Frank Turek's Powerful Response to Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk Assassination

Frank, appreciate your time today. I know it has been really weeks now, almost a couple of months of a lot of intensity, a lot of conversation, a lot of mourning, a lot of difficulty. You know, you have spent so much of your career and your time answering difficult faith questions. And you know, I've thought and prayed a lot for you and about you during this time. And I guess I'll start with this. How have you made sense of the past almost two months?

Well, I made sense of it by knowing that what happened was evil. And the only way I know that that was evil was because I know what is good. And the only reason I know what was good is because there's a standard of good outside myself and that's God's nature. So as soon as we see something evil, we know it's evil. But the only way we would know that is if we knew what the standard of good was, because

evil is a lack and a good thing. It's a privation and a good thing. So an evil event like this doesn't disprove God. It may prove there's a devil out there, but it doesn't disprove God because you wouldn't even know what evil was unless there was a standard of good, and you wouldn't know what good was unless God existed. So it's actually an argument for God, not an argument against God.

Yeah, that's interesting, because a lot of people, they go through difficult moments, and you know this. I mean, they struggle. That's why people come to you with so many of the questions that they have. And being there at that event with Charlie Kirk that day, you also had to deal with a lot of other things, the insane conspiracy theories. And of course, it turned out to be you, that you were there and you're there supporting your friend Charlie

as he's speaking. What was that part of this like? Because just watching that, it was so horrifying to think that somebody just gets an idea from a clip and they run with it and it becomes a narrative.

Well, first of all, I didn't even know about it for the first 36 hours because we were in our own little bubble with the family and, you know, at the hotel and with JD Vance and Air Force Two and all that. We weren't even aware of all of that chatter going on. I just find it incredibly stupid that anyone would think anyone would need to signal a shooter about anything. If you're looking through a high-powered rifle from 200 yards,

you couldn't even see somebody 25 feet to his, to his, to Charlie's right. And why would you need a signal? You, you know who Charlie Kirk is. He's the one under the tent with the microphone. I mean, where people come up with these inane ideas and as if there's some insight into a crime. Yeah. They don't think it through. There's no reason to signal anyone. Not only that, I had just gotten that hat.

Somebody had given me that hat. It was a Trump 47 hat. I didn't go there with a hat. Someone just handed it to me, because Charlie and I were flipping hats into the audience and somebody said, hey, you want a hat?

I said, yeah, it's kind of sunny. Why don't I take a hat? So he's just adjusted in the hat as if, as if I'm, I'm signaling somebody to steal second base. You know, people think what, what, what kind of sense does any of this make? It makes no sense at all.

Well, it's about, it's about people, I think having some sort of ability or power in their own mind to solve something. And I think, honestly, if you look at the culture, the true crime obsession, the social media obsession, it's actually really troubling that this is the place that we're at now, right? That everybody has to be an expert

and solve every single thing when real people are dealing with real emotional issues and horrific events that they've had to watch in process. So I was curious about that just because watching that was very difficult from the outside. I can't imagine what it's been like to, I mean, even broader than that. I mean, how do you, how do you make sense as a Christian watching other Christians spread

conspiracy theories and idea like what you were saying, but other things, I'm not even going to get into the specifics of it. What has that been like for you to watch and experience?

Well, you're probably talking about Candace Owens. And, you know, I have not followed Candace Owens closely. I know she was a good friend of Charlie years ago. In fact, when I first met Charlie, I said, you know, tell me a little bit about your ministry, you know, like, what you do, and you know, who have you mentored? He mentioned Candace Owens. And Charlie would never speak ill of anybody privately unless he spoke to that person first

and tried to correct them. So Charlie never said anything bad about Candace or anything, but I just find this idea that she's making all these suggestions without evidence very painful for people. It's okay to suggest, well, maybe this, maybe that, but as soon as you start launching accusations, TPUSA betrayed Charlie. I had a dream that Charlie told me this.

That's not evidence. I mean, maybe she's right, you know? It could be. Anything's possible, but not everything has evidence behind them. And what people don't seem to understand, and this is why I had my friend, Detective

J. Warner Wallace, on my podcast two weeks after Charlie's martyrdom. People don't understand how prosecution works, how murder cases work. The prosecution rarely tells you anything they have, much less everything they have. As Detective Wallace pointed out, the prosecution's job is to get a conviction at trial. The prosecution's job is not to quell every Internet rumor. They can't do that. They'd be jeopardizing their case, and they'd be jeopardizing a jury if they jumped in on every possible rumor

that was going around. They base their prosecution on evidence. And the conspiracy theory about me, okay, they looked at it because they asked me a question. The FBI called me up and asked me a question. I said, it's nonsense.

That was it. And the reason they have to do that at a trial is because a defense attorney is going to say, well, did you check into this? And did you check into that? And so then the prosecution could say, yeah, we checked into it. It went nowhere. That's not, that's not what happened. Now it's fine for Candace to say, well, look at this and look at that. And this could be true and that could be true.

But as soon as you cross the line and start saying, so-and-so is guilty, or suggesting strongly, so-and-so is guilty, when you don't have the evidence, that's causing dissension among the brothers. And that's something the Lord hates. There's people who have enough pain in their lives. You don't need to add pain when people are going through this. And apparently she said that I was the only one who was genuine in his look. I haven't watched everything. I've just been told about it.

Who has the time to watch everything? Nobody. Right. Exactly. But she said I was the only genuine, my was the only genuine reaction. Billy, you know this, reasonable people know this, that a psychologist, even with somebody on the couch in front of them, can't completely diagnose people accurately all the time.

You don't diagnose people from video, very fragmentary video, and tell them or make a judgment and say, oh, this person didn't act normally.

There is no normal behavior when you're in a shot. In a situation like that, of course. I mean, absolutely, there's no normal behavior. There is no normal behavior when you're being shot. In a situation like that, of course. I mean, absolutely.

There is no normal behavior. It's, when you have an abnormal event like that, that none of us have experienced, nobody knows how they're going to react. Candace Owens is well within her rights to suggest certain things and all this,

and she has the right to free speech and all that, that's fine. She's right to ask questions. I just think it is hurtful and not helpful when you cross a line to strongly suggest somebody's guilty of something for which you have no evidence.

Yeah.

There's a difference between a possibility and evidence. And I see this all the time in Christian apologetics. People will say, well, maybe this happened to Jesus' body or that happened to Jesus' body. And that's how you explain what the resurrection is. It really wasn't a resurrection. Those are all possible, but give me first century evidence for those possibilities. Oh, we don't have any. Okay. Well, it's just a possibility then. Possibilities are not evidence. You need evidence. And that's what the prosecution is working on.

Who knows when the prosecution goes through everything, maybe some of the things Candace said are right. I have no idea. I can tell you for certain, as far as I know, there was no shot that came from behind me. If there was a shot that came from behind me,

I would have known it because I was really close. It's 25 feet from Charlie off his right elbow. If a shot came from that side, I would have heard it a lot louder than I did.

You know, let me ask you this, and I know it's painful to ponder it, but I do want to go back to it because you've beautifully spoken about so many things that are difficult to talk about in the last few weeks, even,

what was going through your heart and your mind as you were there at that event, in those moments when you realized what was happening?

Well, I was FaceTime in my son and daughter-in-law and my daughter-in-law said, the first thing you said was no, no, no. I, you know, I,

they took a step toward Charlie, but his team was already there. And then I ducked cause I thought, well, maybe there's more shots coming.

I mean, they were carrying him out of there. So I ran with them to the car. And just as I said, I was afraid somebody at some point would take a shot at Charlie. And so my thought was, what would I do? I would do everything I could to try and save him, whatever that was. Because I couldn't live with myself if I didn't. And you'd have done the same thing if you were there, Billy.

He was a friend of yours. You know, he was like a son to me. You know, what father's going to say, I'll just stay back here while you go get in the car and take him to the hospital. No, you're going to get in that car and do whatever you can. Now, as I said in this video that we just recorded last night, it was just someone asked me a question I answered it, but if this thing had to happen in the sense it was gonna happen, I wanted to be there because at least I know now

that there's nothing I could have done. Right. I mean, he was gone when we got him in the car.

And you described seeing that and knowing that, and has it, I mean, in what ways, if any, has this challenged you spiritually?

It just further cements my belief that evil exists and therefore God exists. I know God can bring good from evil. He does it all the time. We've seen it even since Charlie's death. Not that if I couldn't go back and change things, I would.

But the revival, you're talking the revival, the outpouring, what we've seen spiritually since then.

Yeah, Charlie's looking down and going, well, that was worth it. I mean, if we were to say, Charlie, 100 people would come to faith if you gave yourself as a martyr, he'd go, sign me up. That's what my life was about anyway. Right. But it's been a lot more than that. Now,

of course, he wouldn't want to leave Eric and the kids, but he knows that in the long run, that good things can come from evil things and that God can work everything together for good to those that love God and are called according to His purpose, and that the eternal is what we need to keep our eyes on, as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4. You know?

Yeah. Well, and I mean, you've answered some tough questions on this too, of course. You know, you were on Megyn Kelly's show and she asked how a loving God could allow the devil to take this angel from us, referring to Charlie, and you gave a beautiful answer to that. But that is the question people will always ask, why, why did this have to happen? And what you just said before is very interesting

because the existence of evil always points back to good, points back to God, but people don't always make that connection. They stop at the existence of evil, right? It pauses them, it freezes them in a fear or an anger or whatever their emotion they're feeling.

Can you talk a little bit more about that, that answer that you gave, Megyn Kelly? Because other people are going to watch this right now, and maybe they didn't hear that response you gave, and they are struggling with the same thing. How would a loving God allow this to happen?

How would a loving God allow Jesus to be killed? He's the only truly innocent person in history, and yet he was brutally murdered. Yet the most good came out of that evil than any other evil, the salvation of billions of people. Because an infinitely just God can't allow sin to go unpunished. If he allows sin to go unpunished, he's not infinitely just. But he doesn't want to punish us because he's also

infinitely loving. So in order for him to remain just, he has to punish an innocent substitute in our place. And where can he punish an innocent substitute in our place. And where can he find an innocent substitute? Not in any one of us, we're all sinners. The only place he can find an innocent substitute is in himself.

So he adds humanity to his deity, comes to earth and allows the creatures that rebelled against him to torture and kill him so he could take our punishment upon himself. And therefore by trusting in him, we not only are forgiven, we are given his righteousness.

And that's why Paul says in Romans 3, 26, God remains just and is the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. That's why I said at the memorial, do you want justice from an infinitely just God? Because there's only two things you can get in the afterlife. You can get justice or you can get grace. I don't want justice.

If I got justice, I'd be toast. I want grace. And that's what Jesus gives us. He gives us grace. So evil does not disprove God. It may prove there's a devil out there,

but it doesn't disprove God. It shows God does exist and he can bring good from evil. And of course, God allows evil because he allows free will and he allows free will because that's the only way you can allow love to take place. We're not a robot world.

We're a world where our choices make a real difference, whether for good or for evil.

What do you think, I mean, there's also been so much conversation about Charlie, right? You, he was like a son to you. You were incredibly close and watching people say different things about what Charlie believed. Was he changing his opinion on Israel? There's all of these things that are out there. What do you think are the biggest misconceptions about Charlie in general?

Well, he certainly wasn't changing his view on Israel because we had a meeting the day before he was murdered with two people in Israel and a guy living here via Zoom. And the whole premise of the meeting was how, Charlie wanted to know how could I better answer questions from college kids on the Israel-Hamas situation?

I mean, Charlie was frustrated that some people thought that he had to agree with everything the Israeli government did, otherwise he was somehow anti-Semitic. I agree that that's a frustration because when, even if you agree that the Bible says you ought to bless, you know, the descendants of Abraham, you ought to bless Israel. Blessed doesn't mean you agree with people on everything.

If you want to bless your kid, you don't agree with your kid on everything. You tell him the truth and correct him. In fact, that's what love is. Love doesn't mean approval. Love means seeking what's best for the other person according to the will of God, and that requires correction quite a bit.

So Charlie was frustrated that some people were saying he's an anti-Semite if he doesn't agree with Israel on everything. The other thing that we talked about quite a bit is the fact that some people will say, well, you know, the current government of Israel is apostate, why would you support them?

Hey, newsflash for you Bible scholars who don't tend to look at the Bible, the entire government of Israel in the Bible was apostate. Every single king from the northern kingdom was evil, and only a few, a handful from Judah, were following Yahweh. And what did God do? He judged them over and over again.

So this idea that, you know, we can't support the current government of Israel because they're apostate would mean we couldn't support any government of Israel because they're apostate. But again, to caveat that, it doesn't mean that we have to agree with everything any government does. God didn't agree with the governments of Israel,

even though he appointed them, because of their bad behavior. So this idea that he was getting away from Israel is not true. He knew they were a great friend in the region. He knew that they were the only democracy there. He knew that Islam is a great threat in terms of religious freedom and freedom of speech. Also, the idea he was becoming Catholic is nonsense.

I was going to ask you about that. This has been a huge thing, that he was becoming Catholic is nonsense. I was going to ask you about that. This has been a huge thing that he was becoming a Catholic, that he was, no, you say no.

No, no, no, no. But he had great respect for the Catholic church as I do, because a lot of what the Catholic church has done is good. There's of course, plenty they've done that's bad. They do have a great intellectual history and we agree on many of the essentials, although we do have some serious disagreements. And what Charlie did like was when he went to a Catholic church, nobody would bother him.

You know, you go to a Protestant church, everybody wants selfies with them all the time, right? So he did enjoy the, the, first of all, the beauty of a Catholic church. Look, I came out of the Catholic faith. Let me admit, the Catholics know how to build a church. Protestants building these boxes that look like warehouses with concert, like a concert hall. It's not very, it's not very, what's the word I'm looking for here? It's not very reverent, okay? Meanwhile, you got some Protestant pastor up there

with skinny jeans and a fog machine. It looks like he just came from cleaning his garage. There's not a lot of reverence there. So I understand the frustration that me and Charlie have with some of the Protestant practices, but that doesn't mean theologically he was a Catholic.

He was not. Yeah.

I mean, those are the two big ones, right, that have come up in all of this. And it's frustrating when that happens because the person is not there to defend themselves. So you have to do it. Other people have to do it and explain it because people are making, again, definitive claims without evidence. evidence and you know when you look at all of this one of the things that has been very interesting to watch is that you guys are not backing down you're showing up to as many college campuses as you possibly can talk a little bit

about that why are you so resolute to continue this and what are you hoping to

accomplish through that well Jesus would want us to do it he does want us to do it and so we did Charlie so we didn't cancel any of our events. We had an event on a week after the murder. We've done since then five campus events. We've got several coming up. We've got Ohio State, November 3rd.

We've got Berkeley, November 10th. Charlie and I were supposed to go to that together. He'll remain in glory. I'm going there with Rob Schneider. That's a TPUSA event. Then we've got Alabama, November 13th and Boise State on November 20th. That's just this semester. We got a whole bunch next semester. The reason we want to do it. Well, I've been doing this for almost 20 years. And we normally go and do I don't have enough faith to be an atheist to presentation based on the book I co-wrote with Dr. Norman Geisler. Now we're doing If God Why Evil

and we're doing mostly Q&A in honor of Charlie Kirk. So we're giving, we're dealing with the issue why would God allow this, why would God allow evil, and then we're taking questions. So there's a period now where hearts and minds are open, hearts are tender, and so we want to try and reach out to people who are now open to hearing about Christianity. Yeah, the Charlie effect is pretty strong right now, and we're going to do everything we can to reach people during this window of opportunity.

I love that. I love that. And, you know, last question for you, but when you think about Charlie's legacy long-term, you know, a lot of people knew him for politics. When you think about Charlie's legacy long-term, a lot of people knew him for politics. They didn't understand fully what faith meant to him. Many people did, but some people didn't.

They associated him with politics only. And yet in his death, and I noticed this a couple of years before, really how much he had pivoted in, it felt, and really it was amazing to watch some of those events you

would do in Arizona, you know, the faith events you would do once a month. Really incredible to see that. What do you think his legacy is? Because it feels, I mean, from a revival standpoint, pretty incredible right now.

Yes, I think Charlie was someone who was sort of a combination of Rush Limbaugh and Billy Graham and he knew his politics and he knew his faith well. someone who was sort of a combination of Rush Limbaugh and Billy Graham. And he knew his politics and he knew his faith well. But what motivated his politics was his faith. He wasn't a conservative because he was a conservative first. He was a conservative because he was a Christian first.

And conservative means we conserve what we know is true, right, and beautiful. And that's what he was fighting for in the public square. But his first love, of course, is Jesus. That's what that was. That's what was motivating him. In fact, a month before he died in an interview, he said,

politics is peanuts compared to the gospel. It's important because it it helps us take care of people. We're supposed to love people. And it also helps us have religious freedom so we can preach the gospel. I mean, when people say, I just preach the gospel. I don't get involved in politics. I say, I guess you don't think the gospel is very important then.

Because politics affects your ability to preach and live the gospel. If you don't think so, go to North Korea and try and preach the gospel. There's no First Baptist Church of Riyadh. There's no Calvary Chapel of Tehran. Why? Because politically they don't allow it. So Charlie knew that.

He said, politics is not our first priority, but it helps us do our first priority. And so he knew it was important to be politically engaged. So I think his legacy is already cemented as he's a martyr because he was killed for his faith. And you say, well, no, he was killed because he had certain political views. Why did he have those political views? Because of his faith.

Because he knew what the truth was. And he was out there trying to reach people with that in an open forum because he wanted people to know the truth and he wanted people to know Jesus. And he knew that in order to do that, he had to put himself in harm's way to a certain extent because you can't reach out to people protecting yourself with 100% security. In fact, when we got there on our way there that morning, I said to him, Charlie, I don't

like this place. There's too many buildings. You know, he just shrugged it off because he knew that people were there and they wanted, they wanted to hear what he had to say. And they, they wanted, he wanted to try and convince them of the truth. And that's what a loving person does. It just frosts me to no end that people call him a fascist. I mean, it's exactly the opposite. How many fascists, Billy, do you know who offer their opponents the microphone and say, go ahead, make your case. Let me hear what you

have to say.

None. That would be none. Yeah, that doesn't happen. It's the guy that murdered him that's the fascist. And many people on the left are like this. They're all about inclusion, tolerance you. Now, of course, we can't say that of all leftists. Thankfully, most of them are not going to murder you. But this whole oppressor, oppressed worldview that has come up in recent years, this critical theory worldview, which says regardless of your personal behavior, if you're in this certain category, you're an oppressor.

That is motivating people to move to violence because if you're an evil oppressor, you need to die. That's what many people think. That's not Christianity. Christianity is people are judged by their own personal behavior,

not what identity group some leftist professor has stamped you with.

Wow.

I mean, there's so much more. We could do an hour, and I'll probably beg you to come back again soon, but there's a lot here. I appreciate you taking the time. You know, you do such incredible work. Where can people go to get more information on you and the great gospel work that you

do?

Yeah, it's crossexamine.org, crossexamine with a D on the end of it. We have a podcast called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. It's on YouTube. Our YouTube channel is CrossExamine, two words, or wherever you get podcasts. Of course, we have Instagram and all that. Just go to crossexamine.org. It'll be up there.

Frank, appreciate you taking the time today. Frank, appreciate you taking the time today.

Thank you, Billy.