The Eric Metaxas Show - Dr. Rich Fowler

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

Dr. Rich Fowler discusses the role of truth and faith in story.

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas 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. Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready to listen to a man of grace, sophistication, integrity, and whimsy? Well, so are we. But until such a man shows up, please welcome Eric Mattaxas. Good morning, Chris. I am in an airport hotel in Los Angeles, California. Are you? I am not. I'm a, I'm a, no. No. I'm welcome. I'm at an, I'm at a hotel at L.A.X. I'm watching the planes take off. It's fun. Why am I in California, you ask? Well, I've got an answer for that. Tonight is the premiere of Letter to the American Church, the documentary film. Tonight. Thousand Oaks, California.

I'm here for that. It's kind of amazing. Rob McCoy. It's interesting because the church where we're premiering the film tonight, and I guess I'm to sign books and talk and whatever, but it's Godspeed, Calvary Chapel in Thousand Oaks, California. Anybody can come. But that is the church where the whole thing started.

I spoke there on my book letter to the American church about a year and a half, half ago, I guess, kind of amazing, I think it's that long ago. And the two women who ended up making this film, they were there and they heard me speak. And they said, you know what, this is make a great documentary film. They've made the film, as I've said on the program, it is really wonderful. I can't, I'm just amazed actually at how good it is. It's, it's, you know, I like my book, but my book's not very cinematic. There's not a lot of color. The film is just edited brilliantly, a lot of guests, a lot of, it's just, it's so great. And so, you know, it's, These are real deal Hollywood ladies here who jumped in and, you know, they heard you speak.

They left in the middle and came back with popcorn and Twizzlers that should have clued you off, put you in, you know. No, it's kind of, it's funny because they really, you know, when they said they wanted to make it a film, I thought, huh, okay. I'm, you know, like that's great. But, I mean, I never thought, you know, I just thought I'm just writing this thing to reach Christians to speak to Christians. but they wanted to make a film. They made a film. It is genuinely spectacular. When you see it, folks, you'll see.

Like, it's a next level documentary. It's not like a lot of the documentaries we've seen. I have to say it's really particularly well done. I want to say also, Chris, you are a producer on it. Your name comes up. It's like just shocking. Wait a minute. That's my Chris Heims.

I know, Chris. And we need to say that if you can't get to thousand oaks tonight, California. I just sent out an email yesterday. We are doing more and more screenings of the film in churches. If your church wants to do a screening of the film, ladies and gentlemen, go to letter to the American church.com. Letter to the American church.com. You can sign your church up for a free screening of the film. That's pretty cool. And if your church doesn't want to do a screening of the film free, my question would be, why do you want to go to that church? Sorry, but I have to ask that question.

So feel free to sign up, you know, churches you don't go to for the, for a free screening as well, you know. Yeah, sign up Unitarian and Episcopal churches in particular. Actually, by the way, if anybody wants to know what being a producer is like, all you have to do is just be down with answering your phone and saying, wait, what's happening? And that's about it. I want to be clear that today in hour one, Peachy Keenan, who we've had on the program, many, many times. She and I are going to be talking about the Trump trial. Some of you have followed this

insane. It's so insane. It's just beyond, it's just beyond belief almost. E. Jean Carroll, who is a trippy, odd woman, sued Trump for rape. Then that kind of went away. And now she has sued him for slander. And she has this bulldog lawyer and a billionaire banking, the whole thing. And they got a judgment against Trump for $83 million. It's the most insane thing. It's just nuts. So Peachy and I are going to talk about it in hour one. We're also going to talk about Taylor Swift in the Super Bowl and immigration.

How's that? In hour two today, I'm talking to Richard Fowler, whom Chris Himes introduced me to recently. He is somebody that is going to talk about where faith and the arts intersect. He's working on a project, a film trilogy, actually is a lot of music involved. So faith, art, music, Richard Fowler, in our. hour two. I already mentioned that I'm speaking at Godspeak tonight. We're doing the premiere of the film. I don't know if there's going to be a red carpet. I have no idea, but it is the premiere of the film letter to the American church tonight, God Speak Church in Thousand Oaks, California. And I should

also mention, Chris, Socrates Plus, if you want to sign up for that, it's $5 a month. If you sign up for the year, you get two months free. But it's Socrates in the city. plus.com and you get a whole bunch of different programs and we're adding programs. I just started watching the one that we did a gentleman's guide to New York. That's, that's Looney. I think some people are, they're going to say, what's this? This is, what is this, Eric? Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

It's like pretty classic short form stuff. You know, it looks like something you'd find on cable channel. It's really fun. It, I really, I'm, I'm a big fan of it. that doesn't include my participation in it. I'm just saying like the anyway, but that's available if you go to Socrates and the cityplus.com, but also all the Socrates and the studios are now up that we filmed in season one.

So those are all up, season two, where we've begun to film. And also I want to say that anybody who wants to see the Socrates and the cities going forward, as you know in the past, we've live streamed them. So anybody across the country can live stream it, can watch it. we're not going to do that anymore. Now you have to be a member of Socrates Plus to watch the live stream. And we've got some great events coming up. We have one coming up in Seattle, February 8th.

That's like what, a week and a half away from now. I'm interviewing John West of the Discovery Institute in Seattle. If you want to live stream that, and I hope you do, you have to sign up for Socrates plus. That's go to Socrates and Cityplus.com and sign up. Obviously, every event we do, we're going to live stream. and it's going to be available for people who are signed up. We've got February 29th, James O'Keefe is going to be my guest in New York City.

Now, obviously, if you can get to Seattle and see the event live, great. If you can get to New York City, February 29th, and see the event with James O'Keefe live. Fantastic. If you can't, you can live stream it if you are a member of Socrates. Plus, it's thrown in. It's no extra charge. It's included. I am particularly excited.

I don't even think we've announced it yet, but April 5th, in Charleston. South Carolina, we are going to, I'm not going to interview Nikki Haley. I want to be very clear. That's not happening. Who will I interview? I will tell you, I'm going to interview the author Mark Helperin. Now, I just want to say, Mark Helperin is so amazing as an author that words fail me. I know I've talked about him on this program before, but there is, I don't think there is anyone alive who comes close to his talent as a writer. Now, think about this. I value writing. I value my own writing.

I take it very seriously. I want it to be of a certain literary quality. The writing of Mark Helprin, and, you know, he started writing in the 70s. He is, I guess he's 76 now. But his books have consistently been just some of the most amazing things I have ever read in my life. People have compared him literally, no joke, to Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Dickens. Like, you know, he's compared to those people, not to other writers who are writing today. I've had the privilege of meeting a few times, but I interviewed him at Socrates and the city a number of years ago.

I am now reading his new book. It is called The Ocean and the Stars. it is just amazing. I wouldn't know where to begin. And I'm actually already nervous about my interview with him because I am so in awe of his talent. He is just a monster talent. And, you know, he's, he writes with,

I mean, there's a level of genius in the way that it communicates, but also the character of his characters. What I mean? The dignity that they have. It's just, it's absolutely delightful. And so I guess that's my long way of recommending his books to everyone. If you don't know who Mark Helprin is, his first book, the Winter's Tale, not's Not his first book, but the biggest bestseller was Winter's Tale,

A Soldier of the Great War. Maybe that'd be the one I'd recommend, a soldier of the Great War, the new one, the ocean and the stars, just amazing stuff. Anyway, he's going to be my guest at Soxia City, April 5th, If you want to live stream it, you have to be signed up to Socrates Plus. Socrates plus, Socrates plus, go to Socrates in the city plus.com. And don't forget to sign your church up letter to the American church. We'll be right back.

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Legacy pm investments.com. Check it out. Hey there, folks. As I think I prepared you or warned you, I'm going to talk about faith and the arts. You know, if you know me or this program that. But that is one of my favorite subjects to talk about how faith and the arts and culture mingle or ought to mingle. I have as my guest, Dr. Rich Fowler, welcome to New York and welcome to this program. Thanks so much for having me, mate. I really appreciate it.

Well, you sound Australian. You're getting there, right? I am, yeah. Originally British, but moved over in the immigrant trucks. So I lived in Australia for about 30 years here. Wow. That's where he picked up that accent. Yeah.

I grabbed it. Yeah. So you, I want to ask you what led you, tell me about your faith journey and what led you to want to make art that speaks to your Christian faith. I think I'd probably come back to just thinking about, well, then what to me is something that I can leave that's valuable. I mean, for example, I listened and read your beautiful work and I'm going through the stuff that you've written. And in my heart, I go, you care about your audience. That's what I'm like.

So my journey. So I fooled you. Yeah. Well, I don't think so. No. I think you can't hide on that second forward in the Bonhoffer work. You just tell us all the things that matter. And to me, I feel like we're brothers because of it.

I mean, you're a story writer. And so that's all I am, really. And my faith journey is wrapped around that. early days. You were raised in the faith? I was raised in the faith. I sort of walked myself into a beautiful little Catholic family. I never chose it. They chose me, you know. And that turned into this, you know, bouncy little warm home, five kids. Always the grandparents are around. The uncles are cheering us on going for the right football team, I was told. And eventually when we moved over to Australia, you know, I followed this really pretty girl into some charismatic.

Does your wife know about this? Yeah, she knows a fair bit about it. She was the one. I'm so glad to hear that. From high school. From high school? You were high school sweetheart, as we say. I went to the little Christian group in the high school, and there she was, and I just went, this is a really good reason to find faith, you know. Well, it's happened before.

And what pulled you into the world of making art? How did that happen for you? I think the natural thing for me was that I discovered that I really cared about what other people were doing when I was playing songs. to them so mom or dad would wheel me out. And there was a moment where I played a song with about 300 people. Wait, wait, wait. So you were a musician. Okay, so the musical side is just been natural since I was a kid, but didn't know that I had any musical talent until I was about 11 because we came from a pretty poor family and no one had an instrument. Eleven, so you're pretty late bloomer. That's right, yeah. And I discovered that a party trick turned into a career. So for me, most instruments I can play, which is really kind of cool. And I've been able to do that in lots of places.

have ended up on musical theater, acting, and the songs that I was singing, for example, that little example I was giving, when I'm playing, I noticed that people would cry if I did a thing a certain way. And then when I was on my knees and just having a wee pray, I just thought, I think that's what I want to do. So what have you done professionally?

Because I want to talk about what you're working on now, which you call the Thin Places Trilogy. But before we get to that, how had you been making a living and working as a Christian? in the arts. So between 2006, 2009, I had the great privilege of working here on Broadway and directing. That was where I ended up because people used to just say, well, we'll get rich to do the job. We'll get rich to do the job. And first of all, it was just mopping up. So I'd be an assistant director on shows, musical theatre shows, travelling around the APAC region. And then

eventually I started writing shows and we were putting ones on in different countries, which is awesome. And eventually, you end up with a team sitting on Broadway between 2006, 2009. And something happened. The global financial crisis hit, and my dad passed in the middle of that, and just completely blew the wind out of my sales. At exactly that moment, after casting for the Broadway show, I felt that there was something that wasn't quite right, Eric. It doesn't have to be it.

Wait, so you were involved in a Broadway show? Yes, sir. To what extent? What do you mean you were involved in a Broadway show? Okay, well, my role as director was a privileged role of just being the dude at top, you know. Directing a Broadway show. Can you share with us the name of this Broadway show?

The show is called Angels, and I'd done two Broadway shows, two Broadway versions of it beforehand that were off Broadway, and we were moving the show toward Broadway, and that was what happened with the global financial crisis. And exactly the same time, I lost the show, which we were already rehearsing, and I lost my beautiful dad, who was a hallmark of all good things in my life.

And so that launched you onto a journey that you're on now. Correct. So thank you, Eric, for pointing that out. My main heart was already broken. Loved what I was doing. Love the Broadway experience. Love what I've been doing overseas, making television, sometimes moving toward the film ideas. But in me, what happened was this sort of explosion of, well, when you were casting for the Broadway show, I'm a real Excel spreadsheet guy. So 1,100 auditions, got them all down, told me, which ones go where, did all of those, 28 jobs, Eric. And then you have to decide if you've got somebody,

if you've got a heart, and you've got people who've got teams, you can write things. You've got to decide, are we either not telling enough stories or are they just not enough jobs? And in my heart, I went, well, I'm going to find that out. And that's where I went back to school after my dad passed, popped back to Australia, hung around in the musical institution that I did the first degree that I did in,

and then went and did the masters. My question was, how do you create a successful? career as an artist because I'm really interested in that journey. Is there a problem in here? And I found a few things that I thought were really, really interesting. A lot of them echoed the great faith works and scripture and I thought, well, that's awesome. And then shifted over to, they wanted me to publish that and I said, hang on, I want to hand on to the IP. I want to put that and make that the subject of three films. And that's where we get thin place. Okay, so you've been on this journey and now we're getting to the punchline. You are making

three films, a trilogy. It's called the Thin Places. trilogy. Tell us about that. Tell us about the term thin places. I know what it means, but I think most people listening would not have heard it. Okay, great. It's probably on purpose. I'm drawing people towards something they might know less about so that I can then explain it in the works themselves. The three films are focused on that extraordinary time in life between 12 years old and 22 years old when you have to make decisions in life and you kind of haven't got as much responsibility as what's coming. And in that space, I really noticed having worked with Prodigy kids for a long time through the job that I do

that happens to coincide with the teaching and the lecturing that I do as a person who's working on their doctorate stuff. That time with Prodigies ended up teaching me that they are really walking through some interesting times in their well-being space. And I thought if we can create stories that actually talk to every person that really makes a difference, it asks the questions, it throws the journey up for them that we know they're probably going to have to face decisions over time, over time. And we can catch that in great storytelling.

It's really likely that they'll find a better language for navigating the space. So the films that you're making, I mean, most people don't make three films at once. Tell us about the idea to make a trilogy of films. Well, that speaks to the doctorate. So in the doctorate, I took the ideas of the IP, of how do you...

IP being intellectual property, ladies and gentlemen. I'm here to annotate and translate. IP, not everyone knows what that is. Many people do, of course, but you took... Say that again, you took the... So I took the intellectual property, which means the substance of the findings in how do you create a successful career as an artist,

and I banged that up against our bigger problem, which is how do you create sustainable art or successful art in feature film? And I just went away, and I acted like a recent... and spend a good five years taking a look at, how do we take a script? How do we know when it's better before we make it? How do we know when it's better? So it sounds like you're making art about art, which sounds very theoretical. How do you make it not theoretical? How do you make it part of a story? Oh, that's easy. Same way God did. Just humans. Just what we do is you take an artist

who really wants a thing, a dreamer, and then you put them through their paces. And by the time you get to the end, you have got a decent amount of the three things that make a person, become better. The three things that were offered. Number one, and this is the master's, it's mentors and community. It's going to sound really familiar. So you've got a master's degree focusing on the idea of mentors and community. Okay. And what's revealed to you as important, and for us it would be things like scripture or epithets or things that we live off. And the third one, the third final thing that you put into all of your scripts to create that beautiful narrative journey. So all the questions are answered is defining moments.

and that's precisely what I felt I got from reading your book on Bonhoeffer. I felt like this is like episodically treating us as a listening and present audience specific to his defining moments. You're able to talk to us about our lives, right? You're able to talk to us about our lives. Well, of course, that is, I mean, we're getting very, let's see, what do I mean? We're theorizing about what art is. We're asking the question about what art is, which I think is extremely valuable, vital question.

And what art is ultimately has to do with what it means to be human. And I don't think, honestly, you can take God out of that equation. When we come back, we'll explore this further. But I'm talking to Dr. Rich Fowler. We're talking about faith and culture making. We're talking about art. What is art? What's the point of art?

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Welcome back. We're talking about art and faith and culture and art and faith. I have as my guest, Dr. Rich Fowler. You have studied what art is. In other words, that on an academic level, you've studied it. And, you know, we've been talking about. talking about that a little bit, but then you decided that I want to talk about that through art, and that's what the Thin Places trilogy is. Can you share the, in other words, right now you have the scripts, so you're not, the film isn't made yet, you haven't begun shooting

the film yet, but can you share concretely what it will be about or what kind of characters or what kind of stories, what genre? I can give you an idea about what's happening in all three films, for sure. I might grab my guitar for that. You might. Holy cow, he's got a guitar.

Is that a three-quarters guitar? I think it might be smaller. It's a half, I think. Look at that. It's a little kid's guitar. I just saw it as I was leaving. Did you steal it from a little kid? I actually did. I wouldn't hold it against you. He couldn't play it very well anyway. I'm sure you can do a better job. When you're sitting there

and you're thinking, I really love this audience, these people whose heart may be breaking and you're thinking about ages between 12 and 21. You're not, you might be thinking deep things about art, which you ought to if you've got your team. But just like somebody who really cares, like you as a writer, what ends up happening is you start seeing it through their eyes and you're trying to find out how will that land. So for me, music is really important. All three of the stories are, have music in it. They're not quite musicals or... They're not musicals because they're about artists trying to do music or acting or singing or

dancing, so they're about performing artists. So one of them is you've got a 17-year-old lady in Singapore, so this story is one of them. And she is attempting to become an important person in a group of university students. Those university students are just in the final throes of putting together Romeo and Juliet. She's very, very nervous about her contribution to that show. She's just joined the school, and she's on the outer. And so as that beautiful role starts to move towards being more and more concerned. She's the understudy. She might have to go on and all the sort of stuff.

She finds a couple of friends who are also on the outer and they sit there and they put on a VR, which is a virtual reality AI machine. And they press go. The show they're putting on is Romeo and Juliet and she's supposed to be Juliet. When they press the machine, something goes wrong with her psyche. She thinks she's Juliet.

And so through the throes of the comedy musical where they're trying to put Romeo and Juliet on, we're trying to save Sarah because she thinks that she's Juliet and of course inevitably Juliet is moving toward her character arc which is to take her own life which is something that's very, very serious.

So within the comedy where the designer like me and my team were working out how to do that. So by the end of it, she ends up, I'm just going to play a little bit of it, by the end of it, she ends up facing the opportunity where she thinks this is the last moment, what's going to happen?

and then you hear a song like this that just poses to her questions. It's just a little, I'm going to do a little bit of the song. Blood is thicker than water. Love is stronger. You sons and you daughter. Love is more than you feel. And on it goes.

So we get the song to take us. You've got the whole cast around. People are really worried about her, and she ends up finding that robust but simple words, love is real. It's more than you feel. So this is a story about artists making art, the pursuit of art as a career, acting, and so and so forth. So I'm trying to think there have been so many stories on Hollywood and Broadway in Hollywood and on Broadway that tell the stories of artists trying to become artists. trying to become artists. So is this like a straight Christian version of Torch Song trilogy?

Okay, it's a really good point. I think for me, the space is about cultural transformation. So it's really kingdom placed inside of stories that would be released in our theaters and in the streaming places. That's what all the films are meant to be doing because the people, the prodigies I'm working with, they're not specifically going or coming or thinking that there's, something as important as Christ at the end of that story yet. So that's what we're doing. And that's where my heart broke, when my father passed.

I went, I need to reach these kids. I need to get them work, first of all. I mean, I'm a director. Surely we can write some more shows that are worth doing. And if they have messages that are infused in them, surely that would be an excellent way of raising up these beautiful artists that you have in your country and other countries. So that story embodies the notion of the movement of the artist.

The other story that I've got in Australia is called, Nova and she's a deaf girl who wants to sing. And that's part, she's one of the characters that you're following through in this trilogy. And in the trilogy it's completely separate, but there are moments where the girl that's in the first one that I just explained in Singapore is actually reaching out and finding out the story about the second one. So over time as the stories build, you'll feel somewhat compelled to see all three, but they all work independent of each other.

unbelievable. You must know my friend Nigel Goodwin. No? I'd love to. Okay. Well, no, because when I think of artists and the Christian world, he's just right at the center of it. So he's somebody that you must get to know. We're talking to Dr. Rich Fowler, who's the creator of the Thin Places trilogy. And we'll be right back. many church leaders don't seem to realize or understand that cultural Marxism has infiltrated the American church. I believe Marxism is satanic. It's everything that John 1010 tells us about, where it's the enemy has come to steal and destroy and Jesus has come to give life and life more abundantly. This is the hour of the American church.

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This is Dennis Prager. I am excited to announce the all-new Prager-Topia Plus. You can listen to my show whenever it's convenient for you, all commercial-free and all-on-demand. Now with Prager Plus, search topics, guests, and segments all the way back to 2010. And now a truly exciting new benefit. My monthly online video get-together for Prager Topia Plus members only. This is where for an hour, evening, month pregartopia plus members get an exclusive chance to ask me anything that's right

anything it's on video i'll be talking to you and answering your questions we may even have a special guest every now and then i've never done this submit your questions for me at pregatopia.com this is only available to pregatopia plus members this is our chance to connect like never before go to pregatopia dot com or click the banner at dennis prager Welcome back. I have as my guest, Dr. Rich Fowler, who is interested in faith, culture making, art. One of the things that amazes me is that, you know, oftentimes we hear about the gospel story, the story of Jesus. It's called the greatest story ever told. And the reason for that is that it's at the center of all art, all meaning. it is summed up, you know, C.S. Lewis in that conversation with Tolkien, when Tolkien says,

well, yeah, maybe it's a myth, but what if there was one time when this myth became history? And ultimately, there is no way around it. You cannot tell stories without intentionally or unintentionally, wittingly or unwittingly, referring to the larger story, you know, today the cliches, the meta-narrative. But it's inevitable that God created us. He puts us as characters in time, in history, and there's no way out of it. In other words, even if you're trying to avoid God, there is no way, ultimately, to avoid God. And it seems to me that you're dealing with that. You're telling these stories, and you're trying to get, it seems to me that you're trying to help people to see that their story leads to God. And the way I put it is, recently, I

guess I said, Jesus is the meaning of your life. People want to ask, what's the meaning of life? Well, I can tell you the meaning of your life. Jesus is the meaning of your life. Now figure out what that means. Right. So I think the question is easily comes down to, you know, what do you think the meaning of life is? Because you just indicated if you kind of want to want people to ask the question, what's the meaning of life? So that you could then go, well, I got the answer. This is awesome. It's all these great things about Jesus, all these great things about scripture. Have a look at the great meta stories that are in real life. Have a look at church history. It's a crazy place if you want to start looking at how those things were played out.

Have a look at the scriptures and where that all started and what that means. And if you can pick anywhere then, but people are really unlikely to ask the question. So I think my space, if you're like, and I'm not saying it's yours. It could be anybody that has a heart that breaks pretty quickly because they have a family member that's struggling and they've a great family but there's something not working or anybody that sees a broken moment and they go, you know, I know something about how to fix that,

but I don't have the, they're not asking the right question or there's something not around them that they can reach for the language. I think that's where storytellers come in. And I think storytellers can bounce language back at culture. and if there was more of us, that's better, I'm telling you now, because at the same time they build the language, the bridges, the concepts, the threads that end up back at the heart of the person who is in those problem areas.

And it might not be you, Eric, that helps the person that you really care about, but it might be me who tells a story that gives them the language to come to you and say, can I have a moment, I saw this thing, or I heard this thing, or I felt this thing. Are we okay if we chat about it? It's interesting because I know that story, a lot of times I think, and it seems like you're referring to it obliquely, but this idea that we often feel like, I've got the answers, and somebody says to me, I've got a problem,

and we want to say, okay, here's the answer. Jesus is the answer. Do this. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Oftentimes, that doesn't, people don't respond well to that, or oftentimes it repulses people. And what story does, what art can do, is it can kind of come alongside people at their own pace. And a lot of times when I'm writing my books, I think that you want people to go off alone with the book and to have these thoughts and at their, in a sense, on their own to be making these connections. And if they're making these connections on their own through someone else's story, they feel the safety in a sense and then the freedom to follow where they think they're leading. Whereas if you're in a confrontational conversation, people are. often just pull away. So that to me is part of the magic of what art is and what story is, is it allows people the space on their own to discover. I think the real time, because we live in

real time and because stories are told in real time, music's in real time, you can't go forward and then come back. You have to play it in order. The acting's in real time. Words come before you talk to somebody, then it comes back to you. Because real life is in real time, we just go back to kind of what we were learning in that little master's thing, which is we're going to face the need for mentors and community eventually. It will be some form of answer for us. And that's why, you know, every local church in all the world is a place for capturing hearts that are really needing to hear and find a place. But do you think about those other two spots? They're not as often found, which is this thing, this sort of lit way, something maybe God is talking to them

about, or some colour or some focus that makes them go, that's a thing for me. Somebody needs to be there to enable those two things together and I think we need to give language to the mentors and community to acknowledge that everyone around them is God made. So therefore we've sort of got a little bit of a heads up on how we can help them, particularly with stories and language. So they might not run up to us and say, I know exactly what you can do for me, please do it now. But our stories give them language to get us there or give them doorways or windows. And finally, and this is the thing that really, you can't take it away from a human that's been alive for more than six months. defining moments. People are having them all the time. Who's there? Is there a mentor and community? Is there

a language from a story that they read, something that you've read, something that you've written, something that you've seen, something that someone said? Is there something there that's taking you back to H-O-P-E? So they might not find their way all the way back to Christ yet, but if they can't find their way to hope, I think it's my accountability. I've got to get the stories out there, and that's why I'm here. Wow. Do we have time to sing? We just had about a minute left. What do you want? I don't know.

You're going to sing. We're going to do a thing, man. Well, I'm not going to sing if you don't sing. I'll tell you why we're going to do this song too. We're going to do just the first verse of what's literally credited in research as the song, the top song that's transformed the world. And it's because it's been taken out of, and here's the big word in academia, context, so many times. But as it's taken out, it becomes more meaningful. And this is the one.

Do you like that? the beast how sweet the sound that save her rich light me was was lost but now i see much dr rich Look at my life 24 and there's so much more. Live alone in a paradise that makes... Folks, welcome back. I'm talking to Robert Netsley right now, who is with Inspire Investing. Robert, I can't help but get excited about what you've created

an opportunity for people to find out if their money is funding wicked things. If they have money in a 401k or retirement fund, whatever it is, that is invested in companies. that are doing evil things. That is promoting pornography, promoting abortion, promoting any number of things or ideologies with your money, folks. So Robert Nestle has created something where you can get a free report that tells you

where your money is, and they will help you get your money into companies that are doing good things. So you have to go to inspireadvisors.com slash Eric, inspireadvisors.com slash Eric, you get a free report. But this is something I, you know, Robert, I guess it just gives me hope that it's possible to turn things around in America because when I think of how much money people have invested out there, if they would understand what's going on and shift that money to good stuff,

it's just huge. It's just absolutely monstrous. Like what is- It's enormous. It's enormous. And we are seeing fruit from that labor. It's remarkable. It doesn't have to even be trillions of dollars to change things.

I've been on the phone, you know, in recent weeks, you know, with investor relations and CFOs and whatnot. We regularly engage with companies that we invest in or are like to invest in or kind of just speaking biblical truth, the corporate power. And, you know, one of the things we hear is often that, number one, these people have never heard, they tell us they've never heard from a faith-based investor before. They've been doing their job for 20, 30 years. years, you know, executive major organizations never heard from a faith-based investor. So, number one, they need to hear our voice. Number two, they're thankful to hear it. Even in some of these sort of, you know, woke businesses, you think that this don't care,

there are people in those businesses of influence that actually do care about what we have to say and oftentimes have enough influence to change things. So, for instance, Costco stopped giving money to gay pride parades. Chevron stopped giving money to Planned Parenthood. There's a laundry list of other organizations that have changed things. That is unbelievable. Robert Nelson, that is unbelievable. It is so wonderful.

I want to tell people, folks, what you do and don't do, you can change the world if you take an interest in this. When I hear that a company like Costco would stop giving money to something like that or Chevron, these are huge, huge companies. And you shop there, your money may be invested there. When we get involved in these things, we can change the world. So I want to say the action point is go to invest. I'm sorry, inspireadvisors.com slash Eric. Inspireadvisors.com slash Eric. You'll get a free report that will help you figure this out.

And I know, Robert, that you guys will help people if they want to transition to invest in companies that believe in their values. But this is a gigantic thing that we have. I mean, it's to me scandalous when we have power and we don't use that power. It's like when I say, I'm not going to vote. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do that. When you don't do those things, people who don't share your values, who share opposite, who have opposite values, they're going to prevail.

So I just want to say to you, Robert, thank you for taking this on because it is game changing. Like you said, it's a movement. The more people that do this, it's an amazing thing when we think of the money that is out there that many people of faith with traditional values have invested in woke companies. Ladies and gentlemen, you've got to do something about it. You've just got to do something about it. This is like a mandate that we've got to live our faith out in every sphere and where your

money is. That's a big deal. So please go to InspireAdvisors.com slash Eric. This is a free report. inspire, advisors.com slash Eric. Robert Natsley, thank you. Pleasure.

Thank you, Eric.