Erika Kirk, widow of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, offered a striking message of forgiveness at her husband’s memorial on Sunday, telling a stadium of mourners that she forgives the man accused of killing him.
“The answer is always love”
“That man, that young man … I forgive him,” she said through tears, drawing applause from thousands gathered at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.
“I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and it is what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the gospel is love; love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”
Prosecutors last week charged 22-year-old Tyler Robinson with murder. Officials say Robinson admitted to shooting Kirk to his roommate, writing in a text, “I had enough of his hatred.”
A moment of grace amid heartbreak
Erika Kirk, 36, and mother of two, described the moment she saw her husband’s body at a Utah hospital after he was fatally shot in the neck while debating students at Utah Valley University.
“I felt shock, horror and a level of heartache I didn’t even know existed,” she said. “But even in death I saw the man I loved. I saw the faintest smile on his lips, a mercy from God that told me Charlie didn’t suffer.”
Calling for faith, not violence
Addressing the crowd, she said she found comfort not in anger but in prayer, and in the peaceful way people had responded to her husband’s death.
“We didn’t see violence. We didn’t see riots. Instead we saw revival. We saw people open a Bible for the first time in a decade,” she said. “Pray again, read the Bible again, go to church next Sunday and the Sunday after that.”
Her remarks came in striking contrast to both the vice president and president, who bookended her speech. Vice President Vance said that “evil still walks among us” and that society “shouldn’t ignore it for a fake kumbaya moment.” President Trump said: “I hate my opponents and I don’t want the best for them.”
A family vision
She reminded mourners that Charlie Kirk’s “greatest cause” was reviving the American family.
“When he spoke to young people, he was always eager to tell them about God’s vision for marriage.” She told the men in the audience to follow her husband’s example in a Christian marriage where they are the spiritual heads of the family, who love and lead their wives and protect their children.
“Please be a leader worth following,” Kirk said. “Your wife is not your servant. Your wife is not your employee. Your wife is not your slave. She is your helper. You are not rivals. You are one flesh, working together for the glory of God.”
She compared her husband to a martyr who died doing God’s work: “He died with incomplete work, but not with unfinished business. He left this world without regrets.”
Last week, Erika Kirk was named CEO of Turning Point USA, the youth organisation her husband founded.
Also read: Charlie Kirk shot dead at 31 during Utah political event
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