Charlie Kirk Reflects on Faith, Courage, and Defending Biblical Truth in Public Life

[00:00] If everything completely goes away, how

[00:02] do you want to be remembered? I

[00:04] mean, if I die,

[00:05] everything just goes away. How would you

[00:06] If you could be associated with one

[00:08] thing, how would you want to be

[00:09] remembered?

[00:10] I want to be I want to be remembered for

[00:12] for courage for my faith. That that

[00:15] would be the most important thing. Most

[00:16] important thing is my faith in my life.

[00:17] Whether we agree with all of his

[00:19] positions or not, he was also a husband,

[00:22] a father, a human being whose life was

[00:24] stolen in the act of hatred. And I

[00:26] believe also a brother in Christ. So, in

[00:28] this video, I want to honor some of my

[00:29] favorite moments from his public career

[00:31] where he defended the truth and

[00:34] glorified God. Do I believe in a

[00:35] separation of morality and state? Of

[00:37] course not. Now, the morality that built

[00:39] the West is the Ten Commandments. The

[00:41] Ten Commandments is the best rules of

[00:42] life for any society to flourish and to

[00:44] be able to succeed. You shall have no

[00:46] other gods before me. You shall have no

[00:48] other idols. You shall not take the

[00:49] Lord's name in vain. Honor your mother

[00:50] and fathers, may live long in the land

[00:53] of which you are in. Honor the Sabbath

[00:54] day and keep it holy. Do not murder. Do

[00:56] not steal. do not, you know, bear false

[00:58] witness, do not covet, do not commit

[00:59] adultery. It was out of order, but is

[01:01] that still the ten commandments that

[01:02] those rules for life is what the

[01:04] founders believed so much so that

[01:06] they're in the halls of Congress and the

[01:07] Supreme Court that we believe is

[01:09] transcendently transmitted to us and

[01:11] that when we do not submit to those ten

[01:13] commandments, our country starts to fall

[01:14] apart.

[01:15] But if you think about it, most wars in

[01:18] um when religion gets entangled into a

[01:20] culture and even government, most wars

[01:23] have started because of that. So that's

[01:24] a talking point that has no basis and

[01:26] that's okay because a professor told you

[01:27] that. So let's go to the truth and I'm

[01:29] going to ask you a couple questions.

[01:31] What religion did Ma Tong believe in?

[01:34] The great murder of China who killed 50

[01:36] million people.

[01:37] I don't know.

[01:38] He was an atheist. What religion did

[01:41] Joseph Stalin believe in who killed over

[01:43] 30 million people of the Soviet Union?

[01:45] An atheist.

[01:45] He was an atheist. So that's 80 million

[01:47] people murdered in two countries in just

[01:49] the 20th century that did not believe in

[01:52] any religion. So, it's an easy talking

[01:54] point to say that religion causes war,

[01:56] but in reality, it seems as if actually

[01:59] totalitarian dictatorships rooted in

[02:01] atheism and a lack of the divine is what

[02:04] caused more human suffering in the 20th

[02:05] century than not. Adolf Hitler was not a

[02:07] Christian. Adolf Hitler was at war with

[02:10] God and thought he was God and a a total

[02:12] maniac. So, there is no basis for what

[02:14] you're saying. You might be thinking

[02:15] about like the Crusades or something

[02:17] like six or 700 years ago or the

[02:19] Inquisition. If that's the po, if that's

[02:22] the case, I think you need a better

[02:23] argument.

[02:24] Are you a Christian by any chance?

[02:25] Very, very much so.

[02:26] Like, why is that exactly?

[02:28] Oh, Jesus saved my life. I'm a sinner.

[02:30] Gave my life to Christ. Most important

[02:31] decision I ever made.

[02:32] So, you believe the Bible is real.

[02:33] Yes, I believe the Bible is true and

[02:35] real.

[02:35] Why is that?

[02:36] Well, I could give you the technical

[02:38] answer. There's never been an

[02:38] archaeological discovery that has

[02:40] contradicted the truth of the Bible. And

[02:41] then, of course, the wisdom. There is

[02:42] not a truth of the Bible that if you

[02:43] apply to your life, your life does not

[02:45] improve dramatically. And then finally,

[02:47] uh, we have the most accurate and

[02:49] transparent historically robust account

[02:51] that one can have of the most important

[02:54] figure ever to live in the history of

[02:55] the world, Jesus of Nazareth. And the

[02:56] resurrection is the is the pinpoint of

[02:59] my belief that Jesus did rise from the

[03:01] grave so that we may live. If Genesis

[03:03] 1:1 and the resurrection is true,

[03:06] anything in the Bible is possible.

[03:07] You're looking at the greatest miracle.

[03:09] The greatest miracle is creation. And

[03:11] then the fact that Jesus rose from the

[03:13] dead. I say, "How do you know that Jesus

[03:14] rose from the dead?" Well, show me

[03:16] another historical piece of a story

[03:18] where so many people willingly died a

[03:21] brutal death for a lie. Every single

[03:24] person around him had everything to lose

[03:26] and yet they went to the absolute death

[03:28] from Paul to Peter to the halfbrother of

[03:30] James saying that Jesus is Lord. Jesus

[03:32] rose from the dead. Not to mention, if

[03:34] you were going to fake a story, you

[03:35] would not use female witnesses in the

[03:36] ancient world. In the scriptures, it

[03:38] said that the fe the women were the

[03:39] first one to see Jesus Christ. If you're

[03:41] trying to fake a story, you would never

[03:42] do that. Not to mention the 500 people

[03:44] that saw Jesus after he rose from the

[03:45] dead and then the later church that

[03:47] lived under persecution.

[03:48] You've spoken a little bit about your

[03:49] belief in the sanctity of life and the

[03:51] inviable dignity of the human person. Um

[03:54] I take it that you accept evolution.

[03:57] Um it depends what you mean by that.

[04:00] Do you think we've evolved from

[04:01] primates?

[04:02] I don't know.

[04:03] Okay.

[04:04] But I I do believe in the biblical

[04:05] account of creation. I also acknowledge

[04:08] that there is an abundance of scientific

[04:10] research that shows adaptation. Species

[04:13] change is heavily inferred in the data.

[04:16] I don't know enough about it, but I

[04:17] believe the scriptures to be true. And

[04:19] you could you can be a theist and also

[04:20] believe in God ushered evolution.

[04:22] Yeah, I completely

[04:23] so of which I allow people much smarter

[04:25] than me to make determinations on that.

[04:27] It's completely irrelevant to my core

[04:28] theology though.

[04:30] Okay. Um, are you happy for me to

[04:32] proceed with the question though on that

[04:33] basis?

[04:33] Sorry. Yeah, I didn't mean to interrupt

[04:34] you, but yeah.

[04:35] Yeah, that's fine. So, you're kind of

[04:36] vaguely, not vaguely, but you seem

[04:38] generally happy with the idea that maybe

[04:40] evolution um is true. I I hope that

[04:43] that's the case. I mean,

[04:44] I I I actually I don't believe that. I

[04:46] think that

[04:47] I actually I'm not I'm not saying I You

[04:49] said happy to that evolution is true.

[04:51] Well, not necessarily happy, but it was

[04:52] a word you used, right?

[04:53] Okay, fine. Uh willing to accept that

[04:56] based on the uh evidence, evolution is a

[04:59] fact.

[04:59] No, I I I'm not saying it's a fact. I'm

[05:01] actually, again, I say I'm open to have

[05:04] my mind moved. Mhm.

[05:05] And I look at the data, but I believe

[05:08] given the abundance of equal data that

[05:10] atheists must reckon with

[05:11] that there is a fine-tuning problem to

[05:13] our existence that I believe warrants

[05:15] that there is a God. Intelligent life

[05:17] came from a God and I believe the

[05:19] scriptures to be true that in the

[05:20] creation account there is an allowance

[05:22] to say that God created the heavens and

[05:25] the earth and allowed us to either

[05:26] evolve through species. I happen to

[05:28] believe through a faith claim

[05:29] that human beings are designed. Whe that

[05:32] means it's designed over a long period

[05:33] of time or designed immediately.

[05:36] That that that's for people smarter than

[05:38] me to determine.

[05:38] Fine. I suppose what I'm getting at is

[05:40] if you believe in the sanctity of life

[05:42] and that there is something

[05:42] fundamentally different between the life

[05:44] of say for instance a human being and

[05:46] the life of an animal. Does that not

[05:49] make that claim slightly arbitrary? What

[05:51] is kind of what is personhood based in?

[05:54] If not, do you see what I'm getting at?

[05:56] Sort of. The scriptures say though that

[05:57] God created humans male and female

[06:00] distinct. are the only ones in Genesis

[06:02] 126127 to made in the image of God.

[06:04] And so he called animals good, but they

[06:06] are not image bearsers.

[06:08] Okay? But

[06:09] but that word that word create

[06:11] is bar in Hebrew. And it's not clear

[06:14] whether or not that is created an

[06:16] instant over a long period of time. And

[06:18] we as believers, I find no contradiction

[06:20] into saying that God could have created

[06:22] an instant of which I would be pleased.

[06:24] I'll ask God when I get to heaven how

[06:26] this all unfolded. or was it a process

[06:28] of adaptation and species change? Very

[06:31] smart Christians are on both sides of

[06:33] this issue and they so there's what we

[06:35] call in Christianity closedhand

[06:37] theological issues and openhand

[06:38] theological issues. Closed hand issues

[06:40] would be like the resurrection of

[06:41] Christ, the trinity and then there's

[06:43] open-handed which would be like

[06:45] esquetology or the eukarist or the

[06:47] creation account. Uh this one allows

[06:49] given the verbiage. It could be either

[06:51] way.

[06:51] Mhm. Fine. It's very hard to communicate

[06:55] Christ and then also to challenge people

[06:57] to think, okay, what are the

[06:58] ramifications of your belief in Christ,

[07:00] especially politically, especially

[07:02] culturally, that gets real hard. And one

[07:04] of the reasons it's hard is because we

[07:06] don't all agree, right? You go around in

[07:08] this room and I don't think we're all

[07:09] going to agree on everything. That's

[07:10] where tolerance comes in. Tolerance is

[07:12] not an atheist and I agree. No, we don't

[07:15] agree. Tolerance is although you are an

[07:17] atheist, I respect you and we're going

[07:18] to have an intelligent dialogue. Now,

[07:20] that's what he does and that's what we

[07:21] try and do. intelligent dialogue. Guys,

[07:23] that's what a liberal arts education is

[07:24] all about. A free exchange of ideas

[07:26] where we don't necessarily agree, but we

[07:28] communicate respectfully and we explain

[07:30] why we believe what we believe. What's

[07:32] the evidence that whatever it is you

[07:34] believe is true. So that's the kind of

[07:35] thing that we want.

[07:36] The most important thing is always

[07:38] Jesus. The second most important thing

[07:40] is making sure that we could talk about

[07:41] Jesus and worship Jesus, which is

[07:43] increasingly more difficult.

[07:45] People that even say that do you believe

[07:46] in separation of morality and state?

[07:48] Nobody does. So all laws are a

[07:50] reflection of morality and all morality

[07:51] comes from somewhere. There is no such

[07:53] thing as neutral morality. And we

[07:55] believe what the founders believe

[07:56] because they put it in the halls of

[07:57] Congress. They put it in the Supreme

[07:58] Court and they put it all throughout the

[08:00] country which is that the decalogue the

[08:01] ten commandments is the core morality of

[08:03] how a society and a civilization should

[08:05] should exist. Right? The the ten

[08:06] commandments of every person. And

[08:08] finally and this is the kicker. If the

[08:10] founding fathers were not Bible

[08:11] believing church uh church Christians,

[08:13] why did they put Leviticus on Liberty

[08:16] Bell? Not John, not Psalms, not

[08:18] Proverbs, not Genesis. Leviticus. Most

[08:21] Americans can't spell Leviticus.

[08:23] Leviticus 25:19. Proclaim liberty

[08:25] throughout the land of which you are in.

[08:27] It is one of the most sinister, most

[08:29] unsubstantiated lies that does not come

[08:31] up against any sort of academic

[08:32] scrutiny. This idea that founding

[08:34] fathers were a bunch of enlightenment

[08:35] common law deists. The reason they hate

[08:38] it is because if they The reason they

[08:40] must say this is that if we actually go

[08:42] back to our Christian roots and we go

[08:44] back to where we once were, it's

[08:46] America's best hope for revival and for

[08:48] a great future.

[08:51] Because when I went to Israel, I came in

[08:53] contact with the living God that walked

[08:55] on water and rose Lazarus from the dead.

[08:57] When I went to Israel, I saw the Bible

[08:59] come to life. When I went to Israel,

[09:03] I saw Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and

[09:05] Sarah, Becca, and Leia. When I went to

[09:07] Israel, what I read as Bible stories

[09:09] popped open and I said, "This is the

[09:11] word of God. This is real. These are not

[09:13] fairy tales or fables or things that we

[09:15] tell our kids." When I went to Israel, I

[09:17] was able to cry where Jesus cried. Where

[09:20] he was betrayed by Judas and arrested,

[09:22] where he rose from the dead and gives us

[09:25] eternal life. There is a diabolical

[09:27] satanic agenda every single day to try

[09:30] and delegitimize the scriptures. I will

[09:32] defend the Holy Land, the place that let

[09:34] me see where my Lord and Savior lived.

[09:36] And I will not apologize to that.

[09:38] There's one author, many transcribers.

[09:40] But that actually proves the point of

[09:42] the Bible. Because if there was only one

[09:43] person that wrote it, then might it

[09:44] might have been just kind of one

[09:45] person's opinion. Instead, you have

[09:48] Solomon who wrote Proverbs and

[09:49] Ecclesiastes, King David who wrote

[09:51] Psalms, and then you have Matthew, Mark,

[09:53] Luke, and John, and then you have Paul

[09:55] who wrote 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans,

[09:57] and 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and Jude. It

[10:00] kind of proves the point that all these

[10:01] people weren't all like working

[10:02] together. Yet 66 different books all

[10:05] came to the same conclusion that there

[10:07] is a God. We are not him. We're in

[10:10] constant rebellion against that God.

[10:11] That God loves us so much because God is

[10:13] love. That he sent his son on a rescue

[10:15] mission to save us from our broken

[10:16] nature so that we can live forever.

[10:18] Sorry to interrupt you, but you're

[10:19] getting off topic. So basically,

[10:21] did I get off topic, guys? I don't think

[10:23] I did.

[10:24] Because if

[10:26] Okay, it's okay. But so it doesn't all

[10:29] come to the same conclusion because

[10:30] there are multiple stories of in

[10:33] different books there are multiple

[10:34] stories of the same story and all of

[10:37] these writers

[10:38] like what you mean like the birth of

[10:39] Jesus.

[10:40] Yes.

[10:40] But they're not contradictory. That's

[10:41] actually pretty

[10:42] they are contradictory.

[10:43] How is the birth of Jesus? Explain to

[10:45] me. I mean I mean I'm

[10:46] certain some of the stories say that it

[10:48] happened at a different time. Some of

[10:49] them say that they happen at a different

[10:50] time.

[10:51] No no that's interesting. So that's not

[10:52] contradictory. That actually proves the

[10:53] point. So, for example, if right now,

[10:55] god forbid, there was a big car accident

[10:57] and there were five witnesses, someone

[10:59] would say, "Well, I think he was wearing

[11:00] a yellow shirt." And someone would say,

[11:01] "Well, I think it was like a yellowish

[11:02] red shirt." And someone would say, "I

[11:04] think the car was red." And then what

[11:05] the fact gatherer does is they'll see a

[11:07] pattern between that because even when

[11:09] you have a lot of eyewitnesses, not

[11:10] everyone's eyewitness will be exactly

[11:12] the same, but everyone will agree, oh,

[11:13] there was a car accident. So,

[11:14] and that's how the birth of Jesus was.

[11:16] They weren't disagreeing that there was

[11:17] a virgin birth or that it happened in

[11:18] Bethlehem, but some of their like

[11:20] details might have been inconsistent,

[11:22] which actually proves the Bible is true.

[11:24] It proves that they were not all

[11:25] deriving off the same canonical

[11:27] document. It proves that these were four

[11:28] different accounts that went out to try

[11:30] to find the truth. And people might have

[11:31] had different variations of it, but they

[11:33] were talking about the same elemental

[11:35] events. Are you a Christian?

[11:37] I'm am Catholic. Yes.

[11:38] Okay, good. I'm glad. Do because I

[11:41] couldn't tell based on how we're dancing

[11:42] around. Do you think it would be a good

[11:43] thing if more people accepted Christ?

[11:46] Yes, but not in the way that most I feel

[11:49] like most Christians and most Catholics

[11:51] are trying to

[11:52] Fair enough. So, I'm going to try to

[11:53] commit

[11:53] I don't agree with evangelation.

[11:54] Evangelization really to be honest.

[11:57] You don't believe in Christianity? Go

[11:58] and make disciples of all nations was

[11:59] literally the last thing that Christ

[12:00] said, but that's fine. So, but let me

[12:02] So, you believe that we should repent

[12:04] for our sins?

[12:06] Yes.

[12:06] How can we repent if we don't know the

[12:08] sins?

[12:10] Because things do not have to be Okay.

[12:13] So, if we're repenting for our sins,

[12:16] these sins do not have to be like things

[12:19] that are just like said like, as I'm

[12:21] saying before, once in the Bible, it was

[12:22] said once in the Bible, it was said a

[12:24] couple times in the Bible. Those things

[12:25] are not they're not like core. They're

[12:29] not core beliefs. They're not

[12:30] Well, let's just take the Ten

[12:31] Commandments. Which one of those do you

[12:32] disagree with?

[12:34] Well, I I don't disagree with, to be

[12:37] honest. What I'm getting at though is

[12:39] that the only way we bring people to

[12:41] Christ is if they know how far they how

[12:44] how much they fall short of the glory of

[12:46] God. They only know they fall short of

[12:47] the glory of God if they know God's

[12:49] perfect standard and law, which we know

[12:50] throughout the scriptures. So, for

[12:52] example, as I went through the ten

[12:53] commandments earlier, you might say,

[12:54] "Oh, I don't violate them." You're

[12:55] violating do not covet every day. You're

[12:56] violating do not steal every day. You're

[12:58] violating that stuff every single day.

[13:00] And only with that's why we need a

[13:01] savior. And that's why on college

[13:03] campus, all about me, all about me. It's

[13:05] meology. when in reality we need Christ

[13:07] to come into our life. We need to

[13:08] repent. We need to get down on our hands

[13:10] and knees and say, "Jesus, come into my

[13:12] life.

[13:17] [Music]