WILL SPENCER & FRIENDS - Remembering Charlie Kirk: Faith, Trauma, and Healing in Troubled Times - The Will Spencer Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Foreign.

(01:00):
Hello, everybody, and welcometo a special live stream edition
of the Will Spencer Podcast.
I'm your host, Will Spencer.
So this is a bit new andunfamiliar for me, but sometime earlier
this, early this week, I feltthat it was my responsibility and

(01:20):
it was necessary to offer someof my thoughts on the death of Charlie
Kirk and also his life and legacy.
I don't necessarily think I'mqualified to be the most effective
cultural commentator, but lastweek when I hosted a Twitter space
at the inspiration of my goodfriend Nathan Spearing, I had a number

(01:43):
of people tell me that theywere very grateful and they were
hoping to hear from me.
And so I wouldn't necessarilythink that that would be the case
that people would want and.
Or need that, but it seemsthat they do.
And so I have aresponsibility, I felt, to my audience
and the people who I'm veryblessed, who take seriously the things
that I had to say.
And I felt that call earlierthis week.

(02:05):
And so I thought it'd beappropriate to host this stream and
maybe share some of mythoughts and invite some of my friends
to join as well.
And they'll be along shortly,probably about 30 minutes from now.
I'll open the doors and let afew friends in and we'll just continue
the discussion.
But before I do that, I wantedto offer a few of my own thoughts

(02:26):
on the matter.
And so the first thought thatI had, the first thought that I had
earlier, earlier todayregarding why I think this event
is having the impact that ithas, and I think it's because this

(02:47):
has been a.
And I don't like this word,and I'll explain why this has been
a traumatic experience formany of the people of America, perhaps
all of America and many peopleall over the world.
Now, what do I mean by trauma?
I personally don't believethat trauma is a thing in the way
that it's commonly used.
I believe trauma as wecurrently understand it, mental,

(03:10):
emotional trauma, is acombination of two things.
It is a combination of griefand shock.
So the first thing thathappens, we experience the shock
of some of the hardestrealities of life intruding into
our experience.
That can be anything fromnatural disaster to very serious

(03:32):
family conflict, heavenforbid, car accidents and more.
And surely the sudden death,the murder of Charlie Kirk, was a
shocking experience, and we'lltalk about that in just a moment.
Also, there's a component ofgrief, and I think it's undeniable
that much of America and theworld is experiencing very deep grief

(03:54):
over this, perhaps in ways forreasons they can't fully understand,
but that they are very real.
And so when I say that thishas been a traumatic event for many
people in America around theworld, what I mean is that they're
experiencing a combination ofshock and grief.
So let's talk.
And I think the powerfulelement of this and why it's been

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over a week now, he wasmurdered at around 12pm Pacific time,
I believe Wednesday.
A week ago, that would havebeen Wednesday the 10th.
And so it's been over a week.
And I think people are stillfeeling it, very much so, in various
ways.
And there's been a good bit of fallout.
There's been a lot of revivaland a lot of degeneration that has

(04:35):
happened almost hand in handwith each other.
Quite a lot of infighting and argumentation.
So the resonance is still going.
And I've wondered why.
And I think a lot of it has todo with the shock.
This was very much the firsttime that most everyday average Americans

(04:56):
have seen a violent death, abloody, violent death happen in front
of their eyes or theconsequences of it in front of their
eyes.
We live in a very blessed timeto be sheltered from many of the
most brutal realities of violence.
In particular, many in America do.
Of course, there are plentyaround the world and in the United

(05:17):
States who do not.
But most people today are veryblessedly sheltered from the kind
of realities that firstresponders, firefighters, police
officers, soldiers, hospitalworkers, doctors see.
Most people never see those things.
And it is a great blessing ofour society that we are sheltered
from those things.
And suddenly, on Wednesdayafternoon last week, that wall, that

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shelter was shattered by autoplaying videos that spread across
X and Telegram or whateverplatforms, whatever platforms you
follow.
That's certainly what happenedto me.
I believe I heard that CharlieKirk had been assassinated by my
wife.
My wife said that Charlie Kirkhad been assassinated.

(06:02):
I did not hear that CharlieKirk had been assassinated by my
wife.
Let me get my prepositions inthe right order.
She was the one who told me,and I think I went immediately to
X and instantly videos on WiFi, autoplay for me on X.
And there's Charlie Kirksitting in his chair, speaking on
the microphone.

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Then suddenly, bang, he'sstruck by the bullet.
Blood is coming out of hisneck, spurting out of his neck.
He falls over.
It was quite gruesome, brutal,violent and sudden.
And I didn't have the chanceto click play.
I didn't have the chance tosay, yes, okay, I'm ready.
I want to see this.
What happened?
It autoplayed.

(06:43):
It went around on telegram andmany chats that I'm in there, same
thing.
It was just over and over again.
I would open up a chat there.
It was bang, because it was cut.
And I'm sure I'm not the onlyperson who had that experience of
being shown a video so graphicand just in terms of the subject
matter, let alone.

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Here's a young man, handsomeguy, charming, charismatic, energetic.
I don't know anyone who's intheir right mind who had a negative
impression of Charlie Kirk,because he was just that kind of
guy.
And he suddenly just struckdown in, you know, the prime of his
life.
Not even yet the prime.
The man had not achieved hisprime, which says a lot about his.

(07:24):
The lost potential.
And there he is, just gone inan instant.
And of course, there was theinterminable period of waiting the
hour, two hours or so whenreports are flying, he's passed away,
he's stabilized, he's taking blood.
Where everyone's.
You know, maybe they'rereporting fake news.
Maybe they're getting bad information.
I don't know where we'rewaiting to see the fate that even

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if he had pulled through,would have been.
Clearly had been a miraclefrom God.
As we're all watching thevideo over and over again, and we're
encountering the reality ofviolence in a way that many hadn't
before.
And this is, of course, comesthe day after, or a couple days after
the Charlotte train stabbing,which was another example, mostly

(08:09):
that was censored originally.
And then the uncensored videobegan making its way around.
Maybe that was Monday, thevideo started spreading.
And then Tuesday, theuncertain video came out.
And by Tuesday evening orWednesday morning, surely there was
the video of the full video ofthis poor girl.
Forgive me if I mispronounceher name, Irina Zerutskaya, I believe

(08:31):
something like that.
This poor girl slumping overand a pool of blood forming on the
ground on the bottom of thissubway car, quite a lot of bright
red blood.
Unmistakable.
And so in a very short periodof time, meaning 24, 48 hours, people's
walls that had separated themin a very blessed way of brutal violence,

(08:58):
knife stabbings, shootings, et cetera.
Shattered.
It just shattered.
Before they even had a chanceto say, yes, I'm ready for it, the
walls came down.
And I think that accounts forthe reason that a lot of people are
feeling a grief that theydon't understand from a man who they
never met.
And his work may not evenparticularly touch them, depending

(09:19):
on how old they are.
And yet they still feelsomething very significant has been
lost.
They felt it, of course, atthe stabbing of Irina.
They felt in a very visceralsense how real and violent that was.
And then here comes CharlieKirk the next day, basically the
same thing happening.

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And so I think those twoevents together in such close proximity
put everyone into a state ofshock again, of trauma, shock and
grief.
A real.
Not only did we lose a youngimmigrant from Ukraine, innocent
girl, sitting, minding her ownbusiness, we lose.
We didn't know her, didn'tmeet her, and yet she's sitting innocently,

(10:03):
as any of us would do onpublic transportation.
And within 90 seconds, herlife was gone.
In a very real sense, shedidn't even know what hit her, I
believe.
And then this exact Same thinghappens 24 hours later to Charlie
Kirk, who many people did knowhis name, but I think he also did
not know what hit him.
And there was a realconfrontation with the reality of

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violence, the sinful, fallenworld that we live in.
And I think that was quite alot for some people as it would be.
And it left people in a stateof very real shock, probably mitigated
quite a bit by the presence ofa screen with our phone or laptop,
but nonetheless, there it was.

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And it was into that spacethat the outpouring of grief came.
And I think the outpouring ofgrief was grief is the other side
of praise.
This is something I heard manyyears ago, and I think it's true.
We only grieve that which wefind praiseworthy.
If you have something thatdoesn't mean much to you, that isn't

(11:08):
very valuable to you, and youlose it, you're not going to grieve
it.
But we only can grieve thethings that the pre praise to the
degree that we praise them.
You will only grieve somethingto the degree that you praise it.
And so, you know, if you losea ratty old shoebox out of your closet,
you know, you're probably notgoing to grieve the shoebox.

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But if the shoebox is full ofprecious photos of memories that
you probably don't think aboutall that often, mementos, letters,
you know, artifacts of aprevious time of your life, you will
grieve those very much becausethey are praiseworthy, because you've
lost something that you thencan't get back.
And so we can only grievethose things which we praise, and
we only grieve them to grievethem to the degree that we can praise

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them.
And I think over the course ofMonday, Tuesday, Wednesday, there
were a number of Things thatwere lost more than just the individuals.
The loss of Irena is, ofcourse, there's an outpouring of
grief, but I think what was apart of that was a loss of innocence.
There was a feeling like, oh,that can't possibly happen.

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That can't possibly happen to me.
And we watch a young girl fora moment does not seem to have a
care in the world, and gone in90 seconds.
There's a real loss ofinnocence associated with that.
Am I safe anywhere?
Am I safe to look at my phoneand not pay attention?
Situational awareness in majorAmerican US Cities is absolutely

(12:34):
a thing.
And yet there are all ourmoments where we all take our eye
off the ball.
And certainly I think therewas a large outpouring of can we
ever take our eye off the ballagain if our lives are 90 seconds
away from being taken from us?
Excuse me.
So there's a loss of her life,but also the loss of our collective
innocence.

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And I think with Charlie Kirk,there was very much the same a loss
of our collective innocencethat you could be sitting, having,
engaging in positive,meaningful, sincere dialogue with
those you disagree with.
And in a blink of an eye, in ablink of an eye, it can just be gone
before you, even before youeven know you can be in Jesus's arms.
And it's like, wait, how did Iget here?

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And then he has to explain toyou what took place, perhaps.
And actually, last week onInstagram or this weekend, I saw
a reel that someone postedthat was one of Charlie's colleagues,
you know, assistants, perhaps,was filming him, was recording him
as he was showing up to.
To the university, throwing Tshirts into the crowd, driving up

(13:39):
in the car, and he sees thecrowd and just to feel what it was
must have been like in thatcar to not know how close he was
to the end of his life and hownone of us really ever know that.
And the incident with CharlieKirk made that very apparent.
Of course, we were supposed tomemento mori.
We're supposed to keep ourdeath before our eyes at all times.

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And remember that time is short.
None of us know our time.
It's quite difficult to livethat way.
We know we should.
It's quite difficult to livethat way.
Nonetheless, it's always true.
And then to find that he hadactually reached the end of his life
without knowing it.
And I think there's a realsense of loss there.
And then on the back half ofthat loss of innocence, there is

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the loss of a man who I had noidea how faithful this guy was.
I Had a vaguely.
Charlie Kirk was after my timewhen I was in university.
Turning Point USA wasn't athing when I was in college.
So I had never been to a TPUSA event.
Of course I knew who he was.
I had seen his, his tents, I'dseen his videos.

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I had seen him sitting out onsunny days and cloudy days and rainy
days and cold days, debatingwith anyone who had passed by, whether
it was one guy at a smalltable, you know, with a tablecloth
or a giant, what I think couldbe fairly called small tent revival.
Which is which of course, whata turning point had grown to.
He was willing to engagepeople straight on.

(15:10):
And not only that, he was ahusband, a father of two, a real
family man who lived andembodied his values beginning back
when he was 17 years old.
I was listening to his manrampant episode with Doug Wilson
and he was talking about howhe got into politics when he was
17 and he wanted to startcreating change.
And I believe he referencedsomething, maybe it was like neoconservatism

(15:33):
or liberalism or enlightenmentliberalism, I don't remember.
But it was a political termthat I don't think I knew when I
was 17.
I probably didn't even know itwhen I was like 37.
It's just came a long way later.
And here's a 17 year old kidwho gets so dialed into politics
and decides that he's going toshow up and make a difference.
And he fights for 14 or 15years, through his whole 20s and

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prime of his life, holdingtrue to his values and how much his
Christian faith became a vocalpart of that, particularly over the
past few years.
And so here's a man that in avery real sense embodies the best
of what many of us hope to bedriven, successful, focused, high
integrity, passionate,enthusiastic, energetic, charming.

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You know, all of thesewonderful qualities that were just
on a road trip around America,moving the needle for millions of
young college students, menand women, and also at the highest
level of politics, gone in an instant.
And we recognized the loss ofthe man.
And so here we are a week orso later and the shock, I think,

(16:40):
has largely worn off.
I'm very grateful that Ihaven't seen too many autoplaying
videos over the past few days.
I don't know that I would wantto see it again, but I think the
grief has now come rushing inand maybe some of the shock is sitting
there underneath the surface.
So in this space of atraumatized nation, a nation that

(17:03):
has experienced grief andshock, you're having a number of
Responses, some of which Idocumented on, talked about on X,
that are deeply counterproductive.
And when I saycounterproductive, I don't mean in
a political sense.
I don't mean that it's movingagainst right wing or politics or

(17:25):
anything like that.
I mean counterproductive tothe healing and growth of the nation
and the people of it.
And I listed four of them onTwitter and substack yesterday and
I'd like to go over them withyou now.
Of course, first you have theradical leftists, the people that

(17:47):
are celebrating Charlie Kirk's death.
I don't think it's right tocelebrate the death of any opponent.
We're called in scripture notto do that.
Specifically, God desires thatall should be saved.
And certainly when someonefrom the left dies, potentially even
in a tragic way, we shouldn'tgloat or celebrate.

(18:09):
We should mourn that this souldidn't have the chance to be saved,
saved or certainly perhaps wasnot saved.
And so to see people on theleft cheering and celebrating and
dismissing the death ofCharlie Kirk and saying he deserved
it, that has been anothershock to many on the right and the
left to see their friendsdoing something that they rightfully
find abhorrent.
And so I think that's beenvery counterproductive.

(18:30):
It has been driving like thegrief and the shock that people are
already experiencing.
It's already like a.
Wait, you just said what?
Like I've known you just in ahypothetical scenario, I've known
you for how many years andthis is what you're saying.
And so on top of it, you havethis societal fracturing of people
who they thought they knewtheir friends and now they're seeing
a truly ugly side of their friends.

(18:51):
They don't know what to dowith it.
And so that fallout is occurring.
And I think there has beenrighteous and unrighteous responses
to that, but I think that'sadded onto it.
You also have the radicalright wing guys who are taking Charlie
Kirk's death and also thedeath of Irina Zaruskaya's opportunity
to, well, it's time to getreal mad and go do a violence.
And now we have license to do it.

(19:13):
You shot first.
And these guys find variousfalse, legitimate, false, so called,
legitimate, quote, unquotereasons to go do that.
I don't think there is causeto do that.
And we'll get into why, butthey've certainly contributed to
raising the temperature quitea bit.
But I think ultimately thosetwo voices, the radical right voice,

(19:37):
has died down a bit.
It's shifted some the Radicalleft voice is still there, and that's
going to take a while to unwind.
Jimmy Kimmel being canceled,like literally his show being canceled
is a good example of how muchmore there is for that to unwind.
But what's kind of taken theplace of these radical right wings
voices are conspiratorialvoices, a set of high level influencers

(20:01):
who are trying now veryforcefully to tie everything to Israel.
That is a very persistentdrumbeat that is going on.
It's tied to some of the rightwing stuff more so than to the left.
But they're definitely bangingthe drum, trying to get everyone
to think like, oh, this isIsrael's fault.
This is Israel's fault.
We're going to craft whateverdots we need to in order to connect
them.

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And that has been so deeply counterproductive.
I stay out of those influencer wars.
At the highest level, I don'tthink I need to name names, but certainly
to watch the argument that'shappening between multimillion influencers.
At the highest level, when youthink about it from a position of
a nation and a world being ingrief and shock, and then you see
these opportunists talkingabout, oh, Israel did it.

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And then you see the otheropportunities from the other side
coming in saying, oh, no, they didn't.
It's like the argument, thefamily squabble, in a sense, is just
making it worse.
And that's been so difficultto take.
It's been so difficult towatch that just to want to tell these
people to just shut up, shutup, go away, stop.
I don't understand how in anysense it's being made better.

(21:05):
And look, I don't mean to saythat I'm a saintly individual either.
There are probably things thatI've said that have contributed to
a raising of the temperature.
But someone like me with arelatively small account compared
to people with hundreds ofthousands or even millions of followers,
I think there's a verydifferent level of responsibility.
And to see that argumentcontinue to churn and turn over and

(21:26):
over and over again is takingus further and further away from
what's actually going on.
And then of course, you havethis conspiracy voices, not all of
which point to Israel, thoughmany of them do, where they're scrutinizing
every single aspect of whatwent on.
This guy tugged his sleeve,this guy touched his nose.
There was this weird thingover here.
What about this?
I don't believe any of this.

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Questioning the narrative andthe reason why the questioning the
narrative bros, the conspirabros are so counterproductive right
now is because the only waythat we as a nation will begin to
heal from this, to overcomeour shock and our grief is if you
stop shocking us.

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And the constant need to putout a gotcha like this is not true.
And this is not true, and thisis not true continues to poke at
this open wound and, and Ithink that it's just unnecessary.
First of all, I think they'rewrong first of all.
So that's a really important one.
If they were truly unveilingthings that I thought were that people
needed to know.
But this seems to be a prettyopen and shut case of some ex Mormon

(22:29):
trans furries putting togetheran antifa a tran tifa terror cell
coordinating to take the lifeof a relatively soft target.
This is not a man Charlie Kirkdid not have.
He did not have Secret Servicelevel security.
He's a private citizen.
He's not a hardened target.

(22:50):
He doesn't have bulletproofglass around him, he doesn't have
teams of snipers doing sweepslike Trump did.
And so he was a relativelysoft target, unfortunately, easy
to get at.
And some guys with very warpedand deranged minds decided to do
that.
And they are men, by the way,whatever they want to call themselves,
they are men.
And so to try and say like,oh, there's this grand conspiracy

(23:13):
of other details going on ispreventing us from really landing
on a narrative of what's trueso we can go through the process
of a trial, get closure, putit behind us and figure out what
do we do now.
And so when you take theradical left wing people who are
celebrating, the radical rightwing people who want to do a violence
and you take the anti Israelconspiracy influencers and that whole

(23:36):
sphere and then the conspirabros, the conspirator as I've heard
them called.
When you take all those peopleand then you keep those frames in
mind and then you go and youlook at X and that's all that I see.
That's really all that I see.
And so you have this deeplytraumatized nation, people who have
really been suffering vicariously.

(23:56):
And by the way, I think thisis also why Erica Kirk's speech was
so powerful, is that shechanneled within 48 hours or 72 hours.
I think it was Friday nightthat she spoke.
She was there to show thegrief that everyone was feeling in
a way that no one else really had.
JD Vance spoke on Monday and Ithink he really put forth a masculine

(24:18):
face on grief.
I thought his speech onCharlie Kirk's show was wonderful.
Especially reciting the Nicene Creed.
But ERICA Kirk, within 72hours of the event, pulls herself
together.
I saw footage of herdescending the staircase on Air Force
Two with Usha Vance, and herbody language just said that she
was destroyed.
She couldn't.
I was surprised that she wasable to walk.

(24:38):
And so she's able to stand oncamera and channel the grief that
so many people were feeling.
And I think it was a veryhealing moment for many people, for
good reason.
It was steely resolve.
It was, this will not be the end.
We are going to go forward.
And you have no idea.
What you've created was whatpeople, good people, needed to hear.
Commitment to the vision ofCharlie Kirk, which we'll get to

(24:58):
that.
And so she was the only onewho I've seen.
She and JD Vance are the onlyones that I've seen that have really
offered any healing, both tomen and to women.
And so meanwhile, you have the.
These other four factions thatare continuing to stir things up
in the most vile form of selfinterest, the most vile and selfish
form of self interest.
And I pray that they stop.
I pray that they all stop.

(25:20):
Because there are literallymillions of people in America and
around the world who are stillsuffering from grief and shock for
this and for good reason, forthe loss of these individual lives
who I mentioned.
And also the intrusion ofbrutal gun and knife violence into
their lives and the feeling oflack of safety that they all are
feeling.
They feel that, whetherrightfully or wrongfully, whether

(25:42):
they are personally in danger,it is difficult to say, impossible
to say.
It's evaluated on individual level.
And yet one can understand howthey might feel that way with such
violent events in such close proximity.
And so into this environmentof true grief and shock, of these
truly praiseworthy thingswhich we've lost, including our innocence.
You have opportunists who arethinking only about themselves.

(26:05):
They're thinking only abouttheir platform, their ideology, their
ideas, their worldview,whatever they have to peddle.

(28:55):
And to see the opportunismflood in, to see the selfishness
flood in again, at the highestlevel, we are all subject to the
churn and emotions run high.
And it's certainly one thing.
But there are people at thehighest level, both that we can see
and that we can't, that arepushing this.
And that has been very difficult.
That has been very difficultto watch.

(29:16):
And so coming up this Sundayis the memor service here in.
Here in Phoenix and Glendale,on the other side of town.
And my prayer is that it's inthe morning during church so insofar
as I know I won't beattending, but I think I have questions

(29:36):
about it being during church hours.
However, I also understandthat it will be presented as a church
service.
And so I can't necessarilyargue with that because certainly
one of the, the good outcomesof this is that people are turning
to faith.
And my hope and my prayer isthat this service, which begins at
11 o' clock in the morning,doors open at 8.

(29:56):
I went and I got my beardtrimmed today and I was talking to
my barber about it and he saidthey're going to try to be there
at 6 and so he's quite faraway like I am.
And so it's going to be thatkind of day.
But my prayer is that forthose who commit to attending this
60,000, 80,000 person stadiumwith the president, vice president

(30:17):
and many Christian worshipleaders as well, that it be a worship
service of.
And of course, Erica Kirk,that it be a worship service of healing,
because that is what we'velacked in the public dialogue so
far is a real expression ofgrief, a real expression of like,
hey, this was a lot for a lotof us.

(30:37):
And if you influential peoplecould just like pipe down and stop
thinking of yourselves for afew minutes and maybe think about
the people you know who followyou or who respect you or who respected
you, that might be a betterway for us to move forward.
But thankfully we are not only.

(30:58):
We do not only haveinfluencers at any level to thank
or to look to, we actually dohave God and Jesus Christ.
And the fifth category ofperson that I believe is the majority,
I really do believe it is themajority are people that are now
finding a renewal of their faith.
We might call it a revival.

(31:18):
I think the legs of thisrevival we will see over time.
However, I do feel that quitea bit of it is very genuine that
people are asking deeper,harder questions than I think they
were ready to preciselybecause of the shock and the grief.
How do we find meaning in thisthat is outside of the political

(31:39):
warfare?
How do we find meaning in thisthat is outside of right versus left,
radical left versus radicalright center presidential campaigns?
How do we make meaning out ofthis in a way that's sustainable?
And I think people veryrightfully have a Holy Spirit inspired
instinct, God willing, that'staking them to look beyond themselves

(32:00):
and also within themselves tofind where is the truth?
And let me return toscripture, let me return to church,
let me return to the trueanswers that found in our society
and see what they have to sayto me.
And say to me about my life,and maybe I'm really ready to hear
those answers for the firsttime ever or for the first time in

(32:20):
a long time for many.
And so I've been very gratefulto see that amongst the influencers
and the radical left and theradical right and all of that, there's
been a very heartfelt spiritof let's do as Charlie did.
Let's ask hard questions, butengage with dialogue and listen.

(32:41):
Let's ask ourselves hard questions.
Let's have the courage to grow.
Let's have the courage to bewrong about things that we thought,
and let's have the courage toengage with people that we may disagree
with.
And that, I think is the mostbeautiful aspect of Charlie's legacy.
I'm going to get emotionalsaying this, so please forgive me,

(33:02):
is that he died doing what he loved.
He died doing what he loved.
He died doing what he was best at.
What he was great at wassitting in a tent, engaging people
with dialogue respectfully,even if they weren't respectful to
him.
How many people were there?

(33:22):
A couple thousand, I think.
Thousands, I think, for sure.
And amplified sound and, youknow, it was a far cry from setting
up in a quad at a smalluniversity on a cloudy day.
It was a beautiful sunny day,you know, late early fall day in
Utah and big tent and a giant auditorium.
And he was doing what he wasbest at.

(33:44):
He was doing what he loved.
And he was being, you know, the.
The best version of himself hecould be.
That he had worked to be at ahigh level of proficiency and committed
to the people who are right infront of him.
You are made in the image of God.
And I believe that as God'simage bearer, that you can't.
That I can reach you with reason.

(34:05):
That I can reach you byappealing to your humanity.
That I don't have to shut youdown, that I don't have to shut you
out.
That I don't have to take yourlife or do violence to you, to silence
you.
I believe, or to prove mypoint, I believe that I can sit and
I can speak with you person toperson in front of all these people,
man to man.

(34:25):
And that together, throughasking intelligent questions and
giving thoughtful reasonanswers, that together we can arrive
at the truth.
That is a commitment to a wayof being in the world.
That is a commitment to a wayof being a man that says, I can win
your heart, I can win yourmind, and I can win your heart, and
I can win it to Christ, and Ican do it with my presence and with

(34:47):
my body and with my spirit.
I don't have to do it withforce of arms.
I don't have to do it with the sword.
I can do it with me, with meas the object, as the instrument
in God's hands.
And he made that commitment toa way of being a man, to a way of
being in the world.
And he was wildly successfulwith it.
It.
He was wildly successful with it.

(35:08):
And I can't think of anyone inthe political sphere who's been as
successful committing to adeeply Christian and highly Christian
way of being.
And so I think the best way tocarry on Charlie's legacy is to be
as Charlie was.
To carry on his legacy bybeing like him.

(35:30):
By not quitting on her fellowAmericans, our fellow men and women.
Not quitting on the radicalleftist, not quitting on the radical
rightist, not quitting on theconspira bros or the Israel people
or any of them.
By saying I'm not going toshut you down as much as my flesh
may want to.

(35:51):
I will reach you even if Ican't reach you.
I can reach the person next tome who likes you or who follows you
or agrees with you bymaintaining that spirit of dialogue,
of reason, of mastery ofinformation and arguments, by getting
inside the mind and theworldview of others to know how to
free them from their own chains.

(36:11):
That's what Charlie Kirk didfrom a Christian spirit.
And he was excellent at it.
And he was excellent at it.
And so we lack men and womenwho are courageous enough to do it
at the level that he did itat, with the proficiency that he
did it at.
But we only lack that for now.
I don't think we will lack it forever.

(36:32):
And so my exhortation topeople listening who have seen, whether
it be the radical right, theradical left or all the varieties
of conspiracy people orcommunities that I don't even have
visibility into is to look atthem through the eyes of compassion
and to know that they aremaking a bad choice or many bad choices

(36:53):
for how to respond to atraumatic, a grief and shock driven
event.
They're acting out ofinstinct, they're acting out of fleshly
desires to serve self at theexpense of others.
And there is another choicethat can be made.
How do I serve others at theexpense of myself?
And that is the commitment ofthe Christian life.

(37:16):
How do I serve others at theexpense of myself?
That is what Christ came to dois to serve others humanity to serve
his people at the expense of himself.
That is what Charlie Kirk didwas to serve others at the expense
of himself.
And it cost him everything,just like it cost Christ everything.
But that is the commitmentthat I think we all have to make,
that I think in our hearts wefeel called to make, that we all.

(37:40):
Certainly, speaking for myselfand for many men that I've talked
to, of course women feel thisas well.
What can I give myself to thatwill truly serve?
I speak to so many men thatare longing for purpose, that are
looking for purpose.
But when they talk to me, whatthey're not saying is, I want to
make a billion dollars.
Those guys, they've got otherthings to do.

(38:01):
They're saying, what can Ireally give myself to in order to
serve?
And so I think as men andwomen, we feel that call to die to
ourself.
What can I give myself that isworth dying to?
Surely our faith, surely ourfamilies, surely our vocations, which
might not necessarily be ourjobs, you know, our careers, our
vocations can be very different.

(38:22):
But I think if we can die toself, we can truly serve our nation.
And I think there is anopportunity to do that here, inspired
by Charlie Kirk's example.
So again, my encouragement toeveryone is to look at what's taken
place and to look at what'stranspired over the past seven or
eight days and of course,grieve it, of course witness the

(38:42):
shock and really take in thereality of, of the brutal truth of
life.
This is how violent the world is.
We are spared from this inAmerica, but if you lived in Afghanistan,
many places in the Middleeast, sub Saharan Africa, plenty
of places around the world,you would see this and perhaps worse
every single day.
And so to take this in andsay, this is the fallen world that
we live in.

(39:03):
We are sheltered from it, itis a blessing to be so as it breaks
through.
However, lead it to show younot how fallen the world is, but
to the Savior who saves us,who delivers us from this fallen
world.
And what does he ask of us?
He asks us to serve.
He asks us to take up ourcross to die, to follow him and die.

(39:24):
And so that's what I seeCharlie Kirk doing.
And that is what I see manywomen, many men and women who should
know, failing to do.
And so they can fail.
But we will succeed.
We will succeed.
And I believe you will succeedif you're listening.

(39:45):
And so I encourage you tospend some time in reflection and
prayer to understand how canyou give yourself to living out Charlie
Kirk's mission in your life.
You don't have to start aTPUSA branch.
You don't have to do that.
But certainly there are areasin your life that you can do as Charlie
did and perhaps move theneedle in ways that are meaningful
to you and your family.

(40:05):
You certainly don't have tomake all the templates, but take
the talents that you have andmultiply them in the ways you can.
And that, I think, is therighteous way to live in Charlie's.
To live in Charlie's legacyand to honor his legacy.
And may we all go forward intothe corners of our lives and our
world to do that.
And let's leave the others behind.

(40:26):
So thank you so much for listening.
I appreciate you letting megive this little rant about how I
see things.
I appreciate everyone who'swatching, and I'm very grateful for
you.
And here we are, a little bitlater than expected.
Expected.
But I'd like to bring up tothe stage some of my friends who
I'm very grateful have joined us.
It looks like we've got CodyLawrence, Experimental arrows.

(40:51):
I've got.
We've got Hitler hated Christ.
We've got Michael Olson.
And last but not least, we'vegot Pastor Darren Paul.
Thank you guys so much all forbeing here for joining us on this
on this occasion.
And thanks for your patiencewhile I ran a little bit long with
my comments.
But I'm grateful to have thisopportunity to speak with all of

(41:12):
you today.
It's good to be here.
So I'm going to.
Many people may not know whosome of you gentlemen are, so I'm
just going to go across therow and just let you guys introduce
yourself.
We'll start with Cody and.
And then we'll go with Hitlerhated Christ and then Michael and
then Darren.
So Cody, just go ahead andgive a brief overview of you and

(41:35):
who you are and what you do.
Cody, can you hear me?
Yeah.
I am the host of the Spare noEras podcast.
I am just a layman who noticesthings, I guess you could say.
I. I have been particularly.

(41:56):
I take aim at cultural issuesand issues specifically within the
Christian sphere, butculturally in general, and try to
give moral and biblicalsolutions to those problems and help
equip people to deal withthose in their families and in their
churches and in their lives.
Thank you, Cody.

(42:18):
Hitler hated Christ.
Are you there?
Yep, I'm here.
Can you hear me?
Yes, I can hear you just fine.
You're.
He's.
He's anonymous, ladies and gentlemen.
So you just get to hear his voice.
Don't see his face.
Yeah, sorry about that.
You don't have to make me fullscreen if you don't want, but that's
fine.
Yeah.
So I run the.
Run the Twitter accountnotrguy, and I post a lot of stuff

(42:41):
related to, like, World War IIhistory, but also kind of the intersection
of politics as well astheology in some of the, like, more
dissident.
Right.
Areas online.
And so this Charlie Kirksituation with that has really been
pretty impactful and touched awhole lot of different people that
I interact with and knowpersonally or through online as well.

(43:03):
Wonderful.
I appreciate.
I appreciate your work aswell, Mikal Mikhail.
Yeah, everybody says it differently.
It's fine.
So I'm a journalist.
I've done some writing for.
For Christian Post, not thebe, which is the kind of affiliate
website to Babylon be, thereal news site.

(43:24):
I've also done some writingfor the Federalist in the past.
Right now I'm running aYouTube channel.
I'm still writing a little bitfor Christian Post and Not the Bee.
And so there's a lot, A lot ofthings going on.
Starting a new podcast comingup pretty soon.
My whole goal is basically totry and view the political landscape
through a biblical lens asmuch as possible.
So that's kind of theframework that I'm always looking

(43:45):
at everything through and, andwriting through and all that.
So wonderful.
Grateful for you and for your work.
And then, Pastor Darren.
I'm just a local churchpastor, I guess, serve a church in
Souderton, Pennsylvania.
Our church is, gosh, well over200 years old.

(44:06):
We've been through a lot.
I've been in pastoral ministryfor about almost 30 years now, so
I guess I'm a little bit of anold head.
Yeah.
So just glad to be here andglad to connect Will in person and
not through signal as weusually do.
That's right.
That's right.
It's.
It's good to meet you too, sir.

(44:27):
So actually, I'd like to startwith you, Pastor Darren.
You're the one working mostdirectly with people with your congregants.
You know, can you share alittle bit of what it's been like.
What it's been like on theground with the people that you've
been talking with and, andsome of the conversations that, that
you've had?
Yeah, I mean, I think you.
You touched on quite a bit ofit there kind of in your monologue.

(44:52):
Our.
Our congregation skews alittle bit older.
I've been here about a year,almost a year and a half and, you
know, we've gotten youngerthis past Sunday, though, coming
in and, and even, you know,Wednesday through Sunday after, you
know, everything hadtranspired, you know, people coming
by the office, butparticularly on Sunday, you know,

(45:15):
seeing people and talking topeople in our congregation that are
in their 80s, 90s, we have Ithink 100, 101 year old that comes,
something like that, justcompletely devastated over this.
And a lot of them, you know,they knew Charlie's name.
I don't know if theynecessarily knew what he stood for

(45:36):
other than being maybe a rightwing political activist or something
like that, but they werecompletely devastated by it.
And so walking with ourcongregation, you know, again, 100
something year old folks,followers of Christ, you know, down
to children, as you notedagain in your monologue, you know,

(45:57):
seeing this thing on socialmedia without hitting play, I think
for a lot of folks was justquite jarring.
And you know, I am one of thepastors, I know there was a huge
dialogue of online, you know,should we talk about it?
Shouldn't we, if, if yourchurch doesn't, you know, you should
leave.
I did talk about it and, andalso the stabbing of Irena as well

(46:21):
and was a shepherding momentfor our, our people.
And I, I don't know how youdon't talk about it.
I think obviously we candiscuss how to, but in, in my context,
they needed to hear from, fromtheir shepherd and, and how to navigate

(46:47):
seeing a martyr, a Christianmartyr essentially on live television.
Something I never thought Iwould see in my lifetime.
And I'm sure some of our olderfolks would say the same.
You know, I remember mydaughter asking me years ago, you
know, dad, do you think we'llever see.

(47:09):
She's a history buff and youknow, do you think we'll ever see,
you know, martyrdom in theUnited States?
And I said not in my lifetime,maybe yours, but not in mine.
And, and, and here we are.
So it, it impacted our people tremendously.
Just like I'm sure itimpacted, you know, those that you
go to church with and, and,and, and do life with, so to speak.

(47:29):
So yeah, that makes a lot ofsense that, yeah, certainly.
And I want to get to thispoint a little bit later.
The question of, you know,should you leave your church if your
pastor didn't mention it?
I know that you had, you hadasked on X if we would cover that
and I do think we should cover it.
And I think there isabsolutely a good pastoral ministry

(47:50):
case to bring it up, you know,to men to mention it because people
are suffering as a result of it.
And so I definitely want totouch on that.
And so I'm grateful that thatyou lent that historical perspective
like an 80 year old peoplethat are very shook up by it.
And the question of Christianmartyrdom is very, very real.
Yeah, absolutely.
So actually I want to go toHitler hated Christ.

(48:13):
And I just wanted to ask, youknow, I spoke a bit about the radical
right.
I'm not sure if you heard,heard during the monologue that some
of their, what shall we say,unappreciated responses to the difficult
moments that we've been experiencing.
Can you talk a little bitabout what you've seen in that regard
maybe since things went downearly last week with Irena and then

(48:36):
where things are at now?
Yeah, yeah.
So the situation with Irenafeels like it's, you know, 100 years
ago now with everything that'stranspired since last Wednesday.
Yes.
But one of the primary thingsthat I've sort of noticed is there's
definitely a separating of thewheat from the chaff in terms of

(48:59):
people's response to this andhow willing people are to really
try to get their pet issuethat they're worried about injected
into the conversation.
I see a lot of people thatare, that are really talking about
Charlie's life, the way heimpacted so many people for the Lord,

(49:21):
that kind of thing.
But then there's also a wholelot of people that are coming up
with all sorts of wildconspiracy theories about Israel
at the same time.
Right.
So it's really a wild mix.
When I scroll through just mytimeline of individuals that I think
are being really reflective ofChrist and the response and then
other people that are, they'reshocked by it, but it doesn't seem

(49:42):
to have changed, I guess theway they think about the situation.
One of the things I've seenquite a bit is this idea that Charlie
Kirk died and he was sort ofthe last one willing to have dialogue.
And there in mind this is likesort of a nail in the coffin for
his belief that we can sort ofhave arguments about these topics

(50:04):
in this country.
And that makes me, that makesme pretty sad to see, just to see,
you know, just thinking of howCharlie presented himself and how
he really did believe indialogue with all sorts of people
to try to convince them eitherof Christianity or even just his
political opinions.
And so that that sort ofsentiment makes me sad.
But most of what I've seen hasbeen rather positive.

(50:27):
There's a lot of people that Iknow personally who, you know, I
didn't think were verypolitical, but I've seen react to
this pretty dramaticallysaying things like, you know, I'm
planning You know, I think I'mgoing to go back to church.
I know I can think of two orthree different people who I don't
think attend church regularlythat have gone to church just because
it was such a drastic event.

(50:49):
And they're.
They're probably pretty scared somewhat.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, youtouched on it a second ago when you.
When you said this, but also,like the conversation about if Charlie
is a Christian martyr.
Right.
Like, what is that defined as?
And I mean, I think given allthe information that's come out now,

(51:11):
it would seem that he waskilled for a belief, not something
just like his economic policy,but his belief about biblical sexuality.
And so it's hard to make acase that he's not a Christian martyr
on that basis, given themotives that were at play.
But like anything with socialmedia, there's a lot of different

(51:32):
perspectives, and you can findsome of the worst stuff if you really
are looking for it.
But I think overall, theresponse has been relatively measured
and responsible.
I'm happy to hear that.
I mean, the content bubble ofthe algorithmic bubble of X and other
social media platforms can bereal, reflecting our own interests

(51:53):
back to us rather than what'sactually going on.
So my sense is that themajority response has been very positive.
I mean, they're going to fillup Arizona Cardinals Stadium on Sunday,
and I'm sure there's going tobe thousands of people outside watching
as well.
And I think that's the fargreater norm than anything else.
Just a quick question, actually.

(52:14):
I want to touch on themartyrdom issue.
If we can, just reallyquickly, maybe as we go through the
list, we can address it as well.
Yeah.
It wasn't specifically for hisChristian faith as such, but it was
because of an outgrowth of hisChristian faith, surely, that he
rooted his objection totransgenderism in Scripture, as he

(52:36):
rooted many other political positions.
I think it's fair tocategorize him under the heading
of a Christian martyr.
And I think that there's anemotional weight and gravity to that,
that he was.
Based on the videos that I'mseeing, he, at this stage of his
career, was more of aChristian evangelist than a politico,
even.
And who knows where he wouldhave been a year from now.

(52:59):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I think that'sdefinitely true.
And I mean, you know, like,Frank Turek, the apologist, was right
there, you know, 10ft from himwhen this happened.
Yeah.
And there's a reason hebrought him all over the place to
field questions.
I mean, he would sort of taghim in when there were biblical questions
that came up at these sorts of events.
And.
And he would come up and givea defense of the gospel if Charlie

(53:20):
didn't even do it himself.
And he often did.
Right.
And so I think, you know, Idon't think that someone isn't a
martyr merely when they're killed.
If someone says, hey, are youa Christian?
And you say, yes, and thenthey kill you.
Right.
I think that if you're in theact of evangelizing, reflecting Christ
in that way, and that's likeyour explicit purpose and value,

(53:42):
and then someone kills youbecause of that.
Right.
Directly because of that.
I don't see how you get aroundthat definition.
And I mean, I can't think ofanyone in this country that's happened
to in my lifetime, at leastnot at the level that it has been
known about at scale like this.
Yeah, I mean, someone atCharlie Kirk's level of renown and

(54:05):
connections.
I heard that he was.
That Donald Trump regardedCharlie Kirk as his fourth son.
And just because of theinfluence that Donald Trump had had
on Charlie Kirk's life.
And of course, Charlie Kirk,it's pretty widely known at this
point that helped get DonaldTrump elected through reaching out
to young men.
And so there was a very closepersonal bond there.
And so you have a man who'sliving at the highest levels of,

(54:29):
we might say, material powerin the world, openly professing his
faith and killed for anoutgrowth of his faith.
That's as close to martyrdomas I think you're probably going
to get today, given the natureof our culture.
So, Mikhail, one of the thingsthat I've noticed lately is that
you've been mixing it up withsome of many of the influences.

(54:52):
The highest level I've seenyou be retweeted, not necessarily
favorably by Matt Walsh, notfavorably by others.
And yeah, it shows that theycan pay attention to whoever they
want, and they seem to bechoosing to pay attention to you,
praise God.
So you must be.
So you must be striking anerve somehow.
And first, I guess my firstquestion would be like, what's that

(55:14):
like for you?
And second, you know, I spoke.
Please, go ahead, go ahead,run with that.
It's weird.
You know, it's, it's, youknow, I've had to name some names.
I've had Candace Owenspreviously tweet some unfavorable
things at me.
I've had Matt Walsh and some others.
And part of it's discouragingin the sense of, like, these are

(55:35):
people that, especiallyworking in politics Working with,
not with, not the bee Babylon be.
It's like you want to befriends with people, right?
You want to build a networkand you want to get along with people
as best that you can.
But at some point, you have todraw a line.
And I think we've.
I've been seeing things,especially with a lot of these, you

(55:56):
know, very influentialconservative pundits that I've been
having to draw some firm, firmlines with and do it publicly.
And not because I necessarilyneed to, but I feel like things don't
change unless, you know,especially Christian men make things
their own problem.
Like, you kind of have to makesomething your problem if you want

(56:16):
something to change, becauseit's really easy to have this complicit
attitude of like, well, I'mnot going to say this or I'm not
going to say that because itmight upset this person.
And then this isn't going toget me this opportunity and, and
so on and so on.
But I think it's just a better.
It's just all around better tosay, I'm going to tell the truth
and I'm going to do itpublicly and openly, and if people
don't like it, then so be it,and just kind of let the chips fall

(56:39):
where they may.
So that's kind of the strategyI've tried to have.
So from the, from the postureof your.
Of your place there in theMidwest, I believe, must be quite
a thing seeing people withworldwide reach being like, I don't,
I don't like you, whoever you are.
It's very strange.
Yeah, it's really.
Yeah, it's really strange.

(57:00):
And people in my family arealways like, I'm worried about you.
They're going to come afteryou or do something.
And I'm like, it's fine.
It's probably fine.
But yeah, it's been aninteresting experience.
And thankfully, there's been alot of good people that I've been
able to interact with.
And I mean, all of you guysincluded, people like Seth Dillon,

(57:21):
people like Joel Berry, peoplelike James Lindsay, who I've had
the opportunity to interactwith a lot privately, and they've
been a huge encouragement.
It's not just kind of me alonehere on the front lines.
You could say there's plentyof other people that are pushing
back against some of these.
Some of the bad direction,especially the right is going, which
we've kind of alluded to alittle bit already in this episode.

(57:42):
So I had a bit to say about how.
How many influencers, probablyall of Them at this point are letting
me down in this regard whenthey could be a force for healing.
Maybe speak about that alittle bit because you've been closer
to that in many ways andmonitoring what the direction these
people are going, theirtrajectory over several months or
even a year or more at this point.

(58:02):
Talk a little bit about that.
Yeah.
So I think what you're seeingis kind of this, especially in the
wake.
I've noticed this with the,you know, after this whole Charlie
Kirk tragedy since that's unfolded.
You're seeing, and this is oneof the things that I called Matt
Walsh out on specifically isyou're seeing this kind of.
And we've seen this in likemore of the smaller factions, the,

(58:24):
you know, American Reform orRight Response Ministries, adjacent
coalitions on the so calledright, or they want to categorize
themselves on the right.
I don't think that'snecessarily accurate at this point.
But you, you see this kind ofnetter philosophy, there's no enemies
to the right and you're seeingbigger accounts like Matt Walsh start
to adapt that and even quotethis concept of a friend enemy distinction,

(58:47):
which he said in one of hisrecent podcasts, pretty much directly
quoting Carl Schmidt, theinfamous Nazi philosopher.
You guys know who that is.
And I'm sure Hitler HurdyChrist could, could tell us quite
a bit about that.
Right.
But nonetheless, you're seeingthis and I think it's this response
to seeing how evil and wickedthe left is up front and they're
using it as an opportunity toentrench the right in further tribalism

(59:09):
instead of, of like toactually take stock of ourselves
morally.
Because when we're confrontedwith evil, I think that is a perfect
moment.
I think God allows us to beconfronted with evil, whether it's
sin in our own life or seeingevil out in the world as we've experienced
over the last couple weeks, aswe've been talking about here up
close and personal in a waythat is very jarring to a lot of
people.
I think God allows us to dothat not so that we can start pointing

(59:32):
the finger at the other side,but so we can actually take stock
of ourselves and examine ourown hearts.
And that's really the biblicaland Christian response to, to evil
in the world and confrontingit personally.
And so it's sad to see a lotof these people that do claim to
be Christians like Matt Walshkind of have that non reflective
response, if that makes sense.

(59:53):
So that's a lot of what I'vebeen seeing.
That's a fantastic way ofputting it.
There has been a deep lack ofreflection that has been very needed
in so many sectors.
And it's almost like,especially watching, like, Candace
Owens lately.
Like, girl, go get a mirror.
Like, what is going on over there?
You know, like, I don't thinkNick Fuentes is the most reflective

(01:00:14):
guy, but when he's calling outCandace Owens, you're way off the
reservation.
Yeah, it's, it's, again, itcomes back to, are people actually
trying to pay tribute toCharlie Kirk and his family in a
respectful manner because itmatters to them?
Are they trying to use this asan opportunity to enrich themselves
or to love bomb a certain audience?
Like what Nick Fuentes isdoing, for example, I believe, to

(01:00:36):
try and kind of get thatCharlie Kirk base for himself.
See, I'm one of you.
He's kind of presenting himself.
Violence is wrong.
I'm so sad about what happened.
Even though a couple weeksbefore he's saying Charlie Kirk is
a fraud and he's not a realChristian and this and that.
You know, his followers havebeen calling for the death of Charlie
Kirk for a long time.
This is very much documented,the griper movement.

(01:00:58):
And so, and I don't know ifI'm not accusing Nick Fuentes of
specifically saying that, butthere's certainly a lot of people
within his direct orbit thathave been saying things like that.
And he said nothing againstthat up and, you know, up until now,
when it's convenient for himto politically do so.
And so you're just seeing alot of opportunity, opportunistic
strategy with people like this.

(01:01:18):
And so my, my, my, my thingthat I'm really trying to get people
to, to understand is kind ofjust pausing on the emotional response.
It's easy to have theemotional response.
It's easy to try and, youknow, grab for answers.
And look, Nick Fuentes, helooks like he's giving us answers.
He looks like a voice ofreason right now.
Let's start listening to him.
That's an easy response.
But we have to remember thebig picture here of who these people

(01:01:41):
are, what their history is.
Have they actuallyacknowledged where they've gone wrong
in the past?
It would be different if NickFuentes came forward and said something
like, you know what?
Here's everything I got wrongin the past.
I apologize for this.
This has been a rude awakeningfor me as to.
I've gone way too far in theradical, you know, neo fascist direction.
Here's what I've said, that's sinful.
I repent of that.

(01:02:02):
And here's now my new, my new.
That would be a wholedifferent story.
Right, but he's not doing that.
He's, he's just, he's justskipping over that part, the repentance
part, and just acting likehe's now in step with the mainstream
conservative talking points onthis stuff.
And I think it's just, he's an opportunist.
He's just trying to get thataudience for himself.
He's trying to swoon the Gen Zaudience that Charlie Kirk was so

(01:02:25):
influential in.
And you're seeing again thiswith Candace Owens and many others,
of course.
So this is what I was tryingto warn Matt Walsh about as he starts
to talk about the friend enemydistinction and Netter and this kind
of philosophy just to defeatthe left as if evil is just over
here on the left and there'sno evil here on the right and we
just have to alienateeverybody on the left and then our

(01:02:46):
societal society will be good.
That's just not how humannature works.
It's not a sin works.
Sin is in the heart of eachindividual and there's sinful people
on every side.
So I, I, I just, I'm againstthat philosophy and that's kind of
the main crux of what themessage I've been trying to get across
lately.
I think.
Right, put your, I think youput your finger right on it.
I want to Cody, I want to goto you real quick.

(01:03:08):
This is definitely in, in yourwheelhouse with trying to inspire
men and women, individualcontent creators, but also many of
the anons online young malebelievers in the church to be a bit
more self reflective onthemselves, maybe to focus more on
doctrine, less on net or lesson political gains and more on growth
and sanctification.
What has, what's been going onfor you through, through all of this?

(01:03:30):
I, it could just be my content double.
I feel like maybe you've beenslightly more quiet than I've seen
you in the past, but I couldjust be missing the good work that
you're doing out there.
So what's, what have thingsbeen look looking like for you on
the ground where you're at?
Yeah, I kind of have beenslower putting out content and not
saying a lot just because I'mtrying to be reflective about what's

(01:03:51):
going on and not make hastydecisions because like Mikhail said,
that's a huge problem that'shappening on our side.
And you said too that a lot ofpeople calling themselves right wing
or calling themselvesChristians who should be the voices
of reason and calm reflectivebiblical Truth are getting just as

(01:04:14):
angry and heated as leftists.
And that's the very last thingI want to do.
And I do have opinions forsure, but I'm trying to be slow about
those opinions.
But probably one of thebiggest takeaways from all of this,
other than deep grief, is kindof the shock, like you were saying,

(01:04:35):
Will of.
I mean, I expect the reactionon the left, you know, people I know,
they work with, people who arejust gleeful about Charlie Kirk getting
assassinated and they're like,well, he was pro second Amendment
and I'm not.
So he had it coming to him, hedeserved it.
That's what you get, stufflike that.
And it's gross, it's disgusting.
But that's kind of what we'vecome to expect from broadly the left.

(01:05:00):
And there are quite a fewreasonable or more reasonable people
on the left who are disgustedby that kind of behavior.
And that's good.
And hopefully they take thatas a kind of sign that maybe they
should get away from theworldview that they proclaim that's
actually enabling all theseother people to believe all these
evil things.
But the other thing that I'mprobably even more disgusted by because

(01:05:21):
that's not surprising to me.
It's not surprising when a figtree bears figs.
But what is surprising is whenpeople who I used to like and people
who I used to associate withand people who I thought were on
my team, like Mikael wassaying, like Candace Owens and Matt

(01:05:42):
Walsh, and not that all ofthem are not on our team anymore,
but there's definitely thispull that's happening and this influence
of absolutely blatant evilideology that is slithering its way
into our own communities.
And I don't like that.
And even like the no enemiesto the right thing, I think is a

(01:06:05):
very powerful tool right nowbecause in tragedies, people, they
recoil into tribalism, it seems.
And to some extent that's likea reasonable self defense mechanism.
But what's happening now isthat I think that is this idea where,
well, the right has to sticktogether that is enabling some very

(01:06:25):
bad actors, like people likeNick Fuentes and Candace Owens now
and other people to say, oh,hey, I'm one of you guys.
And so therefore you can't sayanything bad about me because we
have bigger enemies to dealwith, even though the worldview that
they are now reflecting isidentical to the one that the leftists
are pushing.
So in a way, I kind of, Iagree actually sort of with no enemies

(01:06:50):
to the right, if we properlyunderstand what right is.
But I think we've kind of lostin our culture right now the true
values of the right.
I think the vast majorityprobably nowadays, you know, just
like the Republican Party weall recognize is broadly corrupt.
And so I think just people whoconsider themselves right wing in

(01:07:13):
general, a lot of them havetotally lost what true right wing
values are.
And these things that areseeping into the community of people
that are calling themselvesright wing are not right wing values.
Like things like patriotismand small government and personal
responsibility and tradition,Christian values.
Those are all right wingvalues that are being lost whenever

(01:07:36):
we want to rile people up intocivil war and completely abandon
the biblical principles ofloving your enemies and praying for
those who persecute you andturn the other cheek.
And that's not to say that wecan't be angry.
And that's not to say that wecan't be violent as a last resort
or in self defense.

(01:07:57):
That's not what I'm saying at all.
I'm not pushing pacifism and Idon't think the Bible pushes pacifism
either.
But there is a gleeful hatredof violence that is infecting people
who at least considerthemselves right wing.
And that's actually not aright wing value at all.
That is the opposite oftraditional Christian values.
And so I kind of think like weneed to.

(01:08:19):
The people who are saying noenemies to the right, I think are
naive in a way because a lotof them are not actually like Matt
Walsh, for example.
The fact that he attackedMikhail the way he did was like,
dude, you don't recognize theevil around you.
Where people are callingthemselves right wing like Candace
Owens and Nick Fuentes.
They are, I think, thefarthest thing from right wing.

(01:08:40):
It is embarrassing that peoplesay, ah, those are, those are right
wing bad actors.
It's like they're not therepretending to be right wing.
They do not reflect the valuesof traditional right wing ideology
whatsoever.
Yeah, that's been a, that'sbeen a theme that I've been very
grateful to learn from you,that ultimately they're progressive,
but in, in, in a, in adifferent way.

(01:09:01):
But it is still ultimatelyprogressive values just expressing
themselves in a, in a, in adifferent frame we might say.
Yeah, so, so I want to go toHitler hated Christ quickly.
You know, we're, we're talkingabout these influencers for the moment
that have gone in this new noenemies to the right direction.
And as I watch this happening,and as I've seen it happen even before

(01:09:25):
we get to the level of aCandace Owens or whatever.
Matt Walsh.
It's happened at a lowerlevel, it seems to me, over the past
say 18 or so months wherepeople have just, you know, particularly
a lot of young men onlineanons have found their way on this
trajectory and many pastors aswell have found themselves on this
right wing trajectory and theydon't seem to want to pump the brakes

(01:09:48):
on it.
And so can you talk a littlebit about that?
I know that this is a set ofsubjects that you expert in and you've,
if you ask me, you've beenreceiving due recognition for your
expertise lately.
Maybe you could talk a littlebit, a little bit about this trajectory
and tie it to the larger swingwe might be seeing in young men particularly.
Yeah, I mean, I think one ofthe things with young men, and I

(01:10:09):
think we can even gleam thisbiblically is that the largest thing
that young men lack is wisdomand discernment.
And I think that really tiesin very, very well, well with what
we see in the politicallandscape in like very reactionary
right wing politics where theidea is I don't care what it is,
I just want something to bedone right.

(01:10:31):
Like we don't care if itactually solves the problem in the
future or helps reconcile themassively divergent values that people
have in this country.
I just want to see something done.
I want to see something happen.
Right.
And I can understand that desire.
And I think that on some levelGod does put that in young men to

(01:10:54):
sort of balance out maybe someof the apathy of older guys.
I think that some of that maybe sort of a biblical impetus.
But what especially older guysneed to be doing is taking that and
really asking like, okay, sowhat do we do?
Right?
I mean, I've had conversationswith a lot of people about this and
when you really go deeper inthat conversation and say, okay,

(01:11:16):
what would have prevented thisfrom happening?
And it's like, well, whatprobably wouldn't have prevented
this from happening is if theright all collectively decided that.
The.
Left entirely as an entitywants to murder us all.
That probably wouldn't preventthe radical leftists from feeling
like they have some sort ofself defense claim to go out and

(01:11:38):
kill right wing influencers.
Right?
And, but, but what would have potentially.
Right.
Would have been if there wasa, there was a pastor in this shooter's
life who recognized that hewas getting deeply involved in some
of these deeply perverse andpornographic lifestyles and reached
out to him.
We have no idea what wouldhave happened if that had occurred.
Right.
We don't Know to what extentthat did occur and, and didn't change

(01:12:01):
things, we don't know.
But out of a country of 360million people, getting one guy that's
like, that can do some extremedamage like we've seen.
And so you're not going tosolve that, I don't think, by macro
policy changes that are basedon people's very angry reactions.

(01:12:21):
Right.
You're going to solve that bypastors and men of God that know
people in their lives thatthey think are taking a wrong turn,
that are getting seduced bydifferent ideologies that really
sit down with them out of adesire to help that person and talk
through things with them.
Right.
But that's not the reactionthat most of us have when these sort

(01:12:42):
of tragedies occur.
The reaction is somethingneeds to happen.
Like, we gotta, you know, weneed to be more virulent.
Like, if we're more virulent,then we can stop this.
Right.
And I don't think that would work.
But anyway, so, so, so I want to.
I want to kick this to PastorDarren, you know, who, who is a.

(01:13:03):
Who is a pastor and who.
Who has presumably work withmany young men and older men and
young men and older women.
It seems to me there is a verymuch a need for pastors, faith leaders,
elders, father figures to getactively involved in young men's
lives.
But perhaps there's a.
There's a.
More, more wheat to harvestthan there are laborers.

(01:13:26):
Yeah, I mean, I think, I thinkyou're right, Will.
I think.
I mean, here's, here's a great example.
So the pastor that servedbefore me served at our church, EMANUEL
Ladies, for 37 years.
Served faithful.
He's well into his 70s now.
He asked me when I started if.
If he could have an officejust to hang out in.

(01:13:48):
And so I gave him an office.
Whatever, it's fine.
Not a big deal.
And he's been a huge blessingto me, huge mentor and all that stuff.
But earlier today, he cameinto my office and he was sharing
a story about a missionaryfamily that we support.
And the husband of thismissionary family just tragically

(01:14:10):
passed away earlier in the.
Let's see, it was in thespring, I believe.
Left behind three adoptedchildren, I think, all under the
age of 12.
Well, the middle child isrebelling pretty significantly.
We have a mission house at ourchurch where we allow missionaries
to stay on furlough.

(01:14:32):
So she's at our house now withher three kids.
And this middle child was sentto boarding school.
The boarding school kicked herout because of her, you know, acting
out in light of her dad'spassing in the spring, she doesn't
know how to deal with her emotions.

(01:14:53):
So anyhow, our 70 some yearold pastor emeritus is going to be
spending time with her three,four times a week over the next several
weeks just to be a fatherfigure, to impart the gospel into
her life, to help her dealwith this anger.

(01:15:14):
I mean, some of the stuff thatshe's been acting out in and doing
at this boarding school is just.
He shared a few things with meand I kind of gasped with one thing
in particular.
And, you know, here's this manwho is making himself available to
this family and this younggirl and I think we need more of
that.

(01:15:34):
I, I do think most Christianpeople do have more margin in their
lives than they think.
I just think they, they feelas though they're ill equipped and
I think it takes differentpoints in their lives to shake them
up and help them see thatthey're not.

(01:15:56):
And we've seen that just evenin the last year at our church of,
of older women stepping up andhelping and mentoring younger moms.
And we have an elder right nowwho's pretty far along.
He knows he's going to passsoon due to cancer, and he meets

(01:16:19):
every two weeks with a groupof young, married, essentially businessmen
and is trying to help them,mentor them, to pursue Christians,
to love their wives well andto build godly families and homes.
So I hope I'm answering the question.
I am seeing it.

(01:16:41):
I do think that Charlie's kindof mantra that we've been seeing
on social media, I think is happening.
I think folks like Doug Wilsonand others, you know, kind of broadcasting
that and showing that, and Ithink even just pastors like myself

(01:17:02):
that are in the trenches, wedon't have huge followings, you know,
nothing like that, but, butwe're just trying to labor faithfully
and, and kind of challenge andexhort our people lovingly to, to,
to disciple well, so I thinkit's happening.

(01:17:22):
Will, I'm answering yourquestion, but I am seeing it.
I do think obviously we needmore laborers, but I think there
is a subtle shift that I'mnoticing over these last several
years and I do think a slightwave is coming.

(01:17:46):
I could be off, but it, butthat's what I'm noticing.
So yes, I think, I think youwere, I think you were answering,
answering the question.
And I think, I think that's, Ithink that's a good, a good way of
approaching it.
I guess the, the, I was, I Waswondering also, like, I guess the,
the willingness to actuallyget like deep and deep in someone's

(01:18:08):
life.
Like, not to just, not tosimply just approach it as like,
I see you, I see you onSundays, or you're in my small group
group, but like, clearly youngman or young woman, you're, you're
struggling, whether you're ayoung man flirting with pornograph,
pornographic, violent,extremist ideologies like, like Tyler
Robinson or a young, a youngwoman straying just to say, like,

(01:18:29):
I'm going to get elbows deepinto this person's life and, and
bring this sheep back.
I think that's, that's thething I think is needed.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, I thinkwhat churches need to do more of
is essentially create kind ofshepherding environments where it's
not just on the pastor and theelders, but, but actually lay people
that are gifted and, and have,you know, the moxie, so to speak,

(01:18:54):
to get, to get into somebody'slife and say, hey, like, you know,
we're gonna get together.
And I, I'm noticing X, Y and Zabout you and, and I want to speak
truth in your life.
So, so, you know, you can seechange in who you are by the grace
of God.
You don't, you don't have tostay where you are.

(01:19:15):
And I do think, you know, thedays of, you know, the big, the big
show on Sunday morning and allof that stuff and pretending that
that is somehow discipling andchanging people's lives is over.
And I do think there issomething coming where people in
the church are, are gettingmore and more restless to, to walk

(01:19:39):
alongside of people and seereal life change and pulling them
out of kind of darkness andwhat have.
You praise God for that.
I wanna, I wanna kick thisover to Cody.
I know that you have a, a bitof a ministerial background.
I don't have it at the tip ofmind right now, but I know that you
do and that you, you come froma little bit from a big showy or
kind of church background, asI recall, and you've found your way

(01:20:01):
into the, the dungeon ofReformed theology.
Just kidding.
But talk a little bit becausethere is a ministerial aspect to
your work as well, of tryingto bring men and women out of destructive
ideologies and worldviews.
Talk a little bit about thework that you do and what you're
seeing just on the ground inyour life and maybe in the content

(01:20:23):
that you create, is there thiswillingness to get involved in people's
lives in a way that moves the needle.
Yeah.
First, it seems like a lot ofpeople, just in general, but especially
in times of great persecutionlike our nation is experiencing right
now, people want somethingthat feels like it answers their

(01:20:47):
problems.
And typically people wouldturn to the church for those things.
But it seems like in the pastfew decades, or we could even say
like the past century, I thinkprogressively it's just been getting.
The church has been less andless effective as we go on through
American history, but theyhave found that the church is impotent

(01:21:11):
to actually give them realsolutions to their problems.
And that's not to say that thechurch which offers the salvation
of Jesus Christ isn'tsufficient for solving their problems.
But I mean, churches whoreally are preaching the gospel,
I think in many cases are notshowing, both the pastors and the

(01:21:33):
congregations are not showingthat they're living consistently
with that faith.
A lot of churches are verypolitically diverse nowadays.
Initially we were talkingabout if pastors mention Charlie
Kirk or not, and I have acouple of different opinions on that,
but we can talk about that later.
But I think people, when theyfeel like they need something, and

(01:21:57):
that need, I think comes fromthis innate desire in us that was
put in by God to live out ourlives in a consistent way.
And when churches who shouldoffer us a consistent living faith
offers us the gospel, but it'san empty gospel, it's a gospel where
in many cases the churchesthemselves aren't living out that

(01:22:19):
that faith themselves, even ifthey might be preaching the word
of God, in many cases theyjust aren't living it out.
I think young people, even ifthey can't articulate it, and people
of any age, they see that andthey turn away from the church or
they turn towards, in manycases nowadays churches or secular
institutions that are offeringsolutions to their problems that

(01:22:45):
are temporal or are very quicksolutions that is not actually going
to fix things in the long runand certainly doesn't offer salvation.
So that's a kind of emptysolution too.
But instead of being empty atthe back end, like I think a lot
of churches are, where theyoffer salvation, they offer something
that they offer the gospel ofJesus Christ, which really is effective

(01:23:07):
if you live it out.
But these other things, theyseem to offer solutions at the front
end, and that's a lot of aneasier thing to grasp onto.
And so that's why I think thata lot of especially young men are
flocking towards thespiritually dead churches who.
Are.
Willing to stoke their angerand are willing to coddle them like

(01:23:31):
seeker sensitivity, buttowards the angry young men.
So I think that's why thosechurches are becoming more popular
right now, even though theyare equally as problematic as the
churches with that just focuson the big shows.
In a way, both of those are empty.
I've, I've heard somethinglike the, the churches who, who do

(01:23:52):
like the anger, anger porn,that's just fog machines, but for
their different brand oftheology, it's exactly the same thing.
It's all empty.
And a lot of people, they,they base their whole faith on like,
no, we need those fog machinesbecause I want this deep emotional
relationship with JesusChrist, which is a good thing to
have.
And that's why I need thosefog machines.

(01:24:13):
And I want to truly enact ortruly be a part of God's justice
and enacting that justice outin society, which is a good thing.
And so that's why I'm going togo to these churches where the pastors
just talk about how evilpeople are who don't look like me.
And so the problem just proliferates.
And the solution to that isnot being interested in just short

(01:24:39):
term solutions obviously, butalso focusing on consistent biblical
truth.
Like we can have the gospel,but we need to live it out.
And if somebody is living outjustice and seemingly biblical truth
in some areas of their life,but then they don't have the gospel
and they don't have the love,and they don't have all of the rest

(01:25:00):
of the entire council ofscripture, then they're still equally
as lost as all the other people.
And I think that's where, likeyou said, pastors need to come in
because the pastors need to beshepherding their congregation so
that one, they're defendedagainst these ideologies that are
coming in and trying tocorrupt their church and to equip
people to defend themselvesagainst this whenever it's, it comes

(01:25:23):
into play.
But also when somebody goescrazy or whenever there's somebody
in somebody's life who isgoing in a dangerous direction, we
even as laymen need to beequipped to go try to save them or
try to argue with them andexpress to them what the truth is.
So there's a huge lack of, Ithink, biblical truth in general

(01:25:45):
right now in our culture.
And that's due to the failureof pastors.
Ultimately our churchesbroadly are very bad because our
pastors are bad.
And that's creating worsechurches and that's creating worse
pastors.
And really the only solutionto this is revival.
We need to turn to Jesus andwe need to repent.
Do you think that some of thisalso ties to a lot of the interest

(01:26:06):
in Roman Catholicism andEastern Orthodoxy that maybe I'll
upset some of my listeners byasking, but it's the same appeal
to versions of emotionalismlike, no, I don't want this big showy
church with all the laserlight shows and non denominationalism
and.
And no, I don't like theseother reformed churches because maybe
they're kind of weird.
But I want tradition, I wantchurch history.
I want beards and incense.

(01:26:27):
I want to feel like it's holy.
Do you think that's part of it also?
Yeah, that sounds.
You and I talked about this onmy podcast before, but yeah, that
is all fog machines, all ofits fog machines.
And like I said, that's not tosay that having emotional worship
is a bad thing.
And that's not to say thatbeards is a bad thing.
And that's not to say thatyes, they are right.

(01:26:49):
And that's not to say thatlike many of the, I think icons,
you know, like idol worship isa bad thing, obviously.
And certain doctrinal elementsof Catholic and Orthodoxy I think
are dangerous, just likecertain false doctrinal elements
that's common in theevangelical church is a problem.
But the point is that we needto be putting everything in alignment

(01:27:11):
with scripture.
And when we don't do that, weare failing our churches and our
congregations tremendously.
And whenever we don't hold ourpastors accountable to these things,
we're also failing our churches.
So we can't have disqualifiedpastors, we can't have idols in our
church.
So if you can't use yourauthority, whatever authority you

(01:27:31):
have in a church to try tomake it better.
Yeah, I think you do have tofind a better church and buy a better
church.
I mean a more biblicallyconsistent church, because ultimately
you could have the worstchurch in the world that has no fellowship,
that has.
And I've been to thesechurches, I have personally participated

(01:27:52):
in these churches that werespiritually dead, but they had an
awesome, like multiple tens,if not hundreds of thousands of dollars
worth of like, worshipequipment and the fog machines and
the lights, that's all cool.
But you can have all of thatand you can still have a spiritually
dead church that completelylacks fellowship, completely lacks

(01:28:12):
biblical truth, is afraid tosay the stuff that needs to be said.
It's all smoke machines, even tradition.
If somebody cares abouttradition more than biblical truth,
the oldest tradition there isis the word of God that existed before
the beginning of time.
And if we're not holdingourselves in alignment to that word
of God, I.e.
jesus Christ, then we don'tactually care about tradition at

(01:28:32):
all.
Praise God.
Amen.
So, Mikhail, I think one ofthe things that's coming up for me
as Cody and all of us aretalking about this is that the influencers
that we've been talking about,they call themselves Christians.
Suddenly in the past year,Candace Owens has become like Giga
Catholic.

(01:28:52):
Matt Walsh calls himself Catholic.
I think Tucker Carlson hascalled himself Nick Fuentes.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Tucker Carlson had talked withlike Father Josiah Trenum yesterday
from the Eastern Orthodox Church.
And so you have all thesereally big.
And now Russell Brand, I don'tknow if you guys saw his video with
Nick Fuentes today where he's.

(01:29:13):
I had to keep my comments tomyself on that one.
He's shirtless, bro.
He's shirtless, bro.
Put a shirt on, like baptizingpeople in his underwear.
I don't know if you guysremember that.
Yeah, the Carl Lentz school of evangelism.
So like, so just, you know,what, what's, what is that?
Like you have people who havejust like, you know, new, relatively

(01:29:35):
new to the faith or who knowshow like their faith may be on shaky
foundations and here they arelike grandstanding in the name of
Christ.
These anti biblical things.
Like, like, what is that likewatching and engaging with that?
It's, it's incredibly frustrating.
I know a lot of you guys canrelate to that.

(01:29:56):
Then I'm laughing just becauseof how absurd it is.
Like, especially, you know,people like Russell, Russell Brand,
who's doing crazy stuff andbaptizing people in his underwear
and doing shirtless streamswith a legitimate neo Nazi, Nick
Fuentes, and calling himselflike the.
A Christian.
Not just a Christian, but likean arbiter of Christian faith in

(01:30:16):
the public square on YouTubeand whatever else he's doing.
That's what's most aggravating.
It's not just that they'reclaiming to be Christians and then
also promoting a bunch ofthings that are not, not biblical
at all, but it's the fact thatthey're doing so on such a big stage.
And it's like the world islooking at them as the representatives
of Christianity, of what theBible teaches.

(01:30:37):
Thank you.
You know, of, of what, likechurches that we go to and we're
here screaming from the, youknow, from the stands like, no, this
is not right.
This is not accurate.
You know, you don't representus Nick Fuentes.
You don't represent us RussellBrand or whoever it is.
And they certainly don'trepresent Christ.
And it doesn't take long tolook into their philosophy, the theology

(01:30:58):
they believe, especially onthe really hardcore.
Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes,Matt Walsh Catholic side of things
that's just unbelievably antigospel and antithetical to everything
that we stand for as Christians.
And it's crazy how that haskind of become mainstream Christian
thought in America.

(01:31:18):
I thought America waspredominantly a Protestant country
that, that, you know,historically, generally understood
and preached and believed the gospel.
And now it's being overrun.
The conservative movementthat's supposed to be the Christian
movement is being overrun by,you know, Roman Catholicism.
Again, sorry if I'm offendingpeople, but also partially not sorry

(01:31:39):
it's being overrun by RomanCatholicism by a push towards Eastern
Orthodoxy like we were talkingabout before, what Cody was mentioning.
And these movements that kindof wear Christianity and the gospel
as a skin suit is reallywhat's happening.
And they use it as a politicalshield to deflect from criticism

(01:31:59):
or to try and take the moralhigh ground of some kind and try
and get the audience.
It's the same thing we've seenpoliticians like George Bush do or
Bill Clinton where he claimsto be a Southern Baptist Christian
and all of this, but reallywhat are they doing?
They're just leveraging thatidentity to try and get votes or
try and win something politically.
It's not really about Christianity.

(01:32:20):
It's not really about Jesus.
And I think the same thing'shappening in the media landscape
right now.
So talk.
Talk a bit about that becauseit seems to me that like, a lot of
folks are finding their waysinto the.
Into the media landscape, thatthere is a.
There's a. I don't know, it'sa Christian wave.
It kind of seems likeChristianity has become trendy, let's

(01:32:41):
just put it that way, just inthe past.
Christianity, what's the.
Chris?
Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly.
Yeah.
Put everything in air quotes.
Yeah, it's the new.
It's the new punk rock.
Right?
And like, I guess, insofar asit goes, like, I guess I would rather
have people talking aboutbeing Christian and being bad at
it and maybe not being sincerethan open neopagans.

(01:33:03):
I never know how to.
How to split that difference.
But it does seem like there'sa moment that's happening, and I
hope so.
I praise.
I think some good will comeout of it.
I think I prefer it to the alternative.
Yeah, it's definitely betterthan just overt, you know, hedonistic
leftism that completelyrejects the existence of God entirely.

(01:33:24):
At least there's at leastthere's some semblance of biblical
moral order returning, whichis good culturally speaking.
You know, promoting marriageand promoting having kids and families
and, and you know, pushing itback against the abortion lobby,
excuse me, and pushing backagainst like, you know, the transgender
nonsense that's happening,whatever it might be.

(01:33:46):
These are all good things thatare resulting from this, I guess,
cultural Christianity that'sbecoming popular.
But at the same time that'snot going to be long lasting if there's
not genuine heart change.
We're not going to have thisChristian nation that everyone's
screaming about, thateverybody seems to want in this Christian
nationalism movement.
If there aren't actually, ifthe nation isn't actually filled
with Christians, it's going tobe short lived.

(01:34:08):
It's going to actually, Ithink, you know, in the short, you
know, probably more long termyou're going to see a rebellion against
Christianity as a result.
It's, it's this kind of concept.
I remember my dad alwayssaying this when me and my brother
were kids.
Rules or rules withoutrelationship leads to rebellion.
And so if, if you're not, ifyour relationship to the religion

(01:34:33):
of Christianity is not rootedin a deep relationship with Jesus,
it's going to lead to rebellion.
If not you, your kids, yourgrandkids, I mean, people that grew
up in very strictfundamentalist homes, for example,
how many stories have we heardof this happening?
How many stories have wepersonally seen of this happening?
And so I think this is the,this is going to be the result of
this so called cultural Christianity.
Long term it's going tocompletely backfire if we don't root

(01:34:56):
ourselves in the gospel, whichI'm hoping that that starts to happen
more.
I'm hoping that this wholeCharlie Kirk situation actually wakes
people up to that.
People start going to churchto pursue Jesus and not just make
it about a politicalaffiliation, which I think it often
is.
So.
Yeah.
So Pastor Darren, did you wantto jump in?
Please, go ahead.
Yeah, I think, I mean I, Ithink that point is huge in a sense

(01:35:22):
of, I'm a big, I'm a big fanof Francis Schaefer.
I think Will, you know thatI've shared that before, but I mean
he was hitting that drum, youknow, into the 60s, 70s and 80s,
you know, coming out of thisessentially cultural Christian movement
and how, how badly it failed.

(01:35:42):
Yeah.
And to Miguel's point, likewe're, we're seemingly running right
back into that and, and somepeople gleefully, and, and I'm not
really sure understand, like Idon't really understand why.
You know, it just takes amoment of glancing back over the
last 120 years of the Americanchurch to see essentially what happened,

(01:36:07):
gosh, what, 50, 60 years ago.
We're right back in it, youknow, and again, you know, it goes
back to just discipleship.
It goes back to just life onlife and not in the weird, you know,
talking about the megachurchway or whatever it is, but.
But really getting in thelives of people.

(01:36:30):
And.
Yeah, so it just made me thinkabout that.
You know, Schaefer in the, inthe great Evangelical disaster was,
was smacking that drum and,you know, he said, I, I can't remember
obviously off top of my headwhat chapter it was in, but he essentially
says instead of triumphingover our numbers and, and how many

(01:36:55):
people were gaining, maybe we.
The right response is, islooking at how badly we're failing
at discipling our people andsending them out into a watching
world.
So, yeah, Mikel, the point iswell taken for sure.
And I think we're runningright back into where we.
We were, you know, into the70s and 80s where people were.

(01:37:18):
Were over it.
They were over cultural Christianity.
And I hope we're not doing thesame thing again.
Yeah, I, just before, beforethe stream, I, I came from, I came
from a lunch I was having withDr. Jeffrey Ventrila of Truth Exchange,
which is Dr. Peter Jones's ministry.
And so we were talking aboutsome of the rising, you know, literal

(01:37:39):
neopaganism.
Psychedelics has been big partof that.
Yoga, you know, a burning man,of course, is a huge part of that.
And like, it almost feels likethe cultural Christianity is a.
Is a reaction to that, but itwon't actually have any sticking
power over that.
And plus some of the other,like the idolatry of the state, the
idolatry of the individual,it's like people are responding to

(01:38:02):
something they feel isn'tworking and, and they're going enthusiastically
into the church.
But are the churches growingin numbers or are they growing in
terms of number of redeemed believers?
I guess that will be aquestion, a real question for the
pastoral ministry.

(01:38:24):
Go ahead, please.
No, please go ahead.
No, I was just saying.
I was agreeing.
You're absolutely right.
And I do think pastors do needto accept that reality.
You know, are we just countingbaptisms, you know, and even.
And even numbers and seats, orare we.
And obviously it's in a lot ofways a moving target, you know, but

(01:38:47):
there are certainly markerswhere we can identify truly changed
and redeemed person.
But I think in the crazinessof it all in ministry, we sometimes
lose sight of that.
That, you know, we've got topay bills, we've got to do this,
that and the other thing.
And, you know, heaven forbidwe upset people and they walk out

(01:39:07):
or whatever, but, you know, atthe end of the day, we're responsible
as pastors, and I don't, youknow, who knows who's listening,
who's a pastor, but we'reresponsible for the.
The people that come throughthose doors and whether or not we're
giving them the gospel andchallenging them to.
To wholeheartedly followChrist and grow in the fullness of

(01:39:28):
Him.
Oh, I think you're muted.
Sorry.
Yeah, here I am.
Yeah.
Amen.
Pastor DARREN.
So, Christ, I wanted to go to you.
I know you're under a littlebit of time pressure, and so I wanted
to get your thoughts before wejump off, like, sort of talk about

(01:39:51):
cultural Christianity showingup in a very particular way on, like,
the quote unquote.
We'll call them right wing.
It's their own form ofcultural Christianity.
But is it Christianity at all?
Yeah.
So I've kind of changed mymind on a few things related to this,
even just in the last year.
And I guess one of the thingsI've been trying to say or think

(01:40:11):
about more would be using theterm nominalism rather than cultural
Christianity, just because Ifeel like I do want to live in a
Christian culture.
I do want that.
And as much as it does havedownsides, I do think there are some
benefits.
And I think on some level, Iwould prefer to be having an apologetic

(01:40:35):
conversation with somebody whois in agreement with me about a lot
of these values, even if theydon't really know how it's rooted
in Christianity and all of thederivatives of that.
Because then in thatconversation I can go, okay, so we
agree on things like theimmorality of homosexuality and abortion
and all these other topics.

(01:40:58):
Why do you feel that way?
Right.
Let's walk it back from thereand try to apply consistent biblical
principles all the way downthe pipeline.
Whereas before, I think, whenwe didn't have so much Christian
nominalism and, and a lot offolks were more just atheists, it
was a lot harder because youwere starting really just on first
base.

(01:41:18):
And we all really learnedapologetics in this way to be able
to deal with people from first base.
And now we've got people onthird, and we have to explain to
them what first and second is.
There's downsides to that andthe fact that A lot of us aren't
really prepared for it, butthere's benefits in the fact that

(01:41:41):
I think people are going to bemore receptive to Christianity just
on that basis.
That's at least kind of whatI've seen.
And I had an extendedconversation, I guess it was earlier
this week with a whole bunchof groipers.
It was like 300 groipers or whatever.
And they were just.
Yeah, well, it was exciting,you know, man, I enjoy those environments.

(01:42:03):
But anyway, but I was.
Yeah, right.
Where was this?
I'm sorry, I just have toknow, like, was it a Twitter space
or was it.
It was a Twitter space.
It was a Twitter space with afriend of mine that I know in real
life named Jordan B.
And he's like really in thegroiper movement.
And I was having sort ofextended conversation about how I

(01:42:25):
listened to Nick Fuentes'sstream on Thursday night last week
and how I felt like there werecertain good things that he said,
but how he contradictedhimself within his monologue.
And I try to explain that.
And I had a lot of people pushback on me a lot about that.
But I also got a lot ofmessages from people who were groipers

(01:42:45):
who were saying, I've neverthought about Nick claiming to be
a Christian leader while alsobeing pretty vile in his language
when referring to his enemiespolitically and things like this.
Right?
And so there's a lot of peopleout there where they really are motivated
to be under a public facingChristian banner and they have some

(01:43:08):
of the derivative moralityfrom that and they don't know why
they have it.
Right.
And so just walking back andsaying, let's look at the Sermon
on the Mount, how do theseprinciples apply?
Right.
Things like being againsthomosexuality are all derivative
from scripture, but so iskeeping your speech pure, right?
So is not dehumanizing people.

(01:43:29):
Right?
So is like a belief in theuniversal mago day, like all of those
things, how do we apply those things?
Just like we're applyingbiblical principles on sexuality.
And I feel like a lot of folksare just not really prepared to come
at apologetics from thatdirection because for the, like I
said, the longest time we'vebeen dealing with atheists, right?

(01:43:51):
And not people that professfaith and identify with Christianity,
even, even on verycontroversial issues, but don't,
but don't understand some ofthe foundational axioms of the faith.
You know, that's interesting.
That's something that I had asimilar thought that, you know, I
found my way into the churchand Reformed theology because when

(01:44:13):
everything shut down due toCovid and the Reformed churches were
the ones that were open andwere speaking out against the political
situation.
So it was the politics thatinitially drew me, but it was the
theology that had me stick there.
But that was a self directed,like, I didn't have anyone say, and
now Will, I see that you'reall fired up about this political
situation and now we're goingto teach you theology.

(01:44:33):
It was my own self directed,Holy Spirit directed curiosity that,
that led me to that.
So do you find like, likewho's going to step in and be like,
okay, you're fired up aboutpolitics, but now we need to put
the foundations under it?
That's sort of what I hear you saying.
Yeah, I think it's anybodythat can empathize with the mindset

(01:44:54):
of these guys.
And I think at this stagepeople like that are few and far
between, but I think there'smore and more of them that are out
there and that's sort of agrowing coalition.
And so depending on how wehandle this, I think that the Lord
can really use that to reach alot of young guys who are looking
to sort of buck against theills of some of the issues with secularism

(01:45:19):
and modernity.
But we have to figure out howto direct it in the direction of
biblical Christianity and notsome sort of mutation of it that's
out there and may appearcarnally more attractive.
I, I want to push on theempathize with the mindset part and
maybe not push on it becauseI, I agree with you and like, it

(01:45:42):
seems like the, the many ofthe, the highest level influencers
that I am aware of, theyempathize with the mindset.
And it's like, but there's,it's like Joe Rigney's like toxic
empathy, the sin of empathy,where they go to like pull the guy
out and the guy pulls him intothe water with them.
Right.
And I think we've seen that.
It's like, yeah, I willtether, I'll help pull you out, but

(01:46:03):
I'm not coming in there with you.
How do those listening avoidbeing pulled into that without being
like, you're not beingempathetic to my concerns?
No, I understand your concerns entirely.
And like, this is the answer.
Look, no, I need you to divein the mud pit with me.
Like, I'm just not going to do that.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
I mean, I think, I think itrequires you to have a lot of introspection

(01:46:27):
about sort of your motivationsas you're reaching out to these guys,
I think it requires you tohave a pretty good prayer life.

(01:47:55):
I think there's some peoplethat just like with any type of apologetics,
effort or pursuit, there arecertain people that God's going to
equip for that and then notfor other things.
And I think that there arepersonalities and mindsets that are
more or less equipped for that too.
I don't think everybody needsto understand how to witness to groipers.

(01:48:16):
Right.
But I do think that as timegoes on, just like the Christian
world learned how to deal withthe new atheists and stuff over the
course of 10, 15 years, Ithink we're going to figure this
out.
It just takes time.
And because of the Internetand the speed of reactionary politics

(01:48:38):
that moves so much faster thanChristians are really able to get
a handle on how to deal with it.
So, Cody, this is kind of someof the things that you deal with
some apologetics in some waydoes these communities and maybe
evangelism and outreach tothem as well.
What do you think about Hitlerhated Christ's take?

(01:48:58):
Yeah, I thought that wasfascinating because I first started
studying Christianity reallywhen I.
So I grew up a Christian, butI really started digging into it
whenever I started gettingpushback from people who really respected
the new atheists.
And so I watched a lot ofWilliam Lane Craig and all the evidentialist

(01:49:19):
apologetics guys.
And so I loved apologetics andI still do.
And my mind has changed quitea bit on apologetics over the years.
But.
But yeah, I think as far asempathy goes, if that's the right
word, I completely understandwhere a lot of these people are coming
from.
And I've had conversationswith them in real life before.
And one really helpful thingthat I found in conversations with

(01:49:43):
them is, at least on X, thevast majority of criticisms that
people have against me thataren't calling me slurpees or gay
or whatever that are justbaseless are things that are total
lies.
So they say, like, you attackpeople for wanting a Christian nation.
And I say I have never onceever attacked anybody for wanting

(01:50:07):
a Christian nation because Iwant a Christian nation.
And so like all of thecriticisms that people have against
me are, they're lies.
And so I think one beneficialthing that I've noticed in the very
little ground that I sometimesmake with this kind of person is
to point out that we actuallyagree on all of the major things

(01:50:31):
that they say that they care about.
Like, I also want a Christiannation, and I also care about biblical
justice and I care about allthe things that you say you care
about, except I think thequestion is.
And the things that we have topush them on gently, because most
of these people, they can'thandle if you're too hard on them.

(01:50:52):
It's like you have to begentle with these people because
if you're too hard on them,they'll just call you the F word
or they'll call you gay or something.
So it's like you have to bereally gentle with these people because
they're highly emotional.
Even though they have thisfacade of toughness, it's not toughness
to act the way that they act.
So if you can manage beinggentle enough with these people to

(01:51:13):
actually have a halfwayreasonable conversation, I found
that pointing out thesimilarity between your worldview
you is valuable.
Saying, I care about all thethings that you care about.
But how are we actually goingto effectively bring that about?
Are we going to effectivelybring about biblical justice by abandoning
biblical principles of lovingyour neighbor and loving your enemy

(01:51:36):
and all the other things thatthe Bible teaches and use pagan philosophy
instead?
Is that how we're going tobring about biblical justice?
Are we going to bring about aChristian nation by completely ignoring
what the Bible teaches aboutkings and how there's no king but
Christ and how self governanceis the most valuable kind of governance,

(01:52:00):
like governance between us andGod and just the obedience of us
and God, or are we going totry to force our religion on other
people like we're Muslims?
So that is kind of thedirection that I usually go in my
apologetics with these people.
And sometimes I make leewayand sometimes they just can't handle
that and start shoutingprofanities and stuff like that.

(01:52:23):
But you also have to bepatient with them.
Yeah, I've never had theshouted profanities happen before.
No, just kidding.
It happens all the time.
So I guess.
And I find this, I'll just behonest, I find this very personally
convicting because, you know,I see so many wolves amongst the
sheep.
And I guess I feel like Icould be wrong, but I feel like I've

(01:52:45):
learned to spot them pretty quickly.
And so now I don't reallyinvest the time to do this in apologetics
outreach to them.
Now I just hit them with aclub, obviously, if they come up
with their teeth bared, whichhappens very often because I've crossed
them in some very meaningfulways, challenging their worldviews

(01:53:05):
and revealing it at prettysignificant levels.
And so they come up and theygrowl at me and I. I don't take the
posture like, oh, hey, well,let's have an Apollo.
No, it's just like, bang,you're stupid.
So.
But.
And sometimes I do that too.
Okay, good.
I'm not guilty of that.
I've never done that.
In response, all of you aresainted, saintly men.

(01:53:28):
Well, so, so, like, obviously,Mikhail, like, this is something
that you must deal with, like,all the time from some very sharp
teeth and some very big wolves.
Yeah, it's.
It can def.
It's definitely a test of like.
And I've definitely failed thetest many times, I'm sure, but it's.
It's definitely a test of, ofyour commitment to actually stick

(01:53:49):
to your principles when people are.
And I'm sure all of you guyshave experienced this to some degree
or another, when people arelying about you, insulting you, insulting
your family, you know, just.
Just literally just makingthings up out of thin air about you
when you challenge them, evenif you do so in a respectful manner,
that's the response we oftenget from these groups.

(01:54:10):
And it can be really frustrating.
But then you, you know, yougot to remember, you know, there's
verses that talk about Jesusbeing reviled and him not reviling
back and the.
These principles of, of selfcontrol that we're supposed to have
and loving your neighbor.
And I think this would be agood example of turning the other
cheek.
When someone is insulting youand you not insulting them back,

(01:54:31):
you kind of just taking it andresponding graciously or not responding
at all in a lot of thesecases, and not.
Not fanning the flame orfeeding, which, again, I'm.
There's been times where I'vebeen so bad at that.
There's been times where I'vebeen stuck in comment sections just
going out.
So.
And I've just kind of learnedover time, over this past year that

(01:54:52):
most of the time that's not helpful.
Most of the time it's just better.
If, you know, people aredropping the F bomb at you or calling
you a bunch of slurs, justignore them, move on with your day.
Just keep posting things thatare truthful, that hopefully get
people to think and reflect,and don't get stuck in the petty
mudslinging, which is exactlywhere a lot of these people want

(01:55:12):
you to be, because that justdistracts from the actual position
or argument that you're tryingto hold.
Yeah, sorry, go ahead.
And it's a lot of ad hominem, right?
People jump to ad hominem whenthey have nothing of value really
to say to you, when they don'treally have an argument against the
thing that you're bringing tothe table.
And so they just go right foryour character.

(01:55:32):
They go right for the personalattacks and jabs.
And I think it's just bestresponse is either to respond graciously
or just walk away.
You know, don't answer foolwho is folly.
I constantly feel like I havethat principle, don't answer his
fool to his folly runningthrough my head all the time when

(01:55:53):
I'm on Twitter.
Yeah.
And it's just something Iconstantly have to remind myself.
So.
But yeah, well, I mean,imagine that.
Also, part of it is like,these are people that are polished.
Like, there's.
There's a way in which someonecan just kind of, like, spout off,
you know, about.
How about, like, just call youa name?
But then there are the reallysavvy operators on X.

(01:56:14):
Specifically, like, X is an ecosystem.
Like the jungle and the desertand the oceans are an ecosystem.
X is an ecosystem.
And there are some very savvypredators in the ecosystem and very
savvy operators.
Like, I was on a space.
This was probably two yearsago, 20, 23.
I was on a space briefly with.
With Nick Fuentes.
I don't remember what it was.
And just in the very briefperiod of time that he was on the

(01:56:36):
space, he and I neverpersonally interacted.
I think he spoke after me orbefore me, something like that.
I got the sense that this wasa guy who is a very expert operator
in this ecosystem.
Like this world that I've nowfound myself in of being called the
world of influencers.
This guy's really good at it.
It's not just that he's.
He has things to say and hehas the right message and he has

(01:56:56):
the audience, like, he's welladapted for this ecosystem that he's
found himself in.
So there is.
There is a degree that you'veprobably faced.
Like when you have Matt Walshcoming off the top rope at you.
Yeah, it's like, disorienting.
And especially.
It's not only that, but thenbecause of the amount of followers

(01:57:17):
these people have, if they saysomething negative about you, you're.
You are literally gettingthousands of comments at a time.
I mean, I just experiencedthat last week with Matt Walsh.
He said something about me.
I think the.
The tweet got, like over amillion clicks, and he commented
on something of mine.
And then I literally had overa thousand comments, most of them
negative, you know, respondingto what Matt Walsh was saying about.

(01:57:40):
And what he was saying aboutme wasn't accurate to my position.
And so at that point, how am Ieven supposed to defend myself?
The damage is already done.
And your.
Your notifications are justbeing blown up with this stuff on
a regular basis.
So, I mean, I've since, sincethat happened, I've deleted.
I don't even have Twitter onmy phone anymore.
So I'm just like, I. I justhave kind of distance.

(01:58:02):
It's helped a lot mentally.
It's helped a lot spiritually.
But, you know, I'll hop onevery now and then and say some things,
but I'm sure.
So I apologize for group chatsthat I'm in if I'm responding as
quickly, but that's usually why.
But that's helped a lot.
It's just learning todisconnect, learning to be gracious
with people that are not beingso gracious to you and just kind

(01:58:23):
of remembering how Jesus would respond.
That class or that clicheline, what would Jesus do?
I know it's way overused inAmerican culture, but I think that's
a good question to askyourself when facing this kind of
stuff.
Rip my mentions, right?
And I have Twitter on my phone.
I don't, I don't havenotifications turned on for it.

(01:58:46):
In fact, I use an app called Opal.
I'll post a link in the shownotes that blocks social media up
till noon every day and thenafter 9:00pm so, like, so I have
to actively do stuff if I wantto get around it during those hours.
So it's in a window that I useit and I don't have notifications
turned on.
That's a lifesaver for mymental health for sure.

(01:59:10):
So we're coming to the end ofthe stream.
Last few minutes.
I. I've got to run off todinner, but I want to close and sort
of talk a little bit about.
Just give everyone the chanceto talk about what they've taken
away from Charlie Kirk's lifeand his legacy and how they plan
to go forward.

(01:59:31):
Seeing the way that hismission landed in the world, seeing
the impact that he had, seeingthe grief that the world has felt
about him.
What are you taking away fromthat personally?
Maybe in your professionallife, in your content creation life,
in your personal life?
Like, how has this impacted you?
Maybe.
How did.
How did his work impact youpreviously as well?

(01:59:52):
What does the next step tohonor Charlie Kirk look like in your
lives?
So, Pastor Darren, we'll allstart with you and we'll work our
way around the horn.
Yeah.
So my wife and I both, bothenjoyed watching Charlie Kirk his
videos as well as mydaughters, mainly my Older daughter,

(02:00:13):
she's a junior in, in collegeright now.
I don't remember how long itwas, probably two, maybe two summers
ago.
My wife and I are actually atthe dinner table with both of our
daughters and we got in aheated, we'll say dialogue over one
of Charlie's videos and one ofhis stances.

(02:00:34):
And my wife, 9.9 times out of10 would agree with Charlie on this
issue.
She didn't.
And she works in domesticviolence, rape crisis.
She works with women that havekind of experienced the worst of
the worst.
And you know, she goes to thatform essentially in the judicial

(02:00:56):
systems and what have you.
So.
But one of his points in oneof his videos again a couple years
ago was, you know, that, thatyou can pull yourself up and, you
know, you can do it.
And you know, I, I agreed with him.
My wife was like, well, somepeople can't.
And so it started this hugedialogue and it got, it got louder,

(02:01:22):
you know, and, and our, youcould just see the, the, like our
daughter's faces, like, like,I mean, they were just like, whoa.
And then my oldest one, who'sgreat at just like breaking the tension,
she's like, wow, you know,watching my parents fight, this is
awesome.
And my wife just stopped andshe was like, we're not fighting.

(02:01:43):
Like, we're having an honest dialogue.
And yeah, it's getting like,heated isn't the right word.
That's, that's not what it was.
But, you know, akin to some ofthe dialogues Charlie would have,
you know, it would be a backand forth in an equal representation,

(02:02:03):
so to speak, of, of wordsbeing exchanged.
And I remember what my wifesaying to our daughters, like, this
is important and this is whatyour culture is losing.
You know, our culture, Gen X,we still had some of that.
I still have some of that, I think.
So for us and for me, youknow, as a father, church leader,

(02:02:28):
whatever, is trying to allowand facilitate, even in my family,
these discussions where it'sokay to like, debate and dialogue
and go at it, like we candisagree and, and walk away collegially,
you know, and, and I thinkthat's, that's one of the things

(02:02:51):
I, I was talking to my wifethe other day, like, I really admired
about Charlie, like, he hadall kinds of punches thrown at him
from, you know, anyone and everyone.
And I can honestly remembermaybe one time where I saw him get,
like, angry.

(02:03:11):
And that was he was up on apanel discussion, I don't know how
many years ago it was nowmaybe a year or two ago.
And I'm blanking what his name.
Chink Chenk Uygur.
Yes.
Stands up in the crowd andhe's yelling at him, and Charlie
just goes right at him.
And I'm like, that's the onlytime I can really remember him being
that combative.

(02:03:32):
I think we need more of that.
You know, this whole hashtag,we are Charlie Kirk.
Like, we need more of that.
And I think it would.
If we can have these kind ofmore open and dialogues and going
back and forth and reallywrestling with ideas and really challenging
people, I think it'll go along way.
And so that's, you know,that's kind of what I'm taking away

(02:03:55):
and what my hope is.
Part of what will come out ofthis is just this kind of, you know,
open dialogue again and thatthere will be, you know, more Charlie
Kirks that'll come along inthat way that are bright, that are
sharp.
That.

(02:04:15):
And I hate using the wordwinsome, but are some.
And.
And are able to.
To take a punch and to smile and.
And to just.
Just keep pressing on.
So, I mean, it's a.
It's kind of a real lifeexample, but then also one that I.
I hope we'll see, you know,after all of this.

(02:04:35):
Amen.
Amen.
And I think.
I think Charlie.
Oh, sorry, go ahead.
No, and I think the last thingI'll say is, you know, there's that.
That random verse, you know,that I've gone to and maybe some
of y' all have at times too.
It's in.
It's tucked away in FirstChronicles, right.
I think of chapter 12, youknow, the sons of Issachar knowing

(02:04:56):
the times essentially, and,and leading the Israel Israelites
well, and, and using prudence,I think, is.
Is what the.
The Hebrew word would reallybe translated there.
I think Charlie did that, youknow, as.
As a Christian, as a followerof Christ.
I think he.
He was able to identify eviland, and to speak against it.

(02:05:22):
And, you know, specifically aspastors, I think we get so focused
on like, building our churchesand, and even for some, building
their names while they'repastoring that they lose sight of
the evil that's all around andthe evil that is even kind of infiltrating
their churches and their people.
So I hope we get a little bitbetter at understanding the times

(02:05:44):
as well, so.
Absolutely, absolutely agree.
I think.
I think that's was.
I agree.
That was Charlie's spirit aswell, is that he understood the times
that we were in and, and heknew that with his voice he could
reach so many with, with whohe was, with himself as, as the instrument.
And I think that that's.

(02:06:05):
That's true in this age of, ofthe Internet, and it's true in this
age of growing spirituality.
It's true in this disaffectedage where all the institutions have
failed.
He understood the times that aman or men can step, and women, of
course, can step into that gapand make a difference.
So I appreciate that very much.
So let's go to Cody.

(02:06:25):
What's your takeaway fromCharlie Kirk's life and legacy?
Maybe in your personal life,professional life, for your work,
wherever seems most criticalfor you?
Yeah, it struck me a lotharder than I expected it to because
I was aware of Charlie Kirkand I'd seen a lot of his videos,
but I didn't follow him too closely.
And man, it was horrible.

(02:06:47):
I was uploading a video aboutthe Irena stabbing as the news broke
that he was shot.
And man, it was super shocking.
And probably my biggesttakeaway was, or a few takeaways.
One was how death could meetus at any moment.

(02:07:09):
And so we need to makeabsolutely sure that we are good
with the Lord and living in away that we are proud of.
And then the other thing isjust seeing the reactions that everybody's
having on every side, nomatter what people call themselves.
I've found that I relate fartoo much to the groiper type of people

(02:07:31):
than I would like to like.
I.
It is a challenge for me tohate leftist ideology more than I
do.
And the.
The very last thing I want tobecome is like, the people who are
riling people up towardsviolence and the fake pastors calling

(02:07:54):
themselves Christians who aretrying to use the death of Charlie
Kirk for growing their audience.
And it's disgusting.
And this hatred that I'mfeeling for these ideas, I want to
be sure to channel it in theright places and not let it turn

(02:08:14):
me into that kind of personand use what I'm feeling for righteousness
instead of for my own selfish desires.
I think that's the biggest thing.
And then in general, justhonoring the life and death of heroes

(02:08:36):
like Charlie and making sure that.
That we live more like him,where we are unafraid to say the
truth and we're unafraid toput ourselves into situations where
the vast majority of us, theworst thing that could possibly happen
is people call us bad names onthe Internet that we'll never meet
and that we are not at all indanger of whatsoever.
So how cowardly am I?

(02:09:00):
Whenever I.
And I've Had a bunch ofcomments on X myself, and it's horrible.
It doesn't feel good at all tohave a bunch of people who are completely
unwilling to listen to whatyou're really saying or be misrepresented
or whatever.
It's a horrible feeling.
But people are puttingthemselves out, literally risking

(02:09:23):
their lives, and we need morepeople like that and more people
like all of you guys, who arewilling to say things in the public
sphere, even if it's just onthe Internet, and say true things
and be unafraid of the minorconsequences that we might face relative
to people like Charlie Kirk.

(02:09:44):
Amen.
Amen.
The courage of all of us tospeak up in the little corners of
life that we have and to bebrave and to take advantage of that,
even when it's difficult, evenwhen we have our mentions blowing
up, even when people aresaying mean things about us that
we're not really designed tohandle, but we got to figure it out.
I think that is indeed very important.
Thank you.

(02:10:04):
Thank you so much.
Cody and Mikhail, I'm gonna.
I'm gonna kick it to you toget the.
Get the last word of sorts,like, how is Charlie's life and death
and legacy going to impactyour life and your mission going
forward?
So I think to.
Just to piggyback off of.
I was kind of gonna say prettymuch what Cody said, but just to

(02:10:27):
piggyback off of that.
You know, I think it's onething that it shows.
One thing that's been madereally clear is the fact that, you
know, if you're a Christian,if you're a conservative who doesn't
feel like you have a voicemuch or, you know, who feels pretty
alienated in whatever socialcircles you're in, your job, your

(02:10:49):
family, even your church orwherever it might be.
I think it's become reallyclear that, you know, you're not
alone in that.
You know what I mean?
And there's been.
There's been more peopleactivated to publicly speak up and
tell the truth about a wholemanner of different things than I've
ever seen in my lifetime inthis country in response to this.

(02:11:09):
And that is incredibly encouraging.
I remember being, you know, ata secular university back in college,
and, you know, even before I became.
Even before I got saved, I wasgoing to, you know, I was still a
conservative, you could say,politically speaking, I was one of
those people that not ourHillary Christ was talking about

(02:11:32):
before of, you know, they hadconservative principles.
And I was raised in aChristian home, but I didn't really
love Jesus.
Wasn't following him at that time.
But either way, I remembereven then starting to speak up about
certain things politically atthe university I was going to and
just getting crickets in classrooms.
Like I was the only onewilling to say anything.

(02:11:52):
And, you know, being isolatedat certain times, especially, you
know, when things became morecontentious with blm at that point,
I was.
Wasn't taking classes, but Iwas still living in the town, the
college town I was, you know,I was, I was living in during school.
And so a lot of friends in thearea, pretty close to home here.
And I just remember startingto speak up about that publicly and

(02:12:16):
just getting, you know, tonsof negative.
Similar to what.
What I'm experiencing now from the.
The what's from the woke.
Right?
Getting tons of negativecomments, people I knew in person,
you know, gossip, calling me aracist, blocking me, like close,
at least what I thought wereclose friends.
And it was really discouraging.
And I'm sure a lot of peoplesaw that happening to me at the time.

(02:12:38):
And we're like, oh, forget that.
I'm not going to speak up publicly.
I'm not going to talk aboutthis stuff publicly.
If that's the cost, if that'swhat's going to happen to me, I'm
going to be completelyostracized in different ways and
demonized.
And it was super discouragingto me back then, but seeing this
now, it's like, oh, you, youdon't have to be as afraid anymore.
Like, there's so many peoplenow that are going to have your back,

(02:12:59):
that are going to be therespeaking up publicly.
There's this huge movement.
I mean, I look at stats likethere's now been 54,000 new chapters
registered under TurningPoint, or at least applications sent
into Turning Point.
That's crazy.
That just shows how manypeople were previously, you know,
who believed the same thingsthat we believe, more or less, but

(02:13:21):
who were scared to speak up.
And because of what justhappened, because of this tragedy,
unfortunately, I mean, it'sleading to this immense good where
there's so many people thatare brave enough to.
To put themselves out thereand stand behind others as we're
speaking truth in the public square.
And so I think that'ssomething that's super encouraging.
So just encourage me to justget more active and even more than

(02:13:44):
I really am, and especiallymore active in my local community,
because I think it's easy tojust kind of take all of that and
put it on the Internet with abunch of strangers you don't actually
interact with in your daily life.
But, you know, the real testis taking that and applying it to
the.
To your community, to theneighbors, you know, that live next
door or, you know, your cityhall or in your local church or whatever

(02:14:04):
it might be.
So, yeah, it's really easy totalk a bunch of noise from behind
a keyboard, but suddenly whenyou're confronted with a real person
in front of you who's shootingan argument at you, you've never
heard before, you know, you can't.
You don't have that.
You don't have that time toreally figure out the most polished
response.
Yeah, it's like that, Mike.
It's like that famous MikeTyson quote, Everyone has a plan
until they get punched in the face.

(02:14:25):
I think, yeah, that's verytrue in, in situations like this,
but.
But I think that just is amore the reason to study your Bible
and to, you know, be able togive an answer for what you believe
as we're commanded to doscripturally, so.
Amen.
May we all have the courage toget punched in the face.
Yeah, right.
Because it's going to happen.
It is.
It is.
Well, gentlemen, thank you somuch for joining me on the stream.

(02:14:47):
Thank you.
Also to Hitler hated Christ as well.
Who had the duck out.
This has been a wonderful,wonderful conversation.
I'm so grateful for all threeof you, man.
And Hitler hated Christ aswell, for all of your work and your
contributions to me and mylife and.
And for your friendship as well.
So thank you for joining meand thank you for honoring Charlie
Kirk.
And may we all go forward in.
In the light of his legacy forthe kingdom.

(02:15:09):
So thank you so much, gentlemen.
Thank you.
Thank you.
God bless you guys.
God bless you guys.
Sam, Sa.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}WILL SPENCER & FRIENDS - Remembering Charlie Kirk: Faith, Trauma, and Healing in Troubled Times