The death of Charlie Kirk has encouraged some bad actors to weaponise Christian belief at both ends of the political spectrum, argues Kevin McKenna
Of the many falsehoods that have poured forth following Charlie Kirk’s murder one has settled virtually unchallenged in the consciousness of the salon left for a few years. It’s the assumption that if you profess a Christian faith then you must be dismissed as an implacable conservative. It’s rooted in lazy thinking and a refusal to make even the merest intellectual enquiry of authentic Christianity.
Of course, the most flagrant illusion that binds the rest of them is that those falsely accusing Mr Kirk of racism, homophobia and sexism are by any reasonable measure left-wing or liberal at all.
In recent years, the words and deeds of some who fraudulently identify as left-wing in Scotland and the UK have come to define what are routinely described as the culture wars. Rather than debate some of the issues at the centre of this struggle many of them choose instead to vilify and condemn. Violent threat and intimidation are routinely deployed not merely to silence women (and it is overwhelmingly women), but to destroy their lives and careers.
If we were to judge these people on such conduct then their claims to be anywhere on the left/liberal spectrum would be considered absurd. I was once inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and to be empathetic about it: their rage may be rooted in historical trauma and they could be struggling with hidden challenges. But having witnessed this fury close up I now believe some of it is rooted in darkness.
Read more
- Scotland's Defence Future - All articles here and all you need to know
- The hatred of Charlie Kirk is driving decent people to Nigel Farage
- How Rest and Be Thankful closures affect local people
- 'Not racists or bigots' - Falkirk protests reflect growing unease
All of the great triumphs of the legitimate left were gained by an intellectual rigour which underpinned the persuasiveness of their ideas: the NHS, comprehensive education, National Insurance, trade unionism, social housing and free education.
These were all won by intellectually sharp men and women who carried the day by taking arguments tested on the street and the workplace into the highest debating chambers in the land. The tactics and conduct of today’s counterfeit left are the absolute antithesis of authentic left-wing activism.
As a professed Catholic, I can’t claim to speak for any of the other Christian traditions. It’s become normal in some faux-liberal forums to portray Catholicism as fundamentally pre-disposed to conservatism. Indeed, among some media commentators a deeply flawed narrative has become fashionable. This dictates that if you adhere to the Catholic Church’s teachings on relationships, the biological reality of sex and the primacy of the family (mum, dad, children), then not only are you a conservative, but you have hard-right proclivities.
In this reactionary mindset, only a state-approved Catholicism can be permitted: that is to say a candy-floss semblance of the faith which doesn’t scare the horses. It’s not freedom of conscience and expression, but the opposite of it: an exercise in government by ukase, handed down by invisible central committees.
We used to mock and malign Soviet-era Romania and Bulgaria and East Germany for their policing of thought, language and association. Yet, some subtle variations of these regimens have come to settle on the offices and courts of civic Scotland and on the customs and practices of our main social democratic parties and the trade unions.
Meanwhile, God help you if you belong to the Free Church of Scotland or identify as an evangelical, for then you are condemned to a circle of hell the like of which not even Dante Alighieri could conceive. We saw this in cruel slow-motion over several weeks in 2023 when Kate Forbes contested the leadership of the SNP.
Remarkably, Ms Forbes came within a whisker of winning in the face of a campaign within her own party characterised by bigotry and falsehood.
God knows the Free Church of Scotland has serious issues with some of the Catholic Church’s traditions (all of them entirely understandable). But when I look at the Free Church, I see only a courageous, liberal and compassionate organisation which has produced some of the finest minds in Scotland and has an authentically progressive and sustainable approach to community in a harsh terrain.
All that they have ever asked is that they be allowed to proclaim their unalloyed message of Christ crucified in their own way and on their own terms. I should have been proud to have been a member of this hard wee church.
I am however, a persistent Roman Catholic, consumed by all the ethical dilemmas, inconsistencies and guilt that this brings. Yet, despite it all this faith has informed my Socialism. The ribbons of its DNA curl around those of my politics: principally that all men and women are born equal and have an equal claim on the world’s assets. Yet without the capacity to love and to forgive all of it is worthless.
The brutal slaying of Charlie Kirk is still raw and I still can’t comprehend why anyone would rejoice in it. The response of his grieving widow, Erika, on Sunday night vividly exemplified what real Christian belief looks and sounds like. “I forgive him,” she said of his killer.
Her late husband’s Christianity had informed a worldview entirely at odds with mine. His antipathy to the Black Lives Matter movement failed to acknowledge centuries of physical, psychological and economic oppression of America’s black people. But it wasn’t racist. His belief that gun ownership helped protect the people from federal over-reach failed to recognise the reality of how evil can enslave men and impel them to violence. But it wasn’t an endorsement of violence. His belief in the absolute rule of the free market was an invitation to greed and corruption, but this is a condition of being American.
It’s entirely possible to hold such views and still be considered liberal in its real sense: this promotes freedom of conscience; freedom of association; freedom from oppression and the belief in the innate dignity of the human person at every stage of their development.
His most egregious error though, was his endorsement of an American President who is a convicted felon and stands accused of sexual assault by 28 women. Immediately after Erika Kirk preached forgiveness and compassion, Donald Trump talked about hate.
That doesn’t make Charlie Kirk a hard-right extremist; it just makes him wrong. Those glorying in his murder are wrong too and I’m trying not to define them by this.
Kevin McKenna is Scottish Feature Writer of the Year
Share