When Violence Speaks Louder Than Words
What apartheid South Africa can teach us about America’s fractures—and the miracle of turning toward love
The assassination of Charlie Kirk is more than one man’s tragic death; it is a mirror held up to our nation’s unraveling.
His assassination is horrific and inexcusable. Full stop. And…I thought his message was more than just controversial. He stated his beliefs in incendiary ways. (For a list of actual statements and the clips from which they were derived, please see this article in The Guardian.) I ask myself, “Is this how Jesus would talk? Is this how He would want to make people feel loved? Is this truly Jesus’s gospel of love?”
Regardless of what he said and how he said it though, no one should fear for their liberty or safety because of their views. Nor, for that matter, because of the color of their skin, their ethnic or national background, their citizenship status, their gender… or anything else. We are all beloved by God, made in the image of our Creator. And we all have a journey of repentance, every day of our lives.
Yet we are devolving into a deeply divided country where violence—and the threat of violence—increasingly becomes the language of our political differences. The treatment of minority groups today echoes—chillingly—the systemic marginalization that scarred South Africa for decades under apartheid.
As I read Patti Waldmeir’s Anatomy of a Miracle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of the New South Africa, the parallels were inescapable. South Africa’s story asks whether a society can emerge from entrenched injustice into something new. Our story now forces us to ask the same: Can a fractured nation witness the miracle of renewed commitment to justice, love, forgiveness, and hope? [1]
First Encounters with Apartheid
The first time I remember hearing the word apartheid was in my 7th-grade social studies class. I don’t recall many details, but I do remember my teacher trying to explain this system of separation in Africa. It didn’t make much sense to me at the time because I had no context for such a concept.
Years later, in the summer of 1983, after my sophomore year of college, my friend Missy and I were traveling in the British Isles before a six-week program at Trinity College, Oxford University. As young travelers often do, we stayed in youth hostels and met people from all over the world. One young white South African joined us for a couple of days of sightseeing. When we cautiously asked, “What’s it really like in South Africa? What’s going on with the whites and blacks?” he hesitated, then brushed it aside: “It’s not as bad as everybody tells you.” His dismissal told us more than he intended, and we soon parted ways.
Economic Absurdities and Present Parallels
Reading Waldmeir now, I see how apartheid’s contradictions eventually undermined it from within. She writes, “Business could not prosper with an unstable labor force, and migrant apartheid labor was inherently unstable… But once business had invested in training these workers, it could not just dismiss them and start again.” [2]
This reminds me of ICE raids in the U.S., where migrant workers are rounded up and deported, leaving farmers and manufacturers—who invested in their training—unable to sustain their businesses.
Waldmeir continues, “Ironically, de Klerk gives much of the credit for ending apartheid to the ordinary people of South Africa rather than to the politicians… the human, demographic, and economic forces of population growth, urbanization, mass education, and industrial development had far more impact than deliberate government action.” [3]
Her words call to mind the protests erupting across the U.S.—ordinary people demanding justice while political leaders delay or deflect.
The Fragility of Democracy
In the wake of Kirk’s assassination, I find myself agonizing over what it will take for the United States to move toward common purpose again.
The Declaration of Independence names what is perhaps our closest attempt at a shared goal: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” But as Tom Holland argues in Dominion, such truths are not at all self-evident [4]; they are the fruit of the Christian story, not universal assumptions. Our society is forgetting its roots even as division deepens.
It is not the same as apartheid, and yet I cannot ignore the U.S. parallels in the hate directed at Black and brown people, immigrants, women, the differently abled, and gender-diverse populations. Waldmeir recalls one businessman saying, “Previously… ‘you couldn’t make blacks heavy metal crane drivers, because blacks had no depth perception.’ But the moment the law was changed, ‘blacks acquired depth perception overnight.’” [5] The economic absurdities of apartheid echo today in the lies used to justify exclusion and marginalization.
Manufactured Divisions
Too many of our leaders seek power by creating divisions. They deflect blame from policies that serve the wealthy by turning citizens against one another.
As Stacey Abrams observed: “When we moved into the space of remarkable income inequality, when the gap widened so much… [we found that] people fight for the thing they think they can get to. And it feels so remote that we can actually dismantle the current inequities that we have, so Republicans are taking advantage of it and filling the void. They’re saying, ‘It’s not the company that pays the CEO 100 times more than you, it’s the waiter you have to tip. That’s the person you should be mad at.’ Republicans have been able to redirect both venom and pain onto the people who are least able to fight back.” [6]
This scapegoating mirrors apartheid South Africa, where white Afrikaans leaders consistently blamed Black South Africans for the nation’s instability, even as unjust laws and exploitative systems created the very crises they decried.
And I don’t have space here to go into the parallels of the suppression of voting rights and more.
A Call to Christlike Leadership
I believe leaders—whether by design or by default—carry responsibility to live and lead as Jesus modeled. Paul exhorts us: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). He would “become all things to all people” to share the gospel (1 Cor. 9:22), while still standing firm in truth. He even challenged Peter when necessary, not to win an argument but to call him back to the heart of Christ (Gal. 2:11–14).
This weekend, I attempted something similar in a small way, engaging on social media with an old church friend turned MAGA supporter. Using some strategies from last week’s reading, How to Have Impossible Conversations by Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay, I tried to stay calm and respectful. Though our exchange was civil, I realized I could not change his mind any more than he could change mine.
So I am left with the question: how does one truly change someone’s mind?
Lessons from Mandela
Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison. He said he used that time to reflect, to learn the language of his captors, and to strategize with fellow dissidents. His long endurance bore fruit when South Africa finally shifted. I am concerned that it may take as long, or longer, before our own nation turns from its divisions toward a shared vision.
Yet I find hope in the teachings of Jesus. To guide someone from a false gospel based on fear to His way of love, we must not only embody His words but also speak them and write them, trusting that within this love lies the truth of Christ.
The Work of Repentance
This week in church, we heard Pastor Emily preach on the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin (Luke 15:1–10). Yes, Jesus was showing us God’s relentless pursuit of the lost. But Emily also suggested another invitation: maybe these parables are also about how we treat one another.
When someone wanders, we are not to close our doors and write them off. We are to call after them, to search, to invite the neighborhood to join the search. And when we find them, we repent together—metanoia, Greek for changing our minds, turning around—away from violence and injustice, toward peace, justice, and love. [7]
Two Convictions
I end with two convictions:
- If I believe my neighbor misses the gospel’s core—God’s love, not fear; God’s welcome for all—I must gently but firmly name what is wrong. May God grant me the patience of Mandela as I do so.
- It is not my job to change hearts. That work belongs to God’s Spirit. It is, however, my responsibility to witness to Christ’s change in me and, as a leader, to call for justice, love, liberty, and protection for those without a voice.
A Poetic Witness
My friend, poet Kate Hagopian Berry, offered this at church during the offering. It captures both the cost and the beauty of Christ’s relentless gathering love:
The Parable of the Lost
How easy in the story
all of us, so well-behaved,
content in the pen
the one lost bleating eagerly
for salvation
such jubilation when they are found,
lamb with the lamb on his shoulders
and the prodigal never puts a hoof down sharp,
never makes you angry
doesn’t dox, or blacklist, or lie,
doesn’t make you doubt
the milk of human kindness
or even that they are human,
doesn’t hate.
So our welcome shines out
like a silver piece
and we ignore
how dusty it gets among the floorboards and spiders,
we ignore the cost of it, forgiveness
yet Jesus never says
politics, never checks
to make sure the lamb is well-fed
or clean, or that its fleece might attract–
He just gathers us in,
on the threshold,
on the shoulders of a world
that decides too quickly
which life to spare and which to end.
Katherine Hagopian Berry
Turning Toward Hope
I don’t know what divides run deepest in your life right now, whether in your family, your friendships, your workplace, or your church. But I do know this: the way of Jesus is always the way of turning toward love. Turning away from fear, scapegoating, and despair. Turning toward the miracle of love, forgiveness, and justice. Just as Jesus challenged the leaders of His day who were leading people astray, what might it mean to gently challenge the damaging voices in your sphere?
South Africa’s story reminds us that whole nations can turn when people courageously unite to achieve God’s love on earth, even after decades of violence and oppression. Our story today—painful as it is—invites us to trust that change is still possible and to act—in love—on that trust.
So here is my invitation: This week, ask yourself where God may be calling you to “turn.”
- Where do you see fear shaping your responses, and what would it mean to turn toward love?
- What might you have to speak or write to show that love and continually demonstrate the Fruit of the Spirit?
- Who have you quietly written off, and what small step could you take to seek engagement?
- What daily practice might help you resist despair and instead nurture hope?
The miracle may not come all at once. But perhaps it begins here—with you, with me, with ordinary people choosing hope until the tide finally turns.
The miracle begins when we turn—again and again—away from fear and toward love, even in the smallest of ways.
===
- Patti Waldmeir, Anatomy of a Miracle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of the New South Africa (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997).
- Waldmeir, Anatomy of a Miracle, 27.
- Waldmeir, Anatomy of a Miracle, 25.
- Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (New York: Basic Books, 2019), 384.
- Waldmeir, Anatomy of a Miracle, 26.
- Stacey Abrams, interview with Nicolle Wallace, “‘Badass’ Stacey Abrams Demolishes these ‘cowards,” The Best People Podcast, YouTube, September 28, 2025, https://youtu.be/7rlyc9vPwaE?si=BYoP-aY5w5tONMb4.
- Emily Goodnow, sermon, First Congregational Church of Bridgton, preached September 14, 2025, Facebook video, https://www.facebook.com/share/v/16zFDDq6ig/
About the Author
Debbie Owen
Deborah C. Owen is an experienced spiritual director, Neuro-based Enneagram executive and life coach, disciple maker, professional writer, senior librarian, and long-time church Music Director and lay leader. She has earned the award of National Board Certification for teaching excellence, and a podcasting award, and is pursuing a Doctor of Leadership degree through Portland Seminary at George Fox University. She lives in the backwoods of Maine with her husband and flat-coated retriever. She spends as much time as she can with their 3 grown children, daughter-in-law, and 2 small grandchildren. Find her online at InsideOutMinistries.info.9 responses to “When Violence Speaks Louder Than Words”
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Thanks Debbie. You end by saying ‘the miracle begins when we turn—again and again—away from fear and toward love.’ In your view, what are one or two concrete practices that ordinary people can adopt daily to make that ‘turn’ real in the midst of such deep national division?
Thanks Glyn. I actually wrote a whole paper on the topic of “neighbor-love” early this year.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V9lT0LPHSIaPE838CQnYSiwWDEXK7rCO9SggakX23WU/edit?usp=sharing
Part VIII of the paper has some concrete practices. Here they are, without explanation (which is a little longer):
– Proximity: getting close enough to see
– Presence: listening with an undefended heart
– Persistent reflection (eg, the Examen)
– Prayerful reflection: confession and forgiveness
– Peacemaking hospitality: welcoming the stranger
– Public interaction
– Practice in community: becoming people of love
One aspect involves growing more spiritually mature:
“C. Reclaiming Integrity Through Spiritual Maturity.
In Jesus and the Disinherited, Howard Thurman insists that Jesus’ message speaks most clearly to “those with their backs against the wall.” In places of fear and marginalization, Jesus offers security rooted in God’s unwavering love. “You must abandon your fear of each other and fear only God,” Thurman writes. “Hatred is destructive to hated and hater alike. Love your enemy, that you may be children of your father who is in heaven.”
This is the courageous wholeness that flows from integrity. When we know we are beloved, we can love others—even enemies—not to prove our virtue but as a response to the Spirit’s inner work. In doing so, we reclaim spiritual integrity and grow in maturity.
Jim Wilder builds on this insight, describing how our “fast-track” brain defaults to enemy mode when faced with threat or difference. But mature discipleship rewires those reactive patterns through formation in joy, community, and relational truth. Through intentional practice, we learn to “think with God,” even in the midst of conflict, choosing connection over reactivity.
This is the ARK of Integrity, the inner life that naturally bears the fruit of love. We grow in spiritual maturity by growing in relational maturity: by noticing, reflecting, and aligning our responses with the love of God.”
Hi Debbie, your passion for reconciliation is evident as you connect the consequences of generational and global sin. There are a number of correlations you make between apartheid in South Africa and the division in America today. In your opinion, what role can American churches and faith leaders play in shifting the U.S. paradigm to a more loving ethos?
And, thinking of your social media experiment to agree to disagree, what are some practical ways to initiate this endeavor?
“There are a number of correlations you make between apartheid in South Africa and the division in America today. In your opinion, what role can American churches and faith leaders play in shifting the U.S. paradigm to a more loving ethos?
And, thinking of your social media experiment to agree to disagree, what are some practical ways to initiate this endeavor?”
Thanks for the questions Jennifer. Unfortunately, I see a HUGE part of the problem in the fact that many in the US church have signed on to a political religion of “us vs. them.” This is antithetical to everything Jesus taught. So if the church is going to help shift the direction of the US right now, we’re going to have to go back to basics. We’re going to have to have the Sermon on the Mount written in our hearts and minds.
Regarding the social media experiment: I didn’t honestly think I would change his mind in that exchange. It was my single hope to let him – and his readers and friends – see that not all Christians are on the same page (the MAGA page), and to plant a seed of doubt in their minds regarding the propaganda they hear from FOX news.
Hi Debbie, you conclude with “The miracle begins when we turn—again and again—away from fear and toward love, even in the smallest of ways.”
How are ways you encourage others (and yourself) to turn from fear and toward love in our polarized political climate?
“How are ways you encourage others (and yourself) to turn from fear and toward love in our polarized political climate?”
Hi Christy, for a full reply, please see my reply to Glyn, here: https://blogs.georgefox.edu/dlgp/when-violence-speaks-louder-than-words/comment-page-1/#comment-222060
The short answer: Learning to love our neighbor – and our enemy – involves becoming more like Christ, especially putting on the mind of Christ, as Jim Wilder talks about. And that is really only possible by cooperating with the power of the Holy Spirit. If we continue to focus on ourselves, it’s not really possible. Willpower just doesn’t last that long.
I’ll
Debbie,
I notice that some words have been edited from what was shared online. 🙂 I was going to ask about those… but they aren’t in this post. However, I did share your social media post and this comment came up to which I responded to. How might you respond to this statement?
“While as I regular listener of Charlie Kirk’s podcasts and several gatherings and speeches at political and religious gatherings, I am uncertain as to how anyone who is really trying to understand what Charlie stood for can mischaracterize him so badly. However, world-over Charlie’s assassination is making us all braver to discuss how we can be braver to talk about what is important to us, how we can make speech safe again and just being (several terrorist attacks have been at innocents who were part of a broader plan) and of course faith. This is what is most important and what Charlie was trying to do by having those who disagree with him coming to the head of the line. I am praying that all this upset will ignite the flame of worldwide revival and embolden all people who love Jesus or don’t yet to examine our lives and be brave enough to speak the truth laid on our hearts. Often in civil discourse minds are changed. The problem is that the discourse must be civil.”
Yes, I saw that Adam. My problem is that we have arrived at a time in this country where we have two wildly different sets of values. Charlie Kirk – from what I’ve read and the clips I’ve seen – spoke often enough in derogatory, hateful ways, that I just don’t see the love of Jesus there. If he also spoke in tones of love, it’s gotten drowned out and I’ve missed it.
Yes, discourse must be civil. I don’t think Charlie’s was. Yes, he believed in saying what you believe and that’s a core value of our Constitution. But he called people names, gave them derogatory labels, shamed those who couldn’t keep up with his verbal jiu jitsu, and contributed to creating an environment of fear. He could always deny that HE hadn’t done anything wrong, but, for instance, his lists of people he disagreed with contributed to creating an environment where OTHERS felt emboldened to harrass those on the lists.
I am definitely curious about what so many saw in him, why they liked him. I had so little engagement with him before; now it is incumbent on me to find out more. I’d like to think those who loved him might also be curious about why so many didn’t love him.
Hi Debbie, I appreciate what you have described as a way forward. My skeptical self (a yes, much to my chagrin) wonders if churches really WANT to take a stand – even to be more like Christ. There are well-meaning, honorable preachers all over the country who teach Jesus, but do you think there really is a heart for reconciliation and growth? I pray so, but am curious about your thoughts on it.