Black pastors dispute martyr label for Charlie Kirk
Written by Black Hot Fire Network Team on December 20, 2025
Reactions to Charlie Kirk’s death have sparked debate, particularly regarding how his life and death are being memorialized. While many conservatives and white Christians, especially evangelicals, emphasize his faith and label him a martyr, Black clergy are grappling with reconciling a heroic view of the 31-year-old with statements he made that were insulting to people of color.
The Rev. Howard-John Wesley of Alexandria, Virginia, stated in a sermon, “How you die does not redeem how you lived.” The reactions marked a notable split-screen moment in America’s racial divide. In Arizona, tens of thousands of people celebrated Kirk in a religious-themed memorial as a martyr and inspirational conservative hero, while Black pastors denounced what they called hateful rhetoric from Kirk that runs counter to the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Kirk’s killing on a college campus in Utah, captured in a graphic video, and the aftermath have become the latest fault line in politics and race in America. Many Black pastors linked the veneration of Kirk—who used his platform to discuss race in America, including statements that denigrated Black people, immigrants, women, Muslims, and LGBTQ+ people—to the history of weaponizing faith to justify colonialism, enslavement, and bigotry.
The Rev. Jacqui Lewis, pastor of Middle Collegiate Church in New York City, said powerful voices have long controlled the microphone and used it to reshape Christianity to serve power, exclusion, and hate, calling it “white nationalism wrapped in talk of Jesus.”
Lewis and others said Black pastors must speak boldly, looking to their tradition of speaking out against those who promote racism.
A memorial service in Arizona, attended by Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and MAGA movement supporters, demonstrated the massive influence Kirk accumulated in conservative America. The Rev. Joel Bowman, pastor of Temple of Faith Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, described the event as a conflation of Christian symbolism and right-wing conservativism.
The Rev. F. Bruce Williams, pastor of Bates Memorial Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, rejected the martyrdom assertion, emphasizing that Kirk did not die for the faith. Wesley, pastor of Alfred Street Baptist Church, stated that he was overwhelmed seeing the nation honor a man who was an unapologetic racist and spent his life sowing seeds of division and hate.
Kirk’s statements included saying without evidence that “prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people” and claiming affirmative action policies were the only reason prominent Black women like Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had advanced. He also called the landmark civil rights law granting equal rights to people of color “a mistake” and described the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as “awful.” This led many Black church leaders to reject comparisons between Kirk’s killing and King’s 1968 assassination.
The Rev. Jamal Bryant, pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Seacrest, Georgia, said the only thing Kirk and King had in common was that both were killed by a white man. The Rev. Freddy Haynes III, pastor of Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas, echoed Bryant, adding that Kirk’s statements were dangerous, racist, rooted in white supremacy, and nasty.
Kirk’s conservatism does resonate with some Black pastors who are themselves conservatives and subscribe to the evangelical political ideology that has been on the rise. Patrick L. Wooden Sr., a pastor in Raleigh, North Carolina, celebrated Kirk for his promotion of conservative Christian values, believing that liberal policies promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion have left behind working-class Black Americans. He also agreed with Kirk’s statements against transgender individuals and others in the LGBTQ+ community.
Wooden said, “I pray that our country has not degenerated to the point that if you cannot overcome someone’s point of view, someone’s stated position … I hope the response isn’t that you shoot them with a gun.”
