I believe I was not the only one who unfortunately anticipated the myriad of depravity in response to the death of Charlie Kirk. We cried, realizing that all of our work may at this point be for naught and priming ourselves for the maniacal Tik Toks and victory dances the far-left activists would make in celebration. We felt powerless not knowing what to do next and not having Charlie as a guiding presence in our time of grief. Yet we never gave up. Armed with one of his favorite mottos, “never surrender,” and the wisdom of Romans 8:28 that Erika Kirk shared with millions of audience members in her first address after her husband was ruthlessly torn out of her and her children’s lives, we continued on with the hope that Charlie stirred in his followers. We pushed through all the noise, (albeit wearily) resuming our work on the front lines of liberty. Only God decides when we are finished. It is not our place to surrender our cause to those who wish destruction upon our people.
Yet the onslaught struck us differently when those we believed to be on our own side began to add onto the vitriol we presumed would only come from our most vengeful political opponents.
In his 1966 California gubernatorial campaign, Ronald Reagan famously touted the idea of an 11th commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”
Politically speaking, this move only harms Republicans in the coming midterm campaigns. If detractors' true intentions lie in strengthening our movement, they would not prioritize clicks over caution. If one who finds a cause for concern within the movement they believe is a force for good, it is only logical that they would favor quiet research and prudent articulation over provocative headlines and rapid conclusions. I do not seek to besmirch the deepest motivations of any fellow Conservative, yet my logic leads me to deduce that investigations relying on speculation and scaffolded by nothing other than utter ignorance of Erika’s situation are not investigations led by those with honorable intentions.
If leaking TPUSA company calls, excoriating Erika’s every facial expression, speech, and appearance she makes, and exposing what some believe to be selfish “opportunism” in the wake of Charlie’s death, does not count as a violation of this commandment, I frankly don’t know what is.
Yet this phenomenon runs incredibly deeper than political prosperity. There is little we as a movement can do to stop those who use this dreadful situation to advance their own interests at the cost of a grieving young family. However there is much we can learn from the exceptional dignity that Erika approaches her attackers with.
Erika Kirk stands out to both her attackers and her supporters for one reason:
She stands in direct opposition to the modern belief that happiness is dependent on worldly fortune, and is living proof that true happiness is a state of bliss achieved by the soul when all worries are laid down at the feet of God.
The world is seized by the belief that the poor lack the joy of wealth, the unpopular lack the joy of fame, and the sick lack the joy of health. Erika Kirk is the most prominent voice reminding us to “set [our] minds on things above, not on earthly things... When Christ, who is [our] life, appears, then [we] also will appear with him in glory.” (Colossians 3:2-4.)
We fell slave to dopamine rushes and instant gratification, and forgot that we obtain joy for what we have, expecting only to extract joy from the things themselves. In the midst of this message’s resurgence, it is expected that those not willing to confront this truth will writhe from the pain of being exposed.
Because of this, we expect the widow to sob uncontrollably at the fact that her husband is no longer by her side. We consider it nothing other than insincerity if we see her crack a (much needed) smile at something simple as emojis on a Zoom call. We cannot take her desperate need for support as anything less than scandalous when we see her and JD Vance hug onstage. When the widow refused to buy into this idea of “happiness,” we grew envious of her ability to rise above the earthly tendencies, and began to tear her down.
Ultimately, this misconception of happiness threatens to destroy our political movement, our country, and our world. The belief distracts us from the moments of introspection that allow us to remember the true gifts of what God has given us by compelling us to seek out the world’s validation and satisfaction. Faithful men avoid prayer on the basis that it does not grant him the immediate satisfaction he now insatiably craves. Now, he believes he is better off replacing it with a comedy show before bed.
This begins the process of becoming the Homo Deus: the Man-God. We begin to believe that We control our own lives, so We blame Ourselves when Our way does not come to fruition and get upset when Our situation is not the way We want it to be. We are big, We are powerful, and We will never fall.
We cannot understand how the poor widow prays when her situation should only throw her into despair, so We are enraged when she appears to rise above Our omnipotence and carry on with more resolve, more faith, more hope, and more love than We could ever muster if We found Ourselves in a situation like hers. We do not know what to do with this rage, so We mock her and insist that it must not be genuine. When this widow dares to conflict with Our vision, We must unleash our merciless wrath on her. We are the way, We are the truth, and We are the light. No one comes to satisfaction except through Us.
This is the danger of becoming the Homo Deus. In our self-constructed grandeur, we not only forget Him, but we seek to become Him. We become resistant to the charm of God’s grace, blind to the beauty of His creation, and deaf to the promise of eternal life.
Erika Kirk resists this idea singlehandedly, and she does so with utter grace. She seems unphased, aptly noting that “when the world acts like the world, I’m not surprised.”
Let us all glean this powerful lesson from Erika, and join her side against the force of the Homo Deus.
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