Trump fans build golden statues as Holy War devours Christian campus group

A political activist group that has long supported President Donald Trump, the late Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA, is reportedly struggling with its identity as Christian nationalism has become an increasingly potent influence within its ranks.

"Jonah Scott became president of the University of Central Florida’s Turning Point chapter within months of arriving on campus in the fall of 2024, after previously founding a chapter at Seminole State College," reported The Dispatch's Eli Kronenberg on Thursday. "He said the chapter’s meetings in his first year took place in a small conference room that held 30 to 40 students, but after Kirk’s death, the chapter had to start booking the campus’s largest meeting room in order to accommodate more than 200 students."

Kronenberg added that "with a growth in attendance came a shift in tone. When Scott stood for reelection as president this spring, some new members sought to push the chapter in a different direction, and Scott lost." Scott told Kronenberg that "I think Turning Point became a lot more of a Christian organization since Charlie passed, and they wanted more Christian leadership. I myself am Jewish, so there was a lot of that. Though we did incorporate a lot of Christian stuff into the group, I think a lot of people wanted it to be a more explicitly Christian organization.”

A former chapter president also told Kronenberg that "Everything’s like, ‘Oh, God did this, God did this. If you don’t support us, you’re not a God-loving person.’ That kind of feels like the vibe. It feels like it’s more like Christian extremism now.”

Kronenberg added that "several students" who he spoke to echoed that critique. Additionally, as right-wing influencer Candace Owens spreads conspiracy theories about Kirk's death, the organization has fought radicalization from that angle too.

"Most chapters have taken a big-tent approach to discussions surrounding Owens’ criticism of Turning Point," Kronenberg wrote. "Van Lemay, a high school student who leads a Club America group at West Michigan Aviation Academy, said it was 'sickening' to hear lies about Turning Point leaders, but cited Kirk’s support for the free exchange of ideas as a reason to hear critics out in meetings. 'I think that it’s really good actually to bring these conversations into real life, because most of this is online rhetoric and kind of lives within social media,' Lemay told The Dispatch. 'When you have something completely online, that’s often when it gets spun to the more extreme.'"

He added, "Asked how he would encourage chapters to handle discussions surrounding Owens’ conspiracy theories, Kolvet pointed out that today’s high school and college students came of age during the COVID pandemic, which he said led to a collapse in trust of authority figures. 'I’m super sympathetic to young people that question … official narratives or information from government authorities,' Kolvet said. 'Yes, it’s okay to ask questions. It’s quite another thing to engage in warrantless, reckless character assassination of people who themselves are victims, in this case Erika Kirk.'"

Kirk was assassinated one year ago as of Thursday, a moment that galvanized a Christian nationalist movement that has already largely rallied behind Trump.

“The religious right has been ascendant during the second presidency of Donald Trump, and they’ve harnessed his disdain for rules and norms to blur the lines between church and state,” reported Vox's Christian Paz in May. “Inside the White House, the secretary of defense has framed the war in Iran and American military action abroad as sanctioned and guided by God. Outside the government, this alliance between church and state often skirts near the edge of outright idolatry. Conservative pastors are erecting golden statues of Trump (but insisting it does not mirror the infamous golden calf of the Old Testament). They’re extending their hands over the president in prayer after comparing him to Jesus and standing by him, with some mild criticism, after he cast himself as an AI-slop Messiah.”

Despite Christian nationalist claims, America was not founded as a Christian country.

President Thomas Jefferson, who also co-authored the Declaration of Independence, famously wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptists during his administration arguing that “believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”