Over the past several weeks, my mind has called back to the words of 1 Corinthians 13:6 over and again as high-profile death announcements flash across my feeds: “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth.”
I learned about the death of James Dobson from TikTok, just a few hours after his death was announced publicly. In the video, the creator wished Dobson’s legacy be “ruined and then forgotten,” a fair nod to the language of imprecatory psalms such as Psalm 109.
I shared the video in a group chat of ministry friends, thinking primarily of informing them of the death.
Val Fisk
Over the following 48 hours, my feeds were inundated with a variety of creators who identify themselves as “post-Christian” or “exvangelical Christian” commenting on Dobson’s death. I was shocked how many of those videos, threads and posts were celebrating Dobson’s death without reserve.
I grew up deeply enmeshed in the culture of Focus on the Family. In my childhood home, we had a period of several years where we were not allowed to participate in Halloween, largely due to Focus on the Family’s influence on my mother. We listened to Adventures in Odyssey tapes and radio broadcasts voraciously and borrowed McGee and Me! video tapes from our church library. For better or for worse, much of what I know and understand about Christian Scripture started with those resources.
There are results of that broadly conservative upbringing that I now identify as harmful — the overwhelming focus on hell and the end times; the encouragement of spanking and physical punishment; the internalized homophobia I carried through my 20s before finally coming out at 30 years of age; the purity culture focus on modesty that created a harmful relationship between myself and my own female body.
Without question, I do not want to see those pieces of James Dobson’s legacy continue to shape the lives of more people.
I can now say much the same about the death of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk. Many of the same creators and influential voices of post-Christian or progressive Christian opinions that celebrated the death of James Dobson are celebrating the end of Kirk’s influence in this world.
To be clear, I disagreed with Kirk on essentially every opinion he ever shared in the public realm. However, I cannot see the benefit in unreservedly and publicly celebrating the death of a human being created in the image of God.
“I cannot see the benefit in unreservedly and publicly celebrating the death of a human being created in the image of God.”
I am convinced God has created all people with great capacity for creative love, but all people also contain great capacity for causing harm to others. Each of us functions in this world creating love and causing harm daily. Some people do more harm than others, certainly, and I want to be adamant in speaking out against harmful and hateful discourse, ideology and the use of theology as a support for hateful rhetoric.
Despite their harmful and at times hateful rhetoric, James Dobson and Charlie Kirk both leave behind families and close communities that will grieve them. They both claimed to worship the same God in whom I claim faith. I am, therefore, called by God to speak truth and love in the face of their harm, but I am also called to show grace in all circumstances.
James Dobson
On the day I shared news of Dobson’s death with my friends, one of them directed us to the words of Lura Groen, written in response to the death of Pat Robertson in 2023: “He is being surprised by Love. I do not know if discovering the vastness of God’s love is hell for him, or heaven. Perhaps a little of both. That’s above my pay grade. But Divine Love has him now.”
Charlie Kirk did not deserve the assassination that ended his life; no person deserves the indignity of being publicly executed in an act of political violence, which will in the end only create more violence and harmful division in our world.
Public theologian and writer Brian Recker wrote on Threads: “The question is not, what did Charlie deserve? The question is, what kind of world do we want to build? Richard Rohr says, ‘How you get there is where you arrive.’ I personally don’t want to live in a world of gun violence — you cannot build the beloved community on a pile of the bodies of your enemies.”
I will not be celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk. I think his political views were harmful and his public presence was a terrible representation of young Christians in our world, but I will not celebrate his tragic death. I will pray for his wife and children in their grief and hope they experience God’s all-encompassing love.
I do not celebrate the death of James Dobson. I know his theological influence harmed me in life, and for that harm, I offer forgiveness, for that is what Christ calls me to do. Forgiveness is a balm to help heal the harm I experienced.
James Dobson certainly was not the only influential figure who contributed to my harm, but through years of therapy, deconstruction and reconstruction of my faith, I have come to understand that those people who taught me harmful theology were truly attempting to serve God well.
I want to build a world that rejoices in the truth, not in the death of those we identify as harmful in some way, particularly because I know I have caused harm to others. I hold within myself a great ability to cause harm, and I am certain that somewhere in the world, there are people who think of me as their enemy.
I hope when I die, my death will not be cause for anyone to celebrate. I am holding onto hope that at the end of my days, I too will be surprised by the vastness of God’s love and the inclusion beyond my wildest dreams.
Val Fisk serves as basic needs case manager in the office of Care and Support Services at the University of Virginia, where she supports students who are facing financial and personal hardships. After years in youth and college ministry, Val now enjoys offering Enneagram workshops and spiritual retreat planning for all generations.
Related articles:
We are all complicit in Charlie Kirk’s death | Analysis by Rodney Kennedy
James Dobson’s America | Opinion by Ryan Clark