“A dark moment for America”: Charlie Kirk and the Limits of Revolutionary Violence
As of this writing, we don’t have any indications about a suspect or potential motive for Charlie Kirk’s assassination yesterday at Utah Valley University. While plenty of my fellow right-wing citizens have already decided that the culprit is a left-wing extremist who who bears a deep hatred for America — and, to be sure, the shooter very well might that — we cannot currently say with any amount of certainty or responsibility that that is the case. However, let’s entertain that possibility for a moment and surmise that the shooter is someone who aligns with left-leaning social and political ideas. I’d be curious to know what exactly this individual believes they accomplished with this act.
Perhaps they actually are the caricature of the person who second-amendment activists often warn about: someone in the throes of mental illness who has been unwittingly radicalized by the media. Maybe they’re someone who subscribes to an accelerationist philosophy and is attempting to spur on social and political upheaval such that permanent and lasting change might come faster. Or perhaps they’re someone who truly believes, for any number of reasons, that Charlie Kirk’s death would actually solve some of America’s problems. Again, we don’t know why and we may never know why. But if, in the aftermath of Kirk’s killing, we find ourselves either celebrating the death of someone we believe to be a villain or calling for a total condemnation of worldly violence, we must wrestle with the implications of both for our Christian faith.
The first seems easy: regardless of how problematic we believe someone is, or how necessary we believe their silencing to be, death is not something to be celebrated. While we might not mourn the loss of the hatred they once spewed, we can (and should) certainly mourn the fact that they never arrived at a place of deep and abiding transformation on this side of the veil. And while we have no certainty about one’s eternal destination during our short duration in this life, we are all the more commanded to pray that all will be changed and made new as they enter into God’s imperishable kingdom.
The second, though, is one we must contend with. On this front, I can only speak to my own convictions and beliefs as they stand today. And today, I am torn between two seemingly-incongruent realities: On the one hand, my faith is big enough to hold space for the possibility of revolutionary violence in times when standard measures of morality and ethics no longer apply. In moments of acute, pervasive, and endless destruction, I have no authority to weigh in on the methods oppressed communities use to overthrow their oppressors. I have no jurisdiction to speak into the ways slaves overthrew their masters in the antebellum south or the ways Jews resisted the Nazis during the Shoah. On the other hand, though, I also believe in a God of redemption; a living God who is always and forever calling people to Godself. To eliminate one’s life is to eliminate the possibility for their repentance; to turn from their ways and change and be made new.
While many of us may be able to stand in the above tension between a sincere desire for peace on one hand, and liberation of the oppressed by any means necessary on the other, it would be remiss of us to not acknowledge that there are — and must be — limits to the use of revolutionary violence to overthrow oppressive powers. It is a risk, and not one that should be taken lightly. I have no qualms with calling out Kirk for his disgusting and harmful views on women, LGBTQ+ people, and people of color. But should the solution to bad speech be violence? Or should it be better speech? No doubt, Kirk has inspired a generation of people to advocate on behalf of policies and politicians who mercilessly persecute the poor and downtrodden of the world. But would we rather he be silenced by the barrel of a gun or by the power of the gospel? That’s a question we need to be willing to confront in such a time as this.
President Trump said that Kirk’s death has marked “a dark moment in America.” While we likely have different reasons for each of our assessments, I have to say that this is one of the only times he and I are inclined to agree.
