Join us as we reflect on the legacy of Charlie Kirk, a modern-day apostle and political activist whose life and work have inspired a generation. Through a detailed discussion, we explore the foundational principles that guided him and the impact he had on those around him, especially within the realms of religious and political freedom. This episode also delves into the broader issues of campus activism and the ideological battles that have shaped current academic and social landscapes.
00:31:37 Program Conclusion and Call to Engagement
SPEAKER 03 :
Andrei lusto mini nuncia vit Mariae
SPEAKER 01 :
At age 10, Father Andre escaped Christian massacres by living in caves in Mount Lebanon with his family. Today, Father Andre works tirelessly to encourage American leaders to keep God in the public square, defending religious freedom at home and abroad, so that all might live in peace for the glory of God. Founder and president of the Mission of Hope and Mercy, Father Andre has learned the secret to safety, joy, and peace. Love God and one another. Now, let us spend 33 minutes on the Lord’s Day, retuning ourselves to the truth of love in the hands of God.
SPEAKER 02 :
Praise be the most holy name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, now and forever and ever. Amen. My dearly and good beloved brothers and sisters in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we want to wish you all a wonderful and good Sunday morning. I know there is a memorial happening in Phoenix, Arizona, and I know that we saw everybody flocking worldwide, not only from the United States, to respond to the tragedy, the shooting, the assassination, the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk. this is over one week now, almost, one week and a few days, we have seen how the reaction in the world has somehow varied from sympathy, condolence, I call this the normal reaction, the human kind reaction, the reaction that should be from any one of us who has a common sense, who has a clarity in their discernment between good and evil, a reaction that shows the good human character away from political affiliation or away from ideological beliefs. The tragedy in the world, when it hits one, it hits all. The human flesh is weak and it’s easy to injure the human flesh, whether it is yours, mine, or anyone’s human flesh. The human life is very precious and it’s a gift from God that we cherish. And human beings have their families, their privacies, have a home they expect to go back to, have mom, dad, wife, husband, children, siblings, friends to go back to. They have a company, they have work, they have friends in their labor team to whom they would want to go back. Nobody lives and assumes they’re going to die every day. Even though there is this wisdom when they taught us in the monastery at an early age, live every day as if it was your last day. With this, my friends, I believe I could tell that Charlie Kirk must have lived every day in his life as almost it was the last day of his life. And I only am able to say that because I know from what I saw. I know from when I met him a long time ago, from every meeting. Dr. Dundra, even Julian as well, have met him probably since 2016 or 17 when he came to us. when he came to the Colorado-Denver conservative evangelical, Western conservative summit, I believe. We used to meet him, we used to see him in the hallway with many younger people dressed up, always in red shirts, I believe, at the time. before he became in a suit and a tie. We knew him when he was young. And somehow it means the world to us today that Dr. Julian Dunraven, myself, as a friend and a team member of the Mission of Hope and Mercy and people who worked and some to maintain, to keep, to safeguard, to uphold religious freedom, the freedom of speech, our faith, our family, our constitutional rights. And of course, the clarity of our sovereign nation being defined by borders, by clear government, by good operation, by rights and duties, by law and order, by private and public sector, by the clear division and somehow ad hoc accountability system amongst all the various sectors of the government, from the executive to the legislative, to the legal, to the media. So we believe in what Charlie Kerr believed and was promoting. at the days in any summit, in any conference, I believe, in any place in Colorado, outside of Colorado, which gave us an opportunity to go and to say, let’s work together to save this nation, to remind the people that something is being taken away from us. And that’s what I believe. We met personally with Charlie, and we noticed that he has a talent of a prophet. He has a talent of an apostle. He was a great political activist. But I do believe that he died as a Christian. He absolutely died. So before I want to comment and do my own introduction as a matter of fact to that, I want to take a moment with you. How was America in 2016 when Charlie was about probably 18 years old or 17 years old, probably 18 years old, did not go to college? When we met in the hallway of this beautiful big convention center in Denver, you and me and Charlie and everyone else, what was going on in the United States if you take us back to 2016?
SPEAKER 03 :
2016, the Trump election, I think it surprised everyone. But there was a great deal of hope, I think, in the conservative movement of having President Trump come into office and take over. There was a great deal of optimism, I think. And Charlie certainly reflected that. I had no idea how young he was at the time, because he seemed so… He seemed so mature and so on point with everything he did. I would never have guessed that he was only 18 when I first met him. And I don’t know if that was back in 2016 or a little bit earlier, but yeah, it was… Or 17, something like that. He was very impressive when I met him and far more composed. I’m a college professor myself, and so 18, 19, 20-year-olds, basically who I deal with in my undergraduate classes, he seemed quite a bit more advanced, despite the fact that he didn’t even know this.
SPEAKER 02 :
Dr. Julian Dan Raven a friend of the Mission of Hope and Mercy, a neighbor of the Mission of Hope and Mercy and of my days at St. Rafa. And of course, as a constitution lawyer and a teacher of law in a local college here in Denver, Colorado. And Julian, you were very active in your days in university in Boulder. Yes. For many reasons. It’s up to you if you want to talk about your own reasons why you were active. What were you advocating for? you even were threatened. And even, I do not know if you wanna go, I just wanna give the young American kids that, you know, when we work on campuses, when there’s activism on campuses, people do receive threats. Let’s just move away a little bit from before we talk more closely to what happened to Charlie. It’s not as strange that on colleges, people threaten people and there could be violence and the people might need protection. Tell us in your days in one of the US colleges here in Colorado, what happened?
SPEAKER 03 :
I’ll just give you a brief summary. You have to go back a ways for this. Many of you know that the progressive movement started actually overseas and they realized very early on that if they were going to capture a good deal of success in government that they would first need to focus on education. And so the progressive movement tried very hard to get people into academic positions where they could continue to push their ideas. And by the time I went to college, I think we had one, one conservative professor left. And that was Dr. Sir Edwin Rosig. who was a remarkable man. And I had the pleasure of studying under him. But some of his students wanted to bring in Ward Connerly to the University of Colorado. And that was turned down. Ward Connerly, for those of you who do not know, is the black regent of the University of California who abolished affirmative action in that state. And the young Republicans at the University of Colorado wanted to bring him in to speak. they were turned down. And at the time I was a democratic socialist. And I lived very happily on campus doing my hiking and meditation. You’re a democratic socialist. Yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
And you might explain in this for our people who are listening to us on KLZ for 33 minutes on the lowest day. And also for the podcast Irrevocable, the people who follow us on X and the Truth Social and other social media. And especially younger people. Let’s start talking to younger people. What does democratic socialism mean? We’re talking in the 90s, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, just before the year 2000. So I can tell you what it meant to me, which these days you would describe as conservative. It was someone who believed in free speech and believed in giving everyone an opportunity to speak, believed in respecting everyone and being against this sort of oppression that our professors saw in in general society. It wasn’t very well maintained, I can tell you that. But I remember my roommate, who was the head of the College of Republicans, came home one day and was very upset about not being able to bring in Warcock. And he asked me, if you believe in free speech so much, why is it that you and your fellow liberals are silencing my group? Well, I didn’t agree with that, and I thought he did have a right to bring in the speaker of his choice. And so I got involved, got myself appointed to some of the boards, the funding boards at the University of Colorado, and quickly discovered that things were not as I thought they were. My own funding board, after I forced them to foot the bill and bring in Ward Connolly to speak on campus, they all showed up to his speech dressed in KKK robes.
SPEAKER 02 :
In Boulder. That was a Boulder campus. Yes. And how many students were usually in the Boulder campus?
SPEAKER 1 :
30,000.
SPEAKER 02 :
30,000 students. We’re talking late 90s, before the year 2000, before 9-11. Just before. Just before 9-11. And it was…
SPEAKER 03 :
That didn’t go away. That moment on pushed me further and further to the right as I determined that this happy leftist crowd that I had identified myself weren’t really for free speech. They weren’t really for tolerance. They were only for tolerance if you agreed with them and stayed in your assigned role.
SPEAKER 02 :
May I interrupt you a little bit? I think you’re using terms I wonder if at the time they applied or you’re using them simply because they apply today. Before the 2000s, could you really speak about leftist and right? Yes. Or it was democratic and republicans?
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, no. It was left and right. In fact, on the University of Colorado campus, by the time it really heated up and I started founding a political takeover of the student government, many of the people in the conservative party at Boulder were Democrats. But the campus was so far left that even the Democrats seemed conservative by comparison.
SPEAKER 02 :
And… Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
That… those people and the reason i tell this and yes you’re you’re correct it became very heated when we discovered or when we founded a conservative political party at boulder and i i got weekly death threats i had police escorts to class um and just became kind of used to that but the people that i was dealing with at the time are the same people now who are, but they’re now out of college. They have escaped the university. They’ve escaped the very strange little leftist cells within the university. And they’re now in government. They’re running the state legislatures. They’re running executive agencies. And we saw them and the ideology that they subscribed to the Charlie Gersh assassination, which believes that words are violence, that disagreement is oppression, and that the only way to respond to that is with violence and force to silence. And that started years ago.
SPEAKER 02 :
This is Father Andre and the mission of hope and mercy with our 33 minutes on the lowest day and irrevocable podcast. Conversing with Dr. Julian Dunraven, a constitutional lawyer and a graduate from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a political activist, I believe, himself. Is it okay to call you political activist or you were a political activist? Certainly. Some of the issues that you covered on campus Was social justice a key or more economy? Because I know today we’re going to speak a little bit. We’re going to have to speak for our friends who want to remain with us after 33 minutes is over. Please make sure you go on missionofhopeandmercy.org. That is missionofhopeandmercy.org. And look for irrevocable.org. for this episode with Dr. Julian Don Raven. Dr. Julian Don Raven. Well, we call him here Kirk, but today we decided not to call him Kirk because we do not want to confuse Charlie Kirk, of whom we would like to speak with Kirk, who is a known name for us in the family and amongst friends. and co-workers and family members. So please make sure after the 33 minutes to continue watching our episode of Irrevocable. You can continue watching and streaming this episode on our X page, Mission of Hope and Mercy, or on our website, missionofhopeandmercy.org, missionofhopeandmercy.org. Dr. Julian, the type of issues that Charlie ended up speaking about, which honestly attracted me a lot. Beside religion, beside God, beside Christianity, he had an economic vision. And he started talking about the trade. He started talking about the sanctions. He started talking about the tariffs. And almost people thought that actually he almost knew the thoughts of President Trump. And he was able to convey them. He was able to explain. He was able to share them on campuses and to go on debates and spoke with great clarity. But in your days, what were the issues on campuses? Is it always economy and social justice and sexuality and the gender and the transgenderism? What were the issues, if you compare your days to the days of Charlie Kerr on campuses?
SPEAKER 03 :
It was the same. It’s just that what was limited to college debates back then is now in mainstream societal debate now.
SPEAKER 02 :
Can you explain that? Like, There was transgenderism at the time, and it was heated.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, yes. And of course, that was before the days of Obergefell versus Hodges that universalized gay marriage. So there was a lot more activism on that front, too. But no, the issues were the same. It was race, gender, sexuality, economic disadvantage.
SPEAKER 02 :
Race, gender.
SPEAKER 03 :
So essentially, all the forces of critical studies that were back then have now trained people to be in the public sphere today. So by critical studies, I mean the inductive sort of reasoning, the intellectual era of Marxism, and pick your critical study. So you have critical race theory that says, Everyone is a more oppressor based on your race and advantage that you get from that. Critical economic studies, which says that however much money you have or what your position in class and society determines whether you are privileged or oppressed. Critical gender studies, same thing, but with gender.
SPEAKER 02 :
and critical sexuality so if you’re born white if you’re born hispanic if you’re born black if you’re born any other race you are with specific advantages and disadvantages you come with a specific package basically and that’s it correct and everything in critical studies sees the world through a lens of power
SPEAKER 03 :
an oppressor versus oppressed. And it’s just which type of oppression they want to look at. And because they see it all through that lens, they don’t use deductive reasoning and say, what are the facts and how did we get there? They rather have their lens of power and oppression and they fit everything to it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Was religion ever part of the argument?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. Religion was largely considered one of the oppressing forces.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oppressing forces?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. And so we had a lot of trouble with religious organizations unable to secure funding or their speakers. And that was one of my first experiences with the First Amendment, having to instruct people on what truly the First Amendment meant and what non-discrimination meant.
SPEAKER 02 :
So there were religious groups, there were ministries on the campuses, and they were part of the oppressive groups, what you’re saying?
SPEAKER 03 :
They were called that by the leftists, yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
By the leftists? Okay, and why is that?
SPEAKER 03 :
They represented more of traditional society as far as the leftist groups were concerned.
SPEAKER 02 :
So religious groups were almost like a three mega. If we consider the agenda of President Trump about pro-life, about the marriage between man and woman, the traditional family values, Judeo-Christian principles, capitalism. So basically, on campuses, there were religious active ministries.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
That reached them?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. There were Campus Catholics.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
There was Campus for Save the Christ. There were various other groups as well. All of them faced a great deal of difficulty in getting any sort of funding or recognition for their events because they were disdained. and not just by the leftist groups, but by the professors themselves. As you know, the higher you rise in education, the more likely you are to be on the left. Why is that? Rationalism and nihilism that have taken over. The idea of believing in something larger than what reason can comprehend has become unfashionable. And in the academic world, it is tantamount to career suicide to admit that you believe in something.
SPEAKER 02 :
Would students agree with you today if they are listening to you? I mean, it’s mind-boggling for me. I mean, you know, I have like 4,000 books. I speak 12 languages. I know 12 languages. Spoke about seven languages, still speak some. You ask me which language I think of, and I told you, it depends on the dimension I’m looking for. Because languages have dimensions, and dimensions affect the clarity, perception, reception. But is it possible that today’s students in college don’t want to protect their critical thinking. They don’t care for their freedom of thinking, meaning that they have a methodology. Isn’t it enjoyable to them that they discover the truth?
SPEAKER 03 :
It is, but they don’t know it. My class, for instance, at college I teach in the business department, is one of the hardest classes in our department. And… You would think that that would mean that students were very hesitant to take class and were happy to leave as quickly as possible. And yet consistently every semester, I have students who have already taken class back in the classroom, sitting through it again, not because they have to, but because they, they say that it’s the only place on campus that they get to talk about ideas.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
And Keep in mind, too, that the progressive movement began its educational capture back in the 1800s. So the late 1800s, 1880s, that sort of thing. They’ve been at this for close to 150 years. And it’s for today’s students who’ve all been educated by Marxist professors who taught their teachers and then their teachers taught them. Generation Z, I don’t think, has ever encountered really a freedom of thought sort of atmosphere, which is why they seem to enjoy my classes. Because it’s the first occasion that they have encountered critical thinking and freedom of thought.
SPEAKER 02 :
Another thing, in a large context of the world that produced Charlie Kirk and the world that unfortunately hurt Charlie Kirk, And the world that got engaged and followed and listened and conversed, sometimes debated ferociously, and then grew either animosity or friendship. common ground, new learnings, new discoveries. But I think he made a great improvement in his friendships with people who are on the opposite side. I think if you look at his mechanism of conversation, I think he did remove the people from the critical theory to the critical thinking.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, with dialectic. Please go ahead. And that’s the sort of, well, as a lawyer, of course, happy that he engaged in the way he did, because that’s how the law has always sought truth, right? We bring in opposing parties into a courtroom, we argue back and forth, and we hope to discover the truth. And in the over a thousand years that the common law system has been operating, we’ve not found a better way yet. And Charlie Kirk really took that back to the people. And I think that’s why he’s so popular on campus. That’s why Turning Point USA has been so successful at establishing chapters. Because sadly, debate isn’t in the college campuses. College campuses have become institutions of groupthink in which The professors all want to fit in with each other. They don’t ever want to disagree. You certainly don’t want to admit that you’re a conservative or a believer. And the students all pick up on that too, that it is, you must be stupid or you must be superstitious if you have any of those traditional beliefs. or even worse, an oppressor. And that has infected a lot of academia to the point where academia is no longer open. You’d be hard pressed at this point to find more than one conservative professor at almost any major university.
SPEAKER 02 :
Wow. When did this Marxism, in a large context, again, of the world of Charlie Kirk, my world and your world, when did the Marxist inquisition, let’s call it this way, you introduce a term that I wish, honestly, that people in America and the learned people in academia reflect upon, and people from the Judeo-Christian life and culture as well, try to discern that. It’s probably a reality that exists, and it’s obviously affecting violence, affecting violence and indoctrinating people based on gender, based on sex, based on race, based on integration, based on native, meaning locally born versus immigrant. It’s like the critical theory is dangerous. It’s affecting everything. And it is Marxist in its foundation.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. Well, and worse. You come from the Middle East. You come from Lebanon. You grew up during the Lebanese Civil War. And you saw the horrible hatred and violence that ensued. But the people who engaged in that aren’t crazy. They were radicalized in a very specific process. They’re not crazy. And indeed, many of them are intelligent. And it’s almost easier to radicalize an intelligent person because they want to belong. Whereas a fairly stupid person might claim to their upbringing and say, well, this is how I am. An intelligent person wants to fit in. And so they will allow their mind to be a little more malleable, shall we say. But the indoctrination is actually very similar. When I teach terrorism and national security law, we talk about how do you get someone to willingly go and, say, be a suicide bomber? or a terrorist attacker that say flew the planes into the World Trade Center. They’re not crazy people. You first have to give them a set of values and principles that are fairly strong. And after you give them theirs and convince them that these are good principles, then you have to say that your particular group with those good principles is facing deep oppression. And the only way to combat that oppression is to fight back. And you have to characterize the other side that is oppressing all your good values as not even human. They are so evil and soulless that they are not even human. And then you leave the person who’s listening to you with very little choice but to say, well, if I believe in these values, if I have these principles and I believe in this sort of goodness, and these are my people and they’re being oppressed, then my only choice to free them is to go kill these other people. And it’s not a crazy thing. It’s not an irrational thing. It is a deeply indoctrinated experience and it happens in terrorism. And it’s now happening on the left because the language It’s all that way.
SPEAKER 02 :
Wow. There is something. Obviously, there is a quote on campus. As I want to tell you today, I was writing on our ex-page for the Mission of Hope and Mercy, and I wrote the following. On many levels, as I said before, and I will repeat again, Charlie Kerr could be regarded as a modern-day apostle, like St. Paul. He has that courage of St. Paul. And he faces his ends. Or Marturion from Greek. meaning a testimonial, a witness, by all means, like St. John the Baptist, who came to witness to the truth. And for me, honestly, I look and I see that he could be actually counted as a shepherd, as a pastor, to many younger people who are outside the wall of the church. who fell from the various branches of the big church and on campus, they are still actually the truth seekers and they needed a good shepherd. And they were like sheep without a good shepherd. So those who killed the Charlie Curl most likely executed what Zechariah the prophet foretold about Jesus Christ. He said the following in one of the books of the Bible, strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. It’s a biblical prophecy from Zechariah chapter 13, verse 7. While after this assassination, there is a void on campuses. And this is honestly what worries me a lot, that there is a void on campuses now. The sheep is scattered and there are going to be many marketers to come and sell whatever messaging they have. So now students are becoming most likely like the sheep without the shepherd. And it is very important that the younger people on campuses now immediately go to Jesus Christ, call upon his holy name. He’s not an indoctrinator. He’s a God of love. He’s a love. He’s a redeemer. He’s a forgiver of sins. And he’s the Lord of peace. And I want the younger people to really consecrate themselves to him as a God and Savior. I want them to open the Bible. And I tell you why. To read the New Testament first and to let the Holy Spirit inspire their mind and their souls. Because I am worried about them being confused by the snares of the devil and being indoctrinated even more violently to the far, far, far side on either side of the equation. I am afraid that there will be a violence and there could be massacres on campuses or from campuses that honestly massacres could begin in the United States. This is my fear. This is my worst fear. For our people, please follow us. I want to wish you a wonderful and happy and blessed Sunday for those who have followed us on 33 Minutes on the Lord’s Day. May this blessed season of the Holy Cross bring us all protection and the light of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and Christ Satan, our enemy by his means, precious and pure blood. And may God grant rest. to the soul of Charlie, and consolation from healing from this deep wound to his widow, to his wife, Erica, to his children, his mom and dad, her family, his family, and all the loved ones in Turner Point, USA, for our President Donald Trump, and all those who are mourning the passing and the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk, please make sure you go to our website, missionofhopeandmercy.org, missionofhopeandmercy.org, and go to our podcast, Irrevocable, and to continue watching and streaming this episode with Dr. Julian Danweller.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to 33 Minutes on the Lord’s Day. To hear previous programs, visit the show page at missionofhopeandmercy.org. Listen to Father Andre every Sunday morning at 7.30 on KLZ as he speaks on the unity of Christians, religious freedom, and the biblical foundation of Judeo-Christian values and traditions. Join him in bringing hope and freedom to people across the globe while also strengthening your own faith, family, and community right here in Colorado. Reawaken the spiritual strength of America. Go to missionofhopeandmercy.org.
