The Charlie Kirk Effect: Allie Beth Stuckey on a Rising Faith Movement

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Just days after Charlie Kirk's passing, Allie Beth Stuckey carried his torch by appearing on Jubilee's Surrounded, where she defended traditional Christianity while debating 20 liberal Christians.

The video earned over a million views almost immediately, with viewers from both sides praising her performance.

Allie joins us today to discuss that experience, Christian Revival, and Taylor Swift.

I'm Georgia Howe, and this is a weekend edition of Morningwire.

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Joining us now to discuss her latest appearance on Jubilee is Allie Beth Stuckey.

Allie, thanks for coming on.

Yeah, thank you for having me.

So first off, I saw your Instagram post about your Jubilee surrounded episode and then multiple people have told me that it was great and I haven't seen it yet, but I'm eager to.

I want to hear about your experience on your side of it.

What was your general expectation going in and what was your feeling coming out?

I was so excited when the opportunity presented itself, but

this debate was scheduled for just a few days after Charlie was murdered.

And I have to say, like one of the last places I wanted to be in that moment was surrounded by liberals, considering everything that had happened.

And I thought about canceling, I thought about canceling a lot of things after Charlie was murdered.

But this was one of the last real conversations that Charlie and I had about this Jubilee debate.

He was so excited for me because he had done one and he loves debating.

Everyone knows how skilled he is at that.

And he had so many tips for me.

He sent me like 20 texts in a row, but the most meaningful one was, anyway, I've been thinking about and praying about this moment a lot for you.

And when I went back and I looked at his texts, like, you know, hundreds of his friends have after Charlie died, he just sent so much encouragement and wisdom to all of us.

But I saw that and I was like, okay, I can't cancel.

There's obviously a reason that I'm supposed to be there.

And so I was nervous going in.

It was different than anything I've done.

I'm not like a lot of people who go out there and professionally debate.

But I can honestly say that as soon as I walked into the room, I really felt that the Holy Spirit was there.

And I really felt like it was a moment, an opportunity for me to share biblical truth and to share the gospel with people who needed to hear it.

And it was difficult, but it was also really amazing.

Did you get any arguments from them that you weren't expecting?

Or was it things that you were pretty much prepared for?

You know, it's hard when you have 20 people and you don't know who they are beforehand and they know roughly what subjects you're going to talk about.

And so they have all of these tools in their tool belt when it comes to these different subjects ready to go.

And it's tough because you have no idea what people are going to say.

And so there were certainly things that were brought up.

that put me on the spot that I didn't necessarily know about in the moment.

And really, the last thing you want to do in these fast-paced debates is look like you don't know or stop or

stumble or stammer.

And so I didn't want to do that.

So you kind of have to bob and weave a little bit when they bring up obscure Greek words.

Do you know what this Greek or Hebrew word means?

Do you know what this is in the original Greek?

Do you know Exodus 21, 2?

And in the moment, when it's so fast-paced, I didn't.

And what you have to do, though, is you have to have some strategy to be able to always play to your strengths and to go back to what you do know.

So rather than going down their rabbit trail, I always just tried to say, let's bring it back to my claim.

And that kind of helped put me in a position to be able to defend my argument.

now would you have any notes for either yourself or anyone going forward for preparing for this kind of thing especially for people who are interested in kind of carrying that torch forward especially on college campuses and such yeah gosh there are so many things i did an episode on it that i just recorded as we're recording this kind of giving my tips for what to do and i think a couple things that i would say i won't give all of them because there's like 12 but i would say connect without compromise that's one of them so form that human connection, display compassion and kindness without compromise, without affirming what they are saying.

It's possible to do that, to acknowledge that maybe they're feeling pain, or maybe they did go through that difficult thing, or maybe that has been that their experience.

But here's what scripture says.

And always go back to your authority.

Always go back to what the word of God says.

It's not your opinion.

It's not your talent or perspective that you're bringing to the table.

When you rely on the word of God, that's a really safe place to be.

And again, go back to the claims.

Whenever they try to distract you with different red herrings or go down that rabbit trail, don't follow them.

You are in charge of this conversation.

You define the terms, you set the tone, and you set the parameters.

Stay within that no matter where they try to take you and you'll be a lot more successful.

Well, and that probably applies to any kind of topic in debate.

Yes.

Now, you obviously are in a lot of evangelism circles.

You do it somewhat from your platform, but also I think you're probably connected to people who do it in real life.

And that seems to be bearing fruit in the past few years.

We've seen trends of a lot of young Americans in particular that are heading back to church.

What are you hearing from the front lines of people who are connecting with these young people?

What's attractive to them about Christianity?

And what are some of the really successful ways they've been able to reach people?

Yeah, gosh, especially in the past few weeks.

And a lot of people are calling it the Charlie Kirk effect.

I've seen so many trends that Bible sales are up, that church attendance is up, that people are downloading the Bible app.

They just want to know, like, what was this faith that this person was willing to die for?

They've seen the Charlie clips going around, and maybe they didn't realize before that he wasn't primarily a political activist.

He primarily was an apologist and an evangelist.

And millions of people, I believe, have heard the gospel for the first time ever in the past few weeks.

And they want to know, wait, what is this?

You're telling me I can be.

free from sin.

You're telling me I can be satisfied.

You're telling me I can find deep joy no matter what my circumstances are and that I can have a relationship with God.

Tell me more about that.

And I'm so thankful for that.

And I just want to make sure that we who are Christians, that we meet this moment with clarity.

There's a confused and chaotic and hurting world out there.

And they are wondering what is true?

What is joy?

And it's our job as Christians to be a refuge for them and to be prepared, to give a reason for the hope that we have, which first and foremost means knowing our word, knowing why we believe what we do and being able to articulate that with love.

Now, I want to pivot a little bit.

I know this is kind of like last week's news, but Taylor Swift has a new album.

I know you have some very strong feelings about that.

What do you find most troublesome about Taylor Swift just writ large?

Yes.

Well, I think that she engages in very toxic relationships and friendships and mentalities about romance and herself.

I think that ultimately, as we all did, by the way, at one point before we were Christians, but we see this, you know, glorified through her music.

I think she worships the God of self.

Like, I think that she is the main character in her life and her songs and her relationships.

And you really see that come out in how she communicates and the messages that she conveys.

And, you know, I was a teenager, listened to Taylor Swift.

When I first started driving, that fearless album was like an anthem of independence and it was really fun.

But She was singing about teenage stuff when we were teenagers.

She was singing about teardrops on her guitar when I graduated from college.

She was talking about happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time.

Yeah, I was 22 and I felt those things too.

But now she's in her 30s and teenagers are still listening to her, but she's talking about being sexually active with someone who's not her husband.

And so it's different.

Like it's a different person.

It's a different kind of music.

It's a different brand.

And I think Christians, and especially Christian mothers, need to be extremely cognizant of that.

Now, a lot of conservatives, Donald Trump most saliently, have gone after Taylor Swift and Swifties by extension, and she's become sort of left-wing coated.

I've often thought that that might be a strategic mistake since, you know, we need to be winning these young women, not alienating them.

And just from a pragmatic standpoint, they're not radicals.

These are generally young, heterosexual women.

They're just out there trying to find their own Travis Kelsey.

So in that regard, they're sort of low-hanging fruit for conservatives.

What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I don't think that it's the most winsome thing to like personally attack her, but to criticize the principles that she stands for and to appeal to a Christian authority, the Bible, and trying to convince Christian women to follow a different example and to have their daughters follow a different example.

It's going to turn off some people.

Sure, that's true.

But I've always been primarily concerned with those who identify as Christians.

Like the world is going to whirl.

The secular is going to secular.

That's just just what they're going to do.

But for Christian women who all say that we abide by a particular standard, I want to help those women think biblically as best as I can as a finite person about culture and politics and morality.

And Taylor Swiftville, I'm so happy she's getting married.

And I'm thrilled for her.

And I want her to like be so happy and to have kids and also to like follow Christ.

I think it's actually very attractive to the right people when we are unwavering on that.

I'm just not seeker seeker sensitive.

I just really believe that people who are searching for the truth will be looking for it and will find it attractive.

So I want to ask you about your conference that you just hosted.

Tell us about Share the Arrows.

Yes.

Definitely not a Taylor Swift concert, very different than that.

And yet we had almost 7,000 women.

And that is like almost unheard of, honestly, for a conference, for any conference, but certainly like a conservative conference, a conservative Christian conference.

It was just a stunning number.

And I'll tell you, a lot of those tickets were sold after Charlie Kirk was assassinated.

Like you would think that people would say, okay, I'm bowing out.

I don't want that to happen to me.

I don't want to be a part of this because I'm scared of that risk that I'm going to take.

And the opposite happened.

Like over, I think it was probably about 2,500 tickets actually of those almost 7,000 tickets were sold in the month after Charlie was tragically assassinated.

And I think it just actually did the exact opposite of what Satan wanted it to, and that it emboldened people.

People said, whoa, whoa, whoa, I've been on the sidelines and silent for so long.

This guy just took a bullet for the things I believe.

I'm done sitting down.

I'm ready to be a part of this.

And these are stay-at-home moms mostly.

Like these are grandmothers.

These are aunts.

These are students.

These are not people who necessarily have a platform, nor are they called to in a lot of cases.

But they want to know how can they be bold for the truth in their own lives, in their own neighborhoods and in their homes and jobs and all of that.

And so that's what Share the Arrows was about.

It was about courage.

It was about truth.

It was about standing up with people who were getting arrows for standing up for

what is true.

And so it was a really just amazing, incredible Holy Spirit-filled day.

And I'm very thankful for it.

Now, I understand you hold that every year.

Is it October of every year?

This is the second.

This is the second year.

And the date will probably change slightly every year, just depending on the venue and all of that.

But yes, it'll probably be the fall every year.

All right.

Well, people can follow you on your Instagram or any of your platforms if they want to find out about that.

Well, Allie, thank you so much for coming on.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

That was author and podcast host Allie Beth Stuckey.

And this has been a weekend episode of Morningwire.

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