Remembering Charlie Kirk and Confronting America’s Pagan Threat w/ Pastor Lucas Miles

Welcome to CPAC now, America Uncanceled. It's been quite two couple of weeks in light of the horrific assassination of our friend Charlie Kirk, someone who we all greatly admired. And I remember Charlie being so young and coming to CPAC when turning point was just a few couple of folks. It was just so, such an incredible time to see him grow and in so many ways and especially in his faith. And I wanted here at CPAC, wanted to honor his legacy, honor his life. And I'm so honored to have with me Pastor Lucas Miles. He is Senior Director of TPUSA Faith and author of the new book, which you all need to get, Pagan Threats Confronting America's Godless Uprising, which your friend Charlie Kirk wrote the forward. Pastor, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me on. It's good to be here. Look, there were a lot of allies alongside of Charlie for a long time in just the fight for conservative values and and just seeing faith and liberty, you know, increase in this nation. And so appreciate all your work that you guys have been doing over at CPAC and it's honored to be here just to talk about his legacy. Well, we watched so carefully and so many of our friends were at the memorial. I first want to ask you, how is Erica? That is who I, I have to say, I, being, you know, a spouse of someone who's involved in politics, being in politics myself, you know, I, I just, every word she has said, everything she is representing right now, the source of strength, the source of perseverance, I mean, I just, my heart goes out to her and to her family. Yeah, I mean, first off, just on behalf of everybody at Turning Point USA and the Kirk family, I mean, we're just all so grateful for the prayers and support that are rolling in. I mean, I think it's real obvious from, you know, what we have seen of Erica, both with her speech to the nation, you know, that first Friday and then as well as the memorial that God's grace is on her life and he's sustaining her and and she is really leaning into him as her source and I think that's very evident to everybody. You know, I'll let the family speak to the personal sides of that, you know, when they're ready, but I think that, I think that she's made it really clear what she wants people to hear and, you know, what they heard from her the other night was a powerful declaration of the gospel, God's unconditional love and just the, a woman with complete resolve to see a mission completed and I think that, you know, this, this, there's obviously some recalibration anytime you have a tragedy at this scale that has to take place, but I believe her when she says that the whole world's gonna know her husband's name and know the message and the, and the mission that he had and we're expecting great things on the other side of this with her leadership and being named CEO. So, you know, we were in CPAC Paraguay, Matt just came back from CPAC Australia and just, we have, we're working closely with our counterparts in Spain and so many international leaders really speaking about how they've been inspired by Charlie and the impact that he's had on so many of us. You know, I have these great memories of Charlie walking into my West Wing office during the first term and just with this big smile on his face and just being like, okay, what do we got to work on next? Like, what do, you know, let's hone in on this or let's hone in on this Hispanic group or, or faith group or, and it was always just this energy that he would share with the rest of us, but talk us through in terms of, you know, as we're trying to deal with this, right, as the conservative movement, as the freedom movement is trying to process this horrific assassination and what do you tell his, basically his followers, the people who cared for him that are trying to figure out like, how can this have happened? Yeah, I mean, look, I think we know how it happened. And I think Charlie knew the conditions that created an environment like that. I mean, the, the indoctrination of our children, the, the Marxist injection into society, these are all things that Charlie's been warning about for a really long time. The, you know, total departure from a biblical or godly worldview. And then you wonder why kids grow up with no value for human life and that they're, you know, see life through the lens of a video game that they can just get on a perch and take out somebody that they don't like. You know, it's, it's vile, it's disgusting, it's human depravity on display. And but it's, it's not, it's not shocking when you understand what's been happening for so long. Look, I wish with my whole life that we could turn back the clock. I mean, I just keep thinking, like, how do we undo this? You know, dealing with grief in various stages, like, it's, you know, how can we how can we undo that? I got to call Charlie and like, ask him, how do we fix this? You know, like, I've had that thought a couple of times. But like, I think the answer is the same answer. Charlie's always given us about how we fix this. And this is we have to make faith a priority. And you know, we have to give our life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Until that happens. You're going to keep seeing this. I mean, that's, this is no different from Cain killing Abel. You know, it's, it is just depravity upon depravity. And there's only one solution. It's a cross. Charlie knew that he understood it, politics and conservatism, it comes out of that. But you know, we have to solve, I think, the root issue. And and that is, we have to reintroduce young people to the gospel. And thankfully, at Charlie's Memorial, that happened on a massive scale, where the whole world heard. And I'm optimistic about where do we go from here. But there's still in typical Charlie Kirk fashion, there's still a lot of work to do. A lot of work to do. In fact, you saw the left kind of go crazy. And then they started using words as Christian nationalism. This is the rise of Christian nationalism at its, you know, at its best and really being very critical of Christianity. I want to play a clip from Don Lemon, saying just that. And here is where we have to tell the truth here. What we saw in that arena was not simply faith finding public expression. It was religious nationalism on full display. That is the truth. That is my truth. This is my freedom of expression. This is my First Amendment right to be able to tell you the truth from my point of view, not just from my point of view. This is what it is. So there you go. I mean, Pastor, this is where the left gets petrified by, and I say the left, but I mean, I think it's those people who do not believe in God, who have done everything they can to silence Christians time and time again, to basically make us so that we don't talk about Jesus Christ in the public square, or even in our offices, let's say. So what you're seeing here, and I write about this in the book Pagan Threat, is basically a self-deification. It's all an attempt to make us God, or mankind God, rather than bow our knee to the true King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And so what happens is we want to be the ones to decide who gets to live, who gets to die. We want to be the ones who get to decide our gender or our sex. We want to be the ones who get to decide, you know, when does life start in the womb? You know, it's all an attempt to try to put ourselves on the throne so that we can decide that. You know, Charlie has been called by many, you know, provocative. And my response to that is, Charlie was only provocative if you didn't want to hear the truth. Somebody who welcomes the truth thinks of him as wise, thinks of him as insightful, thinks of him as a breath of fresh air, you know, as speaking, you know, ancient wisdom from the scriptures. You know, if you're, I've given this analogy a few times, if you're wandering in a desert and you're about to, you know, die of dehydration and somebody comes out out of nowhere and offers you a nice cold ice water and directions to the nearest town or even offers to pick you up and take you there, the only way that that is provocative is if you don't want to be found, if you don't want to be saved. And unfortunately, we have a world right now that would rather declare themselves God than actually be shown the way to salvation. And I think Charlie understood that, but I think the problem is even worse than what we thought it was. So what inspired you to, first of all, tell me about how your journey, your faith journey, how you end up becoming a pastor. I mean, you look too cool to be a pastor. My favorite, now I'm Catholic, so I've got, you know, kind of like the cool priest, the nerdy priest, and then I've got my Presbyterian minister who is one of my dearest friends who, you know, has been a Presbyterian minister for, I don't know, 40, 50 years. Yeah. So yeah, like how, tell us your life journey in terms of how you get to this point that you're like, I need to spread the gospel. Yeah, I mean, I'll give you the short version of it. I grew up in a great Christian home. My parents loved the Lord. I accepted Christ when I was 12. I really felt set apart in some ways. We lived about a mile and a half from the church. I would come over. Where did you grow up? I grew up in, outside of South Bend, Indiana. Oh, really? Yeah, so the, you know, it was, it was a great upbringing in the Midwest. It was back when you could, you know, ride your bike, everywhere and play outside until the streetlights came on and, you know, all those sorts of, all the, the, the upbringing that you want, you know, for your kids. And we lived so close to the church. I would come over to the church quite a bit. I used to come over here so often I would break into the gym at the church to play basketball or to, you know, just hang out with, you know, my friends and stuff like that. And we weren't causing trouble. We just, we just wanted a place to be. I did that so many times the church eventually gave me a key because that way I would stop kind of breaking the screens and everything. And I kind of had what I call the Samuel experience, you know, Samuel in the Old Testament, he just grew up in the church and he grew up, you know, serving there and eventually kind of found his calling there. And that's really what happened to me. I mean, I didn't have, there wasn't abuse, there wasn't trauma. I had a great experience in church, some great mentors in church growing up. And, and, you know, I started preaching at about the age of 17. We didn't have a youth pastor at the time, we kind of had, you know, there were gaps in the times that the church had a youth pastor. And I just started kind of ministering to my peers. And so for a while, I was leading the youth group as a high school kid. And now I'm, you know, 45 years old, and I've been the senior pastor of the same church for my 21st year, I've been at the same church, my wife and I started. And, you know, we've started from kind of people with no name or reputation in Indiana, and God's elevated us to, you know, just amazing places across the land to be able to sit with world leaders. You know, this last week at Charlie's Memorial, I mean, it was in the midst of the grief, you're at the same time going, Lord, what is this? Like, how did I know? And I just, as Charlie said, so often, I've just tried to make my life be about here I am, Lord, send me, use me, Lord, I'm willing to step out. Sometimes it's just about saying yes. We of course have a lot of steps in that journey that has gotten us here. I've been with TPUSA faith for about a year and a half. I, Charlie, it's, you know, kind of a fun story. I didn't apply for this job. I wasn't looking for work. I did not have working for Charlie Kirk on my bingo card. I had spoken a couple of pastor summits for Turning Point. I had written a few books. My last book, Woke Jesus, did pretty well. And it got on Charlie's radar. He had me on his show a few times. And the last time I was on his show, it would have been a year ago in May. He just confided in me and said, hey, we're thinking about, you know, making changes with our faith department. We really want to have a pastoral figure at the helm, like operationally leading what's happening here. Rob McCoy, who you saw at the memorial, he's been a, he's been Charlie's pastor for, you know, over a decade. He's been, you know, in the mix. He serves as like a pastor emeritus to the organization. Yeah. But you know, Charlie, Charlie saw the need for having somebody kind of in the, you know, in the day to day of the operations leading the staff. And so he mentioned to me, it's like, you know, we're going to start trying to collect some candidates. If you have any names, let me know. And I said, you get four or five names. I'll fly out on my own dime. I'll vet them for you. I'll make sure you get the right person. And he's like, I might take you up on that. And a month later, he shoots me a tax. We jump on a call. He starts talking to me about like, Hey, I think I really need your voice spiritually in the movement. We want your help for this, everything else. It just wasn't clear. He was offering me a job. And I was like, Charlie, yeah. I said, if you need me to come out there, I'll do it. I said, I can come out once a month, whatever it looks like just to support you guys for a little bit. So you get on your feet, you know, with the faith department where you want it. And he's like, no, Lucas, you're not understanding. He goes, I'm offering you the job. He's like, you're the guy. He's like, you're supposed to be doing this. And, um, that was, that was not what I expected to hear it. You know, it was kind of one of those moments, like, okay, that was not my plan, but we prayed about it. I knew as soon as the words came out of his mouth, that it was God. And I just didn't know how I was going to say yes yet and how I was going to make it work. So I continue to pastor a church in South Bend, Indiana, and I commute to Phoenix. Um, and Charlie and I both felt that with me being a pastor, I was more effective. Uh, if I'm calling on the nation's pastors as one of them, rather than just an operational person, uh, and not say there's anything wrong with that, but right now that's what seemed to make the most sense. And so I'm honored to do it. It's honored to serve under him. I learned so much from him, even though he's 15 years younger than me, just such wisdom, just a once in a lifetime, you know, mind to be able to, uh, you know, really learn from and, and serve. Um, but we're going to keep the mission going. I don't plan to go anywhere and we got a lot of work to do. Uh, so my daughter graduated from the university of Notre Dame. My second daughter is at university of Notre Dame. So we're fighting. Hey, come on out. Yes. Now that I know you're in South Bend, Indiana, we're going to come visit. We'd love to have you. So, um, the, let's talk about your book, Pagan Threat. Charlie wrote the forward. Uh, and one of the lines he said here was the fact that we're basically fighting to restore the moral order that existed prior to Christianity. In other words, the moral order of the pagans are we returning is the nation is the world. Are we returning into this pagan moral order? So I would say from the moral standpoint, yes, without a doubt, but it's looking differently. So, you know, sometimes people see the title of the book and I will mention this in case I forget it later. There are a lot of, um, fraudulent copies of Pagan Threat that have popped up on Amazon. Really? There's about 15 different versions that they steal our font. They steal our colors. They don't have the forward from Charlie Kirk. It's not from the publisher. So, and, and several of those have become a bestseller, um, uh, through this process because the book is doing so well. So, um, you know, so make sure you order the right one when you go online. Um, the, you know, when you look at this, paganism has changed. I would say that what we have today is a neo paganism. It's not just that people are worshiping Thor and Odin or that everybody believes in Mount Olympus or that all the Greek gods have came back or something like that. Right. What has happened though, is that, you know, and what's driving this, it's not a revival of paganism by itself. It's actually paganism that's being, um, pushed onto people and injected into society through network television, through the cartoon network, through, you know, um, you know, Disney films through all this sort of stuff as well as school systems and these things and what they're, what they're learning. And it's for the purpose of supplanting Christianity. So Marxism is a parasite. It has to have a host to survive. Christianity is a bad long-term host for Marxism. Short term, you can have Christian, you know, uh, the Christian left and it, it, you know, it appears to work. But what's happening is if you add Marxism, Christianity, eventually people will deconstruct from the Christian side of that. And they'll just become Marxists who are atheists or agnostic in some form. Uh, and so, uh, Marxism needs a better vehicle. And it found that vehicle in paganism and specifically in witchcraft and the occult in, um, I think some of the, uh, the trans cult, you know, uh, movement that's happening, I think also in radical environmentalism and globalism that we're seeing things like theosophy. And so I go through this, the book, whenever I put a book like this together, I really want it to be the definitive guide. And so, uh, and I will also say that my, my books are very progressive, uh, in the sense that they build upon each himself. So the first chapter is laying the foundation for really what is the, the main thing that I want you to get towards the end. It's kind of just the style that I have written several of these with. And so it's important to see the formation of this belief system and that this is all intentional, um, to push Christianity aside because a Marxist morality does not function in a Christian society, but it does in a pagan one. Let's talk about the propaganda, the social media behind this. You mentioned the trans culture, how, I mean, goodness. Like I remember, I think it was on Tik TOK where they would do these, uh, mutilations, right? Literally like these girls were turning into boys, boys into girls. They would videotape all these segments. And then this propaganda being pushed out to almost make them into this victim like figure having an impact on millions of kids really across the United States and even across the globe. I mean, tell us about the harm of that where propaganda has been such a huge component of increasing this godless society and really tearing down Christianity. First of all, and I don't have all the receipts for this. I'll leave this up to some better investors who gave journalists and myself, but I know that there's some people out there that are working on some of this. It's important that the average person recognize that media is, is in many times fabricated. Okay. And what I mean by that is a lot of what we see from social media to actual news media is, is pay to play. It's either favors or it's, um, well funded, funded to push some idea. And so you see, well, this is just an influencer on Tik TOK and they're making a video. Well, are they getting paid to make that video? Are they getting, I'm, I'm convinced there's kids that are getting paid to pretend like they're Muslim right now so that this will be a thing that's pushed. We're seeing that, that shift happening. There's also bots. Uh, there's, there's, you know, kind of these, uh, just fake accounts that are leaving comments. So it looks like there's tons of support for particular issue or tons of views for particular issue. And there's really not, there's a lot of fabrication. You have to wade through all of that when you look at this. Um, but you know, when it comes to this, I think that, you know, some of the propaganda, you know, we have seen is, uh, there's a huge push. Tik TOK live is where a lot of this I think is at. I'm a big Tik TOK fan. It's actually my largest platform, but I think that Christians need to be out there and engaged with it. It's a marketplace right now, but it's also, there's a lot of dark spaces. And so you have to be careful with it. Um, so, you know, you go to Tik TOK live, I could open it right now and show you people doing tarot readings live, you know, on Tik TOK. It's what I call digital paganism or techno paganism is where, you know, it's a combination of technology with this. We're also seeing this with pop culture a lot. You know, um, there's been a huge conversation about male, uh, um, young Gen Z men that have been trending more conservative. Charlie Kirk was certainly at the center of that trend. Most of the names like Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, um, you know, Glenn Beck, of course, president Trump, JD, others. And, and, but when you start thinking about young women, it's different. You know, if you try to name a household conservative women that everybody knows their name, because when you say Joe Rogan, virtually the whole nation knows who he is or at least something about him. You say Charlie Kirk. I mean, especially now everybody knows who Charlie Kirk is. You say, you know, you just name a random conservative, even if it's a Congresswoman, not everybody knows who they are. There's a lot of people that aren't involved in politics, but if you say Taylor Swift, you say Nicki Minaj, you say Beyonce, these are names that everybody knows. And a lot of them talk about their pagan, their relationship with pagan practices. They're carrying potions, they're carrying tarot cards in their purse. They have different identities. They take home and they go to on stage. They say that they have a spirit. You know, Nicki Minaj says she has an eight year old boy that lives on the inside of her named Roman, that he died and his spirit embodied her and he's the one that performs through her when she goes on stage. So young women are disproportionately being fed this on a much more significant scale than, than young men are. Not to say that men are completely, you know, void of, of, um, you know, indoctrination with this, but it's different. You bring up a great point because I, my oldest, we have the five daughters and the oldest is a 22 and she was sharing with me some poll numbers about how the Gen Z women, the ones that even voted for like the Harris voters, but also the Trump voters, the women, when you ask, uh, about having children, it was down almost at the bottom. Like it was all about financial independence, financial security, kind of up at the top. And then this idea of kind of marriage and children, even Trump women, Trump, Trump Gen Z women were saying, ah, starting a family, having kids down low on the priority. And when, when you saw the Trump Gen Z males, their idea of getting married and starting a family was much higher. So that to me is a interesting, yeah. And what that means is it might be really hard to find a date. If you're single right now, it's a bad time if you're looking for, but look, I think that that's what, that's what turning point comes in. Just come to a turning point event. And you're going to find somebody who who might think more like you America fest or something like that. Look, I think that in all seriousness, that, um, you know, this, this is, it's, it's symptomatic of a greater problem. And that is seeing the value for life, seeing the value for family. Ultimately the pagan, you know, we're not, you know, there's, there's 1.5 million people that consider themselves pagans in America. That's expected to, you know, I think 1.5 million right now that consider themselves practicing pagans. Now on the big scheme of things, when, you know, we have, you know, 300 and some million people in the country, that's not a huge demographic now it's growing. It's expected to double in, in recent years. Um, but the bigger concern is what I would call soft paganism. And so soft paganism is there's people that don't know that they're pagan or that they've adopted pagan practices that think that they're Christian or think that they have more of a Western worldview mindset. So for instance, I was out doing man on the street videos because we do a lot of those at turning point here recently in Las Vegas, it was 115 degrees, you know, super hot out on the strip and I'm out there in shorts and a t-shirt talking to people that come by. And we got a lot of people that talk to us. We got some people that yelled at and cussed at us when they figure out who we were with. And this was before, you know, uh, Charlie's Charlie's death. And you know, temperature was maybe down a little bit. Um, but I would talk to people and they would tell me they were a Christian. And then I would ask him a question on camera and say, well, what do you believe happens after we die? And about, I would say 40% of those who said they were Christian told me they believe in reincarnation. And so, wow. 40%. Yeah. And again, now maybe because it's the Vegas strip, that's, I'm not going to say that 40% of the church thinks that they're reincarnated because 40% of the church might not be out on the Vegas strip right now. But look, it's still, it still was, it was telling of something, you know, I'll wait for George Barna to come out with the actual stat and tell us all what it actually is. But the, um, you know, when you look at this, what does that mean? It means a lot of people think that they're Christians, but their Christian worldview has been eroded by paganism and, and they don't know that they're holding to certain pagan prep. We have Christians that are using sage. They'll burn sage in their house to cleanse evil spirits. That's witchcraft. We have Christians that adopt a, what's called the Enneagram. A lot of people get mad at me for this one, but the Enneagram, it's got its roots. The founder of the Enneagram is on camera. You can find it on YouTube or different places. He's on camera saying that he came up with the whole system through what's known as automatic writing, basically allowing a spirit guide to take over his body and to move his hand in order to develop the platform of the Enneagram. And we have Christian pastors that are using this to do, you know, spiritual development with their church staff. It's paganism. And so, you know, you really have to ask some tough questions today. And, uh, and, and, you know, even, even something like Planned Parenthood is paganism. You know, it's a, it's a sacrament of offering a child. Um, so this is all soft paganism. It's sort of unseen paganism in that way. And that is, I think the greater threat than even the blatant pagans that are out there. So I do want to play this. President Trump speaking at the United Nations, uh, this week at the general assembly made him actually addresses Christianity. Our commitment values and those values really that we hold so dear together. Let us defend free speech and free expression. Let us protect religious Liberty, including for the most persecuted religion on the planet today. It's called Christianity. And let us safeguard our sovereignty and cherish qualities that have made each of our nations so special, incredible, and extraordinary. So pastor, I listening to the president, and this is an issue that is very near and dear to my heart, uh, CPAC working on the ending of Christian persecution across the globe. We have allies partners that we have coalition partners on this issue. We've seen so many innocent Christians, Catholics being martyred, uh, at the hands of Islamic militants. And president Trump addressing this on the international stage, I think is very telling, uh, tell us your reaction and why we continue to see the constant persecution of our church. Yeah, this is a major problem. In fact, um, the last, the last talk I saw Charlie give as a full length talk was at our pastor summit in August. And I was with Charlie multiple times after that, but it was the last full speech that I was with him for. And his, his main talk to these pastors was warning them about, um, the rise of Islam in the U S and that the church has to be extremely vigilant on how we navigate this. Um, Islam only works much like Marxism. And again, those two are finding kind of a weird, you know, kindred spirit between each other. Unfortunately, it only works when Christian values have been pushed out of society. Now Christianity is very interesting because Christianity allows for a sense of for, for some sort of pluralism, uh, as a believer, you know, uh, and this is what the, this is why what you saw the other night at the Memorial is not Christian nationalism. Uh, because what Christianity says is that, um, we believe that this is the truth. We hope you come to know it. If you don't, that's your choice. We're not going to force this on you in the sense that you have to accept it or face some sort of punishment or, or, or forcing you to do this. Yes. You know, ultimately God is the judge. We're going to leave that to him for eternity, but we're saying, we hope that you come to realize this because it's changed our life. We think it can change your life too. And we invite you into that process. If you don't believe that, we, we expect that if you're going to be part of our society, that you hold to a Western worldview and you, you follow the laws of our land, which happened to be based upon Christian principles, but that doesn't, we're not going to force you to be a Christian, but we are going to say, murder is wrong. Stealing is wrong. You know, all these days, and we can go down through the list and be able to address this. So our morality is based upon that. We're going to govern based upon that framework, but you have a choice in the matter. But that's not what Islam does. That's not what Marxism does. Islam and Marxism. They will say, this is the law of the land. This is Sharia law. This is what you have to accept or else. Marxism says, this is what you have to accept or else you look at something on social media. We don't want you to look at, we're going to come cut a hole in your wall and drag you out and put you in prison because you're not allowed to do that unless we say that that you are. And this is all again, that self deification. And the jihadist basically saying, if you're an infidel, we can kill you. Like we can do whatever we want. Yeah. And we're, and we're justified in doing so. It's actually, they're both, both Marxism and Islam are self-righteous in that they, this is, they don't think they're doing this out of evil. They think they are purging society. This is, it's got more in common with Nazism than it does with anything else. They think they are, it's okay to purge society of somebody who's unrighteous for that reason. And even worse pastor that then with the Marxist and with the communist, they want the government, the state to be God. They want the state to be the parent. They're the ones that dictate the terms of what you can and cannot believe in. There is no freedom in those authoritarian dictatorships what is the communism ideology. And you know, you look at Russia, you look at the history of Russia, the massive killings, the millions and millions of innocent people that were killed that died of famine because they have no regard for life. They have no regard for the dignity of life, which is I think so central to Christianity. I do want to get a sense here because obviously there's this constant back and forth and of the separation of church and state, which is what always the, what the, you know, the left makes that argument is a separation of church and state. You can't bring Christianity into, you know, this, this realm. I mean, we even saw, for example, these Democrats voting against this congressional resolution basically, you know, criticizing Charlie Kirk instead of saying let's stand against let's stand united against political violence. How do you respond to that? How do we respond to this idea of separation of church and state? But I feel so strongly that I want my, my Christianity, which is the center of who I am to be part of my discourse in the public arena. Yeah. So the great question, I think one that a lot of people struggle with if they don't take time to work through it. So, so first off, our founders came here. When you look at the history, they actually believed that they were setting up a millennial reign of Jesus Christ. They came here with the expectation that that this was a kingdom that God was setting up so that it could be a place where godly principles and values could reign, you know, for forever. Um, and there was, there was a sense of faith in virtually every single one of our founders. Um, you know, we had each one of even our states as they were formed mentioned God and their constitutions, I think, except for one, um, there is, uh, the, you know, God has mentioned four different times, just alone in the declaration of independence that's unheard of for any other nation. Right. Yeah. Uh, and so you go to, you know, I, I remember I posted a video here recently of, I was at the, uh, the Capitol building and we were doing worship. Uh, I was there with Chad Connolly from, um, you know, and others for a lot of mutual friends that we have. And David Barton was there. We got a great tour of the Capitol and we had a group of pastors with us and, and we were all singing in the rotunda and it's all, you know, it's just a beautiful place and I'm a terrible singer. So I kind of kept my voice down, but everybody else, okay. We share that. I can't swim or sing. That's my, that's my confession. But here's the deal. I have five daughters and my husband, they sing beautifully. Like we go to church. And then when I start singing, they do one of these where they look at me like, I've gotten the look. It's like the worst. I'm like, fine, I won't sing. So everybody's singing. And you know, I've, I filmed this and put it on online and I have all these people, you know, going, this is Christian nationalism, you know, all this sort of stuff. There's all the paintings in that room that have been hanging up in that room for a really long time. All have Christian references in them. Our, our God is, you know, reference all over our nation's Capitol in the white house, in the Supreme court, uh, in, in, you know, uh, you know, all of our buildings, he's, he's there, he's present because the concept of God and Christianity was infused in our nation from the beginning. Now what was not infused with the state running the church and what was not infused was also the church running the state, but it was expected that the state should have reverence for the gospel reverence for the Lord, uh, reverence for the teachings of scripture, reference for the law of God. There was a reverence for all of that. And so, you know, what, what, you know, this idea of church and state, we all know it wasn't part of the constitution. It came from the Danbury Baptist letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote. And that was specifically to try to prevent the government from giving preference to one denomination over another. If the government comes out and says only Catholicism is recognized or only, you know, uh, you have to be Calvinist to be, you know, recognized in this nation or you get preference as a result of that, that becomes a problem. That becomes a, a, uh, inner, that, that's where separation of church and state, I would start saying, Hey, what about separation of church and state guys? But you know, what we're seeing here as the gospel is reaching highest officials in the land and they're, they're sharing the gospel of the memorial of our friend, Charlie Kirk and testifying to the world of the saving power of Jesus Christ. That's not Christian nationalism. That's called politicians who happen to be Christians and their wives. And I think that we need a lot more of that. I know people are going to hate it if they don't, you know, if they reject the truth, but it doesn't matter what you do. They're going to hate everything you do because they reject the truth. And so I think that we have to keep moving and we have to recognize that there's a strategic opportunity right now for truth to be declared. And I think that, you know, Charlie Kirk, if he was here, he'd be taking advantage of it every second of it. And I would say Christians who happen to be politicians. How about that? I think that's even better. I really want to get here. You're, I could literally spend hours talking to you because this is just so amazing, but let me get here. Your final thoughts as, as first of all, how, what's your message to those of us out there? As we enter into this next phase, right? Like there's obviously the grieving part, you know, the dealing with the shock of everything and then moving into that next phase, which is, I believe the phase of action, the phase, phase of purpose, the phase of listening to God and what God uses you and your talents to, to do what he's asking you to do. What is, what is, yeah, what is your, what is your advice to us? I appreciate that. You know, there's some interesting stuff that happens in tragedy like this. And I think that, you know, obviously this is a, this is an extreme, just, just, it's an unthinkable situation. Um, I miss Charlie so much and honestly, as we're starting to get past the Memorial, it's hit me even more. I've been in such like go mode leading up to that. Now I felt it more today and yesterday than I have even at the beginning, I think. And, and I think it's the reality of it's really sinking in. And so, um, you know, there is a unity that happens in these moments or that can happen these moments. It doesn't always happen. And we're seeing that right now. And, and that unity though is it's fragile and it's easy to be lost. It's easy to be, to find disagreement, you know, after the emotion, the initial emotion kind of wears off a little bit more. We have to really make it. It's very important right now that we don't forget what happened, that we don't forget who's responsible for what happened. Right. We remember the solution to it that Charlie proclaimed. And that is the gospel that we find unity across denominational lines, that we don't make this about, you know, Catholic versus Protestant or charismatic versus Calvinist. We have to find, this is a major tenant for us at TPSA faith. We have to fight with the unify the church around primary doctrine. And I would say that also the conservatives have to be unified. I love seeing Elon and Trump shaking hands and sitting together, you know, at, at the Memorial. That was a beautiful thing. And I think Charlie wanted to see that sort of unity. Charlie was a, was a gatherer and he was a maintainer and he was a builder. And, you know, there are people that were in Charlie's ecosystem that, and still within our ecosystem at TPSA that disagree with one another on major issues. But Charlie understood, as I heard somebody say here recently, that friction can create fire. And he understood that, that ideas when you allow them to rub together for long enough, the best ideas will rise to the top and that it will create a spark. And that spark allows us to continue. And so we have to be really avoid being tribal right now, I think. And we have to really focus on gospel, have to unify the church and have to realize that there's an ideological war on our young people. And that has to be everybody's focus on trying to win that battle and, and re-engage people with a biblical worldview. And on your book, Pagan Threat, what's the message you want the readers to get from this book? Yeah. At the end of the book, I have a seven step plan. And I think this is something that every single political strategist should read. I think, you know, if you don't think that that faith is going to be a major part of the political conversation moving forward, then you weren't paying attention to the last 12 days. It is the conversation. The, the divide between the godless and the God fearing is the conversation moving forward. Anybody that doesn't really, you know, recognize that, I think it's going to become irrelevant, you know, in the near future in this conversation. And so I hope that people heed it, but I have a seven step plan in the book, Pagan Threat that I give. And I think it's really critical that we figure that out. We learned to walk through it. We're not going to get to where we want to go by accident. It's going to take strategy. There was no better strategist than Charlie Kirk. I'm so thankful. I was able to learn under him for the last year and a half. We hope to keep that going and continue it. And with God's help and God's wisdom, you know, we hope to do more. Yeah. I've, I have great memories of Charlie. I just, you know, he had such an impact on us and on our children. Um, but we will continue to be inspired by his words and his actions. And like you say, unify the movement. It's a freedom movement. It's a faith movement. And we have, we have a lot of work to do. And Pastor Lucas Miles, I am so glad God has put us together. I, it's such a blessing to have you on our show. And also please, please, please order Pagan Threat. I'm actually also promoting this on Newsmax as well. So you're getting the double promo. Um, and please get the right version of Pagan Threat. Okay. It's a black cover. Okay. With some white and red lettering with our friend. Make sure you have the forward by Charlie Kirk. Yeah, there you go. My name they're, they're really good at scamming. So look closely. That's crazy. All right. Well, Pastor Lucas Miles, God bless you. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. And thank you all for watching. Remember to go to CPAC.org for all the events that's happening and stay close in touch also with what Turning Point is doing. Great, great ally. Thank you so much. And God bless.