The Christian Chronicle Podcast
The Christian Chronicle Podcast explores the news and stories shaping Church of Christ congregations and members around the world.
The Christian Chronicle Podcast
Episode 142: Two young Christians on why they look up to Charlie Kirk (Jeremiah Delcour and Keegan Haupt)
When The Christian Chronicle covered and editorialized Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk's murder in September 2025, the reaction from our audience was big and hot.
Some Church of Christ folks expressed reverence for Kirk and regarded him as a Christian martyr. Others expressed anger and sadness at how he died, but emphasized that what he believed and how he expressed it did not represent them as Christians. Still others said they never heard of Kirk until his death.
In this episode, two young Christians, Charlie Kirk fans and followers, explain why he appealed to them so much. What about his life and teachings resonated with them?
And, from this, what might we learn about some members of the emerging generations in the Church of Christ?
Jeremiah Delcour and Keegan Haupt are leaders of the Turning Point USA chapter at Oklahoma Christian University, where they are students.
Link to Dr. Jeremie Beller's Christian Chronicle editorial on the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's death
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Family and friends, neighbors, and most of all, strangers, welcome to the Christian Chronicle Podcast. We're bringing you the stories shaping Church of Christ congregations and members around the world. I'm B.T. Irwin. May what you are about to hear bless you and honor God. On September 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk, a 31-year-old political activist and media personality, was holding a public event for about 3,000 people, most of them students, at Utah Valley University in Oram, Utah, when he was shot and killed while taking questions from the audience. Over the next few days, I observed a range of reactions from folks in my Church of Christ circles. Some Church of Christ folks called Kirk, quote, a Christian martyr. They interpreted his death as a casualty of spiritual warfare between the forces of good and evil. Other Church of Christ folks had never even heard of Kirk until his death. The day after his murder, my mom asked me, Do you know who Charlie Kirk is? I've never even heard of him. And other Church of Christ folks, while condemning the sin of murder and mourning the young children and widow Kirk left behind, pushed back on characterizations of Kirk as a prophet and saint. In particular, they cited what he said about immigrants, people of color, and women, and how he said it. They also cautioned against Kirk's statements that seemed to endorse giving Christianity control over the U.S. government and Christians' preferential treatment in U.S. society. One fact that is beyond dispute is that Kirk had an enormous and growing influence on college age Americans on campuses across the United States. By 2025, Kirk's Turning Point USA had chapters on more than 2,000 college and high school campuses. His podcast received between 500,000 and 750,000 downloads per day. From what I observe, what made Kirk so attractive to so many young Christians in particular were his strong statements in favor of Christianity and Christian values. A lot of the traditional biblical values that Kirk endorsed are in alignment with what a lot of Church of Christ folks tend to believe. The Christian Chronicle published both an editorial and a report in response to Kirk's death. Let me tell you, they received mixed and passionate reactions that you would expect. Rather than go over all that again, I thought it would be interesting to hear from some of the young Christians for whom Charlie Kirk was an inspiration, role model, and teacher. What about what Charlie Kirk believed and taught appeals to these young Christians? What might we learn not about politics in the United States, but about a segment of the young people growing up and coming of age in our Church of Christ community here in the U.S.? Out of the 14 colleges and universities in the United States that have roots and ties in the Church of Christ, two have active Turning Point USA chapters, according to the Turning Point USA website. I reached out to both chapters, and the leaders of one of them agreed to be on the show. Today we welcome Jeremiah Delcour and Keegan Haupt, who lead the Turning Point USA chapter at Oklahoma Christian University in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Jeremiah is a sophomore criminal justice major from Rough and Reddy, California. Great city name. He plans to pursue a career in law enforcement. Jeremiah is the vice president of the Turning Point USA chapter at Oklahoma Christian. Keegan Haupt is a sophomore business management and marketing major from Dallas, Texas. He's the social media director for the Turning Point USA chapter at Oklahoma Christian. Jeremiah Keegan, thank you for agreeing to talk to all of us today. Absolutely. Thank you for having us. Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you, sir.
SPEAKER_00:Let's start with this. The day after Charlie Kirk's death, my mom asked me, Do you know Charlie Kirk? And I said, Yeah, I know of him. She said, I've never heard of him. Who is he? And in the days that followed, I came across a lot of Church of Christ folks who were just like my mom. They didn't know Charlie Kirk. They didn't know anything about him. And at the same time, I also ran across a lot of Church of Christ folks who revered Charlie Kirk and lamented his death as a great loss. So, in your own words, for those in our Church of Christ audience, and it is a diverse audience from around the world, there are those that didn't know much about Charlie Kirk before his death. There are those who knew a lot about him as you do. Who was Charlie Kirk and why is he important?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I mean, Charlie Kirk was above all, he was a Christian, he was a father, he was a husband, but he was also the founder and president of Turning Point USA. Most people sort of saw Charlie Kirk as simply being like the college debate guy who spake spoke about politics. However, he would often also speak on the importance of his faith as a fundamental part of his life. And he talked a lot about how faith played a role in the foundation of this great nation of the United States. Charlie Kirk not only inspired countless people to have a strong sense of civic duty, but he also inspired many people to be bold in their faith. And I see the evidence of this because of what happened shortly after he died. Like we saw record numbers of church attendees following his life. You wouldn't see this one if he was simply just a political figure, and two, if God wasn't at work through this devastating situation.
SPEAKER_02:I've always seen Charlie Kirk as a man who stands up for what he believes, and and you follow that through to the end. And I I think that's why he's important, especially to me, is as Christians, we're we're called to never give up what we believe just because we're persecuted. The last thing that he he shared was the gospel uh before he was he was taken from us. And once when he was asked what he wanted to be remembered for if he if he died, he said his courage and his faith. And for me, that's who Charlie Kirk was, and that's why he's important.
SPEAKER_00:Tell us your stories about how you first encountered Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA. What was the appeal that made you want to be a part of it all?
SPEAKER_01:So it was about it was about halfway through my high school time. I was in one of my worldview classes, we were starting to study American politics and history. And this sort of just started this interest in delving into studying uh politics and conservative values. I started listening to people like Shapiro and uh a few other political commentators. And and while I had, while I agreed a lot with what they said, there was there was something that was missing. And it was shortly after that I started listening to this man by the name of Charlie Kirk. And the thing that stood out to me that was different from people like Ben Shapiro was the fact that he was a Christian. He was coming from a biblical perspective. He would often he exemplified uh Christian character, uh, in the sense that like he was humble, he was calm, he was kind. He wasn't perfect by any means. I mean, we're all human beings, we're we're imperfect. But he came at it from a biblical standpoint, which was something that stood up to me as a Christian, um, because I believed that our faith should determine our political views. So that was something that was important to me. And it was a few years later, 2023, I was able to attend the Turning Point USA America Fest, which is their biggest event that they run every year. I actually met Charlie Kirk in person at that event and was able to experience Turning Point USA as a whole there. And it ever since then, like that sort of solidified my uh love for this organization. And then just, you know, getting started with helping out with like the social media and the campus advertisement here on campus. Um at this chapter, it's it's been a gift, and I'm so thankful for it.
SPEAKER_02:So I kind of seen Charlie Kirk's videos and stuff, but I didn't really know about Turning Point until this January when our chapter actually started. I had our president now. She approached me after one of our political science classes and said, Hey, we're starting a turning point USA chapter on this campus. I've you know, I've seen you in class, you have pretty strong opinions about this stuff. Uh, would you like to be our treasurer? That's that's the position I started in. And I told her, I'm like, you know, I I've never really heard of Turning Point. I don't want to jump into supporting something without knowing what it is, so let me look into that. And she's like, Well, have you heard of this guy named Charlie Kirk? Like, yeah, you could say I've heard of him. And so uh, you know, she told me about how how Kirk founded Turning Point in 2012. And from from there, I was kind of just diving in. Yeah, with with this semester, I I became our vice president. And yeah, my my journey with Turning Point's been kind of kind of short, but really impactful in my life. It's really helped me flush out what I believe and why I believe it.
SPEAKER_00:I wonder if you could back up even further in your lives to talk about who you understand yourselves to be as people. What about each one of you made you the kind of people that that would want, that would be happy to find someone like Charlie Kirk in Turning Point USA? Keegan, you talked a little bit about some of the classes you took in high school, but just take take our audience back a little more into who you are as people, how you've developed as human beings, as Christians, and the kind of life that you're trying to build for yourselves, what you're trying to accomplish with your lives. That's that's a pretty big question. Does it make sense to you?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think I kind of get the gist of it. So I mean, I was raised in a Christian household. I have two wonderful parents. I'm actually one of five children. So we, I mean, we were raised, we were homeschooled, we went to church every week, we would have like uh devotions, prayer time. One of the things that my family would do every single morning is we would have worship, prayer, and a devotion together. So I've I've been raised from a young age to, you know, know the Word of God, we would memorize scripture and just learning together. Um, but also just being homeschooled, like I was able to build deep connections with my family. But then also through classes like my worldview class in high school, I was able to meet wonderful people, other homeschool students like myself. I I would say, like, uh I would attribute a lot of my uh uh interest to this to my teacher from that worldview class. Uh he he was very instrumental in my life. And he he taught me important skills such as uh how to critical critically think, thinking through what we believe and why we believe it. I believe that's so very important for us because a lot of people that we have this sort of mindset where uh whatever our new source tells us, like that's what it is. And I reject that idea. I think that we should, you know, I think listening to these new sources is good, but I think that we should, you know, listen to these things and then think through and rationalize what we heard and like then determine, like, hey, you know, is this something that's valid? Like, let's let's do some research. We need to think through what we believe and why we believe it. And learning these skills from a young age, I think, has been really helpful for me, at least.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, for for me, I see myself as a servant mainly. That that kind of led me to Kirk because that's what he did. He he goes out on these college campuses and while he disagrees with these people, he's out there not to prove them wrong, but to help them. And that's kind of what a lot of what what I learned growing up on a farm. If if our neighbors were were going through something, we go over and help them, even if it's even if it's like if we have to go out of our way, I guess. And yeah, so so growing up, I I was always taught to help people. I was always taught to to put others above yourself. And that's what Kirk did. He was hated by a lot of people. At first putting his name out there with with his opinions, it uh made people not like him as much, but he followed through, and that's kind of how I was raised.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for sharing sharing your your stories. I just uh so much of that resonates with me and where I was when I was your age and and what I was looking for. And it's personal, so thank you for sharing that with our audience. I want to ask you one question about turning point USA. You've had a big part in bringing a chapter to Oklahoma Christian University because uh that's actually interesting because uh outsiders like me tend to think that Charlie Kirk's project was to put turning point chapters on what we might call liberal or secular public university campuses. So putting a turning point USA chapter at Oklahoma Christian may seem a little like preaching to the choir. So what are your goals for planting turning point at your at your school? What do you hope to accomplish on your campus there?
SPEAKER_02:I I'm hoping to achieve conversation. Conversation is how we learn as a society. So while this is a more Christian and more conservative campus than others, there are still people who might disagree with us. But even for people who do agree with us, isn't it's still important to have conversation because again, uh I've talked to a lot of people who I agree with on topics, but they don't understand why they agree with me. And I I've I've asked them, I'm like, okay, so you've said that you agree with me on this stance, but why? How did you get there? And so that's that's what we're trying to do. Because when you go out into the world with these beliefs that you don't know why you believe, you can't defend them. And it can it can really challenge your faith. Because, you know, with turning point, it's a political organization, but on this campus, we really focus in on the faith side of turning point. And so I I really believe it's important to talk about why we believe what we believe so that when we get out into the world, we can defend our faith and witness to others.
SPEAKER_01:While it may seem like this turning point wasn't, you know, set up to like debate liberals or to prove that we're somehow smarter than people. The goal is to have conversations and make people think critically. It's it's never really been about trying to, I don't know, like convert you to one side or another. It's and while that might be part of it, the main thing is we want you to know what you believe and why you believe it, whether you agree with us or not. But like on our can'c campus specifically, we have a a I'd say a majority conservative campus, but again, sort of like what Jeremiah was saying, we want people to know, you know, the why behind what they believe. But also, I mean, there's there's a lot of people here who've bought into this worldly lie of what it means to love. And so that's been a big focus for us is we're we're looking back at the Bible. First First Corinthians 13, which a lot of people refer to as the love chapter, literally says that love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, nor does it seek in its own way, but rather it rejoices in truth. So we our primary focus is combating issues such as uh homosexuality, transgenderism, abortion, immigration, and trying to answer these from a strict strictly from a biblical perspective. So that's been a big focus for us is just coming from it from uh let's look at it from a faith standpoint, and then let's also just look at the the why behind what we believe.
SPEAKER_00:I bet a lot of people listening to this don't actually know what a turning point chapter does on a college campus, and it may depend on which college campus. So you've just you've just explained a little bit about what you hope to accomplish there at Oklahoma Christian. For those audience members who are not familiar, what what does a turning point USA chapter do at Oklahoma Christian, for example?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so our chapter, we host tabling events where we'll be out with different signs and all that, and basically we'll we'll make a claim. And so I guess for example, our next one is going to be we're gonna be tabling on abortion and and the evils of abortion. So we'll go out there and we'll have that sign and we'll discuss with people their beliefs, and we'll have some form of like interactions. So like we did a Maha event, uh, which is Make America Healthy again, and we had like a push-up contest. So like that's tabling events. We'll we'll we'll also uh host speakers. So like last night we hosted uh Mr. Amani of Blexit. He came and spoke. He's a life coach, motivational speaker. And so we also plan on having speakers come and speak on those topics as well to help keep us informed because if we just talk amongst ourselves, we're not bringing in new information. So turning point allows us to bring in speakers who are more informed than us to help us continue learning. And then also we they have like summits and whatnot. So, like America Fest over Winter Break, over this past summer. Keegan and I were both lucky enough to go to both the chapter leadership summit and the student action summit, where they had many speakers such as like Pete Heggseth and Christy Gnome. And so, again, really just these events where we can broaden our horizon by listening to different opinions.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and then on top of that, we'll we host uh monthly member meetings in which we sort of inform our members on what we've been doing, what we plan on doing, and then we give them an opportunity to um put their input in on like what they want to see on our campus. So we give our members a voice in that. We also we're starting up this month, we're doing like community service. So we're gonna go volunteer at food pantries, we're gonna do uh like trash pickup days, stuff like that, just to be involved in the community to try and make the world a better place. And then we also we just we do some for fun events. So like earlier this year, we had our event, the Grill and Chill. We just we provided food for everyone. We cooked out, it's just a fun time of community growing together as friends and colleagues, brothers and sisters in Christ. So I mean that that's the majority of what we do here on this campus. But then we also have uh active social media, so that's a way that we're able to communicate with uh members here and then also just other people around the community, the states, and other countries.
SPEAKER_00:Because I am not familiar with Turning Points or with Charlie Kirk, I I know about them, but I'm not familiar. So I don't have any personal interaction or personal knowledge. Most of what I know is what I've heard or read about through other sources. I am certain that what you just said a moment ago got some people driving in their cars or cooking in their kitchens or working out at the gym, got their hackles up just a little bit, and they would push back on you a little bit and say, on the one hand, Keegan and Jeremiah, you have said very clearly that we want to know why we believe what we believe. We want to challenge ourselves and challenge other people to think and to explore and to take in information and think about it critically. But those people listening might also then come back and say, but when you go to these turning point events, it seems like you only hear from people that already agree with turning points, points, major points. So you mentioned Christy Noam and Pete Pete Hegseth, for example, uh Jeremiah. So to those people that would say, are you are you sure you're actually hearing a diversity of opinions, or are you only hearing from people that agree with one side, educate us a little more on how that works.
SPEAKER_01:I I would say that even among one specific side, you're not gonna have like not everyone is going to believe the same things. So even if it may be like a one-sided event, people can still learn. Among the right, we've got a lot of people with different opinions. We see that a lot. But I'd say that's largely what like the Charlie Kirk Prove Me Wrong events were for, which was yes, Charlie is coming from one specific point of view, but he's allowing people of other viewpoints to come up and talk, say whatever they want. And what Charlie Kirk was trying to do was encourage people to think through that why behind what they believe. And that's and I mean they they post the whole things on uh their YouTube, their Instagrams. So from that, you're hearing differing perspectives.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And then same thing with our tabling events. We don't go out and put up a sign that makes a statement just for people to come up and be like, heck yeah, like I agree with you. We put that up so that people can come and disagree with us, and that's why I say I like conversation more than a debate. When I when I go to those tabling events, people are like, oh, are you gonna debate me? I'm like, no, I'm gonna have a conversation with you. If I have a if I go to these tabling events with the mindset that I'm gonna debate someone, I'm closing my mind off and I'm saying I'm gonna, you know, quote, win this conversation. Whereas we go to these tabling events with an open mindset, ready to learn from each other. As well as turning point focuses on edging educating ourselves on what we think so that we can also talk to people who are not a part of our chapter. So you can go out into life and and talk to those in your classes, talk to those at your churches, I don't know, like a coffee shop that you might frequent that you that you have a friend at that disagrees with you. That that's a big thing that we push for is conversation not just within the chapter, but with those that you know. Heck have a conversation with your family at Thanksgiving. Maybe not at the dinner table, though.
SPEAKER_00:So let's get into the Christian Chronicles coverage of Charlie Kirk's death. I believe that was the first time that the Christian Chronicle ever reported on anything having to do with Charlie Kirk or turning point because there were so many people in our Church of Christ uh community here in the United States that that followed Charlie Kirk, as the two of you do. And there was a lot of pushback, and I picked up on two things in particular that that people that had a negative perception of Charlie Kirk or knew about him and disagreed with him, two things that that really came out in the feedback that we got. And I just want to bring those to you now, since y'all are conversationalists. Uh, and again, I just need to say for everyone listening, I didn't follow, listen to, or read Charlie Kirk. So it is out of bounds for me to act like I know enough about what he believed or taught to have much to say about it. I am actually more familiar with what his critics said about him than what he said. So, as an example, and this is the first question, because it came up a lot in the response we got from our audience. I heard a lot about critics accusing Charlie Kirk of promoting Christian nationalism. And I have to say that is a slippery term. We had a guest on this show, Dr. Brad East, who made a case that we shouldn't even use the term Christian nationalism because nobody can agree on what it means, which makes it hard to have a fruitful conversation about it. How would you explain Kirk's take on the place and role of Christianity in the United States, government, and society? Just to clear that record for everybody.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so to the best of my knowledge, Charlie Kirk believed that in every nation, when you're when you're creating laws and such, that you're basing it off of some sort of moral standard. And as a Christian, he believed that the Bible is the best moral standard out there. Um he believed that any element of Christianity that you apply to your life will make your life better. So he believed that as a nation, we should base our laws based on the moral standard found in the Bible. He did completely believe in the idea of like separation in church or state, in the sense that he believes that like the governments should not institute any form of religion. And he didn't believe that by you know setting this moral standard or our basing our laws off of the Bible, he didn't believe that this would be a case of instituting religion. You can still believe what you want, just our laws are based off of this moral standard. And he also just he recognized how the the founder's viewpoint on our founding, like many of our founders were not Christian, though they did believe that, you know, the Bible was a good moral guide to base our life laws on. So he's also just recognizing our history with that. But the big thing is he believes that the Bible has the best moral standard ever, and we should base our country's laws on that.
SPEAKER_02:I'd emphasize he is not trying to force his religion onto anyone. He is merely saying that there is a moral baseline that that should be followed. And if we shall base our laws on anything, it should be that moral baseline.
SPEAKER_00:As long as I've been alive, and I'm 49, guys, so I got a I got a 30-year head start on you. Growing up in a in a Church of Christ environment where a lot of us are also patriots. We love being Americans and we love the United States, it's always been a point of discussion about how the Bible, how Christianity relates to the laws of the land. And I've never I have never heard perfect agreement on that point among the Christians that associate with me over a long lifetime at this point. It's always been an open discussion with a lot of points and counterpoints. And so this charge of Christian nationalism and a lot of what I understand Charlie Kirk talked about really I think hits a strong chord with a lot of people in our audience because it's a it's a question we've struggled with as long as I've been alive and continue to struggle with. So I was I was in our preparation for this episode, talking amongst the editorial team at uh the Christian Chronicle, one of the things that came up among our reporters and editorial staff was the criticism that Charlie Kirk said some things that seemed to be contemptuous of people of color. This came up a lot in uh the audience reactions to the to the reporting the Christian Chronicle Dead and our own discussions in the newsroom. And again, I have to say I did not listen to Charlie Kirk or read anything he wrote, and I don't know if some of the quotes attributed to him are taken out of context or twisted in some way. So for example, here are some Charlie Kirk quotes that I looked up from a report the Guardian put out on September 11, 2025, the day after he died. Quote, if I see a black pilot, I'm gonna be like, boy, I hope he's qualified, end quote. Quote, happening all the time in urban America. Prowling blacks go around for fun to go target white people. That's a fact. It's happening more and more, end quote. Quote, if I'm dealing with somebody in customer service who is a moronic black woman, I wonder, is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action, end quote. And then there's this quote directed toward Joy Reid, Michelle Obama, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Katanji Brown Jackson, quote, you do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken seriously. You had to go steal a white person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously, end quote. These words are so stark, they make it hard to hear them in a positive light in any context. Maybe you know something about them that outsiders like me don't know, but I would be remiss if I didn't bring them up in this interview because that was a major point of contention that we heard from people in our reporting.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, and and I'll say out of context, all of these sound so unbelievably racist, so unbelievably wrong, but it it's simply just that. It's it's out of context. In all of these situations, this is a topic, the the topic of discussion, sorry, is on merit versus like affirmative action or DEI. I believe that all of these examples are fairly easy to defend. However, I would just sort of like to point out some statements that Charlie Kirk has made that would prove that he is not racist. Because one thing that I notice a lot is people like to pick and choose certain phrases and say, well, look, he's racist. He said this, he said that. So I'm just gonna sort of list off a few things that he did believe and say that would prove otherwise that he's not racist. So Charlie Kirk would often say that he wanted to live in a society that is quote unquote colorblind. In a debate with someone one time, he was talking about how the only biological difference between black people and white people are their melanin contents. He said that the Civil Rights Act had noble intentions. He was friends with and uh employed many people of color. And then he also believed that all life, no matter their race, no matter their stage and human development, and so on and so forth, should all be treated equally based solely on the fact that they are all they are all human beings, all created in the image of God, and are thus, you know, worthy of any human rights that we have. But if we want to, I mean, if we want to focus on these topics, uh the these controversial quotes, just to uh specifically address the first one, Charlie Kirk is simply saying that he wants to live in a world where uh we can 100% be confident that someone has their job because they earned it and not because of the color of their skin. Again, he wanted to live in a colorblind society where we didn't focus on color and race to determine, you know, someone's worthiness for a position. He wanted to look at merit. I believe that it's actually more racist to lower standards for certain uh races or demographics. Because that, I mean, in and of itself is saying, hey, you guys can't do this unless we do this for you. So I would say it's more racist to have these laws or such in place saying that, you know, we have to, you know, hire a certain amount of people that are, you know, black or white. We should we should base employment based off of merit and character, not the color of your skin.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, exactly. The the way that these quotes are framed a lot of times when people are bringing them up is Charlie Kirk speaking against people of color, which is in fact not what he's doing. He is he's speaking against DEI. For example, like they these airlines were requiring a specific amount of their applicants and to to be certain colors and And that's I mean that's that is via definition discrimination based off of color. He wasn't saying, oh, this pilot is this color, therefore they're not qualified. He's saying based off of what these airlines have released, that is a concern of his.
SPEAKER_00:One of the things about this point in the conversation that that grabs my attention and causes some concern with me. And this is, again, coming from my age compared to y'all, I, you know, I grew up in the Church of Christ, and my dad was a preacher, and my papa was a preacher, and I've grown up around preachers. And one of the things that I've observed over my lifetime is you might have an influential person, and I'm just going to talk about the church here, who says something that is what that person says is taken out of context and misunderstood by those who hear it. And that can do two things. One, it can get that person in a lot of trouble that maybe they don't deserve because their comment is taken out of context. And I think that's what we're talking about, what you're talking about here with Charlie Kirk. But the other thing that I've seen it do is give people permission. How do I want to say this? You can take something an influential teacher says, take it out of context, and then you can do with that teaching something other than what the teacher intended for you to do. So uh in the in this case, when we're talking about Charlie Kirk and the quotes that I read, there will be people who take those quotes out of context and and maybe misunderstand what Charlie Kirk is trying to communicate, and they would say that he's racist. And that is certainly their right to have that opinion. But then there are other people who take comments like that and may, out of context, take them as permission to be racist, to be contemptuous of people of color. And that's what I think is so dangerous about making comments that are as stark as Charlie Kirk made. And so I'm setting this up for you more as a chance to jam on that point, not necessarily to defend Charlie Kirk, but to talk about some of the unintended consequences that could come from things that Charlie Kirk said and how he said them. And again, I'm saying that as someone who's not personally familiar, but you are. And so I wonder if you have ever felt like things could be taken out of context, not just by those who oppose Charlie Kirk, but those who like Charlie Kirk, and uh could be taken the wrong way, and harm could come from those things.
SPEAKER_02:Anyone who is of any significance, um, their their quotes will be taken out of context. That's the nature of humanity. And that's again why we why we promote conversation rather than just reading or watching something, because within a conversation you're you're provided with context, and it's not just these little snippets. And I while it is it is a danger, I think that we should still go out and and be voices within the church because that that's a danger for for anyone, and I'd rather people in the church church be speaking and potentially taken out of context than others take the church's influence because we're too scared to speak for ourselves.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I'd just like to add to that. Anyone who takes Charlie's words out of context and uses it as an excuse to do racist and terrible things, we we do not agree with that. We think it's totally wrong. And just because they're on our side doesn't mean we support it. We I mean we we completely condone those actions. And and that's why I think we have to be so very careful with the way that we say things. Because I mean, sure, maybe Charlie Kirk could have said these things in a better way that would not have been taken out of context quite like they have been. And unfortunately, that's just I mean, that's the nature of man. We're imperfect, we make mistakes. But ultimately, like if people do take his words out of context, the fault is not fully on Charlie if that's not how he intended the message to come out as. But I I I totally sympathize with the idea that we need to be very, very careful with how we say things, especially when you have that large of an influence.
SPEAKER_02:You know, with harsh words and stuff, we do see people like Paul get get harsh as well. Like in Philippians 3, verse 2, I believe it is, he calls false prophets or false teachers dogs. Does that mean that God doesn't love them? No, it does not. God loves everyone on this earth, yet he still uses that harsh language. And so I just, you know, even though things can be taken out of context and taken too far, we we can't be afraid to to speak our mind.
SPEAKER_00:And you y'all are young and you're thinking hard about this stuff, and that's that's really good. One of the you brought up the example of Paul calling false teachers dogs. One of the the things I've tried to do in my life as I've grown up and as I've met more people and I've had more experiences is to reserve that what I'll call nuclear option. So one of the rules that we have for our son who's who just turned 13 is no name calling. The only name you're allowed to call someone is their name or a or a pet name. Like, you know, I, you know, my wife calls me Honey, right? And I call my son Bud, you know, or Buddy. And so our rule for him is you only call names that are someone's real name or a term of endearment. And so Paul calling those false teachers dogs, I the standard I hold for myself is if I'm gonna call someone a dog, I mean, that is gonna be that is gonna be an extreme, extreme case. And I'm just gonna tell you right now, I don't think I've called anybody a derogatory name in decades. That's how serious I am about it. So what I'm coming around to is I feel like there are too many people in the church who say, well, Paul called the false teachers dogs. And I want to say to them, yeah, but you're not Paul. You know, you need to use some discretion there. And so I'm glad you brought that up because you're you're a couple of young men, you're 19, and you're thinking really hard about this, and you care a lot about the words you say. And I wonder if you could maybe teach the rest of us for a moment. All we have people of all ages listening to this. How do you determine when it is appropriate to be that harsh and when you should be gentle?
SPEAKER_02:First of all, I want to absolutely agree with you. I'm not promoting going out and and calling people dogs just because they disagree with you. I would agree that is the nuclear option, the last option. But I would say when it helps them, because a lot of times name-calling is for yourself. You're like you're losing a discussion, so you you pull out a really nasty name, uh, makes you feel better about yourself. But sometimes you need to make people realize the how wrong their ways are. And so that line is different in every context. However, I would say the that really you you need to use discretion and make sure that what you are saying benefits them and and the kingdom of Christ, uh, not just oh, I'm losing this this argument, let me call them a name.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I completely agree. Names should be a last resort. Again, with with what we believe and with what our mission is on our campus, is we want to encourage conversations. And like ultimately, if it means that you know start to believe in the things that I believe, that's great. Ultimately, that's not our main goal. But in order to have these conversations where we're willing to learn from each other, treat each other as human, resorting to names and derogatory terms is never the answer. It should always be used as a last resort. I mean, even if we look at like Jesus, like the only times he would use derogatory terms was, for example, when he would speak to the Pharisees or the Sadducees, where he would call them hypocrites. It's it's not something that we should throw around lightly. And I think that we need to follow the convictions of our heart. But even Charlie Kurt, again, he's human, he made some mistakes, and he sometimes would resort to that. But there would be so many times where people would call him names, make fun of how he looked, and he would he would respond in uh love, humbleness, kindness. Um, and I think that's always the answer, especially if we're trying to bring unity. We should try and be as winsome as possible and be very careful with how he communicates.
SPEAKER_00:I have to disclose a little bit about myself here. I didn't plan on doing this because I try to be more like a robot on this show, meaning it's not an autobiographical show. It's about the guests that we have. But this is uh this is a personal subject for me. When I was in college, when I was 19 years old, I was a ditto head. And I don't know if y'all uh even know what I'm talking about when I say I was a ditto head. Do you know what that means?
SPEAKER_01:No, sir.
SPEAKER_00:All right, man, I'm feeling old, guys. So actually, Charlie Kirk was a ditto head. I know this from uh reading his Wikipedia profile. So I was an a fan of Rush Limbaugh, and uh I listened to Rush Limbaugh every day. I read everything he wrote, and and so Rush Limbaugh fans are called Dittoheads. And when I was 19 years old, I was I was really, really into Rush Limbaugh. And when I I was at a Christian college, Church of Christ, two different Church of Christ schools for five years from 1994 to 1999. And while I was the first two or three years that I was in college, I was very politically active. And since you know now that I was a ditto head, you know that I was a part of a conservative Republican movement on campus. So that's out there now. But one of the things that eventually turned me off and caused me to move away from it, it wasn't the it wasn't what we believed and it wasn't how we thought, it was how mean the people around me were. In what direction should we be influencing politics? And then the second part of the question is how do we keep the worst parts of American politics from infecting the church and conforming the church to the image of politics? Those are two big questions. So I hope you remember them. I'll just sit back and let you uh let you jam on that.
SPEAKER_02:To answer that first part of that question, um, I would say that the people within the church should begin educating themselves and kind of seeing what topics that have become politicized are really founded in in faith and religion at base. We look at abortion, which I believe is a moral evil, which would would make that a religious topic, not a political topic. Well, it is a political topic, but at base it is it is religious. And so I would encourage the church to to be more active in it. And to that kind of plays into the second part is when you become more active, be careful where you place your identity. Keep your identity in faith. The the hatred that we see, it's it's coming from placing our identity in our politics, not our faith. Something I I always live by is your faith should always influence your politics, but your politics should never influence your faith. And so just keeping those boundaries and making sure that you because when you subscribe to a specific political movement, you uh base your actions based off of people within that movement. When you put your faith in Jesus Christ and you place your identity in the Christian movement, you base your actions off of Jesus Christ, who is the one that we should be following. He's the way, the truth, and the life. And so yeah, I guess the one huge punch there is be more politically active, but make sure your identity is still founded in Christ.
SPEAKER_01:I believe that our faith should play an important role in literally every single aspect of our life. But as Jeremiah said, like our faith should always be determining our politics and not the other way around. Our politics should never, ever influence our faith. It should always be the other way around. But like even like people such as Esther the Minor, the Major Prophets, Paul himself, John the Baptist, these were all people who were involved in confronting the evils of the world, calling out the hypocrisies and evils of the ruling authorities, and did so outside of like a like a like a church atmosphere, I guess. So I think I think that it's important for us to be involved in these spheres, but it's so important for us to not place our identity in politics, and we should always remember that our politics should never ever influence our faith. Should always be the other way around.
SPEAKER_00:That's well said. I I have two two points to make in response to that. The first is that I've been a I've been a nonprofit my whole life. So my job has always been to raise money and find volunteers to to do to do good work in the community. And my wife has been in the same career as well. And one of the things we agreed on a long time ago is that it's a lot easier for people to write a check than it is to actually go do something. So, you know, at I don't know, Habitat for Humanity, for example, where I used to work, it's a lot easier for someone to write a check and send off a check than it is for them to come out and actually work on a house, right? Give a Saturday afternoon to work on a house. So I think about politics the same way. I feel like, and you can correct me if you think I'm wrong here. I feel like in the United States, especially over the last 20, 30, 40 years, you know, that I've been alive, so you brought up abortion as an example, the sanctity of life and uh standing up for the sanctity of life in all stages. I feel like it's become far easier for Christians to quote, do politics, in quote, meaning just to simply vote for a certain party or candidate, than it is for them to dive headfirst into the kind of work that it takes to guard and uphold and support the sanctity of life. And that to me is the danger of politics is Christians feel like politics can be their single expression of the biblical values, the biblical values that they uphold. So that's one point that I want to make. I feel, and and here's the second point, the other side of that coin. And I'm saying is this as someone who is in who has been in an elected office, who is very active in local politics. The thing about politics is it wants all of you. It wants it wants your allegiance 100%. Not a little, it wants everything you will give it. And so the danger of politics there, if you're a Christian, is that politics, I have found from my experience, it doesn't want some of you, it wants all of you. And that sometimes puts you in a position where, as a Christian, you have to compromise your Christianity in order to be loyal to the party, for example, or loyal to the platform. And if politics is your main expression of your Christianity, it is very easy to compromise. That has been my experience. That's that's a 49-year-old guy. I'm a former 19-year-old, you're a couple of 19-year-olds who are thinking really hard about this. You know, I wonder if if you want to jam on what I just said.
SPEAKER_01:I definitely sometimes struggle with those same feelings of like, hey, we're we might be, you know, overobsessing over these things. And I'll say, like, we do need those people who are just simply writing the checks. And there we need those people like Charlie Kirk who are involved in politics. God has a calling for each and every single one of us in life. And I think it's just important to remember that we need to keep the Lord at the forefront of all things. Um, whether you're a businessman, a pastor, a missionary, in every single thing that we do as Christians, we should be glorifying and reflecting God and keeping him at the forefront of all things that we do. I mean, we and we see this with Charlie Kirk, is even though he was in this political sphere, he preached the gospel to millions of people around the world. He defended his faith on numerous points. He would often defend his positions using the Bible. So I think it it it definitely is very easy, and I I I'm guilty of this sometimes, where I put too much emphasis on the politics and sort of, you know, make that more important than the faith. But I think everyone has a calling in life, and some people are put into that role of, you know, we need to be involved in politics. So but that's not everyone's calling.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I I find that question specifically interesting for my situation because as I got involved with Turning Point and and started to flush out what I believed and why I believed it, I realized I knew a lot more about politics than I did about my faith. And I realized this through a lot of my my, I guess you could say political beliefs are founded in that moral baseline I was talking about earlier. And so while I was working through why I believed it, I'm like, okay, I don't know why I believe this, and I believe this because of my faith. And so while I understand that it's it's a slippery slope, I believe being active in in your beliefs is a good way to flesh them out. And I I'm glad that you called that to the forefront because it it is easy to get caught up in that. But yeah, I I would say that so long as you place your identity in Christ and I I know that you mentioned conforming to to the party, that that is something that needs to that you need to be careful of because sometimes you're not as successful immediately when you don't conform to the party, uh and when you conform your life to Christ, but when you conform your life to Christ, you might not be as successful now, but you're way more successful in the long run. And so I guess I'd say that as an encouragement to Christians within politics is is give your life to Christ and and not politics.
SPEAKER_00:You said some both of you said the same thing a minute ago about keeping politics out of church. And you said that in response to a concern that I voiced. I've seen it over my lifetime, politicians and pundits becoming like preachers and prophets to the church. And so, you know, I've seen people in my own, in my own congregations through the years who listen more to political commentators than they do to preachers, or they read more, they read more politics than they read the Bible. And so I see those politicians and pundits becoming more influential on the church and influential over what Christianity looks like to people than the Bible and then the Bible teachers that we have. So you both said that shouldn't happen, but I don't think we're doing a good job at keeping it from happening. So how might you recommend? You've got fresh young minds, how might you recommend ensuring that politics does not have influence over who we are as the church of Christ, especially here in the United States?
SPEAKER_01:I think the important thing is we all need to own our own faith and make it a priority in our lives. In I'm our culture struggles with it, Christians struggle with it, I struggle with it sometimes. I would just say try and be regular, go to church, read your Bible every day, pray continually. These are all themes that we see throughout the Bible is owning your faith and being constant in that. For me personally, like prayer is a big part of my life. Like when I'm just walking to classes and I'm alone, like I try and prioritize praying, even if it's you know, just glorifying God for, you know, the beauty of nature and you know the sounds of nature. Just doing that because it it keeps my mind stayed on the Lord and makes me prioritize my faith. And I think people sort of just limit their faith to church on Sunday morning. And I think that's part of the problem we see is if we're limiting it to a short period of time on Sunday morning, it's not gonna be a big part of our lives and we're not gonna prioritize it. But if you're continual in prayer, reading the Bible, um, listening to podcasts from pastors and stuff, I think that we will see a change among the church body, I guess. So that would be my encouragement. Just be consistent. Focus on the beautiful things in life.
SPEAKER_02:Politics can be really down and and kind of get you discouraged. But I'm gonna read uh Philippians 4 8. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. And so I I guess I just say that to to encourage us, because well, it looks like we're in scary times, but we have Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. And that's our permission to look at the beautiful things as well. Um, we need to make sure that we're not solely caught up in these in these topics that that are discouraging us, but also look at the small wins and the big wins that we have in life and and focus on those.
SPEAKER_00:When I was about 21, 22, I felt like I could no longer be active in party politics and and continue to seriously pursue the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. And I'm not saying that for everybody, but for me, I felt like in order to get really serious about my discipleship, I had to step away from party politics. There are some people that would stay active and try to influence party politics in the name of Christ. I decided I wasn't going to be one of those people. And so I haven't been a part of party politics now in almost 30 years. Y'all are you're leading the turning point USA chapter there at Oklahoma Christian University. You're very active, you're 19, you're thinking about the next few years of your life, you're thinking about the rest of your lives and what you want to accomplish with your lives. So what do you what do you hope to contribute personally to the political environment in, you know, in the place where you live and among the people that you live your lives? And I want to I think it's very important here to also ask, how is that going to relate to your lives as followers of Jesus Christ and members of the body of Christ?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, for me, what I'm hoping to contribute is quite simple. It's love. Within politics, there's a lot of hate going around. And Jesus teaches us to love all. And, you know, specifically with some of these these turning point events, uh, with the prove me wrongs and all that, it can get it it can in fact get very us versus them. But I just want to show all that that I'm here to to hear them, and I'm not here to disagree with them, but I'm here to to share the truth. Um I mean, I know I've I've always felt like I I I've had a servant's heart. Um and for me, that's this chapter is how I'm doing that. And so yeah, I just I just hope to spread love through the community and and show that you can have opinions that differ and still agree each other and love each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.
SPEAKER_01:Part of what I want to see accomplished through our work here on Oklahoma Christians campus, I mean, I I want a community of people who think and I want them to think biblically. So that's something like ever since September 10th, that's something that we've actually incorporated in writing into our turning point constitution for our specific chapter, is implementing intentionality on incorporating our faith into all these things. Because while we believe that these political issues are important and do need to be addressed, we want to make sure that we're doing so strictly from a biblical perspective. And honestly, if we can't defend it, you know, using the Bible, and if it doesn't reflect godly ways, then it probably, I mean, honestly, we're probably not in the right, you know, place. So our our focus has uh changed more or become more intentional in sharing our faith in everything that we do. But these times have also just it's encouraged me um to be more brave, to be more bold, um, because I believe that our our faith should um be an active part of all aspects of life, and this is clearly something that I'm interested in. And if this is the calling that the Lord has on my life, uh I want to be obedient to the Lord. Um, even if the people around me might try to discourage me from it just because it's it's worldly. Um, I think that uh if we are you know bringing our faith into it and if our faith is influencing it, um, and that's our calling in life, then I think that we should uh obey God.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, both of you, uh, for sharing all that today. Jeremiah Del Corman, uh Keegan Haupt, our students at Oklahoma Christian University in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. They lead the Turning Point USA chapter on that campus. Jeremiah Keegan, thank you for sharing your own lives and your thoughts with your Christian family around the world today.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Thank you for having us. Thank you, sir. This was a blessing.
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