Gone and Forgotten

Last year when I wrote my thesis on white Christian nationalism, I meant it to be a warning, not a prophecy. The white Christian nationalist movement is not reacting to the current political climate. It’s a movement deeply rooted in the founding myths of America, and it is intimately connected to Trumpism. The marriage between the two birthed a dangerous and violent political movement that gave us both Charlie Kirk and Trump.

Kirk’s memorial service on September 21, 2025 was attended by tens of thousands individuals, the president, several cabinet members, and Elon Musk. It was a glaring example of white Christian nationalism as the Christian right, Trump, and Kirk’s numerous supporters framed themselves as fighting a holy war against the evildoers who they believe threaten to destroy America. They conflated loving God with loving America, and reinforced their belief in the myth that America was founded as a Christian nation uniquely blessed by God.

The Christian nationalist belief system is predicated on the idea that white people came to America to be God’s chosen people, and they have the absolute authority in moral, political, and spiritual matters. The expansion of civil and human rights in the last half century has been the bane of their existence. They believe other people—i.e. people of color, non-Christians, LGBTQ individuals, and women—having rights is an affront to their own rights. Christian nationalists assert that God ordained white men to rule over non-white people, and God intended white Americans to be the exemplars of Christian values for the whole world. The right to domination lies in their belief of white American Christians’ superior morality, a morality they believe they’ve earned through struggle and a sacrifice.

White Christian nationalists are taught that that part of their identity is victimhood, but they exist as the dominant sociopolitical group in society. This cognitive dissonance breeds violence and discontentment as we have seen over the last decade. The Christian faith is plagued by a persecution complex. Jesus and the earliest leaders of the church were persecuted and martyred by the Roman Empire, and Christians are taught to venerate those early apostles and saints and to strive to be like them. However, Christianity became the dominant religion of Rome within a few centuries of its founding. Christian armies led by Christian kings conquered Europe and then colonized the world, coercively converting millions to Christianity. America was colonized by those same European Christians. The truth is Christians have never been a persecuted class in America. 

So what happens when the founders and exemplars of your faith were martyred and you are told to be a good Christian is to be martyred? What happens when your faith, which relies on martyrdom, is the dominant religion of the empire? And what happens when someone who looks like how you pretend Christ looks like is publicly murdered?

White Christian nationalists have found their martyr in Charlie Kirk. In reality, Charlie Kirk was a podcaster with dangerous opinions who liked to argue with college students, but in death, his ideology has taken on new life and meaning with white Christian nationalists and their allies. But in the minds of the Christian nationalists who will now venerate him, he is a saint martyred for God and America. As Stephen Miller, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, said at Kirk’s memorial, “you thought you could kill Charlie Kirk. You have immortalized him.”  

Kirk shouldn't be immortalized in the national memory. He espoused violent, fascist ideology. Let his memory go the way of Leander Perez, the former Attorney General of Louisiana who did his level best to uphold school segregation in the 1950s and 60s. Let Kirk's memory join those who tried and failed to hold up progress.