From the Archive: Why Pastors Cannot Be Silent — Charlie's 2024 Pastor's Summit Speech

**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.
Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com.
That is noblegoldinvestments.com.
I have to do my best not to lose my voice. Lost my voice two weeks ago, not fun. It is a hazard of kind of being in this business right now. I don't even want to talk politics right now. We all know that. Instead, I want to talk about something that is bothering me regarding the church, not caring about being involved in the public square. You see, I'm crisscrossing the country right now. We are in the arena. Yesterday, we were at University of Georgia, where we had, they said, okay, we had, they say, the largest outdoor event in University of Georgia political history. Yesterday, 3,000 students came out in support of what we are doing.
Arizona State University, University of Arizona. We're seeing it on the ground every single day, and it's so exciting. These are young people that are passionate about wanting to take back their country. They know the stakes. They know that they are the first generation since George Washington to have it worse off than their parents. And there's an urgency. There's an urgency when I meet with the grassroots groups. We had people lining up, by the way, for this rally that we have afterwards, starting at like 5 a.m. The urgency in the country, we are surging when it comes to early voting. We're seeing it across the country. But there is a missing ingredient right now, and I think you all know it, and that's why you are here. According to George Barna, where's Lance Walnose? Lance, around here somewhere? Lance and I have a running joke about George Barna, and so does Eric Metaxas. It's a little bit fatalistic, but I love George Barna, and George Barna is the gold standard of Christian research. And he believes, and his research shows, that Christian voters are poised to participate 13 points less in this election versus 2020 And to be fair, I think that might be a little bit exaggerated. I think we could all agree that there are pastors that should be speaking out more, that are not speaking out right now. That there are pastors that should be engaging. Now, this is what bothers me. A couple things. People say, but Charlie, the candidate that I'm told to support is not as pro-life as I would like him to be. I totally hear that and I receive that. In fact, I could tell you that I'm 100% pro-life, and we have to keep on fighting for that in every single domain. But you must also be clear, that that candidate also gave you the greatest pro-life victory in American history, the reversal of Roe vs. Wade.
Secondly, and I think this is critically important though, which is, why do you expect your politician to be pro-life if your pastor is not pro-life?
You see, we are holding our politicians to a standard that we don't even hold the local church to. And before we start to judge or start to say to the world, hey, you guys should be as pro-life as we are, why is it that a vast majority of churches did not mention the reversal of Roe vs. Wade when it happened, let alone celebrate it, let alone thank God for the miracle that we can save unborn lives in this country?
And it gets down to a fundamental, and I've talked to Jensen about this for quite some time, it gets down with a fundamental misunderstanding of what the church is. And the church has become a place where pastors think that you enter to be affirmed. And if you dive down to pastors that do not want to speak out on these issues, they have a misunderstanding of their role. They'll say something like this, Charlie, I don't want to offend, bother, I don't want to have acrimony. And I say, wait, hold on a second. You are their spiritual doctor. You are the person that is supposed to point out flaws in how the world is living and correct them, not affirm them. They have a misunderstanding of what church actually is. You do not go to church to be told that your sinful lifestyle is wonderful and that in Jesus' name you can continue to commit adultery and keep on lying. You go to church to be reminded and taught that you need to be led to the cross, that you fall short of the glory of God. There's a God who loves you and thanks to Jesus Christ, we're able to have eternal life.