Whitewashing a Legacy of Hate Speech

“How you die does not redeem how you lived.”
~Rev. Dr. Howard-John Wesley, Senior Pastor, Alfred Street Baptist Church

Charlie Kirk built his platform on a narrow and combative vision of Christianity, and now many media outlets, political allies, and Christian leaders are actively whitewashing his image. The 5-hour long memorial was nauseating: they presented him as a mainstream Christian leader, a martyr defending “family values,” when in reality his rhetoric was always exclusionary, divisive, and hostile to anyone who didn’t fall in line with his brand of Christian nationalism. This overt effort isn’t harmless rebranding—it’s a calculated move to legitimize an ideology that sidelines millions of Christians whose faith looks different from Kirk’s.

“Patriotism is not a Fruit of the Spirit”

For Christian minorities—Black, Latino, Asian, immigrant, or simply believers who reject the fusion of faith with right-wing politics—the message is clear: your voice does not matter. When Mr.Kirk is held up as the face of American Christianity, Christians who emphasize justice, compassion, or global solidarity are treated as outsiders in their own faith. The whitewashing doesn’t just distort his image; it erases theirs.

This has real consequences. It narrows the public perception and definition of Christianity until it looks like little more than a partisan brand. It emboldens those who claim to “speak for Christians” while actively working against the values of humility, mercy, and inclusion that Christ himself taught. And it tells minority Christians that if they won’t bow to nationalism, they will be written out of the story.

Let’s be honest: whitewashing Charlie Kirk is not about promoting Christianity. It is about power. It weaponizes the faith to wage culture wars, silences dissenting Christians, and sells a counterfeit gospel that Jesus himself would condemn.

If the church in America is to survive with integrity, Christians must call this out directly. Silence in the face of this distortion of what is the Truth of the Gospel is complicity in the abhorrent ideology being propagated through this man’s death.