Charlie Kirk’s assassination sparked something of a religious revival in conservative circles. Many Christians say they have felt a “spiritual shift.” Is this wave of religion and spirituality real? Is it enough to save America?

Turning Point USA held AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona, from Dec. 18 to 21, 2025. The conservative youth organization has hundreds of thousands of members, 30,000 of whom attended the event, and is led by Kirk’s widow, Erika. On Sunday, the last day of the convention, Erika Kirk sat down with hip-hop star Nicki Minaj.

Minaj has recently been speaking out against Islamic militants persecuting and committing violence against Nigerian Christians. So Turning Point USA gave her the chance to speak and to endorse President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance at a political rally. But Sunday morning’s Kirk-Minaj conversation actually exposes the hollowness and compromise at the heart of America’s religious revival.

For 20 years, Minaj has been churning out outrageously sexual, profanity-laden rap songs and videos. She is the type of moral and sexual influence that American youth should be warned against. You would think it would be an easy decision for Turning Point USA not to feature anyone remotely like her—let alone with Erika Kirk at the first AmericaFest since Charlie Kirk’s assassination and the resulting cultural phenomenon.

Minaj says she recently reignited her relationship with God, yet she has not stopped making profanity-laden music or obscene videos. Some conservatives expressed criticism that an active rapper was featured so prominently, but others argued, If you don’t want Nicki Minaj in this movement, you don’t want to win.

This sentiment reveals a dangerous flaw in American Christianity.

Nobody is saying they don’t want Minaj in the conservative movement. It would be wonderful if she cleaned up her life and stopped spreading filth. This has not happened. Minaj has basically started talking more about Jesus while living and promoting the same sinful lifestyle she has lived for years.

This is a clear case of American Christianity compromising.

Minaj has not embraced a Christian lifestyle; Christianity has embraced a Minaj lifestyle. This sets a dangerous precedent.

Throughout the Bible, you find people mixing truth with error and even worship of the true God with aspects of worship of false gods. God warns repeatedly that mixing the truth with sin doesn’t purify the sin; it poisons the truth! True religion, pure Christianity, does not mean holding up unrepentant sinners as an example—it means repenting: changing our words and deeds to obey God.

This is the fatal flaw in American Christianity that has existed for generations: the “come as you are” theology.

God lays out two requirements of salvation in Acts 2:38: repentance and baptism. People like Minaj are not even claiming to repent of sinful lifestyles. But people who talk a lot about God and the Bible and even the evils of sexual sins are inviting people like her to come into their movement without changing their sinful way of life. This encourages others to think they too can consume and even produce sexually obscene material and still be “conservative” and even Christian.

The leaders at Turning Point USA are accountable for their decisions. If you read the Bible, you realize that God is actually angrier with them than with Minaj, who knows almost nothing about God or the Bible. The religious leaders at Turning Point USA should have taught Minaj about repentance when she said she wanted a closer relationship with God. They did not. Instead, they compromised with evil. Their strategy might temporarily spread and empower the maga movement, but it will end up irreversibly corrupting it!