The Eric Metaxas Show - Ryan Bangert & Andrew Fox

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

Ryan Bangert of the Alliance Defending Freedom and his client Andrew Fox discuss Andrew's case involving losing his job for sharing his commonly held religious beliefs.

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas 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 pm investments.com. Taxis show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Oh, no, Albin. Oh, no. It's hour two on Thursday. You know what that means? I know.

It means I have to sit here and endure and endure the tough questions. People write in questions for the Ask Mattaxas segment every week. I often fomfer for an answer. I do my best, but evidently you've got the questions. I've got the questions. All right. Why don't we start with question number? Don't tell me number one.

Yes, and you're not allowed to punt, okay? Okay, one. I am so excited to see you and Dr. James Tour in Houston next week. If you could only ask him one question, what would that question be? Well, in all seriousness, I'm not going to ask him. ask the Socrates event in Houston, Soxieus in the city.com, sign up. It's October 12th. I'm going to be talking to him about abiogenesis. He is one of the top scientists in the world. In my book, is atheism dead. I cover the basics of how he proves you can't get life from non-life. It's fascinating. So we're going to talk science at Socrates in the city. But if I could ask him any question that I wanted. And maybe I will ask him in a subsequent Socrates event or on this program. I want to hear his story of coming to faith because he is, apart from being one of the most brilliant scientists in the world, no exaggeration.

He is an absolutely fiery Christian. He's an amazing. He was raised in a Jewish home. And I would ask him about the story of his life because I know he's told it to me, I guess, over a meal at the Second Avenue. which is no longer located on the 2nd Avenue. What do you think about that? But over Matsubal soup, he told me his story, and we were with Mitch Glazer, and his story, I'm always fascinated in people's conversion stories and so on and so forth.

So I guess that's what I would ask him. There you go. I answered the question. Good. Number two, do you think the news is helpful because of the constant negative coverage I find myself more anxious than I used to be before I started watching daily. Well, you know, when people say the news, first of all, what the heck is the news? I mean, what news? There are news programs that are useless to the point of harmful. There are some news outlets that are very helpful. So it really

depends on from where one gets one's news. I think people become addicted to just watching stuff and it's upsetting. And I really feel like if you can't do something about it, tune it out, folks. You don't need to know every horrible thing that's happening. I mean, it's important to be informed. But the first thing is, what are the sources that you're using? I mean, I would go to stream.org.

You can go to Gateway Pundit. There are many news sources. I mean, Fox News has become kind of pathetic. I mean, sometimes it's great. sometimes it's not great. But I think that most people, rather than being hopeful and prayerful and working hard, they just kind of get this negative drumbeat. And I really think that you have to be careful. We're not supposed to be anxious. If you find yourself being anxious, take it to prayer, go take a walk. But I don't think there's any value in just taking in the steady drumbeat of

negativity, which much of the news gives. And a lot of it actually that the news is, it's false or it's biased. So you really have to be very, I take this very seriously. You have to be careful what you take in. And I've noticed that many, many conservatives and many Christians take in a lot of negative skewed news. And whether it's skewed or negative, I'm again in. Okay, next question. I think of the Bible verse, I will put no vile thing before my eyes. And sometimes the news can be that way. Well, and people say, but it's true. But I got to know what's happening. It's like, no, no, you don't need to know everything that's happening. Sometimes it's better to play catch with your kid or something like that.

Number three, what is the legitimacy of the Supreme Court? What a bizarre question. Yeah, it is weird. Who wrote that question? What is the legitimacy of the Supreme Court? Well, it's the third branch of government. And the idea of the Supreme Court, of course, is that we have nine justices who are there to make sure that whatever law, are passed in America by the legislative body, which is the Congress, that they are, in fact,

constitutional. And you really have to have a high view of the Constitution, which is one more reason. It's vital to vote in elections because whom we choose for the Supreme Court is essential. If you have Supreme Court justices who don't believe in the Constitution or who basically would rather be activated, and are being activists from the bench, then the legitimacy of the court is dramatically eroded. So in principle, the legitimacy of the Supreme Court is sacred and vital. Okay. Four. Can you explain the hijab protests in Iran? Oh, that's easy. No, I cannot.

I know. Okay, we're moving on here. I'm against the jab. I'm against the hijab. And I'm against the hijab. Yeah. Okay. Are you writing a new book? And if so, what's it about? I'm not writing a new book, but if I were, it would be about, oh, any number of things. Actually, I have a lot of books that I will be writing. Most people know that in the last few years I've written three books, kind of in rather quick succession. The Story of My Life, which is Fish Out of Water. The book is Atheism Dead, which is about apologetics and science and faith and archaeology.

And then the most recent one is Letter to the American Church. church, which just came out. And if you don't have a copy by three, but the books that I want to write, which I'm not yet writing, I want to write a book on the discovery of the tomb of Odysseus, which we put together a documentary that'll be on PBS in the spring. Crazy to say it, but it's going to happen. I'll be sharing more about this in the weeks ahead. I want to write the sequel to my book, Fish Out of Water, what happened to me after my dramatic conversion experience at age 25. And there's a lot of crazy stuff and miracles and stuff. So I have a lot of books yet ahead, but I'm not writing any of them this minute. Okay. Zombie Apocalypse. Do you think you would survive? I have to say I'm strongly

against the idea of a zombie apocalypse, and I am innately not excited about zombies in general. Whenever I see a show featuring zombies, I turn it off. Why? Because I find it boring. cliched, hackneyed, dull, let me think of it. Is there a word I'm missing? No, that about covers it. I'm not really interested in the concept of zombies, and I'm fascinated that anyone would be. Let's leave it there. I'm from the land of the zombies, George Romero's Pittsburgh. He started this all back in the late 60s with Night of the Living Dead. Question number seven, this question is for

Elbin. Albin. That's me. Wait, I get asked the question. Oh, okay. Number seven, this question is for Albin. Albin, what is the best part and the worst part of working with Eric and pretend that Eric is not here as you answer this question? In all seriousness, and I've told this to people before, sitting right here next to you and when we do the TV pilots and those things, I'm actually sitting in the best seat of the house. I hear you pontificating. I get a chance to, you know, go back and forth with everyone's up. Nobody pontificates like I do. Not, no, nobody. So a lot of time when we had fun doing the sketches, especially in the Christmas show and the new pilots, we, we

did some fun stuff there. The second part of this is the worst part of working with Eric. I'm scared now. I would like to say everything else, but more particularly, and I've talked to my wife about this, my twin brother. I said sometimes I feel like I'm going to battle in the Alamo, theoretically. Yeah. And there's 187 of us, and half of the people in the Alamo with us are shooting at us.

Right. Or saying like, no, no, no, don't shoot at those 8,000 Mexicans coming at you. What are you doing? What are you doing? And so we're trying to fight a. battle heel and wake people up who are standing right next to us and who should be fighting the battle with us. Wow. And that is the hardest part because some days... That is way more thoughtful than I was expecting a flippant goofball answer. I was awake for two hours last night because of this

particular question which I saw yesterday in the middle of the night and it bugged me. And I said, I know the best part. The hard part is everything else. Especially because when they're negative... We fight. Not as the world fights. We lean on God in the midst of all this. We know that apart from him we can do nothing, but with him we can do all things. And we need to know that and live that because it is tough. Let's be honest. It's tough. Oh, final question. Go ahead. Yeah. How do I sign up for the newsletter? What? You haven't signed up for the newsletter yet? What is it wrong with you? Come on. Folks, Ericmetaxis.com. We need you to do this. I mean, it's just like sad that I say this over and over and

over again. Please, folks, we need you to sign up, Ericmataxis.com. Thank you. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Biden administration has caused a financial crisis and they have no clue how to fix it. Oil prices have skyrocketed. And when oil prices go up, the cost of transportation and shipping spikes leading the prices of goods to rise. And when we're already seeing record inflation, that's the last thing we need. Our economy is in trouble and you need to take steps to protect yourself. If all your money is tied up in stocks, bonds and traditional markets, you are vulnerable. Gold is one of the best ways to protect your retirement. No matter what happens, you own your gold. It is real, it is physical, it's always been valuable since the dawn of time.

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Join our movement. Make the switch today and a difference tomorrow. Patriotmobile.com slash Eric. Patriot mobile.com slash Eric. Patriot. When you were young and your heart was an open book. Hey there, folks. Welcome to the program.

As you know, as I hope you know, as I know, as I know you know, we're doing a campaign this month with the Alliance Defending Freedom. In case you didn't know who that is, they're heroes. That's all you need to know. You'll get the details as I discuss this. But they're heroes. We want you to go to Metaxistok.com. click on the banner, give generously.

But if you say, hey, what are they doing? Can we meet them? I'm going to work it out where right now I actually talk to two people who can give you details. First of all, we have one of the main councils, lawyers at ADF, Ryan Bangert. Ryan, welcome the program. Eric, thanks for having us on. Listen, I get so excited about what you guys do because I've known you all for years. And I know that you're fighting.

you're on the front lines of freedom. Sounds like a cliche. Unfortunately, it's quite true. But today I want to talk to you about one of your clients, because you guys go to bat legally for all kinds of people. You do it pro bono. You guys are not getting rich doing this. And I want my audience to know that they need to step up and help you guys at ADF

because so many cases of religious liberal. being abrogated, being challenged all across the country. Where do people turn? They turn to ADF. So today we have also Dr. Andrew Fox, who I believe is on. Dr. Andrew Fox, welcome. Thank you. I appreciate you having me on.

So I want to talk about your story. Can you tell my audience what happened with you and why you turned to ADF for help? Well, most certainly. And as you've just been saying about ADF, I find myself thrown onto the front line and I would be defenseless without ADF. So as you've mentioned, I am truly grateful for their highly professional support and counsel in my case. My case is simply a matter of being punished by a government agency for expressing my broadly held and widely believed and historically believed Christian views in a private blog. And it resulted in me being canceled in a canceled culture from being the lead chaplain of the Austin Fire Department serving those who themselves selflessly serve.

Now, I want to get this straight. You're in Austin, Texas. That's correct. Well, that ain't a Texas accent. So first, you need to tell people where you're from because you have a wonderful accent. Not that the Texas accent isn't itself wonderful, but yours is clearly not that. Well, I'm probably 300 years late on the Mayflower. I'm from Great Britain, and I moved here in 23 years ago, 1999. And so I came as an immigrant on a religious workers visa, then became a permanent residence green card, then with my family became citizens of the United States.

That's my journey. And as a citizen, you decided to get involved with the Austin Fire Department serving as their lead chaplain in a volunteer capacity for eight years. So you're doing God's work as a chaplain at the fire department. So do they not understand that chaplains typically believe in God and might talk about such things? It seems like there's a disconnect, although, you know, in Austin you can get those kinds of disconnects with regard to these subjects. Well, you're quite correct in saying that.

And again, going back to my journey, I entered the country on a religious workers visa. It was very clear why I came to the country for the past 23 years, not just as a chaplain, but as a pastor of two different churches in two different states, a Christian pastor. And I write a private Christian blog. So there is nothing hidden about my beliefs. There's nothing authentic about them. These are beliefs that existed long before I got to the United States. And so, yes, I agree with you.

Suddenly things change. And because of a council culture, it seems that no matter what I believed, I was punished for those beliefs. Look, we have to be clear. Forgive me for interrupting. I just want to be clear with my audience, how outrageous this is, folks. If you're not angry, you're not paying attention. This is outrageous. In the United States of America, you have someone come here.

and volunteer their services as a chaplain at the fire department in this city. They then write a personal blog sharing their faith, and the city officials in Austin, who are obviously aggressively, viciously secular, decide to come after the volunteer chaplain. It's madness. I just want to say clearly, this is madness, but this is what we're facing in America. And if it weren't for the Alliance defending freedom, we have no recourse.

So what terrible thing did you write on your personal blog that they dared to take issue with it? That's a very good question, but it is not a terrible thing. I simply question logically and rationally how someone born male who transitions to become female can then compete against females. in athletics, that it's another affront attack on the beauty of what it is to be, distinctly, a woman separate from being a man. It is that fundamental truth, biblical truth, that I was called out for. Well, you're doing what I ask people to do wherever I go lately. I have a new book I call Letter to the American Church, and it's about this idea that if we do not speak these

truths in this world gone mad, God will hold us accountable. So you were only doing the right thing, really, about speaking about this on your personal blog. But again, folks, this is the climate we're in right now. This is why you have to help ADF and you have to get involved in this yourself, because we're living in a climate where it's not good enough that people are, that they're saying crazy things and we let them say crazy things. If you don't agree with the crazy things that they say, they will come after you. And we need to fight against that for all kinds of reasons, simply because truth is truth, but secondly, because we live in the United States of America and the idea that people would high-handedly come after people for their private views, it's totally

despicable. You have to understand how despicable in a country that is a free country that people would do things like this. And then in a place like Austin and a state like Texas, this is what's going on. And if you don't have ADF to turn to, at this point, what do you do? You cave in. You try to find some lawyer. What lawyer are you going to find who's going to have the guts to take this on in this world of chicken-hearted people who are looking at the bottom line and their careers and they don't really care about the truth or justice? So what do you do? You turn to ADF. So Ryan Bangert, you're a counsel at ADF. What is your perspective on this? Because it's hard for me not to be astonished. I think it's healthy that I'm astonished at the level of government

overreach. I don't ever want to get used to it. I'll be worried, Eric, about the day when we're not astonished when these kinds of things happen. The government has no business telling American citizens what to believe or how to think. That's a given under the First Amendment. And yet here, we have a public employer telling a volunteer fire chaplain that unless he bows the need to a government established orthodoxy on a very controversial issue, he has no place at the fire department. And that's really effectively taking people who hold orthodox beliefs and disqualifying them from public service. That's astonishing. Well, people often ask me, and, you know, they can be sarcastic or viciously, that I would dare to compare what is happening now in America, which I do in my

book letter to the American church, to what happened in Germany in the early things. 30s because it doesn't start out with death camps. It starts out with demonizing people, groups, and demonizing views, that if you hold those views, you will pay and they will make you pay. And if you don't fight back, they will make you pay. And of course, what I say is that in Germany, the church was silent. The church did not fight back. The church bowed the knee to bail, so to speak, to the governing authorities saying, oh, Romans 131, that covers it. Of course, it's preposterous. It doesn't. It's an affront to our dignity, to our consciences, to our liberties, to our faith. And the German church did not stand up against this. They didn't have an ADF in Germany. And we see what happened.

But what you're saying now, and I want to carry this over into the next segment, but the idea, folks, This is, you know, just so we understand all the levels of this, to hold a biblical view, right? People don't have to agree with you. They don't even have to affirm you, but the idea that they would tell you you can't hold that view or share that view that is fundamentally unconstitutional, un-American. And in the case of the city of Austin, it's profoundly ungracious that they would find, a volunteer chaplain. Keep in mind, not getting paid, serving God as a volunteer in the fire department, as a chaplain, and that they would come after this guy. They're not even paying him. If they were paying him, you could see, well, oh, you know, there's a conversation to be had. But that's where we are. When we come back, we're talking more. Go to metaxis talk.com. Give generously to the alliance defending freedom. You'll see the banner ADF. We'll be back. Tell me, Eric, why is relief factor so successful at lowering or eliminating pain?

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such wonderful relief. So if you've got back pain, shoulder, neck, hip, knee, or foot pain from exercise or just getting older, you should order the three-week quick start discounted to only 1995 to see if it will work for you. It works for me. It has for about 70% of the half a million people who've tried it and have ordered more. Go to relieffactor.com or call 800 for relief to find out about this offer. Feel the difference. Folks, welcome back. I'm really excited, folks, about the Alliance Defending Freedom. You know that. We're doing a campaign with them. And we're talking right now to one of their chief counsels, Ryan Bangert and to his client, Dr. Andrew Fox. If you've been listening, you know, Dr. Andrew Fox was a volunteer chaplain in the city of Austin fire department, volunteer chaplain, serving God as a chaplain there. And because on a private blog, he, wrote his views, which of course happened to be correct, disturbingly correct, that, you know, men and women aren't interchangeable. The city of Austin decided to come down on him and punish him,

and that's where ADF gets involved. Now, Dr. Fox, tell us, what did they initially say to you? What were they looking for? Well, I was called into a private meeting with the fire chief and his chief of staff, who made it very clear they were not there to censor me. And furthermore, they had me pray for them at the close of that meeting, which a chaplain would do. But that quickly escalated to the chief of staff coming to my home and demanding that I write a letter, an open letter of apology to LBGTQ specifically.

Here we go. For expressing my views. Yeah. And politely and respectfully and honorably, I told him, no, sir, I will not re, I will not recant on these views that are not political. They are biblical. And it left me with a sense of, this is very un-American. It is not the America that I moved to 23 years ago, of which through the immigration process,

you're introduced to the First Amendment, freedom of religion, freedom of speech. So I was shocked that it escalated and that quickly followed with a phone call in a very unprofessional way to tell me my services were no longer required. I was to leave the uniform and all the garments of a chaplain on the front doorstep and they will be collected. It's unbelievable. It's sickening. And I want to be clear, there are many in the American church, which I keep saying it in my book letter to the American church. pleading with people of faith around this country that if you do not speak up for your faith,

just as you did and fight back, then really we are inviting evil because this is the establishment of a religion. This is specifically what the Constitution says we can't do in America is have the government pick the winners, right? They can't pick winners in terms of companies. They can't pick They have to sit back and let the people be free and decide. So the idea that Austin would come in, as many mayors and governors are doing in blue states, they basically say, we have a secular view, we have a pro-trans lobby view, whatever it is, a pro-critical race theory view. And then they come in and they persecute people of faith and they push them around.

And in this case, the idea that they would dismiss you who were doing this as a volunteer, ear lovingly sharing the truth, but this was not enough for them. Ryan a bangert, what more were they requiring? Well, they wanted Dr. Fox to apologize for holding the beliefs that he held. They wanted him to recant his beliefs. It was just absolutely shocking the demands that they were making of Dr. Fox. And Eric, you pointed out that parallels to your book, Bonhofer, and the need for Americans and the church in particular to speak up and not remain silent.

And you noted that some will point to Romans 13. Well, there's another book in the Bible called Acts. And in Acts 4, the apostles spoke boldly and courageously into a culture that was at that time not friendly to them. Remember, they had just crucified Jesus. And yet the apostles were speaking boldly and courageously into this culture. They were speaking the truth. And ultimately, in the words of the rider of Acts, they were the people who turn the world upside down.

So silence is not an option here. Simply going along to get along is not something we can afford to do. And I'm very proud of Dr. Fox for taking the stand that he has done. And it's just a real privilege to represent him in this case. Well, it's an amazing thing. Dr. Fox, where do things stand now? Well, of course, in a volunteer capacity, you are building alliances and the equity is trust. And that takes years to achieve. So I still have many, many friends and connections in the fire department who still call upon me, albeit as a private citizen for my chaplain services. The other week, one of the firefighters, newborn babies, passed away. And so the battalion chief reached out to me saying, get to the hospital. We need you there. So in a heartbeat, I'm there. During the ice storms we had in Texas.

I was called out to many situations where when I turned up, the bodies were being pulled out of the building. After my termination, I cannot be there. I cannot cross the yellow tape. That is an investigative scene. So the resource to these great men and women that serve the city as firefighters has been taken from them. And for me, that is such an important resource, but for them, it is absolutely vital. It's astonishing. Ryan Bangor at ADF, what do you suppose the folks in the Austin City are thinking? Because we've seen this kind of thing happening in cities around the country. It happened in Atlanta a number of years ago to the fire chief in Atlanta. It's just gigantic governmental overreach.

Well, it's really difficult to know what's going through their mind. But I'll tell you, this is a trend. You just mentioned the case. of Chief Cochran, a case that ADF took up on behalf of the chief. We also have instances in universities, Dr. Meriwether, Dr. Josephson, professors who are being terminated or losing their jobs or being disciplined because they're speaking on this issue. You know, forgive me, we're going to go to a break, but I want to follow up on this when we come back because this is happening all over the country. Folks, you've got to get involved. Go to my website, metaxis talk.com. Give to the lines of fending freedom. This is an outrage.

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promo code Eric at mypillow.com. Folks, welcome back. I'm talking to the Alliance Defending Freedom Council, Ryan Bangert, and his client, Dr. Andrew Fox, who was shoved out of his chaplaincy, volunteer chaplaincy working in the Austin Fire Department. This is astonishing. The simple rudeness of it is what is first astonishing to me, that this is how they behave. But you sort of understand. who you're dealing with because of their lack of grace, their lack of kindness. They are militant and they really don't care what anybody else thinks. And I was just asking you, Ryan Banger, what do you think a lot of these governmental leaders are thinking? I will say, it seems to me that they are profoundly ignorant. They have no business being leaders and representatives in government because

they are fundamentally ignorant of the Constitution and of what it means to be an American. It's obvious that they don't get that. They're sheep drifting along with the zeitgeist. Whatever people are saying is true today, they're all in. And they have no qualms about using power to shove people around whom they can shove around, which is why I thank God for ADF, because you guys step in and say, excuse me, we have laws in this country and let's adjudicate this in the courts. That's right. And in fact, what we have seen repeatedly are there are always a small group of agitators who demand silence from those who hold Orthodox beliefs, those like Dr. Fox, who are simply speaking

truths that have been held by millions and millions of people for thousands of years. They cannot tolerate dissent. And so they agitate. And government leaders frequently react to that. They react to that by silencing what they see as the problem. And that is why it's so critically important that we find our voice, that the church finds its voice, that we don't remain silent but speak up and resist this effort to silence those who are exercising their first amendment freedoms.

Well, it is amazing. You mentioned Fire Chief Cochran in Atlanta. I've had him on this program a number of times. Here's a man, decorated. African-American hero who, because of something very similar, because of privately publishing his Christian beliefs regarding sexuality or whatever it is, was incredibly persecuted. And it's bizarre to me that, you know, I think a lot of people, I understand wanting to look the other way and think, like, listen, I can't handle this. This is crazy stuff. But we have to

have to face the fact that if we're not involved in this effort, if you're some kind of a Christian leader and you are not speaking out about this, folks, shame on you because you are allowing this to happen. This is happening to real people, to good people, to American people exercising their American right to religious liberty, to freedom of speech, and they're being persecuted by essentially cultural Marxists, people who are ideologues, who don't believe in the fundamentals of American liberty, and they're using their power. And unless we push back, this is the way things go. This is what happened in Germany. And anyone who would dare to say, oh, that can't happen here, how could you even bring that up? Folks, that's what they said in Germany at the time.

This is not going anyplace. This is fine. This is going to be okay. Silence. in the face of evil is itself evil. And we need to be really clear that you will either speak up and you will either do something about this or you help it to happen. And so one of the easiest things you conceivably could do is go to metaxis talk.com and give something to ADF. These folks are heroes. Ryan, how did you get involved with ADF? Because I know that all of these brilliant lawyers working at ADF, yourself included, could be doing a lot of other things, making a lot more money working on other cases. Well, you're right, Eric, but we love what we do because we love defending the freedoms of our

fellow Americans. And I would invite all of your viewers to go to ADFlegal.org and engage with us there. They'll find case pages. They'll find information about Dr. Fox's case and all the other cases we've talked about today, as well as much, much more. ADF legal.org. ADFlegal.org and folks to give, and I'm going to push this hard because I just, I know that most people listening to this program can afford to give something. Some can afford to give a lot. Folks, this is the battle of our time. And if you, if we lose this and you realize that one moment, I just looked the other way when I might have done something, I want to be clear, we, don't know whether we win or lose. We just know that we have to fight and do what is right

to the extent of our abilities. And God will figure out what happens. But we have to step up. So I want people as you're able folks, go to metaxis talk.com. You'll see the banner for the Alliance Defending Freedom. But this should outrage you. This is absolutely outrageous. The idea that they would reward a volunteer chaplain by treating him this way is just it's just astonishing. It reveals just how tacky some people are. They don't care about simple human feelings. They certainly don't understand the Constitution. And they shove people around. We have to stand up to them. And ADF is at the front of the pack of standing up to these folks. So again, go to metaxis talk.com. Click on the banner. I have said whatever anyone gives, we will put your name in a hat.

we've got several grand prizes, signed books and things that we want to send. We want to encourage you to get involved. But when you hear these kinds of stories, it's just where we are today. So the question is, where are you today? What are you doing about it today? And Dr. Fox, just a closing thought. Where would you be if you couldn't turn to the lines defending freedom? And it's kind of an amazing thing when you think about it. Well, I've got to go back to your opening comments. I would be defenseless on the front line of being punished for what I was doing, government agency. I wouldn't know where to turn. I wouldn't know who to talk to.

The Alliance defending freedom not only professionally represent me, but they understand the client and provide personal counsel. And look, I live in a man's world, but I have appreciated so much the personal touch that ADF bring in understanding that I'm a man's world. married man with children, with a grandchild, responsibilities, and they're very mindful of that. And so I am so grateful for them. I had many attorneys turned me down as soon as the city of Austin was mentioned. They backed off until one very old attorney said, why don't you call

ADF? And I'm so glad that I did. Praise God. God bless you, Ryan and Andrew. Thank you so much. Hey there, Albin. I mean, listening to the I just want to say, ladies and gentlemen, we're in a war. This is, I promise you, if you've read my Bonhoeffer book, you see how this happens. They do it very slowly. They persecute people. They demonize them. Most people look the other way.

Like, oh, they're not coming for me. So I guess I'll keep my mouth shut. That's despicable that in the United States of America, people would look the other way. We've got to push back. So one way you can push back, I'm begging you, folks. Go to Metaxus talk. dot com, click on the banner for ADF, give as generously as you possibly can. These guys are heroes. They are standing between us and absolute tyranny of madness. When you think, can you imagine

that a volunteer chaplain posts his views, biblical view of sexuality on his private blog? First of all, what would be wrong with him sharing it anywhere he likes, including as a chaplain? There'd be nothing wrong with it. But he shares it on his own blog. It's a free country. and these monsters in the city of Austin, because a lot of Americans have elected monsters as their mayors, people who do not love America, who do not love truth or freedom, and often hate Christians, that they would come after this man, just the way they did come after the fire chief, Cochran, in Atlanta, just absolutely horrifying.

So we have to speak up. again, I'm asking you generously give to ADF. Go to metaxis talk.com. Do what you can. It is simply outrageous. And when people say, what can I do, what can I do? You can do that. You can do something, whatever you can do.

I want to encourage you to give generously folks. They need your help. And it is amazing to me when I hear these cases because part of me can't believe that this could happen, that they could come after a guy like this for publishing his views on gender, biblical views in a private blog. He's a chaplain. They're trying to bully him. First of all, they try to bully him into apologizing for what? For speaking the truth?

Yeah, it's not even biblical views, if you want to put it right out there. It's common sense and obvious that there were two sexes, and I can't say that. Now that's not I'm in trouble? Yeah. Come on. I can't say that. Well, this is why if you don't push back, it gets worse and worse. The reason it's been getting so bad is because people have not pushed back. A lot of people say, well, I just want to be a nice person. And I've said many times, because I wrote the book, Letter to the American Church, I wrote the book, specifically, Letter to the American Church, specifically because I keep seeing this. I keep seeing gigantic Christian organizations or churches being completely silent on this kind of thinking, well, we don't want to fight that battle. That's not our battle to fight. But don't forget, too, the first donation you make to ADF is doubled because we had a generous sponsor saying,

you give something, I will double it. Whatever you do, I match it. So do that today. If you haven't given yet, this is the perfect time to do that. Banner right at the top of the page, by the way. We get people saying, like, I couldn't find the banner. It's right at the very, very top of the page. The very top of the page.

There it is. Alliance Defending Freedom Banner, Metaxus Talk.com. That is our radio website. But I guess I want to say it again, folks, that good people are on the wrong side of this issue. I mentioned the book by Andy Stanley dead wrong on this issue, counseling people in a very sly way to be silent, not to be controversial. That is not only mistaken, but it is exactly the view of good German pastors who got it wrong in the 30s. and open the door to things that they never dreamt about. So this is not about demonizing people who disagree with me on this.

This is about we've got to get this right. This is where we are in the nation right now. We have to speak up. We have to push back. We have to fight for what is right and true. And God is in charge of what happens. MetaxistalkisTalk.com. Please click on the ADF banner.

God bless you.