Is Charlie Kirk a martyr?
I’ve seen some well-intentioned brothers questioning whether “martyr” is the appropriate word for Charlie. The answer is a hearty and unequivocal yes. He understood — as many Christians do not — that loving your neighbor means seeking the common good. To that end he spoke on political matters, because seeking the common good is what politics is about (at least if you’re a discerning Christian). In the process, he publicly and unashamedly preached the gospel of Jesus Christ on college campuses across the country. He moved easily from discussions of homosexuality, gender, taxation, and family into the gospel, because he correctly saw that they’re very directly related. In this he was like the Apostle Paul, who also spoke to those topics and moved easily from them to the gospel and back.
And he was killed for it. That’s the definition of martyrdom, if St. Paul counts as a martyr.
If you think he should have stuck with just preaching about Jesus, heaven and hell, the promise of eternal life, the cross, and so forth…a lot of people agree with you. So you got that going for you. But that’s not what Jesus did, and it’s not what Paul did. So there’s that.
My first thought, when I heard the news, was “I hope they like those card tables and ‘Prove me wrong’ banners, because there’s gonna be a lot more of them.” To my eye, this is a moment analogous to the murder of Jim Elliot and his friends by the Waorani, or the five New Tribes missionaries by the Ayore. A whole generation of young men have just decided what they want to be when they grow up. The people who were rejoicing at Charlie’s death have no idea what they’ve unleashed.
You no longer need to go halfway around the world to some remote jungle to risk your life for your faith. You can do it at the university campus just down the street. So let’s get to it.
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