it wasn’t surprising that, at some point during the hours of worship music leading up to the speakers’ list, the singer Kari Jobe declared: “We want the Kirk family to be healed, and we want our land to return to Jesus.” Christian nationalism had become central to Kirk’s brand—so it’s only fitting that it was front and center at his memorial.
Two tropes emerged as the prominent themes in the hour-long affair: Martyrdom and spiritual warfare. White nationalist Jack Posobiec, who wrote a fascist manifesto and has collaborated with neo-Nazis, gave a straight-armed salute with a rosary clenched in his fist and compared Kirk to Moses, claiming that his “sacrifice” would be the “turning point” in the fight for “Western Civilization.” Like so many others, Posobiec used Kirk’s death as a call to spiritual warfare, citing Eph 6:11: