The Charlie Kirk Question No One is Asking
It's a difficult point, but it must be made.
Cretins like Donald Trump Jr., Stephen Miller, and Benny Johnson took a few moments away from Paul-Pelosi-murdered-with-a-hammer jokes and “woke libs” demonization to wax about Kirk’s noble life and legacy. Of course, Donald Trump can’t even crawl a High Road, so he tossed in a lovely sentiment about the hate in his heart for all perceived enemies.
And, joy of joys, I awoke this morning to learn that Oklahoma state senators have introduced a bill requiring all state colleges to erect and protect Charlie Kirk statues on their campuses. Make no mistake. This isn’t about memory. It’s about marking territory.
None of this is a surprise. We knew Charlie Kirk’s horrible murder would gift a holy war narrative to the zealots and oligarchs, but there’s a question nobody is asking, so fine…I’ll ask it.
Was a lethal bullet to the throat Jesus’s method for calling Charlie Kirk home, or did Jesus simply sit back and allow an “evil murderer” [Erika Kirk’s words] to assassinate a child and champion spreading God’s message on the world stage?
It can’t be both. It can’t be part of a divine plan AND be the act of an evil agent shredding that plan…unless that plan was written so that Charlie Kirk’s murder was a foregone conclusion, which would make the Christian god guilty of premeditated infanticide. A god drew the blueprint for his child’s public execution.
Much of Christian destiny preaching is self-cancelling:
1. A horror takes place.
2. God has a plan. His will be done.
3. But the plan can be derailed. Because evil.
4. Yet God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God…
5. As Satan steals, kills, and destroys the good things God has planned.
I asked a hard question this week after Grammy-winning songwriter Brett James was horribly killed in a North Carolina plane crash. Yet even as his loved ones grieve his loss and the rest of us lament a precious life cut short, we cannot ignore the irony that James penned the Carrie Underwood hit song, “Jesus Take the Wheel.”
At some point, the question must be asked. If Jesus had indeed been at the wheel, why did the plane splinter and leave three passengers dead?
The term “platitude” has an interesting etymology. It borrows from the French compound of “plat” (flat) and “tude” (ness). The 1694 definition is: the quality of banality. Yet fundie Christianity has adorned itself in banal, flat, empty-calorie platitudes like “Jesus Take the Wheel,” “God’s Will Be Done,” and “Everything Happens for a Reason”…unless the Reason was derailed because of those Evil Woke Libs who must be defeated!
Yet even if the shooter identified as a liberal, did that alleged Devil on Earth foil God’s plan or fulfill it?
I’m reminded of the biblical Judas, the apostle loathed and lamented for the heinous betrayal that resulted in Jesus’s crucifixion. Yet crucifixion was always the plan, so how could Judas have been at fault? From birth, he was a dead man walking. Predestined. Doomed. God’s plan needed someone to appear to foil God’s plan in a deed that was both dastardly and destined.
Silly Putty apologetics are certainly nothing new to the church, and you and I will always get blasted for asking hard questions in the wake of tragedy. Yet if we waited for moments of convenience, nothing would ever get said.
So I’m saying it. Charlie Kirk’s assassination is a horrifying and unconscionable act, and his killer must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but those claiming that either Jesus guided the bullet or failed to deflect it are shouting red-flag statements that make God either inept, unwilling, or guilty of premeditated murder.
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