The Politics of Faith After Charlie Kirk

In the fourteenth verse of the first chapter of the Gospel of John, the text explains the entry of Jesus Christ in the world in two brief sentences: “Word has become flesh and made its home among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son, who came from the father, full of grace and truth. ” It is this duality in Jesus – not to oppose exactly to principles but of those that exist in a sort of equipment – that is to say the enigma at the heart of the Christian message: the grace of God presents itself in the form of his unconditional love, but he also judges on his truth. The disciples of Jesus are supposed to imitate him by loving their enemies, but also, as the apostle Paul exhorts in the Ephesians, to “put the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil arrives, you can perhaps hold your ground”.

Last year, George Janko, an actor and influencer of social media, welcomed conservative activist Charlie Kirk on his podcast. Kirk had constituted his reputation as an imperious and right avenger on university campuses, debating any person having to go to the microphone to challenge him. Janko asked Kirk if he felt guilty for “destroying a child” during these appearances. Kirk admitted that he felt badly, if he seemed to be “unfair”. He did not explain what he meant by that, and Janko failed to press him on the question or his incendiary statements concerning blacks, the LGBTQ community and other groups, but, as Kirk saw, the problem on university campuses was that “the whole institution” – he generally seemed to speak – “in contradiction with the law of God”. Kirk said it was important to remember that “Christ is all grace and all truth”, signaling with his hands on his left and his right, as if to underline their bidirectional relationship. Consequently, Kirk said, if he “disputed in the public arena for the truth”, and his angry words against someone, he was not disobedient to the teachings of Christ. He argued that it was his responsibility, as a Christian, to “correct the truth of truth”.

Kirk seemed to reflect on what his pugnacious could say about his personal character as a Christian. At one point of the podcast, he rocked, from memory, the fruit of the mind, the qualities that Paul listed in his letter to the Galatians as proof of the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believers. Kirk mentioned love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, kindness, sweetness and self -control. He said he had the most difficulty with self -control. Nevertheless, Kirk believed that his appeal from God should be a fighter, a fighter in cultural wars. “Some people are called upon to heal the sick,” he said. “Some people are called upon to repair broken weddings.” Kirk said his appeal was “to fight evil and proclaim the truth. That’s all ”.

It is this martial spirit that has permeated a large part of the Maga The reaction of the world to the death of Kirk. Two days after her murder, his wife, Erika, published an emotional video on Instagram, in which she thanked the first speakers who tried to save her husband’s life, and president Trump, vice-president JD Vance, and his wife, USHA, for their support, among others, but she finished on a note of Providence. “If you thought my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea,” she said. “You have no idea what you just triggered in all this country, and this world. You have no idea. You have no idea of ​​the fire you have ignited in this woman. The cries of this widow resonate in the world as a battle cry. ” The following Sunday, in Plano, Texas, in Prestonwood Baptist Church, one of the largest mega-churches in the country, Reverend Jack Graham, qualified Kirk as a warrior and a martyr, then played a video generated by Ai-Kirk, speaking of Beyond The Grave. “Do not waste a second in mourning,” he says. “Double the truth, double courage, double your faith and your families.” Kirk’s cloned voice picks up the speed and emergency, while it forces listeners to “dry your tears, take your cross and return to the fight”. As if they answered a call to the altar, the faithful of the Prestonwood cavernium auditorium got up for prolonged ovation.

Then, last week, during a commemorative service for Kirk at the State Farm Stadium, in Glendale, Arizona, his widow gave a particularly different tone, invoking the Gospel of Luke, in which Jesus on the cross says: “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.” In this spirit, Erika Kirk said that she had forgiven her husband’s shooter. “The response to hatred is not hatred,” she said. “The answer, we know of the Gospel, is love and always love: love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.” Many of those who took the stage before and after her, however, spoke the language not of forgiveness but of the piper for the battle. The result was a surprising spectacle of religious and political triumphalism. Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff of the White House, said: “The day Charlie died, the angels cried, but these tears were transformed into fire in our hearts. And that the fire burns with a fairly fury that our enemies cannot understand or understand. ” President Trump, the last president of the day, noted that Kirk was a “martyr now for American freedom” and denounced his killer as a “radicalized and cold blood”. Trump congratulated Kirk as a man who “wanted the best” for his opponents. But Trump said that is where he and Kirk separated. “I hate my opponents,” he said. “I don’t want the best for them.”

The overwhelming sensation at the moment of American politics is precariousness. It remains to be seen how the evangelicals cried Kirk’s death will react. Will they see it as their duty to put the armor of God, like soldiers, or will they feel called to a different approach? Dallas Willard was an evangelical thinker and professor of influential philosophy at the University of Southern California, who died in 2013. His ability to walk in metaphysics and theology with a popular audience made him a kind of modern CS Lewis. Two years after Willard’s death, his daughter, Rebecca, published a collection of her conferences and writings entitled “The attraction of sweetness: defending faith in the manner of Jesus”. Willard believed that the Ministry of Apologetics in the Church – the work of defense of the Christian faith against his criticisms – had too concentrated on “intellectual debates and arguments”, and he warned believers against the adoption “of an antagonent and arrogant spirit” when he engages with the challenges. He wrote that Christian apologetics should be characterized by its sweetness, because “what we seek to defend or explain is Jesus himself, who is a gentle and loving shepherd. If we are not sweet in the way we present the good news, how do people meet the sweet and loving messiah that we want to indicate? ”