The Charlie Kirk Show - December 23, 2022


Christmas and the Incarnation with Frank Turek and Pastor Russell B. Johnson


Episode Stats


Length

34 minutes

Words per minute

168.10966

Word count

5,825

Sentence count

396

Harmful content

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

14

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Pastor Russell Johnson and Frank Turek join me on the Charlie Kirk Show to talk about what it's like to be an atheist in the modern world, and why the church should go all-in on fighting for freedom.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Charlie Kirk Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.
00:00:00.000 Today on the Charlie Kirk Show, my conversation with Russell Johnson, who is a pastor from Snohomish, Washington, great place.
00:00:08.000 And then Frank Turek, who runs I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.
00:00:13.000 Terrific organization.
00:00:15.000 Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:00:18.000 Subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast.
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00:00:32.000 That's tpusa.com.
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00:00:42.000 If you want to support this show directly and you feel this show has touched you in some way, go to charliekirk.com/slash support.
00:00:51.000 Buckle up, everybody.
00:00:52.000 Here we go.
00:00:53.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:55.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
00:00:57.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
00:01:00.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
00:01:04.000 I want to thank Charlie.
00:01:05.000 He's an incredible guy.
00:01:06.000 His spirit, his love of this country.
00:01:08.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:01:14.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:23.000 That's why we are here.
00:01:26.000 Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at AndrewandTodd.com.
00:01:35.000 With us now is Pastor Russell Johnson, the lead pastor at the Pursuit Northwest.
00:01:40.000 I've seen many of his clips on social media.
00:01:43.000 Russell, welcome to the program.
00:01:44.000 You describe yourself as a recovering politician.
00:01:49.000 Tell us about that.
00:01:51.000 Yeah, it's an honor to be here.
00:01:52.000 Thanks for the invite, Charlie.
00:01:54.000 Yeah, I spent about 10 years in the public policy space and really kind of assumed that that is what I would give my life to.
00:02:03.000 And God had other plans.
00:02:05.000 And about my 10th year of working on campaigns and being a lobbyist and working for the state House of Representatives, God directed me into the church world.
00:02:17.000 And we planted a church called Pursuit eight years ago, just north of Seattle in a little town called Snohomish, just opened a campus.
00:02:25.000 I love Snohomish.
00:02:26.000 It's gorgeous.
00:02:27.000 It's funny.
00:02:27.000 Yeah, it's a little town of about 8,000, but we were seeing God really do some incredible things.
00:02:32.000 And we just put a campus actually in Seattle, two blocks from the University of Washington.
00:02:38.000 And so we're just, you know, having fun here in the Northwest, provoking darkness and doing what we can to spread the light.
00:02:47.000 Yeah, I love your preaching style.
00:02:49.000 So I have to ask you, being in politics and now being in the church, compare and contrast those.
00:02:56.000 Because in my experience, some churches are actually nastier than even the political world can be.
00:03:02.000 Right.
00:03:02.000 You know, I think when I got into church work, I thought to myself, how will there be any parallel experience or knowledge, you know, from the governmental world?
00:03:14.000 And you find out that there's a lot of politics in the church world as well.
00:03:17.000 And so, you know, God knew what he was doing and he has ways of preparing and training you for the days that are ahead, even when you don't know what those days will hold.
00:03:26.000 You know, but there's a lot of coalition building and fundraising and advocating for ideas and building teams of people and rallying around ideas.
00:03:34.000 And, you know, a lot of the skills that we used in our campaign work have now become analogous traits that we use in the church world as well.
00:03:42.000 But I really view the church as upstream, you know, and they are kind of like the guardians of worldview.
00:03:50.000 And so although I'm not directly involved in politics today, I still feel very involved in the public policy space because we are doing what we can to win the war for worldview.
00:04:01.000 And when you win the war for worldview, it has, you know, a cascading effect into every realm of society, but most specifically the realm of public policy.
00:04:11.000 Yeah.
00:04:11.000 And so talk about the church going woke.
00:04:14.000 You have been an outspoken critic of this trend and about how, you know, the church is increasingly embracing deconstructionist postmodern ideology.
00:04:26.000 This is a major concern for believers.
00:04:30.000 It certainly is for me.
00:04:31.000 What's your take on that?
00:04:33.000 Yeah, you know, if we lose our ability to tell the truth, then we have lost the only platform that matters.
00:04:41.000 And we are in an ideological conflict over what will be defined as true and who gets to determine the parameters for understanding truth, both scripturally, sociologically, biologically.
00:04:57.000 It's really a war over epistemology.
00:05:00.000 And, you know, for me, we have just determined that even in a place like the Northwest, which is like to the left of the, you know, People's Republic of North Korea, we have just made the decision that we are not going to go in the same direction as some of these religious organizations that have really become just echoes of whatever is culture's most popular heresy at the moment.
00:05:27.000 Yes.
00:05:28.000 And, you know, in the Northwest, I mean, we're just flooded with kind of these therapeutic, deistic, you know, religious organizations that are shells of their former selves that have just become echoes of whatever our Babylonian culture is communicating.
00:05:49.000 And if there has ever been a time to tell the truth, it's now.
00:05:52.000 And if we can't, if we can't find the courage to tell the truth, then we're in the wrong business.
00:05:57.000 And so, you know, for me, it's, it's kind of, it reminds me of Reagan's, I think it was his gubernatorial acceptance speech or whatever, but he talked about the need for bright, bold contrast.
00:06:06.000 And for me, it's like, I'm not going to use ambiguity as a church growth strategy.
00:06:12.000 Like we're going to be clear about what we're about.
00:06:14.000 We're going to be clear about what we're for, but I'm unashamed of the gospel.
00:06:18.000 I am unashamed of the truth claims of scripture.
00:06:21.000 I am unashamed of the sexual ethic of the New Testament.
00:06:23.000 I'm just, I'm just unashamed to believe that what the Bible says is true and that we are messengers of the gospel.
00:06:30.000 We are not editors of the gospel.
00:06:32.000 And so, you know, and what we found is that message is actually really attractive to a whole lot of people who are fed up with watered down, you know, culturally relevant, you know, teaching that has in many ways harmed people in their ability to develop in a Christological fashion.
00:06:52.000 Okay.
00:06:53.000 So what are you seeing with younger pastors in particular?
00:06:56.000 Now, you know, we're, we shouldn't judge or stereotype, but Russell, if I see you walking on the side of the street, I'm like, that guy's a wokey.
00:07:04.000 I mean, you got the whole thing, you got the glasses, you know, you dress the part, but you're not.
00:07:09.000 You preach the gospel beautifully, word for word, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, I should say.
00:07:16.000 And so, but what are you seeing with some of these younger pastors? 0.97
00:07:19.000 I have to be lectured by pastors telling me that white people are evil and that we need racial reconciliation seminars and that America is a terrible country. 0.96
00:07:30.000 And you're standing athwart that. 0.98
00:07:32.000 What are you seeing with this kind of move of woke younger pastors?
00:07:37.000 And how are you confronting that?
00:07:39.000 Yeah, this is certainly a time for choosing.
00:07:43.000 And I feel like in many ways, the church in the West is in a valley of decision moment.
00:07:48.000 And it's kind of like choose this day whom whom you will serve.
00:07:52.000 And, you know, I feel like my job is to, in a lot of ways, equally irritate people on all sides of the political paradigm.
00:08:00.000 And so I try to do that pretty faithfully, you know, but the reality is you're right.
00:08:06.000 I easily get typecast as a certain type of person or ascribing to a certain type of ideological bent because of the age I'm at, the way I look in the area that I live in.
00:08:18.000 And so, you know, for me, it kind of is just this reminder that, you know, we've got the opportunity to, you know, be a light set on a hill for all men to see.
00:08:28.000 The Apostle Paul says the church is the pillar of truth in society.
00:08:31.000 We owe the culture an encounter with truth.
00:08:35.000 This is not just about, you know, assaging people's, you know, dysfunction as they slip into a Christless eternity.
00:08:41.000 No, we owe the culture an encounter with truth.
00:08:44.000 And part of that encounter with truth looks like a well-developed worldview by which you are not worshiping at the altar of intersectionality, postmodernism, or this idea that everybody gets to really pick their own truth and whatever they say is true, you have to cower to.
00:09:04.000 And so I think that there is this kind of dividing moment.
00:09:08.000 I think we're in the middle of two dueling revivals, a revival of righteousness and a revival of iniquity.
00:09:14.000 And I think that they will grow together like the wheat and the tares until the end times.
00:09:21.000 And so, you know, we're definitely in this interesting cultural moment, but the contrasts are growing more stark than they have ever been before.
00:09:30.000 And it's similar to the political moment we're in.
00:09:32.000 You know, the conversations we're having politically are not the arguments over policy that separated the Democrats and the Republicans in the mid-90s, you know, where Gingrich is speaker of the house and, you know, we're developing kind of these ruling coalitions of co-belligerents who are working together to, you know, flesh out nuanced policy on taxes and social safety nets.
00:09:54.000 You know, the political moment that we're in is eerily similar to the religious moment that we are in.
00:10:00.000 And the contrast is growing greater than it has ever been.
00:10:06.000 And this is a time for choosing.
00:10:08.000 This is a time for people to figure out what they believe, what they're willing to go to the cross for, what they're willing to be known for.
00:10:16.000 And ultimately, you have to crucify your need to be liked by people who don't share your values because we will not make it where we are going unmarked by this cultural moment.
00:10:27.000 You know, they try to cancel me twice a week.
00:10:29.000 We've got letters from the governor, the attorney general, the health district trying to shut us down.
00:10:34.000 Antifa made threats to burn down our building.
00:10:36.000 You know, we eat this stuff for breakfast and I consider it actually a validation that we are in the right direction and we are right over the target.
00:10:44.000 And so for me, I just, I refuse to adjudicate the integrity or the success of what we are doing based on the blowback of people who hate the gospel and are going in the opposite direction of us.
00:10:58.000 And so, you know, the gospel in many ways, it functions as an abrasive force.
00:11:04.000 It is the opposite of the way that culture is going.
00:11:07.000 And so we are going upstream, culture is going downstream.
00:11:10.000 And so, you know, I think for me, that has been maybe the biggest learning curve over the last two years is that I have to develop the ability to see my life through the lens of Christ, understanding that he was the most loving person on earth and they still killed him.
00:11:25.000 And so if I am adjudicating my success based on the complements of woke culture, then my value system is upside down.
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00:12:44.000 So, Pastor, how's your church growing and going?
00:12:47.000 You take a stand against the culture.
00:12:49.000 Are you seeing an increase in attendance and membership?
00:12:51.000 Yeah, you know, over the last two years, we've grown about 5X and we run between 2,500 and 3,000 on a Sunday.
00:13:02.000 And so, you know, we've just been a lot of times hanging on for dear life.
00:13:07.000 You know, following God is like being on a roller coaster filled with unexpected turns and twists.
00:13:12.000 And, but I feel like in a lot of ways, people are resonating with, you know, the message that we communicate.
00:13:19.000 And the central message that we communicate is that our nation is in need of an unmitigated outpouring of God's spirit like never before.
00:13:29.000 And that if people return to right relationship with God in their hearts, watch what this does for the culture, for the nation, for the public policy dialogue, for legislation.
00:13:41.000 Watch what it will do when people get right with God.
00:13:43.000 And so, you know, we're just unapologetic, we charismatic, we wild, we're loud, just go for it.
00:13:49.000 But, you know, I think people respect the conviction that we carry, even if they don't always agree with the positions we take.
00:13:55.000 And, you know, for me, I feel like we're living in an era where there is a crisis of conviction.
00:14:00.000 There's a lack of it.
00:14:02.000 And if you just operate with it, you know, you're going to get love and hate.
00:14:05.000 But ultimately, people are going to respect that you're willing to take a stand and then take shots for it and then keep taking a stand.
00:14:11.000 So that's what we're doing.
00:14:13.000 So what do you have to say to pastors that say we're, you know, we're here to affirm people and we're here to make people feel good?
00:14:22.000 Yeah, I mean, I think that's the quick path towards spiritual irrelevancy.
00:14:28.000 And, you know, Christ has not come to affirm our dysfunction, but instead to transform our lives.
00:14:36.000 And we owe people as spiritual leaders and as pastors, you know, one day I'll stand before a holy God and I'll give account for the way that I've shepherded people.
00:14:45.000 And so it's my conviction that I ought to do that well.
00:14:47.000 And I don't always get it right.
00:14:49.000 But my God, I think, you know, we're in an era where we are more interested in not offending and affirming dysfunction and darkness than we are helping people grow, develop, and be transformed.
00:15:04.000 And, you know, we have these arguments like, well, I was born this way and I was born that way.
00:15:09.000 And, you know, scripture says, yeah, but you must be born again.
00:15:12.000 You must have a regenerative experience in your life and in your heart.
00:15:18.000 And, you know, for me as a pastor and as a leader, that's ultimately what keeps me up at night is a passion for people to really know and experience the transformative power of Jesus Christ.
00:15:29.000 And when that happens in their life, it creates pathways because the truth is what makes men free.
00:15:35.000 It creates pathways towards people's epistemology being developed by Christ.
00:15:39.000 And in doing so, watch how they value things like life and family and marriage and so on and so forth.
00:15:45.000 So, you know, I am not, you know, a Christian because I'm conservative.
00:15:54.000 I am a Christian and that theological framework is what in my mind propels me towards believing in and advocating for conservative public policy, especially as it pertains to the family issues.
00:16:09.000 And I just feel like, man, we do such a great disservice to people.
00:16:13.000 We just do such a great disservice to people when we are afraid to tell them the truth.
00:16:20.000 So in closing here, what is the significance of Christmas?
00:16:24.000 It is Christmas week and I think people miss it.
00:16:27.000 It is.
00:16:29.000 It's not just happy holidays.
00:16:30.000 It is Merry Christmas.
00:16:32.000 And not only are we putting the Christ back in Christmas, we're putting the Christ back in Christian. 0.95
00:16:36.000 And so we're working on both end.
00:16:38.000 But the significance of Christmas is that in the fullness of time, God sent a man born under the law to redeem those who are under the law, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
00:16:49.000 And the significance of Christmas for me is that Jesus didn't stay in a manger.
00:16:53.000 He didn't stay on the cross.
00:16:54.000 He didn't stay in the grave.
00:16:56.000 And he's not staying in heaven forever.
00:16:58.000 And there will come a day where every man, woman, or child stands before God and gives account for their lives.
00:17:04.000 And for the rest of my natural life, I'm giving my time, talent, treasure, and influence to announcing that the kingdom of God is here because the king is here.
00:17:14.000 And in doing so, we owe our entire lives and allegiance to his Lordship.
00:17:19.000 And so we love Christmas and we are celebrating here in Seattle.
00:17:24.000 We got hit by a snowstorm actually yesterday.
00:17:26.000 That's unusual, isn't it?
00:17:28.000 It is.
00:17:28.000 It is unusual, but we're excited and we're just believing God for good things.
00:17:32.000 Amen.
00:17:33.000 Russell, thank you so much.
00:17:33.000 Look forward to meeting you sometime soon.
00:17:35.000 Merry Christmas.
00:17:36.000 Appreciate it.
00:17:36.000 Thanks, boss.
00:17:37.000 Thank you.
00:17:40.000 Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here.
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00:18:42.000 With us right now is a friend of mine, someone I wish I could have had on the show during AmericaFest, but it was a complicated time.
00:18:48.000 He gave a great speech and he was one of the leading apologists for the Christian faith on the planet, Frank Turek. 0.70
00:18:54.000 Frank, welcome back to the program.
00:18:56.000 Charlie, always great to be with you.
00:18:58.000 I'm amazed you're awake right now after those four days of on Charlie.
00:19:03.000 I know a lot of your listeners or viewers have probably seen some of America Fest, but it literally was the best conference of any kind I've ever been to.
00:19:12.000 It was such a blessing to see a strong Christian like you insist on excellence from top to bottom.
00:19:20.000 And you did.
00:19:21.000 It was a wonderful conference.
00:19:22.000 And I know not everyone, every speaker was a Christian, Charlie, but what a great witness for you to put out such an amazing, professionally run conference.
00:19:30.000 And I've never seen so many young people who were so well put together, so professional and so polite all in one place.
00:19:38.000 It's a credit to you and your entire organization.
00:19:40.000 Thank you, Frank.
00:19:41.000 That touches us.
00:19:43.000 And we're going to make next year even better because we have a list of improvements to try to continue to pursue excellence, which I believe that pursuing excellence for the right reasons is worship, is actually glory to God.
00:19:54.000 And that is a deep topic we can explore.
00:19:57.000 That's right.
00:19:57.000 But thank you.
00:19:58.000 That's a very sweet compliment and it really touches me.
00:20:01.000 So, Frank, you have a wonderful organization called Cross Examined.
00:20:05.000 And this week, the Christmas week, it seems the secular world makes Christmas overly materialistic and on things that really don't matter, that are temporal.
00:20:16.000 But there is a very trans there's a transcendent and deep meaning to Christmas.
00:20:22.000 What is that meaning, Frank?
00:20:24.000 The meaning is that the Son of Man, Jesus Himself, added humanity to his deity to take the punishment for the wrongs that we have committed on himself.
00:20:38.000 Jesus said the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
00:20:47.000 Now, Charlie, many of the topics that you deal with on your program every day deal with morality and immorality.
00:20:56.000 In fact, if we think about this, what politics is, is basically putting morality or unfortunately immorality into civic law.
00:21:06.000 So we as Christians, you just read a great piece there about trying to save babies from abortion.
00:21:12.000 We as Christians believe that that's one thing that we need to do in politics.
00:21:18.000 We need to protect innocent life.
00:21:20.000 And yet, people on the other side of the aisle, Charlie, will say, well, they have a moral right to choose an abortion.
00:21:26.000 Well, notice that both sides are arguing from a moral position.
00:21:31.000 The question is: what is the standard by which we can judge what is right and what is wrong?
00:21:39.000 And my point here is that regardless of what side of the aisle you're on this issue, I think it's quite clear.
00:21:47.000 You don't take the life of an innocent human being, but let's just leave that aside for a second.
00:21:52.000 Both sides are claiming some sort of moral high ground.
00:21:55.000 Well, moral high ground can only exist in an objective way if God exists.
00:22:00.000 And everybody, regardless of what you believe, has in some way violated that moral high ground.
00:22:07.000 In your personal life, somewhere, you've done it.
00:22:10.000 And if God is infinitely just, and he is, the only way he can allow you and me into his presence for all eternity is to punish an innocent substitute in our place, because we need punishment if he's infinitely just.
00:22:24.000 And that's what he does at Christmas.
00:22:26.000 He brings himself into this world.
00:22:29.000 And after 33 years, he goes to the cross to pay our punishment by himself.
00:22:36.000 That's what Christmas is all about.
00:22:38.000 So there are a lot of different religions in the world.
00:22:42.000 And one of the pieces of disagreement I get is they say, Charlie, all religions basically have the same story.
00:22:49.000 That's not true.
00:22:51.000 Christianity is unique in that it is the divine coming down into the flesh. 0.64
00:22:58.000 In Eastern traditions, they view the flesh as dirty, broken, that you transcend out of your flesh.
00:23:05.000 The idea of God becoming man is a foreign concept to far Eastern religions.
00:23:13.000 Talk about the significance of that and how that is almost a concept too big for the human mind to even comprehend that a perfect and holy God would take the form of a broken creature.
00:23:29.000 Yeah, well, he took the form, he took human nature, but his nature wasn't broken like ours.
00:23:34.000 That's why the virgin birth is such an important concept in Christianity, a doctrine in Christianity.
00:23:41.000 Actually, it wasn't the virgin birth.
00:23:42.000 It was the virgin conception. 0.53
00:23:43.000 Jesus was not conceived by a man.
00:23:45.000 He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, which means somehow he didn't get the sin nature.
00:23:49.000 Sorry, guys.
00:23:50.000 It appears that the man transports the sin nature to his offspring, but Jesus didn't have that sin nature because of the virgin birth.
00:23:58.000 So while he was 100% human, he did not have the sin nature we have.
00:24:02.000 That's how he could be our sacrifice.
00:24:05.000 And I love it, Charlie, when people say, oh, yeah, all religions teach basically the same thing.
00:24:10.000 They all teach ought to love one another.
00:24:12.000 What I say to that is, well, that's actually not true.
00:24:14.000 There are some religions that don't teach you to love one another, like extreme forms of Islam. 1.00
00:24:19.000 But let's leave that aside.
00:24:20.000 Let's just say for the sake of argument, that's true.
00:24:22.000 They all teach you how to love one another.
00:24:24.000 They only differ on the nature of man, the nature of God, sin, salvation, heaven, hell, and creation.
00:24:30.000 Outside of that, they're exactly the same.
00:24:33.000 They're fundamentally different, Charlie.
00:24:35.000 And the biggest difference between Christianity and every other world religion, other than the fact that Christianity is 100% true, is the fact that instead of us trying to work our way to God, which is what other religions do, God works his way to man. 0.86
00:24:49.000 He comes down to earth.
00:24:50.000 He takes humanity onto his deity and he pays the price for us.
00:24:55.000 We don't work in order to win brownie points with God.
00:24:58.000 He does all the work for us.
00:25:01.000 So it's also his birth could go down as one of the most significant events in human history.
00:25:08.000 If not, I mean, the resurrection would probably be even more significant.
00:25:13.000 However, in some Christian circles, Christmas gets more reverence than Easter.
00:25:20.000 I don't think that's appropriate.
00:25:22.000 I think part of it is unintentional just because the culture is just so overwhelming in this time of year of end of year and family.
00:25:31.000 How should we as Christians, what should we do different or how should we honor the gift that is Christmas?
00:25:40.000 Well, I think we have to recognize that the ultimate gift is Jesus because he is the one who saves us from the evil that we have done, regardless whether you consider yourself politically a Republican, Democrat, Independent, or something else.
00:25:57.000 Every one of us have committed sins.
00:26:00.000 We haven't even lived up to our own standards, Charlie, much less God's perfect standard, right?
00:26:05.000 So we ought to, with reverence, thank God that he actually came to save us because we look, there's only three things you can get in life.
00:26:14.000 You can get justice.
00:26:16.000 That's getting what you deserve.
00:26:18.000 You can get mercy.
00:26:20.000 That's not getting what you deserve.
00:26:22.000 Or you can get grace getting what you don't deserve.
00:26:26.000 I don't know about you, Charlie, but I certainly don't want justice.
00:26:29.000 I don't want justice because if I get justice, I get punished.
00:26:32.000 I don't just want mercy.
00:26:34.000 I don't just not want to get punished.
00:26:36.000 I want grace.
00:26:37.000 I want a gift.
00:26:39.000 And that gift is eternal life with Christ himself and with my loved ones who have also accepted the free gift.
00:26:47.000 So you said that we know Christianity is true. 1.00
00:26:50.000 This is one of your areas of expertise.
00:26:53.000 How do we know that the birth of Christ is true?
00:26:57.000 I've never heard you talk about this, Frank.
00:27:00.000 Well, you mean the virgin birth?
00:27:01.000 Either the virgin birth or what we consider to be the nativity story as told, you know, in most detail in the book of Luke.
00:27:10.000 Well, what we tend to do is we tend, as all historians do, is we, if we can find a particular author true on certain accounts we can verify, then we can assume he's probably telling the truth on accounts we cannot verify.
00:27:28.000 And scholars have looked into Luke with extreme detail.
00:27:32.000 In fact, Sir William Ramsey, one of the top archaeologists of all time, started to investigate Luke, thinking he would find that Luke was in error in many places.
00:27:41.000 After 20 years of traveling through the Mediterranean, Sir William Ramsey said Luke is an historian of first rank.
00:27:50.000 In fact, he said that Luke named something like nine islands, 54 countries, and 32 different aspects of topography.
00:28:00.000 He got it all correct, Charlie.
00:28:02.000 And that was before Google Earth or the internet.
00:28:05.000 He got all of this correct.
00:28:07.000 So if we can trust him on these things we can verify, can we trust him on things we cannot directly verify?
00:28:14.000 And I think the answer is yes.
00:28:15.000 And Luke was a doctor who was sponsored to do this by Theophilus, which probably was a filler word, lover of God, right?
00:28:23.000 But we'll talk about this in the break.
00:28:25.000 Luke had, we don't, unless you can tell me, I can't really recall his personal biography.
00:28:33.000 He just seemed to be almost the equivalent of hiring somebody to go figure out what's going on and then write back to it.
00:28:41.000 And he also wrote the most of the New Testament, even more than Paul, if you count the book of Acts.
00:28:47.000 Yes, he wrote Acts to excellent Theophilus, and so did he wrote Luke as well.
00:28:53.000 And he says in the first section of his gospel, I checked all these things out with eyewitnesses.
00:29:00.000 So Luke is writing an historical account, and he's very accurate.
00:29:04.000 He's proven to be, Charlie.
00:29:08.000 Senators Blunt, Boozman, Capito, Collins, Cornyn, Cotton, Graham, Inhoff, McConnell, Moran, Murkowski, Portman, Romney, Rounds, Shelby, Thune, Wicker, and Young are the 18 Republicans who have just voted for LGBTQ museums in New York,
00:29:26.000 LGBTQ Pride Center in California, a community space for gender expansive people, $45 billion for Ukraine, border security for other countries, Pakistan, Yemen, Tunisia, while forbidding border security for America.
00:29:42.000 The omnibus has passed thanks to Republicans.
00:29:45.000 Back to Frank Turek.
00:29:46.000 So Frank, let's talk a little bit more about the objections.
00:29:51.000 You know, some people will say that the Bible is not true and that there are contradictions or inaccuracies.
00:30:01.000 You hear all these objections.
00:30:03.000 Riff on this a little bit, Frank, for the doubters, the naysayers, or the skeptics in our audience.
00:30:08.000 I would say, Charlie, that the Christian story does not depend on whether or not there are contradictions in the Bible.
00:30:17.000 In fact, Christianity would be true if the Bible never existed. 0.98
00:30:23.000 People go, what?
00:30:24.000 What do you mean?
00:30:25.000 Because Christianity, Charlie, did not start with a book.
00:30:29.000 Christianity started with an event, the resurrection.
00:30:33.000 There would be no documents written down in the first century by Jews who thought they were God's chosen people.
00:30:40.000 There would be no books written down by these Jews in the first century who didn't think a man could claim to be God. 0.98
00:30:47.000 That would be blasphemy.
00:30:48.000 Who didn't think someone would rise from the dead in the middle of time?
00:30:52.000 These books would not exist, Charlie, unless a man actually did claim to be God and rose from the dead, because these Jews not only didn't believe this could happen, they lost everything by saying it happened. 0.96
00:31:08.000 They were kicked out of the synagogue and then beaten, tortured, and killed.
00:31:12.000 They did not make this up, Charlie.
00:31:15.000 They had no motive to make it up.
00:31:17.000 So I always ask people, I say, do you realize there were thousands of Christians before a line of the New Testament was ever written?
00:31:25.000 Yeah, why?
00:31:26.000 Because they either witnessed the resurrected Jesus or knew others who had.
00:31:31.000 They later wrote it down.
00:31:33.000 So it would be true regardless of whether or not there are contradictions in the scriptures.
00:31:39.000 The main point that everybody agrees on is that Jesus died and rose again.
00:31:44.000 If that's really true, Charlie, then Christianity is true. 1.00
00:31:48.000 We can argue about the details later, and we do in our book, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist.
00:31:52.000 But the bottom line is Christianity is true regardless of the Bible. 0.73
00:31:58.000 It's true because it really happened.
00:32:00.000 The event, the resurrection really happened.
00:32:03.000 And the event started with Jesus coming to earth.
00:32:03.000 Yeah.
00:32:09.000 Now they'll say, well, Charlie, I can't believe the virgin birth.
00:32:13.000 Your argument is if the creation story and the resurrection are true, everything else could be true.
00:32:19.000 Well, just if Genesis 1-1 is true, Charlie, and we even have atheists now admitting the data for evidence or for Genesis 1-1.
00:32:26.000 Stephen Hawking famously said, almost everyone now believes that the universe and time itself had a beginning at the Big Bang.
00:32:34.000 Now, Hawking, as you know, was a physicist and an atheist.
00:32:37.000 He didn't believe in God and he tried to come up with another explanation for the creation of the universe other than God.
00:32:43.000 He failed, but he's admitting the data, Charlie.
00:32:45.000 Look, if Genesis 1-1 is true, if God really created the universe out of nothing, then every other verse in the Bible is at least possible, including virgin births, including the resurrection of Jesus, including the parting of the Red Sea, etc.
00:32:59.000 So yes, the greatest evidence that we have for a miracle in the Bible, we can see through our telescopes.
00:33:07.000 And it's Genesis 1-1.
00:33:09.000 And this Christmas, we should remember the significance of that.
00:33:15.000 Any closing thoughts here, Frank?
00:33:17.000 Well, Charlie, the closing thought that I have is that the most important fact in the universe is that God exists and Jesus rose from the dead.
00:33:25.000 As C.S. Lewis famously said, if Christianity is true, it's of infinite importance. 0.97
00:33:32.000 If it's not true, it's of no importance.
00:33:35.000 What it cannot be is moderately important.
00:33:38.000 Look, we are all fallen.
00:33:40.000 We are all sinners.
00:33:41.000 Even as our political discourse shows, that's the case, regardless of what you believe.
00:33:47.000 You know, you haven't lived up to your own standards, much less God's standards.
00:33:51.000 And if God really came to earth, added humanity to his deity, and then took our punishment on himself, what could be more important than that, Charlie?
00:34:01.000 That's why I'm so excited of the work you're doing at TPUSA.
00:34:05.000 You're not just trying to save the country.
00:34:07.000 You're trying to save souls.
00:34:09.000 And you will not shy away from saying that, even in a crowd full of secular people. 1.00
00:34:13.000 So God bless you for that.
00:34:14.000 That's what we need to do.
00:34:15.000 Merry Christmas, Frank.
00:34:16.000 Thanks for joining us.
00:34:17.000 Everyone, check out Cross-Examined and his podcast, I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.
00:34:22.000 God bless you, Frank.
00:34:23.000 Thank you.
00:34:26.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
00:34:27.000 Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:34:30.000 Thank you so much for listening and God bless.
00:34:35.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.