At the memorial service for her husband Charlie Kirk in Phoenix, Arizona, Erika Kirk faced a crowd of 73,000 at State Farm Stadium and forgave her husband’s assassin.
“My husband, Charlie, he wanted to save young men just like the one who took his life,” she said through tears. “On the cross, our Savior said: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ That young man—that young man—I forgive him. I forgive him because it’s what Christ did. And it’s what Charlie would do.”
“The answer to hate is not hate,” the widow told those watching in the stadium, in the overflow location across the street, and, according to Turning Point USA, the over 100 million people who streamed the service. “The answer—we know from the Gospel—is love. Always love. Love for our enemies. Love for those who persecute us.”
Only 11 days before, on September 10, her husband was shot and killed by Tyler Robinson, a porn-addicted, twisted young man ensnared by LGBT ideology (he had a ‘transgender’ partner). Charlie was already dead when Erika made it to the hospital, where, despite being warned by the sheriff that his neck had been destroyed by the bullet, she insisted on seeing his body and kissing him goodbye. Robinson told his partner in a text: “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”
But it was not hate, but the most extraordinary form of Christian love on display at the memorial service. In Erika’s words were echoes of Corrie ten Boom forgiving the Nazi concentration guard who tormented her dead sister; of Immaculée Ilibagiza forgiving the man who murdered her family in the Rwandan genocide; of the widowed Elisabeth Elliot serving as a missionary to the tribe that martyred her husband. It was, in fact, the most radical rejection of hate possible.
In speech after speech, America’s leaders took the stage to pay tribute to Charlie Kirk. Nearly all took the opportunity to present Christianity to those watching. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reminded the audience that Kirk was an evangelical first, and a political figure second. “One of the things he would want us to take away from this is the following,” Rubio said. “His deep belief that we were all created, every single one of us, before the beginning of time, by the hands of the God of the universe.” We were separated from God by sin, Rubio continued, but Christ was sent into the world to provide a way of escape. He died but rose again—and so there is hope for all.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth echoed the sentiments. Kirk was a patriot, he said, who dearly loved the American republic—but he still knew, and stated often, that “only Christ is king, our Lord and Savior … fear God, and fear no man.” Vice President JD Vance told the crowd that Kirk had given him the courage to speak about faith in the public square, and that he remained inspired by Kirk’s witness:
Charlie suffered a terrible fate, my friends. We all know it. We all saw it. But think: it is not the worst fate. It is better to face a gunman than to live your life afraid to speak the truth. It is better to be persecuted for your faith than to deny the kingship of Christ. It is better to die a young man in this world than to sell your soul for an easy life with no purpose, no risk, no love, and no truth.
Only two speakers struck a discordant note—United States homeland security advisor Stephen Miller, who raged against the leftists celebrating Kirk’s death, and President Donald J. Trump, who apologized to Erika but chuckled that while Charlie had striven to love his enemies, Trump could not. “I hate my opponents, and I don’t want what’s best for them,” he half-joked during his characteristic, rambling speech, in which he celebrated Kirk as a historic figure, a “giant of his generation,” and a great patriot.
