00:00:58.000His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:01:06.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:55.000After our special guest speaks today, and we're going to have time for a little bit of Q ⁇ A after that, we're going to share a little bit more about Turning Point Academy, some things we think you'll be very, very interested in knowing.
00:02:06.000But first, we want to show you this brief video just to give you a taste of what we're all about.
00:02:52.000I think this is a great opportunity in front of us.
00:02:55.000Turning Point Academy is committed to reclaiming, reviving, and restoring virtuous, God-centered education through the seeding of 5C schools.
00:03:11.000Christian, classical, conservative, church-based, and cost-affordable.
00:03:18.000With the start of schools across the country and with plans of several others in the works, we're also so thankful that we've been able to have educator summits across the country where educators from private, public, and homeschooling environments have joined us in Phoenix and also in Chicago.
00:03:37.000Turning Point Academy is like that gold seal, that stamp of who we are and what we represent.
00:03:44.000It's one of the hardest things I've ever done and already the most rewarding thing that I've ever done.
00:03:51.000Everything that's going on in public education isn't just bad, it's actually evil.
00:03:57.000And we have to provide a place where Christian families can go that their kids can know what's true.
00:04:02.000We wanted somebody who was wise enough, who had the road wisdom, to walk with us.
00:04:06.000And it was after we prayed that prayer that we got connected to Turning Point Academy, and they instantly became the most valuable partner that we've had in our journey, and they remain that to this day.
00:04:16.000My child can read at a really high, high level.
00:04:19.000He's reading really big books, and he's doing the omnibus classes with his other friends here.
00:04:24.000It's a blessing, and God's going to bless everyone, just as he's blessing Turning Point Academy.
00:04:31.000We're so grateful that we can make these opportunities available through the generous gifts and donations and contributions of a number of donor friends.
00:04:41.000Another area is taking advantage of the various curricula that we have available.
00:04:46.000We've developed a number of pieces of curriculum that we believe would be very helpful.
00:04:51.000And then we would appreciate if you would consider being a part of our Turning Point Academy Association.
00:04:57.000We are bringing together people from across the country as well as schools that share a common vision and desire to make a positive difference in the world of education.
00:05:07.000And so we invite you to participate and be a part of making all of this possible as we seek together to bring reformation to education across our nation.
00:05:18.000Join Turning Point Academy and Turning Point USA in doing the hard work to save America, one school at a time.
00:05:30.000Turning Point Academy will restore the memory of the greatest nation ever to exist in the history of the world.
00:05:49.000One of the things Charlie has said is that he's going to work harder in 2024 than he's done previously.
00:05:56.000I do know that he's already speaking several times this weekend, and we're so grateful that he's willing and able to speak for us at our first breakout here at Amfest.
00:06:07.000And as I think about Charlie, I think it's only appropriate that he is the first speaker because it was really his vision that launched Turning Point Academy a little over two years ago.
00:06:18.000And we as a division are only about a year and a half old, so we're still growing and getting traction, but we're excited about what's happening.
00:06:27.000I just want to say a word for the one person here that may not know Charlie.
00:06:31.000So I'm going to just tell you very quickly that Charlie, as you know, is the founder of Turning Point USA, started in the northern suburbs of Chicago 11 years ago.
00:06:41.000And fast forward to the present, Turning Point USA is now the fastest growing and largest student, conservative student organization in the country.
00:07:08.000I just want to give you one or two really quick examples of that.
00:07:11.000I was talking recently to a man who's very connected in the state of Florida in terms of Florida politics.
00:07:17.000And he said, I don't think Charlie gets enough credit for electing, getting Ron DeSantis elected in the first election.
00:07:24.000I share that only as an example of the way that God is actually using Charlie to have influence across the country in so many ways that we don't know.
00:07:33.000But I want to share one other very, very quickly before Charlie comes.
00:07:36.000I know many of you are teachers and educators, and I think this story will encourage you.
00:07:40.000In the northern suburbs of Chicago, there is a faithful fifth grade teacher who taught for almost three decades in a Christian school in the northern suburbs of Chicago.
00:07:51.000And this teacher, Mrs. Cindy Weber, would faithfully go up and down the aisles praying over the desk of her students, praying for her students, and really seeking their spiritual welfare as well as their educational welfare.
00:08:06.000And during the course of her tenure as a teacher there at this school, there was a fifth-grade boy, tall or fifth-grade boy, who was always carrying a football around with him and always organizing the other students, she told me.
00:08:21.000And she said, I saw leadership qualities in him.
00:08:25.000During the course of that fifth grade year, in God's goodness and mercy, really, to him, but to all of us, that fifth grade boy committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:08:38.000And that set the trajectory of that boy's life.
00:08:48.000And little did Mrs. Cindy Weber know that her faithful prayers and shepherding of those students would impact literally millions and millions of people through Charlie Kirk.
00:08:59.000And so I share that with you as those of you that are involved in education, whether homeschool, as a teacher, as an administrator, the impact that you are having and the potential impact you can have.
00:09:10.000When I think of Charlie, I think of the words of G.K. Chesterton just a little over 100 years ago.
00:09:16.000He said, the true soldier fights not because he looks what is in front of him, not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.
00:09:27.000The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves that which is behind him.
00:09:34.000And for Charlie, that's our Lord first and foremost, but also our nation.
00:09:39.000And we're so thankful that Charlie is a true soldier and that we have the privilege of hearing him this morning.
00:09:44.000Please join me in welcoming Charlie Kirk.
00:10:47.000Go by the booth, especially if you are a parent of a kid right now that, you know, eighth grade, seventh grade, that is really where a lot of this stuff is happening.
00:10:58.000And a lot of this indoctrination and this nonsense.
00:11:01.000Number two, I want to talk about the purpose of education because I think we've really gone awry in this country.
00:11:07.000And even some conservatives, by the way, don't understand what education is.
00:11:11.000If you ask an everyday kind of run-of-the-mill conservative, they'd say, oh, you know, education is about getting skills for the workplace.
00:11:25.000I used to say, you know, we need to get people to be really good and prepared for a career.
00:11:30.000Now, that's helpful, but education has never been about that.
00:11:34.000That is a Prussian, German, honestly totalitarian approach to education.
00:11:40.000What education used to be, and it comes from a Latin word which means to lead forth, is the development of the soul of the student, is to make the student understand what is good, true, and beautiful.
00:11:54.000Education should be to create good people.
00:11:59.000And the skills can always be layered on after.
00:12:02.000Instead, education is not about wisdom.
00:12:05.000It's about, oh, you know, here's memorization and just memorize for the test and that's it.
00:12:11.000And, you know, just here's some skills and some widget stuff.
00:12:15.000How often in education do we ask the question of any young person, what is good?
00:13:26.000Where we say, oh, you know, I can't stand when parents say, you know, let's get CRT out of the schools because I just want my kids to learn math, science, and arithmetic.
00:13:34.000Now, that sounds good, but hold on a second.
00:13:37.000You think that just getting rid of CRT in the schools, you're going to have this like beautiful neutral education?
00:13:42.000At some point, a student is going to ask the question, well, but why do you say this is right and this is wrong?
00:13:49.000And the teacher will say, oh, it's just common sense.
00:14:07.000And he was telling me about the mission work he was doing.
00:14:09.000And he was talking about how he goes to Uganda, especially, and he goes to these slums and these villages, millions and millions of people, right?
00:14:52.000You have to teach people that that is evil.
00:14:56.000We're so conditioned in the West because we've inherited a Christian morality, because we've inherited a biblical morality, that when we hear that, we gasp.
00:15:06.000Because thankfully, you've been taught correctly by somebody somewhere to know that is evil.
00:15:13.000In Uganda, they're like, that baby's a parasite.
00:15:16.000By the way, how's that any different than Planned Parenthood?
00:17:59.000So, and, but I don't mean this condescendingly.
00:18:03.000Anybody, you guys can submit your operating manual for what you think of civilization and what you think education should be based on, okay?
00:18:10.000Maybe it's, you know, John Locke, or maybe it's Machiavelli, which would be really weird.
00:18:15.000And, you know, maybe it's Rousseau, whatever it is, right?
00:18:18.000And at some point, this is where their argument collapses.
00:18:23.000They'll say, it's just kind of like a combination of common sense and attitudes and community values.
00:18:28.000No, what's the thing that you reference?
00:18:32.000What's the thing that you say that we point at?
00:19:02.000The Constitution is an unbelievable document, which, by the way, is inspired directly and built on biblical principles.
00:19:08.000But when you go into education, you're a parent, or even if you're in college, it's an important question.
00:19:13.000And you might have a different answer.
00:19:15.000You might say, Charlie, you know, the answer to that question, my owner's manual, the most important book is, you know, Pray, Eat, Love, or whatever that stupid book is, right?
00:19:40.000Well, that's a really bad idea, first of all.
00:19:43.000You wonder why you're so unhappy and you have no purpose?
00:19:47.000Because you're not referencing anything to get direction from.
00:19:50.000Because, look, life can be very confusing, but it's less confusing and easier for those of us that every morning and every night and throughout the day, we can kind of go back to our compass, back to our navigational tool, right?
00:20:31.000But what I love about what Turning Point Academy is doing is, in a loving way, but a direct and truthful way, which is the gospel, love and truth, is saying that there is going to be a standard of which we base education on.
00:20:45.000That we are not going to fall for the false trap of neutrality.
00:20:50.000And whatever that might be, and the danger of falling into this false thing of neutrality that happens time and time again is the outgrowth: you have vulnerable students that then are able to be intercepted by the Marxists because they have nothing of which they have a navigational tool.
00:23:08.000If you only think about yourself all the time, there's nothing external, and you don't like the way things are going, just kill yourself.
00:23:12.000I know that sounds really brutal, but it's 100% the morality or the lack thereof that leads to the most suicidal generation in history, the most drug-addicted generation in history.
00:23:22.000The least, you know, let's just say the most fragile generation in history because they can't have any other ideas that might violate them.
00:23:29.000And this is what drives me crazy, though.
00:23:31.000Some of the trans zealots, they say, oh, you know what?
00:23:33.000Feel unsafe because of words that you say.
00:23:35.000And our answer shouldn't be, oh, well, you know, I'm really sorry.
00:23:38.000Why on earth does your personal anxiety dictate my ability to speak the truth?
00:24:34.000You know, sometimes when God wants to send you a message, you just have to be willing to hear.
00:24:38.000And I just kept on one after the other, and podcasts and sermons and random opening of Bibles and readings, the Hebrew word hynani just kept popping up.
00:24:48.000And I mentioned this in the speech last evening, and I want to emphasize this: it's this incredible phrase, which is, here I am, is the best English translation, but it doesn't do it justice, okay?
00:24:57.000It literally means, God, what are the marching orders?
00:29:44.000But now look at this beautiful thing of hope and think about if am I going to do my job so that 19 years from now, there might be another change maker that is doing something and pushing forward?
00:29:54.000That's the marching order, especially for the parents and grandparents here in the room.
00:29:57.000Okay, let's do some questions for the time we have remaining.
00:29:59.000Thanks for sitting through that, guys.
00:30:23.000So I was just wondering if that, and Judaism and other faiths that are in alignment with Christianity, because they're smaller numbers, but they're still in alignment with this whole value system that you're talking about.
00:30:40.000And I'm happy to talk and dialogue privately, but if the parents are willing to sign a statement of faith and willing to kind of go through that process, then yes.
00:30:48.000And I know that specifically Christian Heritage Academy, one of the two parents had to sign a statement of faith.
00:30:52.000But I've actually never met a Zoroastrian, so that's really cool.
00:31:06.000To help parents and their students who try to start chapters like Downers Grove High School, and they reject it because they think TPUSA is radical.
00:31:14.000I know we could start them outside, but is there anything that could be done to try to fight back when they just reject it because they don't like your organization, but they have other organizations within the school?
00:31:26.000Yeah, at that point, and we're happy to help.
00:31:29.000We have to go to the courts at that point.
00:31:30.000Because that's a great example, right?
00:32:45.000My friend over there, John, we started a Turning Point chapter at a private school with about 500 kids in Los Angeles.
00:32:56.000And so my question to you is: how do you feel we could expand our reach not only to members of our school but to neighboring schools who have been indoctrinated for countless of years in the education system?
00:33:06.000Well, first of all, this is why we're going to win, everybody.
00:33:15.000The bad guys don't know how to deal with this.
00:33:17.000The more they try to stifle and suppress us, there's this next generation that is popping open.
00:33:22.000Look, here's what I'll say: is really pray about the word being winsome, which is nobody wants to associate with angry political activists.
00:33:30.000So just always stay joyful and happy despite all the opposition.
00:33:34.000And as far as finding other schools, social media is a great tool of doing that and reaching out and encourage debate and encourage dialogue with those that disagree, right?
00:33:52.000And I want you to understand that I have cut my teeth with plenty of debates, as you probably know.
00:33:57.000And you get better as years go on and you research and you know your stuff.
00:34:00.000But it's good for you to have your arguments challenged.
00:34:05.000Maybe I haven't thought of it that way.
00:34:06.000By the way, I don't know it all when I go to these campuses.
00:34:10.000Now, I'll say 99% of these kids have no idea what they're talking about.
00:34:13.0001% of the time, though, 1% of the time, they'll say something that either they thought of, which maybe they did, or they stumbled upon that I have to reconsider.
00:34:21.000So I go back and I, and all of a sudden, you do that for 11 years, and you're pretty good at what you're pretty good, and you know what you believe and why you believe it.
00:34:31.000One of the reasons why we are able to get so many people to leave the left is because they have never had, first of all, it's very hard to strengthen your argument on the left, but they've never had to defend their position against opposition.
00:34:46.000And so they just believe it, and it's the dominant opinion, and the other people are awful.
00:34:51.000And the next thing you know, like awful, right?
00:34:53.000Next thing you know, they're 21 or 22, and they see a video of Candace Owens or of Charlie Kirk or Brandon Tatum, and it shocks their world.
00:35:02.000And they're like, well, that makes sense.
00:35:17.000So myself and my chapter from Suffolk University are here.
00:35:23.000And so I had a question about the work that Turning Point Academy is going to do for morality and education.
00:35:30.000So we posted a tweet from Riley Gaines on our chapter Instagram story, and we were met with a meeting requiring a letter requiring us to have a meeting with the Office of Title IX because we, quote, used the club social media account to post a derogatory message relating to transgender females.
00:35:46.000This behavior may violate the Title IX policy and or other university policies, end quote.
00:35:52.000I'd like to know the kind of work that Turning Point Academy is going to do to sort of oppose the Biden administration's redefinition of the Title IX policy.
00:36:01.000And I have a very, very radical view on this, but I can defend it, and I've thought about it, which is we made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the mid-1960s.
00:36:20.000The civil rights leviathan that we brought in in the mid-1960s, there's a book called Age of Entitlement by Christopher Caldwell, is you built a DEI permanent federal bureaucracy.
00:36:31.000They said at the time we're re-founding the country.
00:36:35.000We thought we were getting minor adjustments in our laws in the mid-1960s to fix what was, of course, bad discrimination, racism, all that stuff.
00:36:43.000What we actually got, what we got was a super weapon in the federal government that can be reaccommodated to the coolest, newest thing.
00:37:07.000So this trans activist tweets out, trans women are women.
00:37:11.000And then Riley retweets them in quotes and says, hot dogs are dogs.
00:37:15.000And we got, we had to have a meeting with Title IX for that, of all things.
00:37:19.000No, no, but this is important, everybody.
00:37:21.000So then you guys all laugh, but he could get kicked out of school under a Title IX complaint using the Civil Rights Act that we as conservatives worship.
00:37:53.000We have dozens of Turning Point USA kids under active Department of Education Title IX investigations right now for tweets and social media postings.
00:38:02.000I've lost count of how many meetings I've had to have with my family.
00:38:04.000And they tear you up in the bureaucracy.
00:38:06.000And I don't think people realize that the federal government is now coming after the speech of students saying biological reality using the mid-1960s Civil Rights Act that was passed with good intentions.
00:38:29.000We have to get the courts to step in here.
00:38:31.000Thankfully, we still have the Supreme Court, but the courts have been really weak on this, honestly.
00:38:34.000The federal courts just yield to the Civil Rights Act as if it's the actual American Constitution.
00:38:39.000You read some of these decisions, they're like, well, you know, the Civil Rights Act says this and we can't touch it.
00:38:43.000Like, whoa, Since where is the Civil Rights Act supposed to protect the feelings of young people in college that are suffering from a mental disorder?
00:39:44.000And my question for you is: if you had friends that used to be Christian, but now are starting to get influenced by negative sources, starting to go and get misled, how can you bring them and redirect them closer to the truth without kind of turning them off and completely lead them astray?
00:40:11.000But if a young person was raised Christian and leaves Christianity, they're probably leaving less about the facts and the support of evidence around Christianity and more about something that they personally might be dealing with and or they just need to be loved on, right?
00:40:26.000And so the answer to the question is going to be more about the heart than the head, right?
00:40:31.000You're not going to win them back to Christianity by saying, well, let me sit down and tell you about how Josephus wrote extensively about why the resurrection was true, which, by the way, is convincing.
00:40:44.000The fruit of the transformation of the gospel is what you're going to need to see with them, right?
00:41:17.000The world is always going to be lost, and the world is always going to be doing it.
00:41:20.000We have to do a better job of strengthening and fastening.
00:41:24.000And also, I think we have to continue to do a better job of elevating the right Christian voices for our young people to support and to follow, you know, on social media and in pop culture.
00:42:28.000He did a victims of communism project and got recognized and got our, we flew out from Florida and we've really been enjoying our time here.
00:42:51.000So look, everyone has a court date coming up.
00:42:54.000So when you leave this earth, you're going to have to be in front of the supreme judge of the world.
00:42:58.000Founding Fathers wrote that in the Declaration of Independence, by the way.
00:43:01.000And you're going to have to account for every mistake you ever made.
00:43:04.000And my sentencing is going to be a long, long, long, long sentencing.
00:43:10.000So justice, justice is you get exactly what you deserve.
00:43:14.000We all deserve eternal damnation because we're sinners, we're self-interested, and we continue to sin.
00:43:21.000Mercy is getting less of what you deserve.
00:43:22.000So you go in front of an almighty God and you get maybe a reduced prison sentence.
00:43:27.000But grace, which is the gospel, the gospel in one word is grace, is all of a sudden you're about to get that sentencing to go into eternal damnation.
00:46:11.000Think about how smart these people are, right?
00:46:13.000They say, okay, if we take over the libraries, that's a way to kind of create, to take over the sourcing material for how young people learn.
00:46:43.000Again, if I could contribute to kind of shaking up the American right, I hope I can, because I'm pretty good at that, which is people say, oh, that's free speech.
00:46:52.000The founding fathers never intended profanity or desecration or let's just say depravity to be speech.
00:47:01.000Speech should point towards a moral good.
00:47:04.000This is this fake viewpoint neutrality nonsense that we've bought into.
00:47:09.000That's why people say, well, Charlie, don't you defend Satanists' right to have a, you know, in the Iowa State Capitol?
00:47:46.000Like, I don't know how clear this could be.
00:47:49.000Like, the evil one has a monument in Iowa State Capitol, and we should walk by and be like, yeah, so glad I live in a country where Satanists have rights too.
00:47:59.000The blessings of liberty allow Lucifer to be present in the state capitol.
00:48:03.000Like, that's insane, if you believe that.
00:48:14.000Like, they wouldn't, you think that they, if there was a satanic symbol in the White House, you think he'd be like, yeah, this is exactly what we had in mind.