Why We Can’t Agree that Murder is Wrong

On Wednesday, September 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk was assassinated while hosting a public debate with the students on the campus of Utah Valley University. Explicit video of the death from multiple vantage points quickly spread across the internet, jarring viewers around the world. Politicians and pundits immediately took to social media to denounce the killing and call for cooler heads to prevail. At first, it seemed that everyone agreed: this was murder and evil.

But that didn’t turn out to be the case. As word of Kirk’s death spread, many mourned, but many others openly celebrated. Social media was flooded with posts indicating that Kirk’s killing was a justifiable response to his “hateful thoughts and words.” 

These are confusing times, as evidenced by my own family text thread. One of my sisters wrote, “[My son just said] it’s crazy that, as a country, we can’t even agree that murder is wrong.” Another sister wrote, “I can’t believe we’re at the point where some of the world is celebrating this.”

This post is not about the substance of Kirk’s words—whether he was always right or wrong, or even whether he said hateful things. I’m purely trying to answer the question, “Why do some people view this as a justifiable killing instead of murder?” The difference between murder and justifiable killing is key. For millennia, as attested by Exodus 20:13, civil societies have had laws prohibiting murder—the premeditated and malicious killing of another person. But not every killing is classified as a murder; for instance, if a person fears for his life, then it is justifiable for him to use lethal force to defend himself from the attacker. Answering the question above may help us to understand how we got to the point where political assassinations are celebrated instead of condemned.

Distorting Reality Leads to Devastation

Believe it or not, our society used to struggle to make declarative judgments about the world. Go back to 2001, and consider something as significant as 9/11. For most who saw the attacks with their own eyes, it was painfully obvious that some things are categorically evil—regardless of era, culture, or creed. But even then, many suppressed their own natural impulses to call it evil and sought some other way to understand it. After all, they said, who are we to label one thing good and another evil? If something is truly evil, then that means it fails to live up to some objective moral standard. In those days—when moral relativism first began to fill the cultural air—it seemed arrogant to declare any kind of standard better than another.

But what if each individual person becomes the objective standard? Living in world unwilling to label anything evil was never realistic. Look around; we don’t live in 2001 anymore, and social media is filled with people calling things evil, lies, and making all sorts of claims. But dig a little bit, and you’ll often find the reasoning shallow. Many times, the only standard in question is personal opinion. This is the dark side of moral relativism.

What I say determines my reality. That view has bled into nearly every facet of life that you can think of. Far beyond the moral dimension. Consider the all too familiar example of two people who witness some shocking event together under the haze of darkness. Instead of working together to determine the truth, they each recount their own personal truth. This phenomenon has even spread to the physical realm. Gone are the days when a thing could be known by its nature. Today, even biology and anatomy are governed by subjective opinion. If John considers himself to be a girl, then that is what he is. Don’t even dare question it.

How Words Can be Distorted

Lurking just below the surface in each of these issues is the nature and role of words and propositional content in relation to reality. Are words a way to respond to reality, or a tool for determining reality? Realists place a high premium on propositions as a way of describing what is. To them, the meaning of words matters tremendously, since, as an example, on a correspondence theory of truth, something is true when the proposition properly conforms to reality. But this doesn’t seem to be the way some in our society treat words. Rather than starting with outward reality and conforming language to it; they begin with their own inner opinions, feelings, and thoughts and then project those outward as if what they say makes something real or true.

Let’s consider Charlie Kirk again. When he set foot on college campuses, he did so with the goal of engaging in spirited debates with his audience. The topic range was vast—abortion, race, sexuality, gender, and immigration among others. He wanted to disrupt the cultural narrative, provoke thought, and persuade. And judging from the videos I’ve seen online, he often succeeded. But as is often the case with debates, he made a lot of people angry.  

So how should we understand the effect of his approach and words on his audience? More than one online commentator said his words “did violence” to hearers. But what does this label mean? Furthermore, is it even possible? Surely, words do something. The old adage, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me” is not accurate. As a pastor, I’ve had to deal with far too many cases of verbal abuse to believe that. Words sting, hurt, and have the capability to be used as a weapon to inflict significant emotional suffering. But there’s a reason that we distinguish between verbal and physical abuse. While the former deals with words, the latter has to do with fleshly injury. According to the dictionary, to “do violence” to someone fits squarely within the realm of physical abuse. Or we might think of it this way: verbal abuse turns into physical abuse when a violent action is taken which results in physical injury to the victim.

This definition clearly cuts against those who think words can be violence, though. But maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that our society would do away with the very fabric of semantic meaning. Today, just like anything else—the body, truth, and morality—the meaning of words can be redefined relative to personal opinion. Therefore, the historical interpretation of violence matters less than the intensity of personal anguish one feels at the hearing of the words. 

Now imagine two people sitting in the audience listening to Charlie Kirk—one a realist and the other a subjectivist. For the sake of this exercise, imagine that both disagree with his positions. And furthermore, both get very angry because his views contrast so starkly with theirs. And when they try to argue back, they feel humiliated because he has more practice debating. The realist might say that his words were hurtful, but his friend may feel so angry and humiliated that the best way he can describe Kirk’s words is “violent.”

The Dangerous Implications of “Violent” Words

Here’s the real danger: if words can do violence, and self-defense against violence is justifiable, then using lethal force against speech becomes justifiable. Distorting reality certainly makes for a very confusing world, but confusion can quickly give way to something more sinister when western ideals—like self-defense and proportional force—are rooted in something other than realism.

Americans have the right to defend themselves from violence. And we don’t have to defend ourselves half-heartedly. We are free to do what it takes to escape from the threat—even if that means using deadly force. So, if someone breaks into my home and I have reason to fear for my life, killing the intruder may be a justifiable act of self-defense. However, this right has some significant limitations. I’m not at liberty to use deadly force if I’m not being threatened with death. The force I exert to defend myself must be proportional to the threat I face. Thus, quite literally, a schoolboy can’t bring a gun to a fist fight. Realists would view that as unjustifiable use of force.

But in a world where harsh words are considered violence and differing opinions on gender identity are labeled as identity erasure, it’s easy to see how self-defense and proportional force could get mixed up. To return to my example of two people listening to Kirk. While the realist would defend his position with words, his friend could feel completely justified to claim self-defense as his reason for using lethal force to protect himself from the violent words.

I’m afraid the reason we disagree whether Charlie Kirk’s death was murder is because our society is inhabited by both realists and those completely divorced from it. This is worse than the dark side of moral relativism; this is the deadly side.

A Path Forward

Our present cultural moment isn’t totally unique. In Romans 1:18-32, Paul warned about what happens when people disregard the plain order of reality and “suppress the truth.” When people distort the rules of reality to do as they please—sinning with their bodies, passions, and words—their thinking becomes futile and their hearts become darkened. Moreover, their sin leaves them subject to the wrath of God.

This is a dire state of affairs. But it doesn’t have to be this way. The God of salvation isn’t hidden; his goodness and beauty are revealed in the objective order of reality. So what is the role of Christian witness in this environment? To call people to their senses by modeling lives in accord with reality and calling attention to the beauty of the gospel. To those stuck in darkness, let our lives and words testify to the light.