Evangelical worship is the sugar that helps the poison of power go down

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on September 25, 2025.

In today’s world of white supremacist politics, white evangelical worship is the sugar that helps the poison of power go down. And perhaps no event has put this more clearly on display than the Charlie Kirk memorial service.

When many Christians think about Christian nationalist worship leaders, their minds go to the likes of Sean Feucht or lesser-known extremists who clash with protesters in worship battles that end with police raids and arrests, or with LGBTQ advocates playing kazoos. The assumption is that mainstream worship leaders who can be found on Christian radio are more generically safe for the whole family, or at least for heterosexual white families.

And in one sense, there is some truth to that. As Worship Leader Research notes, the top worship songs today are written in a way so as to make them “theologically palatable to the broadest range of users.”

So it was rather surprising for many people to discover Chris Tomlin, Brandon Lake, Phil Wickham, Kari Jobe and Cody Cairnes leading worship at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service — perhaps the most politicized public memorial service in modern history.

Kevin M. Young

“I have deeply loved the Christian artists who performed at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, and their music has dramatically impacted my spiritual journey for the better,” Kevin M. Young wrote on X. “However, I no longer think I will be able to listen to them again. It will undoubtedly be a long time before I can trust their faith or connection to the Spirit of Christ. I can’t support the things that were said from the same platform they shared today. Worship and hate speech do not belong together.”

“Worship and hate speech do not belong together.”

Young went on to lament, “We have lost evangelicalism to the unholy empire. It is now a state church, in a deviant state. In my view, by performing there, these artists give full allegiance to the content, speakers and speeches that accompanied them. And I cannot and will not support that.”

His words were echoed by many Christians who love modern worship music but are opposed to the white Christian supremacist values of MAGA and the Trump administration. And unfortunately, when we take a closer look over the past quarter century, we have to come to terms with the reality that the appearance of these worship leaders at Kirk’s memorial service was not an aberration.

They’ve been complicit in white Christian nationalism for decades.

Chris Tomlin onstage in Sunrise, Fla., in 2024. (Photo: Chris Tomlin Facebook)

‘Coming to America’

The signs of Chris Tomlin’s Christian nationalism go all the way back to an event hosted by Louie Giglio’s Passion Conference known as One Day 2000, during which 40,000 college students came together for worship and preaching at Shelby Farms in Memphis, Tenn., in May 2000.

Chris Tomlin

With thousands of worship leaders listening to John Piper preach his scripts about committing to the cause, Tomlin brought the gathering to a climax with a song containing the lyrics, “The Lord is coming, coming to America.” Then Matt Redman joined in singing about how a nation’s freedom is based on whether the nation knows Jesus.

When the thousands of college students and worship leaders went back to their churches, they took with them Piper’s scripts about sacrificing one’s entire life for a cause that includes gender roles of authority and submission, bolstered by Tomlin’s worship about Jesus focusing on the United States.

Continue reading at Baptist News Global.