The New Christianity Has Its First Martyr

By Joni Halpern

It was said of the vitriolic commentator, Charlie Kirk, that he died for his faith, making him a Christian martyr. Having never listened to his performance before, I decided to do so, thinking perhaps his was the voice of Christian heroism. It has been said he was a man who sacrificed his life because he chose to follow in the footsteps of Christ himself, a path seen by many Christians and non-Christians alike as a challenging but inspiring quest to understand the power of love.

What I discovered from Charlie Kirk’s program was a Christian message I did not recognize. It was a forceful commentary spoken by a “preacher,” but bearing no resemblance to the compassionate life of that first and truest martyr of Christianity. Instead, it was an icy, sharply worded voice that cut like a butcher knife into the already inflamed flesh of my countrymen, drawing blood with every strike.

It was the New Christianity, a narrative woven with the dominant themes of fear and vengeance. A “Get them before they get you” message that invites followers to the precipice of taking arms, and then leaves them at the edge, their toes gripping the ledge, their arms flailing for balance, waiting for the signal to leap into the abyss of civil war.

It is not just Mr. Kirk, but many others in the New Christianity who are talking up the hatred and “otherness” of fellow Americans, like a coach giving a pep talk to stir the hearts of a team that conceives of itself as losers to those who have no meritorious right to a level playing field. And whose rebuke must eventually be handed to them in bloody battle — a championship game of civil war among 340 million members of a nation-state that once took pride in our foundational preamble, “We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union…”

It is not the private words of love and family that perhaps were spoken by these new prophets in the hallowed secrecy of their family lives. It is their public words that aim to tear at the souls of people who, given a chance, might easily turn to the Christianity of old, the one that embraced the stranger, the sick, the imprisoned, the prodigal. But the torrent of words from the New Christianity is nonstop and filled with bitterness and anger at enemies not defined by fact, but grouped into categories of uncontested judgment. The “left,” the “liberals,” the “immigrants,” “Islam,” and on and on.

We see in the public words of Kirk an example of this inflammatory rhetoric. And it has led the New Christianity to its first new martyr.

“It’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”

In the sacred books of the Old Christianity, there are no words in support of gun rights.

“America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever. We should be unafraid to do that.”

My grandfather came from Southern Italy as a young man, invested his muscle, sweat and loyalty to urban factories for 80 cents a day, raising a family with his immigrant wife, sending his four sons to fight in World War II, following his Catholic faith until the end of his days. He cherished his certificate of naturalization, having earned it for pennies a day but grateful, always grateful, for the sense of belonging he felt he had earned in his new homeland. He was a stranger, and America had taken him in, just like the story in the sacred books of Christianity.

Today, he would not be welcome. The stranger accepted and cared for under the Old Christianity is no longer welcome.

“The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white.”

My father and my uncles were lifelong Democrats. “Why?” I asked my dad one day when I was in middle school. “Because the Democrats are for the working man,” said my dad, a carpenter. “Republicans are for big businesses.” Over the years, some members of my family became Republican, some Independent. But it was never because of color.

In the old Christianity, the sheep and the goats were not distinguished by political party or color. Apparently, God loved everyone, and welcomed them to his eternal home based on their fidelity to a love of Him and their fellow human beings.

“America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America.”

How strange that in the religion classes of years gone by, we celebrated the Constitution for its promise to let all people in America follow their own faith. And what a surprise it might be to followers of Charlie Kirk to visit some of these “large, dedicated Islamic areas” and find themselves among some of the most gracious, god-fearing, decent-hearted people in our communities. To treat such people as enemies strikes a discordant note in the Christianity of old.

“Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.”

Yikes. Kirk’s words seem designed to call forth an armed response to a deep-seated survival fear. Who are these people he calls the “left” who are colluding with Muslims? Among the left are millions of members of many other religions, including Christians. Has Christ turned his back on these Christians too? Has Christ invited his followers to deprive Muslims of the compassion, kindness and love he said all human kind deserves?

“We’ve been warning about the rise of Islam here on the show, to great amount of backlash. We don’t care, that’s what we do here. And we said that Islam is not compatible with western civilization.”

Which part of Western Civilization that might be is still a mystery, for Muslim immigrants in America become good neighbors, good friends, good workers, and good
community members. When they become citizens, they vote. They serve us a social workers; caregivers in of children, the elderly and the sick; doctors; lawyers; business owners; community organizers; housekeepers; teachers and academicians, and more. Many of them stand up for justice, not only for themselves but for others in our communities.

“The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.”

Truth be told, the replacement of low-wage white workers in the fields and ranches of the U.S. has been taking place over several decades. The same is true in many occupations where the work is backbreaking, the wages paltry, the benefits few or non-existent, and the living conditions appalling.

Poultry factories, vegetable fields, hotel laundries and housekeeping, restaurant kitchens, slaughterhouses – places where native-born Americans do not want their children to work, and where their children do not want to work. These are the places where white Americans have been replaced.

Where once there were “Okies” or Black Americans to wear out their bodies and souls providing affordable chicken legs and cheap lettuce to a hungry public, the jobs indeed have gone to “something different,” to people of color who have run from war and violence, or from crushed economies, and who often have suffered immense losses of loved ones and livelihoods long before being allowed into the U.S.

In the old Christianity, we once understood the common prayer “Give us this day our daily bread…” No more. In the New Christianity, the bread competitors must be sorted by color.

Charlie Kirk has redefined Christian martyrdom. No longer need a Christian pursue the lifelong effort to learn what it means to love one another. In the New Christianity, when life does not go our way, we can blame the innocent, the outsider, the stranger, the “something different,” as the cause of all of our unmet needs and desires. It does not matter if what we say about these generalized categories of our fellow humans is true. If we believe it is true, that is enough.

Welcome to the New Christianity and its new Christian martyr.