Charlie Kirk and the culture chasm
On 10 September 2025 Charlie Kirk was shot dead. I saw it on my news feed and wondered who this Charlie Kirk was. So I Googled, and it appeared to me he was just another American conservative media personality. How wrong I was!
The number of posts I saw about his murder kept increasing. I then saw an article on the Sojourners website basically saying that even if one disagreed with his politics the person as a person mattered... 'however reprehensible a figure he was, however harmful his positions may have been, celebrating his death cannot be justified—certainly not from a Christian perspective. There is nothing to celebrate in the loss of a human life. Every person, even those who harm us, bears an inherent dignity that can never be erased.'
Immediately, the culture chasm opened up: 'Charlie Kirk was not reprehensible. He did not support violence. He was a messenger of peace and love with biblical truths and common sense in his principles.' 'I am thankful that kirk can't be made a martyr by the right wing as it was one of their own that was poisoned by kirks own thinking to commit murder.' 'He was a very good man. We can't stand by and let lies about him go unchecked.' 'If someone directly causes or contributes to the deaths of others through hate and disinformation is their death a loss? I’m not sure.'
I was challenged by one person to actually 'listen to his videos before you throw your support behind this article'. So I spent several hours watching his videos and reading about him. The content highlighted the cultural chasm we see in the USA and growing in other parts of the world. My initial thought was to write an article about the views of Charlie Kirk, looking at each major issue individually. But that would have been choosing a side of this chasm.
Left-Right
Often, the divide is highlighted as a left-right divide. Originally, the left-right continuum was about fiscal policy, whether or not the means of production were owned privately or by the community/government. The contrast between what we call capitalism and communism. Though there are differences between the Republican and Democratic positions on fiscal policy, in global terms, they are both firmly capitalist. Contrast those differences with Canada or Europe and those differences are possibly significant. Contrast them with China and they are insignificant!Use of the term 'left' or 'right' outside of the meaning of fiscal policy creates confusion and is why I believe we need the next two continuums. Left/right should be reserved exclusively for fiscal policy.
Authoritarian-Libertarian
The Political Compass adds a second (vertical) dimension to the left-right continuum, a vertical axis of authoritarian vs libertarian. Looking at the 2020 Presidential Election one can see that the fiscal policy differences between Trump and Biden were small and both were firmly in the authoritarian quadrant with differences, but not major ones.
There are very much wider differences that could be possible on this compass. So how does one account for the culture chasm that is plainly obvious to both Americans and those observing from outside the USA?
Settler-Nomad
I believe we need to add a third dimension to this. Some who agree with Charlie Kirk might argue that third dimension was moral or possibly 'Christian'. However, in the same way that authoritarian and libertarian look very different in disparate parts of the globe, so the third dimension also looks different. In a book we have started writing, we call this continuum 'settler vs nomad'.
We are thinking sociologically rather than physically. Settlers don't like change. They prefer to look back at the good in the past and long to either keep that or return to that. Nomads on the other hand embrace change and often enjoy it. So, in the USA, as a classic settler, Charlie Kirk referred back to his belief of the Christian formation of his country. Within that, he embraced the right to bear arms as a way of protecting the populace from the government.
When the Second Amendment to the USA Constitution was written, it was in a time of muskets or rifles, but an AR-15 is no match for an AGM-65 Maverick or an AGM-88 HARM fired by an F-16 or F-35! However, in the settler approach to life, it is a 'God-given right'. Not so for nomads.
Most of the differences in the chasm can be seen in terms of change vs no-change. MAGA – Make America Great Again – can be seen in terms of returning back to the values that those who embrace it love, rather than embracing change for the future. Those values can be seen in what they believe to be 'Christian' values and hence the use of Christian language.
I put Christian in quotes because there are a very large number of Christians who hold different values, more like those of what we call nomads. Many of the issues are complex, but reduced in American culture to simple black and white concerns. Sometimes, it's literally black and white skin issues! As Charlie Kirk put it, 'Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.' (The Charlie Kirk Show, 19 May 2023)
Racism, guns, feminism, gender dysphoria, immigration, LGBTI and abortion are all issues where the gulf can be seen, and, particularly in America, you are on one side or the other; you are either settler or nomad.
The Religious Other...
But there is another layer to this, and I use the word layer rather than an axis. That layer I read in a book by Martin Accad, 'The Religious Other'. The book is primarily about how Christians and Muslims relate to each other, taken from a Biblical understanding.
'...we must take into account the role religion plays in binding society together. I think than Protestant Christianity is particuarly weak here... Protestant Christianity has had less and less of a role in structuring societies in the Western world... a decline in religious practice, such as church attendance, along with a decline in belief in God... religion has become a question for the individual and it has become less acceptable to talk about religion or use religious arguments in the public sphere.'
Settlers generally wish to return to religion in the public sphere and nomads usually do not. But that is an example of the chasm rather than the chasm itself.
There are some questions we need to address from a Christian point of view:
- To what extent should we try to create a 'Christian country'? 'You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavour? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless.' (Matthew 5:13) Clearly, followers of Jesus are called to be an influence upon their community, but a meal exclusively of salt would make you vomit rather than enjoy it. We cannot even survive on salty sea water.
- How do we relate to those who have a radically different view? Take, for example, the traditional view of Jews to when a human being gains a soul. Their belief is that this happens at first breath; when the breath of God is breathed into the infant. Potentially, that makes abortion acceptable right up to the first breath, which is clearly something that most Christians would reject.
- When settlers go back, how far back is right? When I observe this, I tend to see a desire for two or three generations back and not much further. Why stop there? Why not reintroduce slavery?** Living as I do in the Middle East the conflict in Israel/Palestine is very much our region. And time matters a lot with Israelis looking back thousands of years. Hence why I wrote another article entitled Past, Present and Future.
** When I wrote 'Why not reintroduce slavery?' it was a rhetorical question, but I gather some Americans actually find that a reasonable idea. Hence this is actually a live and debated question.
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