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Charlie Kirk and Pastor Rob McCoy on Fighting Cultural Chaos and Taking Back California for Godly Reasons
Charlie Kirk joins Pastor Jack Hibbs and Mayor Rob McCoy at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills to address the spiritual war facing America. Kirk argues that the modern left operates as a religion intent on creating chaos through open borders, gender confusion, and moral relativism. He contrasts this with the order that biblical principles provide, discussing everything from Trump's parenting rules to why Jesus wasn't a socialist. McCoy challenges the church's silence on cultural issues, arguing that pastors must be the counselor to the sovereign people. Together, they make the case that America's crisis isn't just political, it's fundamentally spiritual, and only a church awakening can restore order to the chaos.
The Battle for Information and Truth
Charlie Kirk opened his remarks at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills by invoking the Apostle Paul's warning to Timothy: "Guard that which has been committed to your trust and avoid profane and vain babblings and things offered up as falsely called science." Kirk emphasized that we live in an age defined by a battle for information, where contending for the faith means engaging not just in Sunday school, but in the office, the park, the church, and the broader world.
Kirk celebrated the young women running for office in California who are willing to die for their convictions, while also calling for more men to step into leadership roles. He stressed that the goal isn't merely to take back California for political reasons, but for godly reasons—specifically, the freedom to preach the gospel. Kirk reminded the audience that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, rose again on the third day, and is the way, the truth, and the life. He urged those unfamiliar with these truths to read John chapter 3 and give their hearts to Christ.
Pastor Rob McCoy: The Role of the Church in Culture
Pastor Rob McCoy, who sits on the City Council for Thousand Oaks and served as mayor during the Borderline Bar shooting and simultaneous wildfires, introduced Kirk with powerful context about the church's role in American culture. McCoy argued that the church has become anemic—not in preaching salvation, but in understanding the full scope of the gospel's application to culture and government.
McCoy traced the concept of grace back to Genesis 15, where Abraham believed the Lord and it was credited to him as righteousness. He explained that 430 years after Abraham, God gave the law to three to five million Jews who had been enslaved in Egypt. After their miraculous deliverance through ten plagues and the parting of the Red Sea, these millions lived together for 40 years in the wilderness without a police force or standing army—because they had moral law at the center of their community.
Drawing from 1 Corinthians 6, McCoy noted that Christians are now the temple of the Holy Spirit. Just as the temple was at the center of the Israelite community, believers are called to be moral preservatives—the salt of the earth—infused throughout culture. He explained that when Jesus asked "Who do men say that I am?" at Caesarea Philippi, surrounded by temples to various gods and goddesses, and Peter declared "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God," Jesus responded by saying "Upon this rock I will build my ekklesia"—not church in the religious sense, but assembly in the governmental sense.
Turning Point USA: Building a Bridge to Faith
McCoy described Turning Point USA's unique role in the cultural landscape. Drawing from Galatians 3:23-24, which teaches that the law is a schoolteacher to point us to Christ and keeps us safe until faith comes, McCoy explained that Kirk has built a bridge through a secular organization that invites young people from every background. While some may take issue with who participates in Turning Point USA, McCoy argued that Kirk provides them with moral law so they can come to faith. The work is political, but the byproduct is spiritual.
Kirk expressed deep appreciation for pastors like Jack Hibbs and Rob McCoy, noting how few pastors demonstrate courage in today's broken culture. He recounted confronting pastors across the country, asking what it will take for them to speak up: 4,000 abortions a day? Drag queen story hour for three-year-olds? The complete shutdown of churches? Kirk identified two reasons for pastoral silence: many don't know how to react because they've been taught Christianity should be absent from politics, while others are actually complicit, believing in a Christian Marxist worldview that conflates love with tolerance of sin.
The Left's Religion of Chaos
Kirk made a striking argument that leftism functions as a religion, with adherents who take issues like abortion funding as seriously as a devout Jew takes Yom Kippur. He observed that leftists will protest and march in the streets as if someone is trying to take away their holiest day of the year. The left views their ideology religiously, which is why Christians must understand this is fundamentally a spiritual battle.
Kirk outlined a critical framework: one side wants to create chaos, and the other wants to bring order from the chaos. Everything the left does seeks to create more chaos—open borders create chaos by definition, creating racial tension creates chaos, having people confused about their gender from a young age creates chaos. When young people have lived in a decade of chaos from age 8 to 18, not being sure what gender they're supposed to pick or if there's a God at all, there's a need for awakening, revival, and rebirth.
The good news, according to Kirk, is that Christians have the answers. The Holy Word of God is the same today as it was 2,000 years ago and will be 2,000 years from now. The Word tells us how many genders there are, how to interact with government, how to behave in marriage, and how to approach immigration, borders, rule of law, and sovereignty. In contrast, if you ask a leftist for their reference point, every single one will give a different answer—the Communist Manifesto, the Rachel Maddow Show, NPR, the LA Times. Without a central reference point like the Word, they remain confused, and confused people try to create more confusion and chaos.
Confronting the Ivy League
Kirk shared his experience speaking at Brown University in December, joking that if you want your child to hate America, send them to Brown. He described being met with protests and opposition, but noted that what made the audience most upset wasn't his support for President Trump, building a wall, enforcing immigration laws, ending abortion, or saying there are only two genders. What drove them to visible and physical rage was when he said our rights come from God, not from government.
This statement was met with repulsion because it forces hyper-entitled leftist students to admit they're not the most important person in the world. It requires acknowledging that God matters more than they do, and what He did for them matters more than their own desires. This admittance challenges them to drop the lifestyle they've been following, to be more humble, and to behave differently—all things Christians are called to be.
Kirk realized this is the core spiritual battle: the left is fighting for the abolition of belief in the divine. If we don't recognize this as a spiritual war first and foremost, we're just arguing details when there's a much bigger picture at play. Once you get a college leftist to admit there is a God—ubiquitous and omniscient—who has power over them and has granted rights to them, then suddenly government doesn't matter as much. That clump of cells they call a fetus might actually be a life. Right and wrong are no longer opinions but truth written in the Word.
The Confusion of Modern Freedom
McCoy raised an important point about how young people conceptualize freedom differently than Scripture defines it. He referenced the words inscribed in the stairwell of Harvard Law School since 1911: "The law is the wise restraints that make men free." You apply restraints toward evil in order to pursue excellence.
Kirk explained that young people have been taught to view freedom as the ability to drink whatever they want, put whatever they want in their bodies, use whatever words they want, visit whatever websites they want, and stay up as late as they want. This, Kirk argued, is actually bondage. You will not be a productive, happy, or fulfilled person if you live that way for a day, a year, a decade, or a lifetime.
The lie that passes without being countered is that what is easy is necessarily good for you. The truth is that what is good for you is sometimes difficult. Kirk noted that the sin that was impermissible for him as a high schooler eight years ago is now widespread for 12, 13, and 14-year-olds. He's talking about drugs more lethal than ever, access to mobile technology, and websites that would have been forbidden. Young people are diving into more dangerous and pervasive sin at younger ages, and by the time they're 18 or 19, you have a miserable generation. This is why suicide rates have gone up so alarmingly.
Interestingly, suicide is a unique first-world problem. The poorest countries in the world have much lower suicide rates than America, despite sometimes lacking access to medicine, food, and clean drinking water. Why? Because people choose that unthinkable option when they think freedom is the freedom to continue to indulge in whatever they want. But what the Bible tells us—and Jesus said this clearly—is that freedom from sin and addiction brings actual liberty. Liberation from bondage is the message young people are waiting for.
President Trump's Family and Leadership
Kirk shared insights from his relationship with the Trump family, noting that you can't fake good kids. He's gotten to know Don Jr., Ivanka, Eric, Tiffany, and Barron, and the President had specific rules for his children from a very young age. First, if you need to reach me, it's one ring—I'll always pick up the phone. Every child will tell you they had direct accessibility to their father no matter how important the meeting.
The President also imposed three very big rules: no drugs, no alcohol, no cigarettes. He was intentional about raising outstanding citizens who have been unfairly treated by the media. Kirk contrasted these three outstanding citizens with other people who serve in government, leaving the comparison unfinished but clear.
When people say they don't like the President's tweets, candor, or tone, Kirk and McCoy have a response. Kirk asked: who appointed better justices, George W. Bush or Trump? Not even close. Bush gave us John Roberts, who is questionable at best, while Trump gave us Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, plus 187 circuit court judges. Who cut Planned Parenthood funding versus who expanded it? Who took on the Iranian threat and killed Qasem Soleimani? Who moved the embassy to Jerusalem, recognized the Golan Heights, cut funding to the Palestinian Authority, and signed executive orders for religious liberty?
Kirk used an analogy: America was drowning in the middle of the ocean under bipartisan ruling class rule. The real division in America isn't right versus left, but ruling class versus working class. Finally, a helicopter came to rescue us. We were pulled from the water, able to breathe again, resuscitated and revitalized. Yet the first thing we say to the person who rescued us is, "I don't like your tweets very much." Is a smooth politician who lies to your face and continues the destruction of the family and country something you vastly prefer, or someone who biblically might embody Samson—called by God in an unusual time for a very specific purpose to save a gift and blessing from God?
Samson and God's Unusual Choices
McCoy developed this Samson analogy further. He noted that he's spoken to over 20,000 pastors across the country trying to awaken them to mobilize the 60 to 80 million evangelical Christians, half of whom aren't registered to vote. Of the half that are registered, only half vote in presidential elections, and only 12 percent vote in non-presidential elections.
The pushback he receives is moral pietism: "I can't vote for a man who's been married three times and divorced twice and is caustic on Twitter." McCoy responds by asking people to name one moral thing about Samson's life. Samson was in a prostitute's bed all night and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him—not once, but twice. He went to pay off a gambling debt and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. His downfall was women and his iconic hair. Yet Samson is in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11.
Why? Judges 14:4 explains: "What Samson's parents didn't realize is God was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines." Samson was willing to do what God's people weren't—confront the evil in their culture. Samson and Jesus are the only two babies in the womb prophesied by God before they were born to lead God's people. Samson was raised with a Nazarite vow and was homeschooled, yet the very first words recorded out of his mouth were "That Philistine woman, I want her. Go get her."
McCoy explained that there are seven mountains of cultural influence: arts, entertainment, media, business, politics, religion, education, and family. In politics, the currency is winning elections; in media and arts entertainment, it's selling movie tickets. Looking at President Trump across these mountains: arts and entertainment—he had the number one television show in America; media—he's mastered Twitter; politics—he took out 17 Republican candidates and the most heavily funded Democrat candidate in history; business—the Trump brand is world-renowned. This is a man equipped across every mountain of cultural influence.
Why did God pick him? Because there were no Christians available. Some candidates running were Christians, but were they equipped in every mountain of cultural influence? Unless the body of Christ steps up and does its job, encouraging people to engage in the public square through work like Turning Point USA that's political with a spiritual byproduct, God will use unusual instruments.
Jesus Was Not a Socialist
During the Q&A portion, a young person asked about college students claiming Jesus was a socialist. Kirk responded that first of all, the fact that Jesus might have been something of an ideology developed 1,800 years after He lived is an insult to Him being King of the world, Savior of the world, and part of the Trinity as God Himself. He was nothing more and nothing less than God divine and the Savior of the world—not a Marxist or adherent to any failed working-class ideology developed in the mid-1800s.
What people are really trying to say is that Jesus was a collectivist who would hate private property ownership and capitalism. Kirk pointed to the Parable of the Talents, where an owner distributed currency to workers. The individual who produced the most from the original investment was most pleased in the owner's eyes. The one who produced marginally was somewhat pleased. But the person who did nothing with the gifts given was told they would be put into eternal damnation—one of Jesus's harshest repudiations in the four Gospels.
To sum it up: what system allows people in the body of Christ to multiply most effectively for the kingdom? Are people multiplying in the Soviet Union or Venezuela, where they can't even eat? For multiplication to happen, you must have individual freedom and individual liberty. You must have a system that allows multiplication to occur.
McCoy added that Congressman Bob McEwen gave a message at the church explaining that for wealth to be created, two parties have to benefit. If you're a farmer and I'm a baker, I buy grain from you at a market price. With your profit, you buy more fields and hire more workers. With the grain I buy, I bake bread, and with my profit, I buy more ovens and hire more workers. This creates wealth.
In socialism, we take the disparity between rich and poor and try to create equality by taking from one and giving to another. Using a classroom analogy: you're getting an A because you do your homework, study hard, get up early, and go to bed late. Someone else is lazy and getting an F. Socialism says we'll take two grades from you and give them to the other person so you both have a C. What happens next time? You won't work as hard, and the other person will wait for a handout. Production decreases. You can take the fourth greatest economy in the Western Hemisphere—Venezuela—give it socialism, and now they're eating their zoo animals. It destroys a country. You can vote yourself into socialism, but you'll have to shoot your way out.
Individual Compassion Versus Collectivized Coercion
Kirk made a final critical point: Jesus called us individually to be extraordinarily compassionate, long-suffering, and loving. However, He never once made the argument for a coercive collectivized government to do that for you. He never said to abdicate that authority to the state or bureaucrats. Instead, socialism gives people an excuse not to be generous, not to give to charity, not to show up at the soup kitchen, homeless shelter, pro-life clinic, or pregnancy crisis center. Socialism creates an excuse: "Someone else is taking care of that." It creates selfish, self-centered, and secular people, while capitalism is actually altruistic, as evidenced by increased giving in capitalist societies.
The Reality of Socialism
McCoy shared his personal experience visiting Russia 16 to 17 times, collectively living there for about half a year. He saw an entire population of individuals who were lifeless—their government had sucked hope out of them. There was no compassion toward others, not because Russians don't have hearts, but because they had no capacity to help the person hurting. Everybody was exactly the same, wore exactly the same clothes, lived in exactly the same flats, and functioned exactly the same way.
God was banned in Russia. In Red Square in Moscow, an 80-year-old grandmother came up to McCoy, grabbed him by the face, cried, and kissed him because he was preaching the gospel. She said, "I was 10 years old when the Communists came into our home, took our Bibles, took our cross, and told us God did not exist. I was praying for 70 years to hear the gospel again." That kind of thing happens in socialist worlds.
Hugo Chavez would not allow God to be preached in Venezuela when he was alive. China cannot tolerate it because God is competition. God gives meaning and purpose. The Scriptures demand that every one of us will stand and give an account in the day of judgment for what we did with our lives. If socialism is true, then God is false. God is true and socialism is wrong because socialism gives you the excuse not to get involved in doing anything. Young people are being sold a bill of goods by overpaid, egocentric professors who have been educated beyond their intelligence and live in the wrong country.
The Importance of Family
An audience member raised an observation about how far America has drifted from its origins where God is inscribed in stone all over the country. The person analyzed when this happened and concluded it was when the family started falling apart—mothers going off to work, fathers leaving homes, creating fatherless homes.
Kirk responded that the left has been on a campaign to destroy the nuclear family for 50 or 60 years. In fact, The Atlantic recently ran a front-page article titled "The Nuclear Family Experiment Was a Tragic Mistake." Why? Because the family unit is biblical and self-reliant outside of the state. Kirk pointed to profound things that happened in the 1960s and 70s: the Great Society Act passed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson, which in a sinister fashion destroyed the American family, specifically the black family, through welfare state quasi-socialist policies that allowed Marxist ideas to infiltrate inner cities. People became dependent on and addicted to government programs at the expense of somebody else.
More fundamentally, America stopped teaching the Bible in schools and removed prayer from schools. Kirk is waiting for a revival and believes we should be unapologetic about this. He advocates for federal legislation that if you receive any money from the federal government, you should teach the Bible in public schools. Some Republicans disagree, citing separation of church and state.
McCoy interjected that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams saw the direction of the nation and when there were reports of children assembling for school without a Bible, they made sure a Bible had to be placed in educational settings or else it wasn't considered a school. The very first public school act was the Old Deluder Satan Act, designed to teach children to read so Satan couldn't deceive them and they could learn from the Scriptures.
Kirk argued that right now we do have religion in our schools—it's called leftism, a core of beliefs and values. The absence of teaching the Bible at all, even as a historical document, leaves a vacuum. People will naturally come to the conclusion that the Bible is the Word of God by being exposed to it. They'll understand the stories, history, and wisdom within the text. Yet we've strategically removed it from public schools while still teaching the Quran and leftist ideologies at alarming rates. The single book that has answered all our problems—5,000 years of history, 66 books, 35 authors—is the book we decide not to teach our youth.
Practical Steps for Engagement
Kirk encouraged young people interested in getting involved to visit TPUSA.com, where Turning Point USA is now active on 2,000 high school and college campuses across the country. He offered general advice: we need to ask high school seniors why they're going to college, not where. We do a bad job over-glorifying the institution of college and stigmatizing carpenters, electricians, and tradespeople as somehow less intelligent.
Kirk pointed out that when the media divides America for presidential polling, they use categories like "college educated" and "non-college educated," subtly saying "here's what the smart people think and here's what the dumb people think." Kirk believes it's actually the opposite—non-college educated people are often far more wise than college educated people. This subliminally pressures parents to ensure their kids are never in the "non-college educated" category.
If you want to play Russian roulette with your kid's values, send them off to college. They may come back someone completely different. If they want to be a lawyer or doctor or something very specific, and they got into a very good school that's financially realistic, then college might be the best option. But we have way too many people going to college in America—about 90 percent too many. It should be about career preparation, not ideological exploration. A child who sat down and watched every PragerU video would be infinitely more wise than the professors teaching them at universities.
Kirk shared contrarian advice: have your children divest from social media at the youngest possible age. This from someone who has millions of followers and relies on social media to get his message out. Kirk himself only has Twitter, with his team managing the rest, and it's been one of the most liberating things he can describe. He talks to young people, especially young women, who cite social media as what they're most anxious about. It's a driver of comparison and bad behavior, and it's not mandatory.
Another contrarian idea: consider taking a gap year before college. If a young person is passionate about something, find an expert in that field—guaranteed there's one in a church this size. Look them in the eyes, dress appropriately, and say: "You don't have to pay me. I'm deeply passionate about what you're doing. Will you allow me to study under you and mentor under you for one year for no pay? I will do whatever you ask because I'm passionate about this thing. Please give me a chance." In a church community, they'll probably say yes.
You'll learn more in that one year than in four years at a university. You might discover after two months that you're not actually passionate about that thing—that's really good to find out with no debt, no sorority or fraternity to rush, no fake friends. Or you might find it is your passion, learning from an expert for free. In one year, you'll be 100 times more qualified than someone who went to the University of Southern California studying the same thing.
Call to Action: Adopt a Voter
Kirk's primary call to action was the "adopt a voter" program. Before Election Day, find one person in your life who you know is going to vote—a likely voter—and spend time with them. Shepherd them, inform them, show them videos, almost pester them until they commit to vote correctly. If every single person in the church did that, it would double the impact instantaneously.
Everyone worries about the macro—"What do I do to fix the big problem?" What the left has done so well is say, "We're just gonna start with your kid," and they did that a hundred million times over the last 60 years. That's how they've been able to take over. They start with kids for many reasons, but one is they're terrified of adults.
McCoy challenged the audience with statistics: there are 15,280,000 evangelical Christians in California. Half are not registered to vote. Of the half that are registered to vote, only half of those actually vote. So only 25 percent of evangelical Christians vote—12 percent in non-presidential elections. McCoy and his wife commit to this every election: you tithe to your church, and candidates are coming to you asking for your consent to legislate your sovereignty. The way you give consent is through support and voting.
Kirk emphasized the need to pray for leaders by name. When he travels the country, he asks people to name their five school board members that they pray for by name, along with the issues they're dealing with that allow children in the community to live quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and reverence. Most don't know their names. If you want to make a difference, step into the public square, go to school board meetings, support candidates, educate yourself, and take back the culture.
Engaging with Those Who Disagree
A young person asked if Kirk reaches out to employees who have different beliefs. Kirk answered yes, explaining that Turning Point USA has a diverse organization—not necessarily politically for obvious reasons, but they try to have a Socratic, democratic marketplace of ideas. His advice for every young person: be unafraid from a very young age to do what the left refuses to do, which is talk to the other side.
It's very tempting not to want to talk to liberal relatives, friends, or neighbors. Do what they refuse to do—live by the golden rule. Talk to the person down the street with the Bernie Sanders sign, the "Coexist" bumper sticker, and the Planned Parenthood sticker. Maybe they're one conversation away from a completely changed worldview. Kirk has seen it happen more times than you could imagine. People working for him at Turning Point USA were marching in the streets for Trump's impeachment two years ago. All it took was someone with a table on a college campus looking them in the eye and saying, "I believe in a system of government where all lives matter and your life matters, that believes in individual liberty and dignity and American sovereignty and American excellence."
You'd be amazed at how shallow and fragile leftism is when Christians and conservatives look at leftists in the eyes, love on them, preach to them, and communicate with them as human beings. They're waiting for us to do that.
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