The Charlie Kirk Show - Who is REALLY Teaching Your Kids? Live from Dream City Church

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, my conversation with George Barna.

00:00:03.000 How many people who are Christian are actually Christian?

00:00:06.000 The data is shocking and we have a question and answer segment with the audience that I think you'll really enjoy.

00:00:11.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to our podcast.

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00:00:24.000 Buckle up everybody.

00:00:25.000 Here we go.

00:00:26.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:28.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:30.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:33.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:37.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:38.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:39.000 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.

00:00:47.000 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.

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00:01:24.000 They are counting on your surrender.

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00:02:46.000 Hello, everybody.

00:02:47.000 Please take a seat.

00:02:48.000 Great to see you.

00:02:49.000 What great turnout for we're almost in the summer season.

00:02:52.000 That happened quickly.

00:02:53.000 Happy May, everybody.

00:02:54.000 We have an amazing guest tonight to talk all about worldview.

00:02:58.000 And it's more important than ever as we see what's happening at Columbia, Yale, UCLA, even Arizona State, which by the way, ASU didn't put up with any of that nonsense.

00:03:07.000 They cleared that out quickly as it should be to talk about worldview.

00:03:12.000 It's one of the most important questions, which is, how do you see the world?

00:03:16.000 Do you see it through a Marxist lens, a secular lens?

00:03:19.000 Do you see it through a nihilistic lens, a narcissistic lens?

00:03:24.000 Or do you have a biblical worldview?

00:03:26.000 Now, our guest tonight is a legend.

00:03:28.000 He has been known for multiple decades as the premier pollster, let's just say sociologist who does surveys and analyzes data to find out what does the church believe?

00:03:43.000 What do Christians believe? 0.96

00:03:45.000 How many people who say they have a Christian worldview actually do have a Christian worldview?

00:03:52.000 This conversation will shock you, motivate you, and then we'll talk about the path forward.

00:03:58.000 It is none other than George Barna.

00:04:00.000 You know that as the Barna survey or the Barna, let's just say polls.

00:04:05.000 For years, he has been trying to warn people that even though there might be more and more churches popping up in this country, are we creating disciples of all nations or are we just creating converts of all nations that then go away?

00:04:19.000 He is a total legend.

00:04:20.000 I loved speaking to him backstage.

00:04:22.000 And while we were talking, I said, I don't have much to add.

00:04:25.000 So before I introduce him, though, I want to make sure one quick announcement, which is for those of you that might be who here moved recently to this state in the last couple years.

00:04:35.000 Anybody moved in?

00:04:36.000 Okay, I see a lot of hands up.

00:04:37.000 We have to make sure that all of you are registered to vote, okay?

00:04:42.000 So if you are not yet registered to vote, we will share how to do that through an online resource.

00:04:47.000 And Mr. Barna will share the numbers that half of evangelical Christians are even registered to vote, and only half of those actually end up voting.

00:04:55.000 So we have resources for you in the lobby.

00:04:58.000 We'll share for a way that happens online.

00:05:00.000 And coming into this fall, Turning Point Action will help lead this.

00:05:04.000 We're going to be doing some really big Freedom Night events with some big speakers, Angel.

00:05:08.000 I'll tell you in a sec.

00:05:09.000 They're going to be huge.

00:05:11.000 And here is going to be the requirement.

00:05:13.000 We're going to make sure we have 100%, 100% of everyone who attends Freedom Night is voting.

00:05:20.000 And then you're not even allowed into the event in October if you have not voted early or if you not have a pinky promise plan to vote on November.

00:05:28.000 So we're going to make sure we have 100% voter turnout because we need Christians to vote.

00:05:33.000 So we just want to make sure you are registered.

00:05:35.000 That is the first step.

00:05:37.000 So if you are not registered, you move recently to the state.

00:05:39.000 We need you to do that.

00:05:40.000 It is incredibly important.

00:05:42.000 So now join me in welcoming the legend himself, George Barna.

00:05:46.000 Can't wait for this conversation.

00:06:03.000 Well, Mr. Barna, welcome.

00:06:04.000 And by the way, Mr. Barna is a professor at Arizona Christian University, which is a wonderful school here locally that we should really talk more about.

00:06:13.000 They do a great job.

00:06:15.000 They really do.

00:06:16.000 Well, and one of the distinctives of ACU is that our focus is we want everybody to have a biblical worldview.

00:06:23.000 So every course you take is taught from a biblical worldview perspective.

00:06:28.000 And when you graduate, the idea is, what do you do with a biblical worldview?

00:06:32.000 You only have it because you're called by God to be an agent of cultural transformation.

00:06:37.000 And so that's what we're trying to produce, is more agents of transformation.

00:06:41.000 I love it.

00:06:43.000 So why don't you introduce your body of work?

00:06:46.000 You've been doing this for quite a while.

00:06:47.000 You also have a new book that I want to make sure we all support, Raising Spiritual Champions, Nurturing Your Child's Heart, Mind, and Soul.

00:06:55.000 But just kind of break down for our audience what you've been doing the last couple of decades, what you've learned, and then we'll get into some of the details.

00:07:02.000 Okay, so about 40 years ago when I started doing all of this, there was really no research being done to help churches understand what was going on spiritually in America.

00:07:12.000 So back in the early 80s, we started the Barnum Research Group, started doing all that kind of work, and trying to work with pastors, parachurch ministries to get a grip on reality.

00:07:25.000 And it didn't go well.

00:07:28.000 They didn't like what they were hearing because they thought they were doing a great job, and we had the data showing they weren't doing a great job.

00:07:35.000 And so then we kind of shifted our focus to what would it take for them to do a great job.

00:07:41.000 And that's really what I've been focusing on for the last 35 years or so.

00:07:46.000 And so over the course of that, this is my 60th book.

00:07:50.000 When I do all this research, I try to put it in digestible formats so that people can get their hands on it and read it and think about it and then act upon it.

00:08:00.000 There's no value to having information for its own sake.

00:08:04.000 You've got to have data that will help tell a story about what's going on in society and what you as an individual can do to change it, to bring people closer to Christ.

00:08:16.000 That's the ultimate objective.

00:08:18.000 If we're not doing that, we're failing.

00:08:20.000 Amen.

00:08:21.000 So let's just right out of the gate.

00:08:23.000 How many Christians are there in America?

00:08:26.000 People that call themselves Christians? 1.00

00:08:29.000 And what number of those people are actually Christians?

00:08:34.000 Okay.

00:08:34.000 So this gets a little bit messy because of definitions, but people who call themselves Christians among adults in America, that's 66%.

00:08:44.000 If we look at how many people in America will say, I'm a Christian, though, because I know when I die, I'll go to heaven because I confess my sins, accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior.

00:08:56.000 That's my only way of having a place in heaven.

00:09:00.000 That drops it from 66% down to 33 to 34%.

00:09:06.000 Which, by the way, we've got more people than the 66% who actually attend churches.

00:09:12.000 So when you look at the proportion who regularly attend churches, roughly 7 out of 10, and then you look at the proportion who meet that last criteria, they're going to heaven because they confess their sins, accepted Christ as their Savior.

00:09:25.000 We'll call those people born-again Christian.

00:09:28.000 That means that most of the people in our churches are not born again.

00:09:33.000 Why do I bring that up?

00:09:34.000 Because if you want a mission field, go to church.

00:09:38.000 That's where they are.

00:09:40.000 Okay?

00:09:41.000 You've got tens of millions of non-Christians regularly walking into our churches.

00:09:47.000 The sad thing is our research shows that most of those people have been walking in and out of our churches consistently for at least 10 years.

00:09:56.000 So whatever we're doing in church, it's not bringing them closer to Christ.

00:10:00.000 In most cases, obviously there are great churches across the country that are doing phenomenal work.

00:10:05.000 But I'm a sociologist, as Charlie mentioned.

00:10:08.000 I work with data.

00:10:09.000 I deal with averages.

00:10:10.000 On average, we're not changing lives.

00:10:14.000 One of the things that I chide pastors about all the time is, come on, wake up.

00:10:18.000 The culture is changing the church more than the church is changing the culture.

00:10:22.000 So we've got to rethink what it is we're doing, why we're doing it, how we're doing it, and what constitutes success.

00:10:30.000 So to finish off answering your question, 66% call themselves Christian.

00:10:34.000 33 to 34% may be born again.

00:10:38.000 How many of those people are disciples in America?

00:10:43.000 Now, in the Bible, you probably don't know this because I haven't found a church yet that teaches this.

00:10:49.000 But in the Bible, there are six times when Jesus said, this is what makes somebody a disciple.

00:10:56.000 For me, that's the best definition possible.

00:10:59.000 And so you look at John 8, he said, you will be my disciple if you obey my teaching.

00:11:04.000 John 13, he said, you will be my disciple if you love other disciples.

00:11:09.000 John 15, he said, you will be my disciple if you produce a lot of spiritual fruit.

00:11:14.000 Luke 14, he had three consecutive verses where he talked about this.

00:11:19.000 14, 26, he said, you cannot be my disciple unless you love God far and away more than anything else in your life.

00:11:28.000 Luke 14, 27, you cannot be my disciple unless you pick up your cross and follow me. 0.89

00:11:35.000 By which he meant in that Roman context, you must submit to the prevailing authority.

00:11:41.000 Who's the prevailing authority?

00:11:43.000 God.

00:11:44.000 And then in Luke 14, 33, he said, and you cannot be my disciple unless you surrender everything for me.

00:11:53.000 So if you look at those six criteria, as I've done in the research, what we find is only 3% of adults in America qualify by Jesus standards as disciples.

00:12:07.000 So not to be cruel, but do a lot of people who then think they're going to heaven probably won't go to heaven?

00:12:15.000 I think that's a fair statement.

00:12:18.000 I'm not God, so I don't know who's going to heaven.

00:12:20.000 Well, just based on the biblical criteria, though, this is not my opinion in your opinion, just based on what the scriptures say.

00:12:26.000 Yeah.

00:12:28.000 Yeah, so you got the 33% or so who say they're going there because they confessed their sins, accepted Christ as their Savior.

00:12:36.000 But then what did he call those people to do?

00:12:38.000 Live it.

00:12:40.000 Live it.

00:12:40.000 Don't just get the eternal life insurance.

00:12:43.000 Actually convert it into a lifestyle where you are concerned about the lives of others.

00:12:49.000 You love God so much that you will do whatever you can to bring other people to the foot of the cross and have their lives completely transformed by Jesus.

00:12:59.000 And that will not happen, by the way, unless you are a disciple.

00:13:04.000 Who makes disciples?

00:13:06.000 Disciples.

00:13:07.000 They're the only people that can make disciples.

00:13:10.000 You can only give what you have if you don't have Jesus fully residing within you.

00:13:18.000 And if you're not living completely for him, you're not going to get other people to fully live for him.

00:13:24.000 And so disciples make disciples.

00:13:27.000 You want to make disciples?

00:13:29.000 Make sure you're a disciple.

00:13:31.000 So let's just break this down further.

00:13:36.000 Christianity has had a renaissance in this country.

00:13:40.000 It's one of the most popular.

00:13:44.000 You're laughing, but by all...

00:13:47.000 I missed it.

00:13:49.000 But by all objective measurements, let's just say tons of churches, buildings, no real Christian persecution as they know in the Middle East, such as almost every president has called himself a Christian.

00:14:05.000 Almost every lawmaker, 90% probably in the 20th century called themselves a Christian.

00:14:12.000 Founding fathers were Christian, and we have more buildings than ever before.

00:14:16.000 There are tens of billions of dollars raised for American Christianity every single year.

00:14:23.000 If you're painting then this grim picture where 66% of people say they're Christian, where we have more Christian music than ever before, we have more buildings and more infrastructure and more pastors and more social media followers.

00:14:41.000 Where did we go wrong?

00:14:43.000 Well, I would say there are three things that we've got to look very carefully at.

00:14:47.000 One would be, let's look at our churches themselves.

00:14:51.000 In our research, we asked a national random sample of pastors of Christian churches, is your church successful?

00:14:59.000 And more than four out of five of them said, oh, yeah.

00:15:02.000 We said, okay, great.

00:15:03.000 How do you know that?

00:15:04.000 What do you measure?

00:15:05.000 What's the evidence?

00:15:07.000 And what we found is that the typical church leader, typical pastor, measures five things.

00:15:13.000 How many people show up, how much money they raise, how many programs they have, how many staff people they've hired, and how much square footage they've built out.

00:15:21.000 Now, I'm a measurement guy, so I'm thrilled that churches are measuring what's going on.

00:15:26.000 But as a measurement guy, I know that if you measure the wrong stuff, you'll get the wrong outcomes.

00:15:34.000 Because you get what you measure.

00:15:37.000 And so we're measuring the wrong thing.

00:15:39.000 See, when I talk about those five things that most churches look at to determine if they're successful, Jesus didn't die for any of those.

00:15:48.000 He didn't die to fill seats in church.

00:15:50.000 He didn't die for a church to have the biggest real estate portfolio in the community.

00:15:55.000 None of that stuff that I named is important to him.

00:15:58.000 What did Jesus die for?

00:16:00.000 People's hearts, their souls.

00:16:02.000 That's what he died for.

00:16:04.000 That's what he wants.

00:16:10.000 And so the counter argument that one would say is, well, we measure how many people raise their hand and give their life to Christ at Easter.

00:16:18.000 Yeah, and my counter argument is, so what?

00:16:21.000 You know, I mean, it's nice that people come and they do something like that, but we find that more often than not, that's a show of emotion.

00:16:31.000 That's not a show of commitment.

00:16:33.000 Because commitment takes a long period of time where you're willing to completely change everything in your life to honor God.

00:16:42.000 And so even the act of coming to church, is that a bad thing?

00:16:46.000 No, it's a good thing, maybe.

00:16:48.000 And so that's not a problem, but that's not the solution.

00:16:53.000 Coming into a church building for a church event isn't the solution.

00:16:58.000 Giving your heart to Jesus is the solution.

00:17:02.000 And what that means is following those six standards that Jesus talked about of, you know, consistently obeying his principles, of loving other disciples, you know, not just smiling at them, but, you know, love is a much deeper commitment than that.

00:17:21.000 Producing a lot of spiritual fruit, not just coming and taking, but going back out into the world, whether it's on the church campus, out in the community, doing whatever you can with the gifts and the abilities and resources that God has entrusted to you, you're supposed to use those to build his kingdom.

00:17:39.000 It's not your kingdom.

00:17:41.000 You're not even here for your own purposes.

00:17:43.000 He created you for his purposes.

00:17:46.000 And so you need to understand what that is and dig in and go for it.

00:17:52.000 What percentage of young people, teenagers, have a biblical worldview?

00:17:57.000 We did this study last year in writing this book, Raising Spiritual Champions.

00:18:01.000 We did research with teenagers and with pre-teenagers, and we were measuring their worldview.

00:18:08.000 And right now, only about 1% of America's teenagers, it's between 1% and 2%, but a little closer to 1% of America's teenagers have a biblical worldview.

00:18:20.000 What is a biblical worldview?

00:18:22.000 What it basically means is that you're able to think like Jesus.

00:18:26.000 Why is that important?

00:18:28.000 Because if you want to be a disciple, what does that mean?

00:18:31.000 That you live like Jesus.

00:18:33.000 How would you get to live like Jesus?

00:18:35.000 That's where the connection is.

00:18:37.000 You do what you believe.

00:18:40.000 You do what you believe.

00:18:42.000 So your beliefs are vitally important.

00:18:45.000 Why?

00:18:46.000 Because you do what you believe.

00:18:48.000 And so if you want to live like Jesus, you want to be a disciple.

00:18:53.000 First, you've got to think like Jesus.

00:18:55.000 And that's why a biblical worldview is so important.

00:18:58.000 That's what a biblical worldview is.

00:19:00.000 Believing the same things that Jesus believed.

00:19:03.000 How do we know what he believed?

00:19:05.000 It's what he taught us in his ministry.

00:19:08.000 It's what he passed down to the disciples who then showed us those things.

00:19:14.000 We've got that all in the Bible.

00:19:16.000 The Bible is the guidebook that shows us what a biblical worldview is.

00:19:20.000 So can you break down further the criteria of how you measure that?

00:19:23.000 Because I'm sure some skeptics say, come on, it's got to be more than 1%.

00:19:27.000 But you've been doing this for multiple decades.

00:19:28.000 You are the gold standard of this.

00:19:30.000 You also have tons of, you have so much data that you can then use crosstabs on over so you know you're accurate.

00:19:38.000 To see trend lines is what I'm getting at.

00:19:40.000 And I hope you understand that when you do something for multiple decades in sociology, you start to see trend lines.

00:19:47.000 For example, if one year he says 1% of teenagers have a biblical worldview, and the next year it's 11%, well, then something's off, right?

00:19:54.000 So, can you speak to that eventually too?

00:19:56.000 Because I'm sure there's some critics of your data.

00:19:58.000 I think his data is spot on, because when you do it over a long period of time, you realize that you can't fake the trends because you're surveying different people and therefore you're getting this almost the same result.

00:20:07.000 But can you talk about what is the criteria of how you measure a biblical worldview?

00:20:12.000 We have about 40 different questions that we utilize to look at different aspects of a person's personal beliefs, but also their behavior.

00:20:22.000 Because again, you do what you believe.

00:20:24.000 Now, a lot of people have beliefs that may be in harmony with the scriptures, but they don't live them out.

00:20:32.000 Which says to me, well, then they don't really believe that.

00:20:35.000 Because if they did, they'd act on it.

00:20:38.000 You only act on the things that you think are real and right and proper and appropriate.

00:20:44.000 And so that's why we have those checks and balances built into this, both beliefs and behavior.

00:20:50.000 And there are eight different categories that we measure of beliefs and behavior: Bible, truth, and morals, the character and nature of God, sin, salvation, and eternity.

00:21:01.000 I mean, all these different things that we look at in terms of what is the nature of your belief structure.

00:21:07.000 So that's what we've been measuring over time.

00:21:10.000 And you're exactly right, Charlie.

00:21:11.000 I mean, when we study the numbers after a survey is done, we compare it to what came before to make sure that not only did we get a good sample, a representative sample, but that we can see what's going on over the course of time.

00:21:26.000 Each of these surveys is kind of like a photograph.

00:21:30.000 But if you think about your family, think about your children, if you have children, grown children in particular.

00:21:36.000 If you look at the photographs of them over the course of time, it tells a story.

00:21:42.000 You can see how they've changed over time.

00:21:44.000 And our surveys are exactly like that.

00:21:46.000 We can see what's happening over time.

00:21:49.000 I can see that with young people.

00:21:50.000 I can pull out men versus women. 0.93

00:21:53.000 I can pull out blacks versus whites versus Hispanics versus Asians. 0.99

00:21:57.000 And we do all of that.

00:21:59.000 If you're interested in any of this, I put all this for free on our website at Arizona Christian University.

00:22:05.000 It's culturalresearchcenter.com.

00:22:08.000 You can download all the reports.

00:22:10.000 But you can see what's going on in our culture.

00:22:12.000 And for the last 35 years, I started doing this with Chuck Coulson back in the early 90s.

00:22:19.000 And Chuck was a mentor of mine.

00:22:21.000 And we get together and he said, you know, I'd love to know more about worldview.

00:22:26.000 And you've been studying beliefs for it was about 10 years at that point.

00:22:30.000 He said, could you do a study for me where we start looking at world view?

00:22:34.000 And we did, and he was appalled.

00:22:35.000 And that's why his last major book was How Now Shall We Live, which is a takeoff on Francis Schaefer's book, How Then Shall We Live.

00:22:43.000 Two great books about worldview.

00:22:46.000 So it's imperative that you be measuring the same things over the course of time so that you've got an apples-to-apples comparison, that you've got a good sampling of the public, and then you can really tell the story.

00:22:59.000 So, Lynn, let's look at the photograph just in the last couple of years.

00:23:02.000 What does the succession of photographs, to use that metaphor, look post-COVID?

00:23:06.000 Has America become more religious?

00:23:08.000 Have we become more serious about our faith?

00:23:10.000 How does the church look differently with that succession of photographs in just the last four years?

00:23:17.000 I think one of the most harmful things about the lockdowns was that most Americans spent an enormous amount of time paying attention to media, arts and entertainment media, and information and news media.

00:23:33.000 Why do I say that's harmful?

00:23:36.000 all the research that I've been doing for the last 20 years on what influences the way that we think and the way that we live indicates that the arts and entertainment media have a majority of the impact on what we choose as our beliefs and our lifestyle.

00:23:54.000 And the problem with that is that as you study the messages that are being sent through those media, what we find is that there's no consistency.

00:24:03.000 I'm not a big conspiracy guy in terms of, oh, there's a media conspiracy to destroy the worldview of Americans.

00:24:11.000 But I'm praying for him, so it's okay.

00:24:14.000 There's definitely a conspiracy to destroy the country.

00:24:17.000 Oh, no, there are conspiracies.

00:24:19.000 I'm not saying there aren't conspiracies.

00:24:20.000 Oh, no, no, I'm giving you a hard time, by the way.

00:24:22.000 Well, I'm being serious.

00:24:24.000 Okay. 0.82

00:24:28.000 But in the media, I mean, their lust is power and money. 0.98

00:24:33.000 Okay, and so they'll create anything that gets an audience because it gives them power and money.

00:24:41.000 But what does not give them an audience?

00:24:43.000 Well, in their minds, glorifying God, raising up the Savior, you know, promoting biblical truth.

00:24:51.000 They don't think any of that would sell.

00:24:54.000 And so instead, what we're getting are the ideas that they feel comfortable with, which is Marxism, secular humanism, postmodernism, Eastern mysticism, nihilism, Wicca, Satanism.

00:25:08.000 And I'm not just throwing these out.

00:25:09.000 I study these things.

00:25:10.000 We have research data on these things.

00:25:14.000 And so I know that's what's in media.

00:25:16.000 And during the COVID period, people were more intensely exposed to those kinds of messages.

00:25:24.000 And they became increasingly comfortable with those kinds of messages.

00:25:30.000 And so you ask, have we become more religious?

00:25:33.000 No.

00:25:34.000 What we found is since COVID, there's been a significant decrease in people's church attendance, a significant decrease in people's Bible reading, a significant decrease in people's praying, a significant decrease in the proportion of Americans who say that they will take time during the week to praise and worship and thank God.

00:25:56.000 A significant decrease in the proportion of Americans who would say that they spend time intentionally seeking to know God's will for their life.

00:26:06.000 Well, when you have that kind of a trend line in all of those critical dimensions, I mean, you can't help but conclude we're definitely on the wrong path.

00:26:17.000 So let's kind of get into the part of, was there ever a time in your research where you saw a change of trend for the better, whether it be a short period of time?

00:26:28.000 I don't know the answer to this.

00:26:30.000 If yes, what would that be for?

00:26:32.000 For example, after 9-11, did you see any change in the data of how people came together or we de-radicalized for a short period of time?

00:26:43.000 9-11 didn't do that.

00:26:44.000 Okay.

00:26:45.000 What we found was that for the four weeks right after the attack, church attendance zoomed.

00:26:54.000 But after four weeks...

00:26:55.000 It didn't stick.

00:26:56.000 Yeah, there was no sustenance to it.

00:26:58.000 So let me ask, sorry to interrupt, but like the great recession of 2008, 2009, did we see any spiritual development trends there?

00:27:05.000 No.

00:27:06.000 So basically, your research has just been a basically the photograph is just like a slow-motion collapse of everything good.

00:27:14.000 At the end of the 80s through the mid-90s, we saw a little period of time where more people became interested in Jesus.

00:27:22.000 So why was it the climax of Billy Graham?

00:27:25.000 I'm interested of...

00:27:27.000 I don't know why.

00:27:28.000 To be honest.

00:27:29.000 Yep.

00:27:30.000 But we also know that by 1994, 95 in that range, then it went back down to the previous levels, and then it's slowly declined since.

00:27:40.000 It's been down the downward slope ever since.

00:27:43.000 Yes, sir.

00:27:43.000 So the book is Raising Spiritual Champions.

00:27:45.000 Let's get into this.

00:27:47.000 So this is very heavy stuff.

00:27:48.000 Some people would say it's awfully depressing.

00:27:50.000 What can we do about it?

00:27:52.000 And what in your research is the single or the two or three most hopeful data points?

00:27:58.000 in all of the very negative, understandably negative, yet real stuff we've talked about.

00:28:04.000 All right, let me answer that this way.

00:28:06.000 There are three things that I think we need to pay real close attention to.

00:28:11.000 First and foremost is family.

00:28:14.000 We've got to look at parents.

00:28:16.000 Parents in America, 2% of the parents of children under the age of 13 have a biblical worldview.

00:28:24.000 2%.

00:28:25.000 Remember what I said before, you can't give what you don't have.

00:28:28.000 And so when I talk about the fact that only 1% of teenagers, 1% of preteens have a biblical worldview, to me it's not surprising.

00:28:37.000 Depressing, sure, but it's not surprising because who's influencing them?

00:28:44.000 Well, the top influence, as I mentioned, is the arts and entertainment media.

00:28:48.000 The second influence would be their family, their parents in particular.

00:28:53.000 Neither of those groups is going to lead them to a biblical worldview.

00:28:57.000 The third one is church.

00:28:59.000 Now, we find that in America today, churches aren't even in the top 20 entities in a person's life that are having influence.

00:29:09.000 Churches just aren't having influence.

00:29:11.000 Can you list the top five?

00:29:13.000 I'm not a quiz.

00:29:14.000 I'm just curious.

00:29:15.000 Like, what would they be?

00:29:16.000 Like, employer, maybe?

00:29:17.000 I'm an old man.

00:29:17.000 I don't have much memory.

00:29:19.000 Have mercy on me.

00:29:20.000 I'm guessing, like, employer, spouse, celebrity figure.

00:29:23.000 It's finals week at ACU.

00:29:25.000 I feel like I'm taking my final, you know?

00:29:29.000 And I didn't study.

00:29:31.000 Yeah.

00:29:32.000 Okay, so the top six are arts and entertainment media, family, peers, schools, news and information media.

00:29:46.000 It's five.

00:29:47.000 Five out of six.

00:29:48.000 Can I get a B?

00:29:49.000 Yeah, that's good.

00:29:51.000 Maybe employer.

00:29:52.000 I don't know where that falls.

00:29:53.000 No, that's not on the list, okay?

00:29:55.000 Oh, gosh.

00:29:56.000 But religious figure is not till 20 is what you're saying.

00:29:59.000 It's actually lower than that.

00:30:01.000 Yeah, I was trying to be kind.

00:30:03.000 Okay.

00:30:04.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:30:06.000 And there are other ones.

00:30:08.000 But what that says then, okay, if we want to turn it around, the bad news is it's a mess.

00:30:15.000 The good news is, but we know what's causing the mess.

00:30:18.000 Parents are not concerned about the spiritual development of their children.

00:30:24.000 And when they are, they use something I refer to in the book as the outsourcing approach to parenting.

00:30:32.000 And what that means, this is the most common approach to parenting in America today.

00:30:36.000 Parents love their kids so much, and yet they're so busy and overwhelmed, they say, you know, I don't really have time to do it.

00:30:44.000 I don't think I could do a good job with the time I have, with the lack of training I'm suffering from.

00:30:50.000 So what I'm going to do, I'm going to go out and hire all the best people I can find to raise my child for me.

00:30:58.000 And so we hire coaches, we hire tutors, we drop kids off at churches, we put them in private schools.

00:31:04.000 We do all these things that are geared to giving our kids the best developers that we can find based on the world's standards.

00:31:15.000 Now, as I did the research on that, what I discovered is that that's problematic.

00:31:19.000 It's nice that you love your kids.

00:31:21.000 It's nice that you're willing to spend the money on them.

00:31:23.000 The problem is almost all of those developers have non-biblical worldviews.

00:31:31.000 And so all the people who are raising them in your stead are giving them an entree into the world.

00:31:39.000 They're teaching them that what the world says is right is right.

00:31:43.000 And so that's problematic.

00:31:45.000 So parents, number one, have to recognize that the Bible teaches the single most important thing that you will do in your life is love Jesus Christ with all your heart, mind, strength, and soul.

00:31:56.000 The second most important thing that you will do is raise your children to do the same thing.

00:32:03.000 And then the third thing that you can do is bring that to other people.

00:32:06.000 But we've forgotten all about that mandate to raise our children to be disciples of Jesus.

00:32:14.000 And so what do we do?

00:32:15.000 We drop them off at church.

00:32:16.000 We say, church, you deal with it.

00:32:18.000 You're the religious professionals.

00:32:20.000 We're outsourcing this to you.

00:32:22.000 Here's the dirty secret about what's going on in children's ministry in churches.

00:32:27.000 Only 12%, one out of every eight children's pastors in America, has a biblical worldview.

00:32:36.000 So what that means is in seven out of eight cases, we're doing more spiritual damage to children by bringing them to church than by keeping them at home.

00:32:47.000 It also says that if you're a parent and you want the church to help you, because the church does, local church, does have a role in this.

00:32:54.000 And by the way, there are some great children's ministries in America, you know, about one out of eight, but, you know, there are some great ones.

00:33:02.000 So I'm not saying it can't be done.

00:33:04.000 I'm just saying you, if you're a parent, if you're a grandparent, you've got to do your homework.

00:33:11.000 Shame on you if you just bring a kid, bring your child or your grandchild to a church that's fun.

00:33:20.000 They're not there to have fun.

00:33:22.000 They're not there to meet other kids.

00:33:24.000 They're there to meet Jesus Christ and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

00:33:32.000 So you've got to take that responsibility seriously.

00:33:36.000 I was interviewed today on some radio show and they said, well, you know, how do you do that?

00:33:41.000 It's like you make an appointment with the children's pastor.

00:33:44.000 You sit down and you interview them.

00:33:47.000 And the host said, well, but they probably aren't going to like that.

00:33:50.000 Say, good, get up and walk out.

00:33:52.000 I mean, if they can't take a parent interviewing them about what do you think you're going to do with my child, if they won't tell you that, looking you in the eyes, walk out of that place because it's dangerous.

00:34:07.000 If you like what you're hearing from the pastor, then ask to see the curriculum that they're using.

00:34:13.000 Because there's a lot of awful curriculum in churches across the country that's non-biblical.

00:34:19.000 It's happy talk.

00:34:21.000 And your children don't need happy talk.

00:34:23.000 They need truth.

00:34:25.000 And so you've got to make sure that the curriculum being used is biblical.

00:34:30.000 Thirdly, ask them, show me the agenda for what you do during the hour you have my child.

00:34:35.000 If it's filled up mostly by games and singing and puzzles and crafts and all this other stuff, wrong place.

00:34:43.000 They get them one hour a week.

00:34:45.000 We've got to maximize that time.

00:34:48.000 They want to make friends, do it somewhere else.

00:34:50.000 You want to have fun?

00:34:51.000 Go out in the backyard with them after church.

00:34:54.000 Okay, but when they're there, make sure they're getting a heavy dose of Jesus.

00:34:59.000 Now, the other thing to keep in mind is that the only reason that a children's ministry exists is to support parents in raising the children.

00:35:10.000 It's not to do the job for you.

00:35:12.000 It's to help you do the job, which means they better be willing to communicate with you throughout the week because you're the one responsible.

00:35:22.000 They're there to help you.

00:35:24.000 So those are just some thoughts.

00:35:26.000 So what gives you hope again?

00:35:27.000 So then I'm an old man and I'm going home soon.

00:35:37.000 Fair enough.

00:35:39.000 I do want to get to some questions here, but let's talk about some action.

00:35:43.000 Sorry, let me do one more thing.

00:35:44.000 I understand that things are falling apart.

00:35:48.000 I do this to everybody I'm with.

00:35:49.000 Yeah.

00:35:50.000 What gives me hope?

00:35:51.000 What gives me hope is scripture, okay?

00:35:53.000 Because I read that, and what I see is that God often changed entire cultures, entire cities, entire city-states, you know, depending on the polity of the age.

00:36:07.000 But what we found is that God never waits until he has majority to completely revolutionize a community.

00:36:17.000 Okay?

00:36:18.000 We find, in fact, Gideon's a great example.

00:36:22.000 So Gideon's going up against the Midianites. 0.76

00:36:24.000 Midianites have 135,000 people in their army.

00:36:27.000 Gideon's got a much smaller army.

00:36:29.000 I don't remember the number, but I think it was about 30,000.

00:36:32.000 And God looks at this, and Gideon says, okay, are we ready to go?

00:36:36.000 And God said, no, you know what?

00:36:38.000 Get rid of half your army.

00:36:40.000 And then, you know, okay, now are we ready?

00:36:43.000 They go through this until finally Gideon's left with 300 people.

00:36:47.000 And God says, now you're ready.

00:36:50.000 300 against 135,000 who were ready to slaughter Gideon and his men.

00:36:56.000 And Gideon and his men won.

00:36:58.000 Why?

00:36:59.000 Because they had God on their side.

00:37:00.000 So it's not about numbers.

00:37:05.000 This may be one of the few times that you'll ever hear me say it's not about numbers, okay?

00:37:12.000 But the key is we've got 3% of adults in America who are genuine disciples of Jesus.

00:37:21.000 We can turn this country upside down with that 3%.

00:37:24.000 If that 3%, if that 3% is willing to get out of the armchair and go out into the world and be Jesus to a hurting, suffering, confused, distracted world, we are the solution to their problem because we have Jesus living within us.

00:37:45.000 We have the Holy Spirit empowering us.

00:37:48.000 We have the truth of God in his word.

00:37:50.000 We've got the armor of God protecting us.

00:37:53.000 We have no excuse for not getting out and saying, this is nothing.

00:38:00.000 We can do this.

00:38:01.000 We serve the living God who's sending us into battle in this culture.

00:38:06.000 Every day when you wake up, you are waking up as a spiritual warrior.

00:38:11.000 So go get it.

00:38:13.000 Amen.

00:38:14.000 Let's start lining up for questions, guys.

00:38:17.000 And it was 3% of the American colonists that led the American Revolution.

00:38:24.000 3%.

00:38:26.000 3%.

00:38:27.000 So that's fitting, that number.

00:38:29.000 That's the exact percentage based on multiple historical analysis.

00:38:34.000 97% of Americans during the Revolutionary War wanted nothing to do with it.

00:38:40.000 Now, 33% were sympathetic.

00:38:42.000 Similar number.

00:38:44.000 Right?

00:38:44.000 33, 34.

00:38:46.000 33% were sympathetic.

00:38:48.000 33% were loyal to the crown.

00:38:51.000 And 33% said, I want nothing to do with it.

00:38:54.000 And out of the 33%, 3% were the actual movers and doers.

00:38:59.000 And we defeated the greatest empire the world had ever known and created the freest society the world has ever known.

00:39:06.000 So some nice parallels with some numbers there.

00:39:09.000 All right, yes, ma'am.

00:39:11.000 Just let's keep the questions short.

00:39:13.000 We didn't do questions last month because we had Dr. Grossman, which was the right move to let her talk, which is so deep, so great.

00:39:19.000 So let's get to a lot of questions.

00:39:20.000 I know there's a lot waiting.

00:39:22.000 Yes, ma'am.

00:39:23.000 Sure.

00:39:24.000 So there's a range of about 49 to 51% of American adults are single right now.

00:39:30.000 We're living in a crazy dating crisis.

00:39:33.000 And so my question is, you use an example of the mission field of our churches.

00:39:39.000 I think a lot of the people that come in and out are currently single.

00:39:42.000 Is that on your radar for research or do you have any feedback for us?

00:39:46.000 I'd love some numbers to bring to congregations and see if we can get something going.

00:39:51.000 Yeah, we do see that in the data.

00:39:52.000 We see that number growing.

00:39:54.000 We see the number of people who say they don't want to get married increasing.

00:39:59.000 We have a majority of people in America now who believe that sex without marriage is morally acceptable. 0.98

00:40:06.000 We have a growing proportion of people who say they never want to have children.

00:40:11.000 And so you put that all together along with almost seven out of ten who say that, you know, people of the same gender marrying each other is legitimate marriage.

00:40:24.000 You know, so yeah, I mean, we've got a real mess on our hands with that.

00:40:29.000 And it is right now getting worse.

00:40:32.000 Could it change?

00:40:33.000 Absolutely.

00:40:34.000 Everything that I've talked about, everything that I study is changeable.

00:40:38.000 But again, we've got to have the change agents who are informed, who are committed, and who invest themselves in the change process.

00:40:47.000 Yeah, and just to expound on that, number one, the fertility rate is the lowest it's ever been in America.

00:40:52.000 So we are having less babies than ever before in the history of our country.

00:40:56.000 And it will go down significantly from here.

00:40:58.000 We have just started to see the plummeting.

00:41:02.000 It's below replacement level numbers.

00:41:04.000 It's at 1.7.

00:41:06.000 Replacement is 2.1.

00:41:08.000 And so we are going down, down, down dramatically.

00:41:11.000 Having children is no longer something that is a value.

00:41:16.000 This is what's very important.

00:41:17.000 And we learned this because in human history, we considered reproduction to be a norm and that everyone wanted to have children.

00:41:25.000 No, that's not correct.

00:41:27.000 What people want to do is to have the pleasure that you get from having a child.

00:41:33.000 And if you have the technology to prevent you from having that child, they will decide not to have the child.

00:41:38.000 And that's what we've learned in the last 20 years, which is mind-blowing, which is that children are an inconvenience to the West.

00:41:46.000 And you see that in the data.

00:41:48.000 We do.

00:41:48.000 And also, we can make a political link here between immigration.

00:41:53.000 Exactly.

00:41:53.000 That's why they want open borders, because they'll say, we're going to allow the third worlders to have kids for you, because we don't want to have kids.

00:42:02.000 Secondly, I would say the vast majority of young Christians that I talk to do not believe that premarital sex is wrong.

00:42:11.000 The vast majority of churches we work with do not even teach against premarital sex.

00:42:16.000 And the majority of Christian schools here in Scottsdale, I had a mom come up to me about a local Catholic school, and she says all the girls by age 16 or 17 except the couple have all lost their virginity, basically.

00:42:29.000 So it is standard operating procedure if they're not lesbian or gay or whatever, which by the way is one out of three kids in most urban areas are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender.

00:42:39.000 45% of kids at Brown University are gay.

00:42:42.000 And so, yeah, I mean, this is not uplifting, but it is true. 0.65

00:42:47.000 And then, yeah, I mean, marriages can, so young men increasingly don't want to get married because they could just watch artificial intelligence pornography.

00:42:54.000 You know, talking to a woman is just too much work. 1.00

00:42:56.000 Why do that?

00:42:58.000 And we've calculated, not we, but the, I'm sure your data is better than all of it, but it's about five to six men, five to six million men that have just disappeared.

00:43:07.000 They've just checked out, basically.

00:43:08.000 They're not getting married.

00:43:09.000 They don't really have jobs.

00:43:10.000 They kind of live with their parents.

00:43:11.000 They might do a little bit of side hustles here or there.

00:43:14.000 And they've just gone off the grid.

00:43:16.000 We don't know where they've gone or what they're doing.

00:43:18.000 And they want nothing to do with society.

00:43:21.000 Yes.

00:43:23.000 I was involved in a campus Bible study for a lot of years, and they preached a message pretty similar to what you're preaching here tonight.

00:43:31.000 They would always specifically highlight Matthew 16, 24 and Mark 8, 34.

00:43:38.000 They kind of say the same thing.

00:43:39.000 Deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow me. 0.99

00:43:44.000 I like to think of it as the start of every day.

00:43:47.000 You know, you're praying in the morning.

00:43:49.000 That's kind of your humbling and self-denial.

00:43:52.000 And then you get going into the world and you pick up your cross, you start your day, you go out into the world, and you follow and you share.

00:43:59.000 I'm just wondering to you, of those three things, deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow me, is there a level of importance to those things in the way that Jesus said them?

00:44:10.000 And another question, just when did you realize that there was kind of a fake version of Christianity 40 or so years ago?

00:44:18.000 At what age did you realize that?

00:44:20.000 Yeah, I have no idea if Jesus had a hierarchy of priorities with those three things.

00:44:26.000 But I would say that he mentioned all three things because they all matter.

00:44:31.000 So it's not up to me to choose which matters.

00:44:34.000 I'm not saying you do that, but clearly all three of those matter.

00:44:38.000 At what age did I figure out that things were going in the wrong direction?

00:44:42.000 Pretty soon after I started doing research.

00:44:46.000 So the age, I was 30 when I started my company.

00:44:51.000 So by the age of 31, I realized there was trouble.

00:44:57.000 Thank you.

00:44:58.000 Yes, ma'am.

00:44:59.000 Two real quick questions, I think, real quick.

00:45:02.000 One is Bible versions.

00:45:05.000 We were talking about, say, Sunday school being games, not really getting down to business.

00:45:13.000 Are some of the Bible versions watered down too much to be effective, or is that all the Holy Spirit?

00:45:20.000 Second question, my husband and I are frustrated by our Democrat Christian friends who seem to be okay with, oh, there are gay people and abortion, you know, the poor girl, that stuff.

00:45:38.000 Can you talk to that?

00:45:40.000 Yeah, I'm happy to start.

00:45:41.000 So I've said this before and I got in a lot of trouble.

00:45:45.000 So I'll repeat it again clearly and I will say it more lovingly than I said it previously.

00:45:56.000 I do not believe you can be an actual Christian with a biblical worldview and vote for the Democrat Party in America.

00:46:06.000 I do not believe you could do that.

00:46:08.000 Now that does not mean that if you vote Republican, you're a Christian or you get points in heaven.

00:46:15.000 But I do not believe that you can call yourself a Christian with a worldview that is rooted in Scripture and vote for a party that mutilates children, that there's a million abortions every single year, is eradicating our southern border, and has on Easter Sunday, they call it Transgender Visibility Day and not a proclamation of the Lord's Day.

00:46:42.000 So I don't know if that will be awfully persuasive for your friends, but they might call themselves Christians and it's probably futile to dive into it. 0.96

00:46:50.000 And this is, again, we're just going based on this entire conversation of are you actually a Christian?

00:46:56.000 If you call yourself a Christian, by the fruit you will know them.

00:47:00.000 And based on what scripture says, I do not believe those two things can harmonize.

00:47:03.000 So what can we do to respond to those people?

00:47:06.000 Well, at first, let me just kind of go through the ones you mentioned.

00:47:08.000 First, they say, well, there are gay people. 0.99

00:47:10.000 Well, yeah, there are adulterers, and there are gamblers, and there are fornicators. 0.98

00:47:15.000 We don't doubt that there are people that struggle with sin.

00:47:19.000 The question is, do you create a new civil rights category for every sin?

00:47:24.000 Oh, you know, we have an entire month of July just for adulterers. 0.50

00:47:31.000 We have the month of August just for embezzlers. 0.99

00:47:37.000 And the month of September is for all the people that covet.

00:47:41.000 And we're going to have pride for that.

00:47:43.000 So we recognize that they exist, obviously, and we have love for those people.

00:47:47.000 The question is, is that your identity?

00:47:50.000 There are only two identities that matter to the divine, saved or unsaved.

00:47:55.000 That's it.

00:47:55.000 Those are the only two identities that matter.

00:47:59.000 And if you play into this idea that your identity is in your sexual behavior, well, then you're falling short of the glory of God.

00:48:07.000 Secondly, on the abortion thing, they say, oh, you know, poor woman or whatever.

00:48:13.000 Okay, well, 50% chance that it's a woman in the woman.

00:48:17.000 So poor woman that you're terminating, that you're throwing into a trash can.

00:48:21.000 Number two, which is, wait a second, poor woman, where's the sympathy for the being that isn't there?

00:48:28.000 And how did she get pregnant in the first place? 0.91

00:48:32.000 Again, less than 1% of all abortions are by rape and incest. 0.94

00:48:36.000 She made a decision to engage in the act of having a child, right?

00:48:42.000 Which there's kids here, so I'll be a little bit, you know, cryptic, vague. 0.93

00:48:47.000 And you have made that decision, and we're now supposed to allow you to intervene and terminate another sovereign life made in the image of the divine so that you can go have orgasms without a consequence.

00:49:01.000 Like, if it's your body, your choice, then take responsibility for your pleasure. 0.74

00:49:08.000 You want to go to this?

00:49:12.000 You can see why I get myself in trouble.

00:49:14.000 What was the first part of your question?

00:49:15.000 I don't remember.

00:49:18.000 Bible versions, yes. 0.98

00:49:19.000 So I think Mr. Barna knows this better than I do.

00:49:22.000 But yes, we did an entire podcast on this, laughing and reading from the message translation.

00:49:30.000 And it is so awful.

00:49:32.000 And I'm not trying to make you feel bad if you read the message, but you have to stop reading the message if you're reading it.

00:49:37.000 It is so, I'll give you an example.

00:49:39.000 I'm paraphrasing, but there's a Bible translation out there where they say, Jesus went with his friends to go plan a picnic, and they ran out of food.

00:49:48.000 And next thing you know, Jesus made some magic happen and the 5,000 had food.

00:49:54.000 You think I'm kidding?

00:49:56.000 That's where Bible translations are going.

00:49:58.000 I'm a stickler for one of two translations, the King James or the New King James or the ESV.

00:50:03.000 Those are the three that I use.

00:50:05.000 Not because I believe I know the Koigne Greek better than others, but almost every major revival that we have used the New King James Version.

00:50:15.000 There's something about that translation that speaks to the heart, that gets people to repent and leads to revival.

00:50:22.000 Do you have thoughts on that?

00:50:24.000 Yeah, I mean, there are three different types of Bibles that get used.

00:50:27.000 There are literal translations, there are paraphrases, and there's some other term for the message.

00:50:34.000 I forget what it is.

00:50:35.000 Yes.

00:50:36.000 It is, you know. 1.00

00:50:37.000 It might be crap. 0.99

00:50:38.000 Yeah, there you go. 1.00

00:50:38.000 I don't know. 1.00

00:50:39.000 Yeah.

00:50:41.000 It's just screenwriting at some point.

00:50:43.000 Yeah, I mean, it's a creative writing class, basically.

00:50:46.000 Yeah.

00:50:47.000 So, you know, when you choose a Bible, I mean, there are guides that will help you figure out how accurate they are to the original texts that were in the Greek or the Aramaic or Hebrew or whatever the fragments were that we found archaeologically.

00:51:05.000 And so if I were you, I mean, that's what we do, is we look at, okay, how accurate are these according to the original manuscripts?

00:51:13.000 That's what you want.

00:51:15.000 I mean, only because we don't read the original biblical languages, do we have to use the translations that come to us today?

00:51:23.000 But we want translations that are as close to the original as possible.

00:51:27.000 Thank you.

00:51:28.000 Yes, ma'am.

00:51:29.000 I have a question for, I'm like, just what's the percentage of the church that has false teaching?

00:51:37.000 What is the percentage of the church that holds to God's teaching?

00:51:39.000 That holds to false teaching.

00:51:41.000 Holds to false.

00:51:42.000 That's a great question.

00:51:42.000 So her question is: what percentage of churches will engage in what you would call false teaching?

00:51:51.000 It's a difficult question for one reason for me.

00:51:56.000 And that's because it's not black and white.

00:52:00.000 What I find is that churches that engage in errant biblical teaching also sometimes provide biblical teaching.

00:52:11.000 And that's what makes it even more insidious, is that I can go and for four weeks I can hear biblical messages and then week five.

00:52:21.000 My pastor might be off the wall scripturally, but he's kind of built up my trust level, which is one of the great reasons why I shouldn't be relying on the teaching of somebody else when it comes to scripture.

00:52:40.000 I need to know it well enough that what that person in the pulpit is doing is reminding me or challenging me, but not informing me.

00:52:52.000 I should know it well enough that I can tell when they're wrong.

00:52:58.000 Thank you.

00:53:00.000 Yes, ma'am.

00:53:01.000 Hi.

00:53:02.000 In this society that has a what I like to call a feed me mentality, feed me your truth, feed me your opinion, feed me your absolutes, what can we do to say, skillfully say, hey, here's the knife and the fork.

00:53:19.000 You need to cut the meat and see what's wrong, see what's wrong with it.

00:53:23.000 In other words, how do we give a relevant absolute truth in a world that says absolute truth is not necessary, nor does it exist?

00:53:32.000 Well, one of the things that we've been studying for the last couple years, I'll have a book on it coming out next year about discipling people.

00:53:39.000 And that's basically what you're saying.

00:53:41.000 How do you disciple somebody who doesn't accept truth?

00:53:44.000 Where do you start?

00:53:45.000 What do you do?

00:53:46.000 And it's important, I think, to understand how discipleship works.

00:53:50.000 It doesn't happen in small groups.

00:53:53.000 It doesn't really happen in church services.

00:53:55.000 It happens through relationships.

00:53:58.000 That's the way that Jesus discipled people.

00:54:01.000 You know, that's how disciples were made in the early church.

00:54:03.000 So it's all about developing a relationship where the person trusts you and where you have the opportunity to share time and experiences with them.

00:54:15.000 And then the key is what I refer to as Socratic dialogue.

00:54:22.000 The way that Socrates taught his students, he didn't come in and download information to them.

00:54:28.000 He came in and he asked them questions.

00:54:30.000 What do you believe about the sun?

00:54:32.000 Why do you believe that?

00:54:34.000 You know, what would the evidence of that be? 1.00

00:54:36.000 So he wasn't telling them, no, you're an idiot if you believe that. 1.00

00:54:40.000 Let me tell you the way it works. 1.00

00:54:42.000 He let the person come to that conclusion simply by asking them questions.

00:54:48.000 And what happens so often, particularly spiritually, because there is truth, we know truth when we encounter it.

00:54:56.000 Now, we may choose to reject it, but God's truth is God's truth.

00:55:00.000 It doesn't change, and it's not going away.

00:55:02.000 So when we have these Socratic dialogues with people, if somebody wants to become a disciple or you want them to become a disciple and they're not sure and they're on the fence, just by having these kinds of conversations with them where you get to ask them, really, you believe abortion is acceptable?

00:55:20.000 Why do you think that?

00:55:21.000 And then going through, taking what they say and just asking more questions and going deeper and deeper and deeper, more times than not, what you discover is that that individual hears their own answers and actually comes to the conclusion, wow, I'm going to keep on this train because I don't want to embarrass myself. 0.99

00:55:41.000 But when I leave here, I realize how stupid my point of view is. 0.88

00:55:47.000 And then they start rethinking some things. 0.96

00:55:49.000 Now, they're not going to turn like that necessarily, but you've started the train moving in a different direction.

00:55:56.000 And that's why that relationship is so critical, because you keep sharing experiences and conversations and ideas with them. 0.99

00:56:05.000 And eventually you get to lead them to truth without having to beat them over the head with the Bible or tell them that they're idiots for not buying it outright at first. 0.99

00:56:15.000 And I'll just say one quick thing. 0.99

00:56:17.000 They say they don't believe in absolute truth.

00:56:20.000 Ask them if they believe that absolutely.

00:56:24.000 Next question.

00:56:26.000 Thank you, Professor Bron, for being here.

00:56:28.000 I really enjoyed the talk, and I'll definitely be getting your book tonight.

00:56:33.000 Charlie, my question is actually about the college scam.

00:56:37.000 So I read this book a couple years ago.

00:56:39.000 I've given it, you know, as gifts to friends, and it helped us.

00:56:42.000 Our son actually will be attending Arizona Christian University in the fall.

00:56:48.000 So thank you.

00:56:49.000 We used it as a guide.

00:56:51.000 But what I have noticed, and I have a few in my circle that are turned off by the title.

00:56:57.000 So could you just give me your 30-second commercial of without the title?

00:57:03.000 But like why someone should read this book?

00:57:05.000 It's amazing.

00:57:07.000 I understand people can be turned off the title.

00:57:09.000 I mean, because they're protective of college, you know, they're protective of college more than anything else, more than the church.

00:57:15.000 It's a holy institution because, you know, a lot of parents don't want to see their kids become plumbers.

00:57:23.000 But we love plumbers, right?

00:57:25.000 I'm just speaking truth.

00:57:25.000 You know that.

00:57:26.000 Parents be like, how dare you call college a scam?

00:57:28.000 My kid's not going to become a welder.

00:57:32.000 Right?

00:57:32.000 And so, but I will stand by.

00:57:34.000 So we thought about what can we call the, you know, should we say that college is a bad idea?

00:57:38.000 Should we say that college is overrated?

00:57:40.000 You get it.

00:57:40.000 So I stand by the title.

00:57:41.000 But yes, here's my shtick.

00:57:44.000 41% of kids that enter college will not graduate.

00:57:47.000 They just won't graduate.

00:57:49.000 Of those that do graduate, only half will end up getting a job that requires a college degree.

00:57:54.000 So the whole four years are for nothing.

00:57:57.000 Outside of that, you have to navigate all the rubbish that they have to learn unless they go to ACU, all the nonsense, all the polluted worldviews, turning them into nihilistic activists.

00:58:07.000 And even beyond that, let's ask the question, are we developing kids of good character and of wisdom? 0.76

00:58:13.000 Are we just creating a bunch of highly credentialed, entitled 22-year-olds to go around and act as if the whole world is theirs because they have a piece of paper after they got a degree in North African lesbian poetry?

00:58:30.000 I think we know the answer to that.

00:58:32.000 There are 11 million job openings that pay over $75,000 a year in this country that do not require a college degree and require six to eight weeks of technical training.

00:58:44.000 Let me say that again.

00:58:46.000 This is according to the Department of Labor, the Bureau of Label Statistics, and three independent studies.

00:58:52.000 There are 11 million job openings that pay more than $75,000 a year that do not require a college degree, That takes six to eight weeks of technical job training.

00:59:04.000 Why are there so many job openings?

00:59:06.000 Because I'll end how I started. 0.96

00:59:07.000 Because upper middle class parents in the country look down on the working class.

00:59:12.000 And they want their kids to be in the laptop Zoom class, not in the muscular class.

00:59:18.000 They say, God forbid that my kid will have to shower before work and after work.

00:59:23.000 He's going to go stay crunched in the corner at a data center in Tempe.

00:59:28.000 making sure he doesn't mispronoun his colleagues earning $68,000 a year with a degree in computer science with $60,000 of debt from ASU because college is wonderful.

00:59:39.000 At what point are we going to wake up and realize this is a racketeering operation that is impoverishing a generation?

00:59:47.000 So anyway, I love the question, Denise.

00:59:49.000 Thank you for promoting the book.

00:59:50.000 You're the best, and Anderson's going to do great at ACU.

00:59:53.000 God bless you, man.

00:59:54.000 Yes.

00:59:55.000 Hi, my name's Denine.

00:59:57.000 My question is for those of us that have our Jewish friends, I brought a Jewish friend last time.

01:00:04.000 It worked out beautifully by the grace of God with all the Jewish writing and Dr. Grossman. 0.85

01:00:10.000 And now the conversation that I've been praying for for years has opened up to offer her more information about Christ.

01:00:18.000 One of the things she said to me that blew me away was, I haven't been told anything negative about Jesus.

01:00:23.000 I haven't been told anything at all.

01:00:25.000 And I about fell over because I made the assumption all these years that they were just against him.

01:00:33.000 So I'm happy to respond.

01:00:35.000 So how serious is she in her Judaism?

01:00:38.000 For the Jewish people that I'm the woman.

01:00:41.000 Yes, she's very serious.

01:00:43.000 So there is a forbidden passage in Israel that could get you basically arrested if you talk about it.

01:00:43.000 Great.

01:00:50.000 And it's the one you should definitely talk to her about.

01:00:52.000 It's Isaiah 53.

01:00:55.000 Isaiah 53 is the thermonuclear weapon of the Old Testament of prophecy.

01:01:00.000 And it by to the letter, prophecies prophesies the entire life of Jesus in the Old Testament scriptures.

01:01:08.000 At a root of dry ground, he was pierced for our transgressions.

01:01:11.000 I'm paraphrasing part of it.

01:01:12.000 And it is without a doubt the most powerful and successful and most censored Old Testament verse in serious Jewish circles.

01:01:21.000 Now, you thought that some Jews don't like Jesus because in the Talmud, there are some very, very nasty teachings about Jesus, right? 0.96

01:01:29.000 That he's in hell with a bunch of feces, right?

01:01:32.000 And not every Jew believes that, but it is in the Talmud, which in some circles would be considered to be the Jewish New Testament.

01:01:38.000 But here's the cool thing, is that a Jewish woman, as you say, who's ready to open her heart to Jesus is one of the most important things because Paul said we must bless the Jews, right?

01:01:49.000 To bring a Jew to Jesus, I think, is one of the most incredible things that anybody can do.

01:01:53.000 And I've witnessed it myself.

01:01:55.000 It's remarkable.

01:01:56.000 And you have to understand she's searching for the Messiah.

01:01:59.000 She has an empty chair at the Passover Seder waiting for that Messiah. 0.92

01:02:05.000 You just have to remind her the Messiah has come and is living and rose from the dead.

01:02:11.000 And his name is Yeshua, Jesus Christ.

01:02:13.000 So we'll be praying for you and praying for your friend.

01:02:19.000 All right, we have time for one or two more.

01:02:21.000 We'll go to our very impressive young man here.

01:02:24.000 Hello, I'm a big fan of you.

01:02:28.000 So we just had a podcast about inflation, and since it's rising a lot, I'm wondering if I can still have a good life like my mom and dad.

01:02:39.000 I love that.

01:02:40.000 How old are you, and what's your name?

01:02:42.000 I'm Max, and I'm 10 years old.

01:02:44.000 How impressive is that?

01:02:45.000 Getting up in front of all these people.

01:02:47.000 It's great.

01:02:50.000 The answer is, yes, you can have a great life, but you also, your future is being stolen from you.

01:02:56.000 You have never voted.

01:02:57.000 You're 10 years old, and you have leaders that hate you that are using your credit card without your consent to impoverish you and destroy your dollar, your purchasing power, and your future.

01:03:07.000 But despite that, though, you and me, because we're going to be in this for a while, I'm 20 years older than you.

01:03:12.000 We're not going to use that as a reason to be negative or to overly point fingers.

01:03:18.000 We're going to overcome all of it and we're going to build a better future.

01:03:21.000 And I believe that's going to start in November, to be honest with you.

01:03:24.000 We're going to.

01:03:25.000 And so, great question, my friend.

01:03:29.000 Final question?

01:03:30.000 Yes.

01:03:31.000 Is that your brother?

01:03:33.000 Yeah, that's my brother.

01:03:34.000 That's awesome.

01:03:36.000 Now, what's your name, and how old are you?

01:03:38.000 I'm Will and I'm 12.

01:03:40.000 Terrific.

01:03:40.000 Awesome.

01:03:41.000 What's on your mind?

01:03:43.000 So, me and my brother are part of Gen Alpha.

01:03:46.000 And we have a podcast about conservative values.

01:03:51.000 And we think that the government is stealing our future from us.

01:03:57.000 So I'm wondering, what advice do you have for Gen Alpha?

01:04:01.000 First of all, what's the name of your podcast?

01:04:03.000 I'd love to subscribe.

01:04:04.000 It's Programming Lions.

01:04:06.000 Programming Lions.

01:04:07.000 Yeah, it's me, my brother, and my dad.

01:04:09.000 We should all subscribe to that.

01:04:11.000 We should make it.

01:04:11.000 What do you guys think?

01:04:17.000 Your question was, you believe your future is being stolen.

01:04:20.000 And then what can we do about it, essentially?

01:04:20.000 Yeah.

01:04:22.000 Yeah, what's your advice for Gen Alpha?

01:04:24.000 Well, first of all, to you, and I mean this non-sarcastically.

01:04:28.000 So at Turning Point Action, we're going to be knocking on hundreds of thousands of doors here in Arizona because we want to see Arizona become red, obviously.

01:04:36.000 And I deal with people all the time that are apathetic, and they're like, what's the point?

01:04:39.000 I'd love to have them talk to a 12-year-old that cares more about the country than a 65-year-old.

01:04:44.000 Is that right?

01:04:44.000 I mean, I think that every person that says it doesn't matter, I'm not going to vote, you know, the election is stolen as if, okay, you're a real tough guy for not voting because the election's stolen.

01:04:55.000 Like, go look a Generation Alpha kid in the eyes and tell him that.

01:04:59.000 Tell him that his life doesn't matter and that his advocacy is irrelevant.

01:05:03.000 And so what you can do is that I think you are both super articulate.

01:05:07.000 You need to go talk to as many people that can vote as possible and remind them you're actually the reason why they should vote is to believe a free society in a strong country for you.

01:05:20.000 And I'll close with this and then I want Mr. Barna to close this out here with some thoughts, which is that far too often we realize the stakes of the game are higher than they should be.

01:05:36.000 Have you ever seen a chance where a 10 or 12 year old feels convicted to create a podcast?

01:05:41.000 Why do you think that is?

01:05:42.000 Because at some fundamental level, they realize that things are falling apart and collapsing, that at 10 or 12 years old, they're effectively taking up arms in this culture war to fight for their country.

01:05:52.000 That should motivate you, but also it should disturb you.

01:05:55.000 Like, no offense, you guys shouldn't be that interested.

01:05:58.000 Like, this country should be a lot more organized than it should, that you could be worried about like regular 10 or 12-year-old things.

01:06:04.000 But you know, it's not because you two have more responsibility than most of your elders do.

01:06:09.000 And I hate to say that.

01:06:10.000 It's just the way it is.

01:06:12.000 And honestly, it gives me hope.

01:06:13.000 I've said this for a while.

01:06:14.000 Gen Z, Gen Alpha, the young people who deal at Turning Point USA, we're going to have to fix a lot of the mess that has been left us. 0.95

01:06:21.000 And we're going to do that.

01:06:22.000 And both of you guys give me great hope.

01:06:25.000 Thank you.

01:06:25.000 God bless you guys.

01:06:26.000 Final thoughts.

01:06:32.000 Yeah, you know, Charlie's asking me to give you a final thought.

01:06:34.000 Let me just say this.

01:06:37.000 Christianity was never meant to be a religion.

01:06:40.000 Okay, it's supposed to be a movement.

01:06:43.000 A movement of people who love Jesus and are willing to follow him in everything they do, no matter where he takes us.

01:06:52.000 I'm a sociologist.

01:06:54.000 One of the things I do is I study movements.

01:06:56.000 And I can tell you that there are movements that have radically changed today's America that have had 1% of the population behind their ideology.

01:07:07.000 Take the gay movement. 0.81

01:07:09.000 Okay, 1% of the population has now completely twisted the minds of the rest of the population because they had a vision, they had passion, they had commitment, and they never gave up.

01:07:26.000 The Christian church in America gave up long ago.

01:07:30.000 And so we've got to restore that sense of calling that God has given to us, that understanding of who Jesus is and what a magnificent privilege it is that we have to know him, to love him, and to serve him.

01:07:47.000 We can't just sit back and watch other people steal that away from us.

01:07:53.000 We can't allow them to tell us, no, we can't have God in this country.

01:07:58.000 It's his country.

01:08:00.000 And so we have the privilege of serving him.

01:08:03.000 I'm praying that everybody who's here tonight is going to go back and think about what priority is it in your life to be part of a movement of people who pledge to restore America to the heart of God.

01:08:20.000 That's what the church, capital C, is meant to be.

01:08:24.000 Don't get all wound up in church small C.

01:08:28.000 Okay, nothing wrong with it.

01:08:29.000 It's fine.

01:08:30.000 But church capital C is what it's about.

01:08:33.000 That's about the community of believers who share that common love for and service of God.

01:08:41.000 You need to be part of that.

01:08:43.000 But it can't just be lip service.

01:08:46.000 You've got to be willing to take some hits for it.

01:08:49.000 Jesus promised that you will be persecuted when you do his work.

01:08:54.000 If you're not being persecuted, maybe you're not doing his work.

01:08:58.000 Okay?

01:08:59.000 So, you know, don't be afraid of that because he'll also protect us.

01:09:04.000 He'll strengthen us through that.

01:09:06.000 And you know what?

01:09:08.000 If you die serving God, praise the Lord, what a way to go.

01:09:12.000 Okay, there's a lot worse things you could hope for.

01:09:16.000 So if we're going to restore America, the only way America gets restored is not by Republicans.

01:09:24.000 It's not by any of these other groups that we could name.

01:09:27.000 It's by those who know, love, and serve Jesus Christ, putting it all on the line for him.

01:09:34.000 God bless America.

01:09:36.000 Thank you.

01:09:37.000 One more time for George Barna.

01:09:39.000 Thank you.

01:09:40.000 And we will see you on June 5th, which is the 12-year birthday of Turning Point USA.

01:09:44.000 So we'll see you on June 5th, everybody.

01:09:46.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

01:09:47.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

01:09:50.000 Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.

01:09:55.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - May 19, 2024

Who is REALLY Teaching Your Kids? Live from Dream City Church

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