Transcript
EPISODE 36
How Christians Can Play Big: Real Jesus, Propaganda, and the Truth About Free Speech
00:00 Introduction to the Play Big Queen Podcast
00:00 Kate Bailey
Intro
Welcome to the Play Big Queen podcast.
This is for the woman ready to lead with power, move with confidence, and own your Play Big self.
For my newly minted or late blooming, neurospicy visionary babes who are waking up to your power and unmasking your brilliance.
For the sovereign leader building success on your own terms.
I am your host, Kate Bailey.
I am the Play Big Queen.
My name is my title and a command for all women, Play Big Queen.
I invite you to claim this title for yourself and coronate your Play Big Self too, so it can serve you.
This is a space for bold embodiment, radical reclamation, unapologetic leadership, and a business that works with your wiring, not against it.
Your voice is meant to be bold and heard and your brilliance is here to be claimed.
You are already powerful.
I am in service of everyone fucking tired of the people pleasing grind.
We go deep, we get real, and we play big.
It's a new era for women on the Play Big path.
Long may we reign.
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Episode
Welcome back to the Play Big Queen podcast.
Today's episode is recorded on Sunday, September 14th, 2025.
01:28 The Impact of Charlie Kirk's Assassination
01:28 Kate Bailey
On Wednesday, September 10th, conservative activist Charlie Kirk at 31 years old was killed at Utah Valley University during his first stop on a major US cross-country tour.
He was backed by the current administration, and Kirk and his organization, Turning Point USA, aimed to spread political religious propaganda in colleges, including hate speech about marginalized communities.
Kirk's assassin was Tyler Robinson, a straight, white, 22-year-old Utah native who was the eldest of three boys raised in a Republican family.
Kirk's gruesome and public assassination has ignited a major discourse about violence, politics, school shootings, and Christianity's values.
This episode is going to be uncomfortable because getting uncomfortable is necessary for growth.
02:23 Christianity and Political Ideologies
02:23 Kate Bailey
But it's going to be especially uncomfortable if you identify as Christian because right now you are being called to play big in ways you may have never played before.
Your faith is being tested.
Your values and the practices of Christianity are being called into question.
Your courage to speak truth to power with love is needed now more than ever.
This is literally a coming to Jesus moment for all Christians. And that is exactly the point of this episode.
So let's get into it.
People love wearing crosses, but they forget the true meaning behind them.
Jesus was crucified because he was seen as a political and religious threat in first century Judea, which was under Roman occupation.
Jesus openly challenged the authority of the religious elite - not the Jewish people themselves - but the Jewish leaders who benefited from hypocrisy, exploitation, and corruption.
Jesus was NOT working with or funding Israel to bomb babies.
Jesus was NOT recruited by a president and paid to create an organization with tentacles and 3,500 plus schools infiltrating ideology and burning books.
People who follow this administration in the US right now because they want to “be on the side of God” in politics need to take the crosses off their necks because they are so far from Jesus…
may God help them.
Because the real Jesus stood in radical opposition to empire.
He stood in love, justice, truth, and resistance.
So I am pleading with you now,
will the real Christians please come to the front?
The ones who know Jesus non-violently but fiercely criticized hypocrisy, corruption, and exploitation by both religious leaders and political rulers.
The ones who believe in radical love and compassion, justice and truth-telling, faith and inner transformation, courageous resistance like the real Jesus?
04:49 The Real Jesus vs. Political Exploitation
04:49 Kate Bailey
Remember, Jesus refused to bow to Rome.
And the real followers of Jesus till this day DO NOT bow to the capitalistic Christian industrial complex.
You know what I'm talking about.
The gold crosses, the televangelists, the president selling $60 Bibles while dodging accusations of rape and pedophilia, the failed white businessmen who are advancing their political careers by building cult-like empires off of the people's faith.
That is not Christ.
That's capitalism cosplaying as Christianity.
And the reason more real Christians aren't vocally upset that their faith is being exploited for political gain?
It's fear.
Afraid of being crucified…
…at work, in your families, in your communities.
So people shrink instead of taking inspiration from the courage and the heart of Jesus himself.
But if your Christianity doesn't touch love, truth, justice, and resistance, it's not actually aligned with Jesus.
And I know it's not easy.
I understand that there are real consequences.
We all need to work and eat and survive within this system.
But as Coco Chanel once said, “the most courageous act is to think for yourself, aloud.”
And I want you to know,
I chose to reference that quote very carefully because it's very appropriate for what is going on right now in politics.
Because did you know… that Coco Chanel herself
was recruited by the Nazis as a spy under the code name Westminster?
Coco Chanel lived at the Ritz in Paris and aligned herself with conservative elites and high-ranking German officers.
And that affiliation made her rich, but eventually wrecked her reputation.
And when it comes down to it, your reputation is all you truly have, which is based on your values and how you carry out those values.
But when Coco Chanel re-emerged in the 1950s, she used that famous quote to rebrand herself from being known as this like opportunistic collaborator with the Nazis to branding herself as this fearless individualist and empowered woman.
Her words still hold truth.
It IS courageous to think for yourself aloud.
Sometimes it is dangerous to think for yourself aloud, especially when the cost is so damn high.
But let me take this conversation back to Kirk and the conversation sparked by this week's events.
A major part of the discourse is whether Kirk was just a father speaking his truth, which was like this narrative that a lot of people bought into.
But let me make this point really clear for you.
He wasn’t.
Yes, he was a father.
08:04 Understanding Charlie Kirk's Influence
08:04 Kate Bailey
He was a lot of things, but he was paid to promote propaganda.
Kirk was 18 years old when he first launched Turning Point.
I want you to think about that for a moment and just let that sink in.
He was not a mastermind who built an empire alone.
He dropped out of Harper College to go into politics full-time. He was recruited and groomed into spreading hate, targeting LGBTQ people, trans people, and marginalized communities.
And to be clear, if you are a white woman listening, you fall under what is considered marginalized communities. You may have different privilege levels, but as far as the far right is concerned, they think that you should not have the right to vote.
And so Kirk was the optics of this like major plan to infiltrate schools to radicalize white Christian communities and to actively campaign against vulnerable groups.
He lobbied, he campaigned, he leveraged very powerful networks backed by very powerful people to infiltrate these colleges.
And in terms of being able to do this, like think about it in business terms…
Colleges, are the hardest place for any organization, any nonprofit, any business, any movement to market to because colleges are gatekeepers.
If you are an organization or a business and you happen to land an “in” on a campus, you have struck gold.
If you've landed a relationship or permission to talk on campuses, you become unstoppable because on college campuses, you've captured an audience that has energy, influence, and youth culture, and they have impressionability.
They are highly impressionable at this age.
Most people's brains aren't fully formed until the age of 26 or 27.
And so when you have that impressionability on a group, that is long-term customer retention right there through very early indoctrination of the brand's culture.
And that is movement marketing gold.
So no, the truth of the narrative is not that Charlie was just speaking his truth.
For a very long time, they had to labor and work and intentionally lobby and campaign and get access to colleges and leverage this very impressionable and powerful network in order to infiltrate campuses and spread propaganda.
10:50 The Role of Propaganda in Politics
10:50 Kate Bailey
Kirk's organization, Turning Point USA, has a gross revenue of around $85 million. Its stated mission is “to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government.”
Turning Point USA promotes far-right, white, Christian nationalist ideology in schools, and it's backed by the government. They are violent.
In the use of their resources and power, they've created a professor watch list and a school board watch list for anyone who criticizes them or practices any beliefs that oppose theirs.
They simultaneously pull the free speech card and claim that they have free speech, even when their speech is considered unprotected forms of speech under US law, like hate speech.
But when others exercise their right to free speech,
then they stalk, harass, information gather, and incite doxing and violence.
And if you see their content online on socials, a lot of the content centers the views of entitled individualistic white men who hold no accountability to community whatsoever.
I remember in one piece of content when Kirk was asked by a young black student, how would Kirk take accountability for white police brutality on black individuals? Kirk had no sense of communal responsibility for how white people spread fear and hate about black people or any sense of responsibility for how the relationship between races is fractured.
He vehemently did not want to assume any responsibility whatsoever, but further would not acknowledge that it is a community problem amongst white people.
He completely invalidated this student's concerns.
And for years, he openly shirked any responsibility for any kind of community health or healing between races.
I personally believe that this right here is why China, in so many economic journals, is predicted to surpass the US in so many ways.
Because for all its flaws, China's people have a culture of community responsibility. The health of the community and the health of the culture over the individual's desires.
But in terms of free speech, free speech is sharing your lived experience.
Propaganda, on the other hand, is crafted to persuade and manipulate.
Propaganda is built on selective facts.
It's charged with emotional triggers to spark a response from people, and it is like riddled with falsehoods.
Communication can be a weapon.
It can be coercive, communication can be abusive, can be threatening, manipulative, it can even be silencing.
And communication has consequences.
You are free to say it, but you are also accountable for what follows.
Kirk's statements were not personal truths.
They were calculated claims, predetermined and designed to weaponize fear, target marginalized communities, and legitimize policies that strip away rights and safety.
That is not free speech.
That is hate speech.
That's a political marketing strategy with real-world consequences for Black, brown, queer, immigrant, female, and other vulnerable people who pay the price.
The myth of American marketing is that everyone, quote unquote, has the right to…
14:36 The Consequences of Free Speech
14:36 Kate Bailey
But the subtext is… unless of course… it affects someone else's right.
So for example, everyone has “the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” unless your version of happy is killing someone and taking away their happiness.
Then there are or should be consequences.
The problem we're seeing right now in current politics is that there only seem to be consequences for people who don't agree with the far right.
And it should be okay to disagree with the idea that hate speech is allowed in schools.
Those marginalized communities on campus will not be safe after that propaganda is spread on campus.
And I could not imagine sending my young adult child to school to learn what they need to learn for life, only to watch them get indoctrinated by extreme political propaganda.
Again, I don't agree with violence. I think we need fewer guns. Murder and assassination are wrong.
But if you think Kirk was just a sweet young father exercising his right to freedom of speech, then you really need to take a moment and think about what is really going on because what Kirk has been working on since 18 is so much more complicated and calculated and strategized than the image that is being marketed to you.
To intentionally capture the youth of this country and to indoctrinate them in very extreme beliefs is not an accident.
And what's more, not only is it not an accident, but what is really happening is Christianity is intentionally being used as a weapon by the far right.
Kirk's influence has completely eroded Christianity's credibility.
He's reduced faith to a political weapon instead of a spiritual path.
He has brainwashed young people into thinking that they were under attack by liberal professors and anti-American ideologies.
He's discouraged critical thought and at every turn he is stoked resentment.
And Turning Point USA is like this uh... kind of like the toxic culty side of the coaching industry.
It will promise new and young people belonging and empowerment.
It promises you influence, and then they exploit loyalty and control.
That is not faith.
That is manipulation.
Now I'm going to pause again and say it again because I feel like for some people it's really hard to accept the both and reality.
I said it before, I'll say it again.
I do not condone violence.
Murder is wrong.
Guns make us less safe.
Stricter laws save lives.
This is so important.
As someone who's actually worked in EMS, seen gunshots up close, had a distant cousin, killed in Virginia Tech, violence is never the answer.
There is no world in which violence makes things better.
I cannot say this enough and Jesus would agree.
But
18:00 Community Response to Violence
18:00 Kate Bailey
With that in mind, it's so important to understand that Kirk's death for so many people felt simultaneously like a heinous act and like they were relieved.
People belonging to marginalized groups who were hurt by him could not feel upset about the fact that an abuser of theirs is no longer in a position to abuse them, because Kirk was the optics and this major part of a mega plan to infiltrate schools and make sure that these white Christian communities were radicalized and that marginalized communities were actively campaigned against and harmed.
So many people who genuinely care about marginalized communities understand why those people would feel relieved when someone who had a national plan to harm them was no longer in a position to do so.
There were lots of people from those communities who mourned the violence itself, but also many people felt relief.
Because if you think about the far right in Germany and how they indoctrinated children, no one on the side of good cried when the leaders of that effort fell.
Communities harmed do not grieve their abusers.
They just don't.
And again, that doesn't mean I condone assassination. I do not. I can't say it enough.
I stand in humanitarian, nonviolent, anti-fascist values.
But when violence happens and it's there and it does happen and you see that a community feels relief, you can't just demonize them.
You you can't ignore that.
You have to look at that and examine it.
And if you're in the camp of extreme national Christianity, you are not gonna think about that critically.
But to think about that moment critically and uncomfortably is what leads to healing, right?
Because abuse always creates this kind of both and reality, right?
Like caretakers of the terminally ill know this reality, right?
Loving who you care for, but kind of secretly hoping that you will be released from the hell of it all.
20:18 Navigating Complex Emotions
20:18 Kate Bailey
Survivors of abusive relationships know what this is like too, right?
Like loving someone so fiercely who's hurting you so much.
You can grieve the violence and you can grieve the lost soul in the middle of this all and also still feel relief that for the moment the harm has stopped.
I remember I was living in Florida and I was getting these physical mailers to my home that were calling trans people demons.
That is harassment.
That is abuse.
And to force people to grieve an abuser that is gone feels so twisted and inhumane.
Advocate for nonviolence, yes, but do not make excuses for Kirk's humanity while denying the humanity of marginalized communities that have been bludgeoned by him for decades.
Again, I am a neurodiversity advocate.
I stand for marginalized communities.
And I am a straight, white female.
I do this because it's just the right thing to do to care about other people, to stand for people to have the same access and rights that we do.
When you are connected to goodness, you don't ignore that little voice within or in the back of your head or that angel on your shoulder that says, it's so important to be kind to people and to treat people how you would want to be treated.
And for those who are listening and you're wondering about my own religious affiliations,
I was born in New York. My family is mostly Italian.
I was raised Catholic. Baptized and Confirmed.
22:04 Personal Faith Journey and Beliefs
22:04 Kate Bailey
Catholicism, if you don't know, is the largest branch of Christianity and it's built around the belief that Jesus is salvation.
Catholics believe that Peter was chosen by Jesus to be the rock of his church and to lead in Rome, in the epicenter of the Roman Empire where Jesus himself would not bow.
Peter didn't always get Jesus’s message right and I suspect that that's part of how Jesus's more radical, countercultural, original teachings weakened and were eventually weaponized by the Roman Empire, where generation after generation fell into right-wing ideology.
And I had the lived experience of being raised Catholic, but I don't identify as Catholic.
My main source of religion is that intuitive nudge within that grants me my hardline connection to whatever you want to call it….
God, Goddess, Source, Soul, Spirit, the Universe, Something Greater, Creation, Truth, Love, Oneness, Alignment to Good, the All-Knowing…
Whatever you call it, I trust in that with my full faith and I let that guide me.
And I also take inspiration on how to live, love, and lead from people who do practice, like the real Jesus, radical love and compassion, justice and truth-telling,
faith and inner transformation, and courageous resistance.
I look to my ancestors and other female figures and goddesses who were faithful and devoted to spreading these kinds of messages like Mary Magdalene, the Black Madonna, Isis, Inanna, Sophia, and so many unnamed women who carried wisdom, healing, and a fierce devotion throughout their lives.
I consider myself faith-full and completely devoted, but I am not and never will be indoctrinated.
No matter what you believe, our collective faith is being tested as a whole.
I cannot overstate how important it is at this point in time to clearly know what is going on in the world and where you stand in all of it.
And I think for a while, Christians have really needed a way
24:30 Distinguishing True Faith from Indoctrination
24:30 Kate Bailey
to set themselves apart from people who exploit their religion for far right gain.
Something that signals, believe in God, I believe in Jesus, I believe in Christ, but I also believe in the real Jesus and how he took care of the homeless and uplifted marginalized communities and loved so fiercely and how he was willing to be crucified for that love.
Personally, I am calling this distinction
“devoted, not indoctrinated.”
Hashtag devoted, not indoctrinated.
This is the vibe for the people who drink the full flavored original Jesus juice without the far right additives.
This is how to distinguish the people who choose to follow the real Jesus and will not bow to the empire, even when in the middle of it, even when crucifixion by your own government or so-called God organization is threatened.
Following Jesus is not for the faint of heart.
He was not a victim. He wasn't entitled. He wasn't revengeful.
He loved and let love.
And he stood immovable in that love and it became the ultimate sacrifice.
I want you to take care of yourself.
I want you to protect yourself and be safe.
I want you in your non-violent Christian resistance.
Whether you don't believe in Jesus or you identify as a real Christian, see where it is possible to take inspiration and lessons and to love like the real Jesus, because he is one of the major figures in history who definitely played big.
And we can learn a lot from his original teachings before they were perverted and exploited for political gain.
And I very, very rarely quote scripture.
because I think over so many years, there are so many empires looking to exploit Christianity who added to the Bible things that Jesus would never want in there.
And also omitted from the Bible, so many things and teachings from women that probably should be in there.
But Corinthians 11: 13-15
“For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers.
masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.”
If your faith asks you to bow to empire, excuse hate, or ignore harm, it is not Christ.
27:23 The Call to Action for Real Christians
27:23 Kate Bailey
The real Christians, the ones who followed Jesus into love, compassion, justice, truth, and courageous resistance, are the ones playing big.
There wasn't a word for fascism when Jesus was alive, but if there was, Jesus would have been a nonviolent anti-fascist.
If you want to be on the side of Jesus, not political propaganda, you must... stand with those who refuse to bow, to greed, violence, control, and lies.
This is the moment to choose.
I want to thank you for listening.
If this episode challenged you, just sit with it.
Just allow yourself to be uncomfortable and allow what you know in your heart to be true to come to the surface.
Share it with someone who needs to hear it.
Playing big is not about following the loudest voice in the room.
It is about standing in love and standing in truth…
…even when it's challenging…
even when the crowd zigs…
and you know the right thing to do is zag.
Until next week, stay bold, stay faithful, and keep playing big.
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Outro 1
That's it for today, Queen.
Take what lit you up, leave what didn't.
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Until next time, remember to honor your own timing, value your own unique way.
And most of all, when you come face to face with your boldest desires, trust your brilliance and Play Big Queen.
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Outro 2
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