Ideas Have Consequences
Everything that we see around us is the product of ideas, of ideologies, of worldviews. That's where everything starts. Worldviews are not all the same, and the differences matter a lot. How do you judge a tree? By its fruits. How do you judge a worldview? By its physical, tangible, observable fruit. The things it produces. Ideas that are noble and true produce beauty, abundance, and human flourishing. Poisonous ideas produce ugliness. They destroy and dehumanize. It really is that simple. Welcome to Ideas Have Consequences, the podcast of Disciple Nations Alliance, where we prepare followers of Christ to better understand the true ideas that lead to human flourishing while fighting against poisonous ideas that destroy nations. Join us, and prepare your minds for action!
Ideas Have Consequences
The Turning Point: Time to Disciple this Nation | Lennox Kalifungwa
Episode Summary:
Revival in the United States of America? In this episode, we reflect on Charlie Kirk’s recent memorial service and its unprecedented proclamation of the gospel to one of the largest audiences in history. We unpack the powerful messages delivered—and lived out—through forgiveness, bold declarations of Christ, and the witness of national leaders, including the Secretary of State and Vice President.
The big question now: What’s next? If we are in the midst of a revival, what role can you play? This is a call to Christians around the world to seize this moment, join the momentum, and represent Christ in every area of life. It’s a call to action, courage, and the global Church to disciple our nations in these unique and extraordinary times.
Who is Disciple Nations Alliance (DNA)? Since 1997, DNA’s mission has been to equip followers of Jesus around the globe with a biblical worldview, empowering them to build flourishing families, communities, and nations. 👉 https://disciplenations.org/
🎙️Featured Speaker:
Lennox Kalifungwa is a cultural strategist, communicator, and creative innovator committed to cultivating free and flourishing societies in every sphere. Through his writing and public speaking, he calls audiences to think deeply and build wisely, with particular emphasis on education, politics, media, business, economics, aesthetics, art, culture, and the shaping of thriving civilizations.
He is the podcast host of Kings & Statesmen and Of Flames & Crowns.
His work has been featured in Forbes, American Thinker, Republic Sentinel, The Classical Difference, and EU Today.
He is passionate about developing and shaping institutional environments that cultivate truth, beauty, freedom, and human flourishing.
📌 Recommended Links
👉 Memorial service: https://www.youtube.com/live/9gpUFlewlLA?si=tsz3A0Nyl_ywZaJ1
👉 Book: A Toxic New Religion
👉 Bible Study: 10 Words to Heal Our Broken World
👉 Substack: State of Mind by Lennox Kalifungwa | Substack
👉 Lennox on Twitter: Lennox Kalifungwa (@LennoxKal) / X
💻 Follow Us:
📲Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/disciplenations
📸Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/disciplenations
📽️YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DiscipleNationsAlliance/
📩 Ask us anything: info@disciplenations.org
That it just seemed like this was that moment where Christianity was no longer pushed to the fringes. It was being brought front and center.
Scott Allen:Now we've got to turn the page and we've got to do something different. We've got to be very, very grounded in Christ and in the Bible and bring all of that into our thoughts, our lives, and into the culture. There's no sphere that's going to be off bounds.
Speaker 01:If we're not in full revival just yet, we're on fertile soil for it.
Luke Allen:Hi friends, welcome back to another episode here on Ideas Have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. As we all know, as Christians, our mission is to spread the gospel around the world to all the nations. However, our mission also involves working to transform our cultures so that they increasingly reflect the truth, goodness, and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected this second part of her mission. And today many Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God. Hey guys, I'm really excited for today's episode. I am fired up. I'm on the edge of my seat. I have two cups of coffee in me, and I am buzzing with excitement because as a Christian, this is a big week. Um, at least it is now. I don't know if it will be next week when this episode comes out, but hopefully it still is. Because if you haven't noticed that there's something big going on in the world right now, then it's time to tune in. I am uh joined today by my dad, Scott Allen, joining as my co-host, as well as Lennox Calafungwa, coming back on the podcast for his fourth appearance. Lennox is a writer, speaker, and podcaster from Zambia, or at least he was until very recently when him and his family moved to Moscow, Idaho. His two podcasts are of Flames and Crowns and of Kings and Statesmen. Highly recommend both of those. We have those linked down in the show notes. He's also on Substack at Lennox Califungua. And you can also find him over on Twitter. I've got those links as well down in the show notes. Lennox is our guest today because he is going to bring us some interesting perspectives on an extremely important event that just happened a few days ago. The memorial service of Charlie Kirk. Lennox, you were you were able to be there and actually uh able to be front and center uh right in front of all the action. Obviously, um the ceremony for any of you guys who saw it uh was an extremely sad and sobering day, but also an extremely powerful day. And if you're a Christian and you didn't look at that event with a lot of excitement, uh, then I'd highly recommend going and taking a second look at it. It was a powerful and momentous day for the proclamation of the gospel and of Jesus Christ. So, anyways, before we get rolling today, uh I also should introduce myself. Uh, my name is Luke Allen. I am the host of the show, at least for today, and I will be leading us through the discussion as we respond to this huge week. Again, for Christians, this is a big week. I think you could probably call the event that we just saw on Sunday of revival. I don't know the exact definition of a revival event, but the gospel was preached over and over again. There was hours of worship music leading into the event, and just the night of, Sunday night, right after this event wrapped up, TP USA was already recording that a hundred people, sorry, a hundred million people had streamed the event. Obviously, there was thousands of people there in person. So just the day of, there was already about a hundred million people tuning into this event. And then obviously everyone's talking about it this week. Clips are going everywhere. So I can't I can't give you an exact number, but this this event was probably not probably, this event was the largest proclamation of the gospel ever recorded in history. I would, I would, I would say, at least in this short amount of time. The amount of people that were exposed to uh God, his word, and the gospel, uh, this is this is a record breaker. Uh for us here at the DNA. I think our overall takeaway from this event was just the incredible message um of God's redemptive story for history that was repeated throughout the event. Um, obviously the beautiful worship music that set up the event. Again, two hours of worship music setting up this event with an all-star cast of the worship leaders of in in the US right now. Um, the calls to Christ, the calls to the altar, uh, the calls to repentance, uh, just the remembrance of the foundations of this country, which are very Christ-centered, all to honor one person's amazing life, that life of Charlie Kirk. So, anyways, uh, as far as basic setup goes, uh, what were some of your guys' key takeaways from the memorial service? What did it, what did it look like, feel like, sound like? Uh, just give people a little a little bit more context who weren't able to be there or see much of it. And by the way, if you guys haven't seen it yet, um, we would highly recommend that you go and check this out. I think this is gonna be one of those moments that we look back on years down the road, as that pinpoint in history, the the Charlie Kirk Memorial Service was um, you know, it was a turning point. I know everyone's saying that right now, but I really think it is gonna be, it was just such such a bold proclamation of the gospel on such a large stage that I think it's definitely worth watching if you haven't. Yes, it's about four hours to watch, but it's definitely worth it. I've already seen the whole thing twice. So we'll also have that linked in the show notes. So, anyways, to get things going here, um Lennox, could you just share with us a little bit more about what it was like for you uh being there in person?
Speaker 01:Yeah, I mean it really was just amazing to see unfold. And I remember just being there and being in awe of everything that was happening. You know, it's interesting how the reason the memorial took place is because something tragic actually happened. You know, Charlie got assassinated. It's it's it's actually unbelievable that we're saying those words. You know, Charlie Kirk got assassinated, and that was devastating. Um, I think Luke, you and I think spoke that week a little bit, and um it was a tough week to get through. And you come to the memorial, and yes, grief is certainly a prevalent feeling, but that's not it. In fact, that's not even really front and center. There's something so much bigger happening, and you can see it. Um it there you can see that people are reckoning with what Christ means for their own lives, um and they're reckoning with just the meaning of life as a whole, and it's palpable, you could feel it, like some of the conversations I'm hearing around me. Um, that this was a a very big moment. Um, and it it was it was hard to miss, and you could see that everyone involved in in this event understood what what was going on here. I mean, it was just extraordinary to hear the name of Christ mentioned as much as it was. It was amazing to hear a clear, direct gospel message that literally hundreds of millions of people saw. I mean, you were kind of giving statistics a moment ago, Luke. Have you this is probably the biggest display of the gospel and one given event in history, possibly.
Speaker 04:You know, oh I I probably like for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 01:Just yeah, just outstanding. And um from I mean, I think those musicians worked so hard. Um, Phil Wickham, Brandon Lake, Chris Tomlin, Carrie Job, there's one other lady, I forget her name now, but um like they they worked really hard. You could see that they understood how significant this was. The speeches were just extraordinary. Um, and just a great display of what Christianity is all about. And even I was hearing Christ-centered messages from people I wouldn't have expected to hear Christ-centered messages from. And it was just it was extraordinary.
Speaker 03:I was thinking of Tulsi Gabbard because I believe you know, she's not a Christian. I think somebody said that she's kind of a practicing Hindu. I'm not sure what, but I thought she even had a pretty Christ-centered message. I mean, not that it was quote in Corinthians, not that it was uh, you know, you know, the the top notch of your theological standard, but still I thought yeah even even non-Christians had pretty Christ-centered messages.
Speaker 01:So yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Speaker 04:Yeah, which was beautiful. I mean to honor someone, you should talk about who they really were. And that was just so obviously the center of Kirk's life that people had to mention it, even who don't believe in God, which is the perfect way to honor it. So true. Yes.
Speaker 01:And you know, so it's interesting that you mentioned that, Luke, because it kind of shows you how much Charlie didn't hide his faith. Like it, and neither was it one of those things he used just as a as a way to get a platform. Clearly, Christ was front and center of the friendships he cultivated with many of these people as well. Um, they knew him to that degree. He was essentially ministering to them, you know, in in his life. And that was very clear to see.
Speaker 04:Yeah. Well, speaking of the speeches, I thought we would share with you guys a couple of the at least my highlight clips. There's so many highlights I couldn't pull them all up, but the just coming away from it, I I definitely had some some some key moments that I've just been thinking about all week. Obviously, the the clip of Erica Kirk. I'm sure everyone here has already seen it's um that was extremely we'll we'll wrap up with that clip. That was it's hard to put it into words, but let's uh let's roll through some clips here. I'm gonna start with the first speaker, Rob McCoy, um, the person that Kirk called his pastor, and then we'll we'll go from there. Just some quick clips. Guys, as I'm playing these, feel free to respond uh midway through. I'm gonna go through these kind of quick though, so we can continue our discussion.
Speaker 07:He's the king of glory, he's the prince of peace, he's the savior of the world, he's the living God, he's the God of all mercy and grace, the total embodiment of love, the total embodiment of truth, and he's here today to call his children back to him.
Speaker 04:I just wanted to play that because that just set the stage. I mean, again, they're coming off of already like hours of worship, and the whole stadium, I'm sure, was ringing. Like, Lennox, what was that moment? This guy gets out there and he immediately just starts pointing everyone to Jesus.
Speaker 01:Yeah, that was great. I mean, he just he really did set the tone for absolutely everything, and I love that he didn't waste time getting to the truth of it. I think he kind of prefaced it all by speaking about like you know you all know what Charlie did, but I want to tell you why he did it, and underscoring that Charlie did this in service of the king as a proclamation of everything he believed to be true in Christ, and um as a means to proclaim the gospel. And um, I think he just he hit this so well, and it was incredible as well to just see people's reactions to that as well. And um interesting enough, uh Elon Musk was sitting maybe 10 meters away from where I was, okay, meters. I'm trying to think how many yards this is, I don't know. Uh 15 yards, 20 yards uh away from me, and um it just really dawned on me like wow, this is happening in the audience of all kinds of people, the richest man in the world, some of the most powerful people in the world, and what a way to just get this started. That was it was truly a special moment.
Speaker 04:And then he ended with an altar call. What was that like? Were people standing up? You couldn't see that when we were watching it on online.
Speaker 01:Yeah, yeah. There were several people who stood up, stood up all across the stadium. I kind of did a little loop around to see it all. And you had some people who uh who stood up, some people who were visibly just emotional, you know, um, by it all. Um but yeah, it really was powerful, and yeah, I'm I'm grateful for Rob McCoy's just very clear gospel presentation that way.
Speaker 04:Yeah, and then I love this clip from Mikey McCoy right after that. Uh someone that Kirk had an impact on it, sounds like more as a mentor, or this guy was kind of his mentee. And I thought this was a also a great line.
Speaker 10:We won't cower in fear. We will never surrender. We are resolved to live free from lies and seek out what is true. We will respectfully, boldly challenge what is accepted by culture in order to seek out what is true and acceptable to God Almighty alone.
Speaker 04:That's the energy. That's the energy right now. I love that. And then this uh this this this next clip I also thought was awesome. This is probably, I think, the clearest representation of the gospel of the whole day.
Speaker 12:Let's be common, second place himself for his neighbor. Tricky cookies in heaven because it's easier, simplicity himself for trickily cookies.
Speaker 03:Yeah, you know, I I I so appreciate it. That's Frank Turek, uh, you know, well-known apologist. Um, you know, just the passion and the clarity. As you said, I think Luke, I was I was I I was just aware of the fact that, you know, very rarely do you hear clear presentations of the gospel going out not only to such a huge audience around the world, but like you said, Lennox, just this amazing group of people. I mean, just the f I don't think I've ever seen a group of people gathered in one place like that, you know, the entire administration pretty much, from the president on down, and then many, many others. You know, you mentioned Elon Musk. And so there's it was just a remarkable gathering of people to hear the gospel just presented so clearly. I just I it I just thought I thank God for that. I'm just even now just praising God for that. So yeah.
Speaker 01:I thought this was I thought this was probably one of the most important things that was said at this entire event. Like there's a sense in which, you know, as people are reckoning with their lives and the meaning of purpose of life, um, a lot of them might have had going into this a general idea that, you know, Charlie was a Christian, so we all know it's about Jesus Christ. Um but I think that what Turek did here was just so powerful in underscoring the significance of the gospel as not something that we do and we don't we don't earn our favor with God. We're not saved by our good works, uh we're saved by grace. Um, it's it's God who gives grace. And I think he went on to speak about you know contrasting justice and grace, and that was very powerful in just illustrating like you know, none of us wants justice, we all deserve to be punished for uh for our sin. But thanks be to God that in Christ there is grace, and that was that was truly powerful. Um just underscoring, like, no, we don't save ourselves. Charlie didn't save himself, all the good things he did didn't save him. Um, he was saved um by grace alone. Um and that was really very powerful to hear.
Speaker 04:Yeah, yeah. And then as as anyone listening who's listened to this podcast for a while knows, we've been talking about how some things have been changing in the West for a while, and it's it's started with kind of your old liberal crowd who's kind of recognizing again the foundations of this country, the foundations of our civilization, and a bunch of them are looking to Jesus for the first time. One of the people I would probably put in that crowd was Tucker Carlson. So he's kind of newly coming back to his faith, recognizing just how how integral Christianity is to the founding of this country and to the and the necessity of it to integrate every part of our our our country for it to to continue to to last, to, to endure. Um so he's a newer Christian, but I still loved what he said here. This is awesome.
Speaker 08:Because he meant it. So I guess I would just say this gathering and God's presence, God's very obvious presence in this room, the presence of Jesus, is a reminder of what we've known for 2,000 years, which is any attempt to extinguish the light causes it to burn brighter every single time. So as we as we proceed into whatever comes next, and clearly something's coming next.
Speaker 04:Clearly, something's coming next. That's what we want to talk about today. So we'll get to that in a minute, because clearly something's coming next. But before I get to that, I wanted to share Marco Rubia, probably my favorite segment of the day. Uh his his I didn't, I mean, I knew he was a Christian, but just hearing this, I'm like, wow. The secretary of the state, secretary of state of the most powerful country in the world, just standing up there preaching.
Speaker 09:But I'm confident he would agree. One of the things he wants us to take away from this, from all of this, is the following his deep belief that we were all created, every single one of us, before the beginning of time, by the hands of the God of the universe, an all-powerful God who loved us and created us for the purpose of living with him in eternity. But then sin entered the world and separated us from our creator. And so God took him in the form of a man and came down and lived among us. And he suffered like men, and he died like a man, but on the third day he rose unlike any mortal man.
Speaker 04:He goes on, but I I I want to play the whole thing, but we'll just stop it there. Yeah. Lennox, I mean, in the room right then, because I I don't think people were expecting this. I wasn't expecting this. It felt like a church service. Like, could you feel just like the I'm saying I'm sure some people were uncomfortable, but also when they show these cameras looking back at the audience, everyone seems like they're all on board. It's like, is everyone in there a Christian? You know? What was that like? Exactly.
Speaker 01:I mean, uh, it was I remember this moment, and I remember just the first thought to myself, like, what is going on? Like Tucker just said what he said. Marco Rubio just gave such a clear, concise breakdown of the gospel, creation for redemption, consuming. Like, just he just um I I didn't have a category for him doing that before. Um, I was in I was in awe, and actually, like, as he's getting to this point, there's tons of people just on their feet already because I think on one hand, like they're shocked, but like they're roused up. It's like whoa, like this is this is unbelievable. Um, yeah, I I I was definitely on my feet at this point, and I was just applauding all of it, and he ended it so well. I think this was, I mean, like you talked about how this was such a highlight. I honestly think like this was that one speech that for me was most surprising and just so potent. Um she said, like Secretary of State, just out there, pure gospel, just straight name, just this is what Christ has done for us. Um, no qualifications or anything like that.
Speaker 03:If I could if I could just yeah, ramble a little bit on that, because I think one of the things that was a bit um surprising or just kind of jarring about the whole event was, you know, we come out of a church culture in the West, this evangelical church culture that for a long time has told us that the Bible is a message that is for the church, you know, it's read in the church, it's studied in the church by the church. And then when you move outside the church into the culture, into politics, it doesn't really have any relevance out there. You know, there is a gospel message that we need to preach to the unbelieving world, but um, you know, there's a kind of a separation. And here you had this giant event where it wasn't all pastors by any stretch, mostly it was politicians who are out there speaking biblically, uh deeply biblically, and and in a different way, too. In my in my what I mean by that is in my in the past, when you had these events where Christianity and politics kind of come together, usually it's politics in the lead, and people are kind of you know throwing out Bible verses here or there, usually out of context, just to almost the feeling is to kind of pander to Christians to get their votes, right? This was a completely different feeling, you know? It didn't feel that way at all. And I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it. And I just one last point on that. I think, you know, for a long time I think we've felt in the United States that Christianity is as kind of secularism has been rising and growing and um kind of taking over, you know, the culture, secularism, postmodernism, these different isms, you know, that the Bible's eclipsing, it's no longer really at the foundation of the culture any longer. Um, you know, we don't have a biblical foundation, we've kind of lost that. We right, we've talked about that for a long time. And here it was kind of almost like out of the blue, a whole bunch of really powerful people and thousands of people putting the Bible right at the foundation and saying, this is the foundation of everything. And I thought, wow, I'm so encouraged by that. I guess we haven't lost that.
Speaker 04:So I don't think I don't think we lost as much as we thought. I think a lot of people, you know, uh overlook the church when we're we were still there, you know. We were we were too timid, definitely. But when the momentum gets rolling like this, I mean this is JD Vance's talk that I'll share here in a second, is he's like, I have never been more bold to preach the gospel than after Charlie Kirk was assassinated for his belief in Jesus, more or less. And it's like I think everyone I think everyone can relate with that. And I mean if my funeral turns into a pep rally for Jesus, I know I'm gonna have lived a good life. So this was just so awesome to see. It's just everyone's up there, just the momentum, the Holy Spirit's in the room.
Speaker 03:It's yeah, maybe the way to think about it, Luke, it's kind of like you're saying it's it was there, but it was dormant, just kind of sitting there asleep. And then something with Charlie Kirk's assassination kind of woke it up, and all of a sudden it, you know, what was there but wasn't present, you know, in terms of being active, all of a sudden kind of took center stage again, you know. So I hope that's a hopeful take on it, and I hope that's the case.
Speaker 01:Yeah. And one of the things that I've I've kind of thought about is 200 years from now, um, when people are trying to give an account yet again that America is a Christian nation, we might point back to this speech by Rubio and be like, oh, the Secretary of State in 2025 at the Charlie Kirk Memorial said, you know, and and several of the other speakers as well. I mean, just that that's kind of what we do with the Founding Fathers and quoting them. And um I honestly think that this is of that significance um as far as just these bold statements. And I think I once I put it in a video where I said that it just seemed like this was that moment where Christianity was no longer pushed to the fringes. Um it was being brought front and center.
Speaker 03:Right and center. Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 01:I just I love that so much.
Speaker 04:Yep. Alright, let's play a clip from a guy who's from uh your church, Lennox, more or less, broadly speaking, Pete Higgseth.
Speaker 13:Yeah. Now it's our turn. My charge to all of you live worthy of Charlie Kirk's sacrifice and put Christ at the center of your life as he advocated for giving his.
Speaker 04:Yeah, I just want to play that. I mean, uh people are already calling it the Charlie effect of put Christ at the center of your life, speak boldly, fear of God, don't fear man, and uh we're seeing it all over the place. So I just want to play that. And then I wanted to hop to this clip. I thought this was a fun moment from RFK Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, who's uh not a Christian, but I just I thought this was one of the best ways that he could have possibly honored Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 00:A couple of things my niece or my granddaughter left for college in Europe. Her mother noticed that she packed a Bible. And her mother asked her why she made that choice. She said, I want to live more like Charlie.
Speaker 04:Talk about a legacy like that. Just I mean it's such a simple story. But I can't imagine, I I can only imagine how many kids are going off to college right now packing a Bible for that exact same reason. All right, let's uh let's hop to the vice president of the United States of America.
Speaker 11:I was telling somebody max age. I always felt a little uncomfortable talking about my faith in public as much as I love the Lord and as much as it was an important part of my life. I have talked more about Jesus Christ in the past two weeks than I have my entire time in public life.
Speaker 03:Can I just make a quick comment too? Because I think it's worth saying, you know, Charlie Kirk was very close to J.D. Vance, and uh J.D. Vance is a uh a recent, you know, uh I think he kind of grew up in a very nominal type of Christian background. Um, but you know, he came to kind of really accept Christ as an adult and now as a Catholic. Um you mentioned uh uh is it RFK is not a Christian. I don't know that, Luke. You know, he I don't I don't know where he stands. I I do believe he he's also a Catholic. I know that uh Kennedy family obviously is Catholic, Irish Catholic. Oh, I didn't realize that. But what I was yeah, I don't know either for sure. But what I was gonna mention in all of that is Charlie Kirk was close to them all, very close to J.D. Vance. I think they were very close. But um one of the things that struck me was that you had um a quite a large and diverse coalition of people, right? Um, you know, you had non-Christians, Catholics, Protestants, um, you know, just this kind of broad coalition of people in incredible unity. And I thought it it spoke to me because I think Charlie Kirk, he often he was kind of a coalition builder. And the thing that I think the principle that he kind of operated on was, you know, we have to save our country from this deadly, you know, this what Darrow and I call the toxic new religion in our book, this really deadly ideology that's kind of come into the culture in a significant way. So he Kirk's question was always hey, when I'm building relationships with people, are we heading in the same direction? So and it the question wasn't, do I agree with them on everything? Or are they part of the same denomination that I'm a part of, or can we dot each other's theological dots and lines in the same way? Um, you know, not to say those things aren't important, but he was able to build, you know, this broad coalition, and I thought that was quite powerful uh to see it right here with the unity, even though it was broad like that, there was still this incredible unity around the Bible, around Jesus. Uh I don't know. Any thoughts on that, Lennox?
Speaker 01:Yeah, I I I found out that's so powerful. There's a sense in which I think like the truth transcended any kinds of distinctions. Like in this moment, it was just anyone who is in Christ, generally speaking. You know, um, and and and and I found that just so powerful and so potent. Um, there was nothing I think that these gentlemen said that would have like that a the normal Christian answer would have disagreed with because this is what we fundamentally believe about Christ. Um, and I found that just powerful. Um, you know, one of the things that I love about this JD clip specifically is I think JD exhibits a tremendous amount of humility um to acknowledge this, and it's not the first time he's he's done this in recent times. Um I think last week he was hosting Charlie Kirk's uh podcast and kind of admitted how Charlie has challenged him to be a better husband and father. Um and now again he says, you know, basically he's he's confessing. Actually, this is a confession and saying, I have been uncomfortable about bringing my faith into public life. But these two weeks, these last two weeks, that's I've spoken more about Christ than any other time. Um and that's him saying, Yeah, we I need to be doing this. My faith does belong in my my public service. Um, and that's just powerful. And I don't know, I mean, I hope I'm not changing the topic here too much, but I think that maybe the Lord is is drawing lines in different places than we might have otherwise imagined. Um and I just mean like even people that we'd consider just Catholic are starting to sound rather Protestant. Um or but I mean just generally speaking, they're just articulating what we've commonly believed about Christ and His Word and what just what we understand the gospel to be. Um and I think there's a sense in which God is teaching us all something about how his truth will prevail ultimately and can prevail absolutely anywhere. Um and this was just such a powerful picture of the.
Speaker 03:Yeah, it's kind of like you know, it's a it's what kind of the big umbrella is are you a truth seeker? Do you love the truth? Are you concerned about the darkness, right? Are you are you concerned about that? And do you want to be standing against it? Okay, that's the umbrella. Okay. Um, you know, because you know, if are we m if you're moving towards the light against this darkness, if you're moving towards the truth, you are moving towards Jesus, kind of regardless of where you're starting from, right? And uh yeah, you know, uh and you may be in all sorts of different places along that line. You know, you may just be starting, you know. Um, but but that's what I was kind of seeing here. And I thought it was very powerful, very powerful. Come join us if you want to go on this journey towards the light and stand against this this dark, this evil stuff that we're seeing in the culture, come over here, you know. Uh Jesus is at the foundation of all of it, and everyone could say at some level, yes, you know.
Speaker 04:Yeah, and and unlike like you were saying earlier, Dad, where a lot of these political rallies they point to the truth and then they throw out their out-of-context Bible verse. Like here, it was Jesus Christ is Lord of all, and we need to rally behind the truth, and the truth is Jesus. Right. And there was like the clear connection many times. Yes, and that's just so important to just drill down right now, you know, run towards the truth, and the truth is a person, the way, the truth, and the life. Yeah, and Daddy just reminded me of. My new favorite quote from uh Johnny Cash, which is anyone who really wants the truth and zip at Jesus. That's right. So that's right. Preaching their country star. Why don't we hop into why don't we hop into one more clip here? Um the most uh powerful clip of the day, uh, and then we'll continue our discussion.
Speaker 06:Young man. On the cross, our senior said, forgive them for they not know what they do. I forgave him because it wasn't what Christ did. Is what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the gospel is love and always love.
Speaker 04:I just have to stop it there. I want to play the whole thing, but yeah.
Speaker 01:Yeah, I I remember this this moment. It was I tried to I try to be a very big grown-up man, you know, who uh whose eyes don't meet. Um and I utterly failed in that quest. Um, I mean it just really was powerful. And I think that this really was I think the crowning moment of everything because it's I mean just that idea of forgiveness, it is very distinctly a Christian idea. Um and I mean in in one of the most again tragic events to hear a message on forgiveness from the one person who people would generally allow unforgiveness to persist. And yet she publicly in front of more than a hundred million people declares that she has forgiven this young man who assassinated her husband and she gives that rationale as well. It's because that's what Christ did. He he forgave us for our heinous sins.
Speaker 03:Yeah, I I think what you saw there was it transcended, it was a demonstration, it was a demonstration of the power of Jesus that was put on display. Because I'm really convinced that you it's a supernatural thing. You can't just get up there and mouth those words. It's impossible for somebody who's been wounded that deeply. You know, her her husband was assassinated uh just over a week ago. Um you don't just get up there and go, I forgive you, you know. That that doesn't happen. I think of uh whenever I've seen that, and you've seen this at different times. I think of uh is it Corey Tenboom, you know, is very famous for this. You know, she was confronted with the Nazi prison camp, you know, director who killed her her beloved sister after World War II, and he had become a Christian and came up to and she was talking about the power of forgiveness, very similar words to Erica Kirk's about you know, uh you know, we we will destroy ourselves without forgiveness and love for one another, another, even our enemies. And so she was speaking on that, and then he came up to her and said, Would you forgive me? And put out his hand, and her first response was just revulsion. He hate she hated him and um she couldn't lift her hand to shake his, and then she sent up a quick prayer, Lord, you know, I need your power, I need your strength. And her hand went up, and you know, she grasped his hand and she said, I forgive you, brother, I forgive you. And they just broke down in tears. I was crying there too, Lennox. I don't think you could see that and not. Um But again, that's the that you don't do that doesn't happen without the power of the Holy Spirit and the power of Christ. It just doesn't happen. There's no human explanation for it. So when you see it, it's it's it's it's so power, it's a demonstration of power. And I Lennox, I love the response of the audience almost as much as what she said. They just stood up and gave the loudest cheer. And I was so grateful for that. Like, oh, good job, you know, affirm that. Yes. And the contrast, too, the contrast, we talk about light and dark, and boy, you know, we saw all of this darkness following Charlie Charlie Kirk's assassination of the people dancing on his grave and cheering, and hey, we need more of that. Let's kill some more. Oh, that's wonderful that we killed him. I mean, it was shocking. That was almost as shocking to me as the murder itself. And the contrast with this, you know, I'm saying it's just it couldn't be here, she is forgiving the guy, and then the crowd is just cheering. And you just have to step back and say, what kind of world do you want to live in? What you know, what what kind of society do you want to live in? You know, one will destroy us in short order. You know, it just that darkness of resorting to murder and cheering it on and going, oh, let's let you know, let's do more of that. You will end up where Rwanda was not too many years ago. Or I mean, you know, I think of some of these places in you know, Africa, around the world, right? This isn't unique. I mean, that's where we'll go. That's literally where we're going, and we'll go there very quickly. Or you have a culture of forgiveness and it it everything changes. So I don't know. Sorry to pre preach a little bit on that, but I just thought there's a demonstration of the power of God right there, yeah. So Amen.
Speaker 01:Yeah, forgiveness in in that sense is just so powerful. Again, like I honestly think forgiveness is just one of those just undeniable distinctions about the Christian faith. Uh it runs contrary to what we naturally do, and yet we do it. I mean, it's just uh in a moment, like even just from this, like framing it this way, in a moment where you have been grievously wronged to still have a perspective of how you've wronged Christ and He has forgiven you.
Speaker 03:And that's where it's all rooted, isn't it?
Speaker 01:It's all rooted. So yeah, just what a moment. And yeah, in the aftermath of of Charlie Clark's assassination, they weren't riots on the streets. They weren't there wasn't any looting. There hasn't been any violence or retaliation as far as physical violence goes. This is this is that response, and it's just that much more powerful.
Speaker 04:Yeah, I think yeah, I think that it was I mean, it was it was a whole progression of the whole day. The worship was powerful. Just watching it on a screen, I could feel the Holy Spirit in the room. Yeah. I mean, I think Brandon Lake stopped at one point and he was like, the Holy Spirit is in the room, like just saying what everyone was thinking, right? And then all these guys come up and they present the gospel eloquently, powerfully, yes. But then the gospel is lived out, the gospel is shown, and that pierces way deeper than words. People have all heard good, you know, words of someone's ideology and worldview professed to them, you know, reasons, statements of faith, and whatnot. But when you see a worldview, that is obviously out of this world. Like obviously a spirit working through someone, the Holy Spirit working through someone as it was there. There's there's no reasonable explanation. You know, the atheists got nothing on that one. Like it was just it was just you and then what was hilarious, and also most people were annoyed by this, I thought it was kind of just a great contrast, is Trump gets up next and he's like, I don't love my enemies, I hate them. And it's like, well, yeah, you don't have the Holy Spirit in you. Why would you why would you love your enemies? You can't. It's in our fleshly, in our in our flesh, it's we're not able to. So I don't blame you, man. You don't have the Holy Spirit yet. And and he's just very honest.
Speaker 03:People got over Trump for saying that. I mean, I I part of me when I heard him say that, I thought the same thing. I need to pray for him, you know. He's such a dear man in so many ways, but he doesn't know the Lord and he needs to know the Lord. But what I liked about that, honestly, and I like this about Trump in general, is he's always been a guy who, you know, what you see is what you get. He he's not two-faced. He doesn't try to be somebody he's not. He knows he's a rough New York, you know, businessman, and he doesn't try to be anything else, you know. And and I just I I don't know. For a politician, I just so appreciate that. I guess the word is integrity, right? You know, he's he he he's he's he's what you see is what you get, and he's a non-Christian, so no surprise, right there, you know.
Speaker 01:So yeah. I think there's actually here's the thing. I think in the context, like you're right, like I think we should be praying for him. But I think that in an odd way, this was his way of trying to acknowledge Charlie Kirk as having been. A better man, and and what he did was really good.
Speaker 03:And if I was a better man, I would do the same. Yeah. No, it was it was really transparent and honest. I just appreciated the honesty of it. So yeah, yeah. Even though he said it in a humorous way, a lot of honesty is you know, humor does help us to get it, you know, the the truth. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 04:Yeah. Speaking of honesty, I thought that I just saw this quote from Elon Musk. He said, Charlie was murdered by the dark for showing people the light. It's like, man, that guy sees it. And I let's pray for him too. Like, what is the light? Elon Musk. You know, do you know the light?
Speaker 03:Yeah, he's walking towards it now. Again, he's not has he crossed the line between you know non-belief and belief in Jesus? No, I don't think so. But boy, he's walking towards the light. Again, I don't think I don't think people can do that either without the power of the Holy Spirit kind of drawing them. So exactly. Exactly.
Speaker 04:That's right. Any more takeaways uh from the day from the memorial service before we we we we start talking about what's next?
Speaker 03:I yeah, I have several thoughts, Luke, and I I I would love your reaction, Luke and Lennox, both to to this. I've been thinking a lot about it, you know, over the last couple of days. Hard for me to think about anything else, honestly. Um and I've been thinking about it, I've been stepping back and going, look, trying to look at it and kind of the put it in a historical context here. And let me just I'd like to just kind of run this by you guys again and see what you think. Because it I it feels to me like a really hopeful moment where, especially focusing on the church itself, the evangelical church, we're seeing a change. And again, I hope. Um, so what do I mean by that? Go ahead, let's go back. Um, you know, we talk a lot about this in our DNA training about um I'm gonna go back at least a hundred years here, and I'm I'm gonna make this fairly quick, don't worry. But you had in the United States. You had a you had a deeply Puritan culture where the Bible was integrated into every area of life, and people thought, you know, you know, they didn't see the Bible as just a message of personal spiritual salvation, but a worldview. They brought it into education, politics, etc. They built the great universities, Harvard, Yale, uh, they brought it into the form of government that we have, you know. That was what Christianity was for, you know, from the the time of in the United States, anyways, from the time of the the early colonists at Plymouth, all the way up until about the early 1800s. And then you had Unitarianism, you had these different ideologies kind of coming in, and they said things like, man is not sinful, man is not fallen, we can perfect man through, you know, through powerful government programs and whatnot. You know, we can kind of perfect ourselves. And you had Darwin out there kind of saying, you know, no, Christians are really wrong, we're just evolved from matter, and you know, and then the church retreated, okay? The church retreated at that point and it let go of its universities. It abandoned pretty much every area of culture and kind of hid in the church. And it said, we're just going to, you know, it's well, it did set up Bible colleges, okay. It stopped doing universities and started doing Bible colleges and said, we're just going to preach the gospel. Culture's secular, culture's gone. We're going to let go of the culture and just work to get people saved. Evangelicalism was defined by that for over a hundred years. It's very deep, and it's still deep in our, you know, our evangelical DNA, that idea, this sacred secular idea, right? There's this line, right? The Bible applies to sacred things, church, evangelism, Bible study. It doesn't apply to other things like politics and economics and business. And okay, right. That's none of our business. Focusing on all of that stuff is a distraction. It's going to lead us away from our priority of getting people saved, you know. So praise God that they hung on to at least the gospel and wanted to get people saved. I always say that. Thank God, you know, that they still had that heart for evangelism. But they let go of the biblical worldview and consequently they they pulled themselves out of culture and they essentially then left culture to be taken over by secularists, which it was, you know. That was the downside. So then things began to shift. I want to say about 20 years ago, okay, again, this is the ministry of people like Tim Keller and others. They started saying, hey, we need to not, you know, this posture of the fundamentalists kind of uh abandoning culture or kind of retreating from culture, this is wrong. We need to engage in culture, right? So they said, hey, we got to get back engaged in culture. And, you know, books like To Change the World by James Davidson Hunter or The Faithful Presence idea. We need to get Christians into positions of elite power, you know, in the New York Times and into government positions like Francis Collins' position. You know, we got to be in culture. That's what they said, but kind of in this very careful, neutral way where we don't show much Christian distinctiveness. We want to be seen as nice and loving, and, you know, and they'd always say it's in order to, you know, have a platform for the gospel or to make people open to the gospel. It's this politically, it was this kind of win some third wayism that uh Joe Rigney, your colleague there at Lennox, talks a lot about. You know, we can't be can't be too conservative, can't be too uh liberal. We've got to kind of chart this middle of the way road, we've got to be non-offensive. Okay, that has been dominant, I would say, in, I don't know about dominant. I mean, we're still somewhere between those two first things. But that one's been pretty dominant in evangelical, at least leadership, for the last 20 years. And when I say leadership, I mean our big churches, our megachurches, our big institutions, the National Association of Evangelicals, the uh groups like Intervarsity, Christianity Today, you know, they've uh many of our big publishing houses, universities like Wheaton, all of them have kind of taken that kind of Keller-esque, let's get involved in culture again, but not with a distinctively biblical worldview, and in any way, let's not, let's not be offensive, right? You know, so um I always I found that really honestly okay, two things. One, I was glad that they said we got to get back engaged in culture, good, right? One, you know, one cheer for that. But this idea that we engage, but not really, not biblically. In fact, they were playing footsie with this crazy dark worldview of cultural Marxism. You know, they would often, you know, put you know, they would imbibe that and put a Christian veneer on that in order to be, right, not, you know, not um seen as radical or extreme or whatever it was. Okay, the the upshot of that is that has no effect on discipling a nation. It's just another way of the culture discipling the church, right? So, you know, it's to me it was always just so wrong and so disheartening. But then something happened, I think, with COVID and the George Floyd riots of 2020. We really saw this dark, neo-Marxist, toxic new religion really unleashed in a powerful way. The the veil was torn, we could see it.
Speaker 04:Censorship, lawfare, you know, just you know I mean I mean, because of the the hundred past years of Christians essentially not engaging in culture, obviously, and like you said, they like the seculars happily took our place, stepped up in the power. Absolutely. We went from the positive world to the neutral world to the negative world, and that seems like it culminated in 2020. Like it was like very negative positive. I mean, it's still it's still right there today.
Speaker 03:You know, really dark. Like, you know, that like in other words, yeah, it fomented a culture of murder and assassination. Like if this, if these ideas that are deeply unchristian, deeply, deeply, you know, they they find their roots in the French Revolution and commun Marxism, communism, if these ideas really take a root in our culture and they continue to dominate our institutions, we are lost. We are lost. And I think the average Christian deeply felt that. I think the pastors and the church leaders that are in full-time Christian ministry didn't so much, because they're in the church, but their congregates are out there in the world, right, being treated very harshly now and seeing the darkness of this. And they were desperate for leadership, going, I need some help navigating this really dark worldview that's all of a sudden just been totally exposed. And um, and and then you started seeing some changes where people are like, if I'm not gonna get help, if if you as a church or you as a Christian institution are kind of wishy-washy on this stuff, and you can't help me navigate this, I'm gonna go to a different church. And so many people gravitated to different churches. Now, what you see is you see something different here, right? This is what I was observing in the room there. This is very different from both the old fundamentalist and the Keller third winsome third wayism. That that was not what you were seeing at State Farm Arena, right?
Speaker 04:Um here's I I wrote a couple things down to just kind of put it. And in fact, that crowd didn't like what happened at State Farm Arena for the most part. No, they weren't a fan of it. No, no, no, no.
Speaker 03:No, it went against everything they believed in, right? This, you know, so what you saw there was you saw like you heard a lot of messages about courage. We have to have the courage, like Charlie Kirk did. So he he did provide a role model for this new way, right? Um, which is kind of ironic because he's such a young man. He's not a pastor, he's not a theologian, he's just he's you know, but nevertheless, he charts, he's charting a new way here, right? We have to speak with courage and moral clarity on the important issues of our day, even if those positions uh will label us a racist, a homophobe, or whatever it is, right? In other words, we have to really be committed to the truth. We have to push back against the darkness. When it comes to politics, it's not that we're trying to be neutral here. We have to kind of say, hey, which of these political parties most represents light and dark? And then we've got to throw our full support behind the one that represents light. That's a very different approach. Uh, you know, and um, you know, I could go on and on, but uh so I I'd love, I I feel like we are at an inflection point. We're seeing a new thing kind of arising, but I think it's a it's a super hopeful thing because I think it has the power, it stands for truth, and it's not just uh the mere gospel message, but an entire worldview. We're gonna bring it into every area. I think it has the power to really bring change. Lennox, what are your thoughts? Any reaction to all of that? Kind of putting this, you know, again into a historical context.
Speaker 01:Yeah, exactly. Um I honestly think that I think one of the things we should take from this is just that acknowledgement that the gospel really is the power of God unto salvation. And that's not just it's not a metaphorical statement at all. That's that's a real thing. Um, and this gospel is not something we ought to be ashamed of. The truth of Christ and his word is not something to be ashamed of or to be pushed to the fringes. And that's what excites me about this moment because uh, yeah, because Christ is king, his kingdom does not belong in the fringes. It belongs right, left, right, and center. It belongs absolutely everywhere. Um, his his kingdom is a real kingdom. He is a real king. And it's important that we acknowledge that every aspect of life uh belongs to him. And I think that that if we really believe that as Christians, that would change our attitudes as we as we go about engaging things. It means we we don't apologize for holding to our convictions, we don't apologize uh for believing that Christ is king. Um neither do we ask permission from God's enemies to do what we've been called to do by Christ. You know, like Christ doesn't need the world to like us in order for him to do his work. Um and I think we need to embrace that, embrace suffering for that um and seek to love people by just giving them um what is what is true and and crowning Christ as king over absolutely everything. So what a moment this is for that.
Speaker 04:Preach. Hey, before you hop off, one final question in the aftermath of the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk, are we seeing a revival?
Speaker 01:I'd like to believe so. But everything I'm seeing, I think that's exactly what we're seeing, you know, honestly. And it if if if we're not in full revival just yet, we're on fertile soil for it. And I think it's time that we use this as an opportunity to just speak and proclaim the truth because I think people are just ripe and ready for it.
Speaker 03:Me too. So yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
Speaker 04:All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Lennox. We really appreciate your boots on the ground uh takes on such a powerful day. I am so thankful that you from Zambia were able to be in the arena on that day. That's that's incredible.
Speaker 01:Yeah, what a blessing it was. And thank you for gentlemen. I just it's always a good time with you. Always a good time. So thank you.
Speaker 04:Have a good one.
Speaker 01:All right, then God bless.
Speaker 04:Yeah, dad, as we're um as we're wrapping up today's show, I just want to talk about a little bit more of the aftermath of this. Like Lennox just said, we if we're not in a revival yet, we are in fertile ground for one. I think I think laying out the history of the influence of a biblical worldview, I guess you could say, in our nation, in the United States of America, is a really helpful way to kind of frame this discussion, one that I haven't heard people really frame it as yet, where you had the Puritans, um, the founders of our country who were deeply influenced by the Bible and knew how to apply into every area of life, clearly into politics, also into education, into their families, and you just saw a rich heritage there in the first awakening, second great awakening, just a lot. I mean, just a nation founded on Christ in a way that we've never seen in the history of the world. And then, yeah, the Enlightenment's consequences, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, all those crazy thinkers helped, you know, pulled us away from that. And we we uh pride of man, right? We we thought we could do it without God, the deists and whatnot. And then, like you were saying, uh, and then the what was the turning point there when the fundamentalists kind of started? Oh, the the the social gospel. The social gospel became a big thing, and then the pendulum swing from that was no no no no no, we're not gonna be engaged in culture, there's too much of that, we're gonna go hide in our holy huddles in our Christian colleges, right? It's culture secular, that's not, you know, let's stay away from that. That's that's gross, that's sturdy. And then that's where we've been at for so long. And then you had a few people that tried to engage in culture in, I think, very ineffective ways, but with our absence, there was this echo chamber, and of course, darkness is gonna march, you know. That's it if the church is not discipling the nations, the nations will disciple the church. That's um that's uh Darrell Miller's quote. And the church, the nation has been discipling the church in the US, as we've as we've clearly seen. There's still a lot of Christians, but we're not discipling the nation. And now we're at a point where, of course, as the nation is discipling the church, things are getting darker and darker and darker. And at some point there's gonna be a moment of reckoning, and it seems like we're right in that right now. And a lot of people are like, oh, it's this is the end of America, it's the fall of Rome, right? We're it's the worst it's ever been, we're toast. And me being an optimist is like, no chance. Like, now is the perfect opportunity to switch the momentum, you know. It's uh we got nothing to lose, right? And you know, thinking about Charlie Kirk, a lot of people, a lot of people's critique of him um has been, oh, he's too extreme. He was too in your face, you know, he was his tone, he was too frantic, you know, he was too angry all the time, he's too political. And I just I just as I'm thinking about it, and I I I I I will admit I I thought that myself a couple times of him. But uh but he just recognized the times and the seasons better than most people, I think. And you know, I mean like when you meet a we live in Oregon, when you meet a firefighter, you know, sometimes when they're talking about forest fires and putting out your campfire and whatnot, they sound very extreme. They sound a little frantic. They sound like, okay, okay, relax, man. It's not that bad. We're not gonna let a forest fire. But they've s they see how bad it actually is. They know the front lines, and therefore they are fired up. And it was kind of the same way with Charlie Kirk in the political arena. Yeah, there was a real sense of urgency. The, you know, the There was a real sense of urgency that that for him just kind of made him just like full board. And I I think he's absolutely right.
Speaker 03:I mean, the again, the podcast is called Ideas Have Consequences, and these ideas that have been abroad have devastating consequences, you know, whether you think about the transgender craziness that we're living through or even this culture of assassination. They're deadly, deadly ideas. And and he saw that, you know, he saw that they would destroy us. Um, it's the same reason I wrote my book, Why Social Justice is not biblical justice, to call Christians away from uh kind of dabbling around. These are really, really deadly ideas, they're going to destroy us. And um so yeah, he had a sense of urgency about him.
Speaker 04:Yeah, and I I mean he was proven right, right? Like the culture of death produces death. And I think we're all recognizing that now in the aftermath. Like a lot of those speeches said, like, now's the time to be bold. Like, you know, it's it's it's time for truth to rise up in opposition to the darkness. And this whole winsome approach, the whole kind of third way, faithful present approach, it didn't work, it's not gonna work, and it's go time. And obviously, there's a way for Christians to fight in this world.
Speaker 03:Right. It's just it's it to me, there's just a lack of faithfulness to what we truly believe in it. You know, what it seems to elevate is wanting to be accepted and liked. Um, kind of with the idea that once I'm in these positions of cultural power as somebody who's accepted and liked, uh, then you know, we'll see some kind of like really great move of the gospel. But no, you you that that's not the way it works. You know, the way it works is we are going out into the darkness with as much moral clarity and as much truth as we can, understanding that that's never going to be seen in a dark world as anything other than offensive. Um, but it's this at the same time, you know, we're doing it in a way that's winsome. Charlie Kirk was very winsome in the way that he did it. Yeah. So it's it he's showing us the old uh way, which is uh for us a new way. You know, it seems new, you know, but it's not new.
Speaker 04:So I was listening to a pastor, very influential mega church pastor, who was talking about how he recently switched the way he writes his sermons until about 2020. He said when he sat down to write a sermon, he would always picture the audience member who he was trying to reach, which was someone brand new to the church, who is probably kind of woke, very influenced by the culture, doesn't like God. And you would think about them and you think, okay, how can I preach this to them in a way that'll reach them? Won't be too extreme in the world. Any speechwriter always says, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Any speechwriter always says audience awareness. Not so much as a pastor. And then he realized and he made the switch, he's like, I'm not trying to speak. Like my audience, I I'm the audience of one, right? The audience of God. Is this sermon honoring to him and him alone? And if it is, then I'll be pre preaching the truth. And hopefully, if I'm preaching the truth, then God will honor me by infusing my sermon with the Holy Spirit and it will reach even more people. Right. And we've seen so many churches make that similar switch. You know what? I don't care what the world thinks of me. Obviously, like we need to love our neighbor and everything, but the the first commandment before that is love God.
unknown:Right.
Speaker 03:We're not here. We're not trying to make a sales pitch to a to a hostile audience. You know, we're trying to be faithful to God's word in a loving way. But you know, it's the word of God and his spirit that has the power to change. It's not our slick sales presentation or whatever it is, right? You know, so yeah.
Speaker 04:So the so there's there's a change right now. And and I mean, look at Charlie Kirk, he might have been the most effective evangelist of my generation. Like he reached tons of people with the gospel, and he's a political figure. And I think that brings me to one of the takeaways a lot of people are having from this memorial. Oh, it's too political. Oh, it's a bunch of Christian nationalists worshiping their Christian nationalism, right? It's, you know, republicanism with a cross smeared on top of it. And I mean, if we are on the edge of revival, my response to that is God can use whatever avenue he wants to bring revival about in the country. He can bring it about through the arts, he can bring it about through media, he can bring it about through education. It seems like he's using the avenue of politics right now. Great, you know. We should just be excited about that. It's not that like uh politics is too gross, we can't even go there.
Speaker 03:No, politics is just about the policies that we, the people, kind of select to govern ourselves by, you know, and as we talk about in the DNA all the time, policy is downstream from principle, and principle is downstream from paradigm. You cannot just separate biblical truth or any worldview from politics, right? It's just they're in intimately connected, you know. It's a reflection. The policies, the governing policies, take DEI, you know, that's a governing policy. Or uh taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries like we have here in Oregon. That's a policy. That's not disconnected from a worldview, okay? That's a that's an outworking, an expression of a worldview. And so, yeah, this false notion that I think Christians have had during this winsome third-wayism kind of Switzerland political neutrality. It's so false, right? It's so false. I think what Kirk was saying is listen, our fight is against evil and it's against darkness. And therefore, we have to fully throw our support behind whatever political party uh is going to stand against the darkness and the evil, right? With the understanding that no political party is perfect, but we've got to support the one that's the least evil. Okay. Yeah. Right? I mean, it's uh when I first heard this third wayism, I thought my my immediate thought went to Nazi Germany in World War III, because I thought if if the principle So if the principle for Christians is to always be politically neutral, that certainly can't apply to a time like 1930s Germany with the Nazi Party coming on the rise. Oh, we've got to stay neutral. We can't speak out against the Nazis. We can't be seen as too extreme. I mean, sadly, too many Christians in Germany did that, right? And you're just that's a sure guarantee that the Nazi Party is just going to take over everything, which is what they did. So no, this call to be disengaged from politics or to be neutral is so wrong. There's a time, especially if our job, as Charlie Kirk said his was is to speak out against evil, right? Yeah. Then you can't be politically neutral. I'm sorry.
Speaker 04:Yeah. The more I'm learning about Kirk is he kind of reminds me of one of our founding fathers, you know. Like he his approach is very similar. Like I'm coming from a biblical worldview, and I realize that the only foundation of a free and just society is a biblical worldview. So I need to infuse that in what into what I do. And I mean our fa our founding fathers knew that 100%. We hold these truths to be self-evident or sacred, that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable gut rights. And then all the founders went on to reiterate that over and over again. This constitution is created for a holy, moral people. Without it, there, you know, it will not work, John Adams. All of our founding fathers had read the Bible, even the ones who didn't really believe in him, including including like Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.
Speaker 03:I think, you know, and we've talked about where you can you can go off the rails politically, you can go off the rails in some different ways. You can you can make the political party that you support kind of the main thing that you're supporting, or in other words, put your hope in in politics or a political process. Don't put your hope in politics, put your hope in God, put your hope in Jesus Christ, okay? Always. Okay. But that doesn't mean don't engage in politics, right? Just don't make it a God, okay? So um, you know, you can go off the rails in that way, you can go off the rails and yeah, in different ways, you know. But um but but this idea that we have to either be politically neutral or separate our faith from politics, those are both wrong ideas.
Speaker 04:Yeah. Politics is about people, like you said. God cares about people. We care about people. Absolutely. Absolutely. We need we need to be engaged. And, you know, sure at that memorial there was a lot of people there with the wrong intentions. People there who idolized politics, definitely. People there who didn't idolize God and they did idolize politics, he was their God. In dark times, they're gonna go to their God, go to politics. So of course, there was a huge doubt. It's gonna be a mixed bag there.
Speaker 03:But I saw less of that than I've ever seen. You know, it didn't feel like you know, it was a political rally with Christians kind of pandering to, you know, or politicians pandering to Christians and throwing out this random Bible verse. It just didn't feel that way at all this time. This seemed different.
Speaker 04:So Yeah. I loved how kind of the all-star team of American worship artists were there too. Yeah. People that don't usually speak about politics, don't like to be engaged in politics. They kind of do their own separate thing. But they were all there supporting this day. And like that's a stand. A lot of them are gonna get a lot of flack for that. But seeing Chris Tomlin up there, Brandon Lake, you know, Phil Wickham, all those guys, and then just leading all these people, including the president of the United States and everyone in worship, was that's amazing to see.
Speaker 03:No, there was a power in the words of those worship songs. Many of the, you know, the lyrics were very powerful. There was that one, the blessing, I think it was called. That one really sent chills down my spine about um the Lord bless you and keep you, make his face shine upon you, be gracious to you, you know, and then it talks about generations to your children and their children and their children. And I thought, oh, just to sing that to kind of almost as a prayer, God, may it be, you know, that uh that would be our legacy in this land. I thought it was very powerful.
Speaker 04:Yeah. Speaking of a legacy, I mean that's the quote that people keep pulling out from Charlie Kirk is that's what he wanted his legacy to be. Um, whereas it's right here. He says all the time, get married, have more kids than you can afford, build a legacy, pass it down, pass down your values, pursue the eternal, seek true joy. Like talk about a mission statement. I love that. Get married, have more children than you can afford. And the amount of young people that are hearing that message right now is incredible in a time where that is extremely countercultural to say. Right. And it's not gonna return void.
Speaker 03:Charlie Kirk did a good job of, you know, he went on college campuses and his whole thing was ask me any question, any question, you know. And so he had to be ready to respond to questions about all sorts of different kinds of topics, you know, immigration, race, sex, you know, all of these things that college kids wanted to kind of push him on. So he had to think biblically about all of those things. And I was impressed that he did that. You know, he saw the Bible as, you know, a worldview and it had principles that shaped the way you think about all those things, and he could articulate that um, you know, very well. But in the midst of all of that, he let these messages rise to the surface. He always circled back to them. You need to put your faith in Jesus. He is the Lord. You know, he wants, he loves you, he wants you to be saved. He kind of kept coming back to marriage too. Um, and I really appreciated that he kind of kept circling back to these really fundamental um uh truths. You you know, God's design for marriage is beautiful, it's really good. You should go out, get married, have children, raise them in the fear of the Lord, you know. I just appreciated that he didn't let those really kind of powerful and central truths um, and especially those are so needed right now, those are so needed. He allowed those to shine through everything.
Speaker 05:Yeah.
Speaker 04:Yeah. And yeah, and build a legacy. I love that. A word that you don't hear much these days. Um, in our kind of selfish focus times is uh legacy. Speaking of legacy, I just I think in a time like this where a lot of people are kind of fearful, like what's next. I'm seeing a couple responses. One of them's just bold, courageous, like let's go. Which is fired up by a lot of anger, I think, but hopefully righteous anger. And you know, it the the culture war is undeniable. We were talking about this on our other podcast about Kirk. And it's just this whole like, oh, we shouldn't be culture war, is it's so done for a lot of us. Like, there's a culture war, it's between light and darkness, good and evil. It's not against people, it's against the ruler and the principalities of this world.
Speaker 03:And yeah, you're in a war, whether you admit it or not. That's the way I always kind of view it. You know, you could say So you might as well be ready, be bold, be courageous, put on the full armor of price. When there is no peace, no, there is a raging war going on between two ideologies, you know, and the other side is fully engaged in this fight, you know. So this message on our side of hey, don't fight a culture war is just a way of it's it's essentially turning everything over to the other side and saying, You you know, go ahead, carry the day, you know. But that that how can that be faithful Christian living now?
Speaker 04:So I was in Hebrews 12 last week, and one of the other responses I'm hearing a lot of is kind of fear, which I think is totally justifiable right now. And also the what can I really do? A culture war? You think I can influence culture? Culture is what even is culture? It's everywhere, it's huge, it's influenced by the most powerful people in the world. And as we talk about often here at the DNA, your life has a lot more impact than you realize. And one stone thrown in a pond will send out ripples that go and go and go and go, and you can be that stone. Right. And I mean, look behind you as as Christians, this um Hebrews 12 reminds us of this, is like look look behind you, look at the Christians who have gone before the legacy, again, legacy, our legacy is not one of cowardice as Christians. Ours is one that's built on martyrs, that's built on courage, that's built on strength, that's built on a religion that's thrived for 2,000 years amongst continuous persecution. Again, Hebrews 12, therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, that legacy, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance, the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith. And I I think that's just a real encouraging verse right now for anyone that's kind of fearful and worried about what's coming next, is like take a look behind you. Our our faith is one of boldness, and then run and throw off any everything that hinders. I love that. I like running, so I love any running analogy in the Bible.
Speaker 03:You know, the um again going going back to the the kind of the historical analogy I was looking at, you know, the the fundamentalist kind of instinct was to disengage from culture, you know, focus on the church, disengage from culture, bring people into the church, you know, it was kind of a rescue mission. Let's go out and get people out of the culture and into the church, but largely disengage. Kind of the word is disengage. Then the the the Keller kind of crowd was no, we do need to engage, but we need to engage in a kind of a neutral, non uh, you know, non-controversial, non-extreme way, you know. Um so okay, what this new message is though is uh, you know, we do need to be engaged, but we need to be engaged in terms of going on the offense, right? And recognizing that that is gonna, that's gonna stir up a hornet's nest, but we should be going on the offense against the darkness, you know. Let's go, yeah, um, let's go out, let's go on the offense. Forget this neutrality. This isn't like we're not Switzerland here, you know. When you're when you're in a war between the Allies and you know the Nazis in World War II, you can choose to be Switzerland, but that doesn't get you very far. You know, you got to kind of make your choice. Which side are you gonna fight on? So and if you're gonna fight, then go on the offense, you know, go, you know, yeah, you know what that neutral approach gets wrong is they're they're way too relativistic.
Speaker 04:Correct. Like, oh, these are all good worldviews. No, there's one worldview that leads to life, all the rest lead to death. Right. There's no neutrality there.
Speaker 03:Yeah, and just this kind of tiptoeing is like they're not faithful to a biblical worldview, they don't tend to think worldviewishly as in is what I've noticed about that crowd. And that way they're they can easily conform themselves to whatever the dominant worldview is. And so, you know, there was all these evangelical books about, you know, how we've got to kind of adopt this worldview of social justice and kind of critical Marxism with a kind of Christian veneer, right? That you're not thinking critically from a biblical worldview when you do that. Um, so neither of these approaches, the fundamentalist approach or this newer one, this one I think, and this is where I really think we need maybe I this is my prayer for this new movement, is that it needs to kind of recover that thinking biblically from biblical principles about everything and carrying that out into the society. You know, Luke, you were saying, how do we, how do people engage in this? I think there's there's principles of engagement that we can learn already just but from you know the life of Charlie Kirk and others. One is, you know, courage, um, you know, find the darkness. Where's the darkness in your world, in your office, in your family, whatever. You know, go out and fight against that, you know. Um be strategic, you know, don't just pray about it, but do something. Create a plan and be strategic and go again, go on offense. Have moral clarity, right? Don't don't be wishy-washy or morally kind of confusing. Have moral clarity and speak with moral clarity. Moral clarity is contagious. Yeah, that's that's contagious. Um, prioritize the gospel. There's there's principles that we can learn that we can kind of take into any area uh that we're in. And I think that's a good place to kind of start, you know, what in terms of what do we do. So but it's a different posture, it's a it's a different way of understanding our faith than these previous ones that have shaped the church for so long.
Speaker 04:So those are that's a great little list of principles for how to engage outside of the church in in the culture, in the lost culture. As far as I mean, if we're on the edge of reformation though, we need some coaching on how to do reformation because we haven't done this for a while in this country. The Jesus Revolution was kind of the last big reformation we saw. Uh, I know a lot of people say, you know, well, first off, reformation.
Speaker 03:Revival, I guess you're talking about.
Speaker 04:Yeah, that I got I'm mixing it up with reformation. Revival. I mean, the basic premise of revival though is it's repentance leads to revival. Revival hopefully will lead to reformation. Reformation leads to the discipling of nations. That's kind of the approach that we talk about sometimes here. So we see I'm we're seeing a lot of repentance right now. We're seeing mass baptisms all over our country. We're seeing more young people in church. I wanted to mention this today. We're seeing more young people in church for the first time in the last many, many decades in America. Like, there's more young people, Gen Z and millennials, according to a new Barna study, than there are older generations than that on your average week in a church in America, which is a crazy statistic to think about. It breaks all the stereotypes we've always heard of church my entire life. Like it's oh, it's old people, there's no young people, but young people don't go to church.
Speaker 03:There's no new generations that are coming, and yeah, you're seeing in very short order the reversal of that, actually.
Speaker 04:So since 2020, Gen Z and millennials church attendance has doubled, which is just crazy. Yeah, there's more young men going to church than young women for the first time in American history. Like these stats are just crazy. Something's happening right now. So if we are seeing a revival dead, obviously revival, Satan doesn't like revival. There's going to be a ton of opposition right away, I'm sure. How do we prepare for that? What are some kind of principles of revival that we can start applying or looking to apply?
Speaker 03:Well, I mean, I just I'm so grateful because I I think for for so long, you know, we've thought, I've thought, you know, that we the United States, our culture has gotten so off track and has has gone so far down the road of, you know, we're so lost that, you know, there's really no hope for us apart from, you know, that like a real revival, a recovery that puts Jesus and the Bible right back at the very center of our lives and and the culture. Um, you know, and we always said, you know, I really hope I see that. I hope that, you know, we can see that, you know, God, God can do that. He's done that in the past, you know, this isn't un unheard of. And I do think that's where we're definitely seeing the signs of that right now. I mean, I I've kind of moved my own myself from saying, I think, you know, or I'm seeing signs of to we are in, we are actually in a revival. And I think the event on Sunday was kind of for me the final piece of evidence that I needed to say, hey, we are in a revival right now. There's a revival happening. So um a couple things about revival. So I think obviously uh I heard Elisa Childers say this earlier today. She said they're messy, you know, and she was speaking about the the hippie revivals in California in the 1970s. There's a there's you know, just so be ready for that. Don't be surprised by that. You're gonna have just you're gonna have some hucksters and some bad theology, and you know, it's just gonna be a bit messy. But that's okay. God, you know, God is God, you know, this isn't gonna be a button-down, clean and neat kind of a thing. You know, we need to be ready, though, to take new believers that are new seekers, new believers, be ready to befriend them, to help them to learn and to grow. And I think what I'm so excited about this moment is, Luke, is that I really do think we can turn the page on these two kind of ways of understanding and being the church or being Christians over the last, you know, a long time, 200 years in America, this kind of fundamentalist, sacred, secular way, I think we can turn the page on that and this kind of win some third ways of neutral kind of way, this approach. I think we can turn the page on that. Now, if we're gonna do something that I think is new, but it's not, again, it's really going back to earlier times, you know. But if it but we're we've lost the muscles, uh we don't have the, you know, we're gonna have to relearn how to do that, right? We don't so it is a vulnerable time for us. It does need to be followed by uh a reformation, a ref a reforming of the church in a new direction. It does need to be, it does need to happen. And so yeah, just all that to say I I that's I want the DNA to be ready to be involved as much as God would want us to be involved in helping that reformation to come out of this revival. So hopeful that that can happen. Hopefully, I again I saw it. I feel like I saw it. I'm like, and and all credit to Charlie Kirk in this sense, and that I, like you, Luke, I didn't follow him probably as closely as I should have, you know. But now in hindsight and listening to his clips, I'm thinking the guy, this guy, of all people, he was the one that was kind of showing us the way in this new old, new slash old way, right?
Speaker 04:So it's historic Christianity. This is nothing new we're talking about. Right. I mean, this is what we're gonna do. But we've lost our way.
Speaker 03:We've we've lost our way. You know, we've we've made it, you know, we've had this very narrowed down, you know, kind of it's just the gospel message, getting people into church, end of it, you know, or it's going out into culture and trying to be liked, right? You know, or whatever it is. Okay, those are both not going to disciple the nation, and they're a surefire way of just for the church to be conformed to the culture, right? You know, we're just as you said, you know, we're going to be discipled by the nation. Uh now we've got to turn the page and we've got to do something different. We've got to be very, very grounded in Christ and in the Bible and bring all of that into our thoughts, our lives, and into the culture. There's no sphere that's going to be off bounds. Economics, politics, education. Boy, that's a big one. Uh, and family. Okay, all of these things have to be we have to think and act biblically in all of these areas. That's gonna be the reformation. And I think I think there's incredible momentum just because people see the darkness and they see how dark it is, how evil it is, and they want a Christianity that's not just personally fulfilling, that, but that actually builds a kind of humane culture, right? Like we need another kind of culture than this woke, dark culture that's being built up around us. So we need a Christianity that's a culture-forming Christianity, not just one that saves us personally, but builds a culture. There's real hunger for that right now. So I'm like, great, let's let's go. Let's go.
Speaker 04:I know it's awesome. I mean, it's it's what the the great reformers of the the 1500s and sixteen hundreds got right, right? They said all the time the phrase quorum dale, we say it all the time, which is just Latin for um before the face of God. And before the face of God in what? Everything. Every area. Everything from being a plumber to watching sports to eating food to taking walks to riding your bike to having kids, everything. Right. And that will build distinctly Christian cultures, which is what our goal is. Yeah. And I mean, it seems like we're on the edge of that, which is unbelievably exciting. It's exactly what the DNA exists to do in a lot of other organizations. I think a lot of us are positioned and ready for this, which is super exciting. All of you guys who listen to this podcast, you guys are positioned and ready for this, hopefully. Uh, like a lot of people are coming to Jesus, and the next question is who's gonna disciple them? Who's gonna walk alongside them? And we need to disciple them. Uh, so it's an incredible opportunity right now. Yeah. I um I'm trying to think of final thoughts, Ted. Any final thoughts on the other thing?
Speaker 03:No, I think I think that's that's a great way of wrapping it up, Luke. I just think um God is, you know, as Darrow used to say, Aslon is on the prowl, right? For those of you who are fans of the Narnia books, right? You know, Aslon, he's gone, he's never gone, gone, but you know, sometimes he comes back and he's right there present. And it's usually at these times of turning. There's these times of turning, and Aslon is present, you know, and he's on the prowl. And I feel like that. This is a time where God is moving, the spirit is moving, Aslon's on the prowl. Um so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 04:Let's uh and also just God is the God of history though.
Speaker 03:God is the God of history, you know, and that's good to remember, right? It's not us. We don't, we're not generating this in our own strength, our own ministry programs. I mean, this is something that God Himself is doing. So we just need to be available to Him. God, I really want to be fully surrendered to you, and I want to be fully available to you to do whatever you want me to do to help at this moment, this really critical moment.
Speaker 04:And also just if we're if we are thinking about revival. Which by the way, guys, we're not revival chasers here on this podcast, like some people are. Like, that's not a word we use very often. I definitely don't. It kind of makes me uncomfortable. Uh, but hey, it might be undeniable right now, which is amazing to see because how exciting is that is. But if we are talking about revival, I think it's good to just remember Jesus's la one of his last commands right before he went back to heaven, and he had the disciples around him, and he's like, This this is gonna be your witness. This one thing should be the thing that people recognize about you when they see you looking in from the world, and they shall know you by your love. That was his command. Like, let them know you by your love. And I think in revivals, like we were saying, you gotta you gotta mix pot. You get it's gonna be messy, there's gonna be a lot of us, you're gonna have all the denominations hopefully represented, because a real revival needs all the denominations on board. And it's such an opportunity to fight, and Christians love fighting, and we love disagreeing, and it's like, why don't we why don't we let our witness be let them know no aspire love? And that was kind of the rallying call of the last big refer revival in America of the the Jesus Revolution. They had that song we were no aspire love.
Speaker 05:Yeah.
Speaker 04:Yeah. And I just I I really hope to see that again. I'm already seeing a lot of infighting. Speaking of which, we didn't get to talk about this with Lennox, but he posted a reaction right after he went to that memorial service on Twitter. And it went it went out to a lot of people. I think last time I saw it was at like 37,000 people had watched the video. And the amount of criticism that he got on the video was unbelievable. He just got raked through the coals by all the I don't know if they were all Christians, but just destroyed. So uh for anyone listening who wants to encourage that guy, you can head over to his Twitter, find him Lennox Califungo on Twitter and give him a little encouragement because he just got beat up left and right for a little bit. Just the entire situation we're in right now. Charlie Kirk's too political, you know, Charlie Kirk was racist, you know, all these accusations, and now they're all accusing Lennox of that because he supported him and you know, all the worst names that you can call someone from Africa. People were calling him like pretty rough. And I just see like obviously, as is it's a battle of light and darkness, so there's gonna be some real friction right now. But hopefully that wasn't coming from inside the church. I think some of it was, but uh, that's just kind of what we need to expect. Like there's gonna be some friction right away, and it's gonna be from inside the church and outside the church.
Speaker 03:I think, yeah, just a couple thoughts on that, Luke, and I know we've got to wrap up. But yeah, the the the the let's say the acolytes of the woke religion, the what Darren and I called the toxic new religion in our book, right? The people that were that were kind of largely on board with that, right? You I kind of divide them in my mind into two, some that were kind of on the periphery of it, but as it got darker and darker, they started getting more and more uncomfortable with it, and then they started kind of being drawn to the light. Like, I don't want to be a part of this anymore. This is too dark. I wanna, and they they they are very open and even on a journey over to Christ, the church, the light, right? And some of them that were there in that gathering. As those people leave, then what's left is you've got this kind of hardcore group that is going to be even darker, right? They're gonna double down, and um, it's gonna be they're gonna be more hateful, they're gonna be more dangerous, they're gonna be the the possibility for violence is going to go up. I think the group is getting smaller. They know they're kind of losing right now. The the momentum, the drift is opposite in the opposite direction, which is great, at least for now. So, but I don't see them just surrendering at all. I see them doubling down. So we have to be ready for that. Like it's gonna be a lot of hate, a lot of you know, it's gonna be difficult for a while, you know. But that's what it is.
Speaker 04:Yeah, but again, I mean, light overcomes darkness, beauty overcomes.
Speaker 03:And light shines more brightly in darkness. The contrast is what we're seeing right now. Yeah.
Speaker 04:And that's exactly what we saw on on Sunday. Yes. Is we do not overcome hate with hate. Yes, that's we overcome it with love.
Speaker 03:The moment of forgiveness was really where you saw that. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 04:That's the takeaway. So, yeah, if we are cornering a vicious lion, obviously that lion's gonna get angrier and angrier. Exactly. But when when they lash out, don't retaliate. No. With hate.
Speaker 03:No, you know, no, and which is gonna be pretty hard. Hope have hope, you know. It's they're lashing out because in a sense they're losing, you know. And um, you know, it it the darker they get, the more people are gonna peel off, you know. That's just the fact. And we need to be ready to receive those people, you know. So enough on that, Luke. I think yeah, this is something you and I could talk about the rest of the day. Um, but I do hope for our listeners, anyways, this has been our our response to this has been somewhat helpful. It's been it's been really great for me to be able to process with this with you, Luke, and with Lennox as well.
Speaker 04:So yeah. And for everyone out there listening, I hope this was helpful for you guys processing this a little bit more. It's exciting times, very exciting times. I hope you guys will continue to join us or find someone that you can join in this uh exciting moment. This is a battle for our nation, uh potential revival on the horizon or happening, you know. Super exciting. So I just encourage all of you guys to uh go and watch the entire memorial if you haven't had an opportunity to do that yet, and uh just see a pretty clear display of of Jesus uh that was displayed to our entire world on Sunday. Uh, we'll have that linked down below in the show notes. Um, if you'd like to learn more about the Disciple Nations Alliance, you can find us on our website, discipleNations.org. We are also on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and very soon we're gonna be hopping back on Twitter or X to engage over there. So we hope you guys can find us over there. And as always, this podcast is ideas have consequences. Thanks again for listening.
