Charlie Kirk speaks at an event. (Photo by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons)
“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” – Leonard Bernstein, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy
FāVS News | Sept. 15, 2025
When I read or listen to the news, I often think: What is God calling us, specifically as Christians, to say and do in response to this moment?
It is so effortless for me to take pre-existing political talking points — they are waiting for me like TV dinners, ready to heat up and serve — to sprinkle the salt of a couple of Biblical proof texts on top of them and to call that my response. Maybe you share this facile temptation with me.
But I reckon that God expects something more robust of us than that.
As I sit this day with the news of still another act of political violence — an echo of the 1960s and 1970s and the murders and bombings that were a regular part of our nation in those days — I am asking myself this question anew: What is God calling us, specifically as Christians, to say and do in response to the murder of Charlie Kirk?
My hunch is that the answer is waiting for us in the gospel.
Over and over, Jesus has the opportunity to engage in violence. Over and over, his disciples ask if they should engage in violence. Over and over, such violence seems like it might well be justifiable and reasonable.
And over and over, Jesus says no.
Consider Matthew 26:52-53, in which Judas and the soldiers come to confront Jesus in Gethsemane. When one of Jesus’ friends draws forth a sword and cuts off the ear of one of Jesus’ persecutors, Jesus tells his friend to put the sword away. “For all who take the sword will perish by the sword,” he says.
And then he adds, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” In other words, Do you not think I could summon an army and respond to this moment with violence? And yet I will not.
Consider Luke 9:52-55, in which the inhabitants of a village reject Jesus. John and James, righteously offended on his behalf, ask him, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Apparently the disciples can call down fire!) But Jesus rebukes them.
Or consider 100% of the resurrection stories. If anyone is owed revenge, surely it is Jesus after the cross. If anyone has the capacity and the power to enact revenge, surely it is our risen Lord. And yet not one of the resurrection stories is about Jesus mopping the floor with Pilate, his soldiers and the religious authorities. They are, all of them, about sharing food, about forgiveness, about healing.
There are many more gospel examples upon which we could draw.
The example of Jesus, in response to the murder of Charlie Kirk, in response to political violence more broadly, is to say: Murder is wrong.
And then to add neither a comma nor a but nor a footnote nor any other kind of caveat.
I suspect that you have seen and heard many such caveats these last two days. Yes, murder is wrong, but Kirk encouraged hatred and violence. Yes, murder is wrong, but I’m not sad it happened. Yes, murder is wrong, but look at what he said about people like me.
There is nothing easy about this. As some of the disciples say in John 6:60, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” I hope that you and I will do the hard work — and I acknowledge that if Kirk hurt you then Jesus’ example will be an especially difficult one for you to follow today — of renouncing these caveats.
And that leads me to a sentence that caused me to debate with myself at some length before I wrote it. That’s because my next sentence goes: None of this is to endorse let alone celebrate the words or actions of Kirk.
I imagine that you will see immediately why I struggled over adding that sentence. That’s because this sentence represents precisely the caveat that I entreated us, as Christians, not to add to the sentence “Murder is wrong.”
I did add this caveat — with deep reluctance — because we are so culturally conditioned to engage in binary thinking that we infer binaries even when no one has stated them. Saying murder is wrong is not my coming out party as a member of the far right, and it is not my apology for the routinely repugnant words of Kirk. No. It is my ongoing confession as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
My reluctant caveat named, let me conclude by returning to my three-word sentence, this time without caveat.
Murder is wrong.
If we are to once again find our way as moral grownups, as human beings, as citizens, and as Christians, we need to recommit to the clarity of that sentence. Jesus expects better of us than recycled talking points dressed up in his name. Jesus — in his earthly ministry and in his resurrection — refuses to perpetrate or to celebrate or to excuse violence, the horrors that he endures on the cross notwithstanding. Our calling as his followers is to do likewise.
The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News. FāVS News values diverse perspectives and thoughtful analysis on matters of faith and spirituality.