The Eric Metaxas Show - Jeremy Camp and John Zmirak

Episode Date: March 12, 2020

Jeremy Camp talks about the movie, "I Still Believe," based on a very sad time in his life; then, John Zmirak has more thoughts about Joe Biden, the 2nd Amendment, and the upcoming election fireworks.

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I tell all my relatives to take it. relief factor.com. Welcome to the Eric Muttaxies show. It's the show that answers the question. Is it possible to make a vowel sound out of a potato? Can the word potato be a verb? What about an actual potato? Can that be a verb?

What about the word verb? Can the word verb be a verb? Can it be a potato? Mama, I'm scared myself. And now your host, Eric Muttaxas. Thanks, Todd. You've scared all of us, and I'm sure I've lost most of my audience. I apologize in advance.

Folks, I wanted to continue my conversation with Catherine Schwarzenegger Pratt. Now, Catherine, you claim to be the daughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Then you change your story. Oh, no, you're the daughter of Maria Shriver. And then you say you're married to Chris Pratt. Which is it? Like, why? Come on.

I know. People can look this up. Wild, right? I know. Let me ask you something more substantive. In fact, anything would be more substantive than that. When you wrote this book, I mean, it is about, big deal for a young woman to say, I'm going to write a book on forgiveness because it is such a

heavy thing. And what did you think would happen or what drove you to it? Because it is, it's just such a heavy topic. Was there some inciting incident where you just said, I, I just feel like I want to do this? Because I mean, I realized, too, as a writer, there's a lot of work involved in interviewing all these people. Yeah, there's a huge amount of work that goes into it. And I did it over two and a half years. So it was a really, a big labor of love and I'm thrilled with the way that it's turned out and I feel really blessed to have been able to talk to these 22 people and them to have given me their time and their stories and they're all so raw and vulnerable and just really inspiring. So it was a huge gift, but really

just struggling myself with forgiveness inspired me to be interested in forgiveness. And then also when I was able to just get such incredible inspiration and stories from other people that helped me so much. It helped me much more than any other outlets that I was kind of going to to seek advice from. And so I wanted to create that because I also saw that so many of us are actually struggling with forgiveness and we're not talking about it. So it seems like a really untapped area and one that I, you know, wanted to kind of put together for other people. Well, I mean, it's because so many people are dealing with this, like almost everybody, that I think the book will do very well. It's very shoddly written. But I think beyond,

that. No, I think that it's kind of funny because this is such an unmet need in the culture, like this conversation. So I think you might make a lot of money of this. And it always happens to people who don't need the money. I know for a fact, she doesn't need the money, but you'll give it away to the ASPCA or something. I'm sure. I love the ASPCA. I know you. I know you do. Now, what did you do before writing this book? Were you in journalism or whatever? I mean, you've done a lot of different things. Yeah, I mean, this is my fourth book. So I've written a couple books on just different topics that are really passion projects for me. I've written about body image. I've written about advice for recent college graduates. I wrote a children's book right before this about teaching

children about animal rescue. So every single book that I've done, and most importantly, this one on forgiveness, are all topics that I'm incredibly passionate about. And also my goal at the end of the day is to help other people in that journey. And you wrote a book about body image? I did. Now, why am I laughing? Because you're a man laughing. I feel. No, I feel very uncomfortable with my body image. I don't know. I just don't know what a body image is. A beautiful inside of now.

A body image. But, okay, body image. Yeah. I get that. No, I know it's a big thing. It is a big thing. For women, it's a huge thing. Forgiveness is a big thing for everybody.

Yes. So, all right, there's a couple of stories in here that I read last night and I should have written them down. I know Devon Franklin. There's a couple of people in here that I'm aware of. But the story, like, the one. that kills me about Rwanda. Oh, immaculate.

I mean, it's one thing, somebody does one thing. Yeah. And then you have to forgive them. This was like the demons of hell had been, you know, released onto the earth for a season. And the level of evil and horror. And how do you deal with that? Well, yeah, she, this is immaculi. Her story is, she was in the Rwandan genocide and her entire family.

was killed by a man actually that she grew up with and looked at as a very close family friend, which of course makes it very complicated in her forgiveness journey. And she, you know, speaks a lot about losing faith in God in that journey and being stuck in a bathroom for over 90 days, hiding. Oh, that's, yeah, that was unbelievable. Yeah. With other people. With other women. I mean, you cannot even imagine. Yeah, just hiding in fear of her life and never knowing if today was her last day. And so her story is really inspiring because she actually went to the prison where this man was and confronted him and told him that she had forgiven him and what an emotional experience that was. And she speaks beautifully everywhere about forgiveness. And I felt really lucky that she, you know, was willing to have

her story in this book. There was, and there's another story in here. I didn't mark all these down. But you have a real variety of stories in here, which I think, is important. Scarlett Lewis was another one that stuck out to me. Yeah, she's a really powerful person. She lost her little son, Jesse, in the Sandy Hook shooting, and she speaks just really incredibly about her journey to get to a place of forgiveness and also, you know, takes you back to the horror of that day. And talking to her and interviewing her was a really emotional interview, of course, because it doesn't matter how much time has gone. gone by, but just losing your child in a situation like that is such a tragic and terrible thing

to have happened. And she speaks, again, we were talking about empathy and compassion. She speaks about realizing and getting to a place where she thought of the boy who took her son's life and realized that had he had nurturing, healing love, that he would actually not have done those things and taken her son's life. And that's been her mission now and her life moving forward, which is to travel across the country and the world and get this sort of education into elementary schools so children don't feel alone and unable to feel their way through feelings and challenges in life to act out. The one thing in the book that struck me as an out-and-out miracle was that her 7-year-old son who was murdered that day. I live 15 minutes from Sandy Hook, or rather that's where I grew up, and I know that community.

And it's inconceivable. and yet her seven-year-old son wrote on a piece of paper these three words. Yeah, on a chalkboard, his last, right before he went to school that morning, he had written on their chalkboard in their kitchen, nurturing, healing, love. And she... Now, did he get that from someplace? That's just the most bizarre thing. Seven-year-olds don't write words like that.

No, they don't. And so to have her go back to her home after, you know, realizing that she had lost her son and seeing that that's the message that he had kind of left her with was such an eye-opening experience for her. And she, you know, talks in her section about calling a professor and a doctor to see what that meant and what to make of that. And it was just an incredible experience for her. Well, I mean, again, that strikes me as a pure miracle. That's God doing something outrageous to get your attention and just let you know it's okay. I'm with you.

Yeah. Because that's not the kind of thing of seven-year-old rights ever. much less on a chalkboard the morning. He's murdered. But every now and again, you'll get these things where God will do something to let you know that he's with you in it. And we always wonder why does he do it that way. Right. But that one really just struck me. Oh, and the one about the same kind of different as me.

Ron Hall, yeah. That's clearly like total miracle. Right. And she, you know, that was an important story for me to have in the book because Ron Hall had asked for forgiveness, which was a different take than some of the other people who were in the book. And is also something that, you know, most of us will, you know, deal with at some point in our lives. And he asked his wife for forgiveness when he was unfaithful to her. And that simple act, he calls it Christ-like forgiveness that she had granted him. Right.

And because she had chosen to forgive him, he was able to, you know, be the best, husband he could possibly be to her moving forward and she had had this dream of this homeless man. Well, but that's the miracle. I mean, she has a dream of a home. I mean, look, I know plenty of people have had experiences like this, but people need to know these things happen. Right. She has a dream of a homeless man. She knows it's real and then one day sees the homeless man and this homeless man becomes friends with her husband and a book comes out of it. I mean, this is crazy stuff except it happened. Right. And it also has led to amazing work in the homeless community. She is incredibly, she was incredibly passionate about and her husband still does an amazing job continuing that work today.

I am afraid we're out of time. Catherine Schwarzenegger Pratt, thank you so much for writing an important book and for being my guest. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Hey there, folks. It's the Eric Mitaxa show. I've been just talking to the daughter, at least she claims, to be the daughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'm not buying it. I looked at her biceps, not even close. Even my biceps were bigger than her biceps. But we've got the paperwork. evidently, she really is the daughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger and the husband, her husband is Chris Pratt. So I thought, how do you transition from that to John Zmirak, who we have coming up in a minute? And I came up with my friend Jeremy Camp. I thought, holy cow, he's got a movie

coming out in theaters tomorrow. Maybe we could reach him. Who knows where he is? And we found him. He's in a car by the side of the road. Jeremy Camp, welcome. Hey, thanks for it. This is the first time I've done an interview on the side of the road like this. And this is the first time I've interviewed somebody on the side of the road. Now, first of all, what state are you in? Can you reveal that or is it a secret location? I'm in Tennessee right now. You're driving around in Tennessee. Are you alone in the car or do you have somebody else in the car? I'm alone in the car pulled over. My family went inside because I'm like, I got an interview right now. It's kind of funny because people don't think Jeremy Camp, you know, the famous Christian singer, would just be alone in a car.

If only people knew that you've fallen this. It's so sad. It's so sad. It's not sad. Listen, you've got a big movie coming out in theaters tomorrow. It is called I Still Believe. I interviewed you about this in Anaheim at Greg Lorry's big event outdoors, and we'll post that too. But since this is coming in theaters tomorrow, I want to talk to you today.

So for people who know nothing about the story, what is this movie about? Yeah, you know, it kind of croncles my life going out to California from Indiana and meeting this girl named Melissa who was an amazing woman. She loved Jesus with all of her heart. And that's kind of what drew me to her. And, you know, honestly, it was one of this kind of almost love at first sight thing. And so you'll see the whole movie is us getting together, falling in love, and finding out, you know, after we kind of had a breakup that she had cancer. And really the story is how walking through a trial and tribulation, trusting God in the midst of it. of course the ups and downs, the pains through it.

And then honestly, eventually her going to be with the Lord three and a half months into our marriage. And it shows just how I went through that and the grief. And that you don't walk away feeling hopeless. You walk away feeling just a special hope that only God can give supernaturally. And I think for me, it's just been an incredible journey to watch how God is using this already. I've been on a bunch of screenings. We did the Red Carpet premiere on Saturday. You know, Shnigh Twain plays my mom, you know, which is,

insane and then Gary Seney, Lieutenant Dan, plays my dad, and got to see them and talk to them about it. And just to have them say how touch they were to play the roles they did was just a huge honor. So I'm personally just excited to see what God's going to do because everyone goes through hardships and trials. And everyone kind of wonders, you know, what do I do now going through this? People that are looking for hope. And for me, this whole movie points to you, I ran to Jesus. That's what got me through it. And the only thing that I got through it was because of him. And now you were a Christian at that time, and Melissa was a Christian, but obviously when you go through something this painful, people do not expect to go through anything like this. Obviously, it's kind of like a test for your faith.

Either it's going to become more real or you're going to run. Right. Well, and I think for me it was a definite choice because, you know, you have to think about it. When you go through a hardship, you either turn your back on the Lord and kind of shake your fist and say, God, you know, why are you doing this? or you can realize as, you know, in John 6th, when Jesus said to the disciples, he goes, hey, if you want to follow me, you got to eat in my flesh and drinking my blood. And they were like, hey, that's a little bit too difficult. I think I'm going to leave now.

And he turns to Peter and said, you know, Peter, what about you? Are you going to leave? And what did Peter say? He goes, where else are we going to go, Lord? You have the very words of eternal life. I think for me, it was, it was the rubber meets the road to where it's like, am I going to believe all the things that I have read, all the scriptures about trust in the Lord, all the promises that he has, you know, my faith in him and trust in him.

I'm going to actually believe that. And I decided to run to the only one who gives me peace and hope. And that's Jesus. And that's what this whole story is about. I think that's why a lot of people, because right now we're living in a pretty chaotic time in our culture and generation. And especially right now all the fear that's happening. Yeah.

And people are looking for hope. And they're only going to find it in Jesus. And that's what this whole story is about. Yeah, there's no doubt about that. And even when I see Christians getting all freaked out, about the coronavirus where I think, hey, where's your faith? Where is your faith? People aren't coming to cut your head off with a scimitar yet, and you're freaking out because there's a virus. I mean, we really need to have the peace of God. It doesn't mean that we don't take precautions.

But when people really start freaking out, you kind of think, wow, where is your faith? Now, I want to ask you, your faith obviously was strong when you were going through this. You were a young man. Right. At that time, you know, you wanted to be a singer even then. Yeah. Yeah, it was a harsh desire, yeah, for sure. And so all these years later, you've, you know, you've fulfilled that. But I guess I'm just thinking back, at what point in your journey over the last couple of decades did you feel that you wanted to tell this story?

Because it's very raw, it's very difficult. At what point did you say, I want to, I'm willing to tell this. this story? You know, I've always kind of shared, you know, when I play my, my concerts live, I've shared a lot of my testimony. I went through years where I didn't because it's just too hard to share sometimes. And I finally wrote a book called I Still Believe, and that's kind of how the movie came about.

I finally wanted to put down my story into greater depth. And so what happened was he wrote down my story and the Irwin brothers got a hold of the book, read it and said, you know, your story should be in a movie. And I think for me it was, you know, I've had that conversation before with somebody years ago. And it just wasn't the right timing. And so even when they asked me that, it wasn't a automatic, yeah, that sounds great. And they just did, I can only imagine, which did really well, you know, is the number one independent film of 2018. Yeah.

So they obviously know what they're doing. But it really was a thing where I had to say, okay, God, is this the right person? Is this the right timing? And now going through it and seeing them and what their heart has been torn into it and the act. they got involved. I mean, KJ. Apo, who plays me, is like the teen heart throb of this generation, you know, he plays in Riverdale. You know, you probably don't know this, but I know the Irwin brothers, and they, man, they tried very hard to get me to play the young Jeremy Camp. And, you know, the money just wasn't there. I wasn't really cool. Yeah, you were too expensive.

The money wasn't there. And I also insisted that Cloris Leachman play my mother. I'm not a big Chennai Twain fan. I mean, she's good, but I wanted Cloris Leachman to play my mother. And she'd been in their previous movie, and they weren't willing to play ball. And I said, you know what, I'm walking. I'm walking. I got that right out of the art of the deal. There's a time to walk away from a deal. I said, I'm walking away.

And so they got, what's his name again? Who's the young heart? This kid, KJ. App, I don't know. Yeah. That was an amazing segment you just had there, by the way. That's why I love you. KJ. App, let me tell you, he's like a big deal.

And I think it's going to bring a lot of young people to the film. Right. If they want a lot of kind of, you know, pseudo-intellectual middle-aged people, they would have cast me. I know that. I know that they're thinking about the bottom line and the demographics. But anyway, I guess this is an exciting thing because let's cut to the chase. People come to faith when they see the stories of other people's faith. And for your willingness to write about it.

Now, when did the original book come out? It came out like 2012. And so we rewrote it and just came out three weeks ago, the redone version. kind of updated version, kind of new stuff that's happened. And so has the cover of the movie poster on it. You know what I mean? So it's excited. But it's been a while.

Of course. It's interesting that you wrote about it in 2012 and that they saw it as a property, as we say in show business, a property. But it really is interesting to have a movie about your life. I know that our mutual friend Greg Lurie is making a movie also with the Irwin brothers, right? about the Jesus Revolution when he came to faith in 1970 and that whole thing. I don't know who's playing the young Greg Lorry. I've got way too much hair to play the young Greg Lory, so that's not going to happen.

Yeah, that's harsh, but he deserves it. No, but it's just cool that the Irwin brothers, they're making these films because they're, you know, they've obviously gotten better and better at making films, and it is exciting to me. It's exciting to me. So this opens, do we know how many theaters this opens in tomorrow? Almost 3,200. What? that's a lot

that's like that's that's like Star Wars level that's huge it is yeah we it's the first faith based movie ever to be an iMacs it's in 3,200 theaters they have you know honestly I can go on and on about it

but I don't want to make a prediction but there's a pretty massive prediction about this weekend that they're saying so I'm not going to say it well it depends it depends on the people listening to this program right now I do hope people will check it out Everybody knows now opening weekends are important.

And this is one of those films. You know, you can bring people to it who are not on the same page as you are theologically. That's the beauty of some of these films. And we need more films like this. But that's really, that's 3200 screens is a ton of screens. An IMAX? Like what?

IMAX. It's playing, I'm going to go see an IMAX tonight. So here's 17 Magazine actually touted it as the number one romantic movie of 2020. And so did Cosmopolitan magazine. And so, you know, to have that. And if those trash magazines will say that this is a good movie, you know we're in a good space. Forgive me. Isn't that crazy?

Are you, now, do you at least have a cameo? Like, do you, like, walk around in the back of some scene or something like that? No, at the very end, you have kind of a sweet scene of me and my family together. It kind of pans over to us at the very end of movie just to kind of show, hey, look what God has done. Look how God has been so faithful. I'm really annoyed we're out of time. Wherever you are in Tennessee, brother, God bless you. and I'm really looking forward to this movie tomorrow.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Eric. Appreciate your time, man. Thank you. Hey there, folks. Those are the lyrics of Bernie Taupon. That is my promise to you. That is my promise to you.

I don't know when, but I promise. Hugh. I'm in negotiations now. We're going to get Bernie Taupin. Oh my goodness. I know. Wouldn't that be amazing? But we're going to do it. We've been talking to Catherine Schwarzenegger Pratt claims to be the daughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger Pratt. If you look

at her biceps, there is no way that she's the daughter of Mr. Olympia. Not a chance. No. But I don't want to challenge her on the air. But I challenge her old man to a push-up contest. If he dares to show his face in the studio. But I love talking to her.

She is so sweet, isn't she? Yeah, and we had Jeremy Camp talking about the new movie. We just talked about Jeremy Camp. But right now we've got a very special treat for you. You don't deserve it. No. But because we're full of grace, we're going to let you listen to my conversation with John's Mirak. John's Merrick, are you there?

Yes, how are you doing? You're sort of there. Hey, John, listen, we hate to wake you up, but I just want to talk to you. I want to talk to you, John. I got many of the Eagles climbing all over me. I'm fully awake. Yesterday we were having a fun conversation about Joe Biden's Tet-a-Tet with the auto worker. And you were suggesting, I don't know if somebody has done this, I haven't looked online,

but somebody should create a meme, you know, one of these Internet memes that says, I don't work for you, don't be a horse's patoot, and, you know, post it with the words beneath, so people can hear it as a campaign ad. Joe Biden was expressing the Democrats' philosophy of government in a real, moment of candor. Yeah. I'm not working for you. Don't be a horse's ass.

Slap you. That is the attitude of government. The dark ages, the European aristocracy in the Middle Ages, absolute monarchs that are

revolutionary founders wanted to overthrow and eliminate and never allow to arise again in America. They didn't want an aristotle of weapons

treating citizens like serve. I think... I'm surrounded by armed guards, threatening to beat up an ordinary citizen, mocking him when he says that the government works for the people and calling him a horse's ass. I mean, I don't think an 18th century aristocrat or a British colonial official walking around in Africa could have been any more arrogant and un-American than Joe Biden in that moment. It was very telling them. I would prefer to harken back to Denmark of the Middle Ages. I see the ghost of corn pop appearing on the parapet.

His beaver is down, but I know it's the ghost of cornhop, and he's come to haunt this auto worker. It's scary. It's scary stuff. Okay, I want to talk to you about a bunch of things. First of all, you said yesterday, I guess it was in the first segment. saying that Joe Biden wants to be elected, but if he is elected, in fact, he won't be president. It's going to be like one of these kooky movies where he is a puppet of, you know, David Axelrod and, I don't know.

Rahm Emanuel or something. Maybe George Soros will move into the White House directly and just operate him. Or George Soros will just have his head removed cryogenically preserved. And, yeah, something like that. National Institute for Coordinated Experiments from that maybe a strength. Yeah, it feels like we're living, you know, sometimes it feels like we're living through a good apocalyptic novel by C.S. Lewis or somebody, but often it feels like we're living through something that a crazy guy in a trailer park wrote in the 90s and sold self-published of gun shows. I even have a term for that. The gun show apocalyptic novel insanity coefficient, the Ghani coefficient.

There's economists talk about the Gini coefficient. I have the Johnny or Ghani coefficient where the crazier things get the more it seems like we're living in the timeline created by angry, paranoid, right-wing. I was once given, I write about this in my book, which is yet to be published, but in the memoir of my youth, when I was at Yale, right? I worked one summer for a friend of my dads who was in the painting business Jerry Affimiatos. My father said, oh, you're not going to get a decent job. I'll fix you up. I'm going to send you painting with Jerry. And Jerry had a bona fide Nazi working for him.

And at the end of the summer, he was trying to convert me, and he handed me one of these gun show books. And it had a picture of a globe. This is all in black and white. A globe being choked by a snake. Who was the snake? World Jewry. Gosh. Isn't that sweet? And I didn't... It's amazing. This tiny percentage of the population with so much power.

Well, it's just unbelievable. But we have to get back. It's almost like it's not actually happening. We have to get back to what happened here. By the way, in Mars attacks, the president had his head removed and was in a jar. That's right. Oh, yeah. That's a great movie. But the thing that I wanted to bring up is that I have a slightly different scenario. I actually think what's going to happen is they've propped up Biden so well that I think the more gaffs he makes, the scarier they get, the scarier it is for those who have propped him up because they're thinking, oh, no, what have we done? And I do think that before it's all over, they're going to try to do something. I keep saying, my fantasy is that they're going to try to insert Hillary

Clinton to save the Republic. She's going to be wearing, you know, a golden crown of laurel leaves. We're going to be back talking more lunacy with John Smirak. It's the Eric Mattaxas show. Don't go away. I believe that's Fleetwood Mac. I believe I'm Eric Mattaxas. I believe you're Albin. Ah, yeah. I believe John Smirak is still on the phone. John Smirak, I was just floating my kooky theory that I think, and others have begun to ape my thinking on this. the idea would be that the more sure they are that Biden's going to get the nomination, the more freaked out they are thinking, oh, my goodness, what have we done?

Because I think the gaffs will increase, it will become increasingly obvious that he's not fit, and they're going to say, what are we going to do? And I think they're going to make a back-deal room with him somehow, and they're going to say, listen, Bernie, Hillary Clinton, needs to be your vice president. She's going to run the show. Not Bernie, Joe. I'm sorry, not Bernie.

To Joe Biden, they're going to. I think it's going to happen faster than that. I think the moment they have enough delegates for Joe Biden, they're going to pivot on a dime and start talking about his health problems. They might hospitalize him and say, oh, does he have coronavirus? We're not sure. And all of a sudden, the moment Sanders is locked out in terms of delegate count, they're going to start the talent search.

it's going to be like America's top model. You're right. You'll find the Democrat. They'll just give his delegates to. So they're just going to nominate someone else. No, no. That's, I mean, that was my first scenario, and I have said that. And I actually, I still believe it's Hillary Clinton because she knows, you have to understand

something, folks. She knows that she's smarter than all these people combined. She knows that this is owed to her, that she needs to be the first woman president. She's been biting her time. She's doing a book tour. There's a film on her to humanize her as though, you know, you could humanize Hillary Clinton. It's a magnificent effort that they're going to make. But I do think that they're going to have to frame it in such a way that she's coming to save America and that it's a big sacrifice.

We know that she doesn't want to do it. But because she loves George Washington, she's going to do this. I honestly think that's sort of where we're going to end up. Yeah, I wouldn't, I mean, to think that we're all in a kind of like a stalking horse zombie candidate just to get Bernie Sanders out of the way, and then the Rahm Emanuels and the James Carvilles get together behind the scenes, and they select who our next president is going to be as far as they're concerned, and then they do their best through voter fraud and the media to try to impose their monarch upon us, who will collect our guns and treat us like serfs.

I've got another piece at the stream, and I think you'll find of interest. Are you running for the stream now, John? Yeah, five days a week. Do they know? The article is, should we just write America off as a botched, godless experiment? And what I do, a review, Mark David Hall. And you would be astonished by this book, Eric. It takes everything you said, and if you can keep it, it illustrates virtually

every one of our founders was a tradition with a couple of shaky exception. Right. For instance, when people say, oh, Thomas Jefferson was a deist, well, if you're really a deist, you don't talk about divine providence, you don't worry about divine punishment, you don't ask people to pray and fast. None of that is deist. That is Christian. Thomas Jefferson may have been shaky in his faith and may have flirted with deism,

but he and even Benjamin Franklin, they talk about, asking God's health. They talk about God's plans for America. And these were the outliers. 98% of the founders were devout traditional Christians. They'd be evangelicals by today's standard. And what Mark David Hall does in this book is he quotes all the secular liberal historians asserting that America was intended to be the secular state and somehow went off track until the 1950s and 60s and liberal judges stepped, imposing their views on the Constitution. Hall takes on these secularist scholars and shows that they're just wrong on the face of it. And where is Mark David Hall located?

Is he at a University? He teaches at George Fox University, which is a Quaker school in the North West. Well, no, the more research that I have done in this direction, and not that I've done so much, but compared to somebody like him, but it's so obvious. And this is what I find funny. I think that we may see a revival in America because once people become familiar with these things, they're going to know that, hey, we've been missing something. We've been sold a bill of goods, you know, since the Burger Court, whatever. We have been fooled.

And it's important that we get back to our roots. And again, we have to be very clear. We're not talking about a theocracy. That's the genius of the founders, is that they allowed this country to be genuinely Christian by never making it officially. Christian, like a lot of these fake Christian countries in Europe from which many of them fled. First Amendment, which says you can't establish a church, was created to protect churches from each other, and from the government, and also from corruption. Many of the founders talked about the danger of having a state church is that it becomes like the post office or the

DMV, and you get lazy slackers who are just collecting the salary. Well, or the, or the Or the 15th century Vatican. I mean, this is what happens when human beings get together. We can have problems. And I think that they tried to figure out a way around that. And I think they did a pretty good job. And it is why we don't have. I mean, look, all you have to do is think about the Greek Orthodox Church or the Russian Orthodox Church.

They have become very compromised, very, very compromised. And I think that the founders understood this and they did the best they could. we have drifted this far, I only hope that we haven't drifted so far that we can't drift back, or at least row back. This election, we're not going to be electing an open socialist now. I think Sanders is over. Instead, instead of playing Russian roulette, which we were being offered the death by cirrhosis option, where our freedoms get carved away like your liver, if you drink too much, a piece at a time.

I'm so sorry we're out of time. John Zmirach, thank you so much. folks, go to stream.org where you can read his articles. They're terrific. Thanks for listening. You got a fight over a Cajun Queen and a crashing blow from a huge right hands and a Louisiana fella to the promise land.

Big John. Big John. Big John. When you get the blues, come on, get rhythm. Get a rock and roll feeling in your bones but taps on your toes and get gone. Get rhythm. When you get the blues. Hey there, folks.

It's here from the Tax the show. Hey, Albin, I got to ask a question of my audience. Audience, are you ready for the question? Are you ready? Ready? No, no, no. I mean, really ready. Really?

Are you ready? Here's the question. We're doing a campaign for food for the poor to feed the poorest of the poor in Guatemala. Here's the question. Have you given yet? Mm-hmm. I can't hear you. All right.

Have you given yet? Have you given something? Just something. Have you given something yet? Some people said, yes. I could hear that. In my mind, I could hear that. Now, to those of you who have given, I want to say thank you.

To those of you who have not given, oh my goodness. Oh, my goodness. You have an opportunity, folks. We've teed it up for you. This is serious. Like this is one of those things where I can't pretend that maybe this is not for you. This is basic stuff. This is feeding the poor.

We've vetted Food for the Poor. They are an extraordinarily reputable organization. We've had people from Food for the Poor on this program explaining things. This is very simple. And your money goes extremely far. The money that we give in this country, it goes so far in a place like Guatemala. Food for the Poor leverages it. They get donations from around the world food and beans and other staples.

And then they get this stuff with trucks and cars and they get it up into the hills to feed these families. All you have to do is either pick up your phone or go to metaxistock.com. Go to metaxistock.com. You'll see the banner there or you can call. But I want to play Alice Marino is somebody that actually visited one of these villages. Let's see what Alice has to say. I just cannot imagine going through what they go through every single day.

These mothers want the same thing that us as mothers want for. for our children. If I was born into poverty like that, would I have the strength to do what they do? And that to me just reminds me. God, thank you for bringing them to us so they can remind us and make us humble. Well, you know, it is a funny thing because when you encounter this, it changes you. You cannot believe that there are people in this day and age going through this. The only thing that I say, I've said this many times, is that you want to focus as much as you can on the bad news because it's real, but then you want to say, but there's good news. The good news is I can actually do something about it. There are many horrible things you can do nothing about except

prey. In this case, you can give money, which is going to go directly to help these families. $80 feeds a kid for a year. That's how Food for the Poor leverages this stuff. So that's why we rave about food for the poor. They manage, they know what they're doing. Okay, they're not, you know, there's a lot of organizations they try, but they're not that effective. Food for the poor is very effective. If you haven't taken advantage of the opportunity, you've got to do it, folks. I promise you that this is a wonderful thing to give to. I'll give you the phone number.

It's 844-863 hope. That's 844-863 hope. You can write it down. I recommend you write it down, 8-4-4-8-6-3. Obviously, you can go to our website with taxes talk.com. Every single person who gives is entered in a contest. We've got a big, fun, grand prize contest. You win all kinds of stuff.

Tomorrow on this program, we announce this week's winner. Every single week we have a winner. We just do this to make it fun. Every week, whoever gives is entered in a contest. Doesn't matter what you give, you get an equal chance to win. And there's other things we want to do and give away. Anybody who can give $10,000, we want to spend an evening with. you have dinner get to know each other i want to thank you in person lots of folks can give lots

of folks haven't yet given let today be the day let right now be that time again the number is eight four four eight six three hope eight four eight six three hope or just go to metaxis talk dot com god bless you thank you