The Eric Metaxas Show - John Rankin (Encore Continued)

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

We continue our encore presentation of the late great John Rankin

Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Eric Mataxis show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you can protect your wealth with noble gold investments. That's noble gold investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Mataxis show. Did you ever see the movie The Blobs starring Steve McQueen? The blood-curdling prep of The Blob. Well, way back when Eric had a small part in that film, but they had a cut his scene because the blob was supposed to eat him, but he kept spitting him out. Oh, the whole thing was just a disaster. Anyway, here's the guy who's not always that easy to digest. Eric the Texas. Folks, on this program, we talk about everything, and sometimes everything includes my friend John Rankin, who's sitting here. John Rankin, welcome to the program. Again, a joy. We're just kind of

going through your books. What's the book you want to talk about today? So the last one we did was the six pillars of biblical power, which I call theology 101 or ethics 101. The second one comes right out of it, the six pillars of honest politics. And so what I do is I take these six pillars and I put them into politics. I then look at certain issues in this book, but the capstone of the book is I take Connecticut statutory law. I did this in 2006, that at the time was 17,000 pages. and I reduced it to 35 pages.

And this is an agenda I want to advance in Connecticut. More on that a little bit later. I'm finally ready to start doing it. And then I took federal law in 2006 of 48,000 pages and reduced it to 25 pages. Now, how do you do that? You know Occam's Razor. Yes, I have a replica of it in my medicine cabinet at home.

Yes, and anyone who could say that is either a good joker as you are or they don't know Occam's Razor. So Occam's raised, William of Occam, 14th century, British Franciscan nominalist. You don't have to repeat that. But one of the ways they summed up what he called his raise was reduce needless redundancies. Keep it simple. Isn't that by itself redundant? Reduce needless redundancies.

How about reduce redundancies? Because redundancies are by definition needless. But some people need to have an adjective. Okay. Okay. So because you're right. Redundancies don't have to be needless. You want redundancies when you're protecting yourself, backing up on the computer or the space shuttle, something like that.

So reduce the needless redundancies. All right, hot shot. All right. You proved your point. The things that lead to special interest law or keeping lawyers employed by having the same 246-word paragraph again and again again to protect themselves from lawsuit. So if you look at the fundamental orders of Connecticut, one and a half, two pages, you know, You look at the 1854 Constitution. It wasn't long at all.

Same with start with our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And then you need to add to law at certain points, but it just multiplies beyond belief. Okay. Here's a question, though, for people just, you know, tuning in. What does this have to do? You've written a book called The Six Pillars of Honest Politics. So this is bringing a biblical worldview into the world of politics. Yes.

And this is not talking about theocracy. On the contrary, we're talking about helping, you know, America be what it purports to be and what the founders meant for it to be. This is a true definition of freedom. All the stuff that the founders would have understood. You're arguing that over the years, the pages of law simply increase. It's what they do. It's like the government increases and increases. And so you say that you want to reduce it.

You have reduced it. But I think some people would say why. in others, how does this fit into the larger picture? I mean, it's a nice idea, but why is it so important? Because multiplied law leads to tyranny. Why? Why? Because it allows all the people to fashion law in their own image. So in my PhD work, I'm looking at Covenant and the nature of the original law of Moses, okay?

And prior to that, the order of creation, as we spoke about on our last show, okay? when you have things simple and transparent, people know what's expected of them. Okay. But what you have for those who want tyranny is they need to make things complicated and make people dependent on the state for their well-being. Okay. Now, I'm glad I asked that because this is extremely important what you just said. Big government, complicated government, makes it impossible for the average citizen to understand the basics of what it means to be a citizen. and therefore they have to rely, as you just said, on the people in power, on the government, really to disburs the wisdom and so on and so forth.

And so you become effectively enslaved. You're no longer a free agent. You're now dependent on this ruling class, which in American-style self-government is not supposed to exist. But the bigger the government gets and the more laws we have, the farther away we get from the simple idea of self-government of the government. the founders. Yes. And you're saying that's a biblical idea. Hugely. So what happens is the idea of covenant, and without going into the technical Hebrew, it means promises made are promises kept. Now, in pagan treaties, going all the way back to the second, third millennia BC, pagan treaties, you have a king who demands his vassals,

and they write it down, you have no wiggle room. Among equals, they are contesting demands, but there's no idea that when you make a promise, you're obligated to keep it yourself. Yahweh Elohim, the one who is greater than spacetime and nubu, who said, let there be light and there's light. The promises he gives to us, he keeps himself even when we break them. That's someone, a whole lot of theology in one simple sentence. But what it is, back to our last show, the power to give, he gives, we receive and we give back. So do we want people to give to us or people that take from us? An honest government gives protection of life, liberty, and property, allowing us to pursue happiness based on the rule of law where we honor everyone else's life, liberty, property, because ours is honored first.

That's the utter simplicity of covenant law through all the centuries as it arrived at the Declaration of Independence and at the U.S. Constitution. What happens when you get law like this is that people who are dishonest, and they may start from reaction. actionary posture, but if they're dishonest, they'll add something that kind of put someone else in a corner to protect themselves. So it's not given, it shall be given, but take before you're taken. After a while, you get to extraordinary law. So 48,000 pages, it's far bigger now. So I was listening to Justice Antonin Scalia some years ago in New York City at the Federal Society. And James Madison, and I don't know if I can quote them off hand, but he said, when laws become so voluminous, they cannot be read and so incoherent, they cannot be understood. our republic is a danger. So I was at a meeting here in New York, and Justice Scalia was speaking, and most of the people

there were lawyers. So I was this minister in among lawyers. And we were able to write down questions ahead of time before he spoke. And by golly, he took my question. It was the eighth out of ten questions he took. And I quoted Madison, or I alluded to him since he knows it better than I do, and I said, where is our country right now? And he said, oh, we are way off the deep end.

Our laws are so voluminous, so incoherent that nobody can understand them. So that's the playground for totalitarians who could manipulate law. I mean, it has said how many laws do we violate every day, you know? If I get in the highway and go 66 miles an hour, you know, past Danbury town you were born in, then I've broken the law. So there are so many ways in Connecticut, we are voted the worst governed state in the nation right now. And even yet, they're trying to add more and more taxes and people are fleeing the state. And now they want to get a system in place where they can watch you by camera and tax every mile you drive in the state. You're kidding.

I'm not kidding. This is what they're talking about right now. Why don't we just all move to North Korea? Well, most people moving to North Carolina instead. I mean, this is unbelievable. But it's such a fact we're out of time in this segment. But just this idea that the more laws there are, the more laws there are, the more. the government can arbitrarily target you because everybody's breaking laws.

So then they say, well, everybody's breaking laws, but I'd like to pick on you, John Rankin, because I don't like your theology. And you can't argue because you broke those laws. And you say, well, what about the other guy? And they say, it doesn't matter. We're picking you right now. We're dealing right now with a national scandal in that context. Okay, we're going to be right back.

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And we're talking, John, about important stuff. I mean, it's amazing to me. You're saying fundamentally important stuff. We all know big government is bad. You're explaining why it's bad, why big government leads to tyranny, why a multiplication of laws and legally. leads to tyranny by the few. So let's keep going.

We have two choices in all of human history. Covenants begun by Yahweh Elohim to give us freedom versus laws that enslave us. There is no other alternative. And so what happens is that my work continues to do the academic work behind that. And so I wrote this book years ago. But let me do this. Let me read through each of the six pillars as I put them into political context. Sure.

And the only people among a broad range of skeptics, eyeball to eyeball on all the Ivy League's and beyond, the only people who have ever said no to this is the atheist who doesn't like the word creator, but he or she can't give anything better than what I'm offering. Okay. So this is how I believe government should be based. Number one, the power to give. Oh, wait a minute. Oh, wrong one. I might read the wrong book. If you don't know.

Having written the book. No, I'm not. I'm repeating the prior book. So now I have to flip all the way over here and start with, there we go, with how I've incorporated them into law. Into law and politics. So what I say in rewriting the Connecticut Constitution is I say that there are six assumptions to serve the consent of the governed and thus an honest political state. So these are my six pillars translated. First, the unable rights of life, liberty, and property.

Given by the Creator, belong to all people equally, and leaders in state government honor such rights. Okay, and these are pre-political rights, which are enshrined in our declaration and our Constitution. The founders said this. It's the foundation of American law. Well, actually, I'm doing something a little different right here, okay? They are all there, but I'm putting them, having written the first book, the six pillars of biblical power, I'm now putting these six assumptions in a way that are a little more clear. Okay. And setting this up. So with the first one being the power to give, we say the unable rights are given by the creator in all members of government should honor it.

Okay. Who can say no to that, except for someone who doesn't want to admit the creator, but then they want to have people give to them. The second one is leaders in state government are to be fully transparent in all manners related to the public trust. Now, how often does that happen? So what I've done in rewriting all of Connecticut law is I've added 30 or 31 new dimensions. And one dimension is this, taking the Constitution as it was, is that every meeting where law is discussed has to be in public with the TV cameras rolling. That would be pretty sweet. If you do that, you get rid of all the backroom deals, all the deceit, all the buy-offs, all the paybacks.

And now the question is, are we ready enough as a state to get to that point of choosing something like that? But I believe, given the desperation of Connecticut and the United States as well, who doesn't want to see that everything is done transparently? And when you do this, you know, we mentioned this in the last show. What is the speed of darkness? Well, it doesn't exist. So wherever light is present, it eviscerates. So if we live in the light, corruption will flee. So we don't have to chase the darkness.

We don't have to accuse people. I mean, think of the fundamental words of Jesus in John 317, speaking of himself in the third person. For God sent his son into the world not to condemn the world, but to save. To condemn to accuse is the name of Hasatan, the Satan. He actually is a definite article in the Hebrew. Tao Diabolos, the devil. So it's the devil who accuses Jesus comes to release us from that accusation. So if there are people who are trying to manipulate government for their own

private gain, and you require everything to be transparent from public meetings of the legislature all the way down to committees? What do you do? The darkness eviscerates. So that's the second one. Third, an honest definition of terms is necessary in state government, providing a level playing fuel for all ideas to be heard equally, apart from which political freedom is not possible. That's my longest sentence of these six. And we talked about this in our last show, about the gift of freedom in Genesis 2. It's a level playing field. This is life. This is death. This is freedom. This is slavery. This is good. This is evil. We are empowered to choose what is right, but it's not forced upon us. So what we're saying right here is, and the beauty of that is when God said,

this is life and this is death, he was giving us an accurate definition of terms. In fact, when you go into Genesis 3, the ancient serpent actually adds a net. to God's positive promise to reverse the definition of terms in terms of what life and death is. And so what happens is God gives an honest definition of terms, and we can trust in it. That again comes back to covenant, the promise of covenant. And we're simply saying here we will define terms honestly. I find, and you've hosted or been moderated for several of memoirsau forums, my goal isn't to put forth an idea and convince them that I'm right and they're wrong.

My goal is to take an idea or debating and say, what are the definition of terms? So let's look at the debate over a human abortion. So there I was in front of an abortion center back in 1989, some dynamic ministry we did for two years in Boston. And I asked this woman who said she was pro-choice. And I said, well, I'm pro-informed choice, and we can talk about what that is.

I said, but tell me something. Did you choose to be alive? She goes, no. I said, and we had a Boston Globe reporter standing nearby, and she didn't report this conversation. I said, you didn't choose to be alive. Then how can you, who are alive through a choice you didn't make, deprive another of their choice to live? And literally, her hand went over her mouth, and that was the end of the conversation. The culture doesn't allow this simple definition of terms to exist.

And so we're not alive, excuse me, we don't have choice unless we're first alive. And many other details can flow out of that. How often does the media, how often do the politicians, how often does academia simply pollute the definition? Well, George Orwell, okay? It's using euphemisms that sound good, but they're really evil. Oh, I was talking to somebody the other day about the term fetal demise. We're talking about the death of a child in the womb, but they, If they say that, it's too transparent, and it makes people uncomfortable.

So they say fetal demise. Now, by manipulating language, just like by making complicated laws, you confuse people enough that you have power over them. You want power over them. So what you're suggesting is the opposite. Now, of course, most people in politics would say, John, this is very idealistic. It can't work because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. See, that's – it can. because once you set up a system, this is what I'm aiming at, we'll talk about that later,

once you get a level playing field where every partisan knows on a given issue, he or she will be listened to, we can change everything. But the whole political structures, whether in Connecticut or the U.S. are not structured that way. Everyone's protecting the only fight. Right, but when you're talking about restructuring the political structure right there, you know, people saying, well, how are you going to do that? I'm moving in that direction, okay? And I have some very concrete ideas. and it takes a biblically literate people in the church first who know how to be hospitable to angry dissent.

And once we know how to do that, then doors would open up tremendously. You mentioned fetal demise. In the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, they refused to define biologically discrete human life. They said no one, there's no consensus. They lied through their teeth in saying that, number one. Number two, they then later inserted a clause potential life. and I'm saying potential for what? If you have a spramatozoan that fertilizes an ovum,

you've got diploid life, you have haploid life becoming diploid life, and you and I have never changed for the moment that we were fertilized in our mother's floping tubes. Genetically, there's no difference whatsoever. It's not going to be a giraffe, and it's not going to be a doorpost.

It's human life. So they didn't want to talk about it. So we have to find out a way of going about to win that, consensus. I think it's straightforward and easy, but the deep, easy, once you create this level playing field, but there's a deeper issue underneath the definition of life, and that is what drives human abortion. And I won't go in the details right here. I write about it in depth in a book I'll talk about later. But human abortion is driven overwhelmingly by male chauvinism and male

irresponsibility. Ninety-nine percent of all abortions are driven substantially or totally by the male not wanting to be responsible. of the female, mostly outside of marriage, but also in marriage. And most abortions that happen involving a marriage couple are through adultery. So what happens is the woman's being treated as disposable property. Right. And so the whole abortion ethos is nothing but male chauvinism. I asked this question of U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal at Wesleyan a little while ago.

He was so arrogant and upset with me even raising it. Yeah, he's usually arrogant, so I'm not surprised. It's really, that's another story. We're going to be right back talking to John Rankin. It's the Eric Mataxis show Metaxus Talk.com. Okay. Before I continue the fascinating conversation with the fascinating John Rankin, I want to remind you, folks, there's something you can get for free. Free, free, I tell you, F-R-E-E, free, no strings attached, and I'm not kidding, because I get it every month. It's called Imprimus. It is a, basically, it's an essay or a speech. It's published by, my friends at Hillsdale College. Larry Arne is the president. It's an extraordinary institution. And they mail these out to 3.7 million Americans genuinely for free. Now you're saying,

how can they do that? I don't trust that. Trust me, folks. You never get a fundraising letter. You never get a. This was endowed or something like that. But they mail out these great things and you can use them. It's just great. So all you have to do is go to Hillsdale. Sorry, go to Metaxus forhillsdale.com. Metaxusforhillsdale.com. Tell your friends, it really is free and it's really fantastic. And who would know, unless you're listening to the show, Metaxusforhillsdale.com. Talking to John Rankin, John Rankin, it gets more and more fascinating. Where were we? Well, let me just throw another plug for Hillsdale because my second oldest son went there. And he's a pastor in Germany right now. And the academics were superb. The liberal arts were superb.

And Hillsdale is not a stately Christian college anymore. It's more of a liberty. college. Yeah. And the Interversy of Christian Fellowship was huge and dynamic. And the Christians on that campus prosper wonderfully. And so it's superb all the way through. So they didn't pay me for that. I know.

Well, you can tell them where to send the check. But no, that's my second oldest son who just thrived. So we were working away through the six pillars of honest politics. And I was talking about an honest definition of terms and how I challenged U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal.

And then rare for me, I actually described his person by saying someone was arrogant. And I rarely do that. But that's because of, I won't go in the details of his arrogance. But it was so public, it was so nasty, and he's always cut off communication. And this will talk about later, what happens when people cut off communication? When do we have the redemptive purpose by calling a spade a spade? And I always resist getting to that point, but with him in that one moment. moment I did. So we went through, so we walked through the first three pillars of honest politics,

rooted in the prior book, the six pillars of biblical power, and we can go through the other fourth in my rewritten proposal for the Connecticut Constitution that cuts it from, as of 2006 when I wrote this, from 48,000 pages down to 35. Fourth, leaders and state government are to, so this becomes the love of hard questions. Fourth, leaders and state government are to be, are to honor and answer those who pose them the toughest questions. And see, who can say no to this? And so it's a question of building up the structure in order to make it possible. Fifth, leaders in state government are to respect the common humanity of even the harshest of political opponents.

So if we go back to our prior show, and so this fifth pillar was the power to love enemies. So the way I've translated here into political language is leaders and state government are to respect the common humanity of even the harshest of political opponents. I was doing my first forum with Arlene Isaacson, who's the co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. This is at Boston University in 2002. Now, I had not met her before, and a friend of mine organized the event. He worked with Kai Alpha, a wonderful ministry, the Assembly of God at MIT, other campuses,

and BU being one of them. And he organized it, and then he went through her romew. rabbi because she wanted to know who I was. And it turned out I knew the rabbi, so that worked out really well. He used to be in New Haven. And it was at Boston at the time. So anyhow, she came in that evening with a range of her followers. And I would just say these were some hurting people. We had about 220 people in the audience, and I don't know the mix, maybe 30, 40 known members of the Christian organization. And I walked up to her, shook her hand, looked at her. at her eyeball to eyeball said, Arlene, good evening. It's a pleasure to meet you. As I did,

all her friends fell back about one to two feet. It's not the same thing, but I think it may be a distant cousin of when Jesus says, I am he, and the soldiers fell back. The last thing they expected in me, an evangelical pro-life minister, was to treat her as a fellow human being. Aren't you supposed to be filled with hate? Now, aren't you supposed to be a voice of division and nastiness? I'm surprised. because this is their own broken background. I know. So what happened was when Arlene stood up and she gave the first comments for the evening, she said, I just want to tell you that debating John Rankin tonight,

now it wasn't a formal debate, but she used that language. In debating John Rankin tonight is the first one I've ever debated who doesn't palpably hate me. And she had done many public debates with pro-family people. I'm stunned. And this is why I go out of my way to say on this program that I have gay friends, that I have. And you know what? I love them. Yes. I know I love them. And I think there are people who think of themselves as Christians, but they have such a myopic view of what it means to be a Christian. They think that if I'm against something that I've got to hate that person or maybe I can't admit it

technically, but inside I just, they make me sick. And I think if they make you sick, you don't love them. And the only reason we do that is because we hate ourselves in some capacity. Love God and neighbor as ourselves. Unless we know God's love for ourselves, we'll put that... But isn't that the point? In other words, a Pharisee doesn't allow God to love him. He says, I can kind of do it on my own. That's right. And if you need to receive grace, it humbles you, and it gives you the capacity to love those that others would think are unlovable. We're out of time in this segment. Folks, we're going to be right back. We're talking to John Rankin. Check out the website, T-E-I-I-I-org. T-E-I-I-I-D-org. I can't spell it, so I'll just say t-e-e-I-I-org. Check it out. It's the Eric Mattaxas show. We'll be right back.

Hey, folks, it's the Eric Mattaxas show. We're talking to John Rankin. T-E-I-I-I-D-org. John, we just got two segments left. We're talking about your book, The Six Pillars of Honest Politics. I love this. Let's just keep going. So what we were talking about is the fifth pillar of honest politics, which comes from the prior book, the six pillars of biblical power. translating the language of love of enemies into respecting the common humanity of even the harshest of our political opponents. So I was talking about one of my Marstville forums at Boston University 2002 with Arlene Isaacson, chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. And how she responded so well because every other person she debated had hated her,

and I was showing her love and respect. Well, what happened was that during the back and forth of the forum, we came to a certain point where she turned to me, and I was not prepared for this. See, I don't look for the gotcha moments. I don't want to do this. You know, neither do I, because I think it is unseemly and immoral to do that. Unless you're doing it kind of idea. I'll do it as a joke. But to really try to humiliate somebody, to me, it's sinful.

It's just wrong. It's cheap. It's wrong. It's trying to control. in a false way. But the aha moments, when we discover something together, you never know when they're going to happen and who's going to have the aha moment. So this was an aha moment for me. She turned to me in the middle of back and forth and said, John, we know that you love us.

And she just talked about she and her homosexual friends. I never once used the word love. The word love can be so easily manipulated in the public digest. but I did use the word respect. So when we come right back here, and we talk about the fifth pillar being the power to love your enemies, and the way I translate that theologically, which I just stated into politics, is to respect the common humanity of even the harshest of our political opponents. And so once you respect the humanity, once you listen, you're honoring the image of God in which we're all made. And therefore, you multiply the possibility of the Holy Spirit working through you.

to be able to advance the gospel. And then the sixth and final pillar of the six pillars of honest politics. So, theological, we call this the power to forgive, and this is how I translate it into politics. Six, in the face of our individual and societal transgressions against each other, leaders and state government are to work toward justice and reconciliation. Now, one thing that just breaks my heart is when I see to this day the status of Native Americans. You know, it's amazing. When you think of black Americans, African Americans in particular, I, as you know this,

one of my ancestors was the Reverend John Thomas Rankin, who was known as the manager of the Underground Railroad or ancestral relative, technically. And so I grew up with this marvelous, and Harry Beatrice Stowe and Uncle Tom's Cabin got some of her best stories from him. Oh, wow. So my great aunt, who is a music professor, and Latin professor University of Nebraska. She did our lineage in the 1930s and found all this boatload of Presbyterian Appalachian ministers. My little sister just did a DNA test, and guess what?

I'm part Jewish. Well, I'm not surprised. It might be the beard. Well, no, I think it's the Hungarian connection. But anyhow, so I lost my track where it was. Okay, so. The Native Americans. Yes, Native Americans.

So what happens is that they, every treaty, the United States, ever made with the Native Americans, was broken. Right. And do you think they care a wit about the gospel when they, the better tribes among their numbers knew how to keep promises or covenant? Right. You can use that. And here we are supposedly based on covenant and we break every promise. So the percentage of Native Americans today who are practicing Christians are 10%. But those among African Americans who are.

Christians, 90% plus, even though, you know, from the Portuguese on following, we brought them over here as indentured slaves. But in the irony of all ironies, the southern plantation masters taught them the Bible to pacify them. But they read about Joseph, and they read about the Exodus. And, you know, some of the Negro spirituals, I studied this in high school, they were all underground railroad songs. swing low sweet charia coming forward to carry me home was a signal of when you could make you run for it right and so it's but so so so we so we we white folks we so dispoiled the african americans and yet ironically the gospel got in their soul we we didn't break promises because he never made promises and so but but the justice and reconciliation for black americans for native americans

for every class of people is so necessary and we can only do that not by pretending we care about one people group over another, but rather we're all children of Adam and Eve and of Noah. And Revelation says that those singing before the throne the last day from every tribe, nation, and language. Tribe nation, that's the racial foundations. The unity of the human race is assumed as it is nowhere else. And so unless we start at that point and affirm at that point, then we have, we've got really, nothing to give to a broken world. So the question is, how do you bring this into politics? And so as I lay forth these six pillars of honest politics, I also talk about something called

the Pre-Partisan Caucus. And this is something I want to get going a little bit down the line. I'll have an idea in how I'm going to best go about it. But it's in normal legislative process, the rules that bind you and the power by the people who run the majority party, there's no debate, there's no listening. It's all power play and money, money, money, money. So how do you break through and bring the Mars Hill Forum ethos, a level playing field where all ideas are heard equally? And that brings me back to my PhD work right now.

So I changed the title recently to an aggressive hospitality to disqualify, to dissent. How many Christians can think of giving dissent, the freedom of dissent to the devil? That's exactly what happens in Genesis, exactly what Jesus does during his temptation, exactly what he does with his enemies, as he gives them the freedom to say no. So unless we are aggressive in doing that, we have nothing to give, and my goal is in that direction. This is hardcore Christianity, which really is Christianity. In other words, I think a lot of people think like, well, maybe you can do that. But I want to say, I want to affirm you, John, and I want to affirm all my listeners to say that

this is normative Christianity, the normal Christian life. This is what God calls us to. We're going to continue this conversation with John Rankin when we're right back, when we come right back. Hey there, folks. It's Eric Metaxis show. I'm talking to John Rankin. John, we've just got a few minutes left in this hour. The book we're talking about is the six pillars of honest politics. Have you You ever thought of running for office or running for governor? I think you would upend the system. You would blow their minds. Yes.

You have to say I wish you would because I think that it would be they would go crazy. I can cross that path when I get certain things organized in my life. And I'm aiming in that direction. It's funny because it takes someone like you to bring this out. And, you know, I think that reporters and everybody would eat it up because they would say, this guy seems crazy. He's like a Boy Scout, but he really believes this stuff, you know. Well, you know, all my experience with skeptics is that those who fear a level playing field don't want to ask me questions.

But if you get a little bit of curiosity, no one's ever called me crazy. Why? Because I honor their humanity. I'm more interested in learning what they're asking and why they're asking. And I have no problem saying I don't know the answer, if I don't know the answer. but as someone said, John, you have a habit of doing your homework. Well, yes, I do. But more than the intellectual homework is the relational.

I won't use the word homework, but the relational substance, which really, it's worthless, unless we're loving our neighbor as God has loved us and loving ourselves. But just to finish on the six pillars of politics. So we've gone through the six pillars. Again, T-EI-I-I-org is the website. You'll see a link to my books, or you can go straight to John Rankin Books. And you'll see the nine currently in print. And last show we did the first. This is the second.

You'll see it right there. But let me go back to the question that you mentioned. And I've had this question often. They said, John, you can do this stuff. You can go on the campuses and this, that. But what can we do? And I said, listen, the only reason that I can do what I do is God's gift, God's calling, all the blessings he's given me, and the fact that part of that is that I'm not trying to win a debate.

I'm trying to lift up Jesus, and I have no fear whatsoever to speak the name of Jesus in any context. But what happens is I don't do it by quoting a Bible verse. I talk about the life of Jesus. I talk about the moment where it applies or Moses or wherever in the scriptures we are. But I'll tell you what I've seen over and over again. This is what I say to people. I may be doing this in front of an audience at a given time, but it's no more valid than I do it one-on-one. In fact, over the years, I've gone out of my way.

to go and take out the director of the ACLU for lunch, to go out to take other people out to lunch, who completely disagree with me, okay, simply on the one-on-one relationship. I love doing that kind of stuff, and that one was many years ago here in New York. But anyhow, the point is that unless we do it one-on-one, we can't do it one-on-two or one-on-three.

And the testimonies I've had of people loving their neighbor one-on-one, being, they wouldn't use this language, this is my language, but being aggressively hospitable to their dissent or their deepest pain. Yeah. And I'll give you one story. A woman once told me in a certain neighborhood, I forget where in the country this was. A young man had declared himself homosexual. He had been kicked out by his family as a result. And he wandered and had a hell of a life for the next 10 or 15 years, as I recollect. and this one Christian woman in the neighborhood always invited him over during the time of his struggles and when he left his household.

And wouldn't you know it, 15, 18 years later, who shows up at her door? You weep like Jesus swept. You weep because there was one guy who's been through hell, who knows why, it doesn't matter. And when he gets to a point of coming to his senses, where does he go? The one Christian woman who had given him hospitality. And that is always the way it's going to be. What a word to end with. Folks, thank you for listening.

You can go to teaii.org. This is the Eric Mataxis show. Thank you.