Kirk in the view of black pastors

Indpendent, UK -  From the pulpits of Black churches, pastors used their sermons to denounce what they called hateful rhetoric from Kirk that runs counter to the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Gospel...

Many Black pastors in the largest African American Christian denominations linked the veneration of Kirk — who used his platform to discuss matters of 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.

“Christianity told itself that Black people were inferior and therefore enslaved us,” said the Rev. Jacqui Lewis, pastor of Middle Collegiate Church in New York City, adding that powerful voices have long controlled the microphone and used it to reshape Christianity to serve power, exclusion and hate.

“We can call it Christian-esque, but it’s white nationalism wrapped in talk of Jesus," Lewis said in an interview this week. "And it’s not Christian. It’s just not.”

Now, Lewis and others said, Black pastors must speak boldly, looking to their tradition of speaking out against those who promote racism.

“We’re criticizing the way the world is because that’s our job,” she said....

Many spoke of Kirk as a family man whose strong Christian faith, belief in the unfettered expression of ideas and ultraconservative values were part of his appeal.

“My friends, for Charlie, we must remember that he is a hero to the United States of America. And he is a martyr for the Christian faith,” Vance said.

The Rev. F. Bruce Williams, pastor of Bates Memorial Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, had rejected the martyrdom assertion well before Vance addressed Kirk’s mourners in Arizona.

While emphasizing that Kirk's “life was tragically taken by violence,” Williams said in a sermon shared more than 40,000 times on Facebook, “what is also tragic is they’re trying to make him a martyr of the faith.”

“Now, he did violently die, but he did not die for the faith. Not the faith that I know. Not for the Jesus I know.”

“Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be assassinated,” agreed Wesley, pastor of Alfred Street Baptist Church, in his online sermon. “But I am overwhelmed seeing the flags of the United States of America at half-staff, calling this nation to honor and venerate a man who was an unapologetic racist and spent all of his life sowing seeds of division and hate into this land.”

Kirk once called the landmark civil rights law granting equal rights to people of color “a mistake,” and described civil rights icon the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as “awful," leading many Black church leaders to reject comparisons between Kirk’s killing and King’s 1968 assassination.

“How dare you compare him to Martin Luther King,” the Rev. Jamal Bryant, pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Seacrest, Georgia, said in a sermon posted to his Instagram account.

“The only thing they got in common is both of ‘em was killed by a white man. After that, they got nothin’ else in common.”