Reflecting on Charlie Kirk's Memorial

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to Frankly Speaking, your weekly destination for insight and
inspiration with your host, Frank Morangos. Frankly Speaking is sponsored
by a Happa four two one chapter of North Miami
in partnership with the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church of North Miami.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Good afternoon, and welcome to another broadcast of Frankly Speaking.
I am Frank Morangos, the show's host. I normally start
by providing a monologue concerning the influence of the ancient
Hellenic ideals, values and faith on our contemporary culture. Last week,
in fact, I spoke about the power of words. Today, however,
I decided to ask Brian Mudd, the show's producer and
hosts of the popular Brian Mudd Morning Show, to join

(00:47):
me in reflecting on the memorial service for Charlie Kirk.
The memorial service was held last Sunday afternoon to a
capacity crowd at the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.
As most iheartlesseners, No, Brian was the host of the
radio broadcast of the memorial service, and he did a
fantastic job. It must have been difficult. I know it
was for me watching it on TV.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
I will tell you Frank, it was an honor and
also something that going in I had as much anxiety
about as I've had at any point in my career.
I found out that I was being tapped to do
the national broadcast for the memorial the Wednesday before, so
a fairly short window of time, which probably was.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
A good thing to have to prepare, right, the.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Emotional part was very difficult, and so the first thing
is feeling a sense of responsibility sure to the situation.
The second part of it is wanting to do a
justice but also meet the moment where it was going
to be, and one of the things that's really challenging,
I think for a lot of people, and Frank, given

(01:54):
your background, I'm sure that you are far more aware
and capable emotionally than most.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
I'm not sure about that, but you know, well, I
understand what you're trying to say. Sure, you have pastoral
situations that are similar, and you.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Have great perspective on the bigger picture as well. We've
all been in situations to where we're going to celebrate
somebody's life who has passed, right, the memorial is going
to be a celebrational life, and then we get there
and it's ad people are grieving. People are mourning. It's
part of the human condition. It's not their fault, but
it turns into that kind of thing. So for me,
I'm personally going through the emotions the situation about Charlie,

(02:33):
then also wanting to make sure that I understood where
this memorial was going to go and what the feel
would be.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
And that's a difficulty that we have as well as pastors,
is to be able to be in the moment to
help individuals grieving, but we might be grieving simultaneously, and
we have to keep an objective as well as a
subjective balance when we're talking to people, because we don't
want to be cold, we want to be authentic, but
at the same time we have to be able to
be there to provide for you commentary, for me, a

(03:05):
pastoral word if if that's at all possible.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
And then this is exactly what I'm speaking to with you,
I know you would understand, uh, you know more than
more than most and have more and far more experience
with that than I would. I was trying to channel,
you know, very experiences like this going into it, and
it was way on me quite happily.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Right. You could tell you could tell in the broadcast.
I could. I could tell it in your voice because
we have a relationship. I see you quite often, so
I can pick up and nuances in the tone of
your voice, the way that we're using words. Pauses often
as well, because you're you're an individual that you don't
need to pause. You're just You're You're just whatever's in
your mind was there in your heart. It just kind

(03:44):
of flows out. So when you pause, I know something's
going on.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
You're right, you know me, well, Frank and what I
will tell you. That became the moment that really focused
everything for me, and I think this really spoke to
what I believe was the very best in humanity that
was on display last Sunday for Charlie Kirk's memorial. I
am an avid fan of Christian music. My wife Ashley

(04:09):
and I pretty much as far as music goes, exclusively
listen to Christian music and half for some time, and
so culturally I understand, you know, kind of Charlie's world
and his influences. When I saw the lineup of performers
and who would be involved in the worship service, it
was a who's who of superstars of Christian music. Chris Tomlin,

(04:33):
who has been a star in Christian music for decades.
Now you have Phil Wickham, who has the number one
song on the charts, he's been a star for a
long time, Brandon Lake, who has been the biggest name
in Christian music over the past couple of years, and
then Carry Job and Cody Carnes, and they are successful
Christian artists, not at the level, the superstar level necessarily

(04:55):
that the other three are. And I saw those names
and I'm like, there's a reason that these these two
are here. They sing a live version of the Blessing
that will give you chills, and if you listen to
the memorial you would have heard it and it probably
gave you chills. And I looked at Ashley when I

(05:16):
saw that part of the program, and I was really
kind of putting the final touches on my research. On Saturday,
I said, now I understand, Now, I understand what and
it's going to be an actual celebration of life. This
is not going to be something that is going to
be somber. You're they're going to rip the roof off
of this place. And that really was helpful, and it

(05:37):
was the one song that they ended up all singing
together during the course of the memorial was the blessing,
And so I think in a lot of ways, you know,
people that have never been exposed to Charlie's world culturally,
I think there are a lot of people that in
you know, conservative circles, maybe even Christian conservative circles, understood Charlie,

(05:57):
respected him, appreciated his work, but maybe didn't understand the
rest of what made him the person he is. And
I think that cultural aspect that was brought by the
worship service, the singing of the blessing in the middle
of the service, I think that might have helped kind
of explain the right I did.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
You know, because I come from a very traditional faith
based background as well, so for us, the way that
I had approached it, it was going to be more
of a celebration of his life. And then as it
went on, as it progressed, I began to realize, no, no,
this is a worship service at the same time with
so many people in an auditorium, and it can be done,

(06:38):
Which led me to a question that I had for you.
You may or may not know the answer. I know
it's been floating around in social circles right now. And
that is was Charlie thinking about becoming Catholic.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
So his wife is so Erica Kirk is Catholic, and
Charlie was Protestant. Yes, in terms of a conversion process,
he was not in that that I am aware of,
but they were both. And I'm going to give you
an idea. So my wife is not Catholic. I'm Catholic.
You talk about being traditional, I'm very traditional. And she

(07:12):
had been attending Christ's Fellowship when we first got together,
and so she came for more of the evangelistic side
of things. And here I am, you know, kneeling and
hughse and so with instance. Yeah, and so what I
could explain in terms of the relationship dynamic there, that's
kind of what they were too, right, but in reverse.

(07:34):
And so Charlie is the more the evangelistic kind of
guy of the Protestant, but you can tell that Erica
was all about it. And that's what I am too.
So I'm still Catholic me and we do still, you know,
visit christ Fellowship, but we primarily will go to you know,
Catholic Mass. And but I am completely engrossed in the

(07:57):
Christian music scene and very appreciative of the evangelistic side
of things that has brought I think faith to so
many people at a younger generation and age then may
have happened otherwise. I think the cultural influence is extremely important.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yeah, I think it is as well. You know, it
was almost in a cumenical relationship there. I didn't realize
that she was Roman Catholic. So now I can see it.
I can see how the two of them blended together
and how they complimented each other. So it's going to
be interesting to see her now as she takes on
the reins of the organization. If that Catholicity is going
to come out, whether that more traditional component is going

(08:38):
to come out of it, We'll just have to wait
to see how that's going to happen. But there are
so many things that happened during the service that I
wanted to talk to you about. I don't know which
ones really pop out. Let's begin with you. Is there
one speaker or one or two speakers that really you
want to underscore?

Speaker 3 (08:57):
So what I would tell you there are a couple
of moments that really down to me. But there are
two things, just from a holistic perspective of the service
that I thought was remarkable. It was Charlie's life in
a nutshell. Yes, and in order of what's most important
to him. So your first speaker was his pastor faith

(09:20):
most important to Charlie. One of the things that has
bothered me, and I've spoken to this over the past
couple of weeks. People will in news identify him as
a conservative activist. Okay, at the base level, that's accurate.
Charlie Kirk was a conservative activist. That is also the
greatest oversimplification that I could possibly come up with. There

(09:42):
are no shortage of conservative activists out there. They aren't
the ones that were targeted for assassination. The reason why
Charlie Kirk was assassinated is because he was the most
successful Christian conservative activist that was out there.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
And he was really an apologist, you know, that's the
word that I would use as well. He was influenced
by his faith. His activism was influenced by the apologetics
of the gospel.

Speaker 3 (10:09):
That's right, That's one hundred percent accurate. And just like
Jesus's disciples, you only had John who didn't die in martyr. Ultimately,
Charlie led with his faith unapologetically in the most difficult places,
just as Jesus has called on us to do, and
as so many that have gone the distance have paid
the price, he ultimately did too. But then look at

(10:30):
how many more people have been brought to the faith
in the wake of his assassination than never would have been.
And I've diverted from your original question, but what I
thought was remarkable about these speakers He started with faith,
what was most important. You went through some names that
you probably were not familiar with after that, and so
his friends, then those that are big influences within Turning

(10:57):
Point USA, many of which were also his friends. Then
you get into some of the non politicians that were
influential in his life, and a lot of those names,
people that are familiar and active politically are probably knowledgeable of.
And then you got into the politicians themselves. And so

(11:18):
that was the order of the importance of things in
his life. Charlie is being called a conservative activist, Well,
that was actually the least important thing in his life,
the most important faith. And so it was a cross
section of his life. And I would take you know,
various points within you know, speeches from his pastor. I
thought that was great. I thought Donald Trump Junior was

(11:38):
really important because here's someone who can be a lightning
rod and the politics associated with everything to do with
the Trumps, but he in particular, and he alluded to
him getting himself in trouble on social media and everything else,
but he was appropriate and then ultimately the President himself.

(11:59):
Nobody made it about themselves. They kept it appropriate and
it was all about Charlie. And so for me, I
take a look at it as a cross section of
Charlie's life. Blend did to get her together beautifully in
a way that was meant to make those that ended
up taking it in, however you might have taken it

(12:20):
in feel like you are part of something much bigger
than oh, yes, yourself.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
And I think that's really important here. Frank Turk, Yes,
the author, the apologist who I can't recommend his book
more highly than you know, I don't have enough faith
to be an atheist. I don't know if you've ever
read that book. That's great, that's a fabulous book. I
mean it's a thick read, you know, but it's substantial. Yeah,
you know, he said a number of things that I

(12:45):
really enjoyed very much, because I think there's a danger here.
We heard I think one of the words that I
kept hearing in the in them in the memorial service
was this is a revival. This is a revival. This
is what's going to be a revival. We're all going
to be Charlie's. I don't know if I agree agree
with that. I think that the revival will die out
if it's about replicating Charlie. I think Charlie would say

(13:08):
that we need to replicate Christ, we need to be
christ Like. Otherwise it's going to become a cult of personality.
And that's really what we don't want here. We want
to be able to allow Charlie, as others other martyrs
and other individuals saints who were not martyred but were
still influential authors, et cetera. Their influence was that they

(13:31):
pointed away from themselves to something greater than themselves. John
the Baptist being for the first one, I must decrease,
he must increase. I think this is what Charlie would say.
He would not like. Again, I don't want to put
words in his mouth how he would not like this
moniker of let's all be like Charlie. There's a thousand
Charlies here or one hundred thousand Charlies here. I don't
know if that resonates with.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
You entirely, because there's one Charlie Kirk. There's nobody who
can replace them.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Amen.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
Yeah, And it's the same, you know, I'll take a
look at, for example, the analogy I've used for my generation.
I'm a product of the eighties. I am a Reagan Conservative,
and I'm a Rush baby.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
So am I not a baby but maybe a brother.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
And so for me influences President Reagan and Rush Limbaugh.
For the youngest generation of adults and for teens, Charlie
Kirk was their Rushlan Baw And you have President Trump

(14:35):
that largely is their Reagan. And so there's that on
the political side. That's the politics of it. Charlie the
man being about faith led first, what he would want
is what we've seen, which is an increase in church attendance.
The average for the numbers that we have that are
out there through the first couple of weeks about a

(14:56):
fifteen percent increase. That is about on par with what
we saw after nine to eleven. And in addition to
these days social media, the apps, you know, we hear
about a lot of the negative stories and there are many.
The positive side of it is the leading app that's
out there, the Hallow app ninety five percent increase in
users in the two weeks since Charlie Kirk's assassination. And

(15:19):
so that is I think sticky because now you're talking
about people that, in the case of Hollow, you know
there's even a subscription that goes along with it, But
people that are showing intent beyond just the politics and
trying to rally around a cult of personality or a
particular figure or a particular party for that matter.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
So then why, for example, Billy Graham. Yeah, Billy Graham
passed away. Okay, he was quote America's pastor, he prayed,
he influenced presidents. Yes, okay, he passed away. He didn't
get the kind of he did not have the influence
I would say as Charlie Kirk and Charlie Cook was
only thirty one years old. I mean, Billy Graham was

(16:00):
around for decades. Why what made him so popular?

Speaker 3 (16:04):
I think you bring up such a great point. And
the number one reason that I think that Charlie Kirk
so much different than other figures is he met people
where they were I will not say anything negative about
the Grams, the whole family. They are assaulted the earth,

(16:26):
amazing people better than I am, and all that I
could aspire to be, And not that they haven't gone
out there and saught others, but in terms of going
where people didn't don't want you to be, there's not
been another figure, not in my lifetime, that has gone

(16:46):
where he wasn't wanted, made himself available, reached out at
time and time and time again. And I think that's
made what made him different is he went into enemy territory,
so to speak, hostile territory and one hearts and minds.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yes, it was a vulnerability to him. Yes, he was touchable,
you know. Graham was, I think when he was younger,
and then obviously when he got older, I think the
environment changed. Charlie was more incarnational. He went into the
lion's den as amost, you know, and basically that's how

(17:25):
he was assassinated, you know, in a touchable moment, very
very intimate there. So there are many things that are
going on here. There are many comments that have been
made since as well. I mean the question that I
would ask you, and I know it's a question that
I almost know the answer already is do you believe
in demons.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
Yes, why well, I mean it kind of goes hand
in glove with with I suppose my Catholic upbringing as well.
But as much as anything, where there is good, there
is evil, and where there's the absence of light, there
is darkness. And so where you reject God, you will

(18:04):
have something that takes that space. And I do believe
that good and evils around us at all times.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
I think Rubio and Hegst were the ones that were
kind of alluding to that, and maybe more than alluding
that you're putting on the armor of faith and this
is a spiritual battle that we are waging. And perhaps
that's one of the ways that we can see the
difference between and I don't want to make this a
political comment, but it is political between you know, the

(18:29):
right and the left, is that the left almost uses
the physicality of this world to fight the problems of
this world, whereas the right not I'm speaking generally here,
not comprehensively, but people on the right typically see this
as more of a spiritual inner battle, and so therefore
we don't need to go out and you know, and

(18:51):
murder one another and have riots and all those kinds
of things. I don't know if you would agree with that,
but we don't see the solution in programming. We see
the solution really in a revival and a repentance in
people's hearts.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yeah, while it is a generalization, I think your premise
is accurate and well stated. So the example I would
use in a historical context would be the Constitution. Your
constitutionalists are conservatives by and large, libertarians at a minimum,
but typically conservatives. And the reason is because there is

(19:24):
a founding, grounding morality that this country was founded upon.
But basis that this country was founded upon that the
greatness has come from. That's what allowed this country to
become the world's leading superpower in such a short amount
of time. It wasn't by mistake. Whereas, if you are
coming at things from a progressive perspective, the idea is

(19:48):
that's a living, breathing document that needs to be changed.
It's outdated, it's very old, and so it's the same
idea where if you are grounded in your faith, you
have something that is always governing you from a higher
point that you are accountable to. Whereas if you reject that,
you're you're gonna make up the rules as you go,

(20:09):
and it's whatever you see fit. And so in essence,
the left has basically crowded out the opportunity for faith
to be consistent with the political agenda. And so that's
why it has all aligned and has led in many
situations now to what I am concerned about with the

(20:31):
assassination culture that we see, yes uh, and the willingness
of people now to act out in the worst ways
on that absence of faith, of grounding, just the belief
that I don't believe in this. So now I can
eliminate this.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
So I'm going to load this question up. I'm gonna
I'm gonna load it up because we've been kind of
talking about it, but I want to just say it
or ask it. And that is the turning point? Are
we we had a turning point in this country politically, spiritually,
vis a gender, educationally or are we just at a

(21:09):
turning point in faith? Or is this going to be
really a turning point? Could it be a historical turning
point in all of those areas? I know, probably we
need a semester to talk about this.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
Frank, I literally pray about this every night. I literally
pray every night that it is the turning point on
basically that whole ball of wax. You know, one thing
we have seen historically is that pendulum swing. Right, So
people from a modern construct of oh my gosh, like
how divided we are, Look how difficult things are. It's

(21:40):
this has going to be the worst ever. And I'll
very quickly point back, Well, this country literally thought a
war against itself. I assure you it's been worse. So
you know, we can work off of that then, and
then you can take a look at various points in
this country's history. Obviously, we went through time of an
assassination culture in the sixties. We bounce back from that
as a as a country, and we were great this time.

(22:03):
What's different? I believe they're two things, and it worries
me to no end. I've talked about it a lot.
Harvard came out with an incredible study on faith mental
health outcomes in twenty eighteen. I cited a lot in
my work. If you go back to nineteen eighty, you
only had approximately six percent of the US population that
didn't believe in a god of some sort whatever their religion.

(22:24):
So at least ninety four percent had something they thought
they were accountable to and now we're at a point
where that is up to about twenty eight percent. So
you have more than a quarter of the population that
you know, doesn't really feel accountable to anything other than
what they're feeling in that particular day or who they're
motivated led by. That is problematic, especially when you add
in the influence of social media and the positive feedback

(22:47):
loop to where all you end up getting is what
you end up going to. And so now no matter
what you turn on a computer, you turn on your
mobile device, everything you're going to is just feeding you
more whatever. And so if that's a negative thing, and
if you don't have you know, God in your life,
then that can be a problem that I think is
tough to run now.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
And it's interesting that that you say that and you
use the word divided, because there was a incyclical that
was produced by I'm pretty sure it was Pope Benedict
or it could have been Pope John Paul and encyclical
about the divided self, and he said that the one
of the biggest problems that we're going to be encountering,
and it started, you know, many decades ago, was that

(23:29):
society is dividing us and truncating ourself, our personality. You know,
we're politically over here. Don't bring religion into it. Now
you're over here, you're in church. Don't bring politics into it.
Now you're over here. Educationally, you know, don't bring truth
into it. Right and before you know it, we are
so truncated and who we are. We don't know who
we are ultimately. And when we don't know who the
self is, the individual, then everything else falls apart, whether

(23:51):
it's marriage, family, gender, confusion, politics, truth, et cetera. So
what I'm hoping to see here is that the turning
point is that we're going to reassemble the person, our
identity in this country so that we can go forward.
As the founding fathers saw. They didn't see us as

(24:13):
truncated individuals. They saw it as you know, in the
Orthodox and the Greek Hellenic tradition, which is the basic
theme of this show, frankly speaking, is that there's a
word called symphonia. We get the word symphony out of it.
In the Byzantine Empire, there was no problem between the
secular and the religion religious. The emperor and the patriarch

(24:38):
were complementary to each other. However, however, at the same time,
in that symphonia, in that symphony, the government was there
to support protect the church. The church is the queen
of all the disciplines ultimately, but you need it both.
And so therefore when you move into the issue of
forgiveness with which was I think the greatest topic from Erica.

(25:01):
By the way, as an aside, you know what the
word erica means. We heard what kirks Kirk means church. Yes, Well,
Erica actually means uh, the one with strength.

Speaker 3 (25:11):
Oh, isn't that appropriate?

Speaker 2 (25:13):
The eternal strength isn't appropriate. So here she is now,
she's going to she's going to need the eternal one
to give her the strength to go forward and to
continue the work of her of her husband. I think
that's just a fantastic collaboration of the Church and the
eternal strength of God.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
Well, and to the point of I think what the
original question you asked that I never fully answered. I mean, obviously,
one of the most remarkable moments I think any of
us have seen was her forgiveness of her husband's assassin.
That is, ultimately what God calls on us to do,
and how many would be capable of doing that?

Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah, her name ever powerful. I mean, that's really ultimately
the etymology of the word. So the old power of
full word is really forgiveness to bring people together. Did
Trump and Elon reconcile.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
I've just about this. I have joked about this since
the moment they broke up, so to speak, that there'd
be a fifty to fifty chance that one day you
would see Elon Musk with that Trump was right about
everything had on his head. Again, I think we may
be able to go up to sixty to forty on
those of.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
Closer Yeah, no doubt. Yeah. I know Trump has been
asked about it. He's been more evasive in his answer. Yes, yeah,
but Elon actually said that it was great to be
with him. Again.

Speaker 3 (26:34):
I can tell you one little nugget, and that might
be interesting information for some, which is he is very
close to JD. Van's and so to the extent that
there it might be this rift still between the president
in Elon Musk. I can tell you that there's very
little distance whatsoever between the vice president and Elon Musk.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
One last question before we call it a broadcast, and
that is, you know there was speculation and even Trump
had said it and others as well, that Charlie could
have become president one day? Do you think that that
the nation is ready for someone like Erica to become
president one day?

Speaker 3 (27:17):
It is so funny. So within two minutes of having
concluded the broadcast, received a call from a very significant
person and it was a very nice phone call. And
that was the question. That was the question.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
Hopefully I'm in good company.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
Yes, you're in very good company. And the question is
could you see that? And I said yeah. So the
only question is is she interested in politics? And that's
the one thing is you know, this is all new
to her, right, I mean, for Charlie to have done
what he did, obviously, you see the strength of the
woman goes behind she has two young children. Does she
want you know, the political piece of it? Running turning point?

(28:01):
I mean, at this point, hoy cal that's going to
keep her busy and have her hands well if in
the future she wants it, I don't think there's any
doubt that she has it in her. I absolutely think
that she could be the first woman who's president of
the United.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
States, or at the very least one of their children.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
I think we'll have a woman who's present before their children,
just a personal thing. I think so, I actually think
Erica could be that first.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
Yeah. Yeah, Well, thank you Brian for having this conversation
with me. It was great to have you on the show.
You're always behind the glass, You're always making me sound great.
So I want to thank everybody who listens on a
regular basis to help them make America great again. I
think we really need to make America faithful again. So
I thank everyone, And if you'd like to share a
question or suggest the future guest with me, I'd love

(28:46):
to hear from you. Frank Talk Radio and Donald.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
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(29:13):
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