When the news broke that Charlie Kirk had been shot and killed, I did what I often try to do. I asked a question.
It wasn’t celebratory. It wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t wishing violence on anyone. I simply asked how Christians should respond when someone who has spent their entire public life spreading lies, violence and bigotry suddenly dies. Verbatim it was, “If one’s imprecatory prayers are answered regarding an evil public figure, how does one then pray once that person has been shot?”
It was assumed by several that the “one” in question was me, when in fact it was not. I’d never prayed anything regarding Kirk one way or the other, so my first prayers to mention his name were to pray for his family to find some kind of peace amidst their terrible loss.
Justin Barringer
The backlash was immediate and vicious, though. I wasn’t just disagreed with (as if I had made a statement and not asked a question in the first place), I was accused of being evil, demonic even. People projected onto me things I didn’t say or even believe, so they could create another socio-cultural battlefront to be outraged about, to rally folks for another round of the culture war.
Almost none of it was in good faith, there were a few exceptions of folks who either understood and even appreciated my intent or who approached more humbly and inquisitively to seek to understand before throwing around accusations. The others, though, claimed to be defending truth, justice or faith, but really, they were defending their religious and political tribe. And the hypocrisy was incredible.
Noticing a trend
For now, as I’ve searched social media, I’ve noticed a trend: Most of the people expressing relief that Kirk can do no more harm or anger toward him were members of marginalized communities, queer folks, people of color, immigrants, the very groups Kirk spent years demonizing. Most of the people lecturing them about how they “should” grieve were conservative, heterosexual, white Christians. It was the familiar dynamic of the oppressor demanding “civility” while never practicing it themselves, what Mike Greer aptly called “the tyranny of niceness.”
Let’s be clear: Violence is always terrible. You, and anyone who knows me at all or who has read my published work, know I’m a committed pacifist who abhors all violence, even violence to my enemies. I’ve published three books and a few essays that address it from different angles because it is so important to me. What happened to Charlie Kirk shouldn’t have happened (even as he helped create and sustain the very culture that made it possible). From a human perspective, it was evil. Killing someone, as far as I am concerned, is always evil.
But we should no less condemn the violence inflicted by our own government upon so many through the continuation of the death penalty and the whole system of mass incarceration that demonstrably targets poor and minority people, for example. And we also need to be honest about people’s lives, both those who are mourning because they’ve lost a loved one and those who are rejoicing because this man can no longer hurt them, although his rhetoric will continue to do so for years.
“The sudden, violent death of a man like Kirk will stir up complicated emotions.”
Hypocrisy
The sudden, violent death of a man like Kirk will stir up complicated emotions. When you dedicate your life to oppressing, demeaning and dehumanizing others, those others are going to have strong feelings when you’re suddenly gone. Expecting them to respond with saintly forgiveness while you’ve been silent about, or actually quite vocal in favor of, their suffering is not grace, it’s hypocrisy.
And here’s where that hypocrisy cuts deepest. Many of Kirk’s defenders have acted as if his assassination proves we live in a world of moral chaos, yet they remained silent, or celebrated, when Kirk himself actively celebrated murder or incited political violence.
After Paul Pelosi was bludgeoned, Kirk urged his audience to bail the attacker out, as just one example. Others are easily findable and verifiable. He celebrated the harm of Democrats and liberals, so where were all these condemning voices then? Where were the appeals to charity, to restraint, to Christian virtue?
This is not a theoretical point or whataboutism, it’s a practical lesson in selective outrage and false piety. It reminds me painfully of Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who cries ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
Some of those folks told me Kirk called upon God’s name and invoked Christian righteousness and yet, so far as I can tell from reading about him, Kirk did the opposite of love and justice. Many of his defenders are now in the same boat, crying “Lord” while remaining indifferent to the suffering of the oppressed.
Yet I know folks in my circle are praying for Kirk’s family and friends, and I think and hope a lot of people are praying that this doesn’t lead to even more violence, as some are already calling for, and even threatening it.
I’ve seen people from LGBTQ communities, people of color and other marginalized groups say they aren’t celebrating his death, but rather they are merely relieved he can’t harm them anymore. That response is not cruel, it’s survival. As someone said, “Celebrate no one’s death, but rejoice that they can deceive and harm no more.”
“Folks have had more empathy for Charlie Kirk in two hours than they’ve shown for the starving kids of Gaza over the past two years.”
Meanwhile, many of the same people condemning me for merely asking a question have been unrelenting in their support of Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian children, as Kirk was. Someone else pointed out that folks have had more empathy for Charlie Kirk in two hours than they’ve shown for the starving kids of Gaza over the past two years. That tells me everything I need to know about where their true loyalties lie, and it isn’t with truth, justice or even grace.
No exemplar
And now, almost instantly, Kirk has been recast as some sort of free speech hero or Christian exemplar. Both are simply false. Charlie Kirk didn’t champion free speech; he used his platform to intimidate professors, silence dissent and police thought on college campuses, for starters. He built his fame on ideological purges, not open dialogue. For anyone to claims otherwise is absurd and demonstrably false.
As for portraying him as a faithful Christian, that is even more dangerous. Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Kirk thrived on division over either trivial or outright morally offensive issues that sought power and to silence dissenters, not encourage them.
Jesus welcomed the outcast. Kirk mocked and marginalized them. Jesus wept with the hurting. Kirk openly despised empathy itself, calling it “toxic.”
To call Kirk a Christian exemplar is to confuse cultural Christianity for the actual gospel, and I’ve seen a lot of folks doing that in their eulogizing. I should remind folks, that ultimately I am a universalist, so I trust that one way or the other Kirk will become a friend of God and even a friend of mine someday.
“To call Kirk a Christian exemplar is to confuse cultural Christianity for the actual gospel.”
What disturbed me most through all this wasn’t just the hypocrisy. It was how many of the loudest voices demanding charity for Kirk live such unconvincing moral lives. They don’t speak when the vulnerable are under attack. They don’t challenge injustice unless it’s their side being criticized. They demand civility while spitting cruelty. And they only show up when they can be offended at “liberals” or anyone outside their camp. Why should I take their moralizing seriously when their lives so plainly reveal their true priorities?
Here is what I believe: We shouldn’t celebrate when anyone is shot. We also shouldn’t rewrite history to turn a violent, hateful man into a saint. It is possible, necessary even, to say both, “This death is tragic,” and “This life caused great harm.”
Shirley Chisholm demonstrated this kind of truth-telling when she visited segregationist George Wallace in his hospital bed after he was shot, praying with him and expressing sorrow for his pain, without ever excusing the evil he had done.
That is the kind of clarity we need now. Not saccharine eulogies. Not false unity built on silencing the oppressed. Not sentimental lies about free speech or Christian virtue. Just the truth, told plainly. Charlie Kirk’s death was a tragedy. Charlie Kirk’s life was a tragedy too, a life spent serving mammon and power, leaving behind a legacy of harm that no amount of posthumous whitewashing can erase.
My question never was about celebrating death. It was about whether we, as Christians, will finally stop lying to ourselves and to the world about what faithfulness looks like, about who we defend and about whose lives we value.
Should we pray for God to end the work or even the lives of some people? Dictators? Terrorist leaders? Genocidal governments? And, if we should, then how should we respond if that prayer is answered? That was what I was trying to ask. I get it. Some folks don’t like the timing, but I don’t think we should hold back honest thoughts, especially questions, simply because someone just died, even if that death was tragic.
I hope people are honest about my life when I die, and I hope I’ve lived a life I want people to be honest about.
Justin Bronson Barringer is a scholar, minister, educator and consultant deeply involved in community outreach and development. With a Ph.D. from Southern Methodist University, he teaches religion and ethics and has served on staff in outreach roles at various churches across denominations. He writes regularly at epistlesfrombabylon.substack.com/.