The contrast could hardly be more stark or irreconcilable. Erika Kirk, in obedience to the explicit command and living example of Jesus Christ on the cross, forgave her husband’s assassin. Within hours of that obedience, Donald Trump said, “I hate my opponents. I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry.” Never have so many evangelical Christians found themselves in the White House and in the corridors of power in Washington. Donald Trump put many of them there. He likes them. They like him. But he is not one of them.
Erika’s public forgiveness of “that young man” now reverberates around the world. That forgiveness cuts right through MAGA nation and FOX News, distinguishing Bible-believing Christians who know and submit to the authority of Holy Scripture from those who do not. At the funeral, Erika Kirk and Marco Rubio distinguished themselves from most speakers as eloquent, Biblically-knowledgeable, and experienced Christian witnesses to Jesus Christ. (RELATED: Republican Responsibility for Charlie Kirk’s Assassination)
Who are these others — the non-understanders, like Trump? Atheists? Agnostics? Christians in name only? Brilliant Christian “adjacents” who, like atheist Richard Dawkins, eventually realized that much of what they hold dear in life is largely the fruit of Christian civilization?
Christianity is Revelation — Not Common Sense
Uncomfortable with deep and detailed public engagement with religion generally, the conservative political pundit class scrambles to squeeze as much moral value as they think they can from the invocation of “common sense.” But, as Tom Holland tries to teach us, the source of most of what came to be viewed as common sense in the West is Christianity. From monogamy to charity for those in poverty to what has counted as justice to the forgiveness of sins, Christianity has dominated the moral sensibility of the masses.
Divine revelation never changes, but common sense does. That homosexual behavior was both sinful and harmful was common sense for virtually every student who entered my classrooms 35 years ago. Not so today, even though I teach in an evangelical theological seminary. Common sense is a receptacle of convictions and ideas, not a source of truth.
That Christians must forgive their enemies was also once common sense in America. Not so today. Trump gathered evangelicals around him, but in their presence, he remains on the outside looking in. True believers are outing themselves before a less Christian America in the wake of Erika’s message. Not because they, in themselves, possess the power to forgive their enemies, even enemies who kill their loved ones. They first show themselves believers through acknowledgment that the Bible is the word of God, authoritative in all that it reveals and commands, and then in their obedience to those commands. They show that they belong to a living Lord who sometimes answers yes to that prayer of Saint Augustine of Hippo, “Lord, give what you command and command what you will.” God bestowed Erika’s power to forgive — she didn’t pull it from a holster and fire.
Does Trump view forgiveness of sins as weak? Perhaps. But he did say of his inability or unwillingness, “I am sorry.” If he does think forgiveness of enemies weak, he is not alone. So did the greatest of the atheists, Friedrich Nietzsche. For him, a turn-the-cheek religion could never realize humanity’s true destiny — a destiny without God — humanity grasping at power that accepts that God is Dead, and that we killed him. The contrast between the Nietzschean and Christian paths to power could hardly be put in more bold relief than do Erika’s forgiveness and Trump’s withholding of it. The contrast exposed is that between divine and political power — both belong to the good creation, but one is eternal, the other temporary. One is subordinate, the other authoritative. Both get things done, but warranted political power is judged by divine decree, not the reverse.
Where is the power of Christianity demonstrated? When the enemies of God, human and demonic, did all they could to destroy God’s Son — they killed him. But the grave could not hold him. That’s power! Not just spiritual power but political power as well. Some evangelical preachers insist that when you mix politics with the gospel of Jesus Christ, you end up with just politics. Charlie and Erika give the lie to that contention. In this instance, when Christianity and politics mingled, what we got was Charlie and Erika Kirk, TPUSA. The result is that the world is now compelled to hear Erika forgive “that young man” in the name of Jesus Christ, and that Christians, for the sake of our neighbors, for the good of America, and in the hope of pulling the Democrat Party back from the abyss, ought not vote Democrat.
Marco Rubio reminded us that Jesus is coming back. That promise frees Christians from the murderous impatience of Marxists, Communists, and Socialists. They must have what they want now. So the burning and the maiming and the killing eventually ensue. Burn that down! Remove those genitals! Kill those burdensome babies and elderly ones! Kill Charlie! (RELATED: The Poisonous Fruit of Youth Worship)
Christian power? The power that comes from knowing that, but for the grace of God, each of us is capable of sin as heinous as the sin of “that young man.” Christians credit God, not themselves or common sense or anything or anyone else, for the fact that they are not worse sinners than they are. The power that results in Charlie and Erika loving Trump and Trump loving them, while only the first two know the power of the forgiveness of enemies, is what we get when we mix Christian faith with politics the right way.
Charlie, Erika, Trump, and each of us come into and go from this world like grass that flourishes in the morning and is burned to a crisp under the heat of the sun by evening (Psalm 103:15; 1 Peter 1:24). Christianity stays because Jesus reigns. And for a few moments just now, He is making himself heard so clearly, so effectively, and so powerfully that the contrast between those who know and obey him cannot be hidden.
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