But today conservative Christians are eager to tell a different story, and Charlie Kirk\u2019s memorial service on Sunday \u2014 a gathering of political figures where politics was subordinated to preaching, culminating in Erika Kirk\u2019s extraordinarily moving message of forgiveness for her husband\u2019s killer \u2014 was a stage for a narrative of revival, recovery, conversion, Christian strength.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Religious history invites us to expect the unexpected, and there\u2019s no reason to rule out a future where Kirk\u2019s 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 \u2014 but not yet becoming notably more<\/em> religious. That\u2019s 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\u2019ve just seen a tipping point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read it all<\/a>.<\/p> Christianity After Charlie Kirk:https:\/\/t.co\/BDyr2lTfW0<\/a><\/p>— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) September 23, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote>