Ivan Raj's Years-Long Friendship With Charlie Kirk Over the Sabbath

Showing 7 Ivan Raj videos from Charlie Kirk's video collection.

Ivan Raj is a Seventh Day Adventist and founder of a Sabbath-focused ministry who spent years building a personal connection with Charlie Kirk before ever sharing a stage with him. They first met at a meet-and-greet, where Raj introduced himself as a fellow Sabbath keeper; Kirk, assuming he meant Jewish observance, asked if he was Jewish, and Raj clarified he kept the Sabbath as a Seventh Day Adventist, the same tradition as Ben Carson. Kirk told him on the spot that he wanted to talk more about it. Years later the two reconnected in Detroit, where Kirk's chief of staff Mikey McCoy recognized Raj and reintroduced him, and Kirk made a promise that if Raj ever organized a conference in Phoenix, he would come speak. Raj held him to it: the resulting event, held at Dream City Church, brought Kirk onto a panel Raj personally introduced and co-hosted, opening by recounting their unlikely friendship before turning the conversation over to Kirk's own story of rediscovering Sabbath observance. Raj's role throughout was less about his own theology than about the persistence that got Kirk, a famously busy political figure, to devote real stage time to a subject Raj had spent years quietly championing.