Charlie Kirk: white nationalist, conservative Christian, right-wing social media personality, shooting victim, and now, a “martyr”. That is, in keeping with his supporters.
Since Kirk’s death last week, plenty of his followers from the Christian right have ascribed him the title of “martyr”. President Donald Trump himself called Kirk a “martyr for truth and freedom”.
Similarly, Rob McCoy, a pastor emeritus from California, said at a Sunday morning church service
Today, we have a good time the lifetime of Charlie Kirk, a 31-year-old God-fearing Christian man, a husband, father of two, a patriot, a civil rights activist, and now a Christian martyr.
Looking back on the history of martyrdom offers insight into what it means for Kirk to be hailed a martyr, each for his memory, and for the long run of the United States.
From witness to criminal to witness again
The term martyr emerged in ancient law courts with the Greek word martus, meaning a witness or one who gives testimony.
From their earliest days, Christians appropriated it to consult with those that testified to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel of Luke even concludes with Jesus telling his disciples: “You are witnesses – martyres – of these items” (Luke 24:48).
Early Christians commonly ran afoul of Roman authorities, and were dropped at court as criminals. The charges generally revolved around questionable loyalty to the Roman state and religion. Could someone worship Jesus and likewise offer sacrifice to the standard gods, including the emperor or his divine spirit (his “genius”)?
Christians and Romans alike thought not. From the 2nd century onward, accounts of those trials centred on a single query: “are you a Christian?”. If the reply was “yes”, execution followed.
For local authorities, the executed person was a criminal. But for fellow Christians, they were witnesses to the reality of the gospel, and their deaths were evidence of the Christian God. They were each witness and testimony – “martyrs” in every sense.
In 2004, scholar of early Christianity, Elizabeth Castelli, argued martyrs are born only after their death. The martyr isn’t a fact, but a figure produced by the stories told about them, and the honour afforded them in ritual commemorations. An individual isn’t a martyr until other people inside a selected community determine they’re.
To understand what makes someone a martyr, we have now to ask two questions:
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what are they a witness to? As in, what ideal or cause led to their death and the way did their death testify to it?
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who’re they a witness for? Who tells their story and who calls them a martyr?
Boundaries and borderline cases
The history of martyrdom can be a history of debates over what type of death “counts”, and what role martyrs play within the church.
Questionable cases have accrued through the a long time. Some “martyrs” volunteered eagerly, perhaps too eagerly.
On April 29 304 CE, an archdeacon named Euplus stood outside town council chamber in Catania, Sicily, shouting: “I need to die; I’m a Christian”. After some discussion, the governor sentenced him to torture and he died of his injuries. Was this martyrdom, or suicide?
Under Christian emperors from the 4th century on, soldiers who died fighting Persians (or later Arabs) also got here to be called martyrs. A soldier’s death is particularly considered martyrdom in the event that they fought against members of a unique religion.
However, the soldier-martyr label has also raised anxieties. The most up-to-date example got here from the troubling claim by Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kyrill that Russian soldiers who die fighting in Ukraine are martyrs – despite fighting fellow Orthodox Christians. What do these soldiers testify to?
The stories of martyrs define community borders. Those who kill martyrs are likely to be treated as enemies of the religion, whether or not they are Roman authorities, enemy combatants, and even people assumed to be complicit within the event.
The MAGA martyr
Let’s apply the 2 questions above to Charlie Kirk, who has been dubbed each “martyr” and “patron saint of MAGA”.
What would Kirk be a martyr to? To his supporters and people on the MAGA right, he died for free speech, for Judeo-Christian values, for a commitment to “Western civilisation”, and supposedly for the “truth” itself.
To others, especially those he attacked and denigrated publicly – equivalent to queer and trans people, immigrants, Muslims and feminists – he died for white nationalism, hatred and exclusion.
This takes us back to the second query: who’s Charlie Kirk a martyr for? Clearly, the reply to that is Christian nationalists, MAGA supporters and the broader American right.
He testified in life to their shared beliefs and values, and in death is their “patron saint”. The legacy of Kirk’s death will likely be to define who is an element of this community, and who’s excluded. The query then is, will a division framed in such polarising terms come to define American society as an entire?
From revenge to like
Following Kirk’s death, people on the far-right called for violent revenge against the left – regardless that the shooting suspect’s political motivations are unknown.
Media have reported a surge in radicalisation on right-wing platforms. There was even a website, now removed, dedicated to doxxing anyone who spoke negatively about Kirk and using that information to get them fired.
Against this rhetoric of revenge, the history of martyrdom offers a unique way forward. The early theologian, Clement of Alexandria, said someone becomes a martyr not due to their death, but due to their love.
The only true witness, he argued, is love, because God is love. The only honour one can offer the martyrs is to like as they loved. Clement suggests it’s possible to reject vengeance and sectarianism, even when one loves the martyrs.
