I’m having trouble knowing what to say after Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Recently, I left my role as pastor of a local church to spend more time engaging the public square. I’ve dedicated a significant portion of my time to facilitating conversations across divides. I’ve met wonderful people—we disagree strongly, yet we have become friends. Charlie was doing the same.
Since we don’t know the shooter’s motives, I hesitate to speculate on exactly what part of his message inflamed the assassin. But Charlie understood reality through the lens of Scripture. Charlie openly declared his belief in objective reality, humanity being made in God’s image, the existence of evil, the goodness of marriage, and the value of family. No doubt, Scripture shaped Charlie’s worldview.
I’ve wholeheartedly believed that Christ’s message is good, true, and beautiful, and when coupled with kindness and grace, it’s persuasive. I’ve thought that if presented in the public square, many would start to reject today’s cultural norms and seek something more compelling. I confess, in the moments after his death, I questioned if I still believed this to be the case—is this endeavor futile? Are we too far gone?
The morning brings me clarity of thought. A long walk in the Florida sunshine clears the head and the soul. Charlie’s death actually confirms what I’ve believed—he was persuading people through civil and spirited engagement. Charlie was moving a generation burnt out on nihilism, challenging them to question the nature of reality itself. He was doing his best to live out the Apostle Paul’s words in Colossians 2:8, “See to it that no one takes you captive by human philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” I heard Tim Keller once say, “When you attack the idols, the gods get angry.” Charlie attacked the cultural gods and the philosophies of the age; he provoked a generation to ask ultimate questions again: “Why am I here?” “Is this really all there is?” “Why am I so tired?” —Like Pharaoh of old, the gods got angry.
As we wait to learn more about the motives of the shooter, I’m reminded of two things:
First, goodness, truth, and beauty are persuasive precisely because they inflame evil, deception, and ugliness. Regardless of your voting habits, reasonable people can agree that the images of this act are not only shocking to our souls but also purely hideous. When goodness is held in contrast, it moves the soul to seek Jesus Christ, who is the very essence of goodness.
Second, Christians are people with hope. The Holy Spirit, through the words of the Apostle Paul, encourages us, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” As sorrows like sea billows roll, we hold on to our belief that Christ’s goodness, truth, and beauty will one day be fully realized. While today it is but a shadow, we await the fullness of the coming Kingdom.
