Grave-Dancing Isn't Virtuous & Grief Isn't A "Gotcha"
On Death, Disagreement, and the Temptation to Celebrate the Wrong Things (Things That Matter #27)
Today marks 24 years since 9/11. It was a terrible event that the college students I work with now weren’t even alive for. And I find it difficult to convey what a watershed moment it was in my life, US history, and world history. Today, across the country, many are mourning and remembering the great loss of life that occurred decades ago.
About ten years later, one of the key persons in the tragic events of 9/11, Osama bin Laden, was killed. I remember watching Christians celebrate in the streets and across social media. There was cheering, flag-waving, and chants of “U-S-A.” It made my stomach turn. Not because bin Laden wasn’t guilty of atrocities, he was, but because something about grave-dancing felt wrong. It still does.
That moment led me to say something then that I stand by all these years later: a truly pro-life ethic doesn’t just mean opposing abortion, it means rejecting the culture of death entirely. That includes gloating when an enemy falls, celebrating when someone dies, or rejoicing in another person’s pain, no matter who they were or what they stood for. There’s nothing admirable about subscribing to an ideology that nurtures a culture of death.
I’ve seen that same spirit show up again this week, only in a different costume. Charlie Kirk’s tragic and unexpected death yesterday sparked a flurry of responses online. Some people expressed sincere grief. Others used it as a springboard to dunk on him, criticize his politics, or dance on his digital grave. A Canadian professor I know took this moment to call Kirk “objectively evil.” Others made sure to preface any condolences with caveats about how they disagreed with him on almost everything.
Friends, it’s as if we’ve forgotten how to mourn without first virtue signaling. We’ve forgotten how to grieve without first putting on display our moral superiority. It’s no longer enough to be sad. We also feel the need to curate our emotions in a way that socially distances us from the deceased. It’s bizarre. And, even more, it’s exhausting.
There is a time for everything, as Ecclesiastes reminds us. A time to laugh and a time to cry. There is a time for critique and commentary. But the fact that some people can’t honor a lost life without editorializing, well, that says more about them than it does about the person who died. I’ve already started muting, blocking, unfriending, and leaving groups. I’ve blocked more people in the last 24 hours than I have in the last 25 years.
Why? Because I want no part in a culture of death that claims the moral high ground while standing on someone’s grave. People think they have the upper hand when they say things like, “Hey Conservatives, where were you when it came to mourning the loss of life in Gaza?” They treat this like a “gotcha” statement.
Here’s the thing, friends: it’s possible, necessary even, to feel heartbreak over the loss of innocent lives in Gaza and still not cheer when those with different political perspectives or persuasions die. What this all reveals to me is that, in large part, we’ve lost our capacity for restraint. We’ve forgotten how to live with difference, or how to hold sorrow and critique at the same time. We’ve lost our curiosity about different people and why they’re different or why they differ.
At the end of the day, it’s my conviction that, as Christians, we don’t dance when people die. Yet, we will dance when death dies. That’s the whole point. Death is the enemy, not the people we disagree with. If your theology or your politics makes you think it’s virtuous to celebrate someone’s death, then your understanding of the Christian message is deeply flawed.
I’ve seen a few brave liberal voices speak up about this, and I’m grateful for them. But I’d love to see more people on both sides return to the idea that being fully human means caring when a life is lost, even when it’s complicated, even when you disagreed with the person, even when it’s easier not to. At present, it seems to me that we’re in desperate need of people who can live well, grieve deeply, and resist the pull to become just another snarky voice in a sea of cruelty and a world of grave-dancers.