Pastor Bob and his sons Mikey and Charlie Kirk join us to talk about the story of Pastor Bob's arrest in South Korea and what happened next. Pastor Bob and Charlie talk about what happened to their father, why he was arrested, and how they were able to get him out of prison.
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00:01:09.000All right, so for those who didn't see our show yesterday, these are the two sons of Pastor Son, who is a pastor that Charlie met while he was in Korea.
00:01:20.000That was the last international trip he took.
00:01:22.000He met with him, and just a very short time later, I think literally one or two days, correct?
00:01:27.000He was two days, he was arrested by Korean authorities for his alleged that his political activities amounted to criminal behavior.
00:01:38.000And there's been a lot of threats like that against Christian pastors in South Korea.
00:01:43.000For those who don't know, South Korea actually is a quite Christian country.
00:01:47.000It has one of the highest numbers of Christian believers in Asia, especially East Asia.
00:01:52.000And so we've been following that story and we wanted to have them on again.
00:01:56.000Yeah, I'll also add, we were backstage when I think it was my dad.
00:02:02.000He brought Pastor Son over and he said, you know, he's been speaking up.
00:02:38.000And as they take the picture, Charlie goes, I took that photo because if and when you get arrested, I'm going to post it everywhere and blast it on social media to make sure I get you out of prison.
00:02:51.000And so the reason we're doing this podcast and the reason why all of us have been so just invested in the story is because Charlie was literally personally invested in the story.
00:03:01.000And so if you guys could tell us exactly why he was arrested and then also just kind of that story, it was so great meeting you guys backstage at that event.
00:03:11.000Before I start off with my father's story, it was an honor to meet Mikey and Charlie Kirk in the backstage.
00:03:19.000I was there, but Mikey, when Pastor Bob reached out to Charlie and Mikey, introducing my father, I didn't not know that my father would be arrested two days after because not a lot of Christians and also even the family members,
00:03:37.000we didn't know that he would be arrested because the arrest warrant, we read the whole 49 pages of that and it was absurd because mainly it was politically, he was violating the political neutrality from the pulpit.
00:03:53.000But when we go back to COVID lockdown, my father was the only mega church pastor that didn't surrender worship.
00:04:01.000And it was to a point where the church was literally locked down.
00:04:09.000The police went to the church and forced the bleeding.
00:04:12.000The government officials did that, and we still worshipped outside, increasing the temperature.
00:04:17.000And ever since then, my father has been the symbol of Christian conservatism in Korea.
00:04:23.000He has been the biggest threat to the leftist government because he would be so vocal.
00:04:28.000He would speak out just like how Pastor Bob has been doing as well during COVID lockdown as well.
00:04:33.000Yeah, I mean, my wife's family is here too, and they have a similar story from their grandfather, but also them having been persecuted in the Soviet Union.
00:04:44.000And Joseph von derengel, he has an amazing story.
00:04:53.000And this is actually how they've met my dad is during in the Soviet Union, he was running one of the biggest underground church networks.
00:05:01.000And he was arrested for it and put in the gulag.
00:05:04.000And then he got out, did it again, and was arrested again.
00:05:08.000And so they came to America and they saw that my dad was facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and possible jail time and had to go to court and get a legal team.
00:05:20.000And our congregants were getting fined just simply for worshiping during COVID.
00:05:25.000And they're like, wait, this is really scary.
00:05:27.000This reminds us what we came from in the Soviet Union.
00:05:30.000And so now they're seeing that in your dad, and we're all seeing that.
00:05:57.000For just simply worshiping, not following the guideline.
00:06:01.000And we still didn't know that, even though he was going through 16 lawsuits, we didn't even imagine, we couldn't imagine that my father would actually be imprisoned.
00:06:11.000And that's because, so to give you a little bit of context, what's going on in Christian community right now is in Korea, 10 million Christians out of 50 million are Christians.
00:06:24.000However, the misconcept and misleading idea of separation between the church and state has been implemented among Christians even.
00:06:34.000So actually we've invited Pastor Bob multiple times going back three, four years ago.
00:06:41.000And he has awakened a lot of Christians in Korea and giving us encouragement and told us to be courageous, just like how Bible tells us.
00:06:52.000And that's been basically moving the Christian movement in Korea as well.
00:06:59.000Yeah, Blake, you and I talked with Charlie a ton about the low birth rate in Korea.
00:07:12.000So it means on average, their rate is such that the average woman in Korea would have 0.7 children by the time she's finished.
00:07:22.000And so just to put that into perspective, 0.7, the extinction rate of Korea at that rate.
00:07:31.000100 grandparents will have about 35, 36 kids who will have 12 grandchildren.
00:07:36.000And so the extinction rate is four times that of COVID-19.
00:07:42.000And your dad is facing fines and jail time and he's currently in prison for what he did during COVID-19 when your entire country shut down everything for something that doesn't even have the same extinction rate as their current birth rate.
00:07:59.000And they're not even doing anything to combat the birth rate right now.
00:08:28.000So I guess, yeah, I know that's not on the topic of getting arrested, but what do pastors say about that?
00:08:32.000Is there an awareness of, like, do they say our country is going to go extinct if we don't do what every generation prior to us did pretty much automatically?
00:08:42.000Yeah, so the very law my father has been arrested for and imprisoned for is election law violation.
00:08:49.000It's because my father criticized a political candidate for pushing LGBT agenda into schools and even church not being able to preach about what's simple and what's not.
00:09:02.000And also a candidate that promised to appoint 30% of the governor positions for sexual minorities.
00:09:10.000And as a pastor, my father had to say something about that.
00:09:13.000And because of that, school is being too political.
00:09:16.000And because of risk of flight, my father has been imprisoned.
00:09:23.000But my father has been serving the same community, same area for the last 33 years without even taking a sabbatical.
00:09:30.000And risk of flight is just an absurd reason.
00:09:34.000Yeah, and I mean, the church is the only one that's bringing the message to have more children than you can afford.
00:09:40.000The church is the only one that's providing a community to support families even when they can't afford cost of living and to find jobs in Korea.
00:09:48.000The church is the one that's actually helping this existential birth rate that's going to eviscerate your country and this ancient civilization that you guys have.
00:09:58.000And it's really sad to see that the government instead of partnering with that is turning on it and saying instead of partnering with them, let's jail the pastors, hire all the people that can't have kids because they're gay.
00:12:19.000So, which is unprecedented, the prosecutors asked for one year imprisonment.
00:12:24.000And this is absurd because when you look at the legal precedents for the election law violation, even the ones that have ran for the office, they have only gotten fined.
00:12:35.000So it's not much of a criminal thing that you would get in prison for.
00:12:42.000But prosecutors asking for one year imprisonment is absurd.
00:12:50.000But so, as sons, we personally want my father to be released because they're going after the church, church members, assistant pastors, and police accessing my family's telecommunication logs multiple times for investigation.
00:13:06.000And they could add more charges to my father's case so they can lock him up again.
00:13:12.000But long-term-wise, we need not only South Koreans, but American and also Christians in the world to raise voices to secure religious freedom and freedom of religious education.
00:13:26.000And I believe that that is what's essential in looking at this case and know that this will come to your door someday.
00:13:36.000Hey, everybody, this is Andrew Colvet, executive producer of The Charlie Kirk Show.
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00:14:54.000So in May, my father's secular church and our home were raided, which is also unpresented.
00:15:03.000And in July, Yoy the Full Gospel Church, which is the biggest church again, like you said, Mikey, has been raided.
00:15:11.000And the most influential pastor, Dr. Billy Kim, his broadcasting company has been raided.
00:15:18.000He was the interpreter for Billy Gunn Crusade in Korea.
00:15:22.000And so they have raided the most vocal one, my father, biggest church and the most influential.
00:15:28.000I, you know, actually, this really pisses me off because it was at that event in Korea that Yoida Full Gospel Church, the pastor was going to speak at that build up Korea event.
00:15:40.000And they had like 35 pastors that were signed up to come and all these donors that had pledged funds for the event.
00:15:50.000And then two days prior, they found out Charlie was coming and Americans were coming.
00:15:57.000And the government reached out to these people and threatened them.
00:16:02.000And so Yoido Full Gospel pulls out, the biggest church in the world pulls out of this event and all of the pastors cancel.
00:16:28.000It makes me furious at your government, one, but two, it also makes me really upset at the pastors who aren't willing to say, I don't care if I go to jail.
00:16:41.000Like Charlie, these people declined a meeting with Charlie, and he gave his entire life.
00:16:48.000Everything that he had to offer, he sacrificed, quite literally, to the point of death.
00:16:54.000And these pastors can't even be brave enough to go to a meeting because they're afraid of losing their congregation and their paycheck and their comfortability.
00:17:03.000And so honestly, they need to probably be ashamed of themselves and use this as an opportunity to repent and stand up.
00:17:12.000And for your dad, we need to use this as an opportunity to blast this message as far as it can go.
00:17:20.000And to the people that are watching this too, this is that Charlie was heavily invested in your dad's story.
00:17:26.000He took that picture because he wanted to get your dad out of prison.
00:17:30.000And he didn't even know he was in prison yet.
00:17:33.000And so whatever it is, we want to help.
00:17:38.000But the more your story can be out there, the better.
00:17:42.000What is your dad facing in prison on a day-to-day basis?
00:17:48.000So the first three weeks, the prisoners there would have access to canteen, where they can buy underwears and blankets and extra, et cetera.
00:17:59.000But every four days when they would have the access to canteen, the prosecutors and police, they called my father in for a questioning.
00:18:10.000So he would have worn, he warned the, he wore the underwears that the previous inmate from that cell will be wearing.
00:18:20.000So when I was imagining that, you know, my father, he's coming from a very, you know, the bottom, you know, poor life, but hygiene is one of, you know, one of the things that he really cared about.
00:18:32.000But him going through that and many, many, you know, binding him, binding my father in ropes, things like that, and delaying the legal process have been very hard for my family.
00:18:44.000But I know God has allowed this time and this environment for a reason.
00:19:02.000He has, there's a barely heating system there.
00:19:05.000So they have to put warm water in a PET bottle and he has to, you know, put that between the arms to keep himself a little warmer and sleep through that.
00:19:19.000So Is this a big news story in Korea or how much does attention does it get in the wider yeah?
00:19:27.000So a lot of Christians are raising their voices and we are furious, not only us, but just like how America has been doing under the Biden administration, the current regime has taken over media, especially the legacy media and state-controlled media as well, education and church as well, silencing pastors.
00:19:49.000So not enough of coverage are getting over.
00:20:04.000Yeah, and personally, personally, we are receiving lots of messages from mega-church pastors and lots of pastors from South Korea, but they are not speaking up, speaking out publicly.
00:21:29.000And also, do you have people receive your message better here in America or in Korea?
00:21:35.000A lot better in America because I feel like this is no, this is really sad and in a way funny because there are a lot of Christians supporting my family and my father as well and segregate church.
00:21:48.000But I feel like Americans are speaking out even louder than Koreans and Christian Christians in Korea.
00:21:58.000Actually, lots of Koreans are threatened by current government.
00:22:03.000So I can understand why they are hesitant to supporting us, to support us publicly.
00:22:10.000And we are actually being mocked a lot on social media and news articles saying my father is far-right extremist.
00:22:19.000And also when Charlie visited to attend the event, the legacy media and the state-controlled media framed Charlie as the far-right extremist.
00:22:30.000And what I even said on social media is he's the one who has been welcoming debate and free speech.
00:22:37.000So even if the Democrats want to say things against Charlie or us, it's okay because as long as you have logic, which they don't have a lot of times, they've been like that.
00:22:49.000And ever since COVID lockdown, my father, the Sega Church, our family has been mocked.
00:23:53.000And this is a place where we should have leverage.
00:23:55.000There are 30,000 U.S. troops in Korea.
00:23:58.000We spend billions of dollars to secure that country's independence from the North, from China.
00:24:06.000And I feel it would be reasonable for us to say, you know, in addition, you know, we have our trade disputes or whatever, but I think it's reasonable to say if we're going to have 30,000 troops there, don't arrest pastors.
00:25:05.000One thing I found very moving: I went to, they have a museum and memorial to the Korean War, and they have, much like our Vietnam memorial has all the names of the soldiers who died in Vietnam, they have that and they have it for all the Korean soldiers who died, but also for all of the American soldiers who died and any other countries that fought as part of that coalition.
00:25:25.000Yeah, I actually think I want to ask you about this too, because I think it's even scarier that this is like step one for Korea and the Korean government is like, oh, arrest the pastors that say that 30% of your hiring load in the government should be gay.
00:26:21.000The current leader of the Democratic Party, Chong Lae Zhong, he is a pro-terrorist, anti-American socialist who set fire to the U.S. embassy when he was young.
00:27:29.000But because of General MacArthur, communism, communists from China, North Korea, and Soviet Union, they weren't able to take over the Korean Peninsula.
00:27:41.000They pushed all the way down to Busan, which is very south city of where we're from.
00:27:47.000And thanks to American soldiers, we were able to secure freedom, get liberated.
00:27:54.000So for the Democrats, this is kind of different to the political atmosphere compared to the U.S.
00:28:01.000But for the communist pro-China Democrats, America is the one that took away their country, their communism, communist-to-be country.
00:28:15.000So that's why they've been protesting against the U.S. and the free countries.
00:28:24.000Everyone has a perspective shaped by what they've lived, what they've learned, and what they believe.
00:28:30.000Charlie always appreciated TikTok because it shared our values of connecting and building community.
00:28:35.000On TikTok, you can find a teacher discussing math in a way that makes it click, a dad sharing a lifetime of knowledge with his viewers, or a gardener showing how patience and care can turn a patch of dirt into something alive.
00:28:47.000Ordinary people doing extraordinary things and showing others how it's done.
00:28:52.000TikTok is a space where voices can find each other and no voice is too small.
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00:29:57.000I was just wondering if there are any warning signs that came to South Korea that you're seeing now in America that you would want us to be a bulwark against and like stuff you would point out to say like, hey, you need to pay attention to that and fight back against it early before you end up like closer to where we are.
00:30:14.000So I can't even imagine what if Kamala Harris won the election this year, last year.
00:30:21.000And the reason I want to share my father's story and what's happening in South Korea, this might, if not, it will come to the U.S.
00:30:32.000And this is not about just my father, just one person, but just for us to realize what's at stake.
00:30:39.000And just, you know, just like how Charlie and Mikey have been advocating that we should be raising our voices and we should talk about politics because it has been and it will be, it will always affect our lives and our children as well.
00:30:59.000My question, I got two of them real quick.
00:31:02.000First off, as far as South Korea turning towards more socialism, communism, all we see in the United States is Seoul.
00:31:14.000And that's just like watching New York, Chicago, LA, any big city.
00:31:19.000And it looks like it's a prosperous, fully functioning country.
00:31:24.000What is the economics in the South Korea itself to make people want to go towards the thing that they just fought a war back in the 1950s to save them from?
00:31:39.000And then two, what is what it what is how does the Korean society see the male figure?
00:31:51.000Like here, if you're a white male, you're pon scum.
00:31:58.000Basically, I mean, that's how that's how society looks at the white male.
00:35:27.000And just like how you said, woman up there, how we should bow down to the woman.
00:35:34.000I mean, we are equal, but in America, we have, we'll talk about the sex divide, the gender divide, that women in America vote significantly more to the left than men do.
00:35:48.000And I think America has a pretty large gap compared to the world, but I think Korea is one of the only countries that has an even larger one.
00:36:22.000So they would often say how kind of the black, in the black community, the government replaced fathers in the home in terms of what they could provide for families.
00:36:34.000And so now you kind of look at how it shifted.
00:36:38.000And Erica literally was the first one to point this out.
00:36:40.000And I was like, wait, that's kind of mind-blowing.
00:36:42.000How the government has now replaced husbands for a lot of women.
00:36:48.000And so this actually, there was something under Obama where he had this ad.
00:37:42.000My name is Monica, and I just want to say it's so amazing that you guys came here.
00:37:46.000And your story is so, you're so bold and so courageous.
00:37:49.000And unfortunately, a lot of the young Christians that I know think the extent of being bold is like posting on their social media story and the persecution is losing followers.
00:37:58.000But I just wanted to say I just coughed.
00:38:01.000I mean, I was just wondering if you have any practical advice for young Christians for what you guys have obviously lived out for how to be bold in real life.
00:38:12.000Yeah, I mean, we are going through persecution, but as Christians, I feel like although you're not going this kind of persecution, we should have, you know, we should have empathy for our brothers and sisters in Christ.
00:38:28.000And also, as Christians, we are obligated to speak out what God wants us to speak out about.
00:38:40.000And if you do, I think your view on how you're going to live your life, what your calling is, what your mission is in this temporary life that's going to end really quick, I think it's going to change if you really, really believe that.
00:38:54.000And that has been my personal testimony since COVID lockdown, looking at my father.
00:39:00.000Before that, I wasn't one of the, you know, the faithful kids, but my father being persecuted for, you know, worshiping God, he was so lonely.
00:39:23.000And ever since then, I changed my way of viewing things, discerning things.
00:39:30.000Of course, I like a lot, but I go back to the Bible, I go back to what God has told us to do, God told us through scripture, and that has changed my life.
00:40:01.000So my name is Kaylin, and I was just wondering, well, first of all, thank you for sharing your story here.
00:40:07.000But also, you kind of were talking about, you know, the warning to America.
00:40:11.000And I just want to know from an outsider's perspective, I think, I just want to know what your thoughts are on America as a whole.
00:40:19.000Because I think so often in America, there's this like infighting of like us not being a good country, and you know that we need to, you know, make people leave and I'm talking more from the left side is that you know we're this horrendous country and that we just need to like let everyone in, but from an outsider's perspective.
00:40:40.000I just wanted to know kind of how you guys see America like.
00:40:44.000Are we a beacon of light in any capacity, I guess I mean.
00:40:48.000So I went to school in Seattle for high school, in college, and you know that's a blue state, of course, and I was almost forced to think that America is a bad country.
00:40:59.000And you might think that if you were in Seattle, I mean I was manipulated, I was brain, I was getting brainwashed, but thank God I have faith and I had my brother and my family and simply that's a lie.
00:41:35.000Think of the good side, how America, you know there, 140 years ago, as I said earlier, American missionaries basically changed.
00:41:45.000So when you look at the, when you look at the Korean Peninsula at night, you can google it there's a light in south Korea, all over the country, and north Korea, none except one city Pyongyang, where the Rocket Man lives, Rocket Man that president Trump calls yeah so yeah so, please don't get manipulated and um, be courageous and be thankful that you're American, because you know free speech, freedom.
00:42:16.000religious freedom, being able to say what you want and not get in prison for that.
00:42:38.000Well, thank you guys so much for being here.
00:42:40.000Right before we close, can you tell us how we can be be praying specifically for both you guys and for your dad?
00:42:47.000Yeah so Mike, you mentioned about the petition and I think we're gonna have the QR code up that is to raise awareness in America what could happen in the US and for us.
00:43:01.000Please pray for our courage to keep fighting this fight because we believe and we know that God has already won the battle.
00:43:11.000But we have to be faithful just to fight, so for not only our family but Christians in Korea to believe that and if you believe that you will act upon it, so for us to be courageous and to for god's kingdom, not the government, and we are, we are, we have lots of hope.
00:43:32.000Actually, we are hope, hopeful because everything is done, everything is allowed by god.
00:43:38.000God is the uh, god is the lord of everything and uh, I think god is awakening, waking up South Korea, Korean church and even I, I think, American now uh so uh don't, we don't, don't, worry everybody and god is working.
00:43:58.000Yeah, praise the lord hey hallelujah, thank you guys.
00:44:02.000All right, thank you, thank you so much.