Debunking Charlie Kirk on Politics in the Church
This is not my typical post. It centers around two events: the long time evangelical pastor John Piper’s denunciation of Trump on Oct. 22, 2020 and a speech given by Charlie Kirk three days later. My post was written and published on Monday, Nov. 2, 2020, the day before the US general election.
The headline from this October 25, 2020 speech by Charlie Kirk is he called John Piper a fool.
[As a reminder Kirk is responding to this blistering denunciation of Trump by Piper on October 22.]
That is there and I will get to it. But it is also quite the revelation showing the mind of a Christian nationalist and Trump cult member.
I have written about Kirk extensively, both on this Medium page and on a blog run by a friend. On that blog I wrote about Kirk’s specific church history as he grew up in the suburbs of Chicago.
In this recent speech he repeats a gospel formula made famous by his former and now disgraced pastor James MacDonald.
Kirk also tells us that as a young person he read and even “liked” Piper.
Kirk’s evangelical roots though are withering in the firm soil of Trump sycophancy. Kirk has spent considerable time this campaign season at churches that tend toward the charismatic. I will leave up to others the nuanced differences between his old church in Chicago and these new ones.
But it is clear that Kirk’s church in Chicago was and remains different theologically than the one he spoke at for this speech.
That recent church, run by Greg Locke, is not only a dedicated Christian nationalist outpost in a very red state, it clearly is following some CDC guidelines by having church outside. But social distancing and masks are not apparent. But it’s “open” as opposed to the many, many times Kirk says churches are closed.
There are just too many fact claims here to check and that has been done already…. a lot.
What is most interesting from this speech — and I am purposely not calling it a sermon because it didn’t claim to teach the Bible — is how Kirk misuses Greek words to ground his political theology.
He defines the well-used Greek term for church — ekklesia — as a “civic political gathering.”
He adds it was centered on two other Greek words for freedom and equality.
Let me start with ekklesia.
Kirk’s definition is highly dubious.
First, let me offer the Society of Biblical Literature’s definition by a professor from Europe:
In the ancient Mediterranean world, the word ekklesia was used in various ways and for various types of both political and unofficial, or semi-public institutions. For Jews, it was one of seventeen Greek words used for what we today translate as synagogue. As such, it could be used for both public civic Jewish institutions and assemblies (as in Josephus; Ben Sira) and for what we would call voluntary associations (as in Philo). Ekklesia was, then, a term applied in both Jewish and non-Jewish contexts to designate various types of institutional settings. The way the word ‘ekklesia’ functions in these ancient discourses thus differs from how the term ‘church’ functions in common usage today; if we agree that a translation should communicate approximate meaning across time and culture then clearly this particular translation is inaccurate. A historically more attuned translation of ekklēsia would be ‘assembly,’ since this word leaves open for a variety of applications in religio-political or semi-public settings and does not lock the meaning of ekklesia into an anachronistic frame of reference.
So context matters and Kirk provided none.
The well-regarded Strong’s Concordance defines ekklesia as “an assembly, a religious congregation.” It notes perhaps why New Testament writers used it: its parts create a phrase “to be called out.”
So it certainly has the civic nature — a collection of citizens (though of course at times the Christian church allowed in some form non-citizens).
But does or did this word have the political context Kirk heavily suggests?
Of course in its Greek political usage, it does denote a group who debated and decided political matters such as going to war, electing officials, and other matters.
To merely transfer that kind of work to the church takes some dubious theology. Kirk takes his audience there by claiming ekklesia as church was founded or centered on freedom and equality. He cites two Greek words, eluetheria and isonomia.
The first is defined as freedom, especially freedom from slavery. It does not mean political freedom, such as freedom from a despot. It does not denote some form of political sovereignty or freedom as we have it enshrined in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
The second word from Kirk is an interesting choice. Isonomia as equality before or under the law is not used if at all by the New Testament writers. Instead, they use isotētos, which is closer to equality of status before the Lord. It is used particularly of slaves and masters.
Political theorist Hannah Arendt noted in ancient Greece isonomy “essentially denoted a state of no-rule, in which there was no distinction between rulers and ruled.” She also argued then that “the Greek polis was therefore conceived not as a democracy but as an isonomy.” [Forgive my use of Wikipedia here. The Arendt reference comes from her book On Revolution which I have read. You can read more on Arendt in my book on evil.]
The question is where Kirk might have read or been persuaded of this use of isonomia. Answer: Friedrich Hayek, one of Kirk’s favorite thinkers.
Hayek used the term in the 1950s in his economic freedom arguments.
If Kirk wanted to link the church to American democracy, he failed. If he wanted to link the church to a political project of some civic kind as defined by Arendt (in the sense that he calls ekklesia a civic institution), he also failed because such institutions both in the US and in Christian theology have rulers and ruled.
With that in mind, it is ironic that Kirk calls Piper a fool.
Kirk does that when he claims without evidence that Piper — due to his non-support and criticism of Trump — “is willing to throw away” the form of government taught in the Bible, which Kirk notes is a “constitutional republic, with checks and balances.”
There is no evidence of that kind of government anywhere in the Bible, despite the attempts by Christian nationalists to connect a biblical principle noted in one verse in the book of an Old Testament prophet to a political effort by the designers of the Constitution.
Kirk then says: Piper has “no idea what he is talking about politically, he should stay out of this space, because he is a fool when it comes to this stuff.”
So to Kirk, the preacher must stay out of politics, but the politician and his pundit can wade neck-deep into the church.
Now that is some theology. And some political power.
Kirk then misuses the story of Samson and David to defend Trump.
Finally, in what can only be described as an upsurge of arrogance driven by sycophancy, Kirk, the committed evangelical Christian who uses terms like good and evil in this speech to denote the GOP and Democrats, says: “Stop [using] this moral measuring stick, Mr. John Piper.”
Kirk then says Trump has “shortcomings,” but doesn’t list them. Instead he lists some policy outcomes.
For Kirk the question of who to vote for is one of not individual sin, but “who is contesting for moral truth, in this dark world, who is actually doing something about it, who’s actually fighting…”
And with that, Kirk dismisses John Piper, long time pastor and author and honored among many Christians, as a fool.
I think it is more than obvious between the two who the real fool is.
