As the nation continues to process the horrific murder of Charlie Kirk, we need to take a step back and examine the underlying issues that led to this dark cultural moment.
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The assassination of Charlie Kirk has revealed a deep problem in the soul of our nation. Irresponsible rhetoric definitely played a role, but it’s even deeper than that. Political violence is coming from a false view of reality.
For most of human civilization, people have believed there was an objective standard of truth. For the vast majority of America’s history, it was understood that this objective standard was the Triune God revealed in the Holy Bible.
But Western civilization slowly rejected this viewpoint in favor of a hyper-industrialized, subjective view of reality. Transcendent truth has been replaced by relative, subjective experience. If there is no real, constant standard for truth then the only measurement left is a person’s feelings.
This is not just an abstract, philosophical debate. As we saw last week, the results can be deadly.
If there is no God, then the individual is god. And if the individual is god, then anything the individual doesn’t like is sin. And so, “hate” (which is anything that hurts someone’s feelings) becomes the last moral standard. Hurting someone’s feelings becomes a blasphemy, a sin that some seem to believe is worthy of death.
If truth is outside of the individual then it can be debated and discussed. This was the worldview of Charlie Kirk. He was willing to discuss ideas with people who disagreed with him because he believed there were real rules and standards for that debate.
But if truth is subjective then debate has no purpose. All that’s left is raw force. In a relativist world, might makes right.
If we are going to restore sane discourse and civil debate, then we must return to truth. As a society, we must agree that truth is outside of ourselves. We must live in the real world and not a world governed by an individual’s subjective feelings.
We must reclaim our heritage as a nation under God and therefore under truth.
Without the firm foundation of truth, our society will continue to devolve into ever escalating insanity that can only end in more horrendous violence.
But if we reclaim real, objective truth, our culture can rebuild itself as a society of civility, decency, and safety.
Joshua Stilwell is the editor-in-chief of Warren’s Voice and the associate pastor of Alathea Baptist Church of Des Moines. He lives with his family in Indianola.
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