The Eric Metaxas Show - Carrie Sheffield (continued) and Todd Chatman

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

Carrie Sheffield shares her latest book, "Motorhome Prophecies: A Journey of Healing and Forgiveness" (continued).

Folks, welcome to the Eric Metaxus show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Metaxis show. Have you heard that some people have a nose for news? Well, Eric has a nose for everything. That's why this is called The Show About Everything.

Now welcome your host, who definitely passes the smell test. Eric Montexis. Folks, welcome back. I'm talking to Carrie Sheffield, who is the author of a book, Motor Home Prophecies. Carrie, you know, having read the book, I'm in awe of the story, and it is the proverbial cautionary tale of religion gone wrong, somebody, in this case, your father, who is very earnest about his faith, but who clearly. has issues and becomes authoritarian, diluted, what you call it what you will. I mean, you said that three of your siblings have attempted suicide. That is a staggering thing.

I mean, that is, it's absolutely staggering. So, but the abuse that you live through, I want to walk through the story a little bit just because, again, I've read it and it's a very powerful. So you talk about growing up in, you know, what sounds like, a fundamentalist Christian home. When I say fundamentalist, forgive me, folks, I mean in the, in the worst sense, because I don't think all fundamentalism is bad. But this is, it's the worst kind of caricature when we think of the cartoon version,

what secular liberals think of religion. They think of this kind of thing. They think of a very authoritarian father figure brainwashing his kids. And they rightly say, well, I want to rescue these kids from. from this as the Massachusetts authorities tried to rescue you and your siblings from your father when you were very young. So it's a kind of a classic case. I mean, it happens to be within the context of some branch of Latter-day Saints. But the point is that there are people who have grown up in these things and all they want to do is run from it. You manage to get out of it. So let's walk

through the story. I mean, talk a little bit about the initial abuse. I mean, you, You were literally hungry. You literally didn't have food early on. And this is in America, folks. Yeah. Yeah. So at one point, we were eating grass from the local town square. We were living in a motorhome.

So you just kind of roll up. That's part of how we were able to evade the authorities is because we were in the motorhome. And so if you're always on the move, people don't ask questions or if they start to ask questions, then you leave. And so at one point when I was in first grade, we rolled in the, to the town square in Liberty, Missouri, and we didn't have any food. So my mom, all she had were these little bullion square cubes wrapped in gold foil, if you've seen bullion. I thought the gold wrapping meant that we were rich because it was gold colored.

But she mixed that with grass from the city part and made a little broth for us. And that was like our stew kind of thing that we ate. And grass is for human, not for human stomachs. have multiple stomachs so they can process that unlike humans. But that's what we ate. And we also used so the L.E.S. Church has a pretty extensive welfare program, which is, you know, I think admirable. They do a lot of really great work. They provide even to some Protestant churches white labeled without people knowing it's coming from the LLLLF Church just to be charitable to a lot of food pantries in New York City, in fact.

So they do a lot of great work. And I try to be as understanding and disaggregating the official LDS church. I call it the Mitt Romney Church from what my dad did because he was not sanctioned by the LDS Church. I do wish the LDS Church had done more to prevent the child abuse. And in fact, their most recent general conference, which is the global, you know, 17 million member twice a year they have a, you know, semi-annual conference. the most recent one, their leadership said, our church is not doing enough to prevent child abuse. We need to be more vigilant. And I was like, yes, they do. I'm not, I wasn't watching it because I'm no longer LDS, but I heard about it. And I said, yeah, that there were numerous people within the Mormon mainstream church who were exposed to us and chose not to report or ask more questions. Granted, again, we were always on the move. But we were able to get some. Mormon welfare. At one point, they gave us some, some type of oatmeal or bran, and it had weevils in it,

which was really gross to see weevils squirming in your milk. Weevils squirming in your milk. Yeah. So there's a lot of stuff like that in the book where you, you know, reading it, you just think, wow, this is, this was just tough. I mean, just what, what you all went through, trying to be, you know, good soldiers, trying to be good children to, to your father and mother. So at what point, I don't remember this, although I read it, but I mean, at what point do you begin to say, I want out? Because it's never a clean break, or at least in your case, it's sort of like you're drifting away. You're kind of smelling something better in this direction. When did that happen where you had this disagreement with your parents?

Well, I say in the book that sometimes life's most wrenching crucibles can lead to your greatest moments of freedom. And for me, that started when I was 17, when the older of my two brothers who have schizophrenia, the younger one actually hadn't developed it yet. He tried to rape me and he groped me. I was 17. He's almost twice my size. I'm only five foot two. And he's very overweight and large. And I was able to run away, fend him off, thank God. But at that point, it was a wake-up call because I'm I am not physically safe. Even if I believe maybe that my dad is a prophet, I began to piece together. That assault led me to question, should I stay here?

And so I began what I call my first investigative journalism project, is my father a prophet. And I came through, you know, he actually at the time was wanting to write his biography. And so he had had a couple boxes and some items stored in a fiberglass trailer. that was attached to our motor home. So we were living in the motor home on some property he owned with the fiberglass trailer attached. And so I had been writing

for the local newspaper and I said, you know, I've got some writing skills. Maybe I can help you type out and digitize because it was a very basic rudimentary word processor, some of his letters over the ears. And this was back in the day. You're wanting to do this for your father

as a good daughter. Yeah, it was both. I wanted to help him with this project. but I also wanted to learn more about him and whether I should continue to believe in him because I basically said to God, I was like, please show me if he's a prophet. I need to continue what I'm doing

because he had this incredible musical gifting. This is an interesting profile of the mind of a prophet. I was at an event speaking last week in Kansas City and I joked that my dad is kind of a Mormon Kanye. So a lot of people say Kanye West, has this musical genius, but he's crossed over that line into craziness, where he's coming out, you know, spouting anti-Semitic things. But his musical genius has influenced. I've had a lot of, for example, young black men say, wow, Kanye really shaped me growing up. He really helped set me

free, you know, just his literary ability to, in musicality. Anyway, but he's crossed the line. And for my dad, my dad had immense musical gifting. He was, a hand-selected protege of this guy named Andres Segovia. If any of your listeners know who Andres Segovia was, he was perhaps the world's greatest classical guitarist. He was from Spain. He was knighted by the king of Spain. He had 10 honorary doctorates. He had a lifetime Grammy Achievement Award. He had selected my dad to be his protege both on performance and musical composition. My dad won a nationwide composer search for the best of becoming young composer. My dad was a guitar professor at Brigham Young University. Very credential. Genius music. And, and then, but he also faced trauma.

He was sexually molested by a Mormon babysitter. That was one of his first memories. So you combine the ingredients of exceptional musical gifting with extreme childhood trauma that was untreated. His parents didn't call the police. They didn't tell the Mormon authorities to discipline or nothing happened. Just go on and pretend nothing happened. Well, victims of childhood sexual assault are far more likely to kill themselves as time goes on. It's the opposite of the adage of time heals all wounds. It doesn't happen. It actually gets worse.

It compounds. And so my dad said it made him feel suicidal. So you combine this intense musical gifting with intense childhood assault and then his interpretation of Mormon theology. And boom, you get this man who passes on intergenerational trauma. Well, this is what I want to say. We're going to go to break here. But I'm talking to Carrie Sheffield, the book is Motorhome Prophees,

and your generosity in trying to understand. In other words, your father does all these terrible things, but then you understand terrible things were done to him. It doesn't excuse it, but it really just helps us understand what people suffer and how they pass along their suffering. We'll be right back. For 10 years, Patriot Mobile has been America's only Christian conservative wireless provider. And when I say only, trust me, they're the only one. Glenn and the team have been great supporters of this show, which is why I am proud to partner with them. Patriot Mobile offers dependable nationwide coverage.

giving you the ability to access all three major networks, which means you get the same coverage you've been accustomed to without funding the left. When you switch to Patriot Mobile, you're sending the message that you support free speech, religious freedom, the sanctity of life, Second Amendment, and our military, veterans, and first responder heroes. Their 100% U.S.-based customer service team makes switching easy. Keep your number, keep your phone, or upgrade.

Their team will help you find the best plan for your needs. Just go to patriotmobile.com slash metaccess. or call 972 Patriot. 972 Patriot. 972 Patriot. Get free activation when you use the offer code metaxus. Join me, make the switch today. That's patriotmobile.com slash metaxus.

Legacy precious metals has a revolutionary new online platform that allows you to invest in real gold and silver online. In a few easy steps, you can open an account online, select your medals of choice, and choose to have them stored in a vault or ship to your door. You have access to a dashboard where you can try to. your portfolio growth in real time, anytime. You'll see transparent pricing on each coin and bar. This puts you in complete control of your money. The platform is free to sign up for. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com and open your account and see this new investing platform for

yourself. Gold hedges against inflation and against the volatile stock market. A true diversified portfolio isn't just more stocks and bonds, but different asset classes. This new platform allows you to make investments in gold and silver, no matter how small or large, with a few clicks, visit LegacyPMinvestments.com to get started. You're going to love this free new tool they've added. LegacyPMinvestments.com. Legacy pm. Investments.com. Check it out. Talking to Carrie Sheffield, author of Motor Home Prophecies. So, Carrie, you were just sharing about it's this toxic cocktail of your father's genius on the one hand. And then the madness on the other hand, how he's abused, sexually abused as a child, and how this manifests itself

in his religiosity, in his controlling. And it's heartbreaking because you see both sides of it. You know, this is your father who you love, who also you hate. You know, a lot of people can relate to this kind of thing. It's not, it's not so simple. It's, we always want to be able to say, so someone is evil. And they're there why everything bad has happened to me. And you realize, well, it's it's more complicated. And so you do a good job of that of being respectful and honoring to your father at the same time that you're very candid about the horrors that he visited on you and your family. You were just talking about how at age 17 you start, because you inherited some of his genius in the sense that here you are, this journalist at age 17, you know, you want to look into his writings

and try to figure out, is he really a prophet? So you begin. begin to divorce yourself in a sense from just listening to what he says and begin to think for yourself. And so what does that lead you to at that point? So I started to sort through those box that he had in the back of the fiberglass trailer. And some of the letters I found, this is back in the days when they would carbon a carbon copy. CC literally means back in the day, they would have a black carbonated sheet with carbon paper. I am old enough to remember this extremely well. So, yes, so go ahead. Yes. So my. father had saved a bunch of carbon letters back and forth between him and his mother. And I gradually

saw how radicalized and the things he would say to his own mother were so insulting and controlling and just saying, you were a terrible mother, you were not religious enough, you didn't raise me to read the book of Mormon, you were a failed mother, you know, all these things, I'm just like, wow. And then her letters back, you know, very concerned about her son's mental health. And But the thing that really pushed me over the edge to say, okay, I don't believe my father is a prophet, I found some handwritten prophecies that he had written down. And he had written them down in the form that Joseph Smith did in the doctrine and covenants. So in Mormonism, there are four books of scripture.

There's the King James Bible, Book of Mormon, doctrine and covenants, and pearl of great price. The other three that I mentioned are purportedly of ancient origin. and we know the Bible is. The other two are up for debate, but the doctor in covenants is not purported to be of ancient origin. It was contemporary. It was Joseph Smith writing down revelations from God that he said in ways to direct the church. They're written in Elizabethan English in the way it's published now. And my father's prophecies were nearly identical in terms of form and structure and Elizabeth in English. And it was to his got, he had a God name, Daniel Strong, His name is Ralph Sheffield, but he had a God name.

And so it was all these revelations to the God name of him. And my hand started to shake, and I was like, wow, he is a false prophet because within Mormonism, it's very hierarchical. It's very structured. It's like the Mormon pope. There's only one prophet at a time going down from Joseph Smith. And that guy lives in Salt Lake, and his name was not Ralph Sheffield. And so I said, my father is in direct opposition to the official church where my loyalties

lay. And so I chose that loyalty over my father. And in response, my dad said, if you leave, if you leave this, he called it the mission. And he raised his hand like he was making an oath. And he said, I prophesy in the name of Jesus, you'll be raped and murdered if you leave. And, you know, to have your father pronounce such a curse on you if you choose to go to college, it's pretty, I don't know, it's an existential crisis. Well, that's real. I want to be really clear that we have the power to curse and the power to bless. And your father at that time cursed you.

It's an evil thing. I just want to ask you, though, when you refer to these prophecies that he's getting, that he's writing down, it strikes to me at least possible that this is demonic. In other words, because there are people that, you know, there are people that really hear from God, and then there are people that hear from other entities, and they write it down. There is sometimes pure delusion,

sometimes it's demonic, sometimes it's a combination. Did you have any sense of that with him? You know, what's interesting is that he said, he said he would say this to his own kids. And he also said to his brother, his brother recently told me this. He said, I am wrong, you all have the responsibility to stop me. And he said, if I am wrong, I am, he even said, I am, I am demonic if I'm wrong. But if I'm right, I am a prophet and I will be president someday and you better get in line. So that binary choice, it's sort of like with Jesus, either he's a lunatic or he's the Lord, you know. So for the longest time, I said, okay, he is a prophet. But then when I found his

writings and I said, okay, this isn't, this is like, you know, because he was, we were, we were baptized in the official church. We were baptized. We were baptized. We were taking the official LDS church welfare food. So we were, but we were always on the fringe of it. And when, and so for me, that became very stark when I saw these handwritten prophecies and I said, okay, I do, I think he's a false prophet. That's what I decided at that time. And I, and I knelt down and I prayed in that fiberglass trailer that night. It was in the wintertime and I had a little space heater and I would just, I knelt down in the dark and I prayed and I said, God, I am going to leave. And if you want me to stay, if he is a prophet, please show me. Otherwise, I made that, you know, I put that line in the sand and I made

plans to leave and I didn't find any revelation to stay. And I, you're right. And as far as putting, you know, pronouncing curses. And the thing is, when you have child abuse and you have a parent and child abuse can manifest in many ways, you know, in my case, I think it was this demonic religious abuse, but for a lot of times, it's maybe an alcoholic parent or a drug abuse of parent or just anger, you know, issues. These, they're on the children. And I, you know, I've reminded often of the verse in the Bible where Jesus says, who among you if your son asks, for a bread, you would give them a stone. If they asked for fish, you give them a serpent. You know, and for me, that's what my dad did. He gave me serpents. He gave me stones. And instead

of dropping those stones down, I went out and I bought my own stones, my own baskets. And I engaged in a lot of self-sabotage and destructive behavior that I talk about in the book. You know, like I try to be as transparent to say, like, I was part of my own failures. I chose based on I chose trauma responses based on the trauma put on me. And those were my choices. And so, yes, I was a victim. And that's the part where I think conservative sometimes aren't willing to acknowledge someone is a victim. They just look at the horrible choices that they make, which they should be held accountable for,

and they should be punished for. But to understand when you're trying to heal someone, you have to acknowledge, did this father give them snakes and stones? And how do we stop that? How do we break that cycle? Well, it's fascinating, too, that, you know, here you are deciding to leave based on actual Mormon doctrine. Now, you and I, we don't believe in Mormon doctrine, but it's so fascinating that, you know, where you were, you're thinking, okay, well, if I believe in Mormon doctrine, then my father

is a heretic and I need to get out of here. But then, of course, you go on your own path and eventually find your way out of the LDS Church. into this agnosticism and then finally become a Christian. And I didn't remember that my show was the first one where you talked about that. You do write about that in this book, Motor Home Prophecies. Your conversion, more recent, converging. Yeah. Yeah. So it's now been almost six and a half years since the baptism that, yes, I, so my, I get to BYU, I leave home. I'm disowned. Dad said my blood changed. I was no longer his daughter. I was not welcome. I was not allowed home for any Christmas or holiday breaks, which I took as fuel to motivate me. You know, I said my

roommates are going home to mama and clutching their teddy bears in summer and I'm going to go get an internship. So I got five internships before I got my first job. I interned for Newsweek magazine in New York City. I interned for Robert Novak, the former Washington Post columnist. You know, I really worked tired. And through my hard work in my journalism, I got a full journalism scholarship to Harvard for a master's degree in public policy. And so I was proud of all of these accomplishments on the resume. And so I describe my book as my anti-resum. And I think our culture makes us so focused on performance and achievement and we're divorced from our society used to be about creating virtuous citizens. And now we're just about creating efficient workers. And that's creating

this collapse because the anti-resumé is you're hiding a lot of shame. People are not going to church. You're not in community, confessional community where you wrestle with the anti-resumay stuff. And so that's part of why I wrote the book. And the conversion, I go in detail about how it all happened. I say it happened basically by default because I tried all these other false idols that Tim Keller would talk about in his book counterfeit gods. They kept failing me. You know, the god of career i got laid off the god of relationships i got i was dating abusive men we've got to time for one more segment carry uh hang on the book is motor home prophecies will be right back before i tell you about a very special offer i want to first explain why this product is

absolutely worth it without the discount i don't take a particular supplement just because i get a discount, anything as important as nutrition. I'll research that first. If you go to balance of nature.com, then scroll down their homepage to see all that goes into each bottle of balance of nature's fruits and veggies. You'll see like I did, it's well worth it. But it's not just the ingredients. The real stories from real customers, they've got hundreds of thousands of customers. Each customer's success story is just another example of how people are finding and taking balance of nature's fruits and veggies. Take their risk-free money-back challenge today. Use my special promo code to get 35% off your first order, plus $10.

off any additional sets and free shipping. Call 800 2468-751 or order online at balance of nature.com. Use discount code Eric. That's discount code Eric at 35% off plus $10 off additional sets and free shipping. Balance of nature.com. Balance of nature.com. Hey, this is Eric Mattaxas. For years I've told you about Nutrametics, a professional supplement brand trusted by doctors since 1993. Nutrametics offers a variety of health bungee. Whether you want to support your immune system, improve your sleep, promote joint comfort or detoxification support, Nutrametics has a health bundle right for you. The best part about Nutrametics, every year they donate a minimum of 50% of their profits to Christian charities and missions. That's right, 50% of their profits.

Neutrametics has a goal of surpassing 100 million in giving by 2030. Many of you take supplements already. Switch to Neutrametics. It's the highest quality, and they donate 50% of their profits. get 15% off by using the code Eric during checkout. Go to Nutrametics.com and search health bundles, support your health while helping others in need. Go to Nutrametics. That's N-U-T-R-A-M-E-D-I-X.com. Nutrametics.com use the code Eric for 15% off.

Again, Nutrametics, N-U-T-R-A-M-E-D-I-X.com. Nutrametics.com use the code Eric for 15% off. Welcome back talking to Kerry Sheffield. The book is Motor Home Prophe. So, Carrie, you were just saying something a moment ago about how in the secular world in which we live, people can try to find meaning in accomplishments. And that was part of your journey, right? In other words, here you are.

You've left behind this confused background, but you're now, you know, living for accomplishments. And of course, that's not going to do it either, because to get back to your, you know, Fox News op-ed, the secular world really cannot fulfill us. Only God can fulfill us. And so we can get bad versions of religion. We can get no religion. But God wants us to find him genuinely. And that eventually happens to you. But you just go on this long path. So let's just go back. So you were at Brigham Young University. So you're trying to be a good Mormon at the time. What happened after that? Talk just a little bit, because we just got a few minutes, but about when you realize that the doctrine is off, how did that happen for you?

Yeah, so I call that my second big investigative journalism project, do I believe the LVS Church? The first one is my father, a prophet. The reason it all started when I was at BYU, why did I undertake this venture? Well, I was in a class, and to credit to BYU for exposing me, to it. It was called Journalism History and Philosophy. And as part of this class, we had to go down to the micro-fiche in the library, in the bowels of Harborby Lee Library on campus, and look at these really old copies of the Desert Morning News. It's now just called the Desert News. But at the time,

Desert Morning News was powerful. It's still around today. It's owned by the LDS Church. But this was from the 1800s. And we were, you know, scrolling through. what caught me and just my my jaw dropped. It was advertisements from a company called ZCMI. That was the acronym. I describe it as it's a Mormon Macy's.

So it was like a department store that was owned by the LDS Church. It stood for Zion's Something Mercantal Institute. I don't know. They sold everything from clothes to food. They were selling ZCMI was selling alcohol and tobacco in these advertisements.

And the church is like, I said, the church owned ZCMI, the store. So the Mormon church is selling alcohol and tobacco. And I was just like, what? This is insane. How is that? And I had been. Just to be clear, it's not that you or I fundamentally disapprove of selling alcohol or tobacco, but you're saying that at the time that the LDS Church is selling alcohol and tobacco, they are adamantly, again, against alcohol and tobacco use. So you're picking up on this. You're thinking, wait a minute, this looks like hypocrisy.

What is this? Exactly, yeah. And so the prohibition, the ban on those substances that is very strongly in place now, I had heard loosely that it wasn't really enforced, but I did not know that the church was actually selling it. So it's one thing to kind of look the other way or kind of be, you know, maybe discouraging it a bit. but to actually make money off it, I was just like, this is strange. And so I said, well, what else is there in the history that I'm not being told in Sunday

school? Because, you know, the thing about Mormonism, like, for example, I did a study abroad in London, Mormon at the campus there. They had that was a campus they have in the Kensington neighborhood. And there were protesters that would show up regularly to protest. They were like evangelicals that would, with science. be really hateful toward the Mormon students. And I would always, over the years, see some of these types of people that would say hateful things about Mormons. And I was an intern down in North Carolina,

Shelby, where I had, during my lunch break, I came back. There were anti-Mormon pamphlets on my desk anonymously harassing me. Still don't know who they would put them there. So I had seen this sort of anti-Mormon hatred pop up now and then, you know, by that point I was 21. But I was like, well, why are they doing that? I didn't really understand the roots of sort of their complaints. And so once I found this, it was really a random thing, this advertisement, I said, what else am I missing? And that's really what brought me down the rabbit hole of learning more about who Joseph Smith was and some of the things he had done and his character and his claims. And I just said, wow, I also really don't believe in polygamy and more.

Mormon structure believes even today that heaven is polygamous. So even though they've stopped, they banned the practice on earth in 1890, they do believe that heaven is polygamous, even though the Bible says there is no marriage in heaven. And as a woman, I didn't like the idea of having to be sealed to multiple women with one man. So it was, it was the domino's fell. And I, I didn't want it to happen. I didn't want to leave Mormonism. It was so embedded in my identity. My ancestors had helped to have found it. but I just felt like I could no longer be part of that. I didn't feel that it was honest and true for me to stay.

We just have 40 seconds left. What was it that led you to open your life back up to God in recent years? Well, like I said, I had tried all these other things that were not filling that void. And it was by the work of Tim Keller influenced it very strongly. also having Christian community. And also knowing that I needed something beyond politics. I called myself a secular conservative. I think it's more common for secular liberals to have it be their religion.

But I kept seeing my religion fail me in conservative politics. And I said, I need something bigger. Well, listen, folks, get a copy of Motor Home Prophecies. There's so much we have not talked about in that book. It's an extraordinary story. Carrie Sheffield, thank you so much. Thank you, Eric. You might have heard Mike Lundell and My Pillo no longer have the support of their box stores or shopping channels the way they used to.

Yes, it's because of cancel culture. But as a result, they get to pass the savings on to you directly by having a $25 extravaganza. When Mike started My Pillar, it was just a one product company. With the help of his dedicated employees, they now have hundreds of products, some you may not even know about. To get the word out, I want to invite my listeners to check out their $25 extravaganza. Two-pack multi-use, MyPillows, just $25. My-Pillow sandals, $25. There's six-pack towels, just $25.

Brand-new, four-pack dish towels. You guessed it, just $25. For the first time ever, the premium MyPillows with all-new Giza fabric, just $25. Orders over $75 will receive free shipping, too. The amazing offer will not last long. Go to MyPillow.com. Use promo code Eric or call 800-9783057. That's promo code Eric.

800-97783057-3057 promo-com or go to mypillow.com and use promo code Eric. Hey there, folks. I'm talking to Todd Chapman, who is with Christian Solidarity International. We partner with them every year once or twice to do something beautiful for God. And that's a phrase from Mother Teresa to do something beautiful for God, to give life and joy and liberty to those we may not know. their names, but we do something unto the Lord. So Todd, you've been with CSI for a while. How long has CSI been involved in literally freeing slaves? Because that's what we're talking about right now. Yeah. Well, CSI has been around since 1977 as a religious and human rights organization, but we really got involved in freeing slaves back in the early 1990s. So we've been doing this for a

while. The slaves were talking about these are women that were taken captive during the Sudanese Civil War, basically the religious cleansing that occurred there starting in 1983. It persisted until 1995 when actually CSI helped negotiate with the UN. We basically advocate and said, look, you've got to stop this. We've got to get the slave taking stopped. And we were successful in that. And they said, no more taking of slaves. But what they didn't do is they didn't say, and you have to release the captives that have been taken over the last 12 years. And so ever since 1995, we've been, thanks to generous people like your listeners, we've been freeing captives every year, about 1,500 every year is what we typically do.

We've already seen 400 slaves freed this year. We just did a liberation last month, and we've got a couple more coming up later this year. And so we're just, number one, educating you that this is a thing, because most people don't even know that almost 200,000 human beings were taken captive and had been held as slaves since the 80s. I mean, 40 years. And Eric, we were talking about this earlier. Those original slaves have had children who are now having children.

So you've got multi-generational slavery and our goal and our calling by God. And hopefully, well, not hopefully, it is your calling as well. and maybe this is just a revelation that you can be a part of this, is to provide freedom for these captives in Jesus' name. And that's what we're doing, $250, $21 a month, and you set a captive free. We reunite them with their family in South Sudan whenever we can and set them on, of course, to having a life and freedom.

And, you know, Eric, it's interesting because you read the stories about these captives. Some of them were taken as a slave at such a young age. they don't even know when they were born. Sometimes they don't know how old they are, they're guests, but they don't really know. And they don't even know their names. Oftentimes their father, their brothers were killed when they were taken captive, and they and their mom were carded off to North Sudan, then separated. And so they've lived a life of despair and loneliness and slavery.

All sorts of abuse. I mean, it's absolutely tragic what's been done to these people. And I can't think of a more beautiful expression of the gospel, the love of Jesus, then to not just say, oh, I didn't know that. That's interesting and that's really sad. And then turn and walk away. It's actually to, as you've been talking about it in your new book, put that faith, that compassion and action and do something that's actually going to set that captive free and make sure that they experience firsthand the freedom that can only be found in Jesus. And so that's the opportunity that you have today here on the Eric Metaxa show.

And it's a witness, folks, to your non-Christian friends. Are you living out your faith? I think a lot of times non-Christians look at Christians and they go, what's the difference between you and me? You go to some thing on Sunday morning, you do some stuff, so what? Well, I want to be clear, God expects us to do more than worship him on Sunday mornings. He expects us to live out our lives in every way as a testimony to our faith in him, to our faith in the God who came to this planet and died for us. we're supposed to live our whole lives in reaction to that beautiful thing.

We're supposed to react in every way we can to show the world and to show God that we believe this, that he did this for me. And I want to say that, you know, this is a great opportunity when you do something like this, as I said, if you give $25 a month, if that's all you can give, that adds up to $250 a year. and that will free a slave. $250 is what frees a slave and sets up a slave in a life of freedom. So it's a beautiful thing. But you can share with your neighbors or your friends and say, this is what I have done. Have you done it? Ask your friends. Do they believe in slavery? Do they know that Christians have been enslaved because of their Christian faith by radical Muslims? Do they know about that? Why don't they know about that? Why don't you tell them about that? Why don't you ask them if they want to participate? Are they abolitionists or do they not care?

If you live out your faith, you make it obvious that you care about this and that the God that died for you to free you from bondage, from spiritual bondage, that that God exhorts you to live out your faith and to show people that when you believe in Jesus, you live differently, you give sacrificially. You do things like this. As far as I'm concerned, this is a teaching opportunity for our kids to show our kids that we take seriously everything we say. We take seriously the idea that our money is God's money. It's not our money. It's God's money. He gave it to us and we use it however we can, when we can, to show whose money it is and to show that, you know, just as you would want someone to give this money. If you were enslaved, you would want Christians who had the money to give a little bit of that money to free you. You do that. You do unto others, as you would have others do unto you. But this is a great opportunity to teach your neighbors, talk to your neighbors. Did you know that Christians,

because of their Christian faith, are enslaved right now while you're here in America free, taking it for granted probably. Did you know that? And did you know that Christians motivated by their faith in Jesus are living out that faith? Folks, live out your faith in this way. The website is metaxis talk.com. It's metaxis talk.com. You'll see the banner there. Every $250 frees a human being.

And when we think, Todd, that they have been enslaved for decades. Ladies and gentlemen, when you have the power to do something about that, how can you not? How can you not? It's amazing to me. I want to say real clear that, you know, when you do something like this, folks, you will feel better. You'll instantly feel better that you've done something beautiful for God. You've lived out your faith. And I want to challenge everybody listening to this. Do this today, folks. Go to metaxis talk.com. Click on the banner. Do what you can today. You will feel good

because you're moving with God when you do something like this. Is there any doubt that it's the Lord's will that these slaves be freed? They've been faithful by being Christians. They've been enslaved. Why don't we live out our faith in such a way, show that we're Christians by freeing them from where they are. The website is metaxis talk.com right. The top is the banner. All the information is there. But today is your day. Do this today. God bless you. Hey, folks, our friends at Americans for prosperity are at it again. Actually, they're now on the front lines fighting the border crisis. The politicians aren't going to solve this problem on their own. It's kind of going to take some good old grassroots activism, and that's what APF specializes in, which is to say good old

fashioned grassroots activism. So Americans for Prosperity Foundation has taken hundreds of concerned citizens to see the border for themselves, turning them into informed activists. Americans for Prosperity knows what we need. For example, more border agents, more walls, more technology. That's what makes Americans for Prosperity unique. They do the tough work of organizing, mobilizing everyday Americans to make a difference. That's you and me. In fact, they've just announced a major campaign to hold Biden and his allies accountable for the crisis at the border.

Learn more at secure border, secure america.com. That's secure border secure america.com. Speaking of friends of the Eric Mattaxas show, the Herzog Foundation exists to catalyze and accelerate the development of quality, Christ-centered K-12 education. Their vision is for families and culture to flourish through quality Christian education, making the ecosystems of Christian education

more accessible and sustainable for families across the nation. I think that's you. Their mission will be lived out by providing programs such as online content, up-to-date news, training and events, grants, hands-on organizational improvement initiatives. We've talked to them many times.

We'll continue to talk to them, but you can check them out at HertzogFoundation.com. HerzogFoundation.com. Yeah, we had Chris Stiggal from them. He was terrific. They, they, I tell you, it's just great to partner with folks like them, with Americans for prosperity. There's so many different people involved in, you know, saving the world, basically. Genevieve on recently, too. She was tremendous. Genovine Collins, yeah. No, it's, it's,

honestly, uh, I get, you know, we, we need hope. And I guess that these folks, the ones I just mentioned, uh, who are sponsors on the program, they give me hope. Um, all. Also, they're helping others, you know, they're helping Americans figure out how do I get it done? How do I get involved? And, you know, because we all need to be involved. I keep talking about that. I talked about it in my book, if you can keep it because it is, it's our job to keep the republic. This is not something that, again, how did we get to where we are?

We kind of drifted into thinking like, well, I don't need to do that. It'll just take care of itself. The Constitution is the Constitution. And part of what we do on the show is highlighting stories of people that are getting involved that are doing things and also giving people like me, I'm a little guy, the opportunity to help out with people that are doing things in other places like CSI,

rolling up their sleeves, and we can partner with them and actually make a difference. Yes, yes, exactly. Okay, speaking of making a difference, two things before I go. I want you to mention our involvement with CSI, Christian Solidarity International.

If you've not yet jumped at the chance, folks, please go to metaxis talk.com. Please do this today. We want everyone to be involved. We've only had something like 130 people actually do this. But I know that more than 130 people listen to the program. And if you're feeling guilty, good, because this is an awesome thing. You really want to do this. Just go to metaxis talk.com, click on the banner. We've all got to give something to something. And people often ask, well, I don't know. what's reputable, what's good, you know, what this is, it doesn't get better. Go to metaxisotalks.com. You'll see the banner for CSI. I'll give you the phone number. Hey, here's the phone number. 888-253-3522.

888-253-3522. And while I'm at it, let me mention Socrates Plus. Sign up for Socrates Plus. It's, oh, I mean, we'll talk about it another time, but I'm so excited that we have created the streaming digital platform Socrates plus feed your mind folks feed your mind feed your soul go to Socrates and city.com you can check it out and you can see Socrates plus is there. Thank you very much.