The Eric Metaxas Show - Eric Shares His "Letter" - Part 2

Episode Date: September 22, 2022

Eric continues his discussion of key points and valuable insights found in his "Letter to the American Church," hopeful that an awakening among Christians will lead to averting further disaster in this country.

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. Taxis show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Hey, folks, if I seem tired in my voice, it's probably because I'm extremely tired. I'm faking only being tired. That's acting. When you're extremely tired and you only seem tired, that's being a professional. I am so exhausted because yesterday was the launch day of the book.

My new book, Letter to the American Church, and oh my goodness, I did so much media, which is a blessing, but it is absolutely exhausting. I even did stuff yesterday that they didn't air yesterday, but I was on with Charlie Kirk in, I guess at 2 o'clock. He had me out for the whole hour. And it was, it was pretty extraordinary, really, to do an hour with Charlie. And I think that accounts for here's the good news.

Albin, I think you just mentioned it to me. But the book hit the top 100 on Amazon yesterday, which I have to tell you. And it's still in the top 100 right now. That's a big deal, folks. So any of you who ordered the book in the last few days, particular, I want to say thank you because I know I mention this every time I come out with a book, but it is really vital to the success of a book that it do very well in the beginning and that it bump into onto bestseller lists. Otherwise, it pretty much gets forgotten. It's one of those,

you know, it's it kind of feeds on itself. If it does well out of the gate, it gets more attention. So I've been posting on my social media. And if you get my newsletter at EricMetakS.com, some terrific interviews that people have done with me about the book, just to give you an idea of what's in it, if you haven't read it. But it hit number 65 sometime in the middle of the night. And this morning when I got up, I think it was at 70 or 71 or something like that. Yeah. On the Amazon, now that's the only way we can know. because these other bestseller lists are, you know, weeks and weeks in advance.

But for it to be in the top 100 on Amazon with the title like letter to the American Church, that's kind of a big deal. And, you know, Albin, I know I've said this to you, but I will say this to the audience. I ask for your prayers, folks, because we're in a tremendous battle right now. And when I say we, I mean, in the country, we are, as you know, facing things. The reason I wrote the book is because I flat out say that if we do not wake up, if the church does not wake up and heroically, courageously fight for the truth and speak the truth, God will hold us accountable. And I'll say that flatly that it is the fault of America. Christians for the state of Christianity. Sorry, for the state of America. It's the fault of the church for the state of America. The church is supposed to be the conscience of the nation in the words of Bonhoeffer. We're supposed to be the voice for the voiceless. And when we're silent on every one of these hot button issues, it doesn't matter where you look. The tremendous overreach of the government and of social.

of big tech in bullying us during the pandemic. All of this stuff, which is out of the Marxist playbook, it's big state. It's the opposite of liberty. These things are evil and they are, no matter where you look, you've had most in the church be silent, be compliant, which is precisely like the German church, which is what I say. So it really is a battle. This is not about selling books. This is about getting a message out because it is my belief that this is where things stand right now and that the American church will go precisely on the path of the German church unless we understand where we have heard, why we have been silent. In the book, I try to explain why good people are still being silent or are saying things like,

like, oh, we're being too political. We shouldn't be political. We've mistaken the gospel for politics. No, that is not the issue. Maybe some people have done that, but most people have done the opposite. Most people have been silent in the name of what they think is the gospel, and they have refused to be involved, whether politically or in any other way. That is why we are in these bleak, in the bleak situation in which we find ourselves. So now, Albin, today, we are airing two exciting hours. I'm speaking to Megan Basham. She's a hero, folks.

I want to tell you, she is one of the few voices, particularly in the Christian community, speaking clarity and truth. She will be on this show in hour two, in hour one in a couple of minutes. We're going to air. Albin interviewed me about the book, just so you don't have to look any place beyond the show.

We just did it right here. But Albin interviews me about the book. But if you sign up for the newsletter, Ericmataxis.com, we'll send you all kinds of stuff because there's just honestly all kinds of stuff that we want to share with you. I have to mention Albin, last night,

Suzanne gets a call from her sister that the code Eric is not working at my store.com or my pillow.com. You've got to be kidding me. I said, that doesn't make sense. So I checked and it wasn't working. So I immediately texted Mike Lindell. Now, if you want to know how insane Mike Lindell is, Mike Lindell is on all the time.

He immediately texts me back. We're looking into it. I mean, I find him superhuman. The man is unbelievable. It was fixed within a few hours. At least it was fixed for me. But if you had a problem when you went to my store.com, or MyPillow.com using the code Eric, that was fixed.

So I did want to mention that. Yeah. Yeah. And please, please, please order the coffee. Anne and I are almost finished with our first two pound bag. You got to get the coffee. It is amazing. It's funny that he got into the coffee business, isn't it?

I find it hilarious. Like the sleep guy got into the coffee business. Wake up and go to sleep. So anyway, we should also mention. mention I am today flying to Dallas. I'm going to be on Daystar TV. I'm going to be with John Smirak doing something for the stream, which will air ASAP. I'm speaking at a conference on Friday. I always forget the name of the conference, the wake up conference in Dallas, in Rowlett, Texas. If you can get to that, please get to that. And then you don't want to forget, Sunday.

if you can get to Times Square in New York City, folks, it's going to be crazy. There's going to be a let us worship event with Sean Foyt. I'm going to be there. I'm in the film Super Spreader. There's going to be a screening of the film after that. I think the theater is now full. So I don't know. I don't know.

What do I know? I just got to show up. And we don't want to forget, Socrates in the city with Andrew Claven is coming up Tuesday. That's six days from today. I don't believe this. Six days from today. Andrew Claven, Socrates in the city. It's just nuts.

Now, tomorrow, I think we, do we have a Johns Merak tomorrow? Yes, we've got Johns Merak tomorrow. Okay. We have Ask Mataxis. We have Johns Merak. We got a number of other things tomorrow. I think we got Joel Rosenberg. Yes.

Tomorrow. And on Friday, folks. Oh, get right. Great Dick Morris. Dick Morris is amazing. In fact, I think he's going to be at the Socrates event. If you ever wanted to meet Dick Morris, the guy is a legend. I just want to tell you, he is absolutely astonishing.

But the Socrates in the city event, if you go to Socrates in the city.com, you can sign up for that. And I do say if you know somebody like a young person in the New York area, this would be a wonderful thing to send them, you know, they're always attractive young people. wearing jackets and ties and, you know, dresses. And it's just, it's kind of a beautiful event. And Albin, are you going to be there on Sunday? I'm going to try to be there on Sunday. I'm having a procedure done on Thursday.

You can't talk about that on the air. We can't talk about it on the air. Okay. Well, anyway, folks, so we got Megan Basham. We have Alvin interviewing me. If you haven't gotten a copy of the new book, Letter to the American Church, please do it today. God bless you.

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This was your idea. You wanted to interview me about my new book letter to the American Church. And I thought, well, I've been doing all kinds of interviews, but wouldn't be fun to have you, whom I know, to have you interview me. So if you want to, I will try to answer your whole. hard-hitting journalistic questions about my new book letter to the American Church, which I presume you've glanced through. Yeah, I did. And I'm all pumped up, by the way. This is my journalistic self, and I've never taken a course in journalism, but I'm ready, okay. But you really

did read the book. I'm joking around. I did. I did from front to cover. I put copious notes in here. From front to cover. Yeah. Oh, front to back. That was like a trick. Okay. Okay. All right. So you can see how well. I read the cover from front to the front cover. I read, okay. Yeah. The dust jacket. Okay. You know what? So many of these chapter titles lead to explanation. Yeah. And of course, you flesh things out. But I love this title, and I'd love to hear what you want to say about this. Yeah. Yeah. The idol of evangelism. Why is that an idol? Think about this. Yeah. If you think about this, we have to think about this spiritually, right? The enemy, Satan cannot

create anything. Only God can create. So all. all the enemy can do is pervert what is already created, twist it, steal it. So the worst thing that evil does is create something that looks close to what God did, but is twisted, is perverted. In other words, to make a counterfeit, right? Like, you know, a counterfeit dollar bill, a counterfeit $100 bill, the closer it looks to the real thing, the more it will fool people. And so you think, let's take a good thing, if we're the devil, and let's just pervert it slightly to fool those who really love that good

thing. So what's one of the greatest things in the history of the world? Evangelism, the idea of leading people to faith. I can say from my own experience that when Jesus came into my life, it changed everything. And in some cases, it's more dramatic in some cases. But no matter, matter how it happens. It's the most beautiful thing. So many Christians, myself among them, have rightly understood bringing the faith to those who don't have it is one of the most glorious, beautiful things a human being can do to share this beautiful thing that you've been given freely. But here's where the problem comes in. A lot of people, particularly in the evangelical church have made an idol of evangelism. When I say made an idol, in other words,

they're kind of worshipping the idea of sharing the faith with somebody and bringing somebody to Jesus more than they are worshipping Jesus himself. Instead of evangelism being an outworking of your faith in the God of the Bible, it almost becomes an idol. It does become an idol. And the reason I put it this way is because in the book I say, I have noticed that there are people, for the sake of theoretically bringing someone to Christian faith, they will say nothing that's potentially controversial. In other words, if you're talking to somebody about, well, you're having conversation with somebody, and you wisely would say, well, you know what, I'm not going to bring up the issue of abortion

because I know this person, that that's going to be a trigger for them, right? Now, sometimes I think that's the right thing to do. You're not supposed to talk about every controversial thing. You're talking about Jesus. You're talking about faith in Christ, right? But there's some people who've made a policy of this so that from the pulpit, wherever they are, they won't talk about anything that the other person might disagree with.

And I think to myself, ladies and gentlemen, there's a time when you must do that. And so if the church has been silenced and you say, I will not talk about anything bearing on politics. Here's the problem. In 1985, that might have made sense. In 1995, in 2005, it might have made sense. We're at a point now where if you refuse to talk about the idea of critical race theory, which is Marxist, infiltrating the churches, fooling people. If you refuse to talk about the transgender madness, destroying lives, destroying young bodies and futures. If you refuse to talk about these things because you say, well, I don't want to drive somebody away from Jesus. In theory, I get that. But it has become so widespread that the church has been silenced on key issues. And it is the job of the church to speak truth. Bonhofer was willing to say things. And people said, oh, listen, the Nazis might come to faith. Don't bring that up. Don't bring that up. There is a time.

when God is looking to his people to speak the truth, Wilberforce spoke the truth on the slave trade. People told him to shut up. Bonhofer spoke the truth about what the Nazis meant to do to the church. People said, shut up, don't be controversial, don't be political. And there are pastors that we know, I'm not going to mention them, I touch on some of them in the book, who really would be happy to almost go along with evil

for the theoretical idea of leading someone to faith. And I just think to myself, this has become epidemic. In other words, if this once in a while you're in a conversation, you think, well, I'm not going to bring up to it. I get that, okay? But this has become epidemic. And we have pastors now openly saying, do not be political.

It's not gospel-related. You've only got to speak about, quote-unquote, gospel-related issues. And I think if you're not talking about some of this evil stuff that is happening, what gospel do you have to preach? You're afraid to speak truth. Jesus, by the way, spoke a lot of truth that pushed a lot of people away. I don't think anybody cared more about leading souls to eternity than Jesus. So, I mean, I explained it more in the book, but that's the actual version.

You have so many examples with Paul and with the writings and with Jesus himself. What I like, and I've heard you in churches and even on this show with guests, You talk about not so much leading people to Christ with what you say, but just waking people up to reality, to reality. The Bible tells us to speak the truth in love. And you're saying, just show the people what is actually true. And truth is a person as you write here. The person is Jesus Christ, the word. And by showing people reality, and, you know, nowadays it's easy enough to show people reality about what's happening to our children in the classroom.

You don't have to say, oh, theoretically it's happening. No, this is reality. Actually, I think this is a good point, is that what happens to people, this is, I'm talking about Christians, they become, in the pejorative sense, religious. They only talk about religious things and theological things. And you think, folks, God is the God of reality. He created reality. He is truth.

So whenever you're doing justice to truth or reality, you're leading people to God. So if I'm talking about the fact, the scientific fact, that there is male and female, that's it. Okay? I don't even have to bring up God because there are tons of people who are not self-identifying as evangelical Christians that they see. This is just crazy. You mean 10 minutes ago, somebody like in a lab discovered more genders and we've all got to change our thinking? This is not science. This is just madness and ideology. And so all you have to do is witness to the truth and to reality because most people see that. Most people know that. And when you do that, there are tons of people that are not people of faith that they're led to faith because they say, yes, it makes sense. I now see where that other stuff leads and it leads to lunacy, to talking to little children, asking them what pronouns they prefer. That's child abuse. Most people, most parents and grandparents get that. You don't need to be a

Bible-believing Christian to understand that that is child abuse. It is wicked. It is sick. And I thought to myself, if the church is being silent on these issues, God is judging us right now because we are, God requires us to speak the truth more than anyone he requires us to speak the truth. And 50 years from now, people will be looking back at us, just like we look back at the German people and say, why didn't they do something? Fifty years from now, people look at us and say, why didn't they do something? It was obvious. Yeah, they're going to, I mean, there's a lot of the stuff that's been going on, whether it's with the vaccines or whether it's with the voting fraud or whatever. This stuff is going to come out. And so the idea

that's like, well, I better shut up. I better be careful. It's all going to come out. And so if you're a Christian, I guess this is the book, you know, I just say, If you are a Christian, it's called Letter to the Church, a letter to the American Church. If you're a Christian, you are obliged. God has put you here to speak the truth. And when you speak the truth, you will find, ironically, people will be drawn to the God you claim to worship because you show the courage of your convictions and because you say, I don't care what the results are about my job or this or that. I believe in doing what is right and true and speaking the truth.

And so when you are speaking the truth, when you're not silent on all these issues, ironically, more people will come to faith. But if all you're worried about is not offending somebody and keeping your mouth shut and saying nothing, you are ultimately going to drive people away from the thin-lipped pseudo-gospel that you claim to be preaching. We're going to a break. Albin is interviewing me about letter to the American Church. We'll be right back. You've heard and seen most of the truth behind the events of January 6th, and now you can visit Washington, D.C., on September 24th, and join J6 Solidarity, and their peaceful and patriotic event that will expose the entire truth of January 6th

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Thank you for your time. You're patriotic, loyally. And as always, God bless America. J6. Solid.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 formulated Relief Factor for them selected the four best ingredients, yes, 100% drug-free ingredients, each helps your body deal with inflammation.

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book letter to the American Church. It's kind of kooky. It's my show, but I get to be a guest. Can you believe that? All right, get a hit me with a hard question. Now, on the front it talks about your other book, of course, Bonhofer and Pastor, Martyr, prophet, and spy. And in this book, you reveal two

things that had been questions in my head for many years. One of them was the phrase religious-less Christianity, because people were debating, well, Bonhofer at the end, he backed away from Christianity and that sort of thing. And you explain why there was a confusion about that. And the second thing is like, why would he get involved in a plot to kill Hitler? Isn't that murder?

Why would he do that? You explained it so incredibly clearly and maybe you could touch on both of those phrases and both of those actions. Yeah, these are two huge misunderstandings. And when I wrote the Bonhofer book, and I would do Q&A after I'd speak, and I would always get these questions, you know. So the first one is when I began to write about Bonhofer, I didn't know what I would find, because there had been this idea out there among theological liberals and agnostics and atheists that Bonhofer drifted away from the faith at the end of his life. And he used this phrase, religiousness Christianity, and they used that phrase, they perverted it to make it sound like he drifted away from Christianity. And when I looked into it myself, I said, it is exactly the opposite. He basically said that playing church, all these Germans going to church and going through the motions, they were being merely religious in the negative sense. They were not living out their faith. I would say this is true of much of the American church today.

You say, I believe this, and I believe this, and I go to Bible, said, I'm going to God doesn't care. He cares on whether you are living out your faith. If you really believe what you claim to believe, you're going to be living it out. So Bonhofer saw that the rise of the Nazis was made possible by Christians who were not being fully Christian. They were merely being religious. And he said the only way to stand against evil, which is what we're facing today in the American church, is to be deeply, truly Christian, 24-7, not to say, well, I go to church and I went to the Bible study and I believe you have to live out your faith, 24-7. Now, what does that look like? I don't think it means you're going to be a religious fanatic, but you're going to be a truth fanatic.

You're going to be a courage fanatic. You're going to say, I have been freed because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. I've been freed to speak the truth in love, not to fear, not to fear anything, much less death, because Jesus actually defeated death, and I know that's true. It's not a nice idea. And so Bonhofer said, nothing less than that, nothing less than a religionless Christianity can stand against evil. And I see exactly that. Folks, that is what God is calling the American Church to today is a religionless Christianity. Forget your pieties, whatever. Live out your faith self-sacrificially.

Agape love, the love of God is self-sacrificial. It means that I know that God calls me to sacrifice for others, many of whom I'll never meet to do the right thing, to speak truth on all these issues for the benefit of strangers, but God will honor that. So that's what God is looking for. And then the question of Bonhofer, I mean, this is like hilarious people say, like, how can a man of God get involved in a plot to murder the head of state? And I say, first of all, it's not murder, okay? There are killing, David did not murder Goliath. He killed Goliath, but there are times, you know, when you're defending your family, if you use self-defense, That's not called murder, right?

It's killing. Killing is always lamentable, but it's not murder. Bonhofer made a decision. He said, look, I know that Hitler and the Nazis are overseeing the murder of millions of innocence, mostly Jews, but others as well. If I don't do something, now if you're a combatant in a war, you would have no problem, killing the enemy. They're trying to kill you.

They're trying to rape your daughters. You know, you are in a war. Bonhofer was making this larger calculation that now the time has come for us for the sake of Germany that we have to take aside in this war against the wicked leadership of the Nazis. So this was not murder.

And Bonhofer even said, you know, if you have... have a maniac driving a car down the street, killing people with the car, don't you think some sniper would take out the driver to save the lives of the innocents being killed by the car? That's not murder. That's protecting the innocent. And so it's kind of fascinating how oftentimes we think very sloppily. And I realized part of the reason I wrote the book is to clarify a lot of the sloppy thinking

that we have had in the church with regard to what is faith, what is required of me. and all those kinds of things. The story of Bonhofer, because I know we're going to a break, but just to finish on Bonhofer here, I have to say that he tried really hard to get the church to speak up. He tried and tried and tried and tried and because the church refused to hear what he was saying and to act out on this until it was too late, what happened to Germany and to the world,

it's like one of the greatest nightmares in history. And what I'm saying in this book is that the silence of the American church now, literally now, not in a few years now, is leading to something similar. And that if those of us who have ears to hear this and understand that now is the time for us to do what the Germans did not do, they waited and waited and waited and then it was too late, it's going to be too late in five minutes. If we do the right thing now, we can avert disaster. If we don't, disaster will come. There's no question in my mind, and that's why I say it as dramatically as I do.

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Promocode Eric at my pillow. Dot com. Folks, welcome back. It's my program, the Airquit Taxis Show. But oddly enough, I am the hunted. I am the guest. And Albin is playing the role of host. Asking me questions about my new book, Letter to the American Church.

Yes. Oh, good stuff, good stuff. You know what I really like? Of course, it's the letter to the American church, so it's got some churchy stuff in there, like scripture verses. Yeah. I was really happy to see Galatians 5-1. 5-1 says, it is for freedom that Christ has set you free. Stand firm then, and do not let yourself be burdened again by yoga slavery. One verse, and the other one, which I say will be on my tombstone, hopefully about 30 or 32 years from now, John 174. I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.

That's a call to all of us because we were born for such a time as this, believe it or not. But the one verse I saw missing, which I think is so key today, is Romans 12-2. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your thinking. The pattern of this world keeps telling Christians, don't be political, keeps telling Christians, you know, shut up, or you're a bigot. or you're this or that. And the Christians say like, I go if I am, instead of saying,

be transformed by the renewing of your mind, the Bible. That's the renewing of our mind. And the passion translation response is, no, you shut up. No, but it's kind of funny because I think, again, we have to be clear, theologically, the enemy is going to play on our weaknesses.

And a lot of Christians, particularly in America, they're nice people. And they want to be nice. And so when somebody accuses them of whatever it is, the tendency is to be like, oh, okay. And I think there's a time when we have to say no, no, that's wrong. And I think because we've lived in such blessed times in this country, that muscle has atrophied in us where we say, no, I will not do this.

I will not do that. That is, I will not close my church. I will not get the vaccine. I will not shut up about what's going on politically. I will not put a BLM flag outside of my building. I will not put a rainbow flag. I'm a Christian, and I have freedom, and I'm going to speak the truth.

Why? Because I believe it will bless others. Not for me. Forget about me. We're supposed to live for others. And I really think that the church has an opportunity now to live out our faith. And the quote from John about completing the work,

I think, and this is part of, what I touch on in the book. There are plenty of people that think everything's about evangelism. They forget that the minute you come to faith, God can now use you for the purpose for which you were born into this world, which is to do works that he has called you, that he's prepared for you in advance to do. And one of those things is to stand up heroically in the midst of chaos, to speak the truth, to give hope to those who are confused, who don't see hope. And I really do think that that's kind of the key is that we've got in the American church, one of the heresies that we've kind of drifted toward is the idea that it's just about evangelism.

And what I do, how I live, it doesn't matter except for whether it will lead somebody to faith or something like that. And I think if you're living in Wolverford, it's this time. The slave trade was one of the most horrible things imaginable. If you love God, you would work again. the slave trade. And there many people said, nah, that doesn't concern me. There are things going on today, folks, whether you're talking about fentanyl coming over the border, open borders, people dying of drug overdoses, you're supposed to care about those people. You're supposed to care about what's going on in China. Weager Muslims are being murdered for their organs, and we do business with China. We look the other way. LeBron James, you know, tells us to shut up about that. I mean, if the church does not speak the truth, who's supposed to speak the truth? We are deputized by God to speak the truth on every one of these issues. And when people tell you, oh, you're just being political, you could say, well, I'm just being truthful.

And I'll tell you, the hopeful stuff, which we can, is in your book as well. It's not just like, oh, things are terrible, unless you get up and do something, you actually show great. Great examples. Of course, Wilberforce, of course, Bonhoeffer, but you talk about Ronald Reagan, just a phrase, just a phrase. In our lifetime, we said communism would never end in Russia, never end, never end. But Reagan, with just a phrase that everybody said, shut up and sit down, don't say it, you're going to mess the pot up. And I can, and you'll explain that in a second, but I can think of something else that we thought would never end in our lifetime. Abortion. Bingo. Bingo. And yet there was somebody that actually said they were going to. to do just that. All you had to do is vote for a thrice married, philandering New York real estate developer, but I would never dirty my hands. Let the unborn be murdered. What do I care? I just don't want to vote for mean people. Yeah, well, that's kind of where we are. And this is why this is a kind of a call to reality, folks, that God is going to judge us on, you know, am I trying to cover my rear rent? It's like, I want to vote for somebody who my neighbors say he's mean or something like. I love

the thing about Rahab, the prostitute. Oh, man. God used a prostitute in the line of Jesus. How could that be? She's a prostitute. Well, this is what I'm saying. It's like, if you really understand what the Bible says, you don't have this kind of cavalier religious view that it's about being nice.

And I'm not going to tell the Gestapo man a lie. And I'll cooperate with the FBI. And just, you know, it's Romans 13. Folks, here's the problem. That's not biblical. It's not God's will. And the Reagan thing, I got to tell you, Albin, this kind of ties into the whole thing about how God often uses people outside the church, okay? Whether it's Donald Trump or Ronald Reagan or anybody, Cyrus in the Old Testament, God often uses people outside the church to shame the church and to say to the church, if you are not going to do what I require, I will find someone outside the church to show you.

you something. And the fact that Ronald Reagan was used by God. Now, Ronald Reagan was not some, you know, he was pro-Christian kind of like Trump, but where he actually stood, his wife is consulting astrologers. And, you know, I don't know. All I know is he did the right thing. And he dared to say what the safe, religious rhino, whatever establishment, they said, you can't say Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall. No, no, no, no, no. Let's just play patty cake with the devil. Let's not confront the devil. We don't really want to win. We don't want to free people from the Soviet gulag. Let them rot. We just want to, let's play it safe. And Reagan said, no, I'm going to say it. And at the last chapter of the book, I talk about what he said.

Yeah. We're at a time when we come back, we can probably touch on that. Okay. Well, we're doing something kooky here today. Albin is interviewing me about my new book letter to the American church. Albin, what other hard-hitting journalistic questions? I wrote down. I made so many notes on so many pages, so many questions I wrote down. But the thing that I really loved about it, because I finished it last night, I was actually reading it to Anne. She wanted me to read it to her so she could get sleepy. But, you know, you wake people up with some of this stuff.

I've got to tell you. But the best part, the best part about this book, it does have a hopeful ending. And it's the chapter even before you get into talking about some examples, not only from the Old Testament, the New Testament and history of the past. But with Ronald Reagan, I just love that, that you touched on that. And it's because of that, we have examples in our own lifetime. It's not just, oh, well, those guys, that was what they lived through and all that. No, we're older, of course, and they're young people, you know, that might not experience some of this.

But to think about Reagan and what he did. But there always have been voices. I mean, really, it's the voice of the devil that says, We can't win. We can't win. Don't do anything. Just go to your caves. Just give up.

That's the voice of the devil. And I want to tell you, it's like the voice of Mrs. Danvers in the movie, Rebecca. You know, just jump out the window and end it. It would be so easy. It's the voice of the devil just telling you, don't fight. It's over. There's no winning. I'm here to tell you.

people said that to me when Trump was running against Hillary. Like, don't stick your neck out. There's not a chance he's going to win. And when she wins, you'll be in big trouble. You know, like, anything, I'm just supposed to fight for what is right and true and put the results in God's hands. Reagan said, I'm supposed to fight. The people who've been fighting for Roe v. Wade all these years, they've been told it will never change. The Soviet Union will never go down.

That's the voice of the devil that says, do not fight. And I'm telling you right now in America, if things look hopeless, I promise you, folks, if you will do what is right, whatever you can do, we all have a different role to play. I hope that there are pastors who will be persuaded by what I wrote in this book and they'll say, you know what? Yes, I kind of bought into some of this and I think I was wrong. I'm going to be a little bit more vocal. I'm going to talk about this. If you do that, folks, I promise you. That is God's will, and it is his will to lead us out of this mess, to lead people to faith.

But we each have to do our part. There are so many bullies out there these days, and that's what they are. They're pushing and pushing and pushing. I talk about this in an article I wrote, Who Died and Made You Boss? They sing, hey, I'm a boss now. I'm telling you. And we're like, we have the word of God. How can you be above the boss of bosses, A?

Well, again, if you don't know who God is really, that you're going to let people push you around. And by the way, I'll say it again, this is kind of the main reason I wrote the book is because this is exactly what happened in Germany. In the 30s, before they had any clue where this was going, they just assumed my job is to be a nice Christian and just to preach the little gospel in my church

so that they don't shut me down. And you think, no, no, it was your job, we now know, to speak the truth and to fight the wickedness of what was coming, to be willing to see it and to fight against it. Bonhofer tried to get you to do that. God was trying to get you to do that. They didn't do it. And they paid a price, which we have to understand. It is unimaginable. It was unimaginable to them. We're going through the same thing. I'm just going to say it bluntly again. If you think that can't happen here, I guarantee you,

it will happen here. It is happening here unless the church repent of its silence. It's why I think God led me to write the book, and I trust that God is in charge of the results, but I feel this is where we are. And I beg people to give it a hearing, to just see, am I getting something wrong? I don't think so, but you tell me. We're out of time. Albin, thank you so much for your kooky idea. I really appreciate it. Thank you.