Help me Understand Why Charlie Kirk Matters to Those of Us in India

I had never heard the name of Charlie Kirk before. On a WhatsApp group I'm a part of, a link was shared about the news of his assassination. I had to google his name to find out who he was.

What surprised me, however, is that this news seems to be a huge issue for so many people in my contacts. At least 15 people in my WhatsApp contacts shared images of him on their WhatsApp status. I am not currently active on any other social media platforms. But I'm guessing more people are sharing news about him on other platforms too.

But here's my honest question. Why does this matter so much?

Let me be clear. I believe that the murder of any human being is evil and ought to be condemned. Therefore, it does matter. And yet, none of us humans is God. Only God has the ability to care about all sin in the world at all times. What this means is that none of us can care about all the sin in the world at any given point of time. We cannot grieve over each and every suffering and evil in the world equally. God has made us finite beings who can only care about a few things that are personal and important to us.

The question then is this: Why is the death of Charlie Kirk worth so much attention and grief?

I think it is good and right for the people in the United States of America to mourn his loss, to mourn the grief it will cause to his family and friends. I think it is good and right for the people in that country to consider the increasing number of gun-related violence.

But why does it matter to us here in India?

One of the reasons I have seen is that the news is an evidence of how left-wing politics in the US wants to silence right-wing activists. Perhaps that is true. But it is difficult to conclude the motives of the killer when the killer hasn't been apprehended yet. How are we claiming to have divine omniscience? To know the motives of the killer when we don't know who the killer is in the first place?

Secondly, political violence happens on both sides of the spectrum. Not one single person who is sharing these WhatsApp statuses shared the sad news of the death of Melissa Hortman and her husband. Here's the interesting bit. In this murder, the killer has been identified and been indicted. And the killer Vance Boelter was of the right-wing persuasion. Boelter had even preached in churches against abortion. And there is a stronger case to be made that Hortman was murdered due to her pro-abortion and other left-wing views. So on the one hand there is a murder of a left-wing politician for their left-wing views by a person who has even preached in churches. And there is a murder of a right-wing activist. We don't know who murdered him and with what motives. And yet the conclusion of all the facts is that Christian views are being silenced in the country? That doesn't seem to add up.

Further, there are a few people referring to Charlie as a martyr of the church. What is the basis for such a claim? We don’t know the motive of the killer. And Charlie Kirk was more of a political figure than a religious figure. If anything, Kirk’s death could be described as political assassination. Now, the incident would be tragic and evil even if he weren’t a martyr. We don’t need to attach the label of martyrdom to make the sin seem heinous. It is heinous even without the label. On that note, I’ve never understood where the line between faith and politics is in a country like the USA. But I digress.

Let me ask the question once again. Why does the murder of Charlie Kirk matter so much to those of us Christians here in India?

As I already mentioned before, we finite human beings cannot care about all the sin and evil in the world equally at the same time. So I'm looking for the argument as to why this particular sin deserves so much of our concern and attention.

The argument has to account for why this deserves more of my attention than the unrest in Nepal which has claimed more than 50 lives so far. Or why it deserves more attention than the brutal anti-Maoist operation going on in Chhattisgarh? This is not to mention the many churches and missionaries who are routinely persecuted in our country. But perhaps owning the liberals in the US is far more important than preaching the gospel in India?

Now I read an article that Charlie Kirk's assassination is significant because it attacks what is so fundamental to Western society — the free and open debate of ideas. The symbolism of his assassination at an event in a university specifically brings this out to the open very prominently. However, again by means of relevance to Indian Christian, Indian colleges and universities have always been opposed to open and free debates. In fact, we ourselves are not keen on open declarations of our faith. Christians tell College students to not make a ruckus, write the answers your professors expect you to write and get a good placement without making a scene because getting a good job is more important than fidelity to the gospel. So perhaps people like Charlie Kirk help those of us in India live vicariously through the lives of others? Because we ourselves can't do what they do?

I really want to understand. Please help me understand why his death deserves so much of our collective attention and consciousness.