The Charlie Kirk Show - March 13, 2022


Proving God Exists — A Conversation with Apologist Frank Turek


Episode Stats


Length

39 minutes

Words per minute

209.04282

Word count

8,299

Sentence count

772

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

10

sentences flagged

Hate speech

46

sentences flagged


Summary

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

If you re into apologetics and the case for the faith, Frank Turek from CrossExamined is the man for you. Frank makes the rational case for why there is a God, why the resurrection happened, and why Christianity is true.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Charlie Kirk Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
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 Happy Sunday.
00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.
00:00:01.000 No advertisers on this episode.
00:00:04.000 Zero advertisers.
00:00:04.000 That's right.
00:00:06.000 For my conversation with Frank Turek, Frank makes the rational case for why there's a God, why the resurrection happened.
00:00:12.000 If you're into apologetics and the case for the faith, Frank Turek from Cross-Examined is the man for you.
00:00:17.000 Cross-examined is one of the great ministries that defends the faith and gives college and high school kids the ability to be able to rationally explain their beliefs.
00:00:24.000 Frank Turek is the man.
00:00:26.000 I think you'll really enjoy this conversation.
00:00:28.000 Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and go to the Charlie Kirk podcast page and make sure you're subscribed or go to charliekirk.com slash support.
00:00:38.000 Buckle up, everybody, here.
00:00:39.000 We go.
00:00:40.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:41.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
00:00:43.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
00:00:47.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
00:00:50.000 I want to thank Charlie.
00:00:51.000 He's an incredible guy.
00:00:52.000 His spirit, his love of this country.
00:00:54.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
00:00:59.000 Turning point USA.
00:01:01.000 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.
00:01:09.000 That's why we are here.
00:01:13.000 Hey, everybody, welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:01:15.000 I feel like meeting an old friend.
00:01:16.000 We've been texting and talking for years now, and he's had a profound impact on my life.
00:01:21.000 I first came across Frank Turek when I saw a YouTube ad of yours when you were kind of going back and forth with an atheist and you were so rationally and effectively defending the gospel and Christianity and the Bible.
00:01:35.000 And I was like, who is this guy?
00:01:36.000 And I watched, I think, like two hours of your videos, and they were really, really powerful and impactful.
00:01:40.000 And so we got to know each other.
00:01:42.000 And I reached out to you through a couple of different ways.
00:01:44.000 And it's an honor to be connected.
00:01:45.000 It's an honor to be here, Charlie.
00:01:47.000 By the way, those who've never been to Turning Point USA, they're doing some great work here.
00:01:51.000 You need to know about this.
00:01:52.000 If you're just tuning in for the first time, Turning Point USA, amazing work, Charlie.
00:01:56.000 Really?
00:01:56.000 That means a lot.
00:01:57.000 I mean, having young people.
00:01:59.000 There's young people all over this place.
00:02:00.000 That's right.
00:02:01.000 And they're just great folks.
00:02:03.000 Thank you.
00:02:04.000 So thanks for the work you're doing.
00:02:05.000 The leadership's important.
00:02:06.000 Thank you.
00:02:07.000 Really important.
00:02:07.000 Well, it's a lot of work some days, but it's worth it.
00:02:10.000 It's a lot of work every day, man.
00:02:10.000 It really is.
00:02:11.000 Amen.
00:02:12.000 Isn't it?
00:02:12.000 But it's the Lord's work.
00:02:13.000 So keep it going.
00:02:14.000 Thank you.
00:02:15.000 I deeply appreciate that.
00:02:16.000 Let's first talk about your organization, Cross-Examined, which has kind of a double on time thing, right?
00:02:21.000 It has a couple different words.
00:02:23.000 Well, we decided many years ago, back in about 2006, 7, after I graduated from seminary, with a degree in apologetics, you go, what is that?
00:02:23.000 Tell us about it.
00:02:32.000 You're not saying you're sorry.
00:02:34.000 What you're doing is you're giving evidence for what you believe.
00:02:36.000 And it comes from 1 Peter 3:15 in the Bible.
00:02:39.000 Always ready to give an answer, give a reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect.
00:02:45.000 Now, since I'm from New Jersey, gentleness and respect is hard for me, but we try and do that.
00:02:50.000 The most polite state in the country.
00:02:51.000 That's right.
00:02:52.000 So 2006, 2007, we decided that since about 75% of kids who were brought up in the church walked away from the church once they went to college, that we need to go to college campuses and present them with the evidence that Christianity is true, Christianity is true, based on our book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.
00:03:08.000 So we go to college campuses, which I love the work you're doing there.
00:03:12.000 We go to college campuses and present, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist.
00:03:15.000 And we set up a microphone for QA when it's over, and anybody can come and talk and ask a question.
00:03:21.000 And that's probably where you saw some of those videos.
00:03:23.000 Yeah, I do a lot of that too.
00:03:24.000 And I got to say, you're way better than I am at giving, like being magnanimous and trying to not own them, but trying to bring them towards truth.
00:03:34.000 I struggle with that at times.
00:03:35.000 You do a great job.
00:03:36.000 Well, thanks.
00:03:37.000 But I look at young people, like I'm 60 now.
00:03:40.000 When I was 20, I didn't believe at 20 what I believe now.
00:03:45.000 So why should I expect some 20-year-old kid to agree with me?
00:03:48.000 Yes.
00:03:49.000 I shouldn't, especially given the fact that they've probably been through an education system that has not really given them the facts.
00:03:57.000 When they get up there and they express a lot of skepticism or even some hostility, I just say, look, when I was 20, I probably was about in the same place.
00:04:07.000 So I have to give them some grace.
00:04:11.000 It's even more saturated our culture now, the hypersecularization, the almost it's cool to be an atheist, right? 0.69
00:04:18.000 You're somehow intellectually superior if you believe in absolute nothingness.
00:04:24.000 And you do a great job of really diving into it and deconstructing it.
00:04:27.000 So let's start first with that, and then we can get into the Christianity and the resurrection and the Bible part of it.
00:04:32.000 What do you have to say for someone listening right now that says, Frank, I've never seen God.
00:04:35.000 There is no God.
00:04:36.000 God is what you make of it.
00:04:37.000 I would say that we know God by his effects.
00:04:40.000 Look, if you're a scientist, what you're trying to do is you're trying to figure out what particular cause caused a particular effect.
00:04:47.000 So when someone says, How do I know God exists?
00:04:48.000 I say, I know God by his effects.
00:04:50.000 There's a creation, Charlie.
00:04:53.000 Even atheists admit this place was created.
00:04:55.000 So if there's a creation, that's the effect.
00:04:58.000 The cause must be a creator.
00:05:00.000 There's design.
00:05:02.000 There's design in the universe, the fine-tuning in the universe.
00:05:05.000 There's design in human life and other life.
00:05:08.000 That's the effect.
00:05:09.000 The cause must be a designer.
00:05:11.000 There's a moral law written on our hearts.
00:05:13.000 We know certain things are right and other things are wrong.
00:05:16.000 As you well state on college campuses, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men were created and endowed by their government.
00:05:23.000 No, endowed by their creator, right?
00:05:25.000 With certain unalienable rights.
00:05:26.000 Look, if there's no God, you can't say Hitler was wrong.
00:05:30.000 You can't say Putin's wrong.
00:05:32.000 You can't say anything is wrong.
00:05:34.000 You can't say torturing babies for fun is wrong.
00:05:37.000 You can say it.
00:05:37.000 You just can't justify it.
00:05:38.000 That's right.
00:05:39.000 Because everything's just a matter of your opinion. 0.56
00:05:41.000 But if we know that, say, torturing babies for fun is wrong, if we know murder's wrong, if we know Hitler was wrong, then there must be a standard of right beyond us.
00:05:49.000 That standard is God's nature.
00:05:51.000 So this effect we call the moral law must have a cause, a moral lawgiver, because laws have lawgivers.
00:05:59.000 And one other effect I might add is the fact that we can even reason, Charlie.
00:06:03.000 How can we reason?
00:06:04.000 Why do our minds know truth about reality outside of our skulls?
00:06:08.000 Because our mind is made in the image of the great mind.
00:06:11.000 So we have this effect known as reason, and we have a mind, which is an effect.
00:06:15.000 And we're reasoning back to a cause, a mind, an ultimate mind.
00:06:20.000 So we have a creator, we have a designer, we have a moral lawgiver, we have a mind.
00:06:24.000 And if we could go as far as the resurrection, we could say also someone that came and rose from the dead to show he was God.
00:06:30.000 So we're reasoning from effect to cause.
00:06:32.000 That's how we know God exists.
00:06:33.000 So I want to ask you to unpack two of those.
00:06:35.000 The one in particular where you say that we know there is a creation, and science actually shows that there was a definitive moment that started the universe.
00:06:43.000 And even a devout atheist will agree.
00:06:46.000 Talk a little bit.
00:06:47.000 Show us the mounting evidence that actually shows that.
00:06:50.000 Well, for example, Stephen Hawking, who was probably the top physicist in the world until he died about five years ago, said almost everyone now believes that the universe and time itself had a beginning at the Big Bang.
00:07:02.000 All right.
00:07:02.000 Universe and time itself.
00:07:03.000 Now, Hawking tried to come up with another explanation other than God.
00:07:07.000 He failed, but he's admitting the data that space, time, and matter literally had a beginning out of nothing.
00:07:13.000 Now, one way we know this, we know it through science.
00:07:15.000 We know it through the Big Bang cosmology, but we also know it through philosophy.
00:07:19.000 Think about it this way: if there were an infinite number of days before today, would today have ever arrived?
00:07:27.000 I don't know.
00:07:28.000 No, the answer is.
00:07:28.000 I've never thought to you.
00:07:29.000 Yeah, I can give you intellectual constipation if you think about it long enough.
00:07:32.000 Some of these questions really can bring you into calisthenics intellectually.
00:07:36.000 If there were an infinite number of days before today, you'd always have to live another day before you got to today.
00:07:42.000 Yes, that's right.
00:07:43.000 Infinite and it will never end.
00:07:44.000 So there has to be only a finite number of days before today.
00:07:47.000 And if there's a finite number of days before today, in other words, if time had a beginning, whatever created time, of course, didn't have a beginning, right?
00:07:56.000 You're timeless.
00:07:57.000 It had to supersede or be transcendent over it.
00:08:00.000 Exactly.
00:08:01.000 So, what I like to say, and this is what we say on college campuses: if space, time, and matter had a beginning out of nothing, whatever created space, time, and matter can't be made of space, time, and matter.
00:08:10.000 In other words, the cause must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful to create the universe out of nothing, personal in order to choose to create, because to go from a state of nothingness to a state of creation, someone had to make a choice, and only persons can make choices.
00:08:26.000 The being would also have to be intelligent to have a mind to make a choice.
00:08:30.000 So, I always ask people: I say, when you think about a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, personal, intelligent cause, who do you think of?
00:08:39.000 And they say, well, that would sound like God.
00:08:41.000 Yeah, exactly.
00:08:42.000 And you say, well, how do you know it's the Christian God?
00:08:44.000 And the answer is, we don't yet.
00:08:47.000 I mean, this is just one argument.
00:08:49.000 But if we keep looking at the research, if we look particularly at the resurrection of Jesus, Charlie, if Jesus rose from the dead, then I think we can say that the same being that walked out of the tomb 1,989 years ago is the same being in whose divine nature created the universe out of nothing.
00:09:05.000 In other words, Jesus is the creator in his divine nature.
00:09:09.000 But you have to get all the way through the evidence to see if the creator is Jesus.
00:09:14.000 From what we call the cosmological argument, which is the argument from the beginning of the universe, you just get a creator.
00:09:20.000 You don't know if it's God as we know it.
00:09:22.000 We don't know what it is.
00:09:22.000 Or maybe it's Australia, God, or whatever.
00:09:24.000 Yeah, we don't know if it's the God of biblical Christianity.
00:09:28.000 But once we know Jesus has risen from the dead, it is the God of biblical Christianity.
00:09:32.000 And so I want to get to that in a second.
00:09:34.000 I want to ask you another part of it, which is where Hawkins himself said was the hardest argument for him to overcome, the fine-tuning argument.
00:09:42.000 Yeah.
00:09:42.000 Talk about that.
00:09:43.000 Well, here's what Hawking said.
00:09:44.000 He said that if the universe, if the expansion rate of the universe was different by one part in a thousand million million, a second after the Big Bang, the universe would have collapsed back on itself or never developed galaxies.
00:09:58.000 Now, what could have caused the expansion rate to be that infinitesimally precise from the very beginning?
00:10:05.000 Only a mind, right?
00:10:07.000 It started there, didn't evolve to that point.
00:10:10.000 When space, matter, and time came into existence, the expansion rate was absolutely perfect.
00:10:16.000 Any change either way, we're not here.
00:10:18.000 Actually, there's a more interesting way of illustrating this.
00:10:22.000 The ratio of the proton to the neutron, the weight, is fine-tuned to one part in 10 to the 37th power.
00:10:31.000 You say, I can't get my head around that number.
00:10:32.000 I know, neither can I. Think about it this way: one part in 1 to the 37th power is one part in one with 37 zeros following it.
00:10:40.000 Now, here's an illustration of this: the kind of precision that one in 10 to the 37th power would be is if you stacked the entire North American continent in dimes to the moon, Charlie.
00:10:53.000 That's like, I don't know, over 200,000 miles, right?
00:10:56.000 And then you did that on a billion other North Americas, and you marked one dime in that whole pile, red, you blindfolded somebody, you threw them in the pile and said, randomly pick one out.
00:11:10.000 If you pick the red one out, that's one in 10 to the 37th precision.
00:11:13.000 And then you get to pick one.
00:11:14.000 You only get to pick one.
00:11:16.000 Now, what makes more sense that that value was designed to be there or it wasn't?
00:11:21.000 Those are only two choices we have.
00:11:23.000 It was either designed or it wasn't.
00:11:25.000 It was designed.
00:11:27.000 The odds against that happening by chance, whatever that means, chance is not a cause, as you know, but that's what they use.
00:11:33.000 They use the word chance.
00:11:34.000 It's zero.
00:11:35.000 It's not going to happen.
00:11:36.000 Somebody designed that ratio of the proton to the neutron to be precisely what it needed to be.
00:11:42.000 And that doesn't even factor in the fine-tuning of our own planet and the fine-tuning of humanity and the ability to have children and the laws of nature.
00:11:51.000 Those are all other fine-tuning.
00:11:53.000 It's one thing to have a universe in galaxies.
00:11:55.000 Could just be close to nothingness, just kind of adrift.
00:11:59.000 But then to have life, that's a whole different level of finding.
00:12:02.000 And the interesting thing about this, Charlie, is that if any one of about a dozen factors that are fine-tuned to that level of precision were that infinitesimally different, it all falls apart.
00:12:02.000 Exactly.
00:12:15.000 We don't exist, right?
00:12:16.000 It's a house of cards.
00:12:17.000 One thing goes down, everything goes down.
00:12:19.000 So this universe is designed.
00:12:21.000 And if it's designed, if that's the effect, the cause is a design.
00:12:24.000 There has to be a designer.
00:12:25.000 So some people listen to this who will say, okay, I'm with you, man. 0.98
00:12:29.000 But the Christianity thing, no-go. 0.99
00:12:30.000 Timeout. 1.00
00:12:31.000 I believe a God.
00:12:32.000 I do yoga.
00:12:33.000 I believe in Buddhism.
00:12:35.000 I am spiritual, not religious.
00:12:37.000 We have all sorts of different types of listeners. 0.99
00:12:40.000 And so why is Christianity true?
00:12:44.000 Because Jesus rose from the dead and there's evidence for it. 0.95
00:12:49.000 That's the bottom line.
00:12:50.000 Let's go through that.
00:12:51.000 All right, good.
00:12:52.000 So we'll focus on that.
00:12:54.000 And then we'll also then go through the people that say, I don't believe a whale could swallow someone on the sea, could be part of it.
00:12:59.000 You get these questions all the time.
00:13:00.000 But let's start with that.
00:13:02.000 The resurrection, allegedly, I believe, happened 1958 years ago.
00:13:08.000 1989 years ago, yeah.
00:13:10.000 And so, I mean, come on, Frank.
00:13:12.000 It's very simple.
00:13:13.000 The followers of Jesus, they rolled back the stone.
00:13:16.000 They stole the body to try to create a narrative.
00:13:18.000 Yeah. 0.95
00:13:19.000 In order to get themselves beaten, tortured, and killed. 0.99
00:13:21.000 That's right.
00:13:22.000 You know, Justice Scalia said that in one of his opinions, Charlie, where he said, we all know that the raving evangelists made up the entire resurrection story in a sinister attempt to get themselves all martyred.
00:13:34.000 Yeah, exactly.
00:13:34.000 To become martyrs.
00:13:35.000 They could be remembered forever.
00:13:37.000 That's right.
00:13:37.000 So yeah, let's go just through before we get to some of the concrete evidence that you've done a phenomenal job of, let's talk about some of the kind of tangential evidence that I think is interesting.
00:13:48.000 Female witnesses, right? 0.93
00:13:50.000 The cost of actual what that means post-resurrection. 0.92
00:13:54.000 Just talk about some of the circumstantial evidence that we know is true no matter what.
00:13:58.000 Well, here's one that I always like to use because it makes so much intuitive sense.
00:14:03.000 It's called embarrassing testimony.
00:14:04.000 Embarrassing testimony says that if there's something in a text that's embarrassing to the author or authors, it's probably true, right?
00:14:14.000 This is what historians know, right?
00:14:16.000 Because you're not going to make yourself look bad by making stuff up.
00:14:19.000 You're not going to embarrass yourself.
00:14:20.000 So this is the case for the Old Testament, for sure. 0.99
00:14:23.000 Well, yeah, but I'm saying old especially. 0.56
00:14:23.000 New and Old Testament. 0.56
00:14:25.000 Like the Jews write so terribly about themselves. 1.00
00:14:27.000 That's right. 1.00
00:14:28.000 That's right.
00:14:28.000 It must be true.
00:14:29.000 Like, why are they making this up?
00:14:29.000 Yeah.
00:14:30.000 Yes, I mean, David could have been like, cut that out.
00:14:33.000 That's right.
00:14:34.000 Get that Bathsheba thing out of it. 1.00
00:14:35.000 That's right. 0.98
00:14:35.000 Totally. 0.98
00:14:36.000 And they didn't.
00:14:37.000 In fact, the interesting thing is Matthew, when he's recording his genealogy of Jesus, when he gets to Bathsheba, you know what he says?
00:14:45.000 He doesn't put her name in there.
00:14:46.000 He says Uriah's wife.
00:14:48.000 Wow.
00:14:49.000 See, that's a slam, Charlie.
00:14:51.000 He's telling the truth, but it's a slam because Uriah was the husband of Bathsheba who saved and had battle.
00:14:57.000 But let's just think about the resurrection, right?
00:14:59.000 Peter, their leader.
00:15:00.000 He's called Satan by Jesus.
00:15:02.000 Do you think they invented that?
00:15:03.000 I mean, he's their leader.
00:15:04.000 And then he says, Lord, I'll never deny you.
00:15:06.000 What does he wind up doing?
00:15:07.000 Denies him three times.
00:15:07.000 Three times.
00:15:08.000 And then at the crucifixion, all the disciples, maybe with the exception of one, they all run away.
00:15:14.000 This is like a Monty Python movie, right?
00:15:16.000 Run away.
00:15:17.000 They all run away.
00:15:18.000 And who are the brave ones?
00:15:19.000 You mentioned it.
00:15:20.000 The women. 0.81
00:15:20.000 The women. 0.81
00:15:21.000 The women on the breast. 1.00
00:15:22.000 One of the least credible witnesses at a time is a woman. 1.00
00:15:24.000 Yeah.
00:15:24.000 Now, that's embarrassing to men, but it's also, it doesn't add anything to the case at that time in that culture because a woman's testimony was not considered on par with the people.
00:15:34.000 But if you were to make it up, why would you make it up with women?
00:15:37.000 Actually, there's a woman came up to me once after I was presenting this at a campus.
00:15:37.000 Right.
00:15:43.000 She said, Frank, I know why Jesus appeared to the women first. 0.92
00:15:45.000 And I said, why?
00:15:46.000 And she said, because he wanted to get the story out.
00:15:49.000 I said, that is an excellent point.
00:15:49.000 That's right.
00:15:52.000 He wanted to everyone.
00:15:53.000 That's right.
00:15:54.000 So the skeptics will say Jesus was a heretic or a rabble-rouser or whatever, killed, and body was stolen.
00:16:04.000 I mean, come on, it's not that hard to do stuff like that.
00:16:08.000 Yeah, I would say who stole the body and why. 0.97
00:16:10.000 I mean, the Jews to get himself martyred? 0.77
00:16:15.000 Look, he didn't think his own brother was God, and then he dies as a martyr.
00:16:18.000 Josephus, the Jewish historian, who was probably in Jerusalem at the time, because he lived at that time.
00:16:18.000 And you know who tells us this?
00:16:24.000 He tells us that James, the half-brother of Jesus, dies as a martyr.
00:16:28.000 He's the pastor of the church in Jerusalem.
00:16:30.000 The Sanhedrin, that's the Jewish ruling council that didn't like Christians, actually sentenced him to die, Charlie.
00:16:36.000 They threw him over the Temple Mountain and stoned him to death. 0.52
00:16:40.000 Why would he invent this?
00:16:42.000 I mean, so I'm playing devil's action.
00:16:44.000 Yeah, keep it going because I'm a devout Christian, but I mean, come on, religious fanatics do stuff that's inexplicable all the time.
00:16:50.000 They may not have gamed out the martyrdom thing, but they definitely believed in him.
00:16:54.000 They worshipped with him.
00:16:56.000 They were disciples of him.
00:16:57.000 Is it out of the question that a couple of them could have stole the body and they didn't quite play out all the...
00:17:02.000 What logistically would that have meant, Frank, to actually go through Roman centurion guards and move a boulder?
00:17:07.000 Talk about the actual logistical improbability of going to what was a tomb and doing that.
00:17:12.000 Yeah, well, you couldn't do it because you couldn't unilaterally roll the stone away.
00:17:17.000 It's about 2,000 pounds.
00:17:18.000 But secondly, it's guarded by a Roman guard.
00:17:21.000 And if you tried to take them on, you were dead.
00:17:24.000 And if the tomb was broken into on your watch, you would be killed as a Roman guard.
00:17:30.000 Yeah, and so let's pause for a second.
00:17:32.000 Why did they have the tomb guarded for this reason precisely?
00:17:35.000 Yes, yes, of course.
00:17:36.000 Yeah, because they wanted to make sure.
00:17:38.000 Caiaphas wanted to make sure there were no shenanigans going on.
00:17:41.000 He heard maybe some rumors that this might happen.
00:17:43.000 So they asked for a Roman guard, and Roman guard was put on the tomb.
00:17:47.000 But here's the interesting thing, Charlie.
00:17:49.000 It would have been really easy for anybody to disprove Christianity.
00:17:53.000 They could have gone to the tomb and taken out his body, right?
00:17:55.000 The Jews and the Romans wanted Christianity not to be true, but they couldn't do that because Jesus was still using his body.
00:18:02.000 The disciples had no motive to steal the body.
00:18:05.000 Why would they do that?
00:18:06.000 I mean, look, here's what people don't understand, I think, when they think about this.
00:18:10.000 All the writers of the New Testament, with the exception of Luke, were all Bible-believing Old Testament, Yahweh, chosen people. 1.00
00:18:18.000 Yeah, he was a Gentile. 0.84
00:18:19.000 They're all chosen people, Jews. 0.81
00:18:20.000 They didn't think a guy could claim to be God.
00:18:23.000 That would be blasphemy.
00:18:24.000 And they didn't think a guy could resurrect in the middle of time.
00:18:26.000 They thought he could resurrect at the end of time, Daniel 12, but not in the middle of time.
00:18:30.000 So why would they, they're already God's chosen people.
00:18:34.000 Why would they invent a guy who claimed to be God?
00:18:36.000 That was blasphemy.
00:18:37.000 And a guy who rose from the dead in the middle of time, which they didn't believe, and then go die for it, unless it really happened. 0.94
00:18:46.000 In fact, I know it's going to sound a little strange, but Christianity is not true because a series of documents we put under one binding we call the Bible says it's true. 0.58
00:18:57.000 In fact, Christianity, Charlie, would be true even if the Bible never existed. 0.72
00:19:02.000 And people go, well, what do you mean?
00:19:04.000 Because Christianity did not originate with a book.
00:19:08.000 It originated with an event.
00:19:10.000 Yeah, that's exactly right.
00:19:11.000 It originated with an event known as the resurrection.
00:19:14.000 And because I asked people, I say, do you realize there were thousands of Christians before a line of the New Testament was ever written?
00:19:20.000 Yes, that's true.
00:19:21.000 Why?
00:19:22.000 Because they witnessed or saw somebody who witnessed the resurrection of the Christian.
00:19:26.000 The Bible is simply a catalog of the events.
00:19:28.000 Exactly.
00:19:29.000 In fact, we could put it this way: the New Testament writers did not create the resurrection.
00:19:34.000 The resurrection created the New Testament writers. 0.81
00:19:37.000 Exactly right.
00:19:39.000 You could draw a parallel.
00:19:40.000 I know it's not a supernatural event, but you could say, did the newspaper reports of the Titanic sinking cause the Titanic to sink?
00:19:51.000 Or were they the result of the Titanic sinking?
00:19:53.000 Of course.
00:19:54.000 Yeah, the Titanic sinking came first.
00:19:54.000 Right.
00:19:54.000 That's right.
00:19:56.000 The resurrection came first, and then the reports of it came later.
00:20:00.000 From a historical standpoint, one of the criticisms some people will say is: hey, these books were written decades after Jesus.
00:20:07.000 Therefore, they're historically questionable at best.
00:20:10.000 Talk about how that's actually not true.
00:20:11.000 The window of time is actually shorter than people realize.
00:20:14.000 Talk about also from historical standards, whether it be how we analyze Alexander the Great or Aristotle, Plato, or Socrates, from a historical standpoint, to have even a window of a couple decades, even if that was true, is an unbelievable accomplishment.
00:20:14.000 Yes.
00:20:27.000 Be able to have text to event original source documents that close together.
00:20:31.000 Yeah, in fact, you just pointed out Alexander the Great.
00:20:34.000 I mean, the earliest biography we have of him is several hundred years after he was gone.
00:20:38.000 And people go, yeah, that's good history.
00:20:41.000 We have materials that are within decades, and many of them earlier than just decades.
00:20:47.000 Was Mark the first book?
00:20:48.000 Is that right?
00:20:49.000 They say Mark is probably the first, could have been Matthew.
00:20:52.000 But actually, it might be that the first book in the New Testament written could have been something like Galatians or 1 Thessalonians, written in the late 40s, but that's not even the issue.
00:21:03.000 The issue is that there are small sections of these New Testament documents that go back to the event itself, the resurrection, crucifixion, resurrection itself.
00:21:12.000 For example, the earliest, they're called creeds.
00:21:14.000 The earliest evidence for the New Testament.
00:21:17.000 I know what you got. 0.90
00:21:17.000 That's a great argument. 0.90
00:21:18.000 Yeah, the earliest evidence for the resurrection comes from 1 Corinthians 15, verses 3 to 8.
00:21:24.000 That creed, Charlie, goes all the way back to the event itself, as even skeptics Bart Ehrman agree with.
00:21:30.000 He's a skeptic that teaches at UNC Chapel Hill.
00:21:32.000 He says this creed, which explains that Jesus rose from the dead and who he appeared to, that it was an oral incantation.
00:21:41.000 Yes.
00:21:41.000 Is that right?
00:21:42.000 That was repeated verbally so people wouldn't forget it.
00:21:42.000 Yes.
00:21:44.000 Yes.
00:21:45.000 They wouldn't forget it, and it was passed on verbally until Paul put it in writing in about 55 AD when he wrote 1 Corinthians.
00:21:53.000 It would be like if we went back and we talked to somebody from 9-11 who went through 9-11.
00:22:00.000 20 years ago.
00:22:01.000 Yeah, 20 years ago, and asked them what they remember.
00:22:05.000 This is another argument, by the way.
00:22:07.000 9-11 was an impact event.
00:22:09.000 What's an impact event?
00:22:10.000 An impact event, you'll never forget.
00:22:11.000 And you'll remember what you ate, remember where you turned, you'll remember all of it.
00:22:14.000 That's an impact event.
00:22:16.000 An impact event like 9-11, or for those of you who are older watching, like the Kennedy assassination, or let me give you something even more closer to home.
00:22:24.000 You knew where you were when Trump won the presidency in 2016.
00:22:27.000 Remember everything about that?
00:22:28.000 You knew where you were.
00:22:29.000 I could remember where I sat, where I ate, what I wore.
00:22:31.000 Right.
00:22:32.000 Conversations I had.
00:22:32.000 Everything.
00:22:33.000 Yep.
00:22:34.000 Sentiments, dialogue, feelings, all of it.
00:22:37.000 No, I'll never forget it.
00:22:37.000 And you'll never forget it.
00:22:38.000 Yeah.
00:22:38.000 Okay.
00:22:39.000 You'll never forget.
00:22:40.000 And even better, I've written it down.
00:22:41.000 I have my own personal records.
00:22:43.000 Now, if you went forward now and wanted to write another book, you've already written books, but say you wanted to write another book about that 10 years from now.
00:22:50.000 You've got those notes.
00:22:52.000 You've got that impact event in your head.
00:22:54.000 You know other people would be accurate.
00:22:56.000 Totally accurate.001%.
00:22:57.000 There's 41 creeds in the New Testament.
00:23:00.000 Dr. Gary Habermas, who's the top terrific on the resurrection.
00:23:06.000 41 creeds he's discovered in the New Testament.
00:23:08.000 These go way earlier than the events themselves, or I should say the books themselves.
00:23:13.000 So this is early testimony.
00:23:15.000 And the argument we make in the book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, is that most, if not all, the documents are written prior to 70 AD.
00:23:22.000 Most of them are written prior to 60 AD, 62 AD.
00:23:26.000 This is early stuff, Charlie.
00:23:28.000 When people are still alive, eyewitnesses, they were there, they can vouch for it.
00:23:32.000 This happened.
00:23:34.000 And so some of the pushback people will have at the totality of the Bible, like, okay, maybe I could see the resurrection, but come on, Frank, do I have to buy on to all the miracles of the Old Testament?
00:23:46.000 Does Jesus really calm the waters and turn water to wine and feed 5,000 people?
00:23:51.000 Or, you know, did a whale really swallow somebody?
00:23:53.000 Was the Red Sea really parted?
00:23:55.000 Did manna come from heaven and was quail blown off course?
00:23:58.000 How do we navigate fear?
00:23:59.000 I always ask people, what's the greatest miracle in the Bible?
00:24:01.000 And most people will say the resurrection.
00:24:03.000 And I'll say, no, that's not it.
00:24:05.000 Oh, is it part in the Red Sea?
00:24:07.000 No.
00:24:08.000 Is it walking on water?
00:24:10.000 The greatest miracle in the Bible, Charlie, is the first verse.
00:24:10.000 No.
00:24:13.000 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
00:24:15.000 And here's the interesting thing. 0.87
00:24:17.000 Atheists are admitting the data for the first verse, Charlie. 0.80
00:24:22.000 They're admitting that the universe came into existence out of nothing.
00:24:22.000 That's great.
00:24:26.000 They don't think it's God, but as we talked about earlier, what else could it be?
00:24:29.000 It's got to be a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, personal, intelligent cause.
00:24:34.000 So if that's the case, if Genesis 1-1 is true, every other verse is at least possible.
00:24:39.000 You can't rule it out.
00:24:41.000 So I have no trouble believing in any of those miracles because Genesis 1-1 is true and we have evidence it's true.
00:24:49.000 So, yeah.
00:24:50.000 And in fact, when people say, I don't believe in miracles, I say, look around.
00:24:53.000 You're living in one.
00:24:54.000 This whole universe is a miracle.
00:24:56.000 Life is a miracle.
00:24:57.000 Yeah.
00:24:57.000 Yeah.
00:24:58.000 And so there's different ways to try to bring people away from atheism towards Christianity.
00:25:04.000 I'm sure you know.
00:25:05.000 Some people to the heart, some people to the head. 1.00
00:25:08.000 Do you find that sometimes there is a reluctance to accept Christianity just because of, I don't want it to be true. 1.00
00:25:16.000 Yeah, that's why I always ask this question. 0.93
00:25:17.000 If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? 0.93
00:25:21.000 And many times, Charlie, the answer is no. 0.95
00:25:23.000 Elaborate on that.
00:25:24.000 It's one of the most powerful things that you've ever said about it.
00:25:27.000 Yeah, because when they get up to the microphone and express any hostility, if they're an atheist or non-believer, I'll just say, hey, do you mind if I ask you a question?
00:25:35.000 Sure, go ahead.
00:25:36.000 If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? 0.98
00:25:38.000 They usually hesitate, or if they're honest, they'll say no. 0.98
00:25:42.000 Why?
00:25:43.000 Lifestyle changes.
00:25:44.000 Yeah, they don't want it to be true.
00:25:45.000 They don't want there to be a God.
00:25:47.000 They want to be God of their own lives.
00:25:49.000 You see, they're not on a truth quest.
00:25:50.000 They're on a happiness quest.
00:25:52.000 And they're just going to believe whatever they think is going to make them happy.
00:25:54.000 Here's the problem.
00:25:56.000 You can make yourself happy over the short term, doing a lot of fun things, but over the long term, it's a disaster.
00:26:02.000 And when you get older, you start realizing, yeah, I thought I could make myself happy doing it my way.
00:26:07.000 The only way to get contentment is to go straight through truth, and Jesus is the truth.
00:26:12.000 So always ask the question, if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?
00:26:15.000 You'd be surprised how many times people would stop, they'll hesitate, and if they're honest, they'll say no.
00:26:22.000 And then all I can do at that point is pray for them, love them, maybe plant a seed here or there, and then wait.
00:26:27.000 Because what's going to happen?
00:26:28.000 At some point, a tragedy is going to strike.
00:26:31.000 It happens to all of us.
00:26:32.000 Tragedy comes into life, right?
00:26:35.000 At that point, your phone is going to ring and that person's going to be on the other end, right?
00:26:39.000 They're not going to call their atheist friend when things go bad.
00:26:41.000 What's the atheist going to say?
00:26:42.000 There's no rhyme or reason to this.
00:26:43.000 We're just going to become worm food.
00:26:44.000 It's over, right?
00:26:46.000 They're going to call you a person of spiritual depth.
00:26:48.000 When the student's ready, the teacher will appear.
00:26:51.000 So I just say, ask him the question and then wait.
00:26:55.000 Pray and wait.
00:26:56.000 And you can plant seeds every now and then.
00:26:59.000 So talk a little about through your ministry, crose examine.org, and also your book, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist, some conversion stories you've experienced, people that have really been touched and moved by what you've done.
00:27:08.000 Yeah, we've had several people email us or when we see them on a college campus, they'll come up and say, I was out or I was an atheist and someone gave me your book and now I'm a Christian.
00:27:18.000 I mean, it's happened several times.
00:27:18.000 So thank you.
00:27:19.000 I don't know how many times.
00:27:20.000 I can't count how many.
00:27:22.000 Those are people who are open, though.
00:27:24.000 You know, there's a lot of people are not open.
00:27:26.000 But they're not open now.
00:27:27.000 Maybe they'll be open later, right?
00:27:29.000 I wasn't pursuing God when I was 20, but when I was 25, I was.
00:27:36.000 What changed?
00:27:36.000 Things change.
00:27:37.000 I met the son of a Methodist minister when I was in the Navy, and I had so many questions for him.
00:27:42.000 He finally said, you just need to get Josh McDowell books.
00:27:45.000 Evidence demands a verdict more than a carpenter.
00:27:48.000 Read those books.
00:27:48.000 I said, this stuff's true.
00:27:50.000 And then when I got out of the Navy, I met Norman Geisler, who was sort of the tiger woods of apologetics at the time.
00:27:56.000 And he was starting a seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina.
00:27:59.000 So my wife and three sons, we moved down to Charlotte back in 1993.
00:28:02.000 And that's how it happened.
00:28:05.000 That's amazing.
00:28:06.000 What do you think churches need to do better to equip the people in their youth ministry to be ready for all of this?
00:28:14.000 Great question.
00:28:14.000 They need to start teaching evidence.
00:28:17.000 Why do you think they're not doing that?
00:28:18.000 The easiest way to get picked off in a war is to not know you're in one, right?
00:28:22.000 And this is the work you're doing on college campuses, too, right?
00:28:25.000 We both go into college campuses trying to throw these young people a lifeline to say, look, look at the evidence.
00:28:31.000 Look at the truth.
00:28:31.000 Look at the truth.
00:28:32.000 Look at liberty.
00:28:33.000 Yeah.
00:28:33.000 Look at all these things.
00:28:34.000 You know, you could use the same question for any issue, Charlie.
00:28:37.000 You could say if capitalism was the best way to bring people out of poverty, would you become a capitalist?
00:28:41.000 Yeah, that's right.
00:28:42.000 You know what they might say?
00:28:43.000 Yeah, that's right.
00:28:43.000 No.
00:28:44.000 Right?
00:28:44.000 If socialism never worked anywhere it was tried and it had the wrong view of human nature, would you dispense with your socialist objectives?
00:28:52.000 And the question you're really asking is, if something were true, would you stop doing what feels good?
00:28:57.000 Yeah.
00:28:58.000 That's really the question that's interesting, right?
00:29:00.000 That's right.
00:29:00.000 Is would you prioritize truth over pleasure or power?
00:29:03.000 Those are the two things that they really do.
00:29:05.000 But we have a lot of pastors that listen to our program.
00:29:08.000 And I could say this.
00:29:09.000 Most churches are really ill-equipping the people in their youth ministry.
00:29:14.000 And so you got a wanna, you got teen packed, you got all this stuff.
00:29:17.000 Give your life to the Lord.
00:29:18.000 Highly emotional, though.
00:29:19.000 And that's not bad, right?
00:29:20.000 God gave us emotions for a reason.
00:29:22.000 Sure.
00:29:22.000 Right?
00:29:23.000 Spirit of God moving.
00:29:24.000 You're 17 years old.
00:29:24.000 You got a lot of emotions as it is.
00:29:27.000 You have probably a transformational relationship with Jesus at that moment.
00:29:30.000 But then all of a sudden, you're 20 years old and you go to Stanford or go to CU Boulder, right?
00:29:35.000 People around you are doing drugs.
00:29:37.000 They're talking about atheism.
00:29:38.000 And all of a sudden, the moral kind of window moves.
00:29:40.000 Next thing you know, they're coming home for Thanksgiving a couple years later and they tell mom and dad, yeah, I don't know about that God thing.
00:29:45.000 I think that was all just a bunch of chemicals in my head.
00:29:48.000 Talk a little about that.
00:29:49.000 That happens 75% of kids that walk away.
00:29:52.000 So can you reiterate that number?
00:29:53.000 I'm sorry to interrupt.
00:29:54.000 75%.
00:29:55.000 I find that hard to believe.
00:29:56.000 Yeah, 75% of kids that are in church when they're at home walk away from the church once they leave the home, once they go to college.
00:30:04.000 Now, we've learned in recent years, Charlie, that, okay, they'll still go to church if the parents force them to while they're in high school, but mentally they've checked out before then.
00:30:13.000 I totally agree.
00:30:14.000 And as soon as they're on their own, say la vie, baby.
00:30:18.000 I'm doing what I want to do.
00:30:19.000 Because there's a moral hazard you just brought up, Charlie.
00:30:21.000 As you know, when you go to college and you're out on your own for the first time, you don't want to do everything God wants you to do.
00:30:28.000 You don't want to do everything your parents told you to do or not do.
00:30:30.000 You don't want to do what feels good.
00:30:31.000 Yeah, you want to do, you want to fit in, right?
00:30:34.000 And, oh, this pastor that I brought up, I was brought up with my whole life, never told me about any of these things.
00:30:40.000 But my parents are paying this professor 50 grand a year to tell me this that I've never heard before.
00:30:47.000 Who am I going to do?
00:30:48.000 So eloquent.
00:30:48.000 Oh, yeah.
00:30:49.000 Charismatic.
00:30:50.000 Oh, yeah.
00:30:50.000 Who am I going to believe?
00:30:51.000 Charming and funny.
00:30:53.000 And that's a really important point.
00:30:55.000 I speak at a lot of churches, and so do you.
00:30:57.000 And I can see the skeptical teenager from a mile away in the audience.
00:31:01.000 The body posture, the sulking, the mom and dad that are really engaged, but they were brought just to the event.
00:31:08.000 You can kind of see that image, right?
00:31:10.000 And I see him like, boy, they're 16 and they do not want to be here. 1.00
00:31:14.000 And they're just saying in their mind, this stupid guy, he doesn't know what he's saying. 0.99
00:31:18.000 And then there's the other teenager where they might be 16 and they're curious. 1.00
00:31:21.000 They're taking notes and they're kind of joking around with their parents.
00:31:24.000 And you could see their processing.
00:31:26.000 And so I think that's interesting, Frank.
00:31:28.000 In some ways, it happens even before they leave the church.
00:31:30.000 Oh, it totally does.
00:31:31.000 In fact, a pastor friend of mine in Charlotte was preached.
00:31:35.000 This is 10 years ago. 0.98
00:31:35.000 He's preaching against the new atheists like Hitchens and Dawkins and these. 0.98
00:31:39.000 And Harris. 0.78
00:31:39.000 Yeah, yeah. 0.78
00:31:40.000 He's preaching.
00:31:40.000 He was talking about why they're wrong.
00:31:42.000 And this kid comes up to me, 20 years old.
00:31:44.000 He says, you know, I used to be a Christian, but I'm an agnostic now.
00:31:47.000 Oh, really?
00:31:48.000 And he said, You shouldn't be doing what you're doing.
00:31:51.000 My pastor friend David, big church in Charlotte, says, Why shouldn't I be doing this?
00:31:55.000 What do you mean?
00:31:56.000 He said, You shouldn't be saying that the atheists are wrong.
00:31:58.000 That's not loving.
00:31:58.000 He said, No, no, no.
00:32:00.000 He said, No, no, no.
00:32:02.000 That's probably a lie.
00:32:03.000 Yeah, right.
00:32:03.000 You have to tell people the truth if you want to be loving.
00:32:06.000 Love does not mean approval, right?
00:32:08.000 Every parent knows if you approve everything your kid wants to do, you're not loving.
00:32:11.000 You're unloving.
00:32:12.000 You need to tell them the truth.
00:32:13.000 Anyway, so this goes on back for a few minutes, back and forth.
00:32:17.000 Every time this kid brought up an objection to Christianity, David would begin to answer it, but the kid was on to the next objection.
00:32:23.000 You know how this goes.
00:32:24.000 The goalposts keep moving.
00:32:25.000 That's right.
00:32:26.000 So David finally said to him, You know what?
00:32:28.000 I think you're saying you're an agnostic because you're sleeping with your girlfriend.
00:32:32.000 Yeah.
00:32:32.000 He just came out and said the kid just froze.
00:32:35.000 Yeah, that's right.
00:32:36.000 Because that was exactly the issue.
00:32:37.000 It had nothing to do with evidence.
00:32:39.000 You know, most people.
00:32:40.000 That's such an important point.
00:32:42.000 Charlie, most people at this age are looking for God like a criminal is looking for a cop.
00:32:47.000 They're not looking for God.
00:32:50.000 It's tragic.
00:32:51.000 Well, because the laws of nature haven't caught up with them yet.
00:32:53.000 Because they're able to delay it, right?
00:32:55.000 Yeah.
00:32:55.000 Because they're not paying for college.
00:32:56.000 Right.
00:32:57.000 Right.
00:32:57.000 They're not having a job.
00:32:58.000 They do what they want to do and it feels good.
00:33:00.000 They can kind of coast through, right?
00:33:02.000 And the tragedy, they can kind of delay it.
00:33:04.000 They can punt it.
00:33:05.000 But all of a sudden, a year and a half later, the girlfriend breaks up or it's, you're not having the same sort of endorphin kick or dopamine kick you did.
00:33:12.000 And you start going to substance and drugs and you start getting really depressed.
00:33:15.000 And then you have to get a job and all this and it comes crashing down all around you.
00:33:18.000 And that kind of world that God wants us to live in that they tried to declare war on, all of a sudden, they become really miserable.
00:33:25.000 Charlie, who was it?
00:33:26.000 Was it Churchill who said if you're not a liberal when you're 20, you don't have a heart?
00:33:31.000 That's right. 1.00
00:33:31.000 You don't have a brain. 1.00
00:33:32.000 When you're 40, you don't have a brain. 0.99
00:33:33.000 Was it Churchill? 0.89
00:33:34.000 Yeah.
00:33:34.000 You was spectacular.
00:33:35.000 Yeah.
00:33:36.000 So I agree so much with all of this.
00:33:39.000 And I know a lot of parents are listening to this and they're just enamored with kind of your articulate ability to talk about this.
00:33:46.000 I just want our audience to know that this is like half of 1% of 1% of the library that you're able to talk about.
00:33:53.000 You can run the whole gauntlet, right?
00:33:54.000 You can go through objection through objection.
00:33:56.000 There's also teleological arguments that you make, right?
00:34:00.000 There's philosophical ones.
00:34:01.000 You go through the artifact arguments as well.
00:34:05.000 Archaeology.
00:34:06.000 Archaeological evidence, I should say, right?
00:34:08.000 And so we just kind of really barely touch the surface.
00:34:10.000 And it's very, very compelling and really thoughtfully done.
00:34:14.000 And I want to compliment you.
00:34:15.000 There's some apologists out there that I think get really kind of cocky and self-righteous.
00:34:19.000 You've done a really awesome job of just being magnanimous, right?
00:34:24.000 Because it's easy when you're talking only about the head, right?
00:34:27.000 To just be too analytical.
00:34:28.000 Yeah, you don't want to do that.
00:34:30.000 You're not, when you're answering a question, as you know, Charlie, you're not really answering a question.
00:34:34.000 You're answering a person.
00:34:35.000 That's exactly right.
00:34:36.000 And you've got to, you don't know why that person's standing at that microphone.
00:34:40.000 You don't know what their history is.
00:34:41.000 You don't know what they know.
00:34:43.000 You don't know what's happened in their lives.
00:34:46.000 And if they're at one of your events or one of my events and they're at the microphone, they're interested in some way.
00:34:53.000 It could be a good interest or a bad interest, right?
00:34:56.000 There's something.
00:34:57.000 There's a spark there.
00:34:58.000 They're not sitting at home eating potato chips.
00:35:00.000 That's right.
00:35:01.000 They're not apathetic.
00:35:02.000 Which is something.
00:35:03.000 Yeah, it's something.
00:35:04.000 That's right.
00:35:05.000 So I actually think the people who are hard against us, whether it's politically-they're way easier converts.
00:35:11.000 They totally are.
00:35:12.000 They are.
00:35:13.000 Because the hardest thing is to activate.
00:35:16.000 To convert apathyism, to go from apathetic to interested.
00:35:21.000 So the people that are at least coming to our events are interested, and that's a good thing.
00:35:24.000 And so I want to commend people for doing that, even if they're on the other side.
00:35:27.000 Yeah.
00:35:28.000 Yeah.
00:35:28.000 They're wonderful.
00:35:29.000 It's crose examine.org.
00:35:30.000 Anything else you want to plug?
00:35:31.000 Conferences, things you're doing?
00:35:32.000 Yeah, we do have a podcast every week.
00:35:34.000 Yeah, it's a great podcast I listen to every so often.
00:35:36.000 It's really good.
00:35:37.000 It's called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.
00:35:38.000 We have a YouTube channel with all these little videos on it, QA from the college campus.
00:35:43.000 So you can see all that there.
00:35:45.000 We have a TV show on NRB TV.
00:35:47.000 It's all just go to crosexamine.org.
00:35:49.000 We have an app, the whole deal.
00:35:51.000 But, Charlie, the work you're doing here is fabulous.
00:35:54.000 I mean, getting all these young people engaged.
00:35:57.000 And I know it's not just politics, Charlie.
00:35:59.000 You've got Turning Point USA Faith.
00:36:01.000 That's exactly right.
00:36:02.000 Right?
00:36:02.000 And so people need to know that.
00:36:04.000 This is a whole worldview ministry.
00:36:06.000 It's not a ministry that's just as important as politics are.
00:36:10.000 Two of my five books are on politics, okay?
00:36:13.000 So I'm interested in politics, but it's not just about politics here at Turning Point.
00:36:16.000 You're trying to change lives from the ground up.
00:36:19.000 Transformation.
00:36:20.000 Transformation. 0.98
00:36:20.000 Get people to become Christians to know the right worldview. 0.98
00:36:24.000 And that will inform their politics and everything else they do.
00:36:26.000 Yeah, we have an expression here.
00:36:28.000 Once people start drinking from the streams of liberty, they're going to want to find its source.
00:36:31.000 Nice.
00:36:32.000 And so it's really interesting.
00:36:34.000 We had 10,000 people at America Fest.
00:36:36.000 Jack Kibbs spoke, and I'd say probably 60% are Christians.
00:36:41.000 And not all of them are serious Christians, but 40% or whatever, agnostic or whatever.
00:36:45.000 And Frank, we had hundreds of people give their life to the Lord, and they never would have went to a church service ever.
00:36:49.000 Beautiful.
00:36:50.000 But they agreed with conservative values, Constitution, all that good stuff.
00:36:53.000 But all of a sudden, Jack Hibbs gets up there and gives a sermon.
00:36:55.000 They never heard a servant in their life.
00:36:56.000 Oh, really?
00:36:57.000 Right.
00:36:57.000 And this is an interesting ministry opportunity that people don't always capture, right?
00:37:01.000 Which is, you know, there's a portion of the population that believes in the principles of liberty, and they've never really understood that liberty is not man's idea, but it's God's idea.
00:37:09.000 That's what we're contesting for.
00:37:10.000 Well, this goes back to what we were saying earlier: that every effect has a cause.
00:37:14.000 Amen.
00:37:15.000 And the effect of the moral law we all know, that's the effect.
00:37:20.000 The cause is God's nature.
00:37:21.000 That's right.
00:37:22.000 And without God's nature, there's no liberty because there are no rights.
00:37:25.000 There's no rights without God.
00:37:26.000 That's right.
00:37:26.000 There's people out there running around saying they got rights to do this and that, Charlie, but they're atheists.
00:37:31.000 Where are you getting rights?
00:37:32.000 Where do you get the rights from?
00:37:33.000 It's just your existence.
00:37:34.000 It's just your opinion.
00:37:36.000 That's right.
00:37:36.000 If there's no God.
00:37:37.000 If there's no objective standard.
00:37:38.000 That's right.
00:37:38.000 So that's great.
00:37:39.000 Frank, it's such an honor to meet you in person.
00:37:41.000 Same here, brother.
00:37:42.000 Crose examine.org.
00:37:43.000 Keep up the wonderful work on it.
00:37:44.000 Hey, one more thing.
00:37:45.000 Can I say one more thing?
00:37:46.000 We have a book coming out.
00:37:47.000 I don't know when this is going to air, but my son and I just wrote a book together.
00:37:52.000 And he is in the military right now, but he's also a seminary grad.
00:37:56.000 He went to Southern Evangelical Seminary like I did.
00:37:59.000 He's a movie buff.
00:38:00.000 We just wrote a book called Hollywood Heroes: How Your Favorite Movies Reveal God.
00:38:04.000 One's coming to you soon, Charlie.
00:38:05.000 And if you go to Hollywood Heroes, I've got to have you back on for that.
00:38:08.000 Oh, I'd love to.
00:38:09.000 HollywoodheroesBook.com.
00:38:11.000 If you pre-order the book, it comes out May 3rd, 2022.
00:38:14.000 You pre-order it.
00:38:15.000 We're going to send you the audio version for free.
00:38:18.000 Hollywoodheroesbook.com.
00:38:20.000 Here are the franchises we go through.
00:38:22.000 Captain America, Iron Man, Harry Potter.
00:38:25.000 Harry Potter?
00:38:25.000 Yeah, you'd be surprised.
00:38:26.000 Wow.
00:38:27.000 Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Batman, Wonder Woman, and one or two others.
00:38:31.000 That's very unique.
00:38:33.000 Yeah.
00:38:33.000 And the ultimate hero, of course, is Jesus.
00:38:36.000 All of these heroes, Charlie, are patterned after the ultimate hero.
00:38:39.000 You can get biblical lessons, apologetic lessons, philosophical lessons, theological lessons, life lessons from watching movies and reading this book, Hollywood Heroes.
00:38:48.000 And it will change the way you look at these movies.
00:38:49.000 That's right.
00:38:50.000 There's a reason why these movies do so well.
00:38:51.000 That's right.
00:38:52.000 It's because they're telling the ultimate story.
00:38:53.000 They are.
00:38:54.000 And people don't even consciously realize it at times, but their soul is trying to get the attention of the viewer.
00:38:59.000 Hey, like, I like this story because this is what we actually need.
00:39:03.000 That's right.
00:39:03.000 That's right.
00:39:04.000 Screaming at them.
00:39:05.000 And I think you might be able to connect it with them.
00:39:06.000 We need somebody to rescue us from evil.
00:39:08.000 That's what all these stories are.
00:39:10.000 And people are like, I just love Lord of the Rings.
00:39:12.000 Why?
00:39:12.000 I love Star Wars.
00:39:13.000 Why?
00:39:13.000 Yeah.
00:39:13.000 It's because it's that tension of good versus evil.
00:39:15.000 That's right.
00:39:15.000 The force versus the Sith, whatever.
00:39:17.000 Right?
00:39:18.000 Frank, thanks so much.
00:39:19.000 Charlie.
00:39:20.000 God bless you.
00:39:20.000 My pleasure.
00:39:21.000 Thank you.
00:39:21.000 Turning point USA.
00:39:22.000 Cross-examination.
00:39:23.000 Check it out.
00:39:24.000 Beautiful.
00:39:24.000 Thanks.
00:39:27.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
00:39:28.000 Email us your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and support our show at charliekirk.com/slash support.
00:39:34.000 Thanks so much for listening.
00:39:35.000 God bless.
00:39:38.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.