← The Charlie Kirk Show
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why the Church MUST Engage in the Public Square with Pastor Jurgen Matthesius
00:59:47
Loading summary
Transcript55 lines
- [00:00]
Charlie Kirk
Thank you for listening to this Podcast 1 production now available on Apple Podcasts, Podcast 1, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody, how should Christians vote in this election? We've talked about this a little bit, but I dive deeper into this topic as well as should everyone go to college? And finally, what is critical race theory? How does it intersect with Marxism and fascism? And is free enterprise compatible with the Christian doctrine? This speech was given with my friend Pastor Jurgen from Awakened Church in Southern California. You guys will love this episode. It is brought to you Advertiser free@charliekirk.com support and as we are giving this episode to you right now, we are crisscrossing the country, speaking from Nashville to Wisconsin to Phoenix to Miami. We got a country to save. We're on the front lines. Buckle up, everybody. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy.
- [01:03]
Pastor Jurgen
His spirit, his love of this country.
- [01:05]
Charlie Kirk
He's done an amazing job building one
- [01:07]
Pastor Jurgen
of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point usa.
- [01:11]
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. I love this church, by the way. I absolutely love it.
- [01:25]
Pastor Jurgen
It's a terrific church.
- [01:27]
Charlie Kirk
And my pastor is Pastor Rob McCoy. And I met Rob a year and a half ago, just about. And I originally grew up in the Presbyterian tradition. And so I completely resonate with that. Right. If you lift your index finger, that's really expository praise. You do that on Christmas and Easter maybe. Right? And so I was always told that Christians should stay away from politics. And, you know, I grew up in a great Christian background, went to a big church in Chicago that really strengthened my faith, but kind of didn't give me the confidence to continue doing the political thing. I never knew pastors would ever be involved in politics until I met Rob McCoy. And Rob was Mayor Thousand Oaks and also a pastor. And we just hit it off immediately. And we have spoke at over 50 churches in the last six months, really bringing this message to awaken the church right now to what's happening in our country.
- [02:17]
Pastor Jurgen
There's something in that name.
- [02:22]
Charlie Kirk
And so it's been an amazing journey, and we really have, I think, communicated some things that need to be said to the church. We now have record amounts of churches that are opening across the country. Pastors that otherwise never would have commented on political issues or any sort of civic engagement are now going straight into the public square, which is exactly where the church belongs. It's where Jesus told us as believers to go into. And we talked twice before in the other services about ecclesiastical.
- [02:53]
Pastor Jurgen
Please do that again. So Jesus says, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. But the word church there wasn't synagogue, no, it wasn't temple. What was it?
- [03:03]
Charlie Kirk
We really have Tyndale to thank for this. And so Tyndale was the great translator. As the Protestant Reformation was bubbling up and was really starting to catch steam, There was a desire for the working people, for the peasants to be able to read the Bible, but the Bible was almost exclusively in Latin. And there were a lot of. There was a big push to be able to have the peasant class to read the same sort of scripture. And so English was the language of the peasant class. So Tyndale said, I'm going to go back to the Koine Greek and translate the Bible. Now, mind you, just so you know, Tyndale was condemned and murdered and killed at the stake for translating the Bible. And he prayed his last dying breath. He prayed. He said, lord, change the heart of the king. And. And that prayer was answered not too long after when King James took the work of Tyndale and created a King James Bible.
- [03:53]
Pastor Jurgen
Come on.
- [03:55]
Charlie Kirk
Just a couple years after that. And so Tyndale, the reason they really came after him, though, was his translation of one word, ekklesia. That was what really, really caused all the controversy because. And I have so many great friends and brothers and sisters that are Catholics, but a belief in that time. But was the unquestionable political hierarchy of the Catholic Church like unquestionable. And so this idea that Jesus used any other word except church was a no go zone. And he went back into the history and he said, hey, Jesus said, on this rock, build my ecclesia. And so if you go back into what an ecclesia was, Jesus could have said, on this rock, build my synagogue. On this rock, build my temple. But he used ecclesia. And so my pastor, Pastor Rob McCoy, he just really piqued my curiosity on this. So I went into everything I could possibly read on ecclesia. And where did this word come from? Was it a mistake? Because, I mean, Jesus Christ is savior of the world. Nothing he ever said was a mistake. And so if he decided to use that word, there had to be significance about It. And if Tyndale was killed over it, there's something even more that I think we're missing. What I found really, really motivated me to speak out even more for the church to get into these things. And Ekklesia was a gathering similar to this that was in an inherent political gathering in Greece, secular Greece, where every citizen of a certain area of Corinth or Athens or any Thessalonica of Greece, they would gather everyone that was a voting age, everyone that wanted to be involved, that had a duty and a responsibility to, to get involved in the public square. It was so amazing. They fast and prayed before every meal, before every meeting, I should say, in an ecclesia. And they all voted at the end of every single ecclesia what they were going to do in the local area. What was so amazing is that they had two words when they gathered in ecclesia. Remember, this is not just some sort of, you know, term that I'm inserting. This is a word that Jesus said himself. As translated in the Koine Greek, there are two words, isonomia and ellaotheria, which is the Greek word for freedom and equality. Now what, what country has that in their charter documents? I wonder if there's ever been a country founded on those two terms. And so you go back to what Jesus said, and I, and I really believe this, that Jesus was arguing for not a compartmentalized Christianity, but a comprehensive Christianity. Not to wall yourself off as the church, but to be involved in all spheres, including the civic and the political arenas in our country and in the nation that you are in.
- [06:36]
Pastor Jurgen
Amazing. Amazing. So the, the ecclesia is the, the gathering in the marketplace under the guise of freedom and equality to, to combat, to discuss, to build up, tear down all the thoughts, all the philosophies, all the ideologies in the pursuit of truth. Does that sound right?
- [06:56]
Charlie Kirk
That's exactly right. And what makes Christianity so fundamentally different than any other religion is that Jesus was not. He didn't just say true things. He was truth. He was the embodiment of truth. And he was 100% grace and 100% truth. And so when you have an agreed upon kind of just presupposition that truth matters and the pursuit of truth matters, and that is the predominant North Star. Well, then all of a sudden every question should be, are my actions and what we are doing a reflection of the pursuit of truth? And when you remove truth from any sort of conversation, when you remove truth from a society, well, then the master of lies will take over. And we know exactly what that means. And you see this in states, you see this in governments, you see this in countries that remove God, Jesus, or truth from the public square. And it's really been interesting over the last 20 or 30 years, the church has grown a lot. In California, the church has exploded. For example, Calvary Chapel, where Pastor Rob is a pastor of. There's 350 Calvary chapels south of Anne Nuys. There's more Calvary chapels than Dunkin Donuts in Southern California. 10,000% growth. And that is not transfer growth. That's conversion growth. Incredible explosion for the gospel. But Calvary Chapel for a long time believed we don't do politics. So as the church grew, what happened to California? Since then, California has aborted more children than the entire population of Canada, the author of Transgender Bathrooms, no fault divorce, and the most graphic sexual education for your children you could possibly imagine, leaves the nation homelessness, poverty, most unequal, hardest for the middle class to succeed, highest taxes. As we were doing the church, the left is doing ecclesiastically, while we were building churches and expanding budgets, the left was actually doing the public square thing. They were running for office. They were running people for positions of leadership. They were contributing to campaigns. And my argument is this, is that if Jesus used that term and he wanted comprehensive, not compartmentalized Christianity, then he does care about what you're doing to impact the world outside of the walls of the chur.
- [09:16]
Pastor Jurgen
So. So when Jesus said in his very, very first sermon, I mean, you know, I'm so glad I wasn't alive back then, because I would have taken him aside and, you know, copped a rebuking because I would have rebuked Jesus, saying, jesus, you just met them and you're telling him you're the salt of the earth, the light of the world. Like, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but, you know, get to know them first. I mean, he's just, you know, that's what I'd be doing. But Jesus in his first sermon said, you are the salt of. Of the earth. Salt's a preservative. You're the light, not of the kingdom, but the light of the world. See, how clever is the devil been to get the church to step back from injecting our salt or from bringing salt to the table, the preservative, and from shining the light. So we've been that, you know, guilty of being that bushel hidden under a bed, you know, doing the church thing while the world's gone to hell in a handbasket. Yeah.
- [10:05]
Charlie Kirk
And I think the way that certain churches not this church teach Matthew 5. And Jesus is kind of like this hippie Jesus. Like it's the birds, it's the, you know, you got the fields. And it's kind of. It's not really any sort of application towards what are we supposed to do here on this earth. And I think it. It gets blended sometimes, I think incorrectly with Eastern religions and trying to make it seem as if all this is just one sort of kind of ecumenical idea of deism. And that's completely untrue. Jesus called and challenged us to go out into the secular world. And so when you make such a really good point, the enemy doesn't want the church involved in these matters. The enemy doesn't want the church to speak out against the 61 million abortions since Roe vs. Wade. The enemy wants the church to stay silent. Now that in California, SB 145 is law of the land, which basically decriminalizes pedophilia in this state. This has happened right now while we're in a pandemic. Businesses are closing. Suicide is up. More young people died of suicide than of the virus. Gavin Newsom says, you know what? I'm gonna go pander to the pedophile lobby right now. And they pass SB 145, signed into law that does no longer requires, if a judge grants it, pedophiles to register as sex offenders in the sex registry in this state sex crime registry. The enemy would love us not to contest on that terrain. And so there's two pockets here. There's complacent and complicit. And I think they must be handled a little bit differently. The complacent churches, I think they got to be encouraged, they got to be lifted up. Come on in, get into the political space, get into the civic conversation. This is the time you're called to do it. Get in the ecclesia. We're going to support you, we're going to give you the information, we are going to give you the wisdom, we're going to give you the biblical backing for that political belief. And then there is the complicit side. And I think we should still handle it with grace and with truth, and especially with truth. However, they in that kind of community is a hyper focus of mine right now. Because if you are leading a church and you're shepherding a church, which many of these in the Southern California area are, and you're mobilizing your congregation to go march alongside BLM Incorporated, we got a problem. If all of a sudden now you're Using your pastoral authority to spread lies about our nation, to misrepresent civil governance, and also play into very misleading, treacherous ideas about this incredible constitutional republic that we've been given. I'm going to cross examine you and you have to be able to defend this. And a lot of them are not, I think, equipped to be able to do it. And what we have seen in the last six months has taught me a lot about the American church. You've seen some churches that prioritize kind of likability and acceptance into the social sphere above all. You see other churches like Jurgen and Pastor Robin, that prioritize truth above acceptance above all. And so I think what we're seeing right now more than anything else is that Christians are called the contest in this arena. And a lot of these pastors, and I welcome these conversations and I mean this as lovingly as I possibly can say it, they have no idea what they're talking about when they start to invite these very radical, very driven and motivated left wing causes into the church. These causes do not have the body of Christ's best intentions at heart. These causes look at the church as nothing more than another host for a virus to take over. And they are doing quite a job of it where they are infecting it with critical race theory, with bad economics. It's very interesting, white fragility, all this nonsense. Thomas Aquinas, who's one of the early church authors, he said reason is one of the greatest gifts that God gave human beings, the capacity to reason. And we should never forget that, because the ability to do science and math and understand thermodynamics and physics is an incredible gift that God gave us to be able to make sense of the natural world. And when you see an airplane take off, you say, wow, I don't. Only God would be able to give us the science, to be able to figure out how that could be possible right where God wanted us to be able to have dominion over the natural world and the earth. It's a very important realization. And so you square that with there are natural laws. Our founders knew this laws of nature, and nature is God. And so we kind of, sometimes we kind of pigeonhole the natural laws with just that of physics and biology. But there's natural laws of economics too. There's natural laws for how we interact with supply and demand, the Pareto principle, the Matthew principle. What happens is a lot of these pastors, they're very well versed in the Gospel, but they have very little to any understanding. Maybe a shallow understanding at best of the laws of economics or even at times how the laws of human nature interact in the public and civic square. So what's happening right now in this country? And we did not get a chance to touch on this in the previous services. So I'm glad to build this out. And this is where the church can have its greatest contribution to this right now, which is this whole conversation that we're having is actually, who are we in the state of nature? It all goes back down to a human nature argument. It's actually really simple. Are we in the state of nature broken with original sin, or are we perfect and it's the world around us contaminating us? And we have an answer to that. As Bible believing Christians since the Fall, we are filled with sin. We need Jesus Christ. We need it so bad that no matter what we do, no matter how many boxes that we check, we're never going to be able to get to God unless we accept that gift that he gave us. We know that and we have that answer. And for everyone out there, that has never been. You know, there might be new churchgoers here. Here's the gospel in four words. Three words, two words, one word, four words. Jesus took my place. Three words, him for me. Two words, substitutionary atonement. One word grace. That's it. 4321. It is the greatest gift that God has ever given in the history of the planet. So we have an answer to that. But this is a really interesting realization that we have to wrestle with that. The radical left, they have a Rousseauian view of human nature. So Jean Jacques Rousseau is a French philosopher. All bad ideas come from France. It's one of the few things they're good at. All of them. Any French people here? I don't want one French person here. I could go further. They invited Bonsoir. They invented the white flag and the tourniquet. No, I'm kidding. That's. That's really mean. So. That's okay. Well, we'll stop there. So. But if you go to Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, they've. They've had some pretty bad ideas the last couple hundred years. They actually had. There was one really, really good French philosopher, Montesquieu, who actually contributed to the American founding. Besides that, not too good. So Jean Jacques Rousseau was a French philosopher and he wrestled with some of these ideas. And I really believe that there's darkness behind these ideas. I'm just going to stop. I'll stop there and you can fill in the theological gaps for me. But he believed that we should prioritize the infant over the adult, the primitive over the civilized, that we actually, any flaws you see on the planet are because the system is incorrectly built, not that human beings are flawed because of original sin. So therefore, if you have that as a guiding principle, well, then if you think human beings are not the problem that need to improve themselves, that need to try and make better choices or found salvation in Christ, then your entire focus will be about blaming the exterior world for any suffering that you see. Now it's just start to make sense for everything you're seeing, all the noise out there. And this is where a lot of these pastors, I think, have missed their role and their contribution in this conversation, because we have a theological basis for exactly who we believe in the state of nature. And so when you look at BLM Incorporated, the good meaning members of that organization, they say, abolish the police and abolish the prisons, because they actually believe those are structures that. That make us worse human beings. We believe that we as human beings are so awful to each other that as Thomas Hobbes said in the Leviathan, that life is nasty, brutish and short, that any decency, any sort of goodness we have to each other is divinely inspired and is a moral construct that is from the Bible. And that the reason we have police in our country is to enforce the law. And the laws are the wise restraints that keep men free. And so that whether you guys realize it or not, we are having a theological debate in this country, and it's just about time that we start participating in it.
- [19:07]
Pastor Jurgen
Well, let's dig down on that. You know, Leanne and I grew up in Australia, and we would see from Australia, and we stood in awe of the great education institutions and especially Harvard. You know, we used to have little, little jokes like, oh, sure, you went to Harvard, darling.
- [19:27]
Charlie Kirk
Do you know how someone, you know how, you know, someone went to Harvard? Go, just wait five minutes, they'll tell you.
- [19:37]
Pastor Jurgen
But Harvard was found. And I think Harvard is almost a harbinger of. Of what's happened. It's almost like a thermostat of what's happened in America. Because Harvard was originally founded to be like a seminary, theological seminary, to raise up people with a Christian worldview, to go and make the world a better place. Its banner, its cry was Veritas, which is truth. And so what we've seen is the undoing of truth. And with the injection right now of critical race theory, I am taught that that the issue is the systemic racism. The issue is the problems out there. It's society that's the issue. Yesterday I was driving in the car listening to Michael Jackson and he's singing man in the Mirror. I'm starting with the man in the mirror. I'm asking if he'll make a change. It begins with the man in the mirror. And all of our education used to be character based, where the way that we make society better is I need to change. But now we've got people with bankrupt character going out burning buildings, looting. I mean, yesterday a beautiful black man who had a freedom rally in San Francisco got his teeth knocked out by white Black Lives Matter adherents beating a black man. And they can't see it, but they feel justified because they see that he is part of the system that needs change. They there's no holding that candle and torching themselves. Tell us, how do we combat that as the church getting back into the marketplace?
- [21:10]
Charlie Kirk
Well, and our places of higher learning are really where a lot of this stuff originates from. And the way college used to be. And a way a lot of you still think of college is a place where you are supposed to pursue truth. So the academy, as Plato really was the author of the modern academy. So Socrates taught Plato, Plato taught Aristotle, Aristotle taught Alexander the Great, and then just kind of all ended. But those are the classics, right? And Plato disagreed with Aristotle on a lot of things. Aristotle had the lyceum, right? Plato had the academy. And they had a different way of looking at the world. They agreed on a lot, but they differentiated a lot. But Plato's idea of the academy is actually really compelling, which is that you try to tempt young people, you try to try to just challenge them when they're around sixth or seventh grade and say, there is goodness and truth in the world. Let's try and find it together, right? You just try to. Let's go on this journey. Let's start to read things that are really deep and rich, right? Like, let's just explore. And so by the time you get to high school and eventually college, you're on this journey. And you're constantly. You're just kind of teasing, right? You're like, come on. And as soon as they start drinking from the streams of liberty, they're gonna want to find its source, which is of course the Bible, and of course is the word of God. Now, the problem is, is that when you then come from a sixth or seventh grader today in America and you say there is no truth, all of a sudden a Sixth or seventh grader will then say, there's no truth. Now, it's so funny because they say there is no truth, no absolute truth. Which. It's a performative contradiction because. Do you believe that? Absolutely. I mean, it's like there is no absolute truth. Do you believe that? Absolutely. It's just. It's inherently contradictory when they say it, so. So the byproduct of this is the academy in our country. Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, Yale has been taken over by postmodernist critical race theorists who. And I could dive into this at great depth, at your liking. I could go as deep as you want to go. But really what this is is a group of very bitter, very arrogant, and very deceitful people that have taken over the education of your children and understand the Bible built Western civilization. It is the book that built your world. It is. And we could go from the small things to the big things for how we view what a hero is in Western society. So what is a hero? And we kind of throw that word around a lot. Well, in the Islamic or the medieval world, a hero was someone who won a bunch of battles, conquered a lot of land, maybe took a couple wives and oversaw an earthly dominion. The Bible changed all of that. A hero. Because of the Bible. And this is the type of a hero that is embedded in all the stories that you grew up reading, whether you realized it or not. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star wars, all of them resonate with us. We like those stories. We wait in line to read the books because there's a metaphysical metanarrative that just locks into our spirit, which is really the story of the hero of the Bible. Which is what? Which is someone that tells the truth, someone that sacrifices for the good, protects the innocent, and is willing to risk everything for ultimate truth. That's a hero.
- [24:28]
Pastor Jurgen
We need more heroes. How can we be a hero, baby?
- [24:35]
Charlie Kirk
And so that's just one small example. Another example. If the social Darwinists have had their way, why would we ever care about blind or deaf people? So for thousands of years, it's not as if we're the first society ever to have blind or deaf people. There were blind people when Jesus walked the earth, but it wasn't until Jesus went towards the blind and gave them sight were Christians motivated to build the first academies for the blind and the deaf in year 350 in Jerusalem, 350 years after Christ. Now, we take this stuff for granted, right? But in a pure social Darwinist construct, and you remove the Christian ethic, you remove the word of God, eventually, the only type of way they can reason is through social Darwinism. That's it. Why would we keep those people around that might not have the IQ that we like? Why would we keep the people that can't see and can't hear? They have no utility to us. The type of compassion where we should go, we should go out of our way to care for those people on the side of the street. You think it's common sense. It's not. It's Christian Western sense and you don't even realize it. But because you've been seeing, reading and immersing yourself in material from the age of three years old, where you think like, it's just common sense. It's not. Go to countries that have not been built by the Western ethic they have. India would be a great example. They do the opposite. They think that if you try to break out of your certain caste system that is bad. You walk in the streets of Calcutta, New Delhi or Hyderabad, there is not the belief that they're all made in the image of God, that they all have dignity. Instead, there is a hierarchy of value. And so what we in the Western world have convinced ourselves of wrongly is that all the things we take for granted, the protection of the innocent, the right to due process, the idea of charity, benevolency and generosity, it's actually a very short window that we're living through. Most of humanity lived through a window where people did not have the sort of prerequisite that you're made in the image of God, that you deserve value. And so you lose that, you lose Western civilization. What's going to take that? What's going to take the place of that? And so I think it's very important that we get deeper into the roots of this. And the problem, all this is becoming unraveling. And it's really been stunning to me that this stuff was not challenged earlier. Postmodernism and critical race theory. It's. The deeper I dive into it, the foolishness, the trash that is really within it. It's almost so provocative, it's so unbelievably wrong that people are afraid to question it because then they think they're dumb because they're missing it. Like, no, no, you're actually really wise if you think this is total trash because it's absolute garbage. Because you kind of look at this stuff and you're like, am I missing something or am I kind of dumb? Like, no, no, no, no, you're spot on. Where they believe in critical race theory, that Race matters. That the melon in your skin should really be a important part of your life. That dialogue is not important, that there's no such thing as individuals, that we're nothing more than a tribal group. And so you kind of piece all this together. And I'm a harsh critic of the academy and of higher education. And we should be, because higher education is not doing what any a lot of people believe it's actually doing. I would imagine that this gathering has a heightened sense and awareness what's happening, where they're really platforming and validating the most sinister ideas imaginable and they're teaching it to your children.
- [28:01]
Pastor Jurgen
And even worse, well, we pay for it.
- [28:03]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah, you're paying for it. And even worse, a lot of families are going into debt for it, where they're borrowing money they don't have to study things that don't matter to find jobs that don't exist. And. The question should be, has college proven over the last 20 years to create braver and wiser people? So any decent society should want to create brave and wise young people? Think about that wisdom. There's a whole book dedicated to it. And you can get wisdom in a couple ways. Only a couple. You can get it by reading the Bible and the great works or by a long life of experience through a lot of tribulations. So 22 year old is not going to have the life experience. So you're basically given one last option. Read a bunch of the good books and try to immerse yourself in it. And college has not done the greatest disservice. I think of all the problems of college is that it creates weaker people four years after they enter. And so college should be about strengthening your muscles, metaphorically, it should be about better preparing you to be able to endure the inevitable suffering of life, to be able to have the capacity to get through what will be incredibly difficult and so harsh. And the exact opposite has happened. Instead we have college creates people that are experts in complaining, where they are able to organize and be activists about everything that is wrong going on in the country. And you said it best. The academy should come from this guiding principle. You are a sinner, you are not all that you can be. And maybe if you read the right books and you do your job, you might become a slightly better person after you graduate. Instead, it's, you're actually awesome and everything else around you is terrible. Let's read the books that can motivate you to tear everything down around you.
- [30:07]
Pastor Jurgen
Wow, that's amazing. You know, in the last session you talked about, and I can't remember which philosopher it was that said there's a spirit, there's a drive for those who yearn for authority to burn everything.
- [30:23]
Charlie Kirk
That's right.
- [30:23]
Pastor Jurgen
So they can rule over the ashes.
- [30:25]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah. Sun Tzu was a great Confucian philosopher in the Eastern tradition. Chinese art of war. Art of war. I think he best articulates the disintegrationist left in our country, which is that some people are willing to burn the country down around them to rule over the ashes. And I think that's exactly what's happening now.
- [30:46]
Pastor Jurgen
And we're seeing that today. It's interesting. Let me pick up on. You said the battle that we're dealing with right now really is a theological battle.
- [30:54]
Charlie Kirk
Exactly right.
- [30:55]
Pastor Jurgen
And it goes all the way back to Genesis 3. Has God really said. And we're still living in the echo chamber of has God really said what God says? And then than the deceit and the lies of the devil. So as a church, you know, if we have, you know, ministry to the homeless, we have orphanages in Mexico, we've adopted an entire village in Peru, we do outreach, we build a hospital in Ghana, we've got ministries to, you know, rehabilitating people who are on alcohol addiction. But really we should stay out of the political because isn't it controversial?
- [31:30]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah, jeez. I get this question a lot, as if it's the only point of controversy in the planet. And again, I don't believe in compartmentalized Christianity. I believe in comprehensive Christianity. And also there's going to be 61 million people, maybe more, hopefully more, that cast their vote for Donald Trump. What is the church doing. Now? What is the church doing, though, to reach out, to minister, to shepherd the people that are willing to cast their vote around the guiding principles of freedom and equality to bring them into the church. So we go into prisons, we go into foreign countries, we try to bring marriages together. But wouldn't a pretty easy opportunity be to communicate in the public square, in the civic arena? Because you guys understand not every person that votes Republican is a Christian. I know that's a hard thing for some. No, seriously, what an amazing ministry opportunity because they already believe in freedom. They already love the country. They already love liberty. Liberty is not man's idea, it's God's idea. And so I will make the argument that the church has missed the greatest evangelist opportunity over the last 30 years by not contesting in political circles when I go to political gatherings. And they. Some of our sec. A lot of people are secular there, and yet they're drinking from the streams of liberty and they want to dive deeper and they want to find it. And yet their idea of religion or Christianity is sometimes misaligned with the truth. And yet we're quick to go into the prisons, we're quick to go. And I love all that, don't get me wrong, but are you guys quick to go to the Republican gatherings and minister to those people? Are you guys quick to go to the local GOP meetings or to the conservative conference down the street where maybe half are not yet Bible believing Christians, and you just kind of turn to someone, say, hey, you love freedom, I love freedom. Whose idea is freedom? John Locke? Let's go back a little bit. You guys already have a platform, philosophical foundation there. And it is. The church will have its greatest awakening ever if you get into the public square ever.
- [33:43]
Pastor Jurgen
Charlie, you were, you were saying that, you were saying that, you know, like as a church with our ministry to marriage, people are coming in looking for answers, looking for light, looking for truth with marriage, looking for clarity. Talk about that like the, the church has kind of failed because we stepped away from one of the most confusing. Which party do I vote for?
- [34:07]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah. And it just. The Bible is the greatest book ever to exist in the history of the world. It's so obvious. And it has answers to everything, including answers to how we should govern ourselves. And for the church not to at least give sermons or teachings on what the Bible says about civil governance, I think is a complete and total injustice. And so the Bible has very clear teachings on is private property okay or not, has very clear teachings on life, has very clear teachings on even immigration, has very clear teachings on all of it. And so if we do believe in the inerrancy of scripture, if we do believe it is divinely inspired, if we do believe it is the word of God, wouldn't it make sense to try to use that book correctly, to apply it to a confused and broken conversation around civil governance? And so it seems so logical as someone who's in politics, who's a Christian, who comes to churches, but you'd be amazed at how many churches refuse to do it. It's the no go zone. And it's incredible because these churches will do altar calls saying that if you do not give your life to Christ, you will burn in eternal damnation. They will say really good teaching on marriage and on fidelity and on purity and on finances. Yet the one no fly zone is go vote, how to vote and what to do. And here's where I think it actually has a very serious consequence in the hyper political times that we live in. When you're inundated on social media, all your friends are talking about it, there's a yard sign on every block, you're getting doors knocked on. New Christians and even Christians that have been around the church for 30 years, they want clarity on that. They want it out of their pastors. And they might not necessarily agree with, with the political conclusion, but there's no way they can disagree with the Scripture that guides them to that conclusion. And so if you just stay away from it altogether, here's the real consequence is that people will have lost complete and total respect for the church. And I see this all the time where I deal in the secular world more than I deal in the Christian world. We have brought hundreds of people to Christ through the Galatians 3 model that the law is a school teacher or a guardian to Christ. You teach the law, it will get them to Christ. As they start drinking out of those streams of liberty, they're going to climb upstream and eventually they're going to find Jesus Christ. And yet the church has done it the opposite. The church has said, let's just start with nothing but the gospel. I love it. It's terrific. But what about the people that have been burned in one way or the other? They had a tough upbringing in some sort of maybe Catholic upbringing, maybe that they had someone in their life that was not representing the gospel correctly, and they've just been jarred and they're still drinking from that stream of liberty. But they really want to dive deeper. And so here's the opportunity. And yet the challenge for the church. Are you willing to be called bad names and be persecuted and still stand for truth in today's time? And this is a real testing moment because what I have found is that Christianity has been incredibly comfortable in America the last 40 years. And that has not been the historical trajectory of Christianity, is that Christianity has always been one that's been persecuted, has always been one that has been challenged. But kind of as Christianity became the dominant religion in America, as Christianity became one where it was, okay, it was cool to wear the cross, where there was really not that much backlash or pushback as you became comfortable after one decade and two decades, they didn't want to lose that comfort. And a good way to lose that comfort is, yeah, taking a stance when you say 61 million abortions. I don't know if I stand for that. And so that's the question for the church Right now. And here's the amazing thing, and you're living example of this, Jurgen. When you do stand, when you do articulate, your church will actually grow. That's what these pastors don't realize, is that when you lean in on these issues, your membership will increase because people are searching for answers comprehensively right now, not just on this one small set of topics or issues, especially with the over inundation of lies that exist in our country right now.
- [38:17]
Pastor Jurgen
Well, let me just, you know, speak on that. So, you know, Leanne and I took a stand very, very early because we, you know, we felt very, very strongly that this nation that God sent us to, that in the book of Jeremiah, God said, seek the peace of the nation that I'm sending you to, which was Babylon, because in her peace you'll find peace. And so we adopted America as our home. So we know that if there's no peace in America, there's no peace in our home, that we have a civic duty. So we got engaged very, very early in politics and immediately, immediately felt the backlash. What was interesting is that we were pretty much ostracized. We were pretty much told, either shut up or you'll have to depart. And. And so we had to depart from years of relationship and connection in a movement for that, because they said, we want to be apolitical. But no sooner had we handed in our resignation that they erased all memory of us, but replaced it with Black Lives Matter squares. And I thought, isn't that interesting? They don't even see their own hypocrisy, but it's very simple to be Black Lives Matter because it's an echo chamber of the culture. And I always find it's a very, very dangerous place. If the church is no different to the world, why would people come into the church if we are just an echo chamber of the, of the world? And, you know, unfortunately, you've seen this as well, where pastors have elevated their social media, their likes, their, maybe their congregation size above truth, being persecuted for truth. So we're coming into another election and the false prophets, fake news, the media are screaming orange man bad. Orange man bad.
- [40:17]
Charlie Kirk
That's all they got.
- [40:17]
Pastor Jurgen
That's all they got. But would you help us to unpackage? Because I'm sure there are people here who are skeptical about Donald Trump.
- [40:24]
Charlie Kirk
That's fine. And I'll start with the persecution side of it, though, which I really have very little tolerance for. This, though, as someone who's in the conservative realm, who's had plenty of death Threats, getting the FBI involved, parents, house, you know, targeted. Can't go on a college campus without, you know, nine armed security. Every single person possibly coming after you. And these pastors are worried about, like, a couple social media comments. Pastor Rob, who has to go in front of a judge because he opens our church. I'm like, I'm gonna say this as loving, lovingly as I can. You're a coward. Like, you're. You're just a coward. Like, I don't know what to tell you. I mean, and I'm not. And I'm not trying to say that I'm a better person because of it, but those of us in the political world, there's backlash, persecution, canceling, deplatforming all the time. Just talk to these college conservatives, and I'd love to have these pastors that put a preference towards likability and acceptance. Go talk to a college conservative right now. Go talk to how hard it is to wear the MAGA hat on a college campus. Go talk to the price they have to pay if they dare question a professor. And like, you're worried about a couple bad Instagram comments because you want to stand for truth. Wow, man. I just. I don't see that at all. The second thing about President Trump.
- [41:39]
Pastor Jurgen
Can I just jump on that? Can you imagine?
- [41:42]
Charlie Kirk
Should I be more clear?
- [41:43]
Pastor Jurgen
No, no, no, no.
- [41:44]
Charlie Kirk
Just.
- [41:44]
Pastor Jurgen
No, no. Can you imagine, though? Just. Just on that. Just. I just had a thought. Can you imagine? Right. Eternity Heaven. Right. We're all standing there and we're all waiting, you know, to our moment before God in the throne. And just in front of you is William Tindale, who was burnt at the stake. And then you're the guy who backed up from truth because, oh, you were burned at the stake. Yeah, I got a couple of unfollows. And for eternity, you're going to be walking around as you're the loser. I mean, I don't want to be that guy. So anyway, sorry, sorry. Go on. But keep going, keep going.
- [42:21]
Charlie Kirk
Okay, cool. No, that's exactly right. And so, by the way, I. I believe it says that persecution is guaranteed of us. It's a promise.
- [42:32]
Pastor Jurgen
And so you will be hated by all nations. For my name's sake.
- [42:36]
Charlie Kirk
Amen.
- [42:37]
Pastor Jurgen
What they did to me, they will do to you. They will drag you before governors, before emperors, killing you they think will be doing a service.
- [42:44]
Charlie Kirk
That's exactly right. So you asked about the election, and there might be some people that are apprehensive of President Trump, and I'd love to clarify that. So look, I've had a chance to get to know him. I wrote a whole book about his presidency and what he stands for and why he's doing what he is doing. Let's take it first just from a Christian perspective. And we mentioned this in the previous service. However, let's just talk about Samson in the Bible. Samson's in the hall of faith in Hebrews. We cannot talk or read the story of Samson if there were 8 year olds in the room here. Yeah, God came to Samson when he was in the bed with a prostitute twice. God used him to fight a fight that the God's chosen people were unwilling to fight. He took a jaw of a donkey and killed a thousand Philistines and died a sacrificial death for the pursuit of the good. Now God was working in that man's life and I could use many other examples, King David being another one. And it's very perplexing to me the moral pietism that suddenly goes across the church where it's all of a sudden they've become the moral referee of American politics. Like now you're starting to call balls and strikes of who is worthy of serving in the highest office of the land. And I say to myself, does it bother you that there's been 61 million abortions since Roe versus Wade? They say, yeah. I say, who's actually done something about it? Who's put justices on the Supreme Court like Amy Coney Merritt and Kavanaugh and Gorsuch who actually cont against abortion? I say, we as Christians are called to bless the land of Israel. Paul said to bless the Jews. So who's been the most pro Israel president in American history? So I think we would all agree, and I don't mean this as a way to be overly harsh towards the man, but it's intentionally. It touches Christians on a very personal level. We all think George W. Bush is a nice, decent guy and a Christian. I don't think anyone in here would say that. I don't like his moral decisions. Okay, then why couldn't he find the courage to move the embassy to Jerusalem? Why didn't he give the Golan Heights back to Israel? Why didn't George W. Bush ever speak at the March for life? You'd probably have George W. Bush, you know, babysit your grandkids. You'd probably have George W. Bush sit on an elder board at a church. But George W. Bush, for whatever reason had nowhere near the courage that Donald Trump has had for what we as Christians care about here in this country. And make no mistake, these are tough fights. Donald Trump could have done a hall pass on the March for Life. He was the first president ever to speak at the March for Life. This is a guy that used to donate the Planned Parenthood. Like, it's a guy that used to call himself a Hillary Clinton Democrat. And yet he's the one that goes out of his way to go speak at the March for Life to say that I knew you before you were in the womb, that you're made in the image of God. He takes the motorcade literally over to the March for Life and does that. George W. Bush never did that. Ronald Reagan never did that. H.W. bush never did that. So there's a. Why did he do that? Why did he move the embassy to Jerusalem? Because there's a weird thing he does, and it really confuses people. He does what he says he's gonna do. I know, it's, like, really weird.
- [46:03]
Pastor Jurgen
And let me just say this. Let me say this. Sorry, really quickly. The currency of politicians is promises made. The currency of a businessman is results, promises kept. The currency of a politician, promises made. Currency of a business person. A business person doesn't exist if they make promises but don't deliver. But keep going. Yeah, keep going.
- [46:29]
Charlie Kirk
And so this, this is one of the reasons why he's such a disruption on the landscape, is that a Supreme Court vacancy happens. He actually just looks at the list that he made. He's like, no, actually I made a list, and we're going to pick from that list. And that's exactly what he did. When the fight to open, to fight to move the embassy to Jerusalem, by the way, it was voted on 98 nothing by the US Senate. We all believe that Jerusalem is the rightful capital of Israel. Jesus Christ walked in the streets of Jerusalem and Jesus Christ was killed in the streets of Jerusalem, and he rose again from the dead there. Pretty important place for Christians, right? And the sovereignty of Israel helps in a variety of different ways, not just geopolitically, but also as Christians, archeologically, to be able to continue to prove the veracity and the truth of the Bible. So here's Donald Trump, who made the promise. Guess who else promised to move the embassy? George W. Bush. Why did Trump do it? Because he said to himself, man, I would never be able to look my constituents in the eye when I made a promise and I didn't deliver it. Think back. All the Arab nation says that they were going to declare intifada against him, which is a death threat. We're going to blow up the entire region. And the president says, we're going to move it. And he did. And here's the interesting thing. What's happened since. Everyone talks a big game in the Middle east, right? George W. Bush kind of made a mess of things, if we're honest. Barack Obama made a bigger mess of things by withdrawing President Donald Trump in a thing that every prudent. Whether you hate Trump or you love Trump, the fact that this has not been front page news is unbelievable. That he got the Emiratis and the Israelis to a peace deal is unbelievable. Unbelievable. And sure, he goes about it in an unconventional way. And I could go chapter and verse, how he has restored American sovereignty, how he has defended religious liberty. 200 federal judges put into place by President Donald Trump since he's been sworn into office in four years and about to be a third. By Amy Coney Barrett it's been really interesting to see the church because I saw a lot of the, you know, popular celebrity pastor people on Instagram and, you know, they were black tiles, blm, we're a racist country, all this sort of stuff. And I messaged them and they said, oh, don't worry, we're still on you with life. Like, we're still pro life. I said, okay, the next time that life becomes a top tier issue in our country, I'm gonna make sure I see just as many tiles. And by the way, if they really believed that black lives matter, they'd be outside of Planned Parenthood every single weekend protesting against abortion in our country. Let's just be honest. So a lot of these pastors, and I messaged a lot of them, I said, hey, Amy, Coney Barrett's up for the Supreme Court seat. Are you guys mobilizing your congregations? Are you guys speaking out? Are you guys calling senators? Because you guys just marched in the streets of Santa Ana and San Diego and LA with BLM signs, bringing your kids alongside because you wrongly believe that we're a systemically racist country, which is a bitter lie. But you told me privately you're going to be with us when we need you, but we need you right now. We need you to help conform. Amy Coney Barrett Silence, no return. Left unread. And it really was telling to me. And because now, for the first time in anyone here, no matter how old you are, you have a chance to repeal the unconstitutional immoral decision of Roe vs. Wade. What President gave you that opportunity?
- [50:10]
Pastor Jurgen
Jesus taught. Jesus taught Matthew 25, where he separates the sheep from the goats. And it's interesting, and this is very Very sobering, he says, and then I will separate from my kingdom the sheep, from the goats, the goats on my left. He says, I was hungry, you didn't feed me. I was in prison. You didn't visit me, I was naked and you didn't clothe me. When. When what you. No, we wouldn't. What you didn't do for the least of these, you did not do unto me. And I would just say, be very, very, that you don't get any more least than being classified unscientifically, non biologically as just a mere cluster of cells. The party that fights to murder the least of these. Do you really think, yeah, they're the ones I'm going to trust with my health care. They're the ones I'm going to trust with my future. Like really, they're the ones. So just rounding third, coming sliding into home, because I know that you've got to get on a plane from here. This is probably one of the most important elections of our lifetime. And the Bible teaches us to look beyond personality, to look at fruit. So we keep hearing that, you know, Donald Trump is this divisive president and yet he can bring nations divided, the Emirates in Israel, bring them together at a table. He's been nominated now for three Nobel Peace Prizes. Is it four? Four now? Golly gee. So I can't even keep up. So. So for somebody, for somebody who is a divisive racist is unbelievable. Would you just kind of give us a closing hurrah on the Donald Trump that, you know, that you wrote about in Maga doctrine? Incredible book, by the way.
- [52:19]
Charlie Kirk
So not all elections are created equal. Not every election means the same as one prior. So the 2016 election, kind of the ethos of it or the character or the theme was really, do our systems still work? It was kind of a stress test of can you challenge multi generational political dynasties? That's what 2016 was all about. Like, can the ruling class be disrupted? And the answer was yes, amazingly, because Trump didn't just beat Hillary Clinton, he beat the tech companies, he beat Hollywood. He also beat the Bush dynasty. He beat it all. And so then he wins, right? And they then sought to punish him for this. How dare you challenge us, ye citizen. They spied on him, launched a coup against him, the fake Mueller hoax, everything they accused him of, they were actually doing. It's now come to light that Hillary Clinton was the one that actually started the Russia narrative. Completely baseless. A year and a half of investigations, full vindication, totally tearing apart his administration. Then they impeach him for something unrelated and different, saying that he was doing something with Ukraine, when again, it was actually the Biden family that was doing something with Ukraine. They march in the streets. China sends an epidemiological Pearl harbor against us. 200,000Americans die. We shut down our country. 100,000 small businesses go under. We lose more young people under 30 to suicide than to the virus. The lockdowns will go down as the dumbest decision made in the history of our country. There is no correlation whatsoever to any country that shut down their country versus those that didn't with hospitalization or death rates. All it does is stall the inevitable. That's all it does. It is a retreat to safetyism, not towards wisdom or bravery. Yet despite all of that, President Donald Trump's in striking distance to get reelected. It's actually incomprehensible because any other person would have shattered under that, under one of those things that they threw at him. So the 2020 election is about this. It's different than 16. 16 was like, does the system actually work? Does this. You know, we're gonna dust off the old gears on this whole democracy thing right now that we know that. The question now in 2020 is who's in charge? That's the real question. Because this year, if there's been one thing that kind of unifies 2020, it's we've been bossed around by fools all year, that's 2020. We have been told that if you leave your home, you're an awful person. Told that church is not essential. But oh, don't worry, BLM can march in the streets. Yesterday they had 200,000 people at the Women's March in Washington DC. No social distancing, no masks right up against each other. Yet down the street, a church is not allowed. 25 or more people in there. Cannabis dispensaries never closed in this state, yet the local bakeries went completely under. And those jobs will never come back. Liquor stores, home improvement stores. We all saw the injustice that was brewing there. We now see the tech companies that want to rule our whole country to make you stop from consuming information. And so the 2020 election is not even about Trump and Biden. It really isn't. It's against who's in charge. It's really about who's in charge. I'll tell you what, if Biden wins, I'll tell you who's in charge. It's not the people. It'll be Peter Strzok. It's not God centered government. It'll be Google. So the question in 2020 is, are we still the sovereign in this country? And we've never had an election like that since 1860. We haven't. There's been important elections, high stakes, all these sorts of things. But this is an election where I do think if we lose, we can recover, but there will be some changes that I don't know if we'll ever get back where it might be a deterioration where they wish to remove the first three words of the Constitution. We, the people. I get this all the time. I get. People ask me all the time. They say, charlie, what are we supposed to do? They control the universities, they control Hollywood. They control the corporations, they're controlling a lot of our churches. They control everything. I say, that's all true. I say, but there's one thing that they haven't been able to figure out yet that bothers them. It obsesses them. They mention it all the time, and that's why they use words like deplorable and all this. The one thing they have not yet been able to control, the one thing they have not been able to dominate is you, is the people. That is the one thing they have not been able to do. And so we have. We have an opportunity to send one of the clearest messages in the history of our country. You might say, I'm in California and I like Trump, but it doesn't matter. You're four hours from a battleground state. Drive to Arizona for a weekend and knock on a thousand doors. They need your help. It doesn't matter. I live in California. You know, you can call any state at any time through the Trump victory calling database. You guys should all be having organic neighborhood calling sessions, calling voters in Pennsylvania. You could call anyone at any time. The technology at our hands. You guys could be doing swing voting outreach everywhere. Do not allow the lie that, oh, I live in California, you know, I can't do this. By the way, no state should ever be forgotten. Let me give you a little piece of optimism right now. You guys need a little optimism, right? Ronald Reagan won one of the greatest landslides in American history in 1984. He lost two states. Well, one state, one territory. District of Columbia and Minnesota. Minnesota was always labeled as the most liberal state in the country. Democrat, farmer, labor, union, left of Karl Marx, Northern Mao territory. Whatever you want to call it, you got it.
- [58:38]
Pastor Jurgen
Samuel. Right? That's where he's from.
- [58:41]
Charlie Kirk
It's true. You know it's true, Samuel. It was. It was uncharted territory. Republicans not allowed. Never would people ever think at the time California was Republican. At the time California was an R +25 state, Orange county one of the most conservative counties in the entire country. Right. So we now know what happened there. But what's happening in Minnesota all of a sudden we're starting to see Republicans on the march where Donald Trump could win Minnesota where all of a sudden Republicans are winning state and local races. Here's, here's the lie that we fall into and you got to break free of it that what is happening today is going to happen tomorrow. Stop thinking monolithically, start thinking of what the outcome you want and start working towards it because it can. If you guys want to help get involved with Turning Point USA, go to tpusa.com tpusa. Com Email us Freedom at charliekirk. Com Freedom at charliekirk. Com and please consider supporting us at charliekirk. Com Support. Have a great Sunday everybody. Thanks so much for listening. God bless.