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

0:00My name is Charlie Kirk. I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic. My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth. If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable. But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful. College is a scam everybody. You've got to stop sending your kids to college. You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible. Go start a turning point USA college chapter. Go start a turning point USA high school chapter. Go find out how your church can get involved. Sign up and become an activist. I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade. Most important decision I ever made in my life. And I encourage you to do the same. Here I am. Lord, use me. Buckle up everybody. Here we go. The Charlie Kirk show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts,

1:02and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers. So it's a pleasure to be here tonight. You know, I just was here a couple weeks ago with Andrew and our field team here in Arizona. And we were talking about, you know, the group here at Grand Canyon as it was growing. And we wanted to definitely do an events here because I was in town for a debate tomorrow at ASU. But we said, well, Grand Canyon University is a Christian university. And, you know, turning point USA is a growing student movement fighting for free markets and capitalism. And I hear all the time these horrible misconceptions that in order to be a Christian, you must be a socialist in order to be a horrible thing. And so I said, why don't I give a speech and kind of articulate the Christian case for capitalism? And I talked about it here and there. I've talked about it some of our summits and some of our conferences. And it's something I think we need to talk more about because it's theologically and biblically sound.

2:06And we shouldn't have to stray away from us, you know, conservative capitalist. It's completely compatible with a Christian worldview. So I look forward to talking about it and talking about my personal perspective. Obviously turning point USA, we are not a religious organization, but we have a lot of Christians in our organization. So everything I say here is Charlie Kirk talking, not necessarily turning point USA. But the parts about the free market definitely are, you know, what we believe at turning point. So first and foremost, just a little bit by background, I started this organization when I was 18 years old, five and a half years ago. It's been quite a journey. We're now on 1200 college and high school campuses across the country hosting amazing events. Hope to see you all at the Student Action Summit coming up in a couple weeks. I was born and raised in a Christian household, but really in recent years became more and more engaged with the faith and the walk. And so let's define first two terms. Just so everyone is clear in case there's any misunderstanding.

3:08So first, what does it mean? What do I mean? A Christian case for capitalism, Christianity. So Christian in most terms is the belief that first and foremost, there is a God. And God had a lot of involvement throughout the Old Testament. And then sent his son, Jesus Christ, to save the world. And through his perfect life and perfect sacrifice, he atoned the sins of humanity. And through his acceptance as a savior of the world, we will then have eternal life. God in three parts through God the Father, God the Son, and then God the Holy Spirit. We know this through the book that God wrote. God wrote a book, of course. The perfect non-contradictory, irrefutable book that we know as the Holy Bible with over 27 different authors. Wrote over 4,000 years, which comprise everything from the ancient Jewish texts to the four gospels, to the letters of Paul. And finally, of course, the minor and major prophets.

4:11So we know this through the Bible, which of course is incredibly important in Christianity. There's lots of different types of Christianity. We know it, of course, through Episcopal Presbyterian Protestant Catholicism. But the kind of belief that what is the center point of Christianity? Of course, there would be no Christianity without what? Jesus Christ. So I'm going to focus a lot of my talk there. So that is what we're going to talk about with Christianity. Then capitalism. What does capitalism mean? A lot of misconceptions around that. We at Turning Point USA defined capitalism as the ability or the freedom to be able to sell what you want to sell, buy what you want to buy without restrictive or coercive government intervention in your life. Essentially, economic freedom. Being able to take a risk as you see fit as long as you're not harming someone else. Capitalism can be broken into really the three Ps, as we call it. Prices, profit, and private property. So the price system matters. Government should not get in the business of setting prices arbitrarily. Profit matters in order for things to get better. Businesses have to turn a profit. In order for dominoes to be able to deliver pizza here in a timely fashion, they have to be able to make money on the pizza they're selling you.

5:15They might have sold it for $9, but their all in cost might have been $3.25. Therefore, they're able to make a profit, deliver value back to their owners, their employees, their shareholders so they can continue to grow their company, and create more value for everyone engaged in their company. And finally, private property. The capacity for individuals to be able to own stuff. You know, that's probably the easiest way that I can articulate it. Whether it be houses or cars or clothes or even shares of companies. The ability and capacity to really own things and be able to arbitrate your differences in an impartial court is something that we capitalists hold near and dear. This is contrasted directly with people that believe in a more collectivist socialist system, where the government has the capacity or the ability to take away goods or services or private property at a moment's notice. Look further than Venezuela. When in the late 1990s, the government decided just to take away all the private property of oil and gas. They took over all the oil industry, government subsidized it and nationalized it.

6:16Nationalized means government ownership of property, the private industry went away, government then ran it very poorly. And as you've seen in recent years, that is not working very well in Venezuela. So what is then the Christian case for capitalism now that we have defined our terms? Well, first and foremost, talking from a very pragmatic standpoint. When capitalism, free markets, economic freedom, whatever term you want to use. When you allow economic freedom to be enacted, you have seen the greatest poverty elimination in human history. You have seen more poor people become rich, more standard of living increases, more human rights advances than any other system of governance known to men. Capitalism advocates for individuals to be able to pursue their own self-interest as they see fit. Which I think then comes down to two fundamental questions that I always argue with people on the left or socialist. And this actually is a question that if you are a Christian, we have answers to. Two fundamental questions. Number one, are people good? Yes or no? And are people perfectable? Yes or no?

7:23Those are the two questions that we must become, if we have to have answers to. Number one, are people good? If you're a Christian and you've read this book a little bit, you know that. No, people are not good. We are broken by nature. We are infested with sin and that God is holy and perfect and we are anything but that. Sin is the distance from God. It is the separation from that which is perfect and we are anything but that. Therefore, we should not look to government or a state or a central agency to try to perfect our imperfections. So that's number one. Number two, are people perfectable? Are people good? And then are people perfectable? I say absolutely not. And the Bible shows that as well. No matter how much central planning, government programs or experts get in a room together, you cannot perfect human nature. People are inherently selfish. People are inherently fallen. Look no different than why we have to teach goodness to young children. You have how many times you have to tell a three or four year old? Say thank you. Say thank you. If people were good, wouldn't generosity be an inherent human virtue or value?

8:27We have to treat goodness. Look no different. Look no further than the ten commandments that lay out morality at the most basis point. Do not covet. Do not steal. Do not cheat. Do not lie. Do not commit adultery. Human nature goes against every single one of those ten and says we know it. So then we must ask ourselves the next natural question. If we believe people are not inherently good and we believe people are not perfectable, then what economic system uses the worst aspects of humanity for the greatest good for everyone else and also for the individual? And the answer to that is capitalism. Because if you are a bad person in capitalism and you want to get really rich or you want to make a lot of money, you have to create value for someone else. For example, the founder of Domino's might be a horrible person, but in order for him to be super rich and in order for him to do something worthwhile for his own benefit, greedy, self-interested, so on and so forth, he has to create something of value that someone else has to buy. For example, Steve Jobs might have been the worst person in the world, but in order for him to have gotten very wealthy or very successful, he had to create something that almost everyone in this room I guarantee is interacted with once or twice.

9:35Mark Zuckerberg is another great example. Mark Zuckerberg might be the worst person in the world, but he has personally made $81 billion by giving a product and service away for free. So if I had to boil it down to two words, when you think of capitalism, I think of freedom, when I think of socialism, I think of force. Capitalism is about the ability to make the decisions as you see fit free of government intrusion, which it comes to a very important point. In a capitalist free market system, you can live freely as a socialist if you want to, look no further than the Christian Amish and Pennsylvania. They live as socialists peacefully and they live, however they see fit, we're not, I'm not getting in their way and no one else is. Because in a free market capitalist system, you have the freedom to be able to pursue the life that you see fit. Now in a socialist system, can you live freely as a capitalist? Absolutely not. They're going to hold a gun to your head saying you have to give 80% of your income to government because it's going to benefit the most amount of people.

10:35So socialism is about force. We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries and today I want to point you to their podcast. It's called Culture and Christianity, the Alan Jackson podcast. What makes it unique is Pastor Alan's biblical perspective. He takes the truths 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 he doesn't just discuss the problems. In every episode he gives practical things we can do to make a difference. His guests have incredible expertise and powerful testimonies. They've been great friends and now you can hear from Charlie in his own words. Each episode will make you recognize the power of your faith and how God can use your life to impact our world today. The culture and Christianity podcast is informative and encouraging. You could find it on YouTube, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes. Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to bring biblical truth back into our culture. You can find out more about Pastor Alan and the ministry at AlanJackson.com forward slash Charlie.

11:40So the Bible, especially through Jesus' teaching, I would say teaches us to be five things. And this is the Christian case for capitalism. Outeristic, generous, productive, cheerful and loving. Which we agree that we as Christians are called to those five things. That is by no means an exhaustive list. We could name all the fruits of the Spirit. We could name all the, you know, so we could be here all day. Alright, so I picked those five for a particular reason because I believe all five of those have strong evidence that capitalism reinforces. Outeristic, generous, productive, cheerful, loving. Outeristic. Well, as we see in the Bible, Jesus says many times, give unto others more than unto yourself. Jesus also talks about many times throughout the Gospels not to be proclamation, essentially, when you give. If you are going to be generous, you are going to be altruistic, do so in private and do so in secret. Generous Luke 634 talks about the generous Spirit. Of course, we have second Corinthians 317, which is my favorite verse in the entire Bible, which says what? God loves a cheerful giver.

12:41It says all throughout the New Testament, the capacity and the ability to be generous. And in fact, we are instructed to be generous. We're instructed to give away our fruits of our labor. Now, in order to give away fruits of your labor, you have to have fruits of your labor. You have to make something to give something away. We know through basic economics and basic human history, if you're going to try to give a bunch of stuff away, you have to have that stuff which to give. In a socialist system, as Mark Magnefacher famously said, the problem of socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money. You deter the entire incentive structure. So you can want to be the most generous person in the world, but eventually you're going to run out of assets to give away. Again, look at Venezuela. I don't think they have very good intentions, but they might be as generous as they want to be. Eventually, you're going to run out of stuff that which to give, which again goes to the third thing which Christ calls us to do, which is to be productive. Jesus Christ talked for Christians to be highly productive people. Now, this might be teaching you don't always get all the time in a traditional Bible class, but look no different than the parable of the talents. One of the most, I think, economically, trans, not transferable, economically, what's the word I'm looking for, relevant parable that Jesus taught us.

13:53So the parable of the talents for those that do not know, essentially there were a couple servants under an owner, and the owner gave each one of the servants a talent which could be equivalent of a currency. He gave one talent, another one two, and another one three, and essentially the person that had one hit it did nothing with that talent, hit it under a rock. And essentially the owner said, come back to me in a certain period of time and tell me what you've done with your money. The second person invested it a little bit, made a little bit of multiplication, productivity upon which was given. And the final person made a huge abundance, essentially, was very productive and multiplied the gift that which he was given. Essentially they come back to the owner, and all of them were seeking praise, and the guy that hit the talent thought he was going to get a lot of kudos from the owner because he guarded it. And the owner essentially said, how dare you? That any more than that, it was really condemnation. You did not multiply, you did nothing with that which was given, and the person that multiplied a lot, it's that famous saying that a lot of us say even in the secular world you hear it, that which is those who are given a lot are expected to do a lot, essentially those who are given are expected to produce.

15:10To those who have been given very much is expected. And you see in the parable the talents that Jesus Christ tells us that you have to do something in your life, that sitting around and just doing nothing. And of course that parable has a lot of different applications, as an application to the advancement of the kingdom, trying to convert as many people as you can to Christianity, but also has economic implications, being productive, being entrepreneurial, and being relevant to an economic system. And economic system has a lot of different applications as well. Also, finally, cheerful and loving, God loves a cheerful giver as we see in 2nd Corinthians as Paul wrote 2nd Corinthians 317, and also loving Jesus Christ talked about the need to be loving. But why do I mention those five things in particular, and I'll get to one other example, because in a capitalist system, the most economically free countries in the world are the most generous. They look out to their fellow neighbor the most, they are the most productive, and they have the highest engagement of church going rates, so on and so forth.

16:12So for example, America last year voluntarily gave away $400 billion to charity. Think about how much money that is. $400 billion away, voluntarily to charity. If you go to Europe, they don't even understand the concept of private charity. Government just takes care of everything. There's government programs for this, government services for that. Private charity is a very, very difficult concept for Europeans to wrap their heads around. There is a reason why there is declining church attendance in France, and in Germany, and Spain, or Portugal. There's a reason why the church is not doing very well throughout most of Europe. And the reason is that as a society grows government, it becomes more secular. So from a purely pragmatic standpoint, as you see government get bigger, you see the church, you see Christianity, if you will, become less and less important. Now this is, this comes to a very important point, which I hear a lot, and we're going to kind of debunk this, is was Jesus a socialist? Anyone heard this before? Anyone heard this once or twice? We're going to have a fun conversation with this. But before I do, I want to talk about a couple of proverbs, which I think are very relevant.

17:19So not only did Jesus talk about being very productive, but there is another parable, which actually does not get talked about very much, which talks about the price system. You might say, what are you talking about? The price system? Well, there is a parable, the parable, the vineyard workers. Anyone know this parable? I maybe heard about it. Essentially, it could be applied to a lot of different things, mind you. The more widely accepted application is the acceptance into the Kingdom of Heaven. But another application of the parable, the vineyard, essentially, is there was a guy that owned a vineyard, and he hired a bunch of workers for one denari, whatever the proper currency was. And they worked, they worked, they worked. He realized there was a lot of work left to be done. And so what do we know that when you need a lot of work to get done in a condensed period of time, you're willing to pay more to get it done quickly. So we hired more workers for half a day's work, for the same currency that he hired someone earlier in the day. And then the guy that's been working all day, so this is not fair. I mean, I've been working all day, and now I'm earning the same as the guy that's coming in at the end. And then the owner finally says, who are you to question? I'm giving you exactly what I'm telling I'm going to give you.

18:23And economics, we call that as, you know, not necessarily price gouging, we call that as paying for what you need when you need it. So if I need to get a building done quickly, and I hire a bunch of carpenters, and I need to hire more carpenters, and they have been working out at the whole time, I'm willing to pay more to get it done very quickly. Anyway, you could use that parable to reinforce the price system. So finally, Proverbs 12-11, I love this proverb. Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies have no sense. I love that. And then finally, Proverbs 12-24, diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in forced labor. I can't help but think about how Europe takes the whole month of August when I read that. These socialist countries, they don't like to work, work as somehow a diminished thing. It's something that they try to get away from, yet we see throughout the entire Bible that work is actually an important component being productive, giving back in your personal capacity. Finally, was Jesus a socialist? This is something that I think is widely misrepresented, and I hear this a lot. In fact, I heard Bernie Sanders of all people, like the atheist, talk about how all Christians should be democratic socialist because Jesus would have been a socialist.

19:37And then I saw another meme by occupied Democrats, and there are a bunch of dishonest people, unbelievable. So dishonest, they were clear and said, Bernie Sanders, he's a carpenter, he's Jewish, he's starting a movement, he's similar to Jesus, I said, no, if anything's blasphemy, that is blasphemy. Give me a break. That is just unbelievable. So, wow, I mean, comparing Bernie Sanders to the Savior of the world, wow. So first and foremost, mind you, I'm going to be very, very precise and careful here, first and foremost, in my perspective, and I would guess the most people in this room, Jesus Christ was a Savior of the world, he was not really distracted with petty partisan politics. If Jesus Christ was and you can scour the four gospels and you can scour the letters of Paul, you can scour acts, not once did Jesus call for a particular political philosophy to be implemented. Now mind you, I want you to put yourselves into the foots of Jesus of Nazareth. You have 12 disciples, you are doing healings, you are converting water to wine, you're feeding the 5,000, how easy would it have been to have started a political movement.

20:44Now mind you, every other secular and eight, I would say, questionably religious leader of the last 4,000 years used politics as a vehicle to ascertain power or religious relevance. Muhammad took over territories and cut people's heads off. Muhammad Gandhi, great guy, was through politics trying to come about change, Martin Luther King, so on and so forth. Jesus Christ stands alone in history as someone who had disdain for politics, in fact rebelled against it and arguably had more historic impact than anyone else in the last 4,000 years. That's what first and foremost makes him so unique when it talks about politics. Now we can talk about some of his teachings here, but first and foremost Jesus Christ was so focused on the individual. He was in anything but talking about what would be best as a collective for governmental policy. Now you could argue there would be a lot of different reasons for this, but Jesus was about the savior of you, the salvation of you and you and you.

21:49And he then taught us a way to live and then of course did not contradict the law of the prophets, but rather fulfilled their prophecy. And he did not talk about what we should do, but he said what you should do and he focused on the individual. Now socialism is anything but that, socialism is force, socialism is not the seeking of better life, socialism is involuntarily, involuntary central planning and government ownership of property. You can't opt out of socialism, socialist groups cannot tolerate groups that love freedom, which is anything but what Jesus talked about. Jesus was a lover of just that, of freedom. Now he would be more I think inclined to be sympathetic to a system that allowed individual persuasion of a certain viewpoint or perspective or set of principles or ideas than that which was authoritatively pushed down someone's throat.

22:49Now the more I would say logical arguments for why Jesus was a socialist was people say well he cared for the poor, he wanted to abolish human suffering and he really wanted to help people, all of which I totally and completely agree with, but he talked about people helping people, not government programs helping people. He talked about the individual getting on the road to the good Samaritan that I am going to help that person even though I'm not supposed to in the story of the good Samaritan. Jesus did not say write a letter to Caesar and demand stronger social planning. Jesus did not advocate for single payer health care. Instead he said when you see someone in need do everything you can to help that person. Now we go back to what capitalism believes isn't that more sympathetic to a viewpoint or an economic model that empowers as many people as possible to make individual decisions as they see fit.

23:49Not one that we have seen pragmatically that like in Europe that diminishes generosity, that diminishes individual engagement in the community and instead looks to the state for answers. We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries and today I want to point you to their podcast. It's called culture and Christianity, the Alan Jackson podcast. What makes it unique is pastor Alan's biblical perspective. He takes the truths 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 he doesn't just discuss the problems. In every episode he gives practical things we can do to make a difference. His guests have incredible expertise in powerful testimonies. They've been great friends and now you can hear from Charlie in his own words. Each episode will make you recognize the power of your faith and how God can use your life to impact our world today. The culture and Christianity podcast is informative and encouraging. You could find it on YouTube Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

24:50Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes. Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to bring biblical truth back into our culture. You can find out more about pastor Alan and the ministry at Alan Jackson dot com forward slash Charlie. Forrestful redistribution of wealth by government Jesus never called for wealth inequality and actually we actually have an example of this in Luke 12 13 when someone approaches Jesus and he says he asks Jesus to sort out his inheritance. And he says my father just died and my brother is getting all the inheritance isn't fair to divide it up equally. Now Jesus being God and being the son of God could have easily said absolutely could have waved his hand and said I command you you must split it equally and said what did he said who am I to judge who gets what and how you get it. He wasn't worried about material wealth. He was in fact worried about the love of wealth we get to that in a second which is very very important. But he was not worried about the distribution of that wealth. In fact he kind of rejected it.

25:53He shrugged his shoulders the famous quote that people use is well Jesus was very sympathetic to governing bodies. No evidence they'll use his render unto Caesar's what is Caesar's correct he kind of shrugged his shoulders and said pay your taxes do what you're supposed to do. He did not say start a political revolution based on my teaching and then forcibly make people believe what they should believe. And said he called for we individuals as Christ followers that are born a new through the Holy Spirit and through his perfect sacrifice to then use that teaching and instruction to individually. Essentially I think Jesus and got in the teaching that we have in the Bible is directly contradictory to that teaching where well government must do it because if you say that essentially you're saying it's not my problem someone else must take care of it. We're taught the exact opposite through Jesus's teaching and Jesus's life. So was Jesus socialist well you also look at other examples. The parable of the talents talked about the workers and the vineyard. We also talk about the golden rule what is the golden rule anyone anyone what is the golden rule we all know.

27:01Do you want to do unto others as you would like to have done unto yourself right well I would make actually a very strong argument that capitalism reinforces the need for a golden rule and you might say how on how on earth is that possible well what what is trade well if I want to trade value for value if I want to make myself in my life better. I'm not going to sell a good or a product or service that I'm not going to buy myself and because of competition and because of people competing in a marketplace and actually trading goods and services and trading goods and services you're going to have better goods and services and people treating each other better and that is why you see throughout the time of human history goods and services get better. That's why you see you know in a free market things get faster better and cheaper quite quickly and it only in the golden rule treat on treat others as you would like to be treated how do you get rich in a socialist country you lie you cheat you steal and you run for public office right. That's doing unto others how you don't want to do it unto yourself you a mass as much political power as you possibly can now you might say Charlie but getting rich is something that Jesus directly talked about against correct he did have some very strong teaching about the love of wealth now if you reconcile that with Jesus saying that we must be productive and doing all that we can with what we're called for I do believe that in a capitalist system there are people that have a mass incredible amounts of wealth that have been given 95 97% all of it away too.

28:28They did not love that wealth they might have enjoyed building a business and helping other people and employing a lot of people and you talk to those individuals the worst parts of their career probably laying people off and firing them and going through lawsuits all of which are horrible obstacles and barriers to creating a successful business but those people that not love wealth there's people with almost no money that love wealth think about that and there's some people with a lot of money it's the least important thing in their life. So but Jesus talked about the love of wealth it's harder for a rich person to get into heaven than what a camel through the eye of a needle essentially right is that the right yeah you look you look at the original Greek and armamaic rich essentially means that of which who loves money not that which who has money if I remember correctly it's Jesus Christ who spread the gospel with tax collectors and people that had a lot of money and saying you can do more than just a massing wealth in fact one of the gospels was written by a tax collector Matthew Levi if Jesus had that much to stain for that which people had wealth why in earth would he associate with them or offer salvation that which being said in a free market system you have the absolute freedom to have as much or as little wealth as you want if you believe you could do a lot of good with employing 20,000 people and giving away billions of dollars look no further than this university that is doing so much good for the advancement of the kingdom of you know of Jesus Christ

29:56but a lot of this was contributed by millionaires and billionaires that were very successful in the free enterprise system that voluntarily gave back and now have helped thousands of people better understand Jesus Christ that's only possible in a free market system isn't it because you in order to get what in order to give away you must create. The other arguments I hear of why Jesus is a socialist I think fall flat on their face the you know you see in first Timothy 610 the love of money is the root of all the evil the key word is love of money when Paul wrote that letter it's very important to realize that it's not actually having money money is nothing more than what it is a representation of value it is what you do with that money money has no morality as socialists I would disagree with the socialists money doesn't have a conscience money doesn't have morality money doesn't have a decision it's what you do with it it's a utility so for example someone that might be an atheist that is worth 8 billion dollars that has hated Jesus Christ his whole life and hated God in a moments notice can turn that 8 billion dollars that he might have done horrible things to get into good instantaneously that money is completely transactional knows no morality just it hold it's an asset value it's an asset holder that you can immediately and

31:14instantaneously what am I saying is that there will always be good and evil in the world and we know this right we know this as Christians and God talks about it and throughout the Old Testament and New Testament and how we reconcile and how we deal with these great horrors it which economic system is that with which can you do the most amount of good with the worst parts of human nature and that is no look no further than free market capitalism so a little bit more about myself then I'd love to open it up for some questions as I'm a strong committed evangelical Christian I believe God wrote a perfect book to the perfect delivery of his son Jesus Christ you look at the fulfillment of the prophecies the authenticity of the gospels the perfection of the scriptures you can go through a system of questions do you believe there's a God yes or no that's the first question then when has God revealed himself throughout human history pretty good evidence of that here and then finally who if not when has have those prophecies been fulfilled and what evidence do we have for that if you were to look at a chart of what scriptures in human history have been the most have been the most copied and have been the most authenticated you look at Homer's Odyssey for example anyone you know Homer's Odyssey

32:32do we spend time in classrooms debating whether or not Homer's Odyssey was really his words and not his words of course not there is over 600,000 times more scriptures and copies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John you could stack it all the way up the top of the ceiling the scriptures versus the Odyssey of Homer point being is that there's a ton of evidence to show that as early as AD 60 which is when the first gospel was written of course the gospel the gospel of Mark and then Matthew in the 80s and then Luke in the 90s and then John came a little bit after that these work these work accounts of eyewitness testimony of the accounts of Jesus so people say Charlie why are you a Christian why do you actually believe this is a bunch of fairy tales right this really doesn't exist in it and I say all the time actually I'm an objective Christian which means I've gone through highly analytical thinking and historical searching by no means a theological expert there's a lot of smarter people than that but people ask me all the time why do you believe what you believe so I'm going to entertain me for five minutes I'll tell you what so I believe there's a God and when did God reveal himself throughout human history and what evidence do we have for that and that of course is in the Bible we see the law of the prophets

33:43we see God revealing himself through genesis sextus Leviticus numbers due to our out of me judges for second things all the way to the Old Testament to the major minor prophets but then finally you see a fulfillment of that prophecy throughout Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and you see eyewitness account throughout the letters of Paul and you see the eyewitness account throughout Acts so you have to ask yourself a series of questions those of you that might not be a Christian of those of you that might be on the fence first and foremost who in a 2000 years ago who in that world would have voluntarily died unless they actually would have believed this stuff every single follower of Jesus Christ died at the stake to their very death saying that Jesus Christ was everything that he said he did the miracles that he said some were crucified on the cross some were crucified upside down some were in the most horrific deaths you could possibly imagine and there's account after account after account Paul tells us and it's reinforced throughout the gospel of John that there were over 500 eyewitnesses that saw Jesus Christ after his death

34:44the whole book called the case for Christ if you haven't read it please do there's a good movie as well the whole center of this whole book if you want to debunk this whole thing is if you can debunk the resurrection of Jesus Christ that's the whole thing did Jesus rise from the dead yes or no and that's the whole question so if you were trying to create a great fiction about Jesus Christ would you have your first eyewitnesses be women oh what are you kidding me you'd be crazy to do that right in 2000 years ago you would have women be your best expert witness testimony you would you would have some well to do rich guy that would come up and you know be very very credible no but they had women now why would no one would make that stuff up that's why because it's impossible to conjure that secondly you look at people that even saw Jesus after he was risen from the dead and touched him and saw him some of them still couldn't believe what their eyes were showing them until they were actually able to feel the scars on his hands and then of course is our friend doubting Thomas who did not believe it until he actually felt it and saw it and finally from a very logical perspective we have four independently written books

35:52Matthew Mark Luke and John all within 80 years 50 years of you count the beginning of the writing of the gospels of the life of Jesus Christ that from different perspectives reinforce the same story without any contradictions plus or minus very minor theological inconsistencies if any of you want to challenge me on that there's notes I have just in case but the point being the point being is that if I was an FBI investigator and I had four different eyewitnesses all saying similar but not different things that's a pretty clear and convincing case to hold up the original thesis which Jesus Christ died and then rose again the final thing is Paul I think Paul is one of the greatest arguments for Christianity Paul was a well to do Jewish Roman he went around persecuting Christians he went around persecuting the followers of Jesus Christ what advantage of this guy have to drop everything on the road to Emmaus and say oh actually this guy was right all along I'm going to drop all my wealth all my political connections I'm going to make a bunch of enemies go to prison eight or nine times get crucified you know upside down right about it

37:05my whole family gets disbarred everyone I know some of them get killed what advantage on earth would that guy have to it unless he really believed this stuff but why would he actually believe it well I believe because it's true and he then of course throughout the original letters which form the early church if you look at why Christianity continues to be under attack Jesus Christ talks about persecution it's talked about many times in the scriptures but if you look at the Bible no other book has had so much impact in such a short period of time despite the enemies trying to destroy it despite people trying to inauthenticate it and the more excavation and the more archaeological evidence that we find the more evidence we find for the Bible there's only been 2% 2% of all archaeological sites in the Middle East have been fully excavated we have 98% left to go as we search for more as we search for more just more and more of this evidence is going to continue to be upheld up until the 1930s people said oh a lot of there's a lot of inconsistencies and then of course in the 1940s

38:05we found the Dead Sea Scrolls which then showed even more reinforce of the biblical authenticity of what we as Christians hold to be true so as someone who I consider to be a fact-based logical thinker it's not blind faith to follow Christianity it's not we're not just walking blindly into this we appreciate history we appreciate human behavior we have logical reasons for why individuals make certain decisions and you look at it all composed together you say God wrote a book God sent a son to save us all from our sins and that is why I'm a Christian and those of us that are Christians are as well For more on many of these stories and news you can trust go to charliekirk.com