Erika Kirk says she forgives the man accused of killing her husband : NPR
Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, speaks to the commemorative service for the right -wing activist at the Glendale Stadium Stadium, Arizona, Sunday.
Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images
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Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images
Erika Kirk, widow of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, said that she was forgiving her husband’s alleged killer.
“This man, this young man … I forgive him,” said Kirk, wiping tears while the public of the Kirk memorial at the Glendale Stadium Stadium, Arizona, broke out on Sunday in applause.
“I forgive him because that was what Christ did and that is what Charlie would do,” she said. “The answer to hatred is not hatred. The answer we know of the Gospel is love and always love. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”
Last week, the prosecutors deposited accusations of murder against Tyler Robinson, 22. The officials said that Robinson admitted to having shot Kirk to his roommate, saying in a text message: “I was enough of his hatred.”
Erika Kirk, who is 36 years old and the mother of two young children, described in tears the moment when she saw her husband’s body at Utah hospital, a few hours after being shot in the neck while debating students at Utah Valley University.
“I saw the injury that ended his life … I felt a shock, I felt horror and a level of sorrow that I did not even know existing,” said Kirk. “But even in death, I could see the man I loved. I saw the only gray hair on the side of his head, which I never told him about. I also saw in his weakest smile lips. It revealed to me a great mercy of God in this tragedy. When I saw that, it told me that Charlie had not suffered.”
Addressing tens of thousands of people at the stadium, Kirk said she had found comfort in prayer and also in the way people had responded to the death of her husband.
“We have not seen any violence, we have not seen riots. We have not seen the revolution. Instead, we have seen what my husband has always prayed, he would see in this country: we have seen the renewal. We saw people open a Bible for the first time in a decade,” she said, urging people to do so.
“Pray again, reread the Bible, go to church next Sunday, and Sunday after that and free themselves from the temptations and chains of this world,” Kirk said.
His remarks were contrasting striking both with the vice-president and the president, who reserved his speech. Vice-president Vance said that “Evil still works among us” and that society “should not ignore it for a false Kumbaya moment”. President Trump said, “I hate my opponents and I don’t want the best for them.”
The emphasis on the family
Kirk had another message for the crowd, saying that the “greatest cause of Charlie’s life was trying to relaunch the American family”.
“When he spoke to young people, it was always impatient to tell them about the vision of God for marriage and how if they could simply dare to live it, that would enrich each part of their lives in the same way as that enriched ours,” she said.
She told men in the public to follow the example of her husband in a Christian marriage where they are the spiritual leaders of the family, who love and direct their wives and protect their children.
“Please be a leader who is worth being followed,” said Kirk. “Your wife is not your servant. Your wife is not your employee. Your wife is not your slave. It is your help. You are not rival. You are a flesh, working together for the glory of God.”
Kirk compared her husband to a deceased martyr by making the will of God. She said, when her husband had died far too early “, he was ready to die, he left this world without regret” because he had done “100% of what he wanted to do every day”.
“He died with incomplete work but not with unfinished business,” said Kirk.
Last week, Kirk was appointed new CEO of Turning Point USA, the organization of right -wing youth that her late husband founded.
