Is unity possible?

Article adapted from episode content.

The events of the past weeks have precipitated a moment of profound reflection within the American cultural and political landscape, raising urgent questions about the possibility and desirability of national unity. Following the memorial service for apologist and leader Charlie Kirk, which was watched by well over 100 million people who heard the Christian gospel articulated clearly by several speakers, some commentators have suggested that a significant turning point has been reached. Indeed, one political commentator, Hugh Hewitt, argued that the left is essentially “done” and “dead and buried,” suggesting the Democrat party has gone “off a cliff into the abyss”. While the spiritual and scale of this event were undeniably astounding—perhaps the largest single setting in history where the gospel of Jesus Christ was proclaimed—it is imperative to resist the temptation to mistake an emotional response or a successful worship service for a fundamental, lasting cultural victory.

The contrast observed between the reaction of the right to this loss and the actions of the left during previous times of conflict is striking and serves as a powerful illustration of the present cultural divide. When leftist activists were offended during the George Floyd riots, the response involved burning down cities and businesses. It is recalled that CNN even featured a reporter with a backdrop of a burning city with the headline “riots mostly peaceful”. Conversely, when a beloved leader on the right was “struck down in the prime of his career,” the response was a solemn church service featuring worship and speakers who testified to “the goodness of God in spite of the dark moment”.

However, the question remains whether this outpouring of sympathy and spiritual engagement signifies a structural shift. We must exercise caution and not confuse “large numbers and good media coverage” for having “won culturally”. The worldview structures that make abortion plausible to millions of citizens “are still deeply entrenched in this culture”. If we are to ascertain where the culture truly stands, we must observe behavioral changes, particularly the outcomes of upcoming ballot initiatives concerning abortion rights in states like Nevada, Arizona, and Missouri, rather than merely relying on expressions of emotion.

Therefore, the work ahead remains centered on convincing people that the pro-life view is “true and reasonable to believe,” much like Charlie Kirk did when he advanced reasons for his views on campuses. What the movement may have now is an opportunity—what some might term an “epistemic parenthetical”—a moment where the culture may “pause long enough to hear what we’re going to say,” rather than immediately rejecting it. It is critical not to lose this “opportunity of conveying to people clearly what the prolife case is”.

The Illusion of Mandated Unity

In the wake of this traumatic event, calls for unity have intensified, with some Christian leaders suggesting that “we need to unify” in obedience to a biblical command, even with leftists. This demand for forced Christian unity is paradoxical, especially given that during the summer of 2020, Christians were often told they were not believers if they did not align with activists burning cities or post the Black Lives Matter symbol on social media. Now, institutions that once wrote “glowing obituaries about George Floyd” and demanded political conformity are calling for unity with the left, while saying “nothing about Charlie Kirk”.

While the gospel is certainly powerful enough to convert anyone, regardless of political or theological leanings—as God saved the Apostle Paul while he was murdering Christians—and while Christians must love their leftist neighbors, act neighborly toward them, and help them in times of personal crisis, true unity is a different concept entirely. We are commanded to act “civily toward people we disagree with”. Friendship can certainly happen over shared interests, such as sports or hobbies like vintage cars, which allow for civil interaction without politics being the central focus.

However, unity implies something “a whole lot deeper” than shared interests. We cannot unify with those who hold “fundamentally different core values and core beliefs”. The underlying problem is that the “left has a whole different set of first principles than the right does,” making true unity structurally and philosophically impossible for a biblically grounded Christian.

Fundamental Worldview Divergence

The chasm preventing unity is illuminated by examining the foundational questions of existence through the lens of the Christian worldview versus the woke leftist worldview.

Ontology (Ultimate Reality)

The Christian worldview grounds its ontology—its claim about what is ultimately real—in a transcendent immaterial God who has revealed Himself to His creation. This worldview follows a definitive storyline: creation (God creating a good world), the fall (man rebelling), the atonement (Jesus dying for sinners), and glorification (the new earth and renewal).

Conversely, the leftist worldview does not view a transcendent God as the ultimate reality. Instead, ultimate reality is defined by “racial structures that are profoundly unjust”. This framework establishes a class dynamic of “oppressors versus the oppressed,” with racial structures and dynamics being the ultimate truth.

Epistemology (Truth and Knowledge)

In the Christian worldview, objective truth, including “moral truth and rational truth, logic, reason,” is grounded in God’s character and is objectively knowable. The biblical perspective places a premium on logical thought, careful inquiry, and evidence-based claims, recognizing truth as objective, not constructed.

The woke left worldview, however, denies the validity of objective reasoning, often calling it “racist and oppressive”. Instead of refuting conservative arguments, this worldview simply attacks conservatives for attempting to be rational, suggesting that logic is used merely “to oppress the people that are under the thumb of society”. Their framework is one of standpoint epistemology, where truth is determined by the perspective of the person who has been “deemed to be oppressed,” rather than by objective evidence or transcendent moral principles.

This divergence was tragically apparent in the response to the brutal murder of a young Ukrainian woman outside Charlotte, North Carolina. On the conservative right, the response centered on objective evil: the act was intrinsically wrong, and the perpetrator was deemed a “murdering thug” who acted using evil. The leftist response, however, was to insist on contextualizing the event, arguing that the perpetrator was a member of an “oppressed race”. According to this reasoning, the act should not be seen as objectively evil, but rather as an “outgrowth of the society he’s been forced to live in”. In this storyline, the real fault lies with the oppressors who caused the killer to do what he did. With such fundamentally opposed views on knowledge and truth, there is “no way to align with such people”.

Ethics (Right and Wrong)

Under the Christian worldview, right and wrong are objective. They are discovered, and human actions must align with them. The Founding Fathers referred to certain first principles—such as the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—as “self-evident,” sourced in a transcendent creator and requiring no argument, but merely recognition. The purpose of government, they argued, is to recognize and defend these rights.

The leftist worldview determines right and wrong subjectively. Actions are judged based on the individual’s context, including “all the underlying considerations that drove this person to do something evil”. Morality, according to the left, is constructed by the individual or society; “We construct moral narratives. We don’t align with them”. A believer in objective, biblical morality cannot align with this constructivist view.

Anthropology (View of Human Beings)

On the question of anthropology—what man is—the Christian response is that human beings possess intrinsic value because they bear the image of their Creator. This value is inherent, irrespective of the capacity to perform cognitive functions, viability, or feelings.

The woke left worldview denies an objective human nature grounded in the image of God; rather, human nature is something constructed. Value is conferred if society determines it. This view is traceable to existentialist philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre, who argued that “existence precedes essence,” meaning humans exist first and then determine their nature through subjective choices and thought processes. This leads to situations where two women at 39 weeks of pregnancy can view the same human being in the womb completely differently—one as a “baby” and the other as a “burden”—with the woke worldview offering no objective means to adjudicate between these subjectively constructed views of human nature.

Cosmology (Where are we going?)

The Christian worldview posits that the universe originated with a God who intentionally designed it and human beings. The end will involve God reconciling all believers to Himself through the “shed blood of Jesus,” with non-believers facing eternal punishment.

The woke worldview fundamentally rejects this. The ultimate goal is revolution: tearing down society’s perceived racist structures and rebuilding them along woke principles to advance social justice. Structures deemed obstacles to this revolution—such as the family, man-woman marriage, and the pro-life movement (which restricts the “so-called rights of women to kill their own offspring”)—must be dismantled.

The Necessity of Engagement

Given the lack of alignment on ontology, epistemology, ethics, anthropology, and cosmology, there are no “shared moral principles or shared frameworks” between the conservative right and the woke left. Therefore, unity is not possible.

It is worth noting that past generations sometimes shared a moral framework, allowing for political discussion and friendship despite disagreement on methodology. Forty years ago, it was possible to unify with someone who held opposing political views (e.g., Democrat activism vs. Republicanism) because both sides often agreed on the big stuff: “ultimate reality being grounded in God and transcendent source,” and the objective, knowable nature of truth, and the intrinsic value of human beings. Today, “the two sides don’t align on what the fundamental questions are”.

The path forward must reject the assertion made by some evangelical leaders—like Russell Moore and Tim Keller—who have claimed that Christian political involvement “inhibits the gospel”. Keller, for example, argued that support from evangelicals made it harder to share their faith, and that revival would only occur when political moderates controlled evangelicalism.

This notion is dramatically refuted by the evidence of the recent memorial. The event demonstrated that over 100 million people heard the gospel of Christ proclaimed, which occurred precisely because a young man integrated his political convictions and cultural engagement. The resultant audience was far larger than previously reachable with the gospel. When Frank Turk shared the gospel, it reached over 100 million people, often for the first time. This outcome did not arise from disassociating from the culture but from engaging it. Our responsibility, therefore, is to engage, not disassociate. Organizations like Summit Ministries are instrumental in equipping students to defend and apply their biblical worldview, engaging a culture that fundamentally disagrees on these key questions.

In conclusion, while we must maintain civility and love our neighbors, the pursuit of structural unity with those who deny objective truth, objective morality, and the objective nature of humanity is futile. Genuine unity requires shared moral principles, and in the current cultural moment, those simply do not exist. The focus must shift from impossible unity to persuasive engagement, making a reasoned case for the Christian and pro-life worldviews.