By Kerwin Holmes, Jr.

It feels like I am writing another post again tonight. I wrote one when President Trump was shot. A lot of the core of what needs to be said was said then. I do not want to use time here saying much of what I said then, as it still needs to be said. Rather, I encourage you to (re)visit that post if you have not (or have) already seen it once you have finished with this one. I was debating writing about this, since in my own corner of life outside of the internet (and even in more intimate spaces on the internet) I have already said my peace. But I have a small platform here. And this is important to me given my own personal investment of my life into my society.

I realize that before I begin, I need to be a bit more open about some of the things that have made me busy, both before I started this blog and afterwards. I will try and be descriptive as I can be. It will help you, faithful reader, to understand me and where I am today from my own response (as I even develop a response as time goes on, as we all must do). Please, bear with me for the moment.

When I was an undergraduate,¹ I renovated a student organization into a more active body whose goal was to interject history into our campus life in such a way that provided vital, diverse, and true storytelling with purpose and function into the everyday conversations and lived experiences that we were having. Many an enlightened student would speak of being “conscious” of history. And, sadly, many of those students were full of mistruths and false propaganda (true propaganda does exist, by the way) that so muddied the conversations that they proved more detrimental than good.

In the spirit of that, and after having read James Baldwin in one of my history classes, as I was a history major, I was inspired, not just by Baldwin (with whom I, as a Christian, do find also vehement disagreement), but touched by how I had grown to be capable of appreciating conversing with Baldwin by reading him…while many of my fellow students could not do likewise with, say, Thomas Sowell or even Booker T. Washington. We were being robbed of our history and our capacity for conversation by our very own educational institution. As you may note from the common stories on university campuses today, this has long become the sad norm.²

That was how the idea of the “House on Fire” came to my mind, itself inspired by James Baldwin’s work The Fire Next Time which includes a very heartfelt and pivotal letter addressed to his young nephew. It is inspired by a question found on page 55 in the publication that I linked to where Baldwin is contemplating the reality that not only is his lived experience in society as a black American man uniquely marred by confusion and insecure identity, but that even the white Americans beside him face the same issues from their own unique standpoint.³ It comes from an acknowledgement that mere integration, the key issue of 1963 United States of America, did not guarantee safety from social concerns and, most of all, acquisition of true identity. Baldwin, upon this realization, wrote:

“Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?”

The first “House on Fire”⁴ event on September 24, 2014, was organized and designed primarily by me with input by my wise, and still greatly appreciated, History Major adviser, several professors who served as mentors for our History Club, along with some needed input from a college friend. The town hall discussion involved an open panel and participation from students from several schools, including one from out of state, with about half of its time open to audience members to engage with the panel and each other for discussion. The panel served as an exemplary launching pad for the town hall discussion on the topics of:

1. Policing in Ferguson, Missouri (given the highly televised coverage of the shooting of Michael Brown)⁵
2. Ray Rice and domestic violence in the NFL
3. Race and the Atlanta Hawks

These were all big topics at the time on campus. The panel went off successfully with multiple views present. My own views on these matters were not presented, at least not by myself at any point. I actually served as a host/co-host, and I moderated the panel discussion and gave each person in the audience who wanted to speak an opportunity to speak (including the faculty who showed up). I knew that I could guide the conversation to fruitful places, and I was sensitive to the predominant talking points to know when to allow pushback and vibrancy whenever they began to browbeat.

The event was only moderately attended, but the feedback was so overwhelmingly positive that my friend and I knew that we had to do one again. And so we waited. I had an inkling of an idea of our next topic. But I was not sure how to proceed introducing it to the student body as a needed and historically consequential conversation all on its own.

It so happened that as we were enjoying ourselves with our South African friends on a scholarship trip to the Old Continent in January 2015, we were thrust upon with the opportunity. The Charlie Hebdo massacre occurred while we were taking in the vast contrasts and contradictions present in South Africa– including the movement bubbling up (even among some of our colleagues) which manifested eventually into the #RhodesMustFall ⁶movement. As we watched the horror on the television in a continent and nation not our own, I turned to my same friend standing beside me and said “We need to talk about this next.”

And so, the next “House on Fire” took place on April 16, 2015. It’s core topic was clear: “Can religious freedom survive in America?”

Given how things on my campus had become rather heated for myself as I had by then managed to rub several more Leftists and other intolerants the wrong way, I opted for a newer strategy where my friend would be the moderator while I would organize for bringing in student representation that I felt was needed to not only discuss the issue, but to bring more diverse voices into the mix beyond the HBCU environs we were surrounded by. Because diversity is not just needed at PWIs (predominantly white institutions) but also needed at HBCUs (in fact, arguably more so given the identitarian⁷ stranglehold that Leftist politics already holds on most HBCU campuses).

Needless to say, apart from our posters being ripped down on more than one occasion by unknown actors, this event was more moderately attended. But, in contrast to the first, I was a participant, and I was able to insert my own views into the conversation as a contribution. And my friend, by his own merit and given my coaching which we had done months beforehand, did an excellent job as a moderator. I will not forget how my adviser encouraged one of my professors and a mentor to our group, who has sadly passed on, to attend. He was definitely left of me. And I could tell that he had little enthusiasm or hope that I would be a good conversationalist in this event. Yet, when all was said and done, he came up to me and voiced his surprise, with a hint of humility even, at how well the conversation went with all of the views present.⁸

Yet another “House on Fire” occurred in the fall semester, my final semester as an undergraduate. And I was heavily involved in that one too, but by then no longer as the president of our History Club and totally behind the scenes. My friend, who had assumed the vice presidency, routinely asked for advice on how to deal with disparate viewpoints and belligerent debaters. And I gladly helped him with all of that, including switching the roles and being a helpful organizing insight for him as he orchestrated the event that time.

We truly had a great thing going. Those events are some of the fondest, most frustrating, and most hopeful moments of my college undergraduate career. And I am proud to have been part of every single one of them.

Since then, I have had the honor to continue the effort of encouraging inquiry and challenging viewpoints so that students are not merely nor principally trained to be “good workers.” No, I encourage students to become better people by pushing the limits of their knowledge and learning how to engage in debate.⁹ To grow in structure, understanding, and appreciation of this society that they are inheriting, and to love and to trust in the ability to join into this inheritance and to pass it along to the next generation– that is my aim for them. It is this aim that I push towards now in my own work. And it is this aim that I am continually pushing for here with you, faithful reader. This is why the title and the motto above this webpage exist as they do, with the logo an icon of the sort of grit and determination needed to pursue truth-finding and truth-telling.

Whenever I am not present writing this blog it is this, this, that I am up to in my everyday and personal life.



My reach as a young college student did not reach Charlie Kirk’s reach. He was given a different path, and, to be honest, it was one I largely knew nothing about until close to when I was nearing graduation. But from what I saw, in the generic sense of organizing fruitful discussion and debate, I appreciated. I followed Kirk’s career from afar. And I am sure, given my own connections that I have accumulated in the intellectual spheres, that I have acquaintances who were able to meet him or even who knew him personally.

But most importantly, I was encouraged over the past 7 years or so in seeing Charlie Kirk get over the shy awkwardness that, yes, he did tend to have about his Christian faith at earlier times, and become more emboldened, and learned,¹⁰ to speak the truth to the powers (let the Christian readers understand) and to stand upon principles that Christians everywhere could appreciate. He is my brother in Christ. And he fought the good fight. As James Dobson once noted, so did Charlie Kirk end his race: strongly. He did not stumble across the line, though he certainly did stumble in his race, being an imperfect man, as we all do.

But that’s the catch. You see, a lot of the outpour of mourning, even demonstrated by the usually stoic President Donald Trump, is because Charlie Kirk, whether he knew it or not, was not something that many of my fellow Christians get wrong in their own understandings of what the Messiah teaches us.

Charlie Kirk was not a hypocrite. Charlie Kirk lived out what he preached. And Charlie Kirk lived a life of repentant confession.

Many Christians say that if you preach against stealing, but then in an instance you steal, when you repent and give just retribution for what you stole (either by returning the item, serving a just punishment, or, if neither option is available, committing yourself to not sin again), you are a hypocrite. But, according to Christ, being a “hypocrite¹¹” is not the same as being a “sinner.” No, a hypocrite is an actor who merely plays a part and desires praise for the performance.¹² Such a person pursues outward cleanliness and outward displays of righteousness, while neglecting the inwardness of actual change. That is a hypocrite. But to live as a Christian is to live a life in the constant disposition of repentance to God and, yes, to those human God-image-bearers we have wronged. The practicing, prudent Christian finds it a hard circumstance to ever become a hypocrite, for he or she is always ready to repent and turn and confess their sins, and to pursue the nature of righteousness in Christ, which gives the outpouring of righteous deeds that He has designed and preordained for our hands (Ephesians 2:8-10). But to the one who performs only without inward change requiring repentance before God Almighty, that is the hypocrite! This is clearest shown in the parable of the hypocrite as told by Jesus:

Luke 18:9–14
The Pharisee and the Tax Collector
[9] He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: [10] “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. [11] The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. [12] I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ [13] But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ [14] I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (ESV)

1. You know my name and can easily look up where I went to college. I do not find it necessary to mention institutional names at this time. ↩︎
2. Even by writing this blogpost, I am very much aware that some within Academia will feel the urge to come for my reputation and career. And such is inherently the tragedy of the true reality. Yet no one who truly understands the nature and purpose of the university can deny the inherent worth of the conversations that Charlie caused. ↩︎
3. His insight into the common human dilemma unto its cultural and ethnic manifest particularities was striking and, given the currently unstable flux of identity (both personal and cultural) across all demographics, is yet salient for today. ↩︎
4. The name also serves as a pun acknowledging the necessary friction that the discussions would produce. And yet, inside the same burning house we all found ourselves. ↩︎
5. It so happens that very recently Dorian Johnson, the friend of Michael Brown and purveyor of the lie that Michael Brown was surrendering to officer Darren Wilson before being shot dead, was himself shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri in what may be a self-defense shooting. The investigation is still pending whether to rule out criminal homicide as of this writing. ↩︎
6. Upon failing to find a resource that is merely a news report rather than an ideological argument, let me take the time to state that the political views of the author in the article provided by the link which I intend to merely educate readers are their own. It was, however, the closest that I could get to an informed layout of the timeline. (I should note that the scholarship that sent us to South Africa is the same institution, though a different program, that produced that article.) My linking to the article is not an endorsement of its views. I am thankfully able to present an article more conducive to my own views here. ↩︎
7. I use this term purposefully, though I know that it is typically used for Pan-European and Eurocentrist movements. But, as it turns out, black folks can exhibit the same kinds of moral and immoral agency as white people. And they often do. White folks don’t have monopolies on sins. Neither do black folks. Neither does anyone. Indeed, HBCUs can be hotbeds for Afro-supremacist and Afrocentrist movements that match the xenophobic impetus of the counterparts of indigenous inhabitants on other continents. But, typically with the black intelligentsia in Academia (not to be confused with the intelligent), there is a nigh constant partisan persecution of anyone politically right of Lenin. The nigh constant matrix among black intellectuals with Marxist ideology and black identity is difficult to miss (and to dodge) on most HBCU campuses. ↩︎
8. This is waxing long, and I will not get into the nuances of everything that happened that day nor the specific groups and voices represented– and those who broke faith and never showed– but that is perhaps a story to be told in another post. ↩︎
9. One of the best critiques that I have recently read on the university system as it currently exists was done by Wendell Berry in his essay “The Loss of the University” in Home Economics. It is as pertinent now as it ever was. Another would be C.S. Lewis’s work The Abolition of Man. ↩︎
10. Read as “learnèd.” ↩︎
11. I wish we would just translate this word as it means in the Ancient Greek: “actor.” That would really help people to see this sin as a unique one landing upon those who seek to be known as something they are truly not. But, hey, such is life. ↩︎
12. It is so particular a sin that a person who is wantonly a liar, and proud of it, is simply a liar and not a hypocrite. But a person who lives pretending to be a truthteller, and is really an inventor of lies, is a hypocrite for behaving as a truthteller while not truly being one. The same goes for any other vice within the human heart practiced from within but hidden away without. ↩︎
13. I dare say that this is a Christian of whom even the dead pagan Socrates would have been awed. ↩︎
14. Read here for more on the malakoi issue that we face. ↩︎
15. Read here for more on how not to become the monster the Enemy seeks to create. ↩︎
16. And not just Satan, but this is shorthand for all of his allies, the powers both celestial and human, who, slaves to sin along with him, conspire in rebellion against the Triune God over all. ↩︎
17. The Bible is replete with the theme of God requiring recompense for the lifeblood of His humans, and especially and particularly for His children who are the faithful servants to His Gospel (His mission and program within creation). I know many Protestant brothers (as a Protestant myself) who should rediscover this aspect of God’s triumphant victory over evil and Death by the blood of those slain among us as well. ↩︎