Read this essay I wrote last weekend for INFOWARS about Erika Kirk and her public forgiveness of the man accused of killing her husband, Charlie Kirk.
Mercy. Justice. Mercy and justice.
I’ve not actually read any Carl Jung. I think it was Jordan Peterson who told me that, according to Jung, Jesus had to return in the Book of Revelation as the Judge, because in the Gospels he had been too merciful. There was a kind of cosmic imbalance and it had to be set right. And so instead of preaching forgiveness and the Kingdom of Heaven for all who believe—instead of simply turning the other cheek—Jesus became the terrible Judge to weigh men’s souls and separate the saved from the damned for ever.
Is this interpretation right? I don’t know. Does it explain the marked difference in subject and tone between the Gospels and the Book of Revelation? Perhaps. Whatever the case may be, I think it makes perfect sense to believe that mercy is meaningless without justice: that one is necessary for the other to exist, and vice versa.
If everything is forgiven as a matter of course, without consequence, the entire category of wrongdoing and sin disappears. Without a sin to atone for and a punishment to fear, why would a person beg for mercy—and why would mercy even be granted? What’s the point?
And likewise, with a martinet’s sense of justice, with a rigid, unwavering application of cause and consequence to people’s actions, it becomes impossible to understand the failures and weaknesses that lead people to do bad things—even evil things. Without room for forgiveness, there is no deeper recognition that, but for the grace of God, the dispenser of justice could so easily be the transgressor awaiting judgment. If there’s a lesson in the Bible, and indeed in the twentieth century’s bloodstained history, it’s that we’re all sinners.
As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it, reflecting on his time as a prisoner in the Russian gulag, when he was tortured and starved and driven to the very limits of human experience: The line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man. Even the heart of the man sent to Siberia for ten years simply for criticizing Stalin in a private letter. Even he was guilty.
I can write all of this and I guess I can believe it, but still, mercy is a strange and mysterious thing, especially when you see it in action.
At Charlie Kirk’s memorial yesterday, we saw mercy in action. It assumed the form of his beautiful wife and the mother of his children, Erika. She took the stage with remarkable composure and spoke at length about her husband, but most remarkably of all, she said she forgave the man—Tyler Robinson—who is accused of his brutal murder.
Initial reports that Erika was present at Utah Valley University when Charlie was shot were wrong, but she still saw firsthand what the gunman’s bullet did to him. At the hospital, she was warned not to see the body, because of the catastrophic trauma it had suffered. She chose to ignore that warning. She wanted to see what remained of her husband and the father of her children.
She and Charlie had not kissed before he left for the event, and so she gave him a parting kiss. She noticed the solitary grey hair on his head, the one she’d seen before and hadn’t told him about, and she saw the smile on his face that told her he was at peace in heaven now.
“God bless all of you for coming here from all over the world to honor and celebrate my Charlie,” Erika said to the crowd of more than 70,000 people gathered in the State Farm Stadium on Sunday, which included the President, the Vice President, members of the Cabinet and Elon Musk.
“He wanted to save young men. Just like the one who took his life.”
“I forgive him because it was what Christ did. And what Charlie would do.”
“The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the Gospel is to love and always love. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”
She went on to describe her husband’s mission, and how it included even the man who had killed him.
“Charlie passionately wanted to reach and save the lost boys of the West. The young men who feel like they have no direction, no purpose, no faith and no reason to live. The men wasting their lives on distractions and the men consumed with anger and hate.”
Tyler Robinson, she said, was one of those boys.
In a separate interview, Erika Kirk told The New York Post she wouldn’t push for the death penalty for Robinson.
“I do not want that man’s blood on my ledger,” she said.
“Because when I get to heaven, and Jesus is like: ‘Uh, eye for an eye? Is that how we do it?’ And that keeps me from being in heaven, from being in heaven with Charlie.”
Like I said, this is remarkable. I can’t pretend to understand it, although I am, at least nominally, a Christian. I know I’m not the only one to feel this way, either.
Speaking on stage after Erica Kirk, President Trump said he just couldn’t forgive.
“He [Charlie] did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry.”
Trump then apologised directly to Erika, but reiterated his belief that his opponents—including the man who killed Charlie Kirk—deserved to be hated.
The question of justice for Charlie Kirk—and of mercy—is far from exhausted by the fate of Tyler Robinson. Because Charlie Kirk wasn’t murdered by a single man. Charlie Kirk was murdered by everybody who has made political violence a commonplace fact of life in America.
Charlie Kirk was murdered by the mainstream media, by the gremlins who laughed and joked while medics frantically rushed to save his life, and by those who have muddied the waters with absurd theories that the killer was a “groyper” or a “far-right MAGA extremist.”
He was murdered by the leftist radicals in Antifa and Black Lives Matters and the insane tranny gun clubs, who harass and doxx and assault and kill people they don’t like.
He was murdered by the teachers, students, pilots, police officers, federal employees, military personnel and politicians who gloated about his death in public, who sullied his reputation and lied about him.
The list goes on.
We’ve seen some rough justice already in the last 12 days, much of it dispensed via the internet, on the thousands of ghouls and reprobates who celebrated online and off-, including at vigils and memorials for Charlie. Rudy Giuliani, convalescing after a serious accident, claimed hundreds of leftist scalps all by himself. The full total probably runs into the thousands.
We’ve also seen high-profile firings and resignations too, including journalists, commentators, TV presenters and even Jimmy Kimmel.
This has proven satisfying, a well-needed corrective to years of victimization of conservatives by the left, but more needs to be done—obviously.
President Trump has promised to tackle the problem of leftist violence head on. He’s designated Antifa a terrorist organization—which it is—and said he’ll go after the individuals and organizations funding and supporting the radical left. His administration has rightly refused calls for “unity” and to declare the problem of political violence a “both-sides” issue.
It’s still early days, but the Trump administration now has the chance, with enormous public support, to break the power of the radical left and to drag America back from the precipice over which it looms. This really is a turning point.
If Tyler Robinson doesn’t face the death penalty, it will be because of Erika Kirk. Justice may still be done—he’ll rot in prison for the rest of his miserable life—but justice will have been tempered by mercy.
All those who share in the blame for Charlie Kirk’s death should pray for mercy too.
I, at least, hope their prayers will fall on deaf ears. Let them face justice alone.
First of all, people who claim that the Jesus found in the Book of Revelation differs somehow from the one found in the rest of the New Testament should read a little bit more closely. His personality and teachings are consistent from start to finish. Secondly, I don't agree with the idea that the left is somehow responsible for Tyler Robinson's actions. I think that the uptick in political violence has to do with the emergence of political influencers on social media. These merchants of division have transformed serious discussion into a kind of gladiatorial combat where the side that can most successfully objectify and dehumanize their opponents is rewarded with subscribers and donations via patreon. It is a business model and the majority of those who participate in it (you know who you are)are driven by greed, and until recently cared very little for the potentially deleterious impact such conduct can exercise upon the social fabric. It happens on the left and it happens on the right because the bottom line is money. Until those of us who actually care about making a positive difference are willing to push back against the avarice and clout chasing unscrupulousness of these social media "stars" then we are perhaps just as complicit. We have got to turn the page and advocate for a return to respect and civic duty.
Mercy given in this life is an acknowledgment that justice can only truly served in the next.