​This is a dangerous moment for Christians

Last week, Charlie Kirk, American conservative activist and friend of Donald Trump, was shot dead while answering questions from students on a university campus.

He was a controversial figure, engaging with young people on divisive issues around identity and morality. He also talked a lot about his Christian faith.

Kirk instantly became a martyr for the Christian nationalist cause. We don’t yet know his killer’s motives, but the President blamed the ‘radical left’ and vowed a crackdown. Meanwhile some who hated his views, reportedly celebrated his death.

The intense outpouring of emotion feels like a seminal moment in America’s polarisation. One side claims to speak for the idea of a ‘Christian nation’, and each side increasingly believes the other is evil and beyond redemption.

And these sentiments are finding their way across the Atlantic. On Saturday more than 100,000 people marched through London in a demonstration called Unite the Kingdom. Billed as defending free speech, and attended by people for a complexity of reasons, it was organised by right wing antagonist Tommy Robinson. Among the crowds there were displays of cultural Christianity including people carrying crosses and even wearing crusader outfits. There was a sense that our Christian heritage needed ‘taking back’.

And I think this is a real moment of danger for Christians. The ramping up of hostility means that many Christians are starting to think they must pick a side, and perhaps feeling that only one side speaks a language they understand.

But the American right has appropriated Christianity for political ends. Its message is that America is a nation chosen by God, but is under siege from secular liberal elites trying to eradicate Christianity from public life. This view believes that Christians have a duty to take their nation back for God, and is also gaining ground in the UK.

Let me be clear. This is not Christ’s message. You may be a Christian who is disturbed by the dominance of liberal secular humanist values in the UK. I absolutely understand that, but we should not sign up wholesale to the package deal from the other side.

Christians should not fit easily into any package of beliefs that does not find its source in the Bible. You see the Bible tells us to care about the unborn and about refugees. It commands what we would call a traditional sexual ethic and it equally condemns racial injustice.

It’s ok to be patriotic as Christians, I absolutely love my country. We are told to “seek the welfare of the city” where we live (Jeremiah 29:7). So we should throw ourselves into our communities, to seek freedom and justice through compassion, service and prayer. We are not called to ‘make our country great’ by political conquest.

Ideologies and political leaders cannot save us. Only Christ offers salvation.

Christianity is not a badge to wear at a protest march. It means recognising that the awesome God of the universe died for your sins

And one of the most radical things about God’s kingdom is that it’s topsy turvy. It tells us that strength is found in weakness, that the King washes the feet of his people, that loving our neighbour is the most powerful defiance against the idols of this world. Jesus did not draw people into the kingdom by fighting for his rights, but by displaying love and grace towards them.

Jesus will not endorse your politics, he will not reaffirm what you already think. He will disturb you whether you are left or right, nationalist, patriot or internationalist. If we are truly his, we submit to him and recognise that we are sinners needing forgiveness. We must put aside bitterness and malice towards others. We must forgive others. If you pick a side in the culture war, you run the risk of not being on Jesus’ side at all.

Charlie Kirk’s Christianity seemed genuine. And he said himself that he would like to be remembered for his “faith in the Lord Jesus.” His politics was very different to mine, but as a body, we are one in the Lord. Of course those around him are grieving and angry. But the absolute lack of interest in forgiveness from some of his supporters is terrifying and deeply ungodly.

Christianity is not a badge to wear at a protest march or to stick on your social media feed. It means recognising that the awesome God of the universe died for your sins, and also for the sins of those people you like the least.

The greatest victory of all – the victory of Jesus over death – looked like defeat, and this is the centre of our faith. The story we have to offer is far better than either of the impoverished package deals that the culture wars offer us.

As Christians we must seek to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves, and to be people of peace in these polarising days.

In the words of Ephesians 2:14: “For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility”.