← The Charlie Kirk Show
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- [00:00]
Charlie Kirk
Hey everybody. This episode is brought to you advertiser free by all of you that Support us@charliekirk.com support. If you want to support our program and feel moved by the work we're doing, go to charliekirk.com support and this is my conversation I had with a good man, a great American, Alec Rollins in Edmonds, Washington. I hope you enjoy it. Buckle up everybody. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
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Alec Rollins
I want you to know we are
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Charlie Kirk
lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
- [00:27]
Alec Rollins
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. I want to thank Charlie, an incredible guy, his spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point usa.
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Charlie Kirk
We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives. And we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here.
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Alec Rollins
And now I'd like us to get to our guest, the real reason that you're here tonight and just to begin by asking Charlie, would you, Obviously I think we've all seen you in different settings in a way sounding the trumpet for pastors and churches in the nation. And one of my thing, one of the things I'm curious about is what has brought you to this in your life. Obviously there have been some trigger moments that have guided you. What have those been?
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Charlie Kirk
Well, first of all, thank you for having me. It's awesome to be here and truly and I'm, I'm so touched by your words. I grew up in a Bible believing church in the suburbs of Chicago. Prior to that, I gave my life to Christ when I was in fifth grade at Christian Heritage Academy, founded by Wayne Grudem. You might know Wayne, a very famous theologian who actually has become a very dear friend. And I was always told that politics and the Bible don't mix, that government and the Bible are at odds with each other and just do the gospel all the time and that's it. And so I started Turning Point. Very long story short, in June of 2012, instead of going to college, I took a gap year. And it's been eight and a half gap years. So it's been a very unusual, very blessed journey. And a couple years ago I met my now pastor, Rob McCoy, who is terrific and some of you might follow him on YouTube. He's friends with Jack Hibbs and I got to know Jack through Rob and a lot of our mutual friends, Steve Smotherman, all of them kind of came through that And Rob was speaking at an event, and I had no idea who he was. And then he finished his remarks by saying, oh, I gotta go speak, you know, go give a sermon at church. I said, wow, I've never heard a pastor talk like that before. So we got to know each other. And he said, charlie, I want to challenge you. He said, you're a Christian. And I want to tell you that not only does the Bible say a lot about civil government, not only does the Bible say a lot about how we should interact with our leaders, but I think you should talk more publicly about that. And I said, well, Rob, I was taught in the church that we don't do that. And he's like, I'm going to have you pray for that. So we started talking, and I realized that there's an immense amount of. Of scripture and biblical backing. And so, just so you know of why I believe what I believe. I believe in the inerrancy of scripture. I believe in the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe in the triune God and the basics of the Nicene Creed. I am not a theologian. I don't go around talking about eschatology or any of that. I leave that to the experts. But I'm unafraid to talk about my faith. And I go to college campuses, so you don't have to. And I bring this message of truth to sometimes the darkest places, even darker than Seattle at times, believe it or not. But what really brings me here is as I. Last year, about a year and a half ago, I started speaking at churches. And it was the most nervous I ever was, just because I grew up in a church environment where I knew that if you got one thing wrong, it could be a very judgmental thing. And especially around this idea of politics in the church. I just thought I'd be the first person ever to do that. Politics is not the right word. Just government, values, morals. I'm just using a filler word for that. And then I started to get invited to more churches. And I realized that when I was giving these speeches at churches all across the country, over 75 of them in the last year during the lockdown, because it was the only places that were open across the country. When I was giving these speeches, people were not. They were not listening to me. They were waiting for me to tell them what to do, is that the body of Christ was awakening into an active posture, saying, charlie, I feel my values, my morals just being steamrolled on a daily basis. Just a cultural onslaught, if you will. Tell me what to do. And I realized as I dug deeper into the history of our country and I do two podcasts a day and I do two hours of radio a day, and I spend two hours a day just studying and diving deep into the history of our country, that I was really never taught the proper history of America, which this country was founded by activist pastors. The black robe regimen, it was improved upon by activist pastors. It was saved by activist pastors like Billy Graham, who called communism Satan's religion in a crusade he did in 54, 56 and 58 all across the country. Most people don't know that about Billy Graham, that he was an ardent anti communist, one of his most beautiful sermons, and that one of the reasons we're in the place that we're in right now is that the counselor to the king is silent. And the counselor, the king is the body of Christ, and the counselor, the king is the pastors in the churches. And while we've been doing budgets and baptisms and bigger buildings, the secular humanists, they've been taking terrain. And I'm so just encouraged by what you're doing here, Alec, truly, because, you know, this is the time for us to rise and stand. And the Bible says very clearly to occupy till I come and we have truth. And it's time that we start expressing it and communicating it to a dark world, because, boy, does the world need it.
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Alec Rollins
You talk to churches around the country, and I'm sure most of your audiences, most of you are here because you are already sympathetic to what, you know, Charlie stands for. But can you talk to us about a church like Westgate that has been very careful to stay separated from government and the political arena, but is beginning to awaken to what we are losing? I saw a video the other day of the police in the UK literally breaking into a Roman Catholic mass and arresting, handcuffing and arresting the priest and taking him out in front of his people. And, and I, like, I've heard you say frequently that that's going to be coming to a church near you sooner than we anticipate. And that's not, that's not conspiracy theory
- [07:19]
Charlie Kirk
because it's happening in Canada, it's happening here in America. I'll tell you about Calvary Chapel San Jose with Mike McClure, who's a dear friend of mine who's facing $2.8 million in fines because he opened his church last May, never closed. So do what you're doing right now has cost him $2.8 million over the last year. But he says, you know what, I'll pay the fine, you could take my house. Because the people we've brought to Jesus in the last year is worth it. Wow.
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Alec Rollins
Wow.
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Charlie Kirk
And so let me tell you just biblically and scripturally, why I believe what I believe. I believe that we as Christians are called to impact all things for God's purpose. That includes the arts, athletics, business, and yes, government and civics. We have a very special thing here in America. We take it for granted. A constitutional republic that was founded by people that were Bible believing, regular church attending, spirit filled activists. We don't talk enough about that. In the black robe regiment of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield and Roger Williams giving thousands of sermons all throughout America, America. That, that really got the American population in a posture ready to seek liberty and to say that our rights come from God, not from King George. But it says very clearly in the Scriptures, Jeremiah 29:7, to say to seek, which is a Hebrew word, badrash, which means desire, demand the welfare, shalom shalem, the peace of the city of which you are in. So that's, that's a very. And then it goes on to say that your welfare is tied to the city's welfare. Yeah, so that's a really heavy verse. Let's unpack that. Basically what the Lord is saying while they were in exile, by the way, this is why they were not, not in Israel. Is Jeremiah 29:7 that if you don't get involved in what's around you, your welfare, your ability to worship, your creator, your ability to bring more souls into eternity, which is our mission statement, is all of a sudden going to become a lot harder. We know this to be true. We know this just through a very, very basic reading of history over the last 100 years. We know this from the Soviet Union, we know this from Cuba, we know this from China. There is, just so you guys know, the window for religious liberty is shrinking. Shrinking in the world, not widening. Let me say it again. The window for religious liberty is shrinking. That it's becoming harder and harder to be able to gather, to be able to worship. Whether it be in the Middle east, in Europe, in parts of Africa, that oppressive authoritarian type regimes see the church as a threat and they're doing everything they possibly can to go after it. I also, some, I also will say that all throughout the Old Testament, people that we will revere as heroes, Daniel, Jeremiah, Nehemiah, Joseph, Esther, Mordecai, they all sought to influence secular government for God's purpose. And I believe that's what our mission should be. We need to be the counselor to the king. And the Founding Fathers wrote extensively about this in the Federalist Papers. You know, John Adams, the second American president, a good man who had a phenomenal son. John Quincy Adams, our sixth president, and a phenomenal thinker, and one of the first abolitionists in the 1830s to really speak out. He said, the Constitution was written only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the people of any other. And what they're getting at, and they talked about in the Federalist Papers is, look, we're betting on the church. The church stops, the country folds. So what you guys ever do a trust fall where you just kind of just fall backwards? Well, through the first Great Awakening, the second Great Awakening, Third Awake, and fourth Great Awakening, America was in free fall, maybe because of alcoholism in the 1820s, slavery in the 1860s, or even secular Marxism in the 1950s or 1960s. And every time, it was the church that caught the country and brought it back into its proper place. And we, as Christians, we've had it really, really good the last couple decades. We haven't had to worry about police officers, you know, walking in because of mandates, the local government or the local county or the local medical official. We haven't actually had to have robust discussions of men are men and women are women. Huh. That's not hard. And so now, all of a sudden, things that we used to say are common sense, which is really Western sense, which is really biblical sense. It's not very common any longer, and there's a lot of reasons why this is happening. And so, from a strictly biblical perspective, I'll also give you one final verse that I really want you to pray on and reflect on. It's one of the most famous verses that almost every single church will be able to finish the sentence for me. But I'm going to challenge you to go back to the Greek and maybe reconsider it. It's when Jesus brought his disciples up to the mouth of the Jordan River, Caesarea Philippi. I've been there before. Many of you in Israel have been there. And he says, who do men say that I am? And the famous dialogue goes back and forth, and they say, oh, some say you're John the Baptist, some say you're Elijah. And it ends, of course, with him pointing at Peter. And he says, on this rock build my. We say church, but the Greek word is ecclesia. Now, an ecclesia was a very specific thing. They did not say Synagogue did not say temple. But an ecclesia was a community gathering in ancient Greece. It was a place where people went to talk about what was happening in their local area. And ecclesia was basically a city council meeting. It was a place where people prayed and fasted before they walked in. And there were two big Greek words, by the way, when people used to have an ecclesia, Eleutheria and isonomia, the two Greek words for freedom and equality. I wonder what country has those two words as desired purposes. I believe what Christ was saying, as it's translated in the Koine Greek, was arguing for not compartmentalized Christianity, not a Christianity where we have the truth. But we are going to hope they eat us last. And this is like a hurricane. And we're going to pray that it passes by. No bold Christianity, go out into the streets and proclaim the truth and the gospel. We know it's going to cost us. That's part of the guarantee of being Christians. We know we're going to get persecuted. That's part of the deal. But this is. This is not the end game. We know how the book. We know how it all ends. We know the back of the book. And so I believe that we're called to push forward God's purpose in all different realms. And that includes, especially right now, government leadership selection and calling right from wrong in especially dark times.
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Alec Rollins
How do we do that?
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Charlie Kirk
Well, that's part of what I want to commend you. So many churches are just sitting idly by and you're doing something courageous here. You really are. And I want to just say that again. And I want to just say, and this is what I look forward to, the questions. Because none of this stuff is easy. And we've done a lot of thinking. And by we, I mean those of us that are speaking out on these things and other pastors of why we believe what we believe from everything, from what does the Bible say about economics? What does the Bible say about private property? What does the Bible say about marriage? What does the Bible say about transgenderism? That one's pretty easy. The other ones take a little bit. You know, God created man. God. God created woman. Like, okay, we're good. And the other ones are a little bit more obviously detailed. But how do we do that? And this is the thing that I think that Christians need to really pray and reflect on, which is if we are saved by grace, if we have eternal life waiting for us, and we don't recognize that the second most important thing you can do Is, is to make sure you can do the first important thing. So the most important thing you can do is give your life to Christ. The second most important thing is to make sure you can do the first thing. And if the position is, hey, we're not going to impact that, then I think that's the wrong position. So what does that look like? That looks like all of a sudden we got to get into the ecclesia, the public square. We all of a sudden got to start to speak out and say that, you know what, women's sports deserves to be protected. That gender reassignment surgery is something that taxpayers shouldn't, shouldn't spend, shouldn't be able to fund. In fact, we do not believe gender reassignment surgery, something that should happen for people under the age of 18. We should be unafraid to say that. Yeah, that we believe life begins at conception and all lives are worthy of protection in our country. Yeah. And so part of it is just opening up the dialogue. Right. And once the body of Christ starts to wake up and starts to ask questions about this, we're going to have spontaneous action begin. So we're in a Kairos moment in America right now. So the Bible talks about in Greek, they had two different words for time, Kronos and kairos. So kronos is chronological. That's where we get the word chronological from in English, literally. What time is it? Okay, it's 6:27. And by the way, time is of the Lord. We were just talking about this. I always get in these fun debates with these postmodernists and these secularists because they think time is a made up construct. Well, where do you think we got the seven day week from Genesis, obviously. Where do you think we get the idea of time? Just so you guys know, when the French Revolution happened, they took over the French government, they redefined time.
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Alec Rollins
They did.
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Charlie Kirk
They do. They went to a 10 week calendar. They said we do not need this biblical seven week calendar. So even little things like that we should understand where they came from. And they're actually literally at war with time. So Kronos. But then there's Kairos, which is all throughout the book of Mark. And kairos is a very interesting word which means a time of action, a time unlike any other, a time that will impact future time. A time that what you do will actually live an imprint on how your grandchildren will live. If you were here 15 years ago, you were not living in a Kairos moment. You were living and enjoying the peace and prosperity and living on the Coattails of the greatest generation. And God bless them for what they did for our country. That was a kairos moment. Pearl harbor, World War II, that was a kairos moment. What are we going to do up against that existential threat? And just. So that's part of the kind of mindset we have to have. And there's a lot of different ways we can unpack on what that looks like.
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Alec Rollins
Yeah, Daniel certainly had a Kairos moment, didn't he?
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Charlie Kirk
I love the story of Daniel and I'm so glad you mentioned it. Daniel 6, whole conspiracy being launched against Daniel. Daniel's a perfect example of counselor to the king. By the way, Daniel counseled multiple kings.
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Alec Rollins
Many kings. Yeah, yeah.
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Charlie Kirk
That's what we as Christians should be in America. Always trying to counsel the king for God's purpose. Now, Daniel, there was a whole conspiracy against Daniel. Daniel 6. And they said, we want to get this guy locked up. We want to kill him. We want to get him to the lions. And so they said, okay, make it illegal for him to worship his God. Basically. I'm paraphrasing, but the essence is this. So Daniel hears about this. So what does he do? Does he shut down the church? Does he become just a YouTube live stream? No, no, no, no, he doesn't. Instead, he goes into the apartment of his home and open window for the whole city to see and said, I'm going to worship my creator and come and get me. Yeah, yeah. And he, he, he went. He then faced judgment and survived, obviously. And Daniel was in that kind of a kairos moment.
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Alec Rollins
So from your perspective, you see a lot of things developing from Washington D.C. to local state capitals. And you've watched maybe as a spectator, what's happened to the church. What do you think the design is? Is there a purpose, is there a thread to the assault on what I feel is the assault on the church. Do you see it happening nationally and what's the agenda behind that?
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Charlie Kirk
Yeah, that's a great question. Yes, there is an agenda. The church is the only thing standing in the way. They control everything else. Now, you can fill in they with whatever term you want. Secularists, humanists, chaos artists, whatever. Okay, but let's just go through the list. Corporations, athletics, colleges, all of academia, the civil service, most of the justice system, the FBI, the military, foreign intelligence, graphic designers. You know, like I'm half kidding with that one. But the point is that it's. It's basically everything but the one thing that they always have been trying to either weaken or try to be obedient or Infiltrate is the American church. So I want to reinforce what I said about Billy Graham. All of our lives have been touched by Billy Graham. God bless that man because he brought tens of millions of people to Christ around the world and just started a whole ministry around open air. Commit just open air revivals and commitment to Christ. But he was able. A very important question I think we should ask is why didn't communism work in America in the 1950s? Because they tried. I mean, the Soviet Congressional record showed that they brought spies, they tried to infiltrate, they did everything they could. Why was it kind of dead on arrival? Well, an answer that some people would say, well, it's because of all the World War II generation and there was no appetite for. Nah, that's not right. It's because every time anyone would bring up one of these issues, you had a pastor at some, in some church in Janesville, Wisconsin or in, in North Dakota that would say, no, no, no. We in this church believe that rights come from God and that communism is really a materialistic philosophy that is at odds with our worldview. So where everywhere else where communism caught on like wildfire, whether it be Vietnam, China, parts of almost all of Southeast Asia, Rhodesia, which then became Zimbabwe or all the Soviet Union, there was that Protestant Christian kind of component missing. We were founded by Protestant Christians from the Mayflower on forward. Happy to dive into that if there's, if there's interest. Because it's a beautiful history. It really is. And so look, the agenda is very clear. The agenda is that it's one of control. It is one of permanent political power. And you're already starting to see it manifest. I'll give you a great example of this, right, which is you've all heard about these calls to abolish the police, right? Let's just use this as a very simple example. They do not want to abolish the police. Okay? This is the greatest linguistic trick ever pulled on the American people. They do not want no police. They never have. They want to get rid of local police and replace it with national police. They want to manufacture a crisis where crime goes up and then you can bring in federal whatever to then ones that they can control and ones that are on their side. The idea of a local sheriff gives them great concern. It's always bothered them. That's just one example. Now, I believe this is a spiritual battle. Let me be very clear. This is a spiritual battle between light versus dark. And we've seen this replicate every single form or fashion imaginable. It's whether we're in a theological debate right now in our country. Okay. So we believe two things that the other side does not. Very simple. There is a God, and you are not him. Yeah,
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Alec Rollins
yeah. We. We get. We gather here every Tuesday night, have for 29 years, with about 300 at times up to 500 people, just for one reason only, and that's call on the Lord. And it's a genuine prayer meeting. It's not a Bible study that is called a prayer meeting. But we do about 20 minutes of worship, and we have the microphones down at the aisles and we pray. We believe that prayer changes things. That's why I'm so glad to hear you say this is a spiritual battle. But I think where we're at as a local congregation, I can't speak for your church, obviously, but where we're at is we realize that, like James says, faith without works is dead, that we've got to pray and we've got to be engaged. We've got to keep calling on God, believing that that revival is the only hope that we have. And one of the most expensive books I've ever bought is a little book called. Written in 1904, called England before and After Wesley. And it was a look at that first great awakening. And the conditions in England were actually, believe it or not, worse than what we're experiencing now. And yet when the revival broke out, the. The transformation was so real that it had an immediate impact on things like child labor laws. It changed the whole attitude towards slavery. Wilberforce did a great job, but he did it. I was. I was disturbed or I was disappointed in the book, in the movie Amazing Grace, because it gave no credit to Wesley and Whitfield and others. That laid the spiritual foundation that allowed people like Wilberforce to get traction in the abolitionist movement. So what I'm beginning to see and what is making some people at Westgate nervous right now is that I think we've got to keep calling on God, believing that only God coming and reviving his church is going to change anything. But we've also got to be willing, like I've heard you say so often, to run for the Edmonds City Council, to put people into the Edmonds school district, school board. We got people here that need to be serving on the school board so that we've got folks who are bold enough to speak the truth that you are talking about. So any. Any. Any assistance.
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Charlie Kirk
Yeah, and I just want to. I just want to encourage that thought process, which is, you know, if. If you're uneasy about getting involved in these things. That. That's okay. That's understandable.
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Alec Rollins
And.
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Charlie Kirk
But fear is not of the Lord. And it says it 365 times in the Bible for a reason. Do not be afraid once for every single day. Says it in Joshua 1, stand and be courageous. And then he says it again, and then he says it again so I can stand and be courageous. By Joshua 1:9, he's repeated himself almost to a point where like, okay, I get the point. So that fear. You're not the first person to be afraid. Let me just be very clear. And you have to pray. And it says in James 1:5, and one of my favorite verse in the whole Bible, which is to pray for wisdom, and God will give it generously. So, wow. Anything that God promises to give generously we should take really seriously. So you should pray for that wisdom. Say, hey, am I called to just kind of do nothing in a moment like this? Or maybe I'm being called to just do a little bit to run for the Water Reclamation District board or the mosquito abatement thing. But let's start there. Maybe this church should go take over the mosquito abatement board something, right? They decide something. And I'm being facetious, of course, because let's start with just something that's not as controversial. But what I'm getting at here, though, is what is the downside? Is the downside someone saying, oh, now you're. You're political? Well, Aristotle said that politics is the highest form of community because it combines morality and sociability. You know, we've really gotten that word, politics as a negative word. But politics is really just values when you're thinking about it, right? So just throw out Republican, Democrat. I'm a critic of both of them. Them. Let's just forget all that stuff and let's. Let's just say, like, what do we believe and why do we believe it? What are we willing to do, at least on the local level to contest for those beliefs where it matters? And the school board's a great example because some of you might say, well, my kids don't go to these local schools. Well, you might fund them, but even if they don't, you should say, you know what? I'm going to do everything I possibly can to make sure that correct history is taught in our schools, that critical race theory is not taught in our local schools, that we are not having graphic sex education taught to innocent children. That's something that should bother you. And so we should always try to impact government For God's purpose. Remember, counselor to the King, which is replicated time and time again throughout the scriptures. And if you don't know how to do it, that's okay. There's a lot of great organizations, ours included, that can show you how to make a positive difference. The problem is not the how, though. The problem is that gap that is missing, which is courage, which is saying that I am willing to step out. So here's a good question. What is courage? We talk about it a lot. It's kind of a cliche. We need more courage in our country. Right? Well, courage is doing the right thing when you don't know how it's going to work out. One of the reasons why we have a crisis in courage in our country is because the country has become so secular, is that when the men that were storming Normandy beach, almost every single one of them, according to historians, was praying, was in contact their creator. I mean, that was an act of absolute courage, by the way. They were going and invading a distant country halfway around the world to go abolish an evil that was not directly impacting American citizens. When you think about that, I'm not asking you to storm Normandy Beach. Let me be very clear. But again, we are living on the coattails of that greatest generation that went so above and beyond to create the modern world where we have the luxury to even have to debate this like, oh, should we get involved? Should we get engaged? You know, how lucky we are even to have that discussion, this. Even this little snapshot that we can gather. And so I understand it, because we have grown up, myself included, with the best that America has to offer, where we get stressed and upset when the Seahawks don't win, okay? When we live lives of luxury, we have more plastic stuff than we know what to do with in our homes. When our concern is not starvation, but getting overweight and obesity. I get it. But now, all of a sudden, for the first time, this life of luxury that we have enjoyed is all of a sudden being put not just in jeopardy, but a different type of America is starting to set in. And so that's where the church has to rise up. And I could just. I want to encourage you guys, though. I'm going to tell you about a couple churches across the country that have decided to take bold steps like this. And what's happened, I'll tell you about one, Pastor Rob McCoy, my pastor, Calvary Chapel Godspeak in Thousand Oaks, California. If you think this place is tough, try going to Thousand Oaks, California, and do something meaningful. Rob McCoy ran for mayor as a pastor of a church. He won. He was the mayor during the Baseline shooting when nine people in his community and two of his congregants were shot senselessly. But that community needed a pastor at that moment to be mayor of that city. And hundreds of people dedicated their lives to the Lord because a pastor decided to go become a mayor of a local city. Then all of a sudden, he decided to get his congregation even more mobilized and active. And last year, they said, the church is not essential. So he says, well, you're gonna have to come arrest me. He opened up his church. No social distance, no Max, no mass, nothing. May 1st of last year, and they've been sued by the county, criminalized, followed through the streets. Well, just last week, Ventura county dropped their lawsuit against Rob McCoy. And Rob McCoy would say, Listen, I can preach a church down to a manageable size. That's his terms, not his. Were a church. Church of 400 people. They're now busting at the seams of 3500 to 4000 people. How about Jack Kibbs, Calvary Chapel, Chino Hills, speaks out on these issues. Very similar to you having these types of forums. They're getting 10 to 12,000 people a weekend. Their ties, their offerings are through the roof. I can tell about Ken Graves in Bangor, Maine. Calvary Chapel out there being criminalized by the governor, under attack. They're suing, and their court is. Their lawsuit's probably gonna be taken up by the U.S. supreme Court. You and I are kind of following that together. Their church is busting at the seams. I did three services with them this last week. Cody Kuhl in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a great church out there opened up fully, and everyone came down, and they were always struggling to fill one service. Now they've added a third service of 500 people at every single service. What I'm getting at here is that the Lord will bless you when you take public, courageous stances in this time. The Lord is testing his church right now, and. We can continue to explore that.
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Alec Rollins
Yeah,
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Charlie Kirk
I got more examples. I can keep going. And this church, too.
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Alec Rollins
We're sort of at a pivotal point here at Westgate on honest. Just being very candid and a lot of Westgate folks out here, but this is such a shift for us, and I think we have bought in over the years. And a lot of it's my fault. To the notion that there has to be a separation, that there's a. There's a mandate even for a separation we bought into that can I comment.
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Charlie Kirk
Yeah, please. So the separation of church and state. And by the way, it's not your fault. I want to just, I want. You do not. No, no, seriously, I want to just. I want to say this because you were doing a wonderful job winning souls for Christ and you were doing what, what you prayed over and what you were guided to do. And the moment was different, but now you're in it and no more apologies. You're doing the right thing. All right? I just want to commend you for that. So. But it says a lot about you that you're willing to say that. And that, that's just, it really, really touches me. So separation of church and state, first of all, that's not in the US Constitution. Let me just be very clear, okay? It was by the Warren court issued this opinion. It is, however, in a singular letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Convention in January of 1803. I might have my months a little bit confused, which is taken completely out of context. Interestingly enough, Jefferson allowed church service to be Kentucky conducted in the capital rotunda. He allowed Christmas services to be done in the Supreme Court building. The Founding Fathers always talked about a robust involvement of faith filled people in church. But you might say, well, Charlie, the First Amendment says Congress shall establish no religion. Yes, let's read the Federalist Papers. What were the Founding Fathers really worried about? They were worried about an Episcopalian, Catholic, Presbyterian or Anglican church being the dominant religion. Right. So they were worried about a singular church being a national church. Now we live in a pluralistic, multicultural society, not in a theocracy, but in a constitutional republic. To say through our laws and our doctrines that God is absent, well, that's just not even close to being true. Let's start with the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence, God has mentioned four times. And so the Declaration is a beautiful document. So it starts with the universal, then it gets to the specific, and then it ends with the universal. So the universal, it says so clearly, when in the course of human events, what does that mean? This is applicable at all time. This is not just for the moment. This is a, this is a universalist type document. It becomes necessary for one people to dissolve ties with one another. And it goes on to say the laws of nature and nature's God. So, whoa, they're challenging King George. They're like, hey, you're not in charge. Like there, there's an order here that we're appealing to. And in fact it says that explicitly at the end of the Declaration of Independence, it says we appeal to a higher power. At the end of the declaration it says that. Now why was God mentioned four times? What's right out of Isaiah? God over everything and God the judiciary, God the legislator and God the executor. That's where we got our three branches of government from. So then we go to the US Constitution and I'm going to get to the separation of church and state and I'm going to tie it all together, which it says very clearly, we the people in order to form a more perfect union. It goes on to say that these rights that we have are not bestowed upon us or granted to us by government, but they are natural, which of course is granted by a creator. So this idea of separation of church and state, let's pretend that they're right with their unconstitutional belief. Let's pretend they're right. Let's grant them their premise. I'll do that for a second. And let's keep the state out of the church. Let's keep the state out of the church. See, they've always been worried about the church taking over the state, when in reality the state's taken over the church. So all of a sudden let's use their own reasoning against them. If we want separation of church and state, then county health officials have no business walking into a church. If all of a sudden, if they're the. That's their own reasoning. Right? And so it's a very simple thing which is that in this constitutional republic that we have, which is by, by the people and for the people, consent to the governed, which is a unique attribute of the US System, is that is, that really allows man. Is the Constitution such a beautiful document? It allows for people to be able to exercise not just their voices but their values in a way that just a very simple European democracy wouldn't. So what do I mean with that? Well, the states created the federal government, the federal government didn't create the states. So the state based model, I know that it might be very infuriating here in Washington to live under the current stuff that you're living under, but it really decentralizes any form of tyranny. Right? So the founding fathers knew that one of the laws of the Bible and one of you know, eternal knowledge of which is wisdom, the things that do not change is that a small group of people are always going to try to abuse their power. And that is just, that's just, that's that is replicates itself no matter who is in charge, right? Whether it be killing firstborn children tyrannically in Egypt or trying to go after firstborn sons to try to kill Jesus Christ later on in the New Testament, we that that pattern replicates itself from the Romans to the Chinese to the British Empire. It is in the broken nature of human beings to say I have power and I'm going to tyrannize other people. It comes from a Greek word, tyrannos, which means master over. I'm going to dominate. So the founding fathers said, what's the best way we can make sure that doesn't happen? Let's try to spread out the power as far as possible. So then you're going to become in touch with that power and you could do something against it. And so I hear this idea that we're wrestling with this idea of separation, the separation of church and state. And so. But now I think that they've even crossed their own line. And so insofar that they are now imposing their views in almost a religious way against us. When, when it comes to gender, when it comes to freedom of expression, when it comes to HR5, which is pending in front of the United States Senate, which would shut down faith based adoption agencies in many schools across the country unless they adopt the view of homosexual marriage, that would expand the Civil Rights act to include people that are suffering with gender dysphoria, that are confused about what gender that they were born with. Like that would be, that would use the full force of the government to go after that is that I hear and I sympathize with that. And I think that you guys are at this inflection point which must be done of course, with prayer and fasting and asking the Lord for wisdom, which is like, hey, we look at this beautiful arc of American history and where we are right now and we just happen to be in that moment when we can contribute even slightly in fixing or saving that trajectory. And my position is obviously very public and very clear, which is that we have a moral prerogative to do that at this moment.
- [39:58]
Alec Rollins
Yeah, yeah, yep. When you consider what Rand Paul did in his interview with the Assistant Secretary of Health and talked about we're actually sanctioning the mutilation of children, it is unconscionable. I think that those are the kinds of things that have stirred me in ways that I know have made some folks uncomfortable. But to think that a mother taking a 13 year old son or daughter into the doctor is ushered out of the doctor's office, these are things. I mean I remember when I was pastoring in Cedar rapids that was 35 years ago. And one of our board members daughters got pregnant at 13. And the school health nurse back then in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, ushered her, brought her out of class and told her, we can have you down to the University of Iowa clinic and have your abortion and you'll be back before school is over and your parents will need never know. Listen, I was 30 years old as a pastor back then and I wasn't very wise. But I told the congregation if they did that to my daughter, who was then 6 and 8, they did that to one of my daughters, this church better have a prison ministry because I'll burn that place down. And then a week later, I went scrambling for the 10 tape to try to erase that. So we're at a point where we can entertain your questions. That prompted a question I'd love to have you comment on before we go to these questions. And that is what's your take on public education and on higher education? And what should people do who are in this congregation who are either teaching in public school or engaged in higher education?
- [42:09]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah, so that's a great question. So now I'm really going to offend people. So, no, as you know, I have some very outspoken views on this stuff. And I'll walk you through rationally why I believe what I believe on this. So I tend to call them government schools because they haven't, in my opinion, done a great job of serving the public good in this last year, especially with the school lockdowns and what I have seen happen across the country. I'm a huge believer in school choice and homeschooling in particular. And I think we have to double our homeschooling population in the next five years. I really do. And for let me say this, though, that I don't think we on the philosophical bend that I'm on, we do a good enough job of appreciating teachers. I had some really, really good teachers growing up. I went to public school after I went to private Christian school. So sixth grade through senior year in high school, I was in public school. And I had some teachers that were phenomenal that really got me interested in US History. Then I had some teachers that should not have been teachers. So if I were to just say I think we need to pay good teachers more and fire bad teachers, I've said this before, that that the good teachers need to be incentivized and the bad teachers need to be let go. And so that's a lot easier said than done. But let me just. You asked me about the teacher side of it. Okay, so the higher education, that's the one that I really focus on. I just want to also give a little shout out to our Turning Point USA students that are here. Can you guys raise your hands? You guys are awesome. Thank you for being here. And they know my stance on this issue a lot. And they always try chuckle because they're actually in college. So just I never went to college again. I took a gap year, decade, whatever, ended up being the right thing for me. So I'm the best and the worst person to talk about this topic. I'm the best because I could talk about the success of not going to college. I'm the worst because I never actually went to college. With that being said, I've spoken over 150 colleges across the country and I'm pretty in touch with what's happening on campuses based on our pretty impressive college network. We have way too many people going to college in our country. Way too many people. College is generally a scam. And so I'm saying the private part out loud. I'm gonna be very honest with you, that we have a whole generation of young people that's borrowing money, they don't have to study things that don't matter to go find jobs that don't exist. And we have. I said I'm gonna start offending people. So I'm just going right into it, right? The political thing. Now all of a sudden. Look, I'm gonna tell you why I believe that I believe and I'll go through the numbers. 41% of kids that go to college don't graduate. 41%. All of you know, a college dropout, we don't talk about it. Could you imagine if you went to the local Chili's or Outback and they're like, hey, there's a 41% chance you're gonna get food poisoning tonight. They would be closed for by the Better Business Bureau. They'd been investigated by state authorities. 41% failure rate. And those kids that drop out, they drop out with debt, lower self esteem, lower confidence and less direction. Why did they go in the first place? So out of college graduates, are they succeeding? Are they thriving? Well, the average borrower of student loan debt in this country has anywhere between 32,000 to $40,000 on average, some of which have anywhere between 70 to $80,000. And for what? Well, the vast majority of people that go to college are not actually getting a skill. They have a piece of paper in something. And so it might be psychology. It could be North African lesbian poetry. It can be North American migratory bird studies, whatever that is, that's fine. But the studies show that less than 50%, actually more than 50% of people that graduate aren't even finding a job that's correlated to their major. And so I think we've done a real disservice in this country. And so if anyone tries to build a home recently, we have a massive deficit in manual labor in our country. And here's why. We need more plumbers, electricians and construction workers. We need more police officers, firefighters and entrepreneurs now. But here's why we all cheer, and we should. But a lot of you don't want to see your kid become a plumber. It's true. Some of you, yes, but no. I want you to pray on that tonight. Are you okay if you tell your neighbor that your kid became a plumber and you're laughing because. No, but think about it. Because deep down, no one in the upper middle class of this country wants to justify to their friends that your kids work in construction. You'd rather have your kid lose his values or her values than have to tell your friends that they're working construction. It's true. The number one reason why kids say they go to college is because of parents, not because they want to. And yet we have this manufactured cycle of indebtedness, of bad ideas, of evangelistic nihilism, of unemployment, of suicide, of depression. And it's making a lot of college professors very rich and administrators endlessly powerful, politicians that quite honestly have no concern for the future of our country that just live off the albatross of this system. We have Hunter Biden that just became a college professor at Tulane, and Peter Strzok, who's a college professor at Georgetown. No, seriously. And then. And so then. So anyway, I'm being like 5% provocative and 95% truthful, but provocative because I wanted to get your attention. Because it's a serious problem in this country. It really is. And so, look, college can be a good answer for some people, but you have to be able to answer a couple questions. What skill are you going to get? Not what are you going to study? What is your skill? I'll tell you what's a skill. I was interviewing a young man from un. He went to university, Southern California. And I said, he went. Studied political science. I said, what's your skill? He said, well, I studied political science. And I said, no, no, no, no, I got that. What's your skill? It's like, well, I graduated this in My class. I said, I know. What can you do the high school kid can't do. No one's ever asked him that question before. And I said, really nice kid. All that. I said, but what. What's your differentiator? It's like this piece of paper. I said, that means nothing to me as an employer. I care about character and work ethic. Not if you studied, you know, Frederick Nietzsche. Like, I got that. It's completely irrelevant. I said, now. And I just said, let me just teach you, like, kind of how I look at things. I said, we have some exposed wiring here at our office, right. We had a water leak. I got to call an electrician. He's going to be here in 30 minutes. I can't fix this thing to save my life. That's a skill. And I'm going to go pay him. He can invoice me for whatever it is. And he's got me over a barrel because I need that thing fixed. That's a skill. And so this is a different way to view education in our country that we haven't done. And let me be very clear. The current college model hurts minorities and lower income earners the most. They're the ones that end up with the most amount of debt and the least likely to actually climb the income ladder in this country. So I'm going to keep on going around the country saying that the muscular class in our country, the people that work with their hands, they deserve more dignity and respect and that we should say we need more people in that part of the American population.
- [49:25]
Alec Rollins
I like this question because it's someone who's getting ready to do something. I won't have you stand up, but I'm meeting this local school board this Tuesday about my husband, about crt. Any suggestions you can give me and my husband?
- [49:42]
Charlie Kirk
Well, first of all, whomever that person is, thank you for your courage to go talk to your school board members. I want to just encourage you for that. Truly, that's a great thing, I think. You had Star Parker here recently, right?
- [49:55]
Alec Rollins
Yes.
- [49:56]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah. She's terrific. And so I don't want to repeat anything that she went over, but if anyone was not here, then I'm just going to kind of give a quick summary of crt, if that's okay. Please. So critical race theory is a very tricky thing because it preys on Christians best intentions. It's a very, very tricky thing. It's tricky because they use words and phrases you've never heard and it sounds so foolish that you think you might be the Fool. And truly, you think of like, well, maybe if a bunch of smart people believe this, maybe everything is racist. Maybe I am an awful person. And so, look, it started as an extension of an economic philosophy that's best known as Marxism, obviously written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, two Germans with way too much time on their hands. And there's a great book that talked about the connection between communism and Satanism. It's a terrific piece of literature that's been written where Satan only cares about the material and Marx only cared about the material. Where Marx cared about the full liquidation of religion. In fact, you know what Marx called religion? The opiate of the masses, is what Karl Marx called religion. He said, it makes you feel good, but it does no good. And the sooner you can get religion out of society, everything will get better. So Marxist philosophy, he got some things right, Very few things, not even worth talking about. But if anyone's interested, we could talk about that. But Karl Marx, basically, he believed everything in life is a power struggle, whether you realize it or not. And basically the power struggle that he diagnosed as the most important is the proletariat versus the bourgeoisie, right? The people that own the companies and the people that work at the companies. That's where he focused his time. So Karl Marx wanted a complete and total abolition of private property. His end goal was a utopian state on earth. He believed human beings were naturally good. He believes in a Rossoian view of human nature, which is at total at odds of the biblical worldview. Okay, we do not believe people are basically good. Let me say that again. We do not believe people are basically good. You all need Jesus Christ, no matter how good of a person you think you are. Okay? Now that's not an inconsequential thing, because how you believe human beings are in nature actually is the most important guiding principle of how you construct your political philosophy. Well, if you think people are naturally good, then how do you explain all the suffering? Oh, it's because it's the police, or it's because of private property or capitalism. You start to see how these things start to manifest in the political beliefs. So anyway, fast forward to the 1930s and 40s. This Marxist economic belief of the bourgeoisie versus the proletariat, the workers versus the employers, if you will, or the people that own businesses. There is a guy by the name of Herbert Marcuse from the Frankfurt School in Germany who realized that this wasn't the Marxist view economically, wasn't the only way to try to revolutionize a country. And it wasn't working in the West. It wasn't working because of religion, it wasn't working because of Christianity. Also wasn't working because of markets, because people were generally getting wealthier. So he came up with this belief called critical theory. It's also. It's a sister or a cousin of postmodernism. You ever hear of this thing? I have my truth. Not your truth. There is no such thing as absolute truth. All of this is kind of in that ecosystem of postmodernism. But critical race theory was really pioneered by a woman who's still alive in California by the name of Angela Davis. I encourage all of you to do some independent research on her. She's actually a communist. Like she's an avowed public communist. I don't even have to use that as a pejorative. She says she is one. And she traveled the country with Marcuse. And there were other people that influenced this belief system. Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault. So here's what critical race theory is, which all of your children are probably learning if they're in government schools. It's on Nickelodeon, it's in athletics now. It's everywhere. Here's just a couple of beliefs of critical race theory. And again, I apologize if I'm being repetitive to the previous speaker, but okay, so I don't want to lead in a direction that might be okay. Thank you. So number one, there's no such thing as individuals. You are not your own human being. You're a member of a group. You're a member of some group. Most importantly, a racial group. Number two, that everything in life is not about the bourgeoisie of the proletariat, but oppressor versus oppressed. There's a power struggle going on. And whether you realize it or not, there's some people in charge and there's some people not in charge. And critical race theory says that white Anglo Saxon men are in charge and everyone else is on a hierarchy of being oppressed. Down from there. Critical race theory says math and science is a Western created tyranny. Your children are learning this. Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is funding this idea that math is racist, that two plus two does not equal four, the scientific method is false, that Newtonian physics is Westo sistonormative tyranny. This is very serious, guys. This is not a joke, okay? They believe dialogue is evil, that speech is a white man created construct. I know. Laughing is the only way I can cope with it too. It's very, very real. That speech, dialogue which is one of my favorite English words. Dialogue comes from two Greek words, logos. First there was the word, and the word was God, and the word became flesh. Then there was. And then dia through. Through logos, through reason, through the word. Dialogue is something they have big trouble with. So they hated Christ's ability to communicate, to empathize, to speak. No, no, no, no. They take a different view. They say there's only power. Speech is nothing more than a way to try to get white people in control. And then finally, they believe racism is everywhere. It's in the air, it's in the buildings, it's in the food, it's in the laws, it's in your politics, it's in your movies. So if you believe that, basically they're saying the only thing that could be done is a widespread revolution. Now, I said at the beginning, it's a little tricky. Why is it tricky? Because they prey on your best intentions, that's why. So they use the Christian ethic against you. They use the Christian ethic of your desire to try to be peacemakers, your desire to try to seek a better world, your desire to try to atone for anything. You've been wrong. So the reason why it's one of the greatest tricks that Satan has played on the American population is that they don't reject the premise of the Christian ethic. They take something that America believes and uses it against you for a satanic purpose. I want you to think about that.
- [56:42]
Alec Rollins
Yeah.
- [56:43]
Charlie Kirk
Instead of saying, go indulge yourself all the time, they say, no, no, no, no, no. If you want to create a better world, then you must do these certain steps in these things. So what do you talk about? Critical race theory? Well, if you're talking to the school board meeting, I would just slide a book across the table. It's written by an atheist, a liberal by the name of James Lindsay. It's a book called Cynical Theories. And he and I are very good friends, and we agree on very little theologically. Like nothing. However, he writes the book, and it's a little infuriating. And I've told them this from a liberal perspective. Okay. Which actually might be very helpful for this general area. Okay. His belief is that true liberalism, small L liberalism, freedom of speech, tolerance, the capacity to empathize with others, will be completely obliterated because of critical race theory. So it's actually a really helpful piece of literature for anyone that actually might want to learn this and persuade other people, because it's written by one of their own. Okay. It's not written by me, who's a very outspoken Christian conservative. But I find the piece of literature to be phenomenal and wise because he diagnoses it perfectly. Where it comes from, where it's going, its limitations. Again, it's called Cynical Theories by James Lindsay. I probably sold him like 30,000 books. I mentioned it everywhere I go. And by the way, I want it to be spread because it's a great piece of literature. Let me just say the final thing is that I want to double down and commend whomever this person is for talking to your school board. That's the next best thing you could do besides running for school board is communicate, have meetings, have a meal, look at these people in the eyes and say, look, man, I've been in this community for 18 years. Politics aside, this stuff is rubbish. It's bad. It makes children think about race all the time. It makes them hate each other, hate our country, and hate themselves. And so I'm really passionate about this. And I'm moved by all these flags because it actually reminds me of the high school I went to. I went to Wheeling High School in the suburbs of Chicago, where we had over 85 different nations represented. At the high school I went to, it was 53% English as a second language. As a white Christian male, I was a minority in the high school I went into. And a really amazing thing happened in our high school is that we were always taught that skin color meant nothing and values meant everything. We all really got along. There was no racial problems. And I kid you not. And I mean. And I really reflected hard on this. And I even went back to journal and diary entries that I did when I was in high school. Letters I used to write to my grandma. I read or wrote over 400 of them just because I wanted to catalog what I was thinking. And it's really. I encourage all young people to do this because they're really helpful. I never mentioned race once, ever. I never said my best friend who is black was black. I never said that the person I was walking home with was Latino or Hispanic. Looked him as a human being. Ever. Did we ever look at skin color. Now, just so you guys know, though, that beautiful success story of looking at values and character, they intentionally ended it. That high school is a disaster. Privilege, walks, taking a knee, critical race theory, sensitivity trainings, they destroyed all of it. And that's why I'm so passionate about this, honestly, because I didn't go to your typical, like, white upper middle class private school. I went to a school that really looked like America and we cared about the things that should matter. And now I see it just going in such a troubling and awful direction. So I know that was a little bit of a longer winded response, but I think the issue necessitates that. No.
- [60:11]
Alec Rollins
And just out of curiosity for everybody, each of these flags, there are 62 of them represent people at Westgate who are born outside the United States, which is a wonderful thing. But, but some of the things we've talked about, particularly Star Parker, is costing us. Some of the folks from some of those nations have left because they're. They feel like our position, just like Charlie just said, they feel like the positions we're taking are antithetical to their concerns as people of color. So you can see the struggle. This is why churches and families are so divided right now and why we have to have these kinds of discussions so we can clarify. We're absolutely concerned about what you're going through as a person of color. But the only hope for any of us between the races is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
- [61:06]
Charlie Kirk
Right?
- [61:07]
Alec Rollins
That's the only hope we have. So here's another question. What is the best strategy for a biracial public school teacher working in a very liberal woke school district that promotes using pronouns, critical race theory and hanging gay pride flags?
- [61:31]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah. Geez, man.
- [61:35]
Alec Rollins
We. We have a prayer room over to one side here.
- [61:40]
Charlie Kirk
Just slip out. Salt and light, everybody. I'll tell you, be salt and light. Now look, you have an opportunity. And if you're biracial, I would be. Then I would just say, look, de. Emphasize your race. That's my advice to you. Just tell other people that your race is sort of inconsequential to yourself and it should be to you. And I think that opens an open opportunity, quite honestly. Just de. Emphasize it. Look, I'm going to tell you what's happening next. And I have a. I know this. It's really sad, it's tragic and it's so contrived, it's so plotted. Here's what's happening, okay? So everyone starts talking about race, okay? And the white guilt thing kicks in and you start to see a lot of upper middle class people fly the BLM flag and you do all this. Well, here's the next move. And they know this. They're. You're going to see a re. You're going to see real radicalism rear its head in the next five years. They want that. By the way, you're going to see a real white identity politic group pop up and that's not a good thing. I hate it. That's why I'm trying to de. Emphasize the racial conversation. Let me be very clear.
- [62:44]
Alec Rollins
Yeah.
- [62:44]
Charlie Kirk
Because as soon as you go into tribes, it's a really bad thing. The Christian ethic is anti tribal. Neither slave nor Greek nor Jew. We are all one in Jesus Christ. And, and again, I'm so passionate about this because I saw this work in my high school. I grew up in this America 10 years ago where I know it's exactly. It's like 10 years ago. I feel like I'm talking about a different civilization and I'm seeing it just being unwound by quite honestly just misrepresentations and lies. And this, whether it be the lie of policing or all these different things that's just so pathological and emotive. And so then here's what happens is then the 56% of the country that's white, part of that is all of a sudden they're like, you know what? We're going to go form our own identity politic group and then we're really done. And then everything starts to unravel. But unfortunately, I'm afraid that's actually kind. They want to force that hand and in. So I'm not going to be part of that. Let me be very clear. I'm going to try to de escalate all this racial conversation. And I'm somewhat of a. I'm pretty outspoken on this. You know, someone will come to one of our events and they'll say, you know, I'm black. And this like, I really don't care about your skin color. I don't like, I don't want to hear about it. I don't. And insofar that is the most important part of your identity. I really suggest that you care more about your spirit than how you look like that. And I know where identity politics lead us. It leads us to tribal warfare and it will tear us apart. And I refuse to participate.
- [64:24]
Alec Rollins
Yeah. Yeah. Well, one of the things we're hearing even here is how many pastors and churches are being misled. And I think your explanation helps shed light on the why. Because of the Christian ethic. But a lot of churches are buying into critical race theory and to criticize it is anathema in those environments.
- [64:44]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah. And I would encourage people to go check out Vodi Bachman's book on this. It's really good. It's terrific. And yeah, I see a lot of churches engaging in this as well. And it really saddens me and disappoints me. But again, my explanation is that I'm trying to offer some grace here, that they're very wrong for the right reasons. Again, I'm going to offer like a couple month window of grace here, which is very hard for me. I'm going to be honest, because I know where this stuff leads. And I'm asking these churches to stop, pivot and repent because they have got to reconsider this stuff. They have to take down the flags, read about critical race theory and just really, really pray about what you're doing. I don't know if that's going to happen or not. And let me just say, just say one other, one other note here is that I, I believe firmly that it's an unusual thing because some of these churches used to say, like, we don't do politics, we don't speak out on this stuff. And then the instant that this mass social movement happened, they weighed in on that, which I found to be very perplexing.
- [65:52]
Alec Rollins
Yeah, I read, I just got back from vacation and read Vadi Bakam's book on there. And the thing that was most amazing to me, he's an African American Southern Baptist theologian, currently heading up a university, a seminary for African pastors in Cameroon or Zambia.
- [66:12]
Charlie Kirk
You're right.
- [66:13]
Alec Rollins
Zambia. Yeah. Thank you. And one of the things that was so alarming to me is I watch very little news anymore on, on the mainstream news outlets or even a lot of the cable outlets. I watch very little news. And so I was unaware of the way they are systematically really reframing the details of the, of the things that we're seeing on the news. So I, I, I worry that a lot of these pastors, if they're just relying on what the news outlets are saying are, are buying into a narrative that is no bearing and relationship to the truth. And he, he points that out.
- [66:57]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah, and let me just, and I, I, I have, I have to do this because, look, one of their narratives is that blacks are being disproportionately killed by police in this country. It is one of the biggest lies ever told on the American population. The Washington Post themselves, they, they put together a database of unarmed black people being killed by police. And their number at the highest level was 16. And out of those 16 people, about 10, you could say they were either driving a car, they threatened that they had a weapon. Very complex and nuanced situations. And then out of the six remaining, four of them have already been tried for murder. So there's about 385 million police interactions in our country every single year. And cops on average will kill a thousand people in our country, most of which by almost all of them are justified or warranted or useful means of defense against a perpetrator or criminal that has a deadly or lethal weapon. And so one of the big issues, they say, is that there's a bias in racial policing. Well, a Harvard professor last named Briar did an entire study of 400 different police departments across the country, a black economist at Harvard University, and he found zero evidence of racial bias in any single police department across the country. In fact, he found the opposite. He said that police officers are more restrained when it comes to black suspects and they're more likely to use force against white suspects. In fact, a police officer is 18 and a half times more likely to be shot and killed by a black person than a black person is to be shot and killed by a police officer. Now, some people will say that black people are more likely to have interactions with police. Again, a politically incorrect thing to say, which is completely true, is that because of other socioeconomic reasons, it's the black community. In certain parts of this country, there's just more crime happening. There's more black on black crime, there's more gang related crime. You have more crime, you're going to have more police interactions. And I'm going to say this very boldly. In New York City, when Rudy Giuliani, who obviously is going through a separate chapter of, you know, controversy right now, he was a terrific mayor of New York City. He tripled the police population in New York City. And New York City was experiencing on average well over 1,600 black homicides every single year in New York City. He nearly tripled the police force on the streets of New York City. It went from nearly 1600 a year down to 300 and Bloomberg got it down to 100. Those are black lives that were being saved because of an increased police presence. Now, I'm all for understanding a piece by piece, situation by situation, admitting when a tragedy or atrocity happens, but excuse me when I don't indulge in a national narrative, when I have to see my hometown of Chicago bury 500 black people every single year because of black on black gang related violence, when seven year olds are being shot in drive throughs, going to McDonald's by gang violence, excuse me when I don't indulge in that national narrative, which, by the way, police are saving more black lives than they ever are given credit for. And so I just I have to say that. And, and there's a great, there's a great book written by Heather MacDonald, which is War on Cops. It's a terrific book and I encourage anyone that might be interested in looking at the data yourself and go where the facts lead you. And so a lot of that narrative is built around that.
- [70:14]
Alec Rollins
Yeah. Wrongly, if we're just buying the public, the media narrative, we're in shaky ground.
- [70:21]
Charlie Kirk
That's right, yeah.
- [70:22]
Alec Rollins
So another question. How can the modern conservative movement reconcile the inflexibility of the Bible's text and the flexibility of modern social morals?
- [70:35]
Charlie Kirk
Wow, that's a really good question.
- [70:38]
Alec Rollins
Would you like me to answer it?
- [70:40]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah, why don't. Yeah, why don't. Well, I want to answer correctly. Why don't you start?
- [70:45]
Alec Rollins
No, no, I was absolutely kidding.
- [70:49]
Charlie Kirk
That's really good. Yeah, I. Boy, I think that, I mean, we'll just take one example. I think the conservative movement, to the best capacity that it can, should try to remain to the inflexibility of the Scriptures. Let's just talk about the life issue. Right? I mean, the life issue. It's pretty clear that the Lord knows when life begins, that science only reconfirmed what the scripture said, that I knew you before you were in the womb, that it said very clearly that the baby, the human being jumped in. I believe it was Mary's womb. Yeah. Elizabeth womb. That's exactly right. Elizabeth's womb was in John 2 or John 3. You would know the scripture is far better than I would and that that's a human being that's deserving and worthy of protection. And so I'm pretty outspoken on this, that the conservative movement should have a non negotiable position when it comes to life. And that is that a million abortions a year is a moral stain on our country.
- [71:42]
Alec Rollins
Yeah, yeah.
- [71:44]
Charlie Kirk
And so, but I'm not exactly sure the specifics of what they mean by the sliding social morals. I mean, I'll be very honest that, you know, I'll give you an example on this. Right. Where I just drew the line and I got all sorts of fun feedback and I've met Jenner many different times and I think Jenner's a very nice person. But the Republican Party should not be the party of gender dysphoria. We should not be the party where we are platforming someone that is confused about their own gender identity and putting that up as a spokesperson or a role model for our children or for the rest of the party. So I'll just use that as an example and Again, very nice person. Probably agree on a lot of different issues. I'm just drawing a line and sometimes we have to do that. Sometimes that line is going to win us disfavor. Sometimes that line is going to get mean things said at us. But so be it. The other political party can be the party of constantly changing the goalposts and moral relativism and chaos. I do not believe the conservative movement should openly embrace a transgender person running for public office.
- [72:53]
Alec Rollins
Yeah, yeah. Let's talk for a moment, if you don't mind, about the whole issue of partisan politics, which was one of the things that kept me from being very vocal here about some of these issues. But really, if a pastor or a believer. Forget pastors. If a believer wants to be true to God's word and if we're not going to be true to God's word, then why bother being a follower of Jesus Christ?
- [73:24]
Charlie Kirk
Amen.
- [73:25]
Alec Rollins
And if the word of God is inflexible on certain things, I heard the other day someone say, well, Jesus never addressed homosexuality. Well, maybe not directly, but in, but in several of the gospels he addresses very clearly and specifically Genesis and that a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. And the, the language that Jesus used is directly out of Genesis. So it might not be a direct reference to homosexuality, but Jesus is very clear. And of course we believe that the all of scripture is Holy Spirit breathed. So whether it's Jesus literal words or whether it's the Apostle Paul In Romans 1, there is an inflexibility to Scripture.
- [74:10]
Charlie Kirk
Yes.
- [74:11]
Alec Rollins
And we're called to lovingly and gracefully stand there. Otherwise what have we got to stand on?
- [74:20]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah. And so let me kind of tell you, if I can just talk just pure politics, just three things I think every Christian should take seriously when they vote or support candidates, if that's okay. Number one, which is pretty simple, that you should support candidates that believe in an open church and that church is essential is that the candidates that are that are willing to say that the church is the most essential institution. Institution in the country of which I believe that there is no church. There is no ability to congregate or gather first amendment for a reason. Free expression clause and the establishment clause, that that should be something that is pretty much a non negotiable. I already talked about life when life begins. It's a pretty important thing for a society to get right. And the third thing. And again I just, you know, we've talked about this, but it just happens to be forefront that it's just a non negotiable position that you have a chromosomal structure that God made you in man and woman, and we're going to stand on that. And so whatever that party lands you, whatever party believes those three things, then so be it. And you're right there, there is an inflexibility to scripture and we kind of have this, this new movement that's happening that kind of thinks of Jesus as kind of this hippie figure that kind of thinks of Jesus as kind of like in the meadows and in the fields and kind of like this Eastern meditative Buddhist Jesus. You guys kind of heard about this recently when, Look, Jesus is 100% grace. He was also 100% truth.
- [75:43]
Alec Rollins
Yeah.
- [75:43]
Charlie Kirk
What did Jesus say about messing with children? Let's just talk about that for a second. Not only did he say don't do it, but he said, it's better for you to have a millstone wrapped around your neck. What did Jesus say about the promise of fathers and sons? He said, my message will turn a father against a son. What did Jesus do about people trading in the temple for profit and gain? Went and turned those tables over. What I'm getting at here is that Jesus was very clear when he was calling right and wrong. Very clear. And this kind of like John Lennon Jesus, like we're all going to kind of just like, you know, just run through the hills and everything. We're going to embrace everyone always. It's just not even close to the Jesus of the Bible. Yeah, it's not even close.
- [76:30]
Alec Rollins
Yeah, yeah. That's the challenge today. That really is the challenge for pastors. How do we. And this goes along with this. How do we reach those who believe in progressive Christianity and buy into what the world has been selling? Yeah.
- [76:45]
Charlie Kirk
Look, I'm going to say something very clear. Progressive Christianity is not biblical Christianity. And so it's just not. And so it starts with something that you're an expert at. And this is why Wayne Grudem is a mentor of mine. You got to get your theology right. It really is important.
- [77:04]
Alec Rollins
Yeah.
- [77:05]
Charlie Kirk
And so if you believe that theology is not inerrant, maybe it's allegorical, maybe it's figurative. Yeah. Then maybe Jesus is a social activist. Right. All of a sudden you could, you could impart whatever you want.
- [77:18]
Alec Rollins
Yeah.
- [77:19]
Charlie Kirk
So I really think it starts there. But look, I'm going to offer just some grace and maybe progressive Christianity. I think that they want to see the world be made a better place. Some of them really want to see the world be made a better place and may have been convinced through whatever other forces or any other institutions that the best way to make a better place is through a heavy hand of government, through an intrusion in people's lives. So let's just say that we have two Christians that have different political views, one that is conservative, one that's progressive, and they both want to make the world a better place. So that's a really good question. How do we make the world a better place? What do we know empirically makes the world a better place? Well, that's an easy answer. It's the easiest answer, which is private property, rights, markets, capacity to speak, being able to educate children to read, not having fathers leave the home, the replication of your values, the building of a nuclear family, a strong and vibrant church, a charitable backbone to a nation, the ability to have borders and to enforce them. Those things have proven the test of time to always be the best thing for humanity. And so I'm going to just offer just a bridge. You know, if there is progressive Christians, they say, you know what? I want the best thing for the world. And I would just ask very simply, you know, maybe they are open to socialism. Didn't work for the apostles right after Jesus. It didn't. They actually tried to live in a commune and it failed terribly. Didn't work for the Pilgrims and the Mayflower, the Mayflower after the Mayflower in the Plymouth, Plymouth Plantation. Great book written by either Roger Williams. I'll think of it in a second. And fell apart completely. Socialism also violates two out of the ten Commandments. Thou shalt not covet and thou shalt not steal. But even beyond that, let's just look at what works, what benefits humanity, what actually is the driving force for medical advancements for people, ability to have a higher standard of living. Is it a heavy hand of government or is it the entrepreneurial driving force? Is it the risk takers, the daring people? Is it the people that employ others? What gives people a capacity to have dignity in a workplace? Well, it says very clearly in the Bible, man does not work, he does not eat. It does not relish being slothful, being stationary, taking from other people. In fact, talks about creation. Even Jesus went to work, he's carpenter. So these are really important conversations to have. And I think at the root of some progressive Christianity, I think, is this belief of mass, mass social change and this idea that the world is so unequal, that there's so many inequities. When I just come at it from such a different perspective, which is like, hold On a second, we have it better than any other people ever to exist in the history of the world. And that any of the decay that you're seeing is actually largely attributable to, to us turning our back on biblical constructs. Any inequities you see, I think is one of the inputs to the disparity that you might see, for example, in the black community is because 77% of black Americans are raised out of a stable father in the home. And it's a biblical idea to have a mother and a father and a nuclear family. That is something that has stood the test of time. And so that that's how I would communicate with, you know, progressive Christians. I can't get many to talk to me, which is something that is, I'm open for the dialogue, I really am. And I think that a lot of them really do want to see the world become a better place, I really do. They just have a vastly different way of going about that. And I think the fact pattern of what Western civilization has been able to do for humanity is pretty overwhelming of whether it be the liberation of human rights, the capacity to speak, medical advancements, you name it. I think the west has a pretty good track record with this stuff and totalitarian collectivist mindsets. They got a lot of explaining to do. Every single continent that collectivism and totalitarianism is tried leaves a pretty bad track record, whether it be Zimbabwe with Rhodesia that murdered tens of thousands of people, all the Soviet Union, communist China, Cuba, you guys know the list. But it's not something that we should forget, it's something we should repeat. Because that sort of bend towards the inevitable utopia on earth, the progressive change trajectory, it almost always gets captured and hijacked by self interested despots and dictators that want to remake the world in their image. It almost never actually results in the best intentions of the activists ever. There's a reason for that. There's a reason. It's because you're going to get a sociopath that is going to use that power for their purpose and not for your end desire. That is replicated always. You're going to have the activists that are like, yes, the Romanovs are corrupt. They have not been representing our interests in the farms in Russia. There are some truth to that, by the way, the Romanovs were basically out of touch with the Russian agrarian class. There was a lot of truth to the complaints. But then you get a sociopath, Vladimir Lenin who takes power and all the Bolsheviks are like, wait, what happened to the worker rights then? What happened to making the world a better place? Like, no, no, no. Now we're in charge. Red terror. We're going to kill our political opponents. But same thing happened in Mao's China with the Cultural Revolution. We are going to reprogram people. That is not preventable. Let me just say that again. And this is something that some of the progressives will say, like, no, we're going to do it better because we're in charge. Like really like that. That's like the ultimate act of pride. Like everyone else except me was a bad dictator. Just give me a bunch of power and we're going to figure that out. Like, excuse me while I say no, we're going to limit power in all forms and fashion. And so I, I just, I, I, I do, I do want to seek to bridge between the body of Christ because I think this is something I am actually really looking forward to one day talking to a progressive Christian and seeing their biblical backing of it. I, I just hope they'll take up my house.
- [83:06]
Alec Rollins
I think some of their points that I, that I've had to deal with here is that they don't see in the New Testament, like you mentioned Daniel, you, Esther, but they don't see in the New Testament the engagement of the apostles or disciples in the ways that we're talking about engagement here.
- [83:26]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah. So let me comment on that. I mean, they're going to have to explain the word ecclesia, which again, that's a very big word that is commonly quoted, which was a political gathering in Greek times. And so either that's inerrant or it's not, Right. So on this rock build my ecclesia. So that's something they're going to have to explain. They're also going to have to explain in First Timothy, one of the last things that Paul ever wrote is pray for the leaders in authority that you might live quiet and peaceable lives. Well, what Paul is saying is the goal is a quiet and peaceable life. So if you don't have it, should we do something about it?
- [84:00]
Alec Rollins
Yeah.
- [84:00]
Charlie Kirk
And so these are really important questions I think, to wrestle with, which I think the answers are rather clear. And I'm going to go to one that I think is actually misunderstood, if that's okay, which is when Jesus holds up the coin and he says, render under Caesar, what is Caesar? Render under gods, what is God's? Now this is largely said Jesus was kind of staying out of government. I don't think that's the correct interpretation. Wayne Grudem would agree with me here, who again was on the board of translating the English Standard Version. If Caesar heard Jesus say that, he would have had him hung for treason. Because what Jesus was saying is that there's an authority above Caesar, that this idea of naturally granted rights, this idea of this earthly government is not the most important thing. What I would argue Jesus is saying is that we should demand a government, any government, that recognizes the ultimate purpose. And so I would push back against one of, kind of their reading words. And then of course there's Romans 13, which is probably the most quoted, misunderstood piece of the New Testament. If you'd like, I can comment on that. And again, if you guys have any problems, what I'm saying, just take it up with Wayne Grudem. Good luck. Okay? That's all I have to say. You know, he's, he's really good because everything that I say scripturally comes from him. But it says there very clearly. And let me, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna push, push some of these pastors here to really pray and think about this, which is, I'm paraphrasing, but it says submit to the leaders in authority because God put them there. Okay. Basically, submit to the sovereign. Well, who's the sovereign in the constitutional republic? Yeah, the people are. That's an interesting thing. So Governor Inslee is actually not the sovereign. So this is a. Now mind you, this is a contrarian, but I believe truthful view of Romans 13. I'm just going to say that again, this is a contrarian. I believe truthful view of Romans 13. Now this would not be the way that you could read Romans 13 in the Chinese Communist Party or in North Korea. I believe that there's a different way to unpack that there. But let's just talk about our own country, which is that the rulers, the people in charge are actually you. Therefore, if your natural rights are violated, then Governor Inslee is violating Romans 13. You're not violating Romans 13. And so it also says that they're put there for your good. And so insofar that that no longer is the case, then that very well might be broken. And so I can understand that there is a struggle with that, with pastors, but I also, I would just push back and just ask for some examples. And I think they have some explaining to do. Like was Rosa Parks in defiance to biblical text when she decided to push back against segregationists in the American South? That's a question that if they believe in non political involvement, that they have to answer I would say no, of course she was doing the moral thing. That that act of civil disobedience was the correct thing, similar to Christ. Christ put Christ very clearly speaking truth and being able and willing to accept the punishment. So there's, there's a different doctrine here which is civil disobedience, which I believe is biblical and which I believe is moral. And then which is being intentionally defiant and being civilly discord. What do I mean by that? Well, being civilly disobedient means you must be willing to accept the punishment. Rosa Parks was willing to accept the punishment, but some would say that that was not the biblical thing to do. I completely disagree with that. And so I also, you know, the founding fathers had many different quotes. One would say that the obedience to tyrants is not ever in any way in accordance to the gospel. Now how do you know a tyrant? I think that's a pretty self evident thing. But again, the entire New Testament is a gospel of liberation and is of freedom. And then you just want to get to a pragmatic, just like utilitarian argument, which I hate making. Right. I just don't like making these arguments. But if we don't do anything, it's going to get harder to spread the gospel. And so that's a pretty pragmatic argument. Right. That's going to be just, I think inarguable.
- [88:21]
Alec Rollins
And they didn't have the disciples and apostles did not have the levels of redress that we have that we've been given, which is a privilege for those of us that live in a representative republic. We've been given avenues like our vote and our involvement. That really is a privilege that the New Testament apostles didn't have. There was no redress. You had no way to express concern for what was happening. But just to go back to Jesus's own words, he calls Herod a fox, which when you look into the Greek there really means a. The word fox means a sly deceiver. And so Jesus was not so disengaged himself that he didn't recognize some of the broken leaders in his day for what they were.
- [89:18]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah, no doubt. And so I'm going to use another parable that I think is applicable to our country. And some pastors completely disagree with what I'm about to say. So I'm definitely going to say this because I think it's, I think it's true. Which is the parable to talents. Right? Which is, and you guys all know this, I mean, boy, I've seen so many heads nodding, you've done a good job teaching the Bible. I got to tell you, sometimes I got to start from so this is the New Testament and this is the Old. You'd be surprised. Some churches don't, don't go verse by verse and they don't. And so I want to commend you for that. You've done a great job. Parable, the talents, very put very, you know, succinctly is a parable that Christ. Christ was talking about a relationship between an owner and I think he used the word slave. I think it might be servant, not slave in the original Greek anyway, that each one of them gets doled a different talent which was a currency. And it's like what did you do with what I gave you? So one of them hid it and did nothing. One of them moderately increased it, one of them maximally increased it. And Christ has some of the harshest words in almost all of the New Testament for the person that did not do anything with that which was given to them. And so it says very clearly in the Bible that nations will be judged. That nations will be judged. I think we are going to be judged and I think that we'll be held account to what we did with the most generous, affluent and free constitutional republic ever to exist. And I believe that we're gonna have to hold account to this. Cause this is not the human norm. What we're experiencing right now is the human exception. Our access to medicine, transportation, communication, education, capacity to gather, to clothe ourselves, sanitation, we're living a really good life. And if we're all of a sudden gonna kind of hide that under a rock and act as if this is normal and do nothing at all to preserve or protect that, I think that is actually being completely defiant to a gift that the Lord has given us.
- [91:22]
Alec Rollins
I'd like to have you wrap up with this comment. Sort of a two part question. Seeing what you see with the eyes that you look at the current situation with and what you believe and what you know. Part one of the of the question, do you have hope for the future? And secondly, what do you see of the condition of the church? You rattled off earlier tonight, a bunch of churches that you have gone to that are obviously you wouldn't be invited to if they weren't already engaged and wanting to learn how to get more engaged other than those churches, what do you see of the condition of the church? Do you have hope and what do you see is happening in the church?
- [92:10]
Charlie Kirk
Yes, so I absolutely have hope. Of course I do. Yes. And I think it's important to say why. Because it's easy not to have hope in the condition that we're in. I'm a big believer in the power of human action. I think that's what makes Americans different. It's a uniquely American attribute that we have. You know, the French, they're very good at retreating. The Italians are very good at pleasure. I mean, I know, I'm sorry. The Brits are very good at complaining. We as Americans are really good at doing impossible things when the odds are against us. We've always done that. That's who we are. And I think that's a really. I think that's a really. That's something we should be really proud of. So I do have hope. And let me walk you through a couple of the reasons. Number one, I look to Genesis 11, which is exactly what the people in charge of our country and our nation are doing. And they're trying to build the Tower of Babel equivalent up to the heavens. And the Lord will not honor that. He will scatter them and he will confuse them amongst their ranks. He will. And I also have hope because the church is waking up, which answers the second part of your question. I'm traveling the country. I spoke at over 75 churches across the country, and I'm seeing pastors that are just rising up, and they are all of a sudden speaking clearly into these issues, and their congregations are thanking them. Tithes are going up, their offerings are going up. They are having more people commit to Christ than ever before. And I think there's a reason for this. And so there's. Anyone here tonight. This is not your home church. Raise your hand. That's awesome. And that's a pretty telling thing, right? That should be applauded. Right. And so I love asking that question, because in a way that we've told not to do. I'm obviously a political guy. I'm a Christian political guy. But in a weird way, a political guy is bringing people into the church, not bringing people out of the church. And so maybe this moment is a Galatians 3 moment, which is. The Galatians 3 says that the law is a placeholder to keep you in place until faith comes. Maybe it's a time where civic government and talking about moral issues clearly is a way where people are going to start drinking from the streams of liberty, and then they're going to want to find its source. Because liberty is not man's idea, it's God's idea. And so I think there's something very special happening and the spirit is moving in a dramatic way. And so do I have hope? Absolutely. And so if I could do a shameless plug, if that's okay. And then I'm gonna close with a couple things. Totally shameless, by the way, which is we do two podcasts a day. On our podcast, some of you guys listen. Anyone listen? Oh, wow. Okay. Well, I have nothing to plug then. But if everyone took out their phone and subscribed, I would be immensely blessed by that. It's free of charge. If you don't know how to do it, go find a 14 year old. I'm sure there's one near here. No, seriously, it keeps us immune from big tech cancellation. I'm a half plugging because we give marching orders, we elevate heroes. And this, this conversation is going to be reposted on our podcast because I think if you guys want to listen to this back again. So I'd be. I'd consider it a favor and a blessing. Okay, so back to do I have hope? Some people ask that question, not you, but some people ask that question because they want me to say no. They want me to tell them that it's okay to give up. They want me to tell them it's okay to retreat and say, you know what? Jesus is coming next Thursday. Charlie said we have no hope. I'm getting zapped up. See you later. That's what some people say. That's obviously wasn't the reason behind your point, but there is some truth to that. Look, you know how easy my life would be if I could just go be a college football coach or something. I wouldn't have to deal with the antifa thing and the security and crisscrossing the country. I give 330 speeches a year. I have the most powerful media institutions literally waiting for me to say one thing wrong to destroy my life every single day. By the way, I'm not complaining. I'm just saying it's just part of what we signed up for. And I love every single minute of it because I know that we're making a difference every single day. I know we're making a difference. And so. And so I want to be very clear about the hope thing because I actually really believe we're going to win. I know I'm like in the super vast minority minority. And I'm going to kind of walk you through why. And there's different types. I don't mean political winning, by the way. I just don't. That stuff comes and goes and I think that's just it flows downstream from the most important stuff, flows downstream from culture and downstream from morals and downstream from the public square, right? I think we're going to win in a way where that revival, that awakening, that moment, we're like, whoa, the Lord is moving in a way we've never seen before. Like that's what winning looks like. Let me just be very clear, right? And then all that other stuff starts to flow. And so I think that it's going to happen. I think it's going to have to happen differently though. I think it's going to have to happen differently. It's going to require Christians to start to contest and take terrain to occupy till he comes to all of a sudden to start, maybe run for a position all of a sudden, maybe to start, stand confidently with courage and truth and look clearly at someone who's taking your liberties and freedoms and say, no more. Maybe I'm going to file a lawsuit. Maybe I'm going to all of a sudden push back a little bit. Maybe I'm going to say no more. And I'm going to draw that line. And I think that that's going to kind of be the Galatians 3 awakening that's happening. And then as a nation, people say, charlie, the country is done. And I say, man, if you believe that, you're absolutely right. The greatest trick Satan has ever played is to get you to believe in the cynical view. I want you to pray on this one question tonight. Do you think Satan wants to see America get back to a place of greatness and revival and moral clarity? Or do you think Satan wants to see America crumble and go into chaos and confusion? Just pray on what you think the enemy's goals and ambitions are for a nation because we know that the enemy is trying to undermine anything that can go for God's purpose. What do you think Satan's desire is here? Because my goodness, is this a spiritual battle? And so, and that's at the basis of all of this, another question that I get. And this I'm going to do a pastor's close. So this is going to be like a 10 minute deal. Okay, so
- [98:44]
Alec Rollins
which is.
- [98:45]
Charlie Kirk
And then I have like a final thing, final, final, final, final, final, final thing I want to say right again, it's a pastor's clothes. We're going to land the plane. Everybody we're going to like. Which is when someone says, hey, Charlie, how's it going out there? And I always like, chuckle. I say, well, what do you mean? Like, am I a running back? For the Seattle Seahawks. Am I doing? And what they're really saying is like, hey, how's it going out there, sport? I've been watching you from afar. Drives me nuts. Because, look, I'm a kid from Chicago, didn't go to college. I'm 27 years old. There's nothing. There is nothing I'm doing. You can't do nothing. There's. I didn't go to Stanford. I didn't go to Yale. I didn't split the atom. I read a lot of books, and I listen to things that matter, and I spend time in the word. And I work really hard. So. So. So what? I don't run. I'm not. I'm not Russell Westbrook. I don't have a special skill. I could put words together and make arguments that make sense, and I commit myself to things that are true. What am I getting at here? No more of the Spectator type deal.
- [99:45]
Alec Rollins
Yeah. Yeah.
- [99:46]
Charlie Kirk
No, more of the kind of thing where it's like, we treat this thing that we're in, this kind of. This. This moment, kind of like a Seattle Seahawks game where we get in our lucky chair, we watch the game and we think that, you know, we're gonna cheer them on, and. And that's it. It's like, no, no, no, no. You guys can be on the field and in the game.
- [100:04]
Alec Rollins
Yeah.
- [100:04]
Charlie Kirk
This is one of the few things that every single one of you can be equally participant in. Again, there's nothing special about what I do except for the fact that I work really hard at it and I take it really seriously. And so no more of the kind of, hey, Charlie, I'm cheering you on. The next time I want to hear Man, Charlie, I'm right beside you and I'm being smeared, I'm being maligned, I'm being called these names, but I just won these ten people to Christ. And we're winning on the local level. And I feel you, Charlie, and I'm honored to be with you in the arena.
- [100:35]
Alec Rollins
Yeah.
- [100:35]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah. And then the last reason why I have hope, first of all, you look around, you're filling up rooms like this. We were just in a town I can't even pronounce.
- [100:46]
Alec Rollins
Snohomish.
- [100:47]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah, it was great. Packed room. It was terrific. And I closed with that story then. And I'll close with this story, if that's okay. Alex, the greatest man of the 20th century was a complicated man. He wrote 50 books. He was the prime minister of England when he was needed, and he was kicked out when he wasn't. It's Winston Churchill, misunderstood, kicked out of history, didn't do everything perfect. But he explained his mistakes better than any other leader. Warned about communism, and he was really, really right about the National Socialist Workers party. So on December 6, 1941, our country was under attack. 5,000 people died in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor. An unspeakable preemptive strike against a nation, us, that said, we don't want to get involved in another war. We lost enough in World War I. We're going to do isolation, non engagement, go kill yourselves. Europe and Asia, that was our position. And FDR was a little bit on the edge of where he wanted to get involved or not. We did an oil embargo against Japan, and Imperial Japan thought that they could get us into the battle, which would then smoke us out, and eventually we'd never get involved in Asia again. And they were honestly, their pride was their downfall. They preemptively striked. Pearl Harbor Day. That will live in infamy. People cried in the streets of America, and people all of a sudden got into that active posture. But there was only one person that is documented to be smiling on the morning of Pearl Harbor. Only one person had a smile a mile wide, and that was the greatest man in the 20th century, Winston Churchill. So he went into his war cabinet with his famous cigar, probably on two hours of sleep after a half glass of whiskey, of a kind of very complicated man. And he smiles to his war cabinet and he says, we've won the war. And his war cabinet says, what are you talking about? Have you lost your mind? They just bombed the hospital last night in London. We don't have a navy. We just evacuated from Dunkirk. A couple hundred thousand troops that were basically for slaughter, and they don't want to redeploy. We're losing 300 Royal Air Force members a day because of the German Luftwaffe. They are bombing a shock and awe. And the people of London want us to sue for peace. What do you mean, we've won the war? Winston Churchill. And he smiles and takes a puff out of his cigar. He says, no, the Americans have woken up. We have won the war.
- [103:18]
Alec Rollins
Yeah.
- [103:20]
Charlie Kirk
And I tell you here today that no matter what we're up against, that, that was only 80 years ago. And those are the stories that we should tell our children. What he was really saying is that people that were on the sidelines, that got in the arena, that were pushing back against what was wrong, when that happens, it's over. That all of a sudden, when people that were spectators, that are participants, it's over. And Winston Churchill, being a student of history, writing 50 books before he knew that, when people that otherwise were just doing their thing got out of the seats and into what matters, it's over. And so my call to action tonight is that if you get out of your seats and get into what matters, all of a sudden we are going to win. And that's why I have hope.
- [104:07]
Alec Rollins
Yeah.
- [104:08]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us your thoughts. Freedom charliekirk.com God bless you guys. Speak to you soon.