Mohler and the Kirk Memorial: The Revival that Wasn't

https://wng.org/opinions/this-is-like-an-old-time-revival-isnt-it-1758521481

Mohler celebrates the supposed revival taking place in connection to the death of Charlie Kirk. He favourably quotes Trump to that end. An old time revival? What exactly does that mean?

Charles Finney led revivals and they even spurred the audience to social action but they also resulted in the Burned Over district of Western New York - an area that fell into theological modernism and today is almost inoculated against the gospel. Do not the Scriptures speak of those who have a zeal but not according to knowledge?

This is simply to say that while America has a revival culture, much of it is dubious and produces a rather short-lived Christian transformation - one that all too often proves harmful in the long term.

Nevertheless Mohler is willing to endorse Trump's assessment but one is left puzzled....

The stage was filled with unrepentant (even defiant) murderers, criminals, and serial liars. We're speaking of government officials who are part of the American murder machine, and figures who lie, manipulate, and cheat in order to line their pockets. We have deranged rapists like Hegseth, purveyors of disinformation and lies like Gabbard, imperialists like Rubio, and lunatics like Kennedy. Stephen Miller is a fascist pure and simple. It is the term that most accurately describes his political ideology and system of ethics. Many of these people also demonstrate a penchant for sadism in how they would treat immigrants and those they wish to wage war upon.

And then of course there's Donald Trump - a rapist, thief, murderer, adulterer, serial liar, and much else. And it's very safe to say there's not a repentant bone in his body. Please explain to me how this was a revival?

Further, a bunch of these figures are Roman Catholics. From the former Miss Arizona, to Vance, and Rubio, they are all Marian idolaters, and partakers of the blasphemy that is the Mass, people who affirm the pope as the vicar of Christ. Stephen Miller is Jewish. How were these people able to express 'explicit gospel testimony' as Mohler reports?

How is this a revival - an event in which presumably the Spirit is at work?

The Spirit is at work were told even though despite Erika Vance's proclamation of forgiveness, everyone else on the stage is calling for vengeance and violence. The only Christianity on display is wed to a nationalist political agenda. Far from a clear gospel presentation, a generous assessment would reckon the whole affair as confused. In reality I think it was something else entirely.

I will grant there may be spirits at work, but the Holy Spirit? I highly doubt it.

We're supposed to be excited by Frank Turek - someone who has hitched his wagon to American Family Radio? I struggle to respect anyone affiliated with that rag of the airwaves, that den of disinformation and heresy. It tells me his conscience is muddled at best, if he even retains one at all.

Kirk was not a martyr. He was killed as a political activist. He died for Trumpism. That's his legacy. While he professed Christ, his life told a different story. He allied himself with the forces of deceit and strengthened the hands of those who do evil. The comparisons to Christ are absurd and even blasphemous. Did Christ stand with the Zealots? Did he join forces with the Herodians? Kirk was nothing like Christ and the comparison is off base and insulting. His religion was America and Trump was his messiah.

Was the gospel preached? It's one thing to present the facts of the gospel but when they are wed (as is the case with this pseudo-Christian event) to a larger body of errors, heresies, and evils, then it doesn't matter. The message is corrupted - and all the more within the Evangelical framework of cheap grace. In this case the gospel is inextricably linked to the other ideologies that are present. The message of the gospel at this event was believe in Christ and thus you will believe in Trumpism and American nationalism.

This is why at Kirk events when he would share the 'Evangelical Gospel' he would be met by chants of: USA! USA! USA!

This indicates something is deeply wrong with the message and how it's being presented. It reminds of Paul's statements concerning those who thought godliness was gain.

And there is something very wrong with Mohler if he is unable to discern the problems with what happened on Sunday - if he thinks this was the Spirit at work, and that these people are Christians, and that Kirk was a martyr.

I had to laugh listening to Catholic radio. It was reported (who knows if it's true) that Kirk would sometimes attend the Mass with his wife (which reveals the shallowness of his Evangelical faith) and was in fact close to converting to Rome. Maybe so. Nothing would surprise me. But I did find it funny that the EWTN folks are desperate to claim him - or almost so.

It was a fine thing that Kirk's widow 'forgave' the killer but here's the problem. The gospel of forgiveness means nothing when professing Christians are the ones bearing the sword, the ones seeking to prosecute and execute this man. It's one thing if the state does that - let them, for the state is the sword, but our calling is different and the testimony is destroyed when he is extend mercy and yet it is the Christians who are the agents of violence, putting people in chains and cages, and marching them to their deaths. Mohler, like virtually all Evangelicals rejects (on a very practical level) the ethical teachings of the New Testament. Instead he has embraced the sword and coin Christianity of Constantinianism and as such it's no wonder that in practice he feels some affinity to Rome. He may be a Baptist but in his heart he's an adherent of sacralism and the kind of worldly-wise and power-established Christianity.

Mohler argues:

Some observers of American religion have argued that much of the Christian language used by public figures is just evidence of “civil religion,” a basic mixture of patriotism and some vague spiritual language. But the message of the memorial service for Charlie Kirk was not vague, and it was not minimal. It was far more than that. Did you ever expect to hear a vice president of the United States talk like J. D. Vance did yesterday? We will be thinking about this service for a long time.

Fine, it was not vague. But there's a problem Mr. Mohler - JD Vance is a Catholic married to a Hindu. He does not meet a basic definition or set of criteria for what can be called (in New Testament terms) a Christian - and worse, he's technically an apostate from Evangelicalism.

There's a real irony here. If Mohler had written this assessment forty years ago he'd be called out as a liberal ecumenicist - and that's really what he is. The ecumenism on display here is not based on a lowest common denominator gospel message. Rather, it's based on the very thing Mohler tries to discount - nationalist religion. Let's call it what it is - a false religion and form of idolatry. As such, it makes no difference if your Evangelical, Catholic, Protestant, or even Jewish or Mormon. The religious ethos of American Nationalism transcends these specific identities, their soteriologies, eschatologies, and concepts of ecclesiology.

And if Mohler endorses this, then he's no conservative, no confessionalist, no defender of Biblical or historic Christianity. He's just a sell out who has lost his way. Some of us recognized this a long time ago - long before the 'woke' controversies or any of that nonsense. To me the indicators were there decades ago when he collaborated with the likes of James Dobson and Billy Graham, and with the rise of Glenn Beck he sought to reach out to Mormons, Catholics and others who would aid in the grand political and cultural movement of which he is a part. He has a worldview to be sure and it comes out in his teaching. Unfortunately it's a twisted and deformed representation of New Testament and apostolic teaching.

Ever evoking the memory of Churchill and his myopic gathering storm, Mohler is a blind guide, blind to the realities of what Churchill stood for, and blind to how the West and the Anglo-American imperial traditions have been forces for evil and not good. They may have fought other forces of evil but this does not mean they are therefore good or moral exemplars. It's a non sequitur. Mohler's worldviewism has led him into a labyrinth that has turned into a trap - and it resulted in him throwing in with Donald Trump. Those with actual discernment will turn away from the likes of Albert Mohler. He no longer has any standing - if he ever did.

Mohler is stunned by the weight of Christian testimony and hopes these testimonies will be used to God's glory.

For my part I'm stunned by this man's ignorance and the fact that he's held in such high regard.

The memorial service should be denounced and disowned. Christians should distance themselves from it and all that Kirk stood for. In no sense was this a revival.

But we can be thankful. This has turned into quite the watershed moment. Once again, lines are being drawn. You must decide where you stand.