Transcript
Charlie Kirk (0:00)
Hey, everybody. Happy Sunday. My conversation at Texas A and M and a speech that people really loved in front of nearly 3,000 people. We talk about Christianity, the need to believe in God, the necessity of believing in God. And we have some debates with a pirate and two young black men that disagree. Email us, as always, freedomarliekirk.com and subscribe to the Charlie Kirk show podcast. Get involved by becoming a member. Members.charliekirk.com that is members.charliekirk. com that is members.charlIEkirk.com thanks to Alan Jackson Ministries for your continued support. Buck. Buckle up, everybody. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
Unknown Speaker (0:37)
I want you to know we are.
Charlie Kirk (0:38)
Lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. I want to thank Charlie. He's 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. 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. Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble gold investments@noblegoldinvestments.com that is noblegoldinvestments.com it's where I buy all of my gold. Go to noblegoldinvestments.com I gotta be honest, that was the coolest intro I've ever had. That was pretty awesome, everybody. I wanted to do that for a while. I was like, there's something about an intro at a Texas A and M football game that is almost metaphysical, I gotta tell you. So that was really special, everybody. All right. We're gonna have some fun tonight. Thank you to the great Turning Point USA chapter leaders for putting this together and our Turning Point USA chapter. Also. I'm obligated to say this. We are hiring at Turning Point USA as well. So if you want to work for us, we would love to have you work with us at Turning Point. Talk for a little bit, then we'll do questions. And by the way, this is the big, I think the biggest campus event we've ever done in Turning Point history. Look at this, people all the way up there. Incredible. So I want to talk about the most important thing that someone can do in their life, which is the decision of whether or not you make. Jesus Christ. The chairman of the board of your life. Most important thing, and the reason I want to mention that is I just recently sat down with Bill Maher. I don't know if you guys saw it or not. If not, I encourage you to look at it. It's a good conversation. Bill Maher is not a Christian. If you don't know that he's very much not a Christian. He is an atheist. And maybe we'll have some atheists here tonight. And remember, without God there would be no atheist. Remember that. So, and I sat down with. It was kind of interesting. And he treated me very well. To his credit, he. We just dialogued a lot. He was smoking pot the whole time, which may or may not have impacted me. Don't do. By the way, I've never done marijuana my life. I encourage you not to do it every time. Like my whole life I've talked against marijuana about how it, like makes you not as sharp as you could be. Totally true, by the way, like 100% right. Be very careful if you use pot. If you go on a podcast with Bill Mar. I actually didn't do it. But the second hand, that secondhand high might be a real thing. Anyway, we talked a lot about not just Christianity, which again, this is coming after Easter. But what I wish we would have spent more time on is the importance for a society to have an agreed upon moral structure that if you do not have a religious basis, specifically a Christian one, for your society, something else is going to replace it. And this is where the political meets the spiritual and the political meets the religious, which is that we must first and foremost give our life to Christ. Why is that important? Short gospel message for all of you. We are all sinners. We all fall short of the glory of God. Nothing we can do, nothing we can earn, nothing that we can say can get us to heaven. God sent his son on a rescue mission to save us from our broken nature. Of course, Jesus Christ lived a perfect death, taught us how to live, ministered all throughout Judea and Samaria, died a wrongful death to only resurrect three days later and the tomb is empty. And he is risen. And he risen indeed. Now the significance of this is almost every other religion on the planet is all about you have to work hard to get closer to God. You have to do something, wear something, you have to say something. Whereas Christianity, the promise is completely inverted and different. Where God actually comes to us, it is a relationship as much as it is a religion. It is that we have a personal connection with our Lord. And savior that transforms you, that challenges you, that provokes you. For those of you that have given your life to Christ, you know what I'm talking about. You know that it all of a sudden becomes a metaphysical difference in how you view the world. That it actually you think differently on how you. Whether you're going to drink or you're going to smoke or you follow the flesh. And even beyond that, though, which I think is important, we are seeing especially rise young people. I'm so excited to see so many people applaud when I talk about Jesus. Just amazing to see, honestly, on a college campus, just so great. Which is. Which is when you, when you become less religious, which this generation is. Gen Z is becoming less and less religious than their parents generation, then you have a gaping size hole in your heart and something must fill it. And out of the lack of Christianity is where we get wokeism. Understand that it's easy to attack wokeism, this idea that men can give birth and you know, all this nonsense that I'm sure we'll have some wonderful people talk about tonight. Maybe not. Yeah, get this hissing thing. I'm not, I'm not really a fan of it. I don't know where this comes. It's kind of weird. I don't know, it's like you could just say, you could say boo. You don't have to like hiss anyway. Okay, okay. See, they don't like it. What is the origin of that, though? Oh, you saw the horns off and that, that makes a snake. So you cut off the horns of the longhorn and it turns into a viper. You. Oh, you're too classy to boo here. Okay, I like that. That's a good answer. Okay, I will say it's a remarkably polite campus. Everyone says howdy and they're well dressed. And you know, not everyone's well dressed. You know, it's. But okay, that one I'll get. So it's the too classy to boo thing. Got it. So the, the aspect here that I think we don't want to. We don't want to miss though, is that when you have a society that gets away from Christianity, our birthright, which Christianity is what found the West. Christianity is what gave us this amazing country. It's easy to say, well, Charlie, you know, separates church and state. We could talk about tonight. Of course there should be some separation, some distinction. But do we have separation of morality and state? And when you no longer have a bedrock upon agreed moral structure for your society, then people are going to be in moral Confusion. And that is when you start to see widespread transgenderism for our youth or men and female sports. Because if you do not have an agreed upon thing of what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is evil, what is just, what is unjust, what is holy, what is profane. And again, the first six books of Genesis lay this all out. What is male and what is female? The distinctions that keep us free are actually laid out and enumerated within the first six books of Genesis. Now there is at times an under emphasis when we talk about the Gospel, talking about how God created the planet and the earth with natural laws for us to be able to succeed, harmonize, flourish and prosper. And we should not wage war on nature. We should respect it, seek to understand it, and where necessary, try to improve upon it. And so when you see something as asinine as this idea that biological men should be able to compete in female sports, 890 medals, by the way, have been stolen from women in track, in, in, there you go again in, in track or in volleyball, that otherwise would have went to biological women because biological men decided to play in that sport. And we have to accommodate that. And this is a, this is a massive problem that is an outgrowth of the death of Christianity. So the case I want to make to you is that of course you should give your life to Christ because it's true and it's real and Jesus was a real person who was killed and did rise from the dead. But even beyond that, we should also talk about the necessity of believing in God. What happens when a society gets too secular? Now why does that matter to everyone in this room? It should break you out of your comfort zone to know that it actually does impact you and your children, your grandchildren. If a society becomes less religious, if a society becomes less Christian, if a society becomes less grounded to our foundational roots, be very careful what will actually replace it. So Leo Strauss talked about this connection between reason and revelation, which is Athens and Jerusalem, which of course in Jerusalem we get the idea of the Hebrews, where we get this idea of a given law by our Creator. Reason is almost only what is talked about on college campuses. If you can't think it, if you can't prove it, it doesn't exist. What we as Christians actually acknowledge is that there's a lot of mysteries to life, things beyond even our intellectual or reason comprehension. And we are willing to acknowledge and say, hey, that very same God that created the heavens and the earth didn't give us the entire plan about and Reason unto itself is a death spiral for a civilization because eventually you start reasoning your way into really, really bad decisions. You need revelation. You need what I believe, the Ten Commandments, the teachings of the Bible, to almost reign in the worst impulses of reason. But revelation alone is not enough. If you only have Revelation, then you don't have the West. If you don't have Revelation, you don't have technological advancements, you don't have some of the most amazing medical advancements. We don't have the prosperity or the material wealth that we enjoy in the west that has largely pushed back against the dire guise of poverty we've seen across the planet. So this, this balance between the two is critically important. And so as we start to see many in the younger generation say, I have no religious affiliation, they're actually lying to you. They're saying that they have no traditional religious affiliation. Something is their God, they are worshiping something. And to worship is what you are aiming at. That's why I think you should aim at Jesus. What better way to aim your entire life at someone who tells you to care for the poor and love your neighbor as yourself and defeated death? But if you say, well, I'm not religious, I just want to aim at whatever I want to aim at, Be very careful. What does that mean? Does that mean you're going to be the God of the flesh? The God of trying to get as drunk as I possibly can and just a little bit of a warning that is a miserable way to live. You know, plenty of people probably that are in that cycle, that endless downturn, that, that down spiral of I'm just going to do whatever the flesh tells me to do whenever I want to do it. Be very cautious with that. Instead, we believe a better way to live, as conservatives and of Christians, is one that we want to glorify God in everything that we do, in all that we do. And that includes, by the way, political matters, you might say. Charlie, how does this inform your politics? Well, the Western tradition is what we are trying to fight for. The Western tradition is one that recognizes universal human equality. So think about how fundamental this is. You cannot get to this idea that all humans are created equal without a belief in a divine. If you just have reason and you believe in atheism, you cannot resolutely and objectively say that murder is wrong. You could say, murder might hurt people. You could say, murder might not feel good. But you can't say murder is wrong because you have to eventually appeal to a moral standard above you. And so we see this playing out and so many different dimensions of the West. And my call to all of you that are Christians or center right or conservatives understand the consequences of where this leads. At first it will just be Wokeism and secularism. It will be the craziest ideas imaginable ideas, by the way, that thankfully we beat at the ballot box back in November when presented to the American people. Thankfully, however, it does not stop there because the WOKE movement, whatever ends up coming, calling itself in the future, it mimics religious maxims it will have, whether it be the worship of nature or earth worshiping or the cult of anti racism or this idea that the religion of scientism, remember we went to that entire thing that you must trust the experts and trust the scientists at all point. At some, at some level, we as human beings desire to be connected to something greater. My contention is there's nothing greater than actually being connected to what built this place in the first place. And that is of course Christianity. I don't think it's talked about enough for multiple reasons. I think Christianity gets a really, really bad rap. But you think about stuff that seems so self evident. You should help a poor person when you see one. You should make sure that people are clothed. This is not normal thinking. If you do not live in a Christian society that did not have this as an inheritance, you are an inheritor of a Christian way of thinking. And when you dismiss that, when you saw off the roots, you become cut flowers that are not able to grow because you are no longer anchored to what gave you life in the first place. And so as I am encouraged that the younger generation is moving significantly to the right, young men, by the way, move 30 points in the conservative direction in just the last year and a half. 30 points. It's an amazing thing. Incredible. We equally must be young women will get there. Just don't worry. We're working on that. So that's a work in progress. We must say this is all just a temporary moment or a momentary victory if there is not the true foundation. And that true foundation we believe is scripture and we open it up for liberals or leftists or atheists. You tell us what ultimate authority should be. Now, politically we believe the Constitution should be ultimate authority. But out of the Constitution are all biblical truths. These are things that we find in the Bible. All men being created equal. That you have a right to free expression, that you have a right to be able to worship your creator. That we're not going to do it by force, but you have to do it with your own agency. These ideas were grown out of the biblical worldview that many, many people take for granted. But the ultimate authority, and I appeal to anybody to that can find me a different book or a different way of thinking or a different philosophy that has been able to build something as great as America. And that's the final thing I'll say, is that there is so much unnecessary America bashing that happens. Not on this campus. I've seen a lot of patriots here on this campus, but on many campuses across the country, which is, and my friend mentioned this earlier, you know, you live in a great country when even those who hate it refuse to leave. Except Rosie o' Donnell, left, which is amazing, praise God. She's in Ireland. So I'm kidding. That was mean. So, but largely the haters of America don't leave. Generally when you hate your country, you try to get out of it at all costs. So they enjoy the material comfort and they enjoy the prosperity that they inherited, but they don't necessarily want to leave. There is no country like this country. There is no greener pasture. This is as good as it gets. And I'm glad that we have a new administration that is fighting for some of these core values. It's going to be bumpy at times, it's going to be a little bit uncertain. But honestly, I'm glad that we have a border again and that our southern border is secure. I am thrilled and thankful that we have a president that is signed an executive order despite a judge stopping it, saying that you're not allowed to medically mutilate a 14 year old under the guise of chemical castration. And I could go piece by piece and element by element, but it's politics is only an aftershock of what happens in the culture. And far too many Christians, if I may say, are a little bit passive about getting involved in the political. They'll say, well, Charlie, there is no evidence or there is no biblical example of getting involved in politics. And I challenge them. I say, well, yes, if you remove Esther, Mordecai, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Joseph, Moses, yeah, then there's nothing political in the Bible. We as Christians are called to be counselors to the king. We are called to bring biblical truths into the public arena. As Christ our Lord said to be salt and light. What do salt and light have in common? They change the environment that they come in contact with. You should try to make text A and M more Christ. Like you should try to fight for the unborn. You should try to fight that people save themselves from marriage. You should try to constantly try to make the unbelievers believe in Jesus. The to change the environment that you come in contact with. Mind you, Christ did not tell us to look more like the environment that we come in contact with. We're supposed to be the change agents. And that goes with your local city council, that goes with your state government, and that goes to your national government, as it says in Jeremiah 29:7, demand the welfare of the nation that you are in, because your welfare is tied to your nation's welfare. We are called to care about the peace of the country that we are in. Daniel fasted and prayed for the nation that he was in before he was thrown into the lion's den to contest for values that we so care about in the public square and in the public arena. And the failure to do that, if I may say so, is bad for everybody. And even an honest atheist, and I think I didn't quite get Bill Maher there, he was not exactly in agreement here, but it's a conversation worth continuing with him because I think he wants to get to this conclusion, which is that. Which is that even an honest atheist might not believe in God, but can recognize and notice that a society that does not believe in God is bad for even atheists. And that is the necessity of believing in God is one that must be talked about more, because the moral chaos and the moral confusion. At some point you have to discuss, what are you going to teach your kids? By what moral standard? And if all of a sudden you're saying, well, I'm going to just teach my kids what the New York Times says, that's a bad answer, or I'm going to just whatever my teacher wants. That is a bad answer. Instead, you need something to appeal to at all points. You will hear people say, well, that's good, or that's bad or that's evil, or that's wrong, and your answer should always be, by what standard? Just so we know that we can, you know, basically judge the same thing, that we can have the same idea of what we are appealing to. The final point I'll make is this, and then we'll open it up for some questions, is that we as Christians, I think, at this moment in time, must be unafraid to not just share our faith, but to see where our faith overlays with political engagement and involvement and understand politics is not the most important thing. Jesus is the most important thing. And therefore, I'll say that again, the most important thing is Jesus. But what Is the second most important thing to make sure. You could do the first thing to make sure we still have religious liberty and to make sure we live in a free society. A free society is awesome for the Gospel. A free society is good for all people, for poor people, for marginalized people, for people that quite honestly want to be able to get ahead. And at its core and at its foundation, we as Christians should not be saying, oh, you know, looks like the rapture's coming this next Thursday. I'm about to get zapped up. No, bad. You might be right. I'm not going to get into that. You might be wrong. Not going to get into that. Instead, you should have a belief system. How am I going to make this country, how am I going to make this campus more ready for Christ's return? How am I going to fight evil? In Psalm 97:10, it says, those of you who love God, it's in the command form. Those of you who love God, you must hate evil. That is in the command form to hate it. And by the way, we should be able to say what evil is. And in America, evil is butchering babies while they are still in utero and calling it health care. That is not glorifying of God. It is telling a 16 year old that you might be another gender because you might be going through a difficult patch in your puberty. That is evil. Everybody is also evil. Simultaneously, to allow the border to be completely wide open, the Bible explicitly effuses the idea of nations, of borders, of boundaries, of a nation, and it creates moral chaos. Not to mention the terrible exploitation of women and children that happen on the southern border over the last four years of sex trafficking, all the associated things. And so it is tempting as Christians, and you're here tonight to your great credit, but I want to reinforce this. There'll be moments where people will tell you, no, no, no, no, stop being political. Just be a Christian. You should say, you know what, I'm being biblical, not political, because I'm called to get into the tough fights to make that place more Christian, to, to make the government more glorifying God. And look, it's very difficult. There's so much wretchedness and nonsense that infuses our government. But the other alternative is, this is the. Is the alternative. Just like we should retreat from the public square, run to the hills, and just kind of live in our own homeschool communities, which I support, by the way, to raise children, but have. I love homeschooling, but to have no contact with the outside world. And here is the balance. We need to be in the world, but not of the world. And my contention is that the last 20 years, Christians have forsaked the public square because it wasn't easy and it was not comfortable. Christ said on this rock, build my church. Catholics in this audience will have a different interpretation of that. That's fine. The word is ecclesia, which literally means build my public gathering place. Build my civic center of meeting. No matter how you interpret it, we can all agree that we should try to bring the truths of the Scriptures to every domain and dimension imaginable. We should not force it upon people. But that's the final thing, is that although you might believe we have separation of church and state, a little more complicated than that. Nobody believes, including Bill Maher, to his credit, we have separation of morality and state. And therefore it begs the question, by what standard do you say that is good? By what standard do you say that is evil? We have the answer that has been unchanged. We believe it's breathed out of the scriptures and as true today as it was 2,000 years ago. The liberals have no alternative. And I encourage all of us that are believers to keep on bringing that into the public square for the remainder of our life. We're honored to be partnering with the Alan Jackson Ministries. And today I want to point you to their podcast. It's called Culture and Christianity. The Alan Jackson Podcast. What makes it unique is Pastor Alan's biblical perspective. He takes the truth from the Bible and applies it to issues we're facing. Gender confusion, abortion, immigration, Doge Trump and the White House issues in the church. He doesn't just discuss the problems. In every episode, he gives practical things we can do to make a difference. His guests have incredible expertise and powerful testimonies. Each episode will make you recognize the power of your faith and how God can use your life to impact our world. Today, the Culture and Christianity podcast is informative you and encouraging. You could find it on YouTube, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes. Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to get biblical truth back into our culture. You can find out more about Pastor Alan and the ministry@Alan Jackson.com that is Alan Jackson.com again, that is Alan Jackson.com as they get the question line all set up. I also want to say the turning point. Do we have any high school turning point leaders here? What school? Brandeis. Good for you guys. That's great. Is that in Houston or where? Oh, San Antonio. That's quite a drive. Good for you guys. Where are you from? You're a high schooler. Good. I didn't hear what that said, but I'm glad you're here. So where else other high schoolers? Tobal Tombo. I thought you said Cobalt. Are we ready, sir? Let's begin. Hi.