But today conservative Christians are eager to tell a different story, and Charlie Kirk’s memorial service on Sunday — a gathering of political figures where politics was subordinated to preaching, culminating in Erika Kirk’s extraordinarily moving message of forgiveness for her husband’s killer — was a stage for a narrative of revival, recovery, conversion, Christian strength.
Trump was there, of course, and still very much his un-Christian self. (His off-script comments about his inability to feel anything but hatred for his own enemies were funny in the Trumpian way, but also plainly true.) But the idea that the future belongs to a post-Christian right, a subject we’ve considered in this newsletter, seemed not just absent but almost absurd, as the leaders of the Republican Party lined up for a memorial that doubled as an evangelical revival, complete with altar calls.
Religious history invites us to expect the unexpected, and there’s no reason to rule out a future where Kirk’s martyrdom provides the impetus for a genuine revival. The story of the last five years, at least in my reading of the religious tea leaves, is one of secularization arrested, and a culture reconsidering religion — but not yet becoming notably more religious. That’s an equilibrium that could be tipped by dramatic events or examples, and to the extent that Kirk is remembered and emulated primarily for his faith, maybe we’ve just seen a tipping point.
Christianity After Charlie Kirk:https://t.co/BDyr2lTfW0
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) September 23, 2025