The Eric Metaxas Show - Bonhoeffer Film (Encore Continued)

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

Chris interviews Eric on the process of writing the book Bonhoeffer and seeing Angel Studio's film on the man.

Folks, today's election day, if you haven't voted, go vote. Stop listening to this program. In the meantime, we're going to run a wonderful encore. Chris Heims interviews me about my Bonhofer book. Very exciting. Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. Ladies and gentlemen, we ask you now to count down from 10, silently, if you don't mind.

And when you get to one, you'll hear one of the greatest voices on this or any other planet. Three, two, one. Texas! Hey there, folks. Welcome to part two of this very special edition of the show. We're asking the author questions. Where I am the hunted one. Usually I'm your one.

You are interviewed, you, Chris I'm an interview. You're interviewing me about my Bonhofer book. That's right. Part one was the first part. Yeah. And this is part two. Yeah. We're actually in the middle of a really wonderful,

Bonhofer retreat where we have some friends of the show and friends of your book that are here to see the film and to visit some of the places where Bonhofer visited during his time in New York, which you write about in the book. And, you know, we saw the movie last night and then had a brief talk back. A gentleman there had a question

about, and it's one that people bring up, you know, about Bonhofer. He was sort of like this darling that the pacifist movement had sort of claimed as their own. Yeah. And then your book kind of wrestled him out of that a bit significantly. Well, so talk about that. Well, I mean, look, you have to try to make sense. They keep talking about him as he's a pacifist, he's a pacifist, he's a pacifist.

Oh, oh, and then he gets involved in the plot to kill Hitler. What? Sounds like a bad pacist. So you kind of want to, well, I think, you know, the normal takeaway would be at the end of his life, he said, you know, enough of this pacifism stuff. We got to, some people need killing, like Hitler, you know. And you think, well, Bonhofer was just extremely thoughtful. So that is not possible.

And you really have to do the math to really figure out how does this theological genius get to where he's willing to be involved in the plot to kill Hitler. And believe me, Bonhofer would not compromise his morals. That it's not that. So what is it? And so that's what I had to wrestle with in the book to try to really make sense of who he was and what was his journey. And one of the things that I can't help love about Bonhoeffer is that he really is brilliant and really is thoughtful and he's consistent. So this idea that he would change at some point. No, he would evolve because he's constantly trying to get better at thinking moral dilemmas through.

Like, what do I do in this case? What do I do in this case? And what's the right thing? What is God's will? what is God's will you know and so but what's interesting is that in years of talking about

Bonhoffer at colleges and churches whatever I always would get the question you know how can a man of God quote unquote take part in a plot to murder another human being and that's where I have to say well he did not take part in a plot

to murder another human being if you're in a war you don't murder the opposition. You might kill them, but that's not murder. The Bible says, thou shalt do no murder. It doesn't say you cannot kill someone, because clearly David kills Goliath, and we don't say, oh, that was a terrible thing. You really have to be more nuanced, and it's a little bit more complex. So murder, out and out murder, is prohibited, always. but killing sometimes is necessary. And so now you have to think, okay, when, how, what does that mean? And so Bonhofer was trying to puzzle this through. And, you know, if you give a cop a gun, you're not saying, well, that's because someday you're going to have to murder somebody.

No, it's to protect the innocent, maybe to use a gun, but in protecting the innocent, in doing good, which might involve, you know, using that gun against a human being, but not murder. If a cop commits murder, he goes to jail. When you give weapons to the armed forces, you don't say, well, that's because you're going to go murder or – no, it's, you know, we have the theories of a just war. So it's a little bit more nuanced.

So Bonhofer's trying to think about this, and he's aware of the fact that he was well aware of the fact most Germans were not, that Hitler was murdering millions of Jews. I think in the movie, the line he says is, you know, if a madman was driving a car and killing children, running people over, is it murder to stop that person? There's a lot of, this is kind of one of the reasons I love the movie is because there's a lot of stuff in the movie that is not really out of my book, but it's just true. Like it's in many books about Bonhofer.

Bonhofer actually was puzzling through with his students and saying, yeah, if a madman is driving down, I think, Khorfurtstendam, which is this major avenue in Berlin, and he's hitting people left and right, killing people left and right, is it justifiable for a sniper to shoot the driver? And most people would say, well, of course it is. Like, in fact, you better do that. That's the right thing to do. but people who are particularly religious in the negative sense, they go, oh, no, no, no, I would never want to do anything like that. So you're perfectly content to let people be killed by the car while you go have your quiet time or something like that, you know.

And so Bonhofer was dealing with this because he knew that if he does not act or take part in this conspiracy, millions of Jews are going to die. And there's a line in the movie, which Bonhofer didn't really say, I don't think, but it sums it up, that, I'm trying to think, I think it's, I forget the character says to him, will God forgive us if we take part in this plot? And Bonhofer says, well, God forgive us if we don't. And this gets to Bonhofer's idea of faith in action.

Because oftentimes, and it's happening today a lot, many Christians act as though doing nothing, they can't be guilty. Like if you do nothing, you're safe. It's sort of this pious thing. My wife sometimes, you know, wives have all these crazy ideas. She'd be like, if someone came into the house, I don't know if I'd be able to, like, pull a trigger or do something. And, you know, and I say, well, I would have no problem protecting you and doing something.

So the idea of protection and being a protector, that's connected to pulling the trigger as a sniper. You're not murdering someone. You're protecting. Well, of course you're not. Murder is genuinely prohibited. And so Bonhofer had to wrestle with this. And it's so funny because those of us who don't have to wrestle with, it's very easy for us to say, oh, I would do this or I would do that. But when you know that someone is murdering other people, you really have to think, doesn't God require me to figure out how to stop this?

Don't I have a moral obligation to stop it? And so that idea when people say, how can a man of God get what you think a man of God? We're all supposed to be men and women of God. And actually, this gets to something that I know it's in my book. and in fact in the more recent books, letter to the American Church or Religinalist Christianity, I talk about this episode where Bonhofer's sister-in-law, his brother's wife, sees him,

he's participating, he's kind of sitting there in these conversations, they're part of this conspiracy against Hitler. And she calls him out, she's not a Christian. And she calls him out, like, you Christians are really content when other people like us are willing to get involved and doing the dirty work of trying to take out this evil tyrant, but you're not really willing to get your hands dirty. Like she puts him on the spot in the way that only family members can do sometime.

And he, you get the impression that that really knocked him backwards like, okay, I got to really think more deeply about this. And obviously, eventually he does come out on the other side and says, I have to get my hands dirty, but this doesn't mean that I'm sinning. And I think a lot of theologians, too, they've made it almost sound like, oh, yeah, Bonhofer was, like, fine with sinning. It's like, no, that's a very, that's a shallow reading of what's going on.

God never calls us to sin to prevent other sin. That's not what we're talking about. It might be painful, but it's not sin. So you said killing's wrong, or murder's wrong. What if you're behind a car and the light turns green, and they haven't moved for like five seconds? Oh, then you could shoot. Okay.

Come out blasting. That's what I think. But you have my permission. Come out blasting. Because that is, that's too much. It's unacceptable. It's unacceptable. Okay.

I noticed you were not in the film. I'm just going to put it up. Oh, I was in. I was in the film. I was in the background. There was a horse up on a ridge. I was the back part of that horse. Was there a role you wish you had, you had gotten?

Besides the horse. Actually, I said this in part one of this interview. Yeah, you said you weren't joking. Well, in the beginning of the film, when they were talking about making the film, I didn't actually. actually think this would happen, but there's a lot of stuff they had to leave out. And when we come back, I will tell you about my favorite part that was left out. Hey, folks, this year I've given you so many reasons to try balance of nature, but now I've got

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Yeah. You know, Mr. Bonhoffer. Here's your glasses. You know, something. I don't know. have gotten creative. Who wouldn't want that part? I would have written a line for you. Todd would have written a nice line for you. I once served coffee to Pablo Picasso's daughter, but we don't have time to talk about that.

Wow. Yeah, it's true. Okay, but so the one thing that I write about in the book that, if we ever make like a mini series, like a crown type mini series, yeah, I want to talk about that. There is, because there is so much. As good as the film is, you almost want, and it needs the story, does need like probably eight episodes. It's an epic. No, it's an epic story. So obviously the film is amazing, but it's a two-hour film, so you can't put in all this stuff. So the one thing that, well, I shouldn't say, it's not the only thing, but one thing that

really fascinated me. And again, this is like, truth really is stranger than fiction. It's like you're making this up. Bonhoffer, this is very, very late. He's about 36. I mean, he's killed, murdered when he's 39. but he's just about 36 years old, and he's spending a lot of time in Pomerania.

Home of the lovely dogs? No. Okay. I love those dogs. Yeah, the Liliapin dogs. Pomerania is north of, I mean, it's today Poland, but it was then part of Prussia, you know, in Germany. And in any event, he falls in love and eventually gets engaged.

to Maria von Vedemeyer, two of whose sisters I have had the privilege of meeting. It is amazing. And anyway, they had a very strange kind of courtship because he was traveling a lot and he would come to Berlin. And she was the granddaughter, Maria von Vedemeyer, of a friend of his, this woman that had really admired him. And it seems no joke that she and Bonhoeffer only went on one bona fide date. And where did they go on that date? You ask, not making this up, to Hitler's Brothers restaurant. Wow.

Right. Like Hitler had a brother? What? Hitler had a brother who had a restaurant in Berlin. All of the SS would go there. Was it a Benegans? No. Okay, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what. What was it called? I don't know what it was called. Hitler's Brothers Restaurant.

It was, so anyway, all the SS would go there. So Bonhoeff, what place can I go where no one would ever suspect me of being part of the conspiracy against Hitler? that's like the most Nazi restaurant in town. So he goes to Hitler's brother's restaurant. And it seems funny Hitler had a brother, but he did. It was an elder brother. I guess it was technically his half-brother. But I thought it would be just an amazing scene,

like one of those long tracking shots. Kind of like in the Bonhofer film where they go into the jazz club and whatever. But I see it, it's sort of like something out of, it's like a Scorsese thing coming into a restaurant, whatever. And you're going into the... this, into this thing. And before you go into the restaurant, the camera goes down and shows, you know, Aloisius or Alois Hitler proprietor, right? And then you kind of come into the

restaurant, they're coming in, they're coming in, you see all the SS people and all this stuff, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And then at some point, the camera goes, you know, to the bar, right? And behind the bar, he's like in an apron, and he looks up, you know, it kind of looks like this, he's cleaning glasses, and it's Hitler's brother. And I just thought, that's the role I want. I want to be that guy. And he would have a World War I mustache because he's a little older than Hitler. It's different mustache, but he still has the Hitler mustache.

But it's a unibrow. It's up here. It's like weird. But I just thought the idea that Hitler's brother had a, I mean, the whole thing is, I mean, I did a lot of research on this. But that is crazy. It's actually true. It is crazy. Do you think he was there running the rest?

It must have been, right? Guaranteed. That is so strange. Yeah. No doubt about it. But I'm saying that you find. so much weird, interesting, true stuff when you're researching a book like this, that you think, this is epic. This needs to be like a 10-part mini-series or something because there's so much.

And so obviously, I hope people will read my book because it's all in the book. But some of it is unbelievable. I mean, the love affair he has with Maria Finn Vedemeyer, that didn't make it into the film because, again, it's a two-hour film that can't get into this stuff. But it's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. And it's so tragic. You know, she visits him in prison over and over. To be transparent, we've been talking to some filmmaker friends of ours about what it would take to maybe do a series. Money? Yeah, money, but also, you know, what the arc would be, what you would tell in each episode, you know, eight episodes, like the timeline.

And one of the things that came up was this idea of Germany almost as a character, because really the transformation of Germany through the war from what allowed it to happen. at the beginning to the end. It's just heartbreaking. And if you can portray that in a way that's compelling using visual medium, it could be really incredible. And you really would get a sense of like, because it's hard for us to imagine, you know, as you, oh, we wouldn't do that.

You know, we wouldn't be like that. But I know, everybody thinks they wouldn't do that. But, you know, they let the darkness in. There's just no way around it. There was demonic forces that came into that culture. We have a friend from the Geneva school where our daughters went. went to that came out of, I'm blanking on the African country.

It was just, it wasn't Rwanda, but it was another one where there was a rebellion and it was genocide. And the way she described it sort of haunted me hearing the stories of how her family escaped from it was that it was like hell opened up in the ground and poured out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And people think that can happen.

And I want to tell you. That was the only words she could use to describe what it was. It was like horrors of hell. It just like poured out of the ground. No, that's part of it. And that's to me, again, why do I think my Bonhoeffer book did as well as it did? Is because you're writing about evil. And when you're writing about real evil, goodness shines dramatically.

I mean, Bonhofer shines dramatically because of the satanic evil of the Nazis. So you rarely get that in history where you get a clear. picture. But anyway, there's so much nuances, so much, there's so many. I mean, his family is unbelievable. The first part of my book, I talk about his family, they were all geniuses. I mean, they were a freakishly, brilliant, culturally sophisticated family. His father was literally the most famous scientist in Germany, the most famous doctor, I should say, in Germany for 50 years. He was a legend in Germany. That was his first. father. His mother was a legend in a different way. I mean, she was extremely educated, but he really

gets his faith from his mother's side. The father was kind of more of a skeptical scientist, but the mother spent time with the Heron-Huter. This was a Zenzendorf, you know, pietistic community, a very, very serious Christian. So his mother kind of comes out of that, and she hires a governess or a couple of governesses for when Detroit, is little. And so he's raised by these governesses who are very strong Christians. And so he kind of gets that in a way

that his older siblings didn't. Because he was the youngest of four boys. And he kind of got that in a way that or three boys, but he got that in a way

that the rest of the family didn't. So it's just, it's so, there's so much there to the family. And his brother one of his brothers went on to split the atom with Einstein, like is this genius. The other brother was the legal head of Lufthansa. But they were all, all brothers and sisters were geniuses. So the family itself is amazing. His grandfather and great-grandfather were renowned theologians. His uncle was a pastor. I mean, it's just an amazing family story. And it makes you want to be part of that family. Yeah. What, you know, the love

story, again, that didn't, you know, there's really not, it didn't fit into the movie, not to give too much away. Tell us about that, like how you sort of see that, you know, the first date. What else would you include in the miniseries? Well, the love affair between him and Maria von Vedemeyer, it's really sort of strange and beautiful because Bonhofer, I think, I mean, imagine this. He comes back from New York. He's in New York twice. That's why we're doing this Bonhofer tour in New York this week because he comes to New York in 30 and 31. He's here for nine months studying at Union Theological Seminary. And then he returns here in 1939 to escape Hitler's Germany and then decides, I can't. I've got to go back, right? Okay. In the meantime, all these years, he's basically fighting the Nazis and fighting Hitler. I mean, he enters this world when he comes back to Germany. in 31, the Nazis are rising. And so he's kind of like a full-time activist against evil, to sum it up. So at some point, he had a relationship with a woman named Elizabeth Zinn.

I discovered this. This is something that's only in my book, and I got it from his best friend's wife, widow, whom we visited when I was in Germany in 2008. So he had this kind of on-again, off-again relationship with this woman, but never went anywhere. He got so serious about God. It's like he just didn't have time for that. But then something happened. When we come back from the break, I'll tell you what happened. And he was not expecting it. Hey, folks, the story of My Pillow is a testament to faith and transformation.

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Enjoy their new mattress topper starting at just $99.99. Oh, it's great. Or pick up the luxurious MyPillow bedsheets starting at 4998. visit mypillow.com or call 800-978-3057. Use promo code Eric to unlock huge discounts. That's promo code Eric, mypillow.com, 800-978-3057. So we're talking about... Love story. Bonhofer. And you asked him about it. So, yeah, so he kind of resigned himself to the idea that I guess I'm not getting married.

I'm probably... He was in his mid-30s and he kind of thought, I've given my life over to this cause, you know. I mean, it's kind of funny because it's a little bit like Martin Luther. He doesn't get married to. He doesn't get married to. It's like 42. You know, you're kind of involved in this cause, and you just don't see that happening. So he goes to visit this older woman who had befriended him up in, I was saying, earlier in Pomerania, Prussia. And her 18-year-old granddaughter kind of pops by. And he didn't even recognize her.

He knew her when she was 12 years old. and he had been asked by the grandmother, would you prepare my grandkids for confirmation in the church? I want you, you know, Dietrich Bonhofer, because I love you so much and you're so amazing, to prepare my grandkids for confirmation. And at the time when Maria von Vedermar was 12, he kind of dismissed her like, she's not,

I'm not going to waste my time with this giggly 12-year-old. Sure. So six years pass, and suddenly she comes to visit. She's 18 years old, this suddenly mature woman. I don't just mean physically mature. I mean, she was clearly a woman, and they instantly something happened. But he's 36, and she's 18, and obviously he doesn't think anything of it. But because he's spending time visiting the grandmother, and then the grandmother got ill and had an eye operation in Berlin, he's seeing, he's bumping into her. And

And it's fascinating because the grandmother so adored Dietrich Bonhoeffer that it was her fondest dream that her beloved granddaughter would marry him. But everyone else in the family was strongly against it. And so they had, I mean, it's in my book, I quote the letters at length because it's so gripping. where Maria's mother was very upset and said, you know, at the very least, you guys shouldn't see each other for a year. I don't think she said, you guys. But it was this really strange kind of thing where they agreed to, okay, well, for a year, we won't, you know.

And that's when Dietrich is arrested. So he goes to prison. and she visits him now in prison over and over again, and this is the military prison in Berlin. So it was not a horrible prison. It was a military prison. And Bonhoeff, this is where it gets complicated and beautiful. Bonhoeffer's mother's brother, Powell von Hasse,

was the military commandant over all of Berlin. So he's going to a prison. He's arrested on money laundering stuff because of his involvement. and the obvar, anyway, but he was treated with kid gloves in the prison. He was treated like, you know, that's our boy. So even though he's in the prison and we're going to give him the best of everything, he refused the best of everything because he said, no, if you give me the best cell, then it means somebody else is going to get the worst cell, and I'll just take what you give me and stuff. But so she visits him in the prison, and you can't, I'm not going to get into it now,

but some of it is almost unbelievable that the whole drama of his relationship with Maria and Vedemeyer and her visiting the prison and what goes on. And it's, you know, it's eventually really heartbreaking. So, yeah. You know, getting back to kind of where we are today, what do you think people will, how do you think people will respond to the film? I mean, have you thought about that?

You know, you were not ready for the book response. Do you think that people, do you think that people, are going to respond to this film in any sort of... I know what's your wish for it, I guess. Well, no, no, I know people will love the film. I mean, it's a great film, period. Now, how they respond to it, I know they'll love it, how they respond to it, will it cause them to want to know more about Bonhoeffer

or to live like Bonhofer? That's, of course, that's the hope. That's why I wrote my book. Because, you know, really... there are not many figures in history like Bonhoeffer. And so I think that he's so compelling as a man of Christian faith that he wants you to have that kind of faith. I mean, I remember, I think I said this yesterday after the screening,

it was 1988 when I was slightly open to Christian faith. I was not serious about Christian faith, but my friend Ed Tuttle shared with me about Bonhoeffer and tells me, oh, do you know, have you heard of this guy Bonhoeffer? And, you know, was this German pastor. Got involved to kill Hitler because of the Christian faith, he spoke up for the Jews. And I said, what? Like, that's amazing.

Like that kind of Christianity, I could get interested in that. I've never heard about that. That's compelling. That's powerful. And that's ultimately why I ended up writing the book about Bonhofer, because I said, people need to know about this kind of thing. of faith. Faith is vilified in our secular culture, mocked. And when you're confronted with life of a Bonhoeffer, you're thinking, this guy, you cannot mock this guy. This guy died for the

truth, died for the Jews. I mean, this guy is just a hero. And wherever he got that from, I'm going to be interested in that. So my hope for the film is not just that people love the film, but that it would draw them, you know, to look more deeply upon Bonhofer's life and to want to, to live out their faith, if they don't have faith, to get faith, but if they do have faith, to understand, I have an obligation to live out my faith. That Bonhofer talks about faith in action, and that's key. So we'll, you know, we're going to a break. We'll be right back.

So I think we have a time for maybe a final question? Yeah, last night, you know, in the film, you know, they show that Dietrich's sort of discussed for the church and sort of this version of Christianity that was, you know, people not living out their faith, just sort of playing church. Tell us more about that. That's what makes him so compelling, is that, I mean, and in fact, my new book is called Religionless Christianity, that's a bond-haw. phrase. At the end of his life, he's in prison, it's 1944, and his best friend, Eberhard Beidke, he's writing letters back and forth. And he asked the question in a letter to Eberhard Beidke, like rhetorically, how did this happen? Like, it's 44, everything's lost. And then Barnhofer answers his own question in the letter. He says, what we needed in Germany,

and what we didn't have, was a religionless Christianity. That's the title of my book, and that's his phrase. And what he meant by that is that mere religion, dead religion, going to church and, you know, singing hymns and whatever, that's nice, but that doesn't stand up against satanic evil. You need to really live out your faith beyond the walls of the church, beyond Sunday morning. The devil wants you to put your faith in a little box and keep it over there, but it doesn't touch on anything. But if your faith comes out of that box, it will do good things. Christians started hospitals. They ended the slave trade.

They ended slavery. I mean, we're supposed to live our faith out in every way. Now, people who hate Christian faith in America today say, oh, that's Christian nationalism. You want to impose your values on the... No, it's called living out your Christian faith, and when you do that, it blesses everybody. Bonhofer saw that the German church had been trapped in this mere religiosity.

And it disgusted him because he thought, this is it. God is calling you, church, to live out your faith now. Satanic evil is rising. Now it's your job to stand. Don't you believe it? And I think he came to the conclusion, and I've come to the conclusion, and a lot of people who say they believe what they believe, they don't actually believe it.

It's proved by their unwillingness to live heroically. And so he was very strong about that. And in 1933, as the Nazis had come to power, he knew that the German church had the genuine ability to stand against evil. I don't just mean they had an opportunity, but that if they had done it, they could have prevailed because the German church was very strong culturally in Germany. But he also knew that they had a small window of opportunity. The evil of the Nazis was moving with lightning speed, and if you didn't act soon, you'd lose the window of opportunity. because the Nazis were kind of, you know, it's kind of like the world we live in today, cancel culture. Like if you will let these forces of, you know, censorship, canceling, whatever, they want to shut down opposition.

They're not interested in, let's have a dialogue. They're trying to shut it down. And Bonhofer can see that the Nazis are trying to shut down the ability of free Germans, German Christians to express themselves. And he thought they're not advertising that because they want the church to keep on sleeping and keep. on doing nothing, but at some point it's too late. Yeah, it's sort of like a time test. The teacher says, all right, that's it. That's it.

That's right. And so Bonhoeffer could see by 90, I write about this at length and letter to the American church and in religious and in religionist Christianity. Bonhoffer could see the window closing. And you could see how frustrated he got because he thought this is doable if the church would stand against this evil. But they just said, no, no, no, we don't want to get involved. We don't want to be political.

we don't want to, that's too political, we're just going to do church, you know. And by 1935, for sure, even 34, he knew it's over. And he was disgusted, but he still thought, Lord, how can I serve you? What do you want me to do? And so in a funny way, he goes outside the church. And then ultimately, when he comes back from New York in 39, just as the war breaks over Europe, he really goes outside the church. He joins the conspiracy, and a lot of Christians, a lot of pious Christians,

if they had known that he was doing that, they would have said, oh, my goodness, what are you doing? What in the world are you doing? And he understood that God often does his best work outside the church. God often goes outside and picks a pagan or a non-believer. you could look at Cyrus in the Old Testament. God often goes outside, Rehab, because the people inside don't get it. And he almost wants to shame his people by saying, well, I will go outside.

I will find somebody outside. And so I feel like Bonhofer is the ultimate example of that where he says, to serve God, I'm going to enter the conspiracy against the furor, which involves killing the furor. and a lot of Christians, most Christians, are going to be like, oh, you've gone crazy. What are you doing? And I say that for him in many ways it was a lonely path. Like he's following God. He knows he's following God, but he knows many of his fellow Christians aren't going to get it.

They're going to look at him like he's gone nuts. He's gotten political. And he thought, well, you can think what you want. I fear God. I'm going to do what I think God has called me to do. But, I mean, that's why I wrote the book, Religinalist Christianity, because I believe that that's exactly where the American church is today. And there are many, many, many Christian leaders advocating

exactly what the Christian leaders were advocating at Bonhofer's time. It's exactly the same thing. It's a chilling concept. And so I wrote a letter to the American Church and religiousness Christianity to try to wake up those people who might be awakened. There are always going to be people who refuse to hear it. but there are many, and I get feedback from people at people.

Like, you know, I didn't get it, but now I get it. Thank you for helping me see this. What do you think about the idea? It's a little metaphysical, but this, you know, your mother came out of Nazi Germany. You know, my mother's side of the family, they fled communist Cuba and the revolution there. It's kind of like this idea that if you have relatives that survive things or maybe even didn't in some cases, somehow that's infused in your DNA and you have more of a sensitivity, you're more likely to be a canary in the coal mine. I would say that's very true for you. Oh, totally. It's true for me from my

mother and my father. My father who passed away this year, he saw communists try to take over Greece. My mother saw the communists take over East Germany where she lived. So since I've been a kid, I have understood this. And so I think that's why I've been so vocal about it. about it because this is reality. This is the world my parents lived. They lived it. And so for me, it's not just writing about strangers. Well, I know we're at a time. Yeah. Thank you. This was fantastic. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, this is unfortunately very important stuff. But it's- Buy a copy of the book if you haven't read it and go see the movie, right? Yeah, please read the book. And if you don't have to read it, but at least buy a copy, it wouldn't kill you. Thank you.

Hey, folks, before we go for the day, I want to remind everybody that if you have not yet looked into the June cruise that we're doing, I am so excited about this. I cannot tell you. And what I think, too, is like, this is a fun thing for families to do or friends to do, couples, to get other couples. It's just going to be an amazing time of fellowship. and I'm going to be talking almost every night about from my different books, doing Q&A, about where do we go from here, what's the future. This is going to be June 6th through 16th. There's all these different levels available. If you're a zillionaire, and I know there's some, there's like, you know, stuff you can get for like $14,000 per person if you want to go like super, super high end. if you are not a zillionaire, and I know there's some people out there that are not zillionaires,

I think it's $3,000 a person. This is 10 days. I mean, honestly, when you see what it is, you're going to at least be tempted to sign up, and you'll probably think of friends and family that might want to know about this. So to do that, go to ericmetaxis.com slash cruise. Ericmetaxis.com slash cruise. And it's not that expensive. I'm going to be, I'm on the economy, like there's in a new economy level where the room is partially submerged, and that's a steel.

I know, it's really wet. You can feed the fish. They're fish that's down in the boiler room. They're fish that's like $40 a night. Yes. But you have to shovel coal into the, to make the ship go. There's a special bicycle you have to pedal. No, seriously, like this is, there's a lot of people that when you look into this, you're going to say, I think we could do this.

It's reasonable. It's reasonable. Yeah. That's the joy. Another thing, tonight, no, tomorrow. night. Tomorrow night, I'm doing something called the Bonhofer Circle. If you want to join that, we're going to host a quarterly

video call with me answering your questions to talk about, you know, courage in the face of evil and what do we do now? To join that group, you have to go, I don't have the link here. Well, go to the Socrates

in the city website and to join the Bonhofer Circle, I just want to remind you that there's a lot involved screenings of the Bonhofer film that's coming out, a lot of stuff. Go to Socrates in the city.com for that. I also want to say that, you know, when you look at the lunacy around us, if you're not thinking about homeschooling your kids or at least getting your kids involved in quality K-12, Christ-centered education. I don't know what you're thinking. We've partnered with our friends at the Herzog Foundation.

They're there to help you navigate this. We have to be raising our kids up right. I think you now know that that's not been happening so much in America. And usually if you send your kids to public schools, you're sending them into lunatic LGBTQ indoctrination camps. It's really horrifying. And so the Herzog Foundation is there to help. go to herzogfoundation.com.

Herzog Foundation.com. They are heroes, herzogfoundation.com. They also have a website, reedlion.com, where there's all kinds of stuff. But we want to get everybody who is a thinking person to know about the Herzog Foundation. So check them out. And then before we go for sure, check out our friends at the Heritage Foundation. they are the ones behind the dreaded Project 2025 that Kamala Harris and others are trying to scare people

and thinking Trump is going to enact what's in Project 2025. That would be the greatest thing ever if he did. But it's the Heritage Foundation. Yeah, but it's the Heritage Foundation that's behind it, not Donald Trump in his campaign. It's the Heritage Foundation that's trying to get the folks on the Trump team to do what they're suggesting in Project 2025, and by God's grace, he will get in.

and he will do it. If you want to find out what's in that, go to 25truth.com. 2.5truth.com. Find out what's scaring all of the crazies. 25truth.com. God bless you today. Eric, can you do one pickup on Bonhoeffer Circle? To join the Bonhofer Circle, go to Ericmantaxas.com slash circle.

That's a shortcut.