Tag: christianity

In the fourteenth verse of the first chapter of the Gospel of John, the text explains Jesus Christ’s entry into the world in two brief sentences: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” It is this duality within Jesus—of not exactly opposing principles but of ones that exist in a kind of equipoise—that is the conundrum at the heart of the Christian message: God’s grace comes in the form of his unconditional love, but he also judges based on his truth. Followers of Jesus are meant to emulate him by loving their enemies, but also, as the apostle Paul exhorts in Ephesians, to “put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground.”

Last year, George Janko, a comedian and social-media influencer, hosted the conservative activist Charlie Kirk on his podcast. Kirk had been building his reputation as an imperious, right-wing avenger on college campuses, debating anyone willing to step up to the microphone to challenge him. Janko asked Kirk if he ever felt guilty about “annihilating some child” during those appearances. Kirk admitted that he did feel badly, on occasion, if it seemed as if he was “being unjust.” He did not elaborate on what he meant by this, and Janko failed to press him on the matter or his incendiary statements concerning Black people, the L.G.B.T.Q. community, and other groups, but, as Kirk saw it, the problem on college campuses was that “the entire institution”—he seemed to be speaking generally—was “in contradiction with God’s law.” Kirk said that it was important to remember that “Christ is all grace and all truth,” gesturing with his hands to his left and right, as if to emphasize their two-way relationship. As a result, Kirk said, if he was “contesting in the public arena for truth,” and his words angered someone, he wasn’t being disobedient to the teachings of Christ. He maintained that it was his responsibility, as a Christian, to “correct error with truth.”

Kirk did appear to be reflective about what his pugnaciousness might say about his personal character as a Christian. At one point on the podcast, he rattled off, from memory, the fruit of the Spirit, the qualities that Paul listed in his letter to the Galatians as evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit in believers’ lives. Kirk mentioned love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. He said that he had the most difficulty with self-control. Nevertheless, Kirk believed that his calling from God was to be a fighter, a combatant in the culture wars. “Some people are called to heal the sick,” he said. “Some people are called to mend broken marriages.” Kirk declared that his call was “to fight evil and proclaim truth. That’s it.”

It is this martial spirit that has suffused much of the MAGA world’s reaction to Kirk’s death. Two days after his murder, his wife, Erika, released an emotional video on Instagram, in which she thanked the first responders who tried to save her husband’s life, and President Trump, Vice-President J. D. Vance, and his wife, Usha, for their support, among others, but she ended on a defiant note. “If you thought that my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea,” she said. “You have no idea what you just have unleashed across this entire country, and this world. You have no idea. You have no idea the fire that you have ignited within this wife. The cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry.” The following Sunday, in Plano, Texas, at Prestonwood Baptist Church, one of the largest megachurches in the country, the Reverend Jack Graham, referred to Kirk as a warrior and a martyr and then played an A.I.-generated video of Kirk, speaking from beyond the grave. “Don’t waste one second mourning me,” he says. “Double down on truth, double down on courage, double down on your faith and on your families.” Kirk’s cloned voice picks up speed and urgency, as he compels listeners to “dry your tears, pick up your cross, and get back in the fight.” As if answering an altar call, congregants in the cavernous auditorium at Prestonwood rose to their feet for an extended ovation.

Then, last week, during a memorial service for Kirk at State Farm Stadium, in Glendale, Arizona, his widow struck a notably different tone, summoning the Gospel of Luke, in which Jesus on the Cross says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” In that spirit, Erika Kirk said that she forgave her husband’s shooter. “The answer to hate is not hate,” she said. “The answer, we know from the Gospel, is love and always love: love for our enemies, and love for those who persecute us.” Many who took the stage before and after her, however, spoke the language not of forgiveness but of girding for battle. The result was a startling spectacle of religious and political triumphalism. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, said, “The day that Charlie died, the angels wept, but those tears have been turned into fire in our hearts. And that fire burns with a righteous fury that our enemies cannot comprehend or understand.” President Trump, the final speaker of the day, noted that Kirk was a “martyr now for American freedom” and denounced his killer as a “radicalized, cold-blooded monster.” Trump praised Kirk as a man who “wanted the best” for his opponents. But Trump said this is where he and Kirk parted ways. “I hate my opponents,” he said. “I don’t want the best for them.”

The overwhelming sensation at this moment in American politics is one of precarity. It remains to be seen how evangelicals mourning Kirk’s death will respond. Will they see it as their duty to don the armor of God, as soldiers, or will they feel called to a different approach? Dallas Willard was an influential evangelical thinker and philosophy professor at the University of Southern California, who died in 2013. His ability to range across metaphysics and theology with a popular audience made him a kind of modern-day C. S. Lewis. Two years after Willard’s death, his daughter, Rebecca, published a collection of his lectures and writings titled “The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus.” Willard believed that the ministry of apologetics in the Church—the work of defending the Christian faith against its critics—had become overly focussed on “intellectual debates and arguments,” and he cautioned believers against adopting “an antagonizing, arrogant spirit” when engaging with challengers. He wrote that the Christian apologetic should be characterized by its gentleness, because “what we are seeking to defend or explain is Jesus himself, who is a gentle, loving shepherd. If we are not gentle in how we present the good news, how will people encounter the gentle and loving Messiah we want to point to?”