I felt the same way about the news of Kirk’s murder: it really stirred something in me—something deep, dark, and unexpected. You hit every point in this article, Samuel. And you are writing with such passion; I can feel it. We must all look beyond ourselves to the risen Lord if we are to truly move towards peace and harmony. Thank you!
I'm hearing a lot of "you have to agree with Kirk's agenda now because of what happened" and sentiments like today. And I have to say... I really don't. His view of government and his unorthodox religious views (yes, I do think that his religious views break from orthodox Christianity) are areas that I have critical differences with him. And that is why we need more people synthesizing their disagreements with him with the truth that murder is still immoral. What you might think is a disclaimer from people is in fact people trying to get our way out of this violent mess.
Something I appreciated about this piece is that it's a voice that helps me understand how people felt about Charlie Kirk. And how deeply. I confess, his was a voice I largely tuned out and ignored. Ever since 2016, I have retreated more and more from digital spaces where his thrived. To be honest, I saw and heard enough from him to know I wasn't really interested in his "thing" and I wrote him off. I would occasionally see video clips of him debating or having conversations with college students and I always thought this kind of exchange seemed bold and something that was really useful, but I often really didn't like the way he handled himself while doing so. The truth is offensive, as you illustrate here, but I do think he often intended to add vinegar to the wounds. Unnecessarily. But I also am not part of his target. I'm just a bit older than he was and definitely not as comfortable with American Republicans being so neatly allied with Christianity as he was. I ignored him and was truly oblivious to the scope of his influence.
This piece really helps shed light on how deeply people are feeling about this. And really, some of his real strengths and the positive contributions he made. I'm sorry I'm getting to know these things this way. I never thought much about him. Certainly never wasted my time stewing about him. It was just... a blind spot. And this sheds some light. So thank you for doing that. Even being ignorant about him, it was grievous to me that a 31 year old man, a husband and father, was murdered in front of the world like that. That's sad all on its own. And the fact that his death would only make people more angry and sad... it just compounds it all. This piece makes it even more sad, if that were possible. So thank you for doing that well.
I am curious about the choice, the tactic here, though. To be frank, it struck me as misguided. I was surprised by that, considering your voice is one that I usually seem to find at least in the same neighborhood as my own way of thinking. I've tried to sit with this for some time to sort out reactions from responses and understand what I am thinking and why.
I am not bothered by the assumption that the murderer was a progressive ideologue. We don't know it's true, but it seems a fair assumption. I think we all know that it's an assumption. That's fine (to me). I am more troubled by the fact that you have decided to take a pivot (in this instance) towards specifically using his death to illustrate how evil progressivism is in particular. I would feel very confident saying I hold the vast majority (if not all) of the same ethical convictions as you, and likely the same for theological convictions as well. I find secular progressivism irrational, reactive, and very much wandered far afield from good and true moral reasoning.
But I have a hard time looking at Kirk's murder and saying, "See this is proof that progressivism is uniquely evil." I get that Charlie Kirk was special because of his influence. But I don't see why the many mass shooters with deeply anti-semitic, fascistic, "paleo-conservative" (fill in descriptor as you'd like) manifestos left behind do not lead to at least a similar conclusion about secular "conservatism." Why do the "conservative" ramblings and warped, twisted thinking that has buttressed acts of mass racial violence or politically motivated killings receive a different category of interpretation in the analysis of current cultural infection and despair? I have to say, I disagree with the focus and diagnosis here.
I don't think that's what is required is trite both side-ism. I do think secular progressivism identity politics and inability to provide any cogent moral reasoning is uniquely bad. But... can we look at who secular conservatives (and this is what I would argue much of modern American political conservatism is actually animated by- unchurched conservatism) have gathered around and what has been excused and celebrated? Doesn't it look like... moral relativism and a lack of consistent moral reasoning?
See, I do believe there is a real moral numbness introduced by godlessness. I just really do not see how it is a uniquely progressive problem. I do see that facet of the diagnosis presenting on both sides, which is why we see violence on both sides. That thing, the thing I think you kind of put your finger on, really isn't confined to progressivism the way you seem to describe here. By way of example, when you described the opportunity for leadership from conservatives, surely I wasn't the only who huffed and said, "Like we'll see that. Yeah right." Because this numbed, angry, godless state... it's everywhere, wearing red and blue.
Anyway, regardless of how right or wrong I am on how I'm reading and responding to you, your piece did remind me that my best work is to continue to move myself, my immediate family, my children, my church family, always and ever closer to finding primary identity in belonging to Christ. It would be easy to despair for this country, for this world, and for whatever grandchildren I might receive who will live in this world. But my comfort is in belonging to Christ Jesus. I pray that all of our hearts together would never feel the debilitating, murderous effects of a life devoid of the presence of His Spirit. For surely the thief will find us as well and do his murderous work. It's a far better thing to be a sheep of Jesus' fold.
"I have often gone out of my way to say that you don’t have to be a conservative to be a Christian. I think that’s still true, but probably not in the way I meant. There are orientations toward the world—toward nature, toward societies, toward mothers and fathers, toward marriage and children and work and death—that either reject or accept reality. American progressivism, baptized into the religion of the Sexual Revolution and identity politics, rejects reality. It sanctifies the self, and builds little fortresses for unmoored desires."
I don't think you're wrong about progressivism, when taken to its logical conclusions, but I think that statements that we make about who can fall within and who is excluded from God's grace need to be made more carefully and precisely than this one was. There are many who would identify as progressives who nevertheless would carve out exceptions in their ideology that make room for the acknowledgment and acceptance of the Gospel. And the vice of denying reality is hardly exclusive to progressives, considering especially the political orientation of our Denier-of-Reality-in-Chief.
I agree with most of what you say, but I disagree that it is only the left that is hateful. Just two months ago Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed, and State Senator John Hoffman and his wife. The assasin was NOT a progressive but on the extreme right.
I am also appauled at the fact that their was NOT the same outcry for them as their is for Charlie Kirk. Their were no flags lowered to half staff for them why not?
Why does Charlie Kirk's murder get more attention and outcry?
I am very disturbed at the degradation of this country and how fast it is descending into chaos, but to be honest BOTH sides are guilty and both sides are fomenting hate.
Charlie dedicated his life to peacefully seeking dialogue with those who disagreed with him. He brought his conservative message to young people in universities all over the country which loathed him and everyone who shared his views. He gave them the mike, listened to what they had to say, and rationally argued with them (still listening). He was something of a boy genius and he became a figure of great national and political significance. Some thought of him as a possible future POTUS. And for all that he was killed. And the left is celebrating his murder, and the assassin is at large.
I am not sure what Melissa Hortman and her husband stood for. They were not national figures. Their murder was - of course!! - wrong and the right did not celebrate it or applaud the killer, who was caught and will face justice.
The Hoffmans were shot but not killed. Both were released from the hospital. Of course (!) their shooting was wrong too. Again, they were not nationally known. Again, the right did not celebrate their attempted murder nor applaud the shooter.
Ummm, Gladys, regarding the flags at half-staff, did you forget what happened today, about twenty-four years ago? Give you a hint: it involved suicidal maniacs in airplanes.
And there was a lot of attention paid to the Minnesota shootings, until the narrative started getting complicated and it got dropped.
“In honor of Charlie Kirk, a truly Great American Patriot, I am ordering all American Flags throughout the United States lowered to Half Mast until Sunday evening at 6 P.M.,” (That's from President Trump on Truth Social).
Vance Boelter had a hit list of only Democrats and locations of Planned Parenthood centres. He's an Evangelical who was known for his strong pro-life stance. The only "complication" is that he was appointed to an advisory board by a Democratic Governor which doesn't make him a Democrat nor known by the Governor. It doesn't 100% guarantee that he was not a radical secular leftist but by that same logic you can't conclude that the person who shot Charlie Kirk is not a right-wing extremist.
I agree with much of what you wrote concerning the way in which American political life has abandoned basic moral order and its consequences. Clearly that has driven us to a dark place. We need a clear and consistent view of God’s design of embodied life: male & female, marriage (one man & one woman for life), bearing children, etc. to have a stable and well-ordered society. It’s a view that the left continues to rail against.
I couldn’t help but notice though that this whole reflection tacitly assumes this targeted killing was carried out by a progressive disciple, taking their ideology to its logical conclusion, when *at this point* there is no factual basis for believing that’s what happened.
I know it would make most sense for a progressive political opponent to do such a thing, but there are lots of other people out there with conflicting/irrational motives that don’t map cleanly onto “left vs. right”, who might want to create a spectacle by such a brazen act of murder of someone of Kirk’s stature.
Again, I would be surprised if this was the case, but I think prudence would necessitate reserving judgment until more information is known. Because if the facts turn out to refute the priors…it’s not just the left that has demonstrated itself capable of denying reality.
Just a really sad day yesterday all around for our nation, and my heart goes out to Kirk’s young family. Heartbreaking.
This was a hard piece to read - because of how horrible Charlie Kirk’s murder is, because of the raw emotion in the piece, and also because it hits close to home. As a not-very-conservative Christian, it’s very likely that I’ve watered down my beliefs under pressure from American liberalism. I appreciate the eulogy for a fellow brother in Christ who worked tirelessly to apply faith to American life.
I never really followed Charlie Kirk or paid attention to his work. If I did, I’m certain that it would be easier to see him first and foremost as a brother in Christ and that I would appreciate his “relentlessly, explicitly, and doggedly Christian” approach to living out his faith. But I didn’t. In my more mainstream / left-leaning circles, he only popped up on my radar when he pushed election conspiracy theories, promoted what I see as a toxic blending of faith and politics at Liberty University, or said something that seemed to encourage racism or violence. I appreciate that “alienating people is often both the cost of telling the truth and the first step to winning them over.” And I’ve long said that sometimes the Gospel alienates people. But sometimes we alienate people for much less worthy reasons.
And maybe it’s wrong of me to talk this way. Maybe it’s wrong to bring it up when the evil and horror of his murder is so raw. And maybe it is better to boldly engage, as Charlie Kirk did, and sometimes make mistakes and go too far and be misrepresented, than to be restrained and “respectable” for fear of rocking the boat. Certainly an unwillingness to *ever* alienate would keep us from doing a lot of good.
I really do appreciate calling out some of the spiritual and social evils that America faces. I agree that “this kind of evil” doesn’t exist “equally on both sides.” But I could, if this were the time and place, call out *other* spiritual and social evils that exist much more prominently on the right. American progressives are not unique in their desire to eliminate those who disagree. I don’t know which side, which set of evils, is worse. I’m not even sure it’s fruitful to try and say. Since I believe this, my emotions get in a snarl when I think about the life of a murdered brother in Christ who so thoroughly identified himself with one of the two sides. I appreciate C.S. Lewis’s warning in "Mere Christianity":
"The devil… always sends errors into the world in pairs – pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies upon your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors."
Let’s keep our eyes on Christ.
Sometimes the only response I know to violence and evil is to lament and to remember our hope that Christ makes all things new. "White Ribbon Day," by Delirious, is one of the best expressions I know of this.
I’ve been a pretty loyal reader of yours for years and appreciate your measured and wise approach to various topics, but something about what you’re saying here just isn’t resonating with me.
You mention the rot of the left infecting the country at a far greater and more significant speed than the right, but from where I’m looking, the fruit of Charlie Kirk’s brand of conservatism isn’t worth consuming either, and is, in my opinion, just as damaging than anything you are claiming about the left.
I’m more critical of what I observe happening on the right because they claim the name of Christ while spewing hate and division.
Charlie Kirk was bold in his convictions and had a lot of courage, but to say that his tour was solely to encourage “free speech and goodwill debate” feels a little naive. His brand of boldness and a times flat out arrogance is not one I want to teach my children to wield in the name of Christ.
You also speak with an optimism that has yet to be demonstrated by the Trump Administration. “Trump has an opportunity to bring us together “ meanwhile on the same day he blamed this all on the harmful rhetoric on the left, furthering division. Also, since when has this administration taken a moment of self reflection and consideration of how to unify people?
I understand that this was likely a raw first response to finding out about his shocking and undeserved death, but it feels very much like you are barely scratching the surface at what ails our country. I’ll tune into your posts that you say are coming about our current political climate, hoping that the thoughtfulness and wisdom I’ve come to expect from you continues to shine through.
It ultimately reads like a rehash of the same thing Christians, and conservative Christians in particular, have been told ever since the first Trump administration - that if we don't bend the knee to the MAGA movement, we are complicit in the deChristianization of our culture (as though it was ever truly Christian) and the problems that stem from the left. As if the naked attempts to gin up a soft pogrom against Haitian immigrants, the redress of illegal immigration not through due process but through shipping people off to have their rights violated, the political violence of Charlottesville and January 6th, and the vile conduct of many on the online right, aren't an affront to the Gospel.
Aristotle said that only a society made up of people capable of individual self-government (personal virtue) could ever enjoy ccllective self-government (elections).
Edmund Burke was thinking of Aristotle when he wrote: "“Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. ... Men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
Perhaps the most appropriate Burke quote is this one: "Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist."
We started down this road when we replaced Jesus's Beatitudes with John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle. And I expect it to get worse, as we show no sign of turning back anytime soon.
Side note, you use liberal and progressive in this piece in a way that implies you believe one has morphed into the other. This is not the case. The liberal (in the Enlightenment / Lockean / Millian sense) has always been an authoritarian at heart, ready to use force to defend his right to maximal individual autonomy. This is the essence of Mill.
"The liberal (in the Enlightenment / Lockean / Millian sense) has always been an authoritarian at heart, ready to use force to defend his right to maximal individual autonomy."
What the...it's authoritarian for someone to demand that you leave them alone? It might be selfish and wrong, but authoritarian it is not, unless you're one of those people who thinks that you're a slave if you're not a master.
Locke was shaped deeply by the European religious wars. His goal for his liberal society was "let's stop killing each other over rival views of God and focus on making money." But achieving it required promoted religious tolerance above religious virtue and even democracy itself (which wasn't actually that popular at the time, even with Locke.)
Locke declares himself to be for "the consent of the governed", but his actual philosophy isn't particularly democratic. His society is built on rights derived from God (a rather populist twist on the "divine right of kings") that are beyond reproach even by popular will. In practical terms, liberalism favored individual rights (codified by Locke's universal principles) above the common good (as expressed by popular will or traditional social structures.) In the quote above, Burke feared this elevation of the individual would tend to dissolve the collective bonds that hold society together. It appears he was correct.
John Stuart Mill put Locke on steroids with his Harm Principle, declaring that ANY limitation on individual choice was legitimate ONLY if said choice directly harmed another person. Mil's framework makes any defense of the common good impossible. It's why we're imploding -- a society with no collective standards or bonds or norms (any of which might limit someone's absolute freedom) can not remain cohesive. "Do as thou wilt" or "if it feels good, do it" are too weak to unify a society around.
Liberalism and democracy are naturally in tension. The two worked in parallel for a few centuries because we had 1700 years of shared Judeo-Christian moral inertia. But we've run that down and are now discovering that 1) there are limits to tolerance and 2) most of the world doesn't think universal rights are "self-evident" at all.
In our current world, someone committed to liberal principles must either accept their curtailment by democratic processes (which makes them no longer a liberal), or reject democratic processes to defend their liberal principles (which makes them an authoritarian.)
The example I give my civics students is this: does each Afghan (or Hungarian or French) citizen have an individual right to choose whether to march in a gay pride parade, or do Afghanis (or Hungarians or Frenchies) have a collective right to decide whether to allow gay pride parades? If you come down for the latter, you are a illiberal democrat. If you come down for the former, you are a liberal authoritarian.
This is a poor medium for this case. The best presentation is by Patrick Deneen in Why Liberalism Failed. He pretty much echoes Burke but it more readable. I hope that explains the premise a little better though.
The failures of American liberalism have gone far beyond the theoretical. “Progressivism’s contradictions permeate the country’s education, media, and mental health infrastructure so completely as to be unavoidable. When Kirk was shot, he was reportedly talking about rates of gun violence among transgendered Americans. This seems like a spicy topic, only because the psychological disorder of gender dysphoria has, like so many mental health problems, become an uassailable identity instead of a treatable ailment. The complete and utter failure of the American left to define man and woman has not just created moral chaos. It has abandoned mentally sick Americans, many of them teens, to the caverns of their illness.”
This is so true. We have created a world of despair for young people especially. I really fear for the future for my grandchildren and great grandchildren.
This doesn't read like a first take, which testifies to how deeply you've been pondering these patterns and principalities. As Jonathan Pageau and Jordan Hall has said, the only way to prevent societal apocalypse in moments like this is to courageously seek the "day of the Lord" in your own heart first, then to cultivate the same in others.
What kind of world will my infant grow up in? What will be the spirits of the age whose siren songs only Christ can overcome?
I am going to be sleeping on and then writing an article on II Corinthians 4.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. (II Corinthians 4:7-12)
I hope somehow that Christ's life may be revealed in what feels like a horrific and senseless act of violence.
I have the same thoughts: this is different. Heavier. I wrote about it this morning at The Anglican. But I am also reading about people (on X) who are softening their hearts for the Gospel and for the church. They say they'll be in church.
One post like this:
This is exactly how I feel. I'm agnostic too but l've been thinking of going back to church lately and can't put my finger on why. I think I'll go this Sunday, too.
Another:
I've been gone for a while. But I'm going back to church on Sunday I can't handle the weight of this world on my own, I need more of Jesus, I need to be in a room where everyone comes as they are, you can feel the emotions in the room, hands up praising, people crying,
And this:
I still can't sleep. l've been up since 4:45am. This gut feeling I have is so weird. I can't figure out what it means or why I'm feeling it but I can't shake it either. Something has shifted & my soul is uncomfortable. The atmosphere even feels different. I'm probably just being weird but something is off.
I hope and trust that the church will rise to meet the challenge of welcoming people.
Antisemitic comments will be removed and the users banned. One-strike policy. Thank you.
Thank you for the moderating; it's got to be tough when people are posting such awful stuff.
I felt the same way about the news of Kirk’s murder: it really stirred something in me—something deep, dark, and unexpected. You hit every point in this article, Samuel. And you are writing with such passion; I can feel it. We must all look beyond ourselves to the risen Lord if we are to truly move towards peace and harmony. Thank you!
I appreciate the sentiment.
I'm hearing a lot of "you have to agree with Kirk's agenda now because of what happened" and sentiments like today. And I have to say... I really don't. His view of government and his unorthodox religious views (yes, I do think that his religious views break from orthodox Christianity) are areas that I have critical differences with him. And that is why we need more people synthesizing their disagreements with him with the truth that murder is still immoral. What you might think is a disclaimer from people is in fact people trying to get our way out of this violent mess.
Something I appreciated about this piece is that it's a voice that helps me understand how people felt about Charlie Kirk. And how deeply. I confess, his was a voice I largely tuned out and ignored. Ever since 2016, I have retreated more and more from digital spaces where his thrived. To be honest, I saw and heard enough from him to know I wasn't really interested in his "thing" and I wrote him off. I would occasionally see video clips of him debating or having conversations with college students and I always thought this kind of exchange seemed bold and something that was really useful, but I often really didn't like the way he handled himself while doing so. The truth is offensive, as you illustrate here, but I do think he often intended to add vinegar to the wounds. Unnecessarily. But I also am not part of his target. I'm just a bit older than he was and definitely not as comfortable with American Republicans being so neatly allied with Christianity as he was. I ignored him and was truly oblivious to the scope of his influence.
This piece really helps shed light on how deeply people are feeling about this. And really, some of his real strengths and the positive contributions he made. I'm sorry I'm getting to know these things this way. I never thought much about him. Certainly never wasted my time stewing about him. It was just... a blind spot. And this sheds some light. So thank you for doing that. Even being ignorant about him, it was grievous to me that a 31 year old man, a husband and father, was murdered in front of the world like that. That's sad all on its own. And the fact that his death would only make people more angry and sad... it just compounds it all. This piece makes it even more sad, if that were possible. So thank you for doing that well.
I am curious about the choice, the tactic here, though. To be frank, it struck me as misguided. I was surprised by that, considering your voice is one that I usually seem to find at least in the same neighborhood as my own way of thinking. I've tried to sit with this for some time to sort out reactions from responses and understand what I am thinking and why.
I am not bothered by the assumption that the murderer was a progressive ideologue. We don't know it's true, but it seems a fair assumption. I think we all know that it's an assumption. That's fine (to me). I am more troubled by the fact that you have decided to take a pivot (in this instance) towards specifically using his death to illustrate how evil progressivism is in particular. I would feel very confident saying I hold the vast majority (if not all) of the same ethical convictions as you, and likely the same for theological convictions as well. I find secular progressivism irrational, reactive, and very much wandered far afield from good and true moral reasoning.
But I have a hard time looking at Kirk's murder and saying, "See this is proof that progressivism is uniquely evil." I get that Charlie Kirk was special because of his influence. But I don't see why the many mass shooters with deeply anti-semitic, fascistic, "paleo-conservative" (fill in descriptor as you'd like) manifestos left behind do not lead to at least a similar conclusion about secular "conservatism." Why do the "conservative" ramblings and warped, twisted thinking that has buttressed acts of mass racial violence or politically motivated killings receive a different category of interpretation in the analysis of current cultural infection and despair? I have to say, I disagree with the focus and diagnosis here.
I don't think that's what is required is trite both side-ism. I do think secular progressivism identity politics and inability to provide any cogent moral reasoning is uniquely bad. But... can we look at who secular conservatives (and this is what I would argue much of modern American political conservatism is actually animated by- unchurched conservatism) have gathered around and what has been excused and celebrated? Doesn't it look like... moral relativism and a lack of consistent moral reasoning?
See, I do believe there is a real moral numbness introduced by godlessness. I just really do not see how it is a uniquely progressive problem. I do see that facet of the diagnosis presenting on both sides, which is why we see violence on both sides. That thing, the thing I think you kind of put your finger on, really isn't confined to progressivism the way you seem to describe here. By way of example, when you described the opportunity for leadership from conservatives, surely I wasn't the only who huffed and said, "Like we'll see that. Yeah right." Because this numbed, angry, godless state... it's everywhere, wearing red and blue.
Anyway, regardless of how right or wrong I am on how I'm reading and responding to you, your piece did remind me that my best work is to continue to move myself, my immediate family, my children, my church family, always and ever closer to finding primary identity in belonging to Christ. It would be easy to despair for this country, for this world, and for whatever grandchildren I might receive who will live in this world. But my comfort is in belonging to Christ Jesus. I pray that all of our hearts together would never feel the debilitating, murderous effects of a life devoid of the presence of His Spirit. For surely the thief will find us as well and do his murderous work. It's a far better thing to be a sheep of Jesus' fold.
Thanks again.
Well put, Anthony. My sentiments exactly.
"I have often gone out of my way to say that you don’t have to be a conservative to be a Christian. I think that’s still true, but probably not in the way I meant. There are orientations toward the world—toward nature, toward societies, toward mothers and fathers, toward marriage and children and work and death—that either reject or accept reality. American progressivism, baptized into the religion of the Sexual Revolution and identity politics, rejects reality. It sanctifies the self, and builds little fortresses for unmoored desires."
I don't think you're wrong about progressivism, when taken to its logical conclusions, but I think that statements that we make about who can fall within and who is excluded from God's grace need to be made more carefully and precisely than this one was. There are many who would identify as progressives who nevertheless would carve out exceptions in their ideology that make room for the acknowledgment and acceptance of the Gospel. And the vice of denying reality is hardly exclusive to progressives, considering especially the political orientation of our Denier-of-Reality-in-Chief.
I agree with most of what you say, but I disagree that it is only the left that is hateful. Just two months ago Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed, and State Senator John Hoffman and his wife. The assasin was NOT a progressive but on the extreme right.
I am also appauled at the fact that their was NOT the same outcry for them as their is for Charlie Kirk. Their were no flags lowered to half staff for them why not?
Why does Charlie Kirk's murder get more attention and outcry?
I am very disturbed at the degradation of this country and how fast it is descending into chaos, but to be honest BOTH sides are guilty and both sides are fomenting hate.
Charlie dedicated his life to peacefully seeking dialogue with those who disagreed with him. He brought his conservative message to young people in universities all over the country which loathed him and everyone who shared his views. He gave them the mike, listened to what they had to say, and rationally argued with them (still listening). He was something of a boy genius and he became a figure of great national and political significance. Some thought of him as a possible future POTUS. And for all that he was killed. And the left is celebrating his murder, and the assassin is at large.
I am not sure what Melissa Hortman and her husband stood for. They were not national figures. Their murder was - of course!! - wrong and the right did not celebrate it or applaud the killer, who was caught and will face justice.
The Hoffmans were shot but not killed. Both were released from the hospital. Of course (!) their shooting was wrong too. Again, they were not nationally known. Again, the right did not celebrate their attempted murder nor applaud the shooter.
Ummm, Gladys, regarding the flags at half-staff, did you forget what happened today, about twenty-four years ago? Give you a hint: it involved suicidal maniacs in airplanes.
And there was a lot of attention paid to the Minnesota shootings, until the narrative started getting complicated and it got dropped.
“In honor of Charlie Kirk, a truly Great American Patriot, I am ordering all American Flags throughout the United States lowered to Half Mast until Sunday evening at 6 P.M.,” (That's from President Trump on Truth Social).
Vance Boelter had a hit list of only Democrats and locations of Planned Parenthood centres. He's an Evangelical who was known for his strong pro-life stance. The only "complication" is that he was appointed to an advisory board by a Democratic Governor which doesn't make him a Democrat nor known by the Governor. It doesn't 100% guarantee that he was not a radical secular leftist but by that same logic you can't conclude that the person who shot Charlie Kirk is not a right-wing extremist.
I agree with much of what you wrote concerning the way in which American political life has abandoned basic moral order and its consequences. Clearly that has driven us to a dark place. We need a clear and consistent view of God’s design of embodied life: male & female, marriage (one man & one woman for life), bearing children, etc. to have a stable and well-ordered society. It’s a view that the left continues to rail against.
I couldn’t help but notice though that this whole reflection tacitly assumes this targeted killing was carried out by a progressive disciple, taking their ideology to its logical conclusion, when *at this point* there is no factual basis for believing that’s what happened.
I know it would make most sense for a progressive political opponent to do such a thing, but there are lots of other people out there with conflicting/irrational motives that don’t map cleanly onto “left vs. right”, who might want to create a spectacle by such a brazen act of murder of someone of Kirk’s stature.
Again, I would be surprised if this was the case, but I think prudence would necessitate reserving judgment until more information is known. Because if the facts turn out to refute the priors…it’s not just the left that has demonstrated itself capable of denying reality.
Just a really sad day yesterday all around for our nation, and my heart goes out to Kirk’s young family. Heartbreaking.
This was a hard piece to read - because of how horrible Charlie Kirk’s murder is, because of the raw emotion in the piece, and also because it hits close to home. As a not-very-conservative Christian, it’s very likely that I’ve watered down my beliefs under pressure from American liberalism. I appreciate the eulogy for a fellow brother in Christ who worked tirelessly to apply faith to American life.
I never really followed Charlie Kirk or paid attention to his work. If I did, I’m certain that it would be easier to see him first and foremost as a brother in Christ and that I would appreciate his “relentlessly, explicitly, and doggedly Christian” approach to living out his faith. But I didn’t. In my more mainstream / left-leaning circles, he only popped up on my radar when he pushed election conspiracy theories, promoted what I see as a toxic blending of faith and politics at Liberty University, or said something that seemed to encourage racism or violence. I appreciate that “alienating people is often both the cost of telling the truth and the first step to winning them over.” And I’ve long said that sometimes the Gospel alienates people. But sometimes we alienate people for much less worthy reasons.
And maybe it’s wrong of me to talk this way. Maybe it’s wrong to bring it up when the evil and horror of his murder is so raw. And maybe it is better to boldly engage, as Charlie Kirk did, and sometimes make mistakes and go too far and be misrepresented, than to be restrained and “respectable” for fear of rocking the boat. Certainly an unwillingness to *ever* alienate would keep us from doing a lot of good.
I really do appreciate calling out some of the spiritual and social evils that America faces. I agree that “this kind of evil” doesn’t exist “equally on both sides.” But I could, if this were the time and place, call out *other* spiritual and social evils that exist much more prominently on the right. American progressives are not unique in their desire to eliminate those who disagree. I don’t know which side, which set of evils, is worse. I’m not even sure it’s fruitful to try and say. Since I believe this, my emotions get in a snarl when I think about the life of a murdered brother in Christ who so thoroughly identified himself with one of the two sides. I appreciate C.S. Lewis’s warning in "Mere Christianity":
"The devil… always sends errors into the world in pairs – pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies upon your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors."
Let’s keep our eyes on Christ.
Sometimes the only response I know to violence and evil is to lament and to remember our hope that Christ makes all things new. "White Ribbon Day," by Delirious, is one of the best expressions I know of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJhFDO8CFcs
Wow. Truth. We must return to God. Not left right up down…God and his Word. Nothing added and taken away
The Slippery Stairs (each one breaks another bone):
Indifference
Tolerance
Acceptance
Affirmation
Celebration
Compliance
Coercion
Censorship
Captivity
CHASM (The Abyss)
I’ve been a pretty loyal reader of yours for years and appreciate your measured and wise approach to various topics, but something about what you’re saying here just isn’t resonating with me.
You mention the rot of the left infecting the country at a far greater and more significant speed than the right, but from where I’m looking, the fruit of Charlie Kirk’s brand of conservatism isn’t worth consuming either, and is, in my opinion, just as damaging than anything you are claiming about the left.
I’m more critical of what I observe happening on the right because they claim the name of Christ while spewing hate and division.
Charlie Kirk was bold in his convictions and had a lot of courage, but to say that his tour was solely to encourage “free speech and goodwill debate” feels a little naive. His brand of boldness and a times flat out arrogance is not one I want to teach my children to wield in the name of Christ.
You also speak with an optimism that has yet to be demonstrated by the Trump Administration. “Trump has an opportunity to bring us together “ meanwhile on the same day he blamed this all on the harmful rhetoric on the left, furthering division. Also, since when has this administration taken a moment of self reflection and consideration of how to unify people?
I understand that this was likely a raw first response to finding out about his shocking and undeserved death, but it feels very much like you are barely scratching the surface at what ails our country. I’ll tune into your posts that you say are coming about our current political climate, hoping that the thoughtfulness and wisdom I’ve come to expect from you continues to shine through.
Thank you.
It ultimately reads like a rehash of the same thing Christians, and conservative Christians in particular, have been told ever since the first Trump administration - that if we don't bend the knee to the MAGA movement, we are complicit in the deChristianization of our culture (as though it was ever truly Christian) and the problems that stem from the left. As if the naked attempts to gin up a soft pogrom against Haitian immigrants, the redress of illegal immigration not through due process but through shipping people off to have their rights violated, the political violence of Charlottesville and January 6th, and the vile conduct of many on the online right, aren't an affront to the Gospel.
Aristotle said that only a society made up of people capable of individual self-government (personal virtue) could ever enjoy ccllective self-government (elections).
Edmund Burke was thinking of Aristotle when he wrote: "“Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. ... Men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
Perhaps the most appropriate Burke quote is this one: "Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist."
We started down this road when we replaced Jesus's Beatitudes with John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle. And I expect it to get worse, as we show no sign of turning back anytime soon.
Side note, you use liberal and progressive in this piece in a way that implies you believe one has morphed into the other. This is not the case. The liberal (in the Enlightenment / Lockean / Millian sense) has always been an authoritarian at heart, ready to use force to defend his right to maximal individual autonomy. This is the essence of Mill.
"The liberal (in the Enlightenment / Lockean / Millian sense) has always been an authoritarian at heart, ready to use force to defend his right to maximal individual autonomy."
What the...it's authoritarian for someone to demand that you leave them alone? It might be selfish and wrong, but authoritarian it is not, unless you're one of those people who thinks that you're a slave if you're not a master.
Locke was shaped deeply by the European religious wars. His goal for his liberal society was "let's stop killing each other over rival views of God and focus on making money." But achieving it required promoted religious tolerance above religious virtue and even democracy itself (which wasn't actually that popular at the time, even with Locke.)
Locke declares himself to be for "the consent of the governed", but his actual philosophy isn't particularly democratic. His society is built on rights derived from God (a rather populist twist on the "divine right of kings") that are beyond reproach even by popular will. In practical terms, liberalism favored individual rights (codified by Locke's universal principles) above the common good (as expressed by popular will or traditional social structures.) In the quote above, Burke feared this elevation of the individual would tend to dissolve the collective bonds that hold society together. It appears he was correct.
John Stuart Mill put Locke on steroids with his Harm Principle, declaring that ANY limitation on individual choice was legitimate ONLY if said choice directly harmed another person. Mil's framework makes any defense of the common good impossible. It's why we're imploding -- a society with no collective standards or bonds or norms (any of which might limit someone's absolute freedom) can not remain cohesive. "Do as thou wilt" or "if it feels good, do it" are too weak to unify a society around.
Liberalism and democracy are naturally in tension. The two worked in parallel for a few centuries because we had 1700 years of shared Judeo-Christian moral inertia. But we've run that down and are now discovering that 1) there are limits to tolerance and 2) most of the world doesn't think universal rights are "self-evident" at all.
In our current world, someone committed to liberal principles must either accept their curtailment by democratic processes (which makes them no longer a liberal), or reject democratic processes to defend their liberal principles (which makes them an authoritarian.)
The example I give my civics students is this: does each Afghan (or Hungarian or French) citizen have an individual right to choose whether to march in a gay pride parade, or do Afghanis (or Hungarians or Frenchies) have a collective right to decide whether to allow gay pride parades? If you come down for the latter, you are a illiberal democrat. If you come down for the former, you are a liberal authoritarian.
This is a poor medium for this case. The best presentation is by Patrick Deneen in Why Liberalism Failed. He pretty much echoes Burke but it more readable. I hope that explains the premise a little better though.
The failures of American liberalism have gone far beyond the theoretical. “Progressivism’s contradictions permeate the country’s education, media, and mental health infrastructure so completely as to be unavoidable. When Kirk was shot, he was reportedly talking about rates of gun violence among transgendered Americans. This seems like a spicy topic, only because the psychological disorder of gender dysphoria has, like so many mental health problems, become an uassailable identity instead of a treatable ailment. The complete and utter failure of the American left to define man and woman has not just created moral chaos. It has abandoned mentally sick Americans, many of them teens, to the caverns of their illness.”
This is so true. We have created a world of despair for young people especially. I really fear for the future for my grandchildren and great grandchildren.
This doesn't read like a first take, which testifies to how deeply you've been pondering these patterns and principalities. As Jonathan Pageau and Jordan Hall has said, the only way to prevent societal apocalypse in moments like this is to courageously seek the "day of the Lord" in your own heart first, then to cultivate the same in others.
What kind of world will my infant grow up in? What will be the spirits of the age whose siren songs only Christ can overcome?
I am going to be sleeping on and then writing an article on II Corinthians 4.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. (II Corinthians 4:7-12)
I hope somehow that Christ's life may be revealed in what feels like a horrific and senseless act of violence.
Here is where I landed...
https://jonathanbrownson.substack.com/p/were-not-keeping-this-quiet?r=gdp9j
I have the same thoughts: this is different. Heavier. I wrote about it this morning at The Anglican. But I am also reading about people (on X) who are softening their hearts for the Gospel and for the church. They say they'll be in church.
One post like this:
This is exactly how I feel. I'm agnostic too but l've been thinking of going back to church lately and can't put my finger on why. I think I'll go this Sunday, too.
Another:
I've been gone for a while. But I'm going back to church on Sunday I can't handle the weight of this world on my own, I need more of Jesus, I need to be in a room where everyone comes as they are, you can feel the emotions in the room, hands up praising, people crying,
And this:
I still can't sleep. l've been up since 4:45am. This gut feeling I have is so weird. I can't figure out what it means or why I'm feeling it but I can't shake it either. Something has shifted & my soul is uncomfortable. The atmosphere even feels different. I'm probably just being weird but something is off.
I hope and trust that the church will rise to meet the challenge of welcoming people.
Here is where I wrote:
https://davidroseberry.substack.com/p/what-is-this-moment-are-you-going?r=1tnue