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Charlie Kirk is the Founder and President of Turning Point USA, the largest and fastest growing conservative youth activist organization in the country with over 250,000 student members, over 150 full-time staff, and a presence on over 2,000 high school and college campuses nationwide. Charlie is also the Chairman of Students for Trump, which aims to activate one million new college voters on campuses in battleground states in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election. His social media reaches over 100 million people per month and according to Axios, he is one of the "top 10 most engaged" Twitter handles in the world. He is also the host of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” which regularly ranks among the top news shows on Apple podcast charts.
Charlie Kirk Meets Cliff and Stuart Knechtle on Campus Evangelism and Moral Relativism in America
Charlie Kirk sits down with father-son evangelism duo Cliff and Stuart Knechtle to discuss their decades of open-air preaching on college campuses across America. The Knechtles share what they're witnessing among students today, from a growing meaning crisis to the grip of moral relativism, and why they believe this generation is both the sickest and most spiritually curious yet. Cliff recounts how he started beach evangelism in 1980, while Stuart explains the therapeutic age drowning young people in confusion. They reveal the questions students ask most, the arguments that fail, and why meeting people in their suffering might be the key to the next great American revival.
The Open Air Method: How Campus Evangelism Started
Cliff Knechtle began his journey into open-air evangelism during an InterVarsity beach evangelism project in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1980. Standing on the beach with university students, he started preaching, but quickly discovered that people didn't want to hear a sermon. Instead, they wanted to challenge him, to show him what a fool he was for believing in Jesus. This confrontation birthed the dialogue method, where Cliff would field questions and answer them on the spot.
The first campus was SUNY Albany in upstate New York, and Cliff hasn't stopped since. Stuart Knechtle, Cliff's son, was raised in this environment, getting put on the hot seat every morning on the drive to school, answering tough questions about faith. After attending seminary, Stuart naturally joined his father in this work, bringing his background in psychology and counseling to complement the intellectual and spiritual dimensions of their ministry.
A Meaning Crisis Among Students
Stuart describes the trends he's seeing on campuses as shockingly good, though he admits he can't fully explain why. There's a meaning crisis gripping students today. When asked about their meaning and purpose in life objectively, many students pause, unable to answer. They sense that something is wrong, whether it's political turmoil, their parents' divorce, psychological health issues, or broader cultural breakdown. Students are waking up to the reality that something has been fundamentally wrong in the nation, and they're wondering if God might offer answers.
Cliff notes that while questions have remained consistently the same over his 44 years of ministry, the emotions have changed dramatically. He contrasts his father, who at 18 held a gun in the Swiss Alps watching Hitler's Panzer divisions, with today's students who need crying rooms to process election results. This emotional shift has required Cliff and Stuart to be more careful and sensitive in how they address people, not just intellectually but emotionally.
Missing the Intellectual Fire
Despite the promising curiosity, Cliff misses the intellectual intensity of earlier decades. He recalls debating Madalyn Murray O'Hair at the University of Texas Austin, where there was robust intellectual curiosity and intense back-and-forth. He longs for the post-Vietnam War era, the hippie movement, and the Free Speech movement at Berkeley, where people were willing to really go at it, understanding that strong disagreement wasn't disrespect. The emotional sensitivity required today has somewhat dampened that intellectual vigor.
Stuart emphasizes that suicide and depression rates have risen exponentially, as have divorce rates. We live in a therapeutic age, he says, where we need to make America think again more clearly. The more people look inward, the more issues they have. The healthier approach is looking outward and upward toward God and community. Traditionally, before this recent therapeutic age, the nation was about God first, nation second, and that brought great psychological health and gave people meaning. Now, students don't know who they are or what they are. This is, without a doubt, the sickest generation, both mentally, physically, emotionally, and nutritionally.
Has the Church Met the Moment?
Cliff expresses gratitude for the church's emphasis on the intellect, encouraging people to think through issues honestly, and for its emphasis on emotions, being thoughtful and careful in how we speak. He's thankful for the spiritual focus on Christ filling the God-shaped vacuum at the center of our being, and for the physical emphasis on getting off our backsides to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and imprisoned. The growth in involvement with hurting people who are physically suffering is, in Cliff's view, a tremendous statement of the gospel in action.
However, both Cliff and Stuart acknowledge that the church could be doing better. Stuart points out that millions of young men are coming to conservatism but find the church irrelevant. They see it as too open to the sins of the day, too socially relativist, and possessing a feminine spirit that doesn't speak to them. There's an incredible harvest of souls ready to be reached, especially among young men, but the church seems scared or uninterested in engaging.
Defending the Faith in a Relativistic Age
When asked to describe what they do, Cliff prefers the term "defenders of the faith" over "apologists," which he considers too much of a Christianese term. Stuart takes a multidisciplinary approach, combining psychology, pastoral care, and philosophy to address people from different angles. He's learned that defending the faith requires more than just reading scripture and having classical arguments. A worldview takes an emotional angle, a cultural angle, an intellectual angle, and an experiential angle. You can become too myopic focusing on just one.
The doctrine of sin and how it's disappearing in a culture of relativism is a major concern. Christian sociologist Christian Smith at Notre Dame has studied how the erosion of this doctrine leads to the breakdown of the greatest traditions and institutions at a cosmic, sociological, and psychological level.
The Arguments They Hear Most
Cliff identifies moral relativism as having a grip on people's thinking. The idea that there are no moral absolutes is self-defeating and contradictory, yet it dominates campus conversations. Students say, "Don't tell me what to do, that's being judgmental and bigoted. I'm going to do whatever I want." This is exactly what the Bible describes at the end of the Book of Judges: every man did what was right in his own eyes.
Another common argument is that science and faith contradict each other. Cliff dismisses this as baloney. There's no chemistry, no physics, no geology anywhere in the Bible, so how can science contradict a book that doesn't have any science in it? The claim is ridiculous.
Then there's the issue of hope. Cliff is convinced that in America today, we don't want to think about death. We take an anesthesia called apathy or perform an acting job worthy of an Academy Award. Jesus Christ offers something refreshing: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, do not be afraid." Fear comes from thinking we're in control, only to be confronted by our finiteness. We need God, who's bigger than death, bigger than any power or force of evil or injustice.
The Golden Calf of Narcissism
When asked what worldview might replace moral relativism if students don't turn to Christ, Cliff is blunt: the golden calf of moral relativism is me. Narcissism and self-absorption fill the void. In a culture that emphasizes comfort and feeling good, what's going to stop that?
Cliff recalls speaking at a Korean church in Dallas and asking the elders how the church in Korea was doing. They said it was tragic, falling apart for the same reason the church has fallen apart in the United States: money. When you get a lot of money, you don't need God. You lose passion for Christ and for reaching people for Christ. Materialism brings a lethargy and spiritual apathy that is scary.
This is the challenge facing a generation that is the wealthiest ever. Students on campuses today want for nothing. From Ritz Carlton-level fitness centers to saunas, clubs, every food imaginable, and golf carts, they have everything materially. Yet they are the most likely to kill themselves, the most likely to overdose on drugs, constantly pursuing the next dopamine hit. This is definitionally an indictment of materialism.
Meeting People in Their Suffering
Stuart's answer to combating this malaise is to meet people where they're at in their suffering. In a culture addicted to comfort, those who are addicted to comfort and ease will see tremendous breakdown. For revival, you have to talk about meeting a God-shaped hole.
Stuart shares that kids drive five to six hours to attend his church in Connecticut on Saturday nights, sleeping in their cars to be there Sunday morning. While this speaks to the hunger for truth-centered ministry, it also highlights a problem: there should be 100 churches like that on the way to his. You can throw a rock from his building and hit about 20 other churches, but they've become social clubs with rainbow flags. Stuart's church is dedicated to truth first and foremost, believing that's ultimately how to save souls, and secondarily how to push for justice. If you lose the moral absolutes from a Judeo-Christian worldview, all these social justice movements will peter out and break down.
Training Others to Share the Faith
When asked how to train someone to present the gospel to a skeptic in five minutes or less, Stuart points to Acts chapter 8, which shows three different ways to connect with three different people who are seeking honestly. Too many atheists pretend to be seeking when they're truly just closed-off cynics. If someone is genuinely closed off, it's a fool's errand to engage one-on-one, but if there's an audience, keep going. You're speaking over the cynic to the hundreds or thousands watching.
Stuart highlights three encounters in Acts: Lydia, a brilliant businesswoman and seller of purple, who needs someone to read the Bible with her and ask good questions about whether the resurrection occurred. Then there's the Jailer, who needs a miracle because tough guys typically need something supernatural to even start asking questions. Finally, there's the slave girl who needs justice done in order to say, "Wow, there could be a God because finally I see some justice in my life." You have to meet the person where they're at, figure out the cracks, and see how God provides.
When some pastors say you have to "meet them where they're at" by using their lingo or dressing like they do, Stuart clarifies that you should never compromise God's standards or rules. He rejects cookie-cutter methods like the Roman Road or the four spiritual laws as cheesy. He also pushes back against Christian YouTubers who think they need to curse every other word to be relevant. There's a level of respect and character in a person who doesn't need to curse to present the gospel well. You should never sin to try to evangelize. It's self-defeating.
The Importance of Scholarship
Cliff deeply values scholarship, though he admits one of his greatest regrets is not studying more. He quotes a preacher who said, "When I preach, I'm first going to study as hard as I can, pray as hard as I can, and then preach as hard as I can." We've got to study hard, pray hard, and preach hard.
Stuart talks about one of his favorite mentors in New York City who read 150 books a year and wrote national bestsellers, coming at topics from every cultural angle to present the gospel relevantly. Stuart's favorite mentors are his dead mentors because they can't hold him accountable on anything. He believes it's not enough anymore to just present the main doctrines. In the 1700s, when you had the Whitefields, the Newtons, and Jonathan Edwards with "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," you could present fire-and-brimstone gospel messages and see revivals by the thousands out of fear. That doesn't work anymore for the average person. We have to read broadly, memorize scripture, and really own those skills. Cliff has been having Stuart memorize scripture since he was two, and Stuart is now doing the same with his daughters, rewarding them with gummy bears for every verse they memorize.
Finding Courage to Engage
When asked how they find the confidence and courage to go cold into a campus they don't know and break the ice, Cliff shares a powerful story. The first bar he preached in was in inner city Boston when he was in seminary. He parked his car, walked toward the bar door, walked right past it, and walked around the block for about 15 minutes trying to get up the courage. Finally, feeling defeated, he went back to his car and was opening the door to return to seminary when the Holy Spirit brought to his mind Hebrews 11:32-38.
"And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised, who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword, whose weakness was turned into strength."
Cliff realized he was the biggest wimp around. These great men and women of faith laid their lives down for God, for Christ, and he couldn't even walk into a bar in inner city Boston to tell men about Christ. Convicted of his lack of faith, he turned around, walked into that bar, and stood up. "Excuse me, guys. John writes in 1 John 4:10, 'This is love: not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.'"
The bartender came running down the bar, cursing at him. Cliff said, "Excuse me, sir, all I want to do is talk with these guys about what means most in life: knowing God." The bartender replied, "Buddy, you want to know what God is? God is the cash register, and all I care about these guys is their money." Then he came around the bar, grabbed Cliff's arm, and escorted him out.
Cliff's lesson is clear: fear is the opposite of faith. When we grow in faith, trusting God and understanding what is true and right, we will put a stake in the ground. We don't care what happens. We're going to uncompromisingly stand for the truth of Jesus Christ.
