Yesterday, our nation witnessed a tragedy that still feels almost impossible to put into words…the assassination of Charlie Kirk. No matter what you thought of Charlie’s politics or his platform, the truth is simple, he was a husband, a father, a friend, and a fellow human being made in the image of God. And even if you don’t share my belief in God, I think we can at least agree on this, Charlie Kirk was a human being. And the taking of a human life is always a loss. And not just for his family, but for all of us.
His life was cut short in a senseless act of violence, and with his death comes immeasurable collateral damage. The grief of his wife, the loss his children will carry for the rest of their lives, and the wound it leaves on our already fragile society.
What makes this even harder to process is the likelihood that this act was driven by disagreement…by the belief that words or ideas could justify taking a life. To kill a man because of what he says is not just a crime against him and his family, it is a distortion of everything God calls good and right. And even if you don’t believe our morals come from God, which is a much bigger conversation in itself, I think we can agree on this much at least: to end someone’s life simply because you disagree with their ideas is wrong. It’s wrong morally, it’s wrong socially, and it’s wrong humanly.
Perhaps most troubling of all, is the reality that some people in our country are not only unshaken by this, but are actually celebrating it. I don’t say that to condemn them outright, but to ask a harder question…what is happening inside of us when we can cheer for the death of another human being. someone’s father, someone’s son, simply because we disagreed with their words? That is also part of the tragedy, and it should cause us all to stop and reflect.
And this is where I feel the weight of the tension, my human side wants to get angry, to direct blame, to condemn. But as I wrestle with those feelings, I realize this moment calls us to go deeper.
When I first saw the news, and even more so after watching the video, my immediate reaction was anger. How could someone believe they had the right to take another person’s life? How could they justify it over words or ideas? In moments like this, there’s a part of us (or at least I assume I’m not alone in this) that wants to lash out, to assign blame, to condemn. And in one sense, that’s not wrong. The Bible is clear: “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). To feel anger at such a violation of God’s command is natural, and I believe, in some ways, righteous.
What’s dangerous is that our anger, even when justified, can quickly turn destructive. It can shift from hating the sin to hating the sinner. From grieving what was lost to fueling cycles of bitterness and revenge. Scripture warns us that “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). There is such a thing as righteous anger, but most of us don’t stay in that lane for too long. Our humanity bends toward self-righteousness, and before we know it, we’re not just angry at the evil…we’re angry at the person.
That’s where my faith has to interrupt my instinct. As Paul reminds us, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12). The man who pulled the trigger is responsible for his actions, yes…but he was also used by the enemy to carry out something evil. And if I let my anger consume me, I risk being used in the same way.
Justice still matters. The Bible is clear that those who do wrong will be held accountable by governing authorities, who are established by God to punish wrongdoing (Romans 13:1, 4), and by God Himself (Romans 12:19). But mercy matters too. And that’s where the tension lies…holding righteous anger at the sin, while resisting hatred of the sinner. Even as hard as it feels, Jesus calls us to pray for our enemies (Matthew 5:44).
That doesn’t mean excusing the evil. It means refusing to let evil reproduce itself in us. And that matters not just in moments of national tragedy, but in the everyday conflicts we face. If I let bitterness rule my heart toward a neighbor, a coworker, or even a family member, I’m letting the same cycle of hatred take root. It may not end in violence, but it still destroys.
And so we’re left in the middle of a tension: between anger and grace, between justice and mercy, between grief and hope. It’s here, in this tension, that Scripture gives us a framework to see more clearly.
Ephesians 6:12 reminds us that our true battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of darkness. That doesn’t absolve the man who pulled the trigger, he is responsible for his actions, but it does reframe the way we see what happened. This wasn’t just one man’s decision in a vacuum. It was evil, yes, but evil that has roots deeper than human disagreement. To kill someone over words and ideas is to show how deception and darkness can twist a heart until violence feels justified. If we forget that, we risk fighting the wrong enemy.
At the same time, Scripture never lets us dismiss the need for justice. Micah 6:8 calls us to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God. Justice demands accountability. It is right to call this act what it is…evil. It is right to desire consequences for the one who carried it out. Yet even as we long for justice, we remember that vengeance is ultimately God’s, not ours (Romans 12:19). That truth both comforts us, because God’s justice will not fail, and humbles us, because it reminds us that our role is not to repay evil with evil, but to trust the Judge of all the earth to do what is right.
And while we wrestle with anger and justice, we cannot overlook grief. The psalms give us permission to cry out, “How long, O Lord?” (Psalm 13:1). They give us language to name our sorrow and confusion. Jesus Himself wept at the tomb of His friend Lazarus (John 11:35), even though He knew resurrection was coming. That tells me it is not only permissible, but good, to mourn what has been lost. For Charlie Kirk’s family, the wound is unfathomable. For those who knew him and for many who didn’t, this is a moment of lament, not just for one life taken, but for the state of a culture where disagreement has turned deadly. Most of us will probably never face moments this extreme, but we all live in a culture where disagreement can feel dangerous. We may not pull a trigger, but we can still kill relationships with our words, our posts, or our refusal to see the image of God in someone we oppose.
And yet, grief is not the end of the story. As Christians, we hold onto hope even in the darkest of moments. Revelation 21:4 promises a day when God will wipe away every tear, when death will be no more, and when pain and mourning will finally be silenced. That hope doesn’t erase the horror of what happened yesterday, but it anchors us. It tells us that while this world is broken and evil is real, neither gets the last word. God does. And that is the only reason I can process this tragedy without being consumed by despair or rage…because I believe in a God who will set all things right.
What makes Charlie Kirk’s death even more tragic is that it seems to be rooted in something I’ve written about before, the confusion between offense and harm. We’ve reached a place in our culture where disagreement is no longer seen as an opportunity to wrestle with ideas, but as an act of violence in itself. If someone says something we dislike, we don’t just feel challenged, we feel attacked. And when offense is treated as harm, it doesn’t take long before silencing someone feels like justice.
That distortion is deadly. Words are not bullets. Ideas are not knives. Debate and disagreement are not the same as oppression. Yet when we convince ourselves otherwise, we justify the unthinkable. Instead of allowing offense to make us pause, reflect, or grow, we treat offense as permission to destroy.
This is exactly why I wrote my article, The Pebble in Your Shoe: Truth, Grace, and the Gift of Offense. In it, I argued that offense can actually be a gift. It can be the irritation that wakes us up, the small stone in our shoe that forces us to stop and look at what we’ve been walking with. Offense doesn’t have to harden our hearts, it can soften them, but only if we let it. But when we refuse to distinguish between conviction and condemnation, discomfort and harm, we rob ourselves of that gift. We silence the very truths that might set us free.
Charlie Kirk’s death is a sobering reminder of where this cultural confusion leads. When offense is weaponized, dialogue dies. And when dialogue dies, violence fills the vacuum.
But as sobering as that realization is, it leaves us with a question…how should we respond? What posture should we take when evil seems to win, when our culture feels broken, and when anger pulls at our hearts? That’s where I believe Scripture calls us to something deeper, a way of responding that reflects both truth and grace.
In times like this, it’s easy to let our grief harden into bitterness or our anger to swell into hatred. It feels natural to point fingers, to condemn the man who pulled the trigger, or to rail against the culture that cheers violence as if it were justice. And yet, Jesus calls us to a different way. He tells us, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). That command does not come easily. In fact, it feels almost impossible in moments like this. But it’s precisely in moments like this that His words carry the most weight.
Loving our enemies doesn’t mean excusing evil. It doesn’t mean ignoring the grief of Charlie’s family or downplaying the horror of what has happened. It means refusing to let hatred reproduce itself in us. It means recognizing that while justice must be pursued, vengeance belongs to God alone. And it means daring to pray, not just for the grieving family, not just for our nation, but even for the man who carried out this act. That God’s mercy might reach him before it is too late. And on a smaller scale, it means daring to pray for the people in our own lives we’d rather avoid…the colleague who cuts us down, the neighbor who mocks our faith, the friend who betrayed us. If we can begin there, we begin to live out the scandal of grace in ways the world desperately needs to see.
This is the scandal of grace…that even as we hold righteous anger at sin, we are still called to pray for the sinner. To many, that sounds almost offensive, and it is. But it is also the way of Christ, the One who, as He hung on the cross, prayed for His executioners: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Jesus didn’t JUST tell us to love our enemies, He modeled it in the most profound way. He prayed for their forgiveness. He showed us that love for enemies isn’t theory. It’s the very heart of the gospel.
So what does this mean for us? It means we grieve honestly, we cry out for justice, and we call evil by its name. But we also guard our hearts from hatred, we intercede for those we might rather curse, and we place our ultimate hope not in political outcomes or human systems, but in the God who will one day make all things new.
At the end of the day, what gives me peace in the midst of this tragedy is the unshakable truth that God is still in control. I don’t understand all of His ways, and I don’t pretend to. But I do know that justice will prevail, whether in this life, in eternity, or both. Evil will not have the final word. Death will not have the last say. And while my human instinct wants to hold onto anger, my faith reminds me that the only safe place to leave it is in the hands of God.
That doesn’t make the pain disappear. It doesn’t erase the grief of Charlie’s family, or the brokenness of a culture that would celebrate his death. But it does give me a foundation to stand on, a hope that evil will not go unanswered, and that love is stronger than hate.
So I will grieve, I will pray, I will long for justice. And I will also refuse to let bitterness take root. Instead, I will cling to the truth that God is sovereign, and that one day, He will make all things right.
This tragedy also reminds me why I first wrote about offense, truth, and grace. When we confuse offense with harm, when we silence instead of listen, when we dehumanize instead of dignify, we end up with a culture where violence replaces dialogue. I believe we can do better. I believe we must do better.
If you’d like to explore that connection more deeply, I invite you to read my earlier article, The Pebble in Your Shoe: Truth, Grace, and the Gift of Offense. My prayer is that together we can recover a way of speaking, listening, and living that holds truth and grace together, and that resists the darkness with the light of Christ.
So as we process this tragedy, my encouragement is simple: let’s treat each other as more than the ideas we hold. Let’s resist the pull to demonize those we disagree with and instead choose the harder way, the way of love, listening, and truth with grace. Whether you share my faith in Christ or not, I believe we can agree that every human being has value, that life is sacred, and that hatred doesn’t heal. And if you are a follower of Jesus, let’s remember: He didn’t just tell us to love our enemies…He showed us how. That’s the path He invites us to walk, and the path that can change the world, one relationship at a time.
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