A celestial phenomenon seen over Leipzig on February 19, 1564, interpreted as an omen of the Last Judgement (1564) | Hans Zimmerman / Zentralbibliothek Zürich / Public Domain Mark
The First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Strictly speaking, the letter of the Constitution has not been violated. Congress has made no law.
But legislation is not the preferred instrument of the MAGA movement, whose purpose is to transform the entire political culture of the United States. A new political culture calls for a new political theology, and as of September 21, 2025, the United States would appear to have, for the first time in its history, an established religion: evangelical Christianity, as defined by the official mourners of Charlie Kirk.
There is an obvious contradiction at the heart of America’s new religion of Kirkianity. The official martyr’s wife pardoned the man who killed him: “I forgive him because it is what Christ did,” she said. “The answer to hate is not hate.”
But the new religion’s pope, the President of the United States, immediately contradicted the grieving widow: “I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them,” he said, adding that his justice department would be “investigating networks of radical-left maniacs who fund, organize, fuel and perpetrate political violence.”
This latter message was precisely what the Kirkian faithful wished to hear because their church has always been a church militant, out to make converts—or else. The concern that led to the enshrining of the Establishment Clause as the very first American right in the Bill of Rights, that a triumphant majority might attempt to impose religious conformity on the rest of the nation, has been swept aside in the rush to capitalize on the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Here was an advantage too tempting not to seize, and seize it the MAGA faithful have with all the fervor of their perpetually fighting faith and all the contempt that their leader cannot refrain from expressing toward his enemies, even if it entails violating the customary decorousness and restraint of funereal speech with the snarling language of hatred unleashed.
I write these words on the first day of Rosh Hashanah 2025. American Jews used to feel protected by the Establishment Clause. Even though American society was overwhelmingly Christian, its Christianity was reassuringly divided among the many mansions of the Lord’s house. Now the only Jews that can be tolerated within the confines of America’s newly established church are those who support, with the full blessing of evangelical Christians, the current Israeli government, which exemplifies the prevailing doctrine of “Hate Thy Enemies” and show them no quarter.
This is a moment for fear and trembling. No good can come of this fusion of religion and politics in the metastasizing cult of a slain martyr. Our political passions had grown unruly enough, but now they are fueled by a raging religious passion for vengeance camouflaged as love and hatred transfigured as forgiveness.
Is it too much to read a warning of the vengeance to come in the words spoken by Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller? “The day that Charlie died, the angels wept, but those tears have been turned into fire in our hearts. And that fire burns with a righteous fury that our enemies cannot comprehend or understand.”
One shudders to think what form that “righteous fury” may take when transcribed by Miller into executive orders adorned with the familiar Sharpie signature that for us infidels represents the Mark of the Beast.
This essay was first published in the author’s newsletter, The Sense of an Ending, on September 22, 2025.
