Steve Deace interviews Protestant minister turned Catholic apologist over authority, tradition, Mary, and church unity



On a recent special episode of “The Steve Deace Show,” Steve, a devout evangelical, interviewed former Protestant pastor turned Catholic apologist Keith Nester about his decision to convert to Catholicism.

In this fascinating and educational interview, Steve and Keith dive headfirst into the turbulent waters of the core issues that separate Catholics and Protestants with openness and sincerity.

The son of a United Methodist pastor, Keith gave his heart to Jesus at church camp when he was just 11 years old. Catholicism wasn’t even something on his radar until his young adulthood, when he got the opportunity to serve as a youth pastor at a small church in Iowa. The youth program started with just 12 children, but two years later, it had grown to 250. Many of these children’s parents then began coming to the church, and the congregation exploded.

Most of these new congregants, however, were Catholics. “They were coming over to our church going, ‘This is the greatest thing ever. I've never seen anything like it before. We're learning about Jesus here,”’ says Keith.

This engrained the idea that Catholics “don't know anything about the Bible” into his mind as he began his ministry as a Protestant pastor.

But this mindset started to unravel soon after he met a graphic designer who was an on-fire-for-Jesus Catholic. The two quickly began trying to convert each other. Keith, who at the time was in seminary school, consulted his Bible professor to give him the information he needed to “defeat this Catholic.”

“She just said to me, ‘Well, we believe that because we're Protestants,”’ says Keith, who was forced to go on his own “wild goose chase” looking for the “silver bullet” that would prove his Catholic friend wrong.

But after years and years of searching, he never found it. It wasn’t long before he felt the Lord calling him to convert to Catholicism, but he was resistant — not because he didn’t fully believe in Catholic doctrine but because he had built a life as a Protestant youth pastor. His wife, who converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, and his children were devoted to the Protestant church.

For years, Keith dodged the calling he felt God had put on his heart. “Life got pretty dark. Things went kind of crazy for me,” he admits.

In 2015 the Methodist Church, which Keith had been part of since his childhood, began unraveling. Heated debates over same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ+ people started to fray the edges of the denomination. Keith, committed to scripture, found himself in heated arguments with other Methodists, who contended that scripture could be interpreted in different ways.

“I started to think, okay, well, if I can't argue from scripture alone, from tradition, then I have to argue from authority, right?” he recalls.

“That got turned back on me pretty hardcore. I even had someone say to me, ‘Well, if you believe in all this church authority stuff, why aren't you a Catholic?"’

This sent Keith back to the dusty Catholic apologetics books his old friend had given him years prior. “Through a series of just deep dives into things and … semi-mystical experiences, where I just had things that happened to me experientially around things related to the Catholic faith, I became convinced that the Catholic Church was what it claimed to be: the one true church … the church that Jesus Christ started,” he tells Steve.

But there was still the issue of his family and established career as a Protestant minister. One night Keith cried out to Jesus: “If you want me to become Catholic, I will do it. But you've got to make a way.”

“And I'm not kidding around, Steve, from the crucifix, He spoke to me and He said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. You don't need me to make a way, you just need me.’ And I realized in that moment that there He was in the Eucharist and that there He was with me, and He was calling me to lay it all on the line for Him,” he recounts. “I had never felt something more strongly when it comes to my faith in all my life.”

He went home that night and told his wife, and the next day he told the senior pastor at his church. “It was tough … but I knew in my heart that this is what it meant for me to follow the Lord,” Keith admits.

In the second half of the interview, Keith and Steve dive into the individual issues that distinguish Catholicism from Protestantism: the authority of the Catholic Church versus sola scriptura, the role of Scripture and tradition, the veneration of Mary and saints, and the nature of church unity and historical continuity.

To hear their compelling and heartfelt discussion on the core differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, tune in to the full interview above.

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Jimmy Kimmel's show SHOULD be pulled by the FCC for THIS reason



After Jimmy Kimmel was fired for his comments regarding Charlie Kirk in the wake of his assassination, the talk show host was promptly reinstated by Disney — despite the show's lack of viewership before his firing.

“Everyone at ABC and Disney knows who’s watching. They know the numbers better than we do. And all the advertisers know, too, that the phones aren’t ringing — 'buy advertising on Jimmy Kimmel.' They know this,” BlazeTV host Steve Deace explains on the “Steve Deace Show.”

“So why is making $20, $30, $40 million a year, whatever it is? Why? Because it’s not about the money. It’s about sending a message. He’s there to be a vessel of propaganda. That’s why. There’s no marketplace of ideas for that. There’s no one to bang on for that. It really would not matter if we all stopped watching,” he continues.

The real audience, Deace explains, is the alternative media on the right, who have been playing Kimmel’s clips in order to expose the left.


“Same thing with ‘The View.’ ‘The View’ will generate way more engagements and reactions from us than they can on their own. And that’s pretty much true of all of their media outlets and all of their content,” he says.

“That’s what Jimmy Kimmel is. … His god is making sure that his message gets out there, ratings and numbers be damned, because it’s a shibboleth of the damned. That’s the point,” he continues.

Which is why Disney continues to produce “all these flops.”

“They’re not dumb. Like we keep saying, they are well aware of what they are doing. They’re nihilists. They’re deconstructionists. They’re iconoclasts. They’re here to smash the stained-glass windows. They’re doing this on purpose,” he says. “They want to inject what we call ‘rotgut’ into the culture because it’s doctrine to them.”

But Deace has solutions, like using the FCC to pull shows like Kimmel’s.

“We will either do that, or new voices will emerge, and they’re already emerging,” he says, “who will demand we start playing by the left’s more nihilistic rules now.”

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A movement or a moment: The power behind the 'normie' response to Charlie Kirk



The murder of Ukrainian immigrant Iryna Zarutska by a man wielding nothing but a knife is a story that “Steve Deace Show” executive producer Aaron McIntire believes “broke containment” — leading to the mass show of respect that followed for Charlie Kirk.

“The left couldn’t wait to get off of that story,” he says. “Well, we got off of that story with the bullet through the neck of the most prominent conservative influencer and voice in this country. And that story could not be contained either.”

Human beings, McIntire explains, are not “wired to see what we saw multiple times last week.”

“Now I just think because of everything that we saw last week that penetrated the normie water table to the extent that it did … those people are either going to side with us or they’re going to say nothing at all and not push against us,” he says.


“And I’ll just say this. I would bet my house; I would bet Matt’s house without his permission, Steve’s house without his permission, Todd’s house without his permission. I would bet all of our houses that this is a movement,” he adds.

While some might believe the response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination is purely “an emotional moment,” McIntire truly believes it is not.

And BlazeTV host Steve Deace agrees, chiming in, “Well said.”

But Deace believes the right does need to keep the momentum going, as well as watch out for what could derail it, in order to keep the movement strong.

“The number-one thing the right needs to do, is, after Charlie is laid to rest, not destroy itself over Israel and the Jews and anti-Semitism. And I think there are some people that are going to try to take advantage of not having someone of Charlie’s intelligence and the magnitude of his platform that could play a buffer between these two sides and maybe try to exacerbate this debate to an existential level,” Deace explains.

“And so I think that we need to make sure we don’t immediately come out of this with all this unity and momentum and then immediately step on a rake and destroy one another with this,” he says. “It’ll be a generational mistake.”

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MSM reporter fawns over alleged killer’s texts to transgender partner



ABC News correspondent Matt Gutman is under fire — and rightfully so — for having one of the more innately disturbing public responses to the news of Charlie Kirk’s murder.

The reporter called the text messages the alleged assassin sent to his transgender partner about killing Charlie Kirk “very touching.”

“It was very touching in a way that many of us didn’t expect,” Gutman said. “A very intimate portrait into this relationship between the suspect’s roommate and the suspect himself, with him repeatedly calling his roommate, who is transitioning, calling him ‘my love.’ And, ‘I want to protect you, my love.’”

“So, it was this duality of someone who the attorney said not only jeopardized the life of Charlie Kirk and the crowd, but was doing it in front of children, which is one of the aggravating circumstances of this case. And on the other hand, he was, you know, speaking so lovingly about his partner,” he added.


Gutman had been suspended before for falsely reporting on the Kobe Bryant death.

“He instinctively framed it like this,” executive producer of the “Steve Deace Show” says, shocked.

“That’s the thing. I mean, he’s riffing, guys,” BlazeTV host Steve Deace says.

“And understand, he is not your lefty neighbor who is getting information from his sources downstream lying to him. He is at the press conference. He is receiving the evidence, or at least the alleged evidence,” Deace explains. “So, it’s been handed to him.”

“This is innate. This is visceral. Out of the heart, the mouth speaks. And this is what he took away from this,” he says.

“Now, let’s be fair. It’s a tale as old as time. Boy meets boy. And they just exchange a litany of long-form text messages where they literally say things. ‘I will kill Charlie Kirk now’ — period. ‘I will go grab rifle now’ — period. ‘This is where I will be and when’ — period. ‘Will you help me?’ — period. ‘No, I will pull trigger myself,’” Deace mocks robotically. “Because people just routinely communicate like that.”

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Steve Deace: 3 things America MUST do after Charlie Kirk’s assassination



Just a couple of months ago, Steve Deace spoke at an event at Dream City Church in Phoenix, Arizona, where Charlie Kirk regularly worshipped and collaborated on initiatives. Right before he walked on stage, Charlie leaned down and whispered a word of encouragement in his ear.

“Go hard,” he said.

Today, as we continue to wrestle with the loss of Charlie, we all need to take that advice to heart. It’s time to go hard.

But what does that look like? How do we “go hard” in a way that hits at the root of this violence and culminates in positive change?

At a recent event for Conservative Partnership Institute, Steve answered that question with three bold initiatives that we all bear the responsibility of ensuring come to fruition.

1. Punish evil

Steve beseeches all of us, but especially elected officials, to treat evil as such. Enough with leniency and delay. Either we punish evil, or we welcome it through the front door.

“The scriptures say the only reason God permits government on this Earth is to be an avenging angel, a sword of righteousness against evil,” Steve says.

“The people in this room who hold elected office and the ones who [do] not, you must punish evil. ... You must!” he urges.

Failure to do so will have one outcome, he warns: “more evil.”

To the dissenters who argue that to meet evil with fitting consequences will backfire because Democrats will only return the favor, Steve has a sobering message: “They’ve already done it all! They’re all going to do it all over again. 2005 called, and it wants its talking points back. That’s not where we are right now. My friend’s body is cold to testify to that truth.”

But it’s not just Charlie’s tragic death that demands justice. There are many atrocities in this country that have yet to be addressed, Steve says. Whether it’s the deliberate invasion of illegal immigrants perpetrated by the Biden regime or the fact that the American people were lied to about Joe Biden’s mental acuity while a cabal of shadowy Democrats ran the country in his stead, justice has yet to be served on a number of iniquities.

“Who’s gone to prison for this? Who’s been referred to prosecution? Who’s been arrested?” Steve asks.

“We have to punish evil. If we don’t punish evil, there will be more evil. I promise you,” he reiterates.

2. Stop the contagion of political sadism

“We have a social contagion, and I’m not talking about trannyism. ... This is actually worse. I will call it political sadism,” Steve says.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s near assassination and Charlie Kirk’s murder, the radical leftists have shown their true colors. Their brazen celebration of the attacks on people they consider their political enemies reveals just how sick and twisted they’ve become. They are reveling in “the physical suffering and debasement of people,” Steve laments.

It’s not even taboo anymore. “Now teachers, nurses, public officials, financial advisers just post this stuff under their names, and they’re proud to do it,” he says.

“It’s like a macabre carnival of ghouls fetishizing, turning the death of, I think, our best general into a kink that they cannot wait to satiate and rub in your faces and share with others.”

So what do we do? We employ one of the left’s favorite weapons: “cancel culture.”

“We have to publicly shame this out of existence. That’s the only antidote,” Steve says.

“I kind of like cancel culture when my side’s doing the canceling,” he admits.

“We have to [employ cancel culture] in return because they’re already doing all those things to us right now. This stuff has to be shunned. There should be a graveyard of lost jobs, lost careers. The social stigma to this should be overwhelming.”

3. Redden the red states

“Our red states have to be every bit as red as the blue states are blue,” Steve says.

He explains that blue states never eased up on their progressivism after Donald Trump became the president. If anything, they doubled down because “they have complete and total control of the governing infrastructure ... [and] the policy-making” in their states.

So why aren’t red states doing the same?

“It needs to be inconceivable that they could propose these [liberal] policies in the places where we have total control,” Steve says, urging states like Wyoming and Idaho to become the right’s California and Massachusetts.

The attitude we need to have toward progressive voters moving into red states is this, he says: “You’re not going to move here because Google gave you a job and come here and vote communism and cultural Marxism into my state. ... There’s more to life than a balance sheet, and part of that calculus needs to be the moral one.”

We need to adopt the bold stance Ronald Reagan took when he declared an arms race against the Soviet Union: “Do not launch on us, [or] we will launch on you.”

“We have to immediately establish that mutually assured destruction deterrent. We have to. If we don’t, I’m telling you right now, we’re going to bury more Charlies,” Steve says. “Well, we won’t bury any more Charlie Kirks because there’s nobody like him. The void he has left is immeasurable. But we’re going to bury more of us because they’re unbowed.”

The debate is no longer Republican versus Democrat or even conservative versus liberal. The debate is now: “Do I still get to be an American or not?”

How we respond to the death of Charlie Kirk will determine the answer to that question, Steve says.

“Don’t sentence your children and grandchildren to have to settle these disputes in unpeaceable means because we weren’t aggressive enough to defend them with the peaceable means we still have,” he pleads.

This is the fight Charlie was fighting until his last breath. That’s “why I am confident the next words he heard after that bullet ripped through his neck were, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant,’” he says.

We should all live our lives so that we, too, can hear these words when our time comes.

So “go hard,” Steve says.

Our future depends on it.

To hear his full speech, watch the video above.

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Steve Deace: The void left by our ‘most important general’ is as big as a movement



One of the last times BlazeTV host Steve Deace saw Charlie Kirk, Deace recalls having a long conversation with him to discuss the state of the country and the conservative movement.

Deace’s wife, who was there, said later, “I just have a feeling that whatever we do moving forward, he’s going to be a big part of it.”

When the pair last spoke on Tuesday, Deace received a text from Charlie: “Thank you, you are a dear friend.”

And he is among the thousands of Americans who can count themselves forever changed — for the better — by the Turning Point USA founder.


“I’m devastated. I’m angry,” Deace says through tears. “But now is not the time for anger. There will be a time. There will be a time, and it is coming soon. But we have to mourn first so that that anger does not eat us alive.”

“Charlie was the best of us,” he continues. “He was the brightest of the lights. He was literally one of the last people left on our side still trying to change minds, still trying to persuade, who hadn’t given up. And that frankly was just too much light for the darkness in our world right now.”

“If the enemy wanted to target our most important general, he did. The void that is left here is incalculable. There is no single person that could possibly step into the shoes of everything Charlie was a part of and helped to lead or made happen. It’s going to take more than a village. It’s going to take a movement to fill his shoes,” he adds.

While Deace is at a loss as to why Charlie was taken, he believes there must be a reason.

“I am going to trust that a God who did not even spare his own son for me or Charlie or for you, whose son the grave could not hold and whose last enemy, death, he conquered,” Deace says, “I am going to trust that someday in the future I’m going to look back on this, and I’m going to say, ‘Devil, that was the dumbest thing you could have possibly done.’”

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A storm is brewing in Iowa — and Republicans should take note: 'There are danger signs'



In recent years, Republicans have enjoyed sweeping victories in the red state of Iowa, most recently with President Donald Trump's 13-point statewide victory in the 2024 presidential election. However, there are warning signs that this monumental lead is beginning to erode.

For the first time in three years, Democrats managed to break the Republicans' supermajority after Iowa Democrat Catelin Drey defeated Republican Christopher Prosch for an open state Senate seat on Tuesday. Drey won the district by a jaw-dropping 10 points, which is a dramatic departure from Trump's 11-point victory in the district back in November.

'If it can happen in Woodbury County, Iowa, this can happen anywhere in America.'

Steve Deace, a native Iowan and host of the "Steve Deace Show" on BlazeTV, cautioned that this shift is part of a growing political phenomenon in the Hawkeye State that poses a real threat to Republican leadership.

"This is not an isolated incident," Deace told Blaze News. "They have been doing this to us for several years now. If they can do it in Woodbury County, which Trump won by 23 points in 2024, then they can pretty much do it absolutely everywhere.”

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Photo by Rebecca S. Gratz for the Washington Post via Getty Images

Normally, Republicans easily sail to victory in Western Iowa, Deace said. They could even nominate "a ham sandwich for Congress" and it would win because "there is no blue area in that part of the state." But now that Trump will no longer appear on the ballot, Republicans may have a tougher time.

"What we have seen as a trend line for the last several years now is that if Trump is not on the ballot, our people just don't turn out. That's just a fact."

After Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds announced she would not seek re-election, her imminent departure opened the playing field to a slew of candidates. Notably, Reynolds endorsed Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida's presidential bid in 2023.

On the Democratic side, former Assistant Attorney General Rob Sand has pitched himself as a gun-toting moderate in an effort to capture some of the Republican vote. On the Republican side, Congressman Randy Feenstra has been considered the front-runner, but Deace says he "excites no one."

"This is just a complete indictment of the complacency of Republicans," Deace told Blaze News. "There's energy on the other side."

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Photo by Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call

One source familiar with Iowa's ongoing political battles told Blaze News that the GOP's inability to put forward an energizing candidate is the product of a perfect political storm.

Sand has focused much of his campaign on improving water quality and advocating against the CO2 pipeline projects, echoing the concerns of landowners and farmers. In doing so, Sand and other Democrats have made an effort to make Republicans synonymous with the pipeline, furthering the apparent divide between the GOP candidates and their constituents.

"There is a lot of grassroots to see [Feenstra] as the pipeline guy. ... There's just not excitement for candidates right now," the source told Blaze News.

"Our people are just not motivated, by and large, to vote for the Republican Party brand as a brand anymore," Deace told Blaze News. "And so you've got to prove to them you're worth their time and effort for them to show up. And I think that this is a wake-up call for the next midterm."

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Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The source, who was granted anonymity to speak freely about Iowa's political landscape, said the disconnect between the conservative base and the lackluster candidates is ultimately because of external influence in politics.

"There is a little fatigue," the source told Blaze News. "There are a lot of state senators and state reps who are very good, very conservative, if not the most conservative in the country overall. We're so conservative that the moderates that are in there get more conservative voting records because they just don't want to take the flak."

"But there's a money factor in play," the source added, speaking about lawmakers who ascend to national politics. "There's a reason a bunch of these guys don't want to go to D.C. They want to stay home. They got a farm to worry about."

“There are danger signs," Deace told Blaze News. "Because if it can happen in Woodbury County, Iowa, this can happen anywhere in America."

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3 Senate races that could flip the balance of power: 'This is a wake-up call'



With the 2026 primaries fast approaching, there are three U.S. Senate seats onlookers should keep an eye on.

Republicans are currently enjoying a supermajority after sweeping the 2024 elections, controlling the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.

The freshman senator narrowly won his seat in 2020 by just one point.

After November, Republicans flipped four seats: Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Montana. These victories flipped the Senate and put Republicans in a comfortable 53-seat majority while Democrats fell back to just 47 seats.

Although the GOP has a healthy majority, there are some more potential pick-up opportunities — and losses — for Republicans going into next year's primaries.

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Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images

One of the most contentious Senate races will be for Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff's seat in Georgia. Several prominent challengers have emerged in recent months, most notably with Republican Rep. Mike Collins throwing his hat in the race back in July. Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has also been floated as a potential candidate, but she has not formally moved to run for the seat.

The freshman senator narrowly won his seat in 2020 by just one point against Republican incumbent Sen. David Perdue. Given this razor-thin margin, Republicans have set their sights on taking back Ossoff's seat, and early polling suggests it's within reach.

The Cook Political Report currently rates Ossoff's seat as a toss-up, and some polls mirror this rating. In a hypothetical race between Ossoff and Collins, the Democratic incumbent has polled with an average three-point advantage, according to RealClearPolitics. Another recent poll shows Collins trailing Ossoff by just one point, according to findings from TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics.

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Photo by Sarah Rice/Getty Images

Another pick-up opportunity for Republicans emerged in Michigan after Democratic Sen. Gary Peters announced his retirement in January. Several Democratic candidates, like Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, have since launched their own campaign bids, but the future nominee will inevitably have to put up a fight against Republican challengers.

Former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers is considered the frontrunner among the GOP candidates in the Michigan Senate race. Rogers previously ran and narrowly lost against Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin in 2024, but he has since relaunched his Senate campaign with the hopes of flipping the swing-state seat.

Slotkin managed to defeat Rogers by just 0.3% in November, signaling the support behind the Republican challenger. Earlier in the year, Rogers was polling several points ahead of his Democratic counterparts, and Cook Political Report has rated the Senate seat a toss-up.

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Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Although Republicans are poised to potentially flip some seats, there may be some warning signs in the Midwest.

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst (Iowa) reportedly will not seek re-election in 2026, leaving a vacancy in the deep-red state. The Cook Political Report has rated the seat as leaning Republican, and the GOP has maintained a prominent presence in Iowa at both the local and national level.

Despite the success Republicans have enjoyed in the Hawkeye State, Democrats have begun to secure their own electoral victories. Most recently, Democrat Catelin Drey defeated Republican Christopher Prosch for an open state Senate seat, flipping the GOP's supermajority for the first time in three years.

Steve Deace, a native Iowan and host of "The Steve Deace Show" on BlazeTV, told Blaze News that this swing in favor of Democrats is taking place because Iowans are not energized by any Republican candidates they have to choose from.

"There are danger signs, because if it can happen in Woodbury County, Iowa, this can happen anywhere in America," Deace said.

"Our people are just not motivated, by and large, to vote for the Republican Party brand as a brand anymore. So you’ve got to prove to them you’re worth their time and effort for them to show up, and I think that this is a wake-up call for the next midterm."

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