00:00:32.000He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:00:38.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:03:02.000So for the people that might be hearing you or being introduced to you the very first time, give us the elevator pitch of Turning Point USA.
00:03:09.000Sure, first and foremost, the most important thing in my life is my relationship with Jesus Christ.
00:03:14.000I gave my life to the Lord when I was in fifth grade in the suburbs of Chicago.
00:03:18.000It was the most important decision I made.
00:03:20.000As I get older, I realize more and more what that means, coming in a personal relationship with our Lord and Savior.
00:03:27.000So everything I do starts from that understanding that Jesus sets the captives free, that we're in a spiritual war, understanding that the culture around us, really we are living in enemy-occupied territory, as C.S. Lewis would call it.
00:03:42.000As I grew up, though, I was told that my political views and my relationship with Christ, you never mention those two things together.
00:03:54.000I never would be afraid of my faith, but I would never try.
00:03:57.000I didn't think there was anything that overlapped, if you will.
00:04:01.000And so I started Turning Point USA in 2012, really to try to bring the ideas of liberty, American exceptionalism, the Constitution, to university campuses across the country.
00:04:14.000And for about 10 years, many of you probably know, we've become the premier campus outreach organization in the country, spreading, praise God.
00:04:24.000And again, if I was ever asked about my faith, I wouldn't cower away, but I was not, I didn't quite understand what was politics.
00:04:35.000What did our founding fathers believe when they built this country?
00:04:38.000And then COVID happened, and I stared right into the camera of my podcast, and I made the worst prediction in the history of American podcasting.
00:05:08.000And I was shocked where that the number one adherence to unconstitutional, immoral lockdowns were churches.
00:05:16.000Now, there were a lot of churches like this one that stood up and, you know, didn't really cower in the face of tyranny.
00:05:22.000So I don't mean to insult anybody, but 95% of American churches remained closed for Easter, closed for Pentecost, closed through that summer while America was going through an unprecedented suicide crisis, unprecedented drug addiction crisis, loneliness epidemic.
00:05:35.000Yeah, while other establishments and other businesses were open.
00:05:38.000Precisely, when marijuana dispensaries were open, liquor stores dry.
00:05:41.000And I know that this part of the world was more enlightened than others, but large parts of the country remained completely locked down.
00:05:47.000And then in summer of 2020, it continued where we decided to burn down our country around a lie from the pit of hell that somehow we were systemically racist and that if you have white skin color, you have to atone for your skin color.
00:05:59.000And I thought this was just, I mean, I know what it was.
00:06:02.000It was critical race theory, race Marxism, all this stuff.
00:06:05.000And so I decided to speak out against this as someone who's been in this for the last 10 years.
00:06:10.000And so I started to speak at churches across the country.
00:06:13.000And the more scholarship I did, the more I realized that liberty is not man's idea.
00:06:19.000And that if we are not going to contest for the basic fundamental rights given to us by God, not by government, that these are not political issues.
00:06:54.000God's plan, his desire, his heart for you is not to live under an unconstitutional tyrant or autocrat.
00:07:00.000And so during COVID, I saw, in the lockdowns, I just felt more compelled to get into the arena to speak out against it.
00:07:06.000And so now we have TPUSA Faith, which we have over 2,000 church partnership members across the country.
00:07:12.000We're going to have 1,100 pastors at our pastor summit next week, where we are going to be really encouraging pastors to be more like you, Pastor Carl, speaking out, bold, courageous, biblical.
00:07:24.000Again, I get mislabeled as trying to bring politics into the church.
00:07:35.000You know, Charlotte, we so appreciate what you're doing and the voice that God has given you.
00:07:39.000You're still 29 or did you ever bring it up?
00:07:41.000Yeah, so I'm 29 and going to be 30 soon, so I'm holding on to my 20s as long as I have to.
00:07:46.000Yeah, my son's 28, and I'm just so thankful for young leaders and what God is doing.
00:07:51.000You know, here at Trinity, we believe that we're a spiritual intersection, where moral, cultural, social issues collide with biblical truth.
00:07:57.000We believe that we have a biblical mandate, you know, to speak the truth of God's word to the powers that be.
00:08:02.000And we base what we do here at Trinity on 1 Chronicles 12:32, where it says the sons of Issachar understood the times in which they live, and they knew what they should do.
00:08:12.000We want them to be informed, to know how to pray, so they can be, number two, empowered to act, to do something.
00:08:17.000And I would like for us in the time that we have, Charlie, to look at really three areas: culture, the church, and then the Christian.
00:08:24.000And so, Charles, Charles Taylor, he has that classic book, The Secular Age.
00:08:30.000And he outlines how secularism didn't just come upon us.
00:08:33.000It's been a 500-year journey, Renaissance, the Enlightenment.
00:08:37.000And I came across an article from a reputable website from a liberal theologian, and they were arguing the point, and I'm quoting, that the greatest threat to Christianity in the United States is not outside forces.
00:08:49.000Instead, it's white Christian nationalism.
00:10:13.000I encourage you guys to study it because this is Moses' final, hey guys, before you enter the promised land, the land of Canaan, here's all the stuff that we've gone through and God is speaking through Moses.
00:10:24.000Do you know that Deuteronomy was the most quoted book by the founding fathers, secular or religious, when they were founding the Federalist Papers, the Constitution, the Declaration?
00:10:34.00055 out of 56 of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were Bible-believing church-attending Christians.
00:10:39.000And so what they call Christian nationalism, we call reasserting the biblical role of being counselor to the king.
00:10:47.000Understand, this is Esther, Mordecai, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Joseph.
00:10:51.000Was Joseph being ungodly when he counseled the Pharaoh to pursue godly actions?
00:10:57.000You see, this idea that Christians must not care about their government is not founded anywhere, it's not found anywhere in the scriptures.
00:11:04.000Now, when Jesus at the mouth of the Jordan River, when he said, on this rock build my church, it's actually a Greek word that means ecclesia, which means on this rock build my community gathering point, the place that influences culture.
00:11:17.000What I would say to this liberal theologian where he says, oh, well, you know, white Christian nationalism, let me just take a time out.
00:11:22.000Why does this liberal theologian have to racialize everything?
00:11:25.000Does it not say we are all one in Christ Jesus?
00:14:15.000Because the pastors of a previous generation fought communism and Marxism in the 40s, 50s, and 60s.
00:14:21.000Because the first great awakening of Jonathan Edwards and Jonathan Mayhew and Whitfield.
00:14:26.000We are in a new era of Christianity where we have things so good, where we are so comfortable, where we are allowed to have pastors lecture us that you should not care.
00:15:56.000God delivers them from Egypt, all these miracles, and they're like days.
00:16:00.000They're days from the Red Sea being parted.
00:16:03.000And they're like, we want to go back to Egypt slavery because we had meat, leeks, cucumbers, melons, even though quail and manna has been blown off course.
00:17:19.000No secular institution will tell you this as boldly.
00:17:23.000This is why Western civilization is the greatest ever created, because the church breathed in, ex nihilo, this remarkable civilization where all of a sudden you have groups of people that say, you know what?
00:17:38.000I want it better for my kids than for me.
00:18:25.000And the Founding Fathers called this licentiousness, which is exactly what you're talking about.
00:18:28.000So let's go through this kind of easy examples here in America today.
00:18:34.000Far too often, we, through our cultural institutions and through our broadcasts, we do not teach this idea of saying no to indulgence, to pleasure, and to immediate gratification, even though when it's not good for you, whether it be how we save money, how we eat, how we deal in relationships.
00:18:56.000And the Jews went through this as well.
00:18:58.000See, for 400 years, the Hebrews lived without a standing army and without a government because the law was the center.
00:19:10.000I get asked all the time, Charlie, how is it that bad tyrants like Mussolini, like Stalin, like Biden, like Hitler, are able to get into power?
00:21:08.000Let's not vote for the political party that says men can give birth.
00:21:12.000Like, how about let's start like with that?
00:21:16.000And you might say, well, Charlie, that's not true.
00:21:20.000Right now, the Biden regime says birthing people, CDC, Center for Disease Control, the Biden regime has said that biological men can take lactating drugs to chest feed.
00:21:32.000By the way, it kills the baby if they do this, and they're okay with it.
00:21:35.000To be able to pander to the alphabet mafia, right?
00:21:38.000The purple-haired jihadis, so that they can get their lactating drugs.
00:21:43.000Like, let's just start with that issue.
00:21:45.000Why do we not have 100% of American churches saying, look, put politics aside, God created man and woman.
00:21:52.000This trans thing is from the pit of hell, and we're not going to tolerate it.
00:22:47.000And sometimes, I think largely in American Christianity, we have lost the idea of correcting error with truth.
00:22:55.000The most loving thing you can do is to tell somebody the truth when they need it the most.
00:23:01.000You don't have to do it in a cold way or a cruel way, but to put your arm on somebody who might be in this transgender lifestyle under this demonic hold and say, God has a better plan for you, that you're probably dealing with some underlying issues.
00:24:26.000Hey, all kidding aside, how do we meld our Christianity, which does always come first, but patriotism?
00:24:33.000Yeah, so, look, I believe in a, I believe in moral hierarchies.
00:24:37.000I believe, everyone does, by the way, anyone who doesn't say they believe in moral hierarchies, obviously taking care of your kids is more important than mowing the lawn, right?
00:24:46.000I mean, mowing the lawn is important, but if you had to choose, there's a crisis of kids.
00:25:21.000To make sure that we have religious liberty and freedom.
00:25:24.000That your local school that you have here, that your local school is not going to have the Department of Education come in and say you have to use pronouns or have transgender curriculum.
00:25:46.000You know, we have worship ministries, right?
00:25:49.000But we also need to understand that there is a place in the diverse body of Christ for those of us that are called to be in the warfare of the public square.
00:25:58.000And you guys get this, but it's almost, it's considered dirty, right?
00:26:03.000At least that's how I'm treated by the intelligentsia of Big Eva.
00:29:25.000Just Jesus is coming next Thursday, and it creates inaction.
00:29:29.000Boy, if I was Satan, I would get righteous Christians to do nothing using the biblical promise that Jesus is coming.
00:29:40.000Again, remember, Satan knows the word, but he misrepresents it.
00:29:42.000We know that in Matthew 4, when Satan and Christ are talking in the desert, he's quoting scripture back to Christ, misquoting it, just as Satan would do.
00:30:26.000Romans 12:2, do not conform to the ways of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, testing to God's perfect and pleasing will.
00:30:35.000So Romans 12, 2 tells you to not conform.
00:30:37.000We're supposed to change it, but here's where, this is just how I'm built, right?
00:30:41.000And I'm built to go to places where I'm hated, where my ideas are not welcome, and to challenge them, and then to strengthen those people that agree with me to be able to be more bold, strong, and courageous.
00:31:03.000But is there a place where we say, you know what, you as a Christian should be daily fasting and praying for your nation.
00:31:09.000You, as your Christian, should be, of course, voting, running for political office if you're called that, holding your political leaders accountable.
00:31:37.000Is it apostasy that's plaguing the church, or is it both?
00:31:40.000So I think it's a couple, great question, right?
00:31:42.000There's a couple different categories.
00:31:44.000The people that say Jesus is coming soon, they believe the word, right?
00:31:48.000But I think that they're allowing their fear and then their belief, their fear of what's happening around them, their belief that Jesus is coming soon, to say, I'm going to go run to the hills with my kids and wait till Jesus comes.
00:33:25.000If you're in the ministry and your job is to communicate God's word, you're held to a different standard.
00:33:33.000And I totally understand that if you're a pastor and you're afraid, go resign and go do something else.
00:33:42.000I don't mean to mean this like coldly or unlovingly, but you do not get to be a pastor and get the perks of being a pastor while not also being in the spiritual war and teaching our congregation.
00:33:55.000So excuses I hear, Carl, I know we're running out of time.
00:33:57.000But I'm going to lose ties and offerings.
00:36:11.000We like forget that part of the story.
00:36:13.000King Nebuchadnezzar says, you can't worship, you can't pray.
00:36:17.000And Daniel says, not only am I going to worship, but pray, I'm going to open up the window to the city for all to see, defy your edict and your order, trust in God, because you will not tell me I cannot worship my God.
00:36:28.000Opens up the window and does that and goes into Lion's Den.
00:36:30.000Where is that energy of the American church now?
00:37:14.000Then when we get a little bit older, we're taught to think progressively, that the ways that our parents have taught us are not the best, and that we need to step into the better to be able to progress further.
00:37:24.000And I think that our cultural moment is marked by the highest virtue is tolerance.
00:37:30.000So so many young people are tolerating so many of these crazy things that you would say are unspeakable, but to the young person, they're like, that's just on Disney.
00:38:50.000But we don't care about it because we're not supposed to care about slavery on the southern border because, you know, the regime benefits from it or whatever.
00:38:57.000And so tolerance, very insightful point.
00:39:01.000I think it's one of the fake pagan gods of America, which is tolerance.
00:40:22.000But never once in the scriptures, when there is an act of evil, are we called or commanded to sit it out, to be a spectator.
00:40:31.000If you had to summarize one of the moral teachings of our Lord in 66 books, one, when the 66 books, really one story, there's several moral teachings.
00:40:39.000It's that the Christian, the believer, does not sit idly by when the enemy is marching.
00:40:46.000You're involved in a spiritual war, and it's up for us Christians to stand against those principalities of darkness.