Charlie Kirk & American Faith: A History

In “

Charlie Kirk and the New Christian GOP” (Declarations, Sept. 27), Peggy Noonan suggests a religious revival may be afoot in the U.S. The Glendale, Ariz., memorial service was arguably the biggest event in recent U.S. history to combine Christianity and politics, with neither taking a back seat. It was both a revival service and a political party national convention.

But such occasions aren’t uncommon. The background to this kind of revivalism is a pattern of 19th-century awakenings that began with Charles Grandison Finney and later included Billy Grahamthe last urban evangelist to pack baseball and football stadia the way Turning Point USA did last month. Bill Clinton in 2018 said of the preacher: “He filled a football stadium with a fully integrated audience, reminding them that we all come before God as equals.”