The World Murders the Good & Venerates the Wicked

R.D. Ordovich-Clarkson
Sep 13
4 min read

By Dr. Randall D. Ordovich-Clarkson, MD

Fra Angelico, The Mocking of Christ, 1441

Just as September 11, 2001 was a pivotal moment in modern history, September 10, 2025 signifies another dark chapter. Days after Charlie Kirk was murdered in cold blood and in such a public manner, I’m still trying to process through the meaning of it all. His significance cannot be understated, having reached some of the highest echelons of culture at such a young age. He was a towering figure achieving so much by 31. And he impacted so many people, including people close to me—my friends, my wife, and even my students.

Last year, I got a chance to see him twice at Grand Canyon University. The first time I saw Charlie, my students were the ones who told me that he was speaking on Prescott Field, which is a few minutes walking distance from my office. The second time I saw Charlie on campus, he was with Rob Schneider in October of last year. I was delighted to see so many young people interested not only in politics, but the message that Charlie wanted to share—particularly the message of traditional Christian values. Unfortunately, these are the very values that ultimately got him killed.

It doesn’t surprise me that Charlie was murdered. We live in a fallen world. What did surprise me, however—and it really shouldn’t have—was the number of people celebrating his murder. People I know on my social media feed not only celebrating his murder, but wishing that similar fates extend further to include other cultural figures who share similar beliefs. My how we are fallen. But it shouldn’t surprise us.

Christ of Saint John of the Cross, by Salvador Dalí, 1951

The world murmured Jesus Christ and then celebrated his death. Matthew 27:15-26 tells us the account of Pontius Pilate allowing the crowd to choose between releasing Jesus or the prisoner Barabbas, which was part of an annual Roman custom during the Passover festival. The crowd, influenced by the chief priests, demanded Barabbas be freed and that Jesus be crucified. Luke 23:18 writes, “But the whole crowd shouted, ‘Away with this man! Release Barabbas to us!’”

In one of his most famous quotes, Nietzsche (2001) proclaims that, “God is dead! […] And we have killed him!” Atheists celebrate this quote, but often neglect to mention what follows in Nietzsche’s proclamation. He continues by asking: “who will wipe this blood from us? With what water could we clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what holy games will we have to invent for ourselves? Is the magnitude of this deed not too great for us? Do we not ourselves have to become gods merely to appear worthy of it?” (Nietzsche, 2001, p. 120). Murdering the good comes with dire consequences.

Years after Nietzsche’s proclamation, what followed between WWI and WWII was carnage beyond belief, particularly in the atheistic nation of Marxist Russia. Here, the persecution of Christians reached a conservative estimate of 3 million, with some references claiming far greater numbers (Rummel, 2017). Again, this is a conservative estimate. But what we do know is that deaths during the Soviet repression between 1917 and 1953 included direct executions, Gulag deaths, and famine-related deaths, all of which affected religious populations. This shouldn’t come as a surprise since upon the Bolshevik takeover, Vladimir Lenin’s cohorts formed the League of Militant Godless to dispense with all forms of organized religion, particularly Orthodox Christianity. This is well documented in Paul Kengor’s The Devil and Karl Marx: Communism's Long March of Death, Deception, and Infiltration.

League of Militant Godless, Soviet Propaganda Poster

Why does the world hate God and the people who warship him? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago teaches us that evil lurks in the heart of every man. Solzhenitsyn states, “Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains…an unuprooted small corner of evil” (1974, p. 615).

So what we should make of all this? The fact that someone would celebrate the death and murder of an innocent man, a husband, and a father of two beautiful children who will never see dad again still baffles me. Why does the world so often murder the good and venerate the wicked? This is a question that we all need to grapple with as a culture, especially for those who respect and honor God’s kingdom.