How the Church Can Help Clinch 4 More Years for President Trump

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Charlie Kirk Show

Episode: How the Church Can Help Clinch 4 More Years for President Trump

Date: November 1, 2020

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Main Theme Overview

This episode features Charlie Kirk discussing the intersection of faith, politics, and the Church’s role in shaping American culture—particularly its influence on young adults and the 2020 presidential election. With co-hosts from the “Views from the Porch” podcast, the conversation centers on how Christianity informs political activism, why the Church’s involvement in politics is essential, and what both encourages and concerns them about the current generation’s beliefs.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Charlie's Faith Journey and Political Awakening

(01:01–03:23)

• Faith Origin: Charlie was raised in a Christian context, attended Christian Heritage Academy, and “gave [his] life to Christ in fifth grade” (01:48–01:49), though his understanding deepened over time.
• Influence of Churches: Harvest Bible Chapel and pastor James McDonald were key in developing his “sound theology of...the inerrancy of Scripture, the irrefutable word of God” (02:13–02:17).
• Transition to Public Life: Moving from church traditions into public high school and deciding not to attend college marked pivotal moments, intensifying his faith and leading to activism.

2. The Case for Christ and Unique Nature of Christianity

(03:32–06:57)

• Gospel Summary:

  “The gospel in four words...Jesus took my place. Three words: Him for me. Two words: substitutionary atonement. And one word: grace.” — Charlie Kirk (03:54–04:05)

• Uniqueness of Grace: Contrasts Christianity with other religions, positing that “There is no other religion...where you can finally admit you’re not enough and God will enter your life.” (04:06–04:21)
• Historical Reliability: Defends Christianity’s truth through “third party corroboration” of the resurrection and unwavering witness of early disciples even unto death.
• Spiritual Transformation: Emphasizes that true Christian conversion radically changes one’s relationship with sin:

  “Your sin does not feel the same after you're reborn because all of a sudden you're sinning alongside Jesus…” (06:29–06:39)

3. Faith, Patriotism, and the Call to Serve America

(08:00–11:12)

• Synthesis of Values: Discusses growing up Patriotic and Christian, often taught these were incompatible—especially in a “very liberal Presbyterian Church” (08:56).
• Turning Point USA Vision:

  “I want our generation to love our country again. Said it. It’s that simple.” — Charlie Kirk (09:44–09:47)

• Generational Shift: Observes a decline in national pride and a rise in criticism; public opinion shows that many young adults have a negative view of America (09:59–10:01).
• Biblical Basis for Civic Engagement: Recalls biblical mandates to “seek the welfare of the city” and “honor the emperor,” arguing that Christians should strive to be good citizens (10:28–10:50).

4. Liberty, Morality, and the ‘Cottage Industry’ of Critique

(11:12–13:44)

• Moral Foundation: Asserts,

  “Without God, morality is nothing more than an opinion.” (12:18–12:23)

• Dangers of Moral Relativism: Believes liberty without virtue leads to societal decay, especially for younger generations facing unprecedented freedom and technology.
• Effort to Undermine America: Identifies a “very concerted effort to get young people to hate our country,” facilitated by influential celebrities and educators (13:34–13:44).

5. Trends, ‘Wokeness,’ and Church Decline

(13:44–15:06)

• Social Trends: Co-hosts observe that acts once considered patriotic (like singing the National Anthem) are now seen as controversial.
• Role of the Church:

  “Disintegration of morality because the Church is disintegrating.” (14:43–14:44)

• Church’s Political Withdrawal: Kirk laments that the American Church’s reluctance to engage in politics allowed for loss of influence and even legal discrimination against church gatherings, especially evident during the COVID-19 pandemic (16:40–19:12).

  “They took Easter and Palm Sunday from us. Why? Because we didn’t get involved in politics, man.” — Charlie Kirk (19:12–19:27)

6. Engaging Young Adults: Encouragements and Concerns

(21:09–25:11)

• Encouragement: There is a renewed “thirst for knowledge” and “awakening” among young adults, who increasingly seek deep, meaningful content (21:09–21:44).
• Concerns: Prevailing “blame America first” attitudes among college students—often based on presuppositions rather than true inquiry (21:44–23:30).
• Counter-arguments to Criticism: Cites American exceptionalism, technological and scientific advances, and the “Christian Moral Foundation” as reasons for national pride (24:26–26:01).

7. Founding Fathers, Slavery, and Historical Context

(25:11–30:14)

• Addressing Complexities: Defends the Founders, acknowledging their flaws and complexities, but emphasizes their steps toward abolition and the exceptional nature of America’s founding documents.
• Separation of Church and State: Argues it's a misconception—Jefferson and others were not anti-Christian but avoided establishing a state religion; America’s Christian roots are inseparable from its identity.

8. Conservatives’ Weaknesses and the Moral Case

(30:14–31:58)

• Need for Compassion:

  “The left is much better at compassion than we are…overindulging in highly emotive stories can become a pathological way of governing” (30:33–30:52)

• Moral Argument: Believes conservatives must better articulate the moral basis for their views and not cede this ground to liberals.

9. Core Issues, Political Paralysis & Civic Responsibility

(32:10–36:43)

• Key Falsehood: If he could change one misconception, it’d be that “we’re not a racist country”—arguing that Christianity overcomes tribalism (32:16–32:28).
• Political Paralysis: Discusses how “Social Dilemma” and distrust in media creates confusion for young adults, offering practical news sources and ways to research and form principled positions.
• Policy Priorities for Christians: Highlights the importance of being “pro-life,” supporting Israel, and defending the right to worship (35:10–36:20).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Bible and Self-Reflection:

  “The Bible’s the only book ever, the more you read it, it reads you.” — Charlie Kirk (06:57–07:02)

• On Liberty & Morality:

  “Liberty’s really hard if you don’t have virtue. In fact, liberty will instantaneously crumble a society if you can’t handle it.” — Charlie Kirk (12:02–12:10)

• On Church & Political Engagement:

  “My biggest disagreement with the American church is that they've stayed away from politics. I think it is the worst decision they could have possibly made.” — Charlie Kirk (16:39–16:40)

• Political Decision Tree:

  “Most important thing you can do in your life is accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. The second thing is make sure you can do the first thing.” — Charlie Kirk (18:21–18:43)

• American Trinity:

  “There’s a Christian Trinity...There’s an American trinity too. It’s on all of our coinage and all of our stamps. E pluribus unum. In God we trust and liberty. You lose the Trinity, you lose the country.” — Charlie Kirk (32:28–32:38)

• On Leisure:

  “I tried having fun once and I hated it.” — Charlie Kirk (40:18–40:21, with laughter)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Charlie's faith background: 01:01–03:23
• Explaining the gospel: 03:32–06:57
• Faith & political activism link: 08:00–11:12
• Why young Americans are critical of their country: 11:12–13:44
• Role of the Church in politics & COVID-19 restrictions debate: 16:39–19:27
• Optimism and concerns on college campuses: 21:09–23:30
• American exceptionalism & Christian foundations: 24:26–26:01
• Founders, slavery, and historical complexity: 26:02–30:14
• Conservative weaknesses: 30:14–31:58
• Changing key misconceptions (racism in America, unity): 32:10–33:39
• Political paralysis & civic engagement advice: 34:01–36:43
• Book and author recommendations: 37:04–40:12

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Recommended Resources & Authors

• Apologetics/Christianity:

  • The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel
  • The Book That Built Your World by Vishal Mangalwadi
  • Wayne Grudem’s works (theology and politics)

• Politics/Economics:

  • The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (what not to do)
  • Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell (economic/cultural analysis)

• News/Research:

  • justthenews.com
  • RealClearPolitics

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Closing Reflections

Charlie Kirk emphatically argues for the unapologetic integration of faith and civic responsibility, warning of the dangers if the Church abdicates its voice in the public square. He remains optimistic seeing a hunger for knowledge and truth among young adults but urges a restoration of gratitude, moral clarity, and a willingness for Christians to engage the culture and political process more boldly.

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Transcript

[A]

Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

[B]

Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

[A]

I want you to know we are

[B]

lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

[A]

Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

[B]

I want to thank Charlie.

[A]

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 are here.

[B]

What's up, guys? This is David. We are back with another episode of Views from the Porch. I'm joined with the one and only J.D. rogers.

[A]

What up?

[B]

And for the very first time, Charlie Kirk on the podcast.

[A]

Honored to be here. Thank you, dude.

[B]

Thanks for making time, man. Charlie is a man. What would be the best way of describing political. What would you call yourself?

[A]

Activist.

[B]

Political activist.

[C]

I was thinking guru.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Thank you. All the above. Put me at a higher level.

[B]

But not just that he's been in the political scene for the last eight years. He's also a believer. And I thought we'd just start there just to frame up, because here's the two things that we share in common. A love for Jesus and a love for this generation, young adults, to know him and to live in light of that. So quickly from a high level, your story of faith, or, you know, were you raised early on and trusted in Christ then? Or what's kind of your high level faith background?

[A]

So third, fourth, and fifth grade, I went to a school called Christian Heritage Academy in the suburbs of Chicago. Pretty well known if you're kind of in the Chicago Moody Bible kind of world, Wheaton World, it's kind of a feeder system into that eventually. And gave my life to Christ in fifth grade. I had no idea what that meant. It's kind of one of those things, say the words to make sure you don't go to hell type thing.

[B]

Jesus in your heart.

[A]

Amen. But as I grew older, it meant more every single year. And those words that you say in fifth grade, that you actually remember and. And all those Bible verses they make you recite in third, fourth, and fifth grade, like Isaiah 53, you actually realize there's significant meaning to those things. You actually realize that those are not just incantations for the sake of discipline of a young person, that there's irrefutable truth within them. And so anyway, in eighth grade, and then once I went to public high school, faith really started to become something that was a deeper part of my life. And then as I decided not to go to college, that became an even more important part of my faith journey. Grew up in the Presbyterian tradition. My parents left that and kind of church shopped, if you will, landed at Harvest Bible chapel with James McDonald, and he had a very huge impact on my life. Incredible. And Harvest Bible Chapel really, really kind of put me on what I think was sound theology of, you know, the inerrancy of scripture, the irrefutable word of God, who exactly was Jesus Christ, and kind of how you position your life and configure it correctly. And so, yeah, that's my faith journey. And eight and a half years later, you know, I'm actually doing more in the faith space than I was even the first seven years. And happy to unpack that just because right now you're seeing a unprecedented intersection of faith and politics. And so I'm on the political side, being a Christian and starting to see a lot of Christian churches start to embrace some of the most dangerous political movements that they have no idea what they're talking about.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so anyway, I don't mean to overly politicize it this quickly, but that's kind of how I think we're all here today. Yeah.

[B]

So let me put you on the spot.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

We got a lot of non believers, or we have a decent chunk of people who are either early on their faith or still figuring out why. What case would you make for why Jesus is ultimately the one that they're looking for? The center of human history, no question. But anything that you would say, hey, look, here would be the answer to why you need to make the decision. Yes, Jesus is the one.

[A]

So the gospel in four words. Three words. Two words. One word. Jesus took my place. Four words. Three words is him for me. Two words. Substitutionary atonement and one word grace.

[B]

Come on.

[A]

There is no other religion, There is no other belief system in the world where you can finally admit you're not enough and God will enter your life. Go find it. Buddhism is about not talking, saying the right incantations, and trying to find a higher plane of enlightenment. It's all about what you do, even though they don't admit it.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Islam is about earthly conquest or conquering or following the certain sort of edicts of the Quran. There is no religion ever where you admit you're not enough, and then that actually gets you admission into the highest possible relationship with Jesus Christ. I can go through, archaeologically, I can go through the apologetics of it, of no other act in human history has as much third party corroboration as the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I can go into how we have first person accounts how every single person who knew Jesus Christ and considered him their teacher or the Messiah died. Not just died a death in defense of it, but refused to recount it at the very final parts of their death. Whether it be James, the half brother of Christ, where some people debate that. But that's irrelevant, Paul.

[B]

Anyway, important side note to what you're saying, they died not for what they believed in, like the cause. They died because they said, I saw a dead man come back from the grave.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

And that's a very different thing.

[A]

And people die all across the planet. I mean, the disciples went from India to Rome to Greece to. There's even accounts of them going as north to what is now southern Russia of the gospel spreading. And every single one that knew Jesus Christ and saw him raised from the dead when they were given an opportunity to go back on that. Right. The dagger's on your throat.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They're like, no, I believe it. Kill me. And so insane. That's a pretty remarkable thing. And then also we have, according I think it's either Luke or mark, at least 327 people saw the resurrected Christ post death resurrection. The story of Paul is completely fascinating, right? A super wealthy Roman Jew who literally oversees the stoning of Stephen and then immediately turns and becomes the number one spreader of the gospel and really creates the framework for the church as we know it today.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And so even beyond that, if that's not persuasive enough for you, which I think is highly persuasive, I go through the writings of Josephus and I can go through all those sorts of things. How there's never been an archeological discovery that contradicts the Bible. All of those things are awesome. However, the thing that really I think the most important thing is if you give your life to Jesus Christ completely and totally, you will be reborn. We say that a lot like, oh, what does that mean? Why do we do a baptism? Because you're actually a new person. Your sin does not feel the same after you're reborn because all of a sudden you're sinning alongside Jesus, all of a sudden you're taking Jesus drinking with you.

[B]

Spirit of God.

[A]

Amen. And so I highly encourage people to give your life to Jesus Christ. And it's complicated at times I think it becomes overly complicated in certain, you know, theological circles.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And I. The number one thing I tell new believers is to spend time in the Bible.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Is the Bible's the only book ever. The more you read it, it reads you.

[B]

That'll preach.

[C]

That's good.

[B]

That's true. That's good, man. All right. So I start there on purpose because, you know, some of our audience will have no background with just all the work you're doing. And then some of them will be like, hey, I'm familiar, and I may disagree. And I want to make sure everybody knows if you disagree with that as it relates to Jesus. By that, I mean Jesus and him being the center of the universe, and you need to make him the center of your life, man. You have much bigger problems than any disagreement you may have related to political stuff.

[A]

Yeah. Amen. It's the most important thing.

[C]

We could end it right there. That's the thing.

[B]

So from there, going into, you know, you are not just a believer. Those values inform some of your, I would think, the passion that you have for politics, for this generation, for the issues that are infiltrating this generation. I don't know if there's probably a better way to say that, but how did that bridge happen? How did you go from that to, hey, now I'm in the.

[A]

Yeah. Imperfectly.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I could describe it a lot better today than I could have eight and a half years ago.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So we could start how I scored it 8 1/2 years ago, which is, I love my country. I was raised in a highly patriotic household, very defensive of America by nature and by default, disagreeable by nature. So when teachers would dare insult the country or would go out of their way, I would just find any sort of reason I could grasp onto that our country wasn't as bad as they were saying it was.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And being growing up in public high school in the suburbs of Chicago, you just kind of become steeped in that kind of, you know, disagreeableness if you decide to have that perspective. And so anyway, I never. And it's really a great question because I actually was taught that my conservatism and my patriotism was incongruent with my Christianity.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

And it's completely wrong. It's the exact opposite.

[B]

By parents or.

[A]

Well, no, by. I grew up in a very liberal Presbyterian church.

[B]

Got it. Okay.

[A]

And so they were. They'd say that any form of nationalism or any form of love of country is completely against the gospel. You can't believe both. And I was like, that doesn't make any sense. But I don't really care. You know, it's just kind of like screw you type thing. Right. I believe it. And that's just like eighth, ninth grade. Right. So rebellion was this. That was my idea of rebellion.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Like going against the Presbyterian Church. And now I. Now I have a much deeper understanding of first principles and who we are in the state of nature and all the. And kind of how we came across our system of governance and why we love our country, all those sorts of things. But like I said at the outset, it was very imperfect at the time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So.

[B]

But despite that, it happened. And you started an organization at 18.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Called Turning Point USA. And what. What's a high level vision for people listening and if they don't know anything about Turning Point?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, it's gone through many different kind of iterations. Like any startup. This is, as bluntly as I can say it, I want our generation to love our country again. Said it. It's that simple. We don't. Public polling shows that a majority of our generation has a negative view of America.

[B]

Does that feel new?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Like last 15 years. Like it feels like we need another Rocky IV to come out or something. And that, like when I was growing up, there was the Zeitgeist just felt so different. I was just on the phone call with a friend from New York who was talking about our differences. We don't need to get lost here. But of the critical way that people are taught to think about the country. And. And it feels new.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And to your point, Jeremiah 29 talks about seeking the welfare of the city that you're in. First Peter, chapter four. First Peter, chapter two talks about loving your neighbor, fearing God, honor the emperor. There's a lot of reasons to say, man, I want to be the best possible citizen that I can. I want to see the flourishing of the nation that I'm a part of, knowing we're ultimately citizens of heaven.

[A]

Amen.

[B]

It's not where we're spending eternity, but God has done through the Christian Moral foundation, which we're talking about in a sermon series we're doing right now, a lot of good through the nation. And America's not perfect. Has had issues. It will never be perfect. But why do you think there's been such a transition in terms of being critical?

[A]

Yeah. And look, I actually don't mind criticism. I do. I do mind pathological opposition. And there's a complete difference. If you've created a cottage industry into hating something that's generally pretty awesome. I got A problem with you. And that's what's happened with professional athletes and celebrities. And they have huge influence. And so there's two reasons for this, the first of which is the issue of liberty. Liberty's really hard if you don't have virtue. In fact, liberty will instantaneously crumble a society if you can't handle it. If you do not understand the law, which points us to Christ, Galatians 3. The law is a guardian or a schoolteacher to Christ, then you can't understand liberty. It becomes self indulgence, slavery. Quickly. Think about it. You have that supercomputer right there. You could look up anything you want at any time. You could see any picture you want to see at any time, any video. You can communicate with anyone. You can get marijuana, you can get illegal drugs, whatever you possibly want. What makes you not want to do that?

[B]

Morality.

[A]

Bingo. Without God, morality is nothing more than an opinion.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And so if you have a nation that can't handle liberty because we have more liberty than any other generation in human history, we're more miserable. Then all of a sudden, you actually don't have liberty. You're actually then in some ways a pseudo slave to those devices or the sin that you're living in. That's why the Christian ethic is a superior ethic, is that you're gonna continue to fail. You will. It's a guarantee. It's built into us. And so anyway, kind of going back, number one, is the issue of liberty. That's one of the reasons why this has fallen over 10 years. Because we have not, in my opinion, had a moral backstop. To be able to instruct young people in particular to deal with the multitude of. Of wealth that we have around us, or to be able to do the multitude of choices or the plurality of opportunities, and instead we are gonna screw it up. But if you have no moral framework, then it turns into absolute chaos. That's number one. Number two is that there's been a very concerted effort to get young people to hate our country. It's been well financed, it's been very persuasive. It's been multimedia, it's been multidimensional. And if you do not come at it from at least some deeper historical background or at least a family background, that has really reinforced, I think, the truth about this country. It's very seductive. I get it. And I fight back against it all the time.

[C]

It's like any trend. We have been trained, the younger generation has been trained to follow trend and trend, at least a lot recently has become, like, all around, like, Black Lives Matter. Like, being woke kneeling during the national anthem. There's so many things that you see that if I don't. Like, I. As a child, the national anthem was like, we're gonna sing this thing. Like, we're gonna belt this thing out, and it's about to be awesome, and everyone's gonna be having their hats off and standing and proud. And now it's, like, awkward.

[A]

Like, if you go to a football

[C]

game, you know, it's like, I don't know what's gonna happen. Who's gonna be kneeling? You're looking around. Who's gonna be participating.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And it's just lost less and less.

[A]

That's like, one example.

[C]

But the Pledge of Allegiance, like, there's so many different things.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

That you look online and you look all over social media, and it's like, you're not woke if you are participating in the things that were once.

[A]

So, like, value. Yes.

[B]

Sure. And I don't bandwagon disintegration of morality because the church has. Is disintegrating. So let me ask you this question. Here's two real quick questions based on what you just said, because I totally agree. We've talked about how without morality and you can only have morality through the spirit of God. And without the spirit of God and being directed towards morality, society will crumble. That you can't have.

[A]

Can't maintain freedom, and human beings will crumble.

[B]

Human beings will crumble. So why do you do. Why are you not a pastor? Because if you're going, hey, I want to see morale.

[A]

That's an interesting question. I mean, I've been asked that once or twice. I mean, look, first of all, I don't feel that's my calling. Number two, Martin Luther told us that a true Christian, if they were a shoemaker, wouldn't put a cross in every shoe.

[B]

That's right. Tell them the story, because they.

[A]

So Martin Luther, obviously, is the reason why we're all here, and we're not taking the Eucharist today.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Right. I mean, that's why you guys are able to marry. So thanks to Martin Luther.

[B]

That's right, man. Praise God for that.

[A]

Kind of had a good impact on your life.

[B]

That was a w. Right.

[A]

It was a big win for men.

[B]

That's right. And so. But the sho. Shoemaker story is Martin Luther.

[A]

Somebody comes up facetious. Yes. So Martin Luther. Dude, you're.

[B]

You're hitting it spot on. That's a big win for Men and women. But he was asked, hey. By some guy that became a Christian.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

What should I do with my life? Luther said, what do you do now? I make shoes. And he said, make a good shoe. Sell it at a fair price.

[A]

And he said, act the Christian ethic in everything you do, but you don't have to necessarily put a cross in every shoe to justify that. You are pursuing the gospel in it. And I think that's exactly right. And so I'll say this, though, which is really interesting. I mean, I do two podcasts a day, we do two hours of radio a day, and we've brought hundreds of people to Christ through the Galatians 3 model. And this is something. My biggest disagreement with the American church is that they've stayed away from politics.

[B]

Huh.

[A]

I think it is the worst decision they could have possibly made. I'm gonna tell you why. Come on. Because there are millions of young people that care more about politics than faith.

[B]

That's a fact.

[A]

And if you're not able to communicate to those people, then all of a sudden, you're losing a huge opportunity. They're drinking from the streams of liberty. Show them the source. Liberty is not man's idea. It's God's idea.

[B]

That's also a fact.

[A]

So when I go to a college campus and we're packing out auditoriums, thousands of young people, some are Christians, most are not. And all of a sudden, I'm talking about first principles. Freedom of speech, freedom of dialogue, strong families, protection of the unborn. Where do we get these ideas from? Did I just pull them out of my hat? Everyone is referencing the source. Everyone is. So just like Abraham Lincoln, who was never considered to be a Christian, but he cited more Bible verses in his first and second inaugural. And right before he gets shot in the back of the head, he turns to Mary Todd Lincoln and he says, I dream to walk on the streets of Jerusalem in the footsteps of our Savior. Bang. Really? That guy? Corroborated by the Lincoln curator, the Lincoln Museum, three independent top Lincoln historians. That guy understood the Galatians 3 model. That you go to politics and fight for morality, you're going to have the gospel. Is America more free because Abraham Lincoln. Absolutely. Have more people been able to pursue truth? Thanks, Abraham Lincoln. Yeah. So I'm not comparing myself to Abraham Lincoln. I think that's, you know, I don't want anyone to make that inference. What I am saying, though, is everyone has a different calling to be able to do this right. And I'm unapologetic to state the theology as I see it. I'm not a theologian, you know, I do read the Bible, but there's nuances that Wayne Grudem would be better suited than I would to be able to unpack that.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And he's dedicated his multi decades of life to that. But what I am is I am someone that cares deeply about the political process and cares about the type of country we're handing the next generation. Here's my decision tree. Most important thing you can do in your life is accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

The second thing is make sure you can do the first thing.

[B]

Go on. What do you mean?

[A]

Most of the planet it is illegal to worship Christ.

[B]

Oh, got it. Get it.

[C]

I'm fine.

[A]

In China, they can't do what we're doing right now.

[B]

Got it. Yes.

[A]

North Korea, they can't do what we're doing right now.

[B]

Interesting way of putting it.

[A]

And guess what? Last six months, our brothers and sisters in Christ have been penalized, imprisoned, and put at home because they just wanted to have ecclesia, which Christ told us on this rock, build my church. No, ecclesia. He didn't use synagogue, he didn't use temple. He coined a Greek term, a secular Greek term, ecclesia, which means the physical gathering of believers.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yet we kept weed shops open, liquor stores open, strip clubs open, BLM in the streets, home improvement stores and grocery stores. But they took Easter and Palm Sunday from us. Why? Because we didn't get involved in politics, man.

[B]

Hey, going back Lincoln, I thought he was a confirmed believer.

[A]

It's debated.

[B]

Really.

[A]

You know what they said in the newspapers the day after Abraham Lincoln was shot in the head in all the Christian newspapers?

[B]

No.

[A]

Why was he on a theater on Good Friday?

[B]

Of course they did.

[A]

Moral pietism.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

You can look it up yourself.

[B]

That's crazy, man. Do you think he's in heaven?

[A]

Absolutely. Anyone who turns to his wife and says, I want to walk where my Savior walked in Jerusalem, that's confirmation. They get the vertical relationship through Jesus Christ.

[B]

I would think so. All right, so let's go back to the politics thing. You have for years spoken to again this generation, which is the one that we work with, young adults, what would you say? Here's two questions. What are the major issues you feel like people are either blindly accepting, like I'm talking to college students and they all seem to believe this and it's very concerning, or things that concern you about the generation.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That they're. They're Believing, thinking, operating underneath. And then what encourages you as you go on college campuses and you're having conversations with people? Because it seems like through things like Turning Point and other organizations, there is some shift back in the direction of some of the values that we would say as followers of Christ are great families, important. Practicing virtue as a byproduct of your faith in Christ is important. So there's so much overlap in terms of some of the goals that we shared. You know, they're different, the mission of Turning Points different than the mission of the church. But in terms of what is encouraging you, seems like there's some encouraging stuff going on and what's concerning you as it relates to this generation.

[A]

Yeah, I'll start with the encouraging and I'll go to the concerning. There is a renewed sense of learning like I've never seen in our country before. The podcasts that I do that go the deepest and go the longest, perform the best. When we are unpacking social contract theory with John Locke and Thomas Hobbes and Jean Jacques Rousseau, and we are diving deep into Aristotle and Plato. We are unpacking the ideas that built the West. We get the most emails, the most downloads, the most interest. Wow. Learning always leads to an awakening. This is something the church has always gotten wrong. You will not have an awakening if you do not have a citizenry that wants to dive deep into the scriptures, dives deep into why you're falling.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Or otherwise it's going to be the same evangelist giving the same sermon five times. And guess what? In the Internet age, there's very little tolerance for that. People want to dive deeper. They want the 5 hour deep dive on the book of Habakkuk. That's not my thing. Okay, maybe you guys can do that, I don't know. Or fill them up, whatever. Right. However, I am optimistic because I see young people that are opening books that are diving deeper. You might not see it, but there is a thirst for knowledge. When you have chaos happening, a predictable result is that decent people are gonna wanna understand why. And that's a positive. And so I think that we are on the verge of the next great awakening. It's different than what I think. It's different than most people think. So on the other side of it, let's go to the concerning side of it. I started with the optimistic and we'll go to the pessimistic is I can unpack just some of the. What I think are just some of the predominant and prevailing lies that are out there. But just the general one is almost every single conversation that I find issue with in our country right now, with our generation comes back to almost a blame America first perspective. That our country has of course made mistakes, but we are not a mistake, that we have been formed as a country. We are not. The world is a better place. The citizens in this country are a better place for all races, all people, all genders, all backgrounds, all languages, period, bar none, defendable by evidence. Happy to unpack that. And so when your default position is if you're arguing from a given, if you're almost like creating a geometric equation where you already have the end result in mind and you're reversing the equation, you remember those math equations where you used to start with the answer and you work backwards what the formula would be? That's a problem. That's not inquiry. That's instead, that is you trying to make an argument based on a presupposition you might hold.

[B]

What? So you're talking to college students and they come out the opposite perspective of everything you just said about, hey, it's the best for all people, all languages, all this.

[A]

Amen.

[B]

What, what would the argument be that they would put forward? What's another country? And I'm genuinely curious of like, yeah, they would. Sweden.

[A]

Yeah. They would argue the Scandinavian states. They would. And if they want to live in a country with a bunch of white people, then fine, go there.

[B]

Yeah. So when you point that out, what would they say? Because it's almost entirely homogeneous in terms of homogeneous.

[A]

No immigration. They had no immigration for 35 years. They also have nationalized health care, something I philosophically and morally disagree with. They do. They think that's a good thing. That's fine. I think Sweden actually handled the virus better than we do. Happy to unpack that differently. In a weird way, Sweden was the ambassadors of freedom during this whole thing. However, with that being put aside, you know, Norway gets a tremendous amount of revenues from oil they don't like fracking and natural gas. But let's just put all that aside. Let's pretend that all those things are not even worthy of cross examination.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Show me. 18 out of 20 of the top research institutions are in America. Why? We don't have the most people, don't have the most oil and natural gas. Why is it we are the first ones to go to space, go to the moon, invent brain surgery, open heart surgery, more patents, cure to polio, more vaccines, more medical breakthroughs, more charitable endeavors, more Nobel prizes, more Olympic medals. Why is it what's with our country? People say, oh, it's because you're wealthy. Why are we wealthy? What makes our country wealthy? More people? No, it's liberty.

[B]

Liberty. And why is it liberty?

[A]

It's because our founders recognized that rights come from God, not from government. They gave us a framework, constitutions, a structure to actually let people be able to exchange ideas, products, services. And it's been imperfect. We've had problems, but my goodness, have we advanced humanity really far in a short period of time?

[B]

Yep. So in terms of the founding Fathers, a lot of people would say they're. It seems to me there's a lot

[A]

of misinformation, they're racist.

[B]

Well, that's fine.

[A]

I'm happy to deist in a way

[B]

that is, is, I think, you know, Jefferson may even disagree with you if he was alive today and painted in the light that we painted.

[A]

Let's, let's unpack it. Why?

[B]

And, and here I was connecting the dots. I would say the reason all those things have happened is the Christian Moral Foundation.

[A]

Amen.

[B]

Has established a, an environment, a nation. Again, it's imperfect. This is not the Holy Land. God, you know, heaven. America's not, I'm not living in Dallas for all of eternity, but God has done unique things. And I would say the reason why this isn't even important conversation is as believers, we believe that the Christian Moral foundation is the thing that has led to the exceptionalism of America and the ways that it has.

[A]

And it is exceptional.

[B]

You're right, it has been exceptional. Despite having. Because that triggered a bunch of people going that's fine.

[A]

I get it's got all these problems and I agree with all the prefacing.

[B]

So the Fathers.

[A]

Yeah. So Thomas Jefferson owned slaves.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

He also is the first president to say no new slaves into America. 1807. He was also the first person to introduce a slavery abolition bill to the Virginia House of Delegates. George Washington, big deist, wrong Anglican Bible believing Christian who read his Bible every night of the Revolutionary War. How about James Madison, architect of the US Constitution said himself slavery is a sick sin. It is not a matter of how we get. It's not a matter of if we get rid of slavery, it's a matter of how we get rid of slavery. How about the Constitution 1787 Bill of Rights ratified in 1791. There is an import ban of slaves that was put in there with a 20 year window then signed by the third American President, Thomas Jefferson. Let's go back to the Declaration. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to dissolve ties. Goes on to mention God four times in the Declaration says laws of nature and nature is God. Vermont was so inspired by that declaration. They abolished slavery the next year in 1777, the first sovereign state on the planet to ever do so. Human norm is human beings owning human beings. Guess what? There's more slaveries on the planet today than there were back then. Go to the Horn of Africa, go to the Middle east, go to the southern border, go to Central America. Before we start to convince ourselves that we've actually abolished slavery worldwide, we should ask why did we? And then how did we? And were these Founding Fathers just entertaining the idea of liberty? Were they complex, sinful, highly contradictory people that were hypocrites? Yes, because they were human. The question should not be whether or not they sinned. The question should be why did we stop the macro sin of slavery that predated the United States of America?

[B]

So a lot of people don't know. You just referenced Jefferson. Tried to abolish Virginia, was illegal to let the bill.

[A]

And he introduced the bill that got shot down.

[B]

That got shot down. And he was attempting to release slaves. And we're hanging there because this doesn't need to be Jefferson. But there is so much lack of education.

[A]

And I'm not saying that he should be deified. Like I'm not a Catholic.

[B]

Question.

[A]

Right. So I don't think that he should be put St. Jefferson. I am saying that he should be thought of as a hero, brilliant and incredibly complex. That's a human being.

[B]

Sure. And when you read those guys anyway, the morality and the language and even the way that they talk about God, even Jefferson in particular, or all of those guys, there's a strong case to make that lots of them had a. We're going to see them in heaven. They had a relationship with Christ. Imperfect, many of them.

[A]

Let's go to Thomas Jefferson, who is. They say church and state. Right. Separation of church and state. It's nowhere in the US Constitution. It's in a singular letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist convention in 1803. Thomas Jefferson invited the Episcopalian choir to perform in the U.S. supreme Court building when it wasn't being used for hearings. This is one of the biggest lies ever told about America. Oh, deist atheistic, non Christian country. Wrong. Where does it say that in the Constitution? They say, well, it says free expression clause and non establishment clause. They put that in there because they didn't want it to be an Episcopalian, Anglican or Catholic country. It was never A question of whether or not the Christian bedrock church would be inseparably linked to this republic. And it was very well articulated by Madison. He's like, if you do not preach morals, you're going to screw this thing up. And that's why we've had four great awakenings in this country. The first great Awakening by Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards. Sinners in the hands of an angry God. You know who the number one admirer of Whitefield was? Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin hung out, studied, and understood Whitefield. He said, this guy's onto something. I don't quite know how to unpack it, but I like it. They laid the moral foundation for a people that all of a sudden started to. They stopped listening to King George and started worshiping Jesus Christ. What we have here in Western society is such a blip on the radar of human history where we're able to just have this conversation, live toward 80, have many kids be more worried about gaining weight than losing weight. The norm of human history was you go fight somebody else's wars and you're probably going to die of a communicable disease by the time you're 15, which is so depressing.

[B]

And reality for most of you know.

[A]

And so I just. Part of it is just like, let's be a little bit thankful. Yeah, Biblical.

[B]

So it's no secret you lean conservative.

[A]

That's a minor understatement.

[B]

Yeah. What would be the issue that you think conservatives are not. They are not doing it as well as those who lean liberal?

[A]

I struggle with this too, is compassion. Compassion's hard. And the left is much better at compassion than we are. And the way my brain is wired is much more an empiricism. It's much more in data, it's much more in facts, it's much more in looking at things as they are. And I think that overindulging and highly emotive stories can become a pathological way of governing, which is very high in pathology, very low in the logos, very low in logic or the pursuit of truth. And so, yeah, I think conservatives generally do a poor job of that. And I also think that conservatives do a really bad job of going to people they disagree with and speaking to them and convincing them. And finally, I think conservatives understandably self censor far too often. I think that especially young, they're afraid they're gonna lose their job, they're afraid they're gonna lose their friends, they're afraid they're gonna be called a racist. And I get those things every day. Right. And so, and then finally I think that, I think that we, as I'm not saying you guys are conservatives, I'm just saying we in the conservative community, I think that we have to do a better job of explaining the moral roots of conservatism and not giving the left the moral high ground. Because I think we do a pretty good job, as I mentioned, as the empirical high ground. Like our stuff works, but why is our stuff right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So we have to do a better job of that.

[B]

Yeah, that's good. If you saw one issue that you could convince every person in America on, and by issue, I mean, hey, if I could flip one switch tomorrow you get one switch.

[A]

One switch. That's, that's all of a sudden everyone would just instantaneously agree with. That would kind of be like a non debated question.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

In this period of time where we are right now that we're not a racist country, we as human beings prior to Christ, thought of each other as skin color tribe. And where you came from, it's Christ that liberated us from that way of thinking.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And if all of a sudden the lie that we're a racist country has recreated tribal groups in this country where we judge people based on skin color, if you start judging people based on their immutable characteristics, we have an entire century to show us how that goes. And only 130 million million people were murdered that way. And so if I were to try to just disrupt the programming in one way, and I guess if I could add a second, it's E pluribus unum actually matters, which is part of the American Trinity. So there's a Christian Trinity. Right. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. There's an American trinity too. It's on all of our coinage and all of our stamps. E pluribus unum. In God we trust and liberty. You lose the Trinity, you lose the country. So E pluribus unum is a Latin phrase of out of many, one doesn't matter your skin color doesn't matter where you come from, doesn't matter about your parents. We're all one. Where they get the idea from? We're all one in the body of Christ. We're all one under God. In God we trust. That one's obvious. And in liberty we've been through. And this is articulated in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 4 of the US Constitution, which says there'll be no heirs to nobility in our country. That should make everyone be like, what were they thinking? Every country prior to America gave some form of heir to nobility Basically they just said your bloodline doesn't matter. Pretty amazing.

[B]

It's pretty crazy.

[A]

And we should basically say that's something we should take seriously.

[C]

I'm just thinking about a lot of people. I think our age kind of get in political paralysis, where I like that term. They like feel. I know, I've felt this. We're actually entering into a political series and I.

[A]

Good luck. I'll pray for you. It's not easy.

[C]

I asked him for a while to not let me make me speak on it. And I am.

[B]

You gotta throw him to the lines at some point.

[C]

Yeah. On racism, actually. And I am like getting over what has been like paralysis from like a social media standpoint. Using influence using platform to advocate your beliefs and different things. And I think a lot of people feel that even just like in their interpersonal relationships, in their friend groups, in a lot of different things. And so how would you encourage people not like to lean where they should vote, but how to think about and research? Because also, have you seen Social Dilemma?

[A]

Of course. Okay.

[C]

That's a huge buzz right now amongst young adults. Social Dilemma. And then what you find out from Social Dilemma is the inventors of social media are like, you know, you can't trust anything. It's all an agenda. Watch out.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

So now we're like, great, the information in my pocket generation. Now my information just got invalidated because now I don't even know what's coming to me, what I can see, what I cannot see, all that stuff that we're dealing with. And so where do I go to research?

[A]

Like, let's just look at two, three issues that should matter for Christians. Right. First is life. I think it's a non negotiable right. I believe life begins at conception. I think one of the most moral disasters in the history of our republic was the unconstitutional, illegal ruling of Roe vs. Wade that nationalized abortion. Right. So states had abortion bans before this. The Burger Court prior, the Warren Court was super liberal, but the Burger Court went even further and completely nationalized abortion. 61 million unborn children have been terminated in the womb since Roe vs Wade. We as Christians are taught biblically to stand up for the innocent. How about Israel? Israel is an important issue, Right. We're told to bless the Jews nation of Israel who moved the embassy to Jerusalem. And I'm not gonna defend, you know, every sort of tweet and all that stuff that's, you know, that's endless. And we've already saw Calvary Chapel, Las Vegas sued to the highest level of Supreme Court, where John Roberts, Bush appointee Kagan, Sotomayor, Breyer and Roberts agreed in unity that church was not essential, but a casino was. But Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Alito, and Thomas dissented during this pandemic. Our Supreme Court came together and said a casino's more important than a church. Happened three months ago. So most believers don't know that.

[B]

Yeah, that's crazy.

[A]

And so I get all of the kind of complexities to it. For the news, there's some good sites. There's justthenews.com RealClearPolitics is really good, which just gives you a list of all the top op EDS that have been published out there. I highly encourage those. Those are really good. So if you are a Christian and

[B]

you're listening, you are called to pray for all those who are in high places. First Timothy, chapter two.

[A]

So that you might live quiet and peaceable lives.

[B]

That's right. So regardless of who wins, you are called and I'm called to spend time praying for even those people I agree with or disagree with if they are in a position of leadership and authority. All right, last question. Book recommendations Favorite if you were going to recommend, hey, this is a great Christian author you wrote, you went earlier on apologetic stuff.

[A]

So as the least Strobel case for Christ is great, I highly recommend it for searchers and seekers. I should say that's a better term, seekers. A really good book that kind of explains moral governance is the book that built your world by Vishal Mangalwaldi. It's phenomenal. He grew up his life in India. He's a Bible believing Christian, and he makes the articulate defense of what Western civilization is and how the Bible built it and how Christianity built the world that we know today and how thankful we should be for it. He walks piece by piece on how the Bible built the idea of what a hero is in Western civilization, on how we tell stories, on the articulation of our framework, on how we care about the blind and the deaf and how no other civilization did it before Christianity came to the planet. Phenomenal book. And it's told from a incredibly bulletproof theological perspective. It's great. So I highly recommend that one. And then just kind of.

[B]

And political. If there's a, you know, not Tristan, you can go as many books as you want to, but if there's also a, hey, this is a great resource.

[A]

Yeah. I could tell you a book that kind of tells you what we shouldn't do. It's called the Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Scholzhenitsyn.

[C]

Sounds like a.

[B]

That's a classic.

[A]

It's a book that broke the Soviet Union, really. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Actually, Solzhenitsyn was an expat from the Soviet Union. He was like, they didn't want this thing published. And you want to see how dark human beings can be to each other. It's a wonderful note to end on. Right. How dark. Like, what we shouldn't do is what that book talks about, about judge people based on skin color, turn people against each other, divide. Stop talking. Destroy the churches, imprison the pastors. Like, he goes. You're like, oh, now I can understand what we shouldn't do. Sometimes that's actually the most helpful reference is like, maybe there's some parameters of, like, we shouldn't be going towards these sorts of things. And that book, it's called the Gulag Archipelago for a reason, because he basically is giving the. He's basically giving, you know, the funeral address, if you will, to the 100 million people that died under communism.

[B]

Is there an author.

[A]

Very uplifting, A author that you like

[B]

the most on the subject of politics?

[A]

Thomas Sowell.

[B]

Thomas Sowell.

[A]

What's your favorite book? Or Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell. Thomas Sowell's a black economist. He gets it. And he. You want to talk about woke. That's the actual woke. I mean, he will go. He will go very, very deep and very aggressive in a very good way.

[B]

Have you met him?

[A]

No, actually, I've always wanted to. He just turned 90, and he studied under Milton Friedman. He's phenomenal. He's. He's terrific. And basically, one of his major thesis arguments is do not blame what could be attributed something else to racism.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's like, one of his main things. Like, you see discrepancy between groups. There might be other reasons.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There might be cultural reasons. There might be socioeconomic reasons that might not just be one group doesn't like the other group based on the color of the skin. He's a black economist that talks about it. Other Christian authors. Wayne Grudem is great. If you have any theology students listening to this, I highly encourage you to check out Wayne Grudem. He has books that are this thick, going through, like, biblical political perspectives. So to answer your question, I encourage you to check out Wayne Grudem's book. It's phenomenal.

[B]

He's in Scottdale.

[A]

Scottdale. Scottdale, yeah. I've hung out with him. He's phenomenal, and he is rock solid. He is really respected in the evangelical world.

[B]

Totally.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Great resource. I love it, man. That's all I got. Anything else?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

What do you do outside of politics?

[A]

You know, I tried having fun once and I hated it.

[C]

Really?

[A]

Oh, I love that.

[C]

Curious.

[A]

Yeah, I just.

[B]

You've been asked that question before, clearly.

[A]

Yeah, I do.

[B]

You nap?

[A]

I work out. Like, I bike.

[B]

Bike.

[A]

I don't really have a hobby, you know.

[C]

But you eat fast food.

[A]

Very rarely. You know, it's very funny. I eat like a liberal. I eat kale salads and drink celery juice. Yeah, you do. And don't drink calories.

[B]

Keep that engine running.

[C]

Right, man.

[A]

Except Al and I have my Christian cocaine.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Coffee.

[B]

I love it, man. That's it. That's all I got. Charlie.

[A]

Thank you guys so much. I hope this was helpful.

[B]

So thank you so much for being here.

[A]

Thanks so much for listening, everybody. If you want to get involved with Turning Point USA, go to tpusa.com tpusa.com email us your questions [e-mail] and please consider supporting us at charliekirk.com support character carlykirk. Com support. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. God bless. Speak to you soon.