From the Archive: The Fruit of the West is the Fruit of Christianity — Charlie at the Sun Valley Policy Forum

Charlie Kirk (0:03)

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

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SPEAKER_2 (1:17)

That was fantastic.

SPEAKER_3 (1:19)

Thank you, Charlie.

Charlie Kirk (1:20)

Thank you.

SPEAKER_2 (1:23)

You know, I'm not going to put Charlie on the spot here, but we were talking in the green room, and he asked about the pavilion, and could we fill the pavilion next time?

Charlie Kirk (1:33)

You know.

SPEAKER_2 (1:34)

I said yes, we could.

Charlie Kirk (1:36)

I get this, a bad trait from Donald Trump. I always want bigger rooms and bigger spaces and more crowds. So maybe it's a good trait. I don't know. So that's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_2 (1:46)

It's excellent. So that was incredible.

I want to talk about all the things we talked about. So we can go through a little bit of that. We're going to take some questions. We've got some time. So Independence Day is coming up. We do have a core topic that we talk about the Constitution. And you like to talk about freedom of religion in the Constitution, and why that is one of the most important causes of the First Amendment, and as a driver for freedom for all Americans, regardless of religion. Do you want to kind of just spend a little bit explaining that to us?

Charlie Kirk (2:21)

Yeah. And I mean, I'm a deeply religious person, but even if you are not religious, you have to be intellectually honest that the country was better when more Americans took their religion seriously, period. And it's absolutely true. And you might say that the two are not related.

I completely disagree. I think that it was better when most Americans believed that there was a creator of the universe that was not them, and they did not desire to be the creator of the world. I think it's just a better world to live in when you have that operating belief. And I could tell you that if you think it's okay, I'm not saying anyone has this belief, but just if you think it's okay that America loses its religious flavor or fervor, look to Europe what happens as they all of a sudden have become less religious. That continent is a husk of its former self, and you lose the moral center. There's a reason why, and this is a very important point. John Adams famously said, he was one of my favorite founding fathers, he famously said, the Constitution was written wholly for a moral and religious people. It is inadequate for the people of any other. So basically, the form and structure that I just spent time talking about, you really can't continue if America becomes completely secular. And there's a reason for it.

If you have a body politic that believes that there is a God who judges them, and believe that there's a God who cares about how they act, and that God wants you to do certain things, you don't need the voluminous laws that we have in our society, where we have 900,000 laws if you count the federal register and the federal code, and so on and so forth. So I just want to say that first and foremost. Secondly, we've always been lectured about separation of church and state. That is not in the Constitution. For argument's sake, let's pretend that's actually something that's in the Constitution. Instead, it's free exercise of religion and the establishment clause that Congress shall make no law abridging or respecting the religion thereof. However, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a single letter in 1807 to the Danbury Baptist Convention, he said to the Danbury Baptists, we have separation of church and state. Interestingly, because the Baptists were really worried the government was going to come after them. Okay, so then the Warren Court, the Burger Court in the 60s, they resurrected this idea of separation of church and state, and they said, we cannot have any church in the state. Okay, well, during COVID, if we have separation of church and state, why was the state allowed to shut down the church?