Rainn Wilson is urging Americans to seek unity in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
On Saturday, the actor best known for playing Dwight Schrute on The Office posted a video message about the conservative commentator’s death. Wilson said the violence shook him and called for compassion, even across deep political divides.
“These are really dangerous, tragic times. I wanted to address the recent assassination-slash-murder of Charlie Kirk,” Wilson said. “I didn’t always agree with him, but this whole idea of ‘I’m going to kill someone that I disagree with’ is disgusting and dangerous, and our hearts go out to him, his soul, his wife, his kids, and all of his family and supporters.”
Wilson went further, praising Kirk’s willingness to face hostile crowds and defend his views. “He was a courageous man, actually. He was unafraid to speak his truth, and would go often into hostile environments in order to do that. How many of us have that same courage?” he asked.
Calls to lower the political temperature have echoed since Kirk’s death, but Wilson said the solution must go deeper. “A lot of people have been saying, ‘Hey, we need to bring the temperature down,’ and certainly that’s true in the short term. But we need to go deeper than that. We need to build bridges of love and unity, especially between those we disagree with. As Arthur Brooks says, we need to learn how to disagree better, and still know that we all love our country, and we all want to build a better tomorrow. We just have very different ideas of how to do that.”
Wilson, who now hosts the Soul Boom podcast, warned about the destructive role of online conflict. “We have to be very cautious about social media,” he said. “There are so many things that cause division and hatred. There can be and should be spiritual tools that we can use to create community, to come together with people that are very different than us.”
He closed by urging his followers to search for something deeper. “How can we dig deeper to find the compassion necessary for a true spiritual revolution?” Wilson asked.