The Words We Use When Someone Dies

Tricia McLaughlin is leaving her position as DHS spokesperson after a year of increasingly aggressive rhetoric that repeatedly contradicted emerging evidence. She called Renee Good's death an 'act of domestic terrorism' when video showed Good turning away. She said Alex Pretti looked like he intended to 'massacre law enforcement' when footage revealed he never drew his weapon and was disarmed before being shot. In case after case, her framing preceded the facts.

But this isn't a story about one spokesperson. It's about what happens when our words race ahead of truth—when we name reality before we understand it, especially when violence is involved.

The biblical tradition takes language seriously. 'The tongue has the power of life and death,' Proverbs warns, because words don't just report reality—they construct it. When McLaughlin labeled citizens as terrorists before investigations concluded, she wasn't merely making tactical errors. She was teaching us how to see these deaths.

Her departure reveals something uncomfortable: we are all capable of this. In our polarized moment, we regularly describe people and events in ways that serve our narrative rather than serve truth. We call political opponents 'enemies.' We frame complex situations in simple binaries. We speak with certainty about things we've only glimpsed.

The Christian calling isn't to perfect neutrality—it's to something harder. It's to hold our tongues when we don't yet know. To resist the pressure to explain away what makes us uncomfortable. To remember that behind every story are image-bearers, and our words about them matter to God. McLaughlin's exit is a reminder: our speech has consequences we cannot control, which is precisely why it requires restraint we often lack.