Albert Mohler: When Civil Religion Meets the Gospel

Monday, September 29, 2025

The nation at large and certainly our elite media continue to wrestle with what to make of the recent memorial service for Charlie Kirk.

Some are likely to argue that it was just “civil religion”. That's a term that was invented in the 20th century by sociologist Robert Bellah, and he was trying to argue that an awful lot of American religion is just kind of a dressed-up patriotism. It's just patriotism that is joined to a certain kind of minimal religion without any explicit doctrines.

Now, I want to raise the issue because I know some are going to say that the Charlie Kirk Memorial service was just civil religion. I don't think by any means it was just civil religion. I think it was shocking to most people that the service was so explicitly Christian in its message and in its tone.

The vice president of the United States said, “I've talked more about Jesus Christ in the past two weeks than I have in my entire time in public life.”

He didn't have to say that.

And that's a very important thing. It ought to last long in our memory.

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