The Eric Metaxas Show - #97 - John Zmirak

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

Today On The Eric Metaxas Show, Eric reflects on President Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, the media backlash over his comments on Islam, and why not all religions are equal when it comes to freedom. Later, he talks with John Zmirak about Pope Leo, Tucker Carlson’s latest comments on Islam, Catholic corruption, open borders, and why so many institutions on the right and in the church now seem to be spiraling into confusion and compromise. Subscribe for clips from The Eric Metaxas Show to hear politics and culture from a Christian perspective.

Hey there, folks, it's today. That's what my staff tells me. Welcome on the program. A lot of stuff I haven't spoken with you directly immediately. Why? Well, for example, Monday, I was in Washington, D.C. For the President's Commission on Religious Liberty, what a privilege. What a privilege that President Trump has appointed me to this commission because I think religious liberty, if you understand it,

it's about the most important thing there is. That sounds like hyperbole. It's not hyperbole when you understand it. I gave a little talk, which I don't know if we can get, Chris, we should try to get the clip of my little speech because each of us was asked to make a statement. And I made a statement. It was covered, I think the Christian Post wrote an article about it,

which I put up on my ex account. And if you follow me, if you're subscribed to the newsletter, which we sent out twice a week, Eric Mataxis.com newsletter. I hope you are, if you're not, folks, because there's so much stuff we just cannot possibly get to on this show. Go to Ericmataxis.com, Ericmataxis.com. Sign up for the newsletter. But the President's Commission on Religious Libby is a big deal. On May 7th, which is the National Day of Prayer, I will go back to Washington, D.C.

we will have a rose garden ceremony where we the commissioners will present to the president our report suggestions on what he might do for religious liberty. We've heard so many horror stories that this needs attention. But in my remarks on the commission the other day, two days ago. One of the things that I said was not all religions are equal. And what I mean by that, and this is a big thing, right now this is a big thing. All human beings are equal. We're all created equal. God creates each of us equal. So anybody who says, I'm a Muslim, I as a Christian, am equal to the Muslim and the Muslim is equal to me in God's sight. But Islam is not equal to Christian faith. And what I was speaking about specifically, not just talking about the theological

falsehood of Islam, but what I was talking about was religious liberty. Christianity, and I write about this in my book, Revolution coming out in June, but Christian faith leads to religious liberty. Christian faith, if you squeeze it, religious liberty pops out, that you cannot coerce someone to become a Christian. If you really understand what it is to be a Christian, if you don't have some tribalist view

of Christianity, if you have an actual view, that it's a relationship with Jesus, you realize that cannot be coerced. Nobody can be forced to choose God, to choose truth. And you can't force them

with a sword. Islamists believe you can force people to convert. They don't believe in religious liberty. Go to a Muslim country. and see what happens when you try to go talk about Jesus on the streets. Good luck.

So the point is, not all religions are equal. And I said that, but of course, MSNBC, which has now been branded, rebranded as MS now, wrote an article saying that the right-wing broadcaster, Eric Mataxis, said, not all religions are equal. Scary. Now, of course, what they're trying to imply is a lie. They're trying to imply that I'm saying that not all people are equal and that, you know, Christians are better than Muslims. No, that's a lie. That's not true. We're all equal in God's sight and we're supposed to love everyone, even if they disagree with us.

But it doesn't mean we have to agree with their ideas. And so we're living in fascinating times. Tucker Carlson, he seems to live to want to confuse this issue. He just posted today, or yesterday actually, something on X, talking about how Islam teaches that we love Jesus and we like, these are total lies, ladies and gentlemen. If you, I mean, imagine Islam is basically a Christian heresy. So they've taken what they like and they say, oh yeah, Jesus is a nice guy. They pat him on the head like a dog. Oh, he's a nice guy. He's a prophet. but the true prophet, the last prophet, the great prophet, much greater than Jesus, is Muhammad.

So imagine that they have this plausible deniability where they say, and Tucker is now spouting these Islam talking points that we revere Mary and we revere Jesus. It's complete nonsense. They don't say he is the Messiah. They don't say we worship him as Lord. None of that stuff. So it's completely meaningless. But the headline is that Tucker is pushing this.

It is very difficult to fathom how he could be pushing these lies, why he would be pushing these lies. It's bizarre. It's bizarre. I'm getting to the point where I'm wondering if maybe he just doesn't want to hurt the feelings of the prayer carpet collection he has hiding in this closet. You know, it's kind of strange. I don't know. I mean, that's just my height. But that's that that is.

But we're all trying to figure it out. Seems are out there, you know, you're showing up like. an imam with the deer to the turban. It's like it almost is, I mean, that's almost like the most logical assumption at this point, not to cast this person. But that's, but this is the point. Sorry to. Yeah.

No, no, no, no, no. If you survey the other religions and ask them if they think religions are equal, guess what? They're going to say, no, ours is better. You know what? In fact, if you bring that up, they'll cut your head off. Yeah, some of them. Yeah. Not that we're judging.

Because beheading is just a way of worshiping their God slash demon. It's really sick. It's so sick the fact that we can't have an honest conversation. But when you get people as smart as Tucker, whom many of us followed and revered, saying such insane things. Now, it's not just they're insane. They're stupid.

They're really dopey, really extra dopey things. You have to wonder, what is going on? And the point is none of us knows. None of us can answer what the heck is going on with Tucker and why he. And to me, the clearest example, of how he's gone wrong is he is fully anti-Trump at this point. And I think, okay, this was a guy who was appearing at rallies with Trump. He is now anti-Trump.

At that point, I just go, okay, it's pretty clear to me, you're nuts, you're anti-Trump. So what do you think? Kamala Harris would have been better. Biden would have been better. What do you, you know, he's anti-Trump like Marjorie Taylor Green, another nut. it's sad to me now people say it's sad and they don't mean it i mean it to me it's sad that these folks that you know they they seem to be on the right side of things they've just gone crazy um speaking of which uh the the the the oh there was a post in i'm sorry there was an article

another article in the christian post a few days ago about um what i had been saying about Tucker. And again, I'm not like Tucker's enemy. I've always liked Tucker. I am deeply dismayed at what he's doing. And I say that because what he's doing is tremendously harmful, tremendously harmful to the country, to the world, tremendously harmful. He has great power, great platform. He has used it for evil. Whether that's intentional is another question. But he has used his platform to wreak havoc in the conservative movement, in the America First movement. It's been very confusing for a lot of people. And let's be clear, there are always people who can be misled. There are young people who have no sense of history, who know almost nothing.

And they cannot correct Tucker. They don't have a wisdom or the knowledge that I would to say, excuse me, that's wrong. They don't know. He's the voice for them. So they listen to him, whatever he says, they're not going to know better. They're too young. They haven't yet understood a lot of the things that are being talked about.

So when he makes claims, they don't know what to say. They just, they follow him. So he's done tremendous damage. And one of the most wicked things he has done is how he has harmed TPSA. As you all know, I revered Charlie. I loved Charlie.

I loved Charlie. And I love Erica. And I love the folks at TPSA. And they have been hurt very badly because of Tucker Carlson. Even, and this is the kind of thing you can't even make up, at Charlie's Memorial Service, which is one of the most sacred amazing events that I could even imagine, Tucker makes what many interpreted as a kind of weirdly anti-Semitic comment about people sitting around eating hummus, whether that was intended or not.

That was the beginning. And he, in a way, took advantage of the absence of Charlie to wreak havoc. And to say things and do things that I think of Charlie were alive, Tucker never would have done or wouldn't have been able to get away with it. And as someone who loves and reveres hummus, I found it. That was the worst part. So, ah, there's so much else.

Okay, we're going to go, I guess we've got John Smirak coming up. I should have said this. I'm sorry. This is always my problem. I talk and I forget to say, John Smirak is coming up. We're going to cover the news of the day.

We'll continue this conversation. Yesterday, we had a Socrates in the city book club in New York City. We are reading the great divorce. This is, without a doubt, one of the greatest books ever written in the world. It is the level of genius. of C.S. Lewis is staggering. If you want to do a Socrates and the City Book Club,

you get the books for free, ladies and gentlemen. Do you understand that? The books will be, we have a grant. You will get the books for free. You can get my Revolution book for free if you do a book. This is a big deal. Go to Socratesinthe city.com. Make your inquiries there.

Socratesandcity.com. I'm not kidding. Like, these book clubs are fantastic. Great way to meet people, community. Totally delightful. All right, when we come back, go to Ericcontaxis.com, send it for the newsletter.

Socrates and city.com. We'll be right back. Hey there, folks. Before we go, most of you know that wicked actors continue to attack Israel. If you want to help Israel at this time, we ask you to help our friends at Magin David Adom. Their website is savinglifeisrael.org. Savinglifeisrael.org. They are Israel's national emergency response team. medics are on the ground. They rush into the danger. They are the ones who deal with the carnage. These are heroes. And if you want to help Israel, we recommend helping our friends at Magan Davita Dome. The website again, savinglifeisrael.org, savinglifeisrael.org. A gift of $360 provides life-saving trauma kits. A thousand dollars helps protect the paramedic on the front lines, larger gifts, help keep ambulances, blood drives, even Medevac rescues operating around the clock. when tragedy strikes AFMDA is there.

Will you be where with them? Will you be there with them? Will you help them? You can do so by giving now at savinglife Israel.org. Hey there, folks. I threatened you. I said if you didn't behave,

I'm going to have to punish you and I have to bring on our friend John's Mirac. And you weren't all bad, but enough of you were bad that you all have to suffer. So I apologize to those of you who behaved well. But John Zmirak, please be my guest today. You could not find 10 just listeners in Sodom.

So as a result, here is the desolation. Here is the fire from heaven. That's right. That's right. It's coming down. It's an airburst event. It's like the Tunguska event in Siberia in 1908. John, that's just who you are.

and you make no apologies. So we're going to talk about a lot of stuff. The Vatican just issued a condemnation of God for destroying Sodom, saying that he had violated the principles of just war. Isn't that terrible what God did? Gosh, if only Pope Leo had been there to advise him. You know, Pope Leo did say that he wants to serve God, but he wants to serve him in an advisory capacity.

I think he wants to serve him on pieces of Wonderbread, sliced diagonally. Yes, with the crust cut off. So, okay, so we have a problem. We have, and we've had this problem in the past, where you have a Marxist pope talking about things that are not relevant to his pontificate, or at least those of us who are scoring at home who know about the way the game is played. He shouldn't be saying these things. He seems to be, I mean, the fact that the pope met with David Axelrod. The fact that the Pope comes from Chicago and knows these leftist political activists

like Axelrod and Obama, that itself is very, very troubling. And somebody posted many of the current Pope's ex post, his tweets, before he became Pope. And he just seems like a died-in-the-wall, Chicago Obama politician It could have enjoyed Behar It could have enjoyed Behar's

Twitter account From right now I'm not Catholic You are Catholic What tell us what we're supposed to make of this Because it is actually Kind of crazy All right It's a complicated situation

Okay There is room To argue over whether or not The Iran War is a good idea to argue over whether or not it meets the traditional criteria for what is a just war. Where the most important one of that is, LaVertsol, is it a judge, is the cause of it, is its goal moral, while keeping Iran from having nuclear weapons,

given that it has missiles which could strike the Vatican or Vienna or Munich or, or, you know, any other major European, most of Europe, European cities are within the range of Iran's ballistic missiles and they've been trying like crazy to develop nuclear weapons and they're an apocalyptic death cult that wants to bring on the end of the world, the regime. So the cause, the purpose to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons because it's likely to use them, maybe on Israel, God's own people. That's a just cause. is the violence being used proportionate to what we're trying to achieve? Again, I think we've been bombing military targets, not civilian targets.

Is it the last, was it the last resort? Again, you can argue should we have continued to negotiate with these people who just seem to be running out the clock until they have a nuclear weapon. Okay, so there is room for legitimate back and forth over the morals of this war using St. Augustine's criteria of just war. The problem with Pope Leo is that he started talking like an absolute pacifist. God never blesses those who wage war. God doesn't hear the prayers of those who wage war. Really, the soldiers at Normandy who were invading Nazi Europe to end the, in part to end the Holocaust, God didn't hear their prayers? Why do you have military chaplains?

By Pope Leo's logic, there shouldn't be military chaplains in the U.S. military because God doesn't hear the prayers of those who are there for war. So what the Pope has done is undermine his own authority and push the church further towards being a humanitarian, Kantian, non-governmental organization, like Amnesty International. And the church has been sliding in this utopian direction. Look, this Pope and Pope Francis both said that the church

and the Bible were wrong to endorse capital punishment. Six thousand years of biblical tradition are wrong because capital punishment is always wrong. So it was wrong to hang the Nazis at Nuremberg. Even though Popeye's the 12th wanted them to be hanged as quickly as possible, no, he was wrong. You only have to listen to what the current Pope is saying. What previous popes said, what the Bible said, none of that matters. It's kind of like Stalinism. Whatever Comrade Stalin decided was the party line on a given Wednesday.

Forgive me. We're going to a break. We'll be right back. I don't like alarmism. I don't like fear-mongering. I especially don't like people who profit from panic. But I do believe in telling the truth, especially when the markets are reminding us how fragile things are. Over the last few weeks, we've all watched the volatility, stock swinging, confidence-shaking, long-standing assumptions, suddenly looking less solid. Many economists are calling this moment the everything bubble, where nearly every asset class has been inflated at the same time by years of cheap money and reckless global policy. This isn't political, it's not partisan, it's math. And when confidence erodes, history shows us what tends to happen next. That's why I've taken time to educate myself on one of the oldest ways people have protected wealth during uncertainty.

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you if you were bad i would bring john smirak on as my guest and a lot of you were bad and i'm sorry but john welcome back uh you were just saying well we're talking about the pope's comments and a lot of us uh i think catholic and non-catholic are baffled by why the pope would say some pretty patently dumb things like i mean it's one thing to have views it's a another thing to say things that are so crazy. I mean, it doesn't make sense to me that the Pope would say stuff like this. Well, this Pope was elected in order to push back against Donald Trump. I think 100% of why he was chosen, they wanted an American Pope who could push back against Trump. The bishops of especially Western Europe seem to have accepted the leadership of

globalist elites, people like Obama, people like the Clinton Foundation, people like Bill Gates, they've accepted that these people are in power. And the price for the church of being tolerated, of not being persecuted, is to go along with what the globalist elites want, especially on immigration. And so these are the security bishops. I believe, is that the correct term? what is it? The correct term for these bishops, the scarity bishops.

I don't know if that's the correct term. I'm always looking for the right term. The scarity bishops, they're basically willing to compromise with evil, whether it is communist China or whether it's the Nazis. They're basically going to say like, hey, we don't want any trouble.

Tell us what you'd like us to do. I mean, effectively, that's what we're talking about. Instead of being heroic like John Paul II, they are acquiescing. They're also being bribed. Remember that in the past 15 years, the Catholic bishops of America have received $3 billion from the federal government, most of it for taking care of immigrants. Something like 40% of the U.S. Catholic bishops' budget comes from federal money, again, through immigration.

So every time they process an immigrant, every time somebody swims the Rio Grande, the bishops cash a check. If we could find some way that if women who were going to have an abortion kept their baby, the bishops would get a check, they would talk about abortion the way they now talk about immigration. Immigration is their bread and butter. You're making me want to become a Protestant. You realize that. Guess what? Protestant charities do the same thing.

The Baptists are terrible about this, the Lutherans. That's why the Southern Baptist Convention was working with, its leaders were working with Georgia. Soros in this thing called the evangelical immigration table. I think they invited you to that. You're darn tooting. You're darnedutin. And I took my check and they haven't heard of me since.

The octopus of corruption, the tentacles reach everywhere. Notice that 60 minutes had three left-wing bishops on at the same time to attack President Trump for trying to enforce our just immigration laws. All those bishops

were the protégés of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who we now know was a child molester who was habitually sexually harassing male seminarians. All three of these bishops knew about it, did nothing in fact help to cover it up. So you've got basically a left-wing gay cabal in the highest reaches of the church. Pope Francis purposely picked these men as cardinals because they were in line with the Democratic Party, which funnels money into the church. What? I think President Trump's tweet about the Pope was silly and foolish, and he walked into a trap. What the president should do is launch a RICO investigation of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

for their sexual abuse cover-ups, which lasted more than 20 years, resulted in $3 billion in court settlements against the church. Three billion dollars worth of child raping and molestation, of priests being shuffled around it hidden. The next thing he should do is strip the Vatican of its sovereign immunity because the Vatican which oversaw all this and which enabled it is immune from lawsuits because the Pope is ahead of state.

You really think the president should do that? Like really? Yes. Yes, really. Do you think anybody's advising him to do that? I don't think I've been advising this for years. This would shift the focus to the actual human trafficking.

The bishops are also involved in smuggling immigrants. Catholic Charities works with Mexican cartels to bring unaccompanied children into the country. God knows what happens to those kids. We know 450,000 young Mexican, Guatemala and

Honduran kids. 450,000 of them disappeared in the Biden years. No one knows what became of them. They were just turned over to people who were their sponsors. No DNA tests, no proof that they were related. God knows what's happening to those poor kids. A lot of them are probably being abused.

This is what the RICO laws were written. We'll be right back talking to Johns Merak. Hey, folks, before we get back to our guests, I just want to say a lot of people donate when there's a headline. But MDA, Magan David Adom, doesn't get to slow down when the news cycle moves on. MDA is Israel's national EMS system. That means emergencies don't stop today, tomorrow, next month. Heart attacks, accidents, trauma, surgeries, blood shortages.

They're constant. Keeping that system strong requires ongoing support. When you give to the American friends of Magin David Adom, you're funding the basics that make everything else possible. Ambulances on the road, blood banks for trauma and surgery, training for first responders, and equipment that's used every single shift. This is not symbolic giving. This is practical life-saving support. If you want your donation to have direct measurable impact, this is one of the clearest ways to do it. Go to savinglifeisrael.org. That's savinglifeisrael.org. Welcome back talking to John's Merak. John, this is just so dark, I have to say, you know, to hear of what goes on in the upper echelons of the Catholic Church from a faithful Catholic such as yourself.

It's hard to hear this, and it's hard to fathom why the Pope would meet with David Axelrod. I mean, it's, it's, I have to say, you know, people criticize, people are often criticized for being divisive. What could be more divisive and foolish than for the Pope of the entire Catholic Church to meet with leftist Chicago radicals? Why do you suppose, first of all, why do you suppose he would even meet with them? It's just bizarre. Well, if you look, again, if you look back at his old Twitter feed, he is a, he is a Chicago leftist. You know, he just is.

And it's really unfortunate that, look, in the 10th century, in the 900s, for like 50 or 60 years, the papacy was captured by the local Roman mafia, the local nobility, but they were effectively mafia. And at one point, the popes were being picked by a Roman prostitute. And historians called this period the pornography,

the rule by harlots of the church. And it took the Holy Roman emperor, Otto the Great, marching into Rome, deposing a corrupt pope and ordering them to elect a non-corrupt pope. That's what saved the papacy. Caesar had to step in and save the papacy from itself and from the corrupt elites that had taken it over. The reason I would like to see the federal government

investigate the bishops for the sexual abusive children and their violation of our immigration laws would be to cut the corrupt people off from the source of money and the source of power so that the decent, honorable, honest priests and bishops would gain control again. Because as it is now, the Catholic Church in America has been in bed with the Democratic Party for the last 100 years. And as the Democratic Party got worse and worse, the church got worse with it. Growing up, my parents were poor in the Depression. And my mother remembered being on the line to get bread and soap and soap and shampoo. Like you would wait in line to get these things.

And the people handing out would say, remember, you're only getting this because of Franklin, Dellen, and Roosevelt. And my mother growing up taught me the Republicans of the Party of the Rich. And it took me pushing back saying, well, the Democrats of the Party of the abortionists and the forced school busing. and open immigration. And then gradually, she reluctantly started voting Republican. But the Democratic Party was the party of the Catholic Church. The Republican Party was partly founded by the no-nothings who wanted to keep Catholics out of America.

So a lot of this is just old ethnic politics. I mean, ask Jews why they keep voting Democrat, even though the Democrats want to destroy Israel. They won't be able to explain it to you, but it's been ingrained in them. These things go deeper than rationality. That's tribalism. It's stupid tribalism.

Why do blacks keep voting for left-wing Democrats who want to replace them with immigrants, who want to flood the country with Muslims? Well, Donald Trump started to eat away at these old tribal affiliations. He got a lot of black and Hispanic votes. He got a lot of working class votes. The Democrats are terrified at that. So they're trying to use all their weapons, the aging corrupt bishops, these pathetic non-profits, evil, evil organizations like Catholic Charities.

Catholic Charities, I think, is worse than Planned Parenthood, because Planned Parenthood at least admits that they're in the abortion business. Catholic Charities is not Catholic and it's not a charity. It's a pig sucking at the government's teats, taking government money. 60% of the budget of Catholic Charities comes from the federal government. It is just siphoning taxpayer money and spending a lot of it on overhead to smuggle immigrants into the country and get them on welfare and register them as Democrats to vote to keep abortion legal. It's just unspeakably corrupt. When they hand the basket out, they do a collection every year in every church for Catholic charities, I am tempted to take money out and send it to a worthier cause like the government of North Korea.

or put in us a small baggy of doggy doo-do or something. You know, just to send a message. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. We've got to talk about something more positive. This is affecting my soul. This is so depressing. It is.

It's so depressing. Look, I don't make the natural law. I just enforce it. Well, can we talk about, should we, There's so many funny things to talk about. Yeah, there's a wonderful new movie out that I saw this past weekend that I want to recommend to people. And it's all about George Whitfield, famous Protestant Methodist preacher who came to America seven different times from Britain. And he preached according to your book, If You Can Keep It, A Wonderful Book, Everyone Should Read.

80% of Americans at some point heard at least one sermon by George Whitfield. 80% of the country, the entire country. He was no microphones. He was a monster celebrity. He was the celebrity of the era. And he came here, I guess, first in 1738, then he came back to 1739. Yeah, I write about it at length in my book, if he can keep it. And he was friends with Benjamin Franklin.

And that's the story of the film. I haven't seen it yet, but I want to see it. Chris, we've got to get a screener or something because I want to interview the people who made it. But it's called The Great Awakening, and everybody says you should go see it. When I was reading your book, if you can keep it, it we're trying to do a film adaptation. I was trying to imagine, who could we get to do George Whitfield? Nobody can even make it plausible that there is good a speaker. George Whitfield kind of made Billy Graham seem like a stuttering grandma.

I mean, he was just the most amazing public speaker anyone ever seen. All the leading actors of his day wish that they could be as talented as George Whitfield doing Shakespeare. But he was doing the Bible. David Garrick said he could make you weep by simply pronouncing the word Mesopotamia. I don't know. I've read that quote many times. Well, anyway, he was an outrageously gifted orator. And maybe the great.

evangelist who's ever lived. Right. And this film found an actor who could nail it. You can believe that this man's voice, this man's sincerity, this man's power at preaching the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ, change the lives of millions of Americans. And as you wrote in your book, it helped unify the country. It helped create a distinct American people with shared values and shared attitudes who would be ready to seek their independence.

And the movie shows that. It shows how Whitfield held lay the groundwork for American independence and how Whitfield's influence on Benjamin Franklin helped save the constitutional convention. Because people don't realize in 1787, America almost broke up into 13 different states again because we couldn't find a constitution that balanced the big and the small states. States like Delaware wanted as much power as states like Virginia.

there was almost split up and the different states were talking about maybe we should ally with Britain, ally with Spain, ally with France, and go to war with the other states. At the constitutional convention at a pivotal moment, would it look like it was going to break up,

the film shows, Benjamin Franklin, drawing on all we've learned from George Whitfield, gave a famous talk where he just asked the delegates to set aside their differences for a while, and pray. Pray for God's intervention. And that's interesting because Franklin had been a deist. Deists believe that God just sort of set up the universe like an ant farm and just kind of watches

it happen and doesn't interfere. Doesn't even take a magnifying glass and kill. Excuse me. I just kind of stop you for a second. You just mentioned like an ant farm. And it just dawned on me that a lot of the stuff that you and I take for granted, like everybody knows what an ant farm is. Do people still have, do kids still have? Do kids still have? have ant farms? Do your kids have ant farms? I don't know. Do you ever have an ant farm? I feel like the ants, like they formed a union and they said no more ant farms. But anyway, actually the ants are all registered to Democrats.

And they vote in swing districts. Those are the votes that come in on election night and they have to shut down the counting so that they can bring in the votes from the ant farms. And a lot of the ants have come up from South America through the dairy and gap. and they're just, they're all over our country. So you don't even know when you get an end farm, are these genuine American ants or what? So going back, Benjamin Franklin had had this deist view of a distant, uninterested god

who sort of watches us like an ant farm. George Whitfield changed that. George Whitfield taught Franklin to believe that God interferes in the affairs of man. And in that famous speech, Franklin said, Scripture tells us that a bird can't, a sparrow can't fall to the ground without God taking note of it. Can a great empire rise without God's aid? I don't think so. And so what happened was they did stop their squabbling. They did start engaging in prayer. And within seven days, they had approved a constitution that saved the country. Both James Madison and George Washington said it was miraculous. It was miraculous the way the constitutional convention

went from chaos and musical hatred to peace and order. Before we go to the break, folks, the headline is there's a new film out. It's called Great Awakening. It is highly recommended. I haven't seen it yet, but everybody's telling me you've got to see this. Great Awakening is the film. You've got to support these things when a good film comes out. Jump on it.

We'll be right back. Hi, everyone. If you were injured in an accident, listen up. We have legal professionals standing by to answer. answer your questions. You can find out if you have a case and how much it's potentially worth. I'm Gina Bellich, along with Super Bowl champ and two-time pro bowler Vernon Davis. So Vernon, tell everyone watching who should call right now. Well, Gina, if you or someone you know were injured in an accident that was not your fault, give us a call right now. You can find out

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Welcome back talking to John's Merrick. John, before we continue our kooky conversation, kooky but important, I want to mention that on May 6th, we are having a Socrates in the city event in Washington, D.C. It's before the National Day of Prayer, which is May 7th. There's going to be a White House Rose Garden event where we, who have comprised the President's Commission on Religious Liberty, present him with our report. But the night before May 6th is a Socrates in the city event, Ben Carson will be there. I'm going to be interviewing Ben Carson.

Andrew Colvette of TPSA and Megan Basham, the great Megan Basham. We're going to have a Socrates and City Roundtable talking about the Bonhofer film, which is being relaunched on October 7th in theaters. And it's very exciting. So if you go to Socratesandasit.com, that information will be out soon. I also should say that on May 17th in Washington, D.C., there's going to be a big event on the National Mall. we are going to be rededicating the nation to God, and I will be speaking at that event.

I am very excited, very excited. But the night before, May 16th, our friend Sean Foyt is going to be having a worship event. I will also be speaking at that. I think Pastor Mark Driscoll is speaking at that. I think Greg Locke is speaking at that. All the crazies are gathering in Washington, D.C., for God's praise.

purposes. It's wonderful. So I just want to mention that and we'll give you more information on that. But John, this Murak, speaking of crazy, can we, can we touch on the bizarre post by President Trump of him? It sort of looks like he's Jesus, sort of. And he's like healing, I don't know if it's a corpse or an ailing man. It's so bizarre. And everybody who's like outraged and they're calling it is blasphemous. And I thought, I just think it's more... It's retarded. It's retarded. It's retarded.

It's tacky. Never go full retard. Mr. President, never go full retard. He went full retard with that one. But it was so tacky and cheesy. Like, I was more bothered by the tackiness and the cheesiness. I don't think it rose to the level of blasphemy. It was just bizarre and tacky.

And any of this AI stuff where they show, you know, Trump wearing an eagle costume or whatever garbage it is. It's just so tacky. And the fact that he posts it is bizarre, but a lot of people really said, no, it's blasphemous. And I thought, I don't think he intended it. I mean, I'm sure he didn't intend it that way. But I just think it's kind of misguided and confusing. And he was confused. And then even more bizarrely, he said he was a doctor. It was like a Red Cross thing or something. I mean, it was so bizarre. And I don't think President Trump is saying, you know, by the way, I'm equal to Jesus. Like, I don't believe that.

If he were, you know, that's, that would be awful. But I think it was just sloppy. I think it's kind of like when people say, you know, what would Jesus do? We should all do what Jesus would do. And he sees himself, you know, as I want to be a healer. Jesus is a healer. But the whole thing was tacky and weird. And it got a lot of people upset.

And then he took it down. I think poor speaker, Mike John, Mike John. Johnson had to go in and tell him, Mr. President, you know, it's time for you to resign. Or it's kind of like when they went up to Nixon, you know, Mr. President, so we have bad news. But you've got to take down that tacky post. Anyway, I don't know if there's any more to say about it. But it's so bizarre. It's so bizarre.

This is the problem with electing presidents from Queens. They have, there are good parts to it because, you know, they're pugnases, they're tough. but they're also stubborn and I'm just thinking of my dad. He reminds you my dad. I'll never forget my father coming out a mess one week and saying, all these readings, half the readings, it's all about the Jews, about Israel. Why do you have to keep hearing about Israel and church? I thought we were Catholic.

I'm like, okay, dad, maybe I need to explain something to you. You know, you know, Jesus was Jewish and all the apostles and the Bible was entirely written by Jews. And, you know, I don't even think I want to have this argument. Like the time, my mother wouldn't let us go to Chinatown because of Pearl Harbor. Where do you start? I love, see, that's- I haven't trusted those people. I haven't trusted those people since the war.

I have nightmares about them. They eat cats. Again, you can't argue with that kind of stupid. Where do you begin? Where do you begin? John, that's just. But on the other hand, my mother also would have these, these flashes of insight.

When John Lennon was shot, my mother said, he let all those young people into communism. I'm not going to mourn his death. Good. I'm like, okay. I mean, yeah, there's some truth there. He led all those young people into communism.

Wow. I should have asked her whether she blamed John Lennon for Pearl Harbor, but I didn't make the intellectual connection. My mind was that for killing the czar and his family. It's hard to know. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Hey there, folks. I've been saying that 2026 must be the year of accountability. Whether talking about government spending or the way we steward our own families, we have a moral duty to seek the truth.

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steward of your resources, please call chapter at 571, 421, 1,253. That's chapter at 571, 421, 1253. Talk to a real person and get the honest answers you deserve. Welcome back. I'm talking to John's Mirac, and I'm laughing because we're, there's a lot of kooky stuff going. It's good to, it's good that we can laugh at the kookiness. And I always say, John, or at least I'm going to say that I always say, that this program

is kooky and important. Our conversation right now, very kooky, and yet very important, very important, and yet very kooky. So thank you, John. If you don't laugh, if you don't laugh, you'll cry and maybe become a Shiite suicide bomber. I mean, events are. That doesn't end well. Events in the world, in the conservative movement, in all of our churches, are completely

spiraling into madness. I feel like I'm in a cage full of spider monkeys and they're throwing poop at each other and I'm just dodging my head trying to avoid getting hit. It's very, very hard. When you see people like Tucker Carlson embracing

deranged any submit conspiracy theories, when you see people rallying behind a left wing pope just because he's pope when he wants to open the borders, oh, In Spain, there are 800,000 illegal immigrants there, almost all of them Muslim.

The conservative party is trying to not give them citizenship. The Catholic bishops are saying give them citizenship. Pope Poblio just said, we need to learn to be less afraid of Muslims. Well, I would like him to move to Nigeria, reset the Vatican up in Nigeria, where the jihadis are murdering Christians every single day. He pointed to Lebanon. The Pope points in Lebanon. as an example of how Christians and Muslims can live together in peace and harmony.

That is insane. Lebanon used to be a Christian country. Muslims inundated it as immigrants, and now Christians are persecuted there. If the message of Christianity is you have to let your country be taken over by foreigners who hate you, you have to let yourself be persecuted, you have to use your taxpayer money to fund them having four wives and 27 children on welfare while they bring Sharia into your country. If that really were the message of Christianity, it would prove Christianity wasn't true. And I think that's what Scrutate.

That's what the enemy that Satan is doing. He's trying to make Christianity look like a utopian suicide cult so that people leave. They become pagans because that's better than mass suicide. If Christianity taught pacifism, open borders, universal celibacy, anything else that would destroy the human race, it would prove it wasn't true.

And that's the devil's message. The devil wants you to leave the church, to abandon Christ because he wants you to see it as some variety of gay suicidal communism. And so you leave. Don't fall for it. I'm sorry, what? Never mind.

Okay, John. So, you know, we are Christians in spite of, you know, all of this horrible stuff. I mean, you can understand, I can really understand why people want nothing to do with Christian faith. I mean, I can make the greatest argument

for atheism. I understand how preposterous a lot of this is. I think of a lot of people who grew up in the Catholic Church, for example, who aren't faithful Catholics because of things like

what the Pope says, they just go, I'm confused, and I would rather just, I'll stay home on Sunday. I'll do something around the house because, you know, this is dark, this is dark stuff. It's dark stuff. And I, uh, I go to, I go to church. I go to church for the sacraments and to hear the

Bible preached and hear sermons explaining the gospel. I'm not interested in what the bishops have to say. I don't even know the name of my local bishop and I plan never to find out. I just, I have no interest. And it's sad because these men are meant to be the heirs of the apostles. But in fact, they act just like Democratic Party bosses. And the fact that David Axelrod met with the Pope, imagine if Pope Benedict XVI had met with Roger Stone just before a midterm election. People would have been screaming, but we take it for granted

that, of course, the Pope being a left-wing Chicago Democrat is going to meet with other left-wing Chicago Democrat. and they're going to scheme on how to defeat the Republicans in America so that the bishops can get more money through immigration. It really is that simple. You cannot be too cynical. There is no depth of cynicism that is not justified when analyzing church leaders who collude with evil politicians. Well, and that's why I think as we close for the day, everyone has to have a personal relationship with God, with Jesus. You have to be able to look to him. You have to be able to look to him because the rest of us are fallen. John, we're going to leave it there. Just a joy always to have

you. Folks, please go to EricMontaxis.com. Sign up for my newsletter. Lots of stuff. You're missing, ercmantaxas.com. Thanks for tuning in.