By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Monday, September 15, 2025

Jim Cymbala, the senior pastor of the multi-racial Brooklyn Tabernacle, condemned the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk as an act of hate on Sunday and rebuked Christians who have been celebrating his death as anti-Christian.

“I want to say this to you: If you took some joy or some satisfaction or you somehow justified the killing of Charlie Kirk, you're a very sick individual and you should, you really got to get along with God and check yourself because something's really wrong with you,” Cymbala told his church on Sunday morning. The congregation attracts about 10,000 worshipers in downtown Brooklyn each week.

“And don't tell me how long you've been in church. You're more ethnic, racial or political than you are a Christian. A Christian doesn't rejoice in anyone's death,” he added to applause.

The 31-year-old Kirk, a polarizing and influential Christian conservative activist who also founded TPUSA Faith, was fatally shot in the neck at 12:20 p.m. last Wednesday while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem.

His death sparked a divided reaction around the world, including some who have been celebrating (language warning) his death. Some Christian leaders, like the Rev. Howard-John Wesley, senior pastor of the historic 12,000-member Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, declared on Sunday that he would not honor Kirk’s life because, in his opinion, he was a “proud racist.”

“Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be murdered. But I'm overwhelmed to see the nation's flag fly at half-staff for a man who was a proud racist and spent his entire life sowing seeds of division and hatred into this land,” Wesley claimed from his pulpit on Sunday.

“And then these hypocrites with selective rage who are mad about Charlie Kirk but didn't say anything about Melissa Hortman and her husband when they were gunned down in their living room,” the Virginia megachurch pastor argued as he compared the response to Kirk’s death to responses to the lone wolf assassination of former Democratic Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman in their Brooklyn Park home on June 14.

“Tell me that I ought to have compassion for the death of a man who never showed compassion or respect for my life. Y'all, there's nowhere in [the] Bible we are told to honor evil. And I know I'm going to get in trouble for this, but how you died does not redeem how you lived,” Wesley argued. “Your death does not make you a hero. It does not make you one who should be honored. It does not make you one who should be respected. I can be sorry about your death but not celebrate your life.”

In his preamble before rebuking Christians for celebrating or finding satisfaction in Kirk’s death, Cymbala presented a biblical thesis in which he said that it is hate that is driving divisions and conflict in the world right now, and the Church must respond with Christ’s message of love.

“We live in a very ugly, hateful world right now. … We have churches being burned, Christians being killed in different places. Hate. … We have it in our country. It's political. It's racial. It's ugly,” Cymbala opined.

“So, what are we to do with that? So let's step back for a moment. Jesus said, ‘Go into all the world and preach the Gospel.’ Why? Because people in the world need to be saved. They need to hear the Good News of Christ, get a new heart, and see their lives changed. … The people that are supposed to do that are the Church. We're the light of the world. Not a country, not a political party, the Church, born-again believers like us.”

But “instead of evangelizing the world," Cymbala argues that "the spirit of the world" often "comes in the Church.”

“So we have haters in the Church, and that, of course, is just overwhelmingly sad, tragic. So you have people who go to church and sing surely goodness, surely mercy. But if someone opposes them or they have opposing factions against them, they hate. ... They're not about to discuss anything,” he argued.

Citing Scriptures from 1 John 3:11-15 and 1 John 4:19-21, Cymbala said that anyone who does not demonstrate love is not reflecting true Christianity.

“Whoever does not love their brother and sister whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen. And He has given us this command. Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister,” Cymbala said.

“If five years ago you somehow rejoiced or took satisfaction when George Floyd was killed, you're a very sick individual because Christ died for George Floyd. Christ died for Charlie Kirk. Christ died for everyone. How can we rejoice over the death of someone that Jesus loves?” he asked.

“I'm not giving you my opinion. I'm giving you the Word of God. And there are some people now — and it's more and more in churches — they are ethnic, racial, political first, Christian second. My last word is this: Do not identify yourself first as anything but a Christian. We are Christians first.”

News Source : https://www.christianpost.com/news/jim-cymbala-rebukes-christians-celebrating-charlie-kirks-murder.html