It’s the oldest cliché in the book but nevertheless true: US politicians “do God” to an extent that is literally unimaginable for leaders on this side of the Atlantic. This willingness to speak openly and passionately about the Christian faith was on full display at the Charlie Kirk commemoration held in Arizona on Sunday. Part memorial service, part political rally, part revival meeting, it was a uniquely American event. Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the President himself all took to the stage, alongside Erika Kirk, who stated that she forgave Tyler Robinson, who has been charged with killing her husband.

In stark contrast to Mrs Kirk’s powerful witness to Christian charity, Trump struck a different note. “I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry,” he said. While he may not have been entirely serious — it’s plausible that he was trying to be self-effacing and emphasise Kirk’s own virtues — some seized on the remark as an illustration of a tension on the American Right, between more serious Christians who genuinely try to practice forgiveness and charity, and those who supposedly either don’t believe, or who use the faith cynically as a kind of rallying cry for conservative politics. On X, other Right-wing anonymous accounts have also expressed unease with the talk of forgiveness and peace-making.

Almost a decade ago, the New York Times conservative columnist and Catholic Ross Douthat tweeted, in response to the rise of Trump, that “If you dislike the religious right, wait till you meet the post-religious right”. What he meant was that with the apparent decline of Christian observance, the faith’s emphasis on mercy, reconciliation and universal morality would lose out to a harder-edged Right-wing: more punitive, more nationalistic, less concerned with protecting the vulnerable, and more willing to embrace white identity politics.

There is truth in that warning. Evangelicals still form a crucial Republican bloc, yet their influence is tempered by broader shifts: the decades-long decline in Christian affiliation appears to have stabilised, but only at a level well below its mid-20th-century peak. Even so, the United States remains unusually religious compared with peer nations, with about a third of Americans still attending church at least once a month.

But even if the secularisation of the US Right is underway, it may not be the case that those who seem to favour a more robust response to Kirk’s assassin are simply cynics or closet Nietzscheans impatient with Christianity’s promotion of so-called “slave morality”.

There is no necessary contradiction between forgiving someone, as a personal matter, and still thinking that they ought to face due punishment or sanction. Christians have been debating what forgiveness means for 2,000 years, but it has rarely been understood as a kind of all-purpose “Get Out Of Jail Free” card. Forgiveness is above all a spiritual and communal practice, a command to individuals. It is linked to an awareness of our own faults and the frailty of our own moral judgements; a way to escape the cycle of vendetta and bitterness through a refusal to hold on to grudges or pick at old wounds.

The way in which a society chooses to protect itself and its members from threats — especially deadly threats — is a separate question, involving different considerations and a distinct set of trade-offs. Deciding whether or not we ought to execute political assassins has very little to do with how the assassin’s victims choose to deal with their own situation, and their own grief and anger.

The “split in MAGA”, then, may be more apparent than real. It’s about emphasis, rather than a deep mismatch of values or political aims. There are those who feel more comfortable talking about divine clemency and the world to come, and there are those who are more comfortable focusing on justice and good order here on earth. In practice, both impulses reinforce one another, sustaining a movement that preaches grace while demanding strength. The result is less a fracture than a fusion — one that gives MAGA its unusual resilience.

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Niall Gooch is a public sector worker and occasional writer who lives in Kent.

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