The Charlie Kirk Show - April 17, 2025


The Modern Left Fights For Foreign Gangbangers Instead of American Citizens


Episode Stats

Length

34 minutes

Words per Minute

147.13524

Word Count

5,059

Sentence Count

440

Misogynist Sentences

6

Hate Speech Sentences

23


Summary

The Democratic Party is fighting for foreign gangbangers, not American citizens, and then a really important conversation about the ancient roots of Christianity with Dr. Ken Calvert from Hillsdale College. The moral confusion of the left is one of the greatest things we can learn from Dennis Prager.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.
00:00:00.000 Charlie Kirk here, live from the Bitcoin.com studio.
00:00:04.000 Today on the Charlie Kirk Show, the broken moral compass of the left fighting for foreign gangbangers and not American citizens.
00:00:11.000 And then a really important conversation.
00:00:13.000 very important, about the ancient roots of Christianity.
00:00:16.000 This conversation we have with Dr. Ken Calvert from Hillsdale College.
00:00:20.000 Go to charlieforhillsdale.com.
00:00:22.000 That is charlieforhillsdale.com.
00:00:25.000 You could take their online courses there.
00:00:26.000 It's drkennethcalvert.com.
00:00:28.000 Did Easter just come from a pagan holiday?
00:00:31.000 Are there pagan roots to our faith?
00:00:33.000 He addresses all of that and more.
00:00:36.000 Christians even use the term Easter?
00:00:38.000 Very informative conversation.
00:00:39.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:00:41.000 And subscribe to our podcast.
00:00:43.000 Buckle up, everybody.
00:00:44.000 Here we go.
00:00:45.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:47.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
00:00:49.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
00:00:52.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
00:00:55.000 I want to thank Charlie.
00:00:57.000 He's an incredible guy.
00:00:58.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:01:06.000 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.
00:01:15.000 That's why we are here.
00:01:18.000 Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.
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00:01:34.000 That is noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:01:36.000 It's where I buy all of my gold.
00:01:39.000 Go to noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:01:43.000 It is Maude Thursday as well, which is Holy Thursday, the day that we remember the Last Supper, the Passover meal of Holy Week.
00:01:52.000 And so praying for all of you that are observing this Holy Week, we need to keep our eyes on the divine now more than ever.
00:02:00.000 You can email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to our podcast, The Moral Confusion of the Left.
00:02:07.000 The Moral Confusion of the Left is one of great...
00:02:13.000 The first person who taught me this is the legendary Dennis Prager.
00:02:18.000 He noticed it, let me put it that way.
00:02:20.000 Something that Dennis Prager would mention time and time again is how the Democrat Party would emphasize a tyrannical approach to things that do not matter and would ignore things that obviously do matter.
00:02:35.000 The Democrat Party will fight like none other to make sure that boys can go in female locker rooms.
00:02:41.000 The Democrat Party will go into the courtroom.
00:02:44.000 In fact, they will fly to foreign countries to fight for foreign gang members.
00:02:53.000 But for American citizens or for girls in locker rooms that want privacy, they're viewed as kind of an annoyance.
00:03:00.000 Like, why are you so outspoken?
00:03:02.000 What's the matter with you?
00:03:04.000 Why do you...
00:03:06.000 What do you want, rights?
00:03:08.000 You want attention?
00:03:10.000 This was on full display yesterday where you had the tale of two political parties.
00:03:15.000 One political party decided to go fly to El Salvador and get on their metaphorical hands and knees and beg for an illegal alien to be returned to the United States of America.
00:03:27.000 He's not a U.S. citizen.
00:03:29.000 In fact, I recently sat down with a prominent liberal who said, well, you know, this was a U.S. citizen.
00:03:35.000 No, he was not.
00:03:36.000 This is not a U.S. citizen.
00:03:40.000 This was an illegal alien who is awaiting deportation.
00:03:45.000 An illegal.
00:03:46.000 Also a wife abuser, just so we are clear.
00:03:49.000 Mr. Garcia.
00:03:52.000 So on one side, you have the Democrat Party that is acting as if this was just a random person scooped up off the side of the street and teleported down to El Salvador.
00:04:04.000 But that is what gets the Democrat Party so...
00:04:07.000 Fired up.
00:04:08.000 They will refuse to protect female sports.
00:04:12.000 The moral confusion left is one that we've all called anarcho-tyranny.
00:04:16.000 They want anarchy in the streets, but tyranny against political parties that they do not like.
00:04:22.000 The Democrat Party is now a party of 80-20 issues, which is why their approval rating is 21%, because they are on the 20% of all the issues.
00:04:34.000 Men and girls sports, illegals over Americans.
00:04:37.000 They're for deficit spending.
00:04:38.000 They're for an open border.
00:04:40.000 They're firebombing Teslas.
00:04:42.000 The Democrat Party right now, as fairly as I can make it, is to get MS-13 gang members out of prison and get biological boys into girls' locker rooms.
00:04:54.000 And yesterday, it broke the internet where the mother, the mother of Rachel Morin, showed up to the press briefing room.
00:05:05.000 The mother of Rachel Morin.
00:05:08.000 It was chills.
00:05:09.000 It was a surprise press conference, and it was a phenomenal contrast to the foreign-appeasing, terrorist-sympathizing Democrat Party.
00:05:23.000 It was an amazing spectacle what the White House put on display.
00:05:29.000 Here is one clip.
00:05:31.000 Harrison Fields...
00:05:32.000 Reports on what a USA Today reporter came up and told him.
00:05:37.000 Now, there was a lot of controversy around it.
00:05:40.000 I want to get to that, actually, secondly.
00:05:41.000 Let's begin with Cut 270.
00:05:44.000 Please tell the truth.
00:05:46.000 Exactly. Tell the truth.
00:05:48.000 Tell, like, how violent it really is.
00:05:51.000 This is about protecting our children.
00:05:56.000 It's more than just politics or votes.
00:06:01.000 Or just anything.
00:06:02.000 It's about national security, protecting Americans, protecting our children.
00:06:07.000 Thank you.
00:06:08.000 Thank you for listening.
00:06:10.000 Now that was her off the podium.
00:06:12.000 Very raw and emotional stuff.
00:06:15.000 I think her name is Patty Morin, if I'm not mistaken.
00:06:18.000 Patty. I actually got a chance to meet her at AmericaFest.
00:06:21.000 Very decent, wonderful woman.
00:06:23.000 We flew her out to AmericaFest to speak to our students about her daughter.
00:06:30.000 Who was murdered by an illegal alien, a mother of five, who never should have been in the interior of the United States.
00:06:36.000 Never should have been in the interior of the United States.
00:06:40.000 And they brought her right up to the press briefing room, the Trump White House team.
00:06:44.000 And she told the story.
00:06:47.000 And of course, they are trying their best to ignore it.
00:06:49.000 They would rather fly to El Salvador and get into the weeds to fight for yet another gangbanger.
00:06:56.000 And breaking news yesterday, guess what?
00:06:58.000 That Maryland father, Mr. Garcia, that Maryland father, turns out, more and more evidence shows that he was part of MS-13.
00:07:08.000 Let's play cut 263.
00:07:10.000 The Democrats and the media in this room have continually and wrongly labeled Kilmar Abrego Garcia as a Maryland father.
00:07:19.000 There is no Maryland father.
00:07:22.000 Let me reiterate, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an illegal alien, MS-13 gang member and foreign terrorist who was deported back to his home country.
00:07:33.000 Back to his home country.
00:07:35.000 Raised in El Salvador, from El Salvador.
00:07:40.000 And as a gang member, the moral confusion of the Democrat Party might be one of the great threats to the American homeland.
00:07:46.000 I mean that.
00:07:48.000 When you have a political party that will go make entire a spectacle, a political opportunity out of a foreign gang member.
00:08:01.000 Look, in the end, the immigration battle was always going to have a case like this.
00:08:06.000 The Democrats need symbols.
00:08:07.000 They need names.
00:08:08.000 They need George Floyd.
00:08:10.000 They need Michael Brown.
00:08:11.000 They were going to grab some deported person and cling on to them.
00:08:15.000 I just thought they were going to wait and hold their fire for someone that wasn't a gang member.
00:08:22.000 We need to have rock solid consistency.
00:08:26.000 People who came here illegally need to go back, period.
00:08:30.000 Just so happens they've decided to go all in for a wife-beating MS-13 gang.
00:08:39.000 Affiliated, kind of scum-of-the-earth guy, not a Maryland father.
00:08:44.000 And Americans agree.
00:08:46.000 When polled, Americans agree.
00:08:49.000 Here is Dartmouth's own Harry Enten, play cut 280.
00:08:54.000 Deport all undocumented immigrants.
00:08:56.000 Voters favoring the government trying to deport all 11 million of them.
00:09:01.000 Back in 2016, just 38% of voters wanted the government to try to deport.
00:09:06.000 All 11 million undocumented immigrants.
00:09:09.000 Compared to where we are in 2025, 56%, the majority, the American people have come a long way on this issue, much closer to Donald Trump.
00:09:18.000 And I think that's a big part of the reason why Americans are increasingly saying the country is on the right track when it comes to immigration policy and why Donald Trump's net approval rating on that issue is in the positive.
00:09:29.000 56% of Americans support what President Trump is doing with immigration.
00:09:36.000 We need to deport more people.
00:09:38.000 The numbers are looking good, but we got to get them up even more.
00:09:42.000 Doesn't matter what these judges say.
00:09:44.000 We're going to fight through all of it.
00:09:45.000 We are going to fight for the American people, what they voted for, not foreign MS-13 gang members.
00:09:54.000 Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here.
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00:10:54.000 The
00:10:57.000 The escalating violence of the American left, it's really something.
00:11:04.000 There is a new Substack page, and Blake flagged this for us, so Blake is going to help us navigate it.
00:11:10.000 And it is consistent with what else we're seeing.
00:11:13.000 The amount of death threats we are getting is increasing dramatically.
00:11:16.000 Campus security is overwhelmed when we go to some of these schools.
00:11:19.000 They're like, man, the amount of death threats we're getting?
00:11:22.000 It's almost too much for police to be able to even arrest all these people.
00:11:26.000 There's an Econ student at George Mason University.
00:11:29.000 Has over 1,000 subscribers.
00:11:31.000 So he's small, but he's not a nobody.
00:11:32.000 And he writes in his sub stack, when must we kill them?
00:11:38.000 This is an Econ student at George Mason.
00:11:41.000 Do you think he's going to be kicked out of school?
00:11:44.000 There was just another arrest of someone who was threatening to murder Tulsi and her family.
00:11:48.000 There's been multiple Trump assassins.
00:11:50.000 Someone said they were going to murder me last week.
00:11:52.000 It's part of the game.
00:11:53.000 If you are in the arena, if you are Teddy Roosevelt man in the arena, they're going to try to murder you and anybody near you.
00:12:01.000 It's part of the entire game.
00:12:02.000 So you just have to have security.
00:12:04.000 You've got to have weapons.
00:12:06.000 You've got to know what you're doing to defend yourself.
00:12:07.000 It is part of...
00:12:10.000 The new era that we are in.
00:12:11.000 But CNN says that it's...
00:12:13.000 I gotta replay that CNN.
00:12:15.000 Can we replay that CNN tape?
00:12:17.000 Of all the things that animate me, of the great libels, I have to say this short clip from CNN might be one of the great lies, one of the great falsehoods, one of the great sick, twisted narratives that I have seen aired out of all the nonsense from Russia hoax to...
00:12:38.000 Six feet to slow the spread.
00:12:40.000 For CNN to say that there is no left-wing equivalent of political violence is one of the most repulsive things that I've seen.
00:12:52.000 Anyway, so this clip here, this post by the econ student at George Mason, Nicholas Decker, he says, the ultimate source of political power is and always will be violence.
00:13:03.000 If the present administration should continue on its course, there is no choice but war.
00:13:08.000 I say this out of sorrow.
00:13:09.000 When must we kill them?
00:13:11.000 Now, mind you, I remember when somebody showed up to my event in Idaho about four years ago asking the question, Charlie, when do we use the guns?
00:13:19.000 Obviously some sort of provocateur or fed or maybe just some sort of twisted person from Idaho.
00:13:24.000 And I denounced it and it was national news.
00:13:27.000 Oh my goodness, look at this.
00:13:28.000 And now here's an econ student writing in a substack and where is the left and the liberal media?
00:13:32.000 Complete and total silence.
00:13:34.000 Nothing. In addition to all of this, we see the firebombing of all of these Teslas.
00:13:41.000 Donald Trump got shot last year, and now they're saying, when must we kill them?
00:13:45.000 There is no dealing with the Democrats, everybody.
00:13:48.000 They want us dead, period.
00:13:50.000 Deep down, they are hoping and wishing for the death of the Republican Party, of Donald Trump, and for all of us.
00:13:57.000 They seek our demise.
00:13:59.000 They seek our annihilation.
00:14:01.000 They seek our elimination.
00:14:03.000 It's what they want.
00:14:04.000 They don't believe in dialogue or discourse.
00:14:05.000 And we have another video that I'll show you.
00:14:07.000 At Boise State University, a 70-year-old Christian activist from Boise walked up to the microphone and said, Charlie, I'm done talking.
00:14:16.000 I want to fight you right here and now.
00:14:19.000 And I want to punch you in the face.
00:14:21.000 He literally is saying this.
00:14:22.000 He said, if we're done talking, we must start fighting MAGA.
00:14:26.000 They know they can't win on policies.
00:14:28.000 They believe in men and female sports.
00:14:29.000 They can't win on immigration.
00:14:31.000 They don't believe in deportations.
00:14:33.000 These are deranged lunatics that have infected the American political system.
00:14:38.000 When must we kill them?
00:14:40.000 That's what this sub stack is coming to.
00:14:42.000 By the way, you have elements of black America that are lifting up Carmelo Anthony, the murderous thug who stabbed Austin Metcalfe to death.
00:14:55.000 They're making t-shirts with Carmelo's face on it.
00:14:59.000 They are acting as if Carmelo is this wonderful person.
00:15:02.000 It's a real thing.
00:15:03.000 The twin, Carmelo Anthony, stabbed them to death.
00:15:06.000 Here is 189, a very short version of this CNN clip, Playcut 189.
00:15:11.000 While America's roots are soaked in bloodshed, violence in the country today is mostly from right-wing extremism.
00:15:18.000 From Oklahoma City to Charlottesville to January 6th New York, come now!
00:15:23.000 Replace us!
00:15:24.000 There is simply no equivalent on the left.
00:15:27.000 I mean, first of all, Oklahoma City was in the 1990s.
00:15:32.000 Charlottesville resulted in one person dead, and that was back in 2017.
00:15:37.000 Not a mention of the summer of love, the race hate, not a single mention of the spike in crime, vandalism, arson, murder, the increase in violence rates.
00:15:49.000 I mean, just...
00:15:50.000 There's so much wrong with that.
00:15:52.000 The attempted murder of Brett Kavanaugh.
00:15:54.000 This is what the media has come to.
00:15:57.000 This is an econ student at George Mason University.
00:16:01.000 When must we kill them?
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00:17:07.000 I'm really excited for this conversation.
00:17:09.000 Joining us now is Dr. Ken Calvert, professor of history at Hillsdale College.
00:17:12.000 Check out charlieforhillsdale.com.
00:17:15.000 Dr. Calvert, great to see you.
00:17:17.000 So, doctor, let me start with something where some people on social media are...
00:17:22.000 Getting a little cute.
00:17:23.000 They say there's no Christian roots to celebrating Easter.
00:17:27.000 Easter is a pagan holiday.
00:17:29.000 We should never use the term Easter.
00:17:31.000 What is the truth, Dr. Calvert?
00:17:33.000 Well, I think that to a certain extent they're right about the word Easter because that is only used in the English-speaking world.
00:17:42.000 And in the English-speaking world, it came into use probably sometime in the Middle Ages.
00:17:48.000 Nobody's quite sure.
00:17:51.000 There was an ancient Christian historian, the Venerable Bede, out of northern England who talked about this goddess Easter that some people worshipped but had no connection with Christian Passover, Christian celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
00:18:09.000 And really it shows up first in print in, of all places, William Tyndale's Bible when he's talking about this celebration.
00:18:19.000 And from then on, it's connected to the celebration.
00:18:23.000 But in the rest of the world, the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus is referred to in its original Greek and Hebrew, the Pascha, which is related to the Passover.
00:18:40.000 To this idea of sacrificing a lamb and the blood of the lamb at Egypt with the passing over of the Hebrews into freedom from slavery in Egypt.
00:18:55.000 And the last of the great plagues of the ten plagues of the firstborn.
00:19:00.000 The use of the blood of the lamb.
00:19:03.000 And the establishment by God of the Passover feast, which was celebrated by the Hebrews, never a pagan feast, never a pagan activity, up until the present day.
00:19:16.000 And the Christians, of course, celebrate Passover.
00:19:20.000 In a similar way as an extension of our Jewish roots, because of course Jesus was Jewish and the New Testament is the fulfillment of all of the prophecies, all of the looking ahead by the Jews,
00:19:36.000 by the Hebrews, the coming of the Messiah, the fulfillment of the covenants.
00:19:40.000 And what you have here in Passover and in what Christians do every Easter, and unfortunately we still use that word, Is celebrate that feast, the Passover feast,
00:19:55.000 as it's fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
00:19:58.000 So this is not a pagan activity at all.
00:20:02.000 One of the misconceptions, actually, that comes out of this is the Council of Nicaea in 325, where people claim that Constantine took a pagan feast and made it Christian.
00:20:15.000 They also claim this about Christmas.
00:20:19.000 What's really befuddling as a historian, Charlie, is that this never happened.
00:20:25.000 It never happened.
00:20:27.000 It's attributed to Constantine.
00:20:30.000 And the Council of Nicaea, now the Council of Nicaea did discuss the proper date for the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus, but it had nothing to do with paganism.
00:20:44.000 And so, you know, as you often point out, actually, in your debates with students on university campuses, there are very shallow...
00:20:55.000 levels of understanding of history and of ideas that really do not come out of any profound understanding of the actual facts.
00:21:07.000 That is really well said.
00:21:09.000 And so, Dr. Calvert, I want you to explain a little bit more about how the early church seeked to redeem pagan terms or festivals.
00:21:21.000 Pointing people towards Christ.
00:21:23.000 Everything from even wedding rings to Christmas.
00:21:27.000 Talk about how they are not pagan in origin or nature, but at times there might be terms used, but the Spirit was all about redemption to get people that were so attached to their pagan traditions and bring them into Christianity.
00:21:43.000 If I get that right, please keep going or correct me if I'm mistaken there.
00:21:48.000 Please, Dr. Calvert.
00:21:49.000 Yeah, I think it's very complicated because remember that the Christians and the Jews were not part of the pagan world.
00:21:58.000 And so there was a definite desire to stay separate from paganism.
00:22:05.000 And so when we look at the celebration of Christmas, for instance, and the celebration on the 25th of December, That was done 200 years really before Constantine.
00:22:18.000 And the idea that somehow this was taking over the celebration of Sol Invictus, a pagan divinity, that's just not true.
00:22:30.000 That's not what the Christians were doing.
00:22:32.000 And so there's a lot of misunderstanding, and much of that came actually out of the 1700s and 1800s AD, scholars trying to connect Christianity back to ancient paganism.
00:22:46.000 Now, when the Christians do adopt some aspects of their culture, such as the use of wedding rings or the use of other aspects of the culture, it's not what you would call a full-blown adoption of pagan activities.
00:23:06.000 Remember that these people were...
00:23:08.000 Persecuted by the pagans and not particularly wanting to take on the worship in some way or even the hint of worship of pagan gods, of pagan divinity.
00:23:22.000 Looking at this historically, one has to be very careful about that.
00:23:27.000 Now, along the way, did Christians build churches on top of old pagan sites in order to Christianize them?
00:23:35.000 Yes, they did.
00:23:36.000 But it was a Christian message that they were making and not the pagan message.
00:23:41.000 Did they sometimes use the old pagan temples as Christian churches?
00:23:45.000 And you do find this every once in a while, that they will adopt those structures and make them.
00:23:52.000 Christian, like the Pantheon in the city of Rome.
00:23:55.000 But when we talk about the fusing of pagan and Christian activities, you might find some of that at the local level.
00:24:07.000 Among Christians who are maybe confused about the transition that they have just made from paganism, you might have some confusion there.
00:24:19.000 But really on the whole when you talk about what Christian leaders are teaching, what they're really trying to get across to their people, is this idea that we are, as Christians, very much separate from the pagan world.
00:24:36.000 I would argue that a lot of the confusion in the modern world about, for instance, Constantine or the use of pagan ideas or sites or pagan divinities within Christian practice,
00:24:52.000 that that is actually more modern confusion than it is the actual practice of what's going on in the ancient world among ancient Christians.
00:25:04.000 About a couple minutes remaining here, Dr. Calvert, so you are a phenomenal professor.
00:25:10.000 People should check out charlie4hillsdale.com.
00:25:12.000 That's charlie4hillsdale.com.
00:25:14.000 If you had to isolate amongst your Christian students, those that...
00:25:18.000 are schooled in the Bible, that have a good understanding of the canon.
00:25:23.000 What are one or two corrections around this topic of ancient Christianity that you feel you really have to zero in on, things that people come in believing that, quite honestly, do not have any historicity to it,
00:25:38.000 that do not have any foundation to it, of well-meaning Bible students at Hillsdale that sometimes you have to correct and clarify?
00:25:48.000 Yeah, I think that a couple of things.
00:25:51.000 Number one, that Christianity did not appear out of nowhere on its own.
00:25:58.000 That it's rooted in the Old Testament.
00:26:01.000 It's rooted in first century Judaism.
00:26:05.000 That Jesus is a part of that Jewish world.
00:26:09.000 And this is a very, very important point that I think sometimes we miss.
00:26:14.000 If you don't read the Gospels, for instance, In the thick of the Greek and Roman history, in the thick of the Jewish history, you really miss a lot of what Jesus is saying.
00:26:28.000 And so that, I think, is very, very important.
00:26:30.000 In fact, the fact that he is attacked really from day one, Herod goes after him because the Magi have called Jesus the King of the Jews, and Herod was named King of the Jews by the Roman Senate.
00:26:45.000 So you have to understand.
00:26:47.000 Some of that context and why people are doing that.
00:26:50.000 The other thing related to the celebration of the Passover and to Easter is that every year, of course, the Jews celebrated the Passover.
00:27:02.000 And for us...
00:27:03.000 This is like celebrating our 4th of July.
00:27:07.000 And say we're celebrating 4th of July and we're ruled by a foreign power.
00:27:12.000 That's what Passover is about.
00:27:14.000 That the Romans are ruling.
00:27:16.000 A pagan foreign power is ruling over Jerusalem, over Judea at that time.
00:27:22.000 And when Jesus rides into Jerusalem on that donkey, he's saying...
00:27:29.000 In relation to a prophecy from Malachi, he's saying, I am the Messiah.
00:27:35.000 I'm the guy.
00:27:36.000 I have arrived.
00:27:37.000 And this gets the leadership of Rome, excuse me, of Jerusalem very upset because the potential for warfare, the potential for bloodshed, all of this arrives with Jesus in Jerusalem.
00:27:52.000 This is why they want to get rid of him.
00:27:54.000 And the very fact that he is crucified, that's how they get rid of traitors and rebels.
00:28:04.000 WhyRefi.com.
00:28:05.000 Go to WhyRefi.com.
00:28:09.000 WhyRefi is amazing.
00:28:10.000 WhyRefi is the underwriter of our campus tour.
00:28:14.000 They are wonderful, and it's because a lot of students have private student loan debt.
00:28:18.000 If anybody in your life has private student loan debt, go to WhyRefi.com.
00:28:22.000 WhyRefi refinances distressed and defaulted private student loans, which are different from federal loans.
00:28:27.000 Many clients aren't even able to make the minimum monthly payments on their private student loans when they first contact WhyRefi.com.
00:28:38.000 I want you to think about anybody in your life that might have private student loan debt.
00:28:47.000 A sister, a brother, a niece, a nephew, a son, a daughter, a grandson, a granddaughter, maybe you yourself.
00:28:52.000 Think about it for a second, and then refer them to YREFI.
00:28:56.000 AmazingPatriots, Y-R-E-F-Y.com.
00:29:00.000 Dr. Calvert is with us, charlieforhillsdale.com.
00:29:03.000 That is charlieforhillsdale.com.
00:29:05.000 So I want to broaden this discussion for a second, Dr. Calvert.
00:29:10.000 Can you explain the uniqueness of Jesus, of his movement, and what his followers accomplished?
00:29:16.000 Something that some people will say is, oh, there were plenty of other religions or cults in the Mediterranean, the Middle East that believed in a virgin birth or rise from the dead.
00:29:26.000 What made Jesus of Nazareth different, unique, and the impact?
00:29:31.000 I could go on for an hour, Charlie.
00:29:33.000 There's so much there.
00:29:36.000 He is unique.
00:29:38.000 And I think that when we talk about...
00:29:41.000 Jesus as the Messiah, for instance.
00:29:44.000 In the first century BC, there was a huge expectation within Jewish groups for the coming of a Messiah.
00:29:55.000 And the question then, looking at the old prophecies, what is this Messiah going to look like?
00:30:01.000 You know, Isaiah...
00:30:03.000 It mentions that the virgin will give birth and his name will be Emmanuel or God with us.
00:30:11.000 And so the question is, is this Messiah going to be God himself?
00:30:15.000 There are questions about whether or not he'll be an angelic Messiah.
00:30:21.000 There's a book of Tobit.
00:30:24.000 The Jewish community used to use, and it's all about an incarnate angel.
00:30:29.000 There are questions also, and I think this is most powerful for the time of Jesus.
00:30:36.000 There's questions of whether he's going to be a military leader, and he's going to raise up in rebellion against the Romans.
00:30:44.000 The Essenes who produced the Dead Sea Scrolls were among those who believed that...
00:30:50.000 That the Messiah would be a military leader and they were going to be basically the shock troops for this Messiah.
00:30:58.000 And so Jesus is in the thick of this and he addresses so much of these questions about what the Messiah...
00:31:07.000 Is who the Messiah is going to be?
00:31:10.000 And he gives some really good counsel and directions, of course, to his disciples that he is not going to pick up the sword and he's not going to be this bloody military Messiah, but rather he is the Messiah that atones for the sins of the people,
00:31:27.000 which was also a part of all of that Old Testament prophecy.
00:31:31.000 That he is indeed God incarnate, atoning for the sins of these people.
00:31:38.000 So he's answering the question of how to deal with sin, with personal sin.
00:31:44.000 And then, of course, in the resurrection, that this is the Messiah that is going to conquer death, that he conquers death itself.
00:31:53.000 Now, one moment I love in Scripture is in the book of Acts when Gamaliel...
00:32:00.000 This Pharisee, this leader of the Pharisees, stands up before the Sanhedrin.
00:32:08.000 This is in the book of Acts.
00:32:09.000 And he basically says, if this is the real thing, if he's the real Messiah, we need to be careful.
00:32:16.000 If he's not the real thing, if he's not the real Messiah, and he mentions, you know, we've seen this before, there have been other Messiahs, and it always ends up in a bloody mess, right?
00:32:28.000 And that's what they're afraid of, that this is going to end up in a war.
00:32:33.000 He says, if this is...
00:32:36.000 One of those kinds of messiahs, it'll go away and it will all end.
00:32:41.000 But if he is truly the real messiah, the true messiah, if this is of God, we need to be careful.
00:32:49.000 And I think that that moment in the book of Acts says so much about...
00:32:55.000 Who Jesus is and his peculiar, his uniqueness as Messiah.
00:33:01.000 Now, when we talk about virgin birth and these other things, you know, there are references to Egypt and the Isis and Osiris mythology and other things.
00:33:11.000 There is nothing like the virgin birth and what happens in...
00:33:18.000 In the Gospels.
00:33:19.000 And you look in the Gospel of Luke and the story about Mary and receiving the announcement from the angel Gabriel and she gives her free will assent to the idea that God wants to become present on earth through her.
00:33:37.000 I mean, what a remarkable idea.
00:33:39.000 Beautiful idea.
00:33:40.000 There's nothing like that in the ancient world.
00:33:44.000 That is a unique message.
00:33:47.000 Dr. Calvert, wonderful, wonderful job.
00:33:50.000 Thank you.
00:33:51.000 He has risen this Holy Week.
00:33:53.000 Everyone can take heart.
00:33:54.000 He has risen indeed.
00:33:55.000 Check out Dr. Calvert's course at Hillsdale College at charlieforhillsdale.com.
00:34:00.000 That is charlieforhillsdale.com.
00:34:02.000 He has a wonderful course there that I want to take and that I'm going to complete.
00:34:05.000 So I'm going to put that on my list.
00:34:07.000 Dr. Calvert, thank you so much.
00:34:08.000 God bless and have a wonderful, let's just say resurrection celebration.
00:34:12.000 We won't use the term Easter.
00:34:14.000 Have a wonderful Sunday celebration of our Lord being risen.
00:34:18.000 Thank you.
00:34:19.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
00:34:21.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.