The Strange Thing I’ve Noticed Since Charlie Kirk’s Murder
‘Terrible news about Charlie Kirk this morning’.
I read my friend’s text on Thursday morning, Sydney time, with a sense of foreboding.
Please God, no, I thought. This is not what America or the West needs (more political violence). But, as we now know, that’s what it was.
Since then, social media went into meltdown as millions of people tried to process this horrific event. Struggling to make sense of it. Mourning. Grieving. Crying. (But, in some cases, celebrating).
His death has been felt all over the world.
A bunch of New Zealand Maoris danced a Haka in honour of him. A UK crowd sang Amazing Grace while commemorating him in London. Here in Australia, a vigil was held in the heart of Sydney for him. And then I came across this quote that seems to exemplify how many feel about him:
I am an atheist and a gay guy, yet I was one of Charlie's biggest fans. I had nothing but respect for this wonderful man. Today I cried for the first time in years over the death of a man I never even met. I'm devastated. I'm so sorry, Charlie, for you, your beautiful wife and your children who will never know you. RIP, buddy.
I’m also seeing tweets like this, where many people, in the light of his death, are thinking about going to church, possibly for the first time or in a long time:
But I’m also noticing something strange, something unexpected in the aftermath of something so horrific at such a time of heightened polarisation.
And it was captured by this tweet:
1) Despite this act of political violence at such a polarised time, there is no violence or threat of violence from Turning Points USA or Charlie’s closest supporters
Now, there’s fear over what may happen as a result of this assassination.
I’ve heard one prominent commentator say it feels like a line has been crossed with the death of Kirk, and it’s uncertain whether America will recover. Another raised the question of whether the US republic can last.
And yet, there is a complete lack of violence on the part of Turning Point USA or their supporters (at the time of this writing).
Whatever you may think of Charlie Kirk, he wasn’t one to promote or stoke violence. Quite the opposite. As he said in a viral video, he believed in dialogue with those who disagreed; he feared that without dialogue, people would turn to violence against each other.
And thus far, this generosity toward those who disagreed with him seems to be animating his supporters.
2) Contrast this with the death of George Floyd; violence broke out the next day and lasted across America for months.
Considering such a horrific murder that has taken over our social media feeds, it’s impossible not to compare this with another death captured on social media: the killing of George Floyd on that fateful summer day in 2020.
Within a day of Floyd’s killing, BLM-inspired protests had broken out across America, quickly devolving into looting and property damage.
And these protests continued for months. Autonomous zones were set up in the heart of cities. Businesses were smashed. Cars were burned. The rage of BLM supporters was at fever pitch, with the protests causing over one billion dollars’ worth of damage.
But, in contrast, no violence from Kirk’s supporters. No rampaging young men. No smashed windows. No torched cars.
And so, it’s worth asking the question:
Why?
In light of Kirk’s horrific killing, why is there no violence by Kirk’s supporters?
After all, Charlie’s closest supporters are not the elderly in nursing homes. They’re university students – especially young men. The very cohort of people who are full of emotion and energy, capable of protest and violence.
What’s going on here?
3) Ideas have consequences. And the core ideas that animate BLM and its supporters are very different to the core ideas that animate Charlie Kirk and TP USA, leading to different consequences
As Professor Richard Weaver said many years ago, ideas have consequences.
And the ideas that animate groups like BLM are very different to the core ideas that animated Kirk, and continue to animate TP USA.
In particular, BLM has consciously repudiated the colourblind MLK-type civil rights framework, where a person should be judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character, and instead has turned to critical Theory (aka cultural Marxism) to understand and engage with society.
In this view, society is neatly divided into oppressed and oppressor categories (based on immutable characteristics such as skin colour). The oppressors have full moral culpability for their actions, while the oppressed have almost no moral culpability. And where violence is a normal and even an acceptable response to oppression by the oppressed.
Furthermore, violence has been redefined from physical to psychological categories: words can be considered violence. Silence can be violence.
Thus, the door is held wide open for BLM supporters to use physical violence against those deemed to be oppressors, for the sake of uplifting and liberating those deemed to be oppressed.
Or to put it another way, BLM ideology has a permission structure that allows for violence towards those deemed ‘oppressors’. [1]
And we saw that permission structure unleash violence and destruction on a billion-dollar scale in 2020, often on innocent businesses and property owners.
And lest we think that this ideological support of violence is a fringe feature of some political radicals on the left, a US survey recently found that 1 in 3 university (college) students in the US believe violence is acceptable to stop a speech on campus.
1 in 3.
It’s no secret that higher education in the US and across much of the West has, by and large, been ideologically captured by this cultural Marxist ideology. And it’s this ideology that is inculcating – or perhaps better put, radicalising – the next generation with the belief that violence can be legitimate against speech you don’t like.
(It’s worth noting that the online ‘woke right’ is also prepared to use violence, and is gaining ground among disaffected younger men).
Now, let’s compare this ideology to the beliefs that motivated Charlie Kirk.
Whatever your view of Kirk’s politics, even his many detractors (such as the Australian ABC’s ‘Planet America’) were clear that he was committed to peaceful dialogue with those who held opposing views.
And undergirding that view, as Kirk himself pointed out many times, was his belief in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Christian gospel is a gospel that sees all people as being made in the image of God, regardless of gender, skin colour, or background.
It’s a gospel that promotes love for your enemies, not violence toward them.
It’s a gospel that calls for doing good and praying for those who persecute you.
It’s a gospel that removes vengeance from our hands, and places it in God’s hands.
It’s a gospel that slams the door on personal retribution and violence.
Charlie Kirk lived—and died—by this gospel.
And in response to his murder, his supporters are too.
Let’s pray that they continue to hold onto this gospel and that God may use this awful event to spread His gospel far and wide.
That’s what our fractured world needs more than ever.
‘Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good’ (Rom 12:21)
[1] It’s worth pointing out that the global BLM organisation recently put out a statement condemning the shooting of Charlie Kirk: https://blacklivesmatter.com/a-statement-on-political-violence/
Social media photo: By Gage Skidmore - https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/54670961811/, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=172612805