{"id":29180,"date":"2025-09-28T13:21:41","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T17:21:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=29180"},"modified":"2025-09-28T13:21:41","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T17:21:41","slug":"don-lemon-calls-charlie-kirk-memorial-service-a-political-rally-dressed-as-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/09\/don-lemon-calls-charlie-kirk-memorial-service-a-political-rally-dressed-as-church","title":{"rendered":"Don Lemon Calls Charlie Kirk Memorial Service ‘a political rally dressed as church’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Left: Don Lemon \/ YouTube | Right: The White House<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Conservatives have praised Sunday\u2019s memorial for slain Christian conservative Charlie Kirk for its open proclamations of faith from high profile government officials such as Vice President JD Vance and President Donald Trump. For liberals and left-leaning individuals, however, the memorial service served as an omen of incoming Christian nationalism and an erosion of the separation between church and state.<\/p>\n

Former CNN host, Don Lemon, criticized the memorial during a livestream, calling it \u201ca political rally dressed as church.\u201d \u201cWhat we saw in that arena was not simply faith finding public expression, it was religious nationalism on full display,\u201d he said during his \u201cHot Topics\u201d segment. Lemon accused the service of ulterior motives. \u201cHow does a person of faith act?\u201d he asked. \u201cHow does a person who really believes and what God and the scriptures say the true meaning of it, not the distorted meaning, how would they treat the least of these? So, what I say now is that what happened in Arizona this weekend was not just a memorial. It was something else entirely. People will tell you that it is about grief. It was about grief, about honoring a man’s life, about faith. And on the surface, you know, maybe it looked like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He accused the administration of taking Kirk\u2019s death as an opportunity to assert religious control. \u201cThe language was unmistakable. \u2018Take the nation back for God.\u2019 \u2018Restore America’s covenant.\u2019 \u2018This is a holy calling.\u2019 That’s what it sounded like. This is not the language of democracy. This is the language of domination\u2026 When faith fuses with power, it begins to ask for something else. It asks for obedience. It divides a country into the saved and the damned, the chosen, and the condemned,\u201d he said. \u201cThe moment religion becomes a tool of politics, dissent starts to sound like blasphemy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kirk\u2019s supporters were quick to slam Lemon. \u201cDon Lemon is upset over the Christianity displayed at Charlie Kirk\u2019s Memorial. Thanks for saying the quiet part out loud. The left HATES Christianity,\u201d wrote Derrick Evans on X<\/a>. \u201cNo, fool, you know that demon in you?\u201d Brandon Tatum said in a reaction video<\/a> to Lemon\u2019s stream. \u201cThat\u2019s the Holy Spirit. But you running from it, Don? You\u2019re running\u2026 You can\u2019t handle it. Because you\u2019re a devil.\u201d He stated that Lemon would go to Hell if he did not repent. \u201cYou going to Hell playing around.\u201d He called Lemon \u201ctoo stupid\u201d to see that Kirk was a \u201cChristian martyr.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conservatives have praised Sunday\u2019s memorial for slain Christian conservative Charlie Kirk for its open proclamations of faith from high profile government officials such as Vice President JD Vance and President Donald Trump. For liberals and left-leaning individuals, however, the memorial service served as an omen of incoming Christian nationalism and an erosion of the separation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":29183,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDon Lemon Calls Charlie Kirk Memorial Service 'a political rally dressed as church'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Conservatives hailed Charlie Kirk\u2019s memorial as a bold display of faith, while critics like Don Lemon warned of rising Christian nationalism.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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