MTracey podcast - Charlie Kirk Memorial: Christian Revival Sweeping America?

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mtracey.netI watched the Charlie Kirk memorial extravaganza today. I also went to a Charlie Kirk church service last night in suburban New York. So here’s me thinking aloud about all of it.

So, like, yeah, so I guess we should start with Erica and then Trump. I texted you when Erica was giving this series because we were trying to figure out when this thing was going to end. We're like, okay, it's Erica. It must be the last thing. Again, when you stop putting words in my mouth? I wasn't all worked up about when the thing was going to end. I thought, you know, just said you were worked up. I said, I was, because I was trying, we were going to plan this live stream.

So we needed to know, like, approximately what it was going to end. And so, yeah, we saw, I saw Erica. I was relaxed about it. Well, Eric, and then I thought, okay, but then Trump comes out afterwards. And I thought this was, like, I thought this was very odd. A couple people thought it was odd. Some people thought it was no big deal, like, it fell in a log park. I would never even have thought of it.

I mean, I would have always assumed that Trump would be the grand finale. Well, I mean, at most events, right? But this was kind of something different. No, it doesn't matter. Any event was Trump. He's the grand finale. But, okay, if it wasn't Trump, if it was a different president, don't you, do you think he might have not got last?

I don't know. I mean, they brought Erica back out after Trump finished, and they embraced, and then Trump did his funny little dance. So, I mean, that was my favorite part. Did you see that? Yeah, I saw your clip of it. Trump couldn't resist doing his version of the YMCA dance, but for America's Beautiful.

So I'll start by saying something not very, we were kind of cynical guys. and, you know, we don't, we don't express our emotions enough. I think that I'll speak for yourself. I wear mine on my sleeve. We don't express, Bob. We don't express hardwarming emotions enough. I thought it was touching when she said, you know,

Charlie tried to save young men like the one who killed him. And I forgive him and that everyone kind of clapped because that was a good Christian thing to do. I thought that was a nice moment. What did you think? I had no reaction to it at all. I mean, I really didn't. The whole thing is so contrived. The whole thing is so

theatrically presented and gone through so many layers of PR sort of approval and planning that I just can't, I can't summon the ability to have a genuine emotional reaction to it. I'm sorry. I mean, maybe that means that I'm just emotionally numb

or semi-autistic or however people want to characterize it. I think you are. I mean, maybe if I was there in person, I would have had every funeral, every funeral, every memorial is a staged event. Now, this is kind of ridiculous. This is over the top, but this is a political rally. Exactly. I mean, when people try to liken this or try to reprimand people that they should have a similar reaction to this as they would for any run-of-the-mill funeral for some private individual and that you're so callous and disrespectful if you do not engage with this in the same way that you. would engage in just a typical funeral of somebody who died tragically. That's so manipulative. Obviously, this is a massively potent political event. The entire Trump administration pretty much was there.

The entire Republican kind of governing structure was there. This was not just some ordinary funeral or memorial service where certain standards of decorum more propriety would be more incumbent on somebody in terms of not, you know, violating certain kind of standards of behavior or being overly critical or being derogatory. No, I, this is totally different. So I don't even want to hear that, like, there's even any kind of analogy to be drawn here in terms of how normal people normally interact with a memorial service. So I agree with, like, a lot of your approach to analyzing.

the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination. And I think that, you know, like, Democrats do not have to vote for a resolution honoring Charlie Kirk if they don't think he was a great guy. If the resolution says Charlie Kirk was a great civil rights leader of our time or whatever they put in there, and they don't agree with that. They do not have to vote for that. They can even say we disagree with him and we think he was bad for a society. Like, that's fine. Like, it's kind of crazy to try to cancel people or get mad at people for that. still, and, you know, this was political, blah, blah, blah, blah, right with cancel culture. Still, I can still, because maybe I'm just soft-hearted, I can still see there's genuine emotion here. I could get, I could feel genuine emotion, even at a political rally. Like, I could feel like, oh, these people really believe in Barack Obama. Like, I can, I can feel that. Yeah, sure. I mean, collective effervescence is a real phenomenon.

So I'm sure if I was there physically in Arizona at the football stadium and, it's fortunate that the Arizona Cardinals happen to have an away game scheduled this weekend because otherwise the NFL would not change their schedule if an asteroid was hurtling for Earth. They didn't change me after 9-11, et cetera. So that was a happy coincidence, I guess.

But if I was there, right, I wouldn't be just confronting people crassly and challenging them if I could observe that they were having a sincere emotional reaction to something. Like, I'm not, quote, unquote, literally retarded. I know we're all encouraged to use that word. So I guess I'll use it more now, even though I never really liked it. I'm not so retarded that I would just be like barreling through the stadium and, like, starting fights with people or whatever.

Like, I went to a much, much, much smaller scale Charlie Kirk event last night in Rockland County. New York at a, you know, a Protestant church. It's like the Reform Church of America. And, you know, it was a church service, actually. So it was different than this. But, no, it was highly political. I mean, they broke out into, the pastor started ranting about trans and pronouns and abortion. And even if he hadn't gotten to the hot button social issues, it still would have been intrinsically political because Charlie Kirk was a political.

figure. That's why we know about him. We don't know about him because he was a loving father or he had two beautiful children. Okay. So I'm not going to be browbeaten into emphasizing or, you know, foregrounding those aspects of his whole persona in my evaluation of what function this whole spectacle now has in like the American political psyche. But at the same time, last night, it's not as though I was just like, a loose cannon and like running around and just, you know, upbraiding random people who in, who wanted to have like a solemn, prayerful moment of reflection or something. So yeah,

but if I'm just sitting, if I'm just sitting, I'm watching the stream and I see like RFCA Jr. pretending to be some kind of evangelical sermonizer. I'm sorry. I don't feel like I have to resist the urge to ridicule that because it riskly deserves ridicule. And so did a bunch of other things of this event.

I saw your tweet about, RFK and I did but I saw your tweet but I did not listen to it I didn't watch the video let's see what he actually said because I went out

Oh Jesus died at 33 and Charlie died at 31 and they're both changed they have both changed the course of history something like that and Charlie that was because

Charlie surrendered himself to God that's the RFK Jr. You're talking about me give me a break The great paradox that is only by surrender to God

that God's power can flow into our lives and make us effective human beings. Charlie, Christ, died at 33 years old. But he changed the trajectory of history. Charlie died

at 31 years old. Because he had surrendered, he also now has changed the trajectory of history. Stuff is so weird. You know, so at the beginning of the Erica speech, she goes, so she goes

two years ago at America Fest Charlie was talking and he said I surrender my life to Christ and I said to him I think I'm getting this right she said America Fest or something and I told him God may call you on that one day

and then this happened and now like he's returned to God did you see this? I mean it kind of blends together I'm sure I saw she said that two years ago Charlie proclaiming who's surrendering his life to God.

And then she was like, God might take you up on that. And then a couple weeks ago, God was like, okay. Oh, is that why you say that she claimed? I didn't hear her say that God killed him. That's, no, basically it's like, she's like, because you said

you would surrender to God. God came down and basically, you know, surrendering to God in this sort of parlance means surrendering to a life of serving God or something that's fitting. But then she says when he was killed, she was like on September 10th, like God, you know, like, you know, cash just, it was something like God, you know, fulfilled that or something like that here. Let me, let me get it.

Okay, whatever. At the service that I went to last night, the pastor, at one point misspoke or slipped up and said that Charlie was 33 years old when he died because I'm pretty sure he subconsciously was conflating him with Jesus. Okay. But that's the level that we're at now in terms of the exaltation, which. Just like, really? Let's listen to this, because this is at the beginning of the speech. I found it already. Just a few miles from here, two years ago at America Fest, 2023,

Charlie delivered a speech on stage for our TPP USA Faith event. Charlie loves speaking off the cuff. He's very good at that. Without a script. So I personally didn't know what he was going to say. and what he chose to speak about that day was his submission to the will of God.

He quoted one of his favorite Bible verses Isaiah... What did he convert to Islam? Here I am, Lord. Send me. Aminous. So what is she trying to allude to... Wait, you got to let her...

You got to continue. You got to... Yeah, you got to listen. After Charlie finished, I met him backstage. And I spoke to him, and I'll never forget this. I said, Charlie, baby, please talk to me next time before you say that statement.

Because when you say something like that, there is so much power in that verse. When you say, here I am, Lord, use me. God will take you up on that. And he did with Charlie. Okay. See? That was an accurate summary. Was it not? Not really. I mean, I would not translate that to Erica Kirk says God killed Charlie Kirk.

No, it is God used him. It just means that it was part of God's divine plan. Like, his whole life was part of God's divine plan, including his death. Yes, God will take you up on that. Eleven days ago. Wait, let's here. It's more specific. I mean, these people, you realize these people believe that God. Look, 11 days ago, she says God accepted that total story. She's explicitly connecting it to the assassination. She's saying, he said, God, use me.

Yeah, because everything that happens is part of God's plan. Right. So she's explicitly saying, she's all. You're aware that these people believe that the God of the Bible is omnipotent and omniscient, right? She's, she is saying, she's almost saying, or she is saying that because he sent these words, and then God was like, okay, I guess it's okay to take this guy. I mean, I think that's a little bit too literal. You're telling me it's literal. You love this. You love this literal. You love these interpretations. I think that's a pretty straightforward. I think it's a pretty straightforward

summary of what you said. Okay, you don't find it that. It's all. It's, okay, fine. If you, whatever. Um, okay, so a broader point is that this, I, I think I texted you this, but watching this really did make me want to become like Michelle Goldberg, hysterically screeching in the New York Times about Christian nationalism or something, which I often find tedious, a little bit histrionic. But this was like, this was quasi state religion. The entire administration was there. The entire, I guess, congressional leadership more or less was there. This was the governing apparatus that is currently in power, taking part. in an incredibly uninhibited expression of hyper-zealous Christian sort of proselyization.

And, you know, I'm not saying, I'm not saying I would like run out and file a lawsuit, alleging that it violated separation of church and state or something. I just kind of am increasingly of the mind that there needs to be. some revival, if we're talking about a spiritual or Christian revival that's underway, there should be some revival of like secularism as some kind of ideal or aspiration in public life or just in private life anywhere. Now, I don't go around evangelizing for secularism or atheism. I was maybe slightly more into that when I was younger. It's not a huge part of my identity. But I do think that this stuff does promote very sort of superstitious thinking

and sort of dysregulated thinking. And not that there's anything you can do about it in terms of whether people want to exercise their religion privately. But if it's getting the imprimatur now of the state, then I don't know. I do think that there's an extra layer of scrutiny that ought to be applied in terms of what's actually being promulgated here. And I don't find it, you know, I do find it troubling in a certain way. Because like anybody, like, I guarantee you, if I were to say anything that was like seen as atheistic in nature right now on, on social media, I'd have a million people saying, oh, go back to Reddit, wear your fedora, et cetera, as if like there hasn't been, you know, centuries of secularists or even. atheists sort of critiquing these prevailing modes of sort of superstitious thought. And I don't know.

It was just, it's especially sort of jarring to me, having watched all that. And we're all just like supposed to think it's totally normal, for example, that at this quasi-stage funeral, a pastor got up and said, okay, if you're not a believer in Christianity, please, please stand. and you and please instantly convert to Christianity. Profess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. I don't know.

I mean, I just feel like there needs to be a little bit more critical detachment from that sort of thing. And maybe it's not the most important issue in the world. I don't know. But like if we're all supposed to like sit back and awestruck reverence of an event like this, but not comment on like the sort of math, credulity and even mass sort of hysteria that it promotes.

And we're all supposed to like, we're all being told now, right, that there's a mass revival underway at this event I was out last night. The guy, the pastor was saying there's a, you know, a Christian revival sweeping New York and the nation. And it's a new great awakening. So stuff like that, like, stipulate it. Let's stipulate that it's true that that's happening. I don't think that there's any real, like, empirical basis for just like, for just

claiming that it's happening. I think people that just kind of want it, want it to say. that it's happening based on like maybe some anecdotes or like somebody went to church and like they claim if the parking lot was more full than typical Sundays or something. But let's say it did happen. And there was like a massive surge in this kind of Christian belief that would have all kinds of downstream political ramifications, cultural ramifications. It would seriously affect how society is governed. And I don't I don't just, I don't buy this idea that we're all supposed to just kind of. Well, there's just, it's back and just like kind of mindlessly sort of celebrate it.

Yeah. I mean, they've been leaning hard into all forms of identitarianism. And so it's like this stuff where J.D. Vance, like, who is like kind of captures the beating card, even the ones who are not Christians, they love doing this stuff. So J.D. Vance will be like, you know, people want to tell me my, you know, that I can't have an opinion or whatever while my ancestors, you know, are buried in this country, many generations deep. He'll say stuff like that. And then he will say when he's hosting the Charlie Kirk Show, he'll say like Jesus Christ, right? They'll bring it, they'll say specific, it's very sectarian. It's not like a non, you know, like God, which can apply to, you know, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus.

Yeah, this was not the God of like, you know, Thomas Jefferson or something, which was just deism. Remember what the appeal to the unknown or the, the numinous, right? Remember what Hamid Dylan during the, is that how you say her name during the RNC did that like Hindu prayer and they all went crazy? Like that's unthinkable today. Like first for the Hindu thing. And then second because like anything that is not Christian, like a Muslim prayer. I want to know if when Charlie Kirk's pastor, I mean, apparently this was his personal pastor and they had just been like, they said they were just in South Korea like the week before that he was killed. I don't know, saving persecuted Christians or something.

something. I'm not sure who, but what Christians are being persecuted in South Korea. Not a few. I don't know. But are they being persecuted in South Korea? I'm not sure. I don't think they went to North Korea. But anyway, I want to know when this pasture implored all the non-believers to stand up and profess Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior and then also told them to take out their phones and scan a QR code and they'll get all the resources that they need. I want to know if Stephen Miller stood up and converted, right? Because like, wouldn't he, like, if he was obeying the command from the pulpit. I watched your, I watch your clip. And it wasn't like everyone who's not, it was something

along the line. It was more. If you're not, if you haven't yet accepted Christ as your safer, he's imploring you to stand up. And it was like if you would like to do so now. There was like something like that. It wasn't like a command. It wasn't saying everyone had to. Okay. I mean, he can't legally command you to do it.

I know, but he doesn't even, he didn't even say like, you should do this or this is what you have to do. Okay. And you encouraged it. He encouraged this. Sure. Yes. So, so did, was Stephen Miller encouraged to stand up? Yeah.

Because he was saying, no, initially he said if you're not a believer, stand up. And then if you would like to profess Christ as your savior, then you can do it. Yeah. Okay. I mean, these people are Christians. You're right. I mean, now you were telling me, like, these people believe crazy things that I'm telling you, yes, they are Christians and they take this stuff. They take this stuff.

No, but this is Christianity generically. That's Christian. This is a politicized, you say, hyper politicized, peculiarly American form of evangelical Christianity that can be. uh, syncretic in the sense that other denominations that wouldn't necessarily consider themselves, uh, um,

evangelical can still be brought into the fold. And then what happens is they all kind of melt together in to the same sort of evangelical presentation. So, JD, J.D. Vance is supposedly like a recent, recent Catholic convert.

Yeah. So this, this sort of public profession of faith or whatever would be very much alien to the kind of Catholic. He seems to subscribe by it. But here's what you see what he said in his speech? He says, I always felt a little uncomfortable talking about my faith in public, as much as I love the Lord.

And as much as it was an important part of my life, I have talked more about Jesus Christ in the past two weeks than I have my entire time in public life. So basically, I mean, the note that I jot down is kind of like all roves lead to this sort of just mishmash of evangelical fervor when it comes to the politicized. right-wing variant. Yeah, by the way, you know, another person who was implored to convert to Christianity besides Stephen Miller was Ushah Vance,

who was not a Catholic. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. I just recently read an interview about this where she hasn't joined his religion, so it's very kind of, it is, do you agree with me, by the way? Like, you couldn't do a Hindu prayer.

I thought everybody was telling us tonight, like, the man is supposed to be the spiritual leader of his house. It all just goes out the way, whatever's convenient at the time. the, so the, you agree with me. So like,

like, okay, like you couldn't have a Hindu prayer at like a Republican. They wouldn't, they wouldn't do it anymore. And I also think that like,

even the Muslims for Trump thing during the campaign, maybe just because it was campaigns. Well, and that was pure cynicism. Yeah, that was stupid. But I do feel like,

I do feel like you couldn't even do that. Like, you couldn't even have like Muslims come up on stage and saying, we're Muslims part of this. I feel like it's so sectarian now. Oh. It's so, like, Christian and so chauvinistic that you can't even. I mean, I'm sure.

I could picture Trump at some event where they could, they would do, I don't know, I can do benediction or something like that. I could. I could. But, but, or like a, some kind of multi-faith, you know, prayer recital. I don't know. I could still see that happening. I think there's Christians.

No, because, but, but this was a specifically evangelical Christian event. in the likeness of Charlie Kirk, right? So this is distinct from some kind of official event that Trump might hold where he'll just, you know, throw a bone to some Muslim or Hindu or whomever who likes Trump, you know, I could still see that happening because, like, I mean, the reason why he appeared on stage alongside those Muslims in Michigan or whatever,

the imams, was because it was politically expedient. And so if there's a politically expedient reason why Trump would have to do something like that. I'm sure he'll still do it. Yeah. Anyways. Yeah, what else? What did you think about Tucker?

You get this hummus eaters in Jerusalem thing? I mean, I guess people are saying it's a blood libel against Jews. I don't know. It's not a pub libel against Jews. He is dog whistling to the conspiracy theory to think Israel killed Charlie Kirk. Because he says something like that. He's like, okay, I'm thinking back, like my favorite story, these hummus eaters. in Jerusalem. You know, there's always somebody who says, we got to kill that guy. And then,

you know, they do that. And then his message, you know, becomes stronger, right? So it's kind of this analogy to the homeless eaters, killed Jesus. They made him stronger. And presumably the homeless eaters also killed Charlie Kirk. And now he's becoming stronger. I thought, I don't think that's crazy. I think he knows what he's doing. I don't know. I mean, I was tuning out when I heard him go into the biblical analogy. What stood out to me more that he said, was, he said the following. Charlie Kirk was, quote, doing the thing that people in charge hate the most,

which is calling on them to repent. I mean, really, you're amongst the elites of the elites in terms of the people who are governing the United States at the time. The Republicans control the presidency, the Congress, arguably the Supreme Court, but definitely the presidency and the Congress. And they're all literally there.

So Charlie Kirk was a thorn in the side to those in power. That's what they have to say in order to promote this whole martyrdom myth that's in the making, right? Well, I think what's tough. Can you be a martyr if you're just a functionary of those in power? That would be a weird kind of martyrdom, right? A martyr is supposed to be somebody who is a dissenter or somebody who's being oppressed. So they do want to talk as though he's oppressed. this pastor last night was talking about how Charlie Kirk, you know, went around, you know, he was so brave because he would proclaim all these unpopular ideas.

I'm like, okay, so what's one of these unpopular ideas? I mean, supporting Donald Trump. Didn't he win the election last year? So it couldn't be that marginal of a position, right, for him to be proclaimed. I didn't really get a great answer. But that's a thing. if they're going to, if they're going to now inaugurate him, if they're going

to induct him into the pantheon of slain martyrs, they have to kind of concoct this whole patina of him having been oppressed.