On September 21, Erika Kirk, the grieving widow of assassinated political activist, Charlie Kirk, stood before a stadium filled with 100,000 people and a worldwide audience of millions, and, fighting back tears, said: “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,” she continued, “because it was what Christ did, and 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. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”
For many people around the world, that was an extraordinary moment. Five days later, comedian Tim Allen wrote, “When Erika Kirk spoke the words on the man who killed her husband … that moment deeply affected me. I have struggled for over 60 years to forgive the man who killed my Dad. I will say those words now as I type: ‘I forgive the man who killed my father.’” Tim Allen’s father was killed by a drunk driver in 1964, when Allen was just eleven years old.
