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Voorpagina Krant Best gelezen Rubrieken Interview Christen-zionist Dat Gaza wordt vernietigd, is bijbels voorspeld, zegt deze invloedrijke Palestijnse dominee De Palestijnse predikant Naim Khoury is christen-zionist: hij steunt Israël, ook al beschuldigt de halve wereld het land van genocide. Vrede verwacht hij niet meer, het einde der tijden is ophanden.

Een Palestijnse jongen fietst door de oude binnenstad van Bethlehem. Een Palestijnse jongen fietst door de oude binnenstad van Bethlehem.Bron Foto ANP Dit artikel is geschreven doorLodewijk DrosGepubliceerd op 30 september 2025, 06:31

Bewaren Delen Hij bezoekt Nederland vaker, zegt dominee Naim Khoury (76) vanuit Bethlehem. Binnenkort wil hij weer komen, om zijn nooit aflatende steun voor Israël uit te spreken. Zijn geestverwanten, zoals het christen-zionistische Christenen voor Israël in Nijkerk, horen dat graag, een Palestijn die van Israël houdt.

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Tijdens zijn lezingen verraste hij zijn publiek geregeld met de vraag of er Joden aanwezig waren. Zo ja, dan bood hij hen excuses aan voor wat Joden was aangedaan. “Namens het Palestijnse volk.”

Hij zou het zo weer doen, zegt hij. Toch slaat hij nu, na twee jaar Gaza-oorlog en oplopende spanningen op de Westoever, een iets andere toon aan. “Beide volkeren hebben geleden, dus vergeving moet van twee kanten komen.”

Weinig Palestijnen zullen hem zijn ‘sorry’ in dank afnemen, want de meesten – christen of moslim – beschouwen de stichting van de staat Israël als een ‘ramp’ en de ‘zionistische’ overheid als een bezettende macht. Khoury niet, hij ziet er de vervulling van bijbelse profetieën in.

Het aantal christenen op de Westoever is geslonken tot 50.000, schat de Canadese sociaal geograaf Tristan Sturm. Hij was verbonden aan de Hebrew University in Jeruzalem en werkt nu aan de Queen’s University in Belfast. Zijn specialisme: christelijk zionisme. Hij becijfert het aantal Palestijnse christen-zionisten op ‘nog geen duizend’.

Christen-zionisten staan doorgaans achter het streven van Joodse kolonisten om, met een beroep op de Bijbel, de bezette Palestijnse gebieden (Judea en Samaria) in te nemen. Ook zijn ze ervan overtuigd dat Joden uit de hele wereld naar Israël (Zion) moeten emigreren voordat Jezus op aarde terugkeert.

“Dat vindt nu allemaal plaats”, zegt dominee Khoury, “het is de vervulling van een bijbelse profetie. De Joden zullen zich bekeren tot het christendom. Daar helpen christenen bij.”

De meeste Palestijnse christenen zijn juist anti-zionistisch. Ze vinden religieus zionisme ‘ketters’. Hun eigen theologie is gestempeld door de Zuid-Amerikaanse, marxistisch georiënteerde bevrijdingstheologie, die ook in de Protestantse Kerk in Nederland gehoor heeft gevonden. De PKN-leiding keurt het christen-zionisme vierkant af.

Toch scharen tientallen behoudende PKN-dominees zich mét plaatselijke geloofsgemeenschappen achter het christen-zionistische Christenen voor Israël, dat dominee Khoury graag een podium biedt en zijn kerk in Bethlehem ondersteunt.

De Palestijnse predikant Naim Khoury en zijn vrouw Elvira. De Palestijnse predikant Naim Khoury en zijn vrouw Elvira.Bron Foto RV Voor de Palestijnse, anti-zionistische bevrijdingstheologie van uw collega’s voelt u niets. Wat doet u als u ze op straat tegenkomt?

“Dan zeggen we elkaar gedag, maar ik voel geen enkele band. Ik houd me bezig met het woord van God, wat ik voorsta is de waarheid, ik leg gewoon uit wat de Bijbel heeft te zeggen.”

En dat is?

“Dat God een verbond heeft gesloten met Israël, dat Hij hun het land in het Oude Testament heeft beloofd. Dat is een eeuwigdurende belofte. Mijn steun aan Israël is bijbels, niet zozeer politiek.”

Dat laatste zegt Khoury vaker in interviews. Het is de vraag wat dat onderscheid nog betekent, nu in Israël de politieke keuzes al meer door religie worden bepaald.

Khoury is de invloedrijkste Palestijnse christen-zionist. Hij verschijnt, net als zijn zoon die ook dominee is, vaak op tv, zowel in Israël als in de VS. Hij kent de Amerikaanse defensieminister Pete Hegseth goed. Ook ontmoette hij president Trumps godsdienstig adviseur Paula White.

Ja, hij heeft invloed, erkent Khoury. Met White en Mike Huckabee, VS-ambassadeur in Israël, haalde hij de internationale ranglijst van de meest fervente christelijke Israël-supporters, opgesteld door de faith based politieke lobbyclub Israel Allies Foundation. SGP-voorman Chris Stoffer en JA21-senator Ruben Baumgarten leiden dit parlementariërsnetwerk in Nederland.

Mike Huckabee is net als u baptistenpredikant alsmede ambassadeur in Israël. Hij zegt dat Israël het recht heeft om Gaza en de Westelijke Jordaanoever te annexeren. Hebt u hem daarover gesproken?

“Nog niet, maar de afspraak is voor dit najaar al gemaakt.” Of hij het met Huckabees vergaande opvattingen eens is, daar laat Khoury zich niet over uit. “Ik wil eerst weten wat hij precies bedoelt.”

Wel reageert Khoury afwijzend op een uitspraak in Christianity Today van zijn collega uit Nazareth, de christen-zionistische (en eveneens door Christenen voor Israël gesteunde) Saleem Slalash. Die vond Trumps plan om Gaza van twee miljoen Gazanen te ontdoen om er een resort van te maken zo gek nog niet. Khoury: “Dat gaat echt niet gebeuren, de lokale bevolking werkt daar niet aan mee”.

Sociaal geograaf Sturm signaleert dat Khoury vanuit de marge internationaal opvallend veel weerklank vindt. “De Israëlische regering en evangelische media in de VS hebben er alle belang bij om zijn geluid te versterken. Een Palestijn, een christen nog wel, die achter Israël staat en diens zionistische argumenten aanvoert – dat brengt de boodschap over dat het met die genocide in Gaza dan wel mee zal vallen. Dat is een ijzersterk diplomatiek instrument. Khoury is hun pion. Wat niet wegneemt dat Khoury zelf oprecht is in zijn geloof.”

Naim Khoury, geboren in Jeruzalem als telg van een Arabisch-christelijk geslacht, onttrok zich na een bekering aan zijn Grieks-orthodoxe milieu. In 1979 stichtte hij een evangelische gemeente, de Eerste Baptistenkerk, met nu zo’n driehonderd leden. De kerk ligt aan de Kribbestraat in Bethlehem, de Judese stad onder controle van de Palestijnse Autoriteit. Daar stond ooit Jezus’ wieg, een kribbe.

Khoury is gepromoveerd in Atlanta, volgens Sturm ‘een christen-fundamentalistisch centrum’. De baptistenpredikant is wars van Palestijns nationalisme en van de islam, stelt Sturm. “Hij en zijn volgelingen leven daardoor onder voortdurende dreiging.”

De kerk van Khoury is veertien keer gemolesteerd, zegt hij, en hij heeft zelf enkele aanslagen overleefd. Zijn grootste probleem nu is de economie. Bethlehems belangrijkste inkomstenbron, het toerisme, is drooggevallen. “De stad ligt op sterven, mijn kerkleden krijgen geen vergunning om in Jeruzalem te gaan werken.”

Met voedselpakketten probeert zijn Eerste Baptiskenkerk de nood van verarmde gezinnen wat te lenigen. “Dat is onze belangrijkste bezigheid.” Ze helpen niet alleen christenen, ook moslims, benadrukt Khoury.

Over de islam laat hij zich zelden uit. Natuurlijk, hij heeft wel last gehad van Hamas-achtige moslims die hij verantwoordelijk houdt voor de aanslagen op zijn kerk, “maar de meesten zijn aardige mensen”, zegt hij nu. Vreedzaam samenleven is wat hij doorgaans predikt.

Wat hij écht vindt, vertelde hij tijdens zijn laatste bezoek aan Nederland, in 2018, in het Reformatorisch Dagblad.

Europa is de weg kwijt, stelde u in het ‘Reformatorisch Dagblad’. Uw schrikbeeld was Rotterdam met zijn ‘Marokkaanse burgemeester’, Ahmed Aboutaleb. Europa slaapt, zei u, het wordt overlopen door moslims.

“Dat is precies wat er nu gebeurt, ja.”

U beweerde dat ‘de islam zich als een kanker verspreidt’.

“Met die kanker bedoelde ik de militante moslims, niet de gewone, vredelievende moslims.”

Toch vond u dat Nederland moslims het stemrecht moest ontnemen. Vindt u dat nog steeds?

“Ja, zeker.”

Trouw spreekt Khoury op de dag dat enkele grote westerse landen aankondigen de Palestijnse staat te erkennen.

Mag ik u daarmee feliciteren?

“Ik bemoei me niet met politiek. Of ze de Palestijnse staat nu erkennen of niet, er verandert hier niets. De situatie is beroerd voor beide partijen hier en het zal nog erger worden.”

Is er eigenlijk wel een kans op vrede, denkt u?

“Misschien”, zegt hij zuinigjes. “Voor eventjes.”

De internationale pogingen om de Gaza-oorlog en de conflicten op de Westoever te beëindigen, hebben niets uitgehaald, zegt Khoury. “De honger en de oorlog gaan door.”

U verwacht niets van de politici?

“Nee, daar komt de oplossing niet vandaan.”

Op de vraag hoe hij de situatie duidt, geeft de baptistendominee een stellig, religieus antwoord. Wat politici ook proberen, het zal geen enkel effect hebben op ‘Gods plan’. Dat behelst een kladderadatsch, een wereldomspannende catastrofe, “het eind der tijden dat in de Bijbel is voorspeld”.

Als een evangelische fundamentalist loopt Khoury de stadia na van de eindtijd, zoals opgetekend in onder andere het bijbelboek Openbaring. Hij verwacht een ‘opname van wedergeboren christenen’ en enorme ‘verdrukkingen’ (‘de eerste ervan voelen we al’), en ten slotte een perfecte hemel en aarde.

Helaas, voordat het beter wordt, zal het eerst erger worden, denkt Khoury. Voorafgaand aan Jezus’ terugkomst gaat het er gruwelijk aan toe op aarde. Dat is het goddelijke scenario dat zich onafwendbaar ontvouwt. Het verklaart waarom de predikant een gelaten, fatalistische indruk maakt.

In het scenario past Gaza anno 2025 met zijn doden, verwoesting, honger en ontheemding. Khoury kijkt er niet van op, het is opnieuw een profetie die uitkomt, nu vanuit het bijbelboek Sefanja. “Lees hoofdstuk 2.” Daar staat dat Gaza verlaten zal zijn, ontvo

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Menu The U.S. Military’s Greatest Test Avoiding a Civil-Military Crisis in the Age of Trump Peter D. Feaver October 1, 2025 U.S. President Donald Trump addressing military brass, Quantico, Virginia, September 2025 U.S. President Donald Trump addressing military brass, Quantico, Virginia, September 2025 Andrew Harnik / REUTERS PETER D. FEAVER is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Duke University and the author of Thanks for Your Service: The Causes and Consequences of Public Confidence in the U.S. Military. From 2005 to 2007, he was Special Adviser for Strategic Planning and Institutional Reform on the staff of the National Security Council.

More by Peter D. Feaver Share & Download Print Save Why were U.S. military officers fretting about having to show up, on short notice, to a base in Quantico, Virginia, to hear a speech from the two civilians in the chain of command? “All hands” meetings like the one held this week, at which subordinates gather to hear from top leadership, are one of the oldest customs in the U.S. military—think “George Washington addressing the troops.” What made this meeting so notable is that today’s military is buffeted by an atmosphere of extreme partisan polarization, and neither political party is doing much to protect the military from its baleful effects. In such a moment, the long-term health of the American republic depends on the military safely walking an extremely narrow tightrope to uphold civilian control without becoming a partisan institution itself.

High-profile meetings such as the one in Quantico force the military to walk that tightrope in the full glare of the media and without the safety net of strong trust across the civil-military divide. The military audience managed to pull off that feat, but they can be forgiven for fretting about it in advance. The last military audience in that situation—the lower-ranking troops who heard a similarly partisan speech from President Donald Trump at Fort Bragg in June—failed the test, whooping and hollering as if they were the party faithful at a political rally. In that case, many of the “applause lines” were scathing critiques of the lawful orders their military oath had required them to implement barely a year ago.

In the United States, the civil-military balance depends on commanders in chief of either party trusting the military to obey lawful orders regardless of which party is in power. The risk represented by the gathering orchestrated by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the speech delivered by Donald Trump is that it threatens to leave military leaders with no choice but to become partisan actors or to violate norms of civilian control of the military. So far, senior U.S. officers have managed that dilemma reasonably effectively. But the more that civilian leaders treat the military as a partisan institution, the more the military will start behaving like a partisan institution—and the less it can be relied on to fight and win wars.

WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW George Washington and the other great military heroes in American history excelled at delivering informative and inspiring remarks to the assembled troops. Civilian leaders have done this, too, although rarely quite so memorably. There have been many thousands of tedious all-hands meetings for every significant one, so the convening of one usually prompts more eye rolls than alarms.

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Why, then, was there such a big fuss that Hegseth called in hundreds of senior military leaders (and the media) for an all-hands? Partly it was because this particular type of all-hands was unprecedented, especially when Trump joined and turned it into a presidential level gig. All-hands are typically held at lower levels or when the secretary of defense visits an installation, but it is unusual to hold one on a global scale. There is little precedent or rationale for bringing senior leaders together in person when virtual alternatives are available. Pulling off an unplanned meeting of this kind was a staffing nightmare. Moving one senior military officer around the world involves a lot of staff work. Moving hundreds boggles the mind. In the military, this is known as a “whiskey tango foxtrot moment,” and it left thousands of lower-level personnel asking, “What is the emergency that is prompting this event-planning crisis?”

But the more ominous reason the gathering kicked up such a fuss is that the Department of Defense increasingly operates in a low-information environment. Since Trump began his second term, leaders have been taking significant actions—consider the unprecedented pace of firing senior officers or the sharp escalation of military strikes in the Western Hemisphere—without providing much explanation to affected individuals, the junior ranks, or the general public. All sorts of worst-case theories flood into the vacuum of a low-information environment.

One such theory that proved wildly off was that Hegseth intended to use this as a moment to institute a new loyalty oath. A retired general raised that possibility on social media, and rather than knocking it back, Hegseth coyly seemed to suggest that there might be something to this notion. Hegseth may have just been trolling the alarmists, because instituting a new oath would have provoked a genuine crisis in civil-military relations and threatened public confidence in both the military and American democracy. The existing military oath, which has served the country well since the days of George Washington (with an important change after the Civil War), obligates the military to support and defend the Constitution, and the Constitution establishes the president as commander in chief. In practice, members of the military honor the oath when they obey the lawful orders of the commander in chief. (By contrast, the Constitution obligates the other branches of government, the legislature and the judiciary, to determine what is lawful and to serve as a check against lawful but awful orders.) Because the people in the audience at Quantico have been honoring this oath, the Trump administration has faced no resistance from the military even as the administration has made abrupt and dramatic changes. Any change to the oath in this polarized and partisan moment would have marked a true crisis.

Instead, what happened was what was most likely to happen from the get-go: a mother of all all-hands, at which military leaders heard, not for the first time, Trump and Hegseth’s vision and were challenged to redouble their efforts to implement it. Convening such a meeting is within the prerogatives of civilian control, and civilians have the right to deem whether it is worth the effort to convene it.

A FINE BALANCE Yet avoiding the worst-case scenario did not mean that there was nothing to worry about. On the contrary, because of the country’s partisan, polarized environment, the meeting was an unusually fraught episode in American civil-military relations. When political leaders such as the president or secretary of defense give remarks to the troops, the speechwriters always include lines designed to generate applause. Praising the heroics of this or that unit, invoking sports rivalries, or including self-deprecating humor designed to show that the senior leaders understand what those serving under them are going through are all effective rhetorical devices that can help leaders build trust with their subordinates.

But strident partisan statements cut the other way, especially with an audience of senior military officers. Those officers understand that professional ethics require that they avoid even giving the appearance of partisanship—which means refraining from applauding the partisan statements of others, since cheering the policies of one party is tantamount to booing the policies of the other. Over the course of their professional lives, these military officers are likely to serve a large chunk of their time under both parties. If they become identified as partisans of one, they may be viewed as enemies of the other—starting a cycle of partisan purges that leaves the military disoriented, demoralized, and ineffective, as has happened in other purge-prone militaries. A rip-roaring partisan stem-winder that works on the campaign trail should fall flat with a military audience if that audience is honoring its professional duty.

Hegseth’s speech had a lot of boilerplate of the sort that would show up in any speech. But it had at least as much partisan red meat suited to a MAGA audience and very little to say about the exceptionally complex geopolitical environment the U.S. military is confronting. Trump’s speech, meanwhile, included the standard humorous asides, generating some natural laughter from the audience. But other than that, the military representatives resisted Trump’s encouragement to “loosen up” and stayed professional, barely reacting to the partisan commentary—including when Trump went on at some length about the “enemy within,” apparently referring to political opponents rather than genuine adversaries trying to hurt the United States. If there is a movement to translate some of the rhetorical bombast into actual policies, that will be the moment when key military advisers may need to speak up, very quietly, within the chain of command to warn civilian leaders about the second- and third-order effects of such policies. But a made-for-TV speech is not the time for that, so the military audience rightly kept quiet.

In short, U.S. military leaders met the moment. They knew that the world was watching, particularly their own troops, and were especially keen to show proper decorum

Two versions of Christianity battle for America’s soul Charlie Kirk’s memorial showed how politics is reshaping the faith.

September 29, 2025 at 6:45 a.m. EDTToday at 6:45 a.m. EDT 9 min

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(Washington Post illustration) There are two forms of Christianity pulling American politics in opposite directions. Oddly enough, the moment that might define the faith’s political future happened not in a church but in a football stadium. At Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, tens of thousands of mourners witnessed something extraordinary: the explicit theological division of the American right. On one level, they saw faith calling for forgiveness and loving one’s enemy. But they also saw a faith that weaponizes politics through righteous anger — and the chasm between them might be unbridgeable.

Two of the speeches offered a stark contrast. Erika Kirk, the slain conservative activist’s widow, delivered the service’s most powerful moment. Standing before a crowd that included President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, she channeled Jesus’ words from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Then, she applied them directly to her husband’s killer. “That man — that young man — I forgive him. I forgive him because it was what Jesus did and is what Charlie would do.”

When Trump appeared onstage afterward, he looked out at that same crowd and rejected Erika Kirk’s Christian witness: “[Charlie] did not hate his opponents; he wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them.”

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Here was a disagreement over political strategy. It was also much more than that. This was one of Christianity’s deepest theological questions playing out in real time: Can one turn the other cheek and still engage in the combative work of democratic politics? And more to the point: Why do so many Christians seem indifferent to one of Christ’s core teachings: of elevation of the weak over the strong, of virtue over power.

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Follow For those of us who are not Christian, the contradictions of American Christianity can be puzzling. As someone who has spent considerable time thinking about how my own religion, Islam, engages with modern politics — often uncomfortably so — I’ve come to appreciate what Christian political philosopher Samuel Kimbriel told me recently: “Christianity tends to be fighting at a deeper level than Islam — it’s just extremely awkward at human politics.” This awkwardness, he suggested, manifests in contradictory ways, “sometimes ending up in these quasi-authoritarian arrangements of authority, other times in bloodless self-conflicted liberalism, and other times in Anabaptist-style pacifism.”

The stadium that day offered a case study in this awkwardness. On one side stood Erika Kirk, embodying Christianity’s radical call to both forgive and love one’s enemies — a witness so pure it was almost otherworldly. It takes seriously Jesus’ command to bless those who curse you and to respond to evil with sacrificial good. This is the Christianity of the early martyrs who grew the church through preaching and example rather than conquest, seeing themselves as exiles and strangers in a fallen world.

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The second Christianity, embraced by Trump and amplified by other speakers, described Charlie Kirk’s assassination as part of an epic battle between forces of light and darkness. Echoing a verse from the Book of Ephesians, podcaster Jack Posobiec asked the crowd, “Are you ready to put on the full armor of God and face the evil in high places and the spiritual warfare before us?” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared, “This is not a political war, it’s not even a cultural war. It’s a spiritual war.” These are not careless remarks or mere metaphor. They represent the intentional framing of politics as religious combat, in which political opponents are seen as demonic forces requiring defeat rather than conversion.

What struck me weren’t just the theological contradictions but the way each side seemed to acknowledge that standard democratic politics couldn’t contain their deepest commitments. Erika Kirk’s forgiveness was beautiful because it seemed so removed from our polarized politics. Trump’s language of political warfare is compelling to many Americans — including the growing ranks who identify as Christian but do not attend church or pray regularly — precisely because it abandoned any pretense of Christ-like transformation, favoring a weaponized Christianity characterized by tribal loyalty and blood-and-soil nationalism.

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The day before Kirk’s memorial, Hegseth encapsulated this muscular, martial Christianity when he shared a promotional video for the newly minted “Department of War” that interspersed the Lord’s Prayer with images of American troops, tanks and stealth bombers.

The theological gulf between Erika Kirk’s message of forgiveness and Hegseth’s fantasies of forever war runs deeper than most realize. Russell Moore, a former top official in the Southern Baptist Convention and a fierce Trump critic, told NPR that when pastors quote Jesus’ words about turning the other cheek, congregants increasingly ask, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?” When pastors respond that they’re “literally quoting Jesus Christ,” the answer comes back: “Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.”

If this sounds like a remarkable shift, that’s because it is. Millions of Trump-supporting Christians now seem to question whether Jesus’ own teachings on forgiving and loving one’s enemies are even relevant for politics. The reasoning is simple. Because the American way and Western civilization are facing off against a depraved and even demonic left, Jesus’ admonitions in the Sermon on the Mount no longer apply. As Michael Wear, the rare evangelical who served in the Obama White House, told me, “the result is that immoral tactics are justified by the morality of the pursued outcome” because “the opposition is so evil and the political outcome is so paramount.”

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Or to put it in secular terms: Desperate times call for desperate measures.

The early church was largely powerless and pacifist for three centuries, until the Roman emperor Constantine’s conversion transformed Christianity’s relationship with state power and state violence. As theologian and pastor Greg Boyd noted, “No sooner did Christians gain political power than they began persecuting and even putting to death non-Christians.” As with any faith, Christianity has been shaped by its own political history. But what remains striking is how pockets of American Christianity are openly rejecting Jesus’ ethics as politically naive.

This should unsettle anyone who has criticized Islam for its political entanglements. American Christianity now faces its own version of the political theology crisis: How can a faith tradition emphasizing sacrifice, humility and enemy-love navigate the messy — and increasingly violent — world of American politics?

James Wood, an evangelical theologian at Redeemer University, offers a more sympathetic reading of what might be called the combative Christian position. As he told me, “The ethic of Jesus in the gospels is not opposed to the state and the use of force as a deterrent to evil and wickedness. There’s a distinction between how you as a private individual are to treat your personal opponents versus how the state is to curb evil.”

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But here’s what makes this crisis so intractable: Both sides can claim at least some biblical grounding. The “love your enemy” Christianity of Erika Kirk draws directly from Jesus’ words. The spiritual-warfare Christianity pushed by Hegseth and others draws from Paul’s letters about putting on the “armor of God” to stand against the devil’s schemes. Meanwhile, evangelical luminaries such as Jerry Falwell and John Hagee have drawn on the apocalyptic Book of Revelation, in which a sword-bearing Jesus returns at the end times to lead the armies of heaven and destroys his enemies.

Some interpretations might be more correct than others, but there’s no way to resolve such questions of political theology before the second coming, when presumably Jesus will clarify his true intent, as both Christians and Muslims believe he will. Until then, this is not a divide that dialogue can easily bridge, because it’s not just about biblical interpretation — it’s about the nature of political engagement itself. Can Christian love be politically effective or does politics require the kind of strategic enmity that Trump embraces? Can you simultaneously bless your enemies while viewing them as evil forces who require nothing short of total defeat?

The secular hope has been that declining religiosity would produce more rational, less intense politics. But as American church attendance hovers around all-time lows, including among young Republicans, the Kirk memorial suggests the opposite: American faith is becoming more politically charged, not less. As Christian institutions decline in influence, conservatives find inspiration in the MAGA movement, whose undisputed leader is Trump, a man often portrayed as a kind of new American savior.

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Wood argues that authentic Christian witness “requires a Christian’s primary social loyalty to be in the church, which will cause you to have some guardrails on your national loyalty where you can’t just do anything you want in the name of the nation.” At the memorial, there were some exceptions — most notably Erika Kirk — but the church appeared largely subordinated to the dictates of a political movement defined by righteous anger.

What emerged at the memorial wasn’t so much Christianity shaping politics but politics reshaping Christianity. The question is no longer whether faith should influence political life but whether political l