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Hey, everybody, happy Saturday. What a big week. I am excited to share with you a phenomenal conversation I had with Pastor David Engelhart from King's Church in New York City. We talk about WOAK Christianity, what's going on right now in America's churches and so much more.

This Saturday episode of The Charlie Kirk Show is brought to you commercial free by those of you that support us at Charlie Kirk Dotcom support, Charlie Kirk dotcom slash report where you guys can help support our production team, help support this effort on the Charlie Kirk show. Pastor David Engelhart is here. Everybody buckle up. Here we go.

Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Company, Charlie Kirk's run in the White House.

But I want to thank Charlie's an incredible guy, his spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. Hey, everybody, welcome to this episode of The Charlie Cook Show, super thrilled to have with me David Engelhart in the belly of the beast, you could say in New York City, fighting for Christianity.

His church is scheduled to open very, very soon. And David, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show. Tell us little about what you've been going through. And then I want to dive into just some of the kind of, let's say, more interesting topics of WOAK Christianity. Welcome to The Charlie Kirk Show.

Thanks, Charlie. Appreciate you having me on. Certainly an honor to be here. Absolutely loved your speech at the RNC. Thank you. Especially the the the statement Trump is really being a defender of Western civilization. And we know Christianity is a central part of that. And so, man, I'm just so encouraged by what you're doing through Turning Point and really was encouraged by your your speech. So me, I'm a I'm a New York City lawyer, pastor.

I pastored for I was in ministry for about ten years before I went to law school. And I have a law practice here in the Trump building on Wall Street. And I have a church just a few blocks away, church plant that is just a couple of years new. And so we've been living this life that is both engaged in culture and also engaged in faith and attempting to bring our faith into culture in a significant way, which is why thematically, our church is called King's Church, because we believe that we don't just have a priestly role like the Sunday morning.

I'm praying, you know, I'm doing all of those things are essential and important. But there's also a kingly role to engage in culture, to be sold in life, as Jesus called us to, and not hide our Christianity just in private, because we know Christ was a public figure. He wasn't a private figure. He was a fact. He's resurrections a fact. And to bring all of those things and encourage people to do to speak about that like you've been really doing, frankly, over the last couple of years, really encouraging Christian and I know me and a lot of my pastor friends have been emboldened by your encouragement even over the past few months.

So I appreciate that to you.

Thank you. So you have some opinions and some perspective on Christianity when it comes to BLM Inc., a lot of the biggest churches in New York City. I'm not going to say any names. They have been embracing BLM Inc. They've been mobilizing their congregation towards that. It's not just New York City. It's all across the country. Do you think that what BLM is espousing, do you think that's consistent with Christian theology? Let me answer that two ways.

The first way is let me just say that I just think it's honorable that you wouldn't call out churches specific or pastors specific. Right, because we have this kind of hierarchical thing in Christianity where if you're not a pastor, you don't call out pastors. But we have the opposite in Galatians chapter one, two, three. That that Peter Paul says to Peter, listen, I'm going to specifically call you out for publicly disparaging the truth. And actually, if you read the book of Galatians, what Paul is doing is saying you're creating divisions in the body of Christ right now.

You're saying there's this one cast, the Jewish people, and that's kind of a higher caste. And then you have this lower caste. That's what I see is happening with the Black Lives Matter movement, is they're literally creating a new caste system. And there are certain acts that you do that are acts of penitence or acts of sanctification. They're symbolic acts that make you righteous according to a secular model model, an educational model. And that's been picked up by all kinds of churches in New York City, Hillsong and all of these kind of four corner churches.

And you have pastors like Coraline's literally saying that the Church of Jesus Christ is one of the greatest propagators of racism in the United States. He said it last week in public. Now, I don't want to I don't want to call out the private sin of an individual. We don't do that. But when you're publicly saying that the Church of Jesus Christ is one of the greatest propagated racism, it's just fundamentally flawed. I mean, it is the church that instigated the abolition movement.

It is the church that is the reconciliation factor of the world. And this is the kind of craziness that Paul was going really if you regulations ballistic about because he was seeing this massive division and the body of Christ. Yeah. I mean, listen, destruction of a nuclear family, right? Throw all of sexual progressivism really anti-Western. How can any of those precepts be pro Christianity? I just it's it's maddening. Yeah.

It's just I had to look it up myself that I was just picking up my phone really quick. And I'm going to text Carl and I'm going to I'm going to just call him out and say, this is pathologically untrue. I try to do these things privately and I am not a minister. I'm not a pastor. So I just call out these pastors that and I don't want to say I know what drives them, but I can suspect some of them.

They're part of this whole kind of feel good Christianity, kind of comfortable Christianity kind of posture. I want to applaud you for standing out against this. And I know there's a cost to that, but you'll be rewarded richly and otherwise, both now and in the future. But what I find to be really troubling is how theologically just baseless it is to even folk. First of all, the church has been the ambassador for goodness and the creator of Western civilization.

The idea of E Pluribus Unum, Liberty, who is the liberty giver? God Christ, the entire civilization we live in that has been created around the idea of natural rights is from the Bible. And so for a pastor to say something like that is just so incredibly, pathologically untrue. It's hard to even be able to have that as a starting point. Additionally, where where exactly?

I want to find the scripture and the verse that they think that we should start valuing people based on the color of their skin, which is exactly the opening argument of BLM, is that skin color matters more than action, worldview, values or any sort of spiritual, let's say, spiritual viewpoint. What is your perspective on that?

Yeah, I think it's a great question. Listen, the fundamental precept that they have, they have adopted and I don't even know that they know that they've adopted it. Listen, you hang when you hang out with your with a certain sect of people, you start to adopt their ideas, whether or not they've been expressly educated in those ideas. I don't even know if they know that. But when they say publicly that we need to treat covid like we need to create racism like covid, we need to assume that everyone has it.

This is what Paul said last week. We need to treat racism like covid in church, Charlie. Not not secular people. People in church. Listen, Second Corinthians, Chapter five says this. We are to regard no one as according to the flesh anymore. We all know the second scripture, which is famous because we're a new creation in Christ Jesus. So fundamentally, they're saying we're actually called to regard you not according to the spirit, but according not to occurrence in, but a sin that is one hundred and fifty years down the line.

I don't know about you, but my grandparents came here. My grandfather was a cop and a beat cop in New York City. They came here after the Civil War. Right. But you're still implicated.

Well, here's here's what's even more troubling. And again, this doesn't make me a good person. I want to be very clear, but this idea of institutional sin is awful. But it's also just so imprecise. My family and again, I'm not saying this is like, oh, I'm such a good person because because I'm a different individual. The. But my family fought in the American Civil War on the union side, so what kind of racism and intergenerational racists am I supposed to be burdening?

By the way? I say this is saying that does not necessarily give me a free pass to all of a sudden say I'm allowed to do what I want to do. No, every individual is their own vessel in the eyes of God. Right. This idea of intergenerational sin is against everything the Christian doctrine stands for. Right. Right. And this is this is it's interesting because Christ said this.

His teaching will turn father against son. Right. What does that really mean? What's the deeper meaning there? Is that just because you're blood related to somebody does not mean that you can save your son for you or you can save your father. Right. You have to have your own individual self salvation journey or admission of Christ being the savior of the world in your own personal savior. Your family members can't do that for you. That seems to be lost, that we are now kind of getting back to this idea that, quite honestly predated Christ of a caste system.

Who you are is not actually how you act. It doesn't matter about your world, your your spirituality, but it's the color of your skin. This is 5000 years old.

Tribalism, right? Yeah. Listen, there's a scripture in the Old Testament says in the New Covenant, it's a prophecy, referring to our our now state in Christ, in Christendom, the fathers who eat sour grapes, their sons shall not be their sons. Teeth shall not be set on edge. Now, if you grew up in the country like I did and you ate like a sour piece of fruit or, you know, you've had done it for, there's that like gritty edge, weird tea that you think and you get under your teeth.

The prophecy about the new covenant that we live in is literally the opposite of this systemic racism thing that you live under the blanket of racism. And it's not just Hillsong. It's the evangelical church is getting these marching orders from people that have separated themselves from the scripture and taken on this new ideology. And this is so crazy. And so watching this video by this lady doctor, Anita Phillips, and she said, you know, I tried to figure out Black Lives Matter plus evangelicalism.

How am I going to figure this out? She said, and I and the Lord said to me, step away from your scripture, step back from the Bible. And then I discovered, first of all, you're like, OK, you're you're already dancing in a land of heresy. Let's hear what you discovered. I discovered that there were these Nordic tribes and there was this God that made them and now he judges them. And that's why Christians are white.

Christians are so judgmental. And then I discovered this African tribe and the God came down and lived with the African people and gave them all of the things they need. And he was communally with them. Then this is how I discovered what black people understand. Black Lives Matter and white people are so judgmental, says this. This lady, Dr. Anita Phillips, that Christine Cain, who frankly is one of the most popular female speakers in evangelicalism, hosted.

There is a ton of people in my church. Listen, my my mom called me and she was like, I'm really confused by this. So I listen to the hour and a half message and it's not until an hour and 10 in Charlie that she says the answer was to step away from the scripture.

Exactly. Yeah. Look, our epistemology is founded in the scripture. Our ontology, our literal being is founded in the scripture. We don't find it from academia. Besides the fact how incredibly shallow it is to say I took the thousand, you know, polytheistic religions and I decided that this one that's listen, it's communism, the God that comes down is with you communally and then just gives you everything you need. How is that not just communism wrapped up in some kind of strange pseudo religion?

If you go extra scriptural to try to find religious or spiritual meaning, you inevitably will go in one or two ways. You'll be confused.

Then you go on a state of chaos because scripture order, scripture is truth, or you will then get in a nihilism and hedonism, or you will then you will get into Marxism and communism. Right. So this individual that you mentioned, Dr. Phillips, you said Ayana Phillips. Nina Phillips is her name.

And I should probably notice, but yeah. Yeah, you know, it's my world.

So I know I'm a happier person because I don't know who she is, but I know exactly the type of viewpoint that she espouses in that she expresses the the issue is and you just hit it perfectly bad theology leads to bad politics.

Right. And so since she also she now she removes herself from theology and a Bible like I have so much of a greater understanding of Nordic versus African Coleman, a second Christ. Christ transcends all of that. And the scriptures are just as true today as they were 1000 years ago or fifteen hundred years ago. So what is the root of this? And can you get you dive deeper into how these churches and I know these pastors and I'm just texting with them like, what are you doing?

I mean, you think that all of a sudden you've got it figured out at this moment in time? And can you can you add some clarity to that? Yeah, I'd be happy to. So I want to use the word sensuality here, and I don't mean to conflate it with sexuality. I mean sensory. Right. When things are about the way it feels, the way it looks, the way it sounds, the way it tastes. Right.

And that's a part of our human experience. Senses are a part of our experience. But when that takes precedence over the way we think, which is the other half of how we live, that takes precedence, then we literally go down the road of having been deceived by our senses. And we have a church, frankly, that's that's getting a pluses on sensory experiences. Right. We're more focused on lights than we are on licentiousness. We're more focused on our biceps, frankly, than we are on the Bible.

And so when we have a church that's focused on that, we lose the mind. Actually, I think 17 it says that the Syrians were incredibly noble because everything Paul taught them, they took it to the scripture to decide if it was true or not. But listen, this, most people don't even read their Bible, let alone check, to see if their pastor what he's saying is true or not. So in Galatians, you have this picture of people that have turned towards acts of the flesh.

They're hyper focused on these these symbolic acts, circumcision specifically. And the Judaize are saying you guys need to do these symbolic acts of the flesh to prove that you are with us. And polls like you've completely lost your theology of foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you. And check this out, Charlie, that word in context, foolish means you are a shallow in analysis. So we have a church that has become shallow in analysis and thrown away others.

They've thrown away the ability to think deeply. And it's all about hilarious jokes, ultra tight jeans and looking cool and celebrity. And listen, I have some ultra tight jeans that I should probably throw out, but and so I get it. But the point is, when we throw out the mind and the brain and the ability to think which is a gift from God, the reason I hate to jump this jump to here, but the reason I hate the word woak is because it's wrong structurally.

It's wrong etymologically. It's wrong philological. I'm not currently woak. I'm currently awake. Right. I'm not eating a sandwich. I ate a sandwich previously. Words are incredibly important and they create the definition world. We look at the world we live in. John, Chapter one. In the beginning we were in the work with God and the word was God. All things were created through him and without him nothing was created that was created. So the words literally created the reality that we live in.

And these guys are redefining language. They're saying when you say Black Lives Matter, if you don't say black lives matter, you hate black people. What are you talking about? Like, how are you changing the etymology? So, again, lack of analysis and frankly, lack of fathers, lack of an older voice that has experience, that has knowledge and it's dangerous. I'm I'm very impressed by your analysis, I have to say it's very refreshing and you're exactly right.

So can you help make sense for our Christian viewers right now, some of these pastors that are indifferent on these issues because they're afraid they're going be called bad names? And I want you to get even deeper into kind of what you consider to be a continuity of the type of Christianity that has been diving into this. So it seems. You mentioned one church in particular. I know those people. I went to that church as a visitor and loved the worship.

And I've heard some really good things.

And I'm not I'm not going to discount that they have done, you know, no good for the kingdom.

However, I think that I love there's guys there that are incredible theologians, so I definitely don't want to discount them.

Yeah, and but but can you maybe help help me through this? Do you think it's the more it's the churches that have the heavier emphasis on the spirit in the Pentecostal tradition that are more likely to get into this, or do you think there's no correlation there?

Well. Well, so. I've always found the truth lies in tension, so I when I see people that are hyper focused on experiences of let's call them the body or sensual experiences, sensory experiences, there is absolutely every time a proclivity to throw out structure and order. But then I go to the guys that are ultra structured and ultra ordered, and then you're like, where's the life guys? Like, I'm blowing dust off the books because we're missing.

We need to have both things living in tension, which makes it challenging because it says of Jesus that he's full of grace and full of truth. It doesn't say he's half grace and he's half truth, that he has this paradoxical fullness that we don't quite understand. But it challenges the guys that are like, I want to experience something. I want to be charismatic. I want to have encounters with God, which I think are essential. And it should also challenge the guys that are like, I'm a Berean, I'm sitting in my room, I'm reading books all the time.

I love what G.K. Chesterton says about morality, says morality is like art. You have to draw a line somewhere. And so for pastors who are out there thinking like, man, I haven't engaged this idea yet. I haven't talked about this. My my encouragement is, guys, we have to draw a line somewhere. And when there's a new theology coming in saying that we are all racist, that we are all like that the church has been the primary propagator or one of the let me be clear on my language, one of the primary propagators of racism in America is we've got to stand up and say that's not true.

You know, Charlie was telling one of your guys about a church split that I had in my church through all of this craziness. And it was in part because I refused to post the black square. I refused to say the magical language again. It's the exact same thing as Galatians Chapter three symbolic acts to prove you are a part of the real community. So does this act. You put the blacks where you raise the fist, if not you, a second class citizen.

You are a lower class. Yes. And you should be disparaged. Well, and Galatians three also says the law is a school teacher to Christ. And I love that because we with what we're doing, we bring a lot of people to Christ through talking about political structures, through moral human action, not discounting the grace of Jesus Christ, but also not throwing up the law altogether. Right. And if that is the case, it's. And so theologically, do you think that some of these churches have no emphasis at all in the law?

Almost no Old Testament teaching at all, and just kind of only focus on Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, maybe a little bit of acts. Do you think there's something to that?

Yeah, yeah, I think you're exactly right, Charlie. Listen, the term is anti nomine. That's that's the theological term we use. Anti nomine is anti law. So it's like the Ten Commandments don't even matter anymore. And I've actually heard people say we don't even need we don't need to care about the Ten Commandments. Hold on. You mean like not killing? Like, we don't need to care about that anymore because Grace covers it. But if you follow that line of argument, it is anti nomine because we are focused more upon this this idea of salvation.

Like I get people to say the prayer of my church get bigger, but we don't deal with the law, which means we don't have school teacher. So again, back to the point of Galatians. Oh, you foolish Galatians. Oh, you who are shallow in analysis because you've never been trained by the law how to be.

Yes, that's exactly right. And the law can be the law can be a harder message to communicate at a megachurch on 34th Street in midtown Manhattan. Right. When you're saying no, there's actually there's actually rules and the law is there for a reason, is there for a reason. And I actually think it makes the gospel taste sweeter when you are able to understand the law. Right. But God did not give us the law because he hated us.

Actually, if you follow these rules, you actually live a more fulfilling life. He was not the fun police. If you follow the Ten Commandments, you actually live a very rich and prosperous life. And that's when I say it's less sweet. It's actually what happens when the salt loses its saltiness. Right. And if you I think you can't understand the harmony of the gospels or the entire picture of what Christ was doing without understanding the Old Testament, without understanding when Christ was tried, it was Deuteronomy, if not mistaken.

He was referencing right and understanding the references to Daniel in the fulfilling of the prophecy. If just if you just focus myopically on Christ's life, burial, death and resurrection, which we love, that is the most important thing in building a whole church around that. I actually don't think you get the entire picture. And I would I would make an argument. The churches that do that are far more likely than to kind of dive into this kind of humanistic political activism.

Is that fair?

Yeah, listen, I think it's more than fair. Jesus said the verses like you don't know the word of God or the power thereof. He said, you searched the scriptures seeking to find life, but it is them that testify to me, he said to the Pharisees, you're a blockade to the way of life and you yourself have not entered in. And he's basing it upon their misunderstanding of the Old Testament scriptures that Matthew, for his saying, is the word of God.

So, Genesis, we have this picture of God setting man and woman in this Garden of Eden, this place of absolute flourishing of bounty. And we have to be able to say that's the original intention of God, this bordered place of flourishing that he wants me to live in. And if I don't have a border in my life that's moral, like with my wife, I can do whatever I want or she can do whatever I want. Just what is going to be no flourishing at the Engelhart House you want to be.

Yeah, that's that's very well said. So now we have a couple of minutes remaining. Can you talk about a call to action for Christians that are that that are uneasy about these topics and issues that are just being propagated by their pastors all across the country? What can you guide them to give them some theological confidence that they can articulate that the BLM incorporated movement as it is today? Right. Which is a political insurgents movement that is about dividing people on skin color, is actually against the doctrine of Jesus Christ.

Yeah, listen, I think the first thing is that as the voice needs to be lifted and there's some kind of, let's call it a dark omen, that we have all these people walking around with masks on today, it's like that their voice should almost be silenced. The primary way to stand up is to begin to speak. And there's been a cap on the evangelical church to make Christianity all about private preference. Right. And Jesus is a public figure.

There was resurrection was witnessed by 500 people. Right. It's a public fact that cannot be hidden. So in the sense of what to do first is you have to lift your voice up, like you have to stop being silenced by the pressure. When you when I open my Instagram account, when I look at my Twitter, the primary voices are, well, not like on mainstream media are all be silenced. Listen, what we have to say, say the flag put up the black square.

If you don't, there's something wrong with you. If Christians today would raise their voice and begin to say, I refuse, I refuse for you to say that I'm a racist. I love my black brothers and sisters. I love people of different skin colors. We're actually one in Christ. Yes, he's reconciled us in Christ. How dare you say that people actually need to start raising their voice against the litany of lies that are coming out? Totally.

They have to do it.

And it simply says clearly and I'm paraphrasing and you know the scripture better than I do, neither slave nor Greek nor Jew. We are all free and Jesus Christ. Right. And that was Paul writing, saying, like, guys, all these tribal lines somewhat irrelevant in the dominion of Christ, right. In the kingdom that he has established here, because prior to Christ, everything was tribal, everything was civilizational. Right. And it transcended all of that.

And then our country, which they want to destroy, actually was inspired by that teaching the country that this what really bothers me, what you said about you know, about Karl, it was the church that created the movement to end slavery.

It was the church that created the movement for common law. And that really bothers me. David, we have a hard, hard stop here. How can people find out more about you? I want to have you back on the show. I love your enthusiasm. And I want to come visit your church in New York. How can people follow you on social media and support you?

Yeah. Yeah, we have our website is Kaseem WYSIWYG. I preach every week. So there's not a Instagram at Engelhart underscore Eskew. And listen, I would love to support Charlie. I'd love to do it. I love what you're doing. And you're standing not just for political rightness but for righteousness and honored to to be able to be on the team. I'm very impressed, man. So honored to meet you. Thank you for coming on. We have your back and keep standing.

We really appreciate it. Thank you for sharing.

Thanks so much for listening, everybody, if you guys want to win a signed copy of The New York Times best seller The Mega Doctrine, e-mail me Freedom at Charlie Cook Dotcom. Just showing me that you're subscribed to the Charlie Kerkow. Get to people right now to get subscribed to the Charlie Cook Show type and Charlie Kirk show subscribe. Give us a five star review screenshot and email us at Freedom at Charlie Curcumin, Freedom at Charlie Kirkconnell. Thank you guys so much for listening.

God bless you. Have a great weekend. And make sure go back in the archives throughout this last week. Listen to our Thursday show. Listen to our Wednesday show. We have some amazing content. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Thank you for the support. Talk to you soon.