Condemning the killer without Canonizing the man

I keep seeing people on Twitter talking about Kirk as if he were some sort of angel on a mission. I find that curious, because although I completely condemn what happened to him, I can do so without pretending he was a good representation of Christian values.

It seems to me—though I could be wrong—that this is one of those instances where people can’t accept two ideas coexisting. I can think Kirk’s death was a horrible thing, condemn his killer, and still believe his message to the youth was toxic.

It’s fascinating to watch how riled up people are getting simply because videos of Charlie saying truly messed-up things are being shared online. One would imagine Charlie had been hiding his views, that he never wanted those clips to be public—that he was ashamed. Of course, the opposite is true. Every time he had a microphone in hand, he was vocal about his positions and didn’t care if people were offended.

Some argue—and they might be right—that much of it was a show. He’d say things like empathy being a “made-up new age term” because he knew it would ruffle feathers, not necessarily because he believed it. I don’t claim to know what Charlie truly thought. All I have are his words, debates, and infamous videos. To me, he seemed proud to express those things—and if it was all for shock value, that doesn’t make it any better. That doesn’t paint him as an angel either.

A local celebrity here in Ecuador started sharing some of Charlie’s videos. The outrage was swift—and surprisingly repetitive. Again and again, people fell back on the same defense: “You’re taking it out of context!”

I couldn’t help myself. I commented that I’m fascinated by people’s inability to hold two ideas at once. When I saw a video of Kirk calling for children as young as 12 to witness public executions, I couldn’t resist trolling a little. Apparently, according to those whose blood pressure spiked today, there’s a context where making a child watch an execution is completely acceptable—maybe even desirable.

But I shouldn’t be surprised by the cacophony. People are people. They’ll fight over the silliest things—fifth-grade math problems can ignite online wars. Yet some idealistic version of me still hopes people will eventually wake up from the spell our online landscape has cast over us.

It shouldn’t be hard to conclude that life is sacred, that nobody should die for their ideas, and that sometimes, really toxic people have very large megaphones.

It’s not difficult for me to lament Charlie’s death and also oppose every single toxic thing that ever came out of his mouth. Why do we always insist on canonizing those we mourn?

MenO