The headlines in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk memorial were as predictable as they were hysterical. "Christian nationalism's biggest moment," declared Mother Jones. The Guardian warned of a dangerous religious-political fusion. NPR framed it as a galvanizing moment for the movement.
There's only one lingering problem with their assessment: There was no "Christian nationalism" (as the Left defines it) on display at the Kirk memorial. No pastor called for a theocracy. No politician demanded we scrap the Constitution. What people saw was a Christian memorial service for a man who lived a life of faith and political engagement. They saw the inevitable intersection of faith and politics. There was prayer, worship, and yes, patriotic expression - the kind of mixture that has been, contrary to what the Left loves to pretend, part of American public life since its beginning. To call that "Christian nationalism" is not just sloppy, it's dishonest.
At the heart of this issue is the progressive pretension that society can be morally neutral. But it can't. Every society operates on some moral code. The only question is whose morality gets written into law.
And make no mistake, the Left legislates morality constantly. Climate change regulations are framed as a moral duty to "save the planet." Healthcare expansion is cast as an obligation to "care for the least of these." Immigration policy debates invoke the "teachings of Jesus" about welcoming the stranger. These are moral appeals, explicitly tied to a vision of right and wrong.
That is no different in principle from conservatives citing Scripture in defense of marriage, family, or the sanctity of life. Just as the Left is currently rushing to insist that "both sides" are guilty of political violence, both sides are seeking to order society around a moral framework. The difference is that progressives insist their framework is "neutral," while caricaturing the Right's framework as some authoritarian theocracy.
So when a theologian like Frank Turek preaches the gospel at a memorial service and the crowd sings How Great is Our God followed by the National Anthem, that's not Christian nationalism. It's simply faith and patriotism expressed together, as they long have been in American life. To claim otherwise is to weaponize a label in order to shut down public expressions of Christianity.
The truth is unavoidable: You can't build or sustain a society without legislating morality. The Left has its code, the Right has its code, and both appeal to transcendent authority.
The question is not whether morality will shape our laws, but which morality will.
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