It is now more than a month since Charlie Kirk’s murder (10 September) and memorial service (21 September).

Like many here in Australia, I had not previously heard of Kirk. I was, therefore, somewhat surprised by the outpouring of grief, or, sadly, glee, at the news of his death. I decided I’d take some time to listen to Kirk’s memorial service. I found it both moving and fascinating, but in commentary after the event an oft-repeated claim stood out to me, and that was, that no matter what one might think about Kirk, the gospel was preached at his service.

A Prayer Update from the conservative Anglican movement, GAFCON, put it this way: “We give thanks to God for the clear proclamation of salvation and forgiveness in Jesus Christ at the Charlie Kirk Memorial Service held this week in Arizona, USA and broadcast globally. The gospel was preached with boldness, and many were stirred to think deeply, ask questions, and respond to the good news.”

It is true that a number of speakers took the opportunity to proclaim the gospel as they understood it. Among them were Charlie Kirk’s pastor, Rob McCoy, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Frank Turek, a Christian apologist. They, and others, articulated what has come to be known as the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement, according to which Jesus absorbed the justifiable wrath of God on the cross, fully paying the penalty we all deserve for falling short of God’s perfect requirements. As McCoy put it, the distance between where we might aim for and the target we hit is ‘the sin distance’, which is “how far [we’ve] fallen from perfection”. According to this version of the gospel, the only way to avoid being justly sent to hell is to “entrust [one’s] life to the saviour of the world”.

I am aware that there are many who believe that this is the gospel – pure and simple. I don’t agree. As I understand it, the New Testament spells out the gospel in much fuller terms. In the Synoptic Gospels — Mark, Matthew and Luke — the gospel Jesus came preaching was one of repentance in light of the in-breaking of the kingdom of God. What was required was not simply faith, but a full-hearted heeding of the message to live lives fully consistent with the values of the kingdom. The Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew’s Gospel, spells out what true repentance requires: a righteousness greater than that of the scribes and Pharisees, a righteousness that goes to the very heart of what the law of God requires. It is a narrow and demanding path for those claiming to be followers of Jesus.

It was never going to be enough to simply “entrust one’s life to the saviour of the world”. In Matthew 25 is an image of the final judgment, with all the nations of the world there, and key to the sobering separation of sheep from goats is whether they (the nations and all within them) have displayed the God-like characteristics of compassion, mercy and generous hospitality. This is what the Son of Man will say to those on his right – the righteous:

“Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” (Matt 25:31-36)

John’s gospel gives similar priority to God-like loving action. Those who are born of God’s Spirit are made one with God. As we should expect, that will entail loving as God loves, being compassionate as God is, being known for our love; with the priority of love also being a core message of St Paul’s.

This is what disturbed and saddened me most about the memorial service. Almost none of this was featured. The closest we came to it was Erika Kirk’s tortured offer of forgiveness to her husband’s killer, and her acknowledgement of the requirement to love one’s enemies, mentioned a few times during the service. However, these relatively bright moments were overshadowed by what else was said.

What dawned on me as I was listening was that woven through most of the speeches was another gospel, a discordant gospel which all but drowned out what was already a truncated gospel message. Drawing upon speeches made at the service, as well as things said and written before and afterwards, this is my attempted summary of this contrasting gospel.

The Christian nationalist gospel

• The Kingdom of God is a heavenly reality, but it can also be realised on earth by the godly exercise of political power.
• In the US, this will happen when conservative Christians take control of the government, including the military, and, ideally, of six other key areas of American life: education, family, business, religion, media and the arts. (This is known as the Seven Mountains Mandate, a movement within Christian nationalism designed to take back American society from secular or non-Christian forces. The strategy was developed in the 1970s.)
• Becoming a truly Christian nation will entail rule by God (theocracy) and adherence to the laws of God, including Old Testament laws (theonomy).
• Christian discipleship involves a life-long struggle against both human and supernatural opponents. In the US, this struggle is for the future of America which is under threat of being destroyed from within.
• The enemies of this gospel are Democrats, radical leftists and anyone contributing to the dilution or undermining of America’s religious, ethnic and cultural heritage.
• The promise of this gospel is that the clock can be forcibly turned back to a mostly white and conservatively Christian past where people of colour or of a different religion are discouraged or prevented from coming or staying in America, where men resume leadership in the family and within all levels of society, where women prioritise marriage, staying home, having children and being submissive to their husbands, where jobs taken from white Americans — because of DEI policies — will be returned, where abortion is completely outlawed and same-sex marriage banned, where schools and universities are prevented from being “woke” or from teaching subjects considered at odds with the Bible, and, finally, where government by the people and for the people (democracy) is replaced by a benevolent Christian ruler (autocracy).

As I thought about this gospel, a number of things came to mind. The first was that this is a highly unpopular gospel. The ideological blueprint for it, entitled “Project 2025 – Mandate for Leadership – The Conservative Promise”, had a 4% approval rating when it was first made public, and has only grown to about 13% since then.

The second thing that struck me was that this plan would have remained dystopian, Handmaid’s Tale-like fiction, were it not for the unlikely success of an immensely vain, profoundly ignorant, and easily manipulated admirer of autocrats like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un.

A third thing I considered was how small and unrepresentative this Christian nationalist movement is. It is a narrowly fundamentalist movement with large, but not universal, support among American evangelicals who make up just 24% of the population, less than the 29% who are religiously unaffiliated, and much less than the 62% of Americans who identify as Christian. America has become increasingly secular, multicultural, multiethnic, and multi-religious. It is also, therefore, less white. It is this changing demographic which helps to explain the felt need for the Christian nationalist agenda, but it also strongly suggests that Americans (when more fully informed of this plan) will not choose theocracy over democracy.

The fourth thing that struck me was that Christians, in aligning themselves with Trump and his ambitions, have inevitably compromised their integrity and Christian character. This is because the success of this unpopular vision depends on Trump and his enablers being dishonest – to hide their true intentions. They have, moreover, needed to exaggerate the dire state of the nation, have needed “enemies” to be feared, scapegoats to be blamed, opponents to be vilified. These include the Democratic Party, its leaders, the radical left, leftists in general, illegal immigrants, African Americans, people of colour, Muslims, intellectuals, gay people and, most inexcusably, transgender Americans – pretty much all those who voted against Trump or stand in his way, including judges, the media and disrespectful comedians.

And because Christian nationalists have hitched their wagon to Trump, with their success dependent upon his, they have, time and time again, turned their heads away from policies and behaviour that are clearly immoral. The administration, which they uncritically support, has not provided for the hungry and the thirsty. It has not welcomed foreigners, treating them with kindness and respect. It has instead sent masked ICE agents to terrify, arrest and detain, without due process, and therefore illegally.

Christian nationalists have stood idly by while Trump has lined his pockets and the pockets of America’s super rich, while impoverishing the poor, and appointing a grossly unqualified secretary of health who is endangering the health of millions. And, finally, after loudly calling for the release of the Epstein Files, as Kirk earlier did, they have gone silent, succumbing to Trump’s frantic efforts to protect paedophiles, while he contemplates a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s partner, who recruited, groomed and trafficked underage girls, their trauma continuing, justice denied.

And so, was the gospel preached at Kirk’s memorial service?

The short answer is no. The gospel, as defined in the New Testament, includes references to Christ’s sacrificial death, but crucially also requires true and lasting repentance and a life characterised by love. Though some good words were said at the service, lives normally preach louder than words, and the overwhelming impression that I, and I am sure others, took away was of a severely compromised Christianity. In its quest for power and to impose a Christian theocracy, Christian nationalists have made a Faustian deal. They have traded their integrity, silenced their consciences, and have failed the Matthew 25 challenge.

When truth and love are sacrificed in a single-minded quest for power, nationalism becomes fascism, love becomes hate, democracy is destroyed and the Christian gospel is besmirched. Mercifully, this movement will fail. My prayer is that as America rebuilds, a fuller and deeper understanding of the Christian gospel will inspire Christians to contribute to the healing now so urgently needed.

Rev. Dr Keith Mascord is a co-founder of Equal Voices - a support network for LGBTIQ+ Australians. He is a long-time advocate for equal rights for women and against racism and is the author of A Restless Faith: leaving fundamentalism in a quest for God (2012), Faith without Fear: risky choices facing contemporary Christians (2016) and An Honest Faith: the possible friendship of Athens and Jerusalem (2025).

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.