When someone kills a person you love, is forgiveness possible?
These questions and others about forgiveness assaulted my heart, mind and soul as I thought about two very nationally public acts of forgiveness expressed.
One, an act of forgiveness extended to the man accused in the Sept. 10, 2025, slaying of Charlie Kirk, Turning Point founder. The other, an act of forgiveness extended to the drunk driver who 60 years ago killed a young boy’s father in Michigan.
Erika Kirk, widow of the late Charlie Kirk, said this at the Sept. 21, 2025, memorial service for her husband, “I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and is what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the Gospel is love and always love. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”
Actor Tim Allen was that young boy whose father died at the hands of a drunk driver. Allen posted Sept. 25, 2025, on X (formerly Twitter), saying: “When Erika Kirk spoke the words on the man who killed her husband: ‘That man … that young man … I forgive him.’ That moment deeply affected me. I have struggled for over 60 years to forgive the man who killed my Dad. I will say those words now as I type: ‘I forgive the man who killed my father. Peace be with you all.”
I asked Taylor University Professors Laura Edwards, Tom Jones and Richard Smith how they view forgiveness. And I shared news clips quoting Erika Kirk and Tim Allen regarding their acts of forgiveness.
Laura Edwards, a Taylor psychology professor, wrote, “These two recent examples of forgiveness are indeed profoundly moving. I didn't know about Tim Allen's story.”
She added, “Their (Kirk’s and Allen’s) stories brought to my mind a former professor, Dr. Everett Worthington’s REACH model of forgiveness (he works at Virginia Commonwealth University). His model (his mom was brutally murdered) doesn't deny their pain, but it does invite it to transform it into compassion — which seems to be present in the videos you shared with me.”
For Christians, Erika’s act reflects a Christ-centered forgiveness that embodies Ephesians 4:32, Edwards said, adding, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
“As a Christ-follower, I feel I don't really have a choice if I am to bear His image,” Edwards said. “Tim Allen’s journey shows that forgiveness can inspire others toward not only forgiving, but healing.
Taylor art student Katie Nash suggested Genesis 50:20 as the title for her editorial cartoon – “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.” It also represents this column’s theme.
Edwards believes that Genesis 50:20 fits this topic of forgiveness well. She said that forgiveness is a process. And one that merits treading carefully because the timing of its truth can hurt if shared too prematurely in the process of grief.
One thing that Edwards uses herself when the act of forgiving seems unfair, is the truth that she borrows from Lysa Terkereurst’s writings: “It is not an unfair gift to the offender,” she says, “but a process through which God provides a way for the offended to heal.”
While forgiveness is commanded by Scripture, she said Terkereurst points out that reconciliation is not commanded.
“Lysa also says that forgiveness is not something we can muster up on our own through self-determination, but only by yielding to God,” Edwards said. “My ability to forgive others rises and falls, instead, on this: leaning into what Jesus has already done, which allows His grace for me to flow freely through what Christ has done for me. Forgiveness is only made possible by my cooperation.”
Tom Jones, longtime professor of history at Taylor, describes Kirk’s and Allen’s acts of forgiveness this way.
“Both are moving examples of a depth of Christian love and commitment to Christ’s teachings and His model that are almost impossible to comprehend,” Jones said. “From time to time we see examples of such depth of love shown by family members in the midst of their grieving.”
What came to Jones’ mind was an incident involving the South Carolina church members whose loved ones were murdered by a young man who they had welcomed into their Bible study and showed such love and acceptance.
“I think also of the young man whose family member was shot and killed in a horrible case of mistaken identity in Louisville and expressed forgiveness and the hope that the police officer would come to know Jesus as her Lord and Savior while in prison,” Jones said.
An article about Tim Allen referred to earlier TV shows in which he often expressed his conservative values, Jones said.
“However, it was his TV series, “Last Man Standing,” that so frequently revealed not only his conservative political values but also his respect for God and for Christianity. My guess is that Allen had some conversations with his producers of Last Man about the possibility of working Charlie Kirk into an episode,” he added.
Jones concluded, “Given the substantive faith content in several Last Man episodes, I find it easy to believe that Erika Kirk’s statement of forgiveness at Charlie’s memorial service prompted Allen to do some soul searching on his own about forgiving the man whose recklessness claimed his father’s life.”
Richard Smith, a Taylor biblical studies professor who earned his doctoral degree from Cambridge University in England, harkened back to the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis in the Old Testament of the Bible.
“Erika Kirk and Tim Allen obviously are displaying the forgiving attitude that Jesus commands,” Smith observed. “But more than that the Joseph story shows us that one’s sense of God‘s providence can be a basis for ethics. Even when the wrong doers intend evil, God in his providence somehow intends good. Joseph has the perspective and sensitivity honed over the course of 20 years to recognize the hand of God in the events of his life, bringing him to the position of prominence that he eventually occupied.”
Smith said that Joseph, on the basis of seeing God‘s providential purposes, concludes that he should forgive his brothers.
“That kind of perspective is not the sort of thing that is won overnight,” Smith said. “It takes many years of submission to God to reach that point. I don’t know if Tim or Erica would necessarily say that is all that they were thinking when they chose forgiveness. But it’s a profound sort of perspective that runs deeper than simply knowing we must forgive because Jesus told us to.”
Alan D. Blanchard, Ph.D., associate professor of journalism, director of the Multimedia Journalism program and Pulliam Journalism Center at Taylor University, advises The Echo student newspaper. alan_blanchard@taylor.edu
