People are calling him a “martyr.” Sorry—That’s just not true. If an author writes a book, goes on a book tour, and is killed at one of the events, that doesn’t make them a martyr for the cause of the book. Words have meanings. I write and say things that people disagree with all the time. If someone who doesn’t like my ideas decides to kill me, that doesn’t mean I’m a martyr… It means a violent person decide to kill me. My understanding of the definition of “martyr” is a person who voluntarily chooses death rather than renouncing their religious beliefs. That’s not how he died. Now, if someone gave Charlie a choice between death and denying Jesus, he refused, and he got killed because of it, THEN he’d be a martyr. Charlie Kirk was the victim of an American culture that puts weapons of war in the hands of little boys and tells them that emotions, empathy, and compassion make them feminine… And femininity is weakness… And weakness is bad. Yeah, even trump called him a martyr. But he was no martyr.
He WAS, however, a Christian.
In the storm of posts and opinions flooding social media, I have seen people site examples from the very long, very well-documented list of hateful, bigoted things Charlie Kirk said while he was alive… And they followed those examples with comments like, “There is nothing Christian about him.” Well, I hate to break it to you, but that’s just not true either. In fact, a case can be made that Charlie Kirk is EXACTLY what American christianity looks like.
Imagine if a child endured horrific abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest… And that same child grew up holding resentment, distrust, and blame against the Catholic Church for the ways that abuse traumatized them… And THEN someone tried to explain to them that the abuser wasn’t a REAL Catholic. A REAL Catholic would never do something like that. That’s some “No true Scotsman”/appeal to purity bullshit, right there. It looks like this… Person A: “Christians are good!” Person B: “Here is a long list of hatred & harm done in the name of Jesus.” Person A: “Well, those people weren’t REAL Christians, because Christians are obviously good.”
It’s the same thing that happens when people call attention to the numerous examples of corruption, abuse, & injustice done by police, and people respond with some tired “one bad apple” defense. REAL cops would NEVER do a racism… Because they start with the axiom that “Police are good.” “Christians are good.” “America is good.” And when people’s foundational beliefs are challenged, their response is usually very heated.
There are MANY people out there who have come to understand that the white nationalist, patriarchal, authoritarian version of the christian church is horribly toxic and harmful. But they are still operating under the axiom that christianity is GOOD… Therefore, those people practicing & celebrating the white nationalist, patriarchal, authoritarian brand of christianity can’t be REAL christians… They can’t be TRUE christians… They can’t be GENUINE christians… Because christians are Good. So then the harm that people did & do in the name of christianity is filed under FAKE christianity. Well, that is neither fair nor honest.
Charlie Kirk was virulently anti-immigrant. And I hate to break this to you, but the majority of the white christian church in America is anti-immigrant. How many of all those people holding all the “Mass Deportations Now” signs at those trump rallies do you think identified as “christians?” Every one of them. So just because your consciousness has evolved to the point that you understand xenophobia to be “bad,” it doesn’t change the views of a SIGNIFICANT portion of the church. And yes, admittedly, a very strong case can be made that the Bible—front to back—calls people to welcome the immigrant, alien, & stranger and to treat those people as one of your own. But that doesn’t change the fact that a huge chunk of the church doesn’t read it that way… Or credits it to cultural differences… Or suddenly thinks that “context” is hugely important to take into consideration.
Charlie Kirk was a sexist, patriarchal misogynist. And he had plenty of biblical reason to back that position up. After hearing about her engagement, he told Taylor Swift to “reject feminism” and submit to her husband, saying that “a woman should have more kids than houses” and hoped that being married to Travis Kelce might “de-radicalize” her. He told an ambitious 14 year old girl who had dreams of being a journalist that she should go to collage for an “MRS degree,” and warned young women that if they focused on their career and didn’t get married by 30, they would “die alone.” To him, the worth of a woman was her ability to give a man children. I think it’s fair to say that the staying power in America of these ideas of what “good” femininity looks like can be directly credited to American christianity. Hell, rather that vote for an overly qualified, competent woman, 4 out of 5 American christians voted for a bigoted, orange, buffoonish gameshow host…
Charlie Kirk was a homophobic, trans-hating bigot. He called trans identity a “mental disease.” He championed himself as a proponent of a Biblical, “traditional” family—even though a traditional Biblical family often involved multiple wives and viewing wives & daughters as property (and all while supporting a thrice-married serial adulterer who paid a porn star for her silence and frequented the island of America’s most famous pedophile). He even called for “Nuremberg-style trials” (where people were sentenced to death for holocaust atrocities) for doctors who provide gender-affirming care.
Charlie Kirk was a white supremacist and a racist. He might not have described himself using those words (because he, like all of us, was raised & marinated in the axiom “Racism is Bad,” and no one likes to think of themselves as the bad guy), but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. The Bible and christianity were used to justify slavery, used to justify manifest destiny, used to justify the holocaust, used to justify white supremacy… Think of the world’s most horrific events—chances are good people used christianity to justify them. Racism is not an aberration of American christianity… It is a FEATURE.
Now… Does this mean that I believe that everyone who calls themselves a “christian” is necessarily xenophobic, sexist, homophobic, & racist? Of course not. Just as I would say that every American is xenophobic, sexist, homophobic, & racist. There are lovely, amazing, wonderful things being done by people who call themselves “christians,” just as there are lovely, amazing, wonderful things being done by Americans. But you don’t get to say that someone who does something horrible wasn’t a “REAL American.” Just like you don’t get to say someone who lived a life dedicated to xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, and racism wasn’t a “REAL christian.”
I know what it’s like to deflect with “not a REAL christian,” because I did it for decades. And I’d like to genuinely apologize for all the times in the past that I excused & deflected the harmful actions of christians by explaining that they we just “FAKE christians.” I am certain that, in doing this, I furthered the harm that was done to people in the name of Jesus and the name of christianity. I still think there ARE fake christians… For example, I’d bet everything I have that donald trump believes zero percent of what the traditional christian faith affirms. I think he’s incapable of any love other than love for himself, money, & power, and he falsely uses the ruse of christianity as a device to acquire more money, power, & praise. Regardless, I am very sorry for any harm I have done in the past by attempting to “No True Scotsman” the harmful, destructive, traumatic things done in the name of Jesus.
There are over 40,000 different christian denominations in the world—each using nearly the same Bible, and EACH with significant enough theological differences to warrant a division in the church. There is not “one REAL Christian Church” anymore than there is one “REAL” kind of christian. You can try to make a litmus test all you’d like. You can take verses about “knowing Christians by how they love” or “knowing by a tree by its fruit” all you want. The hateful brand of christian will just tell you that the best way to love somebody is by telling them they’re going to burn in hell… Or by hitting & “disciplining” them like you’d discipline a pet dog… Or kicking them out of their house when they come out of the closet… Or by MAKING a woman submit like the Bible says to submit… Or by reestablishing a natural, “Biblical” hierarchical racial order. Jesus… There is not one kind of Christian. There are 40,000+ brands of christians, each with hundreds of sub-brands inside them.
Someone once said, “If it weren’t for christians, I’d be a christian.” And Mahatma Gandhi said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” The fact remains that 81% of white evangelicals voted for a man whose xenophobia, sexism, bigotry, & racism is about as well-documented as things get. And Charlie Kirk is one of that brand. Sorry, but you don’t get say that Charlie Kirk wasn’t a REAL christian just because he did things that were REAL gross to you. Yes, he said many, many things that can rightly be called “hateful.” But the christians venerating him and calling him a hero right now do not do it DESPITE the giant list of the abusive, hateful, bigoted things he said while he was alive… They call him a hero BECAUSE OF the hateful things he said. Charlie Kirk was a christian… And that fact is why I no longer want anything to do with the christian church.
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Chris,You may remember me vaguely as Brent Sneller’s mom. I’ve been reading your blogs for quite a few years. I’m usually very impressed by wh
This is what happens when you don’t pay attention to the language being used in the first place, suddenly you have a banana like Charlie Kirk being elevated to saint hood for no patricular reason because his shooting was called “assassination”. He wasn’t. he was shot. He wasn’t a pope, a king, or even a political big deal. If he was that famous, why hadn’t we heard tons of stuff about him before? And now “the world is shaken by the brutal assassination’ of someone we never heard of. His wife gets to be er, ah, comforted by our President. Enough, already.