The Eric Metaxas Show - Mary Carmen Englert (Encore)

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

Mary Carmen Englert introduces her book "Seven Pathways | Ancient Practices for a Deeper Relationship with God". More at https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Pathways-Ancient-Practices-Relationship/dp/1637631588

Folks, welcome to the Eric Metaxus show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metaxos. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m. Investments.com. That's legacy pm. Investments. The Texas show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Yes, I'm talking to J.D. Vance. Even now in hour two, J.D., were you aware that this was our two? I was not. Don't be frightened. It's just like hour one, only more. So you are running a, for the Senate seat being vacated by Rob Portman in Ohio. Right. Has President Trump officially endorsed you, or is he playing that brilliant Trump 5D chess game that he plays?

I don't know. The president of, I've had some good conversations about the race, but no, he's not formally endorsed anybody in the race yet. I am hopeful that when he does, he's going to pull the trigger for me. Is there anybody comparable to you? Anybody with your... Of course not. Of course not. Yeah. It's a somewhat crowded primary. Yeah.

But again, a primary that I feel very confident we're going to win. The general election, you know, Ohio is still a purple state, even though Trump won by eight points. That hasn't happened for most Republicans statewide in the state of Ohio. They haven't got quite those margins. So I think, look, we've got a tough race to run, but I feel very good about it. And I think the president's going to be very helpful. Okay. Now, a lot of people listening are wondering, why do you care about elections when, and I don't mean you,

why should one care about elections when one is not confident that the 20 presidential election was run in a way that reflected the will of the people? That, again, is one of these horrific moments in our history. I won't shut up about it. I refuse to. I'm offended that I even should when I know what I know. You shouldn't know. Look, I think, of course, there are very few even national politicians at this point who are willing to talk about some of the issues that we saw in 2020 from the Zuckerbergs to the fact that you had, you know, people running multiple loads of ballots as evidenced by geolocation data in the cell phones that we all carry around.

So, I think we should continue to ask questions about it. Well, why care about elections? Maybe let me take a slightly different direction. So even if we assume, and I think that there are some serious problems in our elections, the very worst thing that you can do is, drop out of the process entirely. One of the friends who was very influential in leading me back to my Christian faith that I stepped away from for a time, once told me about a year ago when I was having a conversation not too dissimilar from the one we're having.

And I was like, what can we do? What can any one person do? And he said despair is a sin. And I think about that a lot, that no matter how long the odds are, we are not called as Christians and as people who love this country to despair about it, right? That's giving them what they want. In fact, we're forbidden. Exactly.

But that's a huge point. That's a huge point for me, and I've said this a lot. You would know it. But I've spoken about this a lot because there are strains within Christian faith that they kind of make a virtue out of a vice. And they kind of act like, well, it's all going to hell, and I'm ready to go to glory. And you think, well, that's very nice. But if God has told you to stand and fight, then to do anything else with vigor is sinful. And a lot of people.

have kind of abdicated and they've said, why should I? Why should I bother? So it's good to hear you say that. Yeah, there are friends of mine who are very serious Christians. I mean, they're deeply committed to their faith who have talked to me about potentially, you know, look, it's all over, right? We're going to move to a commune in some rural part of Ohio or Pennsylvania and just try to wait it out. It's like that, that is not how, I'm sorry, that's not how the devil works, right? Eventually, this is, you know, going back to J.R. Tolkien, right? Eventually, your individual shire is going to get attacked, we have to fight when we can, right? It's just great to hear you say that. And if you weren't already running for Senate, I would say, for the love of Christmas, you need to run for Senate.

No, because it is very important that we have leaders that get that, who are willing to say, the odds might be tall. So what? We don't want to follow Neville Chamberlain. We want to follow Winston Churchill. We want to fight, fight, fight, fight. because it's simply the right thing to do. But as we were saying, there are a lot of voices out there of people who have decided,

it really is all going to hell, there's nothing I can do. I'm here to say that's not true. That's a lie from the pit of hell. In case you're checking, from the pit of hell. And we need to fight. And I actually believe that because of folks like you, I have tremendous hope for, you know, Lincoln's new birth of freedom. I really believe he spoke that prophetically,

that he was an American prophetically, and that even though it's so long ago, that he was speaking that prophetically, that we have not yet seen a new birth of freedom, and that, in a sense, things had to get this bad to wake up enough people for that. That's right. I think that's exactly right.

And look, the history, not just of this country, right, which is in the grand scale of Christianity is a very brief blip, but the history of Christianity is, constant battles, constant periods when things look incredibly dark, and then by some act of providence and the sort of the strength and the courage of men, things turn around. And I think we're going to need both in the coming years, but I think that we have both.

I also think I've seen a lot of people, you know, patriots basically, in America, who have seen things get so bad that they themselves recognize that at its heart, this is a spiritual war more than anything else. Absolutely. Yeah, I try to remind myself, so I did a March for Life rally in Cincinnati just a couple of weeks ago. And, you know, there were people there who had been marching for life every single day since 1973, the 49th year, right? It's like, look, if that old woman who can barely walk is marching for life knowing that maybe, just maybe, the 50th anniversary is when we finally defeat Roe versus Wade, then I need to suck it up, accept that despair is a sin, and do

something else in my life. Well, as I say, it's delightful to have voices like yours, you know, entering the public fray, because that's the temptation. That is the voice of the devil. Lie down, rest, go to sleep. I also think that there are many in the church who are waking up, that what we would call a holy remnant is praying harder and understanding that we do have to get involved. And the opposition, Eric, is weaker than it has been in a long time. They're most dangerous when they're wounded. But I don't think that the opposition that we face

is this all-powerful thing. I think that they realize the institutions they built are crumbling. They realize the will of the people is not with them. The facade, you know, the curtain has been, pulled and we see what's actually going on. Yes, they're dangerous, but they're not all powerful. I mean, it reminds me when Reagan said, Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall, and everybody in foggy bottom over and over and over said, you can't say that, you can't say that,

you mustn't say that. And he too had this kind of prophetic sense that I must say this. This is right and true. And I don't know if he realized it at the time, but I like to think that when he said that, the demons tremble because, in effect, when you say that, you're making it clear that I know that what is pretending to be strong is a tottering fence. And a few voices like ours will shove it down. It's ready to go down.

So that really is important. It does look like Roe v. Wade effectively will be overturned in June. That's hard. I can't believe I just said that, but it seems true. And it's because, can we say it, of Donald Trump? can we imagine the three justices that would be sitting on the court if Hillary Clinton had been elected? Absolutely. It's absolutely because of Trump and the justices he appointed. We also have to remember 50 years of work from the pro-life community, right? I mean, this is what is so important for us is we often want to win battles on an electoral time frame. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer. The pro-life movement is the best example of this.

It is amazing. And when we think of civil rights in this country, when we think of the abolition of the slave trade in this country. These are long battles. And the last thing people of faith should ever do is shrink from those battles, even though some people say, oh, you're being political. Yes, I'm being political. I believe life is sacred. I'm sorry.

What do you want for me? We just have 20 seconds left. What are you doing in the next months? So, you know, just doing as much as I can to win the race, right? doing a lot of town halls, meeting with voters, answering questions. We're trying to run an actual grassroots campaign. So we've done 20 town halls in the past couple of weeks. We'll do a lot more over the next three months.

And I think we're going to win the race and start to take back the country. We really don't have a lot of room for guests on this show. But, Alvin, maybe if we can in the future, we can squeeze in our new friend, J.D. Vance. J.D., great to be with you. Thanks, sir. Okay, I have never seen a discount this huge from, balance of nature and this discount is for a very limited time so today is the day to order it. Look, if you've listened to me for any length of time, you've heard me rave about balance

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market. A true diversified portfolio isn't just more stocks and bonds, but different asset classes. This new platform allows you to make investments in gold and silver, no matter how small or large, with a few clicks, visit LegacyPMinvestments.com to get started. You're going to love this free new tool they've added. LegacyPMinvestments.com. Legacy pm. Investments.com. Check it out. Hey there, folks. Welcome back. What a joy to sit here with an old friend, Mary Carmen Englert, and then to realize she's not just a friend anymore. She's an author of a book called Seven Pathways. Mary Carmen, welcome. Thank you so much for having me, Eric. I'm always shocked when friends of mine suddenly write books. It's like, hey, how did this happen? How did this happen? I'm shocked to be here as well.

So where do we start? Do we start with your story or do we start with the book? You know, they're kind of intertwined together so we could start with both. Okay. So, yeah. So seven pathways. So how did I even get on this? You know, some people ask them, why seven? Well, this actually got started many years ago.

And I love how the Lord uses something you start many, many years ago, and then you brings you back. So through a very long and arduous health journey and struggling with unexplained pain, the Lord led me back to these seven practices. And I had started it about 15 years prior, just seeing the need for these spiritual pathways in my own life. Okay. So these are sort of like ancient Christian practices that, so obviously biblical, but in many ways, I mean, I just noticed this, that modern Christians often dispense with that, like we kind of do our own thing. Absolutely. And people have been practicing their faith for 2,000 years. Yeah, we can learn from some of these people. We can learn from from Christians in the past of how they live out their faith and how they practice their,

how they, how they live at their faith in terms of, you know, daily reading or meditation or prayer, whatever, whatever it is. So, yeah, what, how did you discover the seven pathways? So really, what I could do really well, and when you struggle with a lot of pain and you're exhausted all the time, I could do silence really well, and I could do prayer really well. And so how I started was with Thanksgiving and people often say why did you start with Thanksgiving? And I say well, you know, when you wake up in the morning, you can remind it immediately of the crowd of stress. There's all the things that are not happening in your life. And so Thanksgiving is the one way that you can realign your thoughts with God and who he is and remember his greatness. And so

And that's one of the seven. Okay, so it's called seven pathways, ancient practices for a deep relationship with God. So one of them is simply giving thanks. And so you would do that every morning. Yes. And in the midst of pain. Oh, absolutely. And I still do. It's really a game changer. Our culture becomes, we've become very entitled. We are forgetting our rich heritage. Christians should be the most thankful people. We've received the greatest gift. I mean, I think we're not surprised. We're often now, it becomes kind of the norm. Oh, normalized. Oh, yeah, Jesus died for me. No, that's the ultimate gift. No one dies for anyone. Well, isn't it amazing how, you know, people say, I mean, I talk about this a lot, actually.

Like, people say that they're Christians. And so I wrote my book, a letter to the American Church for Christians specifically say, okay, you say you're a Christian. If you are, then a number of things will follow. In other words, if you actually, people say, well, I have faith, saving faith, It's like you do? Okay. If you do, then you will live your life as though you actually believe Jesus died for you who didn't deserve it. And gratitude, Thanksgiving has to flow out of that. But the point of your book and the point of, you know, we have to remind ourselves over and over and over.

It doesn't come naturally. We have to do it because if you don't do it. So for you, that was the first thing, practicing Thanksgiving. Yes. And that's what Seven Pathways does. It helps people activate their faith. Often people say, yeah, I have faith, but they're still a little lost. Or they're just feeling like, hey, I don't know what I want to read. Or sometimes they just kind of become a little disinterested. Yeah. And in Jesus, it becomes a little, it's like, yeah, I know that. But this is seven pathways and through these practices, including the time in the Bible as well in prayer, which is essential.

Obviously, the Bible is the primary way, which we know God and who he is, his character, his plan for the world and his redemptive story of how he wants to shave us into followers of Jesus. And also reminding us that we are sons and daughters of the king. I think a lot of people forget that, like, you actually have Heavenly Father, then through knowing him, you can have those attributes that God's works into your real world and life. And that's what through practicing these seven rhythms, which I call them, are just helping give people a cadence to how they spend time with God again, that's structured that these ancient theologians and ancient practitioners of the faith throughout the centuries have given us. I'm just kind of giving you something that's been around a long time.

It's been there and we tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's like, well, I don't want to be like Martin Luther as a monk doing this and this and this and this. It's like, no, no, no. You don't want to do it unto destruction. You don't want to try to save yourself by doing it. On the other hand, if you believe you do want to do these things. And so the seven that you list is Thanksgiving, silence, confession, song, prayer, Bible study, and scripture, meditation. Now, before we get into all those, what is your health journey? I mean, because

you, I mean, you were already into all this stuff and thinking about this stuff, but while, you know, you're thinking about these seven pathways and starting to practice them, you had this, like, really health crisis. I mean, suddenly you start feeling pain. How long ago was this and what happened? It started in 2018, and so it was unexplained head and neck pain. Lots of misdiagnosis, 15 plus doctors. What? Yeah, lots. And it turns out I had a rare cancerous tumor.

It's called a cynic cell cancer. It was in my right product, which is one of the salivary glands. And very hard to detect. The cells mimic traditional cells, meaning on CTs, it does not show all of it. MRI showed more of it even then when you get in. It was much larger. So it was causing pain. It was cutting off movement to my mouth, my eyes, and my ears.

And it was slight. It was ever so slight. I noticed that I was having problems with my mouth, but then again, people often say, oh, you're aging or, oh, you have migraines. There's numerous things that went on. And none of those were the right diagnosis. And so thankfully, after a very long journey, almost five and a half years, last year, in March of 2023 is when I had the tumor removed.

It was discovered just a little early in December 22, what I had. And it almost been five years at this point, which is really hard to have so much pain and just really have your life taken from you. And so in many ways, God put my life on hold and put me in a mode of listening. I will say it was even though it was the hardest time in my life in many respects dealing with not only physical pain, but just enduring that emotionally, but also having to push through, and I was writing this during this time, and people were like, are you going to go, are you going to put it aside? I was like, no, I'm actually not. I'm going to keep working on it, but I'm going to

work on it slowly, and that's what God did, and that's what I want to encourage people. When you're in a really hard place, you can take small steps, and that's what I did. God gave me really small steps to do each day. So when I was writing this, for just one example, he said, okay, I want you to listen to each chapter of John. And then I want you to go back and just voice text some questions. Then the next time I want you to go back and I want you to think of some questions for confession. And just like he took me through all the pathways very in a very timely manner, but it was something that I could do. And through that time, then I had some others, folks that jump in and help me along the way. And so what I did, I actually wrote two books in this time.

Well, I had cancer. So I wrote this ancient practice is for a deeper relationship with God. And then the workbook version, which is also on the website at 7 Pathways.com, which is taking you through all these seven pathways through the study of a gospel of John, which is a chapter by chapter study or half of a chapter. Some of the chapters are very long. So it's better to break them up. So that's one reason. It's just I want to encourage people, hey, you know, God says we are going to experience suffering as Christians. Like that is not, it's not something strange is going to happen to us.

But by that by suffering is by means which we know him, but also by the means which we are more transformed and that we can actually have something to say that people will listen to as well. Isn't that amazing? I know. There's so many people to be like, I don't want to receive that. I just want a victory and health. It's like, well, yes, of course you do. But if the Lord allows you to experience these. things, you can experience them unto him with him and let him use them for his purposes in your

life. And I, you know, you went to a Dallas Theological Seminary. I did. And that's pretty recent, right? Well, it has been now 20 years. Okay, I didn't realize that because, but I'm, so I'm saying that you didn't just kind of, you know, you've been a student of the scriptures. Yes. And this has been something that's been in your life for a long time. And I started this 15 years. I literally started working on in 2005. So it was very interesting how God circled me back to something. And I taught a couple seminars at Redeemer when I lived in New York on these practices. They were only four at that point.

And then through this journey, I live them. Well, I love this. Folks, I'm talking to Mary Carmen Engler. The book is Seven Pathways. There are actually two books. You can go to Seven Pathways.com, seven spelled out, seven pathways.com. We'll be right back. I guess every phone which has its price breaks her heart.

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Welcome back. I'm talking to the author of Seven Pathways. Mary Kerman Englert, you, you know, it just seems like God is bringing us back in a way, you know, I mean, these are ancient pathways. But the point is, how do we live out our faith? And I talk about this in a different way when I'm talking about letter to the American church. But people kind of act like, okay, I believe some stuff. Check, check, check, I believe it. And that's it. And so I guess, okay, I'll go to church on Sunday or whatever. But it's supposed to inform our every thought, pray without ceasing, live your life with Thanksgiving. How do we do that? And it seems that people.

people are, as far as I can tell, increasingly hungry for the how. How do I do it? And in the ancient church or in previous centuries, there was a lot of focus on that. Anybody who's a serious Orthodox Christian or a serious Catholic, they have access to a lot of this. But kind of in the evangelical church, we often, we've kind of skipped way past that into whatever. I don't know, but these things are important and they're a gift from God to us. Like, here's how you do it. Here's some ways. And it seems to me that that's exactly what your book is. It gives people tools because I wake up in the morning, okay, Lord, how do I do it? What do I do today? It gives you a framework and it gives you something to build upon.

So let's go through these seven things. First of all, how do you determine that there are seven? Is that a, does that come from some ancient source or did you just end up coming? I just ended up coming to seven, to be honest with you. And these are just seven historical practices. And it's a great number for our faith as well. So that's all landed on it. And so do you, in these books, do you recommend, you know, that somebody do a certain thing every day? Or how does it, how does it shape up if somebody looks into it?

You start with Thanksgiving. And so the rhythm of it, I'll just go through it quickly, and I can circle back. Thanksgiving, silence, confession, song, prayer, scripture. Oh, I think I just did it wrong. Did you do it? No, I think I have Thanksgiving. Silence. Song.

Confession. Confession. Song. Prayer. Bible study and scripture meditation. My head got ahead of me. So you, now, do you do one of these a day? or several weeks.

No, no, actually I do all seven of them. Yeah. So I've worked it up in a time frame that you can do in about 35 to 40 minutes. Yeah. Though if you're a really quick student, you could do it in 30 perhaps. And then other times when I was on the journey, just like when you're really hungry, you eat a lot, right? If you haven't had food in hours or you wake up in the morning and you're extremely thirsty,

when you're going through something really difficult, and some of you out there were you going through something, you might want to spend longer than just three minutes on one. I mean, I would spend. 20, 30 minutes on prayer. And when I say prayer, I don't mean just praying for yourself. I mean like praying for other people. I have this whole like pray. Again, I'm not trying to be rigid. It's just a prayer plan. Hey, how can I get in praying for people in my life, whether it be people I know well, my family or friends or the community at large. And then it's also praying scripture, praying God's word. These are words that he's giving us, such as,

the Psalms, which is the prayer book of the faith. And those are also can be, they were sung historically as well. That is a great structure, laments especially. A lot of people think laments. Oh, it sounds so awful. Yeah. Sounds like a, dirt like a bad word. Yeah, lamentations.

That's scriptural. Yeah, that's it. That's it. But it's an awesome structure of how you can present, like, those really difficult times of the Lord. And David spent what? over a third of Psalms in laments. So I would say that something we might want to park on a little bit more in our own journey.

And we live that. It's just like we're disconnected from the... What exactly is a lamentation? In other words, when people are, you know, it definitely's not a word that you hear. Yeah. So what are people... So, yeah, what is the biblical idea behind lamentation? Yeah, the biblical idea is just presenting your longings, your sufferings to the Lord.

And it's, excuse me, it's a confession of those, of those thoughts in addressing God, presenting those thoughts, but then also you're firm and trust in who God is. And then you praise them at the end of it. So I have a, it's a lot, it's about a six step, seven step structure of the limit in the book. But that's a little summary of it. It's just, it's, and that's what David often did if you look in the Psalms through the limits, which makes of about 42 of them in Psalms, that he has this structure.

And that's often what we, when we pray, we then forget to remind ourselves, okay, let's affirm, after I've just said all these things that I'm struggling with or a friend, my family of him are struggling with, then let me affirm who God is, and let me affirm that I'm going to trust him and praise him.

Yeah. And that reframes how you think about your suffering and your pain, and it brings God into the story, because the whole purpose of prayer is speaking, listening to God. well, we want to bring him into the story. It's not just us talking to someone. It's us having a conversation with something. So through that, the lament structure,

we can then hear from God. And that's what I love. And it's not as, honestly, I'd love to do more research on this too. I'm still learning about laments, not an expert at all in suffering and pain and then expressing that to God. But it's something we live daily.

And I think we're really missing that in our spiritual lives. I know I am. And one of the things here you mentioned is silence, and obviously that's so that we can hear from God. Yes, absolutely. And for some people, that's easy. For some people, it's not so easy. I don't find it very easy. My head is crowded with noise.

But getting silent to hear from God. When we come back, I want to ask you more about that. Folks, I'm talking to Mary, Carmen Englert. The book, Seven Pathways, two books. Seven Pathways.com is the website. We'll be right back. You might have heard Mike Lundell and My Pillo no longer have the support of their box stores or shopping channels the way they used to. Yes, it's because of cancel culture.

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Use promo code Eric or call 800-9783057. That's promo code Eric. 97783057.3057.com. promo code Eric or go to Mypillow.com and use promo code Eric. Welcome back. I'm talking to Mary Carmen Engler about her journey with God and about the book that came out of it called Seven Pathways. We were just talking about silence, so these different things. Silence, obviously we know that we're not just supposed to chatter at God. we're supposed to listen. And people often say that.

And I think that it can be frustrating because you think, listen, well, of course, if God wants to talk, I want to hear, but I don't hear anything. You know, how do you cultivate that? Yeah. So I would say cultivating listening skills can be difficult. First of all, you need to quiet your surroundings as helpful, right? It's hard to hear if there's a lot of noise around you. And then quiet yourself.

And that can be a difficult factor as well. How to quiet yourself. and obviously closing your eyes, but also quieting yourself before the Lord means coming before him and quieting your mind can be also helped by pulling out your Bible and reading God's word. That'll often quiet in your mind because then it puts his thoughts in your mind versus those noisy stressors. That's interesting.

That's one of the primary ways. So the quiet, so in the silence, You can actually be, I would think it's like cheating, but no, it sounds like a good idea. You can be reading silently and listening as you're reading. Then you have confession. You know, again, these are as ancient as it gets in the Christian faith, but oftentimes people don't practice these things. And the Lord wants us to, for us, for us, because he loves us. He wants us to search our souls and to put these things before him so we can be cleansed.

Yes, absolutely. And that's what confession does. It brings cleansing, but it also brings, after cleansing comes freedom. And Christ wants to bring freedom. And what it additionally does is that it releases his power to work in and through us as sin is continued. And this is a process. You know, confession is a daily thing. It's something we are always going to be a part. And to become comfortable. a little comfortable with the difficult conversations or the old tapes. You know, I guess. Somebody called it. I called it old tapes that God sometimes brings up when you're bringing confession or we repeat the same tapes. They're like, okay, Lord, I'm struggling with that's the same thing. So, you know, he can rewrite those tapes.

He can create new ones. For those of who you know what tapes are. Some of you are like, I have no idea what a cassette. Yeah, what's a cassette tape? It's not an MP3. What is that? But it is interesting because you're right, we do have these thoughts in our heads, and some of it is not the voice of God. Some of it is some condemnation that we picked up either from our parents or from ourselves or whatever it is.

And the whole idea is God is exhorting us to hear what he has to say about us, not what others have to say or what the devil has to say or what, you know, some voice from the past. But that is, that's a discipline. Or by following these disciplines, we can help God's voice come to the fore in terms of what he thinks of us, which is exactly what is true as opposed to something else. And that's what through, even what I went through, it was like all those other voices in my life quelled more when you go through pain and God removes you out of a lot of things. And I quit looking at social media a lot and really started hearing his voice more. It was amazing how tuning out there. the noise, so to speak, I was able to hear that voice through even music in the mornings. Like, God would wake. I would literally wake up in the morning with songs in my head in the

mornings. It was just crazy thing. And see vision. I mean, God was speaking to me. Visions through the word all over. It just notes that people send me from prayer rooms, prayer teams. So when you calm the noise in your life, you always. You always, you open yourself up to the most beautiful voice, which is the Lord's and his word and his, that relationship that really can transform and give you the best life that he wants for you. And then also help you finish well. And that's what is Christians, a lot of people have just, and that's where I think

these practices will really help people. A lot of people are just kind of like, I'm going to pull over and park here. Or I'm going to back up here. and I think I just, I don't know, it's not that bad, you know, what I'm doing. Instead, God's like, no, this will help you move forward. I mean, we are in a spiritual battle, and that's what prayer also in the Bible is used. He's left this for us because prayer is listening and speaking to God as well, but it's also a spiritual battle.

And we have to remember that. That's what we're in in this world. And so this will help you with that as well. And you have to see God's hand. And in this illness that you've had, the idea that God used that on some level to get you to, you know, it gives you a lot of credibility with people that are listening right now because you've been through this. You have used this while you've been suffering. This is not just theory. No.

And I'm still, I mean, I don't have all the mobility of my mouth back. I mean, hopefully it will come back. And people say, or do you still have pain? I'm like, yeah, I still have pain. some and that's just a part of you know it's a Christian life suffering and pain we all have it to some degree and yeah I did it through that and that's what I encourage people when you're going through a hard time press in to listen to see what God might be saying during that time and you can experience and that's what he says you can experience his presence in no other way and then he

transforms people through that in ways that he can't throw whatever it's that's a suffering does is Jesus suffered. That's, um, well, I mean, look, it's part of the warp and woof of human existence. It's kind of like people understand that with exercise, right? If I want to grow, I have to exercise, which involves like, you know, tearing up the muscle so that it can grow back stronger. And it's, it's hard. But it's a blessing.

And to see it through God's eyes. It is a blessing to go through this kind of thing. And we've lost that because I think, again, sometimes. times people's theology gets them off to where they kind of act like, no, no, no, no, suffering is of the devil. It's like, no, no, God can use difficulty. I mean, just call it difficulty trials. The Lord can use it. It doesn't mean that we want them, but it means that we want whatever God has. And you allowed the Lord to use this in your life. And it's just, it's a beautiful story, Mary Carmen. I'm sorry we don't have more time, but I'm just excited that you have done this.

Seven Pathways is the name of the book. Again, two books. And the website is seven. You've got to spell it out. Seven Pathways.com. Seven Pathways.com. I'm very excited about this. Mary Carmen, congratulations.

Thanks for being my guest. Thank you so much for having me, Eric. Folks, welcome back. I'm really thrilled to be talking to the two brilliant women who have turned my book letter to the American Church into a very book. a documentary film. They didn't just turn it into a documentary film. It was their idea to turn my book,

Letter to the American Church, into a documentary film, which is going to be basically everywhere, although we want your help in making sure that it's everywhere, because the message couldn't be more urgent. But Rachel Tash and Simone Alex, welcome to the program.

Thank you. Who's in the film? I mean, I know the answer, but let me ask you, who's in the film? You both interviewed all kinds of, kinds of people. Obviously, I'm the main narrator, but whom can we look forward to seeing interviewed? Well, we've got Charlie Kirk as one of the leading voices, Dr. James Lindsay. We have a few pastors,

Pastor Rob McCoy from Godspeak, Calvary Chapel, Pastor David Englehart from King's Church in New York City. John Amichuku. That's my favorite word of the month. Amun Chukwu. John Amuncchuku is such a hero. He is such a hero. And yes, he is prominently featured in the film, right? Yes. And Victor and Eileen Marks, that was really important for us because they're on the cutting lines of taking action and no-holds bar going into, you know, really scary places and rescuing children and really being the gospel in action.

and yeah, Seth Gruber, who really covers the whole abortion issue from a really fresh perspective. I think he's the foremost leading voice for millennials and Gen Z on abortion right now. So it was important to have him speak to that. It's a great message. The film is very timely, very now going into a very contentious 2024 year, you know, the politics, everything that's going to be happening. The film touches on all of this, taking you through 1930s, Germany,

all the way through modern day. People are going to learn. They're going to see everything laid out what's been happening in this country in our school systems, in corporations, the tactics that were used then and that are still being used now. People are going to be blown away

by what they're going to see. And it's a wake-up call to the church to have them get engaged, start talking, taking your kids out of public school, schools, run for office, all of it, just to get involved. I really have to say that, again, you know, it's one thing to write a book. It's another thing to make a film.

And what you all did, you know, not only did you translate my message into a film, you did way more than that. You made it into a film which goes way beyond the book. I mean, there's tons of stuff in the film that is not in my book. And these are extraordinary voices. I mean, all of them that you mentioned, Charlie Kirk, John Amichuku, David Englehart, Eileen Marks, Victor Marks, Pastor Rob McCoy, James Lindsay. Everyone brings a different piece of the puzzle.

And I have to say that it's very compelling. And, you know, since I wrote the book, I would think I wouldn't be that compelled by watching it because I already know this stuff. No, there's tons of stuff in the film that's not in the book that, you know, you can say things and go places that I wasn't able to in the book. Unfortunately, the message is very important. So I just want to tell people, ladies and gentlemen, this is very important. We've made this as a tool for you to get the word out. We're in just as crucial a moment in American history as can be.

It is God's will that the church stand up. and take action and avert the horror of what happened in the German church. That's really, this is a huge warning, and every single person listening has a role to play. And the first thing you can do is go to letter to the American church.com and see where you can see the film, and please tell your friends about it, letter to the American church.

Rachel, Tash and Simone, Alex, thank you so much for your work on the film and for being my guest today. Thank you. Thanks, Eric.