Erika Kirk kicked off her 30-city Make Heaven Crowded Tour in Los Angeles last week.
And her latest media blitz is attracting controversy for a number of reasons (not the least of which is that many would like to see Erika spend more time with her kids in the wake of their father’s brutal murder).
The latest criticism has to do with Erika’s decision to be joined on stage by Pastor Greg Laurie.
Laurie, the pastor at Harvest Church in Riverside, California, is being sued in connection with child abuse and trafficking allegations against a former pastor named Paul Havsgaard.
Havsgaard ran church-supported children’s homes from 1998 to 2008, and accusers claim that Laurie and other church officials overlooked clear signs of abuse and misconduct.
Not surprisingly, many observers are wondering why Kirk would choose to associate herself with a man who’s involved in such a scandalous legal situation.
“This is very disturbing. What’s more crazy is the crowd is full. Who would pay to see this?” one social media commenter asked, according to Yahoo! News.
“Kirk will be turning in his grave with this corruption by his wife and family! Despicable,” another person wrote.
“This isn’t Charlie’s Turning Point. Ericka is not doing what Charlie would do, ugh,” a third chimed in.
“Anyone claiming to be a Christian and supporting this is not a Christian,” a fourth added.
Others defended Kirk, pointing out that Laurie may not have known about the abuse allegedly perpetrated by Havsgaard.
“Someone who once worked with HCF is accused of sexual misconduct, and HCF is sued as his employer. To implicate HCF in this conduct would be like implicating the Catholic Church for the misdeeds of one priest,” wrote one defender.
“Serious accusation. Post the case numbers, filings, and actual evidence, or this is just slander bait,” another added.
Clearly, this situation has ignited some heated discourse — but don’t expect Erica to weigh in anytime soon.
In a recent interview with Fox News, she revealed that she does not intend to respond to her critics on this or any other issue.
“If myself or Charlie spent every single second responding to every accusation, responding to every insult, every judgment, we’d get nothing done,” Kirk remarked (via Yahoo!), adding that she’s grateful for her haters all the same:
“I’m not gonna ask God to remove those people from life. It just makes me stronger.”
We will have further updates on this developing story as new information becomes available.