Disagreement Isn’t Hate: Dr. Everett Piper Reflects on Charlie Kirk and the Fight for Truth

In this powerful and timely episode of Courageous Crossroads, host Jeff Johnson sits down with Dr. Everett Piper to unpack the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk and what it reveals about courage, faith, and free speech in today’s culture. Dr. Piper challenges the idea that disagreement equals hate, defines what true courage looks like, and calls listeners to “pick up the banner” of truth. With bold clarity, he explores the spiritual battle behind political violence, the role of the church, and how believers must respond—not with vengeance, but with conviction, prayer, and hope. A compelling conversation on standing firm when the stakes are high.

Thank you for listening! We hope you feel inspired and encouraged by our conversation today. If you did, be sure to share this episode with others.

Let’s stay in touch:

• Follow us on Instagram @crossroadsapologetics
• Email us at info@crossroadsapologetics.org
• Visit our website www.crossroadsapologetics.org

See you in the next episode! Be blessed!

Full Transcript

Announcer: Welcome to Courageous by Crossroads Apologetics, a look into what motivates us to step out and courage, and the everyday bravery of men and women like you. In each episode, we hear a personal story of bravery centered around this question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And now your host, founder of Crossroads Apologetics, Jeff Johnson. Hey everybody, welcome back to another edition of the Courageous Crossroads Podcast. It’s me, I’m back. I’m sure you noticed I’ve been gone for a little while, thank you so much for your grace in my absence. I think I can be forgiven. We had some wonderful family events and wonderful life events transpire over the last few weeks since I’ve been gone. My youngest daughter got married and now I got a new son-in-law and I’m over the moon about that. And because God’s timing is just perfect, five days after my daughter’s wedding, I got to officiate at the wedding of another young couple that my wife Danielle and I have been walking alongside for the past year and it’s just like being in a story book. Seeing that bride come towards you in the groom and standing off to the right and you see the sets of parents in the front, just heart’s full, just anticipating seeing this miracle of God taking two people and putting them together as one. So I got to see that with my daughter and my new son-in-law and then with this other young couple. So I’ve been a little bit preoccupied but I’m back, I’m behind the desk and excited to be with you for fresh episodes coming up in the future. And today we’re going to deviate a little bit from our normal fair of interviewing somebody who answers the one question, what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? We’re talking about the topic of courage but I thought it was important to address our current cultural moment given the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk. And I reached out to a friend of mine, a friend of the program has been on a couple of times before Dr. Everett Piper to share with us and you’ll recall Everett Piper is a columnist for the Washington Times, he’s a former university president and radio host, he’s the author of several books including not a daycare. And he can be reached at ePiper at DrEvretPiper.com, ePiper at dr-e-v-e-r-e-t-t-p-i-p-e-r.com. And Dr. Piper is gracing us with his presence today because he’s got something poignant to say about courage and the current moment that we’re facing. So without further ado, let’s jump right into it. Here is Everett Piper. Well, good to be with you Everett and thanks for joining us on the courageous Crossroads podcast. I wanted to reach out to you because we’ve got some stuff that’s going on in the news lately and I really wanted to get your insight into it. So selflessly I thought, who else could I talk to about the Charlie Kirk situation and things going on in the country better than ever at Piper and I couldn’t think anybody so I reached out to you. Thanks for joining us.

Dr. Everett Piper: It’s my pleasure to join you again. Forgive me for I think I made the same apology the last time I was on your show for looking like I just came out of the barn in this case. I really just did. I I’ve been out in the field taking care of removing a barn from my property. So sorry, I didn’t have time to clean up much.

Jeff Johnson: Well, glad we’re audio only, but you look fantastic. You look rugged.

Dr. Everett Piper: I forgot that I thought, okay, I didn’t have to go through all that apology. Sorry.

Jeff Johnson: That’s all right. That’s all right. So you’re not going to burn down.

Dr. Everett Piper: Actually, I’ve got a small little barn that kind of served as a one room cabin before we built a house out on this little ranch. It was my man cave. Okay. I’d come out here on the weekends, kick around with my dogs, shoot guns, sit by a wood, burying stove in my little one, one room cabin. And enjoy Oklahoma. So that building is still out there and needs to go away. So I’ve got a the old sheriff of our county wanted it. So he’s removing it on skids today.

Jeff Johnson: Okay. Now is it is it one of these old buildings that has old reclaimed wood and that sort of thing.

Dr. Everett Piper: No, no, it’s not that glamorous. Okay. It’s just good to have a gone.

Jeff Johnson: Okay. I get you.

Dr. Everett Piper: He’s going to he’s going to use it as an Airbnb for deer hunting and whatnot and charge people 150 bucks a night to use it. So good for him.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. All goodness. Well, it’s good to hear your voice. Good. The listeners can’t appreciate this, but good to see your face, too, Everett.

Dr. Everett Piper: I like mine.

Jeff Johnson: My my Swedish grandmother taught me Swedish proverb that a shared joy is twice the joy and a shared burden is half the burden. And I’m just going to jump right into the deep end. I I was not a big follower of Charlie Kirk. I knew of him. I appreciated his ministry. I appreciated everything that he did. I didn’t I didn’t listen to him a lot just because I probably wasn’t hooked into his channel necessarily, you know, but something happened on September 10th when he was assassinated that that took my breath away and I’ve noticed with other people this melancholy this kind of let’s say first melancholy a little bit of anger and frustration erupting around. That as well, but I think about the topic of courage and again, like like I said a minute ago, I thought who else can I talk to about this other than Everett Piper. So I hope this doesn’t sound too much like just therapy for Jeff. I wanted to be something that’s edifying for the listeners, but you wrote a piece recently in the Washington Times where you’re a columnist. Can you start there and share a little bit about your mind on what happened.

Dr. Everett Piper: Yeah, Jeff, I after the assassination of Charlie Kirk on I believe it was last Wednesday, if I remember correctly, at about 130 in the afternoon, central time. I was so angry that I intentionally kept my powder dry, if you will, in terms of any commentary on social media or otherwise, as I just didn’t I didn’t know if I was in the right place to say what should be said. I did receive a phone call from a talk show host in Cleveland, Ohio, who wanted me to go on his show the very next morning and help his listeners make sense of this tragedy. I really didn’t want I do his show all the time, but I didn’t really want to go on because I still wasn’t in the right place. I didn’t really know if I had anything to offer, but I did know one thing. I think my anger is justified and I certainly don’t want to encourage people in my tribe, if you will, and by that I mean people that are on the conservative side of the evangelical fence. And I want to be very clear just because I say I’m on the conservative side of anything doesn’t mean I’m trying to be divisive and label those who disagree with me as somehow. Abarent people or whatnot. The bottom line is I just disagree with you and you disagree with me if we’re on different sides of the fence. That’s the nature being human beings. We debate we argue we have a robust exchange of ideas. This is the nature of the academy. This is what the ivory towers for is to do this. So disagreement is not synonymous with hate. Maybe that’s the first thing I should say just because someone listening to me right now on your show disagrees with me does not mean they hate me. And likewise just because I disagree with them doesn’t mean I hate them. So disagreement is not synonymous with hate. And I think that’s one of the real dangers of labeling speech hate is that you can then subjectively start defining any disagreement as hateful because it hurts your feelings or it causes unwanted emotions or you know it gets into your private life or whatever. And therefore you you you want to silence that person, de-platform that person, cancel that person on social media or in the classroom as a professor or whatever because they’re guilty of hate speech. And I really recoil against that whole narrative. Jeff we’ve got to stop buying the lie that disagreement and hate are synonymous. We have to stop it. So that with that said what I’m going to do and summarizing this article that I wrote for the Washington Times. I want people to take a deep breath right now. The one thing I’m not doing and will never do is call for an eye for an eye for an eye that conservative should rise up right now in armed rebellion and put these people down. So do not do that if anybody is angry and feeling like this is just beyond the pale it’s over the top and it’s time for us to put our adversaries are ideological opponents in their place. Do it like Charlie Kirk did it. Go to the microphone and invite all comers to the party and Charlie even invited the people that disagreed with him the most to take the microphone first at his debates. People that recognize that he went on college campuses by the hundreds literally engaged in debate with 20 year olds 21 year olds and he told his staff find the people that want to talk that disagree with me and give them the microphone first and make the people that agree with me wait and line. That’s what good education is supposed to be about and Charlie engaged in it did everybody like what he had to say no does that mean he was hateful absolutely not doesn’t mean he was wrong no doesn’t mean he was right not necessarily that’s what he wanted to do he wanted to do what you and I are doing right now and that is talk. Charlie never advocated violence he was a traditionalist he was conservative in terms of the time tested truth he believed that the conservation of those truths was important and that the over the course of human history those conservative views had proven to give us more freedom rather than less he believed in the dignity of the human being preborn and born old and young and he did that. He defended the dignity of the human being he believed that men entering into female spaces whether it be sports or showers or locker rooms was misogynist and wrong and he thought a true feminist should stand up against those things until men to get out of their space you can’t be a feminist if you deny the female. I don’t know why anything I’ve just said in the last five minutes should be all that controversial right but in our culture today it has become so. And it’s for saying those things Charlie believed that our borders should be secure he believed in immigration legal immigration he believed that anybody who was breaking any laws should suffer the consequences for breaking those laws rather you’re a citizen or an innocent citizen. He thought you can’t be a country if you don’t have secure borders again for saying these things Charlie was labeled he was labeled a hater he was labeled xenophobic he was labeled transphobic the labels just kept coming and the I it’s a radical logic these were ad hominem attacks these were attacking the messenger rather than debating the message. It was just not right it was also you know the people would construct scarecrows the straw man argument against Charlie they would claim that he’s saying they take a phrase out of context and they claim that he said something that if you dice slice and dice his sentence you could get it and post it on social media but if you listen to his message in context you may disagree but there was nothing violent or phobic against him. So I think it’s about his point. So for saying these things Jeff I mean people killed him and that’s that’s why they killed him right they couldn’t defeat him in a debate they didn’t want to engage in dialogue or an argument so they killed him. So what I’m furious with right now and I want to believe that after digesting this for a day or two before I decided to actually write my article for the Washington Times I want to believe and I do believe that my anger is righteous indignation you don’t kill people because they disagree with you surely a free society can agree on that one principle. And what it really I think what we’ve seen Jeff is the proof that the biblical worldview of the nature of man is absolutely true. G.K. Chesterton I’m giving you a piper paraphrase he once said that the the only provable aspect of all of Christian theology is the original sin and those that deny it fail to look out the window at their own streets they’re denying what they would see in the streets. And I would even add to that they’re denying what they see in the mirror none of us are righteous no not one for all of sin and fallen short of the glory of God if you say you’re without sin then you make God out to be a liar even in the old testament the prophet Jeremiah talks about the fact that the hardest deceitful above all things. And then again according from the Apostle Paul in the New Testament he says that all of us aside from Christ suffer the curse of the reprobate mind quote unquote so if anybody has any doubt that these biblical truths that have been there for 2000 3000 years 2000 in the case of the New Testament 3000 are there about in the case of the Old Testament if you doubt these truths that we’re a broken and evil race then all you need to do right now is. Go to social media right oh my land and it’s not just the people that are dancing on the grave of Charlie Kirk that frustrate me frustrate me that’s an understatement. I mean the evil of celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death or responding to me saying our town will be better off when you’re dead okay the evil of responding that way to someone who disagrees with you can’t we agree that that is just wrong that’s wicked. That’s grotesque but even I’m very frustrated with even some in our circles Jeff in the Christian community that are new on seeing this. People that are saying well you know Charlie killing him was wrong but you know he was guilty of inflammatory rhetoric. Matthew Dowd with MSC NBC he’s been fired for saying this he went immediately after the execution of Charlie Kirk immediately within minutes he said Charlie Kirk was one of the most divisive figures was constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech i’m quoting right now hateful thoughts lead to hateful words which lead to hateful actions. To me what he’s doing is he’s blaming the victim of an assassination for his own murder well you know the guy shouldn’t have shot him in the neck and killed him but I have no patience for that and I especially don’t have any patience for it from the pulpit. Yeah and and people that should know better and we all should know better so you’ve got that kind of nonsense you had the the Democrats in the House of Representatives representatives representatives refusing to participate in a prayer for Charlie Kirk’s wide widow and children. I mean what is wrong with you right this this I’m sorry Jeff I this is not right so and then you’ve got the tens of thousands of people that chimed in. Chimed in celebrating dancing on the grave. So a guy says he’s opposed to killing babies two seconds before they’re born he says he’s against genital mutilation of children and chemical sterilization of minors he says that he believes in the traditional family and he told young men repeatedly go. You’ll seem saying it over and over again to these young men on college campuses your first duty is to be a responsible father and a faithful husband how terrible. He championed legal immigration as I’ve said he believed in the rule of law he believed that we should be judging people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. He’s a proponent of free speech and religious liberty and he believed in the ideas of the founding fathers and he challenged college college students. Who didn’t agree with the founding fathers to maybe go read them before they disparage them again and for this first he was accused of trigger warnings and they deplatformed him and tried to censor him and they accuse him of violating their safe spaces but then they killed him. And here’s and I’ll shut up after this you let you redirect but bottom line Jeff I don’t care what your politics are. If you don’t respond with unqualified disgust to the murder of a man who simply wanted to talk to college students then something is deeply wrong with your soul blaming Charlie Kirk for his own execution. Refusing to pray for his wife and kids and celebrating the death of this man is pure unmitigated evil killing a man simply because you don’t like what he says is to base and sick anyone not willing to condemn the murder of Charlie Kirk without nuance. I would argue and this is strong language but I would argue it’s equal evil and if you’re trying to explain away this horrendous act then I think you need to look no further than in your mirror to see the evil that you’re trying to apologize for or claim doesn’t exist in the human being. So the solution here people and this is my conclusion in the Washington Times the solution here the problem is in the mirror the puzzle Paul said he was the greatest so ball centers John Newton the author of amazing grace said two things I remember I’m a great center and Christ is a great savior. Charlie believed this he didn’t believe he was any better than his political opponents his ideological adversaries in the debate he didn’t believe that he was any better in fact Charlie would probably said I am excuse me. Excuse me, he probably would have said and I’m sure I could probably find something out there where he said it more than once I’m worse than anyone I am the worst of all that’s biblical if the apostle Paul said he was the worst of all centers then who am I to claim any better status than that. So what we’ve got right now is we’ve got to understand and I think that you know this is kind of a downer what I’ve said so far but it’s really not because look at the millions of people that are coming out into the streets not to burn the neighborhoods down of those that they don’t like not to trash their cars or turnover over police vehicles not to pillage communities not to rail against their enemies. They’re coming into the streets to pay homage to Charlie Kirk and they’re singing hymns and they’re joining in mass prayer. So here’s the good part of this the solution is more God not more government. And this is never going to be found in ourselves the only salvation is found in a savior that’s bigger and better than me or you. And Eric a Kirk Charlie’s widow oh my if people haven’t listened and I challenge you even if you if you’re listening to me right now and you think this guy’s too conservative I all right I challenge you ignore what I’ve said disagree with what I’ve said that’s fine Jeff can give you my e mail send it send me a note challenging me why you think I’m wrong that’s okay that’s what Charlie did that he made a career doing this. But go listen to Erica Kirk’s comments 48 hours after her husband was murdered. Go listen to her where she with compassion encourage and confidence not anger and vitriol not calling for pay back not calling for people to rise up in arms but rather for people to rise up in prayer. Go listen to Erica Kirk in her comments Friday night 48 hours after her husband was murdered where she says those of you who just killed my husband and those who are celebrating his death you have no idea what you’ve unleashed his message will not be silenced the blood of the martyrs is the seat of the church you have no idea what you’ve done for the kingdom because Charlie’s goal and my goal she said is to make heaven crowded you have no idea she said it not as a threat almost as a celebration. Now if you listen to what she says and you can’t conclude that something about Christianity is true and right and beautiful and real I defy you. If you can’t see that her world view is different than the people dancing on the grave of her husbands different in a beautiful way. I just don’t know who you’re listening to if you can’t see that what she believes and what Charlie stood for the church of 2000 years the church that Jesus himself said the gates of hell will not prevail against this church. Then you have no idea what you’ve done in killing our savior what you saw in the face of Erica Kirk. Was the face of Stephen as he was stoned the first martyr in the New Testament the face is Paul of Paul as he was getting ready to lose his head by Roman sword the face of untold Christians and the Roman Colosseum that were going to be eaten by lands or executed by the spear. What you saw in her face was the face of the church that has looked out over the centuries for two millennia and said you have no idea what you saw was the face of Christ who said father forgive them they know not what they do they have no idea the power that they have unleashed. And I’m optimistic.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

Dr. Everett Piper: Run here somebody asked me on a different talk show this morning I just got off of a show in the St. Louis about half hour before I got on your show. He said what do we do and I said pick up the banner. Pick up the banner like Charlie did like Erica Kirk did like thousands and thousands tens of thousands hundreds of thousands probably millions of people are doing right now as they march in the streets not in protest not an anger not going to be a lot of people. Not an anger not calling for a pound of flesh praying and singing hymns and celebrating the fact that we can fix this mass by confessing our sins. Dying to self being born again that’s what baptism symbol symbolizes dying to self rising again in new life in Christ. If you are in Christ behold the old is gone the new is come your transformed. You’re born again to use the words of Jesus you’re something different something better something new. And that’s what Erica Kirk told us go watch what she said powerful and also true so pick up the banner what do we do how do we fix this pick up the banner wave the banner of the truth. Run toward the storm don’t run away from it and if you win waving the banner great God’s grace but if you lose at least temporarily who cares go down fighting because the people that just put you down have no idea what they just did.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. Everett that’s so well said I I did have one gut reaction hours after this had happened I was on a chat group with some dear friends mine guys I’m in the Bible study with. And we have different opinions which is what makes the Bible study so rich you know we come together on the person of Jesus you know and trying to press into the things the Lord. But one of the gentlemen on there was making a comment about you know look I’m not celebrating his death we have to understand that Charlie Kirk was not good. And I and I it lit a fire in me and I responded and said. I’m not good what is good have anything to do with this sort of thing but you know I was able to have that debate with this friend of mine and we weren’t we weren’t shooting at each other we weren’t bludgeoning each other we weren’t doing anything we were having a rigorous engagement and I do think the proper response to Kirk’s assassination is a full and complete demonstration of what the first amendment really is about let’s go ahead and disagree with each other and let’s have it out but let’s not shoot each other for those disagreements let’s try to open our ears a little bit share arguments do that sort of that you married you and I were together in the UK. And we went down to London one time and heard from one of the people that used to proselytize down at preachers corner in hideout which for if people don’t know it’s a very famous location in Hyde Park where people would get up on ladders and the Christians would talk about their beliefs and the Muslims would talk about their beliefs and other people talk about their different their different beliefs and they would have this rigorous argument and it was a very healthy thing you know they’re trying to win people over to their side. And that’s the kind of thing that we that we need to have and I’m convinced I’m optimistic to ever I’m convinced that that’s what’s going to be the fall out of all of this.

Dr. Everett Piper: Well I really I don’t think I don’t think the battles ever over so I’m a pessimist I guess I’m a realist when it comes to when it comes to these types of ongoing ideological conflicts I don’t think we’re going to resolve it but we do see times in history where the pendulum swings heavily toward justice toward mercy toward forgiveness toward love to and biblical love not socially constructed love. In other words what I’m saying we have the great awakening in the second great awakening here in the United States. Whether you’re a Christian or not it’s hard to argue that those things were bad for our country. Now I would argue that Christianity is true and therefore it works you could turn it around the other way and say it works therefore it’s true but the bottom line is even people that disagree with me on almost everything when it comes to religion and on a lot of morality it morality issues people such as Bill Mar Bill Mar will tell you that he’d much rather live next to a conservative Christian than somebody who holds a world view that leans into violence or oppression or censorship in terms of solving ideological conflict so even Mar although he mocks and ridicules my Christianity recognizes that living next to me is probably a better deal than living next to somebody who is angry and venomous and shares a different world view that would justify their anger and their resentment of everyone who disagrees with them. So Mar is specifically he has said that he’d rather live next to a fundamentalist Christian than somebody from ISIS somebody from that believes in G-Hod somebody that believes that Al-Qaeda was somehow justified and taking down the twin towers and he he mocks those on the left that somehow suggests moral equivalency between radical Islamists and conservative Christians. And he’ll Bill Mar has come out and said was the last time you saw a bunch of conservative Christians advocating cutting off everybody else’s head. Now we all know that the church has stumbled greatly throughout those centuries and engaged in atrocities but that doesn’t my dad wasn’t a Christian for the first 55 years of his life and his constantly excused was this ever I I appreciate what your your faith and I appreciate your morality but I have no use for Christianity. I have no use for Christian Christianity because of these damn Christians. I mean that’s basically what he said the hypocrites and I just I finally one day I looked at him and I said why don’t you stop looking at Christians and start looking at Christ. And he looked back at me and he said fair enough and within a week or two he converted he gave his life to Christ because he finally realized his focus was on the wrong thing a bunch of broken sinful people. Like you said to your Bible study partner you’re not good and tough I mean I hate to share with him but neither is he. None of us are none of us are in my dad kept looking at broken sinful people hypocrites. Oh welcome to the show dad everybody is and guess what dad. You’re not perfect either stop looking at Christians and start looking at Christ he got it it clicked there was an epiphany and he realized that what the Bible was saying was true even though some Christians don’t live up to it. The truth of Christ and the truth of scripture was powerful it was real it was true.

Jeff Johnson: You’ve you’ve talked about in a previous podcast. On this show about not losing your witness and getting in the game and here you’re talking about it now too you know. Make your argument you know. Practice that first amendment et cetera et cetera I want to ask you a question. In the context that I’m going to. Mash up a little CS Lewis here. This was a this was a quote from the letter that he wrote in 1953 says I think almost all the crimes which Christians have perpetrated against each other arise from this the religion is confused with politics. For above all other spheres of human life the devil claims politics for his own as almost the citadel of his power. That was an interesting quote from Lewis now let me ask you the question. Everd how do we cultivate the courage to engage in public discourse when the stakes have become so high where’s the line between bravery and recklessness in today’s political climate because I think you and I would both agree that Charlie Kirk going on to a college campus although. I’ll speak for myself I didn’t think he was demonstrating that kind of courage in retrospect he absolutely was because he paid for it with his life.

Dr. Everett Piper: Well he saw coming yet opposed about. What did he call his post a handful of days before he was executed for before he was assassinated murdered. He talked about political assassination culture that we are we’re entering in a political assassination culture and he warned of it. Yes his press answers spooky quite frankly. Others have been writing about it speaking to the issue too. And you know I mean I’m a very small fish and I’m very small pond compared to somebody like Charlie Kirk sidebar I did have the privilege of being on that panel with him a few years ago. And I enjoyed that but I’m not comparing my platform or my exposure to his in any shape or form but I’ve received death threat threats I’ve had to call up our local police because people of. I don’t I’m assuming it’s just ridiculous and somebody that. It’s off on being mean spirited and cruel and hateful and on on on social media because you can hide and you’re you’re totally anonymous nobody even knows who you are. That person could have lived right next door to me or they could have lived in Montana for all I know but the sending me a note saying your town our town so they must have lived in Bartles our town will be better off when you’re dead. So this call for your adversaries death demise and then the laughing about it when it actually happens in the case of. Charlie Kirk. It’s just disgusting but I don’t think that can just wait us and I’m a huge CS Lewis fan and I’d like to read that quote of his in greater context sometimes I’m going to ask you to send it to me sure. I agree that you don’t want to confuse the gospel with a political party. I agree with that and the political divisions of CS Lewis’s time were much different than what they are for us today. So I would I would argue that CS Lewis was not when he said. The Christian Church is atrocities are committed in the cause of politics rather than the gospel that’s what I think I just heard you say. He probably had no idea that we’d be talking about the genital mutilation of children under the guise of health chemical castration of miners. Men pretending to be women and stealing a woman’s sport and her shower her dignity her identity basically black facing a woman as white used to black face African Americans and somehow getting social recognition and approval for doing so. I don’t think CS Lewis had a clue that that stuff was on the radar so. And even the issue of abortion if you wrote that back in the 40s or 50s which he could have maybe there are only 60s at best because he died in 64 didn’t he?

Jeff Johnson: It was a letter from 1953.

Dr. Everett Piper: Okay so. The debate over abortion was very different than it is right now. Because they didn’t have the technology of ultrasound and the argument of terminating a child seconds before its birth being a legal right that we have without any conscience of that person you just executed if you would have let him or her live 60 seconds more. And then it moved from the womb to breathing the air outside its mother and it’s not any different it just moved and it’s 60 seconds older than it was when you decided that it was morally just and legal to kill it. I mean I don’t think Lewis I don’t think those things were being debated as as as forthrightly as they are today because our culture hadn’t degraded to that point yet. Now he knew of the Holocaust at that time.

Dr. Everett Piper: He knew of the atrocities of the medieval time and the and the Salem witch hunts and stuff like that so maybe that’s what he was talking about. But here’s my thing on politics and religion when somebody says to me you’re getting kind of political maybe to political my response Jeff is well who decided that the definition of a baby is political in that biblical. Who do they who to decided that the definition of human life is political and yet Biblical who decided that the definition of a woman is political. And not biblical who decided that the definition of marriage the 2000 year Sacramento the church. Is political in that biblical who decided that these things were political and not biblical I mean the my church The West Lian church. which is a holiness church. It would be a kin to the Nazarene Church, the Wesleyan Church, obviously, the free Methodist Church, the Methodist Church. These holiness churches that come out of the movement of John and Charles Wesley of the mid-1700s, the Wesleyans and the Nazarens and the free Methodists all came out of the Civil War. Because at the time, the Episcopal Methodist Church wouldn’t take a stand against slavery. And it was also charging people for their pews. So if you had enough money to buy your pew, or if you were white, you could go to church and sit where you wanted. But if you were black, you weren’t welcome in the church, and your freedom wasn’t even going to be acknowledged. And if you didn’t have enough money as a poor white person or black person, you couldn’t afford to buy your pew. So if you want to go to church, you could stand in the back or maybe look through the window. So these denominations came out of that, dare I say, most politically contentious issue in the history of our country. It was called the Civil War. Why? Because they refused to accept that controversy is being political. They said, no, it’s biblical. It’s biblical. A black person is a human being, and they should not be relegated to going to church by standing in the back. And surely we could all agree that every human being is the Amago Day, made it the image of God, and it deserves freedom. So it was a biblical response to cultural corruption that led to the very establishment of the Nazarene Church, the Wesleyan Church, the free Methodist Church, and the United Methodist Church coming out of the Episcopal Methodist Church, which wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do. And we know the story of William Wilberforce, and Great Britain, about the same time, because John Wesley wrote a letter to William Wilberforce, and Wilberforce kept it in his breast pocket for decades, where Wesley essentially said, carry on. I will die soon, but I’m handing the baton to you, Mr. Wilberforce, carry on for the dignity of people, for the biblical identity, for the Amago Day, these people are made in the image of God, and how dare we subject them to the bondage and the oppression of those that think they’re better.

Jeff Johnson: So your book, you wrote a book called Grow Up, exclamation point. And that’s a call to adulthood and responsibility. Is Everett, how is the refusal? I guess that’s my judgment now. My house, the refusal to grow up, contributing to the kind of moral cowardice that allows political violence, like what we’ve seen with Charlie Kirk, to fester.

Dr. Everett Piper: Well, I just think, oh boy, I’m being aggressive on your show, Japs. So if you want to put this thing in the can, and not put it out there, that’s your call.

Jeff Johnson: We need to hear it. We need to hear all the voices.

Dr. Everett Piper: Yeah. You’re kind of poking the bear, and the bear has been growling a little bit these few days. And again, I pray, and I hope that nobody’s going to take my conviction for anything but that. Yeah, I have strong convictions on this stuff, and I don’t apologize for it. In grow up, if you want to ask me to summarize my book, grow up, which is a sequel to my bestseller, Not a Daycare, I could summarize it in one or two sentences through a CS Lewis quote. CS Lewis says in the Chronicles of Narnia, the Children’s Series, when the the Peeveancey Children first enter into Narnia through the Wardrobe. They’re they’re mesmerized, confused, they’re captivated with this strange new land that they’ve entered into. It’s kind of a winter wonderland. Everything is frosty and snowy. There’s a lamp post glowing in the distance, and that’s kind of the only thing illuminating anything around them other than perhaps the moon and the stars. It’s cold and it’s frigid. It’s winter. Everything is dead, so to speak. Obviously no foliage, no leaves. They meet a couple talking animals, beavers, Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. And the beavers invite these children into their den, and they’re serving them Hock Koko and warming the children up and telling them a little bit about Narnia, answering the kids’ questions. And then Mrs. Beaver turns to Mr. Beaver and says, the rumor is that Aslan is on the loose. The son of the great emperor beyond the sea. Aslan, the great lion. Is on the loose. And that he’s coming back to Narnia and winter will melt away and spring will come. And all things will be born again new. The children here, the story, they’ve never heard of Aslan before. And they look to Mr. and Mrs. Beaver and they say, he’s a lion. Well, is he safe? And Mr. Beaver gaffaws. He says, the great lion Aslan, safe. Of course he’s not. Of course Aslan is not safe, but he’s good. That’s the summary of my book, grow up, because life is not supposed to be safe and adults know that. Children don’t yet. A debate is not supposed to be safe. It should be good. Life isn’t safe, but it’s good. The church isn’t safe, but it’s good. Truth is not safe, but it’s good. The ivory tower colleges and universities aren’t safe, but they’re good. Jesus himself, the great lion, the son of God, the emperor beyond the sea, is never been claimed to be safe, but he’s good. There’s a great difference between safety and goodness. And we should prefer the second, not the first. And adults learn that and start acting like that. Children always want the safety. They haven’t matured to the point where they’re willing to sacrifice, where they’re willing to compromise, where they’re willing to subject their own selfish feelings and desires to something bigger and more important to themselves, where they’re willing to put their personal comforts and feelings and emotions and safety, safe spaces aside, for something better. The goodness of what’s real and beautiful and true. So the point of grow up is grow up. Stop wallering around in your emotions and your feelings, your insecurities, your desires. Stop defining yourself by what you want to do. Children define themselves. They pout. They throw tantrums because they want to do something. And a good mom and dad will say, well, I’m sorry, no, you can’t do that. Well, why can’t I do that? So they throw a tantrum. Well, the reason you can’t do it is it might kill you. Stay out of the road. Stop using illicit drugs. These things are wrong. You might die from it. So I’m trying to protect you. Yes, I’ve got some rules that I put around you to give you more freedom at the end of the day because the paradox of liberty and law and fences of freedom is that is you will never be totally free in your life until you realize that you’re going to be subject to the consequences of your own sin and everybody else’s until you start living with in the boundaries of God’s truth. The boundaries of freedom. GK Chesterton again. If you want to build the best playground in the world and you want your children to enjoy that playground, all the fields, all the bells, all the whistles, all the courts and games that’s on that playground, then you better build a fence around the playground. Because if you don’t, you’re going to have to police them all the time and tell them to stay away from the edges, stay out of the road, stay away from that, come over here, and they’ll hunker down in the middle of the playground fearful of being harangued. Or the opposite will happen. They’ll run out into the road and get killed. So if you want people to enjoy the freedom of creation, build a fence around it and then let them do whatever they want within the boundaries of that freedom. And that’s the way God created that reality for us and adults understand that. We understand that if we would just simply live by the 10 laws that he gave the Israelites as they exited Egypt, he gave them 10 rules, 10, no more. And Jesus summarized those 10 into. But we, as children, refuse to live by those 10 simple rules or as Jesus summarized them as two. So what do we get? As children, somebody’s got to control us, confine us, discipline us, restrain us, or we’ll kill each other. So we get reams and reams and reams and reams of little laws from the government rather than just living freely within the 10 simple laws God gave us. That’s the difference between adulthood and children in my view.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. Well said, Everett. Well said. I have, I want to get some advice for you. Because I, the governor of Utah, forgive me, I can’t remember his name right off the top.

Dr. Everett Piper: I can’t either right now.

Jeff Johnson: But he, he, I believe he did a good job where he stressed the problem with social media. You know, he made that very kind of a earthy comment. You know, touch grass, you know, whatever that, all that kind of stuff makes me feel like everybody’s a hippie. But anyway, touch grass and do all this kind of stuff. But put your phones down, you know, talk to people. This, not the other. And I agree with that. I mean, I see that there’s real pitfalls there. However, nobody’s going to hear what you and I have to say unless they’re tied into social media. So there is a, there is a benefit to it. And it is the society that we’re living in right now. But I don’t know. Maybe I need to take the advice that you just gave and answered in my last question, not being so emotional about things. I see people that have such strong opinions and I just want to unfollow them and shut them off and disengage and do all this and that and the other. I want to, I want to step out of Bible studies that I’m in right now because I just don’t want to put up with other people’s stuff. And I think that there is a limit to that where I’m like, why do you, why do you put yourself in a situation where you can be this frustrated and this agitated? But I don’t, we’re supposed to engage with each other. Everett, we’re supposed to have this rigorous dialogue, which is what Charlie Kirk was demonstrating. So what advice do you have for me? Should I shut off my social media? Should I start unfriending people or should I get in there and tell people what I think?

Dr. Everett Piper: I don’t, I have limited advice and probably even more limited wisdom on this. But I’ll tell you what I do. So number one, I’m confessing right now. I spend too much time looking at that dumb phone. Yeah, on social media. I justify it in my own mind and soul by saying, well, it’s what I do. I get paid to write. I get paid to come on shows. If I don’t stay engaged, then I’m compromising my livelihood and compromising my mission. I mean, I justify it, but I’m not too sure. I know I need to do less. Let’s just put it that way. I know if my job requires it or if my voice, my platform requires it, then I need to put some boundaries around it and live within those boundaries and not pick up the dumb phone outside of those boundaries. I really believe that. So I do think if you’re going cold turkey and going getting a flip phone rather than a smart phone, if you can do that great, if your job doesn’t require you, I mean, my son did this. In college, he came to me and said, okay, I know you guys are paying for my iPhone. I don’t want it anymore. Would you just let me have a flip phone? Oh, good for you. I wish I could do the same. And for three years, he had an old flip phone. And it wasn’t until he got a job at Prager U as a producer there, maybe a little bit earlier, that he just felt his job required him to be connected. Yeah. But I think he developed a discipline that a lot of people in his generation don’t have a discipline that doesn’t, a habit, if you will, not even a discipline. His habit is different than a lot of his peers. He doesn’t habitually pick up the phone and look at it when he’s bored all the time, because he had a period of time where he wasn’t doing that. So maybe that’s a lesson learned. If you do have to, if you have to have a smart phone to do what you do, do your job or whatever, I think we need to put some parameters around it and discipline ourselves, not to be picking it up all the time, not to have it at the dinner table, not to take it to the bathroom, not to have it be the first thing you look at in the morning rather than sitting down with a cup of coffee and a Bible. The other thing, Jeff, I do block people. I have a basic rule. I’ve invited very few people to my Facebook world. Almost, I’d say 99% of the people that are in my Facebook are there because they asked to come in, not because I invited them. And the reason is kind of that way is back when I was a college president. I didn’t want people to think I was trolling them, especially students or young alumni. The college president is asking you to be a friend on Facebook. It just felt really weird. So I just never did that. So yeah, and I’ve, my followership is, yeah, I’ve got, oh, close to 20,000. I think total on Facebook. So it’s not huge, but it’s there. Significant. And almost everybody’s there because they wanted to be. Now, some of the people in there don’t agree with me. And some are very, very aggressive. They’ll push back on something I post or say. And I’ll let it go until you start calling people names or you get anti-Semitic. And then at that point, my attitude, Jeff, is, look, this is my house, this is my living room, this is my party. I’ve let you come into my house, my living room and my party. I’ve let you enjoy my fellowship, my entertainment, my food, so to speak. If you can’t behave yourself and be gracious to me the host, then you need to leave. And I’ve told people that, stop. I had a good conservative Christian that was going after me because he was on an anti-Israel kick. And I thought he went over the line. I thought he had jumped the shark from being critical of, you know, maybe an Israel government’s policy to being basically anti-Semitic. And I said, enough, no, you’re not gonna, you’re not gonna spew this nonsense on, in my living room, at my party, in my house. You need to stop. So I block people periodically if they get over, if they move over the line. And if they start calling me names, if you, if you want to disagree with me, disagree till the cows come home. But if you start calling me names, again, you’re in my house, and if you’re gonna call me ignorant or stupid, or, you know, if you’re, if you’re gonna start putting juvenile emojis and response to what I say, then okay, come on, go to somebody else’s party. You don’t need to be here. So I don’t know if you agree with that, Jeff or not, but I do have a rule where, will debate as long as you’re polite.

Jeff Johnson: But if you agree with that, I do agree with that. I always like to, people have problems with, with some books, some authors, some people have, you know, put their dogma out there, and it runs counter to what they believe. But they have contempt, prior to the investigation of the material, and I don’t believe in that. So I get in there and I read those books. Ibraeim X-Kindy’s book, How to Be an Anti-Rasist. You know, I read through that book because I wanted to know, is there anything substantive in here? And I was able to, after reading that, I was able to make my determination that this is, this is nothing that I wanna be a part of. This doesn’t make any sense to me. You know, I mean, I could at least have a good argument, good opinion, decent argument. It’s the same with people that I disagree with. You know, I mean, I think, didn’t Abraham Lincoln say that? Never learned anything from anybody that I agreed with.

Dr. Everett Piper: Maybe so.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. So it’s helpful to be immersed. It’s just that given our current cultural moment, it seems like there is a propensity to get shot for speaking your opinion, and that keeps you from, you know, in a healthy way, interacting with other people. But I don’t think I wanna shy away from that. I certainly wanna be around people that have different opinions than I, so that I keep myself sharp. If there’s something that I’m blinded by, you know, I wanna stay humble enough to remain teachable and learn that thing. So I guess that’s my belief system. And then when I run into this whole social media thing, I think, yeah, there are times when you need to shut somebody off because there’s no healthy outcome from it anymore. So I appreciate your input, Everett.

Dr. Everett Piper: Well, again, like I said, I’m not too sure how wise it is. Like certainly, I certainly haven’t made all those decisions with sanctified purity of heart at times. I mean, I get frustrated, I think you clown, I’m not gonna, I mean, I think the analogy of somebody barging into my house and helping themselves to the party and the food and then it’s turning around and criticizing me for my, for the way I decorated or for my, you know, whatever. I think the analogy is the same. I mean, who are you? Why are you, why are you, why are you this rude? So I’m not sure how godly that is, but I think it’s a fair, as long as I don’t, you really need, all of us really need to guard ourselves against fighting fire with fire, so to speak. If somebody’s rude, then we return the rudeness. If somebody posts a laughing emoji, then we respond by doing the same. We shouldn’t do that. I mean, I think that’s just, that’s teenage juvenile nonsense. And we just should discipline ourselves to stay out of the gutter on that kind of stuff.

Jeff Johnson: I don’t wanna deify Charlie Kirk, but I wanna get a really clear picture on his ministry and the courage that he exhibited. You know, you’re a past president of a college, so you know what it’s like to invite people on a college campus. They’re certainly courage in that, you know, just opening up the invitation to expose something good to your students, you know, or given the opportunity to learn something or at least be exposed to a counter opinion, whatever it might be. Anyway, Jesus said they persecuted me, so they’re gonna persecute you.

Dr. Everett Piper: Absolutely.

Jeff Johnson: Is this the clearest picture that we have of what it means to be a disciple of Christ, what happened to Charlie Kirk?

Dr. Everett Piper: Well, I think because of his, because this is what happens. Yeah, and none of us should expect any different. I mean, you just said it, Jesus told us, they hate me, they’re gonna hate you, they persecuted me, they’re gonna persecute you. And it’s been proven out, I mean, since, like I said, Stephen, all of the apostles, original apostles save one John were executed in very violent and graphic ways for their wrong ideas, saying the wrong thing. Peter, Paul, James, Jude, Matthew, they all suffered very terrible fate. John himself didn’t die of execution, but tradition tells us they actually tried to boil him in oil, so I’m not too sure how pleasant that was for the old, right? He’s saying to the church. So we shouldn’t expect, I think Americans love comfort because we’ve been blessed for it with it. All of us are comfortable. Bottom line is everyone worships comfort in America. And I’m very pro-America, I don’t apologize for being proud of America. I believe America is exceptional. I think it’s been more successful than it has not. And I believe we should celebrate its exceptionality rather than calling it evil all the time. That doesn’t mean that we’re perfect. And some of the flaws of the last, oh, let’s just say post-World War II, is that we’re fat and sassy and comfortable, and we like it. But that isn’t what Jesus promises us. So maybe we’re gonna be tested more aggressively. Maybe Charlie isn’t the last one to suffer loss of life for saying what needs to be said. But I’m going to, I was asked to speak at a prayer or vigil tomorrow night. It’ll be open air. 99.9% chance that it’ll be fine. But you gotta wonder a little bit, don’t you? These days. So, but do we have any option to say no, I’m not gonna do that, I’ll shame on us if we do. Shame on us if we do. Not only, and forget Charlie Kirk, if people don’t think that he’s the perfect example, okay, fine, well, let’s go back to Fox’s book of martyrs and the hundreds and hundreds of Christians that suffered the same type of execution. And I don’t believe Charlie was executed for his politics. I really don’t. I believe that Charlie was executed for his faith. And the reason I say that is all of his answers. And when he talked about men should be good fathers and faithful husbands, he would say, because I’m a Christian and I know how it works for our good. He would ground his answer in a biblical response. When he talked about the dignity of women, when he talked about the dignity of children, when he talked about the misogyny of males trying to intrude into female spaces and steal their identity and their dignity, all of that was backed up by the Bible. So, people will say, well, he was a political assassination. Okay, fine. But I really, really think it was a biblical, it was for his Christianity. I really, because his views were inseparable. He grounded every answer in the Bible. And when I was with him on the panel, Jeff, I’m not sure, I don’t know, I don’t know that he was a Christian then or not. But the answers that he gave on that panel 10 years ago, I don’t remember any of those answers being grounded in the Bible, grounded in the Bible. In fact, the panel was at the Steamboat Institute and the Steamboat Institute is libertarian more than it is classical conservative. And I was invited to speak on not a daycare and Charlie was invited to speak for turning point. We were both on the same panel. And I remember I grounded my answers very, very boldly in the Bible. The primacy of Christ, the priority of Scripture, the pursuit of truth, the practice of wisdom, the four pillars and cornerstones, corner posts, if you will, to a biblical world view of freedom. So, I talked about G.K. Chesterton, the big laws of God, get really big laws of God, you don’t get liberty, you’re gonna get thousands of little laws I talked about, C.S. Lewis. You gotta have a measuring rod or outside of those things being measured or you can do no measuring. So, I laced my answers on that panel with a Judeo-Christian biblical world view response. I don’t remember Charlie doing that. Not that his answers were bad, but I don’t remember anything about that. In fact, when I was on the Gondola, writing from the bottom of the slopes up to the top where the banquet was gonna be for the Steamboat Institute and Carly Fiena Fierino was speaking that night, I remember sitting in the Gondola with a bunch of businessmen, and I could tell they were uncomfortable with me. And I thought, okay, this is a different environment. This isn’t Christian conservative, is this is libertarian conservatism. And they’re wondering, who’s this Bible-thumping fundamentalist Christian that came out here to talk to us? I could feel it, I could feel it while I was in that Gondola. My point in bringing up that story is I don’t know that that’s who Charlie was, then, but boy did he become a God-fearing, Bible-believing, confident, bold. Yeah. Remember the body of Christ in the last handful of years?

Jeff Johnson: And isn’t that what? That would be a good woman, maybe his wife got in there. I don’t know. Well, I was gonna say, isn’t that what happens? I mean, you come to know the Lord, and if you keep digging and keep searching and keep praying and keep growing closer and closer and closer, that should happen. You know, that exaltation of how good God is and what his biblical truths are should be first and foremost, I would think. So you see it as a spiritual moment. Do you see it as a spiritual attack?

Dr. Everett Piper: Yes, we wrestle not against. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities. This is a power and principality thing. Yeah. Again, anybody listening to your show right now that is Christian, you don’t have the prerogative of denying that Satan is real, evil exists. There is a spiritual world, and that spiritual world has a demonic side to it. I’m sorry, I’m not trying to go crazy and get nutty on anybody here, but it’s in the Bible. Yeah. It’s in the Bible. So we wrestle not against flesh and blood. This is not just a argument between people. Jeff, some of the people that I see on social media that are spewing venom right now, I feel like I’m looking at the face of the devil. I really do. The anger and the way their face is twisted up and contorted, and some of them, I just, I think, I feel like I’m face to face with evil right now. It’s not just physical, it’s not just human. There’s a spiritual dimension to this.

Jeff Johnson: Last question for you, or closing thought, Everett, and again, thank you so much for spending time with us today. I think this is, this is important to timestamp this and be able to speak into this moment. So God bless you for joining us today. Erica, Charlie’s wife would certainly imply, because what she said, you have no idea what you’ve done here. You have no idea what you started. That courage is gonna be contagious and courage is gonna grow from this moment. I’d like you to speak into that if you would. Do you see the same thing? Do you see that courage?

Dr. Everett Piper: Absolutely magnifying. It already has. I saw a story earlier today. You probably saw the same thing. Turning point USA has had 32,000 requests for campus chapters since the assassination of Charlie Kurt. 32,000 requests have come in. We want this on our campus. That’s phenomenal. Again, look at the aerial views of London, England right now. The official word is that 110,000 are there. If you look at the aerial view, there are more than 110,000 there. There are hundreds of thousands, if not upwards to a million people going through the streets of London right now. Peacefully, prayerfully, singing hymns, calling upon their people, their neighbors, themselves, their church to not just engage in conservative politics, but to consider the born again experience that Charlie Kurt represented. Look at the cut. I saw something at Ohio State University. I’m from Michigan, so I’m no Ohio State fan here, but I sure am on this one. The football players of Ohio State University are leading a revival on their campus. Thousands, and it is an exaggeration. You can see the football players. Football players, the football team of Ohio State University is leading a revival right now. And thousands of students are showing up in the campus screen to hear the gospel of Christ. The campus after campus right now, it isn’t 10, 1500, 200 people showing up to talk about these ideas. It’s thousands of people are now, I think, in God’s Pervenient Grace, they still have hearts that are soft enough and souls that are soft enough to recognize that maybe there’s something to this. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the way I’ve been trying to live my life for self is wrong, because it’s never really worked out that well. Maybe I ought to go to the campus screen and listen to the football team, tell me why so many of them have given their lives to Christ. And that is being replicated over and over and over and over again. And I don’t think it’s gonna stop. I think, Erica Kirk is spot on. I think they started a fire and they don’t realize how hot that fire is going to blaze.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah, every pepper, thank you so much for joining us today. God bless you.

Dr. Everett Piper: Hey, blessings to you. Thanks for having me.

Announcer: Thank you for joining us today on courageous. If you’d like to hear more about the work and ministry being done at Crossroads Apologetics, please visit our home on the web at crossroadsapologetics.org. Would you or someone you know like to be featured on courageous, send us an email at infoatcrossroadsapologetics.com or infoatcrossroadsapologetics.org, telling us about the most courageous thing you’ve ever done.