If congregational gatherings this Sunday are anything like my seminary classroom, religious leaders will be navigating the challenging ethical terrain created by the shooting of U.S. American right-wing political commentator Charlie Kirk this week. Students were wrestling with disillusionment due to witnessing such violence, empathy for Kirk’s family, deeper feelings about how racism and homophobia informed Kirk’s ideology and now the conservative response to his assassination, and fear that they will ever have the freedom to speak clearly in our society.

For the person of faith, our goals should not be defined by our own individual dreams and desires, but instead God’s unending story of reconciliation and a call to authentic community.

Let me be clear from the get-go that I abhor Kirk’s political views and hate speech. That will come as no surprise to you if you have read my blog before. At the same time, my faith calls me to affirm Kirk’s creation in the image of God, the imago Dei. That is the bedrock of Christian belief. So, how do we faithfully navigate these white-water ethical rapids?

Several media outlets are focusing on the questions of balancing free speech and safety. However, there are deeper concerns here. One is our understanding of freedom in the U.S. The assumption is prevalent that we have unlimited freedom as individuals without considering the impact on others of what we say and do, and how we live. However, our individual freedoms are always tied to community. What we say and do matters to others (people and the planet), and if we believe that we are created in the image of God, it matters to God. 

Additionally, the idea is prevalent in our society that silencing one’s political opponents or others with whom we disagree and defeating them by any means necessary will ultimately lead to the realization of the community that we envision, and some uneasy peace. Peace can never be realized without a more textured understanding of justice and the common good. Gandhi spoke of securing justice by practicing harmlessness and embracing the divine within all people rather than getting justice by making other people suffer.

Christian ethicist Ellen Ott Marshall points out that one of the dangers is that moral agents can tend to “use the end to justify any means, concluding that anything goes as long as we are pursuing a noble end.” For the person of faith, our goals should not be defined by our own individual dreams and desires, but instead God’s unending story of reconciliation and a call to authentic community.

I reflected on being raised on the frontlines of the culture wars in my book on Authentic Christian Freedom. As theological thinkers and religious leaders, I believe that we have to allow experiences of violence, discrimination, conflict, hatred, and retaliation to shape us, but only to the extent that these experiences enable us to articulate faithfully God’s mission of reconciliation. Two of the things I have learned from being raised on the frontlines of the culture wars are to complicate my own understanding of Christian freedom and to challenge myself to engage in conversations across the artificial yet tangible lines that divide us by race, class, political party, gender, sexuality, religious belief, and more. Reconciliation requires conflict transformation. 

We are desperately in need of leaders in our nation—on every level and within every institution—who will embrace the work of reconciliation for the sake of authentic justice and community. It will mean taking risks, being vulnerable, listening with intentionality, and centering victims of violence and injustice in our lives, work, and communities. May reconciliation be our aim.