When Christian Condolences Come With a Leash
Part 1 of 7 in the series: The Truth That Divides
This paper exists because of a word with four letters.
“Maar.”
“Charlie Kirk is vermoord. Vreselijk. We leven mee. Maar…BUT”
Within days of his assassination, while his widow was still choking through the funeral speech, Dutch Christians began publishing pieces that moved from grief to correction at remarkable speed. Arjen ten Brinke wrote an opinion piece — “Charlie Kirks dood leert ons: Jezus is geen uithangbord voor een partij” (“Charlie Kirk’s death teaches us: Jesus is not a billboard for a party.”) On LinkedIn, Jan Wolsheimer posted “De verleiding van de cultuuroorlog” (“The temptation of the culture war.”) (a conflict that often includes debates on charged topics like Dutch Islamophobia).
This pattern of discouraging public witness is also addressed in our rebuttal to the Dutch EO Broadcasting Network.
Both condemned the killing. Both then used it as a sermon illustration against the very kind of public Christian discipleship Charlie embodied.
This is a response to that reflex — to that particular “BUT/MAAR,” which wraps itself in the language of love and unity while functionally telling Christians: Do not do what the apostles did — or those who disagree got it coming.
Two New Golden Calves: “Unity” and “My Truth”
The Bible knows about idols of wood and stone. Our age has forged quieter idols, with nicer slogans.
One is called Unity. Not unity in truth, not the costly reconciliation born of repentance and forgiveness — but unity as harmony, the absence of tension, the feeling that no one is upset. Unity as “nobody raises their voice in public about what God thinks of abortion, family, sexuality, justice, or law” (a cultural retreat that has led to what one Coptic writer calls Europe’s Death Empire).
The other is called My Truth, or my Group’s truth. Not God’s revealed Word, not the shared confession of the church across time — but the moral story I tell myself, which becomes untouchable. This “truth” can be fiercely progressive or fiercely conservative; what makes it an idol is that it cannot be corrected by Scripture or by the body of Christ. It’s the truth in my head that must never be challenged.
The first idol silences prophetic speech in the name of love. The second weaponizes conscience to baptize whatever I already wanted to believe.
Both appeared subtly but clearly in the Christian responses to Charlie Kirk’s murder.
The Tender Opening — and the Pivot
Arjen opens tenderly. His son watched Charlie’s videos “almost every day,” and Charlie helped him “not hide his faith” and “swim against the current.” He confesses he didn’t really know who Charlie was until after the murder; then, as he listened, he was “moved by his courage” and his open talk of Jesus, family, and creation. All good and true.
But as soon as he sees the funeral — the flags, the ministers, Trump, the American setting — his stomach tightens. In his words, Charlie is now used “as a symbol of [their] political struggle.” He then lists the familiar litany: family separation at the border, harsh rhetoric toward women and migrants, the infamous Bible-photo in front of the church, America First as if the Kingdom of God were one nation. From there the logic slides quickly: when faith is “connected to power,” the gospel is in danger; polarization uses even a funeral to score points; Jesus is not left or right; so let’s admire Kirk’s courage and his widow’s forgiveness, but let’s not repeat his public posture.
Jan’s article does something parallel on a more abstract level. He warns against being seduced by the “culture war” — framing public, contested Christian speech in political terms as a temptation to trade the “gospel of peace” for “false promises of safety and comfort.” His target is broader than Charlie Kirk, but the timing and the rhetoric land in the same way: bold, dividing public witness is cast as dangerously close to idolatry of tribe and power.
Both writers deplore the murder. Both then pivot to send a clear signal to watching Christians — especially young ones: Don’t be like him.
This series argues that such counsel, however well-intentioned, is theologically shallow, historically naïve, and pastorally dangerous.
When Condolences Become a Leash
There is a holy “maar” in Scripture:
“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair.” (2 Cor 4:8)
“You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” (Gen 50:20)
The Christian “but” is meant to lift the eyes from the grave to the resurrection.
But there is another kind of “maar” that shows up after certain deaths — a rhetorical pivot that starts with condolences and ends with a leash:
“What happened is horrific, but we must be very careful not to fall into culture war.”
“We grieve, but we should also talk about how dangerous it is to tie faith to politics.”
“This is a tragedy, but remember: Jesus is not a billboard for a party.”
Nothing in those sentences is false at the surface level. Faith can be hijacked by power. Jesus isn’t the mascot of any party. Yet the function of this “maar” is not to deepen grief with gospel hope; it is to morally reposition the victim and discipline the watching flock: the real lesson is that you must not imitate his public boldness. You may admire his private piety and his wife’s forgiveness, but his way of showing faith in the world is quietly placed in the “warning” column.
That is a devastating message to send in a moment when a man was shot, by all indications, precisely because he dared to speak Christian convictions in the public square.
You do not have to endorse every line Charlie ever spoke to see the logic: he was doing, in 21st-century America, what the apostles did in synagogues and marketplaces — arguing for Christ, applying God’s Word to public life, opposing the idols of his age, and taking the hit for it. To call that “culture war” and to suggest the problem is the visibility of his convictions is to rebuke not only Charlie but Peter, Paul, Stephen, John the Baptist, and a long line of martyrs.
That is not love.
Why This Is Not Mainly About Charlie Kirk
This is not a hagiography of an American activist. Charlie was a sinner like the rest of us; some of his phrasing was unwise or needlessly sharp; he is not above criticism.
What matters is the pattern that his death revealed in the church’s reaction:
A Christian dies for his public convictions. A portion of the church issues condolences — then immediately shifts the spotlight onto the alleged dangers of public conviction itself. “Unity” and “love” are invoked not to comfort the bereaved and strengthen the courageous, but to dampen the instinct to speak and act as he did.
You can substitute other names and other contexts. The logic would be just as broken if it were applied to a Nigerian pastor killed by Islamists, or a Finnish politician dragged into court for quoting Scripture on sexuality, or a cop who loses his job for refusing to lie about gender. The names change; the pattern stays: We’re sorry you suffered; just don’t be so public next time.
That pattern is what this series confronts.
What This Series Will Do
The posts that follow will do three things.
First: tell the story again, properly framed. We will revisit the lives of Jesus, Paul, and the Old Testament prophets in narrative form — five scenes — to show that “division” followed them not because they were abrasive culture warriors, but because truth has edges. The accusations against them (“demon-possessed,” “subverting the nation,” “turning the world upside down”) already sound like our modern smear words.
Second: analyze why truth divides — biblically, sociologically, and historically. We will look at the mechanisms: identity and belonging, economic interests, cognitive dissonance, boundary maintenance, plausibility structures. We will show why conversion is always socially costly and why attempts to buy “unity” by muting hard truths are doomed to fail.
Third: expose the idol of “unity without truth” and the idol of “my private truth,” then recover a better way. We will argue that unity without shared submission to God’s Word is not Christian unity — it is a cease-fire with darkness. That truth which never leaves the safe confines of the heart or the church building is not biblical truth — it is a buried talent. And that love which refuses to confront destructive lies about God, about man, about children, about justice — is not love at all.
Along the way, we will also listen to the early church fathers — Justin, Chrysostom, Lactantius, and others — who lived under real imperial power and yet insisted on praying for rulers, serving the common good, refusing idolatry, and accepting persecution rather than silence.
Why This Matters — For Your Vote, Your Church, and Your Children
This is not a theoretical dispute. It goes straight to what you do with your ballot, your pulpit, your parental authority, and your citizenship.
Adam was placed in Eden “to work it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). Every Christian today lives in a cluster of “Edens” — a home, a congregation, a neighborhood, a country.
The God who gave detailed civil guidelines to Israel; who used Joseph, Daniel, Nehemiah, and Esther inside pagan states; who inspired Paul to appeal to Caesar — that God has not rescinded His interest in public life. Christ did not abolish the Law; He fulfilled it, and He said not one stroke would pass away until heaven and earth pass away (Matt 5:17–18).
In a constitutional system, voting, speaking, organizing, running for office — these are simply the tools available to “work and keep” the garden you’ve been given.
If we tell Christians that using those tools boldly, in line with Scripture, is “culture war” and a threat to the gospel, we are not protecting the gospel. We are helping dismantle the last remnants of Christian influence in law, education, and culture — and then acting shocked when someone else catechizes the next generation.
This series is for those who feel that shock, see the drift, and refuse to worship the new golden calves called “unity” and “my truth.” It is, unapologetically, a defense of divisive truth as a good — a surgical division, like light from darkness and bone from marrow (Heb 4:12).
Jesus went first. Paul followed. The prophets bled. A man named Charlie tried, in his own fallible way, to walk that same road — and died for it.
Before we rebuke his courage as “culture war,” we should at least ask whether we are rebuking the very thing Scripture calls faithfulness.
Next in the series: “Leaving the Herd” — We open the Bible and watch what happens when Jesus speaks truth in His own hometown. Spoiler: they try to throw Him off a cliff.
