Charlie Kirk & Loving Our Political Enemies

Enemy love admits division, yet rejects vengeance.

By Esau McCaulley

After I found out Charlie Kirk had been murdered during a public debate in Utah, I drove about an hour to see my son play soccer. There is much that separates Charlie and me politically (he said much that I opposed strongly), but he was a husband and father. This is where our divergent paths intersect. No child or spouse should lose their loved one to political violence. 

His murder is part of a larger pattern of political violence that has marked the last few years, including:

• The scheme to kidnap Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer

• The arson plot against Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro

• The storming of the US Capitol on January 6th

• Pipe bombs left at the DNC and RNC conventions

• The hammer attack on Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s husband

• Multiple assassination attempts against Republican President Donald Trump 

• The assassination of Democratic Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband

• The attack on Democratic State Senator John Hoffman and his wife

• The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson

• The shots fired at the CDC headquarters

• The assassination attempt of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh

  
  

In this country, pain wanders back and forth across the aisle, inflicting trauma on both the Right and the Left. At my church, we pray every week for the Republican President of the United States and the Democratic Governor of Illinois because, for the Christian, political agreement is not a prerequisite for prayer or compassion. 

Some consider such empathy (especially when extended to political opponents) to be a sign of weakness. Criticisms are often levied against Black Christians for focusing on love so much that it gets in the way of justice. The thinking goes that even in the wake of tragedy, we need to speak truth to power, not tiptoe around evil. But things are not so simple - love and empathy play an essential role in justice work because love keeps justice from devolving into vengeance. Love is justice that still has the ability to reason.

Loving our enemies requires a sort of dual recognition. First, we acknowledge that we have been wronged. Enemy love doesn’t retreat or pretend that what separates us are small matters. But then, instead of seeking revenge, we declare that our profound differences need not persist. Enemy love acknowledges that both the oppressed and the oppressor are trapped in different ways by the same lie: that one life has more value, or is more worthy of compassion, than another.

Jesus demonstrated this dual recognition in his final days when he was struck by his opponents. He asked, “If I said something wrong, testify to the wrong. If I spoke truth, why do you strike me?” (John 18:23) He could articulate the wrong done - he had been struck - while still seeing the person who wounded him as one worthy of love, not retaliatory violence.

The first believers, initially consisting entirely of Jewish Christians, practiced this dual recognition by evangelizing an empire that had colonized their land and taxed them unfairly. They had every right to disdain the Romans, but instead saw them as objects of compassion. The initial century of Christian evangelism was not carried out by the point of the sword, but by the folly of preaching Christ crucified. Divine vulnerability was the arena for transformation. 

The central teaching of Christianity is that on the cross, God had this dual recognition of us. We were people who had done wrong, but we remained recipients of his affection. The love God extended to me must impact how I view others, thus making the cross inescapably political. The Empire and its tendency to murder rivals is undone by the Kingdom of God, which rejects the way of violence. The Empire crucifies its enemies to silence them; Christians love them into becoming different types of people. 

Charlie Kirk said things that were hurtful to many, including Black people. He was also a person created in the image of God. To show empathy towards the family of someone who said harmful things and lament their passing is to wish they had experienced the joy and freedom that comes from knowing and speaking the truth. Empathy leaves open the possibility that our current political adversaries might one day put down their rhetorical swords and beat them into plowshares. Love leaves open a doorway to healing. If we close that door completely, I fear for our future as a country.

We are in desperate need of someone who is willing to follow in the way of the cross and reject the violence that surrounds us. So many of our politicians and pundits encourage us to see our enemies as so beyond the pale that they are incapable of change. This kind of rhetoric runs the risk of continuing a cycle of violence that threatens to unravel our republic.

After the soccer game, my son and I drove home. It was well into the evening by the time we returned, but I needed to take my Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Scotty, on a walk. The neighborhood was surprisingly quiet, the somber mood of the country forcing many inside earlier than usual. The silence created an unease I had not felt in my neighborhood before. The dark corners suddenly felt a little less safe.

As I walked along the sidewalk, a sedan pulled up beside me. My first reaction was fear. Was this someone enraged by Charlie Kirk’s murder intent on harassing the first African American they saw? This may sound like a silly notion, but a number of Black colleges were closed over the last few days because of credible terrorist threats. Anti-Black violence seems to crest when the nation is reeling.

The driver was not a vigilante in search of revenge; they were members of my church. Lost in thought, I had wandered right in front of their home and blocked the driveway. Their friendly faces were a comfort to me on a lonely night as we talked awhile about our fears and hopes for the country. Maybe that is what all of us need: friends to remind us of our shared humanity and space to meet with others who still care enough to plot together how we might yet turn the tide.

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Esau Mccaulley is Pastor of All Saints Church in Naperville, IL, host of the Esau Mccaulley Podcast, and author of the forthcoming book God’s Colorful Kingdom Storybook Bible: The Story of God’s Big Diverse Family. He serves as an Associate professor at Wheaton College.