On Erika Kirk’s Message of Forgiveness for Her Husband’s Killer
"That young man...I forgive him."
You know, I like to think of myself as a good person and a good Christian. However, I never get overly confident about either of those things because as one of my favorite quotes goes:
The moment you start thinking everything you do is perfectly good or Christian by default is the moment you start to become a bad person. You should never stop questioning whether you’re being “good” or truly behaving like a Christian or you will certainly find yourself coming up far shorter of the standards God expects us to live up to than you realize.
I was thinking about that when I saw Erika Kirk’s comments about her husband’s killer at his memorial service, which was attended by over 200,000 people by the way.
That was a perfect response for a Christian to give, a response that her husband would have agreed with, and even the best thing that could have been said for the nation. The fact that Charlie Kirk’s widow was able to stand up and say that publicly sends a message. It could bring more people to Christianity or even give some of the people on the Left who have been cheerleading his death second thoughts about whether they’re on the right path. I very much hope those things happen, and I genuinely admire Erika Kirk for saying it.
That goes double because I am not such a good Christian that I would have said the same thing. Although few people are as revenge-minded as Donald Trump, I’m closer to his extremely honest statement about how he feels than what she said:
Keep in mind that since Charlie Kirk was murdered, millions (and that’s not an exaggeration) of liberals publicly celebrated his death in one way or another, the vast majority of the Left has said he deserved it in a backhanded way for disagreeing with them (I’m against political violence, BUT…), we’ve had more liberal political violence and there are even protesters at Charlie Kirk’s funeral.
Remember when pretty much everyone used to agree that Fred Phelps and his “God hates f@gs” cult were horrible people for protesting funerals? Well, they were there, and they were joined by liberals wishing death on the people at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service:
Even at the service, which had extensive Secret Service protection, there was such a risk of liberal violence that everyone had to stand behind bulletproof glass:
God does forgive people who repent, but I don’t see much (if any) repentance on the Left, and I don’t know what God knows. Maybe millions of people on the Left do secretly feel bad about how they’ve behaved, but there’s not much evidence of it in the real world.
Just constant, never-ending hatred coming from them in waves. Just to name one of many, many examples:
Notice the 4.4 million views on a tweet by a popular liberal influencer comparing a Christian memorial service for someone they murdered to a Nazi rally. Incidentally, this is right after a liberal murdered Charlie Kirk and wrote the title of an anti-fascist song and “Hey fascist! Catch!” on his bullets.
This is why we need both Erika Kirk and Donald Trump. Because we cannot continue on like this without it inevitably leading to extreme levels of political violence. We need people like Erika Kirk to offer up the hope of reconciliation and coming together, and people like Donald Trump, so liberals can see what will happen to them if they continue dragging the country down this bloody path.
I don’t want the country to break down into bloodshed and tit-for-tat violence that will inevitably end with almost nobody being better off than they were before we started killing each other in numbers, but the Left is taking us in that direction. They have been for a while. In fact, after another liberal’s assassination attempt on Donald Trump last year, I wrote:
Liberals all across America have been tacitly encouraging violence against Republicans. They’ve done it, they’ve done it often, and to be clear, we’re not just talking about Internet dorks or even third-rate influencers. We’re talking about the President of the United States, members of Congress, and prominent mainstream Democrats.
The dangerous thing about what these people are doing is that ultimately, it may work, and it may lead to terrible consequences. The more the Left encourages violence and the more often they succeed, the more likely it will be that the sentiment becomes mutual. If Donald Trump had been killed, it’s entirely possible that the reaction wouldn’t have been, “Let’s cool everything down here.” Instead, it may have been, “They got one of ours, so let’s get four or five of theirs.”
Liberals have been playing a dangerous game in America for quite a while now, and as time goes on, it’s very possible that more and more conservatives are going to decide that “two can play that game.”
That would not be a good thing. No one should root for that. It would be ugly, it would be bloody, and a lot of good people would get hurt. Political violence is like wildfire. It’s dangerous, unpredictable, and you never know how far it will spread.
That being said, liberals need to stop behaving like this and start policing themselves, or it’s entirely possible they’re going to end up creating an incredibly dangerous situation for all Americans, including themselves.
All of this is still true and although non-Christians won’t agree with it, I think there’s a genuine possibility that God spared Donald Trump’s life and guided him into the White House because if liberals reacted the exact same way while Kamala Harris had been president and she treated it the way other Democrats have, conservatives might have already killed a lot of liberals by now and the country could be as good as over.
I’m not going to pretend that I have any influence on liberals, because no conservative really does, but if they don’t start policing their own people on these issues, the guns are eventually going to turn in their direction. I don’t want that and I think the vast majority of conservatives don’t want that, but they have to stop living in their fantasy world and start behaving like they want to avoid violence, too. I’m not talking about saying, “Oh, we condemn political violence, but….,” I’m talking about cutting ANTIFA and the people openly encouraging violence loose. I’m talking about telling their own side it’s not okay to call people “fascists” and “nazis” anymore when people are being murdered for it. It may be all fun and games to them because they think only people they don’t like are going to die, but that can change in a hurry and the numbers can get very large, very quickly.
Conservatives can and should do all we can to prevent this whole thing from turning into an orgy of hatred, violence, and murder, but liberals have to want that, too, and right now, that doesn’t seem to be where they’re at. Speak up now, liberals, because we could be only a few bullets put into the right people from it being too late.
First off, I am enjoying reading Hawkins' book "101 Things Young Folks Should Know." I recommend it to everyone. Transmitting the wisdom of life to the next generation is critically important. There is a lot of bad thinking among WASPs and one such thing is the silly idea one hears all the time that says, "They need to learn it for themselves." This is idiotic. There is no reason by every generation should make the same mistakes as older generations have made. I have long had on my "To-DO" list to write a book of life advice. I hope that I have time left to add my own volume to such self-help books.
I am annotating Mr. Hawkins' book and hope someday to be able to share my annotations with him.
Now, having said that and urged everyone to buy the book and read it, I am going to say something that I fear will make many people upset.
We frequently see the relatives of victims' making public statements that they forgive and even embrace as brothers the crimiinals.
"My wife and I want to say that as Christians we simply LOVE those guys who raped and murdered our daughter. They are our brothers in Christ. We forgive them and we love them."
Granted, my factitious quote makes this phenomenon ever more starkly bizarre than most (but not all) of the statements we hear but it helps make my point.
There is something that makes the hairs on one's arms rise in reading or hearing a parent carrying on in front of a television camera about how much he forgives and loves his dautghter's rapists and murderers.
There is some ancient unwritten law (the ancient Greeks would have understood this and probably had a word for it) that makes such behavior repulsive.
It smacks of disloyalty to the victim. It's repellent and disgusting...at least to me it is.
Modern Christianity has a conception of forgiveness that IMO is more than just forgiveness. Such gooey, disgusting behavior really becomes a form of ENNABLING AND CONDONING.
My ideas on the subject of forgiveness are largely shaped by what my harsh, demanding and difficult but very wise father, a clergyman of the Presbyteiran (Church of Scotland) brand of Chritianity told me as a child.
First, forgiveness (of the right form) is the most SELFISH thing in Christianity.
Who is benefitted by forgiveness?
The person who benefits is almost never the forgiven but the forgiver.
We should not fool ourselves into thinking that the person forgiven is either benefitted by or ought to be benefitted by the forgiveness.
Second, what must one do to get God's forgiveness?
I once told a relative that I was uncomfortable with the words of the Lord's Prayer, "...forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors..."
I told her that I didn't want to be held to that standard. I wanted an easier one.
My cousin's answer was surprising and counterintuitive.
She did not chide me.
Intead, she pointed out to me what we must do to be forgiven.
Contrary to modern gooeyness, our sins aren't just willy-nilly forgiven.
There's a procedure required to obtain divine forgiveness:
1. You must recognize and come to grips with the fact that you have done wrong.
2. You must confess your sin to yourself and possibly to others. (Roman Catholics do this more than we do but there's still a point to the idea.)
3. You must apologize to the person you have wronged.
4. You must - to the extent possible - make restitution to the person you have wronged.
5. You must do penance.
Getting forgiveness is a whole lot harder than modern liberal Christians think.
Like Mr. Hawkins, I see no signs among liberals of any repentence on almost anything.
I'm not interested in indulging them or enabling their wickedness.
I am disgusted to the point of nausea by relatives/parents rushing to make gushy statemens about their forgiveness and love for the criminals.
I believe that criminals should be accorded a justice commensurate with the enormity of their crimes.
There is an Italian proverb that in my younger days I could have quoted in Italian but in old age I have to give in an English approximation.
"Kindness to the criminal is cruelty to the victim."
Here endeth the lesson.
My apologies to anyone who is offended.
Amen. 🏆🏆🏆
Great post and I feel the same way. She was being a great Christian but it felt too soon. I might eventually be able to forgive such a thing, but not so soon. I would have to finish grieving significantly more.
And you’re exactly right, every Democrat is giving a wink and a nod to the most violent and unhinged among them to do exactly this. Every time they continue to call Charlie and the rest of us a bigot, even after he’s dead, and fascists, and claim That “democracy is in danger“ even though it’s a republic… They are stating a desire and even a need for violence against their political opposition. That is terrorism. I think every Democrat that stated it should be under investigation, and every Democrat that stated after Charlie’s assassination should be arrested and put on trial. Even still, not a single Democrat has come out and said that they need to recognize Republicans as the opposition, but not the enemy. And for them to stop calling us fascists when we are nowhere near it. Every time they say it I find myself wishing they could go back in time and be placed in Nazi Germany to get a taste of what that really means.