“Grace is the enduring legacy of Charlie Kirk,” Vice President JD Vance said Sunday at a Glendale, Arizona, memorial for the assassinated conservative youth leader, not long before Kirk’s widow Erika built on that legacy, saying of the young Utah man who killed the father of her two young children, “I forgive him.”

If grace is Kirk’s legacy, reflected so beautifully by his wife, then a lack of grace is the central reality of Donald Trump’s presidency. Trump himself delivered on that following Erika’s touching forgiveness with his own vow of vengeance, doubling down on the need to seek the death penalty and promising a Department of Justice investigation to seek retribution against any groups that influenced Kirk’s left-wing killer.

This as his administration tears families apart with its intense immigration crackdown, summarily slaughters unindicted drug smugglers on the high seas and allows Russia free rein to continue its campaign of terror in Ukraine. In Washington’s corridors of power, it seems, grace is in short supply.

Before Trump spoke, the afternoon event before an overflow crowd in the six figures felt like more of a tent revival than the political rally the president tried to evoke. Vance put it succinctly in saying that he had talked more about his faith in the 11 days since Kirk was gunned down than he had in his entire public life.

The speeches and the staging were perfectly choreographed to bring the Christian conservative majority that elected Trump a mere nine months ago together after so much that Trump has done to fracture his coalition. The choreography worked on me. After Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s evangelical speech, I felt more a part of the Christian conservative movement than I have in a decade of criticizing the direction of Republicans under Trump and voting for Democrats despite my gag reflex.

The power of the event to heal old wounds was palpable as Trump and Elon Musk, frenemies from the first DOGE days of Trump’s second term, sat next to each other and shook hands. Kirk’s grace has seemingly ended the threat of a third party.

Trump called Kirk’s killer a “radicalized monster” and a “twisted soul,” amid praise for his erratic tariff policies mixed with a plug for Monday’s upcoming release of the false “Make America Healthy Again” accusation that Tylenol taken during pregnancy causes autism.

To Trump, Kirk was “the greatest evangelist for American liberty.” But for the president, there is a danger in creating a new saint while hauling the word of God more plainly onto the political stage than I have ever seen before. As I have heard from the pulpit in my own church: God’s hand, God’s vision, His plan: They’re much bigger than man can know. In raising up Kirk and his wife and their evangelical conservative and religious organization, Trump may find that there is more Christ in Christianity than he’d like. At least, I hope.

Trump’s speech was right about one thing: “Charlie Kirk was a giver much more than a taker.” The president doesn’t follow in the beatified young man’s footsteps. Trump is a man who takes much more than he gives. I am afraid we’re going to find liberty taken most of all. May God’s grace save us from that.

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David Mastio is a national columnist for McClatchy and the Kansas City Star.

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