Charlie Kirk explained Catholicism's appeal to young Evangelicals

The Charlie Kirk Show | iHeart Podcasts ^ | April 21, 2025 | Charlie Kirk

[CondoleezzaProtege]

The trend that we are seeing is a very positive one. People are seeking tradition...It's a learning lesson for a lot of pastors I talk to. If you are not creating an environment where the people that come to your church can find holiness and meaning and be elevated, you're not doing your job.

There was a time in the nineties where people were hungry for a personal encounter with God, and Evangelicalism I think offers that better than some Catholicism circles. Maybe that's to be debated, but times change and needs an appetites change. And I could tell you on Saturday evening, I wanted to honor Our Lord the night before the Resurrection, so I knew the local Catholic church was doing an Easter vigil. Mind you, this goes from eight pm to midnight. An Easter vigil is a very long standing tradition in the Catholic Church, where they read basically almost the entire Bible.

I go there and I couldn't find a seat at ten pm at night on a Saturday night, and over half the people there were people my age. It was like a selfie line just trying to get in there...I said, is this a Turning Point rally or is this an Easter vigil?

I'm not Catholic, but I went there because when I walk into that specific Catholic church, it points up. It's not a Costco with a rock band and a Ted Talk and good coffee. To be honest, I've had enough of that. I don't want to go to Sam's Club to go to church in a school gym. Kind of enjoyed the holiness, the beauty, the pageantry, the structure, the tradition of the reverence. So I totally get it. God bless those churches for elevating our soul.

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TOPICS: Religion
KEYWORDS: catholic; charliekirk; evangelical; religion

[CondoleezzaProtege]

I'm not Catholic, but I went there because when I walk into that specific Catholic church, it points up. It's not a Costco with a rock band and a Ted Talk and good coffee. To be honest, I've had enough of that. I don't want to go to Sam's Club to go to church in a school gym. Kind of enjoyed the holiness, the beauty, the pageantry, the structure, the tradition of the reverence. So I totally get it. God bless those churches for elevating our soul.

- Charlie Kirk

The Charlie Kirk Show, April 21, 2025

[AlaskaErik]

What a shame that such an intelligent person fell for their BS nonsense.

[napscoordinator]

I love being catholic. They were right when they said one holy apostolic church. I’m definitely a cradle to grave catholic. I feel so privileged to be able to be lucky be born into a family has been Catholic for generations.

I’ve also went to one of those crazy protestant churches where they had the coffee pot and the Brock band and the whiteboard and the Pastor and jeans and T-shirt and I’m not gonna lie and say it wasn’t fun but it just seems so fake. Unfortunately, many fall into that trap where they need to be entertained 99.9% of churches are like that the Catholic church is not one of them, thankfully.

[chickenlips]

Too bad they aren’t going there for sound biblical doctrine anchored in Scripture alone to the glory of Christ alone.

Poor Charlie didn’t understand that the Roman Catholic Church is the original “seeker sensitive church”; assimilating Roman paganism to appeal to the masses.

[oldbill]

Another FreeRepublic anti-Catholic bigot speaks out.

[BenLurkin]

Go back to having hymnals. Used to be a person had to read music to go to church, or at least have a clue.

[napscoordinator]

I love being catholic. They were right when they said one holy apostolic church. I’m definitely a cradle to grave catholic. I feel so privileged to be able to be lucky to be born into a family that has been Catholic for generations.

I’ve also went to one of those Crazy protestant churches where they had the coffee clutch and the Rock band and the whiteboard and the Pastor in jeans and T-shirt and I’m not gonna lie and say it wasn’t fun but it just seemed so fake. Unfortunately, many fall into that trap where they need to be entertained. 99.9% of churches are like that the Catholic Church is not one of them, thankfully.

[pgyanke]

"There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be."

-- Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

[Celerity]

My biggest problem with these churches is how they tend to connect wealth and prosperity with blessing.

The holy Trinity had already done for us what was promised. God owes us nothing.

[napscoordinator]

That’s so true. These mega church pastors are making a fortune off of weakness of their congregation. It’s almost criminal.

[HockeyPop]

Both Judaism and Protestantism insist that the living God is not distant, gated behind a human bureaucracy or a single earthly throne. The Creator who spoke to Abraham, Moses, and the prophets still invites every individual—Jew or Gentile—to seek Him with an open heart. No foreign potentate can interpose himself between the soul and its Maker; no chain of men is required to make prayer, repentance, or study valid. This directness is not a modern innovation; it is the plain teaching of the Hebrew Bible and, for Protestants, the New Testament read without later accretions of centralized power.
In practice, this means a Jew stands before God with the Torah in hand and the synagogue as a house of study and prayer, while a Protestant stands with the Bible open and the local congregation as the visible body of Christ. Both traditions thereby preserve the dignity of the individual believer and the sovereignty of God over every human institution.

[Vaquero]

I miss the Latin Mass. I missed Mass for 3 or 4 years in the mid sixties and when I returned it was in English and with guitars. Vatican 2 is the destruction of Catholicism.

[Big Red Badger]

It goes both Ways Amigo.
If you can’t stand The Heat
Get out of the Kitchen.
.
Charlie has a valid point.
RIP

[Cronos]

The Church was set up by Jesus at the Pentecost.

scripture ALONE is actually non-Biblical.

and no, it didn’t incorporate paganism

[Bob434]

Th3 mega churches usually have huge overhead expens3s, however, that said, the pastors and workers should take just modest salaries, and th3 rest of the offerings should go to outreach programs and missions. While there is nothing wrong with wealthy christians, their wealth should not come at theexpense of poor christians who tithe... their wealth should come from jobs or inveatments outside the church. Th3 chu4ch has forgotten that they are to take care of th3 poor amoung th3m, and to help the widows and orphans and sickly. Their megarich pr3achers cant b3 bothered to help the poor.

[spankalib]

Ironic, isn't it?...that Charlie's last book:
Stop, in the Name of God: Why Honoring the Sabbath Will Transform Your Life

(I haven't read it)...would pinpoint one of the main issues - regarding the Sabbath - is it the seventh day, as mentioned in the Bible, you know Sabado?

...or is it the day the Catholic church changed it to: Sunday?

[napscoordinator]

Oh my gosh, that is so funny. Clearly, you’ve never met Joel Osteen. He wouldn’t even let people who lost their homes to the flood. Stay at their church during hurricane Kristina. Can’t have those filthy normal people coming in the church only rich, powerful people are allowed.

[montag813]

Did Kirk not ever visit one of the many stunning protestant cathedrals in the world? My fave is the Hallgrímskirkja in Iceland. Salisbury Cathedral is also sublime. Or Glasgow Cathedral. Or St. John the Divine in NYC. Hardly akin to ‘Costcos.”

[Wallace T.]

The model many evangelical Protestant churches follow is called the seeker sensitive church and was developed by Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Community Church and Rick Warren of Saddleback Church beginning in the 1970s. It was designed to attract unchurched people by creating non-intimidating, user-friendly Sunday services featuring contemporary music, drama, and practical, topic-driven messages rather than traditional liturgy. Most of the congregations that adopted this model (if they existed prior to the seeker sensitive movement) were not liturgical in the Catholic or high and mid church Protestant manner. They were mostly Baptist, independent Bible, charismatic, Pentecostal, and even conservative Presbyterian and Lutheran churches from the PCA or LCMS denominations. While many of these congregations grew in the 1990s through 2010s even as mainline Protestant churches had attendance collapses and the Catholic Church stagnated except for newly arrived immigrants, the growth has ended. Both the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God have reported membership declines in this decade.

Apart from the theologies of Hybels and Warren, the church service of "7-11" songs, rock bands, and preachers dressed as if they were hitting the golf course after congregation dismissal is no longer working. The upcoming Generation Z, especially young white men, no longer finds seeker sensitive worship appealing. The Catholic and Orthodox worship and environment inspire reverence and dignity. At some point, the seminaries and clergy influencers in evangelical circles are going to figure out that what had worked for a few decades is no longer viable. They will have to recognize that being sinner sensitive rather than seeker sensitive and going away from gimmickry appealing to Boomers and Gen X is necessary.

[Big Red Badger]

The Jesus Revolution of the 1970s
Was an interesting time in
Southern California.
.
The movie was good.