Pastors hail Erika Kirk’s forgiveness of accused killer as example of Christian faith

Jesus Christ’s 2,000-year-old call to believers to love their enemies was vividly demonstrated Sunday when Erika Kirk publicly forgave her husband’s alleged killer before an audience of millions.

Charlie Kirk, 31, was gunned down Sept. 10 while speaking at a Utah campus. Prosecutors filed murder charges against suspect Tyler Robinson, who admitted to shooting Kirk in a text message to his roommate and transgender partner, saying that he “had enough of [Kirk’s] hatred.”

After losing her husband — and as some fringe figures celebrated his killing — Erika Kirk delivered a tearful message of forgiveness at his memorial service.

“My husband, Charlie. He wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life. On the cross, Our Savior said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ That young man… I forgive him,” Kirk said. “I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and it’s what Charlie would do.”

“The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the Gospel is love — always love. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us,” she continued.

Faith leaders across the country praised her words as one of the most powerful public acts of Christian witness in years.

Bishop Robert Barron, founder of Word on Fire Ministries and bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, attended the memorial. He called it “one of the most impressive and moving displays of the Gospel I have ever experienced.”

“Jesus speaks of loving and forgiving our enemies, but this is one of the very hardest of his teachings to realize in practice. That Erika Kirk was able to pronounce a word of forgiveness to her husband’s assassin, even as her heart must have been breaking, was breathtaking,” he told Fox News Digital.

Her remarks, broadcast to millions, were “extraordinarily significant,” Barron added. “She became in that moment a brilliant evangelist, not so much through the intellectual articulation of the faith but the enactment of it.”

The comments drove international headlines and praise from across the political spectrum.

Rev. Franklin Graham, president and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said countless people around the world witnessed the power of God through Kirk’s testimony.

“The world just witnessed something incredible. Erika Kirk — while grieving the death of her husband and the father of their two young children — forgave his killer. Erika did it so well, straight from her heart,” Graham told Fox News Digital. “To forgive like this is very difficult to do. It is possible only through the grace of God.”

Pastor Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills said her message showed that God’s grace is stronger than evil.

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“When she said, ‘I forgive that young man,’ she could only do that from the strength of God because Erika knows what it’s like to be forgiven,” Hibbs told Fox News Digital. “And by doing that, she set herself free from that man’s act of horrific violence… At the same time, she sends a message to this young man that her act of goodness and grace is greater and much more powerful than his act of evil.”

The Christian leaders noted that Kirk’s message and the peaceful mourning of believers stood in stark contrast to people online celebrating Kirk’s death.

“There was no bitterness. There were no protests, no hatred, no violence,” Graham said. “There have been very few times when I have seen the name of Jesus Christ lifted up for the world to see quite like this, and I am grateful to Erika for showing millions of people around the world what it looks like to live — and forgive — like Christ.”

Barron called the celebrations over Kirk’s death evidence of “a deep rot in our culture” that Christians are meant to confront.

“Christians are called upon by Christ to be light in the darkness,” he said. “They have to go into the dysfunctional parts of our culture and bring the spirit of Jesus. And so we reach out, especially to those in greatest moral peril, with love, forgiveness, and an invitation to repent.”

Hibbs pointed to Jesus’ warning to believers that the world would hate them, but said Christians have hope in the midst of hostility.

“And we are actually seeing that [play out today],” he said. “But the Christian rejoices. We know that heaven is for real and that this life is short. And so we want to make sure that others know that they too can be forgiven like we have been forgiven and that Christ died for that very reason. That’s what the whole story of the Bible is about. And so we find great comfort even in the hostility. There’s a message of comfort to us because we understand.”

The Christian leaders were hopeful that Kirk’s act of forgiveness would embolden Christians to fearlessly live out their faith and could spark revival worldwide.

“I believe there are many people harboring hatred and unforgiveness in their hearts today. It is my prayer that God will use Erika’s message and example to move people to forgive. This could result in countless changed lives across our nation and around the world,” Graham said.

Christian singer Chris Tomlin, who led worship at the service, also said Kirk’s words could plant the seeds for a spiritual awakening.

“That kind of forgiveness can only come from somebody who really walks with God,” Tomlin told The Christian Post. “And for people to see that and witness that — what a moment around the world. I think so many people came to faith yesterday, thousands and thousands of people. And I pray it’s an awakening in this nation.”