The Eric Metaxas Show - John Perkins

Episode Date: January 27, 2022

Civil Rights icon John Perkins, author of "Count It All Joy: The Ridiculous Paradox of Suffering," shares his personal story of the early days of the battle for equality.

to the Eric Mettaxas show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Hey there, folks. I want to talk about Hamlet by Shakespeare. You know what? I'm just in a mood. I want to talk about Hamlet by Shakespeare. Okay. And because last night, Suzanne and I were watching Kenneth Branagh's version, film,

version of Hamlet, which is four hours long. Oh. We only got two hours into it. But, oh, my gosh. It's visually so glorious. And Shakespeare is worth talking about. But when was this version made? What year?

I think it was like 96. Oh, okay. Julie Christie is in it. She plays Gertrude, his mother. Okay. And this is only like 30 years after Dr. Chavago. So, which I watched the other night with Omar Sharif, whom I mentioned in my book, Fish Out of Water.

But, Albin, let's pretend to be focused. Today we're talking to John Perkins, a 92-year-old man who lived through the civil rights movement. He wrote a book called Counted All Joy. I cannot wait to talk to John. He is an icon. He is an icon. When you hit 90, you get to be an icon. Not all 90-year-olds are icons, but he's 92, and I think he's a civil rights.

writes icon. We'll probably also speaking to our friend Jenna Ellis. But Albin, I, okay, let me also say this. Tomorrow we're talking to our friend John Zmirak. He's been sick with the COVID. Oh, no. Yeah. He was caught up into the third heaven. Crazy stuff. And they have Ivermectin up there. But I want to talk to you. You, you, look, I've got a lot of friends who write stuff. Larry Taunton. I recommend checking him out. Larry Alex Taunton. dot com john smirac practically every day at stream dot org but you my friend have written something at american greatness that's right yeah can you tell us about it oh yeah now last week uh listen alvin you i could get you on the show because my producer yeah is uh is a twin brother oh of uh of uh of uh of your twin

brother yeah that's right now and he he writes a lot of articles too they're kind of climate related Last week, a mostly peaceful insurrection. I kind of followed up this week with one called When Will People Finally See the Obvious. Wait a minute. You wrote a piece last week called what? A mostly peaceful insurrection. Okay, so that's an American greatness under Albans State or S-A-D-A-R.

But the new one that's up today is titled. When will people finally see the obvious? And it kind of dovetails off the last one because the last one was about, you know, the left is making a big deal out of one six, you know, on January 6th. And it's kind of a smokescreen because they don't want people to look into other things that they're doing. And the fact that they're really on the chopping block when you look at stuff that's really nefarious. And to be clear, the people who are pretending like January 6th was almost the end of democracy because of Trump supporters, even though they're insane, most of them actually believe this.

They live in an echo chamber where nobody descents from that. You remember Stalin? Similar, similar climate. Nobody descents from the orthodoxy. But if you've paid any actual attention to it, and if you know people who were there that day, you know that the lie that is being promoted is one of, that is actually one of the darkest episodes in American history.

The fact that we are having to push back against these. vile lies that have hurt people to really get to the bottom of it. So what do you say? So that's one of the obvious things that tells me there was something hanky, let's put it that way, about the 2020 presidential election. Now I begin this article with a quote that's in the movie The Usual Suspects. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist. And I said, let's tweak that a little bit for the Democrats. The greatest trick, the Democratic party ever pulled was convincing the voters, they did not steal the 2020 election. Right. And so I go down the line as to just, you don't have to be a genius to figure this stuff

out. And I just want to be clear, too, folks, because there's something really sick about not, I mean, if you see somebody get raped and killed, but then everybody tells you, well, that that didn't happen. And even if it did happen, don't talk about it. If you don't talk about it, you are implicated in the rape and murder. When something horrible happens, if you do not have enough backbone to at least say, I want to know what happened and no, I won't shut up about what happened, you're guilty. And the reason I wanted to talk about this with you, Albin, is because there are a lot of people out there who they think that they've moved on or it's the smart thing to move on. And I think, are you crazy? In the United States of America, until

you know? And don't say, like, well, there's no evidence. That's baloney. There's tons of evidence and affidavits and on and on and on. People just don't want to know or they say, don't talk about it. We're going to talk about it on this program. And I think not to talk about it is scandalous. So we're stuck. So please continue. Yeah. So I start out by the short list of things that the press and the establishment has told us, it's definitely true. don't listen to anybody else except what we tell you and say like, okay, let me go through it real quick. COVID, okay, they suppress the origins, they suppress what really can cure you or at least help you out. January 6th, they're saying that's worse than Pearl Harbor and 9-11 combined. Hunter Biden's laptop, hey, that's Russian information. We haven't looked at it, but it's Russian

disinformation when they had the peaceful riots. We all saw the burning buildings behind them. These are mostly peaceful. The peaceful arson. Right. There's nothing more beautiful. than a building being torched peacefully. I emphasize peacefully. And then when the parents show up at school boards, they're domestic terrorists

because they're standing up against critical race theory. Okay, so we all know that that's a lie. It's a smokescreen. And yet when they tell us, look, there's nothing to look into with the 2020 election, we say like, yeah, I guess you're right. You've told us the truth on all the other things. Just because you've lied a thousand times,

why would we doubt you? No, I have to say that, I'll say it again and again, when people do not have an argument, they have to resort to bullying tactics, to name-calling, to ad hominem. So they say, oh, you're clinging to the conspiracy theory. You know what a conspiracy theory I'm clinging to, to the fact that Jesus died and rose from the dead. I'm clinging to that theory.

There are, you know, a couple of billion of others around the world who are clinging to that theory. Why? Because it's true. And just because you call it a conspiracy theory, or you use it. don't like its implications. It doesn't change the fact that people are going to continue to believe those things. So if you're really interested in changing people's minds, you're going to have to do better than bullying and going yeah and yeah. You're a conspiracy theorist. That's what we call

childish. So I think we have to deal with the facts. We're adults. And Albin, thank you for writing this article. Yeah, just one more quick thing to get people to go and see the entire article that's right here at the top. I mean, they spent four years saying this guy was the worst. We're going to get rid of We're going to impeach him. We're going to do everything, everything to get rid of this guy. But on election day, we're going to stand back and let the deplorables, who voted in him in the first time, come around and say, we're going to get rid of them. We're going to let the voters, because it's so holy and so sacrosanct that we don't touch the voting in this country. He's Hitler, but we're not going to get rid of Hitler by changing the votes or anything. No, they would never do a thing like that. Why would they do a thing like that?

No, of course not. Just because they've lied a million times. Listen, you have to find the humor in this, folks. Otherwise, you'll go crazy. There is no question that there are serious questions about the election. And if you are afraid to raise those questions, I'm looking at you. I'm saying, I wonder why are you so afraid? What are you afraid of losing? You have some quote unquote friends that may look at you funny. Maybe they're not really your friends. If you don't care about truth at a time like this, and if you let you let you. this nonsensical narrative prevail, you're guilty. And I only say this because I hope some of you will say, oh, okay, I don't want to do that. I didn't realize I was doing that. Okay, when we come back, we're talking to John Perkins, 92 years young. I can't wait to do that. And in our two, I believe we're going to have our friend Jenna Ellis on the program, but I really do want to talk about Hamlet. I'm so excited. I saw it last night. I mean, there's so many different versions of

Hamlet, but Shakespeare is so glorious. Hard to understand to some extent, but it's worth the trouble. So we'll be back. It's the Eric Metax's show. Do not forget. Go to mypillar.com, my store.com, Neutrametics.com. Use the code. Eric. God bless you.

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I have the privilege right now to talk to John Perkins. John M. Perkins is a 92-year-old man who has written a book called Counted All Joy. He's one of the last original crusaders for the Civil Rights Movement in these United States. John Perkins, I am thrilled to have you on this program. Welcome. It's delightful to be on your program, and I'll be 92 in June. In June. Close enough. close enough. You, you sir, are, you're in Jackson, Mississippi, where you spent most of your life.

Did you say that you had served in the Korean War? Yes, I served two years in the Korean War, 18 months overseas, and the other was preparation and go overseas. Does it seem like it's 70 years ago to you? It's hard to believe that that's 70 years ago. Well, it's in a way, yes, as I look back and see what has happened during these years and the change in our society. And, of course, the big deal with me becoming a believer and a Christian and how that affected my life. And now as I've come to the end of it, trying to live a life of understanding faith, faith is It's what you see when you finish that God did this in your life. And so you live a life of faith and hope.

And faith is a substance of things hope for and evidence of nothing not seen. And he promised to see us face to face in the end. So it's not over, a yoga used to say, it's not over until it's over. Till it's over. I think Yogi Barrett said that. Let me ask you Go ahead Let me ask you

because there's so much I want to say But I want to start at the beginning You grew up in Mississippi When there was What I like to call Genuine racism On a level that is so evil And monstrous

That we need to talk about it And I I want to take you back to 1947 And what happened in your life Because there's so many people today, if somebody looks at them funny, they call that racism. You experienced the demonic evil of real racism in this country. And I want you to tell that story because people need to understand what has been endured and what we've fought against.

Yeah, I think to go with that now, what we want to go there, is defining people. as black, defining people as white into making that. So I think the way we held our conversation in terms of racism is sort of niggerized and both of us. And black folks are saying, I can't forgive you and I can't forgive you. And what you do then is begin to substitute another way of, life together. And that's a love of none-for-given hate and using what produces things, trying to be better than the other.

It's a lust of the flesh. It's a lust of the eye. It's a pride of life. It's me as individual people wanting to be God over somebody else. Well, that's the issue. That is exactly right. And I want to tell us the story. we understand what you went through in 1947. Tell us that story, if you would, just to start

there. Yeah, that's what, it would be, I got, before he went into the service, he got into it. My family was not traditional religious, black religion, not thinking about white religion being right. We wasn't that. We live outside of the law. law, but we were sharecroppers. Shetcroppers was those blacks who never got enough cash and never put it together to buy in the

land of their own. The nearest thing was freedom after the emancipation was some land. And from that it's going to come from little schoolhouses and come from their education is going to come. I dropped out of

school when I was somewhere between the third and the fifth grade. never went back to school. My mother died when I was seven months old. My father dropped us off at his mother's house who had been the mother of 19 children. We were bootleaders almost like the dope house could be today. I had a lot of cousins, but there wasn't many men around the house.

You would hear about the kids now. and many of the kids' name took on the person name because we didn't quite understand and then who the father was. It was a mix up as a ghetto of such that is not quite examined and the damage and the psychological damage they have and even the psychological damage we have now when we look back and see what slavery done to us. So I grew up in an environment of sharecropping. Let me tell you what helped me for that.

I was raised by grandmother, had all these children, and my grandfather was already there, and we were both leaggers, and sharecropping was tough. It was right out of slavery. You didn't have no land of yon. We didn't get the The mule and the 40 acres of land And so here is just poverty

And I remember I think this probably set the pattern of my life As not growing up with religion Keep that in mind Religion has a community influence anyway In any kind of a community that brings God and His grace into the environment and utilize it in a very positive way. And so I remember that the sheriff in the Mississippi,

the sheriff could execute the law right there. That's what some of the thing that we haven't got over with is executing the law by the police environment in life. But that's always been that with. black. It also was the public itself executed the judgment because they hung them when they called them. There wasn't no juror trial for that. So you lived through this. When people talk about this kind of thing, you lived it. You were born in 1930. What happened in 1947 when you fled Mississippi? Can you talk about what happened in 1947? After my brother was killed, when I would go into an

environment where blacks was on the streets, they would walk away because there was a thought that I was trying to rig up something in there. So it was good to me. My thought that I should go get out of there. I went to Jackson, spent some time with her, and then they got some money together and put me on the train and went to New Orleans on Sunset Limit, ended up in Cala. But what happened when I was about a five years old, back to my memory, the police from said she came there, and they found some liquor.

They said they said it. We sold liquor. They came to the right place. But my grandmother said they put it there themselves, and I want to take you to jail. And my grandmother said something. She did this right. All everybody else was in the plantation. And she was there as an older lady taking care of the children.

And she said, if I was a man, I would keep your behind to think that I'm going to leave these children and go willingly with you to jail. And that is what's that dignity in my life as I grew and wonder how if it was and how fearful we was of the law, a mother, a grandmother, had told me that she would almost like die. She said, if I was a man, I would keep your behind for thinking I'm going to leave these children and go to jail with me.

That is amazing. Now, we're going to go to a break here before you finish that sentence. We're going to go a break. I want people to understand. I'm talking to John Perkins. He's going to be 92 this year. He has lived this. This is an important dark part of American history.

It is very important that we understand what happened. And we'll be right back talking to John Perkins. The book is called Count It All Joy by John M. Perkins. We'll be right back. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Biden administration has caused a financial crisis, and they have no clue how to fix it. Oil prices have skyrocketed.

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John, I know that your brother was killed by the police in 1947. You're talking about what happened even before that. Continue from where you were going. Yes, because you've got to understand the conscious and the self-consciousness, Because those are played back into your life based on the situation you're in and based on the continuous situation. And not understanding this and understanding that what makes human flourish is they're created in the image of God. And each other, we see that image in each other.

And that situation was valued. although we sin and violate the law, but that was the reason redemption is is to give us last hand and give us a new life, gone again, and walk in the light of God's love on earth, that we'll love one another. And love is the affirmation of human dignity.

Law is saying that this person is valuable. Don't kill them. And we don't, right now, we don't do that we don't put hate in and made hate of value and love

so the issue today it's today how can we get a handle on this racial reconciliation well don't work because there's only one human race I mean what we talk about here

had a brokenness in Adam because we all were broken there. And if issues, then, is sin and what we call sin. And if we color cult society and make white the standard, we are in trouble. We're even talking about making America white again. When was that?

When Columbus discovered it, I'm saying people are not, our job on earth as people is to love either to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before the Lord. And we've got to find a way to do that. I believe that the way to do that is a biblical way. And I think Count it All Joy explains a part of that biblical way. Well, that's the title of your book, Count It All Joy. I also want to tell people you have a foundation that is the JVMPF.org Foundation, JVMPF.org. Can you tell us, though, what happened in 1947?

My brother was shot. 46, 47. My brother, out of the service, is excited. as other young people out of his service. And he was on the street talking to his girlfriend and the police would come up behind Black when they were talking too loud at night on the street, the New Heaver,

and hit him on the head. And just out of the service, he spent around and tried to take the gun. And he didn't catch it. And the police shot him two pithers in the stomach. died in my arms the one way to the hospital. Well, after that, let me get

to what you asked me. After that, my folk was afraid if I stay around, I would be killed too. And my person was being killed. The one who drove into the hospital, his wife killed him. After that, my sister

had been killed by her boyfriend. And so it was a ghetto where death with blacks had very little men. And so I left and went to California. That was a changing part of my life. How did you get involved in voter registration efforts in 1964? I know that you were beaten and imprisoned in 1970. So you were very involved in the civil rights era in the 60s.

Yes. I was very involved in that. I have a book that called Let Chest to Throw Down. It gives really a well-account. I'm going to know she was learning. The Noot's love is Jesus who loves the children. All the children of the black and white, they are precious in its sight. God loves the little children of the world.

That's when the sea allowed 26, seven years. old and I'm hearing in a real hearing it that God loves me. Now, what was going on around me was the same that were in Arkansas. John, forgive me one second. This is such an important. The book is counted all joy. John Perkins. We'll be right back.

Folks, Eric Matakas here. Somebody just handed me a piece of paper with insane information on it. But I know it's true because the other day I literally got a phone call from Mike Lindell telling me, Eric, you got to check out. And then he tells me about this towel special, right? And he says, you've got to tell your audience. Okay, so here's the special. 3999, if you use the code Eric, normally $109.99.

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800-978-3057. Use the code Eric. Folks, I'm talking to John M. Perkins, who at this point is one of the last witnesses of the civil rights. era and he writes about it in his book Counted All Joy. The subtitle is the ridiculous paradox of suffering. I want to get to that. But John, you were talking about your brother was killed by a cop. This is one of these classic situations that you hear about, a nightmare, that there was so much violence that you left the area. And then in the 1950s, Emmett Till is murdered. All kinds of things are going on, but it was during that period that you came to faith in Jesus and it changed everything for you.

At least that's what it sounds like. It did. It changed everything. And he was at a good enough news club in Southern California that were held in our home and in the community and in the neighborhood. He first went to the club and then with the church. and he came, he was teaching them Bible classes. And then when I heard that God loved all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, it was all over. I saw a whole new reality in the midst of religion, and religion had accommodated all of that that was going on.

and black was not, they were on the separate, but eka, that's a triple oxymoron. And you can't get there from here. You can't get that from here. It's too expensive. And you call it cold society and make quite disbanded for the world. And now we are mad. with the minorities. Well, it was the minorities

who built this country. The different Greeks, and Icrum and black slaves and the natives wouldn't work because of our country. We are at a dark spot here. We need God. We need to come to know

this God. I need to confess him every day. Just try to be in fellowship with him. So what happens, I got in fellowship with blacks and whites together. That's a long story short. I got in fellowship. I went to a prison, and I went to that prison after because of white people was going there, and I had come to faith, and they wanted me to give my testimony there when I went

to that, and there was in any prison before. When I got there, more than half of the prison in Southern California in 19. and 50, 7, 6th, when I went to that prison, was black. I shared a little of my life story with them, and they started weeping in the back. It was the first time in my life that I could see,

that you could tell the story, and it would get to the heart of these stories. But tell a story of redemption, not a story of how it. we have messed up the Bible in terms of his text. Noah has got three white boys, and one of the white boys have the black boy, and turning to make him call him a hound,

and then make him the slaves of the other three white boys who are going to repopulate there. It's a misunderstanding of the images. God. The Bible says in the image of God created Him, we are supposed to be glossed and seek each other. That was one of the sins, sane and able and lack each other because of sin. So we got to get the forgiveness of sin and polarizing white and hating them. It's a danious thing. But it tells you, but it tells you that black.

and whites are equal in God's sight because we now have some blacks doing the same thing that whites have done in the past. And it's... That's because of sand. We got to get our sand forgiven. That's a big part. The cross is it. Well, you understand that...

On that cross is it. On that cross, the angels said that when they brought the first gospel message. behold I bring you good news of great joy which I be to all people he could have said one people fun to you is bond this day in the city of David I came to reconcile the world

unto myself and to make it one and the society is broken and they're hating each other and they're finding ways to kill each other because they have valued hate and they have valued overvalued They're not to satisfy God, loving God, but to satisfy them.

That's the story of Jesus' meeting the day of a head-on. You're not one of these people that thinks of Christianity as a white man's religion. No. That's another insanity. That's just like white folks don't like black religion. You said black, I'm black and I'm proud, black lives matter. All of the lives matter. That image killed her.

As they see a shadow of us, they are sent a shadow of God. Paula is to make it more beautiful. So we have created, we have created a sort of an apartheid way of life. Well, it's happening. And we have, I want to be clear with my audience, John, before we go to the next break, that you led voter registration efforts in the 60s. You worked for school desegregation in 1967. Your brother was killed by the police in 1947. Your sister was murdered. You've buried two of your sons. You have suffered tremendously. And after all of the police, you've been killed. You this, you're pointing us to the God of the Scripture that the only answer for the pain and the suffering in this world is Jesus. When we come back, I want to hear more about that from you. Folks, the book is Counted All Joy, the ridiculous paradox of suffering, the author, my guest, John M. Perkins. on the sea somewhere.

Folks, I have a very special guest, if you haven't already figured it out. His name is John Perkins. He's written this book called Counted All Joy, The Ridiculous Paradox of Suffering. John, you have suffered and your family has suffered tremendously. And so you speak with authority and not as the scribes. And by scribes, I mean journalists. Tell us, if you want to sum this up, how do you sum up? your thinking on all these things.

It's set with human dignity. And human dignity is love and grace, which is the same thing. Grace is the unmeasement of God's love. Love is a sumer of human thoughts. But God's so love, that was his first thought, that he began his creative process. And he created this human being to be the man. and the steward of life.

Life itself is the common good. That's a common good. And just the, don't kill them in life. Did you believe of life? I summed that up in what I call my manifesto. I said, what can watch the way I stand? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. And we said that one blood.

all of our blood is the same. The human being is with just a few points equal in every way. And most of that unequal is a pigment of skin, and that's where they migrated to as they motherly upon this earth. So the first book, This With the Truth, is our way of possible out reconciliation is not working. it creates more bigotry. So we've got to get our sin washed away.

What can wash away my sin? Just present deal in that we've got to be disciples. And disciple is through the church and loving one another. It's through knowing God and making God known and loving him and loving our neighbors as we love our self. that's the asset test of Christianity. And that comes through disciples. That comes to being together. Henry Ford, no business.

He said, coming together is beginning. Working together is progress. Stand together is success. The church is successful as we come together as one and develop that onness in it. And so the second book of discipleship, is called, he called me friends. He called me friends. That comes from first God.

If we walk in the light, as he's in the light, we have friendship, one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanse us and all, it said. And suffering and joy. He suffered for us. He loved us so much. He suffered on the cross.

He suffered. He redeemed us. And counted all joy is a paradigm. I'm living that we should believe in our God, but we also should suffer for him. And it's that fear of suffering. I got that, you got that, all of that, that, we have replaced success for that.

And we think we got success, we got disciples here. And then you've got to have enough conviction. That's a hard one. That you got to, as you try to understand. John, can I hold you for another 10 minutes? Do you have a few more minutes left because we'll hold you over into the next hour? Yeah. All right.

Let's do that because there's too much here. Folks, I've got the privilege of talking to John Perkins. The new book is Counted All Joy. This is the Eric Mataxis show. We'll be right back.