jesus — who frequently experienced rejection and persecution — to repay evil with blessing and to live lives of humble service to others, including to those they consider their enemies. One of the few explicit biblical commands about how to speak in public about one’s faith says it must be done with “gentleness and respect”, regardless of how others speak about you.
When Donald Trump admitted during Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, “I hate my opponent and don’t want the best for them”, wasn’t he expressing an impulse we know all too well — the desire to retaliate, to see our enemies suffer? Where this impulse goes disastrously wrong is when we convince ourselves that God also hates our opponents and wants to see them suffer.
Erika Kirk’s offer of forgiveness to the man who allegedly took her husband’s life reminds us that there is another way. Which path Christian leaders choose, and continue to choose, in this clarifying moment will have consequences well beyond the walls of the church.
Simon Smart is the Executive Director of the Centre for Public Christianity. This article was first published in ABC Religion & Ethics.