Jesus, Not Politics: Re-Centering Christianity in a Polarized Age

TL;DR: American Christianity has elevated politics to the measure of discipleship, making activism the proof of faith on both left and right. Using the polarizing reactions to Charlie Kirk’s death as a case study, this essay argues that culture wars cannot produce revival. Drawing on Andrew Root, James Davison Hunter, Karl Barth (via Jason Micheli), and others, it calls for a recovery of trust in God’s action rather than our own political efforts. The church’s task is to de-politicize Christianity and proclaim that Jesus alone is Lord.

I recognized Charlie Kirk as a political figure, not a religious or theological one. So after his awful killing, I was surprised to see him lifted up as both a political and religious hero—even a martyr. But perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised.

Charlie Kirk’s death has become polarizing because Kirk was, in many ways, a prototype of the way American Christianity has come to see political engagement as the pinnacle of discipleship. Kirk was a great Christian, not simply because he had a deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ, but because he was politically active.

We have made politics into religion.

What we desperately need is to de-politicize Christianity.

In death, Kirk has become a canvas for our hopes and fears about what faithfulness should—or should not—look like: a figure lifted up as a model or cast down as a warning.

I never cared for what seemed to be Kirk’s style—brash, argumentative, seemingly more interested in “owning” opponents than seeking good-faith dialogue. It’s a posture that has been effective on the political right, and one increasingly mirrored across the spectrum.

And this is the point: within American Christianity today, the efficacy of discipleship is too often judged by political activism, whether right or left. Andrew Root laments in Faith Formation in a Secular Age that “too often, in both evangelical and mainline churches, faith formation has been seen as the process of raising consciousness” (51).

Texas legislator and US Senate candidate James Talarico has risen to prominence among the political left, and while I admire his boldness in claiming and sharing his faith, I even see within him the unquestioned assumption that true faith must be political. Recalling his grandfather’s Baptist teaching, noted that Christianity is a “simple” religion—it is about loving God and loving neighbor. But in reflecting on his own mainline church upbringing, he suggested that the obvious way to live out love of neighbor was through social activism—an example of how even well‑intentioned teaching can end up politicizing Christianity.

Sociologist James Davison Hunter has warned that “the consequences of the whole-hearted and uncritical embrace of politics by Christians has been, in effect, to reduce Christian faith to a political ideology and various Christian denominations and para-church organizations to special interest groups.” Root presses the point further in The Pastor in a Secular Age: “the temptation is for the pastor to focus on either foundationalism or politics” (163). And Hannah Arendt observed that in every age there is a temptation to let politics take the place of religion itself.¹

The problem is that these moves simply do not work. As John Hawthorne writes, “evangelical institutions…use culture-war approaches for two reasons: to demonstrate in-group solidarity and to take a stand against the broader culture. The unfortunate reality is that culture wars do not work on either front” (51). Once battle lines are drawn, he warns, “it becomes nearly impossible to find new paths” (58). Yet new paths are precisely what the church must seek—and they require us to de-politicize our faith.

I was especially troubled by a memorial service hosted at a large non-denominational church near me. The event, framed as religious, quickly blurred into politics, even including a pastor’s endorsement of a gubernatorial candidate. Much of the political right has flirted with Christian nationalism, and this service was one example.

But let’s be honest: the American religious left has its own version, equating faithfulness with voting Democratic and supporting progressive policy positions. Both right and left offer competing “Christian” visions of America that must be acted out via political means, via legislation and through the ballot-box; one’s faithfulness evident by how one votes. Now, to be perfectly honest, I find myself agreeing more with the left’s than the right’s. But both miss the point.

In an interview of Dennis Sanders’ podcast, Jason Micheli , drawing on Karl Barth, reminds us of a better way. Barth urged his students in Nazi Germany to “preach as if nothing has happened… as though Jesus is Lord. Don’t make that little man in Berlin sound more important than he is.” Micheli adds, “To go to a place on Sunday morning and refuse to talk about the thing everyone wants us to talk about and instead talk about Jesus—that is itself a political statement.” And he concludes, “It’s not that things don’t matter. It’s that Jesus is Lord and the future is not up to us… not only is the future not up to us, it’s secure in the resurrection. And so there is a calm that should come from that.”

This is perhaps the most important reminder. We need to trust God. I’m not so foolish as to say that Christianity should withdraw from politics entirely, as it’s worth noting that Barth and Bonhoeffer were politically active, but their ultimate faith and trust lay in God’s action, not their own.

I want to close with the words of Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow, spoken at his memorial. Though her earlier statements had been understandably full of anger and even hints of retribution, here she spoke differently—with honesty, vulnerability, and, most shockingly, forgiveness.

She said:

“And over these past 11 days, through all the pain, never before have I found as much comfort as I now do in the words of Our Lord’s Prayer: Thy will be done. God’s love was revealed to me on the very day my husband was murdered. God’s mercy and God’s love have been revealed to me these past ten days.

My husband, Charlie. He wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life. That young man. That young man on the cross. Our Savior said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they not know what they do.’ That man. That young man. I forgive him. I forgive him because it was what Christ did… what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the gospel is love and always love. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”

Her words were a striking reminder of what politics cannot give us: forgiveness, mercy, and resurrection hope.

If Christianity is to be faithful in our time, it must return to its center: Jesus Christ. Our calling is not to win culture wars or secure political victories, but to proclaim and embody the good news that Jesus is Lord, and to order our lives and actions around him. Jesus told us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, with the promise that all these things shall be added to us. Perhaps we have been too focused on seeking “all these things” rather than God’s kingdom and righteousness. If we lean into that promise, can we trust God to do what he has said? That would certainly de-politicize Christianity and put the agency back in God’s hands rather than our own.

1. As shared in Mike Cosper’s book The Church in Dark Times