The Eric Metaxas Show - James Spencer

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

James Spencer is in the studio to share tales of D.L. Moody, his biography, as well as the substantial impact down through the decades of the center that bears his name.

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. Welcome to the Eric Mataxis show. They say it's a thin line between love and hate, but we're working every day to thicken that line, or at least to make it a double or triple line. But now here's your line jumping host, Eric Mattaxas.

Hey there, folks. You know how you keep whining that there's nothing to see on TV or here or there? We are here to help. I'm not joking because you've heard me say this many times. SalemNow.com has a ton of superb stuff. SalemNow.com. The latest offering from salemnow.com, one of the most important in my opinion, opinion features our friend Vody Bauchamp talking about his book fault lines and the preposterous

thinking behind critical race theory, yada, yada, yada. I thought, wouldn't it be great if we could get Vody Baucom on the program to tell us about this 10-part series at SalemNow.com? But how can you get Vody Baucus? He's in Zambia. He's on another continent. And then someone said, no, Eric. Occasionally, he visits the United States of America.

He is now in Houston. Vody, Balcom. Welcome. Hey, thank you very much. It's good to be with you. Listen, I was very excited, as you could tell, to hear about this series. Because everywhere I go, people ask me to explain, what can I read or what can I look at? You know, I'm confused by critical race theory.

And, you know, my first thing that I want to say is, yet that's the idea behind critical theory is to confuse you enough so that you just go whatever and you kind of accept it. You, Voddy, have written an important book called Fault Lines. You deal with this. But now, SalemNow.com is offering a 10-part series featuring you in-depth. I'm very excited about this. So tell my audience if they watch this, or I should say when they watch this, because I hope they watch it at SalemNow.com. What will they discover? What do you? what do you give them in this 10-part series? Yeah, what we do is we take the big ideas of the book

and we break them up into bite-sized pieces. We have the video is part of a curriculum. So there's actually a workbook as well that goes with it. So we've designed it so that people can get together in groups. You can do it yourself. But we want people to get together in groups, read the book, work through the questions in this workbook, these videos and have the discussions that the neo-Marxists have said they want to have,

but they really don't. That the neo-Marxists have said they want to have, but they really don't. That's exactly right. That's why they should be scared of you. Actually, more importantly, they're scared of the truth because when you shine light on the nonsense of critical race theory, you know, the cockroaches scatter never to come out again. And that's basically what you're doing is you're shining. light on this. So you're saying that the 10-part series at SalemNow.com is really designed as a

curriculum to help people process this. Yeah, absolutely. And again, you can do it on your own, but we've also designed it so that you can do it in groups. And a lot of people have just said to us, if you're having a difficult time, even initiating conversations about this stuff, it seems like we're talking past one another. Yeah. So this is designed to really, um, a, a eliminate that, to alleviate that, to get people on the same page and to get them digging into the material. We have a lot of source material. We have a lot of people speaking for themselves in this. And so, you know, we've made sure that we've made this as clear as you possibly could. As to what this ideology is, what this ideology teaches, and to how this ideology tries to deceive.

Yeah. Well, that's the point. And I think that what shocks me, and it's one of the reasons I'm so excited that you exist and you've written the book fault lines and you've done the series at Salem Now.com is that we have many evangelical churches that are either welcoming in this atheistic nonsense or just opening the door to let it come in a little bit because they've become confused, they're ridden with white guilt and they're afraid to oppose it. And you help them understand in the video series at salem now.com and in your book fault lines that if you don't oppose this, you are harming black communities. You have an obligation as a Christian, if you believe in truth, to understand that this is in fact a pernicious ideology. This isn't a little bit good.

It is all the way bad. And many people don't have the confidence to know that. And that's the role that you play, and again, it's why I'm so glad you've done this 10-part video series. How long are each of the videos? Each of the videos are 10 to 12 minutes long. Oh, wow. Very short. Great. Yeah.

It's not like we've got you, you know, having to sit there for long periods of time going through this. We get straight to the point. The meat of it is in the curriculum piece, and you get the, that as a downloadable PDF when you go to SalemNow.com. So the idea is that you're reading and that this is just sort of a little bit of in-depth information to orient you so that you can understand what it is that you're reading and working through.

So the idea behind it is that you would watch the short video with your little home group or small group or whatever it is. And then jump into a conversation. Exactly. Exactly. And we've got the curriculum piece there designed in such a way to deepen that conversation and to help you launch into that conversation and to give you even more source material. And the other thing about this, that, you know, the elephant in the room, if you will,

is that the left has been calling for elevating black voices. the left has been calling for, having conversations. And so here's a video curriculum with, you know, a black man front and center on camera talking about these things. And one of the two things is going to happen. Either people are going to get into this and listen and have real discussions, or they're going to, you know, make that Marxist's play and say, not this black man, not this black voice, in which case they will expose the whole thing as a fraud. the show. It's unbelievable. So folks, I just want to remind you. This is at SalemNow.com. There's a lot of great stuff at SalemNow.com. So many people are wondering, what do I watch? How do I fill my mind

with something genuinely edifying, entertaining, important, well done. SalemNow.com. Please check it out. Salem now.com fault lines 10 part video series. Vody, we just got a couple of minutes left. Would you sum up for those who are listening right now in summation, what is it about critical race theory at its heart? If somebody says, I don't know, what is it? Why is it wrong? How do you sum that up? Because it's basic tenets. It's tenets that racism is normal, that it's everywhere, that it's inescapable, that it's intractable.

It's second tenet that, you know, white people benefit from racism and therefore will not undo racism unless it benefits them. That third tenet, this idea of, you know, sort of anti-liberalism, rejecting enlightenment rationalism. and finally this idea that knowledge itself is constructed. All four of these ideas, first of all, serve as kind of a trap, if you will. It's circular reasoning. But secondly, every one of these four ideas is antithetical to biblical truth. Biblical truth does not see people as racist or anything else based solely upon their ethnicity.

Biblical truth does not see racism as intractable. does not say that if people are racist, that they can't undo racism or that they won't undo racism, that God can't change their hearts. You know, the idea that, you know, knowledge is somehow gained through various narratives of various groups. I'll tell you, as I hear this, I just want to be clear. It sounds satanic, folks. In other words, it sounds like it is fatalistic. It is saying you can never change. You will always be racist.

racism is intractable. These are lies from the pit of hell. They're against the gospel message. They're against the message of redemption and healing. We need to understand that and we need to reject them with everything we have, which is why I will say again, please go to SalemNow.com. Fall lines with Vodie Bakum 10 part series. Voting, thank you so much.

Absolutely. It's my pleasure, man. Thank you. Legacy precious metals has a revolutionary new online platform that allows you to invest in real gold and silver online. In a few easy steps, you can open an account online, select your medals of choice, and choose to have them stored in a vault or ship to your door.

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there was a D.L. Moody Center? I want to talk about that. I want to talk about D.L. Moody. And I want to talk at some point about Dr. James Spencer's new book called Christian Resistance, learning to defy the world and follow Christ. James Spencer, welcome. Thanks. Yeah, thanks for having me. I was excited about the idea. I've been up to the Moody Center. which is in Massachusetts. Where exactly in Massachusetts is it? So we're western Massachusetts right on the border of Vermont and New Hampshire. And most people don't know this is there. This is an amazing historical site. When I was there,

I was blown away, actually. Yeah, most people, if they know D.L. Moody, they know him for his Chicago work. And those, you know, the Moody Church in Chicago and the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago are more enduring institutions, the sort of bear's name. But he actually lived most of his life in Northfield. did a great deal of ministry there from Northfield. And so, yeah, our role is to preserve those historic buildings there on the property, as well as running a digital archives project. So we're preserving his letters and papers or letters and papers that talk about D.L. Moody. So there are going to be a lot of people.

One of the main reasons I really wanted to have you on was to tell my audience, those who don't know, because there are many who don't, who was D.L. Moody? He was such a major figure, but this is how history is sometimes. Some people don't know what a giant he was in the 19th century. So tell us, first of all, first I want to know your story, how you came to be doing what you're doing and how you got interested in Moody and then Moody's story. Well, I was an academic dean actually at Moody Bible Institute. And our two organizations aren't connected. In Chicago.

In Chicago, yeah. My friend Joe Stoll used to be there. Yeah, I was there when I was there when he was present and I was a student. So fun story, he actually introduced me to my wife in the elevator after we were married. Are you kidding? He just thought we'd make a great couple. And so that's funny. That's funny. Well, I love Joe. And I, you know, that's how I know about the Moody Bible Institute originally. But so you were there. Yeah, so I was an academic dean at Moody Bible Institute, had been there for about 12 years and wanted to really make a change in a shift. I met the CEO of the Moody Center. and he asked me to come over and start working with them. That was really the first time I was very much introduced to D.L. Moody. I'd read a couple of biographies, but not a whole lot about him.

And so I got to know D.L. by reading his personal letters to his kids and his wife as he was traveling around the world through the Digital Archive Project. Whoa. Yeah. And so what I found and what really inspired me to continue working with the D.L. Moody Center and do what we're doing is, D.L. Moody had this real authentic way of talking about his faith, even in his faith, even in his, his just mundane correspondence. And I think what I realized was, you know, as much academic training as I've had, I don't really talk that way. I don't talk to my kids that way. And it was just really inspiring and convicting. And so this man who's traveling the world, he was known as an evangelist. Some estimates have him reaching 100 million people. I mean, let's, I want to,

I want to start there because, again, there are people tuning in that they've never heard of him or They just know a name, D.L. Moody. Somebody says to you, okay, who in the world was D.L. Moody? I don't know anything about him. What do you, how do you sum him up? I would say he's an evangelist and an educator who is very much interested in building up the body of Christ. And so his evangelistic efforts took him around the world, around the nation. But what time period? Oh, that would have been after the Chicago fire, so mid-1860s, really to his death in 1816.

He only lived 62 years. Or 1899. I'm sorry, not 1869. 1899. Yeah, he lives 62 years. So he really, he goes, he went to Europe for the first time right before the Chicago fire. Kind of starts to get this itch that he wants to go and do missions work and do evangelism

and do those kind of things. But I guess my question is, how does he, how does he, where was he born and how did he start out in life? Did he know that he wanted to be in the ministry? Tell us his story. Yeah. So, D.O. Moody was, uh, Born there in Northfield, we actually have the, we manage the birthplace where he was born.

His father died when Moody was about four years old. And so Moody and some of his siblings had to drop out of school and work to make sure that the family could feed themselves. And so Diom Moody's early life was really characterized by poverty and strife. It was a difficult upbringing. He was not Christian. They were not necessarily a Christian home. but one of the influences he had was a Unitarian Universalist Minister who was there in the town of Northview. And this is the 1840s. This would have been, yeah, early 1800s in that range. So he ultimately will sort of set out for Boston to make his fortune. Dio Moody always wanted to be rich because he grew up poor, and so he wanted to have that wealth, that stability that money can bring.

And along the way, he meets a gentleman and is converted to Christianity through Sunday school. and it's kind of a fascinating story from there. He begins working with the YMCA, does a lot of work with the YMCA, the Sunday school movement. And is he a teenager in his 20s at this point? He would have been in his 20s, yeah, right around in his 20s. I think he moved to Boston when he was 18 years old.

And so, yeah, he's in his 20s at this point. Then the Civil War happens. He's kind of serving on both sides of the Civil War as a chaplain, trying to sort of serve and minister to injured Civil War soldiers. Eventually makes his way to Chicago, and then that's where he starts to do, again, more work with the YMCA, but also establishes the Illinois State Street Church, which we now know as the Moody Church. And actually Moody Bible Institute came much later. It was the third school that D.L. Moody founded.

So after the Chicago fire, he kind of gets things settled there, knows he's going to set off an evangelistic efforts. and then moves back to Northfield as sort of a home base. While he's in Northfield, then he starts two schools, Northfield School for Girls, and Northfield Mount Hermon School for Boys. And that's where his ministry really begins to center, and that becomes the sort of hub for everything he's going to do. So he goes out from Northfield to the world. Eventually, come back and found Moody Bible Institute,

and he had this vibrant summer conference ministry than Iran in Northfield as well. Built a 2,300 seat auditorium in Northfield. I have spoken in that auditorium. It's fantastic. Yeah. And I think it holds more people than the population of the town even currently. So. It's amazing. So, but he becomes a phenomenon. I mean, he becomes, you know, you say like he's the Billy Graham of his time. I mean, he was basically everywhere. He was. And the interesting thing about Dio Moody was that he recognized very quickly that if he needed to spread the gospel, he was going to need new vehicles to do it. So he continued to do the evangelistic campaigns, which were relatively common at the time. But then he also gets into

low-cost publishing and starts what was called the Coal Portage Association to provide biblically oriented materials to people who didn't have the money to purchase otherwise. That's extraordinary. So where does he end up? I mean, does he end up as an evangelist? Does he Is he preaching around the world? I mean, it's hard to draw a bead on his life because he did so many things. Right. He was busy in his 62 years. And so what I would say is, yeah, I think the main thrust of his ministry was evangelism,

but probably his more central work. There's a great line in one of the preface to his books that he titled To the Work, to the Work. And he basically just says that in all of his travels abroad and serving in ministry, what he's found is that arousing Christians to their personal responsibility is a far greater work than the simple evangelist. And what he's trying to get out there is, listen, we all need to be doing this. This shouldn't just be about me. It shouldn't just be about one guy out there sharing the gospel. It needs to be the church together. And so when I think about D.L. Moody, that quote really does

sort of encapsulate him for me. I think he's a church builder. He wanted the body of Christ to be out there doing the job that they were supposed to be doing. And he built structures to sort of encourage that. And those would be the summer conferences and the educational institutions. Well, that's, in a sense, in my most recent book called Letter to the American Church, that's at the heart of it is this disconnect we have in the modern American church in particular, as though we don't really, we don't have much to do. I believe I'm done. I'm good enough, which is garbage. It's theology from the pit of hell. We're supposed to be utterly, actively engaged in being the church.

And so it's interesting to think that Moody was dealing with that same thing. He says, evangelism, that's the beginning. That's step one you get saved. And then the rest of your life you're supposed to live it out. That's right. He talks a lot about developing Christian usefulness by which he meant, you know, surrendering our will to the Lord and really following what he wanted us to do, setting aside our own agendas and following his agenda.

And so he's very much concerned that the church do the work of the church. That's a big deal. I mean, that is just right where we are today. And you said he died young at age 62. I mean, of what did he die? It seems like probably a heart-related issue. You know, medicine wasn't that great. Yeah. So I don't know that they did an autopsy. But he actually was in Kansas City doing a final campaign. And they brought him back to Northfield by train. He died in his home at Northfield. And there's a fantastic piece in William Revelle is his son, William Revelle. He recounts his dad's last hours. And D.L. Moody's on his deathbed. And he's just divvying out responsibilities to his kids. When we come back, we will continue this conversation. I'm talking to Dr. James Spencer, president of the D.L. Moody Center. You can go to Moodycenter.org.

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He is divvying out respond to it. So he knows he's dying? Yeah, he knows he's dying. And he has this great quote. And he said, I've always been an ambitious man, non-ambitious to leave you with great wealth, but with a lot of work to do. And so he's passing on to his kids and his nephews and nieces. the different ministries that he wants them to do, these things that he's built,

he's leaving that legacy to them and asking them to shepherd it after his death. And did they? To some degree, yeah. I think, you know, we see some departure with the Northfield Seminary, Northfield, Mount Hermon. They became rather secularized fairly quickly. But, you know, early on, there was a movement amongst Moody's friends to build a three million dollar endowment so that the kids wouldn't have to do all the fundraising and they could

just administrate the school. And so there was a good time there after Moody's death where these institutions continued to do exactly what D.L. Moody intended them to do. As I said, Moody Church and the Moody Bible Institute obviously kind of carried on that legacy far more effectively across a number of different years. Right. Now, the Moody Church that is in Chicago now, when was that built? I mean, it's a pretty old building. Yeah, it's a good question. I'm not sure when it was built exactly, but I will say, yeah, obviously it would have been built post-Chicago fire, but I'm not sure it's, you know, the original building they built after the Chicago fire. Interesting. Yeah. And the Chicago fire was what, 1860 something? Might have been around there, yeah. My dates are always

a little bit of... We, Mrs. O'Leary's cow. That's right. Responsible for that fire. Well, it's so interesting because you talk about there are these figures in history. Spurgeon is another example in England in the 19th century, but they had a huge effect. They had gigantic ministries, affected thousands and thousands of lives, and Moody is one of those figures. I mean, if somebody says I want to read a biography on Moody, is there a good one or two that you would mention? You know, one of my favorites is really the one his son wrote, William Revelle Moody's, the life of Dwight O. Moody. And I just like it because it's got a lot more personal feel to it. William's telling stories about his dad. And I love that one. Kevin Belmonte has a great one out.

I don't recall exactly the title of it, maybe Passion for Souls, but also a good one. There's a number of different biographies. But if I'm really recommending one, I'd say start with William Revelle Moody's. Yeah. Well, it's just, it's fascinating to me that somebody that was such a major, your figure in the 19th century could sort of vanish from history, except for those who know of him, and there are many, but there are many who don't. And so that's just interesting. He's one of those people I think of as a candidate, you know, when I'm going to write maybe not a full-blown biography, but a chapter in one of my book, Seven Men or Seven Women or, you know, one of these things, you think of these people like, wow, people need to know who this guy was

because it's just, it's extraordinary. So the Moody Center now in Northfield, I know you guys do something. You host something called Go Dark Shine Bright. Yeah, so we run a campaign. It's an online campaign called Go Dark Shine Bright. What we're trying to do is sort of echo the legacy of D.O. Moody. And so one of the things that DiO. Moody was concerned about was the distractions of the day. and these distractions would keep Christians from doing their Christian work.

So the Go Dark Shine Bright campaign is really about helping Christians step away from those distractions. It started as a 10-day social media fast where we asked Christians just to step away from social media for 10 days so that they could pray and read the scriptures and then go back onto social media and really proclaim the gospel within their social networks. And so we've largely continued that. This is the third year we're running. And this brings us to your book, which is called Christian Resistance Learning to Defy the World and Follow Christ. At least I think it brings us to your book.

It does. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when I think about Christian resistance, when I think where we are in the world today, I often think of the picture of a dam. You know, it's got all this water up against it, but the dam has to hold its shape. The dam has to have a hard boundary there. It can't just let the water move it.

Otherwise, it's not really functioning well as a dam. And so when I think about it, you know, Christians resist the world in that. fashion. We've got to keep our shape. We've got to continue to look more and more like Christ and less and less like the world. And so when I think about Christian resistance, it involves obedience. It involves, you know, an ongoing desire to just keep our boundaries clear without excluding people from the message of salvation. So this book is a brand new book that you've published. It is, yeah. January, came out January this year. Christian resistance learning to defy the world and follow Christ.

Is that tied into the go-dark, shine-bright thing that you're doing? It is. I mean, I think a lot of the principles and a lot of the ideas that I address in Christian resistance sort of are underlying the go-dark, shine-bright campaign. And honestly, this year, I don't make any proceeds off the book. This is whenever anybody purchases a book, it goes to support the go-dark-shine-bright program and the other ministries that we do at the El-Moodie Center. So let's get into this, what's in the book.

In other words, why did you feel the need to write a book on this subject? I've been thinking about the idea of resistance as a necessity for Christian spiritual formation for a long time. I actually started to write an essay I never published in 2007 on resistance as important to Christian formation. And what I see is that the world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. And to the extent that we adopt those stories and the patterns that go along with them, we're going to be led to. down a path that we don't really want to be led down. If we're committed Christ followers, we want to be following Christ's path, not the path of the world. This is pretty central stuff, ladies and gentlemen. We'll be right back talking to Dr. James Spencer, president of the D.L. Moody

Center. You can go to Moodycenter.org. Welcome back. We're talking about D.L. Moody with Dr. James Spencer, president of the D.L. Moody Center.org. I'm glad there is a Moody Center. and I'm thrilled that people have preserved the sight of where he was born, where he died. His grave is there. Correct. Yeah. So we oversee his birthplace, his grave site, and his homestead where he lived when he was in Northfield, as well as the auditorium where you've spoken.

The auditorium, I mean, do you know when that was built? That's like, I mean, that's obviously a 19th century. They seem to build these auditoriums. It would have been early 1860s, I believe. Oh, that early? I think so. That's amazing. I know you're not good on dates, but it doesn't matter.

It was the age we know it was the 19th century. But it's so interesting that they built this. And when you think the life that was there in Western Massachusetts, it's just amazing. There are a lot of sites that's interesting in New England, Christian sites. And we think of New England is so secular. Absolutely. But the roots are extraordinary. but I want to talk about your book Christian Resistance,

learning to defy the world and follow Christ. I mean, it seems like that was a big part of Moody's message is that we need to live out our faith. It's not enough that I believe these things. It's like, who cares if you believe it? You've got to live it out. If you really believe it, you'll live it out. Yeah.

And I think a lot of it, even though this book isn't specifically about Deo Moody, a lot of it was inspired by what I've been researching with him. I published a book last year called Useful to God, Eight Lessons from the Life of Deo Moody, which is sort of a reprisal to R.A. Tori's book, why God used Deo Moody. And he goes through these eight characteristics of Deo Moody, and there are things like prayer, humility, surrender,

free from the love of money. And as I researched those characteristics, what I realized was, you know, we have all these different pressures that are coming at us in today's world. And in order to be, let's say, free from the love of money, we actually have to try to be free from the love of money. We actually have to sort of arrange our lives in a pattern different from the economic world that we live.

And so Christian resistance starts to deal with some of those issues by addressing topics like how we use our time, where we give our attention, how we respond in a given situation, those kind of areas where it's really just doing little things. And Moody's got a great quote on this. You know, many people are left out of God's work because they refuse to do the little things. They're always looking to do the great things. And so his encouragement is just do the little things. And so I view Christian resistance as just encouraging Christians. Let's do the little things. Well, I like the title Christian resistance because it just, you know, it makes me think of that we're called to resist the spirit of this age.

We're called to be set apart, to be different, to resist, you know, the zeitgeist that sweeps us in a certain direction. And I think part of the lie that has been promulgated throughout the church over a number of decades, mainly through the, you know, kind of the seeker sensitive movement, is that we should be just like the world so that we don't kind of, you know, scare them or something. And there's there's always truth to that idea. But at the same time, if they don't see something different, when they're really genuinely hungry, they're going to be, well, you know, you're just like me. I don't really see anything different in your life. So what are some of the things that you talk about in the book Christian Resistance in terms of how we can do that? So I actually have a chapter in there called inclusion, which I realize it can be a sort of a dangerous word in these days. Yeah.

But what I'm really saying there is, you know, when you look at Jesus' life, when you look at Jesus' ministry, he includes himself with others. He includes himself with the sinners and the lost. And he does so in a winsome manner. but that winsomeness is on the way to a point of decision for those people is that they can get to know Jesus, they can get to like Jesus, they can think he's a great teacher, but ultimately they also have to accept him as Savior and Lord. And there's a commitment that has to happen somewhere in there. And it's that sort of spectrum that I think we've really been missing in the church.

We haven't gotten a good balance between being welcoming, being winsome, being open to other people, being open to sinners in the lost and really including ourselves with them. And then getting to that point where we're going to say something where we may lose many disciples, as Jesus did, like John 6 is a great paradigm, I think, where Jesus says, you have to eat my flesh or drink my blood in order to follow me, and many of his disciples left him that day. We haven't really gotten the point where we're comfortable doing that part of it.

We're much more comfortable being just nice human beings that people like and enjoy. Well, that's the thing. and there's always a balance because I think there's some people, you know, depends on your own temperament. I mean, there's some people that love being firebrands and driving people away. It almost gives them a joy. You know, you see people like that. Some people, you know, preaching on a street corner who they seem angry and they seem whatever.

So like, and they think, yeah, people are avoiding Jesus because they don't want to hear what I'm saying. It's like, no, they're avoiding you because they see anger. They don't see the love of Christ, whatever. But then there are other people that seem to make an idol. of being liked or whatever. And it's a strong temptation, especially in American culture, that I just want people to like me and whatever. And there's something good about that, but it can easily go wrong.

Yeah. I also deal with testimony in the book. And the way I suggest that people look at that is that it's testimony in word and deed, is that we don't get to just deliver the truth. Being right isn't enough. We have to deliver that truth rightly. And we have to be wise about the way we're speaking with people, the way we're living our lives, not so that everybody loves us.

I think that's sort of the fallacy, but I think we do need to be separate. Moody's got another great quote, you know, if we are going to be effective, we have to realize we're going to have to be separate. And I think he's on to something there that as we're separate, as we're different, as we differentiate ourselves in this culture, people will take notice for good or bad, but they'll take notice. Yeah, well, that's what's so interesting. And getting that right, figuring out how to do that, it's not a small, it's not a small thing. No. I know that you encourage this in the annual thing that you call Go Dark, Shine, Bright.

When is that happening this year? This year it's happening in May toward the end of May. And so people can go to go darkshyembright.org if they'd like more information on that. GoDarkshinebright.org. When we come back, we've done. got about 10 minutes left. I want to, I want you to get into what you do in that campaign, the go dark, shine bright campaign. You said May of this year. May this year. May this year. And your book is titled Christian Resistance, Learning to Defy the World and Follow Christ.

Obviously, that's part of what we're going to be talking about in the Go Dark Shine Bright campaign. and D.L. Moody Center. You can follow it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Holy cow. Moody on Instagram. We'll be right back. Folks, welcome. We've got a strange announcement.

We do. That the conversation that we were just having, there's 10 minutes more conversation, and we're unable to air that on the radio or on the podcast as far as... Certainly not on the radio. So right now, instead of that conversation, you're hearing us talking.

But if you're interested in the end of my conversation with James Spencer about Dwight Moody, you have to go either to Rumble where you can find the Eric Metaxus show, or what I would recommend is sign up for my newsletter at ericmetaxis.com. If you go there, we email you all of this stuff. But for the final 10 minutes of my conversation about Dwight Moody, which we're unable to air right now because of scheduling screw up on our part,

basically you can watch it at our Rumble channel or we will send it to you, ericmetaxis.com, sign up for the newsletter there. Also want to remind you, please sign up at Socrates and the city.com. There is always stuff that we send out that, you know, we can't cover on this program. For example, April 28th, we have a Socrates event with Michael Medved in Seattle. He's talking about his book, The American Miracle. Ladies and gentlemen, you probably heard me say this once before. Maybe not.

One of the most amazing books I've ever read. I'm telling you, it is not just. just truly shocking and astonishing information about American history. But the way he writes it, and I rarely say this, but the writing itself, Michael Medved, is a great writer. And it is so wonderful to read something in a written in a way that's worthy of the material, because that's pretty rare. There's a lot of good books, but the writing is not as good as it could be.

His book is amazing. So April 28th Socrates and City event in Seattle. If you can get to Seattle or if you know anybody in Seattle, we've never done a Socrates event in Seattle. It's going to be live streamed as well? Yes, we will live stream it. And that also reminds me that when we live stream something, so you can watch it, you can live stream it. But you have to sign up a lot of people, like let's say it starts at 630 sharp. If you don't sign up before 6,000, most people would sign up.

would sign up like 15 minutes before, that's too late. So I don't know if we can work that out, if we can change that. But I'm just warning you, if you're interested in it, you have to sign up at least something like 45 minutes before the actual beginning of the event. But that's April 28, Soctezen City in Seattle. I am very excited about doing a Soxed City event in Seattle. I've got lots of friends in Seattle, really excited. I hope Danny Bonaducci shows up.

That's my goal. This week, which is to say tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday, we've got John Smirak, we have General Flynn. We have been killing ourselves to get General Flynn. The dude is a hero, cannot wait to get him on the program. And then Yomi Park, speaking of Socrates in the city, she lives in New York City. So she's going to be with us in the studio. She is a gem.

What she's been through, her story is just mind-blowing. Also finally want to mention the film Nefarious. Yeah, end of this week. It's coming out. Is it already this week? Yeah. April 14. That is this coming Friday.

It comes out in theaters. This is an amazing film. I guess it's described as the screw tape letters meets Silence of the Lambs. It's not as gruesome as Silence of the Lambs because I don't like gruesome. But it is pretty amazing. It's really well done.

We both have watched it and we were very impressed. It's the brainchild of our friend Steve Dase. It's an incredible story. It'll really get you thinking. but it's also well done. It's not just something that gets you thinking it's well done. Anyway, I think we're at a time, Albin. I think we are.

It's the end of Monday. So we'll see tomorrow. We call it Tuesday. Thanks for tuning in. Don't forget to go to Ericmontaxis.com, and please sign up for my newsletter. We'd appreciate that.