By Katie Ginn
In the three weeks since the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, plenty of folks have told us what to think about him. People have compared Kirk to everybody from Dietrich Bonhoeffer to David Duke.
I’m not about to add my own think piece here. By now you’ve formed your own opinion, and I doubt I could change your mind. Plus, there are more important questions to ask than “What should I think about Charlie Kirk?” Here are just a few:
- What is my attitude toward my neighbor, my enemy, those who don’t look like me, and those who don’t vote like me? Do I love them and pray for them as Jesus commanded (Matthew 5:44), or do I just try to win arguments with them? God, change me.
- If I do love them, am I sharing Jesus with them? To that end, is there anything I should be doing right now – a phone call I need to make, a coffee date I need to set, an invitation I need to send? God, lead me.
- If I want to share Jesus with them, am I leaving enough time in my schedule to do so? Are there commitments on my calendar that need to be rescheduled, shortened, or removed, so I’ll have time for the stuff that matters? God, show me.
Personally, that last bullet point convicts me most right now. I tend to overbook myself, and then my relationships suffer. Today I’ve decided maybe I need to go to the noon boot camp at the gym tomorrow. By the time I drive there, do the workout, stretch, and drive back, I will have taken an hour and 45 minutes out of the middle of the workday. Maybe I can go for a 30-minute run in the morning instead. That way I’ll get more work done, and then if something comes up with the people I love, I can pivot more easily.
It might not sound very spiritual, but how I spend my time affects my ability to love my neighbor and share my faith.
Another example: The day after Charlie Kirk’s murder, I spent most of the day reading everybody’s responses on social media and watching Kirk’s videos. To a degree, it was informative. But after a while, it got exhausting. Worst of all, it probably kept me from doing something far more important – calling a friend who I knew was going through a hard time.
She needed me. The late Charlie Kirk and all of his followers and detractors did not.
I’m not trying to downplay the importance of public discourse or of being informed on current events. But at a certain point, we’ve got to turn off the news, get off the internet, and talk to a human being in person. We’ve got to remember they’re made in God’s image and treat them accordingly. We’ve got to value the living, breathing people around us more than we value Facebook op-eds about people we’ve never met.
If you think Charlie Kirk was a Christian martyr like Bonhoeffer, great. Go emulate their boldness. If you think Charlie Kirk was a fire-breathing racist like David Duke, great. Go work toward justice. By the way, wherever we fall on that spectrum, we are to submit our thoughts, opinions, and plans to God, whose ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9).
Let’s not spend all our time merely reading, posting, commenting, and quote-tweeting. Let’s go dosomething – ideally, something that shows love for Jesus and for people.