Serving Two Masters: Kevin H

Something seems different this time.  Yes, we have the same typical battle lines drawn and we are fighting over the same typical issues.  Yet something feels different this time, almost as if there is a paradigm shift, or maybe more precisely, a paradigm declaration.

Charlie Kirk’s assassination has roiled up all kinds of feelings and emotions.  People are lining up on predictable sides and there is little surprise there.  This time, however, there seems to be a sense more so than any other recent event in our politically tumultuous society, that Christians on the political Right are drawing hard lines in the sand and unambiguously letting their true colors show.

Now let me first say that even as some here have defended Kirk, I have not seen the same sentiment expressed in this community that I will describe, but I have observed it almost everywhere else.  In these other places, it appears as if the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the resultant reflective criticism of the man by those who had difficulties with him has caused many Christians on the political Right, even those who are typically more genial or quiet, to raise their voices in unequivocal support of the man and the movement he stood for.  Charlie Kirk, or at least what he represented to people, seemingly was a sacred cow of multitudinous proportions.

The reality when it came to Charlie Kirk is that he was a mixed bag of good and bad, just like any of us, with some of us seeing more of the good and others more of the bad.  However, his good and bad were far more pointed, consequential, and far-reaching in influence and effect than they would be for just about any of us, thus his life is a national point of contention.  Kirk did at times boldly preach the gospel and stand for some righteous causes.  He did rightly advocate for people to have freedom of speech, even if they disagreed with him.   At times he amiably invited them into discussion and sometimes even responded with genuine care, concern, and faith-filled answers when they disagreed with him.  Yet other times he would respond, if not even lead with smug arrogance and rhetorical chicanery.  The most troubling aspects about Kirk, however, were twofold in that, one, he many times engaged in rhetoric that appeared hateful, bigoted, and/or racist, and two, he so badly fused American right-wing partisan politics with Christianity that one could often not tell the difference between one or the other with him.

Yes, there have been some on the political Left who have reacted very wickedly to Kirk’s murder by celebrating and justifying it.  There are others who refuse to acknowledge that Kirk ever did any good or stood for any good cause, and they are wrong, too.  However, the degree to which so many Christians on the political Right have lionized Kirk as some kind of exemplar Christian who was martyred for his faith (he wasn’t) while ignoring, if not flat out denying the many troubling things about Kirk has been very disturbing and very scary.

There is no need to go over the litany of perceptively troubling things Kirk said, stood for, and attitudes he projected, as we have all seen many of them by now.  Nonetheless, the fact that so many Christians have justified and defended so many of these things as if they are all being taken out of context (even when much further context is given), or are casting them as just petty attacks by those who “hated” Kirk, or worse yet, arguing that Kirk was always “biblical” in everything he said and did and the rest of us just can’t see it because we are deceived….. is really disconcerting.  The response by many (White) Christians to so many of their fellow Black and Brown brothers in Christ whose lineages have suffered centuries of racism in this country and who have expressed that they were disturbed and offended by many things Kirk said and stood for, has been to tell them that they are just wrong or are being unbiblical, or that they just don’t care about whatever hurtful things Kirk “supposedly” said.  This has been nothing but cruel and heartless.  All the more, for so many Christians to immortalize Kirk as being killed explicitly for his faith in a battle that’s framed as being all about good vs. evil, is insulting to those who were truly killed for their faith and it greatly cheapens what it means to be a martyr.

At Charlie Kirk’s memorial service the gospel was shared multiple times and there was a really powerful moment where Kirk’s wife expressed forgiveness toward her husband’s killer.  Yet the service was also filled with much political and culture war rhetoric that was baptized in Christianese.  Then there was when the most powerful, influential, and longest-winded person to speak at the memorial service said he hated his opponents, heaped all the blame for political violence in our country on just one side of the political aisle, and aired all kinds of political grievances.  If this does not encapsulate the utter mess that has become of the Christian Right, then I don’t know what else possibly does.  People are hearing the gospel and yet they are also hearing all kinds of political propaganda and trash right along with it.  This begs the question, if they are responding to a message to be saved and enter into faith, what exactly are they being saved from and what faith are they entering into?

As Christians, we should not expect unbelievers to rightly recognize and accept the message of the Gospel….. it is only by God’s leading when they do.  More so than just not only properly recognizing or accepting it, we can expect them to sometimes even be offended by it.  However, we should also expect them to be rightly offended by words and actions that are carnally hurtful and offensive in nature.  Why then, when it comes to Charlie Kirk, have so many Christians been unable, if not even outright unwilling to even consider that while Kirk did some good, he very well may have also done some bad that has had extensive reach and effect?  When an unbelieving world sees a man with whom they understandably had many troubles being celebrated and raised up as a great Christian martyr, all the while his celebrants combatively deny the oh so troubling parts about him, what is that unbelieving world going to think?

I would think that outside of a deliberate intervention by God, the unbelieving world is going to think, “If that is what Christianity and its Jesus is all about, then we want nothing to do with such a convoluted hypocritical mess.”

No man can serve two masters.  Yet many conservative American Christians have been trying to do just that, especially over the past ten years or so.  Charlie Kirk’s unfortunate and horrific murder seems to have struck an especially sensitive chord that has steeled the determination of many to try even all the harder at serving both.  But in the end, they are really just serving one, as Jesus made it clear that it could only be one, and people’s true colors are showing which one that is.

“But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.  Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.  If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.” – Revelation 2:4-5