The Charlie Kirk Show - Speeches From the Archive- Charlie's 2017 Speech at GCU

00:00:03.000 My name is Charlie Kirk.

00:00:05.000 I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic.

00:00:11.000 My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth.

00:00:14.000 If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable.

00:00:19.000 But if the most important thing is doing good, you'll end up purposeful.

00:00:24.000 College is a scam, everybody.

00:00:26.000 You got to stop sending your kids to college.

00:00:27.000 You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible.

00:00:31.000 Go start a Turning Point USA college chapter.

00:00:33.000 Go start a Turning Point USA high school chapter.

00:00:35.000 Go find out how your church can get involved.

00:00:37.000 Sign up and become an activist.

00:00:39.000 I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade.

00:00:41.000 Most important decision I ever made in my life.

00:00:43.000 And I encourage you to do the same.

00:00:45.000 Here I am.

00:00:46.000 Lord, use me.

00:00:48.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:49.000 Here we go.

00:00:56.000 The 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.

00:01:09.000 So it's a pleasure to be here tonight.

00:01:12.000 You know, I just was here a couple weeks ago with Andrew and our field team here in Arizona.

00:01:18.000 And we were talking about, you know, the group here at Grand Canyon and as it was growing.

00:01:23.000 And we wanted to definitely do an event here because I was in town for a debate tomorrow at ASU.

00:01:30.000 But we said, well, Grand Canyon University is a Christian university.

00:01:33.000 And Turning Point USA is a growing student movement fighting for free markets and capitalism.

00:01:39.000 And I hear all the time these horrible misconceptions that in order to be a Christian, you must be a socialist.

00:01:46.000 And in order to be, it's this horrible thing.

00:01:48.000 And so I said, why don't I give a speech and kind of articulate the Christian case for capitalism?

00:01:55.000 And I talk about it here and there.

00:01:56.000 I've talked about it, some of our summits and some of our conferences.

00:02:00.000 And it's something I think we need to talk more about because it's theologically and biblically sound.

00:02:06.000 And we shouldn't have to stray away from us, you know, conservative capitalists.

00:02:11.000 It's completely compatible with a Christian worldview.

00:02:14.000 So I look forward to talking about it and talking about it from my personal perspective.

00:02:19.000 Obviously, Turning Point USA, we are not a religious organization, but we have a lot of Christians in our organization.

00:02:25.000 So 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.

00:02:35.000 So 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.

00:02:41.000 It's been quite a journey.

00:02:42.000 We're now on 1,200 college and high school campuses across the country, hosting amazing events.

00:02:47.000 Hope to see you all at the Student Action Summit coming up in a couple weeks.

00:02:51.000 I was born and raised in a Christian household, but really in recent years became more and more engaged with the faith and the walk.

00:03:00.000 And so let's define first two terms just so everyone is clear in case there's any misunderstanding.

00:03:08.000 So first, what does it mean?

00:03:09.000 What do I mean, a Christian case for capitalism, Christianity? 0.93

00:03:13.000 So 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.

00:03:30.000 And through His perfect life and perfect sacrifice, He atoned the sins of humanity.

00:03:35.000 And 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.

00:03:45.000 We know this through the book that God wrote.

00:03:48.000 God 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.

00:04:11.000 So we know this through the Bible, which of course is incredibly important in Christianity.

00:04:15.000 There's lots of different types of Christianity.

00:04:17.000 We know it, of course, through Episcopal, Presbyterian, Protestant, Catholicism, but the kind of the belief that what is the center point of Christianity.

00:04:25.000 Of course, there would be no Christianity without what? 0.99

00:04:26.000 Jesus Christ.

00:04:27.000 So I'm going to focus a lot of my talk there.

00:04:29.000 So that is what we're going to talk about with Christianity.

00:04:32.000 Then capitalism.

00:04:32.000 What does capitalism mean?

00:04:33.000 A lot of misconceptions around that.

00:04:35.000 We 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.

00:04:47.000 Essentially, economic freedom, being able to take a risk as you see fit as long as you're not harming someone else.

00:04:52.000 Capitalism can be broken into really the three P's as we call it.

00:04:55.000 Prices, profit, and private property.

00:04:58.000 So the price system matters.

00:05:00.000 Government should not get in the business of setting prices arbitrarily.

00:05:04.000 Profit matters.

00:05:05.000 In order for things to get better, businesses have to turn a profit.

00:05:08.000 In 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.

00:05:15.000 They might have sold it for $9, but their all-in costs might have been $3.25.

00:05:19.000 Therefore, 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.

00:05:30.000 And finally, private property, the capacity for individuals to be able to own stuff.

00:05:35.000 You 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.

00:05:42.000 The 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.

00:05:52.000 This 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.

00:06:05.000 Look no further than Venezuela, when in the late 1990s the government decided just to take away all the private property of oil and gas.

00:06:12.000 They took over all the oil industry, government subsidized it and nationalized it.

00:06:16.000 Nationalized means government ownership of property.

00:06:19.000 The private industry went away.

00:06:20.000 Government then ran it very poorly.

00:06:23.000 And as you've seen in recent years, that is not working very well in Venezuela.

00:06:28.000 So what is then the Christian case for capitalism now that we have defined our terms?

00:06:35.000 Well, 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.

00:06:49.000 You 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.

00:06:58.000 Capitalism advocates for individuals to be able to pursue their own self-interest as they see fit.

00:07:04.000 Which I think then comes down to two fundamental questions that I always argue with people on the left or socialists.

00:07:10.000 And this actually is a question that, if you are a Christian, we have answers to.

00:07:15.000 Two fundamental questions.

00:07:16.000 Number one, are people good?

00:07:18.000 Yes or no?

00:07:19.000 And are people perfectible?

00:07:22.000 Those are the two questions that we must become, we have to have answers to.

00:07:22.000 Yes or no.

00:07:27.000 Number one, are people good?

00:07:28.000 If you're a Christian and you've read this book a little bit, you know that no, people are not good. 0.92

00:07:33.000 We are broken by nature.

00:07:35.000 We are infested with sin and that God is holy and perfect and we are anything but that.

00:07:42.000 Sin is the distance from God.

00:07:44.000 It is the separation from that which is perfect, and we are anything but that.

00:07:50.000 Therefore, we should not look to government or a state or a central agency to try to perfect our imperfections.

00:07:56.000 So that's number one.

00:07:57.000 Number two, are people perfectible?

00:07:59.000 Are people good?

00:08:00.000 And then are people perfectible?

00:08:01.000 I say absolutely not.

00:08:02.000 And the Bible shows that as well.

00:08:05.000 No matter how much central planning, government programs, or experts get in a room together, you cannot perfect human nature.

00:08:11.000 People are inherently selfish.

00:08:13.000 People are inherently fallen.

00:08:15.000 Look no different than why we have to teach goodness to young children.

00:08:20.000 How many times do you have to tell a three or four year old, say thank you, say thank you.

00:08:23.000 If people were good, wouldn't generosity be an inherent human virtue or value?

00:08:27.000 We have to treat goodness.

00:08:29.000 Look no different.

00:08:30.000 Look no further than the Ten Commandments that lay out morality at the most basis point.

00:08:34.000 Do not covet, do not steal, do not cheat, do not lie, do not commit adultery.

00:08:40.000 Human nature goes against every single one of those 10 tenets as we know it.

00:08:44.000 So then we must ask ourselves the next natural question.

00:08:46.000 If 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?

00:08:58.000 And the answer to that is capitalism.

00:09:00.000 Because 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.

00:09:09.000 For 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.

00:09:24.000 For 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.

00:09:34.000 Mark Zuckerberg is another great example.

00:09:37.000 Mark 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.

00:09:45.000 So if I had to boil it down to two words, when you think of capitalism, I think of freedom.

00:09:50.000 When I think of socialism, I think of force.

00:09:54.000 Capitalism is about the ability to make the decisions as you see fit, free of government intrusion, which comes to a very important point.

00:10:02.000 In a capitalist free market system, you can live freely as a socialist if you want to.

00:10:07.000 Look no further than the Christian Amish in Pennsylvania. 0.54

00:10:10.000 They live as socialists, peacefully, and they live however they see fit.

00:10:16.000 I'm not getting in their way and no one else is.

00:10:18.000 Because in a free market capitalist system, you have the freedom to be able to pursue the life that you see fit.

00:10:23.000 Now, in a socialist system, can you live freely as a capitalist?

00:10:27.000 Absolutely not.

00:10:28.000 They'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.

00:10:35.000 So socialism is about force.

00:10:39.000 We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries.

00:10:42.000 And today, I want to point you to their podcast.

00:10:44.000 It's called Culture in Christianity, the Alan Jackson Podcast.

00:10:48.000 What makes it unique is Pastor Alan's biblical perspective.

00:10:51.000 He takes the truth from the Bible and applies it to issues we're facing today.

00:10:55.000 Gender confusion, abortion, immigration, Doge, Trump in the White House, issues in the church.

00:11:00.000 He doesn't just discuss the problems.

00:11:02.000 In every episode, he gives practical things we can do to make a difference.

00:11:06.000 His guests have incredible expertise and powerful testimonies.

00:11:09.000 They've been great friends.

00:11:10.000 And now you can hear from Charlie in his own words.

00:11:12.000 Each episode will make you recognize the power of your faith and how God can use your life to impact our world today.

00:11:19.000 The Culture and Christianity podcast is informative and encouraging.

00:11:22.000 You could find it on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:11:26.000 Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes.

00:11:28.000 Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to bring biblical truth back into our culture.

00:11:33.000 You can find out more about Pastor Allen and the ministry at alanjackson.com forward slash Charlie.

00:11:41.000 So the Bible, especially through Jesus' teaching, I would say teaches us to be five things.

00:11:46.000 And this is the Christian case for capitalism. 0.95

00:11:48.000 Altruistic, generous, productive, cheerful, and loving.

00:11:51.000 Would we agree that we as Christians are called to those five things?

00:11:53.000 That is by no means an exhaustive list.

00:11:56.000 We could name all the fruits of the Spirit.

00:11:58.000 We could name all the other, so we could be here all day.

00:12:01.000 All right, so I picked those five for a particular reason because I believe all five of those have strong evidence that capitalism reinforces.

00:12:09.000 Altruistic, generous, productive, cheerful, loving.

00:12:11.000 Altruistic.

00:12:12.000 Well, as we see in the Bible, Jesus says many times, give unto others more than unto yourself.

00:12:18.000 Jesus also talks about many times throughout the Gospels, not to be proclamation, essentially, when you give.

00:12:25.000 If you are going to be generous, you are going to be altruistic.

00:12:28.000 Do so in private and do so in secret.

00:12:30.000 Generous.

00:12:31.000 Luke 6:34 talks about the generous spirit.

00:12:34.000 Of course, we have 2 Corinthians 3.17, which is my favorite verse in the entire Bible, which says what?

00:12:39.000 God loves a cheerful giver.

00:12:41.000 It says all throughout the New Testament the capacity and the ability to be generous.

00:12:45.000 And in fact, we are instructed to be generous.

00:12:47.000 We're instructed to give away our fruits of our labor.

00:12:50.000 Now, in order to give away fruits of your labor, you have to have fruits of your labor.

00:12:53.000 You have to make something to give something away.

00:12:55.000 We 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.

00:13:02.000 In a socialist system, as Maggie Thatcher famously said, the problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money.

00:13:09.000 You deter the entire incentive structure.

00:13:11.000 So 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.

00:13:16.000 Again, look at Venezuela.

00:13:18.000 I don't think they have very good intentions, but they might be as generous as they want to be.

00:13:21.000 Eventually, you're going to run out of stuff that which to give.

00:13:24.000 Which again goes to the third thing which Christ calls us to do, which is to be productive.

00:13:29.000 Jesus Christ talked for Christians to be highly productive people.

00:13:33.000 Now 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? 0.64

00:13:50.000 Relevant parable that Jesus taught us.

00:13:53.000 So 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.

00:14:06.000 He gave one talent, another one two, and another one three.

00:14:10.000 And essentially, the person that had one hid it, did nothing with that talent, hid it under a rock.

00:14:15.000 And essentially, the owner said, come back to me in a certain period of time and tell me what you've done with your money.

00:14:20.000 The second person invested it a little bit, made a little bit of multiplication, productivity upon that which was given.

00:14:26.000 And the final person made in a huge abundance, he essentially was very productive and multiplied the gift that which he was given.

00:14:33.000 Essentially 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?

00:14:47.000 And more than that, it was really condemnation.

00:14:52.000 You did not multiply.

00:14:53.000 You did nothing with that which was given.

00:14:55.000 And 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.

00:15:05.000 Essentially, those who are given are expected to produce.

00:15:10.000 To those who have been given, very much is expected.

00:15:12.000 And you see in the parable of the talents that Jesus Christ tells us that you have to do something with your life.

00:15:18.000 That sitting around and just doing nothing.

00:15:21.000 And 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.

00:15:33.000 Being productive, being entrepreneurial, and being relevant In an economic system, it has a lot of different applications as well.

00:15:42.000 Also, finally, cheerful and loving.

00:15:44.000 God loves a cheerful giver, as we see in 2 Corinthians, as Paul wrote, 2 Corinthians 3:17, and also loving.

00:15:50.000 Jesus Christ talked about the need to be loving.

00:15:52.000 But why do I mention those five things in particular?

00:15:54.000 And I'll get to one other example.

00:15:56.000 Because in a capitalist system, the most economically free countries in the world are the most generous.

00:16:03.000 They look out to their fellow neighbor the most.

00:16:05.000 They are the most productive.

00:16:07.000 and they look and they have the highest engagement of church going rates, so on and so forth.

00:16:12.000 So for example, America last year voluntarily gave away $400 billion to charity.

00:16:17.000 Think about how much money that is.

00:16:18.000 $400 billion away voluntarily to charity.

00:16:22.000 If you go to Europe, they don't even understand the concept of private charity.

00:16:25.000 Government just takes care of everything.

00:16:27.000 There's government programs for this, government services for that.

00:16:30.000 Private charity is a very, very difficult concept for Europeans to wrap their heads around.

00:16:36.000 There's a reason why there is declining church attendance in France and in Germany and Spain or Portugal.

00:16:42.000 There's a reason why the church is not doing very well throughout most of Europe.

00:16:47.000 And the reason is that as a society grows government, it becomes more secular.

00:16:52.000 So 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.

00:17:02.000 Now 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?

00:17:10.000 Anyone heard this before?

00:17:11.000 Anyone heard this once or twice?

00:17:12.000 We're going to have a fun conversation with this.

00:17:14.000 But before I do, I want to talk about a couple proverbs, which I think are very relevant.

00:17:19.000 So 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.

00:17:29.000 You might say, what are you talking about?

00:17:30.000 The price system.

00:17:32.000 Well, there's a parable, the parable of the vineyard workers.

00:17:34.000 Anyone know this parable?

00:17:36.000 Maybe heard about it?

00:17:37.000 Essentially, it could be applied to a lot of different things, mind you.

00:17:40.000 The more widely accepted application is the acceptance into the kingdom of heaven.

00:17:45.000 But 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.

00:17:57.000 He realized there was a lot of work left to be done.

00:18:00.000 And so what do we know?

00:18:01.000 That 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.

00:18:06.000 So he hired more workers for half a day's work for the same currency that he hired someone earlier in the day.

00:18:11.000 And then the guy that's been working all day said, this is not fair.

00:18:14.000 I mean, I've been working all day and now I'm earning the same as the guy that's coming in at the end.

00:18:18.000 And then the owner finally says, who are you to question?

00:18:20.000 I'm giving you exactly what I'm telling I'm going to give you.

00:18:22.000 In economics, we call that as, you know, not necessarily price gouging.

00:18:27.000 We call that as, you know, paying for what you need when you need it.

00:18:30.000 So 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.

00:18:39.000 So anyway, you could use that parable to reinforce the price system.

00:18:45.000 So finally, Proverbs 12, 11, I love this proverb.

00:18:50.000 Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies have no sense.

00:18:55.000 And then finally, Proverbs 12, 24, diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in forced labor. 0.84

00:18:55.000 I love that. 0.84

00:19:01.000 I can't help but think about how Europe takes the whole month of August when I read that, right?

00:19:05.000 These socialist countries, they don't like to work.

00:19:07.000 Work is somehow a diminished thing.

00:19:10.000 It's something that they try to get away from.

00:19:11.000 Yet we see throughout the entire Bible that work is actually an important component, being productive, giving back in your personal capacity.

00:19:19.000 Now finally, was Jesus a socialist?

00:19:22.000 This is something that I think is widely misrepresented, and I hear this a lot.

00:19:26.000 In 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. 0.85

00:19:37.000 And then I saw another meme by Occupy Democrats, and they're a bunch of dishonest people. 0.98

00:19:41.000 Unbelievable. 0.99

00:19:44.000 So dishonest.

00:19:45.000 They were saying, Bernie Sanders, he's a carpenter.

00:19:48.000 He's Jewish.

00:19:50.000 He's starting a movement.

00:19:51.000 He's similar to Jesus.

00:19:52.000 I said, no, if anything's blasphemy, that is blasphemy.

00:19:55.000 Give me a break.

00:19:56.000 I mean, that is just unbelievable.

00:19:58.000 So, wow, I mean, comparing Bernie Sanders to the Savior of the world.

00:20:02.000 Wow.

00:20:03.000 So, first and foremost, mind you, I'm going to be very, very precise and careful here.

00:20:09.000 First and foremost, in my perspective, and I would guess to most people in this room, Jesus Christ was the Savior of the world.

00:20:14.000 He was not really distracted with petty partisan politics.

00:20:18.000 If 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.

00:20:29.000 Now, mind you, I want you to put yourselves into the foots of Jesus of Nazareth. 0.98

00:20:33.000 You have 12 disciples, you are doing healings, you are converting water to wine, you're feeding the 5,000.

00:20:40.000 How easy would it have been to have started a political movement?

00:20:44.000 Now, 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.

00:20:59.000 Muhammad took over territories and cut people's heads off. 1.00

00:21:03.000 Muhammad Gandhi, great guy, was through politics trying to come about change.

00:21:07.000 Martin Luther King, so on and so forth.

00:21:09.000 Jesus 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.

00:21:20.000 That's what, first and foremost, makes him so unique when it talks about politics.

00:21:24.000 Now, we can talk about some of his teachings here, but first and foremost, Jesus Christ was so focused on the individual.

00:21:32.000 He was anything but talking about what would be best as a collective for governmental policy.

00:21:38.000 Now, 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.

00:21:50.000 And 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.

00:22:00.000 And he did not talk about what we should do, but he said what you should do.

00:22:04.000 And you should.

00:22:05.000 He focused on the individual.

00:22:07.000 Now, socialism is anything but that.

00:22:09.000 Socialism is force.

00:22:11.000 Socialism is not the seeking a better life.

00:22:14.000 Socialism is involuntary central planning and government ownership of property.

00:22:20.000 You can't opt out of socialism.

00:22:22.000 Socialist groups cannot tolerate groups that love freedom, which is anything but what Jesus talked about.

00:22:27.000 Jesus was a lover of just that, of freedom.

00:22:31.000 Now, 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.

00:22:49.000 Now, 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.

00:23:03.000 All of which I totally and completely agree with.

00:23:06.000 But he talked about people helping people, not government programs helping people, right?

00:23:11.000 He 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?

00:23:21.000 In the story of the Good Samaritan.

00:23:23.000 Jesus did not say write a letter to Caesar and demand stronger social planning.

00:23:29.000 Jesus did not advocate for single-payer health care.

00:23:33.000 Instead, he said, when you see someone in need, do everything you can to help that person.

00:23:38.000 Now, we go back to what capitalism believes.

00:23:41.000 Isn'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?

00:23:49.000 Not 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.

00:24:03.000 We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries, and today I want to point you to their podcast.

00:24:08.000 It's called Culture in Christianity, the Allen Jackson Podcast.

00:24:12.000 What makes it unique is Pastor Allen's biblical perspective.

00:24:16.000 He 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.

00:24:24.000 He doesn't just discuss the problems.

00:24:26.000 In every episode, he gives practical things we can do to make a difference.

00:24:30.000 His guests have incredible expertise and powerful testimonies.

00:24:34.000 They've been great friends.

00:24:35.000 And now you can hear from Charlie in his own words.

00:24:37.000 Each episode will make you recognize the power of your faith and how God can use your life to impact our world today.

00:24:43.000 The Culture and Christianity podcast is informative and encouraging.

00:24:47.000 You could find it on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:24:50.000 Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes.

00:24:52.000 Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to bring biblical truth back into our culture.

00:24:57.000 You can find out more about Pastor Allen and the ministry at alanjackson.com forward slash Charlie.

00:25:06.000 Forceful redistribution of wealth by government.

00:25:08.000 Jesus never called for wealth inequality.

00:25:11.000 And 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.

00:25:21.000 And he says, my father just died and my brother is getting all the inheritance.

00:25:25.000 Isn't it fair to divide it up equally?

00:25:28.000 Now, Jesus, being God and being the Son of God, could have easily said, absolutely.

00:25:33.000 He could have waved his hand and said, I command you, you must split it equally and said, what did he say?

00:25:37.000 Who am I to judge who gets what and how you get it?

00:25:41.000 He wasn't worried about material wealth.

00:25:43.000 He was, in fact, worried about the love of wealth.

00:25:45.000 We'll get to that in a second, which is very, very important.

00:25:47.000 But he was not worried about the distribution of that wealth.

00:25:51.000 In fact, he kind of rejected it.

00:25:53.000 He shrugged his shoulders.

00:25:54.000 The famous quote that people use is, well, Jesus was very sympathetic to governing bodies.

00:26:00.000 No, the evidence they'll use is render unto Caesar's what is Caesar's.

00:26:04.000 Correct.

00:26:05.000 He kind of shrugged his shoulders and said, pay your taxes, do what you're supposed to do.

00:26:09.000 He did not say start a political revolution based on my teaching and then forcibly make people believe what they should believe.

00:26:17.000 Instead, 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.

00:26:29.000 Essentially, 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.

00:26:38.000 Because if you say that, essentially you're saying it's not my problem.

00:26:41.000 Someone else must take care of it.

00:26:44.000 We're taught the exact opposite through Jesus' teaching and Jesus' life. 0.53

00:26:48.000 So was Jesus socialist?

00:26:49.000 Well, you also look at other examples.

00:26:52.000 The parable the talents talked about, the workers in the vineyard.

00:26:56.000 We also talk about the golden rule.

00:26:57.000 What is the golden rule?

00:26:58.000 Anyone?

00:26:59.000 Anyone?

00:26:59.000 What is the golden rule?

00:27:00.000 We all know it.

00:27:00.000 Do you want to know this?

00:27:01.000 Right.

00:27:02.000 Do unto others as you would like to have done unto yourself, right?

00:27:05.000 Well, I would make actually a very strong argument that capitalism reinforces the need for a golden rule.

00:27:11.000 And you might say, how on earth is that possible?

00:27:13.000 Well, what is trade?

00:27:15.000 Well, 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.

00:27:24.000 And 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.

00:27:35.000 And that is why you see, throughout the time of human history, goods and services get better.

00:27:40.000 That's why you see, you know, in a free market, things get faster, better, and cheaper quite quickly.

00:27:46.000 And only in the golden rule, treat others as you would like to be treated.

00:27:51.000 How do you get rich in a socialist country?

00:27:54.000 You lie, you cheat, you steal, and you run for public office.

00:27:57.000 Right?

00:27:58.000 That's doing unto others how you don't want to do it unto yourself.

00:28:01.000 You amass as much political power as you possibly can.

00:28:04.000 Now you might say, Charlie, but getting rich is something that Jesus directly talked about against.

00:28:10.000 He did have some very strong teaching about the love of wealth.

00:28:10.000 Correct.

00:28:13.000 Now, 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.

00:28:28.000 They did not love that wealth.

00:28:30.000 They might have enjoyed building a business and helping other people and employing a lot of people.

00:28:35.000 And you talk to those individuals.

00:28:37.000 The 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.

00:28:45.000 But those people did not love wealth.

00:28:47.000 There's people with almost no money that love wealth.

00:28:51.000 Think about that.

00:28:52.000 And there's some people with a lot of money.

00:28:53.000 It's the least important thing in their life.

00:28:56.000 But Jesus talked about the love of wealth.

00:28:58.000 It's harder for a rich person to get into heaven than what?

00:29:01.000 a camel through the eye of a needle, essentially, right?

00:29:04.000 Is that the right?

00:29:05.000 Yeah, okay.

00:29:05.000 You looked...

00:29:06.000 You look at the original Greek and Armamaic.

00:29:10.000 Rich essentially means that of which who loves money, not that which who has money.

00:29:14.000 If 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.

00:29:25.000 In fact, one of the gospels was written by a tax collector, Matthew Levi.

00:29:28.000 If Jesus had that much disdain for that which people had wealth, why on earth would he associate with them or offer salvation?

00:29:36.000 That which being said, in a free market system, you have the absolute freedom to have as much or as little wealth as you want.

00:29:43.000 If 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.

00:29:57.000 But 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.

00:30:08.000 That's only possible in a free market system, isn't it?

00:30:10.000 Because in order to get what?

00:30:12.000 In order to give away, you must create.

00:30:15.000 The other arguments I hear of why Jesus is a socialist, I think, fall flat on their face.

00:30:22.000 You see in 1 Timothy 6.10, the love of money is the root of all the evil.

00:30:26.000 The key word is love of money.

00:30:28.000 When Paul wrote that letter, it's very important to realize that it's not actually having money.

00:30:35.000 Money is nothing more than what?

00:30:36.000 It is a representation of value.

00:30:39.000 It is what you do with that money.

00:30:40.000 Money has no morality.

00:30:42.000 As socialists, I would disagree with the socialists.

00:30:44.000 Money doesn't have a conscience.

00:30:46.000 Money doesn't have morality.

00:30:48.000 Money doesn't have a decision.

00:30:49.000 It's what you do with it.

00:30:51.000 It's a utility.

00:30:52.000 So 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. 0.54

00:31:06.000 Because that money is completely transactional.

00:31:09.000 It knows no morality.

00:31:10.000 It just, it holds, it's an asset value.

00:31:12.000 It's an asset holder that you can immediately and instantaneously.

00:31:15.000 So what am I saying is that there will always be good and evil in the world.

00:31:18.000 And we know this, right?

00:31:20.000 We 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.

00:31:29.000 Which economic system is that with which you can do the most amount of good with the worst parts of human nature?

00:31:35.000 And that is no, look no further than free market capitalism.

00:31:39.000 So a little bit more about myself, then I'd love to open it up for some questions.

00:31:42.000 I'm a strong, committed evangelical Christian.

00:31:45.000 I believe God wrote a perfect book through the perfect delivery of his son, Jesus Christ.

00:31:51.000 You look at the fulfillment of the prophecies, the authenticity of the gospels, the perfection of the scriptures.

00:31:59.000 You can go through a system of questions.

00:32:01.000 Do you believe there's a God?

00:32:02.000 Yes or no?

00:32:03.000 That's the first question.

00:32:04.000 Then when has God revealed himself throughout human history?

00:32:07.000 Pretty good evidence of that here.

00:32:09.000 And then finally, who, if not when, have those prophecies been fulfilled?

00:32:16.000 And what evidence do we have for that?

00:32:18.000 If 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.

00:32:31.000 Anyone, you knew Homer's Odyssey?

00:32:33.000 Do we spend time in classrooms debating whether or not Homer's Odyssey was really his words and not his words?

00:32:39.000 Of course not.

00:32:40.000 There is over 600,000 times more scriptures and copies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

00:32:47.000 You could stack it all the way up the top of the ceiling, the scriptures versus the Odyssey of Homer.

00:32:53.000 Point 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.

00:33:09.000 These were accounts of eyewitness testimony of the accounts of Jesus.

00:33:13.000 So people say, Charlie, why are you a Christian?

00:33:15.000 Why do you actually believe this?

00:33:16.000 This is a bunch of fairy tales, right?

00:33:18.000 This really doesn't exist.

00:33:19.000 And I say all the time, actually, I'm an objective Christian, which means I've gone through highly analytical thinking and historical searching.

00:33:26.000 I'm by no means a theological expert.

00:33:28.000 There's a lot of smarter people than that.

00:33:30.000 But people ask me all the time, why do you believe what you believe?

00:33:32.000 So I'm going to entertain me for five minutes.

00:33:34.000 So I believe there's a God.

00:33:34.000 I'll tell you what.

00:33:36.000 And when did God reveal himself throughout human history?

00:33:38.000 And what evidence do we have for that?

00:33:39.000 And that, of course, is in the Bible.

00:33:41.000 We see the law of the prophets.

00:33:43.000 We 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.

00:33:50.000 But then finally, you see a fulfillment of that prophecy throughout Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

00:33:56.000 And you see eyewitness account throughout the letters of Paul, and you see the eyewitness account throughout Acts.

00:34:04.000 So 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.

00:34:09.000 First 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?

00:34:20.000 Every single follower of Jesus Christ died at the stake to their very death, saying that Jesus Christ was everything that he said he was.

00:34:27.000 He did the miracles that he said.

00:34:29.000 Some were crucified on the cross, some were crucified upside down, some were in the most horrific deaths you could possibly imagine.

00:34:35.000 And there's account after account after account.

00:34:37.000 Paul tells us, and it's reinforced throughout the Gospel of John, that there were over 500 eyewitnesses that saw Jesus Christ after his death.

00:34:43.000 There's a great book called The Case for Christ.

00:34:45.000 If you haven't read it, please do.

00:34:46.000 There's a good movie as well.

00:34:48.000 The whole center of this whole book, if you want to debunk this whole thing, is if you can debunk the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

00:34:54.000 That's the whole thing.

00:34:55.000 Did Jesus rise from the dead?

00:34:56.000 Yes or no?

00:34:57.000 And that's the whole question.

00:34:58.000 So if you were trying to create a great fiction about Jesus Christ, would you have your first eyewitnesses be women?

00:35:04.000 No.

00:35:05.000 What are you kidding me? 0.63

00:35:06.000 You'd be crazy to do that, right?

00:35:08.000 And 2,000 years ago, you would have women be your best expert witness testimony? 0.53

00:35:13.000 No.

00:35:14.000 You would have some well-to-do rich guy that would come up and be very, very credible.

00:35:20.000 No, but they had women. 0.95

00:35:21.000 Now, why would no one would make that stuff up?

00:35:23.000 That's why.

00:35:24.000 Because it's impossible to conjure that.

00:35:27.000 Secondly, you look at people that even saw Jesus after he was risen from the dead and touched him and saw him.

00:35:33.000 Some of them still couldn't believe what their eyes were showing them until they were actually able to feel the scars on his hands.

00:35:40.000 And that, of course, is our friend doubting Thomas, who did not believe it until he actually felt it and saw it.

00:35:46.000 And 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.

00:36:08.000 If any of you want to challenge me on that, there's notes I have just in case.

00:36:12.000 But 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.

00:36:33.000 The final thing is Paul.

00:36:34.000 I think Paul is one of the greatest arguments for Christianity.

00:36:38.000 Paul was a well-to-do Jewish Roman.

00:36:42.000 He went around persecuting Christians.

00:36:45.000 He went around persecuting the followers of Jesus Christ.

00:36:48.000 What advantage did this guy have to drop everything on the road to Emmaus and say, oh, actually, this guy was right all along.

00:36:55.000 I'm going to drop all my wealth, all my political connections.

00:36:58.000 I'm going to make a bunch of enemies, go to prison eight or nine times, get crucified, you know, upside down, write about it.

00:37:05.000 My whole family gets disbarred. 0.97

00:37:07.000 Everyone I know, some of them get killed.

00:37:09.000 What advantage on earth would that guy have to it unless he really believed this stuff?

00:37:14.000 And why would he actually believe it?

00:37:16.000 Well, I believe because it's true.

00:37:18.000 And he then, of course, wrote the original letters which formed the early church.

00:37:22.000 If you look at why Christianity continues to be under attack, Jesus Christ talks about persecution.

00:37:28.000 It's talked about many times in the scriptures.

00:37:30.000 But 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.

00:37:40.000 And the more excavation and the more archaeological evidence that we find, the more evidence we find for the Bible.

00:37:47.000 There's only been 2%, 2% of all archaeological sites in the Middle East have been fully excavated.

00:37:53.000 We have 98% left to go.

00:37:55.000 As we search for more, as we search for more, just more and more of this evidence is going to continue to be upheld.

00:38:00.000 Up until the 1930s, people said, oh, there's a lot of inconsistencies.

00:38:04.000 And 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.

00:38:15.000 So, as someone who I consider to be a fact-based logical thinker, it's not blind faith to follow Christianity.

00:38:22.000 We're not just walking blindly into this.

00:38:24.000 We appreciate history.

00:38:26.000 We appreciate human behavior.

00:38:28.000 We have logical reasons for why individuals make certain decisions.

00:38:32.000 And 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.

The Charlie Kirk Show - January 18, 2026

Speeches From the Archive- Charlie's 2017 Speech at GCU

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript