Jeremy L. Berg

Here’s a challenging word to ponder in the aftermath of the murder of Charlie Kirk.

By Derek Penwell

All I have to lay on the altar this morning is lament for a country that keeps learning new ways to break its own heart.

There’s a temptation to pretend the hinge of history swings on its own. It doesn’t. We’re the ones pushing.

And before the prayers even cleared our throats, some rushed to cash this horror in for another season of vengeance, for another round of “This means war” against whatever “them” is most convenient. That’s not grief talking; that’s a political project mining tragedy for leverage. And it’s dangerous.

Yesterday, police arrested Tyler Robinson, 22, in connection with the killing of Charlie Kirk. Authorities have not announced a clear motive; reporting points in different directions, and officials say the investigation continues. My point stands: rushing to turn a murder into a mandate for vendetta is spiritually corrosive and politically reckless.

Interestingly, the message among the most aggrieved has already swung from “liberals started a war” to “pray for Tyler Robinson,” plus the familiar sidestep into mental health and video games. Pray, yes. But let’s not launder blame or hide behind deflections.

Yet notice, the calls for retribution against the Left didn’t vanish with the headline.

So, here’s the line I need to say out loud:

I follow a man executed by the state for challenging a politics that kept the machine of violence and domination humming, fueled by the bodies of the vulnerable. That makes me slow to pick up anyone’s sword.

Jesus’ Nazareth manifesto (Luke 4:18-19) wasn’t a bumper-sticker slogan; it was a material commitment to good news for the poor, release for captives, sight for the blind, freedom for the oppressed. And precisely because that kind of ministry reorders who matters, it rattled a politics content to treat the “least” as expendable.

For Jesus, love of enemies is a refusal of vengeance, not a retreat into both-sides-ism. The cross is God’s “no” to domination and God’s “yes” to the people whom domination discards.

Because of the heat of the moment, we’re being pressured to say “both sides,” as if moral clarity in an asynchronous politics were bad manners. But the gospel isn’t neutral. Jesus didn’t hedge his bets between the bruisers and the bruised. He consistently took the side of those whom power treated as disposable: the impoverished, the imprisoned, the sick, the stranger. That’s not partisanship. It’s simply following Jesus’ example.

Jesus called out predatory religion, disrupted economies of exploitation, named rulers’ threats without flinching, and still refused the sword. Loving our enemies never meant moral equivalence, but refusing to mirror their violence while committing to standing between them and the people they crush.

So miss me with the shrug that says, “Everybody’s at fault the same way.” No. In any given moment, there are people being targeted–people whom someone in charge wants to kill, deport, incarcerate, or, short of that, hassle into silence. If we follow the One murdered by the state because his ministry centered on the last, the least, and the lost, then our lane is set: advocate, accompany, protect. 

The thing is, we love enemies and bind wounds and pursue justice not because it works, but because that’s who we are. We do it because it’s the right thing to do. And whether or not it’s persuasive, we do it because Jesus did it first and told us to follow.

If investigators ultimately confirm an explicitly white-supremacist motive, then taking Jesus’ side means standing with those such violence targets: immigrants, Black and brown neighbors, Jews, LGBTQ+ people, and anyone marked expendable. 

But even if the motive proves murkier, taking Jesus’ side still means the same thing: refuse vengeance, protect the vulnerable, tell the truth, and resist turning any neighbor into fuel for someone’s machine. Either way, we don’t sprinkle holy water on violence.

Here’s the problem: No matter how hard I try, I can’t get the Jesus of the Gospels to bend himself into enough of a theological pretzel to bless violence (believe me, I’ve tried). Those who follow him are called to tell the truth about what happened without slander, without collective blame, and without conspiracy theater. We grieve like people committed to healing, not like people shopping for a pretext.

Somebody will say, “Isn’t that naïve? Doesn’t ‘peace talk’ just let bad actors skate?” But Scripture’s alternative to revenge isn’t acting like we don’t see it. Instead, it’s a fierce determination to pursue good … even for those who hate us. The early church learned to absorb blows without reproducing them; not because they enjoyed suffering, but because they believed resurrection transforms what counts as power.

If this week is an inflection point, a hinge, then those who would be faithful to Jesus have to decide which way the door swings. Either toward a politics of elimination (where grief is a nightstick and enemies are for getting rid of) or toward a politics patterned after the crucified and risen Jesus (where enemies are still enemies, but never beyond the reach of our desire for their flourishing, never beyond the demands of our honesty, never beyond the limits of our love).

We all know what the machine wants. It wants us divided, angry enough to mistake catharsis for courage. But we belong to a different economy, one where the last, the least, and the lost aren’t a means to *anybody’s* end … but neither are our political opponents. That’s not capitulation. That’s faithfulness.

Benediction

So, given the state of our world, may the God who hears the cry of the dispossessed keep us from the narcotic of retribution.

May the Spirit loosen our clenched fists, tame our tongues, and steady our feet for the journey into a land of shadows.

And may the crucified Jesus teach us to love our enemies without lying about the harm, to bind up the wounded without auditing their worthiness, and to seek justice without turning any of our neighbors into fuel for the relentless machine that steals our humanity.