Charlie Kirk's pastor sees God's hand in Trump's victory

On election night, a Southern California pastor wearing a red MAGA hat tweeted a message to his Instagram followers, celebrating the victory of President-elect Donald Trump.

Rob McCoy thanked God – and Charlie Kirk, one of the Republican Party's most influential power brokers.

“This is a milestone in the rebirth of freedom,” McCoy said from the headquarters of Kirk's organization, Turning Point USA, in Phoenix.

Kirk, a 31-year-old hotshot, rallied millions of his online followers to support Trump, prompting podcast host Megyn Kelly to say, “It's not an understatement to say that this man is responsible for helping Republicans bring back White . the US House and Senate.”

The Atlantic called Kirk “the new king of the right.”

And the man the king called his pastor McCoy, from Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Newbury Park.

McCoy gained notoriety during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when he defied public health orders and continued to hold indoor church services without masks.

He sees in Trump a man persecuted by the left, who, although “flawed like the rest of us,” was chosen by God to lead a sinful nation that, in his view, allows mass abortions and embraces gender rights.

“God saved us,” McCoy told his brothers in his first sermon after Trump won. “He gave us grace. We didn't deserve this.”

McCoy, a vaccine skeptic who has been a senior preacher at Godspeak for 25 years, told The Times that he considers Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the pro-vaccine activist Trump has chosen to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, “good. a friend.” In his church he has managed MAGA luminaries such as Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's choice for director of national intelligence, and Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser. And of course, Kirk.

Kirk, a billionaire known for his memes and his college visits aimed at “own libs,” credited McCoy with persuading him to change his right-wing politics, nationalism and evangelical faith.

Although Kirk founded Turning Point USA in 2012 as an organization of young people interested in believing in God, he now says that God is on the side of American conservatives, and that pastors have a divine duty to preach against progressive policies. There is, he said, “no separation of church and state.”

In a speech to Trump supporters in Georgia last month, Kirk said that “the Democratic Party supports everything that God hates” and that “there is a spiritual war going on all around us.”

Kirk's online reach is huge: 1.5 million followers on Rumble, 2.7 million on YouTube, 4 million on X and 5 million on TikTok. His nonprofit, Turning Point Action, has largely managed Trump's campaign in swing states like Arizona and Wisconsin.

After Trump's victory, McCoy joked from the pulpit: “This week, Charlie will go back to Washington to meet with the president because he will call his markers.”

Kirk, in recent days, posted on social media from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, where the president-elect is calling MAGA loyalists into his Cabinet. After Trump tapped former Florida attorney Matt Gaetz as attorney general, Kirk posted a video of X in the passenger seat of the car. Gaetz was behind the wheel and joked that his new job was “Charlie Kirk's driver.”

Asked if Kirk advises the president-elect or is being considered for a role in the administration, Trump's spokeswoman, Caroline Leavitt, said in a statement that Trump's appointment “will continue to be announced by him once it is made.”

McCoy ran unsuccessfully for the state Assembly in 2014. But as Kirk's reach has grown, so, too, has McCoy's.

In early April 2020, the beginning of the epidemic, McCoy, the former Mayor of Thousand Oaks, resigned from the City Council, saying that he planned to violate public health orders that prohibited church services because they were considered unnecessary and dangerous.

He called Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom a “Newsolini,” denounced the government as a “dictatorship” and shut down his YouTube page – “censored,” he says – when the platform was confronted with misleading and inaccurate viral content and policies.

After a San Diego judge allowed strip clubs to reopen, McCoy followed former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's suggestion and pretended his church was a “serious” adult entertainment venue; in the sanctuary, he danced while taking off the music, throwing a tie into the congregation, where the worshipers were holding dollars.

Ventura County sued McCoy's church for violating public health orders. The county eventually dropped its case, but Godspeak fired back, claiming its 1st amendment rights were violated. In 2022, the federal appeals court sided with the district, but one result of the epidemic, McCoy says, is that his congregation quadrupled to 1,500.

Kirk, whose college speaking gigs were interrupted by the campus shutdown, was welcomed into churches like McCoy's.

In a 2021 interview, Kirk said McCoy, in their first meeting, said to him: “You're a Christian, and I want to tell you that the Bible doesn't just say a lot about civil government, it doesn't just say the Bible.” a lot about how we should communicate with our leaders, but I think you should talk publicly about that.”

Pastor Rob McCoy, pictured in 2020, resigned from the Thousand Oaks City Council because he disagreed with government restrictions on gatherings during the violence.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Three years ago, Kirk shared the power of his Turning Points brand with McCoy, who helped launch TPUSA Faith, which provides training and networking for pastors who want to be politically active.

Turning Point USA and TPUSA Faith did not respond to The Times' requests for comment.

Matthew Boedy, a professor of rhetoric and composition at the University of North Georgia, said that “Rob McCoy was the one who turned Charlie Kirk on Christian nationalism, and specifically the Seven Mountains Mandate,” the idea that Christians should try to influence Christianity. seven pillars of cultural influence: arts and entertainment, business, education, family, government, media and religion.

Christian nationalism holds that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and that Christianity should have primacy in government and law.

“Charlie Kirk has tremendous influence in the evangelical world and in the Trump world and nationally, and he has tremendous resources at his disposal in all seven areas of cultural influence,” said Boedy, who is writing a book about Kirk. “Trump allowed him to do that, he gave him the space to do it. But Rob McCoy was the person who convinced him to do it.”

In an interview with The Times, McCoy emphasized that he is “not a dominionist” – who believes that the world should be ruled by Christians. He said that Trump seems to be “wanting” and growing in his faith, but that he has succeeded in each of the seven pillars and that God seems to be working through him.

“He's a bull in a china shop,” McCoy said. But he also keeps his promises. … I don't want a great teacher. I want the guardian of Western civilization.”

McCoy, like clerics on both sides of the political spectrum, blatantly ignores the Johnson Amendment, a 1954 law that prohibits tax-exempt organizations from participating in political campaigns and endorsing candidates. (Trump has said he wants to “completely destroy” the Johnson Amendment, which would require action by Congress.)

McCoy said he is disgusted by Christians who say “they don't do politics because politics is dirty, as if the whole world and themselves are clean.”

He also expresses the term “Christian nationalist,” saying that there is nothing wrong with loving God and one's country at the same time.

Trump – who polls show, won the support of 8 out of 10 white voters in this election – is one of many Republican politicians who have favored evangelicals.

But Trump, more than most, has cast himself as a divinely appointed defender of Christians who are unjustly persecuted, telling his supporters that he “stands between you and the left of the world that we want to get you,” said Barry Hankins, a history professor. at Baylor University who has written books about the gospel.

As the United States has become more progressive and secular — at the same time churches are shrinking and aging — Christians have lost their cultural power, leaving many feeling under attack, Hankins said.

“Trump is smart to just take this and market it and brand it for his political purposes,” he said.

The Republican Party platform, although vague on many topics, says that the GOP will stand for prayer and reading the Bible in schools.

McCoy, citing Trump's ability to deal with impeachment, impeachment and assassination attempts, called his election “a miracle.”

He compares Trump to Samson, a flawed biblical figure who was used by God for a greater purpose. “He's got blonde hair and he's very feminine,” McCoy said of Samson. “Trump has fabulous hair and feminine tendencies.”

In terms of banning abortions, Trump — who has conceded on the issue — is not where the pastor would like him to be, but “he has done more for the pro-life movement than any other president in modern history,” McCoy said.

Evangelical activists say they expect him to do more. In a letter to Trump's transition team, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention urged Trump to take steps to limit access to the abortion pill mifepristone.

McCoy said that as Trump returns to the White House, he sees a golden age for his and TPUSA Faith's efforts to “unawaken” — including diversity programs and critical race theory — from the American church.

He said he plans to start a podcast where he talks about politics. And next July, he'll be stepping down as senior pastor at Godspeak (though he'll still have a speaking role), due to his growing role with TPUSA Faith.

Days before the election, McCoy had preached that if Trump lost “life will take a turn for the worse” because of the evil sponsored by the left.

But after Trump's victory, he changed his tune.

“People who disagree with us are not enemies,” he wrote on Instagram. “They are an opportunity.”