The Charlie Kirk Show - November 16, 2025


Where We Got "Woke Church": Charlie and Nathan Finochio at Freedom Night in America


Episode Stats


Length

33 minutes

Words per minute

171.97015

Word count

5,761

Sentence count

460

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

21

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode, Pastor Nathan Finocchio joins me in Phoenix, Arizona to talk about what it means to be a Woke Pastor and where the term "Woke" comes from. We talk about how the word "woke" has become so prevalent in the modern world, and where does it come from?

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Charlie Kirk Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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.
00:01:10.000 Thank you, everybody.
00:01:11.000 Thank you.
00:01:12.000 My intro will be quite short today.
00:01:14.000 We're going to get straight to the conversation.
00:01:15.000 By the way, you just saw the greatest height differential in Dream City history.
00:01:20.000 That record will never be broken.
00:01:22.000 We have an amazing guest.
00:01:23.000 Don't let the appearance fool you.
00:01:25.000 This guy's a master theologian.
00:01:27.000 He's going to blow you away.
00:01:28.000 I'm going to be here all the way up until we get to QA.
00:01:31.000 As soon as we get to QA, I'm going to actually do a line change with Lucas Miles, who runs TPSA Faith, because I have an opportunity to go speak at multiple churches in South Korea and Japan this weekend to bring God's word to Asia.
00:01:44.000 And so I got to go catch a flight to Asia.
00:01:47.000 And so, but I'm going to be here for most of the night.
00:01:49.000 I just want to say that when I dash out, you guys know that I'm doing my best to spread God's word all across the planet.
00:01:55.000 But everybody, Nathan here, the reason I love Nathan is he is as biblical, as scriptural as it gets, but he kind of like walks into a room and people immediately thinks he's a woke pastor.
00:02:05.000 Don't let appearances fool you.
00:02:07.000 You'll see what I mean.
00:02:08.000 Nathan, come on out here.
00:02:09.000 The legendary Nathan Finocchio.
00:02:20.000 So Nathan, welcome to Phoenix.
00:02:23.000 Thank you.
00:02:23.000 It's good to be here.
00:02:24.000 So Nathan, why don't you introduce yourself?
00:02:26.000 You are in the kind of the midst of a battle for the American church right now.
00:02:32.000 And you're fighting deconstructionism.
00:02:34.000 You're fighting all this wokeism.
00:02:36.000 And you really understand where it comes from.
00:02:37.000 Please introduce yourself.
00:02:39.000 Yeah.
00:02:40.000 So I'm a Canadian.
00:02:42.000 Don't hold that against me.
00:02:45.000 I'm so happy to be here.
00:02:47.000 Pastor Tommy, you're an idol for me in the best way.
00:02:51.000 I don't mean in a negative way.
00:02:54.000 And it's just a privilege to be here.
00:02:56.000 Yeah, my dad's a pastor in Canada.
00:02:59.000 He just turned his church over after decades of amazing service.
00:03:05.000 I went to Bible college from Portland, Oregon.
00:03:08.000 Youth pastored for my dad for a couple years.
00:03:10.000 Then I moved to New York and I was a part of a church there.
00:03:13.000 When I was in New York, I had this idea.
00:03:15.000 What if we made Bible college cheap or affordable rather, but awesome? 0.56
00:03:21.000 And not woke.
00:03:23.000 One of the concerns that I've had with a lot of Bible colleges is that it trends very liberal and progressive.
00:03:31.000 And so we created this platform called TheosU, and it's like 10 bucks a month.
00:03:37.000 We have hundreds of trainers on there that teach.
00:03:42.000 We're conservative.
00:03:44.000 We're unapologetically theologically conservative.
00:03:50.000 And we all believe in the gifts and the power of the Holy Spirit.
00:03:54.000 I'm a dying little Pentecostal.
00:03:56.000 I'm sorry, but it is what it is.
00:03:57.000 You don't have to apologize.
00:03:59.000 This is what I love about Freedom Night.
00:04:01.000 We have five-point Calvinists and swinging from the Chandelier Pentecostals, and we all love Jesus here.
00:04:07.000 And Nathan, so why is it that the church, the last decade especially, has become so woke?
00:04:13.000 Define the term.
00:04:15.000 Where does it come from and why is it happening?
00:04:18.000 Yeah, so defining woke, I guess, is a that's like juggling eight balls.
00:04:25.000 But I think it's not something that's happened in the last 10 years.
00:04:30.000 It's probably something that's happened in the last 150 years.
00:04:34.000 It began with the Enlightenment and people questioning the word the way that Satan did, and then kind of twisting it the way that Satan did, and sort of removing all of its power, you know, doubting the miracles.
00:04:50.000 You know, you end up with, when you start to tear the miracles out of the Bible, you end up with just the maps.
00:04:57.000 And the maps aren't all that helpful.
00:05:00.000 And so, and then I think there's a major shift in the church about 40 years ago, maybe 30 years ago, with the seeker-sensitive movement, which I think started in a good place where it was, we want to reach more people.
00:05:16.000 But my dad's generation, my dad was a 17-year-old when he met Jesus through a teen challenge coffee house.
00:05:23.000 And he was a drugged-out hippie.
00:05:25.000 Yeah.
00:05:26.000 And he got filled with the Holy Spirit and he went to a Pentecostal church and he got super involved there.
00:05:36.000 And his life just completely changed.
00:05:38.000 And he experienced Jesus.
00:05:40.000 You know, it's one thing to know about Jesus.
00:05:41.000 It's another thing to experience Jesus.
00:05:43.000 And so the church that my dad was raised in was a church where, like, how do we get God to come to church?
00:05:50.000 But it's almost like it switched a number of years ago where it was, how do we get people to come to church?
00:05:56.000 And for me, I think that has been a Trojan horse because when you're thinking, when all you're thinking about is how do I please this person in the pew and not how do I please the Lord, you're going to have problems.
00:06:12.000 And it's a giant setup, you know, for inviting all kinds of bad doctrines.
00:06:18.000 Yeah, I would, the best way to explain woke to your friends is call something unfair or unjust until you control it.
00:06:26.000 So call something racist till you're in charge.
00:06:28.000 So call something sexist till you're in charge.
00:06:31.000 And it's a means to power.
00:06:33.000 So wokeism is a lot of things in particular.
00:06:33.000 Totally.
00:06:37.000 One, though, that you've really been able to pinpoint, Nathan, brilliantly is deconstructionism.
00:06:43.000 So deconstructionism, everybody, is unfortunately growing in a lot of seminaries.
00:06:49.000 It's this idea that we need to take apart the essence of the word of God, that we need to ask, did God really say that?
00:06:57.000 Is that really what the word says?
00:07:00.000 Basically, challenging biblical authority and scriptural inerrancy using the same analytical tools that they use on American history, that they use on American founding documents.
00:07:12.000 So for example, we don't like the 1619 project, right?
00:07:16.000 We don't like CRT.
00:07:17.000 And we fought against that.
00:07:19.000 But those same analytical tools are now used in Christian schools.
00:07:24.000 Explain more, Nathan.
00:07:26.000 That's really good.
00:07:29.000 That was really good.
00:07:29.000 Thank you.
00:07:31.000 Just taking notes.
00:07:34.000 Yeah, essentially, Marxism kind of comes in and people buy into that.
00:07:41.000 Everything is about power and everything is about these power plays.
00:07:45.000 And so we have people that are swimming in this stuff.
00:07:48.000 They come into our churches.
00:07:49.000 And so when they read the Bible, they're not reading the Bible as the authoritative word of God.
00:07:54.000 They're problematizing the Bible.
00:07:56.000 And then we start to realize, I'll give you a great example.
00:08:01.000 And every deconstructing influencer that I follow on Instagram, because I follow them to learn what they're saying and stuff, they all basically do the same thing.
00:08:12.000 They love hippie Jesus and they hate the Apostle Paul.
00:08:18.000 And so it's really interesting.
00:08:21.000 No, let's keep going.
00:08:23.000 Yeah.
00:08:23.000 So their version of Jesus, and they kind of collapse Jesus too, because the truth of the matter is that if you read Jesus in the book of John, I mean, he'll cut you.
00:08:30.000 He'll pull the switchblade out.
00:08:31.000 You know what I mean?
00:08:32.000 He's like, he's not always carrying a lamb.
00:08:35.000 You know, like, you know, he'll pour some whip, literally.
00:08:40.000 Exactly.
00:08:41.000 He pours a little crowd center out every now and then, you know, and people walk away.
00:08:41.000 Exactly.
00:08:46.000 You know, the rich young ruler, he's like, you know, he's like, how do I, how do I, well, you, you know, money has a control on your life and you're going to need to get rid of it.
00:08:52.000 And he just walks away.
00:08:53.000 I mean, today's pastor, if I was a pastor today, I'd chase him and invite him to a kingdom builder's breakfast, you know.
00:09:00.000 Jesus, we're having John Maxwell next Sunday come.
00:09:05.000 You know, I love John Maxwell, by the way.
00:09:08.000 I'm just saying, like, Jesus just let these people walk.
00:09:12.000 You know, so my thought is, is you can't pit, you know, scripture against scripture.
00:09:20.000 And Jesus, they have these collapsed 2D versions of Jesus that, you know, the Jesus that calls you to deny yourself and pick up your cross and follow him doesn't exist.
00:09:31.000 It's just Jesus that's the socialist Jesus.
00:09:35.000 You know, and they say these, everything is through their Marxist binaries.
00:09:41.000 You know, so Jesus did this for these types of people.
00:09:44.000 Jesus did this for these types of people.
00:09:46.000 And then pitting Jesus against the rest of scripture.
00:09:50.000 And this is how you know Jesus is the savior of the world because everyone wants to claim him.
00:09:55.000 The communists want him.
00:09:56.000 Even the Muslims want him.
00:09:58.000 Everyone wants Jesus.
00:10:00.000 Mind you, we don't want any of their stuff.
00:10:01.000 We don't want Muhammad. 1.00
00:10:03.000 We don't want marks.
00:10:04.000 We're good.
00:10:05.000 We got Jesus.
00:10:05.000 Yeah.
00:10:07.000 But they know there's something about Jesus that is special, unique, extraordinary, transcendent, and divine.
00:10:14.000 And that's a very important thing.
00:10:15.000 Almost every sinister movement in the history of the planet has tried to claim Jesus as their own.
00:10:21.000 And that's because there's something there.
00:10:25.000 We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries.
00:10:28.000 And today, I want to point you to their podcast.
00:10:30.000 It's called Culture in Christianity, the Allen Jackson Podcast.
00:10:34.000 What makes it unique is Pastor Allen's biblical perspective.
00:10:38.000 He takes the truth from the Bible and applies it to issues we're facing today.
00:10:42.000 Gender confusion, abortion, immigration, Doge, Trump in the White House, issues in the church.
00:10:46.000 He doesn't just discuss the problems.
00:10:48.000 In every episode, he gives practical things we can do to make a difference.
00:10:52.000 His guests have incredible expertise and powerful testimonies.
00:10:56.000 They've been great friends.
00:10:57.000 And now you can hear from Charlie in his own words.
00:10:59.000 Each episode will make you recognize the power of your faith and how God can use your life to impact our world today.
00:11:05.000 The Culture and Christianity podcast is informative and encouraging.
00:11:09.000 You could find it on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:11:12.000 Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes.
00:11:14.000 Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to bring biblical truth back into our culture.
00:11:19.000 You can find out more about Pastor Allen and the ministry at alanjackson.com forward slash Charlie.
00:11:27.000 But Nathan, let's go a step deeper.
00:11:29.000 How does deconstructionism manifest?
00:11:32.000 How can people start to spot it when either maybe in a Christian podcast or in a sermon?
00:11:38.000 I can give an example and then you can.
00:11:40.000 Well, they'll start to be like, well, we don't really need the Old Testament to understand the New Testament.
00:11:46.000 That's a phenomenon that might be growing.
00:11:48.000 Or they'll try to apply modern secular humanist worldview onto scripture.
00:11:56.000 And if you listen carefully, you'll realize that they're imposing their own modern values over scripture, not submitting to God's word.
00:12:05.000 Yeah, 100%.
00:12:07.000 Like I said, like the first thing for me, when somebody starts to pit Jesus against Paul, right there, you have a deconstructionist.
00:12:14.000 They all do it.
00:12:15.000 That's their favorite thing to do.
00:12:17.000 They like to make Jesus out to be, for example, there's this one lady I followed on Twitter, and she believed that Jesus came, you know, he was there to liberate people and to free people from oppression.
00:12:32.000 And so I began to just ask her more questions.
00:12:32.000 That was the big thing.
00:12:35.000 You know, like, if Jesus was a liberator and he was against oppression, he didn't do a very good job, did he?
00:12:44.000 Like, and as I began to question her more about this, you know, for example, like she would make this claim, like, Jesus elevated, you know, women.
00:12:44.000 You know what I mean?
00:12:54.000 And I'm like, he certainly did.
00:12:55.000 He certainly elevated women.
00:12:57.000 But I just said, like, well, you know, Judas disappeared.
00:13:02.000 You know, that was a great chance for Jesus to make women an apostle. 0.85
00:13:06.000 And he didn't.
00:13:08.000 So don't you have a bone to pick with him?
00:13:10.000 And she said, yeah, actually, I do have a bone to pick with him about that.
00:13:12.000 You know, so it's like.
00:13:13.000 But do you see, let me interrupt?
00:13:15.000 That's her thinking she's better than Jesus.
00:13:19.000 And at that moment, the whole game gets exposed.
00:13:22.000 Because she's imposing other morality on top of the scripture. 0.99
00:13:22.000 Yeah. 0.99
00:13:26.000 And that's the kicker.
00:13:27.000 Yeah, totally.
00:13:28.000 Demanding that Jesus be this oppressor that would that would meet her modern criteria.
00:13:33.000 And so, you know, I believe that women can preach and lead and pastor and all that.
00:13:37.000 But I'm just saying, though, that like using Jesus as your women's lib, he doesn't go far enough for you.
00:13:45.000 If he's overthrowing government, he doesn't go far enough for you.
00:13:48.000 If he's there to, you know, to prioritize the poor, you know, for example, a Marxist will always prioritize somebody who is poor over somebody who's rich.
00:13:57.000 The rich are automatically evil, and the poor are automatically a problem.
00:14:00.000 Well, Jesus doesn't do that.
00:14:03.000 You know, and even the book of Proverbs, it's like, you know, justice has to be equal.
00:14:07.000 You don't give favoritism to the rich.
00:14:09.000 Leviticus 19.
00:14:10.000 Exactly.
00:14:12.000 So all that to say, there's a lot of ways that you can point it out, but I think the first domino that often falls is Jesus versus Paul.
00:14:22.000 It's like it's a go-to.
00:14:24.000 It's so interesting.
00:14:25.000 Why is that?
00:14:26.000 Because I find them to be complements to one another.
00:14:29.000 I mean, Paul talks about the resurrection.
00:14:32.000 Paul clarifies church teaching.
00:14:34.000 What do they possibly find to either be contradictory or at odds with one another?
00:14:39.000 I think that Jesus is interested in explaining who he is and in how he fulfills scripture.
00:14:46.000 He's the Messiah and He's explaining the kingdom of God.
00:14:50.000 Paul's stuck with the crummy job of being a pastor.
00:14:55.000 You know, and like that's really hard.
00:14:58.000 And so Paul has to sort through people's personal problems.
00:15:01.000 I mean, the Corinthians, you know, they're swinging from the chandeliers.
00:15:05.000 And he's like, what are you guys doing?
00:15:07.000 It's a mess over here.
00:15:08.000 And so he has to work through people's practical problems.
00:15:11.000 And so as Paul is navigating these moral dilemmas in Corinth, people are going to have a bone to pick with him because he's calling out really practical things.
00:15:20.000 Whereas Jesus, you know, the main thrust of the three years that he has is saying, hey, I am who Isaiah says I am, and I am who David said I am, et cetera, and so forth.
00:15:31.000 Now, so, Nathan, there is an undoubtable surge happening of Christian interest in this country. 0.99
00:15:38.000 The most popular music now for Gen Z is Christian music.
00:15:42.000 Forrest Frank is incredibly popular and growing in popularity.
00:15:47.000 We are seeing even more so than the rapper Drake, which is very, very promising.
00:15:52.000 And even if you listen to Forrest Frank's lyrics, they're actually pretty biblically good.
00:15:57.000 I mean, you could like try to nitpick.
00:15:59.000 They're way better than some of the other Christian music sometimes that's gotten popular.
00:16:03.000 And like legit, like very good, like submitting to God's will and his path for it.
00:16:08.000 There's something happening right now, and it's a revival that is really surprising a lot of the experts.
00:16:17.000 You see, when I was young, and you guys remember this 10 years ago, we were told that it's going to be a gradual decline of Christianity, and there's no reversing it, right?
00:16:26.000 That it's just this whole chapter is going to close.
00:16:29.000 And we saw it in the numbers.
00:16:30.000 If you saw the chart, man, when Pastor Tommy started, it was, you know, 80% of people would go to church regularly, and then it was 70% and 60%.
00:16:39.000 Then it goes 55%.
00:16:40.000 All of a sudden, now this last year, the first time it's gone up about a point or two in the last 25 years, almost solely because of Generation Z, just so we are clear.
00:16:50.000 Almost solely because of young people.
00:16:52.000 Why is this happening, Nathan?
00:16:55.000 I think that it's happening because Jesus is good at his job.
00:17:03.000 He said that he was going to build his church.
00:17:07.000 And I'm going to give away my eschatology in a sentence or two.
00:17:11.000 I don't believe that Jesus is coming back for a weak anemic bribe.
00:17:18.000 That's what I believe.
00:17:19.000 I believe, you know, I don't believe that we're going to need to be raptured because we suck at our job and Jesus sucks at his.
00:17:27.000 I believe that Jesus is coming back for a powerhouse, glorified church.
00:17:34.000 I believe that.
00:17:36.000 I don't think it's because we're amazing.
00:17:38.000 I think it's because he is.
00:17:40.000 He said he'll build his church.
00:17:41.000 He's going to build an amazing church.
00:17:42.000 The gates of hell won't be able to stand against us.
00:17:45.000 I mean, and the picture is the church raiding hell, not hell coming at us, right?
00:17:50.000 So I believe that the church is going to be glorified.
00:17:53.000 And, you know, we're not there yet, but we're getting there.
00:17:55.000 I mean, she's on the treadmill. 1.00
00:17:57.000 She's doing keto, you know?
00:18:00.000 So our best days are ahead.
00:18:04.000 What lessons are you seeing of how a pastor should conduct himself in the sermons and the messaging of what is working and what is problematic?
00:18:16.000 As far as not just growing the church, but like what are you seeing on the landscape?
00:18:21.000 Because you deal with a lot of pastors, don't you?
00:18:23.000 What are your biggest sticking points to try to keep this revival going and some of the fault lines that should be avoided?
00:18:30.000 So I believe that the purpose of the church is to worship God, equip the saints, and reach the world in that order.
00:18:41.000 And as a Pentecostal, I'll speak from a Pentecostal ecclesiology.
00:18:47.000 I believe that, like, I believe that if we're not priests, we're going to be consumers.
00:18:56.000 And one of the challenges I think that the American church is facing right now is that with the advent of the seeker-sensitive movement, where we're thinking about how to get people to church, you can, you know, we do a ton of advertising and we essentially attract a lot of consumers who are there to eat, essentially. 0.60
00:19:14.000 And when you're a consumer, you know, you're problematizing everything.
00:19:17.000 You know, oh, they didn't sing Good Good Father.
00:19:18.000 It's my favorite song.
00:19:19.000 Zero Stars, you know.
00:19:23.000 But when you're a priest, you come to church and you bring the sacrifice of praise.
00:19:29.000 And the thing is, is when there's, when you put, you know, 1 Peter 2, 5 says that you yourselves as spiritual stones are being built up into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices.
00:19:41.000 What kind?
00:19:42.000 Acceptable ones to God.
00:19:43.000 So when you come to church, you're not there to eat for you.
00:19:46.000 You're there to minister to the Lord.
00:19:48.000 You're on duty as a priest.
00:19:50.000 The result is that the presence of God shows up in your church.
00:19:53.000 And when God is in the house, it changes people's lives.
00:19:56.000 And that's how we keep revival going.
00:19:59.000 So for me, revival is shifting the church from consumerism to a priesthood.
00:20:10.000 Because if the priests come into the house and they offer the sacrifices, God, there's a principle in the Old Testament and it goes like this.
00:20:18.000 Every acceptable sacrifice has a divine response.
00:20:22.000 Every single time we give God what he's asked for, he always shows up in fire, right?
00:20:28.000 It's amazing.
00:20:30.000 So that, to me, is what gets me excited about the church.
00:20:33.000 And I'm seeing that shift.
00:20:34.000 And, you know, us Pentecostals, I mean, we're all about the presence of God.
00:20:39.000 But I believe that evangelicals are. 0.89
00:20:41.000 I believe that Catholics are.
00:20:42.000 And I believe that there's a shift that's going from drawing consumers to let's teach people to be priests.
00:20:49.000 When people come in, they're going to experience the byproduct, which is the presence of God.
00:20:54.000 It'll wreck people.
00:20:55.000 People don't need to come to church to get David Goggins.
00:20:58.000 They can get that on Instagram.
00:20:59.000 You know, like, they don't need TED Talks.
00:21:01.000 They can already get that.
00:21:02.000 What people need is encounter with Jesus Christ, you know, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
00:21:08.000 Amen.
00:21:11.000 We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries.
00:21:13.000 And today, I want to point you to their podcast.
00:21:16.000 It's called Culture in Christianity, the Allen Jackson Podcast.
00:21:20.000 What makes it unique is Pastor Allen's biblical perspective.
00:21:23.000 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.
00:21:32.000 He doesn't just discuss the problems.
00:21:34.000 In every episode, he gives practical things we can do to make a difference.
00:21:37.000 His guests have incredible expertise and powerful testimonies.
00:21:41.000 They've been great friends.
00:21:42.000 And now you can hear from Charlie in his own words.
00:21:44.000 Each episode will make you recognize the power of your faith and how God can use your life to impact our world today.
00:21:51.000 The Culture and Christianity podcast is informative and encouraging.
00:21:54.000 You could find it on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:21:58.000 Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes.
00:22:00.000 Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to bring biblical truth back into our culture.
00:22:05.000 You can find out more about Pastor Allen and the ministry at alanjackson.com forward slash Charlie.
00:22:13.000 I actually think paradoxically that's why the Catholic Church is growing because in the Catholic own approach, and I have such great respect for Catholics, I know we have some in the audience here, and I want us to actually dive into our agreements, not our disagreements, whatever.
00:22:28.000 We all know those people.
00:22:29.000 I actually think, though, that the reason why Catholicism is growing for young people, especially, is that there is an emphasis on the holiness and the experience with God.
00:22:38.000 And there is an emphasis on the aesthetic.
00:22:42.000 Yeah.
00:22:42.000 Do you agree with that?
00:22:43.000 I'll tell you right now, I think the most beautiful thing about the Catholic Church is the Mass.
00:22:47.000 And rather the Eucharist.
00:22:49.000 So Catholics don't go to Mass to get a TED Talk. 0.52
00:22:54.000 They go there to encounter Jesus through communion.
00:22:57.000 I think that's beautiful.
00:22:59.000 Baptists, for example, they go to church to encounter Christ through the preached word.
00:23:05.000 John Piper says that the primary way of gazing upon Christ is through his words.
00:23:09.000 I love that.
00:23:10.000 So when we're emphasizing how do we encounter God, that's when the church is winning.
00:23:15.000 And I know that we do that in different ways.
00:23:18.000 But I think that the Catholic Church is a great thing.
00:23:20.000 What are some of the other ways?
00:23:21.000 Worship, obviously, singing, prayer, repentance.
00:23:25.000 Absolutely.
00:23:26.000 Yeah, like exactly.
00:23:27.000 So prayer, gathering, the preaching of the word, communion, praise, giving your tithes and your offerings.
00:23:35.000 I mean, that's literally you being the priest.
00:23:37.000 You're offering, Lord, this is a symbol of my life, and I'm giving it to you in obedience to you.
00:23:42.000 And I know that when I do this, you show up in my life.
00:23:44.000 Fire's coming on the altar of my life when I offer this to you.
00:23:47.000 It's like really holy.
00:23:48.000 Really, really amazing.
00:23:49.000 So, all those different ways, and the church is meant to facilitate worship, and that's, I think, what we're going to continue to do.
00:23:56.000 What are on the horizon some of the great threats to the church?
00:23:59.000 We obviously identify deconstructionism, progressivism, wokeism.
00:24:02.000 Do you think they've grown in the last couple of years, or are they decreasing in number?
00:24:06.000 I feel as if that's becoming less and less fashionable.
00:24:10.000 I could name at least 10 major pastors in the last couple of years that are coming in our direction.
00:24:16.000 I mean, we here at Freedom Night, thanks to Dream City Church, we've been doing this since 2021.
00:24:19.000 I mean, we were very early adopters, but Nathan, are they increasing?
00:24:25.000 Are they decreasing?
00:24:26.000 Like, give us a little status report.
00:24:27.000 Is deconstruction increasing?
00:24:29.000 Or progressivism in the church?
00:24:32.000 Yeah, look, I think that there's obviously a battle, and I think that there's been a battle since the church's inception.
00:24:40.000 You know, like there were external and internal threats.
00:24:45.000 We were fighting heresies for the first four or five hundred years of church history, Gnosticism and mysticism.
00:24:52.000 Absolutely, exactly.
00:24:54.000 So, I think that we're always going to have these, you know, Jesus even said, like, there's going to be, you know, people will have itching ears.
00:25:04.000 And just when Paul's talking to Timothy, he's just saying, check your doctrine, check your doctrine, check your doctrine, check your doctrine.
00:25:12.000 So, there's all kinds of people that are going to be, they're going to have mythologies and philosophies, and they're going to be trying to take power, etc.
00:25:20.000 So, I think that we're always going to be dealing with these types of existential problems, theological problems.
00:25:28.000 And it is what it is.
00:25:30.000 There's going to be people that are going to claim to be the Messiah, and they're going to be claiming to, you know, like the apostles, and they're going to be, you know, when Paul is writing to defend his apostleship, there's going to be people that are going to be claimed to be this and claim to be that.
00:25:45.000 So, I don't think that it's deconstruction isn't alarming.
00:25:49.000 It's on trend for what's been happening the last 2,000 years.
00:25:52.000 That's what I would just say.
00:25:54.000 Let's close with a threat that I talk a lot about that I think the church needs to more educate ourselves.
00:26:00.000 I'll use the third person singular here, like the plural, that we need to educate ourselves better, and that is Islam.
00:26:08.000 And I don't think we're quite equipped and understand the spiritual ramifications here.
00:26:14.000 I mean, if you go online, everyone wants to talk about Israel all the time, fine, but like, okay, why don't we talk about Islam, actually?
00:26:21.000 The religion of a billion people, that many of whom are taking over the entire European continent, and we're about to have a Muslim mayor of New York City, and we have no idea what they believe or what it is.
00:26:33.000 And so, should Christians care about this, Nathan? 0.96
00:26:36.000 I mean, some pastors say, well, they believe different stuff than we believe.
00:26:41.000 And how should we think about Islam?
00:26:44.000 Yeah, I mean, I think that it would you should read how the first thousand years of pastors and thinkers in the church, like the patristics, how they thought about Islam.
00:26:56.000 It's actually pretty shocking because Islam hasn't really changed all that much.
00:27:01.000 It's still very militant.
00:27:04.000 I think that dismissing it as just another religion is naive.
00:27:10.000 It is incredibly politically and ideologically and militantly driven in a way that, like, for example, Buddhism is just not.
00:27:19.000 So, not all religions are the same.
00:27:21.000 So, it's naive to kind of classify.
00:27:24.000 It's a religion, and it just goes in this clause.
00:27:25.000 It's like Islam is not like that. 1.00
00:27:27.000 It does not behave like that.
00:27:29.000 Is it a religion?
00:27:31.000 I would say that it would be naive to just compare it to Buddhism, to compare it to Jehovah's Witnesses. 0.89
00:27:37.000 I think it is a political ideology that it's a religion, political ideology that is inseparable from those two things, and it's militant.
00:27:46.000 And this is the most important thing.
00:27:48.000 We as Christians, we are able to separate our church and state.
00:27:53.000 In fact, sometimes we want more Christians to get involved in the state.
00:27:57.000 But there is no mosque and state separation in Islam.
00:28:00.000 Correct.
00:28:00.000 It does not exist.
00:28:02.000 That teaching has never existed.
00:28:04.000 And therefore, this is why so many Muslims run for political office.
00:28:08.000 Because not only are they interested, they're commanded to try to institute what they call the uma, which is the covering of the earth.
00:28:15.000 Correct.
00:28:16.000 And there is an Islamic illiteracy that we have in the West. 1.00
00:28:20.000 And honestly, shame on us as Christians for not talking about this more.
00:28:24.000 And at the core, this is an immigration issue.
00:28:26.000 But Nathan, I'm told by Christians we must open up our borders to all people at all times, no matter what, because that's what Jesus would do.
00:28:33.000 Right.
00:28:34.000 Yeah.
00:28:34.000 So, I mean, yeah, where did Jesus say that?
00:28:38.000 Right.
00:28:40.000 you know i i think there's there's this misunderstanding about uh who like neighbors and families you know so So, for example, like, I love Japan.
00:29:01.000 I love how Japanese it is.
00:29:04.000 I love how foreign it is. 0.97
00:29:06.000 You know, like, they do their own thing over there, and it's wonderful.
00:29:10.000 If you ever been there, it's just like, you're just, it's like, it's incredible, you know, like their food and the way that they organize themselves on elevators and escalators.
00:29:19.000 And, you know, they're just, there's so, I would never want to live there, but I love visiting there, and I appreciate their culture and the cultural differences.
00:29:30.000 But I don't want to be Japanese. 1.00
00:29:31.000 I don't want to live in Japan. 0.99
00:29:32.000 Does that make sense?
00:29:33.000 So I think that one of the issues is that people think that if you don't want to be it, you hate it.
00:29:39.000 And that's one of the issues is that people are like, well, America needs to be everything.
00:29:44.000 It's like, what if America is American?
00:29:46.000 You know, like, what?
00:29:46.000 That's okay.
00:29:47.000 It's why do Americans have to hate their own culture and destroy their own culture? 0.93
00:29:53.000 See, I'm Canadian and I understand what multiculturalism is.
00:29:56.000 And multiculturalism is the death of the dominant culture.
00:29:59.000 That's exactly what it is.
00:30:00.000 Exactly right.
00:30:00.000 Like, I don't recognize my hometown anymore.
00:30:03.000 In fact, when I go back to Canada, I don't, do you know what it means to be Canadian?
00:30:07.000 Nothing.
00:30:08.000 It means nothing to be a Canadian now.
00:30:10.000 Justin Trudeau, the clown that was in there for 10 years that destroyed my country, he called Canada the first post-national country, meaning that the only thing that we have in common is that we have nothing in common.
00:30:25.000 That's what it means.
00:30:27.000 That's so good.
00:30:28.000 And it just destroys the social fabric.
00:30:31.000 You think that people would get along, but it's the exact opposite.
00:30:34.000 They don't get along.
00:30:35.000 People don't work together.
00:30:37.000 The Hindus are hating the Sikhs.
00:30:38.000 The Sikhs are hating the Muslims. 1.00
00:30:40.000 It is just absolute and total chaos right now in my country.
00:30:43.000 Nobody wants to work together.
00:30:45.000 So, you know, I'm not a fan of multiculturalism. 0.99
00:30:50.000 I'm a fan of multi-ethnicism.
00:30:52.000 I think that that's beautiful.
00:30:54.000 But I think that Christians should build Christian societies.
00:30:58.000 And if you're Muslim, go and build a Muslim society. 1.00
00:31:00.000 But I think that there's certain worldviews that are incompatible, and that's okay.
00:31:04.000 Isn't it interesting?
00:31:05.000 There are 50 plus Muslim-majority countries, and yet Muslims so badly want to come here and turn this into another one. 1.00
00:31:11.000 That's because it is a conquering ideology that masquerades itself as a religion.
00:31:16.000 Correct.
00:31:17.000 And that needs to be repeatedly said.
00:31:19.000 And again, this is not about hating individual Muslims.
00:31:24.000 Literally, my primary care doctor here in Arizona, Zudi Jasser, like the sweetest guy ever, is a practicing Muslim who's trying to de-radicalize Islam. 0.99
00:31:32.000 We all know individual Muslims who we care for, we minister to.
00:31:36.000 We're talking about an ideology.
00:31:38.000 And you must be able to separate an ideology from precious individuals that we care about.
00:31:42.000 Because they're always going to try to conflate those two.
00:31:45.000 We should care for those individuals and we should minister to them and we should have great relationships and be neighborly and be Christ-like to them.
00:31:51.000 And we can see really goodness in a lot of those people.
00:31:54.000 But don't tell me that Minneapolis is going in the right direction.
00:31:57.000 I'm sorry, that's not true.
00:32:00.000 Don't tell me that New York City is going in the right direction.
00:32:02.000 That they're about to have a Muslim Marxist mayor in America's largest city.
00:32:08.000 And we, as Christians, and we'll kind of close on this, Nathan, Western civilization is Christendom.
00:32:15.000 It is an inheritance and a birthright brought to you by Christians.
00:32:19.000 And when we seek to establish that, we seek to actually have what makes us, quote unquote, the dominant culture.
00:32:26.000 And it's not racial, it's not ethnic, but it is cultural.
00:32:29.000 And that's what's important.
00:32:30.000 And you must assimilate towards that norm when you come here.
00:32:34.000 And immigration without assimilation is an invasion. 0.90
00:32:39.000 Correct.
00:32:39.000 And we should not put up with it.
00:32:41.000 Nathan, final thought, and then I'm going to bring Lucas in for a line change here.
00:32:46.000 Okay.
00:32:47.000 Yeah.
00:32:48.000 Jeez, that was so good.
00:32:50.000 Yeah.
00:32:51.000 I just, I just, I just totally agree.
00:32:53.000 I think we have to be able to separate, you know, so who is my neighbor?
00:32:57.000 My neighbor is my Muslim doctor, and my neighbor is, you know, a family that is here from Mexico, and they're begging and they need food.
00:33:05.000 And I want to take care of them.
00:33:07.000 And that's my Christian duty to take care of them.
00:33:09.000 And as a Christian, I need to separate my duty to take care of the person in front of me, regardless of where they're from, what they're doing, from these corporate ideologies.
00:33:27.000 You have to separate the individual from a worldview.