Decryption | The manufacture of a martyr

(New York) Matthew Boedy has been interested in Charlie Kirk and his organization for several years, Turning Point USA. Chance wants it to appear, in two weeks, The Seven Mountains Mandatea work on the religious movement embodied better than anyone, according to him, by this young millennial in whom he saw “the new face of Christian nationalism” in the United States.

“The book concerns the project of Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA to Christianize America and destroy American democracy,” summed up the English professor at the University of Northern Georgia and a specialist in religious rhetoric, three days after the assassination of the co -founder of the sprawling political organization of the far right.

Since this assassination, which is in itself an undeniable tragedy, Matthew Boedy is concerned about another phenomenon: the status of martyr conferred on Charlie Kirk by his admirers, his former allies and his relatives, including his widow and the President of the United States.

Last Friday evening, during her first public intervention since the assassination of her husband, Erika Kirk said that the father of her two young children now wore “the glorious crown of a martyr”.

“The criminals responsible for the assassination of my husband have no idea what they did,” she said after the suspect’s arrest, who acted alone.

Last Wednesday evening, Donald Trump described Charlie Kirk as “a martyr of truth and freedom”. He chained by accusing the “radical left” of having caused the militant’s death and promising to punish “all those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence”.

A religious project

According to Matthew Boedy, the danger of making Charlie Kirk a martyr is due to the fact that this status implies “a crusade against the forces that killed martyr”.

“In the case of Charlie Kirk, I think that his martyr status will not only divide our country more, but may put it on a path which we will no longer be able to return,” said the professor. Because the status of martyr gives you a license, gives you divine approval for everything you want to do, as long as you do it on behalf of the martyr. »»

Charlie Kirk’s religious project was inspired by the “mandate of the seven mountains”. This doctrine, which serves as a title to the book by Matthew Boedy, says that Christians must seek to dominate the “seven mountains” of contemporary society: religion, school, family, media, entertainment, business world and government.

In 2020, during the CPAC, the annual high mass of the conservative movement, Charlie Kirk associated Donald Trump with this movement which rejects the separation between the Church and the State, the fundamental principle of American democracy, and seeks to establish in the United States a republic based on the principles of the Bible.

“” Finally, we have a president who includes the seven mountains of cultural influence, “said Charlie Kirk a few months before a presidential election, the results of fraudulent of which he was going to qualify.

According to Matthew Boedy, “the anger and the challenge” expressed by Erika Kirk, as well as the “reprisals” mentioned by Donald Trump, will provide “the energy they need to guarantee that the Christian culture that Charlie Kirk wanted to be realized”.

From MLK to Charlie Kirk

Admirers of Charlie Kirk compared it to another “martyr”, Martin Luther King Jr., figurehead of the Civil Rights Movement, whose assassination traumatized the United States in 1968. The republican representative of Florida Anna Paulina Luna thus called the president of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, of the Capitol of the United States as “permanent testimony of the work of his life, his courage and his sacrifice”.

“We have a statue of MLK in the Capitol, right?” “Commented the republican representative of Georgia Andrew Clyde, who has already caught the attention by comparing the rioters of January 6, 2021 to tourists.

On X, the representative Luna also published a meme showing Charlie Kirk alongside MLK, Jesus and the former presidents Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy with legend: “All because of words. »»

Bernice King, daughter of MLK, expressed her exasperation about this comparison between Charlie Kirk and her father.

“There are so many things that don’t go with that,” she wrote on X. So much. I’m tired, friends. »»

During his lifetime, Charlie Kirk was dealt with all the names by his criticisms, including racist. He notably described the 1964 law on civil rights, one of the great achievements of MLK’s fight in favor of black equality, like “a beast, and this beast has now turned into an anti-white weapon”.

But the same published by the representative Luna has her own logic, according to Matthew Boedy.

“This link they are trying to establish obviously inserts (Charlie Kirk) in a story of freedom of expression, of American political idealism, but it also ends with Jesus,” said the professor. So you can see the orientation they want to give to the crusade to honor Charlie Kirk. It is not only a question of defending freedom of expression for all, but also of creating a Christian culture. »»