Morning Wire - Charlie Kirk’s Defining Faith

Episode Date: September 14, 2025

Before his untimely death, Charlie Kirk’s Christian faith grew to shape his movement and undergird much of his argumentation. In this episode, we speak with Pastor David Engelhardt, a close friend of Kirk, about how his faith became a cornerstone of Turning Point USA. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. - - - Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3 - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy morning wire,morning wire podcast,the morning wire podcast,Georgia Howe,John Bickley,daily wire podcast,podcast,news podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Charlie Kirk rose to prominence in the 20 teens, courting open debate about the secular political issues of the day on college campuses. His prove-me-wrong format generated a massive viral following and sparked an intellectual counter-revolution among Gen Z. I think we'd also agree on this, that if you are an asset manager with assets under management with over $100 billion asset under management, you should not be able to buy single-family homes and rent them back to people. I think that's a huge problem. Thank you. But in recent years, his message deepened as he increasingly grounded his argumentation on the bedrock of his Christian faith. I want to be remembered for courage for my faith. That would be the most important thing.

Most important thing is my faith. In this episode, we speak to a pastor and close associate of the Kirk family about the growing role faith played in Charlie's movement and the legacy he is leaving behind, particularly with young men. I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. This is a special edition of Morningwire. Joining us now is Pastor David Engelhard, a New York attorney who's on the board of TPSAD organization founded by Charlie Kirk. Pastor David, thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure.

Will you, for our audiences' sake, tell us about your relationship with Charlie Kirk. How did you come to know him in what capacity did you work with him? Yeah, in 2019, I met Erica Kirk, who was not Erica Kirk at the time. And we were working on conservative media projects to, you know, combat the left and make us stand in urban areas that are highly leftist. And during that summer, we were having conversations. She moved to Phoenix, Arizona, said she had met a boy. And that boy turned out to be Charlie Kirk. The next summer, providentially, was the summer of 2020, where we in New York City had an absolute.

chaotic outbreak of riot and lockdowns and he asked Charlie to have me on his show and talk about what was happening. I was pastoring a church at the time. I still pastor and I have a law practice in New York City that I was still in and Charlie had me on a show and we talked about all things theology, philosophy, the oppressor oppressed ideology. It was really fueling a lot of the angst that Charlie stood so oppressive opposed to, excuse me. And then we became great friends

after that initial show I was on. I spent the next four or five years with Charlie. He invited me onto the board of Turning Point USA in December of 2020 and are served Charlie and the board of TPSA since then. And one of the great honors of my life is to have been a friend of Charlie's and to serve TPSA in that capacity.

Now, a lot of people have discussed the way that he started off as really a political voice. And in the last few years, his faith has come to dominate more and more of his discussion, seeing that as the key to everything. Can you talk about that journey that he underwent? It seems like you probably saw that firsthand. What happened there? What changed or was this, you know, just sort of a natural progression over the year? Before I continue, I just want to say our prayers are with Erica and her two children and the TPSA family and Charlie's family.

We love them so much. But what happened in 2020 was Charlie was ideologically aligned with Christianity and he was a Christian. But because he saw the church in such anemic state and all of the lockdowns happening and the church marching with the dogma of the progressive political ideology. It just frustrated him to no end. And he said, I have to partner with pastors. And so Rob McCoy being one of the first pastors that partnered with Charlie and then a number of us following suit, I think he started to just surround himself with the right voices. You know, there's a famous anecdote that you become like the five people that you surround yourself with.

Charlie started surrounding himself with really courageous pastors that were willing to stand against that tide of, totalitarian kind of unified behavior. And Charlie courageous, his name, Charlie Kirk means strong church. Charlie really did an incredible job of strengthening the church and partnering with pastors who could see there's something really wrong here. There's a scripture in the Old Testament that says, why do you go to Egypt when the Lord is your salvation? All these churches that would flock to the vaccine or those kind of methods rather

than first saying, okay, let's pray and slow down and figure out what we're doing. And Charlie integrating with that, he began to himself develop a really rigorous faith. And he was an incredibly strong Christian. Now, I understand in recent years, he debuted TPSA Faith. Can you tell us a little bit about what the plan is for that initiative and what his vision for it was and how it's going to be carried forward? Yeah, to be a essay faith was about gathering churches, about having a central vision for churches, because one of the things about gathering churches is it's like, you know, the adage of gathering cats. We all have our own theologies and there's infighting and from the Protestant Reformation on. It's been kind of chaotic.

But there is a central core, and that central core is the belief that God's word and his way subjugates all other ways and words of representation. of our society and the truth therein. And so Sir Charlie had a very simple and clear vision, which was to galvanize the church to engage. You guys know this, but if the church voted in our elections, we would win every single election from now till Christ comes back. And Charlie knew that. And Charlie was partnering with pastors from very different denominational views,

from Catholics to Protestants, to charismatics, to cessationists, to see that we would say, hey, let's vote for a moral order that we all agree upon in accordance with God's way. And let's teach your people how to engage in politics from the very grassroots. A lot of times we look at national politics, presidential races, as the big deal. But really, change happens from the bottom up. And Charlie knew that. And thus, he ideated and began term and point faith, which has hundreds of churches and pastors. involved. One of the amazing things about Charlie is that he would go into the lion's den fearlessly and speak and know that he was a target of hatred, of resentment, and also potentially

violence. And he pointed to his faith as a reason that he was willing to do that. Can you speak to that? Yeah, Charlie would receive death threats sometimes daily. And it was a barrage of intimidation by the diabolical forces that seek to destroy our nation. And that's why Charlie's a hero, because heroes are courageous and sacrificial and lead the charge. And he started with, you know, a card table out at a university and nobody really cared. But he was declaring truth. And when truth is declared, truth is in accordance with God's word and God's way. And truth can be divisive. Jesus said, I didn't come to bring peace, but I came to bring peace. But I came to bring bring a sword, which was divide rightly truth and lies. And that's, you know, the famous G.K. Chesterton

phrase that, you know, one day men will attempt to hang you for saying that the grass is green. I'm paraphrasing that. But the idea was that Christians declare truth and truth is opposed deeply by the forces of darkness. And that's really the acute point of where Charlie was during, the assassination of his life is that he was declaring truth to young people that were coming in swarms to hear it because they weren't hearing it on their college campuses. They were hearing the party line, the Orwellian structure that was trying to kidnap their minds into buying this party line. Charlie's saying, no, boys are boys and girls are girls. And this is God's order of the universe. And upon that order, then we place his moral instruction. And then we can

find out how to flourish and how to live in beauty and unity and goodness. And that message is deeply opposed by the forces of darkness in our world. It's been a lot of debate about what direction the younger generations are going in terms of faith. There's actually data to suggest that maybe there's a sort of a revival happening in some demographics in the younger groups. what have you seen with your partnership with TPSA with Charlie's work? Do you see hope in the younger generation in terms of a turning back to God? Yeah, that's a great question. You know, the statistics that we're seeing right now are that young people,

especially young men and mass, are turning to faith right now. And Charlie's message is a message that was declared about the truth of God's word, and his goodness and the life that's produced from it. It's not this hedonistic, narcissistic self kind of adulation, this worldview that's just about you feeling better, but it's the message about sacrifice. And sacrifice resonates with young people, and living for a cause resonates with young people.

And so Charlie was really, you know, the point man running this play in the game for a seed to be sown. in the hearts and young people. My son Solomon, he's 13 years old, 14 years old, he texted me this morning. I'm out of town and he said, Dad, we were crying and praying for Charlie. And I said, just like Jesus died and hell laughed,

but heaven said, we have the upper hand. I think the exact same thing is going to happen in Charlie. I don't have a ton of hope for my age or older, but I have an incredible amount of hope for the next generation that's inculcated this message that, the seed has gone down into the soil of their heart, and it's developing something unbelievable, and that Charlie's death will water that seed.

And I truly believe that we're going to have a turning of the tide that we've never seen before in the history of America because of what Charlie stood for and what he offered, and what he offered was God's way in a way of restoration for the people of our nation. That's a beautiful statement. Like you said, I don't want to bring up his family. actually think about it but our prayers with his family it's been a really it's been amazing to see his legacy we try to focus on that and look at the the positives here like you said he's laid a

foundation there is a lot of seeds being sown and we thank you for the part you played in that and i know you're going to continue to play a part going forward and we look forward to seeing what t p u sa faith in particular but t p u sa continues to do uh in the future thank you so much for talking with us. Thank you. Thank you guys. That was Pastor David Englehart, a T-P-U-S-A board member, and this has been a special edition of Morning Wire.