Gospel Purity and Political Alliances

All kinds of interesting and important questions have been raised for Americans over the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the events that followed. Given the strong showing for the funeral held last Sunday and the support that TPUSA has been shown by conservative Christians, one particular question has caught my attention. “Does it compromise the gospel for Christians to participate in organizations like TPUSA?” After all, it has been argued, when you look at their speaker lineup, you find evangelical Christians side by side with Catholics and even a Hindu. Is it right for conservative Christians to join forces with a Hindu or Catholic on a secular campus to persuade students that they should have conservative values such as traditional marriage, big families, or opposition to abortion?

Some would say “no.” Ironically, Christian nationalism is a concern both for those on the secular left and on the religious right. The secular left are worried that Christianity will pollute the public sphere, while the religious right are worried that politics will pollute their religion. I’m sympathetic to the concern that politics may come to dominate our faith and overshadow our Christianity. It’s possible we might engage in sinful compromise because we crave political power. But what about something like a TPUSA? Does that cross the line? 

Just to put all my cards on the table before I begin making my case, I personally do think it is acceptable. Now, to be clear, I’m not in any way connected with TPUSA. I’m not defending anyone or anything. I really don’t have a dog in the fight, but I think it’s an important question and one that needs careful thought. So here’s my two cents, for whatever that is worth. 

 

Politics Is Coalitional

Politics is a funny thing if you stop and think about it. Politics could be described as the art of living together with people that you disagree with. We have politics because individuals with different ideas of right and wrong (and increasingly, radically different ideas) must band together and come up with a system of laws on which they can all agree. The messy business of hashing out those differences is what we call politics. 

Many voters want ideologically pure candidates, candidates who will represent their values and never budge. Yet such candidates often get little done, because they aren’t willing to work with people. If everyone did that, our government would come to a grinding halt (a utopia for some of these purists!). Compromise is what passes legislation and gets things done. Politics is really all about compromising by giving away as little as you can to get as much as you can. 

For this reason, politics is coalitional. In other words, politics is about getting together with people who think similarly enough with you to get done what you both agree on. This means that political parties must both have ideals that they pursue, but that they can’t be overly restrictive or they will never get votes and will never get anything done. There is a constant tension between holding to your principles and being “big tent” enough that you can bring in a big enough group to get things done. 

Because of that, we have to forge political alliances. The political right, out of fear for the increasingly radical position of the left, including the mutilation of children, turned to a former life-long Democrat from NY who moderated the party. Strong opposition to the LGBTQ agenda and strong pro-life statements were removed from the Republican platform in 2024. I’m conflicted by that choice. The result was that the Republicans won, and many of those same issues that I care about won. Pro-lifers who were wrongly imprisoned were set free. Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion mill, was defunded. The trans agenda has been set way back, and restrictions on free speech for those opposed to LGBTQ dogma have been rolled back.

As I said, I’m conflicted. I don’t think that I, in good conscience, could have made the decision to open up the party like that. Of course, no one asked me to. I still fight to end abortion, and I still fight to have traditional marriage upheld in our nation’s laws. But I realize that to do that, I will need to work to convince my fellow Americans that we should do so, and sadly that’s not where we are. So we fight to change minds and in the meanwhile we form alliances with those close enough with us to get what we can get now. 

 

Politics and Religion Have a Murky Relationship

Politics and religion sometimes collapse into each other. Christianity and the Republican party become so enmeshed in someone’s mind that they forget they have more in common with a “woke” Christian who is genuinely converted and living for Christ than with their redneck, gun-loving MAGA neighbor who has rejected the gospel. This is a sobering reality, and should drive us to keep politics and faith separate.

But not too separate. After all, politics involves legislation, and all legislation is based on morality. Should gay marriage be legal? That is a moral question. Should lying, murder, or stealing be outlawed? Those are moral questions. Should Scripture guide our political leaders? Should our politicians pray, and pray in Jesus’ name? I think most people would say yes. So we don’t want political arenas to be completely religion free. So who should be stepping into those spaces? Can honest, careful, Bible-believing Christians participate in the government and bring in their religion? Does a pastor need to pull out as soon as the person scheduled to pray after him is a Muslim?

These aren’t always easy questions and sometimes finding the right answers can be challenging. This is why I say that they have a murky relationship. We should allow our Christianity to influence our politics, and as Christians we should be involved in politics as Christians. Yet the legitimate concern is that we can get so caught up in politics that we forget our main mission – making disciples for the kingdom – and get caught up in a good but secondary mission – fighting for conservative values in America.

 

TPUSA Is a Political Organization, Not a Gospel-Preaching One

So politics is coalitional, and politics has a murky relationship with religion. That brings us to TPUSA. What is the stated purpose of TPUSA? Is it political or religious? Well, according to the mission statement: 

The organization’s mission is to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government. (https://tpusa.com/about/)

Now, again, I’ve seen some deny this. “TPUSA was effectively a religious organization,” they argue. After all, Charlie Kirk was very outspoken about his faith and increasingly made it clear that the answer for people’s problem was Jesus. His funeral had several people share the gospel. We’re kidding ourselves if we pretend that TPUSA is anything but a quasi-religious organization. Yes, I would say, but only in the sense that if we’re being honest, politics in general is quasi-religious. 

Let’s say that I were to stand with a Catholic on a secular campus and we argue, as American conservatives, that traditional marriage is good. That waiting until after marriage before sleeping together is good. That having a goal to raise children is good. And let’s say that I am able to preach Jesus. I am free to give the gospel as clearly as I want. Have I confused the gospel by standing next to a Catholic, or a Hindu? Or is it clear that there are some things we agree on, and on other things we don’t? 

I think that, when we are in the realm of gospel ministry, we must be incredibly clear. I’m not going to join hands with a Catholic or a Muslim and say that we all agree on the main things and are headed to the same place. I’m not going to have a church event where I invite unbelievers and leave the impression that I think we’re on the same page for the main stuff. We must jealously guard our ecclesiastical partnerships. But we can be broader in our politics, because we are gathering together in a coalition to get done what we all agree needs to be done.

 

What about Billy Graham?

What about Billy Graham? That’s a big response that I have heard. The school that I attended had a falling out with Billy Graham in the 50’s over the question of who you could partner with in evangelistic campaigns. Graham wanted to partner with theological liberals who denied the supernatural and with Catholics, and he let those groups counsel those who came forward and then sent people back to those churches. 

To me, that is very different from what we are looking at here. We’re comparing apples and oranges if we try to use the Billy Graham situation as a reason we should separate from TPUSA. The reason I say that is because that same school that rejected Billy Graham invited the Republican candidates to come and speak for the 2016 election and all of them but Trump came (including at least one Catholic). In fact, while I was a student Dennis Prager came and spoke on morality in America. Why? Because they recognized that when we are dealing with spiritual matters, we must jealously protect the gospel’s purity. When we are dealing with political matters, we make coalitions, and sometimes uneasy ones at that. 

Now, I do think ecumenism could be a temptation. I might be tempted to temper the exclusive claim of Christ if I’m sharing the platform with people who are headed for hell. But I don’t think my mere presence is automatically a failure. I say we participate in politics and we fight for truth and justice in the public square with whomever will link arms with us. But we must do so carefully and prayerfully. We would need to make sure that we are clear on what we believe, and on what the Bible says. And we would, of course, want to do so in a way that we share the good news of Jesus, the only one who can truly fix the problems in any country. 

I didn’t really follow TPUSA or Charlie Kirk much before the assassination. With everything that has been happening, though, the algorithms on social media have been feeding me more and more Charlie Kirk interactions, and I have been impressed. I have been impressed by the boldness and the courage of someone who started an organization to fight for conservative principles, and who used that as a platform to spread his faith. A believer who entered the world of politics, and was good at making alliances, but through all of it was clear about what the Bible said about our sin and our need for a Savior. May we prayerfully, discerningly, and yet boldly pick up where he left off.

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Ben Hicks is the Associate Pastor at Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Indianapolis. This article originally appeared on his Substack.

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Photo by Cody Otto on Unsplash