Thoughts on a tragedy

It won't be the hottest take, but that's not how I generally operate anyway.

Charlie Kirk and his family. You’ll notice that the kids have their back to camera to lessen the possibility of their identification. (Photo via US Magazine.)

On Wednesday afternoon, the nation was shocked to learn that conservative commentator and founder of Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk was shot during a TPUSA event in Orem, Utah, succumbing to that gunshot wound a short time later. When that tragedy was placed on top of the fatal stabbing of Iryna Zarutska in a Charlotte light rail car two weeks earlier - which didn’t make national news until graphic video of the attack eventually leaked out well after the fact - it’s been a contentious week on social media and punditry.

As details of the Kirk shooting come out and the search for his alleged killer led to a 22-year-old Utah man, more and more speculation percolated about the motive. Was it yet another transgender rage attack, like the ones in Minneapolis last month and Nashville a couple years ago? Perhaps, but that seemed too pat and obvious. Others had determined in their minds that the Kirk shooting was a professional hit job, with a patsy already determined but the real killer perhaps in the employ of Mossad or even our own “Deep State.” Not just anyone can be a sniper and hit a target 200 yards away, they argue. It could be Antifa or some other radical group as well, some posit - regardless, Kirk’s voice has been stilled. (From initial reports about the suspect, who shall remain unnamed, it seems like door number 3 is the biggest possibility.)

It all reminds me of the old Offspring song Come Out and Play:

One goes to the morgue and the other to jail

One guy's wasted and the other's a waste

Sad to think a 22-year-old kid basically forfeited his life because he can’t bear to hear another’s opinion.

And while many pray that Charlie Kirk’s death may spawn a million voices in his place - including that of his lovely widow - the reality is that the conservative political movement has a hole in it much bigger than the one created by the fatal bullet. Compare this to the malaise some felt when Andrew Breitbart dropped dead suddenly in the midst of the 2012 Presidential campaign, an event that may have changed history: what if Breitbart’s advocacy had produced a more conservative and TEA Party-approved Republican than the moderate Mitt Romney against Barack Obama? Without Kirk’s gentle yet convicting voice as a political conservative as well as Christian apologist, it will be hard to gather momentum for either cause in the short term.

But there’s also a spiritual component to consider as we fight the world and its wicked ways.

In that vein, I first want to quote a friend of mine on social media who goes by the moniker Back to Basics. (I knew him well before social media was a thing, though.) This struck me the other day as I was considering what I would say about this seminal event.

To our churches and the children of God - AWAKEN!!!!

You are in a war with evil and don't even know it. Worst yet, far too many churches have sought to understand and embrace evil. While Christ dined with sinners, He sought to move them from their sin. You are called to be the hands and feet of God. GO!!! And make disciples. You do so by first and continually studying the word of God, then by bringing that Word to others entrenched in sin and held captive by shallow and deceptive philosophies.

May we be AWAKENED and never sleep again.

And then we have a Substack author by the name of Jameson Steward, whose piece on Charlie Kirk was one I stumbled across. (The next one I won’t stumble across, because I subscribed.)

On the Murder of Charlie Kirk

I’ve been worried for a long time that we - Christians - have sacrificed the biblical way of thinking about life. We have lost what Harry Blamires called “the Christian mind,” and have surrendered ourselves to secular - worldly - thinking. We listen to what our favorite secular voices say we should feel, think, be, and do, and have ignored (or forgotten) what God has to say about these matters.

I understand that much of what I saw yesterday from some of my brethren was an emotional response. We are angry, sad, horrified, afraid, and indignant. I feel it too. Evil should bother us deeply. But how do we respond to it?

In moments like this, our words and actions show what’s really inside us. I’m reminded of what Jesus said about the sort of things that come out of us, and how it shows what’s in our hearts.

I have to admit I was a little emotional with my first reactions, too. Surely I was among many of us who would love to see the Lord come out and smite a few of the smug leftists who told us Charlie Kirk got just what he deserved - a favorite among them is throwing out the piece he said about gun control, to wit:

I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational. Nobody talks like this. They live in a complete alternate universe.

It’s a damning sentence by itself without context, but when you consider it as one small part of a more logical argument it makes a lot more sense. By that same token, if the shooter on Wednesday had a more solid moral upbringing rather than “the ends justify the means” we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Unfortunately, as a society we’ve gone way off that track.

Continuing with Steward:

Do not take matters into your own hands. Do not escalate the situation by calling for more evil to combat evil. Do not stir people up by appealing to their anger and fear.

If we look and sound just like the world in times of tragedy and crisis - in times of evil, then what hope does the world have of seeing Jesus in us?

Sometimes in the heat of the moment we tend to forget and throw caution to the wind, which is one big reason I like to hold off until emotions subside and people chill out a bit before I deliver my take. After all, no one is really waiting with bated breath to know what I have to say about most situations - I’m just a Substack writer with a few hundred followers.

But if more people exhibited true tolerance and thought better of speaking out while passions are high, perhaps those of us with a Biblical perspective could cut through the worldly noise. That phrase beginning with “do unto others” should come to mind in these situations before all else.

In the meantime, though, you can Buy Me a Coffee, since I have a page there now.