Our Missouri Synod president, Rev. Dr. Matthew Harrison, whom I have great respect for and ordinarily stays above the fray, spoke of Charlie Kirk in the LCMS Reporter shortly after his murder. He spoke of him simply as a fellow Christian, and explicitly stated that he wasn't a "racist or hater," adjudicating the question of a man's character in a dispute the church should be staying out of, according to his own words in the very same letter ("It is ever perilous for a church leader to speak publicly into highly contentious cultural and political issues."). He then spends the rest of his letter continuing to break this same admonition, connecting the murder to the country's founding to Marxism to DEI and so on in a haphazard manner that relies on a set of associations that are not substantiated in the letter but assumed to be understood by the audience. (The LCMS laity is estimated to be around 70% Republican, with clergy around 90%.)
The way these things usually go is that everyone is expected to offer a disclaimer about how all political violence is unacceptable, especially when reacting to offensive speech. And it is. If I claim to be a Christian standing athwart the corruption of the church by the right, it wouldn't do me any good to besmirch a dead man, would it?
From all accounts, Charlie Kirk the man was a faithful husband and father, and a sincere believer. And if he was, then he was a brother and I will see him someday in Paradise. But we do need to talk about the tone and tenor of Charlie's career and public life, and his political legacy, which I do not consider to be a positive thing. Charlie Kirk was a political agitator who used the language of Christianity not to further the spread of the Gospel, but to further the cause of reactionary politics. And not in a normal sort of using-Christianese-on-AM-radio or abusing 2 Chronicles 7:14 to drive people to the polls way, either. He went straight into churches and used them as quasi-political rallies. He was a money changer at God's temple, seeking political power by weaponizing houses of worship through his liminal organizations between church and politics such as TPUSA Faith and the Falkirk Center.
Charlie's business was factiousness. His strategy was to go in front of people on camera and say outrageous and provocative things, tailor-made for creating short viral clips to be spread around social media, enhancing his own profile, power, and notoriety by friends and enemies alike, profiting from division. So what's the problem with this? Factiousness is a sin [Gal 5:20, Titus 3:10-11, 1 Cor 1:10]. If Christians are to offend anyone, it should be with the Gospel, not by intentionally causing offense about issues of tertiary importance [1 Cor 1:23, Gal 5:11, 1 Pet 2:8, 1 Cor 10:32-33, Col 4:6, Eph 4:29, 1 Cor 9:22].
The Reverend ends his letter with admonitions to love his enemies - but that was not what Charlie Kirk did. He incessantly mocked them, encouraged their ostracization, and sought to legislate them into a pariah class. I don't believe in the scientistic teachings of gender identity any more than the Reverend does. I also don't believe in the teachings of Judaism, Islam, or Atheism, but I acknowledge those who choose to believe these ideas are valid participants in a pluralistic, democratic society, and a true expression of love for these enemies is to not put a stumbling block to the Gospel in their way by inflammatory speech or persecuting them through the sword of the state.
Our SELC President, W.R. Vinovskis, gave a much more careful response. I stand behind it fully and wonder if it was in respectful contrast to the Reverend's letter. I encourage you to read it too.