CHARLIE KIRK IS A CULTURAL SYMBOL

of the missing church in America

It’s Thursday Sept 24, and this past Sunday’s memorial service for Charlie Kirk has taken over the social media world. The compelling act of forgiveness by Erika Kirk toward the shooter was a remarkable and unforgettable act of Christian faith. Christians around the world are mesmerized by what happened there at State Farm stadium in Arizona. Many believe we’re on the verge of a new Christian revival in America.

But I push for understanding this moment culturally. There’s more going on here than meets the eye.

In the previous post I argued for seeing “Charlie Kirk” as an object of ideology. I said Charlie Kirk was a particular kind of social formation. It’s hard to miss the coalescing of millions of people around being for “Charlie Kirk” or against him. And so, I argued in the previous post, it’s no longer Charlie Kirk the person, but “Charlie Kirk” the ideology. And then I said this kind of gathering could not be labeled the church for many reasons. This was a politic of antagonism sucked into the national politics our time. I argued that Christians must be an alternative to this politic, not a politic formed around an antagonism, but a politic formed around and in the presence of the living Christ in our midst. Engage the world out of the space of being His presence in the world, not a space defined by what we together are against politicalyly. Let Christians refuse the way of antagonism and go be present amid the world unwinding the antagonisms.

But admittedly, in order to see this way as a viable alternative to the politics of antagonism in our culture today, we need a viable church. Without a church as Christ’s embodied presence in the world, the church becomes co-opted by the world’s political antagonisms of our time, rendering it the instrument of the state, keeping the current state powers in place, accomplishing little on the ground for Christ.

The challenge now, more than ever, is to cultivate churches that live as social bodies of His Kingdom, His Presence, His healing transforming power in the places where welive. (I have described what such a church might look like here and here). We need churches that are not Republican or Democrat politics, but outposts of the Kingdom of God politics, a very real political social reality, where Jesus reigns and His presence is alive and working for the healing of the world.

And yet, many ask, “Where is such a church?” They say, “I have no imagination for such a church. I’ve never seen one like this.” And so in a way, “Charlie Kirk” reveals the empty ecclesiologies of so much of what has become of evangelical church. “Charlie Kirk” is a symbol of the missing church. And this has left us unequipped for being an alive social body of His presence sorting through the broken politics in our neighborhoods.

Allow me to expand a little bit on this with a few points.

Charlie Kirk-The Influencer

Charlie Kirk was a so-called influencer. He acquired millions of followers on all major platforms, Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube, etc. (See the astounding stats here). He was influencing millions of college age people to attend his TurningPoint USA gatherings. His influence was astounding. Cardinal Dolan of NYC even called him the apostle Paul of our day. He was one of the top, if not the top Christian leader of GenZ’s in America when he died.

Putting aside all the acerbic, offensive and demeaning things he said toward immigrants, persons of color, women, democrats etc., etc., what does it say about the state of the church in USA, and its leadership, that Charlie Kirk the Influencer was the most significant Christian leader for Jesus among Gen Z persons in America? I think it’s a serious question.

An influencer, to gain influence on the social media platforms, must say outrageous things. This is the key tactic in all the algorithmic platforms to gain followers. Incite rage, gin up anger, get followers. Enragement to get engagement. It goes with the turf. Charlie said things that enraged, dehumanized, demeaned, insulted. And then (this too is part of the strategy) he went on to fill out the meaning later, in dialogue. Say the outrageous and then invite dialogue. Break down the inciteful comment and defend what he just said. This is why so often people defend his outrageous comments with the surrounding context and development of his arguments. And BTW, these engagements and dialogues would often lead to him speaking about his faith in Jesus.

In the previous post I argued that this kind of speech act is what keeps ideology going. Kirk was a leader of a flock built on antagonism, anger against an object – whether it be the transperson, the black person, the immigrant. the right against the left. Yes there would be much spoken about Jesus. Yes he participated in church. But he was gathering a mass following, NOT by inviting into the peace-giving, gentle, transforming power and presence of Jesus, but via the antagonisms he created. This is leadership of the world, not of Jesus, and the church that names him as Lord. It’s why I don’t trust what people say on twitter who have over 100,000 followers (and there are thousands of them)

Evangelicals have often been about the numbers. We would say “Never mind the means, did people hear the gospel? Receive Christ?” Going back to Billy Graham, to the seeker service mega church, using celebrities, or weightlifting competitions, or whatever to put on a spectacle from which we would have a presentation of the gospel, evangelicals have long used various crowd gathering means to attract people to a show through which they could hear the gospel. When the end was accomplished (people hearing the gospel), the means did not matter. But it has been proven over and over again, the means do matter. The stunning lack of discipleship in many of these endeavors cost a heavy price (I even have the stats on Billy Graham crusades). And so we must seriously ask, into what discipleship were the Charlie Kirk masses being invited into?

At this past week’s Charlie Kirk memorial, thousands upon thousands heard the gospel. Thousands of evangelicals have praised Erika Kirk for the presentation of the gospel. Many even received Christ. But under what banner, what discipleship. When pres.Trump follows with hate filled political speech, how does this shape everything else that the mesmerized listeners heard, especially when the same crowds that cheered Erika Kirk’s great act of forgiveness, cheered Trump’s “I don’t forgive, I hate” comments afterwards. The question we should be asking here is what kind of discipleship is happening here? A discipleship that leads one to putting faith in a Christian nationalism led by Trump? Or a discipleship that leads one to follow Christ, make Him Lord of our lives, and become a people of His presence in the world for His Kingdom, not another.

As such, I believe Charlie Kirk is a symbol, a cultural reveal, of the missing church in the lives of Gen Z-ers. With little to no leadership on the ground in the lives of GenZ-er’s, Charlie stepped into the vacuum. But an influencer cannot take the place of the church. And no leader of the church can lead any other way than by the presence, inter-relational love and truth presence of Jesus. For it was Jesus himself who told the disciples, the future leaders of the church, that they shall not lead “as the Gentiles do,” lording it over them”. Instead they shall lead as servants one to another (Mark 10:42-45).

Charlie Kirk-The Educator

Charlie was educated. Though he never did college beyond one semester at a local community college, he read and researched. But he was self-directed. He practiced debate skills vigorously. He could be stunningly quick in speech, rattling off Bible verses in defense of his point. But if you listen long enough, you know Kirk read, researched and interpreted for his own purposes stunningly ignorant of context, and definitely living within a single stream of theology, the evangelical individualist personalist streams of fundamentalism.

I once heard him use Jer 29:7 to defend a Christian nationalism, a government ordered by God: “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” He quoted Jer 29:7 as “demanding” we seek the welfare of the city, for its welfare will be yours. He somehow missed that the social posture of the people was as exiles, marginalized people not in political or cultural power, that indeed it was God that sent them into this status, and it was in this status that God was going to use these people of exile.

And so it blows my mind that the guy influencing and leading more college kids in America than any other Christian is an independently taught leader with no theological accountability to, or dialogue partnered with, a community or stream of tradition. It is the way American evangelicalism works. We get our theological leadership from famous writers of books, social influencers, anyone who can draw a crowd and sound good. How many times do we have to see it happen among the mega star pastors and influencers? As they eventually leave in their wake abuse, theology off the rails, and thousands of Christians misled and hurt

And so, once again, Charlie Kirk is a symbol, a cultural reveal, of the missing church in the lives of Gen Z-ers. Not taking away from the good work of campus organizations, including Inter-Varsity and Cru etc. But we need more good work, supported by and trained by the churches.

Charlie Kirk-The One Who Dares to Speak It Out Loud

One of the great appeals of Charlie Kirk to Gen Z’ers was that they were getting bold, uncensored answers to the sexuality, gender, racism, economics questions that are occupying the minds of Gen Z’ers everywhere. In the wake of the massive post-Christendom shifts of our culture, the massive shift of consensus around sex, gender, race, economics, politics, the churches have had little to offer.

Take sexuality. The churches have either opted for a “Not Affirming” LGBTQ position along with a load of bland and uninspiring legalism and consequentialist ethics. Or, the church has delivered an all-encompassing “Affirming LGBTQ” position, with little substance except “be your true self”. Amidst the struggles of Gen Z’ers, searching for identity and a location in amid the ultra confusing sexuality/gender scripts being thrown at them, they are sensing “there must be more than this.” Meanwhile, in the churches and universities and other social spaces of Gen Z’ers, they are not allowed the space to even question, engage, discuss, and seek. In university spaces, or activist liberal churches, any questioning of LGBTQ+ liberal orthodoxy is met with outrage and/or disdain. “You must be a homophobe, a cisgender bigot, or unenlightened.” Likewise, in most evangelical churches, if you question the sexuality orthodoxy, the regime as lived by the majority, you are warned, condemned or even ostracized.

And so there’s a massive vacuum out there. The Gen Z’er’s feel it and the church isn’t engaging it with any depth or discipleship. Charlie Kirk did. He spoke into it and disrupted the space of “you can’t say that or question that”.He blurted out stuff that many Gen Zer’s were thinking but weren’t allowed to say. Although they didn’t always agree, they were desperate for a place to work it out.

And so again, “Charlie Kirk” is an indictment against the missing church in USA that will not talk, discuss, discern, the cballenging and vexing questions of our day with our GenZ-ers. Charlie stepped into that. As already mentioned, I didn’t agree with a lot he said and the way he said it. But he stepped into the vacuum of the missing church and millions of GenZ’ers got sucked into it.

Summary

Charlie Kirk, his podcasts, his Turning Point USA, his social media platforms could never be the church. Rather, for all the reasons above, Kirk is a symbol of the missing church in America for Gen-Zers. He is not a leader in the Christian sense, he is an influencer. He is the sign that the church needs to start training leaders for the churches, not influencers. He is not a theological educator, he is a master performative debater with no accountability to a proven stream of orthodoxy. He did make space for discussions however, saying things out loud, but discipleship doesn’t happen in debates, it happens in the spaces of fellowship, teaching, tables and learning. This is what we call church (Acts 2:42-46). Charlie Kirk is a cultural symbol of the missing (evangelical) church in N America. He engaged issues out loud most churches want to stay neutral on. Again Charlie Kirk is a symbol of the missing church.

Charlie Kirk is a symbol of the missing (evangelical) church in America. I rest my case. But please push back in the comments. Or fill this out more. Christians are at a moment in America. We either see our hope in the renewal of the true church in America or nation state politics. I pray God save us from the latter.

In my next and last post on Charlie Kirk, I unravel how Kirk’s link between the gospel and Christian Nationalism is the ultimate reveal, that for Charlie, there is no church, just individual Christians and a nation state. In other words, it is Charlie’s Christian Nationalism that reveals ultimately the missing church in evangelicalism. Subscribe to the substack to get notified when. It hits.