Hate Now, Forgive Later
On Sunday, September 21st, 200,000 people showed up at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, for a memorial service for Charlie Kirk. More than 100 million people watched all over the world. The speakers included President Trump, Vice President Vance, Erika Kirk, Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, Jr., Tucker Carlson, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, and Tulsi Gabbard. Elon Musk was also present, sitting next to Trump.
During an emotional tribute to her husband, Erika Kirk declared that she has forgiven Tyler Robinson for murdering her husband.
Frankly, I was horrified. “What’s next,” I wondered, “foot washing?”
First and foremost, this was bad politics. The murder of Charlie Kirk has stirred up a great deal of righteous anger and the resolve to finally shut down far-Left terrorism. Centrists and Leftists are desperate to head off this backlash by promoting illusions about “unity” and “reconciliation.”
Basically, the Left is trying to divide the Right while unifying around an issue that Trump and Pam Bondi ineptly handed to them: freedom of speech. (Now that Jimmy Kimmel is returning to television, they have lost that pretext, but they’ll invent another. It is not like they are restrained by honesty or a sense of shame.)
Erika Kirk’s talk of forgiveness is an immense gift to the Left, because it supports the delusion that we can continue to exist with the Left within the same community if we’re just nice enough—while the Left merely prepares for more violence. We need to stiffen our people’s spines, not cause them to swoon and wallow in sentimental mush.
As one would expect, Erika Kirk’s message is being applauded and boosted by both Leftists and their cuckservative and centrist enablers. Frankly, she has terrible political instincts and should probably stay home and raise her children.
Forgiveness means that you no longer hold hard feelings toward someone who has wronged you. That’s certainly possible, for instance if the offender sincerely apologizes, asks for forgiveness, and tries to make amends. But Tyler Robinson has not apologized. He hasn’t asked for forgiveness. He hasn’t made amends. He may not even think he’s done anything wrong. So he has given Erika Kirk no reason to forgive him.
Moreover, not enough time has passed for real forgiveness. You can’t turn emotions on and off like the lights. It takes a long time to process, surmount, and let go of such pain—if it happens at all. If I were Charlie Kirk, I would be offended to learn that my wife had forgiven my killer after 11 days. Frankly, I’d wonder if she loved me very deeply at all. How can she love her children and let go of her anger so quickly? I refuse to believe that Erika Kirk has such shallow feelings.
Therefore, I conclude that Erika Kirk hasn’t forgiven her husband’s killer. Instead, she’s lying. But why? Politics and religion are the main reasons for lies like this. I’ve already argued that forgiveness is bad politics. So it seems most likely that the reason is religion. Although Charlie Kirk was an Evangelical Protestant, and his memorial service was very much in the Evangelical Megachurch style, Erika Kirk is apparently Catholic.
But on this question, denomination doesn’t really matter, for all the branches of Christianity command certain feelings—love and forgiveness—directed at enemies, as if emotions can simply be switched on and off at will. Since they can’t, but God demands it anyway and people want to be good, Christianity basically teaches people to delude themselves and others about their feelings. Generally, one lies to oneself first, then goes public. When one publicly lies about one’s feelings to show off one’s Christian virtues, that’s what we call “virtue signaling.”
Like Leftists and cuckservatives, Christians on social media were ecstatic about Erika Kirk’s performative forgiveness. Hilariously, they were trying to sell it as “strength.” “See, we aren’t mean people like those Leftists say we are. We have the power of forgiveness. Take that, Leftists!” Of course no Leftist fears enemies who are trying to morally exculpate themselves from cheap insults by performative forgiveness. Instead, they would applaud such people, precisely because they think they are weak. While Christians are going through mental gymnastics to forgive, the Left’s next sniper is patiently taking aim.
Erika Kirk also suggested that giving Tyler Robinson the death penalty is not something Jesus would do. But at least she had the good sense to say that she was personally leaving this in the hands of the government. But that too is just another bit of empty virtue signaling. If Erika is really leaving the death penalty in the hands of the Utah government, then why make any statements at all that would strengthen anti-death penalty advocates?
We are in an existential struggle with people who want to kill us for our beliefs. It’s us or them. Our enemies already have huge institutional advantages over us. When your enemies simply want to kill you, but your side consists of people who are looking to love and forgive their would-be murderers, doesn’t that just burden the Right with one more systematic disadvantage? If people in your foxhole are arguing against the death penalty for the people who are actually killing you, doesn’t that add yet another disadvantage?
Christians, of course, think that they will be rewarded in heaven for such behavior. Which means, on a deep level, they aren’t really concerned with winning this battle. Their kingdom is not of this world. Their heads are not in this game. They say there are no atheists in foxholes. But, frankly, in this fight, can we afford anything else?
Fortunately, when it was Trump’s turn at the microphone, he uttered these words:
Charlie did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponents, and I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry Erika. . . . Charlie is angry looking down at me right now.
Trump has his limits. Trump has his problems. But he’s at least honest about his perfectly natural and normal feelings, even if he is not quite willing to say they are also right feelings. But then, in his heart, Trump isn’t a Christian.
Stephen Miller, another non-Christian, spoke of God in his remarks. But he said nothing about forgiveness. Instead, he spoke of righteous anger and retribution. Miller, of course, is a Jew. But interestingly enough, when he spoke of “our lineage and our legacy,” he said nothing about Jews, Jerusalem, or Christianity, unlike the Christians on stage, who constantly refer to “Judeo-Christianity.” Instead, Miller said “Our lineage and our legacy hails back to Athens, to Rome, to Philadelphia, to Monticello.” Again, this is the fighting spirit we need.
There are Christians in our movement with good sense. We’re not going to win without them. But if we are going to win, they need to police their weak brothers and sisters like Erika Kirk, who would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory to virtue signal about how “above it all” they are.
To win this, we are going to need hate in our hearts. Once we’ve won, only then can we talk about love and forgiveness.