One week after the controversial political commentator Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Christian singer Lauren Daigle released a powerful statement on Wednesday.
In an Instagram post to her more than two million followers, Daigle wrote that it is “horrific” that America is in such a polarised state that “we believe ruthless killing” of someone is better than resolving disagreements.
“What have we become?” she asked.
Daigle is now calling on people to join her in daily prayer and fasting.
“Fasting moved the heart of God in the book of Jonah regarding Nineveh,” she wrote in her caption. Quoting 2 Chronicles 7:14 — the promise from God to His people that if they humble themselves, pray, and seek His face, He will heal their land — she added: “We need His healing!!! I’m pretty sure that sentiment is bipartisan.”
In the “You Say” singer’s lengthy statement, she reminded her fans that the battle is not between human beings, but rather a spiritual one.
“It’s not party against party. We are in a spiritual battle. Good versus evil. Light versus dark,” she said. “It is time to put on the full armour of God and bathe in scripture.”
Since Kirk’s death, many Christian leaders have been paying tribute to his faith in Jesus, while others disagree that he should be seen as a martyr.
Texas Representative Troy Nehls said at a congressional hearing on Wednesday: “If Charlie Kirk lived in Biblical times, he’d have been the 13th disciple.”
As MSNBC points out, Missouri pastor Rich Bitterman of Cedar Ridge Baptist Church in Galena posted a 1,100-word sermon to X titled The Cross Still Offends.
“The Word became flesh and they nailed Him to a tree,” Bitterman wrote. “So of course, they came for Charlie.”
Words from Bitterman and other pastors also prompted some prominent Black pastors to push back.
“Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be assassinated,” Rev. Howard-John Wesley, pastor of Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, said during his sermon on Sunday.
“But I’m overwhelmed seeing the flags of the United States of America at half-mast calling this nation to honour and venerate a man who was an unapologetic racist and spent all of his life sowing seeds of division and hate into this land.”
Rev. Jamal Bryant, the pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta, accused “America and the media” of trying to brush over many of Kirk’s more controversial opinions and comments.
Bryant referenced Kirk’s comments that disparaged US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, criticised the Civil Rights Movement — calling it “a huge mistake” — and claimed that Dr Martin Luther King Jr was an “awful person” who “said one good thing he actually didn’t believe”.
With Americans so deeply divided, Daigle is hoping that fasting and praying through September will be the catalyst for a breakthrough.
“Feel free to join me in the fight against despair, hopelessness, confusion, and sorrow,” she wrote. “Fasting and prayer are the battle cry. United we stand because unity commands a blessing.”