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As President Trump returns to the USA and prepares to attend the funeral of Charlie Kirk, we are living with the reality that words do escalate to violence. It is not clear that more laws will help. Amidst arguments about ‘free speech’ I would ask a different question: what is good speech? Whether we are people of faith or not, Christian tradition and scripture has much to say about ‘good speech’ that might be a help right now. ‘A soft tongue can break bones,’ says the book of Proverbs, and ‘a wise rebuke to a listening ear’ is like ‘an ornament of gold’. Scripture takes seriously the power of speech and the harm it can do, not drawing easy lines between speech and action, as most law tries to. And Christian tradition assumes that each of us has the power to think, to choose what to say and when, and how. The tradition acknowledges our power to bless or to harm, and our accountability. Just because something is legal doesn’t make it good. Much of the response to Charlie Kirk’s murder has made scapegoats of either ‘the radical left’ or the ‘MAGA right’. It has escalated a sense on all sides of having a powerful, faceless, evil enemy with whom there is no dialogue, only attack and defence. This gives less power to those in its sway, not more – the question is not ‘do you agree,’ but ‘are you one of us’. There is no constructive response to that question except fear. This is not freedom. In contrast, good speech in Christian tradition is about restraint. That is, refusing to de-humanise those who cause us harm or make us angry. However, it is not just about being nice. It is about being willing to speak up when there is a cost and no one else will. Good speech often brings conflict into the open especially when it gives voice to someone who is suffering harm. Jesus did not shy from speaking against the grain: when people tried to get him to quiet his disciples, he said, ‘If these were silent the very stones would shout out.’ By which he meant, a truth will not cease being true because we silence the speaker. Good speech engages our curiosity in the service of finding solutions to problems: it encourages us to question and think. It might even lead us away from our phones and social media to speak and listen to one another in real life, to make common cause with those who are different, to think casting a vote or helping a neighbour is still worth doing.