The Eric Metaxas Show - Allie Beth Stuckey

Episode Date: August 13, 2020

Okay, welcome to the Eric Metax's show. Eric is indisposed at the moment. I'm afraid he's been having GI problems and uncomfortable bloating. But I'm sure he'll be out in a jiff. Oh, here he is now. Looking pale and shaken. Oh, you okay, little buddy? The Eric Mataxis show.

Hey, folks, welcome to the Eric Mataxis show. I try to get good guests on this program. A lot of times I fail. Today is not one of those times. Ha, I have someone that I just, I get very happy to talk to her. you know her her her name is alie beth stucky she has a new book out alie welcome back thank you so much for having me i don't think i've spoken with you since you gave birth to a human being who is now part of your life yes it's been a long time it's been um i don't know probably

year and a half but she's 13 months now and no yes so quickly i know crazy So now I have a toddler. You got to watch them at that age. If you catch your smoking, you got to nip it in the bud. Seriously. I know, I know. It's a lot of it a couple times, but I think that I... Don't be her friend.

You're her mother. No smoking. Okay. You wrote a book called You're Not Enough and that's okay. It's very funny. It sounds like, what was the Al Franken character on SNL? Like, I'm good enough and that's okay. Or something.

You know, you're the second interviewer actually that's brought up that particular bit, which is funny. I didn't know about it, but... Well, you don't need to know about it. You're too young to care. But it's, you're not enough, and that's okay, escaping the toxic culture of self-love. Talk about that, because actually, I'm not really even familiar with that. Maybe I'm slightly too old to be familiar with the toxic culture of self-love. I think I know what you mean. Yes, so it's actually something that's been around for a long time.

In psychology, for example, the idea that high self-esteem will solve. all of our personal and societal problems, that low self-esteem is the reason for crime. It's the reason why families break up. It is the reason for academic failure. That's been the theory. But there's been study after study, not highly publicized. But there have been studies that prove that that's just not true, that low self-esteem doesn't really correlate to crime and academic failure and things like that. And nevertheless, we have pushed to this idea that self-esteem is the solution to all of our societal and personal problems. And people have now been able to capitalize on that, particularly when it comes to social media, when it comes to

self-help books, women's ministries even that are targeted towards women, this idea that in order to be successful and happy and fulfilled in life, all you have to do is love yourself. All you have to do is remember that you are enough. And once you do that, you'll be able to accomplish all that you want to accomplish. So that's the culture of self-love. And it starts with the lie that you are enough. Now you have a podcast that's called Relatable. That's originally how I came to know you. I think I've been on that podcast. It's a video podcast, right?

So then I have been on that. And you look, you've been on Fox News and stuff. You're a Christian and a conservative. But what you're talking about, when you put it in the words of self-esteem, then I go, oh, yeah. Of course. I've been hearing this garbage most of my life. Right. And it is totally bizarre.

because as you say, we know that it doesn't work. In other words, if it worked, we'd say, well, you know, and there's also truth in every lie, right? It's not like there's nothing. I mean, Jesus assumes that we love ourselves when he says, you know, treat your neighbor as you would treat yourself or whatever. If you're cutting yourself or committing suicide, you know, he's assuming that there's something healthy about loving yourself because God loves you. But how has it become a problem? Talk to us about that. So I think with a lot of cultural changes,

it comes with the failure to define our terms. So when Jesus says love other people as you love yourself, as a lot of theologians have pointed out and argued, he's not necessarily talking about an affectionate kind of love. The kind of love that looks in the mirror and says, wow, I'm so awesome today. He is talking about that innate self-interest that we are all born with. And yes, like you said, some people do truly struggle

with self-loathing and self-deprecation and things like that. But even then, we are always looking out for our best interest. We are always looking to quench our thirst, to satisfy our hunger, to give us the safety and the security that we need. Jesus is saying, in the same way that you so naturally pursue your own self-interest, look out for the interests of others, even the people that you don't feel affection for. Because you might not feel affection for yourself.

You're still going to meet your needs. You might not feel affection for your neighbor. You should still seek to meet your neighbor's needs. like in Ephesians 5, the Bible says we, no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it in the same way the husband should care for his wife, in the same way we should love our neighbor. So it's not a matter of self-esteem. That's not the prerequisite to loving ourselves. It's a matter of decidedly looking out for the interests of others in the same way that we would look out for the interest of ourselves. So of course, when you take Jesus's

directive out of context as the culture it loves to do and to apply it how they see fit in a way that is self-aggrandizing rather than self-sacrificial, then you end up with a bastardization of what it means to love. Hey, this is a family show. You watch it. Oh, I'm so sorry. That was a joke. I got you. I got you out with a joke about baby smoking. So I thought that that was a standard. No, no. You know I like to tease people I like, okay? I like you and I like to tease you. Obviously, that is a correct word. Now, listen, you, when you talk about this, I think the way I see it is that part of what happens and social media has exacerbated this dramatically. It's this idea that I'm supposed to think I'm awesome. It's not enough to know Jesus died for me and loves me. It's not enough to know

that, you know, my parents love me or anything like that. I have to somehow think that I'm awesome. And you get this idea, as I say, social media makes it worse, that I really ought to be something so spectacular. And if you aren't, you beat up on yourself or somehow it becomes an issue, which is incredibly self-centered. It's a bizarrely self-centered way. of looking at the world.

Yeah, it's not at all. This culture of self-love is not at all looking at yourself as someone who is made in the image of God and therefore is valuable, who has an eternal soul and therefore is valuable. Jesus died for you and therefore you are valuable. It's not about that at all. The culture of self-love says that your value doesn't come from

looking to the cross or looking to your creator. Your value comes from what you can muster up inside yourself about yourself. The problem with that is that that is, is obviously self-defeating. The self-can't be both the problem and the solution. If you're dealing with insecurity and self-deprecation and self-loathing, you're not going to find the antidote to those things also inside yourself. You have to look outside of yourself. But this cult of self-affirmation that I call it in the book, it believes that the God is the self. So everything that you need

has to come from inside of you. But as you just so rightly explained, that ends up just putting you on this hamster wheel that is exhausting. You're telling yourself you're perfect. You're telling yourself, you're awesome, then when you mess up, you realize that you're not awesome, that you're not enough, that you're not perfect, well, then you feel just even more disappointed and devastated than you were before. So my encouragement through this book is to take our eyes off of what we think about us, which changes every second, and put our eyes on who God is, which doesn't change, and what he thinks of us, which is unconditionally demonstrated or forever demonstrated on the cross. So that's the difference.

Well, what I have to ask you, and we've got plenty time here, but I have to ask you, what caused you to write this book? Of all the things that I thought you might have written about at this point, why would you write a book called You're Not Enough and that's okay escaping the toxic culture of self-love? So oner relatable, we talk about politics, but we talk about theology, we talk about culture, we talk about trends, and we try to break them down from a biblical and, of course, a conservative perspective. I am a political conservative. And so this really encapsulates or this represents something that goes in all of those categories because this idea that I am my own God. So therefore I determine my own truth. I'm enough for my own purpose and wisdom and satisfaction.

It doesn't just affect our personal lives and leading us to this dead end of self-love, which is so superficial and fleeting. But it also affects what we think about politics. If you determine your own truth because you're your own. own God because you're enough, well, then you're not going to buy into any kind of objective morality. You're not going to buy into any objective definition of justice of what is right and wrong. I talk about in the book, for example, cancel culture is a really great example of what it means when we reject objective morality in the name of my truth or your truth. Actually,

let me hit pause right there because that's a great place to pick up. We'll be right back with Ali Beth Stucky. Hey there, folks. I'm talking to Allie Beth Stucky. The new book is called You're Not Enough and That's Okay, escaping the toxic culture of self-love. Allie, you just talked about how this relates to a lot of things, actually, because it's a mindset. It's a worldview. It's ultimately an atheist worldview, even though a lot of people might not realize it.

And you talked about how it relates to the cancel culture. So talk about that further. Yeah, so the book goes through five myths. And one of the myths that is related to this idea that you're enough, that you're your own God, is that you determine your own truth. That's my truth and your truth, my experiences and my opinions translate into a truth that you are not allowed to argue against. And one of the manifestations of that mentality is cancel culture in which we don't believe

in any kind of objective morality or right and wrong, but instead we are subject to the whims of the mob. Whoever has the most social capital on Twitter that day, that's the person who determines what is offensive and what can't be said and what is cancelable. So something that was acceptable two weeks ago might not be acceptable today, not due to any objective definition of what is right and wrong, but merely due to what one person's truth is, whoever is most offended basically gets to determine what is right and wrong and it has real tangible effects for other people. And that is not an objective, certainly not a biblical definition of what justice is, what right and wrong is, what crime and punishment should look like. And so

that's part of why I wrote this book is because I see this mentality of the elevation of the self above all else, really pervading every section of society. It's not just personal. It's political. It affects everything we think, like you said, of the world. It is a total worldview. It's interesting because I think about, I was joking around about your 13-month-old kid smoking, but the fact of the matter is that even at that age, right, we communicate as parents reality, right? And so the reality is, I love you. And it doesn't mean we don't criticize. It doesn't mean, say no, put that down, no, you can't do that, whatever. That's part of how we love. And obviously, there are some people who get the idea wrongly that I am what I accomplish or what I do. In other

words, whether this is often put on kids by their parents or by their peers, or maybe they just get it from the culture. But it's this idea that love is not. that love is not unconditional, that I must do this and this and this and this. And so then if I don't, it's devastating. I cease to exist. I'm just ripped apart because I have failed according to some standard that I buy into. And you can see this in all kinds of ways. I mean, I've seen it with people who are like they're academically so excellent that if they ever get a B, they weep. I mean, I remember this in grade school, that there was. one kid, he was just like, you know, and you realize, wow, his whole life is wrapped up in that.

He doesn't know how much God loves him. And I guess what I want to say here is that if you know the God of the Bible, then you want him to guide you. And you know, even in your failures, he will guide you. He will use that. In fact, he may have orchestrated it to guide you in a different direction. So if you don't believe failure is an option, you're really stuck. You're just on this, as you said, this hamster wheel, and there's no way off.

You're just, I mean, and again, it can be so many things. It can be social pressure, but it's ultimately a prison, I guess, is the way I see it. It's a horrifying way to live. Yeah, and I think that what you just described, a lot of the platitudes that we hear today

that you are enough that you're perfect the way you are, is a sincere reaction to what you just described of people who never do feel enough. They never do feel adequate. They always feel like they have to prove themselves. And so the people who say that you're enough or you're perfect the way you are, you just have to love yourself, they mean well.

They're reacting to that kind of perfectionism that they feel weighs people down. The problem is you're just adding another kind of burden onto someone that says you have to be, you're responsible, to be your enoughness. You are responsible for how you feel about yourself. You are responsible for repeating these motivational mantras or having a certain amount of self-esteem or self-love

in order to buoy yourself and not drown. That is just another weight that you're adding to people. In reality, we need to stop obsessing about what we think about ourselves, which is going to go up and down like this, depending on our circumstances, depending on our successes and failures, and to look to God, who, again, doesn't change.

So that is the relief. A lot of people, they read the title of the book and they think that I'm trying to encourage them into self-deprecation or self-loathing. It's not that at all. It is a relieving kind of self-forgetfulness that says, I don't have to worry about what I think about me all the time and how much, how affectionate I am about myself. I can instead look to Christ and I know exactly what he thinks of me. That's where the relief comes from.

And you have to have a relationship with God. I mean, this is what's so interesting. A lot of people say, I believe in God or, well, I'm not against what you believe, but I'm not, I don't take it as seriously as you do. And I think, well, look, what I'm saying is what works. If you don't have a relationship with the living God who loves you, when times get tough, where do you go? You go to the book of rules. You go to the, it really is often dependent on that relationship that you can go to him. for affirmation and love.

And that's to me the normal Christian walk. And I encourage everybody, even people who don't say they're Christians. I say the reason I'm a Christian is because it's beautiful and it's true. And because we all need this. It's not like it's for some people. We all on some level. We need that place where we can go to someone who does love us no matter what. And all the things that we are so naturally trying to find,

and are trying and failing to find inside of ourselves, we graciously get to find in God through Christ. And I encourage people, they're so often where the last thing we want to do is read our Bible, the last thing we want to do is to go to God in prayer. It feels more instantly gratifying to go on to Instagram and to look at these kind of meaningless mantras that tell us how great we are and how awesome we are,

and it does make us feel good for a little bit. And maybe it helps us accomplish our goals. maybe we do feel more confident, but as we've talked about, it ultimately leads to a dead end because the self can't be both the problem and the solution. But Jesus presents himself as the living water, as the bread of life, as eternal life. Isn't that what we're really all after to never be thirsty again, to never be hungry again, do not have to worry about death? Like Jesus offers that in himself, all the things that we are so desperate to find and we just can't find inside ourselves. Jesus offers in himself.

And so that really is such good news. And that's essentially what this book is about. And how does this manifest itself in politics? Have we touched on that? Because I know that's part of what you talk about. Well, we did touch on that when we talked about how this mentality that the self is elevated above any other kind of authority means that we determine our own truth.

So that will affect the social realm that we talked about in something like cancel culture, but also it's going to manifest itself in, for example, the definition of justice. So what is justice versus social justice? And this is something not from a Christian perspective, but a political economic perspective, Thomas Sol talks about a lot, that social justice is really revenge justice or redistributive justice, taking capital away from one group and giving it to the other in the hopes of equality of outcome. Well, that's not. biblical justice and so often that ends in something that is unfair and unjust but when you are not getting your definition of justice from the god who made justice from an objective source of truth

then you're going to see the chaos that we're seeing waging in the streets right now this is kind of the result of postmodernism living in a kind of post-truth my truth your truth society is that we have all these people crying out for justice in a million definitions of what justice actually is because we no longer agree on what truth is. So it does manifest itself in politics that way. There's another way that I talk about in the book that if you believe that again, you are your own God, that you're enough for all of these things. You're going to do whatever you want to do no matter the consequences, no matter who else it hurts. One example of that is abortion, that autonomy and authenticity or my highest values. I don't submit to any other authority. I do what I want to do.

So even if it comes to killing your child, you are going to serve the God of self. You are going to determine that that is what you want to do. That's not the conscious mentality, of course, of everyone who has an abortion, but that is the societal effect of believing that we don't submit to any higher authority except for ourselves. It's a horrifying thing to try to be God, right? We all have the instinct to do it because of original sin. But if you get to do it a little bit,

it's a nightmare because first of all, we're not God. And secondly, we discover that in the process of trying to be God, that we're not sufficient and that if we don't let him be God in our lives, we really do have no hope. We're going to be right back, folks. I'm talking to Ali Beth Suckie about her new book. It's called You're Not Enough, and that's okay. That old wheel is going to roll around once more when it does. it will even up the score.

Hey there, folks. I'm talking to Allie, Beth Stuckey, a self-described. I was just going to say, millennial. No, you're younger than a millennial, aren't you? No, I am. I'm a millennial. I'm right smack and dab in the middle. Millennial is like 1981 to 1996 or seven.

I'm 92, so I am squarely a millennial, yes. Okay, and then what's the next group? Generation Z. So they're about 23 and young. I don't know where the cutoff is. And I don't know where we start after that. Z, into the alphabet, do you start? Actually, Dr. Seuss wrote a book called On Beyond Zebra.

And I believe that we're going to look to that for future descriptions of the generations. Okay, so we're talking about a lot of stuff here. All of it is focused around your book. You're not enough. That's okay. When you mentioned abortion a moment ago, that that's kind of the epitome of if I'm trying to play God in my life and I have my own rules. that it can become, in various ways, it's the ultimate cancel culture. It says that anything that I don't like or that doesn't help me be what I perceive as my perfect self

is going to go away forever. But it's an interesting thing because we don't want to give people the wrong impression. The beauty of the God of the Bible is that he says to us, even if you have had an abortion, I'm there for you to forgive you, whatever. Because we see this manifested in every way. You could see it manifested among people of strong faith that they think it's all about performance and not doing this and doing this. So if I do something wrong, it's over.

I cancel myself. But forgiveness and grace is a big part of this equation. Talk about that a little bit because that's so important for some people. Yeah, actually, that's a huge part of this. in the culture of self-love, there really isn't grace. There are excuses that you make for yourself, but there's no real grace and forgiveness. And there's actually a lot of excuses that you make for yourself, but very few that you're willing to make for other people that don't agree with you.

It's kind of the contradiction of this world of living in a bunch of selves that see themselves as God. But this world that we're living in right now of cancel culture that claims that they're just holding people accountable, not only does. did they have any objective standard? But like you said, it is the most legalistic religion without any chance of redemption, without any chance of forgiveness, without any chance of grace and mercy and any real salvation. It's just do the work, do better, and educate yourself. And even when you do those things, it's not guaranteed that you will be in the inner circle of social

justice or whatever it is. And God's way is just so much better. Not only do we get clarity and truth in His Word and from His Holy Spirit. But we also have hope. We have reconciliation to a Holy God, not by anything that we did, but because of what Christ did. So we're not told to do better. We're not told to constantly prove ourselves. Jesus said it is finished when he died on the cross.

And so, again, everything that people are looking for and are trying to find in the world or in themselves in secular society or wherever. it is and they're failing to find Jesus offers, Christianity offers in a real and much better and much more holistic way. So there are a bunch of counterfeit gods and a bunch of counterfeit gospels out there that are actually putting much heavier burden on people than they should be responsible for bearing. It's interesting because the title, you're not enough and that's okay, brings to my mind, this idea that like when somebody says, and it's really God saying it, like, it's okay,

I've got you. Like you can fall. I will catch you. You don't need to worry so much. I will take care of your problems. One of my favorite scriptures is be anxious for nothing, but in all things, by prayer and supplication. And I always think if it's like a parent saying to a kid, if you have a little kid fretting and, you know, breaking out in hives because they don't know what to do or they've got a problem

at school or whatever that day, as a parent, you'd get, angry and you'd say, hey, give your problems to me. I do not want you to take that on yourself. It crushes me. It hurts me to see you suffer. And I know that that's what happens with God, with all of us, that when he sees us being anxious and trying to do these things or whatever, he wants to say to us, like, I know that you're not enough. I know that you make mistakes. And it's totally okay. I love you. Lean on me. I'm with you in the difficulty. And I think it's a message we don't really hear enough. Like it's the ultimate gospel message.

But in a way, we don't hear that enough. People, tons of people that I talk about, if I mention God or something, they instantly think it means like religious performance and like, I'm not good enough. And it's fascinating how a perversion of what the Bible says or what Christianity teaches has become the parody version that a lot of people think that's what Christianity is. Yeah. And of course, we know that that that's. what sets Christianity apart is that every other religion tells you how to get to God and Christianity

God came down to us. He said, actually, you can't save yourself as Ephesians 2 says you're dead and sin. Dead people can't perform for God. They can't clean themselves up. They can't pick themselves up and say, okay, God, how can I prove myself holy and righteous and deserving of your love? Dead people are dead. They can't do anything. And the Bible in that same passage says that by grace through faith, Christ made us alive. So now we are alive in him, not because of anything that we did, but because of a gift that he gave us. And it's because of that that, of course, we are obedient and we strive for holiness through the power of the Holy Spirit is because of our love for him that we do strive

to be set apart and to be more like him. It's not out of performance. It's not out of proving. It's because of a promise and the promise that he gave us through salvation through his son. And so it is the exact opposite of what a lot of people think that it is. And again, it's the thing that we're all looking for. Like, we're looking for someone to bear our burdens, right? We're looking for someone to tell us, especially right now to just hold us and say,

hey, I know it looks chaotic right now. I know you don't know what the future holds. I know that things are crazy and unsure, but I've got you, and I'm completely in control. It surprises me. I want to, we're going to hit pause. We'll be right back with Ali Beth Stuck. Folks, I'm talking to Ali Beth Stuckie. A brand new book is called You're Not Enough, and that's okay, escaping the toxic culture of self-love.

Allie, I want many people in my audience might not be familiar with you, so we have a few minutes left. I just want to, if you don't mind, ask you, you're the author of this book, and you've got this podcast called Relatable. But who are you? Where did you grow up? What's your story? Yes. So I host a podcast, called a Relatable. We analyze news, culture, theology from a Christian conservative perspective.

And I've been doing that for a few years now. I was raised in a Christian home, went to a Christian school. I'm very thankful for that. And that really helped lay the foundation for me for having a biblical worldview. I went to college in South Carolina and I studied communications. And that's really what I wanted to do. I always knew that I wanted to do something in media, but I wasn't really sure how. was going to accomplish that. So I went to into PR after college. But when the election started,

when the primaries were happening in 2015, and I looked around and I saw that a lot of my friends, a lot of the people my age had no idea what was going on in the election. I decided I kind of wanted to change that. So started speaking on college campuses. I started a blog and I continued to write and I started to work at a few different companies, media companies, talking about culture, politics and how Christianity influences those things for people and their worldviews. And that's kind of how I got to where I am now. And you're one of those millennial voices. And I just remember discovering you on the internet and just being so happy because I thought

to myself, we need people like you. We need voices like yours because it is true. I talk about this a lot on this program that the culture changed because of the sexual Revolution because of the 60s. And roughly for 50 years, we haven't been teaching a biblical worldview. We haven't been teaching love of country or virtue or honor or dignity or all of the history that would bolster us as Americans into thinking this way. And so it really is particularly important for your generation because they've been left out. I mean, the only good thing we can say about your generation in this sense is that because of what happened in 1973,

Roe v. Wade, I think your generation is keenly aware that they might not be here, that they could legally have been physically canceled. And so there are more pro-lifers among millennials. That's kind of a dramatic thing. I don't know if that's something that you talk about. Well, I do want to say, I think that there is cause for optimism. So of course, yes, the millennial generation, we know they're less patriotic, they're less religious, they are less conservative.

All those things are true. And unfortunately, it looks like generation, the generation after us is even farther to the left. Now, you hope that as we grow up, some of those kind of immature mentalities will fade away. A lot of times when people have kids, they start saying, maybe I do need to go back to church and, hey, I don't like the government taking this much money out of my paycheck every week or whatever it is. But I also think there's another reason to hope beyond the hope that you and I have, of course, that God is in control and will rule in perfect peace one day and make all things right. There is also just the practical hope that I think a lot of millennials, maybe young parents, young married couples are seeing the effects of godlessness.

We're seeing the effects of leftism, quite frankly, and a lot of the chaos that we're seeing in the country. And there's a lot of young people that are saying, I don't want a part of that. Okay, maybe they're saying I was down with some of the social issues on the last. Maybe socialism kind of sounded a little good. But if that's what it looks like in Portland and Seattle, if we're talking about, there's a whole conversation on Twitter about two plus two equaling five. There's a whole force against school choice and homeschooling,

a desire to ban private and charter schools and all of that. You see a lot of young people saying, hang on, I don't want to be a part of this revolution. And I think a lot of young Christians especially are saying, okay, I cannot trust institutions to teach my kids anymore. I can't trust them to teach them theology, like you said, morality, honor, dignity, sacrifice. I can't even necessarily trust Sunday school to always do that. I've got to know my faith, why I believe what I believe, and I have to teach that to my kids right now. You've got a lot of people wanting to homeschool instead of public school. You've got a lot of parents realizing things are getting serious for Christians in America, cultural Christian.

ain't a thing anymore. And if I'm going to be in this fight, I got to hunker down and I got to get my family prepared. So I think that's one positive thing. And all the chaos that's happening right now, Christians are taking Christianity more seriously. I think things have gotten so bad so quickly that it's a very refreshing, bracing thing to see things clearly.

In other words, I think it's forced us to see this is the fruit of a certain worldview. And normally that's been hidden. We haven't been quite there. But what's most remarkable to me is that, you know, the elders of the Democratic Party have been unable to stand against this. I mean, it's just a staggering thing to think that, whether it's Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi, that they themselves are afraid of the radical French Revolution mob, that they're going to be sent to the guillotine if they say the wrong thing,

if they signal the wrong thing. That to my mind is what makes this so crazy and so radical. It's like there are no adults on that side of the aisle. Yeah, that is true. And unfortunately, there are a few people on the other side of the aisle that will stand up and speak. But there's even, you know, people on the Republican side of the aisle that just are not willing to engage in the culture wars because they think it's too, you know,

it's too contentious. It's too unpopular. And we'll just keep talking about, you know, tax. cuts and things like that, but we don't want to wade into the BLN, Antifa waters. We don't want to talk about, for example, the traditional family or the importance of all of that because, you know, we don't want to get canceled. And so commentators and average people are the ones who feel like, okay, so we're on the front lines, not the elected officials, but the stay-at-home mom is on the front line. And I'm saying, yes, yes, you are. Well, I mean, God's on the front lines with us,

and that's the beauty of it. But you're quite right that if people aren't willing to say BLM, Black Lives Matter, is a Marxist organization that will harm blacks. So if you actually believe Black Lives Matter, you had better not get on board with BLM. You need to understand this. And some people don't want to hear it. But the fact of the matter is that there is no way around it.

It was founded by people who are outspoken Marxists. They are harming black communities. Everything they do is to push forward a Marxist agenda. If you don't have the guts to speak up against that, I'd like to think eventually people will get the guts to speak up against that. I know you have the guts. Unfortunately, for my audience and me or out of time, Ali Beth Stucky, I want to congratulate you on the new book.

You're not enough, and that's okay. Just great to see you, and thanks for your time. Hey, folks, what a show we are having today. kind of freaky. Sean Hannity and John Smirak and my goodness, I want to remind you, we are doing,

every couple of months we do a fundraiser with an organization that we have vetted, that we believe in, and that we want desperately to help, which is why we're asking for your help. So you know, you probably don't wake up this morning thinking it's in my power

to change a child's life forever. It's kind of a It's a great opportunity, but it's daunting when you think about it. I say this because Food for the Poor tells us that Guatemala is the most populous country in Central America. But think of this, out of the 15 million people who live there, about 60% of all of them live in poverty, folks. It has one of the highest rates of child malnutrition in the world. Gosh. We spoke to food for the poor, spoke to a woman there.

Her name is Marta. She's a classic example of what we're talking about. She's a mother in a small Guatemalan village. And through an interpreter, she tells us how she has to tell her kids there's not enough food for them on a particular day. So this is happening right now. We can do something about it. Let's play this quote from Marta. I tell them that today we can't eat.

I tell them that today we cannot eat, but another day we will have food. We need to work in other to have food to put in our plates. I ask God for help for my children and to give us bread to have each day something to eat. All right, folks. I know I've mentioned it on this program before. After World War II, my mom tells me she was like

11, 12 years old, she'd come home from school. And my grandmother, who was one of my favorite people in the world, was at the table crying because she had no food from my mom and my aunt that evening. This happens around the world. But what is happening in Guatemala in these countries is far worse than that. That lasted for a couple of years on and off when my mother was a girl. But let me tell you, this is happening now. But the good news is we can do something about it.

A one-time gift of $37 will provide a starving kid in Guatemala with two meals a day for the next six months. 37 American dollars can go that far. So I want to encourage you, please go to metaxistocot.com. You click on the banner. You'll see the list of things that we want to do to thank you for whatever you give. or a lot of people, you just want to do it by phone. I'm going to give you the phone number now. The phone number, and I will wait until you get a pencil.

844-863-473. That's 844-863. Hope. 8-44-863 Hope. Again, 844-863, hope. If you call right now $37, $37, we'll feed a child two meals a day for six months. Unbelievable. Obviously, we hope you can give more. Some of you have already given a lot more than that. This is really just a huge, serious concern. We work with

food for the poor because we know they are the real deal. So I want to encourage you again. I'll give you the phone number again. 844-863 hope. If you can go to the website metaxis talk.com, all the information is there. Again, 844-863, hope. God bless you as you give.