From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - The Silence Surrounding the Massacre of Christians in Africa

Episode Date: March 14, 2024

For the past several years, Christians in Nigeria have faced unrelenting violence -- and the humanitarian crisis is only getting worse. The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law reports that more than 8,000 Christians in the country were murdered during Islamic attacks in 2023, with even more being injured or kidnapped. With such a horrific issue happening overseas, why are we hearing nothing about it? And what can we do to help? Former U.S. Commissioner on International Religious Freedom Reverend Johnnie Moore has an important conversation about why the government and media are not raising more awareness around this issue, how he tackles this complex issue in his book, 'The Next Jihad,' and what small things people can do to make a big difference. Follow Sean & Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm Sean Duffy along with my co-host for the podcast, my partner in life and my wife, Rachel Campos Duffy. It's great to be back at the kitchen table, Sean. And today we have a topic that's very close to our heart yes and that is the persecution of christians really around the world but there's probably no greater hot spot right now than africa nigeria specifically and we searched our producers search far and wide who can we get to talk about this very important topic? And the name that came to us through all that research was Reverend Johnny Moore.

He is the former U.S. Commissioner on Religious Freedom. He served under Trump and Biden administration. He's an author. He's a business person. And he's a human rights activist. And you know that you're a really great human rights activist when you're sanctioned by the Communist Party in China. Those are definitely good creds. So with no further ado, Johnny, welcome to the kitchen table.

Thanks. Good to be with you. Sorry it's about this subject. No, it is a terrible subject. And, you know, I was looking at some of the stats here. Since 2023, 8,222 defenseless Christians have been hacked to death. I mean, I could go through even more numbers, but, you know, it's just astounding. And what's really crazy is I'm in the news business. Sean's in the news business. We've talked about it a little bit on Fox and Friends. It's not a top story. And so I want you maybe first to just lay out for us what are the conditions right now, maybe specifically in Africa and and why you think that that no one's talking about this. And why do you think that no one's talking about this?

I mean, look, what we have in the western part of the African continent is we have a piecemeal caliphate that's being formed by, I guess the best way of putting it is when everyone saw the atrocities that were committed on October 7th by Hamas in southern Israel, on October 7th by Hamas in southern Israel, the way they burned people alive, decapitated babies. I mean, horrible, horrible things I don't even like to say. Those same tactics are consistently being deployed, targeting the Christians in this part of the African continent. OK, so so what you have is you have like in Nigeria alone. And by the way, it's much more than Nigeria. It's just Nigeria is the biggest country.

But in Nigeria alone, you have three states in the north of Nigeria where 70 percent of the churches have been burned to the ground. Thousands and thousands of people have been killed. This happens all the time. It happens every day. And the world doesn't pay attention. And to answer one of the reasons why the world doesn't pay attention is because the U.S. government isn't paying attention. I mean, it just happened a few days ago. One more time, we had hundreds of children kidnapped from a school and the National Security Advisor in the White House issued this like fluffy message about how the United States government looks forward to working with the Nigerian government in order to rescue these people.

And our ambassador to Nigeria told me in her house that Nigeria has lots of problems, but one problem that it doesn't have is a religious freedom problem. It's just like unbelievable. It is unbelievable what's happening over there. So, Johnny, why is that? Why, obviously, the information is easily obtained from the U.S. government. We know what's happening. Your point is they don't care, or to the point where they'll gloss over or fluff over what's happening to Christians, as you mentioned, not just in Nigeria, but

around the continent. Why is that? They don't want to name it for what it is, which is Islamist terrorism. That's what this is. This is Al-Qaeda. This is ISIS. This is Boko Haram. They believe that if they call it what it is, first of all, they don't believe

it is what it is. They don't like to talk about religion at all. So what they try to do is they try to give every other reason. So they say, this actually isn't about religion. It's not about Islamist terrorists walking into Christian villages saying, before they behead the children and burn the houses and the churches down. It's actually about a tribal conflict or, and here's, I'm not telling a lie here. This is the actual fact.

Look at all the statements. They say it's because of climate change. This is literally their policy position because of climate change. All these people are moving around and they're, you know, they're attacking one another's village, the herdsmen, you know, and farmers. Yeah, they're you know they're attacking one another's village the herdsmen you know and farm yes they're displaced and so they just like need the land or they're displaced because the climate change it's so insane so i get like our this administration johnny is horrible and they are you know i i've started to i feel like i'm like those you know back in the eastern european days when just people accepted the government's crap and like, you know, you just accept it.

OK, I get the gut that the U.S. government, the Biden administration is never going to, you know, this doesn't fit their narrative. They don't like to call out anything religious. They don't like to call out Islamists, especially now when they're, you know, having to appease, you know, the Palestinian protesters. OK, all that politics aside, Nigeria, tell me if I'm right, is 80 percent Catholic, correct? It's a it's a it's basically split, you know, 50, 50, 60, 40 between between Christian and Muslim. And the majority of those Christians are Catholics for sure. So where the hell is the Pope? I mean, I hear him talking about climate change. I'm Catholic.

I hear him talking about a lot of stuff that doesn't have to do with religion. And I can't think of anything more important than religious liberty and protecting your flock in Africa, which, by the way, the African church, the African Catholic church, is the fastest growing, the most vibrant. Why would the Pope not be raising holy H-E-L-L on this? Well, I think I think there's several reasons for that. One of the reasons why is one of this Pope's sort of like arch. I don't know if you have arch nemeses in the Catholic Church, but but the the the Catholic leaders and the cardinal, in fact, the Catholic leaders and the Cardinal, in fact, in Nigeria are like staunch theological adversaries to the progressive shift of the Catholic Church. And so so as much as as much as, you know, the African church is very conservative, super traditional.

And and that leads into foreign policy. Right. Because we forget the Catholic, the Vatican. You know, I'm not Catholic, but the Vatican is also a country, right? And they have a foreign policy. And I'm sorry to say, but their foreign policy has been bad in every area. I mean, they made a deal with the Chinese Communist Party. It's one of the reasons why I made the communist mad, because I called them out on it. You know, they routinely talk to the Iranians, the foreign minister of the Vatican actively engages with the Iranian regime with a number of senior ayatollahs. They have they have had they've been totally, totally wrong, like usual, when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians taking every piece of propaganda that's coming from Hamas. I mean, this this is a this is a big issue. And look, I agree with you. This this administration in the United States is an utter disaster. And they're in their absolute worst on foreign policy. The whole world is on fire.

We're just evacuated another embassy a few days ago in Haiti, you know, of all places. I mean, they're bad in lots of ways. They're worse than foreign policy. But I wonder where we are as Christians all around the world. They're like a billion of us, you know, aside from a billion, over a billion Catholics, there's 700 million evangelicals, you know, why aren't we raising our voices? Why aren't we adopting churches? Why aren't we, you know, putting the pressure on, you know,

because there's a lot of things that we can do. And the first thing we can do is we can tell the stories of the victims. I mean, this is a beautiful thing about the church in Africa. They are so strong and they love God so much. And they believe in the Bible so entirely, like they just keep persevering. They shouldn't have to, but they keep doing it. And they named, like, I was just looking at lists of victims just to get myself in

the right mindset before we had this, had this conversation. And one of the victims was 13 years old. Her parents named her patients. Another one was six years old and her parents named her revelation. Another one, same family, a four year old, the parents named their child rejoice. Okay.

This is, this is who the African church is. And that's, and these people are coming and killing them just because they're Christians. I mean, that's just a fact. So yes, our government should be doing more, beginning with the Vatican. But the churches ought to be talking about this every Sunday.

Yeah, I've heard them talk a lot about the Jewish situation. I haven't seen a lot of pastors, evangelical pastors, for example, talk about this on the scale. Sorry, Sean. No, just really quick. So we're talking about the Biden administration and why they won't call out a Christian genocide in Africa, right? And why don't more Christians stand up and use their voices to advocate for those who are being persecuted. But if you look here in the States, you have Joe Biden and his administration persecuting Christians as well. I mean, you'd send the FBI into Catholic churches, by the way, these Latin mass Catholics, some of the nicest people, they're devout, they're nonviolent. They don't agree with Joe Biden on a lot of things because they're devout Catholics or Christians. And they're sending the FBI into churches looking for crimes from these Catholics.

And they're starting to go after evangelicals as well. And the bottom line is we don't stand up against a violation of our First Amendment rights to practice our religion. So if we can't even stand up for ourselves in America, I find it hard for Christians to stand up and fight on behalf of those who are being persecuted in Africa. And to the point, I think it's shameful on all of us that we don't stand up and fight harder for those who share the faith. that we don't stand up and fight harder for those who share the faith. Johnny, do you think, as Sean said, I mean, like, I agree with what Sean's saying. Like, we haven't stood up really very well for our own rights here. But I did see a lot of evangelicals, including the Speaker of the House,

take very strong stands in defense of Israel. But for our own brothers and sisters in Africa, what? And here's the Black Caucus, by the way. That too. The Congressional Black Caucus. Here's what's interesting about this. I mean, when I, you know, I wrote a book on this a few years ago called The Next Jihad, a major HarperCollins book that no one read because no one cares about the issue. But the reason why I

wrote the book, The Next Jihad, is because of my co-author. There's a rabbi, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, who's the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, like one of the most unrelenting advocates against anti-Semitism for the memory of the Holocaust. They hunted down the perpetrators of the Holocaust to make sure that they faced justice. And I wrote the book and I went to Nigeria because Rabbi Cooper was coming to me as a Christian and he was saying, where are you guys? He said, you're being totally decimated all around the world. He spent his whole life, 50 years studying the Holocaust. He's like, what is happening to these people?

And it was a Jewish rabbi who shook my conscience and said to me, why aren't you Christians doing something about this? a Jewish rabbi who like shook my conscience and said to me, like, why aren't you Christians doing something about this? And the same analogy applies when it comes to our own religious freedom, because, you know, having invested a lot of my life in advocating for religious freedom, here's something I can tell you. The constitutions of most of the worst violators of religious freedom in the world, the most authoritarian countries, virtually all of them, even the Soviet Constitution, okay, when we had the Soviet Union, they enshrined these protections in their legal documents. They just ignored them and didn't enforce them. And that's what scares me about what's happening in democracies around the world, in the United States, you know, in

actually in Japan, in several, several major, major democracies around the world. And we forget Nigeria is a democracy. It's a democracy of a hundred million people, and we're giving it a free pass, you know, and, and I, I, we, we have to, and I'll tell you, like, I don't, I don't like to compare, you know, Christians getting beheaded on beaches and Libya, you know, to the marginalization that we feel. But you know what? Every single time I sit with these people and I've done it in dozens and dozens of countries around the world, sometimes in secret, sometimes with people who risk their lives by meeting with me. They always tell me the same thing. They say it didn't begin this way here. They always tell me the same thing. They say, it didn't begin this way here.

It didn't begin with our headings and arbitrary detention. It began with our kids being treated differently in school. It began with spiritual leaders being censored by the government. It began with the use of the state in order to suppress the views of religious people. And that's a real, real warning, even for us in the United States. That's 100% true. I was interested when I was prepping for this on Japan. I had no idea that Japan, I think you say that it's like maybe the worst. It can't be worse than Nigeria.

No, but what's happening in Japan is what's happening in France. It's what's happening in India. It's what's happening in the United States. In Japan, there is a large church. It's not a church whose theology I have anything to do with, but it's a major, major church movement that's incredibly, incredibly politically influential. And right now, the Japanese government is trying to take them out. There's a court case that's happening right now. And so you have the most powerful democracy, the third, now the fourth, Germany just overtook it, the fourth wealthiest country around the world, within a stone's throw from the Communist Party of China, that's this close to revoking the status of an entire

church in the entire country. And I'm telling you, in states in the United States, you know, we saw it in COVID-19, you know, we saw hardly any governor was willing to say that these religious institutions provided essential services to their communities while people are at home, depressed, can't care for their loved ones, dealing with death, doing all of these things. Everything else is essential service, but the Christian communities aren't. These are warning signs. And I know how the communists... Well, it was a warning sign. You're so right. You're so right about that. You know, Johnny, also, I think what's happening, and we're seeing this not just in America, not just in Nigeria, it's happening all over the world.

And that's the same time that we have this globalist movement. And Rachel and I talk about this a lot. And its effort is to take away the liberties and freedoms of people and consolidate them in one elite group of whether they're political leaders or wealthy business leaders. And it brings me to the question again. So we could come back and go, you know, what do we do? What do we do here? What do Christians have to do around the world? But I want to go back to Nigeria. If we had an administration, let's say we have a Trump administration

that says we're going to address what's happening in Nigeria in the genocide with Christians. What do you do? Do you put boots on the ground? I have to imagine that just sanctioning the government of Nigeria with money and trade probably wouldn't be enough for them to take action. These are ideological movements that are happening in these countries. And it begs the question, it's really challenging to change course and get a government to protect a religion's right to exist. Well, I'll tell you what we did, which was working and what could be done again.

The first thing is President Trump confronted the president of Nigeria in the Rose Garden on the White House lawn in front of the entirety of the press corps for what was happening to Christians in the country. Can you explain? Can you paint us a picture of what that looked like? I didn't know that. Yeah, it was like this elegant state visit, you know, the leader of the, the, the, the,

probably the second most powerful country in Africa, Egypt's number one, you know, you know, it's normal, normal White House visit. It comes time for the press conference. And one of the first things president Trump says in the press comes, you go and watch the video. You know, why are you allowing Christians to be killed in your country? And the whole country went crazy. And you know what happened for a solid four or five months? It stopped or significantly declined. And that tells us something.

It tells us the Nigerian government can do more than they're willing to do. And so the bully pulpit of the United States is powerful. We have to send a message. And the Trump administration, the State Department, designated Nigeria a country of particular concern. That's the highest religious freedom violator. The Biden administration revoked that designation.

We have to put it back in place. We have to do smarter things with Africa generally. I mean, I don't think most Americans realize that our Africa command is in Europe. Now, come on. It's a huge, huge, huge continent. We could move our Africa command to a country like Morocco that's an incredible ally of the United States of America and we would be in closer proximity to that whole Francophone part of Africa leading into the Sahel, you know, that whole region. Those are just three.

And then, of course, sanctioned to the sky all of these corrupt figures, you know, that have billions and billions of dollars of assets in our country, not to mention in the United Kingdom and the EU. If the U.S. signals this matters, as we've seen in lots of other ways, everybody will fall in line. Right now, the U.S. is carrying water for an Islamist regime, you know, that's growing in Nigeria and trying to find every other reason for what, you know, it's just like common sense. and trying to find every other reason for what, you know, it's just like common sense. If they're yelling a lot of stories. Or foreign aid, right, Johnny? I mean, we could make foreign aid. I'm sure we give a lot of money to Nigeria.

We could make foreign aid. A billion dollars a year. Huh? A billion dollars a year is how much money we give to Nigeria. A billion dollars a year. That could be contingent on religious liberty being protected for the Christians. And we should care about it. We're Christians.

Listen, we're going to give a billion dollars a year to Nigeria as you have a Christian genocide taking place. That in and of itself is, I mean, unthinkable. It's outrageous. This is what the Biden administration does. I mean, the Biden administration pays off the bad guys and puts pressure on our allies. I mean, it just yeah i i know i know for example johnny what's happening in latin america that um countries who have very still have

retained their christian values are getting their leaders are getting persecuted they won't get meetings with the, with the Biden administration. They'll get snubbed because they're not interested in climate change, abortion or, or, or LGBTQ stuff that, that the state department wants to attach to aid and other benefits that

they get from the U S government. I'm sure that's happening in Africa. And actually it's even worse than that because what's happening in Latin America, and it is happening in Africa, is in fact, we saw it a few weeks ago. Right. Remember when Lula made his statements at the at the African Union? This was a you know, this is the Biden, the Biden administration is turning a blind. In fact, they're sort of facilitating a detente between progressive leaders of countries in Latin America and Africa and the Communist Party of China and the Islamic Republic of Iran, right? So we had a weakened Maduro in Venezuela. Now we have a

stronger Maduro. We have stuff happening in Nicaragua. We have, you know, we have a, we have this crazy situation in Brazil and it's's not in our interest like whatsoever. And it just boggles the mind. But remember, this is an administration that said their number one priority was human rights. But they're picking and choosing who's human rights. Right. And then apparently they just gave on it, gave up on it entirely because I guarantee the people in Haiti and Afghanistan and, you know, in southern Israel and in Nicaragua and all the all these other other places aren't seeing. It's like where where where is the U.S.? Where is the U.S. government? In fact, the CIA is doing a lot of the diplomacy these days. It's like what is going on with the State Department whatsoever? We'll be right back with much more after this.

From the Fox News Podcast Network. I'm Ben Domenech, Fox News contributor and editor of the Transom.com daily newsletter. And I'm inviting you to join a conversation every week. It's the Ben Domenech Podcast. Subscribe and listen now by going to foxnewspodcast.com. If you really listen to Joe Biden, the number one priority at all costs is climate change, which, by the way, I think is also an effort to take away our freedom and liberty and colonize Africa, by the way.

It's it's it's it's it's it's it's like turning it into keep Africa poor, make sure they can't utilize resources that they have in their countries and make them use electric vehicles. So, Johnny, if I think of, I know evangelicals, I know Catholics, general Christians, you know, most of them are good people. They go to church on Sunday. They go to work. They raise their families. They go to church on Sunday, they go to work, they raise their families, and they aren't involved in protecting their religious liberty in their own country. They're not concerned with the plight of Christians in far off countries. And I think we're getting to a place where more Christians have to be activated.

How do we do that? What's kind of what is the role? What if you're to say, hey, Christians out there, this is what you have to do. Small steps, big steps. But this is what the Christian community has to do moving forward to protect ourselves here, but also protect other brothers and sisters around the world. There's so many things. I'll pick four or five. brothers and sisters around the world? There's so many things. I'll pick four or five. Number one, when it comes to the persecution of people around the world, know their stories and tell their stories. And if you're fortunate enough to be able to travel to visit them, your American passport

is a ticket to making a difference in the world. Get on an airplane, sit and talk to the victims. Most of us can't do that. But what we can do is we can tell their stories to our families, to our congregations, to awaken the conscience of people. Are you collecting those stories, Johnny? Is there a place where we can go to read these stories? Because the media is not covering it. We had to dig. Yeah, where do we see the stories?

Yeah, I mean, you can just, you know, I don't like to talk about my books, but you can read my books alone. The New Book of Christian Martyrs. There's 600 pages of stories. Oh, I love that. Is that what it books alone. The New Book of Christian Martyrs, there's 600 pages of stories. Oh, I love that. Is that what it's called? The New Book of Christian Martyrs? Yeah, yeah.

And the next jihad is the book on Nigeria. But we have to educate ourselves. That's number one. Number two, we have to be clear about what we actually believe, because what's happening now is our beliefs are being smeared, like this Christian nationalism nonsense that people are talking about. our beliefs are being smeared like this, you know, Christian nationalism nonsense that people are talking about, you know, this is a political tactic in order to stigmatize evangelical and,

and Catholic engagement in the public square. Like we don't want a theocracy in America. We just want people to leave us alone. That's what we want. Like believe what you want to believe and let us believe what we want to believe and stop trying to, you know, force us to, to, force us to change our sincerely held religious beliefs. We don't do that in the United States of America. It's the first clause of the

first sentence of our First Amendment for a reason. That's how important religious freedom is. So number two, like, you know, don't let other people define you. I mean, we, you know, as Christians, like, you know, the Salvation Army, that's our heritage, right? You know, tearing down the Berlin Wall. No, that's our that's our that's our heritage. Martin Luther King's March, like he was animated by his faith. Like, don't let people hijack all of this stuff, like define who you are. And then number three, like be an advocate.

Pick up your phone, call your member of Congress, whatever their political party, put pressure on them around these issues. We've actually seen again and again and again with this current administration, the technocratic state, you know, underneath this administration, which they've staffed is super, super crazy, crazy progressive. We've seen a number of situations where Democrats and Republicans have partnered together to push back from Congress. We're about to see it probably with TikTok, you know, in the Communist Party of China, like, you know, vote for your preferred elected official, but whoever wins the election, make sure they know your name. Be unrelenting with your emails, with your phone calls, and then pray. And how should you pray? You should pray the way you hope someone would pray for you. If you were

the mom of one of these girls that was just kidnapped, if you were the lone surviving family member from the village, if you're the pastor who just started his fourth church, because his three previous ones were like burned down you should pray the way you hope someone would pray for you you should stand up and speak up the way you hope someone would speak for you give the way you hope someone would give to you like do all of these all of these things and vote in a way i mean the proof is in the pudding. You see that Joe Biden claims to be a Catholic, campaigned with rosary beads, never stops talking about that. The Washington Post did some fluff piece like, oh, his life is guided by Catholicism.

There is nothing this man has done. Nothing. Not his personal life, not his position on abortion, certainly not his position on religious liberty and the protection of Christians in America or around the world. He's weaponized his, you know, basically state, you know, the police, the state police, the FBI against good Christians. He's expanding that war on Christians. So, I mean, Christians have to wake up and go, listen, you know, maybe Donald Trump has had affairs, maybe even with porn stars, but who's the one who stood up in the Rose Garden and called the Nigerian president out for killing, you know, for doing nothing about the killing of

Christians? So we need to vote that way. Who are the members of Congress who are the most aware or willing to advocate on behalf of this issue that you've worked with? Most honestly, most of them on the on the Republican side, I don't care. I care about the issue. But but I'm sorry to say that we don't hear enough from the from the leaders of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the intelligence committees or that all intersect with national security, because that's actually I always say to people like look you should care about these people for a thousand reasons but even if you don't care about these people if you a heart as hard as stone like it's in the best interest of the united states of america to solve this problem

now because i'm telling you like i i was I was with a senior, a very serious former intelligence person who told me that the the worst situation that this person had seen in the entirety of the world, and this is a very scary world that we live in, was what he personally witnessed in the northeast of Nigeria. Like, if you think about what happened in Afghanistan, you think about how, you know, Osama bin Laden was able to go to Sudan and to Somalia. Like, we've had a, in the Biden administration, we've had a coups all across the center of Africa. We, you know, we had peace between Israel and the Sudan. Now we have a civil war in Sudan with 17 million displaced people.

Like this is the situation is really, really dire. And so even if you have a heart as hard as stone and you don't care about human rights and foreign policy circles, you're what they call a realist. Right. Just interest. It's all about power. Like it is common sense that the United States of America for its own sake, whatever your political party ought to be doing more now with this part of the conflict. You mean to contain Islamists and their right? By the way, our allies in the Arab world, the Middle East are begging us to do it. OK, these people want to take them out, too. OK, these they're so confused why we aren't caring and paying more attention to this. So, Johnny, I like your point.

So I was a member of Congress for nine years. And if I get one letter on one issue, I'm like, OK, I got one letter. You get five, ten letters. You know, you might start to pay attention. And I've told this story before, but I got all these letters one time about bees, right, and the death of bees. And, frankly, I couldn't give a damn about bees. I do now, but I didn't care about bees. And I thought it was just –

I hadn't thought about it probably. I thought there were crazy people writing me about bees. But when I got like 800 letters from people in my district on bees, I was like, maybe there's a problem with bees dying. And if bees died, there's a huge issue with being able to grow food. Right. And so to your point to organize, when you sit by yourself in your home, it's hard to go, how do I activate other people to feel this cause as passionately as I do? But what's unique with Christians and church-going Christians is you have a whole congregation or parish that you could help advocate to. You could get your pastor or your priest to go, we should all write our congressman and senator on this issue. And by the way, pastor or priest,

we got how many other Christian churches in our community. Why don't you reach out to the others and see if they'll in their congregation or in their church actually join us and we're going to all write. Yeah, or if the priest tells the bishop and then the bishop instructs every single priest in his

diocese, you're right Sean, that's how you do it. And you send 800, 2000 letters to a member of Congress on this issue to go, we care and we care what you say about it and how you fight on this. I guarantee you they may not care

like I didn't care about bees but i had a look into bees i mean this is the beautiful part about our country like for all of our flaws and we always think we're falling apart okay this is part of the american you know psychology but for all of our flaws like this is a country where the people's voice still matters. And I know, you know what I also tell people, I say like, like five visits to a local office of a member of Congress is worth like a thousand visits to Capitol Hill, you know, to just, because it's like the local community, like, like bring your kids class and just show up at the local office and let them tell those little kids why they shouldn't care more about these people being killed. That's so interesting to me.

That's another thing. A parent listening. We have a lot of parents who are listening to our podcast. You could organize, you know, talk to your kid's teacher or principal and say, you know, at this Catholic school, at this Christian school, school, at this Christian school, we're all going to write letters to our member of Congress from the children in defense of those little girls that you talked about. You know, a little girl named Rejoice, a little girl named Revelation. These are the voices. You know, I want to also ask you, you know, before we go, because you make a really great case in your writings, in your articles, in your books about why religious freedom matters. So, you know, obviously, as a Christian, when I hear the stories that are happening in these villages, the hacking, the kidnappings, the forced marriages that kidnap these Christian girls and then force them to marry Muslims and become Muslims and put them in burqas and all the awful stuff.

And by the way, Johnny, I'm still mad about the Michelle Obama and her, you know, you know, back our girls, bring back our girls. Where is she on this? Bring back our girls. Bring back our girls campaign. Where is Michelle now? Where is she on this? And it's happening in Africa. And that campaign didn't do anything because she refused to talk about what it was. Michelle Obama refused to say, there is an Islamic group called Boko Haram, and they're targeting Christians.

She totally sanitized this. So people didn't know what was going on. And until you name it, you can't fight it but just make the case to us why just overall you talk about all these democracies across the world that are experiencing from japan you know to democracies in africa and latin america everywhere in france why religious liberty matters for the world, for our future, and for that global stability that you were talking about? I can do it in one sentence, which is when you have religious freedom, you have everything else. But you don't always have religious freedom if you have these other other rights.

And and at the very, very heart. This is why, by the way, the Communist Party is so terrified of religious people, because when you're sitting there in that communist state with its communist leader that believes they're God, and they can force you to submit to them, if you believe, we, you know, we're largely pacifist. You know, we have a just war theory. Like there are certain times where war matters. We have just wars happening around the world now. Like we're not pacifist in that sense. But we are turning the other cheek people, you know, up to a certain point. And what ends up happening around the world is if you're a communist regime, you know that you have people who don't believe your God because they believe in a God. OK, sincerely religious people, if you have religious freedom, you have the other human rights around the world. And by the way, I fight for all those rights, too. But my job is much, much easier, much, much easier if we have religious, religious

freedom to begin with. And I get it. Autocracies don't have religious freedom. Okay. We have work to do there. And sometimes you give out the most improved player awards for democracy, for democracies like Nigeria, the United States, you know, Japan, like no excuse whatsoever. I watched a speech with Tucker Carlson and he said he divides the world into two camps. Those who believe in God and those who believe they are God. And that that makes your point perfectly, Johnny. We'll have more of this conversation after this. I can't thank you enough.

I think this topic is so it is so ignored and that you've dedicated your life. I can't thank you enough. I mean, the fact of the matter is the bad guys want all of these people suffering in the shadows. And you shine a bright light into those dark places. It makes a huge, huge difference. And so this is the type of conversation which literally saves lives. And so I'm just very, very grateful for. No, we're grateful to you.

lives. And so I'm just very, very grateful for... No, we're grateful to you. You've dedicated your life to being a voice and sharing those stories, giving us the information that we need to get out through our medium, through our podcast. Hopefully we'll get the story back. We've had you before on Fox and Friends. We hope to have you back again. But this topic is wildly important. And as you said, you don't have to be a Christian to care about religious liberty. No doubt. Johnny, listen, thanks for all the good work you do. Thanks for being here, sharing that with us at the kitchen table, making sure other people hopefully activate and protect religious liberty here but around the world. Thank you for being an advocate and a voice for people who don't have a voice right now. That's always so important. So we appreciate your work and you

joining us as well. Thank you, Johnny. God bless you, Johnny. Thank you. God bless you all. Thank you. Again, I love this podcast. You brought this up, Rachel. I didn't know this was happening in Africa and, you know, to shed a on it um and to know that there's pain and suffering and religious persecution that's happening around the world just because we don't talk about it just because it's not on the news doesn't mean it's not happening um and it's very real for the christians who live in these communities who aren't safe again with 13 000 churches burned in nigeria sean 150 000 people killed since 2009 but 8 000 just in 2023 since 2023 um that's according to a new report by the by the international society of civil liberties and rule. I mean, the numbers are astounding.

And as he said, that he had someone high level in the intel community saying, this is the most horrific Islamic jihad that he's ever seen. It's worse than ISIS. And it's in Nigeria. And nobody's talking about it. And by the way, we talk about interfaith connections and coalitions. The story that he told about the rabbi going, where are you people? They want you guys just as much.

So he made a point, and it's one that I make often. He said most of these countries, almost all these countries around the world that don't respect religious liberty, in their constitutions, they have statements that protect religious liberty, though it's not enforced. Sounds like a border, right? Well, no, just because you have words on paper that says this is the rules by which we're going to live, just because you're guaranteed the right to freely exercise your religion or the right to free speech or a free press, just because a document

says that, like the First Amendment of your constitution, doesn't mean you actually have that right unless you have people who are willing to fight for that right. And when the right is threatened, people who are well-educated and knowledgeable about how important those rights are will stand up and push back against a regime that's attacking those rights. And that's the power of dumbing down education to our kids, not teaching civics to our kids, not teaching history on why are these rights so important. Why did our founders make sure those rights were delineated in our Constitution, in our Bill of Rights? Why do they do that? You have to understand that history that you get in your, we used to get that in school and civics, they don't do that anymore.

Because I think these leftists don't want young kids to know what they're giving up. So they'll freely give it, they'll freely give up. So they'll freely give it, they'll freely give up religion, they'll freely give up speech. They'll give all these rights up and have no clue what they're forfeiting. You've seen that. We talked about that poll that just came out not long ago about how many young people, it was like astounding, the percentage of young people who said that the First Amendment went too far, that, you know, hate speech needs to be controlled. But it would come down to this as well. Sean, I'm curious because maybe our listeners probably don't know this, but because

of the work that you were doing in Congress on financial services and other areas, you interfaced a lot with the Black Caucus, and you became friends with many members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and several of them are pastors themselves. I know that you've challenged them on abortion, sort of in friendly conversations, but what could be done civically? I mean, about you know and he did too I thought it was great you know five visits to your local office is better than a thousand visits to the DC office of your congressman but also

you know what you said about priests and bishops and pastors activating their churches on this issue but specifically with the black caucus they carry if not anything, I think, a moral authority within the Congress on racial issues. What could be done to make this a cornerstone issue for them? Because let's face it, this is happening in Africa,

and a lot of them travel to Africa on their codals. Those are the official congressional trips. They like to have relationships with leaders in Africa. How can we make the genocide of Christians in Africa in these most horrific, horrible ways a top issue? That's a really good question. So I think if, and i would rib them on the issue of abortion i know you did um and again i wasn't going to beat them up though i've i've you've challenged them very directly i would challenge them um and he challenged them on racial

grounds that that abortion was being used to exterminate the black race. Yeah. And that got me into some trouble with some of them on occasion. Some of them agreed with you quietly. They quietly would agree. But abortion is hallowed ground for Democrats, right? So that's an issue that if they want to be a Democrat, they can't move on abortion, even though their faith might tell them something different. But I think this, Rachel, to your point, I think if members of Congress, whether it was in committees or on the House floor, going, hey, listen, I didn't realize this was going on, but we should all work together to make sure we're protecting Christians in Nigeria.

How can we get to – and I think the Congressional Black Caucus would be really receptive to any other member that came and said, we want to protect Black Christians in Africa. They'd be like, actually, yeah, so do I. Should Johnny get in front of that caucus? Maybe they just don't know. Listen, you know when you were in Congress how much information, it was like

drinking from a fire hose, how much information is coming your way. Would it be helpful for Johnny to go speak to the Black Caucus? I think if they would have Johnny, that would be fantastic. But also, the information that you get, it does come fast, but it is the best information. You can get through all of the fog and get to the best information as a member of Congress. The best experts come to you, the best authorities on any topic come to you. 100 best authorities on any topic come to

you. A hundred percent. And you have a whole research department that'll work with you to get the right answer. And if this is a gray area, there's a couple of different positions, you can have them all laid out in front of you. So again, I think the Congressional Black Caucus would be willing participants. I think it's an issue they probably care about. And like every member of Congress, there's a lot of things they care about. There's a lot of issues that they're dealing with. And so if it's, again, one or two people working together could start a firestorm in Congress to draw more attention to this. But again, I appreciate Johnny. To tell this story is important for the Christians in Nigeria,

but it's important for Christians here. When Johnny says, listen, it didn't start this way. It never starts with hacking someone to death. It starts by treating someone differently. It starts by targeting a certain group of people and we're starting to see that here in this country the targeting of christians the the christian nationalists trying to i mean what did these are reports coming out of the white house sean reports out of the white house saying and remember i remember you and i i think as you and

i were talking with with pete hegseth about the FBI situation, you know, them infiltrating into the Christian churches. And you said. I said, because he's a Baptist. I said, they're coming after you guys next. And he goes, you're right. And guess what? I had a conversation with a Moroccan friend of mine, a Muslim, and I said when the FBI infiltrated our churches, our Latin mass churches,

I had this conversation with my Moroccan friend, a Muslim, and I said I'm ashamed I didn't speak out when they were targeting your mosques at the FBI. We probably supported it. I probably thought, great, they're going in there and rooting out. But they did many of the same

stupid stuff that they did with that Governor Whitmer stuff. Sean, maybe you can explain that a little bit better. But it was a lot of this hack type. There was there were in the leadership of the cell that was allegedly going to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer. A majority of them were were FBI agents. This was this was a total setup. I mean, these people were not very bright. They weren't people that think outside the box. They can't think outside the box. The FBI set the

plan out for them, helped them. They didn't have the skill set to actually enact this plan without the FBI. I think it was the FBI's idea to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer. And they got a great story out of it. Like, oh God, these radical righties are going to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer. And they got a great story out of it. Like, oh, God, these radical righties are going to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer. It was all a plan concocted by the FBI. And this is what they do. And this brings me to another point. Did they do that in the mosques, Sean? To some extent, yes.

Yeah. And again, fear oftentimes compels people to give up their rights. And after 9-11, that fear allowed us to say, you know what, to keep us safe, you can go after one group of people, which were the mosques and the Muslims. Well, I guess we didn't see over the horizon to go, ah, if they can do that to Muslims,

why can't they do that to Christians? And now they're doing it to Baptists. And guess what? You may think you're safe, Presbyterians, but they're going to come after you. Maybe even the Unitarians. The Unitarians may be safe. Unitarians, you guys may be all right.

They might be the only ones who are safe. So do you know what the difference is, Rachel, in America but also in Nigeria? If your family in wherever you live, in your little Christian community, and all the men have guns, it's a lot harder to come in and grab your daughter. It's a lot harder to come and attack my Christian community if I have firearms to defend myself. If you've taken away my firearm and someone else comes in with guns, I can't defend my family. You saw that in Texas not long ago.

comes in with guns, I can't defend my family. You saw that in Texas not long ago. Remember at what's his name? The big pastor from the big mega church. Why is his name escaping me? Yes. You know who I'm talking about.

I can see his face. Yes, I can too. Is it Rick? No, it's not Rick Warren. I know our listeners know exactly who Rick Warren. It's, um... Okay. I know our listeners know exactly what's going on. Come on, you take it around. But there was a woman who came in, and she shot up, and then it was... She had a gun, and then somebody in the church was carrying.

And you're going to find it. So, on that point, that is why the left is so, nope, this is not. Joel Osteen. Joel Osteen. Thank you, Google. Big lives at Google save the day. They want to take our guns away. Yeah.

Right? Because that takes away our self-sufficiency. That takes away our ability to defend ourselves. They want us completely reliant on the state. And they'll use these shootings. to defend ourselves. They want us completely reliant on the state. And they'll use these shootings. They'll use all kinds of tools to get us to give up our firearms. And they're unrelenting. And they went after the NRA. They're demonizing the NRA. They're demonizing gun owners. And by the way, we just saw... And they're organizing young people, Sean. Like when any

of these school shootings happen, and they are tragic, and they're. And they're organizing young people, Sean, like when any of these school shootings happen. And they are tragic. And they're horrible. Then all of a sudden, this George Soros money and Hollywood money will come in to sort of organize these kids to become little anti-gun activists. And, of course, these kids are vulnerable. They're emotional. This just happened. And they think if we just remove the guns, this will stop these school shootings.

And it's just not true. So I can't pull the stat off the top of my head. But if you look at young Americans, the Gen Zers and even some of the millennials, the number one issue for them really is climate change. For them, climate change is real. They need to take stark action. Even young conservatives believe in climate change. And the reason is they've been taught it year after year after year in elementary school, in middle school, in high school, in college, on social media. It might be the most indoctrinating topic that they have at the school. Totally.

The one thing they all agree on, left and right kids. And so what you're now seeing is these schools are now using the climate change model, that they have at the school. The one thing they all agree on, left and right kids. And so what you're now seeing is these schools are now using the climate change model, and they're talking to kids about guns the same way as climate change, getting kids to turn against the Second Amendment. And again, these young people, they don't know what they're giving up. What happens to a society that doesn't have the ability of its people to bear arms? And they did it with free speech, too, Sean. All this like microaggressions in the First Amendment, you know, the right to free speech has gone too far.

We have to care about people's feelings. If you pull young people, pull a 60-year-old and pull a 22-year-old on the 70 or the 67 year old is i mean basically gen x and older are still like solidly in you know free speech that's the american way you pull young people they will tell you well it depends are you hurting someone's feelings um if someone can be hurt, words are violence. Remember, we hear that all the time from the left. Silence is violence, too. It doesn't matter what you say or do, it's going to be violence.

That's a great point on guns, though, Sean, because that's part of this whole persecution. They can't persecute you as well. If I've got a gun. Yeah. It's harder to do. And I've got a high-octane gun. Let's put it that way. If I've got a gun. Yeah. It's harder to do. And I've got a high-octane gun. Yeah. So as we talk about this, our money is being used, your tax dollars are being used to indoctrinate your kids,

which is why we always advocate get your kids out if you can. If you've got a good school, get them out. Don't let these warped ideas be their future. Make sure they know their civil liberties. They know their rights. They know why we have them where they came from they're good little Americans and free thinkers and who knows you might have a free-thinking kid that ends up being a radical liberal but if they they weren't

indoctrinated they went there themselves okay then that's free choice that's free will but I guarantee you if you send your kids to a good school they understand their rights, they understand American history, they're going to grow up to be good patriots and good Republican voters. You know, Sean, it was an interesting discussion

he had on why the Vatican has taken some of these positions or remained silent on the persecution in Africa, the persecution in China, that they actually took the side. It's so embarrassing. They took the side against Cardinal Xin, by the way. They took the side of the Chinese Communist Party against the true, and now the true Catholic Church in China is underground.

And the officials you see of the church are actually Chinese government appointed. So they're really sort of mouth church are actually Chinese government appointed. So they're really sort of mouthpieces for the Chinese government. And the Pope, Pope Francis, made all that happen. I mean, he's a really bad actor, and it breaks my heart to say it, but he truly is. Another case of that, why you don't see, for example, why didn't the Catholic Church speak up on behalf of the religious freedom of those in the Latin masses? Well, one, Pope Francis has been against the Latin rite of liturgy. And we all have to understand why. So you should be digging into that. But also the Catholic Church is making a lot of money

through the Biden administration, hand over fist, through NGOs, through the open border policy, pretending that they care about refugees and migrants. They are facilitating this and making billions and billions of dollars. And so when the Biden administration can hand out contracts to just about anybody they want, they give it to Jewish NGOs, which they have, Lutheran NGOs, any kind of ngo they the catholic church doesn't want to get on the bad side of the biden administration they want those contracts because they make too much money and so that addiction to government money is is that relationship is very dangerous and that's another thing that you can advocate for

through your social media to your priest to your bishop make your voices heard that you don't like the government the the catholic church's involvement in these all religious groups get them out yeah come on by the way i don't like ngos altogether no ngos anyway listen i appreciate johnny uh good good get great conversation and again, it's not just in Nigeria. It's here as well. Organize your church. Talk to your pastor. Talk to your priest.

All right, your members of Congress and your senators. And talk to other churches in your community. And the impact of that will be real. You can save lives of good Christian souls who just want the right to be able to freely practice their religion. So thank you to Johnny for being with us. I want to thank you for joining us at the kitchen table. If you like the show, the podcast, you can rate, review, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. You can always find us at foxnewspodcast.com. You can subscribe there.

You get a notice every time we drop, which is Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, three days in a row. It's pretty awesome. And listen, Rachel, good Friday, three days in a row. It's pretty awesome. And listen, Rachel, good job on this topic. Appreciate it. Thank you. Until next time, we'll see you later. All right. Bye-bye.

Bye, everybody. Listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.