Recently a Christian brother of mine who disagrees with my stance against political Christianity and Christian Nationalism sent me a video of Charlie Kirk and ask me what my thoughts were. I felt like my response is worth posting here.
Let me first say, I have no desire to trash Charlie Kirk here. He was a brilliant man and arguably one of the best debaters of our time. He also was passionate about his faith and politics, and I respect and admire his bravery. The horrible act that was committed was uncalled for and I take no pleasure in it. My reason for posting this is because it reveals an issue in today’s Christian circles which needs to be addressed.
Honestly, while I am using a video of Kirk for this post, it is not really about him. I could go to YouTube and find thousands of videos of political Christian leaders who make these same errors. This just happens to be the one I was asked to give my thoughts on.
While Kirk was a brilliant man with an uncanny ability to pull facts, examples, and scripture out his mind at the drop of a hat, I took issue with his theology and the way he interpreted scripture. But you can’t blame him. His error was the result of the evangelical movement which taught him. A movement which has been warping the truth of scripture for decades to excuse its anti-biblical actions and beliefs. So, I don’t look down on Kirk. How could I when for many years I believed the same things he says in this video. Instead, I am saddened that such a charismatic man who stood up for his faith and reached millions of people never learned how to truly interpret scripture.
PLEASE NOTE: If you read the above statement and were angered by it, please remember these words before commenting; disagree and disrespect are not synonyms. My stating what I disagree with him on is not disrespecting him, nor do I have that intention. However, there are some flaws in his biblical ecclesiology and hermeneutics that need to be addressed because they are rampant in today’s evangelical world.
Please take a few moments and watch this video before continuing:
Right out the gate Charlie revealed how his worldview shaped his biblical interpretation rather than the Bible shaping his worldview. The young man at the mic asks Charlie to explain why he supports Christian nationalism and Kirk referred to Jeremiah 29:7 which he quoted as saying, “Demand the welfare of your nation that you are in because your welfare is tied to your nation’s welfare” but that’s not a good proof text for his argument, neither is that the correct quote.
I cannot find a single translation that reads, “Demand the welfare”. The overwhelming majority of them say, “Seek” while a few say, “Pursue”, “work for”, or “pray for”. You can look for yourself here. There is a big difference between demanding something, which is aggressive and assumes authority, and seeking, pursuing, or praying for something. These are much gentler words, more of a cooperation than a demand and they certainly don’t imply we should force change. (If anyone knows of a translation that does read ‘demand’ please let me know.)
Now, in full disclosure, the Hebrew word used here can also be translated as “require” which could be used to argue that Kirk is right, but in context of the chapter that would be wrong as I will lay out here.
First a little background
Kirk opens his response using the prophet Jeremiah which is interesting to me. Jeremiah was a prophet who was despised by the people of Israel because he regularly spoke out against their sin and gave prophecies of God’s judgment on them. That is why when God called Jeremiah, he warned him the people would despise him (Jeremiah 1:19). He faced opposition so much that at one point he swore he would never speak God’s words again but eventually found it was “like a fire shut up in my bones” and he could not keep quiet (Jeremiah 20:9).
That is why I do not believe Christian Nationalists and political Christians would have an accepting ear for Jeremiah’s message if he were alive today and Jeremiah chapter 29 is a good example why.
You see, Jeremiah 29:7 was part of a prophecy given to the Jews during Babylonian captivity. It was written to comfort God’s people letting them know He is in control and they would one day be delivered. The thing is, God took credit for their exile. We see that in verse four when God opens his statement with, "Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who whom I caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon". It is notable here that when Kirk quoted the verse, he left out part of it which also credits God for their captivity. The full verse reads, “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”
You see, God makes it clear that the nation is in exile because He put them there. It is His will, and this does not sit well with the Christian Nationalist ideology. If God was the architect of Israel Babylonian exile, then why would he have said these words which Kirk interprets to mean we should fight for a Christian nation? He didn’t and that is why this verse was a pour choice but there are more reasons.
Donate Through Buy Me Coffee
Get Comfortable
Prior to God speaking Jeremiah 29:7, he said, "build houses and dwell in them. Plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands so that they may bear sons and daughters that you may be increased there and not diminish.” (verses 5-6). It is with this foundation; God then says, “Seek the welfare of the city”. This is the nation that brutally attacked Israel, killed thousands of people, overthrew their government, and instead of calling for the people to revolt, God is saying to seek its peace.
However, as there are in every generation, there were false prophets who told the people what they wanted to hear. Some of them were saying to fight against Babylon, but God’s response to that was, “Do not let your prophets and your diviners deceive you…For they prophesy falsely to you in my name” (Jeremiah 29:8-9). This chapter does not contain those prophesies but in Jeremiah 28 we find one of the prophets named Hananiah who claimed within two years the people would be restored to their land. God sets the record straight in chapter 29 when he declares, “After seventy years are completed in Babylon” He will perform His “Good word toward you and cause you to return” (Jeremiah 29:10). In other words, get comfortable and enjoy your time here because it’s gonna be a while.
Jeremiah chapter 29 also contains a rebuke and warning to those who try to revolt. To understand this, you must first know a little background of the captivity. When Nebuchadnezzar overtook Israel, he removed king Jehoiachin and placed Zedekiah on the thrown of Judah as a puppet king. Despite Jeremiah’s warning to Zedekiah to submit to the bondage of Babylon (Jeremiah 27:12) he listened to the false prophets and rebelled. God expresses his anger toward this when He promises “I will pursue them with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, and I will trouble them…because they have not heeded My words” (verses 18,19). I want to be sure you don’t miss that God said if they try to revolt, He will punish them.
The biblical truth that God occasionally brings persecution and oppression upon His people does not sit well with the Christian Nationalism belief we should fight for our rights and against persecution. That is why you will never hear those verses in their mouths. This is the problem with Christian Nationalism and people who believe the Christian’s job is to be political; they look for scripture to prove their viewpoint while ignoring those that disagree with it. As a result, they hear a verse that seems to support their argument and rather than reading it in context, they blast it out to the world as proof.
Sadly, most of the American church hears them and believe it at face value without doing their due diligence to be sure it is correct. This is partly because we do a lousy job of teaching our members how to study and interpret the Bible. This is dangerous and leads to error and heresy in the Church which is why millions of Christians have fallen for the Christian Nationalism heresy. We must do better.
The Daniel, Esther, and Nehemiah Argument
The next thing we hear Kirk use to justify his nationalist beliefs is when he says, “Daniel prayed for his nation, Esther and Mordecai were counselors to their king, Nehemiah, Daniel, Jeremiah, Joseph, Jacob, I could go on”. The thing is none of those actually support the Christian Nationalist belief we should have a theocracy. Yes, they prayed, they fasted, they counseled, as we too should do for our nation, but they did not overtake the government and run it as a theocracy. That is because Babylon was not their land, Israel was.
On a side note, America is not our land either, we are just passing through on our way to the promised land.
Kirk continues by saying the Bible is an “explicitly political book” because Moses wrote a book about how to set up a government. However, that book was for the nation of Israel, not America or any other nation. America is not the new Israel and nowhere in the New Testament are Christians called to set up a government under those laws. That is because Christ’s kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). Instead, we are called to submit to governing authorities (Romans 13:1) because they are appointed by God. New flash, this included Biden and Obama as well, not only Trump. But I digress.
The stories of the nation of Israel’s birth, establishment, and wars are not prescriptive but descriptive. Think about this, if we are to run our country the way the Israelites ran theirs then we need to be fighting Democrats with a sling and a perfectly placed stone in their forehead. Then each election season we must march around the Capital building for seven days straight, so the walls fall. Or, maybe we need to grab the jawbone of an ass and slay a few liberal activists.
It’s absurd, right? But, if you are going to say we have to do it the way the Israelites did it, that is what we must do.
The truth is, you will not find a single proof in the New Testament where Jesus, the Apostles, or the early church took up the mantle of political change. It was not until the fourth century Christianity began gaining influence and became the official religion of Rome. It is interesting to note here that the Roman empire fell in the fifth century, a little over 100 years after becoming a Christian government.
Share
New Testament vs Old Testament
As we move on in the video, the young man pointed out that all of Kirk’s references were Old Testament. Kirk responded by asking the gentleman if he believed the New Testament was greater than the Old Testament to which he replied by saying, “It is because the revelation of Christ dictates how we interpret the Old Testament” and that the Old testament is a “type and shadow of things to come and now we live in the full revelation of Christ”. Kirk’s response to this was, “That is such a dangerous theology”. So, which one is correct?
What the young man was saying is correct. The New Testament is greater in the sense that it is the completion of what began in the Old Testament. Romans 10:4 tells us, “Christ is the end of the law in order to bring righteousness to everyone who believes”. Notice the word end is used here. It does not say Christ came to continue the law. This does not mean we are to ignore the Old Testament, as Kirk implied the young man meant though. Instead, it means we can’t fully understand the Old Testament until we have the New Testament which brings the truth of the Old Testament into full revelation.
But Kirk disagrees and quotes Jesus’ words, ‘I have not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it” here to debunk the gentleman, so let’s dive into that scripture.
The word for fulfill Jesus used means ‘to make full’. It implies that something was missing or incomplete. Unfinished is better word here because the Old Testament showed us the problem – we are sinners and can never be righteous enough to enter heaven – while Christ’s death completed it by ushering in God’s righteousness and imparting it to us. This is what Christ meant on the Cross when He said, “It is finished”. He was not simply saying, I’m dead, but saying the completion of God’s salvation of His people is complete.
As the gentleman said, the Old Testament is a type and shadow of Christ. When it is read properly, it is read with the story of Christ in mind. For instance, take the exodus of Israel out of Egypt;
They were in bondage to Egypt
God called them out through Moses
They crossed the Red Sea
They wandered in the wilderness
They crossed over Jordan
Then entered the promised land.
Now, how is that an example of Christ? Let’s look at it in terms of salvation and the life a believer;
We were in bondage to sin (Egypt)
God sent a messenger to call us out (Moses)
We crossed through the blood of Christ’s (the Red Sea)
We go through life being continually sanctified (the wilderness)
One day we will cross through the river of death (the Jordan)
Then we will enter heaven (the promised land).
These type of foreshadows are throughout the Old Testament, but we must read it with the end in mind, meaning Christ. Far too often, we read it with our beliefs in mind and not with the desire to see Christ. This is what is dangerous and leads to the misapplication and incorrect interpretation of scripture which is so rampant in the Christian Nationalist ideology.
Subscribe now
Build My Church or Build My Government
Next, we see Charlie ask the gentleman to complete a verse, and says, “Christ our Lord said, on this rock build my what?” to which the gentleman responded “church” to which Kirk said, “Wrong”. According to Kirk, the word used by Christ does not mean church but government structure. However, when we look at the different interpretations of the Bible, not a single one uses the word government or anything like it. (You can verify this here.) As best I can tell, with the exception of four translations, every one of them uses the word ‘church’. Are we to believe that 2000 years of biblical scholars got it wrong, but Kirk got it right? Absolutely not.
The failure of Kirk here, as it was quite often, is he did not apply the biblical law of hermeneutics which says that scripture interprets scripture, meaning to find out what Jesus meant, we must look at how it was used in other scripture.
Throughout the New Testament, when this word is applied to the people of God, with the exception of few verses which are speaking of the children of Israel being separate from the other nations, it is interpreted as church (Acts 2:47; 1 Cor 6:4; Phil 3:6) Church of God (1 Cor 10:32; Gal 1:13; 1 Tim 3:5) or the Body of Christ (Eph 1:22; Col 1:18). The only times it is used in a political or legal sense is when it is not referring to God’s people but an actual legal assembly (Acts 19:39) or to refer to a group of people rioting (Acts 19:32,41).
The New Testament is filled with examples where secular words which were applied to a spiritual truth. Paul used a soldier’s armor (Phil 6:11), said we are slaves to righteousness (Romans 6:15-23) and compared our work for Christ to the slave/master relationship (Col 3:23). But we don’t have to look any further than the end of the verse Kirk used to see this. Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell won’t prevail against it”. He used gates of hell because that phrase was popular in Greek mythology so he knew it would drive the point home.
Why Should We Not?
The last statement Kirk made was, “Why should we not care about changing government to be more Christlike?” The answer is we should, but we should do it not through theocracy but by leading our nation to salvation on soul at a time. If we do that then God promises He will write His laws upon our hearts, and they will be His people (Jeremiah 31:33). The great thing about God writing his law on our hearts as opposed to our government compelling us to obey laws is God’s law on the hearts of His people is permanent. It is not based on the whims of wicked hearts and an easily swayed populous. And no, I am not saying we should not pass laws, so please don’t ask that. I am saying that should not be the ultimate goal. After all, God himself set the Mosaic governmental laws Kirk boasts is proof for Christian Nationalism. How did that work out? It didn’t fix the problem. The people were still wicked and deceitful.
That’s why Christ had to die for our salvation. Governmental laws don’t change hearts, the gospel does.
A Call to Proper Study
Unfortunately, when you look at Charlie Kirk’s ecclesiology and hermeneutics, they come up severely lacking and fall apart under scrutiny. Again, I am not discounting his brilliance. He was a very smart man and an excellent debater. However, he looked to the Bible for the wrong purposes. While the Bible certainly should be used as a guide to daily living, it not so much written for us as it is written to reveal God’s plan of salvation and His attributes.
Charlie Kirk’s failure to rightly divide the Word of God allowed him to fall for the Christian Nationalist heresy. I pray that you will dig deeper and do some serious word studies and contextual readings of biblical text. Invest in a Strongs Concordance, a Thompson Chain Reference Bible, and any other time proven study helps to let you get past the ‘milk of the Word’ and start eating the meat of serious Biblical learning.
But most importantly, do this while asking yourself “what you should I believe?” instead of making Kirk’s mistake and looking to it to prove what you already believe.
Get full access to The Not So Political Protestant at thenotsopoliticalprotestant.substack.com/subscribe
