Sept. 18, 2025
Navigating Politics, Tragedy, and Personal Boundaries as Christians
Have a question or comment for Pastor Plek or one of his guests. Send it here. Pastor Plek and guest co-host Ruben Campos from Lifeway navigate the challenging intersection of faith and politics in an increasingly polarized world. They explore how Christian leaders should respond to political violence, cultural controversies, and personal questions of faith in everyday life. • Discussion of the Charlie Kirk assassination attempt and whether pastors should address political events from the pu...
Have a question or comment for Pastor Plek or one of his guests. Send it here.
Pastor Plek and guest co-host Ruben Campos from Lifeway navigate the challenging intersection of faith and politics in an increasingly polarized world. They explore how Christian leaders should respond to political violence, cultural controversies, and personal questions of faith in everyday life.
• Discussion of the Charlie Kirk assassination attempt and whether pastors should address political events from the pulpit
• Examination of how Christian leaders can maintain biblical truth while acknowledging political tensions
• Reflection on accusations of racism against public figures and how to evaluate such claims fairly
• Analysis of the relationship between religious belief and political engagement throughout scripture
• Exploration of how pastors can lead congregations through divisive political moments
• Discussion on whether "celebrity crushes" are compatible with Christian relationships and marriage
• Consideration of when admiration crosses into idolatry and objectification
Text your questions to us at 737-231-0605 or visit pastorplek.com. We talk faith, culture, and everything in between.
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00:00 - Introduction and Charlie Kirk Assassination
05:15 - The Tension of Faith and Politics
10:25 - Should Churches Address Political Figures?
16:50 - Accusations of Racism and Race-Baiting
27:10 - Political Speech, Fear, and Christian Response
34:10 - Hollywood Crushes: Admiration vs. Idolatry
45:30 - Closing Thoughts and Contact Information
WEBVTT
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and welcome back to pastor plex podcast.
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I'm your host, pastor plec, along with my co-host today is ruben campos.
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You work at lifeway.
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Yeah, lifeway christianity.
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We love lifeway, so lifeway is pretty great, and so we are so excited to have him on board with us today.
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We've got a couple questions that we have been dealing with.
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Uh, one, especially in light of the Charlie Kirk assassination which we found out about.
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We were sitting right here last week when that came up and so I want us to talk about it.
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It was one of those things.
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We were watching the events unfold right here and we almost went live with it, but it was like, ah, it's too raw, too, too crazy, and I was like I don't know how I'm able to process that.
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Our church did say something about it on Sunday and I think that you know there's a lot of takes on that.
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There's a lot of debate amongst pastor world.
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Should you or should you not say something about Charlie Kirk?
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I don't know if you knew that that was a thing.
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Yeah, yeah, I've seen quite quite a bit of that going back and forth online, so I have seen that, yeah, and so on the one hand, you had a lot of communities that had felt really hurt by Charlie Kirk and a lot of his.
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He's a provocateur.
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I mean, he definitely was you know, you know, prove me wrong, but then and so he had like he had that sort of mentality, but then at the same time he had guys like me.
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I really appreciated his work and would watch it regularly and really thought he was graceful at sharing the gospel and although he'd come with an ice hat, he was able when he got into a dialogue with somebody.
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It wasn't personal attack, it was policy, ideology, debate, and I really thought that that was awesome.
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So I know that there was a lot there and so pastors were kind of in this debate aspect of should we say something, should we not say something?
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For sure, yeah, and so it was kind of a wild, wild deal.
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What was your thought on that?
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Yeah, I mean generally speaking I think you touched on a lot of points there, but just in regards, for instance as a starting point kind of the way that he opened up his platform yeah, I mean just starting there.
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You talk about, you know, whether he was doing policy or espousing some sort of ideology.
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The fact of the matter is that he always did give an opportunity for others of opposing views to come and speak.
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And he gave a mic and a full like 15 minutes to go for it.
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Yeah, yeah.
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I mean, I've watched countless videos at this point and I find myself at times struggling to think could I do that?
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Could I be as gracious as he was during that conversation, when they're berating him and yelling him down.
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One of my favorite ones is when an old guy came up and said I want to duel, I want to fist fight you, yes.
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And he's like no, the Holy Spirit sent me the Holy.
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Spirit, that's right.
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The Holy Spirit, that's right.
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The Holy Spirit sent me this by you, which I was like okay.
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Yeah.
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So I think one of the important things to like kind of like sort of wean out of this is the idea of tensions, right, you know we're talking about.
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You know, should churches get behind this sort of thing?
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Should pastors?
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Should they mention it?
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Should they not?
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Right?
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And you know he was a political ideologue and, at the same time, a believer, and so like, where do we draw the line?
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You know, and I'm a proponent of and this is something I learned, like listening to John Piper all the time he's always talking about man.
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If you're going to be a Christian, you have to be able to maintain tensions, right?
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And I think this is one of those moments where this is not a biblical tension, but this is a tension in reality, in life.
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You know he was a political figure, but he was also a believer and held to Christian values, and so I think there's a place there in the middle where we can say, to a degree, there's things that are acceptable and there's other things that we should probably steer clear of.
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But in regards to, you know, I mean certainly well-wishing his wife and his children and things like that, and pastors acknowledging an event of this size on a global scale, I tend to think there's nothing inappropriate about that, yeah, yeah, and especially since, like I think you know, during the George Floyd things, you had to say something like hey, somebody died and that's sad, and I don't think that police officer woke up that day thinking I'm going to go kill somebody.
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But you know, ultimately it was a lament towards the death of someone and it was on such a public thing.
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And one of the things I've sort of learned and maybe I learned this like late in my pastoral, in 20, so like four years in, in 2016, donald Trump was elected and, um, I was like it was also Veterans Day weekend, so that Sunday morning I focused on Veterans Day and I didn't say anything about Trump and I had several people angry I, I mean like just fired up angry at me Like how could you not say anything?
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Why would you be silent about this?
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You know this is the worst thing for our country and I was like you know, it's actually not that bad, it's actually pretty great.
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Uh, you know it's actually not that bad, it's actually pretty great.
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Yeah, um, yeah and and so that.
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But that was one thing I didn't realize, like how I thought me not saying anything at all was like I don't want to, I don't want to inflame anyone on the left and I don't want to, like um, over exalt him anywhere on the right, and I was like, okay, I think that's the right answer.
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And um, clearly, that was I mean I, I had, I had some people super angry anyway, uh, and you're not gonna make everybody happy.
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So what I realized is like saying something is better than saying nothing, and and I, because, like, people want to be led through that and I was like, okay, so next time around 2020,.
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When Joe Biden was elected, I said, hey, god has the person he wants on the throne.
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This did not get past his will, and some people feel like this is glorious.
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Finally, we have somebody of common sense and practicality.
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Is it going to say anything stupid?
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On Twitter?
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And then other people that were just angry Complete opposite Twitter and then other other people that were just like angry and like it was as if the same visceral reaction from 2016.
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Hence the polarization of politics.
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I just don't know if I've seen people feel this drastically, wildly awful.
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Maybe this is true, maybe this is the part where that I just haven't been paying attention, um, or I wasn't old enough to figure it out, but I don't know.
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Like it didn't feel like when George Bush won in 2000,.
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Like it was like you know, we won the Superbowl.
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It just like oh cool, you know he, you know he seems like he loves Jesus, that's great.
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Wasn't as volatile Right, it just wasn't.
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And Clinton before that, even though there was scandal galore, it was just like all right, yeah, okay, okay.
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So then in 2020, with Biden winning, and then all of a sudden, or sorry, before that, you have the George Floyd stuff, yeah, and we had to say something about that, like, hey, this, you know so.
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And then to Biden, then again, trump wins.
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It's like we got to say something, and so I think this is where pastors um it, it's an impossible job, as you know uh, is that you've got to lead people in the congregation, uh, sort of understand, there's everybody at every political spectrum and um, and you want to make sure that people are heard and felt and all the things, except we also have to lead them towards the direction of hope and peace.
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Yeah, absolutely yeah, I agree a hundred percent.
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And I think there's this kind of and I don't think it's a biblical notion, but there's this concept, um, in in science of Noma, non-overlapping magisteria, right, and it's, you know, we don't overlap the concepts of science and Christianity, right, they don't combine, right, they're not on the same level, that sort of thing, right?
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So you seek to kind of shift those things apart, this non-overlapping magisteria, and people have the same idea in regards to religion and politics, right.
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But I would say, man, if you take a hard look at scripture now, I'm not saying the pulpit should ever become a platform for politics, but it's hard for me to look at scripture and not see the marriage, so often, between politics and religious belief, right, and so, whether it was Solomon or David, whether it was Nehemiah, whether, you know, it was John who's talking about Herod, or Jesus talking about the Pharisees, and while they were religious leaders, they were highly involved in politics.
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Oh, absolutely.
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And so there's certainly from a biblical perspective, I think there's plenty of ground to say, hey, it's okay and not inappropriate.
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Right, even what you said about science.
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I mean science and religion cross all the time when we talk about the way the brain is made or the way that you process emotions.
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I mean, in fact, this week we talked about, you know, overcoming fear.
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This next week we're talking about overcoming sadness, and there's a part of it.
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There's, you know, depression's a thing and real Bible characters experience it, and so, you know, there's a science of the brain.
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So I think that, no matter what, as a pastor you're going to kind of cross over so many different I don't know if vocation is the right word but disciplines, so many different disciplines that you're.
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It's not that you need to be knowledgeable about everything, but just understanding that there's going to be something that you're going to say that might offend or affect all these different disciplines, which is why a lot of guys pastors use sports illustrations, because usually they're not offensive.
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But, you know, it's great that you bring that up in regards to disciplines of life and because the reality is, how many times, if you go to a church website and you go to values and missions and they talk about scripture, and they talk about scripture being their ultimate source for truth in all the faith in life, right?
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Well, if it's for all the faith in life, then surely we should be able to talk about, you know, things that are happening on a global scale, politically right Again to a degree, right, right, absolutely.
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And I mean I feel like you know you don't?
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Yeah, I think so.
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So here's a question that came up that sparked all this Should a church really be standing behind a man like Charlie Kirk?
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I know he claims to be a Christian and follows all Christian nationalist talking points to a T, but does he really exhibit Christian fruit?
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When I look at the latest YouTube videos, they are labeled things like Charlie Kirk hands out L's.
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Charlie Kirk sends someone into a mental breakdown and other things that he is obviously showing disdain to people who don't look like him or believe like him.
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He obviously likes to be divisive more on political points than Christian points, so it just seems weird to make an Instagram post for him.
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So, um, yeah, I, if, if, if all Charlie Kirk was was like, was like just a, uh, instagram influencer yeah, we would.
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He wouldn't be the news.
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Yeah, we would, he wouldn't be the news.
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I mean, he's still in the.
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I mean like he's in.
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It's a 24 7 news cycle, so I don't think saying nothing is appropriate.
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Yeah, and now are there some things that charlie kirk may have, may have done.
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Maybe he was a provocateur.
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He was like let me, let me, you know, dig you, but the things that you watch, like he did, he had stuff of like watch charlie kirk dismantle this, yeah, and you're like okay, and I sometimes watch his opponent and I watched it.
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I'm like that wasn't actually that crushing, it was actually kind of tame, yeah, should we punish people for clickbait?
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yes, listen, did he clickbait me a million times?
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Yes, but did I actually enjoy a lot of the stuff he did?
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Absolutely so, yeah, do I want to punish someone for clickbait?
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No, everyone's got to make a living somehow.
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But I think because I think that's where the real problem with him would be is on the clickbait.
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I thought whenever he talked or spoke it was really well spoken, he was really articulate and I don't like.
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A lot of times people thought of him as a racist, which I thought was sort of wild, because one of his best friends was like candace owen and I'm not like I'm not all out candace owens fan, I mean, yeah for sure issues, for sure, I mean tons of issues topic for another day.
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I mean, like I feel like she just said something about charlie kirk really wanted to be catholic and I was like okay, I mean, anyway, it's like, why would you even say that?
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Yeah, uh, but, uh.
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But clearly we were talking before talking about some of the things that he did for the black community, that it was unique yeah.
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So so, real quick, before I jump into that, I would recommend to uh the questioner or anybody else who's kind of questioning this, this, um, this idea that that charlie kirk may have been racist, um to you know, when you're searching, uh, rather than just just looking at what comes into your feed, you know, can ask questions to search engines, right.
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So if you're on YouTube, you can say was Charlie Kirk a racist?
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And you'll see a plethora of videos coming up from his black supporters, his black fan base, right, saying that's crazy, right.
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Here's why you know.
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And so some of those videos may be helpful to people who are looking for more answers and maybe wanting to hear as well from a minority group, right, what they thought about it.
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And I say that as a Caucasian man, but I'm Cuban and Mexican, right.
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And so a lot of times people will be like oh, you're saying that because you're a white guy, right.
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But I know very well, growing up in a Spanish household with two immigrant parents, what it's like to have, you know, prejudice leveled against you.
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Wait, but you do, you speak you speak Spanish?
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Yes, I do.
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Do you also speak Portuguese?
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I do, I speak Portuguese as well, so I learned.
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I learned Portuguese dating a girl in a Brazilian church.
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So that's, but I'll tell you it came to me after a couple of months.
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It just clicked.
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Okay, wow, that's wild.
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So so yeah.
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But going back to Charlie Kirk and whether or not he was a racist, a couple of things, like you mentioned his friendship and partnership with Candace Owens, who he traveled literally all 50 states with touring campuses, touring different conference centers, and globally as well for years and years, and his tight friendships with Officer Tatum, who's another guy who speaks very highly of him.
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No-transcript in our nation's capital's history and it was put together by Charlie Kirk, right, yeah so, whatever you have to say about him, he's not racist.
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I think that would have been super clear.
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You may disagree with him ideologically, which then gets us to the next point, and here's what the person kind of wrote a subsequent text in.
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She said nevermind, I prayed about it, and even though the intentional race baiting does lead to a harder life for my children and myself, it makes me not like or respect him.
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I can't debase, or I can't base my disdain for another Christian over something that is a non-salvation issue, and shouldn't lose respect for another Christian who obviously values the gospel and spreading it, probably better than me, even if he chooses to race bait.
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And so I don't know about the race baiting per se, although if what you mean is, like you know, throwing out L's and I again the click bait drove me crazy, um, but what I, what I do want to say is uh, is that we're?
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We see that you're going to have secondary issues.
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I think I put this here.
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Watch this If I believe that human beings are made in the image of God and that God loves all people, that makes it into a primary issue.
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Like you've damaged the image of God when you say, like God has a second class of human being, absolutely.
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I mean, is that okay to put that into the primary issue?
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I don't want to be overly crazy about it.
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I would still make a distinction between what it looks like.
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Our questioners ask like salvific issue versus, but I would still say a primary issue.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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So it might not be a salvific issue, but maybe a primary issue for, like, being a part of a church or whatever would be like, hey, if you can't wrap your head around God's love for all people and you think like that someone is worth less because of what their skin color, culture, background is, then clearly you are not able to see what Christ has done on the cross and that his value for the humans that he created, and you're not seeing the Imago Dei in people.
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So I think we would go there.
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So this is the part I said what place should we draw?
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And I think the question is, like man, I feel like some of this stuff is problematic for me and I don't know what it like.
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Let's take it's not the race thing, let's just move off that.
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Let's say, his position on immigration.
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Yeah, um, how are Christians to argue and argue, maybe reason?
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I know argue seems like a strong word, but I feel like you know you have a position, I have a position.
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Let's argue about it and work it out.
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Yeah, like, how are Christians supposed to do that in a way in a public square that gets their position heard, without being called a fascist or being murdered for it.
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I think that's the, that's the issue that I feel like uh, has been brought up nationwide and and honestly I feel like recently Pam Bondi, the AG, has you know, they're going to call all the speech of everyone that was sort of against Charlie Kirk or just like hate speech, and I'm like whoa, I mean, this is where I'm like I don't want us to go to this place where we're just like what are we doing Now?
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I agree that this might be the part.
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This is a place where you know God and government has a relationship, god and the church has a relationship, god and the family has a relationship.
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God and the church has a relationship, god and the family has a relationship, and that might be a great place for the church to step in and say, hey, you shouldn't talk like that.
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But I don't know if that's the.
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Anyway, I would love to hear your thoughts on that.
00:18:14.041 --> 00:18:27.211
Yeah, I haven't heard what she mentioned on this so I'm not familiar with it, but I'm certainly.
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I'm for less classified speech as hate speech, right, I don't want more of that.
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I think we should have less of that.
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But the challenge there becomes, like you mentioned, how can we do that and still remain safe?
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Right, how can we have these sorts of conversations and dialogues where quote unquote alleged hate speech is being shared and still, you know, be in a place and a position?
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Here's what she said there's free speech and then there's hate speech and there's no place, especially now, in our society.
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We will absolutely target you, go after you.
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If you're targeting anyone, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything, and that's across the aisle.
00:18:57.897 --> 00:19:07.740
And then, after that backlash, she clarified by hate speech she meant speech that crosses the line into threats of violence, which she says is not protected by the first amendment.
00:19:07.740 --> 00:19:09.405
Well, of course that I agree with that.
00:19:09.405 --> 00:19:09.929
I agree with that.
00:19:09.929 --> 00:19:10.289
I agree with.
00:19:10.289 --> 00:19:16.009
The problem is words have meaning and like look up the dictionary what is the definition of hate speech?
00:19:16.009 --> 00:19:18.173
And I don't know if we don't have you know.
00:19:18.173 --> 00:19:21.337
This is why Webster invented I think we were talking about this morning on Bible study.
00:19:21.337 --> 00:19:24.061
Webster invented the Bible so we'd know what words meant.
00:19:24.241 --> 00:19:24.962
Yeah, the dictionary.
00:19:24.962 --> 00:19:25.784
Yeah, sorry, Sorry.
00:19:27.369 --> 00:19:29.357
Yeah, he invented the dictionary so we'd know what words mean.
00:19:29.357 --> 00:19:34.513
Yes, yeah, anyway, that's where I look at this whole thing and I'm like what is?
00:19:34.513 --> 00:19:39.240
And I feel like there is no common, universally accepted definition.
00:19:39.240 --> 00:19:45.676
So therefore you can call anything hate speech and everyone's like, well, that's my definition.
00:19:45.676 --> 00:19:47.107
Anyway, get into what is a woman, next thing?
00:19:47.107 --> 00:19:47.328
You know?
00:19:47.328 --> 00:19:50.031
Okay, so, anyway, so, all right, so we understand there's a difference, so what?
00:19:51.896 --> 00:19:57.877
And I feel like you've really, especially being at Lifeway where you guys have to kind of think through a lot of this stuff.
00:19:57.877 --> 00:20:05.740
Yeah, because it's not like Christians are monolithic, like they only vote for Republicans, and so there is a part of this.
00:20:05.740 --> 00:20:11.435
Even talking about Charlie Kirk in any sort of positive way has a negative effect on people.
00:20:11.435 --> 00:20:12.799
And what is the?
00:20:12.799 --> 00:20:15.233
You know, what's the Christian response?
00:20:15.233 --> 00:20:16.478
The right one?
00:20:16.478 --> 00:20:17.540
I feel like here's the part that's hard.
00:20:17.540 --> 00:20:37.508
What's the right Christian response when someone's coming at it like you're supporting, like a, a person who hates immigrants, or you know, your person hates people, you know, and you may think it's right, wrong or indifferent, but they're coming with such strong language and now, all of a sudden, it's a polemic and I think there's a place for a logical debate between believers.
00:20:37.508 --> 00:20:40.162
Understand that there's a love for one another.
00:20:40.162 --> 00:20:40.804
That's understood.
00:20:40.804 --> 00:20:41.935
But I think what happens a lot of time?
00:20:41.935 --> 00:20:42.858
We don't have that.
00:20:42.858 --> 00:20:45.286
Where do you think the line is drawn on how we do that?
00:20:45.286 --> 00:20:46.736
Well, the line is drawn on how we do that.
00:20:46.756 --> 00:20:58.768
Well, you know, I think, for me, the line, I think that the line is drawn in regards to not allowing fear to be the motivation for what to stop.
00:20:58.768 --> 00:21:01.009
Right, right, like I think that you know.
00:21:01.009 --> 00:21:06.759
If so, there's a component of truth, right, I always want to be conveying truth, at least to the best of my ability.
00:21:06.759 --> 00:21:23.365
But the other part is, I think that if I'm ever feeling prohibited or inhibited from sharing a truth because I'm scared of what the repercussion might be, right, oh well, you know, if you do that, you'll lose this many followers, or, you know, people will stop coming to your restaurant, that sort of thing.
00:21:24.056 --> 00:21:26.000
I go back to what is it?
00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:29.728
Martin Luther, I think the whole here I stand, you know, like that sort of thing.
00:21:29.728 --> 00:21:43.357
I think as Christians, we have to be able to take a stance on things that are true, right, and I think that, whatever the cost for that is and I think Charlie was doing that I think that's actually going back to Charlie.
00:21:43.357 --> 00:21:45.641
You know he was taking a stance.
00:21:45.641 --> 00:22:01.430
You know, despite the obvious dangers that were present in him doing so, I'm putting aside his political views, just doing what he was doing when he was espousing Christian views on campuses, primarily very liberal campuses.
00:22:01.430 --> 00:22:11.335
He was putting himself in a place of danger, but he determined that, hey, I'm going to take a stand for what's true and share that without fear, and so I think, as Christians, that's something we should be doing as well.
00:22:11.695 --> 00:22:13.462
So here's kind of the pushback I'm seeing.
00:22:13.462 --> 00:22:22.699
It goes something like this how can you stand up for one man, charlie Kirk, when you're not standing up for all the genocide in the Gaza?
00:22:22.699 --> 00:22:25.682
And I think that becomes a soup in like.
00:22:25.682 --> 00:22:27.220
Why, really?
00:22:27.220 --> 00:22:27.882
A lot of like.
00:22:27.882 --> 00:22:29.920
There's all these things happening globally.
00:22:29.920 --> 00:22:31.598
Yeah, you're not saying anything about that.
00:22:31.598 --> 00:22:33.182
But why are you saying something about?
00:22:33.182 --> 00:22:38.093
I mean, at least that's what I've been seeing Like that was one of the ones that popped up or why, why, you don't care about the.
00:22:38.113 --> 00:22:39.500
There was a governor.
00:22:39.500 --> 00:22:41.714
That was a Minnesota, not governor.
00:22:41.714 --> 00:22:46.541
It was, um, I think their state shoot speaker of the house or something.
00:22:46.541 --> 00:22:51.368
Minnesota though, right, yeah, minnesota's like state government lady.
00:22:51.368 --> 00:22:54.296
That, which is terrible.
00:22:54.296 --> 00:22:56.160
I don't know her name.
00:22:56.160 --> 00:22:57.362
She was killed, right, she was murdered.
00:22:57.422 --> 00:23:05.076
She was essentially assassinated for her political views, and that's you know.
00:23:05.076 --> 00:23:07.003
I didn't even know that until the Charlie Kirk thing came up to be fair.
00:23:07.003 --> 00:23:11.526
And you know it's not my newsfeed.
00:23:11.526 --> 00:23:14.483
It might be, because you know guess where my newsfeed is.
00:23:14.483 --> 00:23:23.605
You know it's the echo chamber of all the stuff I want to hear, which is, you know, not great, but it is what it is, and so clearly we need to kind of that's wrong.
00:23:23.605 --> 00:23:27.000
You should not murder somebody because they have a different view than you.
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In fact, even if they have a different view, let the government handle that.
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Like you, don't need to take this vigilante justice.
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Even if you think that person did something that deserved death, well, even then, you've got to let the government handle it.
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