The Eric Metaxas Show - John Gleeson (continued) and Lucas Miles (Encore)

Episode Date: June 1, 2022

John Gleeson continues his look into "The Gotti Wars"; then, in this encore presentation, Lucas Miles addresses some challenging topics in theology, politics, and culture with his sharply-focused book, "The Christian Left."

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. Welcome back. I continue talking to the author of The Gotti Wars, taking down America's most notorious mobster, Judge John Gleason, the author. And my guest, Judge Gleason, honestly, this is one of, those stories. I know others have written about it, but certainly to hear from the man deeply involved,

intimately involved in the second racketeering investigation. This is history. What was the date of the conviction of John Gotti? April 2nd, 1992. 92. About 2 o'clock. About 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Could you be more specific? Between 2 and 205. So when that happened, this was history. This was I don't know, prosecutorial history because he was known as the Teflon Don. When you say you got him, was it principally on the testimony of Sammy the Bull Gravano? Was that the main thing? It was a main thing. Remember, we had Gravano, Gardi, and then the Consolier LeCasio, under indictment based solely on those Ravenite tapes.

and Gravano flipped 10 weeks before the trial. So I told the jury at the end, you can take Gravano's testimony standing alone and convict John Gotti. You can take the tapes standing alone and convict John Gotti. And when you take them together, it's a suffocating case. And the jury agreed. And Gotti died of cancer in prison when? Not too many years later.

2002, 20 years ago. So 10 years in prison. What do you suppose goes through the mind of a guy like this in prison? I mean, I don't know if you're, you don't seem like the speculative type, but I can't help wondering what he's thinking about his life. I mean, did he try to continue to control the mob from inside through his son, Jr.? He did continue to control the mob, but it wasn't through Jr. He had emissaries who would come to visit him.

he was in Marion, the penitentiary in Marion, Indiana. And people would come and send messages back, but he stayed in charge of the Gambino family for the 10 years he was in prison. It's just, it's all unbelievable. Is it ever difficult for you? Because what we're talking about is evil. I mean, this is dark stuff?

Is it ever difficult for you as a husband and a father to be dealing with this kind of thing over such a long period of time? That's a great question. You know, on occasion, all of us doing this, the people who work with me on the team that convicted John Gotti, we'd come across a vignette, you know, a set of events that we thought, good, you know, good God, this is such a demented organization. You know, you pull someone out of a shallow grave and forest park,

queens. You know, those people have families and people who love them, and it really is a sick, demented organization. That on occasion can get to you. But, you know, from a investigating prosecutor standpoint, there's no more interesting stuff in the world to do. So for the most part, it was, you know, fun might not be the right word, but really engaging work. We loved it. We felt lucky to be able to be doing it. So not a barrel of laughs, but meaningful. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And they were they were a parasite on New York in ways that a lot of your listeners probably don't appreciate. You know, the construction, the piers, the garment center, garbage carting. The mob took off the top of all of the industries that make New York work. You know, they skimmed a lot of money off the top of it.

So they were inflicting attacks really on all of us, including killing each other. But they just wanted to wet their beak, you know, just to get a little bit. No, it's kind of amazing because what you're talking about is the definition of corruption. That's Funuzzi from Godfather, too. I just want to wet my beak, eh. It's kind of amazing because you... Try the veal. It's the best in the city. We're just going to quote Godfather from here on info.

So if you need to tune out, you know, go take a shower, whatever you need to do. No, it's kind of amazing to me because this is the definition of corruption. Sometimes you see it now, you also see it in government, let's be honest, where there are human beings, there is the temptation to corruption. To get something out of it, not to do the right thing. And I would guarantee that half of the guys in the mob thought, you know, we've got some of this coming to us. We're not really, you know, there's levels of brazenness and crime. and they somehow, whatever, wormed their way into every aspect of the unions and so on and so forth. But you're quite right.

Once you take them out, my goodness, suddenly you have the possibility of less corruption. But there is a lot of bureaucratic corruption. We know this that takes place in government that exists in New York today. I mean, you don't need the mob for that. You know, one great way of putting this. was after the trial, Gravano was summoned down to Capitol Hill by Sam Nunn and John McCain and a couple of other senators to testify about organized crime in boxing. In boxing?

In boxing, like you needed Sammy Gravano. Right. But part of that testimony, Gravano was saying, you know, everybody thinks the mob guerrillas people, but we don't. It's like a two-sided greed. you know, we corrupt union officials. And everybody gets their beak wet. And it's not a strong-arming thing. It's a collaboration to break the rules.

And everybody gets a little richer. And that's the way the mob at its best worked. It had control of unions. They didn't guerrilla the unions. They shared the proceeds of their corruption. By the way, using guerrilla as a verb, ladies and gentlemen, never done before in this program. Yeah.

I think you get $50 for that. You're going to get a check. Here's another one, ready? Machiaveli them. Machiaveli them. That was a Gravano verb. He would say, you know, we decided not to Machiavelli them. And by the way, Gravano thought Machiavelli was a different way of making veal pizziul.

He didn't know that are referred to the prince, Niccolo Machiavelli, but we don't have time. So it's kind of funny to me because what you're talking about, I love, you know, getting behind this and starting to think about how does sin work, you appeal to somebody's sense of greed. And that's, you see this, whether it's in different mob movies or whatever, but they, they know that they're dealing, that they might be bad, but that there are other people that are bad and they can get to the senator because the senator wants this. And what do we need to do to appeal to his sense of greed or lust or we'll get him women, we'll get him money. It's so dirty. It's so dirty.

And it's not either your brains or your signature are going to be on that contract. Yeah. It's more of a collaboration. It's more of a collaboration. Right. It's kind of like collaborative dance. You make it sound very artistic. Thank you.

It's a collaboration. Thank you. Well, it is interesting to get into the minds of these folks. And it is interesting to me that Gotti, even though he's behind bars, was still able to run the Gambino family from behind bars. That's kind of amazing. It's hard because all of his conversations were recorded. So he had to speak in code to the people who came to visit him.

Can you give us any example of that? I mean, I'd love to know. We were listening. Well, you know, it's not like we broke the code, but he would talk to people. about stuff, and the conversation would get, you know, a little opaque, and we figured that's somehow a message. But, you know, there weren't any prosecutions brought as a result of those meetings that he had.

But I went on the bench. I became a judge two years later. But I know the FBI was listening to all of them, and to my knowledge didn't make any cases. Do you think he wanted his son not to be involved in the mob? No, he actually bragged to Chin Gigante when Junior became a made guy. And there were some people in the mob who thought, you know, why are you bragging about this? Yeah.

It's not something to be proud of. So he was proud to bring Junior in. We'll be right back. final segment talking to Judge John Glees and the book is the Goddy Wars. Don't go away. 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

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you still own the physical gold. They can also ship gold and precious metals safely and securely to your house. Call Legacy at 866-528-1903 or visit them online at Legacypminvestments.com. folks. We are talking to the author of The Gotti Wars, taking down America's Most Notorious Mobster. Judge John Gleason is with us. There are beautiful pictures in this book. There are. And we're almost out of time. But after this is over,

you know, we'll go, we'll have some gabagool, some scoomgeals, you know, we'll hang out. You know what I'm saying? And we'll keep talking. But for now, I want to ask you, when movies like some of the ones that Scorsese put out and the Sopranos come out like the Godfather. Do you ever feel, and I do, that they glamorized what is really wicked?

They kind of made it seem a little bit attractive. Yes, and that's what they do. And look, I've got two feelings about it. One is, like, it's not the right, it's not an accurate depiction of the mob. Like they're bad guys, they're treacherous, they betray each other, they kill each other. They're terrible people. On the other hand, it accounts for the fact that there's still a bit of an appetite for a book like this. Yeah.

Right? Because we have this fascination with the mob that passes in the night with what the mob really is. Well, but there's a fine line in how one portrays it. In other words, I think you can glamorize it or you can, you know, I mean, it's kind of Like talking about that, how you need wisdom in figuring out, do we let Sammy the bull go after we know we committed 19 murders? What is the what is the upside? Is the upside outweigh the downside? But I think that in some of the films, I mean, I think that Scorsese definitely somehow glamorizes that world.

He glamorized it. But it's even, it's worse than that. It's almost like he inures us to the evil, the blood and everything. It's almost like he kind of sucks us into it. I agree. So I think we should have him whacked out. I don't know. I mean, we'll get together.

We'll collaborate. We'll talk about that offline. Marty Scorsese, I'd get out of town. I will say this. There's differences in degree as to how wrong they get it. And some of them, like Goodfellas, that's much closer to the reality of the mob than the Godfather was. That film, to me, hits it just right. In other words, the Goodfellas is tough to watch, but it kind of gets it right.

The next movie he made Casino. was horrifying to me because he seems to almost, there's something about movie makers, I think maybe they almost revel in the violence, in the blood. But in any event, well, in your book, there's a lot in here. What is in this book that is not in other books

that have dealt with the subject? Well, there's no junk in the book. What do you mean? I mean, you know, there's a fair number of books. written about Gotti and that era by people who never once set foot in the courtroom. So there's a lot of lore and rumor and, you know, basically folklore about John Gotti. Look, I wrote this book because I was on the inside, doing the investigating, and trying the cases. And I thought this was a sufficiently important part of the history of our city.

and of the mob to get it right and put it down and write it. And that's what I did. It took me a little longer than I wanted it to, but this is in terms of if you want a historically accurate and I hope, reasonably entertaining description of what the mob really was like in the 80s and 90s, the mob as we knew it because it's gone now. You should read my book. The Gotti Wars is the book.

It is interesting when you talk about some other books. You say this book doesn't have junk in it. I know what you mean because as a writer of biographies, I'm always astonished when I'm reading other books on the similar subject. And they put things in that you know are, if not out and out, not true, are certainly not provably true, that they just throw it in because they heard it, which seems to me a very sloppy way of dealing with truth, you know. Yeah, you know, thanks for bringing up your experience as a biographer

because you'll appreciate this. People's memories are terrible. They're selective. People remember what they want to remember, the way they want to remember it. I went back and got all of the records from the two trials, the transcripts, the correspondence back and forth with the court. found a number of ways in which my own recollection was faulty. But, you know, you have to go back to primary sources.

And one of the reasons this took me longer than I expected it would was when I went back and read that everything in there that happens in court is from the transcript. Right. So, you know, to get it right, as opposed to rely on your recollection or even worse, someone else's recollection who wasn't even there, to get it right takes time. and so that's very historic, you know, it has the rigor of the biographies that you wrote.

Well, you don't know anything about my biographies. They could be terribly sloppy. But in all seriousness, one of the things that astonished me, as I wrote those books and other books, is when you find things that you know are wrong that are in other books, and you feel really a sense of joy to correct it, you know, for the record, because you think this is a terrible thing that everybody says this happened, and you find out I'm pretty sure it didn't happen. In fact, I'm 90% sure, in some cases 100% sure that it didn't happen,

but it's in all these books, and it gets out there, and it gets repeated over and over and over again. There you go. You've captured one of the most satisfying things in this book. So it becomes part of the historical record, and it is very important. I don't know. I asked this completely out of the blue.

What are people like John Gotti's kids doing today? What does Junior Gotti do with himself today? If the mob is gone, he was a made man. Is he still in New York doing something nefarious? Or has he moved on? I have to say, I don't know. And one of his daughters is a prominent author. I'm not sure what John's children are doing.

Well, it's interesting. You probably know Michael Franziz. Okay, we've had him on the program, and what fascinated me about him is that here is a man who has really changed his life as dramatically as you can. He's become a profoundly serious Christian, and he has rejected that world as much as you can. But what's so fascinating to me is when you talk to him, you kind of do hear the other side of the story. You hear the appeal of it or how law enforcement at times would double cross them in ways that would make them, you know, want to get back or whatever. And you start realizing what a mess it can be, really. Absolutely right.

You know, young prosecutors come into the job and I think the world is white hats and black hats. And it doesn't take long to figure out that just about everything is one shade of gray or another. I put Michael on the witness stand. in one of the cases after he cooperated, he testified against one of the grand jurors who was listening to the investigation of Michael Francis. So I'm familiar with Michael. Yeah. Well, that's what amazed me was, you know, to have somebody like that, you know,

as we evangelical say, to give his life to Christ, for that to be authentic, but for him not to become a different person, I mean, on one level to become a different person, but also to have that history and those relationships and, you know, to care for his elderly father who is in prison to what age 100 practically. Yeah. And to know that his father doesn't really have a clue where Michael's coming from. But, you know, trying to be a good son to this man who was a tremendous criminal. It's really, it's bizarre, but it's interesting. I mean, I know that Michael Francie's, was he was one of those up-and-comers in the 80s, wasn't he? Yes. People can change.

I mean, we know it's rare, but when people say it can't happen, I say that's just wrong. I was talking to Lee's Wheel, who wrote about the spy, the Russian spy, Hansen, and we were talking about how the son of Sam, David Berkowitz, dramatically changed. I've corresponded with him, and it is rare.

So you can see how people would be cynical and say, I don't believe it. But it does happen. It happens, especially when people commit their crimes as young men. You know, we know a lot more now about people who are 22, 23 committing crimes and cognitive development. Some of those folks, I represent many of them in my current world, some of those folks can grow up and mature in prison to be impressive and sometimes even admirable people. People can grow up. Yeah, it's amazing and it just gives us hope because it is heartbreaking some of the decisions that people make.

In any event, I'm just, you know, on behalf of everyone who will read this book, thrilled that you finally wrote it, thrilled that Scribner published it. There are still publishers out there. They're all. So thank you so much for being my guest. Thanks for writing. Writing's not easy. Thanks for writing The Godi Wars, Taking Down America's Most Notorious Mobster, Judge John Gleason.

Thank you. I've really enjoyed being here. Thank you, Eric, for having me on your show. My pleasure. Hey there, folks. Eric Metaxis here. As you know, our friend, and he's a real friend, Mike Lindell, has a passion to help everyone get the best sleep of their life.

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or call 800-978-3057. 800-978 3057. Make like a Mr. Milk toast. You'll get shiote. Got out. Folks, welcome to the Eric Metaxis program. I'm at the NRB in Nashville, which is a city in Tennessee, except part of the city has been taken over by this thing called the Gaylord Opryland Resort. It's kind of like a terrarium for people.

And we're inside it right now. They pump in the oxygen. If they choose to pump it in less, people die. So it's scary. It's scary. But the good news is I bump into all kinds of friends, old friends, new friends. I'm sitting here now with my friend Lucas Miles. He's written a book called The Christian Left, How Liberal Thought Has Hijacked the Church.

This is a very, very important subject. Lucas Miles, thank you for being with me. Hey, thanks for having me. Let's talk about this because there's so many people that attend churches that are kind of drifting along with this. They've accepted some of this rather than understanding that this. This is very bad on every level. So, you know, when you talk about the church being invaded in your book, the Christian left, talk to us about the details.

Yeah, I mean, what we're really seeing is this rising, growing constituency of left-leaning Christians, progressive Christians, and sometimes Christians in name only, who have embraced Marxism, socialism, critical race theory. When you say Christians in name only, do you specifically mean the Episcopal Church? You know, I think there could be, there's probably some of these individuals maybe in a lot of churches. But we have to be clear that the mainline Protestant churches, okay, they're all hanging out rainbow flags. They're all hanging out BLM. I mean, they, I wrote them off, you know, when the National Council of Churches was formed, they are just utterly useless.

But what you're talking about and what concerns us more is the, is the, is the. so-called evangelical church. We expect this when we drive through a big city and we see the old churches downtown that are these, you know, these mainline denominations and just see those, a lot of times they're higher liturgical. We expect to see the rainbow flag flying above the cross. That doesn't necessarily shock anybody today. It should, but it doesn't, right?

But what we're now seeing is in our community churches, our evangelical mega churches, these places that are teaching CRT that are pushing, you know, socialism, Marxism, Marxist ideas from the pulpit and many of these people are drifting a really away from, I believe, you know, Orthodox Christian teaching. And so, I mean, I have my answers for this and I was on a panel with you yesterday where you were asking me about this, but let me ask you, why do you think people who are supposedly Christian leaders, pastors, would, would allow this kind of thing to drift into their world? Do they, are they simply can convinced that it's true, or are there some of them who are just afraid to stand against it?

Is it sheer lack of courage? You know, I had said this yesterday on the panel that I really think that, you know, yes, there is a problem with the pastors, but I'm looking a lot to the professors. And I think there's been this trickle down from the professors at what used to be trusted Bible colleges that have now moved to progressive. Give me an example of a trusted Bible college. that has allowed these ideas in seriously. I think there's good people in a lot of Bible colleges,

but I think we see places even like Wheaton or Biola. And again, I love people at Wheaton, Biola. I've spoken at some of these places, and maybe I won't after this interview. I don't know that could ruin that right here. But I think that, you know, there are, there's individuals there that have really drifted. I think a place like Azusa Pacific,

they've changed their policies on sexuality and gender. That's what I'm saying is like when you talk about, Biola and Wheaton and Azusa Pacific, it is hard for me to take it in. The idea that these places, which I would have sworn up and down, these folks are solid, that these places have allowed this stuff in. It is mind-bending. Who are the presidents of these three places? Why are they allowing this to happen? I mean, look, if people are sending their kids to these places or if you're thinking of going to these places. The idea that we're talking about this right now should give you pause, because this is a staggering development. It absolutely is. And I mean, even some conservative

universities, conservative Christian universities, I have parents, I have faculty coming to me and saying, hey, I just want you to know, wokeism is at our door, and we have to continue to push it back, and we have to really ensure that we're not falling into this position. I mean, there's a lot of people have done research, you know, people like Michael O'Fallon and others who have really traced some of the money involved in this. You know, if you look at, you know, a situation, even with a place like Biola University. And again, I have, I have great friends at Biola University. Some of them are on staff there that, you know, you see a place that they've taken, their 990s, which show they've taken $3 million from the Riyadi family, a Chinese Indonesian billionaire who was

involved in a greatest campaign finance scandal in U.S. history with the Clintons. Well, now, that is more confusing than anything to me. In other words, why in other words, I get that that's bad money, but it's different from Soros money where it makes perfect sense to me what they're trying to do with the money. What are the Riyadi family trying to do with their money by sending it to a place like that?

I think that there are, I think that there are, you know, we hear the name Soros. He's become kind of the boogeyman to the right. And I do believe that he is a bad actor and very much responsible for putting money into causes to really shift what he would call reflexivity, where he is, you know, essentially using marketing money, dollars, etc.

to change public opinion about certain issues. The left knows that unless they divide the church and the family, they can't win elections. And so they're going to continue to put money into things that create confusion in those spaces. And one of the places they do that is in higher, you know, Christian Ed. They're also doing that in churches. You know, we saw that through, you know,

when it was all the stuff that came out about sojourners and Soros funds and these things, creation care, you know, and all of that. I mean, but I'm not shocked when I hear that it's happening with sojourners or creation care. I am shocked when I hear about Azusa Pacific and Biola. Now I'm horrified. They're getting pressure. And I believe, you know, it's the same with a lot of our megachurches. You know, there's, the staffing that's happening, hiring people. Actually, forgive me, we're going to break since this is radio. We'll be right back talking to Lucas Miles. The book is The Christian Left, how liberal thought has hijacked the church. Folks is here at Metaxis show. I'm talking to my friend

Lucas Miles, who has a book out called The Christian Left, How Liberal Thought Has Hijacked the Church. So let's just continue this conversation. You're telling me that there's pressure to hire at places like Biola, at places like Azusa Pacific and Wheaton, that they're hiring people. So for them, maybe it starts out like they think, well, we want to be more inclusive and open-minded. but what they don't realize is on these issues, you're inviting the devil in to, you know, rob the children, the students of their souls. It's gotten that serious that this is not just, it's not a small thing what they're doing when they let these folks in. Look, I mean, even a place, you know, so we talked about Biola University, there's a famous mural that's been under, you know, a debate for, you know, about a decade. And it's the Jesus mural.

It's a giant portrait of Jesus is painted on one of the side of the buildings. And this continues to come under attack that so much so that the president of the university, because of this color of Jesus's skin, because he's a little lighter than what some people would want him to be in this particular painting. And so now we had the president of the university at one point came out and said that he could understand how this picture of Jesus would cause alienation for certain states. Wait, who said that? The president of Iowa University. And his name is? It's the last day of NRB. I don't even know what your name is. You know why?

I know his name. his name is Barry. Yes, he's Barry. Yes. And Barry is a good man, and I've known him for years. So it's particularly dismaying when a good man, like Barry Corey, is pressured into saying things like that. I don't think people realize when you say something like that, you can do tremendous damage on a number of levels, because you're really giving comfort to the enemy by playing into their narrative. Because the thing is, Jesus was a Jew.

If you have a problem with that, jump in a lake of fire, if you like. But the point is, he was a Jew. He wasn't a Puerto Rican. He wasn't a Nigerian. Like, is this really something that we need to be talking about? Even the idea of talking about it is itself crazy, right? Because you could say, like, well, we can have that conversation. But there is unbelievable suffering going on in the world.

there are Uyghur Muslims being murdered and having their organs taken out so that the Chinese government can make money. This is what we want to focus on? Let me pivot this a little bit. And just because this is why these things aren't so shocking for me. When you look at the history of the church, the two original heresies to face the church were the Judaizers and then the Gnostics. And I believe that everything we see in church history is always sort of this pendulum swinging between the Judaizers, the legalists, the fundamentalists, the fundamentalists. and the Gnostics who are really the progressives, the spiritual but not, you know, faith-filled, those that we're trying to bring in some of these pagan concepts.

So right now, we are in a swing towards Gnosticism, particularly ethnic Gnosticism, as a lot of people have been talking about. And that is really what's guiding the church. Now, in 10 years, we might be swinging back to fundamentalism, and you and I are going to be sitting here in our old age. Right. Talking about, you know, the issues with the Christian right, you know, that the fundamentalism that has come in and people have abandoned the gospel. of grace. Honestly, it's so, it is fascinating, but we have to fight this battle. And I think it's kind of funny because when I see folks like, you know, former campus

crusade crew, okay, on their blog, they have somebody, you know, kind of writing about systemic racism and this and that. And when you read it, you think to yourself, and this is the key, and this is how the devil works, is that there may be true. in what is written, right? Somebody's had an experience. They've been, you know, I mean, but it's the fact that by talking about it, you're not talking about something else. You're elevating this to like, hey, this is an issue. We need to deal with. And the fact of the matter is, no, in the scheme of things, this is not. In this nation, you know, hundreds of millions

of young men died to end slings. So if you really want to be talking about it, somebody got their feelings hurt because some jerk looked at them funny, your priorities are screwed up. So part of what it is to be a leader is to say, we're talking about this. We're not going to talk about this. We don't need to talk about this. This is not one of the central issues that need discussing. Yeah. And so this is a big question. You know, really the idea, are there such things as, you know, secondary and tertiary doctrines, or is it or is every doctrine primary? And see, the interesting thing that has been happening is we have solid Christian, denominations, you know, Charismatics and evangelicals arguing about, you know, speaking in tongues versus not speaking in tongues, women in ministry, women in ministry. The whole time, while all this is happening off to the side where the progressive church is rising, they're fighting with, instead of just going, you know what, there's going to be certain things where I disagree with, you're getting your answers from scripture, I'm getting my answers from scripture, I can at least respect your answers because you haven't left the Bible. And let's, why don't we join together and start

really speaking out against, you know, this growing, you know, sort of Marxist entity that is, you using the name Jesus and the church in order to try to, you know, advance through society. Well, and again, you have really respected people like Tim Keller, who for years was a friend. But, I mean, he says things that he says, like, well, everybody should get their hands on everything they can read on critical race theory. And I think, no, no, no, no, no. That's preposterous. People don't have time. And by when you say that, you're implying, there's a lot of good stuff here that we need to chew on.

Right. And I want to say, no. There's not a lot of good stuff. It's like reading Mind Kampf. You read Mind Kampf in college to familiarize yourself with it. But you don't be like, hey, get your hands on all the Nazi literature you can get your hands on so that you can combat it. You don't need to read everything to know it's bad. It's basically wrong.

And can we move on with our lives? We have other things to do. Look, you wrote the book on Bonhofer. And, you know, one of the things that I think is interesting right now, you know, people like you and I, we would get called by, you know, the list. Christian Nationalists because we love Jesus and we like living in the USA. And so when you look at the church in Germany and you know this even better than I do, what you see is that the Nazified German church, they were the ones that were willing to lay down biblical ideology in order to do anything that

the government said. Who are the true Christian nationalists today? It's the church of the left. It's the progressive. They are the ones bowing down to the state, you know, taking that agenda forward in order to promote anything that the state wants them to do all the while laying down biblical ideology. Well, right, and there was a brilliant article. We had her on the program, Megan Basham at Daily Wire. She wrote about this, and it's a scandalous thing. And part of it is this

idea of that it's kind of like wanting to be part of the elite or thinking that I'm going to be more effective evangelistically if I'm kind of, you know, not sounding crazy. So I'm just going to, I'm going to agree with Anthony Fauci and whoever I have to agree with. And I think there's a time to be really be bold and to say no this is wrong. And there's a price to be paid, but you know, I don't know where I heard it, but you can't out give God. So you might as well pay the price and praise his name. We'll be right back. Folks, I'm talking to Lucas Miles. He has written a number of books. The book I'm holding in my hand is The Christian Left. And you are one of the co-hosts of the Church Boys podcast. You're

all over the place. You live in this world and you've seen this. I just imagine, since I have lost friends, you've probably lost friends who they simply don't understand where you're coming from. Yeah, I mean, I'd share this, you know, in several places that in 2016, we lost about 40% of our church for, and I didn't wear a red hat. I didn't have a Trump banner on the stage. I didn't talk about even endorsing particular candidates, but I did a series teaching about biblical views related to issues of the election of the upcoming election in 2016. and we had about 40% of our church leave over about a 30-day period. But that sounds very healthy. It sounds like they finally realized, uh-oh, I guess I'm not a Christian.

I'll see you later. Yeah, that's kind of what happens, kind of what it felt like. And look, I'm in a red state with a super majority, but we're in a blue county. Look, this is a healthy sifting. People have to deal with these issues. There's just, there's no way around it. Yeah. And the idea that politics can be divorced from faith or faith from politics, that's another cudgel.

that the left uses simply to shut up those people of faith. I mean, imagine Wilberforce saying, my faith compels me to use the political process to abolish the slave trade. Tons of people in his day told him, keep your faith to yourself. We're not interested in your faith. And he thought, well, I'm interested in doing

what God calls me to do, and I'm going to do it, and I'm going to live with the results. This is exactly what we've seen in the book of Acts. So basically, look, I appreciate what you're saying, but I'm going to listen to God instead of you, and I'm going to show up in the temple the next day and preach. And so, you know, this is, I think, the decision that every single Christian has to make is, are we going to just, you know, bow down to the state? Are we going to bow down to the government? Or are we going to submit to God?

And look, as, you know, you look at church history, Jerome, during, you know, persecution of Christians defended the church by saying, look, Christians are going to be the best citizens that you're ever going to have in your nation. We're going to follow, you know, the laws. We're going to make sure it's a just society, all these sorts of things. But we're just not going to bow down to you as God. We're not going to offer sacrifices that you want us to offer. We're going to follow Jesus. And this is really what we're saying. It's not, you know, Christians have been kind of labeled today as, oh, this rebellious, you know,

group trying to cause all these problems. At the end of the day, we're saying, look, we'll do whatever you want us to do unless it violates my faith and my conscience in Christ. And what we saw this last two years is the government forcing people to violate their faith and conscience over things like vaccines, etc. And we have seen many Christians go along with that. 100%. In other words, here is a moment. you know, all these people that said they'd love my Bonhoeffer book, hey, this would have been a really sweet moment for you to show that you understood the content of the book,

but in fact, it's obvious that they didn't. Yeah. That now, when it comes to you to do something that may cost you something, you go, no, not yet, not yet. I'm not willing to do that. I'll wear a mask. I'll do that. We just got 40 seconds. The book is The Christian Left.

Final Thought, Lucas Miles. Yeah, I think the different. about what I'm saying, maybe what you hear from some others, is at the end of the day, we also have to make sure that we're ministering to people. Some people have ended up in this place in deception. Some people have ended up in this place because they just haven't heard a better answer. They've been ignorant of these things. They just haven't been in the word enough to know. And I think it's important as Christians that we don't just write people off. We don't just, you know, condemn them immediately. We speak the truth. We stand on the truth, but we still want to

minister to them and really help lead them back because I think there's some of these people are going to be able to come back to biblical truth. I like your hopeful attitude. I think you're exactly right. You're a good man, Lucas Miles. Congratulations on all you've done, but especially on the new book, The Christian Left, How Liberal Thought has hijacked the Church. God bless you. Thank you. I don't want anyone in this radio audience to miss out on giving to food for the poor. This is an important opportunity, and if you are part of the radio audience, and that means if you can hear my voice now, you're it. we want you to please go to metaxis talk.com and click on the banner. You'll see it.

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