Brian Kilmeade Tells Us The True Values of MAGA’s Positive Christianity

Unfortunately yes, this is another post related to Charlie Kirk. I apologize for that inconvenience.

Positive Christianity is a term for a particular type of political non-denominational theology that originated in 1920 in Germany. It was heterodox, non-denominational, national and ethnic and throughout the 1920’s-40’s began to merge with fundamentalist Christianity in America. The transition from the label American fundamentalist to American Evangelical lined up with the merger of American fundamentalism with positive Christianity.

Over the last week we have seen a large outpouring of support for Charlie Kirk’s brand of positive Christianity on this sub and across media in general. This outpouring of support has obviously created a number of conversations about how MAGA’s racialized theology is different from traditional, liberal or progressive theologies and those conversations have then extended to comparisons with other acts of political violence and how the attention paid those acts speaks to MAGA theology’s values. Ex:

The assassination of Melissa Hortman, her husband, and her dog in June

The right wing motivated shooting at Evergreen Highschool that coincided with Kirk’s murder.

The illegal killings of unidentified Venezuelans on boats.

Brian Kilmeade, a host of Fox & Friends, called for the execution of the unhoused who refuse services and programs in response to his co-host Lawrence Jones suggestion that those people should be imprisoned.

Kilmeade’s exact words were “or involuntary lethal injection, or something. Just kill ‘em.”

While the conversation about Kirk has centered on the idea of political violence, and not sympathizing with Kirk’s death has been compared to political violence and resulted with threats and harms/job loss to those who express their opinion, Kilmeade has escaped accountability for functionally calling for the murder of ~800,000 people with a lukewarm and half-hearted apology.

The disparity in response to Kilmeade’s calls for murder versus antipathy to Kirk’s death tells us something specific about the theology of their sphere of influence. Not all lives are equal or of equal value. The concern about political violence is not a universally held condemnation. Instead we see that their theology operates on a hierarchy of value where the members of the in-group are valued significantly higher, with significantly lower standards of conduct than perceived members of an out-group.

This hierarchical thinking is essential to note as an aspect of interdenominational dialogue as the American Church Conflict continues to accelerate and develop.