Candace Owens, and how the spirit in you produces recognizable fruit.
We will know the spirit in a person based on their fruit.
Ben Shapiro’s speech at AmFest 2025 was spot on.
It was the only AmFest speech I watched because I wanted to hear someone say what needed to be said, since all the other talking heads seemed to think the Obvious Truth was Voldemort and must never be spoken aloud.
In particular, I wanted to hear someone call out Candace Owens and what she was doing regarding her ridiculous and crazy speculation of who killed Charlie Kirk.1 It was bad then, and it’s only gotten much worse since Shapiro’s speech.
Since Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September 2025, I have written and even recorded many blog posts and podcast episodes that I ultimately never published. It seemed as if God was telling me to hold off, be patient, and see what unfolded. It was just as well; following her completely hairbrained ideas that ranged from Mossad to Egypt to the French Foreign Legion to some sort of beehive connection and underground tunnels—I tell you, any person with normal levels of discernment and mechanisms of self-regulation can recognize the insanity and nonsense coming from her mouth. I don’t know what her followers are like in real life, but online, they are fools.
I don’t use that word lightly, thanks to Matthew 5:22 being ingrained in me as a kid.
Owens calls herself a Christian, as many will claim on judgment day, and her followers often refer to her in that capacity; however, they are not only lacking in discernment but also being actively led astray.
According to scripture, only God truly knows what is in a person’s heart and who is saved or not saved. He knows whose name is in his book. However, He has told us what to look for that signals a true believer in Christ to warn and protect us. A true follower of Christ has the following characteristics that, though they may be imperfect, are evident:
They are genuinely repentant, and when they fall, they return to Jesus in repentance and confess (Mark 1:5; Matthew 10:33; John 21:15-19).
They don’t simply call on the name of the Lord (“Lord, Lord!”), but they obey God and abide in the Word, who is Jesus (John 8:31).
They know The Word, as evidenced by how they rightly handle all scripture, trusting on God instead of their own limited understanding of the world (Psalm 119:11, 105; Proverbs 3:5-6).
They bear good fruit outwardly, which reflects inward spiritual health. (Matthew 7:16-20). The Spirit is at work and produces recognizable fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). Over time, that fruit increases (Mark 4:20).
The works of the flesh are lessened every day (Galatians 5:16-25).
True love, as God defines it, is central to their lives, and one of the key ways it is shown is by keeping God’s commandments (John 13:34; 1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
Their words are transformed, since the words we speak reveal what is in our hearts (Matthew 12:34-35).
They avoid using corrupt or deceitful talk to tear others down, and instead use their words to build others up in a grace-giving manner (Ephesians 4:29).
They are slow to speak and slow to be angry, receiving correction meekly (James 1:19-21).
They abstain from wickedness and desire and pursue holiness in their life (2 Timothy 2:19).
Their daily behavior is a picture of humility, gentleness, patience, and bearing other sin love (Ephesians 4:1-3).
They confess that they are followers of Christ (not followers of a denomination or the Catholic Church) and are not shy about sharing the Gospel above all else (Matthew 10:32).
They love the family of God and do not continue to hate fellow brothers and sisters in Christ while claiming to love God (1 John 3:14, 4:20-21). Hateful and lying words indicate a hateful heart, even if they deny actual hate.
They do not reflect the world’s values, such as power, control, or chasing wealth (1 John 2:15-17).
Their very existence in Christ becomes salt and light, and the good works that flow naturally from their words and deeds, both public and private, give glory to the Father (Matthew 5:13-16).
The desire to listen instead of being angry, since anger does not produce righteousness (James 1:19-20). Don’t miss that; someone constantly stirring up anger in you is not pointing you to God’s righteousness, but the enemy.
This is not up for debate.
This is God’s list.
This isn’t tricky to spot.
There are no “yeah, but” options to get around any of these.
There are no loopholes or addenda if you are “just asking questions” to find a profitable “truth.”
If you call yourself a Christian, you must acknowledge this list, and if you are consuming content or following a person who claims Christ while not exhibiting this list, you must abandon their influence on you (Philippians 4:8; Psalm 1). This isn’t easy; I know from personal experience.
Now, to be very direct: I don’t see Candace Owens anywhere on this list.
Perhaps her private life is different, but the reality we must understand is that what is in the heart is what comes out. Her public life and persona are directly tied to her private life. There is no excuse in God’s economy to say that private life is what counts when public life is what impacts, deceives, and harms people. In fact, we shouldn’t live differently in the public and private realms; Jesus Christ saves us completely, and we are to be the same in both.
So while only God knows, I am currently operating on the belief that Owens is not a true follower of Christ. Like many people claiming the name of the Lord, enthralled with the trappings, symbols, culture, and morality of Christianity, she shows no outward evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in her life, nor obedience to God’s Word.2
I don’t think I’ve ever stated anything like that in two decades of blogging without an arduous caveat. But I’m stating it now because the damage she is doing is incredible, multiplying across a landscape where too many people who claim Christ are eating at her trough and apparently unaware that yes, we can judge those who call themselves believers and that we actually should be doing so. We don’t let rotten fruit destroy the rest in the barrel; a little yeast leavens everything. This is why we have pastors (shepherds) to protect the flock: there are predators out there who are well-disguised. In Owens’ case, the words that come out of her mouth mimic the father of lies, the deceiver, and accuser. The fruit she exhibits is his. You eat her fruit—and anyone like her—and you will be his, also.
How do you know if this is you? Well, what’s your reaction when you hear people like Owens et al. who trade in this kind of behavior? Do you hunger for more, or refuse to have any part in darkness? Do you call darkness light, and mistake gossip and lies as truth-finding? Christians are given specific commands on how to handle accusations and justice.
God forbids false accusations in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:16, 23:1). Speculative questions can be false accusations; you aren’t fooling God when you know the mere question can do the damage, even if you’re not legally responsible for slander, since it was a question.
Accusations must be handled in a particular way, with justice and without being impartial (Deuteronomy 16:19). In particular, justice isn’t to be perverted (twisted, manipulated), it isn’t to show partiality (letting your core prejudice or anger determine where your justice will go), and you shall not take a bribe (which could be creating content simply to get clicks and subscriptions for max money).
A single witness is never enough to establish a serious charge (Deuteronomy 16:15; Matthew 18:16; 1 Timothy 5:19). A single witness might also include a feeling, a vibe, a vision, a “but I know know” insistence, and so on.
Judges are to diligently inquire into accusations. This is especially the case if a false witness is suspected (Deuteronomy 19:16-18). Today, anyone listening to conspiracy theories on podcasts or elsewhere is essentially serving as a judge, since reputations, finances, and other potential damages are at stake.
Both sides must be heard, since the first one (or the noisiest or most persistent or most obnoxious) will often seem correct until another side is revealed or someone examines the first (Proverbs 18:17). [See also: the footnotes to this post.] Both sides also include context; for example, when someone offers proof of something in a screenshot, you need context to understand both sides.
We are to be more interested in listening to all sides, and being slow to speak and to anger, not just hearing the side we prefer (James 1:19-20).
Rumor, gossip, and slander do not count as proof or evidence of anything (Leviticus 19:16; Proverbs 10:18). This includes using the feeling or sense that a person is evil, dark, a groomer, a pedo, a human trafficker, gives off a bad “vibe,” or whatever else. It doesn’t matter if 1000 people repeat it; the sheer volume of a rumor does not qualify as proof, nor does the consensus of the mob mean anything (Exodus 23:2).
When falsely accused, Christians are to trust God to handle it justly (1 Peter 2:21-23; Matthew 5:11-12). So far, Erika Kirk is blowing my mind with how she carries herself in the face of all of Owens’ theories and accusations. I probably would not have responded so gracefully.
You’d best take this seriously, Christian. The podcasts and videos you listen to may seem like passive activities, but they are active. They are changing you into them. And if you listen to a liar, you become one.
Liars are excluded and will burn for eternity (Revelation 21:8, 22:15), and yes, liars and those who love lies are specifically called out. It’s not just a little white lie generic sin. God calls it out in a surprising list that includes sorcerers, idolaters, murderers, and the sexually immoral.
Even Dante placed liars in a worse circle of hell (Malebolge) than actual murderers, because lying destroys something very sacred: trust, love, and connection. In Dante’s creation, liars crawl about or writhe on their stomachs, as the serpent was cursed to slither in the dust, because fraud was worse than violence. Fraud is deliberate and destroys the core foundation that makes us human. As victims of fraud and of liars know, you struggle to believe, trust, love, and connect for the rest of your life. You are always wary and removed. You are a seriously broken human.
You might say that Owens is just asking questions (speculation), or that she has “receipts.”3 Some say to “let her cook,” though I suspect she’s cooking the journalistic version of meth. But speculation is very close to lying, so beware. It’s simply a matter of time where you choose truth or lie, since speculation requires, at some point, that you either believe or do not believe.
Do you love speculation? Have conspiracy theories become your idol? Because that’s close to loving a lie, even if you think you’re “chasing truth.” The first thing you should do is stop listening to speculation. The second thing you should do is start learning how to evaluate information.
Last fall, after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, I wrote a post about how I wanted to do something tangible to positively impact the people in my life, aligned with what Charlie advocated. One of the things I focused on for several weeks was how we evaluate information and determine what constitutes actual evidence and proof, and what is foolishness.4
Hopefully, each person can find a way to get some tools to use when dealing with the Candace Owenses of the world.
Which brings me back to Ben Shapiro’s AmFest speech. In it, he said that anyone who has a public platform and is speaking to people (including bloggers like me) has some specific duties:
Duty to truth. They must refuse to mislead their audience. They must avoid being vague, speaking in euphemisms, and being anything but honest and direct, even if the facts are uncomfortable.
Duty to principle. They must communicate from a position of principle, not personal feelings. It does not matter whether a person is a friend or a member of a group they belong to. You must speak clearly, even if it’s against them or against the side you are on.
Duty to be specific. They must not use sweeping generalities or throwaway terms like “the elites,” “the regime,” or “the swamp” without naming specific people, policies, or facts. Otherwise, they create a sense of despair and hatred without offering their listeners or readers practical ways to take action and fix things.
Duty to take responsibility. They must not foster victimhood and tell their audience they are helpless in the face of huge, impossible enemies. People have personal agency and free will to improve themselves and their surroundings. They must take responsibility for their own choices.
Duty to propose real solutions. It’s not enough to simply highlight problems, encourage “burn it all down,” or tell people to put their hope in a central figure or movement that will solve all problems. They must move beyond outrage and anger toward real solutions that improve their audience’s lives. In the marketing world, this is called the “call to action” (CTA ): you must present the facts and the problem, and then present the action that brings about a solution. You never leave someone with a problem without suggesting an action for them to take.
Shapiro directly mentioned Candace Owens and others, calling attention to the grifting class that is selling subscriptions and merch and tour tickets on their audience’s anger and continued spiral into bizarre, conspiratorial mental illness.
Shapiro didn’t leave it there, however. The audience has responsibilities, too.
A duty to God and family.
A duty to do the best with the abilities and situation God has given us.
A duty to have gratitude and respect for the nation we are blessed with, and to work to preserve what is good in it.
A duty to find truth on our own instead of outsourcing it to influencers or letting others discern what is true.
No more grift. No sensationalism. No more cults of personality.
It may be that being a podcaster or content influencer who makes a living off of their audience subscriptions, an audience that demands sensational content, makes it impossible not to adhere to what the Bible commands, much less what Ben Shapiro suggests. It may be that Ray Bradbury was right, and that it might not be authoritarians who will restrict information, but a populace that clamors for small-minded, dark things that reduce the stream by request.
Your call to action will vary, depending on the problem and if you are a Christian or not. But certainly, turn off the speculative crap. Learn how to evaluate information. Instead of saying “do your own research” while you are actually allowing an influencer to do it for you, learn how to do actual research based on proof and evidence. Learn what genuine evidence looks like, and how to evaluate it.
And, I suppose, pray for Candace Owens. She has definitely been given over to something:
While we ought to pray for Owens’ salvation, I’m also not opposed to praying imprecatory prayers, asking God to reward her soon for her works, words, and deeds (2 Timothy 4:14). For her own good, sooner is better. As a blogger of several decades who often failed at remembering caution with words, I’m serious. The sooner the words coming out of her mouth are stopped, the better for her soul and those listening. The only thing she is building, besides an earthly treasure that will rot, is a storehouse of wrath in eternity with each twisted and harmful word she speaks.
There’s good fruit and bad fruit. Adam and Eve ate bad fruit, and look where we are. Stop eating bad fruit, even if it looks pretty and has nice merch available.
This is a good summation of the case against Tyler Robinson, who both admitted and is accused of murdering Charlie. It also provides a useful tool set for testing theories and accusations.
They are also enthralled with a very gullible demographic that likes to spend money on Jesus junk and is so often Biblically illiterate that they don’t recognize what is true and what is twisted or completely false.
I hate the word “receipts” being used instead of proof or evidence. Receipts are proof of payment, something these platformed talking heads might definitely know about, but otherwise deceptive slang. The word is proof or evidence, and it matters because the definitions of those two are precisely the definitions we need to know to winnow out what is true, what is speculation, and what is made up. A receipt, without context, means nothing. You might be buying things to clean your garage, or you might be preparing to murder someone. A receipt doesn’t tell you. But proof and evidence come packaged with context, multiple witnesses, or verified facts.
These were the lessons:
Thinking Biblically: The Three Convictions
The Bible on Knowledge and Wisdom
A Basic System for Evaluating Information
Philosophical Methods for Evaluating Information
Pattern Recognition for Evaluating Information
Identifying Presuppositions in Debates
The Question Behind the Questions
Christians and Conspiracy Theories
How to Verify Facts and Determine Real Evidence
How to Avoid Extremes and Over-correction