CHARLIE KIRK
Many were saddened by this assassination last week. I listened to him occasionally and note he was a very intense person. Some can take that, some cannot. He loved to debate and would take all comers, especially in university settings. This is in huge contrast to the way academics approach things - they think many issues are beyond debate and settled. Actually, if they get drawn into a debate, they often lose because they never have to defend what they believe, while Charlie had to defend this beliefs almost every time he opened his mouth.
I think about evolution, homosexual "marriage," transgenderism, man-made climate change, and an alleged "climate emergency." Those are axiomatic in most academic settings, with most considered true even in self-identified Christian institutions. I debate people online who repeat these fallible and in many cases extremely unscientific ideas ad nauseum. The big one these days on Academia is that Christians are against the environment because they do not abandon the word of God to bow at the altar of ecological religion. They detest the dominion God gave man over the earth and the concept that God is sovereign over EVERYTHING including the state of earth.
I am on X, and the sheer hatred against Kirk by professors, medical people, and just run-of-the mill lunatics demonstrated by the approval of the assassination but slander against Kirk and the stated desire that he would not be the only one to die. The intensity of violence seemed most focused on sexual perversion, though the same charges brought against the president and others were also in the mix. Many with a moral compass pushed back and called out the utter evil they read.
That said, Kirk was not always nuanced enough in what he said, especially on racial division, which made for some unflattering sound bites. Truth has to be told without watering it down, but there are ways to say things. We have had a ministry for 40 years with the purpose of bringing people together regardless of race, ethnicity, income, education, or religious denomination. We have an inter-racial marriage with eight other cross-ethnic marriages in our extended family, so we try to be careful in all we say, because there are a lot of hot buttons that can be pushed unintentionally. One of his quotes calling MLK an awful person was one the left loves to use. It is an established fact from MLK's own writings on display at the King Center at Stanford University that he did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ from the age of 13, and was never known to have preached a Biblical gospel message. He was far more comfortable with Ghandi. Yes, it is awful for anyone with those proclivities, as well as very low moral character, as testified to by those closest to him, to present oneself as a Christian. Yet, all people talk about are words charged with emotion, while they themselves practically deify a man. Those in Christ cannot mirror the way the world deals with issues - we must be far better,
I have been to the King Center in Memphis, and it was pervaded by the blatantly racist BLM movement, but that was not in existence when MLK was alive, and it violates perhaps the best thing he ever said - judge a man NOT based upon the color of one's skin, but on the content of one's character. That has been largely lost on most college campuses today. There is also the truth that blacks made more progress in the 50's than after the Civil Rights Act, though I believe the problems in the 60's had more to do with Lyndon Johnson's policies incentivising the removal of fathers from black homes as well as tone-deaf policies on crime, which dampened any positive effect of that act. I am sure Kirk was opposed to the expansion of that to include protected classes of people based upon morality/immorality rather than race, as well as the tone deafness of the left in terms of biological men invading women's sports and private spaces. He doubtless opposed the expansion of an act to deal with racial fairness to protect those with a stated agenda of destroying moral boundaries. It is always hard to give a qualified answer as people like sound bites, not reasoning, but those following him need to be sure never to hurt by not being crystal clear.
In addition, note that the breakdown of the family crosses racial lines. According to this source, https://theblackwallsttimes.com/2017/07/20/black-family-structure-in-decline-since-the-1960s-the-home-effect/, from 1960 to 2013, children in white single-parent families tripled from 7% to 22%, while children in single-parent black families went from 22% to 55%, a smaller rate of increase actually, but 2 1/2 times as often. I am positive the numbers have risen in both groups since then, as traditional nuclear families are a real minority across the board.
It is FORBES, not Kirk, that documented the situation of low black home ownership, which doubtless has been impacted by the destruction of so many black families by policies of Democrat presidents over the years. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwake/2019/05/16/the-shocking-truth-about-the-u-s-black-homeownership-rate-50-years-after-the-1968-fair-housing-act/
While I wish some of the quotes out there attributed to Kirk were made up, many were not - I do not believe they were intended to hurt, but we must all be wise in what we say and how we say it. The truth often hurts, and Jesus was for sure not politically correct, but straight to the point, but to whatever degree we can bring hope and healing, we should.
posted by John @ 8:17 PM
1 Comments
