The Eric Metaxas Show - Eric at St. Michael's Church (continued)

Episode Date: February 19, 2021

Eric continues his sermon at St. Michael's Church and addresses questions about culture-changing faith, as well as highlighting stories from his new memoir, "Fish Out of Water."

Hey there, folks. Welcome to the Irkman Taxis Show. In hour one, we played my remarks at St. Michael's Anglican Church that's in Charleston, South Carolina, one of the most historic churches in one of the most historic cities, just heavenly. The Reverend Al Zadig is the rector there. He let me talk for a while. Then we did some Q&A. And so in Hour 2, we're going to continue playing that because I did a lot of talk. And here it is. All of us understand that. There's certain rules, right? The Constitution says, I can't do this. And you're like, well, but I want to. Well, you can't.

We have rules. God has rules. And the issue of life, I mean, this is where we have failed in the evangelical church. I think sometimes we get so focused on scriptures that we forget what the Catholics are really good at is the bigger picture and the idea of natural law. And, you know, because just because there's not a verse on abortion, and we, you know, we all find our verses on abortion. But I'm just saying that that's not how God works. God's laws and his will go beyond scripture verses. It's the whole council of scripture.

And the whole council of scripture makes it very clear that every human being is a human being for whom Jesus died. And we simply do not have the right. to take the life. That's it. Now, what you do after that, you could do anything you want, but you need to know that God doesn't give us that right. So when people couch these things in terms of choice, these are euphemisms, right? I mean, it's like, you know, putting down a dog. You say, we put him down. We didn't blow his brains out. We put him down. When we talk about euthanizing someone, what do you mean, murdering? No, euthanizing someone. We use these terms. God says life is sacred. Human life is sacred. And there's just no way around it. And if somebody says,

well, that's very upsetting to me. You could say, well, it's upsetting to me too, because there are plenty people that I would love to kill, but I can't. And the fact of the matter is that our emotions cannot get us around. I mean, you could be miserable and saying, how am I going to do this? How am I possibly going to have this baby? Or how is she going to have this baby? You don't need to know. God knows. God will make a way. All you know is, we don't have the right to take it. So if you love women, if you love the idea of choice, you still have to deal with this, folks. And I think the way I would put it maybe is to say that that human being that you think of as not a human being yet, you understand many people

didn't think blacks were human beings. They treated them like animals. Many people didn't think Jews were human beings. They treated them worse than animals. They murder. They murdered them by the millions, human beings often don't understand that every human being is sacred in God's eyes, and in history it'll always be okay to dehumanize certain groups of human beings. It will always be okay. And you have to think, who am I dehumanizing? Who am I giving myself permission to hate? It's people maybe that I disagree with politically. I disagree with them strongly politically, and I hate them, and I dehumanize them. God says, you're not allowed to do that. If that's your enemy politically, pray for your enemy. You don't have to agree with them,

but you can't hate them. You can't dehumanize them. That's ultimately what abortion is. It's the ultimate dehumanization where we basically say, it's not even a human, so what's the big deal? The problem is it is a human, and we're engaging in sophistry. So I've already said, I've already said more than I know on that subject, so I'll just stop. Eric, thank you. And again, so much there that we could develop as well. But within that context, you and Suzanne working with these issues of pro-life. And again, we don't think of pro-life and Manhattan in the same sentence, but the gospel, that's another miracle of the gospel.

What other bedrock? And the question here is what other bedrock outreach ministries that worked in New York City should be transferred here? I mean, are there things that every city should be passionate about in order to then help shape the region? I think, you know, in a way, part of what's interesting is that

in a way there are parallels, but things are always changing. And even New York today is dramatically different than it was in 1990 or in 2000, and different issues come up. So it's difficult to, to say that. But I think the basic things, any way that you can show love, a homeless ministry,

there are all kinds of things where you show yourself where you're given permission to act like Jesus in a cultural way that people notice. They take note. So I don't know, you can probably think of several, and I can comment on them, but there's almost anything that you can do. I think that we mentioned the arts. There are a number of things that people can do with the arts, but it comes down to calling. Everybody has a different calling. Not everybody is called to work in this or this or this or this,

and you have to kind of think what has God called me to do. I mean, the Socrates and the city thing that I have done, I've done it less often just because it's gotten complicated and it's expensive, but to be able to have a place where you can bring in speakers and thinkers and have a dialogue and have an interesting conversation, that's a huge service to a community of rather sophisticated people who they're hungry for stuff, but most of the sophisticated culture in America

has been taken over by secular humanist leftism in a way. Now, it's always been a little bit that way, but it's gotten dramatic, and I think that people are hungry for something different. And I always, on my radio program and at Socrates and City, certainly I try to bring in people who I don't always agree with them, but just to say we're here to have a conversation, we're here to help you to think for yourself.

Obviously that's Socrates idea that he would ask questions, and it sort of forces you to think. Jesus, of course, did that even better than Socrates. And but he cheated because he had the Holy Spirit. The fact is that that is like a basic thing that bringing in speakers or authors or whatever, you know, you've kind of got a nice forum here. And I think that that is often, just a blessing to everybody, to people that would never come to a church or come, you know,

they would come and hear somebody, whether it's Osganis or Peter Crave for anybody, and they just think, huh, I've never, you know, I've never heard anybody like that. So that, to me, that's the one that appeals to me the most, obviously. And to that end, let me make a shameless plug. If you all feel called to a ministry through this God Corner series, text it to us. Let us know what that ministry is. And of course, right now we're making a big push for lawyers, especially as we try to reach out to the four corners of the law here. But one of my favorite questions here is in terms of Socrates in the city, right,

and having that conversation of an examined life. A, what difficulties did you face in establishing it? And second, if you could tell us, what was your most favorite speaker during that time of Socrates in the city so far? And why? In 30 seconds or less. Gosh, that's tough. Well, the problem is always money in New York. And just getting the venue and doing all that kind of stuff, I'm not really an administrator.

So that was always tough. It's become increasingly better. But it's still just all of those logistics. I mean, if somebody set something up, I could go and do what I do all day long. I mean, I've got a list of people I'd like to talk to for 80 or 90 minutes. But it was always the logistics and the money to pay for the Union League Club or pay for whatever it is. So that was always the challenge. So if you have a nice venue, which you already do here,

and in the church hall, I think. I don't remember exactly. But the point is that that's, I think people are just looking for that, for those kinds of conversations. And I don't have a favorite speaker. I can tell you some I didn't like. But the fact is that there's so many different kinds.

I think probably people like John Lennox are my favorite. You know, people who can talk about science in a way that is really interesting, you know, brilliant. men of science who are also profound Christians. I think that people often think that's not even possible. And, you know, it's not only not possible, but it seems to me that atheism is untenable if you're a true scientist. Let there be no doubt, big tech and the far left have joined forces

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And the ExpressVPN app couldn't be easier to use. You just tap one button on your phone or computer and you're protected. Take back your online privacy with the VPN I trust at ExpressVPN.com slash Metaxus. By visiting my link, you'll get an extra three months of ExpressVPN service for free on a one-year package. Again, that's ExpressVPN.com slash Metaxus. E-X-P-R-E-S-V-P-N.com slash Metaxis Express.com to protect your data today.

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research and consider. Call now 800, 700, 5483. That's 800, 700, 500, 5483, or visit nria.net. An offer to buy or sell any security is only made by our private placement memorandum. Read it first. See us at nria.net. One other question before we change topics here, but one of our questioners said, times do change, and as we know the Bible doesn't, what does the church need to stay away from or not do to fall away like so many other churches have? In other words, what should the church not be about?

The church should not be afraid of politics. I think people have gotten their theology screwed up because they always talk about how it's wrong to make an idol of politics. We all agree with that. But in the case of Bonhoeffer, in the case of Wilberforce, even in the case of Luther, politics comes to you. If you're talking about the unborn, if you're talking about slavery, if you're talking about the slave trade,

if you're talking about freedom of speech, if you're talking about these things, unfortunately, these things become political issues. And I think one thing in this day and age, people say, well, you know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to go there. I'm just going to, quote, unquote, preach the gospel. Well, I want to know what kind of gospel are you going to preach if there are Jews in boxcars being sent to Treblinka and you're going to say, well, I don't want to get political? Or if there are blacks being treated a certain way and say, well, I don't want to get political. How do you not get political if you're Christian?

So I think that we have to be very careful because you hear so much today about people are making an idol of politics or this Christian nationalism. I think that's nonsense. I think Christians should be more political because if we get involved in all these issues, we're the salt and light. Now, if we're only political, we'll fail. We have to be culturally involved. But I think that because the way the moral majority kind of went, I think it turned a lot of people off of politics. And I think, you know, it's not like. You have to choose politics if you're dealing with an issue like the unborn or like marriage.

You say, well, I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, and people say, oh, that's really political. We're not going to go there. Pretty soon you will be an entirely muzzled Christian because the powers that be have told you you can't talk about these things because they're political. And I think you have to push back and you say, no, excuse me, you're being political. I'm being Christian. And this is what the Bible says. That's my hostile answer. I can say a more winsome one if we have the time.

Well, look out for next Sunday sermon. We're going to change it up right now. Thank you, Eric. But speaking of switching things up, I want to talk about your book. And this is really exciting because, again, with Eric, you know, I've known you for a couple years now. It's been really exciting to watch what you've been doing up in New York

and the books you've been coming out with. And you just never know what you're going to do next. That's my goal. I never know what's going to come out of your mouth. I never know what kind of book. And so you're working on two books, really. You're working on one on atheism that's going to be out in October. Yeah.

But then you've decided somehow to do a book on your early life. Yeah. And it's called Fish Out of Water, A Search for the Meaning of Life. And first of all, it's not my search for the meaning of life. It is a search for the meaning. So why? Let's talk about your title for a minute. Yeah.

Well, this is funny because this is a title, the subtitle and the title I didn't come up with. At the end of this book, it takes me through growing up and college and everything. And then around my 25th birthday, Jesus spoke to me in a dream. I was really not a believer up until that point. And God completely blew my mind in a miraculous. dream. It was so mind-blowing that it was game over. I believe in Jesus. I believe in the Bible. I'm all in. Let's go. Before that, I was very, you know, don't get too close to me with that crazy Christian stuff. I know about you people. And something happened. So I wanted originally, for years I wanted to tell the story. And I thought the book

will be titled The Golden Fish, because it's about this kind of fairy tale dream. about a fish. It's really, it's odd, which is why I have to tell the long story of my life up to that point, otherwise the dream doesn't really make sense. So I was going to call it the golden fish. A dear friend of mine, Jill Lamar, like 20 years ago, I was talking about this. She says, what about fish out of water? That's your title. And I thought, son of a gun, because people are always, if you're a writer or anything, people always have endless ideas about what you should do and what, you know, and usually, almost inevitably, the ideas are not good. But every now and again, somebody hits it and you just got to say

son of a gun that is correct that's great that's exactly correct and so so fish out of water the reason it's interesting it tells the story of what happens at the end of the book the dream with Jesus but my whole story

up to that point is me being a fish out of water it's the weird story which I'll tell you in a minute I don't want to go on this long with the question but so my friend gave me the title and then at the end when I finally decided to write the book a couple of years ago, I said, it'll be fish out of water, my search for the meaning of life. And another friend said, what about a search for the meaning of life? And I thought, son of a gun, you're right. That's better. So that's my answer. Eric, in this book, you talk about

obviously where you've been in your life and certainly this amazing story of coming to Christ. And can you walk us through that a little bit? Because obviously, with your background. This is a radical, and we may not understand how radical that was for you and your family. Well, yeah, it was radical. I mean, the basic outline of my life is, you know, my mom and dad came to New York from Europe separately. My mom came from Germany in 54. My dad came from Greece in 55. They met in an English class in 1956, and I don't mean like Chaucer and Milton, I mean to learn how to speak English. And to this day, they're still bad at speaking English. That's not true. But they do have accents, strong accents. But I praise God, they're still with us. And my mom and

dad met in an English class, and my father did something that Greeks are never supposed to do. He married a non-Greek. Yeah, don't ever do that if you're Greek. And so it's kind of funny because I grew up in the Greek community, right? In New York City for the first nine years of my life, we were in Queens, and, you know, that's where the immigrants are. It's where the immigrants, they go to New York, and they don't live in Manhattan. You can't afford Manhattan if you're an immigrant. You live in Queens or wherever you live.

And I grew up in the Greek Orthodox Church. I grew up in the Greek Orthodox. I went to the Greek Orthodox parochial school, and you hear a lot of, you know, funny. They're movies about, you know, the Italian-American crazy experience or the, the Jewish, crazy American experience. Not much about the Greek experience. If you think my Big Fat Greek wedding covers it, you're quite wrong. That's kind of the cartoon Chicago version of the Greek experience.

It is a very rich world loaded with comedy. I mean, there's a lot of stories in this book. The reason I want to write the book is because over the years, I've experienced stuff that's just flat out hilarious. And I said, I'm desperately wanting to tell these stories. They're just hilarious. And so a lot of it is growing up in the Greek community. When we moved to Danbury, I'm sorry, but growing up in the Greek community, I meant to say is that because my mother's German, at home, we spoke English.

Because my mother didn't speak Greek, my father didn't speak German, we spoke English at home. But when you're hanging around hardcore Greeks, you know, for them, being Greek is like a hobby and a religion. Like they take it a little bit seriously. You could laugh because that's abnormal, okay? but Greeks are very proud to be Greek. They know that they're the best ethnicity. And so when you're hanging out with Greeks, but at home you don't speak Greek in your mother's German,

you feel a little inadequate. You do feel like a fish out of water. You feel like I'm not really cutting it here. All these kids are really hardcore Greek, and I'm not Greek enough. So in the Greek community and in the Greek parochial school where I went, I never quite felt like I fit in. Then we moved to Danbury, Connecticut,

and the chapter in the book is called Moving to America, because when you leave this Greek community of Queens, New York, or whatever, and suddenly, you know, you're playing baseball or touch football or kickball, and you're fishing, and it was like another universe. It was like a dream to me to go to Danbury, Connecticut. But suddenly I was kind of like the weird European kid, you know, who is suddenly in this very American environment. So I never quite fit in there either. And, you know, it kind of goes on. It's just a theme for me, never quite fitting. And it wasn't like traumatic, but it's definitely a theme for me. And then, of course, when I went to Yale University, it's a weird thing

because I, when you grow up in a working class environment with parents that came from other countries, you know, you're going to have appreciation of the basics. You're going to have respect for God. Now, I didn't understand the gospel because most of those kinds of churches, ethnic churches, it's all about the community. So they don't, you know, you're not reading the Bible, you don't get the gospel, you don't have a personal relationship with Jesus. You just go to church and then you leave church. You know, it's like a cultural experience. And it's a wonderful community, but I never got the guts of it. I never got the gospel. And there are stories in there where I kind of flirted with it. I'd bump into, you know, there'd be situations where I would be hanging out

with some Christians or something like that, but it never really took. And by the time I went to Yale, for the first time of my life, I was confronted with the standard cultural elite worldview, which is what I was talking about with Manhattan, very secular, right? Too sophisticated to believe that jug-headed stuff about the Bible. I mean, that's for people in Flyover Country. We're way too sophisticated to believe that Jesus rose from the dead and God part of the Red Sea and all that. That's for the dumb people. You know, you're now, you're among the sophisticates, right?

I was a little knocked back by that. Let there be no doubt, big tech and the far left have joined forces to purge America of conservative views. But even if you keep your accounts, you don't have to give big tech websites access to your data. That's why I choose to protect my online activity by using ExpressVPN. Ever wondered how free to access social media companies make all their money? Well, by tracking your searches, video history, and everything you click on, and then selling your valuable data. When you use ExpressVPN, you anonymize much of your online presence by hiding your IP address.

That makes your activity more difficult. trace and sell to advertisers. What's more, ExpressVPN encrypts 100% of your data to protect you from eavesdroppers on your network. And the ExpressVPN app couldn't be easier to use. You just tap one button on your phone or computer and you're protected. Take back your online privacy with the VPN I trust at ExpressVPN.com slash Metaxis. By visiting my link, you'll get an extra three months of ExpressVPN service for free on a one-year package. Again, that's expressvpn.com slash metaxus, eXP-R-E-S-V-P-N.com slash metaxus, express.com slash metaxus to protect your data today.

Hey, folks, I've got to tell you a secret about relief factor that the father, son, owners, Pete and Seth Talbot, have never made a big deal about, but I think it is a big deal. I really do. They sell the three-week quick start pack for just 1995 to anyone struggling from pain like neck, shoulder, back, hip, or knee pain, 1995, about a dollar a day. But what they haven't broadcasted much is that every time they sell a three-week quick start, they lose money. In fact, they don't even break even until about four to five months after if you

keep ordering it. Friends, that's huge. People don't keep ordering relief factor month after month if it doesn't work. So, yes, Pete and Seth are literally on a mission to help as many people as possible deal with their pain. They really do put their money where their mouths are. So if you're in pain from exercise or even just getting older or to the three-week quick start for 1995, let's see if we can get you at a pain too. Go to relieffactor.com, relief factor.com or call 800, 500, 800,000, 8384, 800, 500, 8384 relief factor.com.

I use it. It works. Investors. Seeking steady cash flow, ready to diversify. NRAA has grown to be one of the nation's leading specialists and offers 10% annualized monthly payouts with bonuses to. targeted at 18 to 21%. That's right. You could receive steady 10% return monthly payments with bonuses. As their slogan says, they specialize in realty investing done right. You can even use your 401k or IRA to invest. NRA's 15-year track record and 1.2 billion in new construction development backs you. Learn how you can invest in this hard asset real estate cash flow fund today and receive 10% annualized monthly payouts with bonuses.

This is something savvy investors should research and consider. Call now 800, 700, 500, 5483. That's 800, 700, 5483, or visit nria.net. An offer to buy or sell any security is only made by our private placement memorandum. Read it first. See us at nria.net. Yesterday, I was up before the dawn. Enjoyed mistake, but I must be moving on.

You know, my parents aren't college graduates, but, you know, they taught me right from wrong. They taught me to love America because they came from countries where there was no freedom. But you go to a place like Yale and suddenly you're taught America is evil. America has always been evil. You know, the whole God thing. That's just, you know, pie in the sky, whatever. It's meant to keep people down.

It's nonsense, whatever. So I bumped into this stuff and I didn't really know what I believed. So I basically drank that Kool-Aid. And I never became 100% woke. And by the way, political correctness was absolutely. happening at Yale in the 80s, in the early 80s. It was already there, because these are the kind of places where it starts, right? And I remember that feeling of being a fish out of water there and thinking, I grew up in a place where people didn't go to college and, you know, all my friends and relatives and whatever, they're not part of this ilk. but now I'm here and I have to kind of learn how to think like these people do.

So, you know, I'll never forget, you know, like in 1981 or 82, I use the word Oriental. And somebody said, oh, no, no, no, no, the word is Asian, right? This is 1981 or 82. But it was kind of like, oh, oh, I get it. We have this going on today like crazy, but this was very strong at the time. So I really started going along with the zeitgeist. And by the time I graduated, I was totally confused. about life. And I think what I often say about Yale is that they decided a long time ago that they're

going to avoid, I mean, the central role of education used to be and ought to be to answer the big questions, to help us think about the big questions. What are the big questions? Did God create you? Does your life have meaning? Or does life have no meaning? And you are just a burp of the universe that you're going to come and go, your life has no meaning, the love you have for your kids and your spouse and your parents, that's just chemicals, there's no transcendent love, there is no God, we evolved out of the primordial soup entirely by accident, and there is no life, there is no God, there is no meaning, and it's kind of depressing, so we're not going to talk about it. That's kind of the point of view. In other words, they don't have the guts to say

what Sart and Camus, you know, who actually said, this is really troubling. We don't like this. We think there's no God, but they're not like happy about it. But at places like Yale and a lot of places in the culture, I'm sure here in Charleston, people just avoid those questions. Like those are the questions of Roobes. We don't ask questions about truth with a capital T. Are you kidding? No, we're beyond that. What is truth? And I think that I absorbed that. And also you absorb the idea that we're kind of, we have a mocking, winking attitude toward this stuff. In other words, we're not going to say, oh, life has no meaning,

it's horrible, what do we do? You're just going to say, like, we're not going to talk about life having no meaning. We're going to avoid that subject, and here's the goal. Get a really good job, and, you know, it'll distract you, it'll keep you busy. On the weekends, there's like alcohol and sports, and in a few decades it'll all be over.

Just don't think about those questions. And I was an English major, I wanted to be a writer, therefore you can guess I did not get a good job. And I had plenty time to think about these questions. And it was horrible. And I really mean it was horrible. Because I had been surrounded by people who had winkingly sent the message.

Like, we don't ask those questions. We don't think about those things. We certainly, you know, we don't watch PTL or we don't watch these televangelists. Or we don't believe in that stuff. Or we don't believe. And if you're wondering about the meaning of life, you think, well, okay, then what do we believe? Well, nobody had any answers. They don't even go there.

And so I went through some hard times. I often joke around that if you are at a college and you're not sure what you're doing and you start floating and drifting, inevitably, you will move back in with your parents. There's no other way. It's like a theorem, like a Euclidean theorem. You will move in with you. So I moved back in with my parents. And you can imagine my parents work menial jobs to send me to Yale.

And here I come back. And, you know, all my Yale friends, they're people. parents would be like, oh, Eric's finding himself. My parents would be like, yeah, you need to find yourself a job and get out because we work really hard. You know, my mother cleaned houses. My father worked three jobs. I mean, what's wrong with you, Eric? You went to Yale University. You should have the world by tail. Well, I didn't know what was going on. And so, of course, you know, if you move back in with your parents, they're going to be like, well, you do need to get a job while you're living here, right? So what could you do with the Yale degree in English? Not much.

as it happens. And so one thing I knew I could do is proofread. So I got a job as a proofreader at Union Carbide in Danbury, Connecticut. That's the international chemical conglomerate working there. I think the Hebrew word is Gehenna, if you've ever experienced anything like that. Thank you for being a biblically literate group. I love that. If you didn't get that, you need to get saved quick. So anyway, it was hellish, and I was lost. And the Lord of all things, an Episcopalian who believed in the Bible. Have you ever heard of such a crazy thing? Yes, he was a spirit-filled, born-again, Episcopalian.

He starts sharing the gospel with me. And I was in enough pain that I was willing to talk, but I've been trained by Yale and my friends to, like, avoid those people, you know, because they're nuts. You know, they're obviously nuts. Are you not nuts? And so I was avoiding him at the same time I would listen, then I would avoid him. He'd say, well, you want to come to church on Sunday? No. You want to do

Bible studying in the lunch? No. But let's keep talking. And this went on for a year. And at the end of the year, the Lord visited me in a dream. I won't tell you the dream, but it was utterly miraculous. Hey there, Georgie girl, swinging down the street so fancy free, nobody you meet could ever see the lonely there inside you. Hey there, Georgie girl, why do all the boys just pass you by? Could it be you just don't try or is it the close you? Let there be no doubt, big tech and the far left have joined forces to purge America of conservative views. But even if you keep your accounts, you don't have to give big tech websites access to your data. That's why I choose to protect my online activity by using ExpressVPN.

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should research and consider. Call now 800, 700, 500-483. That's 800-7505483 or visit nria.net. An offer to buy or sell any security is only made by our private placement memorandum. Read it first. See us at nria.net. I needed a miracle. I was not going to reason my weight of faith. My brain had been so polluted over the years by this miseducation I got at Yale University, which used to be a place that raised up ministers and believed in Jesus.

But of course, most of those places have been taken over by the other team. and I guess when this happened, if I had not been living with my parents and away from my Yale friends, I don't know if I would have felt the freedom, but it changed absolutely everything in my life. And I lost a lot of friends because, you know, if you start believing

what Christians believe, that may not be what people want to be around. but some friends were still willing to be my friend, and one of them I actually dedicate the book to. Her name is Cheris Khan. She was a classic Brooklyn, like liberal literary hipster type who worked for 20 years as a senior editor at Harper's Magazine, right? You can think of the type.

Wonderful human being, and we were friends for years. after I became a Christian, we just continued the friendship. And I would just share my life and my crazy stories about God sometimes and whatever. But there's some people that they're just, they're open to the truth. And I think it was, it's part of what I want to communicate. It's part of why I wrote this book. Sometimes I don't think you want to be on the nose with people when it comes to faith. There's a time when you need to lay it right out.

But most of the time, people like me, like my friendship, Harris, they've been so, as I said, miseducated about things that you need to be gentle. And you need to give them the time and space to figure these things out. You can't do it, you know, it's like, let me give you my elevator testimony because we could die at the end of this ride, you know. There's a role for that. But if you feel sensitive to the Holy Spirit, sometimes, you know, it's okay to trust the Holy Spirit, by the way. It turns out he's a good guy. And you don't have to make this happen on your own.

And so, again, you have to determine, you know, because some people can't shut up and you want to say to them, you'd be way more effective if you'd talk less about Jesus because you're driving people away. By God's grace, I was able to share with this friend in a way that was not pushy, trusting that God might be using this. And at the end of her life, she died very young in her 50s of a rare blood disease. but at the end of her life before she even got sick, she became a Christian. And it is the most stunning thing. If you knew her, you'd say this is exactly the kind of person that would never accept Jesus and pray to Jesus. And no, it wouldn't happen. But she did.

And I realized when I wrote the book, Suzanne asked me, you know, who did you write this book for? Like, what's the audience? And it was very confusing. And yet it came to me. I said, I just figured it out. I wrote it for Charis. She had passed by then, but I realized that this is for her. Because I wrote the book, this is actually kind of a funny thing.

I guess you have, you know, I went to, the publisher who published my Luther book is a secular publisher, Viking, right? So I signed a deal to write this book, and I handed the manuscript, and the editor, who's a wonderful guy, basically said, this is not what I'm looking for. I thought, well, what do you mean? He says, it's not really Christian enough. And he didn't put it that way, but it was clear that he was looking for, like, you know, my brand is on the Christian guy. I'm going to write a Christian book about my conversion and stuff. And I said, no, I want to write a literary memoir that happens to end with this story

of how God makes sense of my life. God gives me the meaning of life miraculously in this dream. I was utterly a failure in finding it for myself. I didn't even know if there is a God. I didn't know anything. and I'm stumbling through in my misery. So I wanted to write a literary memoir that people who are not Christians would read

because it's a fun read and it's interesting. And I don't want to give that away in the beginning. It's like I don't want to give away the punchline because you'll spoil the joke, right? There's certain times, you know, it's like telling, you know, who the murderer was at the beginning of a mystery. That's really, there are books where you can start there,

but there are other books where if you do that, you blow the whole thing. And I kind of thought, my story is, it's something that I could tell, you know, from the end and start. But I said, I want to tell the story as it happened to me, the weird story of growing up in this Greek environment with the Germans. And then all this crazy stuff. And again, a lot of it is very funny. I said, these are really funny stories. I don't want to, you know, pollute them with, like, religiosity.

This is just funny stories. and a little bit of it is me being hostile to faith along the way, because that's where I was. I mean, I remember a young woman in, like, eighth grade, she goes up to do her book report. This is in the 70s where you could still, you know, go up to do your book report, and somehow she ends up talking about Jesus, or this was her thing, right? And I was mocking her for this.

I was mocking her because I'm thinking, well, look, I mean, we go to church every Sunday, but it's not like I'm going to talk about it in public. That's where I was coming from. That's where a lot of people are coming from. When I was at Yale, I attended the Christian group briefly, and then I thought, they're just too weird. They're weird. I don't want to be around with weird people.

So I was kind of hostile to it. So, yeah, the publisher thought, no, I was really looking for a book about Christian conversion or whatever. So I had to go with my non-Christian book. Again, it ends with the story, but it's this literary memoir. I had to get it published by a Christian publisher, which is insane, right? But they got it. They understood what I was trying to do.

I'm trying to tell a story. It's not a religious story. It's a story. And the ending, of course, my ending of how I find the meaning of life, happens to be about, it's all about Jesus. But if you tell people that up front, they might not read it. I think of my friend Cheris, to whom I dedicate the book, I didn't let her have it with both barrels every time I saw her. I think that it's very important for us sometimes to do that. And so I really wrote this book to give believers something that they can share with non-believers and say, you know, book list and Kirkus reviews and all these people.

They love this book. Mark Helprin, some of you know the writer Mark Helperin, whom I revere. He loved the book. You know, it's a good read. It's funny. It's interesting. It weave stuff together. But that they would read it and that they would experience it as I experience.

experienced it. So that when they get to the end, they're experiencing it as I experienced it. And by that time, hopefully the writer, the narrator, has some credibility. So they don't just say, well, this is stupid. So that is kind of how I meant the book to go. Clearly, you wrote this book for men because, two reasons, there are pictures. We like pictures and books. Oh, good, good. And your chapters are. are incredibly short. Men like short chapters, don't we? Don't we? In fact, your chapter, one of them is one page. No, no, it's one sentence. It's one sentence. And it says, my savior is a fish, and we can all read that kind of a chapter in one day. Nobody has gotten that joke yet. Nobody has gotten that joke. I make fun of William Faulkner throughout the book because I didn't really see me after class. I'm not kidding. But I make fun of Faulkner because

during the most bizarre episode when after I graduated college, I was on a Ural pass and I had a semi-obscine incident on a train with an Italian Laferio. I really don't want to go into it any more than that. But the point is that while this was going on, I'm trying to read

the Sound and the Fury. And that's a depressing book. And so I make fun of Faulkner throughout the book. And I think it's in that book where he very pretentiously, in his modernist, pretentious way, has a chapter, my mother is a fish. That's the whole chapter. And so I thought, how interesting,

my savior is a fish, so I can do it. So anyway, but that, that is meant to be a highbrow, stupid Faulkner joke. Well, all of your chapters are made for men. They're the right, the right word count for us. Now, one final question. And you alluded to this a moment ago. Yes. We're all going to buy many copies tonight of this book. And, and, and, and, and, and, No more than 12 per customer, please. 12, okay, magic number. Well, and again, you alluded to this, but more deeply, who do we need to buy the, who do we need to give this to after, you know, in a business business?

Well, in all seriousness, I mean, look, I imagine that most people here would enjoy the book, but I specifically thought, how do we reach people like my friend Cheris? I realized that if you gave a book to her, a good book, you know, whether it's mere Christianity or a least droble book or whatever, like, they're not, they're not going to read it. just not their thing or maybe they're going to be put off by it. I said, I want to write a book for those people, people who, maybe they're literary, or, I mean, you don't have to be particularly literary to read this book, but I'm saying, but readers or people that would not read a Christian book, but who would read a good book, those are the kind of people. I know

they're out there because I was one of them. How do you reach them? How do you speak to them? And I wrote this book for those people. So I know that most of us know somebody who, if he gave them an overtly Christian book, they would just go like, what are you trying to do? Convert me, right? I think that I was like that. I was skittish.

And I think that in the same way I do it at Socrates and City, in the same way I did it with my friend Cheris, you want to approach them gingerly. You don't want to say, hey, we need to seal the deal. What do I need to do to get you to buy this? car to drive this car out of the lot today. You know, like, that's not really, it doesn't work with a lot of people. And if you really love somebody, you have to be gentle and give them the opportunity to

think about it on their terms. So that's basically, that was my main goal in writing the book, to reach those folks. Eric Metaxus, we say thank you. Thank you. Amazing. And before I leave the pulpit, I forgot to say that if you have questions about, about avail and the pregnancy center that Suzanne ran. Suzanne is in the building.

She refused to speak because you guys could not meet her honorarium. She's very mercenary. But Suzanne, raise your hand. If anybody has questions, I was joking, Suzanne would be delighted to answer your questions. And I'm delighted to hang out if that's possible or to sign books that are unsigned or anything. But just want to say that. And Al, I love you and I love this community. Thank you for allowing me to be part of it this way.

This is your Charleston home. I appreciate you. You bet. Thank you. Hey there, folks. Thanks for listening. You've been listening today to remarks I made from the pulpit, the historic pulpit, of historic St. Michael's Anglican Church in the extremely historic Charleston, South Carolina. I was talking about my book, Fish Out of Water, a Search for the Meaning of Life, among other things.

Hope you enjoyed it. Tell your friends. Thank you.