Bishop’s Message: Reflection on Political Violence
On June 14, 2025, Melissa Hortman, Representative to the Minnesota State Legislature, and her husband were shot and killed in their home. Just three months later, political activist and commentator Charlie Kirk was shot and killed last week at an event in Utah. In recent months and years there have been several violent attacks or attempted kidnapping of politicians, spouses of politicians, judges, and government officials – across the political spectrum. Any attempt on any human being’s life is an affront to the image of God we all bear. None of these attacks should be taken lightly or made light of.
Ours is a time of profound political polarization. There are politicians, cable news personalities, influencers, and social media algorithms that exacerbate our perceived differences and disagreements. Some have called this the “outrage industrial complex” designed to keep us agitated, angry, and suspicious of others. Our public discourse has become more and more caustic as we divide ourselves into “us” vs “them.”
But that is not the way of Jesus. The way of Jesus recognizes that we all bear something of the beauty of humanity created in the image of God and we are all implicated in the mess of human sin and brokenness. None of us is wholly innocent or simply guilty. But each of us is an image-bearer and thus of infinite value. Every human being, worthy of being engaged with care, honesty, respect, and patience.
One of the foundational Anglican theologians, Richard Hooker (1554–1600), wrote, “God hath created nothing simply for itself, but each thing in all things, and every thing each part in other have such interest, that in the whole world nothing is found whereunto any thing that is created can say, ‘I need thee not’” (The Nature of Pride). As Christians, we understand that, fundamentally, there is no “us” vs “them.” Part of Christian discipleship is to resist the temptation to think and act as though there is.
“God hath created nothing simply for itself, but each thing in all things, and every thing each part in other have such interest, that in the whole world nothing is found whereunto any thing that is created can say, ‘I need thee not’.”
Christians also understood that however righteous we think our cause is, we must always be aware of our own ignorance, brokenness, and sinfulness. As the Apostle Paul reminds us, even when we want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand (Romans 7:21). Episcopal educator and activist Vida Dutton Scudder (1861–1954) wrote, “Unless we fight not as righteous against guilty but as penitent against impenitent, we have no business to fight at all.” Scudder wrote this in reference to World War I, but it holds as a general principle for Christians.
“Unless we fight not as righteous against guilty but as penitent against impenitent, we have no business to fight at all.”
If we engage political and social disagreements and debates as righteous against guilty rather than as penitent against impenitent, we will amplify our own grievances, anguish, and suffering and turn our hearts from the grievances, anguish, and suffering of those we have identified as the unrighteous enemy. We lose our capacity for self-reflection and repentance. Our empathy and outrage become selective. Our capacity for compassion and mercy is diminished. And we close ourselves off from whatever lessons we might need to learn from the other.
When we identify ourselves and our own cause as simply right and good and those we oppose as simply wrong and bad, we can justify deceit, meanness, and all manner of malice. Any outrageous thing said or done, real or perceived, by one side becomes justification for the other side’s outrageous rhetoric and behavior. Even when we are sure our cause is just, we need to beware of the tendency to justify unjust or immoral means to a just and righteous end.
As Christians we have inherited a vocation to be a blessing to the nations (Genesis 12:2–3). We can be repairers of the breach, restorers of streets to live in (Isaiah 58:12). This is part of the ministry of reconciliation to which we are called (2 Corinthians 5:19) and the mission of the church as defined in our catechism: to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ (BCP, p. 855).
Practicing the way of Jesus does not mean we should be passive or silent or never resist evil. Or never take sides. We need to care for and advocate for the poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized. Racism, misogyny, and other forms of prejudice are real. We need to resist bigotry in all its forms. We need to call out violent rhetoric and behavior. If we want to engage the world as Christians, we will do so while cultivating a posture of humility, self-examination, and penitence. We need to practice disciplined restraint, compassion, and mercy toward all – including our enemies and those with whom we struggle.
We need to lament.
We need to repent.
All of us.
Lament our hardness of heart.
Lament the ease with which we divide ourselves from others – “us” and “them.”
Lament our tendency to see the problem primarily in the other and not in ourselves.
Lament our rhetoric that dismisses those with whom we disagree or do not like.
Lament our justifying, excusing, and minimizing our own violence whether of heart or word or deed.
Lament our tendency to consider violence of rhetoric or action against people like us worse than violence against those unlike us.
Lament our thinking anyone is significantly unlike us.
Lament giving ourselves over to anger and disdain.
Lament our indifference toward the suffering of others.
Lament.
Lament and repent.
Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy.
O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual forbearance and respect; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 824)
Under the Mercy,
Bishop Matthew Gunter
Bishop of Wisconsin
The Episcopal Diocese of Wisconsin
