Murder is always wrong. No cause, no grievance, no ideology ever justifies taking a human life. Charlie Kirk’s children and family are suffering an immeasurable loss, and nothing can erase that pain. But we must be clear: the man who pulled the trigger did not advance freedom. He set it back, turning Kirk into something he was not—a martyr.
Charlie Kirk was no martyr for freedom. He was a provocateur who built his platform on rhetoric that leaned heavily on distortion and division. He once denounced the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a “huge mistake” and reversed his earlier admiration for Martin Luther King Jr., eventually labeling him “awful” and a “mythological anti-racist creation.” Those words were not the voice of liberty but of warped ideology.
And yet, the man who killed him was no champion of truth either. Reports suggest his motives were bound up with pro-LGBTQIA activism—a cause corrupted, just as Kirk’s own politics were. This is the nature of evil: it plays all sides. Satan does not care whether you march under the banner of nationalism or progressivism. His purpose is to sow hate, division, and ultimately destruction.
The tragedy of Kirk’s death underscores a deeper truth: when Christians tie themselves to politics, they risk becoming corrupted by it. Even the late Billy Graham, who once stood beside presidents from the left and the right and successfully navigated the political terrain in a neutral manner, eventually realized he was sometimes compromised by political alliances. By the late 1970s, he vowed never again to endorse candidates because he knew that the Gospel loses its purity when it is wielded as a political weapon. As he said in 2011. “I also would have steered clear of politics. I’m grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places. ... But looking back I know I sometimes crossed the line, and I wouldn’t do that now.”
Donald Trump’s so-called “Christianity” is no faith at all. And Kirk, tethered to that movement, became a distorted messenger of faith twisted into politics. Too many believers have confused political battles with spiritual ones, and in doing so, they’ve abandoned the words of Christ Himself: “My kingdom is not of this world.”
I love politics. I believe civic engagement has its place. But Christians would well to also take Jesus’s warning seriously. To Christians his Kingdom is eternal—it does not rise or fall on elections, court rulings, or partisan agendas. The answer is not to pick sides in a broken political game where both players are compromised. The answer is to follow faithfully, remembering that mission is not to save a political order but to save souls.
Murder is evil. Political idolatry is dangerous. And the way forward is not in Washington, not in culture wars, but in a Kingdom not of this world.
Comments