The Stoning of Stephen and The Shooting of Charlie Kirk

One was a martyr.
One was a murder.

Stephen died bearing witness to the love that violence can never change, the love that Jesus exemplified on the cross, the love that we are called to.

There was never a time when violence could conquer this love. It is ungovernable and unquenchable. Forgiving someone who hurt you is one thing, but asking God to forgive those who are lynching you is another. Love like that cannot be silenced, cannot be stopped, cannot be simply excused as a fuzzy feeling or a bleeding heart. Love that violence cannot control is what will dismantle the systems of empire, what has thrown the powers and principalities into a death spiral, and what beats through the veins of divinity.

When a love like this dies, it buries a seed that brings about a countless harvest. There is no extermination of this love because every act of violence done to a love that refuses to play by the games of violence becomes a witness to the powerlessness of violence.

Love like this dismantles the power of empire because it refuses to be like the empire, and in doing so bears witness to a different way, a new way, a life-thriving way.

Murder isn’t martyrdom.

Charlie Kirk died in a long line of political and cultural violence. It is heartbreaking to add another name to the reaper's list. Murder is sin, and Charlie Kirk was sinned against.

But isn’t this the ideology he espoused? He seems to have died as a witness to the power of violence within the systems of empire and coercion. Kirk said things that were not rooted in love, in true freedom, in God. He spewed forth violent rhetoric and wished harm on specific people groups.

Since his death, Kirk as been lionized by many people. But all that does is bear false witness to his life, to his cause, to his work. We need to be honest in our witness, not glossing over the facts or never speaking ill of the dead. We need truth-tellers to tell us the truth about the murder.

His death was a seed, but it was a seed of a bad tree. What he bore witness to was the truth that power will kill. The empire machine will chew you up and spit you out without blinking.

Love did not conquer in his murder.

Love wept.

Another beloved lost to senseless gun violence in a culture that worships violence. This is not martyrdom, not bearing witness to divine love and Christ. Kirk’s death had nothing to do with Jesus. It was about the truth that the ideology and idolatry of violence can only lead to more violence.

Harm begets harm… until love interrupts.

Stephen is stoned, lynched, killed. But love interrupted the cycle of mimetic desire and scapegoating violence. Instead of outrage, outpourings of blame, and outlandish memorials of Stephen, the church remained a true witness to the way of love, the way of Jesus. In doing so, they became the persecuted ones. Stephen was the first martyr, but not the last. Blood has been shed against the witness of ungovernable love, but that witness has never been silenced, never been changed, never capitulated to the ways of empire.

Love remains.

The one that was murdered was loved.
The one that was martyred bore witness to that love.