Teaching Your Kids to Be In The World, Not Of It — My Speech at TP Academy's Educators' Summit
Do you know what they are teaching your kids in government-run schools? Are you willing to fight against the culture and take our kids' education back? Charlie discusses the importance of teaching your kids from a young age, why classical education is important, and how to preserve the next generation. Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com! Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Educator Summit brought to you by Turning Point USA, Turning Point Academy, run by the great Dr. Hutz Hertzberg.
Turningpointacademy.com.
I talk about education.
What are we pointing towards?
What is the ultimate purpose of education?
If you homeschool or if you are upset with your government school, upset with public school, this is the conversation for you.
I think you are going to thoroughly enjoy it.
Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to our podcast.
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We go.
Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
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Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
I want to thank Charlie.
He's an incredible guy.
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Thank you, everybody.
Please take a seat.
So I've been taking it easy this conference, you know, just sitting by the pool.
And first, Hutts, you're doing a fabulous job.
The entire Turning Point Education team.
Can you give it up for them?
Dr. Gooch and Dr. Firestone and Scott and Jennifer and Francine, the whole team, they're just wonderful.
And we're going to talk about a couple things and we'll just do Q ⁇ A because I really want to hear from you guys and answer whatever questions you might have.
But help spread the word about Turning Point Education to your community.
You know, people know Turning Point USA.
They know Turning Point Action.
They're learning about TPUSA faith more.
I think we're a household name now.
We need to make Turning Point Education a household name as well.
So help us with that, everybody.
Help us spread the word.
And they're just doing such fabulous, fabulous work.
I want to talk about two things in particular.
The first of which is the greatest failure of modern education and what we should do to fix it and how far too often Christians fall into the trap.
Now, I know you won't fall into the trap because you heard from our wonderful Turning Point Education gang.
And then I'm going to talk talk just about some other real life implications.
If you had to distill the biggest problem in modern education, it goes like this.
It's that I do not want to impose upon my kid anything specific.
We're going to have values neutral education and we're just going to kind of raise them with reading, writing, and arithmetic.
We'll give them skills, but not values.
This has penetrated so many schools, including supposed Christian schools in this country.
And itself is actually a contradiction because saying that you will not teach values is a statement of value.
There is no such thing as a valueless statement.
Everything has values laced into it.
So to say that we're not going to do morality or ethics is basically saying that itself is a statement of morality and ethics.
Now understand how silly this is.
In any environment when you're raising children, any environment when you have human beings, morals will always come through.
So imagine if you're running a fourth grade classroom and a kid steals a pencil.
Does the teacher say that's perfectly fine?
We don't do moral judgments around here?
If the kid starts bullying somebody else, you know, we have anti-bullying campaigns across the country while simultaneously we're told that the education system is only about reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Now, here's the problem is that we have successfully pushed back on the left and the secular movement on DEI and wokeism and transgenderism, mainly because when you create a vacuum, when you get rid of God, Christianity, biblical truth, Western values, and you say we're just going to be a value agnostic education system, that's how you get DEI and you get CRT, because some viewpoint is going to fill that vacuum.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
And so we have been led by the whole idea of modernity that these kids are just going to kind of figure it out for themselves.
And so then this other side fills the void rather quickly.
How did this happen?
It happened because in the modern world, God is just a guess, judgment is the greatest sin, and self is God.
So think about it.
Judgment is the greatest sin of the modern world.
And incorporated in biblical Christian moral teaching is an idea that there's a right or a wrong and a good and an evil and a standard of ethical and moral behavior.
That bothers some people because they're saying, well, who are you to tell a fourth grader how to act?
That is the purpose of education, which is to tell a fourth grader how to act.
It's not a byproduct.
It is the mission statement.
It is the primary thing.
And so what you've found in the secular West, and it's finally changing, is we have skilled graduates with no values.
We have graduates that can write codes of AI, but they have no character.
They, some of whom, not all of them, know stuff, but they have no idea why they're actually here.
They went through education and they can tell you how, but they can't tell you why.
They can tell you what they can do, but they don't.
tell you any of the implications behind it.
That is not education, everybody.
That is something completely different.
And far too often, we as Christians get very apprehensive because we feel as if we do not want to be judgy or we don't want to tell other people how to live.
Everybody, we should bring everybody to the truth of the gospel.
We should bring everybody to the scriptures.
And that starts in Christian education.
So the three questions, and you guys know all of these questions, and education should be talking about them all the time.
How did I get here?
Why am I here?
And where am I going?
That's it.
If you accomplish those three questions, it doesn't matter if they are struggling to be able to do the quadratic equation.
It's fine.
We could teach them that eventually.
But if they know how did I get here, why am I here, and where am I going, you have done a phenomenal job as an instructor, as a parent.
What I find on campus is they can't answer any of those questions.
And each one leads to the other.
So what the modern world has tried to do is they've tried to just only answer the middle question and ignore the first and the third question.
So they'll say, well, you're here just to kind of serve yourself.
You're here to, the most generous interpretation of the Western secular world is, well, you're here to do good.
Really, what is good?
By what standard is it good?
You're appealing to some transcendent standard.
What is good?
Oh, it's just common sense.
Actually, no, it's not.
Tell me, what is the good you're talking about?
When in reality, you must say, how did I get here?
Well, we know how we got here.
We're created in the image of God.
We know that God created the heavens and the earth.
We know why we are here, which is to love God and love people, create disciples of all nations, and to know Jesus and to make him known and hopefully we know where we're going so we answer all three rather easily problem is is that in a in the modern secular environment number one and number three they say that is far too judgy you're not allowed to talk about it now my life's work is mostly in the second question not the third I talk about the third a lot.
I'm bringing people to Jesus.
By the way, just this morning, you know, we had over 25 students give their life to the Lord during the worship and praise concert this morning.
It's amazing.
25 students went straight to the altar call.
Isn't that amazing?
So we do plenty of that.
But the majority of my life's work is actually the purpose question.
Why are you here?
What do we do?
And why do we do it?
Now, part of the problem is that far too often, and this is a good faith critique, modern evangelicalism spends way too much time on the third question.
Where am I going?
That's important.
But if you're only heaven focused and not earth focused, then you're actually not fulfilling what Jesus told us to do.
Now, separately, if you're only earth focused and not heaven focused, that is not at all what Jesus wants us to do because his kingdom is not of this world.
This is one of the reasons why we as evangelicals have.
struggled to build institutions that last.
It's why that Catholics have more primary schools.
It's why that, you know, and I'm, you know, I've a soft spot for Catholics, but I'm not Catholic.
More K through 12 education is Catholic theology talks a lot more about number two, where in evangelical world, they'll talk more about number three.
And this, you know, especially now when things get kind of crazy in the news cycle, especially in the Middle East, number three becomes almost the only thing that is talked about.
right things are not falling apart they're falling into place jesus is coming back next thursday right again i'm not doing eschatology here i'm not a pastor or a theologian i encourage you guys to find people that know what they're talking about i'm not pretrib i'm not postrib i'm pantrib post-turb, I'm pan-turb, it's all going to pan out.
I am.
If I offended you with that, my mission is in the second question, not the third question, okay?
I'm going to be on the welcoming committee, not the planning committee.
I am here to love God, love people, know Jesus, and to make him known.
That is my life's work.
And so, but then it comes into education.
And I think unintentionally in the modern Christian world.
that we kind of forsaken education because we are so heaven focused.
We should want to build educational institutions, educational movements that last and that are durable, that can go generation to generation that can live longer to you and if we and if jesus comes sooner then praise the lord we were still doing righteous work in anticipation of his return what do you want to be caught doing when jesus returns We're honored to be partnering with the Allen Jackson Ministries and today I want to point you to their podcast.
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And so the second question, the first one is very important, but that's, you know, one of the easier answered ones.
But the second one I find is where all of a sudden so many Christians fail to then give young Christians action items of what to do.
And I find this all the time with our Turning Point USA students.
And they say, Charlie, at my local church, my local school, I was raised in.
They will talk about the afterlife and bringing people to heaven, but they don't talk about family formation.
They don't talk about fighting for the unborn.
They don't talk about contesting for your nation or for standing up against evil.
You see, I'm of the belief, and everyone has their calling, that we as Christians have not done a good enough job on why are we here?
We've not done a good enough job on that the last 40 years.
In fact, we don't even have the same answer.
If you talk to some more liberal branches of Christianity, they say we are here to do social justice.
They say that we are here to try to iron out the iniquities or to try to push forward of egalitarianism or to try to end racism or what ends up happening.
And this is why wokeism has infiltrated the church and why wokeism has infiltrated Christian education.
It's because while the conservatives, we are heaven focused, the liberals in Christianity are earth focused.
So we're like, oh yeah, yeah, you're taking over my school.
No, no, no, I'm so focused on what's coming next when all of a sudden we look around at some of our once great Christian colleges one by one have become liberal.
And you know what I'm talking about, right?
It's because we've kind of forsaken the immediate because we're so focused.
on what is coming next and we should be everything of course eventually should be heaven focused that is the worldview that we should view but that god does not want us to run to the hills and hide from society until Jesus returns.
That is not scriptural that is not biblical he wants to be salt and light salt and light change things the environment that they come in contact with and so the reason why wokeism has infiltrated is that branch of theology or lack thereof is we have to do immediate action on this earth because social justice and social change is the most important thing and you could they go even as far as to trying to undermine biblical inerrancy as you can see And they're like,
oh, Jesus was more kind of like a political activist or a social teacher than he was the Savior of the world.
So what does this all mean for us?
This is where education comes in because education impacts all three parts of this, which is you must.
You must unabashedly reject when people put forward this modern lie of values neutral education.
But secondly, you must, as a Christian educator, do not be afraid to talk about the nation, to talk about America, and to talk about liberty, talk about freedom.
And this is what sometimes I'm so disappointed in.
is that so many good Christian kids went through the whole cycle of Christian education and they have no idea how precious this country is or what a constitutional republic is or what our history is.
And so then what ends up happening is far too many of them will then fall prey to liberalism once they kind of go and enter into the world.
Or they kind of have a, let's just say, a national agnostic Christianity.
Not that interested.
It's not for me.
And so this is where Turning Point Education comes in.
and it's so critically important, which is that we are Jesus-focused, and then secondly, And that combination, I'll be honest, is very, very hard to find right now in the education space.
Instead, what I get is I get emails from parents on boards of Christian schools where they give a lot of money and they're told that you're not allowed to talk about, you know, CRT.
You're not allowed to talk about transgenderism.
And finally, everybody, if you don't equip your Christian youth to know why they are here and what they are fighting for, it might be when they're 20 or when they're 25 or when they're 30.
and they might be living in Atlanta or Philadelphia or New York and you send them out into the world, are they prepared to respond to a friend or a colleague or a boss that all of a sudden says, well, yeah, why don't you go march in the BLM parade?
Are they prepared to do that?
Do they know what that is?
Do they know the rise of new paganism, of environmentalism, and the cult of anti-racism?
Do they know that these are just counterfeit gods that we saw once in the Bible that are replicating itself in the West?
And so the reason why all of a sudden, raise your hand if you know someone that was raised in a Christian environment and became super liberal and atheistic after.
Every hand goes up.
And of course, I know lots of them.
I'm sure if I said, how many of you know?
10, 20, 30.
And it's tragic and it's sad.
There's a lot of reasons for it.
And the one that I'm trying to emphasize today, I don't know if it's the biggest or second or third, is that you have an ill-equipped youthful Christian population that gets torpedoed by secular left.
left-wing persuasion.
And they have no antibodies to this virus.
They have not been inoculated to the woke mind virus.
So they go out into the world and all of a sudden someone says, yeah, you know, Jesus said that we should have open borders.
And they didn't come from a Christian environment that ever talked about immigration.
And they say, you know, Jesus said it's perfectly fine for two dudes to marry.
He didn't mention homosexuality.
Not true, by the way.
Mark 7.2, he mentioned sexual immorality, which the Greek word is pornea.
That's your fun factoid for the day that Jesus actually did mention sexual degeneracy in a negative light.
Anyway, that's secondary.
But they're not equipped for that because we don't talk taught the Christian view in most Christian schools, well, homosexuality is too controversial.
Abortion's too controversial.
We'll talk about the gospel and we'll do reading, writing, arithmetic, and they can figure it out on their own.
And then once that destabilizing, deconstructionist, postmodernist view gets hold, then all of a sudden they're like, well, if two guys can marry, is the Bible actually true?
And that is the, all those things are gateway drugs to undermine biblical inerrancy.
They're gateway drugs to undermine the authority of scripture.
They're gateway drugs.
And you can see this is the enemy.
We know how he works, right?
What are the characteristics of the enemy.
He's not everywhere.
He has to focus on certain principalities and certain cities and certain places.
He's not omnipresent.
But also, literally, his word means deceiver or prosecutor in Hebrew.
He's always trying to deceive, to undermine, to debase.
Did God really say that?
Are you sure?
Is that really what scripture says?
Constantly challenging, constantly questioning.
So then you have a youthful population that gets out there and they're obviously tempted by everything imaginable.
That's a whole separate topic that we could talk about of how we need to talk more about sexual purity and all that.
But from the political standpoint, That's where they get hold.
And parents, I've seen this progression so often.
Parents will be like, yeah, you know, my kid, he's really liberal, but he's still Christian..
Two years later, he ain't Christian any longer.
Because once you kind of go down that and that sequencing of deconstructionism begins, the endpoint is complete and total nihilism.
Once you undermine the authority of scripture.
and you do that via politics so satan is using in the christian education i'm talking about the second world i'm talking about our environment our community our kids our people that we spent tons of money and energy educating satan is using politics as a way to get into christian youth to then get them to not be christian all because we were told that if we Because we were told that if we talk about politics, they wouldn't be Christian.
Turns out the exact opposite was actually true.
Turns out that we don't talk about these issues.
They end up getting completely destabilized.
So what is the answer?
You lean in to every controversial issue as it's age appropriate through a biblical lens.
As it's age appropriate, what does the Bible say about pornography?
What does the Bible say about abortion?
What does the Bible say about immigration?
What does the Bible say about boom, boom, boom, boom?
And all of a sudden, they'll have the antibodies then.
In the back of their head, when they're 26 years old and they're accountant, you know, at Deloitte in Cleveland, Ohio, all of a sudden someone says, you know, yeah, you know, Jesus never talked about homosexuality.
Actually, you know, there's a rootedness because you leaned into the controversial.
You leaned into the topical.
You leaned into the immediate.
And that's also a message for pastors.
And we'll do some questions.
I know there's some pastors here.
The pastors also who don't do this, they, people wonder why, you know, pastors wonder why people are leaving your church, their churches, liberal churches, and they're going to more conservative churches like Jack Hibbs and many other, you know, great people.
is they want their pastor to make sense of what is happening in the world.
They, long term, they don't need the same repurposed sermon, they say, hey, I'm confused.
Tell me what to think.
And I'll be very honest with you.
It is a failure and a disservice and a tragedy when a mom goes to a pastor and has a transgender kid, which doesn't really exist, but let's just say, you know, a kid that's struggling with transgenderism or gender dysphoria.
The pastor says, we don't really do that here.
Or even worse, the pastor says, well, we have to affirm it because Jesus loves all people.
This stuff is not going away.
Yes, we're temporarily winning the culture war, everybody, but you better believe it will roar back at some point.
And it's not going to be the secular world that will save us.
It has to be Christian youth, Christian kids, biblical principles.
And that means you have to kind of reconfigure how you view education.
I know that's why Turning Point Education is having such incredible success.
So again, the three questions, you know, how did I get here?
Why am I here?
Where am I going?
We need to spend more time in the second question.
We've done really good on the third, but interestingly, the second will actually lead to the third.
evidenced by today.
25 kids that were here for the politics, but they stayed for Jesus.
And the consensus was always, don't talk about politics because it will prevent people from leading to Jesus.
The law, there's the three types of law, you know this, the moral, the civil, and the ceremonial.
Ceremonial, we can study, but we don't have, it doesn't apply to us.
The moral, we should still follow.
The civil, we should consider for application in government institutions as appropriate.
But we're not bound to every civil law.
That's the three categories of the 613 laws of Moses, 613 laws of Judaism.
The law, according to Galatians 3, is a school teacher.
It is a guard.
It is a caretaker.
It is a protectorate of Jesus Christ.
The law points you.
to Jesus, and especially the one part of the law that we never talk about you see pastors will always say the moral law you know you know you can't follow the moral law and that's eventually why you lead to jesus that's true but it's incomplete right that's totally true but that's an incomplete teaching notice the pastors never talk about how civil law can lead you to jesus it's like hey the bible had a lot to say in the 613 laws of moses about how to run your government about borders about boundaries about you know desecration of the divine but
we're told that we can't be political everybody I don't want you to be political.
I want you to be biblical.
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Let's do some questions.
Thank you.
She's very excited.
She's been jumping up the entire time.
So let's have her ask a question.
Do we have a mic runner or two?
And then yes, ma'am.
Where are we at?
So right here.
Thank you so much for all that you do, Charlie.
So much respect for you.
Thank you for partnering with Patriot Academy.
We had a great Biblical Citizenship class at my Calvary Chapel.
Blessed by you guys providing all of that.
And we're thankful that you're right about so much, but not about Amendment 4 from last year in Florida oh wait oh the abortion one yes the fight is not over but it didn't pass though right it did not pass what was it well I was not in favor of it no you were not in favor but you thought that it would oh I'm sorry you're right I was wrong my prediction was wrong you're totally wrong and I'm so right I was wrong you're your spy I was so glad you're wrong thank you I was like I'm sorry I had to abortion I'm like the least abortion person ever no you're so right I was honestly I was thankful to God I
was yes yes you guys proved me wrong okay so to your point about value neutral education that comes in by allowing someone besides parents directed by God to make decisions and be the ones to instill those values.
Christian education takes federal and state money.
Pastor Chuck Smith always said where God guides, he provides.
Knowing Alex Newman and stories from other countries and states, do you personally advocate for or against government funding in the form of school vouchers that will allow and cause erosion of freedom to home and Christian education and even in your 5C schools?
It's a great question.
I would just throw it back to you first, and I want you to, can I, what's your name again?
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
Karen.
Yeah, so Karen, can you just because it's important for me to know where in the country is the best example of It's not a trick question.
I actually want.
Does the mic did disappear?
Yeah.
I'm thinking of Alex Newman in particular and his experience in Sweden, but also I've heard in California they make you go in and have all of your curriculum approved.
California doesn't have school choice, right?
So where in America?
I think Arizona, no?
We can say whatever we want.
I have not followed all of the legislation.
Oh, right.
So the reason I asked the question is we have no evidence of that.
It doesn't exist.
Oh, I'm going to have a question.
It's important because I get that question a lot.
So I want someone to show me a state where school choice was passed and all of a sudden there was curriculum regulation or restrictions.
Now, the concern is legit.
I get that.
But we're stuck in a dilemma.
And I can just tell you about Arizona.
Arizona, the Christian schools are bigger than ever.
They're more popular than ever.
And more kids are learning about Jesus than ever because only, and I love your spirit, I'll only push back on one thing.
It's not government money.
It's taxpayer money.
Right?
So it's the parents'money that's now allowed to go.
if you want to respond you can but um sure what if we had homestead exemptions where we retained our money can i i totally support that, 100%.
I think that, I mean, in the ideal world.
So here's your concern and your concern is valid.
Your concern is that they're going to use school choice as a way to get into our schools.
So let me just tell you about Arizona, the state I live in.
We were stuck with a dilemma.
Public sector's unions were destroying the state.
Kids weren't getting educated and parents wanted to send their kids to Christian school but they couldn't afford it.
They couldn't afford the 9, 10, 15,000 bucks a year.
We're like, hey, you can actually get literally $12,000.
It's now 15 that you can send to any school, private, Christian.
And what's happened as a result is not only has educational outcomes went up, but the Christian schools have flourished.
You might end up being right like you were about Amendment 4.
And I reserve the right to be proven wrong on this because I'm paranoid about government overreach, right?
The fact it's state by state level though gives me a little bit more confidence because there's more accountability in the states than there is in D.C. And I think we should acknowledge that, right?
That it's much easier to hold a governor and a state rep accountable than a congressman or a senator accountable.
That's at least my experience.
Maybe you disagree, especially in smaller states but now here comes the trick and here's the ultimate question let's take a state like Illinois anyone from Illinois Hutz is from Illinois yes would it be better or worse if kids in Chicago could send their tax dollars to a Christian school instead of a failing public school probably better and that's the that's the only public that's the only school choice part that I'll weigh in on right while I acknowledge that a very sinister force and
Sweden's a good example, but we're not yet Sweden.
I pray.
A very sinister government force could be like, hey, if you're taking school money, you have to vaccinate your kids to a certain extent, right?
You have to teach them all this rubbish.
If and when I see that surface, you'll be my first phone call, Karen.
I'll be like, you were right, and now I'm against all of it.
Until then, I'm in support of school choice.
Fabulous question.
I love it.
We got a question down here.
Oh, yeah, back there, yes.
And I want to get to this young lady.
She's very excited.
Yes, ma'am, all the way in the back.
Hi, Charlie.
Thank you all for welcoming homeschool families.
As a mom of three young boys that I'm homeschooling, I wanted to know if you could pick one biblical verse to kind of pray over your children every day, what would you choose?
So it's a great question.
First of all, I like praying biblical verses over my kids that many generations have prayed before.
So number six is the Levitical blessing, which is let the Lord keep you.
and let the Lord give you strength, you know, let his countenance fall upon you, his face fall upon you.
I love that verse.
That was a Levitical blessing that's been given almost uninterrupted of generations going all the way back to the nation of Israel.
The second one that I would give, I think, is Deuteronomy 6, 3 through 5, which is called the Shema, which is Hero Israel, I am God, and I am one.
the best part of that verse goes when it's like, and you will teach your children this, and you will never forget.
I mean, it is so...
And so I love those two verses.
And then finally, yeah, I mean, as far as like, I got nothing better than the Levitical Blessing because it's like, have the Lord bless you, the Lord keep you, let his face shine upon you.
I think that's a beautiful thing to pray over your kids every night.
So I think it's number six.
You could fact check me on that.
I think I'm right, right?
Right?
Yep.
Number six, 22.
And by the way, I do not like modern Christian music.
I think most of it is like kind of pagan.
They actually did a great job with that song, which is called The Blessing.
I got to be honest.
It's very biblical.
They did a great job.
I'm like a big, I'm a big critic of a lot of modern Christian music because all of a sudden they're like, what's that one song?
It's so heretical, this one that someone sent to me.
I can't remember the lyrics, but it was recent.
It wasn't Irresistible Grace.
It was another one where it was something about like God's character.
I was like, reckless love.
What is that?
And I'm sure the person who wrote it is super sweet, but if you can show me the verse that shows that God's love is reckless towards us, something.
Don't think that's biblical.
However, the song, the blessing is a beautiful song to pray over your kids.
They did a legitimately great job for that.
So yes, you want to follow up??
Thank you so much.
God bless you.
And I love homeschooling kids.
We're homeschooling our kids.
Thank you.
Yes, ma'am.
Hi, Charlie.
Thank you so much for your time.
My name is Ashlyn.
I am the Secretary for my county, which is actually the neighboring county to Tampa of our Young Republicans chapter.
I am here at the Educator Summit today because I'm very interested in education.
As a senior in high school, College Board denied me my 504 plan accommodations during standardized testing for bright futures.
And I have never been denied accommodations before.
I have tested to be a gifted student and I have gone to my legislators and they have silenced me constantly.
There's nothing we can do.
Oh, it's private.
And I know that there are other solutions.
So I would, I was just wondering what you would say to my story and how to go, you know, more public with that.
What is a 504 accommodation?
I'm sorry.
The 504 plan, so basically my accommodations I receive throughout school, it just explains those in depth and then as well as my counseling, or sorry, my counselor's packet of my test of needing accommodations.
Got it.
Okay.
I don't know about that.
In fact, the trend is actually the opposite, where kids' accommodations sometimes go way above and beyond and are like sometimes outrageously accommodated, where kids need like three days to take a test.
I don't know if you've seen this phenomenon.
I have two learning disabilities.
No, I understand.
I'm not, I'm saying though, so I'm surprised to hear you say that because that is not the trend that I've heard.
It's the opposite.
So is anyone in the room able to help her?
Because I don't know.
Okay, someone in the back is raising their hand.
So if you could help her afterwards or take her aside, I wish I could answer that question.
God bless you.
You seem so sweet.
So thank you so much.
Afterwards, will someone be able to help her?
That would be great.
If you want to make sense of the change and the chaos happening around us, you're going to need God's help.
That's why Alan Jackson Ministries, a friend of mine, created the Culture and Christianity Podcast, the Culture and Christianity Conference, and their weeknight news show, Alan Jackson Now.
Millions of people also listen to Pastor Alan Jackson's powerful sermons each week.
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Go to alanjackson.com slash Charlie.
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Be informed, find encouragement, hear the truth delivered in a way that just makes sense.
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Check it out right now.
Good morning, Charlie.
Thanks for hosting this event.
I, too, am homeschooling my kids.
And as the executive director of Homeschool Iowa, I'm encouraging my entire state to do the same.
Everyone, if you can, should homeschool.
So my question for you is a two-part question.
The first part is, do you think public schools can be reformed to the point that they will ever be suitable again for Christian children?
And the second part is, if yes, what does that look like?
And if no, what replaces that?
So currently I'm very cynical on government-run schools.
And I try to use government-run school more than public school because they're not serving the public good.
These are government-run institutions.
I'm a unique case.
So no one should ever use my story as like an example.
But I went to government-run school through sixth grade to twelfth grade.
For me, it was a very important experience.
I'm wired different.
I was able to strengthen my faith.
I actually became more conservative.
I enjoyed being in the intellectual minority.
I became like more pious and more committed to sexual purity, the more I was around the degeneracy, I'm different, right?
And I will say 1% of the Christian kids you deal with probably have my wiring, right?
So you should not use my test case because most will kind of just fall into it.
And that's not me being braggadocious.
I think you could all agree, right?
That's a unique case.
Even when I went to high school, it was a mess.
Ten years later, it is just unrecognizable.
The big, the top excuses that I get from parents, the biggest excuse as to why they send their kid to public school is cost.
It's number one.
Number one, that's why I'm the school choice advocate for my previous one, right?
And I get it.
And some people in this audience will understandably say, figure it out.
What could be more important than your kids?
Figure it out financially.
Yes, but the economy right now is so disordered and President Trump, I think, is figuring it out.
We're going to have a better economy.
Things are so expensive that people are in a lot of debt that an extra $10,000 a year could literally break an entire family and bring them to bankruptcy.
So I think we should have compassion towards that.
That's why I think in Arizona the school choice things work, especially for working class people.
So like the MAGA faithful, the muscular class, the construction guys that are working $65,000 a year, they're like, they could send their kid to a world-class school in Arizona and they're loving it.
It's like, it's a total game changer.
The second though is just the dumbest, which is community.
Like, oh, it's just a better school, you know, to go hang around people.
Like, okay, that's, yeah, go send them to Sodom and, yeah, that's really great.
And the third is understandable.
And I think we've done a better job through laws of accommodating this, which is just sports.
That's the third is like, I send my kid to public schools because, you know, my kid is going to be LeBron James and he obviously needs to, you know, play basketball at the local public school.
And if not, everything's going to be terrible.
Homeschoolers, I think, are afforded the right in all 50 states to compete in athletics equally as kids that are enrolled in the public schools.
You can correct me if I'm wrong.
I think it's all 50 states.
And Tebow was the one that really helped make that happen here in Florida, I think.
I know he was a big champion of that because he was homeschooled and he would just go play for the football team and then kind of go leave afterwards.
So the community one is also silly.
Homeschool kids get plenty of community.
And by the way, I also just, are you raising kids or are you raising adults?
Shouldn't you want your kid to be around adults more than kids?
And the more they're around adults, the more mature they are, the better their language is, the better their vocabulary is.
And then finally, the other one is cost.
We got to figure that out.
That is a major issue.
But no, to answer your question directly, I don't want to be overly cynical.
I do not think the public schools are going to be reformed anytime soon.
I do not, which is why I think you should leave them and educate your own kids.
Charlie, we have an Illinois question.
Mark, go Cubs.
Hello, Mark from Chicago.
Is there any hope for Illinois?
Jesus will return eventually.
So that is the best hope for Illinois.
Look, I don't do hopium where I give hope and opium and make you guys feel good and it's all a bunch of BS.
Illinois is in a tough spot.
It's awful.
I grew up there.
I love Illinois.
I love the suburbs.
It's a phenomenal place to be from.
And it's the collar counties have flipped to be all Democrat, as you know.
And the collar counties used to be the remnant of the entire state becoming Democrat.
And now you have parts of McHenry that are very Democrat.
All of Lake is Democrat.
The outs, out out exurbs of Cook are Democrat.
Dupage County is now Democrat.
That used to be a Republican stronghold.
Will County is increasingly Democrat.
So you look at all the collars and I'm not optimistic.
I'm not.
So, and look, everyone, you should fight for where you are and where you feel called.
But I could tell you that if another 10,000 families moved from Illinois to Arizona, we would own that state for 20 years.
It's like, I mean, so you have to think to yourself like, okay, what is the best way to live?
And everyone's called in a different environment, but I can tell you, someone who loves Arizona and lives there, my goodness, I didn't know you could see the sun in the month of February.
It was this incredible thing.
And you're a lot happier when you could see the sun in the month of February.
Let me tell you.
My Floridians agree.
Thank you, Mark.
You're great.
Yes.
Hey, Charlie.
Thank you for all of this today.
Super grateful.
So my name is Ryan Lutherio.
I'm with Made Makers Christian Art and Design Education for K through 12 homeschool and private school children and families.
And so my assumption is that art and design narrative is pervasive.
It's arresting the affections of our children.
And so while we're being educated, our children are often being stolen away by forms that pervade, that function as glue, that arrest the affections of our children.
I was a university professor, and I saw it over and over again.
Even with good schooling and good teaching, they still were shaped by the images they were seeing.
So I also think it's not neutral.
And as you said, a lot of Christian music is pagan.
A lot of Christian stuff is made, seems to be deficient.
so I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts about that in the vision that you have for how we see society reconstructed rebuilt culture go forward in a way that honors Christ how do you see art and design, narrative, film, playing, playing.
It's a phenomenal question.
So this is one thing I think that the Catholics are getting right and why Gen Z is flocking to the Catholic Church in big numbers.
And again, you should seek to understand this.
I'm sure we have some Catholics in the audience, is that they want to go to a beautiful church.
They don't want to go to something that looks like a Lowe's or a Home Depot.
I know, I don't mean that as a criticism.
This is what they tell me.
They say there's beautiful art.
It points up.
It feels holier.
And this is a very aesthetic generation.
Aesthetic drinkiven matters.
And so for them, they walk into a Catholic church and they're like, they feel as if there's something to ponder, something to understand.
And again, I say that I'm not a Catholic and my wife was baptized Catholic, but we're obviously evangelical.
But I think far too often we in the evangelical world, whatever that means, we have no emphasis on aesthetics whatsoever or on visuals or on art.
And I think that's a mistake, actually.
I think it's a big mistake because God designed us with five senses, including in a soul.
And so Christian music and Christian art, it used to be the best stuff of the West.
Mozart wrote all of his music to glorify God.
It's the first thing he would write on every single composition from Bach to Haydn.
I mean, the best art that has come out of the West was all in the pursuit and the glory of God.
I do see this starting to change.
I think there's more Christian movies that are becoming more exciting and that are becoming easier to watch because some of the Christian movies, as you guys know, the last...
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So I'm not an artist.
I'm a lot of other things.
I'm definitely not an artist.
I can't, I can barely draw a smiley face.
But I love looking at art.
I love being around beautiful things.
And I also, I think we, whatever that is, whatever I just told you, if you want to understand what Gen Z wants, they want something where all of a sudden they can feel as if they've come in visual and aesthetic contact with something that lifts them up from a broken and degenerative world.
Everything else is bringing them down and they want an all-encompassing experience.
You think about at the Catholic Church, you're getting almost all five senses hit, right?
You're touching something, you're kneeling.
You touch the Eucharist, you're smelling, they do incense, right?
Obviously, you're seeing something and you're hearing something.
You get almost all five senses hit.
And then, of course, you're tasting something with, you know, taking the holy communion, which, by the way, why we as evangelicals don't take communion so seriously.
I don't know what happened with that.
Am I wrong?
Am I like crazy to say that?
Like why we do communion three times a year when Jesus obviously took it seriously?
I think that's a mistake.
I think we should take communion more seriously.
Anyway, that's just me.
I know that might sound heretical or whatever, but I think that it's important.
So what I'm getting at, though, you want to know why so many young people are drawn to the Catholic Church.
They're getting all five senses, where in the rest of the world they get none and everything brings them down.
So there's something to that.
And I think it's worthy of pondering and worthy of thinking about.
Yes, sir.
Thanks again for being here, Charlie.
I really appreciate your work and your visionary leadership.
My wife and I were private urban or public urban educators for many years in Kansas City really saw the decay of academic rigor and this injection of woke ideology just doing almost double harm to our students and the Lord's put it on our heart to start our urban private classical Christian school in Kansas City.
We have bold ambitions for it.
We are serving a demographic who is predominantly single mothers.
The fatherless rate is through the roof and so for us we don't have the luxury of having kind of the partnership to homeschool them but we expect to have a serious role in discipling them to raise and equip their children to be godly young people.
We want to create revival and restore brokenness in our communities and we think the family unit is at the core of that.
For us as we navigate that, the tension we're seeing is obviously just first and foremost the cultural capture of the church and how just the idea of what God's design looks like in our communities is completely distorted.
And so we're trying to engage in truth and love with community members to help reset and come back to that while also not coming off as pious or hateful or not loving and gracious.
We're already discerning people who are trying to become part of our school who we realize don't align with us on these issues, but we also know that there's a great need and a lot of desire for families to participate and be in a part of our school and we're trying to slowly bring them along and help them adopt this truly conservative and biblical worldview which we know is going to help our community and so all of that to say what is your biggest advice for us as school leaders my wife and i who are trying to create almost reset in our communities to restore
these conservative biblical principles when we know there's so much resistance and we're not scared of that in the fact that we know we have God behind us but but what approach can we take to help people not see us as being political even though we are and that we're fighting on the front lines of biblical conservatism which obviously leans one way we don't want to we don't want them to get distorted and confused by that, but we also want to speak truth in a way that actually brings our community in a way that reflects God's glory more.
Yeah, I don't have a full answer.
First thing is you have to be a good example.
They have to see in your marriage and with you what you are fighting for.
The biggest ender of your advocacy in a community that doesn't believe in you is hypocrisy.
If you want to try to win over a community that doesn't agree with you and they see that you actually don't even, you know, are living what you're telling them, that thing is not going to have any sort of momentum.
Secondly, if I were you, I would.
focus on black men.
I think black men are a hidden, forgotten portion of American society that have been just so downtrodden, that have been, and I don't even mean racially, I just mean culturally and economically.
One of the greatest surprises for me is how many young black men stop me and that are fans of what I do.
And they love it.
And it's because it's not a racial thing to have a return to masculinity.
So for whatever it's worth, I think if I were you, I would have a heavy emphasis on bringing masculinity back to the black community.
That would be my best piece of advice.
Last question, right, Hutts?
Yes, yes, Charlie.
This is a question.
Oh, he's my man.
David Goodwin, one of our excellent speakers.
David is incredible.
Last couple of days.
Great friend.
Simple question, Charlie.
Why is classical one of your five C's?
Oh, well, classical education.
First of all, all the founders were educated classically.
And classical points towards an absolute truth.
It is not a buffet line of bad ideas.
It points towards something.
It believes that there is truth in what is ancient, truth in what is everlasting, and it's not piled on top of this industrial, modern style of education.
I'm sure the great David Goodwin talked about this previously, but our model of education is Prussian, it is German, it is industrial, where we are not actually meant to be educated like that.
It is not about getting skills, it's about developing character.
So I'll just close with this, guys.
Thank you for praying for me and praying for us.
We're under constant attack, and so it means a lot.
We're traveling the country constantly.
We're doing hundreds of podcasts, hundreds of hours on campus.
So just keep praying for us and get involved with Turning Point Education if you see fit and we believe what we're doing here is really going to make a huge difference.
