The Cost Of Truth (Ed Young, Frank Turek)

whether or not Christianity is true, but they're more concerned as to whether or not Christianity is good. By their definition of good, you can't lead everybody to Christ, but you can lead Christ to everyone. - Tell me about your friendship with the great Charlie Kirk. - I can confidently say I learned more from him than he learned from me. - A lot of pastors will say, "Look, I don't get involved politically. "I just preach the gospel." And to which I respond this, I say I guess you don't think the gospel's very important then. - Are you telling me that 165 years ago, Christians should not have gotten involved in politics to outlaw slavery? Is that what you're telling me? - If you're judging people, not on their behavior, but by what identity group they're in, that's poison justice. That's not true justice. When you want to help somebody, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear. (upbeat music) - Frank, okay.

I had no idea that you have a military background. I didn't know that for some reason. - Navy stands for never getting volunteer yourself. Did you know that? - No. - How about you? You got one? - No, sir. - So how did you get into that, Frank? - Well, I always wanted to fly when I was a kid and so Navy was the best way to do that. But I was a navigator, I was not a pilot, but I was in the Navy for eight years after college. I went to RTC. And then when I got out of college, I met Norman Geisler. - Yes, sir. - Who was kind of the Michael Jordan of apologetics at that point. - Yes. - And he left Dallas and where'd he go to? He went to Liberty after Dallas and then he went and started a seminary here in Charlotte. That's why we moved here. - Oh, that's outstanding. - Yeah. - Yeah, Norman Geisler is a true legend. - Yeah, he was. - Yes. I mean, that's, that's, how did you, Frank, how did you, I don't know, let me ask you this guy,

tell me about your marriage, your family, when did that? - I got, we got, I met my wife when I was in the Navy in California. So about 1985, we met, we met in August of '85, we got married in February of '86. - Okay. - So we didn't live in the same town, we saw each other maybe 10 times before we got married. - Really? - We'd been married 40 and a half years, we have three sons, two of them were in the military, one is an engineer. The oldest one is in the Pentagon right now, he's a Lieutenant Colonel. The second one's out of the Air Force now and he is a airline pilot for American Airlines. Here is Charlotte. They're about to have their fourth son in about a week. - Right, excellent. - The oldest one is one girl. The third son is married, but no kids, they can't have kids. But he's now in the Charlotte area, so that's good. And so we have five grandkids. Well, four and the fifth one is just about to pop out, so. - Well, you know, Frank, we are from, I was born in North Carolina and grew up. - Where? - Well, I was born in Raleigh and lived in a little town called Irwin and also lived in Canton, North Carolina.

- Okay. - And then we migrated because Dad was a pastor and so we migrated from there to South Carolina and that's where I met my wife. And we'd been married, it'll be 45 years this June. - You got married younger than me, 'cause we're about the same age. I'm 64, what are you? - Five, 65. - Okay, so we're about the same age, right? - Yeah, yeah. - You got married when you were like, what, 20? - Yeah, something like that, 20, I just turned 21. - Yeah. - Wow. - How many kids? - Tell me about the cool glasses you wear. You always have these cool glasses. Where do you get these things? - These are just, I don't know, I'll send you the model number. - I like that you have to get this kind of a black, the darker piece across the top, right? - That's it. These are Nike glasses. - No way. - Yeah, that's what they are, yeah. - Okay, so if I-- - I'll see if I can, I'll see if I can find the model number. - So if I put those on my IQ.

- Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. (laughing) That's my secret, it's the glasses. - Yeah, oh, I know better than that. - That's what I think. - Smart water. - I know better than that. (laughing) So, Frank, you got to know Dr. Norman Geisler. Obviously, he was pivotal in your life. Tell me, how did you, I mean, what are some big things you learned from him? Like some big honking ideas and things you're like, Ed, this is what, I mean, I learned-- - And that's a whole podcast that I did right after he died. There are so many insights I learned from him. - How do we find the podcast, drfranktoward.com? - It's on our, it's probably on our app. - Okay. - I can't exam it up. - Yeah, we'll check that out. - But yeah, I went through the top lessons I learned from him. - Okay. - And there were so many of them, many of them had to do, of course, with how do you defend the faith? experienced it, and he said the same thing. He said, the older I get, the more certain I am of the big issues and the less certain I am of the little issues. That's brilliant. Do you find that? Yes, I do. I've never heard it framed like that, but yes, I agree.

So like, you know, the essentials of Christianity, oh, yeah, I'm sure of those. Yes. I don't know. I don't know if I have the right view on the Four Horsemen in Revelation. Exactly. I don't know if I have the eschatology, right? Yes. Oh, Frank. Yes, sir. Yeah. You're preaching to the praise team. It used to be you're preaching to the choir, but now I've got to say praise team. Right. So those are the issues that, you know, the secondary tertiary issues are really secondary and tertiary. So I don't get wrapped around the axle around those. You know, we defend the essentials and we have grace in the other issues, right? Brilliant. What are like the biggest questions that you feel if you have to, like, maybe the top two, three or four or five or whatever? Well, in recent years, I would say the top three objections to Christianity, Pastor, are morality, morality and morality. Interesting. In other words, I think, I think people nowadays are less concerned whether or not Christianity is true, but they're more concerned as to whether or not Christianity is good. By their definition of good. And often their definition of good is I get to do whatever I want to do sexually. That's right. Right. That's my definition of.

That's it. That's it. You know, there's a new religion in America and it's called the religion of sex. I get to do whatever I want to do sexually, and I'm going to create a God in my mind that is with me every step of the way. I'm creating God in my image, not the other way around. That is so profound and so true. That's the issue. I get many more questions on those issues than I get on, are you sure that there was a beginning to the universe? You know, used to get these scientific questions. I don't get many of those anymore. It's morality. A lot of pushback on those. It's morality. You know, the three arguments we always give for the existence of God, the argument from the beginning of the universe, the argument from the design of the universe and the design of life, and then the argument from morality. Morality is where people are living. Like, you know, if there is no objective morality outside of ourselves that we're all obligated to obey. Yes. You know, murder is just a matter of opinion. That's so true. You know, rape is just a matter of opinion. Well, it's just a matter of opinion if there's no God, but if there is a being beyond us that we're obligated to obey and his nature is what we call goodness and any deviation from that nature is what we would call evil, then we can say and know that murder is really wrong. It's not just my opinion or your opinion, it is based in the nature of God.

And so that's where people are living today. This is why I often ask people on college campuses or even in churches who are not believers during Q&A, I might ask them a question like, if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? And I've had many people, in fact, I'd probably say 99 times out of 10, as we say in Mississippi, the answer is no, I wouldn't become a Christian. And you go, wait a minute. You claim to be reasonable, and I ask you if something turned out to be true, would you believe it? And you say, no, how's that reasonable? How's that rational? It's not a problem of the head, it's a problem of the heart. They don't want it to be true. They don't want there to be a God because they want to be God over their own lives. You know, they're not on a truth quest or on a happiness quest. And they're just going to believe whatever they think is going to make them happy. So I always ask, if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? That clears the decks of all possible objections because it gets right down to the bottom line. I love that, Frank. If it really were true, would you join us? Would you follow Jesus and- And 90, you're saying 99 out of 100 say, no. Well, maybe- 90, you'll see. What? Yeah, why don't we do a poll with the audience listening right now? For those of you listening and watching, let's do a poll. Let's do a poll. I can tell you how it works out in front of an audience, but let's just a live audience. I asked this question. I want you to think of somebody you know who is not a Christian, but somebody you'd like to be a Christian.

A friend relative, somebody like that. Everybody listening right now has someone, right? Okay, good. Here's my question. Is the person you're thinking of right now on a relentless pursuit of truth? They want to know if Christianity is true, or are they apathetic or maybe even hostile to Christianity? Now when I asked it before a live audience said, I asked that, I say, how many people say the person you're thinking of is on a relentless pursuit of truth? They want to know if Christianity is true. Most of the time it's crickets, nobody raises their hand. Maybe one or two out of 500 will raise their hand. is apathetic or hostile. All the hands go up. You see, most people are looking for God like a criminal's looking for a cop. They're on the run. They're running away because they have this idea that God wants to take away all their fun. That's what they're doing. - That's right. - Yeah. - Frank, back to your point, okay. Tell me again, I don't hear that again. Morality, morality, morality. That's the issue. And basically it's, I want to be able to do what I want to do sexually. - Yeah, they're in a happiness quest, not a truth quest. Happy.

- And you see sex though as like the, kind of the main thing with that. - Well, there's three major issues as we know from first John too. - Okay. - There's nothing in the world but the lust of the eyes, the lust of flesh and the boastful pride of life. - That's right. - You know, sex, money, power, right? So those three things, sex, money, power, power, recognition, autonomy, any of those things will keep somebody out of a kingdom because they want those things more than they think they want God. - That's right. - Sex, money, or power? So those are the big three. - Frank, sometimes I call it maybe this is bad PMS, power, money, sex, is that bad? Power, money, sex, PMS. - That's good. That's good, yeah. - Sometimes we walk up and go, "We have a PMS problem." And then of course, "No, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, no, that's..." - But you understand why 'cause sex, money, and power are good things. In fact, they're so good, we'll often take shortcuts to get them.

That's why we sin, right? - That's right. - We want to get sex, money, or power. - Yes. - And my friend Jay Warner Wallace, the cold case homicide detective, says whenever he finds a body that he knows has been murdered, he says, "Look, I don't need to track down a hundred possible motivations why that guy was murdered. I know that guy was murdered for one or more of these three motivations. There was either a sex issue, a money issue, or a power issue. Sex, money, or power. They're the things that drive people to murder. The same three things that drive any of us to sin because we want to get those good things, but we often take shortcuts to get them and that's what sin is. - I had coffee with the guy that I hadn't seen for a while. I mean, for a long time. And I knew going in, this was like recent several days ago, that he was not a Christian, very successful, very smart, really a good guy. Yeah, I like him. And when I met with him, of course, he knows I'm a pastor,

you could feel a little bit of the pushback. So I sort of shared my testimony and how God has led me during my life, et cetera, but I just didn't feel the Holy Spirit telling me, okay, now's the time, boom. Frank, walk me through talking to someone who's not a follower of Christ. As a Christian, we befriend them, we get to know them. How do you personally get into those conversations with people who are far away from God? - Well, just like you said, ask. I ask a lot of questions, when I first meet somebody. If you say I'm on a plane or something. - Yeah, tell me, walk me through what you ask. - I'll say, you know, hey, how are ya? I'm Frank, and say, are you going home? Where are you going? That kind of thing, and then, hey, what do you do? - Right, are you, you know, what's your job? What's your profession, that kind of thing? Just try to get to know them. And typically when you do that, they ask you a question. But what do you do? And then I say, well, I'm an author and a speaker. I wrote a book called I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an atheist. And that normally takes them, either go, they lean in or they go, uh-oh. (laughing)

Now, not everybody can do that, right? But it was like, I suppose I wasn't an author. You know, what do you do? I might say, well, whatever my profession is, and I also help lead a group at my church or something. I might open it up by trying to say, you know, to see if there's any interest if I were to bring up a spiritual issue. If there's interest, then you can go further. If there's no interest, what's the point? You don't have to force something, right? - That's good, that's very well said. - And I think that one of the problems we have in evangelism is we think that every interaction, in every interaction, we have to get someone to the foot of the cross. And I don't think, I think most evangelism is gardening, not harvesting, right? - I love it. - In other words, you're just trying to move somebody further away from their worldview and closer to Jesus. - That's right. - Sometimes we use the baseball analogy. - Okay. - You don't have to hit a home run. Just get the guy to first base. Like get the guy to believe that truth exists, right? 'Cause a lot of people don't believe in truth. In fact, there are four questions is true?

We answer, does truth exist, does God exist? Are miracles possible and did Jesus rise from the dead? Because if those four things are true, that yes, truth exists, yes, God exists, yes, yes, miracles are possible and Jesus rose from the dead, oh, mark it down, Christianity is true. >> That's right. >> From that point, you can show the Bible's the Word of God, right? So maybe you could get somebody to believe truth exists by asking a few questions, then you can get them, somebody else can get them to believe God exists, they're in second base, then third base, miracles are possible. Then, if you get somebody to accept that Jesus died and rose from the dead and they want to trust in Jesus, then they come home. Now if you ever had an experience, you know, where somebody, you lead somebody to Christ, I guarantee you it wasn't you the whole way. >> No. >> I guarantee you know, Paul says some plants, some water God is the increase. That guy was on third base leaning in when you got him to believe in the resurrection, right? Through the power of the Holy Spirit. Boom. >> Yeah. >> And you thought it was all you. No, it wasn't. >> No. >> That was a process. That guy was rounding the basis maybe for years before he ran into Ed Young on the plane, right? >> That's good. >> Boom. So just be faithful.

You can't, a guy's always used to say this, you can't lead everybody to Christ, but you can lead Christ to everyone. >> Whoa. >> Great. >> Frank, if I'm having, if I'm somebody, body on the plane or at the gym or whatever, I've wondered about this, people sometimes will ask me, well, hey Ed, you know, nice to meet you. What do you do for a living? >> Uh-huh. >> And I know when I drop the pasture bomb, it is, it's funny in a way, in other ways, anyway. So anyway, I usually say, well, I'm a pastor and I'll talk about some of the other things that I do to try to, and maybe I shouldn't do this, to try to diffuse it. I'll say something like, and this is, I mean, they're all true, I say I'm a pastor, but you got to put a comma, you know, I've been able to write and then I put a comma and my wife and I've done, you know, real estate and things like that. So I feel like when I say that, I mean, again, that's true, but it kind of diffuses it, but if I say, I'm a pastor, it's like, how about something like, yeah, I'm not, that's what I'm asking. What should I say, Frank? >> I help people investigate the most important questions in life. >> Drop the, drop the mic. >> Yeah, I mean, what, Dr. Frank Durek? >> Somebody else, you can't not ask the question. If you, somebody says that to you, well, what are the most important questions in life? Like, how are you, how are you going to resist asking the question? >> I'll use that today, yeah. I help people answer the most important questions in life. >> Is that good? Pastors, all of you who are listening, that's a brilliant, brilliant response.

Okay, Frank, tell me about your friendship with the great Charlie Kirk. I know you were a mentor of his, and we obviously love, loved him, love his legacy, everything about him, but I know you, my friend, were instrumental in his life. I mean, can you share with us some things about that? >> In the first chapter of the War on Reality, which by the way, we started writing this book before Charlie was murdered, not a year before he was murdered, and of course when he was murdered, I was with him. >> Yes. >> Frank, I cannot, I mean, I can't read my brain around that, if you, I mean, being right there with him and driving with him to, I cannot believe that. >> Well, who can? I mean, who experiences that? That's a rare event, you know? I mean, people, that's one of the problems with all these crazy conspiracy theorists. >> Yes. >> They look at you and they say, you should be behaving differently. How do you know how I should be behaving? I never been through this. >> Yeah. >> I mean- >> That's right. >> There's no normal response to an abnormal event. There is no normal response. Everybody was in shock, right? Still, to this day, the first person I think of when I wake up in the morning is Charlie, the last person I think of when I go to bed at night is Charlie, when I wake up in the middle of the night, the first person I'm thinking of is Charlie, and some people call that PTSD, I don't think that's right, because the D is wrong. It's not a disorder, it's normal. If you witness your friend get murdered, you better be thinking about that for several years.

Right? >> Well, yeah. >> You're still brushed at all. >> That's right. >> Right? So I really-- January 2020, Charlie emailed our ministry and said, I've been watching Frank's videos on YouTube. He goes to college campuses. They've been a great blessing to me. They've helped me a lot. I'd love to meet, you know, here's my website, here's my name, here's my cell phone. So he reached out to me and he wanted me to mentor him in what we call Christian apologetics, evidence for the faith. Now, as you know, Ed, it can't be hard to mentor somebody smarter than you. But not with Charlie because the only thing that exceeded his intellect was his humility. The few things that I knew that he didn't know, he wanted to know. But I can honestly tell you that despite the fact I was twice his age, when he died, when he was murdered, he was 31, I was 63, okay? And I can confidently say I learned more from him than he learned from me in the five and a half years we were together. - Wow, that's astonishing. - Okay, because he was that gifted and because I wasn't his only mentor.

I mean, he had mentors in every area of life because he was wise young man who knew that in order for him to do what he did, he had to have people further down the road around him that could help him with these issues. And so he did. He had plenty of mentors around him. In addition to me, you know, he had Dennis Prager, who, not a Christian, but a very good thinker in many areas. He had Rob McCoy, he had Jack Hibbs. He had people around him, Jim Orr, from Cambridge. He had Larry Arn from Hillsdale. I mean, he had people all around him to help him do what he needed to do. And that's what a wise person does. - Isn't that true? - People around you, what does the proverb say? Many advisors plan to succeed. - That's right. - Right? - So Charlie and I were, would get together a lot. In fact, in the summer, last summer, 2025. - Yes. - Before he was murdered, we got together on four occasions in Phoenix that summer to sharpen one another on questions and answers we get on college campuses. And 'cause he wanted this next tour to be the biggest ever and it was going to be the biggest ever. And so we met in May, we met in June,

we met in August and we met again, three days before he was murdered, we met in Phoenix two days on Monday, the eighth. And so we spent time that day. We went on a long walk that night as we were accustomed to doing. After he put the kids down, we'd go on a walk and just talk about all sorts of different issues. And as we point out in the book, the War on Reality, the three issues he brought up spontaneously that night, Ed, that he wanted to talk about. - Okay. - Where he wanted to talk about Islam because... - Yes. - And the government, because Islam is not compatible with the United States Constitution. - No. - It's not compatible with the Bible obviously. And wherever Islam goes, freedoms go away. He was concerned about it, it's concerned about how do we get Christians more engaged politically because we're going to lose our freedoms if we don't. Number one, number two, wanted to talk about the evidence for Christianity, particularly the two things that you need to show to show that Christianity is true. God exists, Jesus rose from the dead. We talked a lot about the resurrection. And we talked about why Christianity is indeed true, evidence for that. The third issue we talked about was the family.

How could he get his generation to embrace marriage and childbearing because their surveys showed that although the men in his generation were interested in marriage, the women, not so much. So how could he convince women in his generation to want to get married? Now, I didn't think about this at the time, Ed, but after he was murdered, I said, man, Charlie was concerned about the three institutions God created, government, church, family. And you know what we talked about the next day? The day before he was murdered, we had a Zoom session with three Israelis. We were talking about Israel. How do we better answer questions about the Israel-Hamas conflict? - Yes. - So Charlie was interested in the four institutions God created. In the two days before he died, the government, the family, the church and Israel. I go, man, this guy is a big picture thinker who knows what's important. Don't major in the minors, major in the majors. Charlie majored in the majors. And now Erica, despite unrelenting demonic attacks on her, is continuing that legacy. God, family, country, also concerned about Israel. And she's got these make heaven crowded tours, Israel. And we just had an event. So thank you for hosting that. No doubt. What we're doing is we're continuing to do what Charlie did because Charlie had the right direction,

and Erica is picking up that mantle. And in fact, the first time Eric and I saw one another after Charlie was murdered was about 530. The day he was murdered was in the hospital. And she had probably gotten there. He was murdered around little afternoon on September 10th. Got him to the hospital. He pretty much was pronounced dead pretty quickly. And Erica probably got to that hospital around three o'clock or so. I saw her from a distance when she got there, but about 530 when we're all leaving the hospital, after she spoke to the surgeon, after she, by the way, the surgeon said if Charlie had been shot in the operating room, we couldn't have saved him. Right. That's how devastating that shot was. But as we're about to leave, she sees me. I see her in the hall. She comes up through tears. We embrace. And she says this. She says, Charlie, first of all, she said, Charlie loved you. He was doing what he wanted to do. Please don't let his legacy die. And so what I've been doing in the small way I can do is try and keep his legacy going. And so is Erica. And so is everybody else at TPUSA. And so are people like you who are inviting TPUSA to come in and continue to do what they do. So we're all Charlie Kirk. Now, you know how Paul said emulate me as I am. Yes. Right. It's not hero worship. Charlie wasn't perfect, but when he did emulate Christ, that's an example for us. And we can do the same thing. Frank, you and Erica and so many of you, in particular, are doing such an amazing job. It's, yet tell me, Frank, when you look at the church, and when you look at pastors, I like what you said about majoring on the majors and not getting caught up in the minors. I just feel so strongly that we have to be, as God told, Joshua, strong and courageous, strong and courageous, strong and courageous. We have to stand. We have to have courage. And it's almost here's the way I frame it and critique my thinking. If pastors would just be open and say, okay, I, I want to preach the full counsel of God, no matter. I mean, what it is. And I want to talk about the issues that the Bible brings up and if they're deemed political, so be it. But if you're willing as a pastor, in my opinion, to go there, God's going to honor it. The Holy Spirit will give you the power, but it just really makes me, I guess the word, anger, somewhat, but sad that so many never get down to it. And we're just doing a disservice. I obviously like for you to unpack that because you see, I mean, many more churches and pastors than I do. And how would you encourage, let me ask you this, a pastor watching or a leader watching going, you know, I have tried to skirt this issue or

these issues about, you know, Islam, the evidence of Christ Israel, you know, blah, blah, blah. What would you say? Great. We have a chapter, chapter 15 in the war on reality that deals with that. But first, let me say, I think being a pastor is very hard. In fact, I think it's the second hardest job in American Christianity. The hardest job is pastor's wife. That's the truth. Yeah, no, you just got. I thought you were going to say, I thought you were going to say the hardest job is a worship leader. No, I'm good. I'm good. I love worship. I'm tells the joke. Okay. But pastor's wife. Yes. It's like you said at the pastor's conference back in April, at the church, you don't want to be a soft serve pastor. Right. Meaning you're only talking about what Paul would say, what their 18 years want to hear. Yes. Right. So here's the way I approach this. I hear people saying not just pastors, but a lot of pastors will say, look, I don't get involved politically. I just preach the gospel. Oh, yeah. And to which I respond this, I say, I guess you don't think the gospel is very important then. And they go, what do you mean? I say, because politics affects your ability to preach and live the gospel. If you don't think so, you can go to some of the countries I've been to. I've been to Iran. There's no First Baptist Church of Tehran. I checked, Ed. It's not there. I've been to Saudi Arabia. There's no Calvary Chapel of Mecca. They don't allow it. If you wanna start first Baptist Church of Cairo, you're gonna have problems politically 'cause they don't want you there. And so if for no other reason, we have to be engaged politically is to protect our own ability to preach and live the gospel. The second aspect of this, and in the book, we have the top 10 reasons why Christians often ought to be involved. The second, I'll just give you two. The second is, Jesus said, love your neighbor. How do you love your neighbor from a political perspective? What you do is you use your influence to put laws in place that protect innocent people

from evil and punish wrongdoers. 'Cause Paul says in Romans 13, "God established government to punish wrongdoers." - That's right. - If we have the capacity to affect government to do that, - And we don't take it, we are actually in sin, 'cause James said, if you know the right thing to do and you don't do it, you're sinning. You can't even vote. I mean, especially in Texas now coming up. You've got this big midterm election. You've got a guy who claims to be a Christian, James Tallarico, who is the biggest wolf out there. I would rather have an atheist than this guy, because he's claiming that he's a Christian, yet he has all anti-Christian positions. He wants to transition children. - It's absurd. - He wants abortion up to the moment of birth. He's calling reading Bible stories to kids immoral while he claims drag queen story hours, a good thing. You're going, if this guy's a Christian, give me Stalin. You know, I mean, this is crazy. I'm exaggerating, you know what I'm saying. - Not much. - Yeah, right. Right, this guy is a total wolf. And if Christians don't show up, you're gonna get this guy in office. Now, I know Ken Paxson is no walk in the park either.

He's got his own issues. But from a policy perspective, Paxson is right. - Yes. - And Tallarico is wrong. And you have to vote policy if you can't get both policy and personality, vote policy because policy is why you put a guy or get an office. - Yes, that's right. - Not their personality. It's kind of like going to a surgeon. Are you gonna pick the best surgeon or the one with the best personality? I'm going with the best surgeon. - I'll do the best surgeon every time. - You know, but it may be the acid question is this. I ask people this question. I say, are you telling me, for the people who say don't get involved in politics, are you telling me that 165 years ago, Christians should not have gotten involved in politics and outlaw slavery? Is that what you're telling me? And at that point they go, oh yeah, I guess we should have. Well, welcome to politics. You can't avoid it. - You can't. - Are only atheists qualified to run the country? By the way, you're not, you can't disciple people if you carefully avoid every moral issue

that the culture has turned political. You can't. - Wow. - You can't disciple people. We can sit on our Ivy Towers at church and not have to deal with DEI. - Yes. - But the people in your congregation have to deal with it. We can sit in our Ivy Towers in church and not have to deal with someone trying to transition your kid in school, but your congregants have to deal with it. - That's right. - You know, your kid might not come to you and say, mom, dad, I'm trans, but what happens if people in your congregation have kids that come to them and say that? What do you say? What do you do? In fact, in the book The War on Reality, we have a whole list of questions. You want to ask your kids if they say, "Mom, dad, I'm trans." It's not hard to ask the right questions. So do it, but you can't do it if you never talk about the issues. - I think there's a fear too being a pastor. Oh, man, if I talk about these things, I'll lose followers on social media, of course. People will leave the church and the money

will leave the church. That's why, well, that's one of the reasons pastors are so freaked out and scared, but you got to get over that. - Can we address that? - Yeah, I want to hear it. - Okay, well, first of all, you will lose some people. - You will lose some. - Yes. - As Chip Enger and famously said, make sure the right people leave your church. - That's the truth. - Make sure the right people leave your church. But in our culture right now, you're going to have people get up and leave, but you're going to have a lot more people show up at the door and go. - Exactly. - I want to be a disciple. - That's right. - This guy doesn't pull any punches. - That's right. - These guys telling me what I need to hear, not just what I want to hear. And if I just wanted to hear what I wanted to hear, I'd just stay home and watch CNN all day. - That's right. - Right? Okay. So this guy cares about me

because he is going to tell me exactly what I need to know and how to follow Jesus. So your church is actually going to grow. And even if it doesn't, your job is to be faithful. - Yes. - Your job is not numbers. Your job is to be faithful. - Exactly. - And it can be hard because you got a staff and you can say I don't want to be involved. - No, but that's, yeah. - Yeah. - And there's freedom to it. And you know, going back to my friend I had coffee with I mentioned earlier. - Yeah. - We were talking about some of those issues. He was very interested. This guy's not even a believer in the big four you were talking about. is a mess, something's wrong and blah, blah, blah. If you teach the whole word of God, your church is going to actually explode in America today. That's right. Now, it might not be the case elsewhere, but in America, the data show, our friend Tony Perkins has looked at the data, you know, when you start preaching everything biblical, including political issues, people are going to leave, but more people are going to show up and they're going to be fully committed disciples. And that's what you wanted. You know, Jesus didn't say make believers. He said make disciples. That's right. It's a totally different thing, right? Okay, so, okay, the cocktail we see in our culture, the cocktail of compromise, the cocktail of the

enemy, you've got to use, you got to say Marxism slash socialism, definitely, you've got to say Islam, just correct me here. And then the trends slash LGBTQ movement. And I know within that, you've got critical theory, et cetera, but that's all part of it. But that's kind of the cocktail that our culture is intoxicated upon. Wouldn't you agree? Yes. And in fact, I think it's the key, Ed, to understanding why the culture is so divided, we have a chart on page 191 and 192 of the book that lays out what we call the cultural Marxist binary, that if you have certain identities, you're automatically considered oppressed. And if you have other identities, you're automatically considered an oppressor. So for example, if you're a person of color, if you're poor middle class, if you're LGBTQ, if you're a non-Christian, if you're disabled, if you're an immigrant, bonus points, if you're an illegal immigrant, then you're considered oppressed, regardless of your personal behavior, right? On the other hand, if you're a white, rich male, heterosexual, Christian, able-bodied citizen, you're automatically considered an oppressor. Regardless of your personal behavior, you could be as clear, as clean as the wind-driven snow. You could be Jesus himself, but if you have those qualities, you're automatically considered an oppressor. Now, obviously, this is completely anti-biblical. The Bible talks so many times about God that does not show partiality, do not treat the poor differently from the rich and vice versa, right? Martin Luther King famously said, I have a dream that one day my four children will not be judged on the color of their skin, but the content of their character. This whole cultural Marxism thing goes backwards. It judges people based on their race. It judges people based on their sex. It judges people based on what they believe about God. It judges people based on whether or not they're citizens or whether they're heterosexuals or not. This is completely, in fact, Amos, the prophet from about 750 BC, he's railing against the Northern Kingdom of Israel because they're treating the poor unjustly. What he says is, he says, your justice is like poison, and the fruit of righteousness becomes bitterness. Your justice is like poison. Let me tell you what the justice of this culture is. If you're judging people, not on their behavior, but by what identity group they're in, that's poison justice. That's not true justice. That's a theory of conflict, a ideology of conflict that will never end. You can't have a common unity, a community, when you pit citizens against one another or people against one another based on non-behavioral characteristics. You're a white guy. You're a black guy. You should be at odds. You're rich,

you're poor. You should be at odds. You're a Christian, non-Christian. You should be at odds. No, no, no, no, hold on. Judge individuals by their behavior, not what identity group they're in. And we haven't seen, Frank, that's so great. We're even seeing too, I call it spiritual Marxism. There's this whole vibe against the church and against big churches. The last time I checked, as you study the emerging church in the book of Acts, it was big. You study that. And obviously, they met in house to house, but also they met in Solomon's portico and it's seated, I hope I pronounce it right, it's seen as like 30,000 people. And then you have the writings of the early church father. So there's this Marxism vibe like, oh, if your church is growing, if it's dynamic, man, that's evil, that's inauthentic, the megachurch is horrible. So it's just funny how Marxism has infiltrated every institution, Frank. Yeah, it has and the truth of the matter is whether there are advantages and disadvantages to-- - Exactly. - Right. - Yeah. - And what I say too is, no matter what the context, the church should be a mega church. Let me unpack that. If you were around, in a small community, some of the best churches in America are in small communities, it should be a mega church in context with that community. You follow me? If it's doing, I mean, if you're really preaching the full council of God, maybe you're in a large city, like New York or LA or whatever, it should be a mega church in context with that. So I mean, that's my philosophy. - Can you say mega church in terms of its impact? Is that what you mean? - Yes, that's what I'm saying. - Okay.

- Every church should be a mega church. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Make it, make it. - It's kind of a play on words. But anyway, I'm saying that it's, I'm not gonna be that if you're a soft serv pastor. - That's right. - Can you explain the analogy you gave back in April? It's very good. - Well, I was just talking about going to the steak houses that have the soft serve ice cream by the salad bar and how a lot of people, a lot of churches in today's culture, a lot of pastors, they bypass the steak and potatoes, they bypass the salad bar and go straight to the soft serve ice cream. They're soft pastors serving soft serve sermons to soft serve people about how to become more soft serve. In other words, they're not meat and potatoes people. They shy away from the hard teachings from the thus say as the Lord's that we should be about. And I'm not at all insinuating or saying that we should be angry or mean or whatever. Obviously we should be loving, but we love people enough to speak the truth in love. We build bridges of love, but draw lines in the sand. And here is truth, here is fantasy, here is objective truth, here is subjective truth. And we have to teach that and we have to talk about how,

I mean, how it applies to our life, to our morality, the gospel, living the gospel out. So those are people that would be, that would be steak and potato people. And the soft serve people are those who want to have their ears tickled and it's from pastors who are afraid about losing people basically. - And the soft serve folks are not opposing the war on reality. - Heck to the no. - Yeah, but no, they're not. - They avoid the war on reality. - Yes! - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - They're just gonna float along with you. - That soft serve ice cream, just. - Yeah, people are perishing and like, what are some of the aspects of the war on reality? Well, when people claim that they have their own truth. - Yes. - You know, we have a section in the war on reality called reality does not have pronouns. And what we mean by that, there's not my truth or your truth. - That's right. - There's just the truth, right? For example, I don't have my law of gravity and you have your law of gravity. There's just the law of gravity. I don't have my laws of logic

and you have your laws of logic. They're just the laws of logic. I don't have my laws of math and you have your laws of math. They're just the laws of math. I don't have a law that says that will show not murder, but you have another law that you can murder. No, that will show not murder is the law that applies to both of us because it comes from the source of reality, God himself. And so we're not helping people when we allow them to continue to create their own reality and we acquiesce to it. - That's right. - That was kind of the turning point, Ed. You remember when people used to say years ago, there were people that say the trans issue. There were men that dressed as women and stuff, but they didn't demand that you call them a woman, right? They didn't say you have to make believe I'm a woman, right? When it went from your reality or your truth to my reality is your reality that you have to obey, then people started to say, wait, hold on, time out. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Now I have to come into your pretend world and I have to act as if what you're saying is right and true. I don't love you when I lie to you. I don't love you when it. Love does not mean approval. - So good. - Love means seeking what's best for the other person

according to the will of God. Not probably not your will, but his will, right? And we think in our culture, love means approval. Every parent knows that's nonsense. If you approve of everything your 13-year-old wants to do or you loving, no, you're unloving. You're enabling evil. Paul, in the passage, everybody reads at their wedding, but nobody obeys first Corinthians 13, you know? Paul says, love does not rejoice in wrongdoing. Love rejoices in the truth. Love always protects. loving people when you lie to them, you're not loving people when you acquiesce to their pretend reality, you're loving people when you gracefully tell them the truth because you love them. You know, Thomas Sol, I don't even know if he's a Christian, but Thomas Sol says some pretty brilliant things. Oh yes. Here's what he said not long ago, I don't know how long ago it was, but this quote just is right on. He says, when you want to help somebody, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear. Now, how many, how often do we tell people what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear? You know why we tell them what they want to hear it because we're trying to save ourselves. We're trying to help ourselves. We don't want them mad at us. And so we won't say anything to save ourselves. We're not really loving them. We're loving ourselves, we don't want any pushback, so we'll just tell them what they

want to hear. But if you want to tell people what, if you want to help them, you tell them what they need to hear and as tactful a way as you can. >> That's right. And this is gold. And let me tell you something, every pastor needs to pick this book up and buy a bunch of copies and do a series on this book. Do a series on it. God gave you eyes, plagiarize. >> Hey, there's a workbook. >> Now I'm joking about that, but you know what I'm saying to you book. >> There's a workbook. >> Now you have a workbook with the two, but we can take these principles, these guys brewing it. So you take his brilliance, the Holy Spirit's giving him, you put it through your personality, your creativity and have the workbooks and everything. Do a series on it. And Frank, I promise you, it'll change the course of churches around the world. But let's just talk about the US. Just this, what's in here? >> Can I mention that Erica Kirk wrote the forward for that book. And it didn't appear in the very first edition because Erica was so busy with so many things. By the time we got the forward, the first edition had been printed. But that's okay because you can read the whole forward on Amazon for free. It's up there. If you go to Amazon and just click on editorials, you'll see it there. But I want to read just two sentences from what she wrote in this forward. Very profound forward. Let me tell you something, Erick, I mean, Charlie did not marry Erica just for her beauty. She is a brilliant, strong Christian woman.

And here's what she writes in the forward, just two sentences, three sentences. Here it is. Since September 10, 2025, that's the day Charlie was murdered, I've been faced with my own new reality, one that I still wrestle with as I attempt to grasp its earthly permanence. Quite honestly, it'll probably be like that for the rest of my life. Yet what I've realized is that redefining my reality isn't what gives me peace. Surrendering to it does, unquote. Surrendering to it does. I said, man, that's the whole book right there. That's it. So many people are trying to fight reality, Ed. They're trying to create their own reality. You can fight reality. You can deny reality, but one day you're going to smack up against reality and it's going to hurt because reality is undefeated. You can't defeat reality. You can fight against it, but it's ultimately going to hurt you and hurt others. So Erica is saying, look, I got a surrender to the truth and the truth is my husband is with Jesus now. I've got to look forward. I've got to carry on his legacy as he was emulating Christ. I'm going to emulate him. That's what she's doing. It makes no sense to sit around and go only what if we've got to move forward and that's what she's doing. She's a very strong woman. I mean, she deals with the loss every day as you can imagine. That's why I reach out to her at least two or three times a week just to send her a passage, send her an insight, send her some encouragement because can you imagine at 31 years old seeing your husband down?

No, no. I can't. No. Yeah. And yet she knows God is good. She knows that there's good that comes from it. In fact, I asked her this the other day, Ed. I said, Erica, what do you think would happen if we could bring Charlie back right now and say to him, we could go back to September 9th, 2025 and prevent this murder. But if we do that, the thousands, maybe millions of people that have come to Christ or became just better disciples of Christ because of your martyrdom, all that would be erased. What would you do? Erica said, he would say, I'm staying in heaven, I'm not, don't, don't erase all that. murdering Charlie may have brought more people into the kingdom than if he had lived. Because God can bring good from evil. This is a ripple effect. In fact, in Charlie's case, it's been a tsunami of good that has come from this awful evil. What you meant for evil, God meant for good the saving of many lives, as Joseph said to his brothers, right? In Genesis 50. It's the same kind of thing here that God can bring good from evil. So despite the great evil that occurred, good can come from it. And by the way, the killer, it looks like Tyler Robinson did this. That's where the evidence points. Tyler Robinson did not end Charlie Kirk. All Tyler Robinson did was change Charlie's address. He's with Jesus now. Yes. And the evidence shows that that's not just a wish. That's where he is. That's right. Well, Frank, I thank you for being a part of that tsunami. And I thank you for your leadership. I thank you for allowing the Holy Spirit to lead for writing, for engaging with so many people from all walks of life. And we cheer you on. And I'm looking forward to getting to know you better. We're looking forward to having you here at Fellowship Church and having you at some of our leadership events. I, again, want to encourage everyone. Obviously, I'm going to talk to pastors, but I mean, everyone to get this book, The War on Reality. There's a workbook with it. And I would, again, challenge pastors, Frank, to preach through this book. I mean, there's an easy four to six week series right there.

Oh, there's plenty in there. Yeah, because the culture is warring against reality every minute. And you know who the ultimate target is? Jesus. That's right. And you know who becomes the liberator when you're warring against reality? Satan. By the way, no extra charge for this. This is why you get, this is why you get gays for Gaza, Ed. How do you have gays for Gaza? It's because both of them are considered oppressed. So the enemy of my enemy is my friend. LGBTQ considered oppressed. Muslims considered oppressed. What apparently the LGBTQ people don't recognize is as soon as the Muslims take over, they're going to persecute the LGBTQ people. That's right. And if gays were to go to Gaza right now, they'd be thrown off roofs. So it's a very odd alliance, but it's because they're allied against Christianity. They're allied against the truth. I don't know. I just know the question, Frank. Okay. What? When it comes to Islam, for example, the closer you obey the Quran, the darker you become, the more evil you become. Conversely, of course, the more we walk with Christ, the more loving Christ-like forgiving, etcetera, we become. Okay. Islam is evil. There's no question about it from its beginning, its founder, etcetera. 1400 years of history. Exactly. Outside of that, everything's good. That's right. Frank, you're funny, Frank. I like that. Okay. So how, okay, I get this question a lot. I mean, there are a lot of, you know, good Muslims. Okay. You know, yeah. Tell me, how do you unpack that, Frank? Sure. I'm sure you get that question all the time. Yeah, I was with people. Yeah, but Dr. Turic, I know, and I do, I have friends who are Muslims like you do. Nice people, kind people. I've shared the Lord with them. I was just talking about one I've been witnessing to for a long time, right before this podcast. I want to hear you just talk about that. How do you actually, Charlie and I were talking about that the night of September 8th, two days before it was murdered on that long walk? Yep. Number one, there's a difference between micro-Islam and macro-Islam. Okay. Micro-Islam is, you might know, a nice Muslim course, right? Yeah. Okay. Macro-Islam, however, is Islam means submission. Yes, it does. And macro-Islam wants to submit every government and every culture to Islam. Although you will find a majority of Muslims to be nice people, when it comes to Muslims taking over a country, the more what we might say moderate or liberal elements of Islam, they do not stand up against the radical elements. No. And Sharia law takes over. So it really turns out to be from a freedom perspective, elements.

And even if they're more radical. >> They're kind of soft serve. >> Yes, exactly. Yeah, they're more liberal Islam, right? But even if it's just a minority, even if it's like 20% of Muslims, the 20% will dominate the other 80, and you still get the same result. You don't get a free society. There are more than 50 Muslim countries around the world. Are any of them, do any of them allow the kind of freedoms we have in America? No, none of them do. >> I said the other day, we did a memorial service for 9/11. We also obviously talked about Charlie's murder. I talked about evil, evil is real, and we talked about courage that we've seen through so many situations and circumstances, and we talked about the price of freedom. And I mentioned kind of what I said to you a second ago, the difference between Islam and Christianity. And I've said, I know what you've said a million times, I just said, what is fascinating is really what's sick is you have all of these atrocities that Muslims have perpetuated, caused, et cetera. Where are the Muslims speaking out? Okay, you talk about the micro, where are the micro Muslims? And I said, hey, if someone did this in the name of Christ, every Christian and their dog would be going nuts. Like, what, this is wrong, this is, I can't get my brain around that, Frank. >> Well, part of the problem is is because Islam is violent in the sense that if you stand up against the violent folks, they're gonna come after you. >> Yes. >> In fact, it's probably true that Muslims kill more Muslims than they do Christians. Because there are inner Muslim squabbles between the Sunni and the Shia in particular. And then there are subgroups like the Wahhabis and Isis and Al-Shabaab and all these different

sort of militia groups, the Houthis, right? They're Hezbollah, Hamas, they're all subgroups of violent Islam. And so they're killing one another in many cases. But you're absolutely right. If any Christian were to say, I did this in the name of Christ would be mortified. >> I know it, okay, Frank, I got a church history question for you. People say this. >> Well, there's been so many wars in the name of Christ in the name of whatever. >> Okay, okay, correct me if I'm wrong here. >> They're not that articulate when they say it is. >> I appreciate it. Correct me if I'm wrong, Frank, okay, and I'm not an expert in history like you, okay, okay. Isn't it true that a lot of the crusades, holy wars were in response to Islam? I mean, of course, in our revisionist culture, we don't hear that. But talk to me about that. >> Yes, well, first of all, the crusades began in about 1095 AD. So this is over 1,000 years after Christianity began. >> Okay. >> And they were a response to 400 years of Muslim aggression because Muhammad got his supposed first revelation in 610 AD. In 622, it's really kind of starts the Muslim calendar in 622 when he's kicked out of Mecca, he goes to Medina. And then in 630 or so, he takes Mecca by force after raiding caravans there, and he basically wipes out anybody that's against him. In 632, he dies. By 638, the Muslims have already taken the Holy Land by 732, exactly 100 years after Muhammad's death. They've stormed all the way across Northern Africa, across the Straits of Gibraltar, through Spain and are repelled by Charles Martell, who is essentially the mayor of the city of Torres France, and he stops the Muslim aggression.

And they eventually retreat back over the Straits of Gibraltar. But all of Northern Africa to this day is Muslim. And Turkey's all Muslim. That was 100% Christian prior to their aggression there. So at that time, in 1095 AD, all of these Christian groups around the ancient world are pleading. We need military help to repel the Muslims who are coming to kill us and take our land. And so the Pope, the church and the state were kind of together at that point said, we've got to have a crusade to go take back the Holy Land. And so I think there were four or five crusades. Some of them are atrocities were committed, obviously. But the initial rationale for the crusade was to take back Now, when Muslims do this kind of thing, this jihad, it's in accord with the Quran. When Christians committed atrocities, it's against the teachings of Jesus. But militarily, they were legitimate, even though there were atrocities that were committed. So jihad is what Islam teaches, whereas Christianity does not teach jihad, obviously. It's just a response, a military response, a government response to evil. So this idea that Islam is violent is true, Christianity is not violent, but it does put the government in charge of protecting innocent people from evil and punishing wrongdoers. And that's why the Crusades were ordered. Frank, why are so many of our colleges, I call them communist colleges where we just inundate people with Marxism, why are they that way to date? Tell me just, give me a history lesson. Yeah, because the Christians vacated them, the Christians started them all, but instead of engaging the culture, right after Darwin, many in the church said, well, we can't answer Darwin, so let's instead of engage the culture, let's retreat from it. Let's go anti-intellectual, let's create our own little seminaries and Bible colleges, and we'll get out of the schools, we'll create our own, we'll get out of politics, because that's dirty, we'll get out of the media, we'll get out of law, we'll get out of education. Well, when you see it all that, when the godly people get out of those endeavors, then the

godless flow in and they turn everything toward Marxism and atheism and nihilism. So it's really the Christians fault. We're the reason that the culture has gone godless. Now we can answer Darwinism and all these other isms easily now. But ours is on us, that's great. It's on us. Yeah, we're the problem. I mean, the Marxists are just doing what they think is right, and we won't do what we know is right. Whoa. So we're the problem, if a culture has gone the wrong direction, it's because Christians have not stood up, Christians have not been salt and light, Christians have not occupied till Christ said occupied till I come, we haven't done it, we haven't been salt and light. That's right. And so we need to be salt and light. And one way is through politics, another way is through, is through being involved in the community, another way is to be involved in education, to be involved in law, to be involved in journalism, to be involved in business, to be involved in every endeavor in law. Yes. Yes. We're engaged to do so, and we're not doing it, unfortunately. Frank, I can talk to you all day and night, you do such a great job again. Please, everyone, pick up this book, The War on Reality by Dr. Frank Turic. And do you have any other closing comments to make, Frank? Well, I would say that we have plenty on our YouTube channel as well. If you go to cross-examine to work, you can use- Yes, cross-examine. Over three, three, seven hundred videos.

Many of them are from- Whoa! Q&A from the college campus. Okay. We've been doing it for many years. So that. And we also have a podcast called, "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist." We do two of those a week. We have a TV show on the NRB Network. It's also live streamed on our website, 9 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday nights. Okay. So we have a lot of resources. We have online courses across-examine.org. We have an entire store. So we're trying to engage people to try and help them defend the Christian faith. Well, you are, my friend. You are. Well, we need help. We need a lot more people to do it. It's not just me. We're trying to train others. And that's why I appreciate the work you're doing there, Ed, because you know the importance of evidence. You know the importance of apologetics. You know the importance of preaching, the entire council of God regardless if the culture hates it. By the way, if somebody doesn't hate you, you're doing something wrong. What does Paul say? It says, if I was trying to please, men, I wouldn't be following Jesus. Yes. Right?

Yes. So you always get more flack when you're over the target. If people are telling you, Ed, you're not talking about those issues, you probably want to talk about them. Right? That's great. Well, Frank, listen, we again, so admire you, look forward to seeing you face-to-face. Thank you for the great work that you do. Hey, let me lead us to the word of prayer. Yes, brother. Thank you so much. Lord, thank you for my brother, Frank. I thank you just for his anointing, for the brilliant mind and communicative ability you've given him. Holy Spirit, just continue to work in him and through him every step of the way. I asked just a hedge of producers. We can talk and learn and again. I thank you for Frank and we just commit them to you We ask all these things in Jesus name amen amen. Thank you brother You You (gentle music)