I’m pretty sure the central message of Buddhism is not “Rock and Roll all night, and party every day”

America’s most prominent insult comic, with all of the tact and grace that has always marked his public performances, decided that the middle of a funeral oration was a good time to veer wildly off script:

Trump bluntly and deliberately signaled that forgiveness and unity were for others, and that he’d use Kirk’s assassination to intensify his efforts to impose personal power even more ruthlessly.

He therefore confirmed that the immediate political consequence of Kirk’s shocking assassination will be more political discord.

The president described the Turning Point USA founder as “a missionary with a noble spirit and a great, great purpose.”

“He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them,” Trump said. But in a moment of brazen self-awareness that epitomized his presidency, he then broke from the script. “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent.” Trump went on, “And I don’t want the best for them.” Trump seemed to almost apologize to Erika Kirk. But it was a moment when couldn’t stop himself. Or didn’t want to, so he could remain true to himself.

Among other things, this little interlude wrecked what was supposed to be the emotional climax of the proceedings, which was Erika Kirk announcing that she had forgiven her husband’s murderer.

In case you missed the last couple of thousand years of theological debates, the various strands and sects of Christianity disagree about a whole lot of things — disagreements that have led to various forms of unpleasantness: decades-long wars, colorful executions of heretics, Monty Python skits, etc, — but I think it’s fair to say that if you were to melt down all of Christianity in all of its varieties, both as a set of religious doctrines, and a way of life, to a single proposition, it would be this:

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing. In all orthodox and/or seriously unorthodox versions of Christianity — see for an example of the latter, Tolstoy — it’s asserted without qualification that God’s forgiveness through Christ is absolutely and unconditionally dependent on the sinner’s forgiveness of those who have sinned against the sinner.

To say publicly, “I choose not to forgive my enemies” is exactly the same as to declare to the world, “I am not a Christian.” What Erika Kirk was declaring was simply what — again, absolutely without any qualification — was required of her by her religion. Now no reasonable person would require such a thing of a grieving widow, but Christianity doesn’t traffic in reasonable people: it’s a religion for saints, who do the otherwise impossible via God’s grace.

To say, “I myself reject this requirement because it’s not who I am, is sheer public apostasy of the most egregious kind, and would get a monarch or similar excommunicated back when things were run according to the lines that Prof. Adrian Vermeule et al believe we ought to return to as soon as possible.

That Trump does not even pretend to be a Christian in the most basic sense imaginable, while at the same time his public rejection of the most central tenet of the religion has no effect whatsoever on his Christian supporters, illustrates among other things that these people are themselves utterly fake Christians. This is not a no true Scotsman argument: It’s a there are no true Scotsmen on Planet Kaitan argument, because to be a true Scotsman you at least have to be from Scotland,

Commenter Karen, mango hunter extraordinaire, flagged the musings of some conservative Catholic priest regarding Trump’s performance at Charlie Kirk’s funeral, which regretfully pointed out that Trump shouldn’t have said the things he said. But he of course still supports Trump, because (I swear I’m not making this up):

I believe that POTUS sorrow for Charlie was much deeper than the loss of a political ally.

I mean what do you do with this level of cult-like delusion, other than stare at it in total wonderment? In case it needs to be spelled out, Donald Trump is a frank psychopath, who is incapable of feeling sorrow for any other human being, let alone someone he barely knew. (Trump probably had to be reminded of exactly who Charlie Kirk was, when this golden opportunity for depraved demagoguery tumbled into his un-fastidious lap.)

This entire episode illustrates that the Trump cult is as extreme a perversion of Christianity as it’s possible to imagine, and that Donald Trump is doing at least as much to destroy Christianity in America as he is to destroy liberal democracy.