Charlie Kirk, Christian Nationalist
A Living Testimony
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Kirk’s life, faith, and political vision for America have taken central stage in online and real-life discussion. Kirk’s memorial service this past Sunday was one of the most remarkable events in American history. Dignified public intellectuals and the highest officials in American government praised Kirk for his outspoken Christian faith, for his courage and conviction, and they preached the gospel of Jesus Christ multiple times throughout the five-hour service.
To have such a public effect upon so many people—both leading political officials but also millions watching around the world—was a testimony to both Charlie Kirk’s Christian faith and his political conservatism, which were simultaneously embraced by Kirk in an unashamed way. Kirk’s tragic passing presents us with the opportunity to reflect not only upon Kirk’s faith and witness, but also how he conceived of and conducted himself as a public Christian in American politics.
Charlie Kirk’s Political Theology
A quick flip through Kirk’s videos at college campuses, or perusing his X timeline, reveals that Kirk often preached the gospel of Christ crucified. He was not ashamed: “We are all sinners. We need Jesus. Jesus sets us free, redeems us, and is our savior. Accept Jesus in your life,” and “Jesus defeated death so you can live.”
Yet Charlie was not merely a public evangelist. His platform was the American political scene, and especially college campuses. Kirk’s approach was not that found among mainstream evangelicals over the last generation of “faithful presence,” “Christian witness,” and “cultural engagement.” Instead, Kirk believed in the Christianization of America, including our political institutions and elite officials. Kirk’s life and words were a rebuke to the cottage industry of third-way, Christian cultural engagement that too often is ineffectual and runs cover for an increasingly post-Christian America.
There was no “neither left nor right” nor “third-wayism” in Kirk. The de-Christianization of America was a tragedy to him: “There is revival in the Christian church. Churches are growing. Young people are flocking to faith in God. You do not want to live in a non-Christian country. Even the most hardened atheists or agnostics are blessed by the church’s influence.” Atheism, secularism, and Islam were all threats to be named and combatted. Kirk was not shy about this, publicly speaking of the spiritual battle over the soul of America and eschewing talk of religious pluralism and neutrality. “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America,” and a “spiritual battle is coming to the West and the enemies are woke-ism or Marxism combining with Islamism to go after what we call the American way of life.” For Kirk and millions of other Americans, the American way of life was incompatible with being taught “the lesbian, gay, transgender garbage in their school” or “hearing the Muslim call to prayer five times a day.”
Kirk’s political theology was neither abstract nor otherworldly. He believed that America had been a Christian nation and that we have a Christian inheritance that we must protect. “We must defend the Christian heritage and institutions that gave birth to America. Christianity is the key, irreplaceable element. If we lose it, it’s not so much that America will fall, it’s that America will become evil.” In this way, Charlie’s witness of the gospel and his political work to save America merged in a beautiful vision of a Christian civilization—what God desires and what he will one day accomplish across the world.
As was clear from his life’s work, Kirk saw no contradiction between being a faithful Christian and a patriotic American. More than this, however, he viewed America as a Christian nation, a gift from God to evangelicals today that must be cherished, safeguarded, and stewarded well. At the 2024 Believers’ Summit hosted by TPUSA, Kirk said the following:
The question in front of us, as the American church, is that we have had this beautiful blessing called the United States of America, handed down to us by our forefathers. This idea of liberty is God’s idea, not man’s idea. And whether or not the United States of America will continue to exist in any recognizable form, is completely and solely dependent on whether or not those who call themselves Christians, churches in America will be willing to say, “Lord, here I am. Use me for your purpose.” And will elevate the fight for truth, freedom, liberty, America. Much more than ease and comfort.
How many Protestant churches throughout our country, how many pastors, how many gospel conferences could say something like this without qualification? Could they be as bold and confident as Kirk without adding a “—but” at the end, and then going on to warn about the dangers of civil religion or the corruption of the faith by politics, or that our citizenship is really in heaven? Few indeed. Kirk puts our churches, pastors, and parachurch organizations to shame. He was bold and clear in his Protestant political theology and its relevance to America, where so many other so-called “faith leaders” are muddled in their thinking or cowardly in their inaction.
Charlie Kirk, Christian Nationalist
Charlie was not just an outspoken Christian and red-blooded patriotic American, but he actively embraced and defended the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation. In a popular video that got almost 10 million views, an interlocutor made the typical argument that America was not founded as a Christian nation because the Declaration only mentions God four times, the Constitution not at all, and the common law was the basis of our legal structure (presupposing, falsely, that the common law is not Christian). Kirk’s response was devoid of all cliches or junk scholarship and instead evidenced a learned and nuanced understanding. His first point, and probably the most important thing he could have said that most people miss, is that America was founded as a collection of independent states, and the state constitutions at the founding were thoroughly Christian political constitutions.
Kirk also accurately related that 55 of the 56 signers of the Declaration were Christians, and the common law was undergirded by Christian ethics and legal principles—such as presumption of innocence, due process, and jury of your peers. Kirk also argued that of the references to God in the Declaration, the last paragraph’s invocation of the “Supreme Judge of the world” was a prayer (really an oath) to Jesus Christ, who is the Judge of the universe. Thus, Kirk was right to assert that the Enlightenment was not the source of American ideals and values at the founding. Instead, the Bible, and Deuteronomy in particular, was cited more than any other philosopher or author.
But perhaps the most profound thing Kirk said was that “the body politic of America was so Christian and was so Protestant, that our form and structure of government was built for the people that believed in Christ our Lord. One of the reasons we’re living through a constitutional crisis is that we no longer have a Christian nation, but we have a Christian form of government, and they’re incompatible. You cannot have liberty if you do not have a Christian population.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Charlie Kirk unashamedly believed in America as a Christian nation, and even more than this, that she was Protestant in her DNA. Kirk knew this not as an article of faith, mythology, or wish-casting, but because he had gone to the educational woodshed, done his homework, and studied the founders in their own words. Kirk’s testimony is an inspiration that should challenge all Americans to do the same.
The “Christian Nationalism” Slur
At the same time that Kirk championed America as a genuinely Christian nation, he recognized that the label of “Christian Nationalism” was being wielded as a bludgeon by the media, by leftists, and by faux “conservatives.” He saw clearly what many refused to admit: “The American regime has fixated on Christianity as the chief threat to their power, and so they are attacking it under the label of ‘Christian nationalism.’” As is all too obvious, the Washington bureaucracy has increasingly become hostile to Christianity and especially to white Christian men. Kirk understood this, and he could see that “Christian nationalism” as a slur to scare the public might not only work but was being co-opted by public faith leaders.
Kirk called out Rob Reiner (atheist), Tim Alberta, Jim Wallis, and David French by name. “Theologian Jim Wallis, whose definition of ‘Christianity’ doesn’t include protecting the unborn, says that conservative Christians are adherents of ‘The False White Gospel.’” On French, Kirk didn’t hold back: “David French, who never misses a chance to condemn the faith he professes to follow, says it is anti-Christian to believe America should be a Christian nation (this is that ugly ‘Christian nationalism’), and agreed that saying ‘Christ is King’ is antisemitic, unless you carefully hide it away in a church so it doesn’t offend anyone.”
Kirk concluded by shaming these men publicly: “All three of these self-proclaimed Christians went on Morning Joe to help stoke the panic of MSNBC viewers about dangerous ‘Christian nationalists’ coming to get them. They took part in a calculated political op aimed at smearing American believers and getting Joe Biden re-elected. Shame on them.”
In another post Kirk proclaimed that “It’s not about ‘Christian Nationalism.’ [That’s] a boogeyman they’ve invented to silence you while the Biden Regime institutes a new state religion.” Kirk understood what many have realized only recently: that it’s not a matter of whether, but which. Which religion will be publicly proclaimed and infused into the national life of America? It is, truly, either Christ or chaos, Christianity or a pagan religion.
Conclusion
At his momentous memorial service last weekend, clips were played of Charlie talking about his life’s mission. He said when he went to college campuses, his goal was to speak the truth fearlessly and to love the kids. He made it clear that he wanted to be remembered for the courage of his Christian faith. Did Charlie Kirk die for his faith? Did he die for his conservative political beliefs? Did he die for his vision that America was the greatest nation on earth and could be great again? The answer is Yes. Kirk died for all of these, and this is what makes him such a great and powerful Christian statesman.
Charlie Kirk puts to the lie the idea that Christians cannot be intimately involved in American politics without selling out their faith to money, power, or fame. Charlie Kirk proved that you can be an outspoken Christian in American politics and neither lose your faith nor have it corrupted. Charlie Kirk proved you could love God with all your heart and love America, too. Charlie Kirk proved that the idea of a Christian nation is neither incomprehensible nor theologically heretical, but a beautiful vision in line with America’s heritage. In short, Charlie Kirk was a Christian Nationalist, and this is what made him great.