“If you believe in something, you need to have the courage to fight for those ideas – not run away from them or try and silence them.” – Charlie Kirk
Today we remember 9/11. A day in history where tragedy brought our nation together. A time where the weight of loss stirred neighborly affection and support. Many people who lived through the attack on the towers remark that the unity of the nation was felt more than ever on 9/12.
Yesterday we all had the ability to witness the assassination of Charlie Kirk on unfiltered social media. Yesterday we felt the loss of high school students in Colorado. And yet, despite the continual violence in the United States we all still seem to be polarized. When did death become political?
I remember when I was in 8th grade (I could write a whole book about why middle schoolers trying to care about politics is horrifying) a classmate felt the need to tell me she couldn’t be my friend because I supported school shootings. I went to a fairly (probably an understatement) liberal middle school and, for those who do not know, my dad owns a gun store. I was confused, and truly at such a young age at a loss for words at how to explain that her statement wasn’t true. What I knew about guns was limited to the fact that some of my favorite family memories (still to this day) included going to the range and shooting with my brother and parents. I didn’t have the capacity to even touch the complexity of guns being something that made me feel safe and the reality that people, kids, had just died because the wrong person had one.
Flash forward almost ten years and I still find myself sitting in the complexities of it. Without adequate words to touch on how to mourn the death of innocent people and defend the right to something so fundamental in the establishment of our country. Why can’t it be both, and? Charlie Kirk’s public assassination was sad, the shooting in Evergreen was sad, and I disagree about how to find a solution to the problem?
No human can agree with everyone, it is entirely impossible – but here is what I know to be true. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). God did not give His son for the democrat. For the Republican. For the righteous or the good person. He gave His Son for the sinner. For every person who has made a mistake (in summary, every person). He knew that one single mistake meant eternity without Him, so Jesus came to be punished for the sin we all commit. As controversial as it might sound, I love the shooters (plural) and hate that we live in such a broken world that they turned out the way they did. I am heartbroken that no one ever reached them with the Gospel and planted seeds for God to water in their hearts. I am heartbroken that their eternity will be in hell. I love Charlie Kirk, and I love the people who laugh at his death. I am actively praying that Jesus will meet them where they’re at and they will see the goodness of God and seek repentance. I love the strangers that walked into school and didn’t walk out again. I can only hope that they knew Jesus before they died. While it might not make it onto my social media headlines, I mourn with those who mourn (Romans 12:15) regardless of the circumstance.
So where as a nation did we go so wrong? Why do I feel like posting about a school shooting being horrible means I am anti-gun? Why is it that posting about Kirk’s death is somehow controversial? As hard as it is to say, and as much as I wish it wasn’t true, I blame the media.
I studied journalism in college. I wanted to be an investigative writer, a journalist. But like everything, news is a business. You may already know this but news stations hire people who’s sole job is to watch a monitor to show what stories people click onto and off of, down to the second. Do you know what is the most captivating to an audience? Something that sparks fear. Anger. Something that creates an ‘Us vs Them’ mentality. Those stories sell. Over, and over and over again. Humans by nature are made for community, it’s in God’s design (Genesis 2:18, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12). But somewhere that community changed from sharpening each other and challenging ideas to seek truth to seeking comfort in an echo chamber.
Up until the 1960’s the political parties were ideologically mixed. People running for elections as republicans or democrats didn’t necessarily mean what it means today. But people got lazy (Read more in Ezra Klein’s book “Why are we Polarized”). It was easier to see the word Republican and know that it meant pro-life, pro-gun etc, than to have to sift through each hot-topic and actually know candidates’ beliefs on each topic before voting. And so, the divide between two parties broadened, and the danger of expressing a shared opinion as a political figure became greater. So here we rest, in a nation split in two. Where somehow it seems ‘controversial’ to say school shootings and Charlie Kirk dying are both an issue, and to speak up about both. Wake up.
Somewhere we need to learn to be curious again, to be humble and seek to understand another perspective. I may be naive for saying this but generally speaking I think people individually seek the good. I think people who are pro-rights seek the good of the mother. The good of someone traumatized, scared or entirely unprepared for a child. I think people who are pro-life seek the good of the child, knowing a chance to live is greater than a convenient death. I think we lost the language for ideological debate and everything turned into attack and emotion. That’s not how you reach people, it’s how you made the divide greater (Read more in Adam Grant’s book “Think Again”).
All that to say, I’m sorry if I’ve offended anyone for posting about Charlie Kirk’s death and not Evergreen. Talk to God yourself and ask who I prayed for. And yes, I think there should be change regarding access to guns in the United States – but no that does not look like infringing the 2nd amendment right or getting rid of guns entirely. Bad people make illegal decisions, if murder is okay to someone, how much do you think they would reflect before illegally getting access to a firearm? Politically, we should all disagree to some extent. We should all ask questions and be able to defend what we believe. As Christians my higher calling is to be able to defend what we believe not from an ideological position but from a biblical one. But one thing I hope we can all agree on is that senseless death is never ok, and sadly I don’t believe that statement holds true for everyone in America today. As it was on September 12, 2001, I hope that tomorrow we can say as a nation there is more unity than there was the day before. Join me in praying for America.