The Eric Metaxas Show - Eric Shares His "Letter" (Encore)

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

Eric is interviewed by Albin about his new book, "Letter to the American Church," on its official publication day, and his insights are powerful and, hopefully, motivating to awaken a sleeping Church. (Encore Presentation)

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.com. A Texas show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Folks, I'm happy to say I am speaking now again with our friend who, I don't know how to put this. Robert Netsley started this thing called Inspire Investors. investing. And every time we talk, I get very excited about this. Robert, welcome back.

It is my pleasure to be here, Eric. We're always talking about roughly the same thing. The idea of this company is to help people understand where their money is going, what they're doing with their money, and if their money is working against what they believe in, we're working for what they believe in. We have just had Roe v. Wade be overturned. finally, thank God, because it was horrible law. It doesn't even matter your position on abortion, it was just bad law. But we now see companies saying, doing this virtue signaling,

that, well, we are so pro-abortion. We will pay for our employees to have an abortion. You know, we're not going to pay for them to help them have a kid and to pay for formula and diapers and rent and whatever. We're not going to help them have a kid, but we'll help them have an abortion. Most people that I know would say, I don't want to do business with a company like that.

Are they crazy? Are they kidding? How can we know whether we are dealing with that kind of a company or aren't? Yeah, we've been inundated with that question ever since late last week when that phenomenal decision came on. We're just praising God for that decision among with so many others. And, you know, all these companies coming out saying they're going to start paying for abortion travel, you know, to states where it's

still legal for the time being anyway. And so we had inspired. That's what we specialize. And we have the most robust data set to help people understand what the companies that are in your mutual fund, in your 401K, like what are they doing to, from a moral perspective, right, such as giving money to Planned Parenthood or in this case, we're compiling a really robust USA is set on these companies in real time as are coming out on the daily basis now, which companies are paying for these travel benefits. So there's a form, there's a report that we can have done for people that do for free, no strength attached, called an impact report.

You can get one in Inspired Advisors.com slash Eric for free from our team of wealth managers around the country. And it'll show you down to the nitty-gritty details. All we need is ticker symbols. No sensitive information we need for me. It is ticker symbols. And our technology will drill down to the granular data on You know, this fund in your 401k or your retirement plan or your trust account owns these stocks and these companies are giving money to employees to have abortions.

Okay. So I want to be very clear on this. People listening to us right now can go to inspireadvisors.com. Inspireadvisors.com slash Eric. And you're saying they can get what you're calling an impact report where they would put in the companies. and they will know right away how these companies stack up. Because every time I have you on, I want to say to my audience, ladies and gentlemen, this is hugely important.

It is hugely important. So many people have money out there. You say, well, my money is working for me. Is it working for you? Or is it working against you? Or is it making you money through companies that are doing terrible, terrible things. You need to know. And it's now easy to know thanks to Robert Netsley and Inspire Investing. So, but the website you're sending people to, it's not Inspire Investing. I mean,

there is a website, inspireinvesting.com, obviously. We have a lot of websites. We have multiple, you know, businesses going on. And if you go to Inspiredbizers.com slash Eric, that's where we have free impact report. So right now. But right now we're talking about, we're saying to people, folks, if you want to find out if the companies that you're investing in are pushing abortion, you can find out at inspireadvisors.com. Inspireadvisors.com slash Eric. And they will be able to figure it out from there. Yeah, not only that.

The report will show you, you know, all the, all the nitty-grated details on the abortion and LGBT activism and all sorts of things. It also shows you how to make changes to that portfolio in order to actually improve, potentially improve your investment returns while kicking those bad actors out of your portfolio. That's one of the people's questions is, well, if I remove Facebook and, you know, Google and Netflix and all these woke companies out of my portfolio, what is it going to look like performance base? So this answers that question for you. And, you know, it's not a guarantee. You know, we can't guarantee returns. But our team is particularly skilled in constructing portfolios based. on these values to support conservative faith-based values and not sacrifice, you know,

not have to sacrifice returns. And so there's a performance analysis that's involved there. There's a very comprehensive report. Again, we're doing that for free if you're listeners, and we're happy to do it, especially at this time. Okay, Robert, I just wanted to say, I have in front of me right here exactly what you're talking about. This is an inspireadvisors.com impact report.

So if people go to InspireAdvisors.com slash Eric, they can get a personalized report. I'm looking at it right now. Here it is. And we actually plugged in the stocks of one of my colleagues here at Salem. This is their 401K. And so we actually plugged in, okay, I've got a 401K. These are the companies, and let's plug everything in. And it tells me here exactly, this is kind of amazing, you know, whether I'm invested in good things or bad things or how good or how bad.

So walk us through that. Yeah. So the first part of that report is that really the values-based analysis. And so a couple highlights there, you know, there's on the abortion topic, you've got Facebook trading under the symbol meta now. So meta companies, you've got Google, you've got Netflix, you've got a whole host of others, dozens of others that have come out just immediately after this Supreme Court ruling and said they're going to pay for abortions for their employees. So that's a huge problem, right? Huge disconnect. And they don't have to invest in those companies, right?

So there's other options for them. There's also Alaska Airlines who is being sued right now for wrongfully terminating two of their flight attendants because they, those two flight attendants, had faith-based convictions where they could not. support the Equality Act celebration that Alaska Airlines was having. And so they fired them. And they put it on their pink slip. That's why they were firing. And they called it hate speech. So Alaska Airlines is in that portfolio. Okay. So having

biblical values, I just want to be clear. This is where we are in America, folks. If you have biblical values, you could say, I love my gay neighbors, but according to what I believe, that's not a lifestyle, I can celebrate. Alaska Airlines and other companies

are saying, oh, yeah? Well, we're going to fire you for having basic biblical values. Goodbye. Now, I have to say that strikes me as wrong, but if Alaska Airlines wants to do that, it seems to me we ought not to be investing in Alaska Airlines. We need to know what companies are demonizing employees who have a biblical worldview. We at least ought to know that and not help them to succeed in doing that. Yeah. Exactly. And going back to the so-called abortion travel or abortion vacation or whatever they want to call it, a subsidy from these companies. It opens up a whole host of real problems for shareholders. Again, whether you're pro-life or not, if you're a shareholder, you know, how many thousands, hundreds of thousands, potentially millions of dollars are these companies saying they're going to pay from your dividends, your potential return is your money that they're going to give to these employees? And how are they going to solve for the potential fraud and waste and abuse of that program? Are there that they, Are they going to require the receipts from somebody who just went to California to have a supposedly have an abortion? Are they going to require their employees to give them that sensitive information?

How could they legally? Otherwise, employers are, you know, if you're an employee in, I don't know if Arizona has a trigger law, I think it does. But if they're going to travel to Southern California, the beaches in San Diego, I hear, are nice. They're going to have an all expense paid trip to California for free on your dime as shareholder. How is that company going to hold them accountable? You as a shareholder should be up in arms about these sorts of policies. And we, for one, it inspired pushing back on these companies demanding they account for that and give us risk and analysis on these supposed programs and so-called benefits and really

asking to stop. Well, that's where we are. And that's why every time I have you on, I want to say to my audience, folks, this is very important. Please go to inspireadvisors.com. inspireadvisors.com slash Eric. Inspireadvisors.com slash Eric. Robert Netsley.

Thank you. And God bless you. Thank you, Eric. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Biden administration has caused a financial crisis and they have no clue how to fix it. Oil prices have skyrocketed. And when oil prices go up,

the cost of transportation and shipping spikes, leading the prices of goods to rise. And when we're already seeing, record inflation, that's the last thing we need. Our economy is in trouble and you need to take steps to protect yourself. If all your money is tied up in stocks, bonds, and traditional markets, you are vulnerable. Gold is one of the best ways to protect your retirement. No matter what happens, you own your gold. It is real, it is physical, it's always been valuable since the dawn of time. Legacy precious metals is the company I trust for investing in gold. They can help you roll your

retirement account into a gold-backed IRA where you still own the physical gold. They can also ship gold and precious metal safely and securely to your house. Call Legacy at 866-528-1903 or visit them online at LegacyPMinvestments.com. Tell me, Eric, why is Relief Factor so successful at lowering or eliminating pain? I'm often asked that question. The owners of Relief Factor tell me they believe our bodies were designed to heal. That's right, designed to heal. And I agree with them. So the doctors who form Relief Factor for them selected the four best ingredients, yes, 100% drug-free ingredients, each helps your body deal with inflammation. Each of the four ingredients deals with inflammation from a different metabolic pathway. And that right there, approaching from four different

angles, may be why so many people find such wonderful relief. So if you've got back pain, shoulder, neck, hip, knee, or foot pain from exercise or just getting older, you should order the three-week quick start discounted to only 1995 to see if it will work for you. It works for me. It has for about 70% of the half a million people who've tried it and have ordered more. Go to Relieffactor.com or call 800 for relief to find out about this offer. Feel the difference. Hey there, folks. Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. As you know, we try to get the best guests we can on this program. And I interview these wonderful people. But sometimes we just really can't get anybody of quality. And I said, hey, Albin, you know what? We couldn't get anybody. What about if I were to be the guest and you were to interview

me about my new book. Yeah, because when you said, I want to be the guest, I said, well, have you written anything? Have you starred in anything? Well, the fact is I didn't want to be the guest. I want to be perfectly blunt and say that I am the guest right now because it was Albin's idea to interview me about my new book letter to the American chair. So, Albin, since I'm the guest and you're the host, I better shut up and let you, you run the show. Okay, well, I heard you had letter to the American Church, so I was looking for something in the mail, something maybe like this, a page, a page and a half.

Right. Hey, dear church, I got some things to say. Yeah. But, of course, you know, the guy who wrote Bonhofer, you know, 500, 600 pages, of course, his letter is not going to be like two pages. It's going to be kind of like 150 pages or something like that, and he's going to put in a nice little book. Well, it is my shortest book. It is. And I mean this, folks.

This is a short book, but it is, you know, no joke. I think it's probably the most important thing that I have written, period, period, end of sentence. Yeah, I know. What's amazing is, and it's very cool because it says on the front, and this is very important, because, of course, you wrote about Martin Luther, you wrote about the slave trade and William Wilberforce and miracles, but on the front, and this is an important line, because when I first read it, I said, well, Eric's written. all kinds of books. But it says, author of Bonhofer, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. Why is that important? Because in a sense,

this is almost like part two of Bonhoffer. Because you're not Eric saying, hey, listen, I got a message for the American church. You make it very clear in this book. This is Bonhofer in his day saying to his church, hey, listen, folks, you've got to wake up. And so you're taking Bonhofer, in a sense, you're taking Bonhofer's warning and his words, and you're turning them around and saying, look, that was 1930s, Germany. This is 2020s America. Don't listen to me, folks. Don't listen to Eric Metaxis.

Listen to Dietrich Bonhofer. The German people did not listen. And look what happened to them. And look where we are in America. Actually, that was the challenge for me in writing this book. Because I never, I mean, this is true, folks. I've never felt this burning. I felt like I've got to write, I've got to say this.

Like God put it on my heart to say these things. And I was actually thinking of publishing it myself. I just thought it's not going to be long, but I've got to say this so that some key figures in the American church will read this. I've got to say this. And my publisher, Salem, when we met at NRB National Religious Broadcasters Convention back in, what was it in, I think it was March? March. They wanted to meet with me. They had some ideas for books that I might write with them.

And they basically described this book. They said, we think you should write this book. And I thought, that is absolutely weird. That has to be God because I didn't tell anybody I wanted to write this book. They described it to me. And I said, I was already planning to write that book. So they're the publisher of the book, Letter to the American Church. But the title, I originally was going to title it, Faith Without Works is Dead.

In other words, the American Church has gotten. so focused sometimes on what we believe that you forget that if you do not live out what you say you believe, you don't actually believe it. God looks at our James writes about it. I write about it in the book quoting the gospel of the epistle of James where he basically says faith, he says exactly faith without works is dead. In other words, if you think you can just say I believe this stuff, but you're not living it self-sacrificially. You're not speaking the truth when it matters. And matters, God knows you actually don't have faith. So your salvation, this is chilling, is on the line. What you do, what you say, how you behave, are you fighting for the truth at a time that it's being

under attack? Are you doing all these things? Or have you been persuaded to be silent? And I guess I ultimately, what it really boils down to, what I say in the book is that the German church was silent. Bonhofer tried with everything he had. to get them to speak up and to fight the evil of the Nazis before most people really understood where it was going. And they said, not yet, not yet. We don't want to be political. We don't want to be political. Well, when they finally woke up, it was too late. They had opened their mouths too late. And what I say in this book, and I'm begging people to take this seriously, folks, I'm begging you to take this seriously. The silence of the German church, which led to the nightmare of

the Holocaust and everything else, that is precisely the same as the silence of the American church today. We are facing cultural Marxism. We are facing transgender madness. We're facing political enemies who no longer believe in the Constitution, who want to fundamentally transform America, destroy, crush religious liberty, redefine, liberty. On every level, we are facing this nightmare. And most leaders in the church have been silent. And I'm saying in the book, please, please, try to take this seriously what I'm saying, that our silence today is leading us to the nightmare, to the same nightmare for America that Germany was led to by the silence of the German church. I believe that is exactly where we are. And if I don't

speak about it, I will die. I have to, I have to deliver this message, and I believe by God's grace, he'll get it in the hands of people who are open to the truth. And I'm going to read a question. You have obviously questions and answers in this book, and I want to read this kind of open-ended question, and it's kind of something of a softball, but I want to read it anyway. It follows up on what you just said. You see in America, you know, today, a similar pattern. I think a lot of us do, and you say here, since we have the dramatic advantage of knowing what happened in Germany, will we take what he said, Bonhoeffer said, more seriously than they did? And then you say, will you, like the individual, not just the church in general,

because we, the people, we the people are the government, but we the people are also the church. I wanted you expand a little bit on what Bonhofer did. I mean, how did he, he saw it, but then what did he do? specifically. Well, it's interesting because Bonhofer saw what was happening before other people saw what was happening. And that's kind of like a prophetic thing, right? He could see whether it's mystically prophetic where it was just his sense from how he was raised. But he seemed to see the evil and where it was going. And he saw that if the church stands and fights, the evil will not prevail. But if the church does not stand, if the church says, well, it's not our job,

Romans 13, we're not supposed to speak about political things. If the church does that, he knew where the Nazis were going to take Germany. The Nazis would never say, we want to transform Germany into an anti-Christian or non-Christian country. They weren't stupid. They wouldn't say that, but he knew that that was the DNA of national socialism. And he tried to get the church to understand this is what you're facing and every day that you're silent, you are enabling this to triumph, this evil. And so, you know, you say, what did he do? I mean, he did many things and eventually, to be perfectly honest, he threw up his hands because he knew it was too late. The German church had failed. And that's, you know, eventually he gets involved in the plot to kill Hitler. That's way down

the line. But in the beginning, he was just with all his heart trying to get the, the German church to see the urgency. And this is kind of what I find is the key. It's the urgency. It's always the tempting thing to say, you know what, it's just, it's just not that bad. We'll get through it. You know, Hitler's a one-term furor. We'll get through it. The pendulum swings this way and that way. It's okay. Well, Bonhofer saying, no, no. If you do not speak up now, if you do not fight, if you do not, yeah, maybe you'll lose your job, maybe I'll go to concentration camp, but the point is if you do not fight, the suffering that is going to be unleashed, the evil that is going to be unleashed, is inconceivable. And I think that's my point in the book is to try

to get people to know that good people in the past similarly could not conceive of what lay ahead. They were exactly where we are, where they basically said, that can't happen here. That won't happen here. We know what happened when you see the images of the death camps and all this stuff. You can't believe that it happened. It's so horrible. But most Americans think, well, nothing like that could ever happen. That's not going to happen. It's no different than the German church. They were convinced this can't happen. Yeah, I came up with a one-word answer after reading halfway through the book. I came up with a one-word answer of how could the church let these things happen? The one-word answer gradually. Gradually. That's right. Don't give the devil a foothold.

Isn't that a scripture? And is the church doing that? And there's examples of that. And I know we're going to touch on that. Well, okay. You've said it exactly, Albin. It's the proverbial frog in the tea kettle. If you do not recognize what is happening, you don't do anything. You just kind of let it go a little further and a little further and a little further. And then at some point, you realize, uh-oh, it's too late. I think of when you think of, when you think of Gulliver being tied down by the little. Leputians, right? At some point, he could have woken up and burst the bands, but if they could just keep tying him down and tying him to, at some point, he would not be able to get up. That's the question of the American church. While we're going to a break, we'll be right back. Make like a Mr. Meek, and you'll get cut out. Is the government the best mechanism for fighting poverty? Are there any real-life examples of communities successfully combating addiction and homelessness today, how can we best deliver hope to our nation?

Those questions get answered September 23rd on SalemNow.com in an inspiring new motion picture from Kingstone Studios based on a true story. In no vacancy, a demoted journalist finds her cynicism slowly transformed as she befriends a recovering addict while working a story about a church struggling to purchase a motel for homeless families. No Vacancy starring Dean C. Stalings and Sean Young is based on the true story of First Baptist Leesburg, Florida. and a real location, The Samaritan Inn.

Movie reviewers are saying movies like this bring purpose to the big screen, well-produced, and the acting is tops. Enough cannot be said about how incredible this true story is, and this film does it justice. Pre-order it, September 19th, at SalemNow.com. Watch the movie on demand or buy the DVD

or buy the DVD on Friday, September 23rd, at SalemNow.com. Salem now.com. With the overturn of Roe v. Wade, lots of companies are coming out saying they'll pay for employee abortion travel and expenses. Most of you've heard about some of these companies. You've decided to stop shopping or doing business there, but did you know that you most likely own stock in those companies through your 401Ks, IRAs, and other investment accounts?

Folks, this is a huge problem, and we need to do something about this to send a message to Wall Street through our investments. You need to go to inspireadvisors.com and get a free Inspire Impact Report. This biblical investment analysis will educate you on what's really in your investment accounts, like companies paying for abortion travel. You need to go to inspireadvisors.com slash Eric to connect with an InspireAdvisors financial professional who can run your report and help remove companies paying for abortion travel today. Go to inspireadvisors.com slash Eric. That's inspireadvisors.com slash Eric. Advisory services are offered through Inspire Advisors LLC, a registered investment advisor with the SEC. Folks, welcome back.

It's the Eric Metaxis show. Typically, I interview someone. but today, Albin, he thought it would be fun for him to interview me since I have a new book out called Letter to the American Church. So, Albin, it's yours, man. Usually it's fun. I've got to tell you, my favorite book because of the fun aspect is Martin Luther because it was such a crazy time. It almost was like a fun facts Fridays. There were, you know, relics and indulgence.

There was a lot of humor in my Martin Luther book. This is not a book loaded with fun, no. No. I want to go on to what the pastors did back then, and of course, it's going to dovetail on to what the pastors are doing now. I just want to read this real quick. It's a mathematical calculation, which I found really fun, and it really explains, again, what happened when the pastors did try to speak up, and who was strong about their faith, and who said, I am, you know, I stand here and know, I'm not going to move. You said, we know what followed in Germany, because the 12,000 pastors or 12,000 pastors

chose to be political and shrank back from top taking a heroic stand, the Nazis were successful and they were able to marginalize and hopefully get in. But it began with, you started with 12,000 pastors. You said there were 3,000. Well, no, no, there were 18. Actually, I didn't know this. I didn't know this until I wrote this book because I said the parallel to today is that when the Nazis first took over, Bonhofer and a few heroes said, okay, we as the church must clearly speak against this Nazi regime. They're basically trying to destroy the church. Now, it's different than it is here in America,

but it's the same concept. They basically said, we're going to take over the church, we're going to crush the church, whatever it is. Something similar is happening today. But in Bonhofer's day, the first thing they did

was they wrote the famous Barman Declaration. And I write about that in the book. In the Barman Declaration, they basically made clear that our allegiance as Christians is to the Church of Jesus Christ, and we will not allow the state, the National Socialist Nazi state, to take over the church. We have different views on certain things. We are the church.

We don't have a racial view. The Nazis had a racial view of everything. On and on. So they write the Barman Declaration. About 6,000 people sign it, I think, whatever. But two years into this, as this goes on, of the 18,000 Protestant pastors in Germany, only 3,000 of the 18,000 stood strongly with the Barman Declaration. Tons of them had been intimidated into silence. They said, we don't want to get in trouble. We're going to keep our mouth shut. Now, on the other end of the spectrum, out of this 18,000, you had 3,000 who were super pro-Nazi,

who were happy to crush the confessing church, the people who signed the Barman Declaration. So you've got 3,000 heroes, you've got 3,000 devils in the middle. You have 12,000 pastors who said, you know what, we're not going to take sides. We're going to be quiet. We're going to be silent. It is because of the silence of those 12,000 pastors that the 3,000 were not able to prevail, that they were the ones having to fight the battles. It's kind of like when somebody gets canceled today and you just say, I'm not going to speak up

let so-and-so get canceled, let the hothead talk, and I'm just going to keep my job and keep my platform, and I'm not going to say anything I shouldn't say. So you had 12,000 pastors in Germany somehow persuaded that silence in the face of evil is the best path. And what I, the case that I make, I try to make in the book, is that it is because of the quiet, the silence of those 12,000 pastors that unbelievable evil was unleashed in the book. Germany. If any of those, now let's be honest, of those 12,000, I'll bet you more than half knew that the Nazis were evil, knew. They knew this. But they said, we're just going to be quiet. We're going to see which way the wind blows. Maybe it won't come from me. Maybe if I just keep

my head down, the Nazis will leave me alone. And you see that same spirit in the church in America today. You have a lot of pastors thinking, look, I don't want to get involved in the controversy. see, I don't want people coming after me. I might lose members of my congregation. I'm just going to keep quiet on all these issues. And you think, folks, how can you be quiet when you're dealing with issues that are just utterly anti-biblical in America? You could say many of them are fundamentally anti-American.

We have Marxism, cultural Marxism in various guises, taking over transgender madness. that if you don't go along with the transgender madness, you're losing jobs, people losing jobs. And children's lives are being destroyed. And I think to myself, how can you be silent today? Well, the reason people, Christians in the church are being silent, they're saying, you know what, let the other guy fight that battle. I don't want to be tagged.

Well, yeah, and you know, part of the problem, and the key word here in this chapter, 12,000 pastors is pastors. They were the leaders. They get up there. And if you, let's just say you have a congregation of 200 people, your pastor is either not speaking about it or saying like, no, we're going to welcome this and that. You're sitting there saying like, well, if he who knows scripture and he's wiser and he's, if he's going to take that stand, I think differently, but I'm not going to speak up.

But if you get up there and you start speaking, you encourage people and say like, listen, go out there, write the letter, run for office, you know, make a stand. Don't let this happen. So if your pastor, who is a leader, is a strong leader, he's going to strain. strengthen his flock. Right. If you want to take your Christianity seriously. Well, I mean, I think that's the one of the main points of the book is that people are hungry for truth and leadership. And somehow many Christian leaders have been persuaded to be quiet. They've been persuaded that to speak up on these issues is to get too political. And I'm here to say, folks, that's not biblical.

Don't agree with me just because we agree politically. Forget it. I'm talking about what is biblical. And in the book, I am very clear that it is about what does God want us to do. We're going to go to another break. We'll be right back. Albin is interviewing me. What happened? Stick around. My pillow is having their biggest sheet sale of the year. You've all helped build my pillow into the amazing company it is today. Now Mike Lindell, inventor and CEO wants to give back exclusively to my listeners. That's you. The perkale and Giza Dream bedsheets sets

are available in a variety of colors and sizes, and they're now all on sale for as low as 2998 with our listener promo code. Order now because when they're gone, they're gone. The perkale and Giza Dream sheets are breathable and have a cool, crisp feel. They come with a 10-year warranty and a 60-day money-back guarantee.

Don't miss out on this incredible offer because there's a limited supply, so be sure to order now. Call 1-800-378-3057 now and use the promo code Eric, or you can go to mypillow.com. Click on the radio listener square and use the promo code Eric. This offer will not last very long. They're known to sell quickly.

So order now with promo code Eric at mypillow.com. Promocode Eric at my pillow.com. Folks, welcome back as the Aircomttaxas show, but I, Eric Metaxis and the guest being interviewed by Albin, my producer. I love it. I love it. Yeah. It's great. So, yeah, I wanted to, if you don't mind, there's a phrase.

I think it's so important, it kind of dovetails off of what we just talked about, and that's spiral of silence. Oh, the spiral of silence. Yeah, I get into this. Chuck Colson introduced me to this idea. I read a lot about Chuck Colson in the book because he created something with Robbie George and Timothy George, a Beeson down in Birmingham, called the Manhattan Declaration, kind of based on the Barman Declaration.

This is, I guess it was 2009. They recognized what is happening now. They saw it back then, and they said, we need to write a, you know, a document that to get Christians to sign it so that as these things come to the fore, which they're now doing, that Christians will stand up. Well, Chuck was astonished at how many Christian leaders, this in 2009, refused to sign the Manhattan Declaration. Now, when you talk about the spiral of silence, here's the key. When you're quiet about something, if somebody says, you can't talk about vaccine passports, you can't talk about the negative effects of the vaccine, you can't talk about that the election was stolen, you can't talk about transgender stuff.

If you want to work here, you've got to tow the line on this transgender stuff or on gay marriage or whatever it is that you're being told you can and cannot say, right? if you do not speak, if you're quiet, you are encouraging other people to be quiet. In other words, whatever you do is contagious. So if you're bold and you speak, you're emboldening others, people say, well, so-and-so said such and such, thank you for saying that because that's what I was thinking, but I was kind of afraid to speak. Now I realize I really do need to speak up. Lives are at stake.

Children are at stake. The future's at stake. If you're silent, especially pastors, Christian leaders, when you don't. don't speak, you are encouraging other people to be quiet. And when you encourage other people to be quiet, that encourages other people to be quiet, which encourages other people to be quiet. And it's a spiral of silence. It is exactly what happened in Germany. If the church in particular had spoken up in the beginning, it couldn't have happened. But they said, not yet. Let's be quiet. Let's not rock the boat. We're good Germans. We don't want to, let's give Hitler a chance. Let's just

you know, and because of their silence, they made it more and more difficult to speak up. So if you had spoken against the Nazis in the beginning, you could have gotten away with it. The church had tremendous power. But every day the silence made more silence follow so that by the time you're in 1935, 36, you wouldn't dare open your mouth because you're going to a concentration camp. So I talk about that. And I guess I want to talk about why many of those pastors, because this is what ties in. into America today. Why were they silent? Why? They all had these kind of religious answers,

religious reasons. One of them, they said, Romans 13, it's very clear. We're not supposed to be political. Folks, that's nonsense. Romans 13 is not the be all and end all on this subject. It was written under the Roman Empire, where you would be crucified and tortured. You had no rights. In America, we are deputized. We, the people govern ourselves. So it's a completely different situation. But in any event, you could see how in Germany, they just said, oh, Romans 13, we're going to be quiet. We have a nice religious answer to cover our silence that we just want to preach the gospel. Some of them really believed that.

And I really believe the same thing is happening today. You've got pastors writing books about how we shouldn't be political. And I think to myself, ladies and gentlemen, how can you avoid politics? The unborn, okay, are made in God's image. I stand up for the unborn, plenty of people are going to say, you're just being political. You're just trying to shove your values down my throat. I am commanded by God to speak the truth about the unborn. Wilberforce spoke the truth about the slave trade.

Bonhofer spoke the truth about the Nazis. There are many people today in the American church who would say, oh, I would have stood with Wilberforce. Are you kidding? Everybody knows slavery is wrong. I would have stood with Bonhofer. Everybody knows the Nazis are right. Folks, let me tell you something. If you are not speaking up on these issues today, you're guilty of the people who did not stand with Wilberforce

and who made his life infinitely more difficult. You're guilty of the people who did not stand with Bonhoeffer. The parallel is the same and the excuses are the same. And what I'm trying to do in the book is to get people to see this. A couple of people have written books saying the exact opposite of what I'm saying in my book. One of them is Andy Stanley. He wrote a book called Not In It to Win It. Ladies and gentlemen, I was astonished when I read the book. Look, it's just flat out wrong. I know he thinks he's right, but it's absolutely wrong. And when I say wrong, I say unbiblical, okay?

It's not biblical. If it was biblical, I would say, well, maybe I don't like it, but it's biblical. It's absolutely wrong. The idea that getting involved in politics, getting involved in the culture and speaking, is not the role of the church is madness. We've made an idol of evangelism as though we can speak about nothing but quote unquote the gospel.

That is very confused, wrong-headed theology. But I got to tell you, I went on Amazon to look at his book. There was a fulsome endorsement from my friend Jim Daley, a focus on the family. And that's when I thought to myself, many, many good people have been deceived into thinking this is the right path.

And I want to say to these good people, folks, please reconsider because the nation's at stake, many good Germans, many wonderful German Christians got this wrong. Martin Niemuller, the hero. He got this wrong. And when he finally woke up, he knew, oh, it's too late. I spoke up too late. If I would have spoken up a year ago, we could have saved Germany from hell. And the fact of the matter is it was too late. And I really, as you said, Albin, I wrote this book because the parallels of the German church are astonishing. They had all these good religious reasons. We now know they were wrong. But do we now know that many of us are getting it wrong and that we have an obligation to speak up?

Do we understand how bad things are? And do we understand that there are people, really suffering in your congregations outside of your congregate, they are really suffering and they're going to suffer more and more and more if the church is silent on all of these issues. I just want to say, I know we have to go to another break, but it's hard for me to, I just want to say lovingly, folks, consider what I'm saying in this book, because it is really only what Bonhoeffer was saying. And we saw what happened. People didn't heed his voice then. The church didn't heed his voice then. The question is, will the American church heed his voice today? Okay, we'll be right back. Folks, welcome back. The Eric McAxas show, but I, Eric McAxas, oddly enough, am the guest. The host is my producer, Albin. He's

asking me questions of my new book, Letter to the American Church. And this was your idea, Alvin. This was my idea. So I'm not. Because this is so powerful, very serious. And, you know, people out there are going to be like, well, how can I get involved? And what about my church? I'm in a church right now, and the pastor doesn't seem to get it. One thing is the pastor needs to read this book. You need to read this book. But people that do get it. A couple pastors, because Ann and I, every Sunday, we go, most every Sunday, we go to Jonathan

Khan's church in Wayne, New Jersey. And he has a new book out. You interviewed him. Great book. It's kind of another angle on this. This is called Return of the Gods. And you've got to hear that interview. Anne and I watched it twice, by the way, that interview you did with Jonathan Con.

Powerful stuff. Jonathan Con gets it. He's awoke. awake. Jack Hibbs, of course, Calvary Chapel. Let's be clear. There are many pastors in the country who do get this. Yes. And half of them have become my friends at this point. But there are many that are still very, very shy about this. They're afraid of losing members in their congregations. And I'm just thinking, folks, if you, you have to try to understand that. Nothing's new. The German masters who were silent. It's so easy for us to point our fingers at them and say, oh, I wouldn't

have been silent. Folks, they're no different than we are today. They had their good reasons. We now know they were wrong. We now know those reasons were invalid. But they were not saying, hey, we don't care about the truth. We don't care about the. They were just misguided. And what I'm trying to say in this book is I'm trying to say, look at the parallels. Tell me what I'm missing. I mean, this is not an incendiary book designed to shame people. This is a, I hope, a loving message to people and saying, listen, good people can get this wrong. Would you consider what I'm saying here? Would you consider what Bonhofer was saying?

And would you, I mean, I guess to me the worst thing, Albin, is when I think about the German pastors who were silent, when they had to live through the hell of what happened and then decades later hanging their heads in shame I just want to say we don't want to be like that we don't want to fail and then to hang our heads in shame for decades so this is an opportunity but I guess don't do it for yourself think about the people whose lives are being affected

think about young women who are being persuaded that they're confused about whether they're a woman or a man. They're having their breasts removed. They're having these things happening. And my heart breaks. And if you care about these people who are being deceived and you don't speak up, what is the biblical view of this?

How many genders does the Bible say, if you're not talking about that lovingly, if you're not talking about biblical view of sexuality, if you're not talking about how critical race theory is, atheistic. The BLM movement is atheistic and Marxist and is going to destroy black lives. If you care about black lives, you are obliged because of the truth of what the scripture says to speak. And this is just what I'm hoping in the book is that people, I can reason with people in this book, because I'll just say this because I know we're out of time, but I will say that folks, the urgency.

see, this is the key. It's like you may have weeks, months, I don't know, but the silence of the American church is destroying this nation in the same way the silence of the German church destroyed the German nation. And if we do not understand this and repent and begin to speak, we will see horrible things. And we will no longer have the ability to speak. So it's, There's just no doubt, Albin, that this, I've written this book as a warning. I'm just begging people to think about this. I hope people will give this book to their pastors. I know we're out of time, but I'm just grateful for your willingness to ask me some questions, folks.

Thanks for listening.