The Eric Metaxas Show - Letter to the American Church (encore continued)

Episode Date: January 2, 2023

Eric continues his discussion of key points found in "Letter to the American Church," hopeful that an awakening among Christians will lead to averting further disaster in this country. (Encore Presentation)

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mataxis 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. Ladies and gentlemen, he has a jar of peanut butter, and he's not afraid to use it. Here comes Eric Mattexas. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. I'll have been happy New Year to you. and your family. And you're still married to that woman? What's your name, Ann? Yes, Ann, beautiful. Anne, lover, lover, lover.

How many years has it been? You guys got married later in life, but you guys are. Yeah, we're coming up on 15, number 15. I predict that this is going to last. That's my prediction. That's my new year prediction. Okay. Your marriage is going to last not just this year, but in the years to come. Thank you. I'm going out on a limb, New Year's predictions. Thank you. In 2020, I'm living until I'm 98 and I'll still be married to Anne. She'll still be alive to.

Beautiful. Okay, so I want to talk a little bit about what we're looking forward to in the year ahead because there's a lot to look forward. Somebody asked this question, I think, in the Ask Metaxes last Thursday. And I thought there's a lot happening this year. And so let me start there. One of the things that I'm looking forward to, I think I did mention this. Socrates in the city, we're really ramping it up. We're going to be doing them around

the country. We have plans to do one in Seattle, almost certainly in Seattle. We have plans to do many of them, of course, in New York. So let me just tell you, there's a lot of new developments coming. I can't share everything. But we're going to be in the weeks ahead, in this month, once a week releasing one of the one of the events that we have recorded over the last months. I mean, these are some amazing events and we wanted to edit it all right and everything like that. But those are ones we've already done.

And we're going to be doing many, many more. Put on your calendar, February 28th, New York City, Eugenia Constantinu. Some of you remember, I had her on the show a couple of times. Folks, oh my gosh. she is a scholar, a true scholar of the New Testament. She has so many degrees. I'm not kidding.

But the beauty, and this is why I love this woman, Eugenia Constantino, she's so humble and so normal. She acts like, oh, but what's the big deal? You know, she's amazing. She wrote a book. We talked about it at least, I think twice on the program in the last year called the Crucifixion of the Lord of Glory, or the Crucifixion of the King of Glory. It is an amazing book. And I said, you know what?

Next year, at the beginning of Lent, we need to get her on to do a Socrates in the city event. I'm telling you, I rarely read a book that I am blown away. Crucifixion of the King of Glory. So she's going to be in New York City, February 28th. And we don't, we haven't. you know, advertise the registration, I think, but if you can possibly get to New York City on February 28th or if you live in the New York City area, I am, I just cannot tell you how happy

I am that she's able to do this. She lives in San Diego. She's coming. It's just, it's going to be great. So mark that down February 28th. We've got a lot of other dates ahead, but none of them set in stone, but that one is is a huge, huge, huge deal. And I want to say also, when you talk about what I'm looking forward to, Albin, I don't know if you know. this. I think you do know this. My book Fish Out of Water is coming out in paperback in March. The cover, the paperback cover, I love it so much that I think I'm more excited than I was about the

hardcover, which never happens. Oh, by the way, we should warn people that in both hours of today's show, both hours, Albin, we're replaying an interview. Albin interviewed me on my most recent book, the shortest book I've ever written called Letter to the American Church. So today in both hours we're playing Albin's interview of the author, Eric Metaxus, about his book, Letter to the American Church. So that's both hours today.

Yeah, what I'd like to just say is that you wrote this book so quickly that you can actually, you wrote it faster than people can read it. that's how quickly you wrote it. That's how quickly I wrote it. And it's that sloppy. There are just sentence fragments. It's a mess. No, it is kind of amazing.

I've never written a book so quickly. Well, look, it's the shortest book. But I'm sorry to say it's the most important book I've ever written. Now, look, people might say that if you know me, you know that I don't, I not only try not to blow smoke, but I detest when people blow smoke and are just, you know, puffing things up that don't deserve puffing up. This, I think, is the most important book I've ever written because let me just say part of the proof of God in my life is to see his hand over the years. And when I think back that he called me to write my book on William Wilberforce in 2006 and 2007, 2006, sorry, he called me to write my book on Bonhofer, Hoffer, which came out in 2010.

He called me to write a book on Martin Luther, which came out in 2017. When I was writing these books, I never dreamt that some years in the future, what I learned from writing about those three heroes of the faith would be brought to bear on where we are now in the United States of America. I never dreamt it. If you had talked to me at any point in all those years, I would have seen. said, oh, I, you know, maybe someday things were going to get. So when I wrote the book letter to the American church, which we're going to be discussing in both hours, or we are already discussing,

it became clear to me that God prepared me to write this book for this season in America, for the American church over the years without my knowledge. I was just doing what I thought, you know, I'm doing what I think God's called me to do, but I had no sense of the bigger picture. So I do want to say that that is, what I'm looking forward to is that this year, the people who have read letter to the American Church, and many, many people have read it because it's sold better so far than I think any book that I wrote in the beginning. I mean, eventually Bonhofer, these books sell more, but no book has ever sold so quickly because I think there is a genuine hunger. And I think that my hope for this year is to see people, pastors, living out what is in this book, realizing, you know what, if I don't live out my faith, I'm a hypocrite. I need to live out my faith. That's the joy.

That's the God wants me to bless him by living it out. So I'm looking forward to seeing that this year. I'm already seeing a little bit of it, but I'm looking forward to that. And I mentioned Albin, I'm looking forward to the fact that fish out. of water, the book is coming out in paperback. And I think this fall is atheism. Dead is coming out in paperback. I am looking forward to speaking on those books in churches.

Because when I speak in churches on a letter to the American church, it's a little heavy. It's a little serious. And I've been doing tons of that and I'll do much more of that. But I'm looking forward to telling the funny, true stories in Fish Out of Water of growing up with my mom and dad and telling the fun. I mean, the amazing proof of God from science. So I'm looking forward to traveling around the country. And I should say, folks, if you want to see my travel schedule, go to Ericmetaxis.com. I don't think I've ever traveled as much as I've got tons of traveling and I'm traveling around the country.

But I look forward to meeting you all in the book lines and stuff. We take pictures. I mean, for me, honestly, people say, well, you sure you want to do that, Eric? Yes, it is a joy. Yeah. It is a huge joy for me. Yeah. By the way, we've got to mention CSI.

We've got a great campaign to free slaves over in the Sudan. And for $250, you can actually set a human being free. Just go to our website, metaxis talk.com, right at the very top, there's a banner. Click on that. Send in $10, $50, $250, and free a slave or be a part of something, be a part of free. being a slave. Do that today, folks. Pretty much everyone can participate in that. There are people literally who can give $10,000 tax-free.

If you do that and you want to spend an evening with me, it'll be my joy to spend the evening with you. We want people to live out their faith. These are just some options. Got to mention our friend Sean Floyd is a film out called Super Spreader. If you go to, if you go to SalemNow.com, you'll see not only the show that I do with Albin, which is obviously free and insane, but that's the talk show, the late night show.

But you can see Super Spreader. I recommend it very highly. It will inspire you. Folks, we need to be inspired and encouraged. Go to SalemNow.com. Check it out. And we'll be back with more of Albin interviewing me. It's very curious.

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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. Hey, folks, as you know, we do wacky things on this program. And for example, sometimes I say, okay, Albin, you're the host, I'm the guest. This was your idea. You wanted to interview me about my new book letter to the American Church. And I thought, well, I've been doing all kinds of interviews, but wouldn't be fun to have you, whom I know, to have you interview me. So if you want to, I will try to answer your hard-hitting journalistic questions about my new book letter to the American Church, which I presume you've glanced through.

Yeah, I did. And I'm all pumped up, by the way. This is my journalistic self, and I've never taken a course in journalism. But I'm ready. Okay. But you really did read the book. I did. No, I did.

I did. From front to cover. I put copious notes in here. From front to cover. Yeah. Oh, front to back. That was like a trick. Okay.

Okay. All right. So you can see. I read the cover. From front to the front cover. I read. Okay. Yeah, the dust jacket.

Okay. You know what? So many of these chapter titles lead to explanation. And, of course, you flesh things out. But I love this title, and I'd love to hear what you want to say about this. The idol of evangelism. Why is that an idol? Think about this.

If you think about this, we have to think about this spiritually, right? The enemy, Satan cannot create anything. Only God can create. So all the enemy can do is pervert what is already created, twist it, steal it, So the worst thing that evil does is create something that looks close to what God did, but is twisted, is perverted. In other words, to make a counterfeit, right? Like, you know, a counterfeit dollar bill, a counterfeit $100 bill, the closer it looks to the real thing, the more it will fool people. And so you think, let's take a good thing, if we're the devil, and let's just pervert it.

slightly to fool those who really love that good thing. So what's one of the greatest things in the history of the world? Evangelism, the idea of leading people to faith. I can say from my own experience that when Jesus came into my life, it changed everything. And in some cases, it's more dramatic in some case. But no matter how it happens, it's the most beautiful thing. So many Christians, myself among them, have rightly understood bringing the faith to those who don't have it is one of the most glorious, beautiful things a human being can do to share this beautiful thing that you've been given freely. But here's where the problem comes in. A lot of people, particularly in the evangelical church, have made an idol of evangelism. when I say made an idol, in other words, they're kind of worshipping the idea of sharing the faith

with somebody and bringing somebody to Jesus more than they are worshipping Jesus himself. Instead of evangelism being an outworking of your faith in the God of the Bible, it almost becomes an idol. It does become an idol. And the reason I put it this way is because in the book I say, I have noticed that there are people for the sake of the sake of, of theoretically bringing someone to Christian faith, they will say nothing that's potentially controversial. In other words, if you're talking to somebody about, well, you're having conversation with somebody, and you wisely would say, well, you know what, I'm not going to

bring up the issue of abortion because I know this person, that that's going to be a trigger for them, right? Now, sometimes I think that's the right thing to do. You're not supposed to talk about every controversial thing. You're talking about Jesus. You're talking about faith in Christ, right? But there's some people who've made a policy of this so that from the pulpit, wherever they are, they won't talk about anything that the other person might disagree with. And I think to myself, ladies and gentlemen, there's a time when you must do that. And so if the church has been silenced and you say, I will not talk about anything bearing on politics. Here's the problem.

In 1985, that might have made sense. In 1995, in 2005, it might have made sense. We're at a point now where if you refuse to talk about the idea of critical race theory, which is Marxist, infiltrating the churches, fooling people. If you refuse to talk about the transgender madness, destroying lives, destroying young bodies and futures. If you refuse to talk about these things because you say, well, I don't want to drive somebody away from Jesus.

In theory, I get that. But it has become so widespread that the church has been silenced on key issues. And it is the job of the church to speak truth. Bonhofer was willing to say things. And people said, oh, listen, the Nazis might come to faith. Don't bring that up. Don't bring that up. There is a time when God is looking to his people to speak the truth.

Wilberforce spoke the truth on the slave trade. People told him to shut up. Bonhofer spoke the truth about what the Nazis meant to do to the church. People said, shut up. Don't be controversial. Don't be political. And there are pastors that we know. I'm not going to mention them.

I touch on some of them in the book who really would be happy to almost go along with evil for the theoretical idea of leading someone to faith. And I just think to myself, this has become epidemic. In other words, if this once in a while you're in a conversation, you think, well, I'm not going to bring up to it. I get that, okay? But this has become epidemic. And we have pastors now openly saying, do not be political. It's not gospel-related. You've only got to speak about quote unquote gospel-related issues. And I think if you're not talking about some of this evil stuff that is happening, what gospel do you have to preach?

You're afraid to speak truth. Jesus, by the way, spoke a lot of truth that pushed a lot of people away. I don't think anybody cared more about leading souls to eternity than Jesus. So, I mean, I explain it more in the book. Yeah, you do. You have so many examples with Paul and with the writings and with Jesus himself. what I like, and I've heard you in churches and even on this show with guests, you talk about not so much leading people to Christ with what you say, but leading, just waking people up

to reality, to reality. The Bible tells us to speak the truth in love. And you're saying, just show the people what is actually true. And truth is a person as you write here. The person is Jesus Christ, the word. And by showing people reality, and, you know, nowadays it's a easy enough to show people reality about what's happening to our children in the classroom. You don't have to say, oh, it's theoretically it's happening. No, this is reality. Actually, I think this is a good point, is that what happens to people, this is, I'm talking about Christians, they become, in the pejorative sense, religious. They only talk about religious things and theological things. And you think, folks, God is the God of reality. He created reality.

he is truth. So whenever you're doing justice to truth or reality, you're leading people to God. So if I'm talking about the fact, the scientific fact that there is male and female, that's it. Okay? I don't even have to bring up God because there are tons of people who are not self-identifying as evangelical Christians that they see this is just crazy. You mean 10 minutes ago, somebody like in a lab discovered more genders and, and we've all got to change our thinking. This is not science. This is just madness and ideology. And so all you have to do is witness to the truth and to reality because most people see that.

Most people know that. And when you do that, there are tons of people that are not people of faith that they're led to faith because they say, yes. It makes sense. I now see where that other stuff leads. And it leads to lunacy, to talking to little children asking. them what pronouns they prefer. That's child abuse. Most people, most parents and grandparents get that. You don't need to be a Bible-believing Christian to understand that that is child abuse. It is wicked. It is sick. And I thought to myself, if the church is being silent on these issues, God is judging

us right now because we are, God requires us to speak the truth more than anyone. He requires us to speak the truth. 50 years from now, people will be looking back at us, just like we look back at the German people and say, why didn't they do something? Fifty years from now, people will look at us and say, why didn't they do something? It was obvious. Yeah, they're going to, I mean, there's a lot of the stuff that's been going on, whether it's with the vaccines or whether it's with the voting fraud or whatever. This stuff is going to come out. And so the idea that's like, well, I better shut up. I better be careful.

It's all going to come out. And so if you're a Christian, I guess this is the book, you know, I just say if you are, if you are Christians called Letter to the Church, a letter to the American Church, if you're a Christian, you are obliged. God has put you here to speak the truth. And when you speak the truth, you will find, ironically, people will be drawn to the God you claim to worship because you show the courage of your convictions and because you say, I don't care what the results are about my job or this or the. I don't care. believe in doing what is right and true and speaking the truth. And so when you are speaking the truth, when you're not silent on all these issues, ironically, more people will come to faith. But if all you're worried about is not offending somebody and keeping your mouth shut and saying nothing, you are ultimately going to drive people away from the thin-lipped pseudo-gospel that you claim to be preaching. We're going to a break. Albin is interviewing. me about letter to the American Church. We'll be right back.

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Give someone the gift of their freedom for Christmas. Thank you. Albin is interviewing me about my new book letter to the American Church. It's kind of kooky. It's my show, but I get to be a guest. Can you believe that? right, get a hit me with a hard question. Now, on the front it talks about your other book, of course, Bonhofer and Pastor, Martyr,

prophet, and spy. And in this book, you reveal two things that have been questions in my head for many years. One of them was the phrase religious-less, religion-less Christianity, because people were debating, well, Bonhofer at the end, he backed away from Christianity and that sort of thing. And you explain why there was a confusion about that. that. And the second thing is like, why would he get involved in a plot to kill Hitler? Isn't that murder? Why would he do that? You explained it so incredibly clearly, and maybe you could touch on both of those phrases and both of those actions. Yeah, these are two huge misunderstandings.

And when I wrote the Bonhofer book, and I would do Q&A after I'd speak, and I would always get these questions, you know? So the first one is when I began to write about Bonhofer, I don't know what I would find, because there had been this. idea out there among theological liberals and agnostics and atheists that Bonhofer drifted away from the faith at the end of his life. And he used this phrase, religionless Christianity, and they used that phrase, they perverted it to make it sound like he drifted away from Christianity. And when I looked into it myself, I said, it is exactly the opposite. He basically said that playing church, all these Germans going to church and going through the motions,

they were being merely religious in the negative sense. They were not living out their faith. I would say this is true of much of the American church today. You say, I believe this, and I believe this, and I go to Bible, said, God doesn't care. He cares on whether you are living out your faith if you really believe what you claim to believe you're going to be living it out.

So Bonhofer saw that the rise of the Nazis was made possible by Christians who are not being fully Christian. They were merely being religious. And he said the only way to stand against evil, which is what we're facing today in the American church, is to be deeply, truly Christian, 24-7, not to say, well, I go to church and I went to the Bible study and I believe you have to live out your faith 24-7.

Now, what does that look like? I don't think it means you're going to be a religious fanatic, but you're going to be a truth fanatic. You're going to be a courage fanatic. You're going to say, I have been freed because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. I've been freed to speak the truth in love, not to fear, not to fear anything, much less death, because Jesus actually defeated death, and I know that's true. It's not a nice idea.

And so Bonhofer said, nothing less than that, nothing less than a religionless Christianity can stand against evil. And I see exactly that. Folks, that is what God is calling the American Church to today is a religionless Christianity. Forget your pieties, whatever. Live out your faith self-sacrificially. Agape love, the love of God is self-sacrificial. It means that I know that God calls me to sacrifice for others, many of whom I'll never meet to do the right thing, to speak truth on all these issues for the benefit of strangers, but God will honor that. So that's what God is looking for. And then the question of Bonhofer, I mean, this is like hilarious.

People say, like, how can a man of God get involved in a plot to murder the head of state? And I say, first of all, it's not murder, okay? There are killing. David did not murder Goliath. He killed Goliath. But there are times, you know, when you're defending your family, if you use self-defense, that's not called murder, right? It's killing.

Killing is always lamentable, but it's not murder. Bonhofer made a decision. He said, look, I know that Hitler and the Nazis are overseeing the murder of millions of innocence, mostly Jews, but others as well. If I don't do something, now if you're a combatant in a war, you would have no problem, killing the enemy. They're trying to kill you. They're trying to rape your daughters.

You know, you are in a war. Bonhofer was making this larger calculation that now the time has come for us for the sake of Germany that we have to take aside in this war against the wicked leadership of the Nazis. So this was not murder. And Bonhofer even said,

you know, if you have, have a maniac driving a car down the street killing people with the car, don't you think some sniper would take out the driver to save the lives of the innocents being killed by the car? That's not murder. That's protecting the innocent. And so it's kind of fascinating how oftentimes we think very sloppily. And I realized part of the reason I wrote the book is to clarify a lot of the sloppy thinking that we have had in the church with regard to what is faith, what is required of me.

and all those kinds of things. The story of Bonhofer, because I know we're going to a break, but just to finish on Bonhofer here, I have to say that he tried really hard to get the church to speak up. He tried and tried and tried and tried and because the church refused to hear what he was saying

and to act out on this until it was too late, what happened to Germany and to the world, it's like one of the greatest nightmares in history. And what I'm saying in this book is that the silence of the American church now, literally now, not in a few years now, is leading to something similar. And that if those of us who have ears to hear this and understand that now is the time for us to do what the Germans did not do, they waited and waited and waited and then it was too late. It's going to be too late in five minutes.

If we do the right thing now, we can avert disaster. If we don't, disaster will come. There's no question in my mind. And that's why I say it as dramatically as I do. I know we're going to a break. We'll be right back. With the overturn of Roe v. Wade, lots of companies are coming out saying they'll pay for employee abortion, travel, and expenses. Most of you've heard about some of these companies.

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Folks, welcome back. It's my program, the Eric Mattaxas show, but oddly enough, I am the hunted. I am the guest, and Albin is playing the role of host, asking me questions about my new book, Letter to the American Church. Yes. Oh, good stuff, good stuff. You know what I really like?

Of course, it's the letter to the American church, so it's got some churchy stuff in there, like scripture verses. Yeah. I was really happy to see Galatians 5-1. 5-1 says, it is for freedom that Christ has set you free. Stand firm then, and do not let yourself be burdened again by yoga slavery. Slavery, one verse, and the other one, which I say will be on my tombstone, hopefully about 30 or 32 years from now, John 174.

I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. That's a call to all of us because we were born for such a time as this, believe it or not. But the one verse I saw missing, which I think is so key today, is Romans 12-2. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your thinking. The pattern of this world keeps telling Christians, don't be political, keeps telling Christians, you know, shut up, or you're a bigot, or you're this or that. And the Christians say, like, I go, if I am, instead of saying, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, the Bible.

That's the renewing of our mind. And the passion translation response is, no, you shut up. No, but it's kind of funny because I think, again, we have to be clear, theologically, the enemy is going to play on our weaknesses. And a lot of Christians, particularly in America, they're nice people. And they want to be nice. And so when somebody accuses them of whatever it is, the tendency is to be like, oh, okay. And I think there's a time when we have to say no, no, that's wrong.

And I think because we've lived in such blessed times in this country, that muscle has atrophied in us where we say, no, I will not do this. I will not do that. That is, I will not close my church. I will not get the vaccine. I will not shut up about what's going on politically. I will not put a BLM flag outside of my building. I will not put a rainbow flag. I'm a Christian, and I have freedom,

and I'm going to speak the truth. Why? Because I believe it will bless others. Not for me. Forget about me. We're supposed to live for others. And I really think that the church has an opportunity now to live out our faith. And the quote from John about completing the work,

I think, and this is part of what I touch on in the book, there are plenty of people that think everything's about evangelism. They forget that the minute you come to faith, God can now use you for the purpose for which you were born into this world, which is to do works that he has called you, that he's prepared for you in advance to do. And one of those things is to stand up heroically in the midst of chaos, to speak the truth, to give hope to those who are confused, who don't see hope. And I really do think that that's kind of the key is that we've got in the American church, one of the heresies that we've kind of

drifted toward is the idea that it's just about evangelism and what I do, how I live, it doesn't matter except for whether it will lead somebody to faith or something like that. And I think if you're living in Wilberforce's this time, the slave trade was one of the most horrible things imaginable. If you love God, you would work against the slave trade. And there many people said, nah, that doesn't concern me. There are things going on today, folks, whether you're talking about fentanyl coming over the border, open borders, people dying of drug overdoses, you're supposed to care about those people. You're supposed to care about what's going on in China. Weager Muslims are being murdered for their organs. And we're supposed to care about what's going on in China.

and we do business with China. We look the other way. LeBron James, you know, tells us to shut up about that stuff. I mean, if the church does not speak the truth, who's supposed to speak the truth? We are deputized by God to speak the truth on every one of these issues. And when people tell you, oh, you're just being political, you could say, well, I'm just being truthful. And I'll tell you the hopeful stuff, which we can. is in your book as well. It's not just like, oh, things are terrible, unless you get up and do some.

You actually show great, great examples. Of course, Wilberforce, of course, Bonhoffer, but you talk about Ronald Reagan, just a phrase, just a phrase. In our lifetime, we said communism would never end in Russia, never end, never end. But Reagan, with just a phrase that everybody said, shut up and sit down, don't say it, you're going to mess the pot up. And I can, and you'll explain that in a second, but I could think of something else that we thought would never end in our lifetime. Abortion. Bingo. And yet there was somebody that actually said they were going to do just that. All you had to do is vote for a thrice married for lander in New York real estate developer. But I would never dirty my hands. Let the unborn be murdered. What do I care? I just don't want to vote for mean people. Yeah, well, that's kind of where we are. And this is why this is a kind of a call to reality, folks, that God. is going to judge us on, you know, am I trying to cover my rear end? It's like, I want to vote for somebody who my neighbors say he's mean or something like. I love the thing about rehab, the prostitute. Oh, man. God used a prostitute in the line of Jesus. How could that be? She's a

prostitute. Well, this is what I'm saying. It's like if you really understand what the Bible says, you don't have this kind of cavalier religious view that it's about being nice. And I'm not going to tell the Gestapo man a lie. And I'll, I'll cooperate with. the FBI and just, you know, it's Romans 13. Folks, here's the problem. That's not biblical. It's not God's will. And the Reagan thing, I got to tell you, Albin, this kind of ties into the whole thing about how God often uses people outside the church, okay? Whether it's Donald Trump or Ronald Reagan or anybody, Cyrus in the Old Testament, God often uses people outside the church to shame the church. And to say to the church, if you are not going to do what I require, I will find someone

outside the church to show you something. And the fact that Ronald Reagan was used by God. Now, Ronald Reagan was not some, you know, he was pro-Christian kind of like Trump, but where he actually stood, his wife as consulting astrologers. And, you know, I don't know. All I know is he did the right thing. And he dared to say what the safe, religious, rhino whatever establishment they said you can't say Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall no no no no let's just play patty cake

with the devil let's not confront the devil we don't really want to win we don't want to free people from the Soviet gulag let them rot we just want to let's play it safe and Reagan said no I'm going to say it and at the last chapter of the book he talks I talk about what he said we're at a time when we come back

we can probably touch on that Okay. Well, we're doing something kooky here today. Albin is interviewing me about my new book letter to the American church. Albin, what other hard-hitting journalistic questions? I wrote down. I made so many notes on so many pages, so many questions I wrote down. But the thing that I really loved about it because I finished it last night, I was actually reading it to Anne. She wanted me to read it to her so she could get sleepy. But, you know, you wake people up with some of this stuff. I've got to tell you. But the best part, the best part about this book, it does have a hopeful ending. And it's, And it's the chapter even before you get into talking about some examples, not only from the Old Testament, the New Testament, and history of the past, but with Ronald Reagan, I just love that, that you touched on that. And it's because of that, we have examples in our own lifetime. It's not just, oh, well, those guys, that was what they lived through and all that. No, we're older, of course, and they're young people, you know, that might not experience some of this. but to think about Reagan what he did. But there always have been voices.

I mean, really, it's the voice of the devil that says, we can't win. We can't win. Don't do anything. Just go to your caves. Just give up. That's the voice of the devil. And I want to tell you, it's like the voice of Mrs. Danvers in the movie Rebecca. You know, just jump out the window and end it.

It would be so easy. It's the voice of the devil just telling you, don't fight. It's over. There's no winning. I'm here to tell you. People said that to me when Trump was running against Hillary. Like, don't stick your neck out. There's not a chance he's going to win.

And when she wins, you'll be in big trouble. You know, like anything. I'm just supposed to fight for what is right and true and put the results in God's hands. Reagan said, I'm supposed to fight. The people who've been fighting for Roe v. Wade all these years, they've been told it will never change. the Soviet Union will never go down. That's the voice of the devil that says, do not fight. And I'm telling you right now in America, if things look hopeless, I promise you, folks,

if you will do what is right, whatever you can do, we all have a different role to play. I hope that there are pastors who will be persuaded by what I wrote in this book, and they'll say, you know what? Yes, I kind of bought into some of this, and I think I was wrong. I'm going to be a little bit more vocal. I'm going to talk about this. If you do that, folks, I promise you, that is God's will, and it is his will to lead us out of this mess,

to lead people to faith. But we each have to do our part. There are so many bullies out there these days, and that's what they are. They're pushing and pushing and pushing. I talk about this in an article I wrote, Who died and made you boss? They sing, hey, I'm a boss now.

I'm telling you. And we're like, we have the word of God. How can you be above the boss of bosses, A? Well, again, if you don't know who God is really, you're going to let people push you around. And by the way, I'll say it again. This is kind of the main reason I wrote the book is because this is exactly what happened in Germany. In the 30s, before they had any clue where this was going,

they just assumed my job is to be a nice Christian and just to preach the little gospel in my church so that they don't shut me down. And you think, no, no. No, it was your job, we now know, to speak the truth and to fight the wickedness of what was coming, to be willing to see it and to fight against it. Bonhofer tried to get you to do that. God was trying to get you to do that. They didn't do it.

And they paid a price, which we have to understand. It is unimaginable. It was unimaginable to them. We're going through the same thing. I'm just going to say it bluntly again. If you think that can't happen here, I guarantee you it will happen here. It is happening here unless the church repent of its silence. It's why I think God led me to write the book.

And I trust that God is in charge of the results. But I feel this is where we are. And I beg people to give it a hearing to just see, am I getting something wrong? I don't think so. But you tell me. We're out of time. Alvin, thank you so much for your kooky. idea. I really appreciate it. Thank you.