The Charlie Kirk Show - Escaping "Nice" Christianity with Aaron Ginn

00:00:00.000 Hello, everybody.

00:00:00.000 Happy Sunday.

00:00:02.000 It's a conversation I had with Aaron Jin about masculinity, feminized Christianity, and more.

00:00:08.000 Email us as always freedom at charliekirk.com and get involved with our amazing movement, Turning PointUSA, at tpusa.com.

00:00:16.000 That is tpusa.com.

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00:00:26.000 Become a member today, members.charliekirk.com.

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00:00:34.000 There's going to be some amazing stuff, exclusive meetups, Zoom calls, all sorts of stuff, answering exclusive questions.

00:00:41.000 Also, exclusive interview with Dan Bongino, Tucker Carlson.

00:00:44.000 In fact, listen to this little taste of my exclusive conversation with Dan Bongino.

00:00:49.000 The prevailing orthodoxy of colleges is that if something bad happens to you, you need a support group and you need to protest.

00:00:58.000 Your argument in the book is if something bad happens to you, it actually could be a good thing.

00:01:03.000 It's a blessing.

00:01:04.000 You will never, you know, I don't like pithy little nonsense statements and stuff like that.

00:01:09.000 But someone said to me a long time ago, it wasn't like some philosopher, just some guy meant, you know, if you were happy all the time, you wouldn't understand what happiness is.

00:01:17.000 Like it would just be this kind of regular way.

00:01:20.000 You need contrast.

00:01:20.000 You wouldn't get the joy.

00:01:21.000 Yeah, you need contrast.

00:01:22.000 So this morning, I put a picture of my locals accountant, me, you know, I know I have this speech today, and I got a dinner tonight with a local politician about some stuff that, you know, it's Sunday, like I should have this day off, but I'm here with you.

00:01:36.000 And so this morning I said to Paula, like, it's 95 degrees in Florida.

00:01:40.000 I said, let's go downstairs, do a full body workout.

00:01:43.000 By the way, my garage with no AC, so it's about 80 in the garage.

00:01:47.000 And then I said, I'm going to jump in 190-degree sauna afterwards for about 10 minutes before this speech.

00:01:52.000 And so I put a picture up on locals, and I'm like, you want to see what pain looks like?

00:01:55.000 I said, if you don't go through this suffering and this suck all the time, you're never going to learn to adore the moments of joy and success. 0.98

00:02:02.000 You have that this trigger bullshit stuff is just crazy. 0.98

00:02:06.000 You can listen to that at length, members.charliekirk.com. 0.97

00:02:10.000 Enjoy this conversation with Aaron Jin.

00:02:13.000 Subscribe to our podcast.

00:02:14.000 Open up your podcast app and type in Charlie Kirk Show.

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00:02:23.000 Happy Sunday, everybody.

00:02:24.000 Here we go.

00:02:24.000 Buckle up.

00:02:25.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:02:27.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:02:29.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:02:33.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:02:36.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:02:37.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:02:38.000 His spirit, his love of this country.

00:02:40.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:02:46.000 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.

00:02:55.000 That's why we are here.

00:02:58.000 Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at AndrewandTodd.com.

00:03:08.000 Aaron, welcome to the program.

00:03:10.000 Nice to see you again.

00:03:10.000 Hey, man.

00:03:11.000 Yeah, thank you.

00:03:12.000 So you have a whole program right now on masculinity.

00:03:15.000 Tell us about it.

00:03:16.000 Yeah, so I've been writing the series devoted to what I find like an epidemic.

00:03:22.000 Of course, last time I was on the show, we talked about another epidemic, the Fauci apocalypse, right?

00:03:27.000 When I came into town during the lockdowns and talked about COVID.

00:03:30.000 And so I've been writing a lot about masculinity biblical friendship, particularly around this idea of like nice guy Christians, which is sort of plaguing a lot of big Eva evangelism, which I think really came to head during the Trump era and even today, sort of as we think about like what comes next for the party.

00:03:50.000 And so nice guy Christians, or you could say nice guy in general, is there was a seminal book written a couple decades ago by Dr. Glubber, who is a psychiatrist who identified something in America where that men were particularly behaving in ways that were quite manipulative and immoral, aka trying to be nice.

00:04:09.000 And a part of that is basically never saying what you want, never being direct, manipulating people by being nice and kind to them so they do something that like for you, right?

00:04:19.000 So these like covert contracts, things like that, driven by toxic shame.

00:04:23.000 And a lot of the problems I think that America is facing from fatherlessness to like issues in politics and even the stuff that you talked about about plaguing the church in America about not understanding what Trump was or is, depending if he gets re-elected or what we need to do as a country to defeat China and things like that.

00:04:41.000 I think it's all connected to this around the idea of how men view themselves.

00:04:45.000 And particularly around being nice, which is very different than being kind, is the indirectness of a lot of men.

00:04:54.000 And that goes everything from how they work and how they choose relationships and how they have friends and how they don't have friends, how they treat their children.

00:05:00.000 That's a very astute point.

00:05:02.000 Yeah.

00:05:02.000 And so I think this is why maybe you and I have experienced a lot, both in our friend group and then working in politics, me on the edge is more of you involved about why we can talk to somebody who's like theologically and morally aligned with us.

00:05:16.000 But then when it actually comes to doing something, acting, they don't follow through.

00:05:21.000 And you don't understand why.

00:05:22.000 No, and I'll give you an example.

00:05:24.000 We've had a pastor on once, and I won't say the name, kind of a cool guy pastor who was speaking out against some of the woke stuff, really nice person, and he invited me to his church.

00:05:34.000 So I texted him, like, hey, I'm going to be in talent.

00:05:36.000 And then he texted back.

00:05:37.000 He's like, oh, well, actually, my board doesn't want you to come.

00:05:40.000 I'm like, oh, yeah, you're exactly who I thought you were.

00:05:43.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0.99

00:05:45.000 And I think particularly for Christians, so I have a whole section devoted to how Jesus wasn't nice.

00:05:50.000 No, yeah, that's the latest medium post, right?

00:05:53.000 No, no, I don't write on there anymore.

00:05:54.000 No, it's just substack.

00:05:55.000 Substack, yeah.

00:05:56.000 Oh, this is June 10th.

00:05:57.000 Maybe this is all messed up.

00:06:01.000 So yeah, my last part of the series is devoted to Christ and what scripture says.

00:06:07.000 So what do you mean Jesus wasn't nice?

00:06:08.000 What do you mean by that?

00:06:09.000 So one is nice.

00:06:10.000 I agree, obviously.

00:06:11.000 Yeah, obviously, yeah, yeah.

00:06:12.000 So one is that nice is a Latin word.

00:06:15.000 Yeah, tell me the etymology of it.

00:06:17.000 Yeah, basically the original meaning was ignorant.

00:06:21.000 But nice has also had multiple versions of like everything from like you're basically more or less a bad guy to being great, to being evil, to being manipulative, right?

00:06:34.000 Over the course of the word nice, basically it has a ton of meanings, similar to the word, like when you mean nice guy.

00:06:39.000 It's so root, though, in Latin. 0.99

00:06:41.000 Oh, ignorant. 0.96

00:06:43.000 No, but actually the Latin word. 0.98

00:06:45.000 Yeah, yeah, that's what it is. 0.98

00:06:46.000 So like whenever people originally used the word nice, they meant you're ignorant.

00:06:50.000 So versus kind in Greek, which actually appears in scripture, is generally like kind of four things.

00:06:56.000 It's like generally goodness, righteousness, grace, long-suffering.

00:07:00.000 So, but nice does not appear anywhere in the Hebrew Bible or in any Aramaic translation or Greek translation.

00:07:08.000 The first time we have record of it is like 14th century.

00:07:12.000 And this is why I also had so many meanings, which is also typical of nice guys, right?

00:07:15.000 Like this nice pastor guy you met.

00:07:17.000 Like he's here.

00:07:17.000 He's like, yeah, yeah, rah-rah-rah.

00:07:19.000 Total coward, intellectually. 1.00

00:07:20.000 I could say the name, but. 1.00

00:07:22.000 Yeah, you don't be rude, right?

00:07:23.000 So Christ, as an example in scripture, he was never nice.

00:07:27.000 He was kind, right?

00:07:29.000 So being kind as rooted in the Greek is both oriented towards truth and goodness, right? 0.99

00:07:34.000 Which nice guys don't. 0.97

00:07:35.000 They're not principled.

00:07:36.000 They don't stand up for themselves.

00:07:37.000 They don't stand up for other people.

00:07:39.000 And so one is that we have lots of examples of Jesus being super direct and you could say not being nice.

00:07:44.000 Remember, he called a Canaanite woman a dog.

00:07:47.000 He called Pharisees vipers, right? 0.95

00:07:50.000 Sin no more. 0.89

00:07:50.000 And the woman. 0.89

00:07:51.000 Yeah, the woman at the well basically calls her a harlot. 1.00

00:07:55.000 And none of this was an orientation, of course, of like demeaning or shame.

00:07:59.000 There's no shame in Christ.

00:08:00.000 But it was to correct the error, right?

00:08:01.000 Yeah, and to see them for who they were, right?

00:08:04.000 And nice guys don't do that.

00:08:05.000 Nice guys instead, they lie, they manipulate, they deceive.

00:08:09.000 And because Christianity in America has told them to be a good Christian man means to be nice.

00:08:15.000 Again, the word never appears.

00:08:17.000 Being a good Christian man is being kind, being like Paul and being like Jesus, right?

00:08:21.000 Paul was certainly not nice.

00:08:24.000 Like, if you read any of the letters, no, he's pretty harsh.

00:08:27.000 Yes, because the world is sinful and the world has fallen.

00:08:30.000 And so I think the men in America are really suffering from this contagion, this view of themselves that they're supposed to behave in ways that are not biblical and not oriented to Christ.

00:08:43.000 And that's what creates these passive men that don't lead their families, that don't stand up for themselves.

00:08:48.000 They don't fight for goodness.

00:08:49.000 They don't fight for character.

00:08:51.000 They won't fight for our country.

00:08:53.000 Instead, they just like they placate and being like, oh, to be Christ means being a pushover.

00:08:57.000 That's right.

00:08:58.000 No, this is widespread in our seminaries.

00:09:03.000 And so I'd say, I mean, and you kind of know it.

00:09:05.000 First of all, most Christian pastors look like women, right? 0.96

00:09:08.000 No, they're metrosexual, skinny people. 0.82

00:09:11.000 They'd be cool, they'd be cool.

00:09:12.000 I mean, look, I'm just looking at some of the pictures now of a pastor who didn't want to be there.

00:09:16.000 No, but very baggy clothes, right?

00:09:19.000 Not very masculine features.

00:09:21.000 So that plays into it.

00:09:23.000 But there is this belief on the men in particular, must be nice, must be nice. 0.77

00:09:26.000 So for example, when I say that transgenderism comes from the pit of hell, they say, Charlie, that's not you being nice. 0.90

00:09:31.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:09:32.000 So how did a secular word that's non-biblical infuse it as almost the ultimate commandment?

00:09:39.000 It's not, you shall have no other gods before me, shall not covet, shall not steal on your mother and father, remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

00:09:44.000 But now like the ultimate commandment is, thou shall be nice against evil.

00:09:49.000 Yeah, I think it's a combination of post-1950s, sort of the insert of the sexual revolution, more or less Marxism, that was trying to attack the foundations of what to make America what it is, which has basically constantly been kind of rabble-rousers, frontiersmen, like push the boundaries.

00:10:09.000 Awfully disagreeable.

00:10:10.000 Yes, right?

00:10:11.000 And I mean, you have photos of people who are behind you that are quite disagreeable people.

00:10:17.000 James Madison, Winston Churchill, Clarence Thomas, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield.

00:10:22.000 By the way, if you guys ever come to the Charlie Kirk studios, it's like a museum here.

00:10:25.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:10:26.000 So there's this kind of spirit of America that is remarkably masculine that does not exist in many of the other cultures.

00:10:34.000 And so for, you could say for the enemy, which would be Satan, or for other enemies, which would be a more secular human, like China to Marxism, to attack America to the point where it's neutered, right?

00:10:46.000 Because most countries know they can't ever really kinetically defeat us. 0.53

00:10:50.000 The only way they can defeat us is through culture, right?

00:10:53.000 And so they had to go after the source, which is the church and men that actually make America what it is. 0.74

00:10:59.000 And so I think this Christian, a nice guy, Christians, and the reason why I put it before a Christian is like it overtakes Christ, right?

00:11:07.000 Oh, it does. 0.65

00:11:08.000 And so Big Eva kind of invented this thing that is the culture. 1.00

00:11:13.000 That's exactly right. 0.64

00:11:15.000 And infiltrated it and said, like, no, this is the highest calling.

00:11:18.000 You're like, but wait a minute, like, how can you get past that?

00:11:21.000 Like, Jesus literally makes bold claims to the point that it offends people so much that he goes, gets crucified.

00:11:28.000 So, I mean, just the obvious, 45 seconds in the segment, but if you're not nice, that doesn't mean you have to be mean.

00:11:34.000 No, I don't know.

00:11:34.000 And that's the immediate sloppy.

00:11:36.000 Big Eva.

00:11:36.000 Exactly.

00:11:37.000 Like, whoa, you're just a mean person because you're not nice.

00:11:40.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:11:40.000 That's awfully a sloppy, two-dimensional way to look at it.

00:11:43.000 Yeah, it's rather it's being direct, right?

00:11:46.000 Being kind means to be direct.

00:11:48.000 And so, what they're missing is that when you're being nice, you're actually lying to people.

00:11:53.000 Because everybody has wants, everyone has needs, everybody has opinions.

00:11:57.000 But when you're forced to be nice, you're just lying.

00:12:00.000 Like, are you really telling me that, like, as an example, that intimacy is a huge problem for many men in marriage?

00:12:07.000 And so, they're nice to the point where they lie to other people.

00:12:10.000 Oh, it's great, right?

00:12:12.000 Or like, oh, she's such a like, she's such a wonderful person.

00:12:15.000 In reality, it's like, no, you're actually lying.

00:12:18.000 Or like a job.

00:12:19.000 Like, oh, you're trying to be nice to your boss.

00:12:21.000 Oh, yeah, like, I don't deserve that raise.

00:12:23.000 Or like, I'm trying really, really hard, you know, and I'm just so happy to be here rather than saying, like, no, I deserve a raise.

00:12:31.000 Have you received any pushback to this contention?

00:12:34.000 Most of the pushback would be mean, which again is like, you know, you're kind of a shallow way of understanding what I've written.

00:12:42.000 The second one would be like, Dr. Glubber is not a Christian.

00:12:45.000 I love this, by the way. 1.00

00:12:46.000 You're not commanded to be nice.

00:12:48.000 It's a made-up term.

00:12:49.000 You are commanded to be kind, but truth is the ultimate gospel.

00:12:52.000 Okay.

00:12:53.000 There is no love without truth.

00:12:54.000 So is it time for us in Christianity to crusade against the word nice?

00:12:58.000 Oh, please, yes. 0.50

00:13:00.000 I think you're onto something pretty deep here.

00:13:02.000 Yeah, so because I don't think it's to over-respond into, let's say, some of the pastors you probably have on that are like rude and mean, right?

00:13:11.000 Who don't position themselves as speaking the truth towards redemption and reconciliation.

00:13:17.000 Because that's the real difference between our faith and the other faiths: is that the point of the cross is that we are in a position to help restore the world.

00:13:26.000 Yeah, that's right.

00:13:27.000 And you can't restore on a lie.

00:13:29.000 You can't restore on fake truth.

00:13:31.000 By definition.

00:13:32.000 The cross corrects error.

00:13:33.000 Sin means you're off target, literally.

00:13:35.000 That's what the word is. 0.93

00:13:36.000 Hata, right? 0.81

00:13:36.000 Exactly. 0.81

00:13:37.000 That means you're not where you should be.

00:13:39.000 Yes.

00:13:40.000 But the origination of desire, and that's what I think was one of the failures of many nice guys, is that a lot of the desires they feel are wrong.

00:13:46.000 But that's not how ever in the Hebrew Bible or in the Greek New Testament, like sin is ever presented.

00:13:52.000 The desires that God gives you is good.

00:13:54.000 Where it goes is bad.

00:13:55.000 That's exactly right.

00:13:56.000 And the orientation of a lot of evangelical thought is this idea that your heart, right?

00:14:06.000 They talk about heart issues.

00:14:07.000 And it's like, well, that's actually where all the sin is.

00:14:10.000 And I think what they're doing is they're misreading a lot of the Old Testament scripture on heart and what God is going to do with the heart in terms of the new covenant, right?

00:14:18.000 Like Jeremiah 33 and 31.

00:14:20.000 And they're also misunderstanding, issue, even if you talk to Ben, like if you talk to Ben about sin, I think a lot of the.

00:14:26.000 They're very action-oriented in Judaism. 0.53

00:14:28.000 Yeah, because to them, it's like, oh, it's like the origination is not bad. 0.81

00:14:31.000 We just got to put it in a good place, right?

00:14:33.000 But a lot of like big Eva teaches men that, no, you're just bad and you're shameful.

00:14:37.000 How dare you have any of these thoughts?

00:14:38.000 How you dare have any of these ideas?

00:14:39.000 It's got to root that out of your heart rather than saying, oh, actually, no, your desire for winning, your desire for victory, your desire for being proud of yourself should go somewhere.

00:14:51.000 But instead, it teaches them like, no, that's bad.

00:14:54.000 That's bad, bad, bad.

00:14:55.000 Right.

00:14:55.000 And maybe this relates to sort of our sort of reformed, and I'm mostly reformed, like orientation about how we view people, et cetera, et cetera.

00:15:02.000 But a lot of nice guys are living in this really deep shame, which is really sad because you talk to them and you hear how they talk about themselves.

00:15:11.000 If any friend ever talked to them that way, they wouldn't be friends with that person.

00:15:14.000 But yet they live with that person in their brain.

00:15:18.000 And then when it comes to expression of the faith to the world, if you talk to non-believers, I think the one reason why Peterson to Rogan to Sigma males and all this stuff is happening is because men know what's being presented by Big Eva American evangelicalism is not real or true or good.

00:15:38.000 So they go to these other men who are like, yeah, I should want to go eat steak and shoot guns and be around my dude friends and smoke cigars or talk about whatever and not feel ashamed.

00:15:48.000 Wokeness to me is this, like, we could say like Christianity without Jesus that is deeply unmasculine, that is like constantly hunting down, pursuing people out of heart issues, sin hunting and attacking people.

00:16:02.000 And then there's not a man to be there saying like, wait a minute. 0.61

00:16:06.000 Actually, you should just kind of say what you want.

00:16:09.000 Like, like, it doesn't mean that necessarily it's true or good, but we can debate it, right? 0.95

00:16:14.000 But this lack of masculine culture, nice guys, et cetera, I think is one reason why we have white pole culture and all this like nonsense is because we're feeding this beast. 0.52

00:16:26.000 So I think American evangelicalism has taught men to think less of themselves, oriented to shame, have no friends, don't pursue actually who Christ is actually in the Bible, and instead has created this neuterized thing that is that Paul really deeply ashamed of.

00:16:44.000 It's like, you know, Rick Warren and Levi Lusko and all these people who really don't like me.

00:16:50.000 And I got in a text argument with Rick Warren, who's, you know, become a hyper-feminine type figure, right?

00:16:56.000 He got kicked out for a reason, SBC.

00:16:58.000 Yeah, well, literally hyper-feminine because he thinks women should be pastors. 0.88

00:17:01.000 But he also, his whole approach is very feminine, very feely.

00:17:05.000 Isn't that part of the problem?

00:17:06.000 Is the feminization of the American church?

00:17:09.000 Yeah, because if you go to the church in Africa, aka real hardship.

00:17:14.000 So, you know, I let you know that I'm in Colorado. 1.00

00:17:17.000 And it's just funny when people are like, look at this nature. 0.95

00:17:19.000 And you go to Africa, you're like, no, that's freaking nature. 1.00

00:17:21.000 That nature is going to kill you, right? 1.00

00:17:23.000 And you talk to a Christian there, and you present. 1.00

00:17:26.000 That's exactly.

00:17:27.000 So even this is such a great example.

00:17:29.000 So I went to Tanzania during the whole Fauci apocalypse, and it was the only country open. 0.99

00:17:33.000 And I asked my tour guide who was Christian. 0.94

00:17:36.000 So Tanzania is one of the few split countries, Muslim and Christian.

00:17:39.000 They're a Christian by the first name.

00:17:42.000 And he asked me, yes, like, what's going on in America?

00:17:44.000 And I was like, what do you mean?

00:17:45.000 He was like, why are all these white people scared of this thing?

00:17:48.000 Right.

00:17:49.000 And he was deeply just concerned about like, what do you mean?

00:17:53.000 Like, I live in this country where like a lion can kill you, a bunch of diseases.

00:17:57.000 And he's, you know what he is?

00:17:58.000 He is freaking happy.

00:18:00.000 No, of course.

00:18:01.000 But that's the thing.

00:18:02.000 So, I mean, we're going to keep you for a couple more minutes in the break here.

00:18:05.000 So guys, if we could configure it.

00:18:07.000 But it isn't, I mean, part of the issue, and I think you've pinpointed it, is the wokeness capitalizes on guilt that is not dealt with.

00:18:19.000 Yeah.

00:18:19.000 Yes.

00:18:20.000 And bad theology leads to, as you say, this incredibly heavy guilt on a lot of largely white men who then become metro-sexual versions of their former selves.

00:18:33.000 Yeah, rather than believing that Christ is victor, right?

00:18:35.000 That Christ doesn't ever say these things that big Eva, Warren, or whoever says.

00:18:41.000 You know what Christ says when he sees you?

00:18:43.000 And these are all present tense Greek words.

00:18:45.000 He says that you're chosen.

00:18:47.000 You're elected.

00:18:47.000 You're a saint.

00:18:48.000 You're the son of God.

00:18:50.000 That you are part of the new kingdom.

00:18:52.000 Right now.

00:18:52.000 Doesn't say in the future.

00:18:53.000 He says right now.

00:18:55.000 Because how you exist today, as presented by Paul in Ephesians and Galatians, a bunch of the places, like as you exist today, because you are saved and you live in eternity is how you are today.

00:19:05.000 Because in heaven, it's eternity.

00:19:06.000 It's is.

00:19:07.000 There's no future.

00:19:08.000 Everything is now.

00:19:08.000 There's no past.

00:19:09.000 I am.

00:19:10.000 So we do have a question here, though, about, let me just ask this for you, Aaron, and you can help us.

00:19:15.000 They say, Charlie, my pastor just gave a sermon on being nice.

00:19:18.000 How do I best confront him?

00:19:20.000 Meaning that we must be nice to the world or else people will not accept Christianity.

00:19:24.000 One, that that's an incredible diminutive view of the gospel.

00:19:27.000 So, and of sin and of Christ's work on the cross, that somehow it's dependent on you in being nice to send the message.

00:19:36.000 I mean, I think Paul really condemns that in Galatians as an example of that.

00:19:41.000 But the other thing is that you should put never anything, both in the sense of theology, like as in one area that I do condemn, let's say, the more masculine side of the church is they put these things in front of the gospel to prevent people from coming to faith as in different behavioral things and stuff like that.

00:19:58.000 There's nothing that prevents you from being saved.

00:20:00.000 And so you should not put these requirements on people outside of accepting the fact that Jesus died for your sins and gave you the Holy Spirit and He rose again from the dead and he will return the Nicene Creed.

00:20:10.000 Nothing else should come between that.

00:20:12.000 But in terms of being nice, to me, that's putting a list on it, as if you can somehow influence what God is going to do.

00:20:19.000 People are elected and it's God's choice.

00:20:22.000 He uses you, right, and uses your words to propel the gospel forward and your talents and your skills.

00:20:28.000 But artificially putting yourself in some sort of like weird cultural mix of things, a milieu of like, you know, manipulative behavior, lying, et cetera, all these elements of being nice is a gross, grotesque belief that you can somehow do something in terms of the gospel message.

00:20:45.000 So the way I would approach him is literally go read the first part of Galatians, which most people don't know.

00:20:50.000 Paul's being sarcastic.

00:20:51.000 So when he's calling the super apostles, all these things, he's mocking this church, right? 0.70

00:20:56.000 So, and probably that pastor may have a diminutive view of Paul, which is kind of, you know, which is very common among these feminized pastors. 0.63

00:21:04.000 But it's very hard to argue if the person accepts Paul that he was not nice. 0.64

00:21:09.000 And the other one would be like, you can go to Christ and you can see how he talked to Samaritans, see how he talked to Pharisees.

00:21:14.000 He was not, he did not hide what he thought.

00:21:18.000 Because if your goal is redemption, which is the goal of every person sharing the gospel, you cannot reconcile on a lie.

00:21:24.000 You have to reconcile on the reality of who Christ is, what he said, what he's going to do.

00:21:29.000 Have we seen the American church ever be so captured by a secular idea as we have now?

00:21:35.000 I mean, yeah, I mean, it's really hard to, I mean, I don't want to be, because technically I am a post-millennial.

00:21:44.000 So that's a difficult position.

00:21:46.000 Yeah.

00:21:46.000 Yeah, as in, like, oh, it's going to get better and better, right?

00:21:49.000 Although I do submit that Revelation reads in a pre-millennial orientation, right?

00:21:54.000 We're going to get a lot of emails.

00:21:55.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:21:56.000 We have a lot of Calvary folks that watch.

00:21:58.000 I disagree.

00:21:58.000 Oh, okay.

00:21:59.000 So pre-trib, pre-millennial.

00:22:01.000 So I would say that it is pretty depressing.

00:22:01.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:22:05.000 And I'm a student of church history.

00:22:07.000 Outside of very grotesque things that the church accepted for a while, like I would say, you know, indigent servitude, slavery, et cetera, which was prevalent in a lot of parts of the church for hundreds of years.

00:22:20.000 It's hard to see something as terrible as what the church is suffering from right now.

00:22:27.000 And that is an extension really of an, that's what Americans don't understand.

00:22:31.000 So much of what we're dealing with within the American church is like in America.

00:22:34.000 If you go to another country, and like one of my most memorable moments is going with some of our friends to Palestine.

00:22:42.000 And I talked to my tour guide there in Bethlehem. 0.97

00:22:44.000 Palestine doesn't exist. 0.66

00:22:46.000 So the West Bank. 1.00

00:22:48.000 So that is true.

00:22:49.000 It's technically true.

00:22:50.000 It's a Roman word, right?

00:22:52.000 It's not a region. 0.94

00:22:53.000 Philistine. 0.98

00:22:54.000 Yeah.

00:22:56.000 And my tour guide there in Bethlehem was a Christian. 1.00

00:23:01.000 That's an Arab city now.

00:23:02.000 It's 90% Arab.

00:23:04.000 And he mentioned that.

00:23:04.000 He goes, whenever he was born, it was like 30 or 40%.

00:23:07.000 And now it's incredibly small. 0.92

00:23:10.000 And he joked that it's like the things you thought would separate churches in America, you realize how dumb it is once you're down to a couple churches. 0.72

00:23:20.000 And I asked him what Jesus, yeah, I asked him who Jesus was.

00:23:24.000 He repeated the beautiful Nicene Creed to me.

00:23:26.000 And I've never met this before, right?

00:23:27.000 And he speaks to Reading English, but he grew up there.

00:23:30.000 And we were standing next to the wall, obviously, that surrounds Bethlehem.

00:23:36.000 of bread. 0.94

00:23:36.000 And he said, he goes, this wall is not for me, but I totally get why Israel did this, right? 0.94

00:23:41.000 Like, I don't go and do these things to Israelis, right? 0.93

00:23:44.000 It's not me, right? 1.00

00:23:46.000 But, you know, I don't like this wall, but I totally get it.

00:23:49.000 That orientation towards truth and reconciliation, right?

00:23:53.000 And I, but, you know, you talk about some of the things that we suffer from here on like nice guyism and woke stuff within the church.

00:23:59.000 That doesn't exist in other countries, right?

00:24:02.000 Because they actually have real problems.

00:24:03.000 Like, wokeness and masculinity problems are like this, this, like, we're so bored that we need to like invent some crisis.

00:24:10.000 Boredom plus affluence equals wokeism.

00:24:13.000 Yes.

00:24:13.000 So, all right, I'm just curious on your own personal.

00:24:16.000 You say you were a reformer, four or five-point Calvinist.

00:24:19.000 What do you believe?

00:24:19.000 So, so I would say I'm mostly three and a half to four.

00:24:23.000 I never go before three.

00:24:24.000 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:24:25.000 So, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, then you kind of draw the line.

00:24:30.000 No, no, I so you pick and choose.

00:24:32.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:24:32.000 So, I would say that the, I believe in perseverance.

00:24:34.000 I believe my one I kind of go back and forth on is irresistible grace.

00:24:38.000 Um, because just remind our audience what these mean again.

00:24:41.000 Yeah, yeah, so total depravity is that, like, you know, that you can't earn your way to God, more or less.

00:24:47.000 I can buy into that.

00:24:48.000 Yeah, unconditional election, that, you know, there's no condition for you to be chosen.

00:24:52.000 Limited atonement is the idea that Jesus died only for the people that are saved.

00:24:58.000 Irresistible grace, you can't resist God.

00:25:00.000 Perseverance of the saints, you can't lose your salvation.

00:25:03.000 So, I basically go back and my pastors are going to, my pastors are reformed.

00:25:07.000 So, they're all five.

00:25:08.000 Yeah, essentially.

00:25:09.000 So, so, but I love them to death and they love me.

00:25:11.000 So, and that's there.

00:25:12.000 That's Jesus right there.

00:25:14.000 So, I would go back and forth on irresistible grace because you see examples of it and you don't see examples of it.

00:25:19.000 He's kind of both and.

00:25:20.000 So, what do you mean?

00:25:21.000 Like, give me a biblical.

00:25:23.000 Like, for example, Paul, right?

00:25:25.000 So, Paul on the road gets literally blinded by Jesus and he can't resist.

00:25:31.000 But then you have examples in Exodus, obviously, the grace example where he hardened his heart towards the Lord, right?

00:25:37.000 And so Calvinists, full Calvinists, will kind of make up these theology things to try to explain that, like, corresponding things.

00:25:44.000 Well, you could also read, you could say that God hardened his heart, though.

00:25:48.000 Yeah.

00:25:48.000 So in the story, it's not that he had his heart hardened.

00:25:50.000 God hardened his heart.

00:25:52.000 But it appears both ways.

00:25:53.000 So in the Exodus story, it appears both ways.

00:25:55.000 No, that's correct.

00:25:56.000 Yeah.

00:25:56.000 So where it says, God did, he did, God did, he did, right?

00:25:59.000 And so what I tried to do with theology, like theological frameworks, because like Tulip is a, I believe was written by an Arminius, who actually wasn't written by Calvin. 0.79

00:26:10.000 And again, I would choose to go to a Reformed church over an Armenian church, like 100%.

00:26:15.000 But the irresistible side is that I try to submit the Bible to theological frameworks, not the theological frameworks into the Bible. 0.51

00:26:24.000 So do you believe that we have some agency or will?

00:26:24.000 Right.

00:26:28.000 Not when it comes to election.

00:26:30.000 I believe that election is purely unconditional.

00:26:30.000 I don't.

00:26:34.000 So God's already chosen who he wants to have.

00:26:37.000 Yes, because to live in eternity means that there is no past, present, or future.

00:26:40.000 It is.

00:26:41.000 So everyone that is in heaven is...

00:26:43.000 So we don't have a choice to accept Jesus.

00:26:45.000 I do not believe that.

00:26:46.000 Yes.

00:26:47.000 I believe that God chooses people.

00:26:48.000 Then why did he send Jesus?

00:26:51.000 Well, that was his choice.

00:26:52.000 Yeah.

00:26:53.000 Just because, just for fun?

00:26:55.000 But it's not redemption, then it's selection.

00:26:55.000 No.

00:26:58.000 No, he sent Jesus because someone needed to pay for the sins of Christianity. 0.57

00:27:00.000 Well, that's just metaphorical then, right?

00:27:02.000 No, there still is a justice element of Christ and God that has to be paid for.

00:27:07.000 Metaphorically.

00:27:08.000 These are all symbols at some point.

00:27:09.000 No, no, no, no.

00:27:10.000 That's not metaphorical.

00:27:11.000 If you're not actually accepting Jesus, you're just kind of just, you're just a robot, right?

00:27:15.000 No, So there's confliction there between like, do you have a choice, for example, to, I'll use this as a framework, to speed or not, right?

00:27:26.000 Like you have a choice there, right?

00:27:27.000 But there still is like a consequence whether or not you speed or not, right?

00:27:31.000 And so sin operates that same way, and I think choice operates the same way.

00:27:34.000 Like, God is a person.

00:27:36.000 Like, you have a choice to do something.

00:27:37.000 He has a choice to do something.

00:27:38.000 Like, just because...

00:27:39.000 He says we don't have a choice.

00:27:40.000 No, In terms of one category.

00:27:43.000 But there's multiple categories.

00:27:45.000 But how is it love if everyone's already been selected?

00:27:49.000 How is it love?

00:27:51.000 How is it loving if there's no voluntary agency to get closer to God?

00:27:56.000 Well, but again, but there's a difference between how you live out your faith and the moment of being elected.

00:28:02.000 Those are like not the same categories.

00:28:04.000 Right.

00:28:04.000 There's different categories of operation for God.

00:28:06.000 If God has a list of who he says is in heaven already, absent our own will.

00:28:10.000 Yeah.

00:28:11.000 Then there's not loving, then.

00:28:11.000 Yeah.

00:28:14.000 No, it is loving because if you believe in the first orientation to total depravity that you can't ever get to him anyways, then it is loving, right?

00:28:21.000 Well, I think we're totally depraved and only Christ can bring us out of it.

00:28:25.000 Because we do have agency, obviously.

00:28:27.000 And that's where the irresistible grace comes into play.

00:28:27.000 Yes.

00:28:30.000 I think that you still have a choice in how you respond to God.

00:28:34.000 But let me just make sure that you're not.

00:28:34.000 But not when it comes to love, therefore, if what you're saying is true, he's predestined people for hell.

00:28:40.000 Yes.

00:28:42.000 That's not a loving God.

00:28:43.000 It's a just God because God is both, those things, right?

00:28:47.000 Interesting.

00:28:48.000 Okay, Aaron Jin.

00:28:50.000 Thanks so much.

00:28:50.000 Appreciate it.

00:28:52.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:28:54.000 Email us your thoughts as always.

00:28:55.000 Freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:28:57.000 Thanks so much for listening and God bless.

00:29:02.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - July 30, 2023

Escaping "Nice" Christianity with Aaron Ginn

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