The Eric Metaxas Show - Melanie Phillips

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

How Jews and Christians Built the West—and Why Only They Can Save It

Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready to listen to a man of grace, sophistication, integrity, and whimsy? Well, so are we. But until such a man shows up, please welcome Eric Mat, Texas. Hey there, folks. It's Friday, the 11th of July. And this summer on Fridays, I think we're often, we're going to do Socrates in the city. Fridays. I'm working on a book and we've got some awesome Socrates in the city content. So we thought maybe we can run them. So today we're going to run one. I have to tell you, I keep meeting these amazing people. Melanie Phillips, I interviewed her. It's got to be around two months ago almost, I think, here in New York for Socrates in the city conversation. She's a British author. She's absolutely brilliant and delightful. And as you'll see in the beginning of my conversation with her, which we're going to air in a moment. She's incredibly funny. I didn't see it coming. When I was talking to her before we sat down for the conversation,

she was extremely serious and British. And then when we sat down, we really had some fun. But it's also a very important conversation. The book that Melanie Phillips has written, which we discuss, which you hear in a minute, is called The Builders Stone, how Jews and Christians built the West, how Jews and Christians built the West and how only they can save it. So it's really

fascinating. But Melanie Phillips has become one of my favorite people. In fact, I like her so much that recently we did a new thing. We're going to be doing these things called Socrates and the city dialogues where I'm not involved at all. We just find two wonderful people and let them have a dialogue. And I could take a nap or rest or go fishing or what have you. So we recently did this in England, because Melanie Phillips lives most of the time in England. We paired her up with the great Mary Harrington. Some of you know Mary Harrington. She's herself superb.

And they had a delightful conversation. So we're going to be airing that in the weeks ahead. But Melanie Phillips is just the best of the best. So right now we're going to play my conversation with Melanie Phillips on the subject of her book. the Builders Stone, how Jews and Christians built the West, and how only they can save it. You're in for a treat, and here it is. Tonight, it is my great joy to have as our guest, Melanie Phillips, who has come from across the ocean.

We'll find out exactly which ocean and which direction, because I'm not entirely sure. She's a British journalist, a broadcaster, an author. She's championed traditional values in the culture war for more than three decades. And, of course, championing traditional values. makes you an ultra-radical at this point, right? It doesn't make any sense, but it's, of course, true. She writes a weekly column for the Times of London and the Jewish News Syndicate.

As she broadcasts on radio and TV, gives public presentations across the English-speaking world. Her new book is titled, The Builders Stone, How Jews and Christians Built the West, and why only they can save it? You should have a copy of that on your seat. it is not yours to keep. So if you don't mind,

if you don't mind, leave it where you found it, okay? Her first novel, Melanie Phillips's first novel, is the legacy, which deals with conflicted Jewish identity, anti-Semitism, and the power of history. That was published in 2018, along with her personal and political memoir Guardian Angel. Her previous books include her 2006 bestseller, Lundonistan, about the British establishment's

capitulation to Islamist aggression. And then after that, the world turned upside down, the global battle over God, truth and power, which was published in 2010. Of course, tonight we'll be discussing the Builders Stone. It's my privilege then to welcome Melanie Phillips to this stage. Melanie, welcome. You okay? I think so.

I'm a bit exhausted by that introduction. You understand? Do you understand what I'm up against, folks? I've never hated a guest at this point in the interview. It's very, very difficult. They hate, hates a strong word, and yet absolutely accurate. Melanie, really, it is a joy to have you. When I was saying that I'm not entirely sure from where you've come,

we're saying that you live now, not just in London, but in Jerusalem. Is that the case? That is the case. I live a very strange life. I live most of the time in Jerusalem. Both my husband and I are journalists. My husband is a legal commentator, and he writes and broadcasts exclusively about Britain.

I cover Britain a great deal. I write a weekly column of the Times of London. I call it the Times, the Times, because there's only one Times. And if you're a journalist, you can't really be away from the culture that you're dealing with too long. and so we live in Jerusalem, we go to London every few weeks.

It's a bit like your coasts in terms of time of travel, but it's like a seriously insane way to live. Now, Melanie, you understand for the rest of the evening, you'll be talking to me, not to them. I know, I know it's difficult. It's in the contract. You've got to go with it. All right, eventually we do settle down.

This book is a big deal because it comes. covers so much. So the first question really about it is the title. What do you mean exactly by the builder's stone? Yes, people think it's a book about architecture or building. The builder's stone is a reference to the line in one of the Psalms, Psalm 118, and it's a reference to the line which says, worse the effect of, the stone that the builder threw away, rejected, is the cornerstone. And it's what the book is about. It's about the fact that Judaism, the Jewish people and the state of Israel, are, and have been for a long time, disdained and worse. And in fact, they are disdained and they are disdained and attacked, certainly in recent years,

by a significant proportion of the West. But the West doesn't realize that the Jewish people are actually the means of the West's rescue from going off the edge of the cultural cliff where I think it's been sliding for some time. Since you haven't been here before, to Socrates in the City, I mean, I'd love it if you could just give us a few minutes. on your book Londanistan. Talk about the thesis of that book. Well, the title, Londonistan, I can't claim credit for.

Londonistan was the term of art invented by the French secret service in the 90s, I suppose. When the French were grappling with the early days of the problem of Islamic radicalism and extremism and terrorism in France. and that particular demographic consisted of Muslims or Arabs, I should say, who were the legacy of the French colonial empire in Algeria, North Africa. And they were causing a tremendous problem for the French in terms of security. And there was this great procession of such people who came across the English Channel to England because Britain has prided itself for many, many years,

on its openness to radicals of all kind, its commitment to freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Karl Marx sat in the British Library and wrote capital. As you were saying this, I was just going to say Carl Marx, which is fascinating. And also, you know, quote, today's terrorist is tomorrow's prime minister. Okay, that's really smart thinking.

So they had all these people coming in and being given British citizenship and taking up residence, Al-Qaeda was formed in London. Okay? How smart was that? So the French said to the British, are you mad? These people are not only a danger to us, they're a danger to you and to everybody in the West.

And the British said, no, no, no, no, you're just being French about this. We and Britain are committed to the free exchange of views. And so the French said, this is Londonstan. This is the Islamization of Britain, which Britain is inflicting upon itself. Mike Lindell and MyPillow employees want to thank you, my listeners, for all your continued support. Mike has a passion to help everyone get the best sleep of their life. He didn't stop by creating the best pillow. He created the best bed sheets ever.

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Or order online at balance of nature.com. Use discount code Eric to get 40% off this week only. Hey there, folks. Since it's Friday, we thought we would do something different. We're playing a recent conversation I had with the amazing Melanie Phillips. She was my guest at Socrates in the city. We had such a delightful conversation. I wanted to play it here.

It's based on our book, The Builders, Stone, how Jews and Christians built the wall. and how only they can save it. We continue with that right now. So I wrote the book about the way in which the, really, the entire British establishment, not just politicians of various stripes, but also the security service, the sort of counter-extremism community, was in total denial of the problem that was building and were in various ways. making it as easy as possible for Britain to become ground zero for a mortal threat to the West.

And I called it Londondonistan because that's what the French called it. Well, obviously, that's over 20 years ago that they coined the phrase, and it's almost 20 years ago that your book came out. It was a big bestseller, and it seems to have been prescient, I guess, or prescient. I don't know how we pronounce it. Unfortunately, do you think things are about where you thought they might be back then? Have they proceeded in that direction? Well, I didn't think about the future because I tend not to try and predict what the future is going to hold because you can never tell.

But certainly I thought at the time, if things carry on as they are, there's going to be a very serious problem of radicalization in Britain. and lo and behold, that has proved to be the case. And the British are still in denial about it. I don't mean the British public. The British public, you know, by and large are very much aware. And their fury and their frustration and their concern is very, very significant. But administration after administration, they won't even talk about it. Talk about it is considered to be Islamophobic.

And the current government, as you may know, last year that Britain, sort of bucked the populist trend in Europe and elected a kind of old-fashioned labor government, committed to all the kinds of ideologies for which the left is renowned, and they're in the business of, well, what they're threatening to do is to give teeth to the term Islamophobia. So at the moment, you know, you suffer condign consequences in terms of professional and social obloquy

if you talk about the problems or the faults within the Islamic world. And what's on the cards is to give it some sort of teeth so that what people are worried about is that it would be a kind of, it's being described as a possible blasphemy law by the back door, but blasphemy only for one religion. You can insult Christianity as much as you want, but you can't insult Islam. And that's what people fear is coming down the pike. It's a little depressing.

On the upside for having used the word obloquy just now, you get $20. And the word condign is so overused, you don't get anything for that. But I have to say, I mean, we could talk all night about your book, Lundonistan, but in a way, we'll be talking about it anyway as we talk about this book, because much of what you just said in a sense is the subject of the book I'm holding here. So you mentioned the West. In other words, the idea was that, you know,

by allowing radical Islamists into the U.K., it could become or would become or has become a launching pad for those who want to destroy the West. So the question, of course, is, what is the West? And you deal with that a little bit in the book. So let's talk about that. Douglas Murray, of course, has written a book about the West. When we talk about the West, what do we mean? Well, I don't mean the West in terms of geography, although it's generally considered to be, well, certainly the English-speaking world is considered the West. So, you know, Australia and Canada are considered to be the West, even though they're not exactly

contiguous. That's another big word, I'm afraid. Actually, that's really not a big word, but thank you for insulting me. Go ahead. To me, the West is an idea. The West is a civilization. It's a culture that developed, I think,

it's not just Western civilization. It's is civilization. It's what we, you know, those of us who are religious and a-religious understand to be civilized values. E.G. rule of law, a commitment to justice, fairness, compassion, putting others above yourself so that you have a cooperative sense of creating a community.

Stuff like that, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equality for women. These are kind of, you know, we almost sort of don't think about these things. And, you know, the fashionable view is that these things are universal values. As if we were all born with them imprinted upon our DNA, or we got it all from the Greeks. Well, you know, the ancient Greeks gave the West a great deal, but they didn't give it compassion and justice and democracy. On the contrary, it was a savage and...

very unpleasant and tyrannical society. So I think that civilized values actually in here in the West and that they bind disparate societies together. So, you know, the countries of mainland Europe, as I say, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, America. These are the West because when we talk about the West, we have in our minds, this culture that is a shared set of values and institutions, not institutions, the institutions are all different, a shared set of values that come from a tradition that goes back into, well,

it goes back a very long way. It goes back before America was created. How dare you. And, you know, it depends where you start as to where these values actually came from. Well, there's a lot there. I mean, the idea of the West, it's interesting, as you mentioned, the shared values of the West. Two things at least come into my mind. One is that not all of these values have always been Western values.

That as time passes, of course, they become things that we sort of tease out and we say, yes, we need to have women's rights at some point. obviously we didn't have religious liberty until fairly recently you know let's say two and a half centuries something like that so that's one thing that the evolution of what makes the West the West as we would define it some of them are more recent than others yeah and which I think would lead us to try to figure out why is that when we talk about the West

and we define what is the West I mean if somebody asked me, I guess I would say Athens and Jerusalem. Being a Greek, of course, I'm a little bit partial, but I do think that somehow it's a combination of the two, but it's definitely something that has evolved and that we are at a point now where we can look back and see this evolution of ideas. So talk a little bit about that, because it seems to me that that's, I mean, that will lead us, I think, to talk about the self-destructive tendencies that exist within the West, which maybe we'll get to. Well, when we think of the West, I think that we think of modernity

as almost a kind of synonym for the West. And when we think of modernity, well, I think most people would date modernity to start with the 18th century Enlightenment, which was the kind of watershed between medieval, dark age, barbarism, and the Enlightenment, the development of Enlightenment, by which we mean the age of reason, where religion was separated from the state, from power, and where tolerance developed,

which set the scene for the development of the concern for the individual, which again set the scene for the development of learning and science and all those things that make the West, because we think of modernity, we think of science, and we think of technological whiz-bangary and all the rest of it. Now, if you start at the Enlightenment, well it wasn't very enlightened actually because it was and it wasn't

it did great things you know it put an end to certain savagerys of the past although I think the dark ages weren't necessarily quite as dark as people make out well that's another matter so the Enlightenment produced a move towards the things that we kind of as they take for granted like tolerance and so on

but in the Enlightenment Enlightenment were the seeds of its own downfall, of the downfall of Western tolerance and liberalism, because some people called it the counter-enlightenment, but it was the kind of swirl of ideas that came from that period, which I think led to certain unfortunate developments. Hey, folks, it's a special Socrates in the City Friday on the Eric Metaxus show, and Today we're playing my scintillating conversation with these scintillating Melanie Phillips, based on her book, The Builder Stone, how Jews and Christians built the West and how only they can save it. We continue with that right now.

Gertrude Himmelfarb, who wrote about all this kind of stuff, it might be a great historian, divided the Enlightenment into at least two, possibly three. And she said, you know, there was the British Enlightenment and the United States. European Enlightenment, mainly the French Enlightenment, and they were very, very different. The British Enlightenment was conceived of the development of the separation of church and state and the development of tolerance within the ambit of Christian faith. That was considered to be the sine qua non. It was considered to be absolutely the given, that that was the basis for, the moral basis for a society. And then within that, you develop tolerance and all the rest of it. The French,

wanted to get rid of religion completely. They believed that religion was the impediment to reason and happiness. And I think it's possible to trace that line as having produced all the problems that we have today. There are some people who think that the British Enlightenment actually had the seeds of that also. But certainly the French Enlightenment, you can draw a line. I would say from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who is my candidate for supreme villain of all time. he was of course insane but nevertheless he had

tremendous influence on the idea that authority was an encroachment on personal autonomy and what was inside you was inside the child was what was real and true and everything else was

has to be sort of got rid of and from that I mean I'm obviously encapsulating rather a lot into a very short space of short number of words but basically you can see a line from that through the French Revolution, which was supposed to be the age of reason and freedom

and ended up in the terror. And then from that through to Marxism and fascism, and what I consider that we have been living through, which is not my term, but cultural totalitarianism. And at the heart of it was basically the idea that religion was the impediment to progress and freedom. And that, I think, is the central point, and that's the central point of my book, that, you know, especially in godless Britain, because Britain, as I like to think of it, Britain was like first into the Enlightenment and first out. Britain is really a post-religious society in a way that America is not, although it's encroaching, but it's different.

And so much of what we've been living through is the result of secular ideologies replacing the idea of objective truths which are basically given to us in the Bible. And it's absolutely axiomatic in Britain that if you are a smart person, if you're educated, and you're sophisticated,

then of course you're not religious because only imbeciles are religious. And I'm afraid that's the seeds of the destruction of what such secular liberals hold dear. Yeah, well, of course, what you've said is true of Manhattan where we are now. And I could say in some ways that's the reason we started Socrates in the city. You've said so much there that's interesting. I don't want to skip past it. When you refer to Rousseau and the French Enlightenment,

It seems that when we're talking about religion, let's say, because this is a difficult term in some ways, we have to discuss what we mean by that. And I think what Tocqueville saw, of course, in the United States of America, he thought, my goodness, religion flourishes with liberty. Somehow the two are working together. And of course, that has to do with the fact that, at least in France, the church, was somehow a powerful institution rather than... Yeah, and it was oppressive. Yeah. So it's interesting to me that they took the wrong tack because of that.

They rejected it all together. Well, you know, they threw the baby out with the bathwater, basically. Did you just invent that term? That's very good. Alas. I can't claim credit for it. I was probably yourself who invented it. I probably was reading something you wrote.

Probably. I have to say, I've coined many cliches, so I'm sure. But it's so fascinating to me to go back to Rousseau, to think of that it's that far back that things went wobbly, I guess, as you would say. And so when we're talking about the West, let's just go back here, at what point does the West become the West? I mean, when we're thinking of, medieval Christendom, for example, I would still say that's the West. It's not the West that we know today. Or would you draw a line at the Enlightenment? When I think of medieval Christendom, I don't think of the West. I think of Europe.

I just think of it like that. What's the difference between the West and Europe? Well, because the West is bigger than Europe. The West is a set of ideas, which I suppose I am equating the West with modernity, really. geographically of course Europe was the West it hasn't moved well I mean a bit broke off

and that's called Great Britain and it kind of floated off into the Atlantic and then got stuck yeah okay but apart from that I mean one doesn't talk about what one's talking about medieval society I'm not I mean perhaps I'm wrong

but I don't think people write about the West because the West is bigger you know it incorporates I say the entire our English-speaking world for a start. But you know that there once were no English-speaking people in Australia. Well, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So the West has expanded, but I mean the seed of the West. Yeah, but medieval Europe, medieval Christendom, you know, just one think about, you know,

when one thinks about the Inquisition, which I do quite often. the dome. Hey there, folks. Since it's Friday, we thought we would do something different. We're playing a recent conversation I had with the amazing Melanie Phillips. She was my guest at Socrates in the city. We had such a delightful conversation. I wanted to play it here.

It's based on our book, The Builders Stone, how Jews and Christians built the West, and how only they can save it. But we continue with that right now. Even as the West progresses, you keep seeing retrogate motion. I mean, it's not a consistent. development. So, because you cannot really draw a line from, you know, the nation of Israel, 1,000 BC, all the way through, you know, you have to pass through medieval Christendom

with all of its huge problems. But nonetheless, that legacy was transmitted through Western Europe, let's say. Yeah. And, well, let's talk about some of that because when we're talking about the West, I know you say it a lot in the book, and it's in the title, of course, you're saying that at the heart of the West is what exactly, the biblical ideas that we get from Israel? I'm saying that at the heart of the values that we in the West consider to be civilized, which we associate with modernity and liberalism in its old-fashioned sense, things like tolerance and freedom and democracy and rule of law and all those sorts of things, at the heart of all those good things that we all value, whether we're religious or not religious,

are biblical values which were instituted throughout the West through Christianity, which is the foundational creed of what we now talk about as the West or modernity. But Christianity came from Judaism and the values that, okay, Christianity produced certain principles or precepts which are embedded in the West, a Western culture. But I would suggest

that the core things that made the West great, moral and civilized came from the Hebrew Bible, which were translated into the West through Christianity. And so people don't like, especially in Britain,

they don't like to think about Christianity having had any role in anything good in the West. Anything good in the West comes through. Where do they imagine that any of this good stuff came from? From the brow of... They think it's universal.

Zeus? Yes, no, from our own DNA. Okay, so this gets back to Rousseau. In other words, what they believe, and what all utopianists believe is simultaneously in the perfection or the perfectability of man. Quite, sir. And in the fundamental innocence of man. I mean, Rousseau would say that this idea that we don't have what Christians would call original sin,

anything that needs attention, that if you let a child develop untrammeled by any kind of authority or rules, that's kind of what you're looking for. Well, the interesting thing is that the ideologies that have largely been introduced to replace religion in the West are all kind of horrible, perverted, warped ideas of a Christian idea of sin, redemption, and perfection. All of them. you know, it's

I mean, the West itself you know, it's founded according to this kind of doctrine in the original sins of colonialism and imperialism and whiteness and it has to redeem itself by transforming itself into something completely redemptive

which is a brave new world of universalism and the brotherhood of man. Environmentalism is based on the idea that the original, that the sin is modernity, its industrialisation, its science, technology, and that has to be redeemed by basically, you know, going back to the Holson cart, and then the planet will be saved.

It's all sin, guilt, and redemption. And it's very interesting to me, because it seems to me that a world that has basically said, religion is bunk, we have to get rid of it, to make a better world. Nevertheless, it hasn't got rid of it. It's just secularized it. And the course of secularizing has turned it upside down.

Yeah. Because it's got rid of the ideas of objective truth and goodness that are at the heart of the Bible. Well, there are so many ways that that ideology goes wrong. But it's fascinating to me that there are people, you know, who would define the West, in that secular way and not see the contradiction.

I mean, the idea, why would one assume that out of our DNA would arise any of these wonderful values and what makes them wonderful? Well, I agree. And I've never heard a... I was going to say, I've never heard a convincing argument about this.

I never heard any argument about this. It's just a sort of statement. It's just like a belief. Yeah. you know, there's never a discussion because the kind of people who say this don't want to have a discussion. I have to ask you a little bit about your own biography.

How did you come to be a woman of faith or of what we call traditional values? You mentioned Gertrude Himmelfarb. Was it her husband, Norman Padoritz, or was it William Crystal who said that he was a conservative because he'd been mugged by reality. It was Norman. It was Norman.

Gertrude's husband. So that's an amazing... I think it was, no, it was crystal. Crystal was the husband. Crystal was the husband. I'm sorry, I forget. Norman also had a famous wife. Norman Podho.

Yeah. I'm about to marry the wrong person is the wrong person here. I just did. I'm sorry. Norman Podhoritz, I think, was the person who coined the phrase. I forgot what he said precisely, but basically he described a liberal having been mugged by a reality and turned into a conservative. Yes.

I mean, the only reason I'm bringing the whole thing up is just to say that would you describe yourself that way? In other words, who were you? I was the original liberal mugged by reality, absolutely. You were? Yes, yes. What's that process for you? What was that like?

Now you're asking. this almost goes back almost as far as the Enlightenment, I'm afraid. I work for 20 years for the Guardian newspaper. You all know about the Guardian newspaper? Okay, fine. We call it the New York Guardian, but you just call it the Guardian. It's The Guardian. Just like it's The Times.

And my former colleagues, insofar as they're still extant, I'm very fond if I ever see them, which is very rare. I will say to them that it's the Guardian. that made me what I am today. Hey folks, it's a special Socrates in the City Friday on the Eric Metaxas show. And today we're playing my scintillating conversation with the scintillating Melanie Phillips based on her book, The Builders Stone, how Jews and Christians built the West and how only they can save it.

We continue with that right now. It was at the Guardian that I discovered, I was mugged by reality. Yeah. It was at the Guardian that I discovered that the people who I thought were marching under the same banner as me, being for truth, justice, absence of bigotry, the desire to make a better world, compassion, fairness, they were all actually on the other side and this was a fairly shattering development

and it took me many years in fact to really separate myself from them and from that whole way of thinking because it was part of me and I was brought up I wasn't brought up as a left winger I was brought up in the way that I thought of myself as a kind of classical liberal and I thought and in those days

everyone used to call themselves left liberals or the liberal left. And I thought the two were synonymous. And I realized, to my shock, they were absolutely not synonymous. And that there was an absolute distinction. And the people I thought were liberal were actually left wing. And they had a view of the world, which was basically all about power and the powerless. It was a Marxist view of the world. At what point?

1982. What? 1984. You didn't know what the question was. was going to ask. And now I will have to amend the question just to make your answer incorrect. At what point did you first visit New York was my question. Was it in fact 1982?

It was a little later. Yeah, then you shouldn't have hit the buzzer so quickly. So what was it in 1982 that made you begin to think the way you? you do now. I'm glad you asked that question. Yes, I am, too. Okay, in 1982, I was a British Jew living in London,

working for the Guardian, my dream job. I was with people who were like me, and I was just in like seventh heaven. And in 1982, Israel was engaged in a particularly difficult war in Lebanon. I had never been to Israel. I had never wanted to go to Israel. Israel was great for other Jews,

but not for me. I was living in the perfect world. Israel was in the Lebanon. It was a very difficult war. I can't remember the details, but it was very controversial. And they got themselves embroiled, and they had to get unembroiled, and it was very sticky, and anyway. But I understood the reason why they were in,

I wasn't paying a particular attention to it, because I was a domestic social policy writer. I was writing my education, family, stuff like that, poverty. but nevertheless I knew, because it was obvious, that the reason why Israel went into the Lebanon was because that's where Yasser Arafat had set up shop with the Palestinian Liberation Organization

headquarters, and they were attacking Israel, what changes, anyway. And so Israel went in and so on. So it was a fairly disastrous war. But I knew that they'd gone in for defense. purposes. And in 1982, this was not acknowledged at all.

Israel was painted as the aggressor and as out to kill civilians. And it was like wall to wall at the Guardian. You know, they're killing civilians, they're killing women, they're killing children. Did they use the term genocide back then? No. Not yet.

No, not yet. But they used the term Nazi. First time I heard it, Nazi. and I thought, what?