Jon Goodwin

Processing Yesterday’s Murder of Charlie Kirk

Yesterday afternoon as I waiting for children to get off a bus at my church, I received a text from a friend who informed me that Charlie Kirk had been shot while he was speaking at one of his events.  Shortly thereafter, two more friends began texting as well.  Two of them even sent videos which I watched.  I nearly threw up after watching the first video and concluded on my own that the shot had been fatal.  

As I sat there at my desk, I could hear children in our church.  They made squeals of joy, and I could hear the pitter patter of little footprints as they played games and enjoyed their friends.  As they innocently enjoyed life, I sat alone in my office wondering what in the world this world was coming to.  At the same time, I was thankful for their innocence and even a bit envious.

Once I processed things for a moment, I was struck with the thought, this doesn’t surprise me.  The violent and angry rhetoric that has invaded both sides of the aisle had led us to this point.  Some would argue that we have left our roots as a Christian nation.  Charlie Kirk was one of those who would argue this.  My concern is that many of my brothers and sisters are living in the pursuit of returning to a Christian nation and in turn have set aside their marching orders in order to get there.  The call is not to create a theocracy but an expanse of a kingdom that is already here: the kingdom of God.  Not a pursuit of power but a pursuit of holiness.  For the believer, our marching orders are not the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (although we are blessed to have these documents).  Our marching orders are found in the Sermon on the Mount.  They are found also in Matthew 22 which speaks of loving God and loving people.  

Why do I bring that up?  Well, the response to this shooting is to be expected.  The outcry is loud as it should be.  Kirk was an influential voice and most of the country witnessed his murder as they scrolled their phone through their social media feeds.  Also on our social media feeds are ugly responses.  We don’t really know what happened yet, but the blame game is already going full force.  As to who did it and what is their reason, we don’t know.  I have my suspicions as many do but I just really don’t know.  

Tragedy always reveals the heart of a nation and always reveals the heart of God’s people.  I am deeply saddened at what it has revealed.  Again, I am not shocked.  I am disappointed.  I am sad.  I am saddened that a 31 year man was senselessly murdered (probably because of ideology).  I am saddened that a young wife spent last night awake wrecked with grief.  I imagine she ventured into her sleeping children’s rooms and cried over them and wondered how she is going to raise them on her own.  Her little one’s woke up this morning and momma looked at them, she knew, life would never be the same.  I am saddened that there are Utah Valley University students whose lives will never be the same.  They witnessed a disgusting act of a violence that most of them cannot even process, but their minds have put the whole thing on repeat.  I am saddened that my social media feed is full of conspiracy, finger pointers, and even celebrators.  What the heck is wrong with you people?  I don’t want to sound all high and mighty here but come on.  The body is still warm.

Now is not the time to point fingers.  Now is the time to weep with those who weep.  Now is the time to ask ourselves, have we contributed to the hate.  We must ask ourselves, have I led my sphere of influence closer to the one whose kingdom I represent, or am I a divisive voice in divisive times.  Now is the time to offer hope to the hopeless.  We must ask ourselves if our priorities are in order.  Are we living a life in pursuit of the expanse of the kingdom: His kingdom or are we living in pursuit of power?  

As a man who is deeply pro-life, I too am angry.  I am angry at the Kirk murder.  I am angry at the school shooting that also took place yesterday at Evergreen High School.  I am angry that a Ukrainian immigrant woman was senselessly murdered this past week.  I am angry at the school shooting that happened at Annunciation Catholic Church.  I am angry that woman who were sexually abused feel they must hold a press conference to get justice.  I am angry that a friend of mine’s son in-law was rounded up by ICE.  I am angry that a number of men I once looked up to have turned out to monsters.  I am angry.  This is a tiny list by the way.  Anger is valid.  Anger is justified. 

Yep, I am angry but, I am commanded by Scripture to “be angry and not sin”.  I am told in Scripture that I am to be “salt and light”.  I am told that I am an “ambassador for Christ.”  In spite of my anger, I choose to be a hope dealer.  I know who wins.  I will serve relentlessly.  I will speak up for the marginalized.  I will provide services to those who cannot afford it.  I will love my God, and I will love my neighbor.  I will volunteer.  I will be thankful.  I will choose joy.  This world doesn’t need more darkness it needs more shining lights, and I will try my darndest to be that.  I pray that if you read this and are also a follower of Christ that you will do the same.

My point is this, we do get to make a choice.  Today, I choose love.  

“Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”-MLK

Jon Goodwin

A White Christian’s Reflection on Racism and Juneteenth

When I was 11, I was sitting in my neighbor’s kitchen sipping on a glass of sprite.  This was tradition after all.  When I finished up mowing my elderly neighbor’s lawn, she would pay me and then give me cookies and sprite.  Sometimes we sat and chatted for 45 minutes or more which caused my parents to jokingly call this older woman my girlfriend.  One day while enjoying our sprite and cookies, she told me about people who had recently looked at the home for sale next door.  She was quite worried too.  After all she did not want them moving next door to her.  She did not want black next-door neighbors.

When I was in my teens, I worked at a Christian camp and served under a man that I loved.  He was an amazing Bible teacher and had a deep love for people and deep love for sharing the gospel.  He was a gifted evangelist and used his gifts well.  When someone would do something out of line it was not uncommon for him to refer to them as a “cotton picker.”

When I was 21, I was doing an internship at a ministry that reached out to town kids.  In fact, it was right down the road from the local high school.  This town also was quite diverse for the area we were living in.  One day I was headed somewhere with the man I was doing my internship under.  A man who was also a pastor.  We passed a park bench in town where 3 teenagers were hanging out and he said, “I hate to see that.”  Naively I asked, “what teens hanging out on main street?”  He replied with, “No, a pretty white girl hanging out with black guys.” 

When I was 22, I was attending Bible college and working with their maintenance department.  One day me and another guy who worked for the college took a drive across town with a school van to pick up something from a storage unit.  The storage facility was in the midst of a residential community just off the highway.  As we were pulling into the facility the college employee said something I didn’t quite make out. I said, “What?” He nodded towards the porch where a black family was sitting enjoying the summer air and repeated himself and said, “I call them porch monkeys.”  He then laughed at this incredibly racist remark.

When I was 26, I took my very white youth group out of our very white town to a conference in the south.  I remember rolling up to a stop light.  My fellow youth worker said, “lock the doors.”  I said, “why?”  She then eyeballed the black man standing on the corner.

When I was in my 30’s, I learned for the first time what redlining was.  Growing up I remember there being a black part of town.  I did not understand that this was by design and represented a much larger systemic issue.

When I was in my 40’s, I learned what Juneteenth was.  Like many others I was unaware of the history behind it and had no clue that Texas still had slavery when the rest of the country had abolished it.  It wasn’t till Juneteenth was signed into law that this truth would come out.  Still, people would claim that this holiday was made up and that we already had an Independence Day.  

The sad truth is the items listed above took me 5 minutes to think about.  They came to me but stuck with me because I have always felt that these things were wrong when so many in my world have normalized them.  So many Christians have normalized these behaviors and thus projected diminishment rather than love.  

When I began to study redlining it dramatically changed my eyesight.  I began to understand at a much deeper level what the issues were within our society and began at times to call out those behaviors that once were deemed as normal.  I began to inwardly cringe when color became a defining factor rather than character.  When people say, “I met a very helpful guy yesterday, he was a black guy, and he gave directions to the pizza shop.”  How is the race of the helpful person helpful to the conversation?  I wouldn’t describe a white person this way.  I would simply say, “I had to ask for directions to the pizza shop.”  It’s almost as if the words “helpful” and “black” combined provide a shocking detail to the story like the good Samaritan story that Jesus told.

I have had a lifelong love of hip-hop, R&B, and gospel music.  I was drawn to it at a young age and even last night I was driving my truck blasting hip hop.  Not because I want to be cool (trust me, I am not) but because I simply love the music.  As a kid, my love of this  caused a pastor to call me out from the pulpit and my choice of music was often referred to as jungle jive.

I was a kid when I first heard about Equal Opportunity Employment.  I saw a construction zone and saw a lady holding a flag.  It was stated that she checked two boxes because she was both black and a woman.  There was no thought given to the fact that she was probably quite qualified for her job and might have been taking a break from operating equipment.  In fact, the opposite was true, it was insinuated that she was not qualified because she was a black woman in a construction zone.

As my eyes have opened, it has become quite apparent to me that racism has surrounded me my entire life. Now some will accuse me of wokeness for saying this.  I am at the point where I simply don’t care.  Seeing people’s struggles is a fruit of loving them and therefore that accusation is not an insult but rather an encouragement that I am doing it right. 

So why do I write this on Juneteenth?  I write this to say, that I wrote this entire article in 20 minutes.  Thinking of examples of what to write was incredibly easy.  If I put the time in, I could probably write thirty pages of things that I would classify as racist that were said or done by people that I know and most of them are people that would tell you that they are Christ followers.  This is a problem.

  • To my knowledge, nobody has ever hoped I wouldn’t buy the house next to them.  
  • To my knowledge, nobody complained that I hung out with girls when I was a teen.  
  • To my knowledge, nobody uttered racial slurs because I just wanted to spend time with my family on my front porch during the summer.  
  • To my knowledge, nobody ever locked their car door when I stood on a street corner.
  • To my knowledge, nobody denied my parents a mortgage because it was in the wrong part of town. 
  • To my knowledge, nobody questioned my credentials because of my skin color. 
  • To my knowledge, nobody denied my grandparents from the ability to vote.  
  • To my knowledge, nobody refused payment of the GI bill when my grandfather got home from WWII. 
  • To my knowledge, my mother did not have to use the side entrance to the movie theatre and then sit on the balcony.  
  • To my knowledge, my parents weren’t forced to walk to their underfunded school while the other kids’ road a bus to their school where resources abounded.  

Some would call this white privilege.

The question should not be, is this woke?  The question should be, is this truth?

So, this Juneteenth do me a favor.  I want to encourage all my white friends to sit down with a pad and paper.  Write out a list of things you have seen that dehumanizes our black brothers and sisters.  Then maybe when you are done, commit to do better.  Juneteenth is a reminder to all of us that we must do better.  

When we open our eyes to inequity, we quickly are overwhelmed by how many exist.  You can’t fix the world, but you can make those within your world experience more dignity and hope.  This is a responsibility that is on you and is on me.  So, this Juneteenth, speak up, stand up, listen better, and love better.