The Eric Metaxas Show - Dr. Gerson Moreno-Riaño (Encore)

Episode Date: April 12, 2025

Dr. Gerson Moreno-Riaño serves as Cornerstone University’s president. Cornerstone has a passion for academic excellence and a commitment to Christian higher education.

Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Eric Mataxis show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you can protect your wealth with noble gold investments. That's noble gold investments.com. Check your bucket list lately? Are you ready to take care of item number seven? Listening to the Eric Metaxus show? Well, welcome. Tune in and then move on to item number eight. skydiving with Chuck Schumer and AOC. Here now is Mr. Completed My Bucket List at age 12, Eric Mat, Texas. Hey there, folks. Today is Friday the 11th of April.

We have, oh my gosh, today's a busy day. I'm going to be interviewing people here in Manhattan for Socrates in the studio. I have a busy date today. And today on this program, In our one, I'm finishing the conversation with our friend Mike Thompson, who is somebody I revere. He's been, you know, I should say this. Mike Thompson has been profoundly helpful to me. People say, Eric, where do you get your perspective?

Where do you get your strength and your faith and where do you get? God has used people very often, among them, Mike Thompson, at the head of the list, Mike Thompson, The things that he's said over the last four years have been a great source of strength to me because I know when Mike says something, he's not blowing smoke. God speaks through him. And that's a real thing. You know, I don't know how to – you can't prove that to some people, but it's okay. In our two today, we have Gerson Moreno Rianio. Did I say that correctly?

I don't know. He is the head of Cornerstone University. I spoke there last year there in Grand Rapids, Michigan. actually I'll be in Grand Rapids, Michigan. But he is talking to me. You need to know about Cornerstone University. There are so few universities that, you know, are headed up by people like Gerson, Moreno, Riano, people who really understand America and Christian faith and are heroic.

There are a lot of Christian schools, you know, ostensibly Christian, that are not, have not stood strong or that I fundamentally misunderstood things and have bowed the knee to woke lunacy when they ought to have been standing against it. So hour one today, Mike Thompson, hour two, the head of Cornerstone University. And by the way, Monday, Miracle Monday, Ryan Scoog, a great guest. I'm just going to say, stay tuned for that. My conversation with him was personally inspiring to me in my faith, made me want to fast and pray. I just loved talking to him. So that's coming up on Monday.

I mentioned Gerson Moreno Riano and Cornerstone University there in Michigan. I'm going to be in Grand Rapids, Michigan. If you want to know where I'm going to be, frankly, it's simple. Go to Ericmetaxis.com. If you're not signed up for the newsletter, you're missing a lot of stuff. It's free. There's no commercials on there. Just sign up for Ericmetaxis.com.

But on there, if you go to you go to, EricMetaxis.com, you'll see my schedule. I'm going to be next week in Lexington, Kentucky, interviewing the head of another great university, Hillsdale. That's Larry, Dr. Larry Arn. So I'll be in Lexington, Kentucky. After that, I go to Wenatchee, Washington, Washington State. After that, I go to Rome, Georgia. There's a prayer breakfast in Rome, Georgia, looking forward to that. The next day, I fly to Jacksonville, Florida, where I'm doing something called, Pints with Aquinas. Pints with Aquinas. You know, we were at Amfest, and the host came up and said, hey, I have a podcast called Pints for Aquinas.

I'd love to talk to Eric. And we were like, Pints for what? But it's a big deal. The Catholic Church is a cult. Get thee behind me. Wow. And it turns out I was actually kidding. We didn't have time. What? I was going to say we didn't have time because we were like double booked already.

I felt bad. But then, of course, I educated him. myself on the hit podcast. It's, you know, probably bigger than our show, really. Oh, much bigger. It's a big deal. Oh, it's a big deal. Pints with Aquinas, big deal.

So I'm going to Jacksonville, Florida to do pints to the quinas, not literally to do pints with Aquinas. It's a show called Pints. You know, the Catholics would be fine with that. So, you know, that's okay. The Catholics like to drink. I'm just going to put it out there. I don't know, do, but, you know, are there going to be spirits in the kingdom?

I don't know. There's going to be wine. There's certainly going to be one. I think we're going to be drunk with the spirit. Wedding feast. Well, in any case, after that, I go to Grand Rapids, Michigan. After that, I go to Washington, D.C. And by then, by the time we get to June, folks, I'm going to need to lie down.

I'm going to be so tired. But guess what happens? We fly to Athens, Greece. Yeah, Athens, Greece. Some of you know we're doing a cruise through the Greek islands. It leaves Athens June 6th. It returns June 16th. So 10 jam-packed days.

Honestly, I can't even believe that this is finally, we're on the verge of it. We have, I think, 300 people total. There is, as of today, there's still room. I think you have to get on a waiting list, but I'm pretty sure that there is room. So if you're interested in that, you want to go to ericmetaxis.com slash cruise. Ericmataxis.com slash cruise, but you have to call the number.

There's a number there when you go to Ericmetaxis.com slash cruise. If you and your family or friends or whatever things have opened up for you and you're thinking, hey, that'd be fun. It would be fun. It will be fun. I am very excited about it. Victoria Jackson's going to be there. Get ready.

Albin's going to be there. And if that's not enough, now how much would you pay? if we add John Zmirak to the mix. He's an intellectual honey badger. He's coming after you. He will be there. It's going to be crazy. And so, look, I have to do it.

So I don't even have to make a choice. But if you are inclined, trust me, it's going to be a blast. I'm going to be speaking about most of my books. I think not quite every night, but I'm going to be presenting and we're going to have Q&A. And, oh, my gosh, it just goes on and on and on. Just want to let you know. That's what I'm doing. in the month of June.

What else before I forget today? Let's see. Oh, I don't want to forget to tell you about our friends of the Herzog Foundation. I keep saying that at the very heart of saving the culture and saving the West is education. If kids don't get the truth about, is there a God? Am I made in God's image or am I just, you know, something that the universe burped up? these things matter. And so homeschooling is vital, genuine Christ-centered K-12 education, absolutely vital to the future. Half the books that I have written are used as homeschooling curriculum

or in Christian schools because we're living in a culture that has become really secularized. And if you want to know why everything's insane, it's because we've left this slide for a long time. So our friends at the Herzog Foundation are there to help Herzog Foundation.com Herzog Foundation.com. That's their website. They're not asking you for anything. They're there to help you. Herzog Foundation.

They also have a website called readlion. Dot org. Readlion.org. I'm sorry, readlion.com. I didn't realize it's a dot com. Read, r-a-d-d-lion.com. You want to know how to stay informed on this kind of stuff. so check it out.

And then before I forget as well, this program in part is sponsored by the Israeli Ministry of Tourism on behalf the government of Israel and on their behalf. And with joy, I ask you to go to the website, go israel.com, go Israel.com. When I was writing my book, is atheism dead? And I was writing about the archaeology.

I was just drooling to go back to Israel because there's stuff there. When you see the very stones that Jesus saw, when you stand in these places, when it goes on and on and on, it changes your faith. It changes your life. And everybody says that. And so right now maybe isn't the best time to go, but I cannot wait to go back. The website is go israel.com. Okay, so before we go to our excellent guests today, let me remind you most of my books are now at rock bottom prices. There's a big sale going on at my store.com.

I make like no money on these books, folks. I order my own books from my store.com and use the code Eric. Okay. So they're there. Mystore.com. If you use the code Eric, the prices are ridiculous. I'm not kidding when I say. I just ordered my own books from there.

That's how cheap they are. MyStore.com. You use code Eric. And you can get the greatest honey in the world. It's Trump honey. It's insane. Just go to my store.com. You'll see it.

All right. We'll be right back. We've got great guests today. Stick around. So you're putting money away, saving for the future, for retirement, for your family. You're doing what you're supposed to do, right? Well, what if I told you that your 401k, IRA, and other investments are probably paying for gambling, abortion, and LGBT causes? Inspire Advisors can tell you where your profits are really coming from. Do what I did. Go to InspireAdvisors.com and order your free customized impact report and find out.

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Plus, orders over $75 ship for free. Go to MyPillow.com. Use promo code Eric or call 800-9783057. MyPillow.com promo code Eric or call 800-9783057 to order now. Mypillow.com. Hey, the folks, welcome back. My guest right now is somebody I got to know last year, or maybe it was even a little bit before that. I visited Cornerstone University in Michigan, and I was thrilled to see that this is a true Christian college.

It's one of these amazing places, and I said, I want the world to know because there are fewer and fewer of these kinds of schools. Again, I'm talking about Cornerstone University. So today my guest is the president of Cornerstone University. His name is Gerson Marino Riano. Gerson, welcome to the program. Thank you, Eric. Good morning. It's great to be with you.

Thank you. I can't believe I got your name mostly right. That's really, really good, Eric. Thank you. I'm used to sometimes being butcher, but you did a rate, so thank you. Gerson, Moreno, Riaño. Yes. I want to invitee to my fiesta of couple an years.

And I'm here, so me invite us boy. You got to say the Tealde, the Riaño. So listen, it was such a joy getting to meet you at Cornerstone. And I want my audience to know your story a little bit because, you know, that's your title. You're the president of Cornerstone University. But before we get into more, what is your story? Tell us about coming to the U.S. age nine. You know, it's important.

Thank you, Eric. You know, we immigrated. My parents, my brother and me immigrated when I was nine years old in 1980 from Columbia, South America. And the story is always, my father's soul and mother's. sold everything they had. And they brought came with two suitcases, a duffel bag, and $300. That was it. No friends, no family, no English language. And we landed in what I call the second Ellis Island or the new Ellis Island, Miami, Florida. And for there, made our way up to Rochester, New York. And my mom and dad always told us, you know, we're taking you into the land

of opportunity. And that's all we can give to you an opportunity. And it's up to you now what you do with it. And it's always been front and center in my heart, the opportunity we have here in this amazing country, the United States. But also I came to know Jesus as my Savior when I was a little boy in third grade. My parents always enrolled us in Christian schools. So we went to a small school in Bogota, Columbia, and Assemblies of God's School. And that's where the gospel touched my heart and I became a Christian. And ever since, I've always been a big, huge believer in Christian education at every level. If it's done well and done right, it's essential importance. So I'm grateful now to be in this country since 1980, almost 30 years involving Christian higher education.

I call it the vineyard of Christian higher education and thrilled to be here at Cornerstone doing the God's work in educating young men and women to be influencers in the world for Jesus Christ. That's our mission. And I mean, you heard me say it up front that a lot of Christian colleges at the top of the list is Wheaton, I would no longer recommend them because they have bowed to the woke mob. And maybe they would say, oh, no, we haven't. but in my opinion they have. What is it about Cornerstone that has enabled you to stand strong?

Because, you know, as I say, they're fewer and fewer solidly Christian colleges at this point. Yeah, that's a great question. It takes a real courage and boldness to stand in the midst of all that's happening. Christian hired for so many, many years. I saw the drift in other institutions years ago, and I told myself, you know, the work of carrying Christian higher education, the work of Jesus, the work of God's work, it's serious work. And we have to be bold and courageous and defended it and advance it. And we can't let it drift away from us. And that's just been a part of my heart for years and

years. I've seen the power of ideas. Ideas have consequences. Their wonderful book years, decades ago that was written. And ideas can change people for good or for bad. And the gospel is central to all of this. So that's been a part of my DNA for years now. And so, So when I came to Correstone, that was a commitment that I had in my own heart. Our Board of Trustees has been 100% behind the effort to ensure that Correstone does not drift from its mission, does not drift from Christ in the gospel and the scriptures and Orthodox Christian worldview. So within a year of me arriving, we put in place a number of things with the full support of the Board of Trustees. We call those sort of our foundational pillars.

We develop a Christian worldview document for the institution. We developed an academic vision, a Christian academic vision document, and then another document called the Beautiful Christian Community Document. And these were sort of our responses bred out of our statement of faith to address, what does it mean to be a Christian university where a Christian role of view touches everything that we do? When it comes to epistemology or metaphysics or axiology or ontology, what does that mean for us in all that we do? What does it mean for us to be thoroughly Christian academics and Christian?

Christian staff and everything that we do in our teaching, in our learning, and our mentoring. And then what does it mean for us to treat each other as Christians, not just talk about it, but do it with our students and with each other. And this was a process that involved the entire campus coming together to address these things. And then the board approved those documents and now that become pillars. And all of our faculty and staff have to agree to those documents in our statement of faith every year. And we live by those. And we work very, very hard to do so, Eric, it's not easy to do, right?

you to say then to do it. So we hold each other accountable and do it. And there are some individuals who have liked it and wanted and loved them, some who have not moved on, and that's okay. We want to be faithful to the Lord, ultimately, and to his word, and faithful to our students. I always think of parents who invest a lot in Cornerstone to send their daughters and their sons, and we want to honor the faith they have in the Lord and the honor the faith they have in us. Well, that is rare. I'll say it again. It's rare, and it's why I'm excited to have you on the program and introduce my audience to Cornerstone. it's a big deal. So God bless you for that. I want to talk to you about kind of what's going on with education around the country. I mean, I have to say when I heard President Trump say that he wants to send education back to the states, I said, this is the greatest news. I can't even believe that it's possible. That it's possible to put, because people forget, I mean, I'll say it. Ladies and gentlemen, the government has zero business in telling you what does.

teach your kids. Zero. You're not living in a fascist state. You can teach your kids anything you want, not teach them anything you want. They are your kids. We have total freedom. So schools are set up to do what the parents want. I want my kids to learn math, science, how to read, how to write, history, the basics. And somehow, over time, and this always happens, you get more and more people getting power and starting to say, oh, we know how to do this better than the parents. And so the federal government, we create the Department of Education. I have no idea why that ever happened. And they start, you know, giving these ideas like, this is what kids need to learn and this is what kid needs to learn, antithetical to what the parents would want them to learn.

So obviously, to have freedom, you need to keep government small. It needs to be local. And I still cannot believe, you know, that President Trump had the boldness to say, yes, let's abolish the Department of Education. Let's send education back to the states, make it more local, have parents have more involvement. It's almost unbelievable. I just have to start there. Yeah, it's actually incredible that this is actually happening. And it's not just a conversation point. It's actually going to be done, right?

I don't think I ever expected such a thing to be so bold and so quick, right, within the first hundred days to have this happening. And I think you're right. Look, the most important relationship a child has is with his mom and dad or her mom and dad. I mean, that the parents are absolutely essential in the education, upbringing, and nurturing of a child. So when that is taken away because of institutional roadblocks or a Department of Education, and the expert now arises, the technocrat, right? who somehow believes he or she knows better and knows best. You have a significant problem.

You rob families, you rob parents of the great responsibility and privilege that is there is to educate. And I think at the same time, you can rob your sons and daughters, your children from that, too. So I do think it's a wonderful opportunity. The question will be now, what happens at the state level, Eric, as you know, what happens there and the degree to which parents are going to mobilize and really get involved? And civic organizations get involved to support that. otherwise, you know, it could create 50 little, you know, fascist governments, which we don't want either. Well, listen, I think we know that when you push things back to the states, I mean, when Rovi Wade is

abolished and now the states get to decide, not every state is going to do the right thing, but not every state is going to do the wrong thing. So at least you're moving it from fascist control at the woke federal level down to the states where many states will do the right thing. and then you can make the cases in your community and your blue state if it is. So at least you have a fighting chance. It's a movement in the right direction. You're right. I mean, there's this principle and natural law called the principle of subsidiarity that at the lowest local level you need to address these kinds of things, right?

And I think it's the beauty of what's happening. All of a sudden, you're jarring this massive bureaucracy and the removal of parental responsibility at the local level to a centralized far away level. And it's an absolute move in the right direction. Quite frankly, what it will do, it will give great courage and boldness to people at the local level. Because now they know they have a fighting chance before it's so difficult. But now, once you jar this and you shifted and you're in essence eliminated, if it's true that the most essential functions will stay within the SBA, for example, the Department of Treasury, and you get rid of some of the other stuff, all of a sudden you have a real fighting chance and you don't have this bureaucracy, an ideological bureaucracy, right? that's against you. So it's a great opportunity for freedom and liberty and education to really grab a stronger foothold in our states. Well, folks, we're going to be right back. I want to remind you

doing a campaign with food for the poor. It is vital, ladies and gentlemen, that everybody step up. Please go to metaxistalk.com. Metaxistalk.com. You'll see the banner, feed the future. We need your help. We really need your help. Metaxistalk.com. My guest is Gerson Moreno Riano. I don't need to roll that R. That's like extra credit. I'll say it an American, Riano, who is the president of Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Gerson, again, just excited to know that you are there at Cornerstone, that Cornerstone exists, that you're fighting the good fight, which, as I keep saying, has become rarer and rarer. in Christian higher education and so many schools that I would have said 10 years ago, 15 years ago that they were solid. They've gone wobbly. I'm not going to mention names, for example, Wheaton, but I will tell you this much. This has been a problem across the country, Christian organizations that normally you would say they're going to be solid. They've gone wobbly.

And so it's very, very important that we understand the basics here. And what you're just talking about here with the rule of subsidiarity, this concept, which is, you know, all of our founders got this, that you want government to be small. You want a little government, as little government as possible. Not too little, but as little as possible so that people have real freedom. And the idea that this vast bureaucracy of the Department of Education is being dismantled, it's a time to praise God. I still can't really believe that this is happening. Yeah, it's an incredible, I mean, an incredible opportunity that we have. And I would just, you know, encourage listeners to really get involved at the local level to bring about the transformation in K-12 and in higher education that's needed and necessary. When you look at the last 40, 50 years, just in higher education in general, and you see the shift to the left, the hard, hard shift to the left. Where I believe higher education now, more than anything, prizes graduating, what I call sophisticated skeptics. So the premise of higher education is always in free inquiry for what is beautiful, true, and good. But now you really have ideological indoctrination in many universities, and you have the championing of skepticism. So we graduate people who are skeptical and critical of what is beautiful, what is true, what is good, who so doubt in all those. And you cannot have a society this way. You cannot have a civilization in that way. You're describing my education at Yale University. That's why I have contempt for the Ivy League.

League and all these elite institutions because they did to me, you know, my parents send their kid. I'm a son of, you know, working class European immigrants. They send me off to a place like Yale thrilled. Oh, it's the American dream. You get to go to a place like Yale. And what happens? I get schooled in what you just have described.

To be, in a sense, mocking, not just skeptical, but cynical and mocking of the good, the true and the beautiful. And this is a recipe for disaster. This is the recipe for the end of civilization, not to build a civilization or to bless the civilization. And you've identified it. Say again, you know, what's the term? How do you put it? I call sophisticated skepticism or sophisticated skeptics.

I've seen it in Christian higher ed in many universities, Christian universities that claim to be Christian, that the faculty oftentimes or some of the faculty champion, you know, what they would say is deconstructing the faith and deconstructing what is beautiful, true, and good. And somehow that means educating good Christian people. And I think that's completely wrong. It's a terrible fallacy. You're actually destroying the faith of young men, women, and destroying potentially their future.

And so this idea that skepticism is somehow a mature civilization is skeptical or a mature civilization, you know, is cynical. It is absolute foolishness in a destruction of higher education. And it's truest sense of the word. I think we have an opportunity now if we're bold and courageous to hold each other accountable and to hold our universities accountable and K-12 accountable to ensure they were educating children, teenagers, young adults toward what is beautiful, true, and good. That is what will protect our civilization, our families, our communities, into the future.

And it's an interesting thing, right? Because we don't want to say that, you know, in other words, I think the reason people seem to adopt this idea of skepticism, and again, that's a nice word, it's really a cynicism. is that they go too far in questioning. And I've written about this, I don't know where, but it's important to question authority. It's important to question things, but you can take it too far.

And at some point, I think, I don't know if it's C.S. Lewis or G.K. Chesterton, who says that, you know, you're supposed to have an open mind, but at some point, you're supposed to clamp it down on something, not just keep it open forever. Like, who's to say what is truth? No, no, at some point, you have to make some kind of a call. Like, you know what, I think this is true.

I think this is good. I think this is beautiful. If you can't do that, you have the opposite problem. And so I think that the people who become what you're calling sophisticated skeptics, they have this idea that anybody that says, I know what's true, that's a fascist, that you can't know what is true. You need to question. And we see there's truth in it, right?

It's important to question. You don't just say, like, we know this and don't question it. I mean, you know, when Galileo questions whether the earth is the center of the universe, there were some voices that said, no, no, no, no, you don't question it. It's clear. And he said, well, look, let's not be afraid to question it because we know that God who is the God of truth, he wants us to know what is true. So if we discover something new and different, that shouldn't challenge our faith. So you're always going to have people like going to say, don't question anything. And then you can have other people that are going to say, question everything, be cynical about truth, be cynical about God.

And that's really when I was in college what was being pushed on me. And I have to say, I did not go along with it. I didn't fight it. I didn't have the wisdom or the knowledge to know how to fight it. But it also did not satisfy me. I felt very strange. Like I thought, can it be that there's no meaning to life? Can this really be true that we just evolved through random mutations and that life has no meaning?

and my life has no meaning, and that didn't sit well with me either. And by the grace of God, I found God, God found me, and he put me on the right path. But this is the most important conversation. Folks, we'll be right back. I'm talking to the head of Cornerstone University. Folks, welcome back. My guest is Gerson Mareno Riano, who is the head, the president of Cornerstone University. So Gerson, I want to talk more about, you know, educational trends in America.

What else is happening that you think is worth talking about? Yeah, I think, you know, you just mentioned just before the break there, you know, the whole issue of skepticism, cynicism, and critical thinking. Look, in higher education, you have to have critical thinking. But critical thinking is not the end all. One of the beauties of the Christian worldview of God's view of the world and the way we should live is that wisdom is the principle. thing. We're told that in proverbs, right? Seek wisdom as hidden treasure. And wisdom and discernment

require critical thinking. You have to discern right from wrong, truth from error. So critical thinking is definitely a part of the educational enterprise. But the other beautiful part about a Christian worldview is that we have been all made in God's image, the Imago Day. And there's something that you mentioned about at Yale that I think truth calls out to us. I think deep down in human design, there's a longing for truth. closure and for certainty. That's not a social construct. It's not a convention. It's part of our design. And so education rightly thought and rightly done is very much consonant in harmony with our design. If not, there's a problem, right? Not just a miseducation, but a crisis happens. And I think that's a

great opportunity. Look, you know, we have hundreds of young men and women come to Cornerstone. You know, we interview hundreds and hundreds of young men and women who come seeking admission. And I can tell you speaking with parents and families and young men and women who are thinking about college education, they're longing for truth, for beauty, for goodness, for purpose. All those things are premise on truth, on wisdom, on goodness. And I think it is criminal for universities to rob that, to simply say there's freedom, but there's no truth. There's freedom, but there's no goodness. There's freedom, but there's no beauty. It's whatever you think it is. And I think that, again, it's a wonderful

opportunity. Now the shifts that are happening in higher ed for us to really be courageous, bold, be creative and be innovative. And how do we take this beautiful Christian worldview and a sophisticated approach to it as we integrate with our education and take it to the world, take it to as many human beings as possible? And that's what we've been working on at Cornerstone up for a couple of years. We just launched last week, Eric, a program called SOAR, S-O-A-R, and it is an accredited bachelor degree driven by an app on a phone. And it's possible for an individual who's been out of college maybe for one, two, three years, or has some college by no degree to actually have a beautiful engaging experience on a mobile device and complete their education. It is grounded in a sophisticated Christian worldview. it's an accredited bachelor of strategic business management.

And we're targeting the millions, over 100 million adults in our country with some college, but no degree and no desire to go back because of the price or many other obstacles. So we've gone on to the market with a beautiful app-driven model and to reach all these millions of people with a beautiful Christian worldview education and accredited degree program. And how can people find that?

It's on our website. It's at our website. It's a cornerstone. EDU, you will see SOAR there, beautiful banner, S-O-A-R. It's app-driven. The price point is significantly less than any other college out there in America. We've been testing it for the last couple of years, and the feedback from students has been fantastic, not just in terms of the Christian worldview, but the accredited educational experience,

the kind of soft skills, market skills they need, and the depth of content as well. And so we're thrilled to be able to take a beautiful education to a lot of people who either have been left behind or don't know how to get back to school or don't think it's even possible for them. So again, cornerstone.edu. Cornerstone.edu. You know, we're touching on such important things here. I wrote a book called If You Can Keep It, the Forgotten Promise of American Liberty. And in my book, If You Can Keep it, I deal with this issue of the cynicism that has been built in. I never forget it.

When I got to Yale, there was this cynicism about being patriotic. Oh, patriotism, no, nobody's patriotic. Cynicism about God. It was just there. It was built into the culture of the school. And you realize it wasn't always this way. In front of one of the dorms, it's Connecticut Hall, which is one of the oldest dorms there. It's from the 1700s.

It's where Nathan Hale was when he was a student at Yale. Okay. So here's a man who loves his country, young man, loves his country, man of profound faith, Nathan Hale. And in World War I, or right before, they put up a beautiful statue of Nathan Hale in front of this dorm. And I realized that the values that existed, even at a place like Yale, a little bit over 100 years ago, are completely gone. the idea of heroism, patriotism, the idea that we would praise somebody who says, my only regret is that I have but one life to give from my country. Those people are thought of as suckers. That's, you know, that's jingoism. All of those ideas, those beautiful ideas that make real men and real women have been sneered at by the cultural elites. And that is what has happened to higher education. So folks, if you want to know how you can get,

insane campuses like Columbia that are being openly anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas lunatics. It started a long time ago, and that's what we're talking about here. And that's why if you have a kid of college age, you need to find, either do not send them to college or make sure you send them to a college like Cornerstone or one of the handful of folks. I mentioned Hillsdale all the time. We're doing a Socrates and City event next month with Larry Arne, the president of Hills. There's just a handful of schools that get this stuff. And so we've just got a minute left, Gerson.

Can you talk a little bit about the idea of Trump threatening Columbia University? Is this like one of the greatest things? I can't even believe that he had the guts to do this. It's so delighted. It's absolutely incredible that he did. But look, I'll think people will say this. Several years ago, as you saw many of the Ivy League presidents

not being able to condemn, right, anti-Semitism or the destruction of the Jewish people. It was shocking to me. And to me, that demonstrated, frankly, the corruption in higher education that we were not able, we wouldn't, that leaders would not call out evil as wrong and murder is wrong and hatred as wrong. He just couldn't do it, wouldn't do it because they did not want to offend someone, or somehow they thought it wasn't that clear. And that's a very dangerous place to be in our country where something is so evil and

vile, somehow we think it's blurred and we're not sure. I think it's an opportunity now when President Trump, what has done. and Columbia, and we'll probably do with other universities, it's the opportunity for leaders and citizens throughout the country to stand up, be courageous, be bold, about what is true, beautiful, and good about Christ and the Christian worldview, and move forward because our country's future depends on it. We just have another short segment. We'll be right back.

Back talking to the president of Cornerstone University. in Michigan, Gerson, Moreno, Riano. We're talking a lot of important stuff. You just touched on, you know, Trump having the guts to, I mean, it's more shocking that other presidents didn't have the guts. That's more despicable to me that George Bush and all these other, quote-unquote, conservative Christians did not have the guts to stand up to these colleges and to say to them, like, by the way, all that money we give you, we're not giving it to you unless you do

the right thing. And by the way, you don't have to do the right thing, do whatever you want. but it's the American people's money. How did it get to a point, Gerson, where taxpayer money is going to Columbia University? I mean, this is one of the most elite, wealthy institutions on planet Earth. Why is taxpayer money going to Colombia? I don't get it. I mean, just the lack of accountability.

That's really what it is. You saw this a few weeks ago when some of the things that were happening in Doji, and there were members of the Democratic Party. standing saying it's our money, right? As if it truly was there money. And it's not. It's the money that belongs to taxpayers to citizens. So the lack of accountability, the lack of what I'll call consent of the government happening for years and for decades and decades and decades. It's almost as if members of the federal government thought we could put the wool over its citizens' eyes and they will never, ever, ever know what's really happening. And the fact that the president

actually did what he did. I just said it and did it. I think it's a tremendous, tremendous, beautiful thing for our country. They should set a model for the future that the government is truly accountable to the people, to those who, that are quote-unquote governed, right? That the taxpayer and the citizen who votes has ultimate authority, and that these resources, the government is a steward of those resources, doesn't own them, they're stewards of it. So I think it's a great model what he's doing. And, you know, and there are many who are arguing as a constitutional crisis. It's not.

In some ways, he's more constitutionalist than any other president has been a very long, long time. If you look at Woodrow Wilson back in 1903, 1904, Wilson talked about the Constitution is not being a straight jacket. It is flexible to meet our needs. That is dangerous. You talk about President Trump who's saying, look, we have to, you know, we have to, you know, we have to honor the citizens, honor the Constitution. There's no constitutional crisis here.

It's really, we need to live within the guardrails that are said before us and bring back that kind of government. And I think it's a beautiful thing that's happening. It's jarring people because they're used to living with no accountability. And now there's accountability in place. Well, it's kind of like the spoiled brat, the toddler who throws the tantrum and says, I'm going to hold my breath until you give me what I want. There's no crisis.

You're making the crisis. You're playing games and you're you're threatening people. It's the same thing you hear with the trans stuff. Like, oh, if you don't do what they want, they'll kill themselves. Yeah. So why don't we kill them then? You're telling me either we can kill them surgically or they're going to kill themselves. The whole thing is just nothing but empty threats.

And whenever they talk about a constitutional crisis, these are empty threats, folks. They say this just because they're going to say anything they can, anything they can to mobilize, you know, they're woke, paid shock troops, rent a mob, whatever it is, we need to stand against it. Gerson, thank you so much for being my guest. God bless you with Cornerstone University. Eric, thank you so much. Blessings to you. Thank you for having one of the program. My pleasure. We'll have you back. And folks, before we go, don't forget, we're doing a fundraiser with food for the poor. We are at a moment of desperation. We need your help. MetaxusTalk.com is the website. Metaxistalk.com is the website.

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