In my last post, Hatred in American Politics and Culture, September 13, 2025, written in response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I quoted David French and sounded an alarm that there was “a momentum of hate and fear building in the United States, threatening to consume us with its growing impulse for violence.” (As I write this post #38, there are reports of yet another tragic mass shooting at a church in Grand Blanc, Michigan. The shooter is said to have been motivated by a hatred of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)
I ended that post with the following words of encouragement:
Let us, then, not grow weary in pursuing this call. I am confident that in each act of love, however small or hidden, we affirm the enduring hope that the peace of Christ can still be the heartbeat of our common life—a light undimmed by the shadows of our age, a promise sustained in the abiding presence of God among us. (Blog Post #37)
On September 21, 2025, tens of thousands of MAGA supporters of both Charlie Kirk and Donald Trump gathered at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona for a memorial service for Kirk. It was an extraordinary event in many respects, earning commentary from multiple sources, many of whom believed that in the end, the service was more political theater than solemn remembrance. However, there were some noble and faithful moments. No speaker was more tender, more eloquent and poignant than Erika Kirk, the wife of Charlie Kirk. Knowing the depth of her grief and the size of her loss, the listeners witnessed the authenticity of her faith.
These were her words:
My husband, Charlie. He wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life. That young man. That young man on the cross. Our Savior said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." That man. That young man. I forgive him. I forgive him because it was what Christ did in his hour. It is what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the gospel is love and always love. (Transcript)
When the crowd heard Mrs. Kirk forgive the man who had killed her husband, the cheered wildly. It was a remarkable moment, made so by its authenticity and profound effect on the huge crowd. A grieving Mrs. Kirk said: The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the gospel is love and always love.
Unfortunately, however, the Hater-in-Chief, Donald J. Trump, spoke after Mrs. Kirk, spewing forth, quite stunningly, a hateful and vindictive speech. Here is what he said:
"Shortly before Charlie arrived on campus the day he was assassinated, a staff member texted him that there were many critics and students who were opposed to his views and rather strenuously in the crowd, and that actually made him feel good because he wanted to convince them. He understood. He really did. He understood what was right, and he was right about that. A lot of it was based on common sense, by the way, Charlie wrote back to the staff member saying, I'm not here to fight them.” I want to know them and love them, and I want to reach them and try and lead them into a great way of life in our country. In that private moment, on his dying day, we find everything we need to know about who Charlie Kirk truly was. He was a missionary with a noble spirit and a great, great purpose. He 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. (Transcript, 9/21/225)
AND THE CROWD CHEERED WILDLY.
David French of the New York Times, in a piece titled, Why MAGA evangelicals can cheer love and hate at the same time, lamented this congregation could cheer vastly different messages and proposed the following analysis:
The bottom line is that American Christians inherit both Scripture’s individual obligation to love their enemies and the national obligation to do justice. That is a high moral calling. Hatred and dehumanization are not viable moral options for us. There is no scenario in which we can cheer for or empower either one.
The opposite is the case. As coequal rulers of this republic — along with people of other faiths or no faith at all — we are not to sit idly by when a president abuses his power. The citizens, including evangelical citizens, have the responsibility to hold Trump accountable for his many grave wrongs. And the singular failure of MAGA Christianity to uphold this biblical obligation has helped unleash Trump’s hatred on our nation.
I hope the lasting legacy of Charlie Kirk’s memorial service is found not in Trump’s hate, but in Kirk’s grace. But when grace is relegated to the individual sphere while hate is an element of the political project itself, the results will always be dire.
And so it is today. Countless Americans are enduring Trump’s vengeance. Far too few experience Christian kindness. It is a great tragedy of our time that so many Christians see Trump’s malice as an instrument of God’s divine plan.
French is not the only journalist bringing into focus the great tragedy of our time, namely, too little kindness and too much vengeance. In a recent article for the New York Times, David Brooks claims that we are living in “an era of dark passions.” (David Brooks, The Era of Dark Passions, NYT, September 18, 20025) He writes:
A core challenge in life is how do you motivate people to do things — to vote in a certain way, to take a certain kind of action. Good leaders motivate people through what you might call the bright passions — hope, aspiration, an inspiring vision of a better life. But these days, and maybe through all days, leaders across the political spectrum have found that dark passions are much easier to arouse. Evolution has wired us to be extremely sensitive to threat, which psychologists call negativity bias.
Donald Trump is a man almost entirely motivated by dark passions — hatred, anger, resentment, fear, the urge to dominate — and he stirs those passions to get people to support him.
There is, however, a path of resistance, a way of peaceful confrontation that can transform this era of dark passions into what Brooks calls, a time of bright passions. He writes:
History provides clear examples of how to halt the dark passion doom loop. It starts when a leader, or a group of people, who have every right to feel humiliated, who have every right to resort to the dark motivations, decide to interrupt the process. They simply refuse to be swallowed by the bitterness, and they work — laboriously over years or decades — to cultivate the bright passions in themselves — to be motivated by hope, care and some brighter vision of the good, and to show those passions to others, especially their enemies.
Vaclav Havel did this. Abraham Lincoln did this in his second Inaugural Address. Alfred Dreyfus did this after his false conviction and Viktor Frankl did this after the Holocaust. You may believe Jesus is the messiah or not, but what gives his life moral grandeur was his ability to meet hatred with love. These leaders displayed astounding forbearance. They did not seek payback and revenge.
Obviously, Martin Luther King Jr. comes to mind: “To our most bitter opponents we say: We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you.”
Obviously, Nelson Mandela comes to mind. Far from succumbing to dark passions, he oriented his life toward a vision of the good. “During my lifetime,” he said near the beginning of his imprisonment, “I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against Black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.”
This kind of interruption is the most effective way to fight dark passions. Though it’s true that humans are deeply broken, we’re also gloriously made. We’re wired not only to dominate, but also with the bright passions too: the desires for belonging, justice, meaning, understanding and care. Moral life is a struggle over which parts of ourselves we will develop. Political leadership is a struggle over which motivations the society will develop…
We do live in an era of dark passions that require much of us as Christians. The challenges we face are not only political but deeply personal and moral. Each of us is confronted with daily choices: we can succumb to the seductive pull of a dark negativity and the inclination to retaliate or we can strive to nurture and intentionally cultivate the bright passions within us, hope, care and compassion, empathy, forgiveness, and civic friendship. The examples set by these remarkable leaders, which were cited by Brooks, remind us that true strength lies in the courage to live out our gospel faith, choosing kindness over vengeance, the commitment to build bridges rather than walls and as Mrs. Kirk said, making clear for everyone to see and know: The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the gospel is love and always love.
Blessings to all!