Martyrdom & Truth

This Great Idea is mostly a place to pool the important writing coming from trusted thinkers-about-reality and followers of Jesus, writing with wisdom and urgency amidst a dangerous swamp of misdirection.

There is a lot of flurry around the killing of Charlie Kirk, and as Tripp Hudgins writes in his Lof-Fi Gospel Minute post, ‘On Charlie Kirk, Martyrdom and Celebrity‘, ‘I’m still trying to figure out why I’m allowing this whole situation to take up so much space in my mind and heart. I think it’s because people I love love Charlie Kirk. They admire him. They believe what he says. They are grieving publicly on social media.

They cannot see his racism. They cannot see his sexism. They cannot see his Christian nationalism. All they can see is a devout follower of Jesus.

I can’t see that.’

Hudgins sums it up well for me. He then outlines why it is so hard for us to see what others see, naming AI and algorithms as key players in intentional lie-flooding and narrative cooption.

Hudgins joins many others reflecting with honesty and integrity outside of the mainstream media censorship and social media frenzy controlling and dominating our airwaves and feeds as they voice concerns about the making of a martyr in real time – a martyr that defies the term and whose legacy is being whitewashed and sanitized to create the illusion necessary for the nomenclature to stick.

Rev. Cameron Trimble, in her Piloting Faith post, ‘Martyrs, Myths, and Moral Clarity‘, warns of this real-time fallacy unfolding, writing, ‘We are watching the construction of a martyr in real time… It’s not that Kirk deserved to die. No one does. But when we build entire platforms on grievance, stoke fear to mobilize outrage, tie nationalism to religion, and celebrate political power through domination, we also bear responsibility for what that unleashes in the world. The story now being told about Charlie Kirk is not one of repentance or reckoning, but one of canonization – a narrative designed to absolve, rather than account, to whitewash Kirk’s racism, sexism, and attacks on those he disagreed with and instead portray Kirk simply as a Christian motivational speaker attacked by a rabid left wing.

And that is spiritually dangerous.’

Trimble’s Reflection Questions and Spiritual Practices invite us into radical Truth-Telling (find more in our Truth-Telling lib guide), urging us to ‘practice telling one fuller truth every day’ and do so with ‘love, courage, and care’.

William J. Barber, II and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrave in their Our Moral Moment post, ‘The Debate We Still Need to Have: Political Violence Had No Place in a Democracy; Neither Does Nationalism‘, mourn not only ‘the murder of Charlie Kirk because every life is precious’, nor the ‘political assassination because it makes this nation less safe for everyone’, but also, they grieve that ‘the shooter cut short a debate we still need to have’. They outline their efforts to hold an actual debate with Charlie Kirk – since 2019. The debate was sparked by Jonathan’s book, Revolution of Values: Reclaiming Public Faith for the Common Good (IVP, 2019). Now, they contend, ‘One of the tragedies of this week’s violence is that it makes it harder to have the honest conversation that’s needed about Jesus and American politics.’

Historian Heather Cox Richardson, in her September 13, 2025 Letters from an American post, offers clear parallels to Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy’s 1950s campaign to ‘grab media attention with outrageous statements and outright lies that destroyed lives, then move on to the next target’, as she outlines the concerted campaign to not only control the narrative of this story, but of reality as a whole, for the country – and even the world – as a whole. (See Hudgins‘ comments on algorithms for more insight on that control). ‘But’, writes, Cox Richardson, ‘once you have untethered the political narrative from reality, you are at the mercy of anyone who can commandeer that narrative.’

She then outlines key elements of that narrative control, including a quote from Stephen Miller’s post attacking political opponents with language that rings so biblical and ‘true’ that it is easy to appreciate why some Christians believe it so whole-heartedly.

Yet, as Derek Penwell writes in his September 13, 2025 Facebook post:

‘Those who follow [Jesus] are called to tell the truth about what happened without slander, without collective blame, and without conspiracy theater. We grieve like people committed to healing, not like people shopping for a pretext.’

Because, he states, ‘The thing is, we love enemies and bind wounds and pursue justice not because it works, but because that’s who we are. We do it because it’s the right thing to do. And whether or not it’s persuasive, we do it because Jesus did it first and told us to follow.’

And, ‘even if the motive proves murkier, taking Jesus’ side still means…: [we] refuse vengeance, protect the vulnerable, tell the truth, and resist turning any neighbor into fuel for someone’s machine…’

Combatting misinformation and flat-out lies is the work of the church in America, now more than ever.

John 8:32 has become even more provocative and imminent – and the freedom promised has become far more tangible and this-world.

And Jesus’ promise of the Spirit of Truth, throughout his farewell sermon in John 14-16, promises not absolute clarity, but direction and hope:

Truth is liberating.

Truth is healing.

Truth is life-giving.

Discerning Truth can be challenging these days.

Being clear and consistent about Jesus’ ministry and message of Love for all – humans and other-than-humans – may get us in trouble with some, but it grounds us in a Truth that cannot be misunderstood, misused, or marred.

Courage, dear colleagues. Truth is needed. Truth spoken in and for Love leads us into God’s preferred future.