Some on the right mourn Charlie Kirk as a martyr, seek vengeance

A few hours after Charlie Kirk was killed, Sean Feucht, an influential right -wing Christian worship leader, shot a selfie video from his home in California, his eyes were filled with tears.

The withdrawal of one of the leading conservative activists in the country was not less than a “sand in the sand ılan, which descended to a spiritual darkness in a country.

“He thinks he won the enemy, that there is a war that has been won today,” he said. “No, my friend, there will be millions of brave sounds from Charlie Kirk’s sacrifice and martyrdom.”

Soon after a short time, the San Diego -based Awaken Megachurch leading the Salt Lake City campus, the priest Matt Tuggle, adding a video of Kirk’s killing on Instagram by adding a title by adding the title, adding the following: “The priest does not believe in a bad demonic belief system!”

Kirk’s death triggered a series of reactions, a sorrowful sympathy for most 31 -year -old activists and his family. But at the same time triggered conspiracy theories, hot purchase assumptions Left was responsible And Kirk’s call for revenge against perceived enemies.

A watch for Kirk At Huntington Beach This week, some participants shook a Red Cross and white flags depicting the word “Jesus .. Some of them were mentioned“White men, war!” Kirk spread a philosophy that liberals tried to weak men, and sees killing some male supporters as an attack against them.

It continues to be seen when calls for revenge, especially President Trump, announced that he had caught a suspect in a deadly fire by the “highly certain” authorities on Friday.

In life, Kirk, 31 -year -old, mentioned what he calls the “spiritual war an between Christians in the United States and the Democratic Party that supports everything God hated.

In the death, Kirk, one of the most influential power brokers of the Republican party, is greeting as a Christian killed by conservative evangelical priests and GOP politicians for religious beliefs.

Trump said to Kirk, martyr martyr for truth and freedom, ve and ordered to fly the flags with half a pole in his honor. He also blamed Kirk’s death In the “Radical Left” rhetoric. Vice President JD Vance, who Helped to move Kirk’s coffin The Second Air Force rejected a task that Kirk wrote about X last month: “Everything is about Jesus”. And the defense secretary Pete Hegseth wrote to the X, who quotes Jesus: “Well done, good and loyal servant.”

A woman puts her head on the chair during a seizure at the Centerpoint Church for Charlie Kirk in Orem, Utah.

(Lindsey Wasson/Associated Press)

Faith and extreme right -wing experts say that they are uncomfortable with the exaltation of the religious glorification of Kirk in this increasing political violence and the potential revenge that may arise from it. The death of the activist seems to have fired various groups on the right, from white superior to the hard -core Christian nationalists.

“The rhetoric of ‘spiritual war’ will only increase” and Matthew Boedy, a Professor of Rhetoric and Composition at North Georgia University, who wrote a book about Christian nationalism, which presents Kirk in a clear way, is abolished as a “physical manifestation ın of a religious war.

“The Spiritual War Discourse was a major part of January 6,” he said from the deadly 2021 attack by Trump supporters to the US capital. “Making a martyr from Charlie Kirk will seriously change our nation.”

Samuel Perry, a sociologist at the University of Oklahoma and Christian Nationalism, said that he was a Christian, but that he was used as a cynical, and that he had the potential to increase what secular political conflicts between the Democrats and Republicans.

“What if these are strengthened with cosmic and ultimate importance?” he said. “This is, ‘This is the devil. … Basically provokes extremism.”

Feucht, A Christian nationalist and North California Failed Republican Congress candidate“The blood of martyrs The seed of the church”And after Kirk’s death, he said,“ We ​​have to do something. ”

Kirk, who gathered millions of online followers to vote for Trump in the 2024 elections, declared that God was on the side of the American conservatives and is not the separation of the church and the state ”. He was also known for his vitriol against racial and religious minorities, LGBTQ+ people, childrenless women, progressives, and others who did not agree with him.

A monument was established for Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University in Orem.

(Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)

Forty named Transsexual people “A middle finger that jumps to God.” HE he said The Civil Rights Law of 1964 was “a great mistake” and Rev. Martin called Luther King Jr. “terrible .. In Podcast, He called with a grin In 2022, former democratic parliamentary speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, who attacked the man from prison in their homes, is some surprising Patriot, who really wants to be a midterm hero in San Francisco or Mr. Area ”.

In 2023, Kirk sat on the stage of the Awaken Church in Salt Lake City and said: “I think unfortunately it is worth having some gun deaths every year, so that we can have the 2nd change to protect our rights.”

Kirk retweete two days before his death A video of himself “A spiritual war is coming for the West”, “Awake or Marxism united with Islamism” and “American lifestyle, that is, the Christian omuru”.

“No need to bleach Charlie Kirk’s legacy, Perry said Perry.

“This is a tragedy, and no one deserves to die like this, Per said Perry. “Nevertheless, Charlie Kirk is part of this polarization story that uses a very separatist rhetoric in the USA, against the US, the left is bad.”

Perry, Kirk’s US Return Point He placed him In the Professor Monitoring List, a website aims to reveal professors “discriminating against conservative students and advancing leftist propaganda”. The entrance to Perry marks it for “anti-Christian values”.

Kirk was killed on Wednesday with a single sniper style on Wednesday during an outdoor speech event at Utah Valley University.

Some of Kirk’s leading Evangelical followers said that his death represented an attack on conservative Christian values ​​and was shot because he spoke “real”.

Jon Fleiscmanman, former General Manager of the California Republican Party, who started as an Orange County -based conservative blogger and a conservative college activist, knew Kirk and said, “The martyr continues”.

“Many people become activated and will go for a walk, talk to talk and give money by trying to lose someone they care about,” Times said.

In recent years, Kirk has become more clear about the Christian belief. In 2012, he founded Turning Point USA as a secular youth organization and became known for his discussions with his liberal College students for his discussions with university campus tours.

However, in 2020, college campuses were closed at the beginning of Pandemi. Kirk began to speak in churches that violate local locking and mask orders, including the Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Ventura district, directed by former bin Oaks Mayor Pastor Rob McCoy.

McCoy is a co -chairman of the Turning Point Usa belief, encouraging priests to be politically more clear. McCoy, which cannot be reached for comment, A statement Kirk “I have never used violence, but it was threatened with violence every day by those who could not fight logic and reality.”

Professor Boedy said that McCoy’s Kirk’s Christian nationalism, especially seven mountains, necessarily directed – the idea that Christians should try to shake the seven columns of the cultural influence: art and entertainment, work, education, family, government, media and religion.

The Christian nationalism, rejected by Christians, argues that the United States has been founded as a Christian nation and that faith must have priority in government and law.

“The more severe eaves of Christian nationalism have an uncomfortable aspects of eliminating and anti-democratic aspects of Emeritus, the founder of the Hate and Excess Research Center and a professor in Cal State San Bernardino.

Kirk’e, especially last year after the attempt to assassinate the two assassination attempts, Kirk’e already called as a martyr of the same Christian nationalists and some of the white superior, “America was saved by God to make it wonderful,” he said.

Levin said that many Christian nationalists described Trump as an an armed Christian warrior who protects America from a disturbing immigrant, religious minority, gender and sexual orientations ”. And so, when he uses the martyr language to define Kirk, his fans are locked.

Levin, “Where does the martyrs come from? From violent conflicts and wars,” he said. “The issue is that for a moment when Trump could seize more effectively, he turned to the separatist region.”

California Senate Minority leader Brian Jones (R-Santee) called Kirk as “modern martyrs .. In a statement, Jones said, “The tree of freedom should be renewed from time to time with the blood of patriots and challenges,” Jones said.

He wrote: “Let us pay attention to that we allow Charles J. Kirk to grow and bloom because Charles J. Kirk was fed on his lifeblood.”

Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.