In this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show, host Charlie Kirk discusses the Christian case for capitalism and why it s a Christian worldview. Charlie Kirk is the President of Turning Point USA, the largest pro-American student organization in the country, fighting for free markets and capitalism.
00:00:56.000The Charlie Kirk Show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers.
00:01:09.000So it's a pleasure to be here tonight.
00:01:12.000You know, I just was here a couple weeks ago with Andrew and our field team here in Arizona.
00:01:18.000And we were talking about, you know, the group here at Grand Canyon and as it was growing.
00:01:23.000And we wanted to definitely do an event here because I was in town for a debate tomorrow at ASU.
00:01:30.000But we said, well, Grand Canyon University is a Christian university.
00:01:33.000And Turning Point USA is a growing student movement fighting for free markets and capitalism.
00:01:39.000And I hear all the time these horrible misconceptions that in order to be a Christian, you must be a socialist.
00:01:46.000And in order to be, it's this horrible thing.
00:01:48.000And so I said, why don't I give a speech and kind of articulate the Christian case for capitalism?
00:01:56.000I've talked about it, some of our summits and some of our conferences.
00:02:00.000And it's something I think we need to talk more about because it's theologically and biblically sound.
00:02:06.000And we shouldn't have to stray away from us, you know, conservative capitalists.
00:02:11.000It's completely compatible with a Christian worldview.
00:02:14.000So I look forward to talking about it and talking about it from my personal perspective.
00:02:19.000Obviously, Turning Point USA, we are not a religious organization, but we have a lot of Christians in our organization.
00:02:25.000So everything I say here is Charlie Kirk talking, not necessarily Turning Point USA, but the parts about the free market definitely are what we believe at Turning Point.
00:02:35.000So first and foremost, just a little bit by background, I started this organization when I was 18 years old, five and a half years ago.
00:03:09.000What do I mean, a Christian case for capitalism, Christianity?
00:03:13.000So Christian, in most terms, is the belief that, first and foremost, there is a God, and God had a lot of involvement throughout the Old Testament and then sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to save the world.
00:03:30.000And through His perfect life and perfect sacrifice, He atoned the sins of humanity.
00:03:35.000And through His acceptance as the Savior of the world, we will then have eternal life, God in three parts, through God the Father, God the Son, and then God the Holy Spirit.
00:03:45.000We know this through the book that God wrote.
00:03:48.000God wrote a book, of course, the perfect, non-contradictory, irrefutable book that we know as the Holy Bible with over 27 different authors wrote over 4,000 years, which comprise everything from the ancient Jewish text to the four gospels to the letters of Paul, and finally, of course, the minor and major prophets.
00:04:11.000So we know this through the Bible, which of course is incredibly important in Christianity.
00:04:15.000There's lots of different types of Christianity.
00:04:17.000We know it, of course, through Episcopal, Presbyterian, Protestant, Catholicism, but the kind of the belief that what is the center point of Christianity.
00:04:25.000Of course, there would be no Christianity without what?
00:04:35.000We at Turning Point USA define capitalism as the ability or the freedom to be able to sell what you want to sell, buy what you want to buy without restrictive or coercive government intervention in your life.
00:04:47.000Essentially, economic freedom, being able to take a risk as you see fit as long as you're not harming someone else.
00:04:52.000Capitalism can be broken into really the three P's as we call it.
00:05:05.000In order for things to get better, businesses have to turn a profit.
00:05:08.000In order for dominoes to be able to deliver pizza here in a timely fashion, they have to be able to make money on the pizza they're selling you.
00:05:15.000They might have sold it for $9, but their all-in costs might have been $3.25.
00:05:19.000Therefore, they're able to make a profit, deliver value back to their owners, their employees, their shareholders, so that they can continue to grow their company and create more value for everyone engaged in their company.
00:05:30.000And finally, private property, the capacity for individuals to be able to own stuff.
00:05:35.000You know, that's probably the easiest way that I can articulate it, whether it be houses or cars or clothes or even shares of companies.
00:05:42.000The ability and capacity to really own things and be able to arbitrate your differences in an impartial court is something that we capitalists hold near and dear.
00:05:52.000This is contrasted directly with people that believe in a more collectivist socialist system where the government has the capacity or the ability to take away goods or services or private property at a moment's notice.
00:06:05.000Look no further than Venezuela, when in the late 1990s the government decided just to take away all the private property of oil and gas.
00:06:12.000They took over all the oil industry, government subsidized it and nationalized it.
00:06:16.000Nationalized means government ownership of property.
00:06:23.000And as you've seen in recent years, that is not working very well in Venezuela.
00:06:28.000So what is then the Christian case for capitalism now that we have defined our terms?
00:06:35.000Well, first and foremost, talking from a very pragmatic standpoint, when capitalism, free markets, economic freedom, whatever term you want to use, when you allow economic freedom to be enacted, you have seen the greatest poverty elimination in human history.
00:06:49.000You have seen more poor people become rich, more standard of living increases, more human rights advances than any other system of governance known to man.
00:06:58.000Capitalism advocates for individuals to be able to pursue their own self-interest as they see fit.
00:07:04.000Which I think then comes down to two fundamental questions that I always argue with people on the left or socialists.
00:07:10.000And this actually is a question that, if you are a Christian, we have answers to.
00:08:30.000Look no further than the Ten Commandments that lay out morality at the most basis point.
00:08:34.000Do not covet, do not steal, do not cheat, do not lie, do not commit adultery.
00:08:40.000Human nature goes against every single one of those 10 tenets as we know it.
00:08:44.000So then we must ask ourselves the next natural question.
00:08:46.000If we believe people are not inherently good and we believe people are not perfectible, then what economic system uses the worst aspects of humanity for the greatest good for everyone else and also for the individual?
00:09:00.000Because if you are a bad person in capitalism and you want to get really rich or you want to make a lot of money, you have to create value for someone else.
00:09:09.000For example, the founder of Domino's might be a horrible person, but in order for him to be super rich and in order for him to do something worthwhile for his own benefit, greedy, self-interested, so on and so forth, he has to create something of value that someone else has to buy.
00:09:24.000For example, Steve Jobs might have been the worst person in the world, but in order for him to have gotten very wealthy or very successful, he had to create something that almost everyone in this room, I guarantee, has interacted with once or twice.
00:09:34.000Mark Zuckerberg is another great example.
00:09:37.000Mark Zuckerberg might be the worst person in the world, but he has personally made $81 billion by giving a product and service away for free.
00:09:45.000So if I had to boil it down to two words, when you think of capitalism, I think of freedom.
00:09:50.000When I think of socialism, I think of force.
00:09:54.000Capitalism is about the ability to make the decisions as you see fit, free of government intrusion, which comes to a very important point.
00:10:02.000In a capitalist free market system, you can live freely as a socialist if you want to.
00:10:07.000Look no further than the Christian Amish in Pennsylvania.
00:10:10.000They live as socialists, peacefully, and they live however they see fit.
00:10:16.000I'm not getting in their way and no one else is.
00:10:18.000Because in a free market capitalist system, you have the freedom to be able to pursue the life that you see fit.
00:10:23.000Now, in a socialist system, can you live freely as a capitalist?
00:10:28.000They're going to hold a gun to your head saying you have to give 80% of your income to government because it's going to benefit the most amount of people.
00:11:10.000And now you can hear from Charlie in his own words.
00:11:12.000Each episode will make you recognize the power of your faith and how God can use your life to impact our world today.
00:11:19.000The Culture and Christianity podcast is informative and encouraging.
00:11:22.000You could find it on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:11:26.000Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes.
00:11:28.000Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to bring biblical truth back into our culture.
00:11:33.000You can find out more about Pastor Allen and the ministry at alanjackson.com forward slash Charlie.
00:11:41.000So the Bible, especially through Jesus' teaching, I would say teaches us to be five things.
00:11:46.000And this is the Christian case for capitalism.
00:11:48.000Altruistic, generous, productive, cheerful, and loving.
00:11:51.000Would we agree that we as Christians are called to those five things?
00:11:53.000That is by no means an exhaustive list.
00:11:56.000We could name all the fruits of the Spirit.
00:11:58.000We could name all the other, so we could be here all day.
00:12:01.000All right, so I picked those five for a particular reason because I believe all five of those have strong evidence that capitalism reinforces.
00:12:41.000It says all throughout the New Testament the capacity and the ability to be generous.
00:12:45.000And in fact, we are instructed to be generous.
00:12:47.000We're instructed to give away our fruits of our labor.
00:12:50.000Now, in order to give away fruits of your labor, you have to have fruits of your labor.
00:12:53.000You have to make something to give something away.
00:12:55.000We know through basic economics and basic human history, if you're going to try to give a bunch of stuff away, you have to have that stuff which to give.
00:13:02.000In a socialist system, as Maggie Thatcher famously said, the problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money.
00:13:09.000You deter the entire incentive structure.
00:13:11.000So you can want to be the most generous person in the world, but eventually you're going to run out of assets to give away.
00:13:18.000I don't think they have very good intentions, but they might be as generous as they want to be.
00:13:21.000Eventually, you're going to run out of stuff that which to give.
00:13:24.000Which again goes to the third thing which Christ calls us to do, which is to be productive.
00:13:29.000Jesus Christ talked for Christians to be highly productive people.
00:13:33.000Now this might be teaching you don't always get all the time in a traditional Bible class, but look no different than the parable of the talents, one of the most, I think, economically trans not transferable, economically, what's the word I'm looking for?
00:13:50.000Relevant parable that Jesus taught us.
00:13:53.000So the parable of the talents, for those that do not know, essentially there were a couple servants under an owner, and the owner gave each one of the servants a talent, which could be equivalent of a currency.
00:14:06.000He gave one talent, another one two, and another one three.
00:14:10.000And essentially, the person that had one hid it, did nothing with that talent, hid it under a rock.
00:14:15.000And essentially, the owner said, come back to me in a certain period of time and tell me what you've done with your money.
00:14:20.000The second person invested it a little bit, made a little bit of multiplication, productivity upon that which was given.
00:14:26.000And the final person made in a huge abundance, he essentially was very productive and multiplied the gift that which he was given.
00:14:33.000Essentially they come back to the owner and all of them were seeking praise and the guy that hid the talent thought he was going to get a lot of kudos from the owner because he guarded it and the owner essentially said, how dare you?
00:14:47.000And more than that, it was really condemnation.
00:14:53.000You did nothing with that which was given.
00:14:55.000And the person that multiplied a lot, it's that famous saying that a lot of us say, even in the secular world, you hear it, that which is, those who are given a lot are expected to do a lot.
00:15:05.000Essentially, those who are given are expected to produce.
00:15:10.000To those who have been given, very much is expected.
00:15:12.000And you see in the parable of the talents that Jesus Christ tells us that you have to do something with your life.
00:15:18.000That sitting around and just doing nothing.
00:15:21.000And of course, that parable has a lot of different applications, has an application to the advancement of the kingdom, trying to convert as many people as you can to Christianity, but also has economic implications.
00:15:33.000Being productive, being entrepreneurial, and being relevant In an economic system, it has a lot of different applications as well.
00:16:18.000$400 billion away voluntarily to charity.
00:16:22.000If you go to Europe, they don't even understand the concept of private charity.
00:16:25.000Government just takes care of everything.
00:16:27.000There's government programs for this, government services for that.
00:16:30.000Private charity is a very, very difficult concept for Europeans to wrap their heads around.
00:16:36.000There's a reason why there is declining church attendance in France and in Germany and Spain or Portugal.
00:16:42.000There's a reason why the church is not doing very well throughout most of Europe.
00:16:47.000And the reason is that as a society grows government, it becomes more secular.
00:16:52.000So from a purely pragmatic standpoint, as you see government get bigger, you see the church, you see Christianity, if you will, become less and less important.
00:17:02.000Now this comes to a very important point, which I hear a lot, and we're going to kind of debunk this, is was Jesus a socialist?
00:17:12.000We're going to have a fun conversation with this.
00:17:14.000But before I do, I want to talk about a couple proverbs, which I think are very relevant.
00:17:19.000So not only did Jesus talk about being very productive, but there is another parable, which actually does not get talked about very much, which talks about the price system.
00:17:29.000You might say, what are you talking about?
00:17:37.000Essentially, it could be applied to a lot of different things, mind you.
00:17:40.000The more widely accepted application is the acceptance into the kingdom of heaven.
00:17:45.000But another application of the parable of the vineyard essentially is there was a guy that owned a vineyard and he hired a bunch of workers for one denarii, whatever the proper currency was, and they worked, they worked, they worked.
00:17:57.000He realized there was a lot of work left to be done.
00:18:01.000That when you need a lot of work to get done in a condensed period of time, you're willing to pay more to get it done quickly.
00:18:06.000So he hired more workers for half a day's work for the same currency that he hired someone earlier in the day.
00:18:11.000And then the guy that's been working all day said, this is not fair.
00:18:14.000I mean, I've been working all day and now I'm earning the same as the guy that's coming in at the end.
00:18:18.000And then the owner finally says, who are you to question?
00:18:20.000I'm giving you exactly what I'm telling I'm going to give you.
00:18:22.000In economics, we call that as, you know, not necessarily price gouging.
00:18:27.000We call that as, you know, paying for what you need when you need it.
00:18:30.000So if I need to get a building done quickly and I hire a bunch of carpenters and I need to hire more carpenters and they have been working on it the whole time, I'm willing to pay more to get it done very quickly.
00:18:39.000So anyway, you could use that parable to reinforce the price system.
00:18:45.000So finally, Proverbs 12, 11, I love this proverb.
00:18:50.000Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies have no sense.
00:18:55.000And then finally, Proverbs 12, 24, diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in forced labor.
00:19:10.000It's something that they try to get away from.
00:19:11.000Yet we see throughout the entire Bible that work is actually an important component, being productive, giving back in your personal capacity.
00:19:22.000This is something that I think is widely misrepresented, and I hear this a lot.
00:19:26.000In fact, I heard Bernie Sanders of all people, like the atheist, talk about how, you know, all Christians should be democratic socialists because Jesus would have been a socialist.
00:19:37.000And then I saw another meme by Occupy Democrats, and they're a bunch of dishonest people.
00:20:03.000So, first and foremost, mind you, I'm going to be very, very precise and careful here.
00:20:09.000First and foremost, in my perspective, and I would guess to most people in this room, Jesus Christ was the Savior of the world.
00:20:14.000He was not really distracted with petty partisan politics.
00:20:18.000If Jesus Christ was, and you can scour the four gospels and you can scour the letters of Paul, you can scour Acts, not once did Jesus call for a particular political philosophy to be implemented.
00:20:29.000Now, mind you, I want you to put yourselves into the foots of Jesus of Nazareth.
00:20:33.000You have 12 disciples, you are doing healings, you are converting water to wine, you're feeding the 5,000.
00:20:40.000How easy would it have been to have started a political movement?
00:20:44.000Now, mind you, every other secular and, I would say, questionably religious leader of the last 4,000 years used politics as a vehicle to ascertain power or religious relevance.
00:20:59.000Muhammad took over territories and cut people's heads off.
00:21:03.000Muhammad Gandhi, great guy, was through politics trying to come about change.
00:21:07.000Martin Luther King, so on and so forth.
00:21:09.000Jesus Christ stands alone in history as someone who had disdain for politics, in fact rebelled against it, and arguably had more historic impact than anyone else in the last 4,000 years.
00:21:20.000That's what, first and foremost, makes him so unique when it talks about politics.
00:21:24.000Now, we can talk about some of his teachings here, but first and foremost, Jesus Christ was so focused on the individual.
00:21:32.000He was anything but talking about what would be best as a collective for governmental policy.
00:21:38.000Now, you could argue there would be a lot of different reasons for this, but Jesus was about the savior of you, the salvation of you and you and you.
00:21:50.000And he then taught us a way to live and then, of course, did not contradict the law of the prophets, but rather fulfilled their prophecy.
00:22:00.000And he did not talk about what we should do, but he said what you should do.
00:22:22.000Socialist groups cannot tolerate groups that love freedom, which is anything but what Jesus talked about.
00:22:27.000Jesus was a lover of just that, of freedom.
00:22:31.000Now, he would be more, I think, inclined to be sympathetic to a system that allowed individual persuasion of a certain viewpoint or perspective or set of principles or ideas than that which was authoritatively pushed down someone's throat.
00:22:49.000Now, the more, I would say, logical arguments for why Jesus was a socialist was people say, well, he cared for the poor, he wanted to abolish human suffering, and he really wanted to help people.
00:23:03.000All of which I totally and completely agree with.
00:23:06.000But he talked about people helping people, not government programs helping people, right?
00:23:11.000He talked about the individual getting on the road to the Good Samaritan, that I'm going to help that person, even though I'm not supposed to, right?
00:23:23.000Jesus did not say write a letter to Caesar and demand stronger social planning.
00:23:29.000Jesus did not advocate for single-payer health care.
00:23:33.000Instead, he said, when you see someone in need, do everything you can to help that person.
00:23:38.000Now, we go back to what capitalism believes.
00:23:41.000Isn't that more sympathetic to a viewpoint or an economic model that empowers as many people as possible to make individuals' decisions as they see fit?
00:23:49.000Not one that we have seen pragmatically that, like in Europe, diminishes generosity, that diminishes individual engagement in the community, and instead looks to the state for answers.
00:24:03.000We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries, and today I want to point you to their podcast.
00:24:08.000It's called Culture in Christianity, the Allen Jackson Podcast.
00:24:12.000What makes it unique is Pastor Allen's biblical perspective.
00:24:16.000He takes the truth from the Bible and applies it to issues we're facing today, gender confusion, abortion, immigration, Doge, Trump in the White House, issues in the church.
00:24:35.000And now you can hear from Charlie in his own words.
00:24:37.000Each episode will make you recognize the power of your faith and how God can use your life to impact our world today.
00:24:43.000The Culture and Christianity podcast is informative and encouraging.
00:24:47.000You could find it on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:24:50.000Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes.
00:24:52.000Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to bring biblical truth back into our culture.
00:24:57.000You can find out more about Pastor Allen and the ministry at alanjackson.com forward slash Charlie.
00:25:06.000Forceful redistribution of wealth by government.
00:25:08.000Jesus never called for wealth inequality.
00:25:11.000And actually, we actually have an example of this in Luke 12, 13, when someone approaches Jesus and he says, he asks Jesus to sort out his inheritance.
00:25:21.000And he says, my father just died and my brother is getting all the inheritance.
00:25:25.000Isn't it fair to divide it up equally?
00:25:28.000Now, Jesus, being God and being the Son of God, could have easily said, absolutely.
00:25:33.000He could have waved his hand and said, I command you, you must split it equally and said, what did he say?
00:25:37.000Who am I to judge who gets what and how you get it?
00:25:41.000He wasn't worried about material wealth.
00:25:43.000He was, in fact, worried about the love of wealth.
00:25:45.000We'll get to that in a second, which is very, very important.
00:25:47.000But he was not worried about the distribution of that wealth.
00:26:05.000He kind of shrugged his shoulders and said, pay your taxes, do what you're supposed to do.
00:26:09.000He did not say start a political revolution based on my teaching and then forcibly make people believe what they should believe.
00:26:17.000Instead, he called for we individuals as Christ followers that are born anew through the Holy Spirit and through his perfect sacrifice to then use that teaching and instruction to individually.
00:26:29.000Essentially, I think Jesus and God and the teaching that we have in the Bible is directly contradictory to that teaching where, well, government must do it.
00:26:38.000Because if you say that, essentially you're saying it's not my problem.
00:27:15.000Well, if I want to trade value for value, if I want to make myself and my life better, I'm not going to sell a good or a product or service that I'm not going to buy myself.
00:27:24.000And because of competition and because of people competing in a marketplace and actually trading goods and services and trading goods and services, you're going to have better goods and services and people treating each other better.
00:27:35.000And that is why you see, throughout the time of human history, goods and services get better.
00:27:40.000That's why you see, you know, in a free market, things get faster, better, and cheaper quite quickly.
00:27:46.000And only in the golden rule, treat others as you would like to be treated.
00:27:51.000How do you get rich in a socialist country?
00:27:54.000You lie, you cheat, you steal, and you run for public office.
00:28:13.000Now, if you reconcile that with Jesus saying that we must be productive and doing all that we can with what we're called for, I do believe that in the capitalist system, there are people that have amassed incredible amounts of wealth that have then given 95, 97% of all of it away to charity.
00:28:37.000The worst parts of their career are probably laying people off and firing them and going through lawsuits, all of which are horrible obstacles and barriers to creating a successful business.
00:29:06.000You look at the original Greek and Armamaic.
00:29:10.000Rich essentially means that of which who loves money, not that which who has money.
00:29:14.000If I remember correctly, it's Jesus Christ who spread the gospel with tax collectors and people that had a lot of money and saying you can do more than just amassing wealth.
00:29:25.000In fact, one of the gospels was written by a tax collector, Matthew Levi.
00:29:28.000If Jesus had that much disdain for that which people had wealth, why on earth would he associate with them or offer salvation?
00:29:36.000That which being said, in a free market system, you have the absolute freedom to have as much or as little wealth as you want.
00:29:43.000If you believe you can do a lot of good with employing 20,000 people and giving away billions of dollars, look no further than this university that is doing so much good for the advancement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
00:29:57.000But a lot of this was contributed by millionaires and billionaires that were very successful in the free enterprise system that voluntarily gave back and now have helped thousands of people better understand Jesus Christ.
00:30:08.000That's only possible in a free market system, isn't it?
00:30:52.000So for example, someone that might be an atheist that is worth $8 billion, that has hated Jesus Christ his whole life and hated God in a moment's notice can turn that $8 billion that he might have done horrible things to get into good instantaneously.
00:31:06.000Because that money is completely transactional.
00:31:20.000We know this as Christians, and God talks about it throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, and how we reconcile and how we deal with these great horrors.
00:31:29.000Which economic system is that with which you can do the most amount of good with the worst parts of human nature?
00:31:35.000And that is no, look no further than free market capitalism.
00:31:39.000So a little bit more about myself, then I'd love to open it up for some questions.
00:31:42.000I'm a strong, committed evangelical Christian.
00:31:45.000I believe God wrote a perfect book through the perfect delivery of his son, Jesus Christ.
00:31:51.000You look at the fulfillment of the prophecies, the authenticity of the gospels, the perfection of the scriptures.
00:31:59.000You can go through a system of questions.
00:32:09.000And then finally, who, if not when, have those prophecies been fulfilled?
00:32:16.000And what evidence do we have for that?
00:32:18.000If you were to look at a chart of what scriptures in human history have been the most copied and have been the most authenticated, you look at Homer's Odyssey, for example.
00:32:40.000There is over 600,000 times more scriptures and copies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
00:32:47.000You could stack it all the way up the top of the ceiling, the scriptures versus the Odyssey of Homer.
00:32:53.000Point being is that there's a ton of evidence to show that as early as AD 60, which is when the first gospel was written, of course the Gospel of Mark and then Matthew in the 80s and then Luke in the 90s and then John came a little bit after that.
00:33:09.000These were accounts of eyewitness testimony of the accounts of Jesus.
00:33:13.000So people say, Charlie, why are you a Christian?
00:33:19.000And I say all the time, actually, I'm an objective Christian, which means I've gone through highly analytical thinking and historical searching.
00:33:43.000We see God revealing himself through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Judges, 12 Kings all the way through the Old Testament, through the major and minor prophets.
00:33:50.000But then finally, you see a fulfillment of that prophecy throughout Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
00:33:56.000And you see eyewitness account throughout the letters of Paul, and you see the eyewitness account throughout Acts.
00:34:04.000So you have to ask yourself a series of questions, those of you that might not be a Christian, or those of you that might be on the fence.
00:34:09.000First and foremost, who in a 2,000 years ago, who in that world would have voluntarily died unless they actually would have believed this stuff?
00:34:20.000Every single follower of Jesus Christ died at the stake to their very death, saying that Jesus Christ was everything that he said he was.
00:34:29.000Some were crucified on the cross, some were crucified upside down, some were in the most horrific deaths you could possibly imagine.
00:34:35.000And there's account after account after account.
00:34:37.000Paul tells us, and it's reinforced throughout the Gospel of John, that there were over 500 eyewitnesses that saw Jesus Christ after his death.
00:34:43.000There's a great book called The Case for Christ.
00:35:24.000Because it's impossible to conjure that.
00:35:27.000Secondly, you look at people that even saw Jesus after he was risen from the dead and touched him and saw him.
00:35:33.000Some of them still couldn't believe what their eyes were showing them until they were actually able to feel the scars on his hands.
00:35:40.000And that, of course, is our friend doubting Thomas, who did not believe it until he actually felt it and saw it.
00:35:46.000And finally, from a very logical perspective, we have four independently written books: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all within 80 years, 50 years, if you count the beginning of the writing of the Gospels, of the life of Jesus Christ, that from different perspectives reinforce the same story without any contradictions, plus or minus very minor theological inconsistencies.
00:36:08.000If any of you want to challenge me on that, there's notes I have just in case.
00:36:12.000But the point being is that if I was an FBI investigator and I had four different eyewitnesses all saying similar but not different things, that's a pretty clear and convincing case to hold up the original thesis, which Jesus Christ died and then rose again.
00:37:18.000And he then, of course, wrote the original letters which formed the early church.
00:37:22.000If you look at why Christianity continues to be under attack, Jesus Christ talks about persecution.
00:37:28.000It's talked about many times in the scriptures.
00:37:30.000But if you look at the Bible, no other book has had so much impact in such a short period of time, despite the enemies trying to destroy it, despite people trying to inauthenticate it.
00:37:40.000And the more excavation and the more archaeological evidence that we find, the more evidence we find for the Bible.
00:37:47.000There's only been 2%, 2% of all archaeological sites in the Middle East have been fully excavated.
00:37:55.000As we search for more, as we search for more, just more and more of this evidence is going to continue to be upheld.
00:38:00.000Up until the 1930s, people said, oh, there's a lot of inconsistencies.
00:38:04.000And then, of course, in the 1940s, we found the Dead Sea Scrolls, which then showed even more reinforcements of the biblical authenticity of what we as Christians hold to be true.
00:38:15.000So, as someone who I consider to be a fact-based logical thinker, it's not blind faith to follow Christianity.
00:38:22.000We're not just walking blindly into this.
00:38:28.000We have logical reasons for why individuals make certain decisions.
00:38:32.000And you look at it all composed together, you say, God wrote a book, God sent a son to save us all from our sins, and that is why I'm a Christian, and those of us that are Christians are as well.