In the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder, the media, institutions and various bodies across the culture have been quick to point fingers at various theories as to the identity of the shooter. But is there any truth behind these theories? And can we trust them?
00:00:18.000Welcome to Stay Free with Russell Brand, wherever you're watching.
00:00:21.000Let's make your way to Rumble and join us there for my conversation with Frank Turk.
00:00:25.000Frank Turk, of course, was in the company of Charlie Kirk when he was murdered.
00:00:31.000And in our conversation, we talk about the implications and repercussions of Charlie Kirk's murder and the exploitation of his death by in a sense, institutions and various bodies across the culture.
00:00:44.000I, in particular, am interested in the distinction that exists between Christ's message and the political message of the Republican Party, because those are two separate things.
00:00:55.000So let me know in the comments and chat what you think about that perspective.
00:00:59.000Over the course of the conversation, we get into it.
00:01:01.000And towards the end, he talks in more detail about his feelings around some of the conspiracy theories and the utilisation and mobilisation.
00:01:09.000By you know, many different groups when it comes to the identity of the shooter.
00:01:15.000If you haven't got Rumble Premium yet, get Rumble Premium now because it helps me directly financially.
00:01:20.000And as you can see, I've got a lot of very important.
00:01:23.000Oh no, I've got a very lot of important medications to take.
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00:01:40.000And presumably I imagine there's things that are connected to Turning Point and Rumble are a free speech platform, and whatever you think about YouTube, and you know, I still watch YouTube sometimes.
00:02:02.000They favor the same news institutions and organizations that we would call legacy media now.
00:02:08.000That's not to say there aren't brilliant people doing extremely well on YouTube.
00:02:11.000I count some of them among my friends.
00:02:13.000But if you get too near the edge, if you get too near the light, as they say, you'll take a lot of flack when you're over the target, baby.
00:02:20.000Anyway, let's get into this conversation between me and Frank Turek.
00:02:54.000Really, I thought I'd live somewhere, you know, plausible in Florida.
00:02:59.000You know, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, maybe even Sarasota, Tampa.
00:03:04.000You know, not this place, but we came here on vacation.
00:03:09.000Uh, my wife used to come here, it went right well, and um, I met people that I just loved, and I've come here because of the people and to be in the church here.
00:03:21.000Well, you're your conversion's inspirational, man.
00:03:24.000I love how you speak about the faith and the holy spirit and uh the fact that you know you feel like your old life is over and your new life in Christ is it's just it's flamboyant.
00:03:49.000And the for me, like the the presence of a you know, I hope it's not misleading when I say a kind of psychedelic Christ.
00:03:56.000What I mean by psychedelic Christ is that, well, gosh, it might one might say that with normal, the kind of normal social consciousness, the normal cultural consciousness that I reckon the state and the culture would like you to have, i.e.
00:04:11.000worshiping false idols, beginning with yourself, ending with perhaps some expression of a personal urge, um false gods in the culture.
00:04:20.000The idea that uh Jesus Christ died, rose again, that I can participate in the consciousness of Christ through the Holy Spirit right Now while talking to you.
00:04:31.000So it seems like the very kind of thing I was grasping at as a crack and heroin addict for a good many years.
00:04:37.000And indeed, the kind of bliss through carnality that as a sex addict, uh certainly I suppose you might say an active sex addict, once a sex addict, always a sex addict, but you know, while I was pursuing carnality and the flesh, what I was longing for was this deep intimacy that I'm starting to receive in the most surprising but empirical and undeniable ways.
00:05:03.000And I'm very grateful to have our conversation, which I reckon is obviously how can it not center around the recent murder of I'm assuming your friend uh Charlie Kirk, and a man that I knew a little, um but of course make God rest his eternal soul, and I hope that you are recovering from what must be a staggeringly traumatic event.
00:05:24.000And I'm and my sincere prayers for you.
00:05:31.000I want to ask, though, this already Charlie Kirk's death is not Charlie Kirk's life.
00:05:35.000Charlie Kirk's death could be regarded as a sort of a coin, a token, and sort of an object that's being moved around in the culture in surprising ways.
00:05:45.000Uh, someone that knew Charlie Kirk well, you must surely be surprised at the extraordinary impact of his death, even when you take into account the extraordinary impact of his life.
00:05:55.000And anything that might be regarded disproportionate in terms of condemnation or celebration is I would say cause for analysis, unless it is um the legitimate expression of holy and divine alliance.
00:06:11.000Because here is where Charlie's death is maybe like any other object in the culture, aside from the magnitude, which I'm not disputing or even querying.
00:06:21.000I'm talking about the exploitation of events by the culture, how an event like a virus that might only affect people that are, you know, gosh, put quickly and bluntly, going to die anyway, is utilized to assert massive social control and move around wealth and exploit people.
00:06:40.000I wonder what your perspective is on the response to Charlie's death.
00:06:47.000Of course, I think we all recognize the things that are beautiful, Erica Kirk's astonishing and bold forgiveness of the murderer.
00:06:54.000Uh, but I'm and and of course I'm fascinated by the numerous theories I'm interested in stuff like that.
00:07:00.000But what do you feel about the way that his death has been used in by the culture?
00:07:10.000I think that it's best summed up by my friend Pastor Jack Hibbs.
00:07:16.000He said when he first learned of it, his granddaughter was crying and he was crying.
00:07:23.000How often do you have a figure, Russell, who is loved by at least three generations?
00:07:31.000A grandchild, a parent, and a grandfather are all crying over someone's death.
00:07:41.000And Charlie was the same person off the stage as he was on the stage, except when he was on the stage, he was so confident in what he was saying because he was prepared.
00:07:55.000But when he was off the stage, his humility was the only thing that exceeded his intelligence.
00:08:01.000And that's why he was asking people like me and others to mentor him.
00:08:07.000And it it could be hard, Russell, to mentor somebody smarter than you, but not with Charlie, because he was so humble that the few things I knew that he wanted to know, he asked me to teach him because he was so humble.
00:08:21.000He was so effective across generations, because he was urging the younger generation to grow up, and he was also urging the older generations to actually help the younger generations grow up and to find meaning and purpose in their lives in Christ.
00:08:45.000All the politic stuff out is an outflow of his love for Jesus.
00:08:50.000In fact, he just said about a month ago, politics is peanuts compared to Jesus.
00:08:54.000Because politics is temporary, but Jesus is eternal.
00:08:58.000By the way, that's one of the biggest Differences between the Christian worldview and the Marxist worldview.
00:09:03.000In the Marxist worldview, they think the state is eternal, therefore the individuals are expendable.
00:09:08.000In the Christian worldview, the individual is eternal, and therefore the state is ultimately expendable because the state is going to go away.
00:09:34.000So every any subsequent ceremony or cultural paraphernalia that centers on Charlie's relationship with Christ, we can therefore say is a benefit, a benefit to the kingdom.
00:09:49.000Would I interested in particular of discussing anything that is outside of that category?
00:09:55.000You've just said that Charlie said that politics is peanuts, and yet there's no question that there's been a political response to Charlie Kirk's death.
00:10:04.000The politicians, the many politicians that attended his memorial, the many political and cultural figures that have been critical, condemnatory, and sometimes profane about Charlie.
00:10:17.000But of course, as someone who loved Charlie Kirk, it's easy, of course, for you to appreciate the figures that were politically aligned, perhaps rather than spiritually aligned with Charlie Kirk being uh participating in the grief that this bereavement has brought about and the set and the subsequent ceremonies.
00:10:43.000And it's very, of course, in a in a way it's also easy to uh you know criticize, but of course, after Erica Kirk's example, ultimately forgive people that have said crazy, rude, hurtful, mad, dismissive things about Charlie.
00:10:58.000But what interests me mostly is the exploitation, the political exploitation, and that's what I'm curious about.
00:11:05.000The political exploitation and what that might mean.
00:11:09.000Because of course, if there's um, you know, the truth is is while all of us, it would seem to me, are important to Christ, or he has no favorites, and none of us are any more or less important than one another at all.
00:11:22.000Well, that's part of what I find sort of humbling and glorious.
00:11:26.000So any attempt to mobilize, utilize, expand or fetishize the event.
00:11:36.000I think it's interesting to contemplate and to consider.
00:11:39.000There's no question there's a good deal of very sincere grief, such as you described the three generations affected.
00:11:45.000And I've met lots of young people, old people that have been very affected by Charlie Kirk's murder.
00:11:54.000And those things are understandable and in a way, not if I can be blunt, not interesting because they are understandable immediately and obviously.
00:12:04.000What is interesting to me is anything where one might sense that it is being exploited by anybody to generate hate or to generate momentum.
00:12:18.000Well, I think Charlie would appreciate the fact that people now want to be more politically engaged to help people through the law, because the law is a great teacher and the law protects innocent people from evil when it's done properly.
00:12:33.000It also hurts people when it's done improperly when bad laws are put into place.
00:12:37.000So I don't think Charlie would in any way be upset with people saying, look, we need to vote more conservatively to protect innocent people from evil.
00:12:47.000That's the purpose of government anyway.
00:12:49.000You know, as James Madison famously said, if men were angels, no government would be necessary.
00:12:54.000We wouldn't need a government if we all acted in an angelic way.
00:12:57.000We only need a government because we're fallen, and we need a government to punish wrongdoers and therefore protect innocent people from evil.
00:13:05.000If the thing that I find troubling about some exploitation, Russell is this.
00:13:12.000There are people on the left who called themselves progressive Christians, and they're out there saying, okay, yeah, we saw that a lot of people were preaching the gospel and a lot of people were praising Jesus, but beware of conservative politics that flows from this.
00:13:29.000Instead Of these people saying I'm I'm rejoicing that the word of the Lord is getting out to the biggest audience probably in history.
00:13:41.000These people are worried that their political position may not win the day now because of this, which shows me that Jesus is not number one to them.
00:13:57.000Instead of being all excited, you know, you know what Paul says.
00:14:00.000He says in one of his letters that people are preaching the gospel with false motives, and he says, you know, I really don't care.
00:14:05.000As long as the gospel's getting out there, I don't care what motive it is behind it.
00:14:10.000Yet these people, these leftists are upset that their political position is not winning the day while the gospel is going out to millions of people.
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00:15:55.000So I um I was thinking about you know, Romans 13 versus Revelation 13.
00:16:03.000That we know we fight against rulers against authorities.
00:16:07.000And it seems to me that like the human institutions have long and variously been captured by I wouldn't hesitate to say past from Frank, excuse me, Frank told me queue, Frank, like by demonic forces, by demonic forces.
00:16:51.000It wants us to be as little children to enter the kingdom.
00:16:54.000It wants us dependent on it, sometimes literally and financially in a very observable way, but through uh it wants us to be dependent on the state always through uh its cultural edicts, it's new kind of spontaneous hadiths and adjustments and and amendments to the way that we must see ourselves and one another.
00:17:18.000And I wonder if this Charlie's awful murder is an isn't I think we'll be failing dreadfully if we allow partisanship of any variety to colour or inform the interpretation of Charlie Kirk's terrible murder.
00:17:41.000And what I believe is and why I'm I'm so happy that Christ found me and that I found him, because now I I never been in a position like this before.
00:18:07.000Even when I'm frightened and I'm regularly frightened, even when I'm angry and I'm pretty regularly angry, it don't it's irrelevant really.
00:18:25.000And all I want to do now is love him more.
00:18:27.000And the thing that I resisted my whole life was surrendering to the man aspect of Christ and the aspect of Christ that I think has long been exploited and utilized to create conformity and convention and exploitation.
00:18:37.000And I feel that if we hold ourselves to account in Christ, it's going to be revolutionary.
00:18:44.000I mean, I know that we don't need us, and there's nowhere that it says in the Bible, would you please go out and overthrow the government?
00:18:51.000All we're meant to be doing is vigilantly preparing and waiting for his return and loving one another as he loved us, which means up to the point of death.
00:18:59.000And one of the things that moved me about Charlie's death is I reckon he's a person, I think I've seen you say this actually publicly, that would have done it anyway, even if he'd known.
00:19:07.000And I've heard Erica Kirk subsequently say that like the materials that he left, it seems like he was preparing for it.
00:19:13.000But even I didn't know Charlie Kirk very well.
00:19:16.000And I'm, you know, I like any sane person mourn the death of Charlie Kirk for the uh reasons that are obvious.
00:19:23.000But I I'm what I'm interested in is the cultural artifact now, Frank, which is not, you know, in the most brutal terms, is not Charlie Kirk, because Charlie Kirk is a man that you know, a human being that loved Christ, that used bathrooms that was a normal like you know, a bit an exceptional in many ways and normal in a bunch of other ways, and like all of us, his greatest tributes are filthy rags before the Lord, as it says in Isaiah.
00:19:50.000So I'm interested in how is the culture going to use this to exert more control and create more division.
00:19:59.000Because if the if the if we remain true, faithful, if we follow the line of Christ here, it can only create love.
00:20:06.000Not to say that we won't be haunted and tormented and damned, but it will only create love if we if we're doing what we're instructed to do.
00:20:12.000Russell, take a look at the response to Charlie's death versus the death of George Floyd.
00:21:40.000In fact, that's what I said at the memorial service.
00:21:42.000I said I went through many great things that that Charlie did, but then I said, Charlie is not in heaven because he sacrificed himself for his savior.
00:21:52.000Charlie is in heaven because his savior sacrificed himself for Charlie Kirk.
00:22:34.000I don't think in a way it's a fair example, except when you use political criteria.
00:22:39.000And we don't want this to be a political event.
00:22:41.000We want this to be a spiritual event for the kingdom.
00:22:44.000So already we're setting it up as a sort of a political comparison.
00:22:48.000George Floyd was not a spiritual leader or a political activist.
00:22:51.000He was a I feel like maybe a drug user who got into an occasion with a policeman and through the I would say aggressive policing there, you know, which might be understandable if you're continually policing difficult situations, you know.
00:23:06.000Um George Floyd, you know, I think the verdict was he was murdered.
00:23:10.000Um now the subsequent rioting versus um ceremonial services.
00:23:17.000I just feel like the opponents of the political well, there it's very it seems like it's difficult to ext extricate the political component of Charlie Kirk and Charlie Kirk's death.
00:23:29.000Like Charlie Kirk weren't he's a Christian, and that's all we know about him, is like he loves Jesus, and like I don't care about any of these political subjects.
00:23:37.000You know, like and I'm really interested, but please don't think.
00:23:40.000Can I say something about that though, Russell?
00:24:08.000Now it would seem to me that in a position that we're in now, that's so that the death of George Floyd was no doubt exploited by people who had intentions beyond creating the kind of kingdom that Martin Luther King, who I would see as a Christian, and I bet he saw himself as a Christian above all else, and that his leadership flowed forth from his Christianity and his rhetoric flowed forth from his Christianity, and his belief that we should be treating one another with love and not seeing colour flows forth from his Christianity.
00:24:38.000And maybe, you know, the way that our culture works, even the brokenness of Dr. Martin Luther King would be forgiven and redeemed through his love of Christ and through his saviour's same as your saviour, my savour, Charlie Kirk's Saviour.
00:24:51.000Now, the r when uh George Floyd was m murdered, it was exploited in order to sort of create social division.
00:25:02.000And I would be concerned, even though the visuals and the wakes and the candlelight in it are a much more appropriate, beautiful, holy and humble expression of grief than rioting in despair.
00:25:16.000I'm trying to imagine the counter-argument because I don't like to spend too much time just doubling down on stuff I already think.
00:25:24.000I try to explore and understand new things, and I wonder if they might say, well, you know, we didn't have um the cultural support for this movement.
00:25:34.000And again, it's actually a difficult comparison to make because it's all inadvertent and accidentally.
00:25:38.000George Floyd's just a person that got inadvertently murdered who's on drugs and stuff like that.
00:25:42.000He's not a social activist or anything like that.
00:25:45.000So I suppose we can talk about them as two symbols, and that's actually what I'm trying to do, trying to extract Charlie Kirk, because it's too painful to think about like the father and the man and the husband and all that, and I can only get through it by thinking about the Christian.
00:25:56.000And I reckon what I'm trying to say is that isn't it our role therefore, then as Christians who like um you uh uh plainly, I suppose I'm guessing are aligned with Charlie Kirk on most things politically.
00:26:09.000I'm like my political opinions and beliefs.
00:26:12.000I I'm only interested in what Jesus Christ would think.
00:26:16.000Anything that I reckon, I'm willing to just throw it on the fire instantaneously because I know what I think does to my life and the life of people around me.
00:26:25.000It's just hazardous and pointless and a waste of time, and I always deviate back to selfishness and self-centeredness and warning attention.
00:26:32.000And if you left me alone long enough without the light of Christ, I'd start wanting sex and drugs and money and fame and attention.
00:26:37.000I've seen what I do, I know what I do without him.
00:26:40.000I'm nothing, I'm broken, and all I want to do is be with him in love with him forever.
00:26:45.000My love of my children, my love of my wife through him, and my love of my enemy, and my love of my neighbour and my love of like the Christ, if he does, you know, some things that it seems that define the uh the biblical ministry of Christ, and I suppose that's the only one we I suppose know.
00:27:01.000Um so maybe that was an unnecessary qualifier, is the reduction of limited li the removal of limited liability when it comes to what constitutes a neighbour and the removal of limited liability when it comes to what we should do for others up to the point of death, everybody.
00:27:20.000Now like and what I was gonna say then is that's why, contrary to popular opinion, Christians need to care about people in every area of their lives.
00:27:32.000We're to be Christians not only at church but also at work and also at home and also online and also in the voting booth, everywhere we're supposed to be Christians, we're supposed to be salt and light, we're supposed to love our neighbors, and Charlie wanted to put those two things together, he wanted to eradicate this false idea that only the atheists are supposed to run the country.
00:27:55.000I don't know where we got that idea from, Russell, but somehow we're gonna be able to do that.
00:27:59.000Secular is from secularism, yes, and and and it's silly.
00:28:04.000Uh you know, the whole separation of church and state thing it has been misunderstood.
00:28:09.000What that means is we don't want the Pope to be the president, we don't want the governments to be the same, but that doesn't mean the Christians ought not be involved in influencing the government or even serving in the government because we want to put laws in place that protect innocent people from evil.
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00:30:32.000And I wonder then now, um how see, I suppose it would be difficult to envisage uh Israeli government that was not impacted by Judaism and not impacted by the articles and uh artifacts and of the Jewish faith.
00:30:50.000It's difficult to imagine a Muslim country that's not impacted by the uh Quran and articles of their faith and ideology.
00:31:01.000And I suppose my personal belief, and you please help me with this, is that uh the secularism comes out of enlightenment thinking, and it's the idea that the pinnacle of authuman authority of all of actually of all authority is human authority,
00:31:20.000that reason is our absolute God, and I think where we now find ourselves at odds, say from for me, I'm English, so I grew up with the church of England, And even as I say the phrase church of England, I can see where the church is, and I can see where England is in that power dynamic.
00:31:38.000Um I believe that there is no basis for authority unless the principles have come from God.
00:31:45.000And I suppose if one political party is making the claim that it's gonna do a better job of representing the kingdom, then it's gonna have to be pretty accountable across the board and just not just where convenient.
00:32:01.000Of course, any Christian, it's written there that life is sacred, so we all know where we would stand on a subject like pro-life, pro-life, pro-choice euphanesia.
00:32:10.000But there's also quite a lot of instruction that seems to suggest that you've better put down everything you own and follow me.
00:32:19.000You better be willing to sacrifice give up everything.
00:32:22.000Now it's pretty clear to me that there is no political party in the United States of America that adequately represents the principles of Jesus Christ.
00:32:30.000And I would further I mean I'd say the Vatican doesn't go far enough in representing the principles of Jesus Christ.
00:32:38.000So I've got no problem saying the Republican Party doesn't do it.
00:32:41.000Because if I can sit here and say I've been the Vatican, I've seen the Caravaggios of St. Matthew being an uh appointed and uh if not anointed, appointed, and then I've seen it the caravaggio of him having his skin flayed off, and then I've like gone to the Vatican, and it's kind of like a gift shop, you know, like you know, and I you know I love the Catholic faith, I love it.
00:33:01.000I say the rosary, I love the holy mother, and I believe we eat his flesh.
00:33:08.000But what I also feel like is that human institutions over time have become peculiarly diabolical, and if we are true Christians, I think it makes us revolutionaries and radicals.
00:33:18.000And for me, that means anywhere we sense that the kingdom of God and Jesus Christ is not being served.
00:33:25.000It is our duty to be willing to die for that principle to be a prisoner for Jesus Christ in chains for as long as is required in order to bring about the kingdom.
00:33:36.000And I think that gives us a pretty clear instruction on how what our attitude should be is to war and vice and money and faith and the pandemic, I mean, everything like and um I and I wonder what you think this unique moment offers us.
00:33:52.000I don't like if Charlie Kirk's legacy is so that's why you should vote Republican, then I think I don't know that Jesus is up there like, yeah, that's what I meant.
00:34:02.000I should have called it republicanism, that's what I meant.
00:34:06.000If if if all that comes out of this is a political revival, that's gonna be short-lived and it's not gonna build the kingdom.
00:34:15.000It has to be a spiritual revival first.
00:34:17.000The political revival flows from the spiritual revival.
00:34:21.000If it's the other way around, it's not gonna work.
00:34:24.000And the number one thing again in Charlie's life was Jesus.
00:34:28.000He wanted to get people saved and sanctified, and so that's what he wants to happen.
00:34:34.000The political revival properly understood will flow from a spiritual revival, and we should want good laws put into place.
00:34:42.000We should want people protected from evil.
00:34:45.000We should want babies that are protected from death.
00:34:48.000We should want kids that are protected from child mutilation.
00:34:51.000We should want kids that are protected from child sex trafficking across an open border.
00:35:29.000And I do you feel that the principles of the local churches are a better basis for local government than the principles of centralized authority.
00:35:42.000You know, I was I was reading something from about Pliny, uh sorry, about Justin Martyr.
00:35:50.000Uh Justin Martyr was martyred for his faith in the mid-100s, and he had a long passage about what church Was like in the second century, and it was pretty profound, Russell.
00:36:05.000It was all about how people would get together, they would pray, they would expound the scriptures, and then they would give to take care of widows and orphans and to take care of anybody that needed help at that time.
00:36:21.000It was just pure religion, as one New Testament writer talks about it, that this is true religion, that we take care of widows and orphans.
00:36:29.000He's not talking about the government taking care of them, he's talking about the church.
00:37:11.000That's what you said earlier, pretty much when you said these human institutions have gotten far away from the word.
00:37:16.000That's one of the reasons Martin Luther wanted to reform the Catholic Church, because they had gotten away from the fact that we're saved by faith.
00:38:05.000And where that leads me, and I wonder where it's gonna it leads me here.
00:38:10.000We lived for a long time in a world that was dominated by necessarily centralized institutions.
00:38:16.000We we've in the post-industrial age, it meant made a lot of sense to centralized government.
00:38:21.000I mean, you know, feudalism is a form of obviously centralized government, and even your magnificent country, and I'm very grateful to be living here, by the way, like your magnificent country, which is an evolution on the principles of the country that might be argued.
00:38:35.000Certainly I saw Charlie Kirk argue, see magnetic.
00:38:40.000And now, though, it seems we are as a result of technology and instantaneous communication in a very different moment.
00:38:47.000Uh Andrew Breitbart is fond of saying that politics is downstream of culture, but all things are downstream of God and technology sits in this interstitial place ahead of culture, I would say, because certainly now it would seem to me that mass and instantaneous communication has necessitated as facilitated mass surveillance, has necessitated, and at least has been used to justify mass censorship, the creation of new categories, misinformation and disinformation.
00:39:17.000In that peculiar and dark pandemic era, one of the things that was notable was the closing down of churches and the foreclosure of the right to worship.
00:39:26.000For me, a clear indicator of the presumed superiority of the state over Christ and his church.
00:39:33.000I wonder, therefore, if we should perhaps now reject the terms of the existing power dynamic, thusly.
00:39:43.000But once again, the church should be the center of power, but that doesn't mean a centralized nationalist authority.
00:39:50.000The nations are as drops in the bucket, and I believe that the body of the church, founded on the local church, should be the very center of our cultural life.
00:40:01.000And that means the center of our economic life.
00:40:03.000That means the center of our political life.
00:40:05.000That means any institutions that are unable to yield because of their inert position and their entrenched traditions must be overcome.
00:40:15.000You know, it it reminded me of a trip I took to Switzerland about 15 years ago, Russell.
00:40:20.000I noticed that in every town, the center of the town was a church.
00:40:26.000Of course, the churches are dead now because people have gotten away From God in one of the most beautiful countries in the world where you see God's majesty just screaming out all around you.
00:40:36.000Somehow they've gotten dull to that, and now they think they are the authority.
00:40:40.000As you pointed out a minute ago, if we are the authority, then there's nothing ultimately right or wrong.
00:41:02.000Because that truth exists and it's God's nature.
00:41:05.000And and even Jefferson, you know, you talked about the Enlightenment.
00:41:08.000Jefferson knew that he couldn't go completely with no God and have peace.
00:41:14.000He knew that he needed to combine God-given moral rights and yet no sectarian religion in order to have a free society.
00:41:24.000So he said that we're gonna have self-evident truths that come from our creator.
00:41:29.000These rights come from our creator, but he's not saying that you have to be a part of a particular denomination in order to access these rights or to be a citizen.
00:41:41.000He didn't want the Church of England again, but he wanted the rights guaranteed by God that the Church of England had without saying you had to be a member of the Church of England.
00:43:18.000And I reckon sometimes, don't you, Frank, that we I want to summons him, the the figure, the the god in skin, the man god, because you know, when we get caught in the cultural war, which I can think of a kind of as a phony war to tell you the truth, you know, like I've got people ideally love that are gay, but I've read the Bible, so like you know, for me, I'm not gay.
00:43:39.000So uh the stuff about that was pretty lascivious and lustful, and I did make sex my idol.
00:43:45.000I worship sex, I was uh at the high altars man worshipping Baal, you know, every hour he sent.
00:43:53.000And in fact, I wouldn't have even acknowledged he sent it.
00:43:55.000And I see it actually now for what it is self-worship, self-worship.
00:44:25.000She um was a tiger and bold and empowers women, fantastic.
00:44:29.000Um then I've got like chakras on me here, and I like these ideas of you know, systems of flow that aren't so distinct from the living water.
00:44:37.000Now, when I when I came to the Lord, oh he came to me.
00:44:40.000I think it feels more like he came to me, I suppose, and I finally, you know, once he had me by the throat, I was willing to listen.
00:44:47.000I went from I went from a kind of new age belief, and I I was shown that the problem with a new age approach of a little bit of Sufiism, a little bit of Sartre, a little bit of Kabbalah, A little bit of Nietzsche is at the middle of it is me.
00:45:17.000One that I was leading, like had my own festival, of course, uh in the UK.
00:45:22.000And like I had some really illustrious and very brilliant people, like Callie Means, who works for the government now under Secretary Kennedy, he was there, and Van Dana Shiva, a brilliant powerful teacher who's willing to come out and say, like, she will literally say Bill Gates is worse than Hitler.
00:45:40.000Um, but I was like, like, literally strutting around that place.
00:45:43.000I mean, look, I'm not dumb, so I know that I know how weak I am, I know how flawed I am, I know how insufficient and ridiculous I am, but still I was rejecting Christ for the most ridiculous reasons of like I don't want to bow down to Jesus, and that's who my nan worshipped, and like dumb people in other countries, you know.
00:46:00.000And then when the tipping point, what was the what happened?
00:46:04.000What was the tippy point that where you surrendered?
00:46:08.000Well, I simultaneous simultaneously got accused of rape in my country, the UK, while my son was having open heart surgery, like sort of at the simultaneously, and I mean at the same time, it was in all over the newspapers, and my son was in Great Almond Street Hospital.
00:46:29.000It was and I my everything broke apart, and it was so poetic and amazing for this because I was the it was the two weeks before October the 7th, and in the UK, I was all over the news, 2023, the year of the uh the uh attacks and atrocities there.
00:46:46.000Um so in the two weeks up to that, I was in the newspaper every day.
00:46:50.000Uh, you know how it is when the news get hold of something.
00:46:52.000It was like every single day, every single day, every single day, advertising for complaints, you know, new revelations, documentaries.
00:47:02.000The machinery of media and state turned demonetization, political figures talking about it, you know, the like the reasons for it we could we could get into, but it and it's sort of irrelevant now, and I don't care anymore because I've now I know what who was behind it, really.
00:47:16.000And like the two gods that I'd worshipped up until that point, curiously, as I suppose a sort of pantheonistic pagan, and as Jordan Peterson once said, Um, if God is everything, then God is anything, you know.
00:47:29.000Like, um, like and I I was what I had been worshiping sex and fame.
00:47:34.000Those were the two things I'd been worshiping sex and fame.
00:47:39.000Well, it was as if that somehow he used for good what the devil intended for ill and chose to be this is what happens.
00:47:46.000Oh, you want to worship sex and fame, do you?
00:47:52.000Like, oh my god, oh Lord, and like, but simultaneously, while all this, you know, newspaper ink and magazines and TVs and people giving announcements and people talking about it in parliament, simultaneously, I'm dealing with my little boy, my 12-week-old son.
00:48:09.000So I have to go, well, this is a lot, but it's not real, it's not important.
00:48:15.000I know that underneath all of this stuff is not me coercively imposing myself sexually on someone.
00:48:20.000I know there's a lot of self-indulgence and exploitative, selfish, greedy, sinful behaviour that I'm fully well aware of.
00:48:29.000It's pretty real to go in there and you know, like to give her the consent, and this is the 5% chance of this, and 10% chance of that.
00:48:36.000You know, thankfully, my wife took care of that.
00:48:38.000I didn't even have to deal with that conversation.
00:48:40.000But you know, I went in there and like the sort of mad spaghetti of cables and wires and tubes and inflation and like the machines and intensive care, and thank God he made it.
00:48:52.000And in the midst of all of that, here is Christ, here is Christ, here is the cross, it comes in geometry, it comes in compassion beyond and deeper than language, a familiarity, a sense that it's always been there that I've been trying to stiff arm an arm's length, the one thing that could save me, the one man that could save me, the one truth that could save me, and it's kind of like retrospectively.
00:50:21.000But in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself.
00:50:25.000That each of you look not only for look out not only for his own interest but also for the interests of others.
00:50:31.000Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made him who did not consider robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond servant and coming in the likeness of man.
00:50:55.000Well, um, you know, I gave it transformed.
00:50:59.000He gave up his the privileges of deity to come to earth and suffer for us.
00:51:05.000But in your case, and in so many cases, Russell, sometimes we only look up when we're on our backs, and that's what happened to you.
00:51:13.000And uh a lot of people are coming to Christ because of what happened to Charlie.
00:51:18.000They're realizing the fragility of life, yeah.
00:51:21.000They're realizing that there's real evil out there, and if there's real evil out there, there has to be good.
00:51:26.000In fact, Charlie and I have a mutual friend, his name is James Lindsay, who is an agnostic, but he's really good critic of critical theory.
00:51:34.000A couple years ago, he texted Charlie and he said, Hey Charlie, I've got a pretty good argument for Satan.
00:51:41.000I when I look at the hundred million people that were murdered by communist regimes in the past century, that's a good argument for Satan.
00:51:49.000And Charlie texted back to him, you're right.
00:51:52.000But if there's a Satan, there must be a God, and then James texted back, that would follow.
00:51:59.000Yeah, if there's evil, there has to be good.
00:52:01.000Because you see, evil is a lack in a good thing.
00:52:12.000Evil can only exist in a good thing, and what we mean by good is God's nature.
00:52:18.000So evil does not disprove God, it shows that maybe there's a devil out there, but it can't disprove God because evil can only exist if good exists and good can only exist if God exists.
00:52:28.000And so when you saw all this evil coming at you, whether it was the sickness in your son, or you saw these false rape charges coming at you, you realize that you can't control all that, and God is the one in control, he's the source of good, so you surrendered, and here you are now.
00:52:45.000Now you're a great light to so many people.
00:52:48.000Thank you very much for saying thank you.
00:52:53.000I'm trying not to revert to the old ideas, and I'm trying to understand what my function is.
00:52:58.000You know, like I um was scheduled and am scheduled to do some turning point events.
00:53:05.000Obviously, they were scheduled prior to Charlie's murder, and I obviously you'll be familiar with the subsequent posthumous planning.
00:53:14.000And I suppose I'm working out what role he would have me play, our Lord, because I know that it is not as a person that's you know a recovering addict as a person that is formerly uh you know a Hollywood actor and an entertainment figure,
00:53:33.000and as a person that I would say is um an empirical as well as articulate understanding of contemporary paganism.
00:53:46.000I feel that my mission and ministry will, if it's his will, be in those areas.
00:53:53.000I don't know from a you know Charlie's background and your background, I suppose might be felt In your particular expression of your of your own ministry, I'm guessing.
00:54:04.000Russell, you're must you're much more interesting than I am.
00:55:10.000I've already, I had a, you know, I'd agreed to it prior to Charlie's death, and obviously I'm sure you're aware Turning Point, we're in touch again.
00:55:18.000You know, they're still doing everything that Charlie intended.
00:55:21.000So I'm going to something on the, I think I can't remember where, but I'm going to something on the you know on the 15th.
00:55:27.000And what I'm, you know, I'm what I'm wondering, you know, what kind of form it takes now.
00:55:33.000And again, like look, I when I last spoke at Turning Point, I spoke at it in Tampa, and I had a conversation.
00:55:38.000That's the last time I saw Charlie Kirk, and was the last time we spoke.
00:55:43.000And I drew, you know, addressed that conference, you know, there.
00:55:48.000My and all I all I could talk about was Jesus.
00:55:51.000And all I could talk about was look, I don't see my personal personally, I don't I I've the deeper I go into Christ, or the more that I feel intimate with our Lord.
00:56:04.000For me, what that presents is a greater duty to be very inquisitive about the nature of power.
00:56:12.000And I gotta tell you, I'm much more revelation 13 than uh Romans 13.
00:56:22.000Not like a like I'm not an anti-Trump person, by the way.
00:56:25.000I think Trump was what the world kind of created and required, and there, and I think the Democrat Party were an appalling bunch of globalist imperialists bringing about Satan's havoc and his dark kingdom.
00:56:40.000But I don't think those are the only two options.
00:56:43.000I think that there's there's another way.
00:58:43.000Um if we could choose, would you have a like I believe we should have no preference about a subject like that?
00:58:49.000We shouldn't you shouldn't say I would rather it was an Israeli agent than it was a trans activist, or I'd rather it was a disillusioned MAGA person than it was a uh a mentally ill loner.
00:59:03.000If you've got any preference about who did the murder, that tells you something.
00:59:08.000And I can tell the culture has got preferences.
00:59:11.000The culture has you know what the problem is from your countryman C.S. Lewis, he said this many years ago.
00:59:19.000He said uh, and I'm paraphrasing, I can't remember the exact quote, but he said, if you are rooting for someone to be the bad guy, and you're happy you find out they're worse than you thought, you've got a problem.
00:59:36.000Yeah, you you you don't want to look at people in a worse light.
00:59:42.000You should want to be relieved that they weren't as bad as you thought.
00:59:47.000Now, as we see it now, Russell, it looks like it was a trans activist, but let's just wait for all of the investigation to occur.
00:59:56.000This Friday, I'm gonna have on my podcast, Jay Warner Wallace, the cold case homicide detective.
01:00:01.000I had him go look at some of the conspiracy theories there about a second shooter.
01:00:06.000I was 25 feet from Charlie when he was shot.
01:00:10.000And some people are trying to say there was a second shooter from behind me, and that it came into his the back of his head and exited here.
01:00:23.000I literally was giving him CPR, and I was looking down at him from the front.
01:00:30.000Um I don't know if he had an exit wound or not.
01:00:34.000I I I don't know, and people are trying to say, well, there was no autopsy, and my friend Jay Warner Wiles told me yesterday, he said, in every murder, there is always an autopsy.
01:00:45.000So Charlie was in that hospital for many hours after he was murdered.
01:00:52.000I was there for I mean, he was there until I left, and that was six or seven hours after the murder.
01:01:00.000Um so all this is gonna come out later.
01:01:03.000In the meantime, people are gonna try and get clicks and trying to say, oh, I see this angle, I see that angle, like that.
01:01:11.000You know, you know, I was part of a conspiracy theory.
01:01:15.000I was the guy with the white hat that was allegedly signaling the uh the shooter, which is so stupid anyway, because any guy looking at through a scope with a 30-odd six can't see a guy standing 25 feet to the side of Charlie.
01:02:01.000They know that if, like, oh, yeah, look, there's bombs in Poland, oh, this person from Hamas has been oh, this thing, like they know that whether an event is authentic or not, it will be exploited to benefit powerful institutions and groups, usually I would say demonically controlled, because the Lord's got no interest in exploitation, he has absolute power, he needs nothing from anybody.
01:02:27.000And then when anything unusual happens, like I one of the sort of things I guess, you know, I consumed a bunch of media like anyone, and how did the person put that rifle away?
01:02:53.000I anyway, like earlier when you were sort of listing some of the sort of, you know, I guess presumed uh As a person that's sort of been pretty lascivious and fallen, you know, putting it mildly.
01:03:07.000When we are like that aspect of Christianity, Frank, that's about sort of, you know, the wrong end is Westboro Baptist Church, you know, God hates fags type stuff.
01:03:17.000Like, uh I just feel our Lord would not be down with like hates facts, you know, as a piece of language or a piece of behavior.
01:03:26.000And I did once to speak to that years ago before I came to Christ.
01:03:30.000I spoke to the Westbury Baptist Church, and you know, I was in Los Angeles, and the audience were kind of booing them, and I was saying, no, no, no, you know, this big give that they were brave to come here, and this is their beliefs, and I had a bunch of gay people with me on stage and stuff like that.
01:03:43.000Now, like what I have no doubt about, what I feel is our Lord would he would, you know, there's no one can query that he would love George Floyd, he would love trans people, he would love I mean, he would love Charlie Kirk's murderer.
01:04:02.000I mean, like that's so I don't I'm not suggesting anarchy, I'm not suggesting chaos, I'm not suggesting permissiveness.
01:04:10.000Yeah, can I add something to that though?
01:04:12.000When we say love, I think a mistake the culture makes, Russell, is that we think love means approval.
01:04:38.000Love is telling the person what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.
01:04:42.000And the same message to the person who identifies as trans or same sex or um or Christian or non-Christian or Buddhist or Hindu or the same message goes to all people, every one of us is a sinner, and we are going to be judged by an infinitely just God.
01:06:09.000I like that, and I like the opportunity of forgiveness through repentance, and oh, but also I recognise, you know, there are sort of human systems of justice, and if they are founded on righteous principles, then we can rely on them and trust them.
01:06:21.000And if they are indeed judicious and reflections of him, then they're completely reliable.
01:06:26.000And again, to my point, I sort of touched upon it earlier, Frank, but it we didn't really sort of explore it because we've got so much to talk about, is that the culture is fragmented and fractured because fundamentally people are rejecting authority.
01:06:41.000Not my president, not my president, not my system.
01:06:44.000This is and and there comes a point where one must question what are the political systems right down to the root that are causing or at least facilitating the expression of these problems.
01:06:57.000And is there another way if we turn ourselves away from sin and worldliness and flesh and the devil and towards Christ, are there any other ways that present themselves or suggest themselves that we might organize society?
01:07:11.000Um, and what I'm you know, this is I'm new to this, Frank.
01:07:14.000I've only been a Christian for 18 months.
01:07:16.000Like, but what is stuck it feels like to me is something that was latent, nascent within me prior was you can't trust human authority, human authority is corrupt.
01:07:25.000Then I, you know, for the first time in my life, read the Bible, and I come across Ephesians and I come where it says dark powers, uh heavenly rulers, then I see our Lord saying like in the second temptation or the third temptation, depending on which gospel, authority has been given to me.
01:07:53.000Doesn't mean one political party, it means the systems and institutions themselves have been captured by evil, and we have to, we don't have to, it doesn't actually say that, just individually to be good Christians and as a body.
01:08:06.000But like there's no question that we have a duty, but my the conversations I was enjoying having with Charlie Kirk until he was murdered, and well, God knows I would have learned a lot more had he lived.
01:08:18.000Was I wonder when this becomes if you pursue this to its conclusion, and it's not enough to like, well, we tried our best, let's let the Republicans take it from here, and becomes wait a minute, all these people are funded by the donor class and by lobbyists, and they're all captured and controlled.
01:08:36.000Yeah, I think that this was the brilliance of Jefferson and our constitution, you know, Jefferson Declaration of Independence, Madison Constitution.
01:08:45.000They knew they needed to separate the powers because as Lord Acton said, absolute power corrupts and power corrupts, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.
01:08:58.000So they needed this separated powers in order for one branch to check the other branch.
01:09:05.000Um, whether the Republicans are in power or the Democrats are in power, we still need those checks because we're all bent toward evil.
01:09:14.000It's easy to be bad, it's hard to be good.
01:09:16.000It's easy to be overcome by the temptations of sex, money, and power.
01:09:20.000Those are the big three sex, money, and power.
01:09:23.000And and John in 1 John 2 uh bliss those actually, Russell.
01:09:28.000He says, Do not love the world or what's in the world, because all that's in the world, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life.
01:09:36.000That's all that's in the world, sex, money, and power.
01:09:38.000So we have to put checks on ourselves, and we have to put checks on our government, and that's what our constitution does.
01:09:46.000That's why we need to adhere to the constitution.
01:09:48.000But I'd also say that we have to do that individually.
01:09:54.000We have to put barriers around ourselves of accountability so we don't fall into the temptations of illicit sex, money, or power.
01:10:03.000If we do, we're not only going to destroy ourselves, we're going to destroy our witness for Christ.
01:10:08.000Charlie and I were talking about that two nights before he died.
01:10:13.000I was talking to him about sex, money, and power.
01:10:16.000I said, Have you ever heard of the Modesto Manifesto?
01:10:19.000I said the Modesto Manifesto was something that the Billy Graham leaders in the 1940s, while they were in Modesto, California, pledge to one another.
01:10:29.000They said, if if we fall in one of these three areas, it's going to destroy our ministry and destroy our witness to Christ.
01:10:44.000They said we will never be in the presence of another woman alone who is not our wives.
01:10:49.000Uh we would always have another person there.
01:10:51.000We don't want any temptation with sex.
01:10:53.000Number two, we would uh never handle the money.
01:10:58.000We'd have other people handle the money.
01:10:59.000We don't we don't want to be in any way tempted by by money.
01:11:03.000And then thirdly, whenever we did a crusade, we will never inflate the numbers.
01:11:08.000Whatever the cops said, whenever they said that was the crowd size, that's what we said.
01:11:13.000We don't want to fall to sex, money, or power, and and to show you how wise Charlie was, although he never heard of it, he was already doing that.
01:11:23.000He was already doing that because we are fallen.
01:11:27.000And so I would say we do need to respect authority, but we need to verify that authority is doing the right thing.
01:11:38.000Because if we if we ignore all authority, we'll have anarchy.
01:11:46.000In fact, any authority other than his authority may as well be anarchy, and I mean anarchy in the bad way rather than a good anarchy, direct democracy that's truly representative.
01:11:58.000Because I belong to an organization that you know, like I'm a 12-step person, and 12-step groups are derived from the Oxford group, so Christian in origin, although not explicitly Christian in practice, but the way they are organized is every group is fully independent and autonomous, except in matters affecting other groups.
01:12:18.000Anyone can join as long as they want to stop, you know, drinking or taking drugs or whatever the declared intention of the group is.
01:12:26.000We our leaders, our servants, we're not allowed to make money.
01:12:30.000We're like it's like it's such a beautiful system for actually ensuring that that sex, money, power, the Medesto Manifesto.
01:13:51.000Father, we are blessed that we live in a country where we can freely exchange ideas like this.
01:13:58.000I'm so thankful that Russell has found you and his family has found you, and that he has such a vibrancy about his faith, such a love for you.
01:14:10.000I pray that you would guide him in all that he does.
01:14:13.000I pray that he would become even a greater influence than he already is for you, that you would find opportunities, give him opportunities to further share what he's learning and who he's following.
01:14:26.000I pray you'd protect him and his family.
01:14:28.000And protect us all from the temptations that we come across every day.
01:14:33.000Help us to love you and therefore then follow you because we love you.
01:14:38.000Help us to make heaven crowded as Charlie wanted to do.
01:14:42.000I pray for Erica and the entire TPUSA team.
01:14:46.000I pray that you would keep them moving toward you, toward building the kingdom, toward making heaven crowded.
01:14:54.000And uh we know that you can bring good from evil.
01:14:57.000You're already bringing good from this terrible evil.
01:15:00.000Help us to be participants in it so we could further your kingdom for your glory.
01:15:06.000Father God, I ask that I can communicate with you as you know yourself to be, not my limited understanding of you, my anthropomorphic, limited understanding of you, God.
01:15:15.000I speak to you, God, as you know yourself to be, humbly as your servant.
01:15:19.000Give me the strength, Lord, through my weakness to be obedient through faith.
01:15:24.000Heavenly Father, Lord God, allow Jesus Christ, your son's sacrifice for me to be felt and lived through me.
01:15:31.000Allow the Holy Spirit to dwell in me, Lord, allow my body to become a temple, allow my mouth to become a conduit for your ministry.
01:15:39.000I would ask Father that anything that Frank is carrying that has wounded or injured him through the proximity to the darkness of the events around Charlie's murder and the murder itself be healed and cast out, and we repudiate and rebuke all demonic forces, Lord, that operate through government, particularly those that would sanitize and mask themselves, the la the wolf in sheep's clothing phenomena, Lord.
01:16:04.000Please send us shepherds, please send us guidance, please, Lord, give us access to the divine light that was present.
01:16:11.000Our Lord, through your logos, through your holy word.
01:16:13.000May we feel molecularly your divine vibration, cleanse and change us and create new patterns, Father.
01:16:20.000Show us how we might change, show us as dear Charlie said actually how Romans might become the Christian constitution.
01:16:27.000Show us how this conversation can be healing and not a doubling down on the polarity that creates events of this nature, Lord.
01:16:33.000Show us how the broken and the fallen and the damned and the damaged and the lost, Lord, those pursuing false pagan idols or false gods of any variety, Lord, will find their way back to you through the cross, the cross that resolves and absolves all.
01:16:48.000May your blood, holy father, cover all things.
01:16:50.000May your blood, like a seeping consciousness, Lord, cover every facet.
01:17:25.000You have you have a great verbal fluency that I think is captivating to people.
01:17:34.000And you articulate complicated concepts so eloquently that I'm praying that God uses you and makes your ministry bigger and bigger as you continue to yield to Him.
01:18:27.000I have an eight-year-old, eight-year-old, an eight-year-old daughter, Mabel, a seven-year-old daughter, Peggy, and my son Herbie is now two and very well from his heart surgery by the grace of God.
01:19:44.000And on Rumble Premium, there's always additional content, particularly available to you, not just from me, but from a whole host of other creators.
01:19:51.000We will be back soon, not with more of the same, but with more of the different.