Jesus Christ was spotted in Kirkland, Washington, Friday night among about 100 protesters outside the Turning Point USA (TPUSA) event at The Pursuit Northwest megachurch, where Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow, was the headliner.
“I would say these people [TPUSA] emphatically do not speak for me,” Jesus, standing on the sidewalk outside Pursuit, said over shouting and car honking. “I just came back after two thousand years to check in on what people were invoking my name for, and I would say, this is not something that I approved.”
Of course, the man—who wouldn’t give his real name for safety reasons—wasn’t actually Jesus, but a protester dressed as the figure Pursuit and conservative nonprofit TPUSA invoke to back up vitriolic messaging against marginalized groups.
Making heaven crowded with one view of Christianity
The event was part of Erika Kirk’s Make Heaven Crowded Tour, one of 25 stops across the country. Seemingly a reaction to Charlie Kirk’s death last September, the tour is “a gospel centered gathering calling people to repentance, faith, and bold obedience to Jesus,” the website says, adding it would be a “powerful night of worship, preaching, and ministry.”
While the event, which drew enough attendees to almost fill the 2,200-seat auditorium, did include worship and preaching, it also included right-wing talking points both Pursuit and TPUSA are known for. Anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ and pro-Zionist beliefs were rife within the four speakers’ messages across the three-hour event.
Pursuit pastor Russell Johnson, a friend of Charlie Kirk, spoke while gripping the podium, his baseball hat low over his eyes, his voice strained and impassioned. He criticized the government for the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, calling it “medical tyranny.” He called Charlie Kirk a martyr, killed for his Christian beliefs. He railed against “people who think gender is a construct, abortion is healthcare, borders are racist and the nuclear family is useless, all the while they’re still wearing masks in their car while driving alone.”
“I’m not supporting politicians who believe gender is a construct and biology is make believe,” Johnson said to the cheering crowd. “If our elected officials don’t have the courage to admit that men have penises and women have vaginas, then they shouldn’t be trusted to mop the floor at a Diddy party.”
These beliefs, boldly and proudly claimed by Pursuit’s and TPUSA’s leaders, are inflammatory, and many on the left believe that’s the point. The goal, they say, is to draw leftists and activists out in droves, then circulate videos online that paint protesters as "crazy" and themselves as the rational ones.
Counter protesters purposed not to provoke
Knowing that provocation is the point, Holy Spirit Lutheran Church pastor Katy McCallum Sachse asked, in a phone call with FāVS News prior to the event: “What is the role of public protest when the organization being protested wants you to do that so they can get on the news? How do you make your voice known in a way that is meaningful, but doesn’t just draw more attention to something that is damaging?”
Instead of a protest, her church joined like-minded pastors and community leaders to participate in a private counter-event at a different church nearby. Organized by the Church Council of Greater Seattle, the event aimed to educate attendees about No Hate in WA State, a campaign to defeat two ballot measures that target transgender students.
The counter-event, held at a different church in the same general Kirkland neighborhood, wasn’t publicized. Invites were sent to progressive congregations and registrants received the location on the day of.
The low-key approach was intentional. “We want to do something that will help people understand their neighbor and will change their hearts,” McCallum Sachse said. “And we don’t need the press there to do that, but they do — they need the press to show up to put them on the news to build power, and we refuse to participate in that.”
McCallum Sachse doesn’t see TPUSA’s or Pursuit’s messaging as rooted in Scripture, saying they use Christianity to build political power.
“Any form of Christianity that not only allows you to hate your neighbor, but encourages you to hate your neighbor, is—and these are words we don’t use a lot anymore but I think they’re words that matter—it is blasphemy and idolatry and it is deeply dangerous,” McCallum Sachse said.
READ MORE: I Rejected Charlie Kirk’s Politics. That’s Why I Grieve His Death
To people within TPUSA’s camp who’d argue their reading of the Bible is correct, McCallum Sachse said she would “respectfully encourage them just to read the Gospels…with an open heart and mind, and come back and tell me, can you, in the light of these stories, justify the language and the rhetoric that Turning Point uses? I mean, if you really can, I don’t know that I am able to help you.”
Peaceful, but tense, protest
Back at Pursuit church, the protest remained peaceful but it wasn’t without tense moments. The event did exactly what TPUSA seemed to want — it drew people out and gave them plenty to react to.
A man shouted through a megaphone, “We’ve got some Nazis over here!” referencing the conservative counter-protesters. Another person held a phone in the face of a protester as the two argued loudly about the existence of intersex people. Further south on the sidewalk, a group of about 30 waved pride flags and held signs that read, “No compromise on trans rights!” Cars honked as they drove by. Police patrolled up and down the sidewalk on foot.
Charlette LeFevre, director of Capitol Hill Pride, was protesting, too.
“Erika Kirk embodies everything we’re fighting against,” LeFevre said. “We’re here to show … the community that we care, your neighbors care.”
“That is hate speech in there, as far as I’m concerned,” LeFevre added, motioning to Pursuit’s building.
Opposition is not enough
Inside, as the night drew to a close, Erika Kirk took the spotlight to a thunderous standing ovation. She spoke about how her faith has helped her through the grief of losing her husband. She encouraged the crowd to choose faith during their weak moments “when the enemy tries to attack.”
“There are two different lifestyles that you can live,” Erika Kirk said. “You can either live a life that’s characterized by rebellion and sin, or you can live a life that is increasingly characterized by repentance.”
Both sides made their opposition to the other clear that night—TPUSA and Pursuit inside, protesters outside.
McCallum Sachse shares that opposition, but for her, opposition alone isn’t enough. She wrestles with what comes after it—what it means to stand for something, not just against it.
“That’s something I struggle with as a progressive person in this time … Will we remember what we stand for? Or will we have only been united and sort of energized by the things we object to?” McCallum Sachse said. “We have to be able to remember what we are for and what we are called to build, not just what we’re called to dismantle, even though those are both important things.”
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“Any form of Christianity that not only allows you to hate your neighbor, but encourages you to hate your neighbor, is—and these are words we don’t use a lot anymore but I think they’re words that matter—it is blasphemy and idolatry and it is deeply dangerous.” —Katy McCallum Sachse
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