Egregores & Echoes: When Christian Nationalism’s Words Come Home to Roost

There’s a moment when the snake swallows its own tail. When what has been spat into the world returns in its own horrific shape.

That moment came for Charlie Kirk yesterday.

Scene & Sound

Picture this:

Utah Valley University, a tent set up for hundreds... thousands... eyes fixed on a stage. A “Prove Me Wrong” table. Words flying back and forth. Questions about mass shooters, questions about trans people. The crowd is charged. Flags ripple. The promise of confrontation, of truth, of belonging.

Then — a shot.
Not from the front, not from protestors in the street. From a rooftop. About 200 yards away. CBS News+2Wikipedia+2

Charlie Kirk, mid-sentence. Neck struck. Blood. Panic. Chaos. Screams. Fleeing. Eyes gone wide. Bodies hitting the dirt. The shock of hearing one’s own belief system echoed back in violence. The jarring collision of ideals with mortality. People.com+1

The Rhetoric That Builds And the Mirror That Breaks

Christian nationalism is not an abstract idea reserved for scholarly critique. It’s built by rhetoric. Stories. Sermons. Political speeches. Day‑after‑day messaging that delineates who gets to be safe (white, male, Christian, straight) and who lives as “other”... suspect, enemy, threat.

When someone like Kirk speaks, the stage is part pulpit, part podium. Every word is woven into the egregore, a belief entity, that Christian nationalism has cultivated: one where identity, power, belonging, fear, and righteousness are fused.

And when the egregore’s language becomes so loud, so normalized, that a man can be hit while he’s publicly affirming those very tales of fear–that’s the moment the mirror shatters. The reflection is messy. The audience sees a truth they had denied: that what you worship, you protect, even if it means living inside its violence.

Because Examples Matter

To see this isn’t theory. It’s happening in texture.

• Studies show that Christian nationalism correlates strongly with views that devalue immigrants, minimize racism, and demonize queer folks. Brookings+1

• It’s been documented that communities steeped in Christian nationalist ideology are more likely to produce political extremism, to frame identity not as human complexity but as zero‑sum belonging: your faith flags vs. their different flags. SAGE Journals+1

• Historical roots run deep: Christian nationalism draws from the Doctrine of Discovery, white Christian exceptionalism, colonialism, segregation. It is architecture laid brick‑by‑brick, for centuries. TIME+1

The Irony & The Reckoning

Kirk was speaking about the dangers of certain “others”... trans people, ideological enemies... just before he was shot. The bullet didn’t ask theology, didn’t weigh nuance. It intersected with narrative.

There’s a painful irony: every time Christian nationalists raise alarms about “threats from the outside,” about “decline,” “outsiders,” “leftist mandates,” what they are doing is building defensive walls... walls of belief, segregation, fear. And those walls, once erected, don’t only keep out what they deem dangerous. They also trap those inside. The language of fear becomes the fortress. The beliefs become the bars.

This event shows what happens when that fortress is breached from the inside or the outside. When the language that was meant to protect becomes something you cannot escape.

The Mirror for Us All

And yes, I mean us. Black folks. Queer folks. Christian folks. Heads down, ears closed, hearts numb. Even those of us who’ve said “no, this ain’t for me,” we still carry echoes. We have internal maps shaped by this egregore.

Ask:

• When did I begin to believe that American Christian = safe, good, powerful?

• How often have I looked away while someone outside those identity boxes was criminalized, demonized, “unworthy” and thought, quietly, “Good thing that’s not me.”

• How many sermons, podcasts, social feeds, prayers, memes, political rallies have subtly taught: Protection equals sameness. That God’s favor lives with those who look, think, march, vote, speak like “us.”

Because those are the cracks in the system. Those are the places where sovereignty beckons.

The Danger of Selective Compassion

Let’s name it: we react differently by who the victim is. It’s not just about who gets the grief. It’s about who is allowed dignity after death.

• Witness the universal outrage, the flags lowered, the prayers, the venomous vs. sympathetic reactions. Politicians from both sides calling it “political violence,” “unacceptable.” The Guardian+2ABC News+2

• Compare: when Black organizers, queer activists, Muslim leaders, or undocumented folks are harmed, the attention often is slower, the empathy weaker, the dehumanization faster.

This selective compassion is part of the damage. It tells us whose bodies are sacred under the egregore, whose pain is visible, whose is invisible. And ultimately, it teaches people whose lives are essential and whose are expendable.

The Call To Look, To Break, To Reclaim

We need to look. All of us. Especially those who thought they were “outside” this beast.

This isn’t just a “political problem.” It’s spiritual, energetic, psychological. It demands more of us than choosing a side. It demands that we examine the beliefs beneath the sides.

We must be willing to:

• sit in the discomfort of being wrong.

• feel the pain of our complicity.

• unlearn what was taught as sacred, when it was unexamined.

• choose allegiance to something wider: justice, true compassion, humanity. Not just identity or ideology.

Because if we don’t, we are still living as hosts to this egregore. Giving it oxygen. Creating more of what we say we fear.

Closing: What Sovereignty & Unbound Offers Us

Sovereign & Unbound is an invitation.
It’s not clean. It’s not always comfortable. It doesn’t point to external villains (though there are plenty). It points inward. It says:

You are not your beliefs.
Your soul is not property.
You have inherited stories, but you don’t have to carry them unexamined.

If you want to stop being a hostage to ideas that divide, dehumanize, dispossess, you can begin today.

Read the book. Sovereign and Unbound.
Let it shift what you believe about what you believe. Let it wake you to what you’ve been blind to. Let it unsettle your loyalties, not to break you, but to free you.

🤍 launch.sovereignandunbound.com

Perspective Crystals: Layers to Sit With

Here are reflections to hold, meditate on, interrogate yourself with:

• The historian’s gaze: So much of Christian nationalism is built on myth... on stories we tell about founding, about mission, about America’s “chosen” role. Those stories have always been edited. Who benefits when those stories go unchallenged?

• The psychological lens: Fear is one of the strongest motivators: fear of loss, fear of other, fear of being erased. What we fear we protect, sometimes at the cost of harming others. And we often never see the harm because we are looking to survive.

• The spiritual map: What is your source for what is righteous? What is your source for what is real? Is it your bloodline? Your political identity? Your social media echo chamber? Or something deeper? Something universal?

• The relational terrain: In your family. In your church. In your friendships. When does faith become compliance? When does belonging demand silence? When does speaking truth feel like betrayal? These are the places where sovereignty lives... or where it dies.

If this moment makes you want to be more than a bystander, more than a spectator—then the next step is not more rhetoric. It’s a decision. A choice. A turning.

Because Christian nationalism is real. Its power is real. And its wounds are deep.

But truth… truth has a force all its own.

Read Sovereign and Unbound.
Let’s stop being captives. Let’s start being clear.