The Eric Metaxas Show - Senator Ted Cruz & Michael Knowles

Episode Date: July 16, 2020

Senator Ted Cruz and Michael Knowles talk with Eric from the set of their new podcast, "Verdict," and examine current events from both inside the Beltway and right from the very heart of America.

Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. I'm the announcer, Todd Wilkerson. And what in the world? I just noticed that my toenails are way overdue for a good clipping. Holy Toledo. My feet look like Dragon's Claws. How did it get to this point? Maybe the vet can do something for me.

Wow, it's just nasty. And now your host, Eric Mataxis. Hey there, folks. Welcome to the Eric Mataxis show. Alvin, I don't mean to freak you out, but I'm in a different room today. Is that going to be okay? Yeah, it looks like it is a different room. that happened? Well, I'll tell you, they're drilling outside. You can even hear it. I'm like several

walls away, but the drilling was so loud that I just gave up and I moved into what we like to call our kitchen nook. Oh, good. It's a kitchen nook. And behind me, of course, is a photograph that I took with my own little hands. And it's of cephalonia where my dad grew up and whatever. But anyway, people are listening on the radio. They couldn't care less about this stuff. So forgive me radio friends for bothering you with that. Today is particularly exciting. We have our friend Bob Woodson coming on.

Now, Bob Woodson, some of you know him. He's the founder of the Woodson Center, and he's the head of 1776 Unites. He is an American hero. I don't want to say that with him on the program because he's humble, but he is a true American hero. And he's one of the black leaders I look to for wisdom because we're getting so many absurd comments from blacks and whites alike. People who have drunk the Kool-Aid of the Marxist organization known as Black Lives Matter.

They can't tell the difference between caring about blacks and signing on with this Marxist organization. So we need answers. We turn to Bob Woodson. There are a number of folks we turn to, but he's the best. And so we have him coming up, I believe, in just a couple of minutes. And I want to say now that there was an article at pjmedia.com that I want everyone. We'll mention it in the course of the program, but I want everyone who knows somebody in corporate America to share this with them, because we need corporate leaders to step up to the plate.

They have been among the worst, the most cowardly to step up. up to this Marxist insanity. And we really need them to step up. Also today, and this is really nuts, we're talking to the United States Senator Henry Clay from the 19th century. Actually, no, we couldn't get him. Alvin, I know you tried.

You're a great producer. I tried. Get Henry Clay. No, I had my shovel and I was ready to dig him up. There are very, very few producers who have the ability to get a deceased 19th century. orator of the level of Henry Clay. But we were able to get Ted Cruz.

What do you think about that? I think it's great. He's on this program. And he is actually, we're going to talk to him and to Michael Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S. Michael Knowles is a conservative political commentator. He's the head of the Michael Knowles show. He's with the Claremont Institute. And he and Senator Ted Cruz have been doing a podcast together called The Verdict.

I'm going to talk to them about that. And then you and I, Albin, we've got a whole bunch of wacky stuff that we're going to share as well. But I do want to say that Michael Knowles went to Yale. He's younger than I am. But the fact that he went to Yale, Ted Cruz went to Harvard, I went to Yale. Good things can come out of spiritually dark places that have given themselves over. Yeah. Two out of three, eight things.

Well, no, it is really, but in all seriousness, like, it does encourage me because the propaganda that we're getting in the culture today starts at these top institutions. That's where I drank the Kool-Aid and was full for quite a while before the scales fell from my eyes, and I was able to see things a little bit more clearly. So I'm very excited today. We're talking to Bob Woodson, a hero. We're talking to Senator Ted Cruz and Michael Knowles. And, of course, we put all this stuff on video, hoping that you'll subscribe to our YouTube channel on video. Alvin, we have close to 75,000 subscribers to our YouTube channel. That's the Eric Mataxis show.

I have my own YouTube channel, which is just the Eric Mataxis channel. And, you know, my speeches and appearances and things that are not directly affiliated. with the show are on the Eric Metaxis channel on YouTube. In fact, I posted my conversation with Tucker Carlson from earlier this week. I posted that on the Eric Mataxis channel. And then my sermon at Apostles Church in Atlanta, I posted on the Eric Mattaxas channel. You won't find it the Eric Mattaxas show channel.

So you may as well subscribe to both. We don't put out too much stuff. But some of it is just terrific. And, Alvin, I think Friday, we're going to be talking about, oh, I love this. Friday's tomorrow. We're talking tomorrow to James Rassenberger, who wrote a book about a real American hero, Sam Colt. What a character. You know that we love to talk to the writers of books of history.

this guy James Rassenberger has written a tremendous book on the life of Sam Colt. And it's one of these things you kind of can't believe it. It's so crazy. We forget that there was a time like around the Revolutionary War 1812. They didn't have today when we think of a revolver, you know, we think of a revolver. That's as American as, you know, Sam Colt. Well, yeah, Sam Colt invented it. And there was not a revolver, a working revolver.

revolver, a six-shooter. It started out as a five-shooter. And it changed the course of our history for good and for ill. But it's an amazing story. So that is tomorrow on this program, the full hour with James Rassenberger. His book is about Sam Colt. And I'll tell you, it's a story of America. And it's a part of it takes place in Hartford, Connecticut, and in other parts of New England. to me yeah can i can i can i mention who your second guest is tomorrow too a famous woman really remember the book out of the salt shaker yeah how would you how would you even know but go ahead take a guess yeah yeah becky pippert yeah did someone tell you that in advance how did you

i looked at a i got a little piece of paper here it tells me probably as the producer of the show you've got some kind of an inside track i consider that cheating so you're not going to get the the uh the silver dollar i was going to give i'm a cheater i'm a cheater i'm a cheater And tomorrow, Becky Pippert is also my guest for an hour. And Becky Pippert, she's most known. She's written a ton of books, but she's most known for the book that came out in the late 70s called Out of the Salt Shaker, which you just mentioned. And it sort of talks about how do we share our faith? If you're a Christian, you ought to want to share your faith, not in an awkward way, but because you want to give hope to people.

People often won't admit it publicly or, you know, but everybody's looking for answers. And so Becky Piper wrote this tremendous book called Out of the Salt Shaker, which really in some ways was part of a revolution of helping people share their faith in a much more natural way. And if it hadn't been for that, I would not have found God. I'm so grateful to my friend Ed Tuttle for being willing to talk to me in a natural way. but Becky Pippert has written many books and she's got a new book out tomorrow. Yeah. Talk to her about her new book. It's called Stay Salt. Stay Salty.

You know the Doseki's Stay Thirsty, my friend? Well, hers is Stay Salty, my friend. Okay. So we're going to be talking to Becky, Becky Pippert. And I'm pretty sure that this weekend, she will appear on our TVN show. So tomorrow night at 6 p.m. Eastern. it'll almost certainly be Becky Pepper, unless, yeah, no, I'm pretty sure that that's correct. So she'll be on, as you know, folks, we are on TBN every weekend.

6 p.m. Eastern, 10, that's on Fridays. And on Sundays, 10 p.m. Eastern, we're almost at a time. I want to ask people also, please follow me on social media. It's hard in this day and age to get the information and these conversations out. You are our platform. You have to help us. You have to share these videos. And we ask you to do what you can.

We're grateful to you. When we come back, I'm either talking to Senator Ted Cruz and Michael Knowles or actually maybe Alvin, you and I will commit a little bit before we do that. Or we'll just go straight. No, we'll go straight to them. Or we'll talk to Bob Woodson, one of the other. I don't know. They're both, they're all amazing. Thank you for listening. Snow, see, man, someone, those hungry homes.

Hey, the first, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. I named it after myself, but I don't feel so guilty about that because as my guest right now, I have the senator from the great state of Texas, Ted Cruz, and Michael Knowles, who's the host of the Michael Knowles show. Michael, did you name it after yourself or did you buy it from another guy named Michael Knowles? It was a tremendous coincidence, and I was trying to play into Beyonce's brand recognition, so it worked out very well. It was a happy coincidence. Terrific. Well, listen, most folks who are watching right now or listening right now probably know Senator Ted Cruz. They may know you, Michael Knowles, but they may not know that the two of you have gotten

together to put together a podcast. You're calling it The Verdict. Is that right? That's right. What persuaded the two of you to take this on? I'm really excited about this. Well, you know, Eric, it's a project that Michael and I have been talking about for over a year, starting really last summer.

And it was driven by, I mean, we're in a fundamental battle for a country. We're seeing an assault on free enterprise from socialism. We're seeing an assault on our founding principles, as violent moms are trying to tear down statues of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. And the media, sadly in this era, as you know, is so profoundly biased that I've had a burden on my heart for a long time that we've got to be moving people's hearts and minds. We've got to be helping train people to understand the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the founding principles and free enterprise and the facts and cut through the media garbage.

So we ended up, we launched the podcast in January of this year. So in fact, the first day of the podcast was the first day of the impeachment trial. And what we did, so obviously the Senate, I had to be in the impeachment trial. And the trial would end often at 11 or midnight or one in the morning. And whenever the trial ended in the Senate, I'd jump in a truck. We'd head over to the studio. And we'd just record live, two in the morning. We'd record every night.

and we'd simply talk about, all right, here's what happened today. And it was designed to try to explain, you know, there were a lot of complicated issues in impeachment, a lot of factual issues. What's Ukraine? What do they have to do with this?

What is Burisma, this natural gas company? Who's this Hunter Biden character? What are the legal issues? What are the constitutional standards? What are high crimes and misdemeanors? What does that mean? And we try to explain it, but what we'd also try to do is bring people behind the scene.

So let them know really what was going on. What are the conversations in the Senate cloakroom? Who are the senators whose votes are wobbly? What are the strategies that the lawyers are advancing? And it ended up, we started it out of nowhere. We'd never done it before. We launched it. And within a couple of weeks, it skyrocketed the charts.

It became the number one ranked podcast in the world. And it was breathtaking. We did not anticipate that. You know, I think that 2020 has been a year of defying expectations. Maybe that's been true the past few years. And you might think that the American people would not want to tune into a show about this, you know, kind of complicated political procedure that's happening in the Senate with Senator, you know, I have great respect for you, but you don't think of senators necessarily as the top podcasters. And yet I think because the American people actually are interested in their government, they actually do want to know what's going on in politics. They just, they want to be respected.

They don't want to have five-minute dumb-down sound bites. They want to go into some substance that it confounded our expectations. And Senator Cruz here, jump to number one and somehow beat Joe Rogan on the podcast charts. Well, and we kept it going. And so we do now a podcast. About once a week, we drop a podcast, and you can get that. You can subscribe wherever you get podcasts on Apple Podcast or Spotify. You can do it on YouTube.

We put out the video every week. But we do it and we'll address whatever the great issues of the day are and try So we spent a lot of time, for example, talking about China, about the origins of the coronavirus, about the Wuhan Institute for Ruralogy, a lot of stuff that the press won't cover. And we also have guests, and we're able to get guests that a lot of other places don't necessarily have. So, for example, a couple of weeks ago, we had Bill Barr, the Attorney General. Now, Barr, obviously, he goes on media interviews, he'll do a five, six minute interview. And it's typically a hostile lefty reporter, and Bill's pretty buttoned up. He's a careful lawyer, so he gives his answers.

Well, Bill and I have been friends for 25 years. I've known Bill a long time. So we had him on for a half hour, and it wasn't, I wasn't playing gotcha with it, but we were having conversations about social media bias, about mobs in the street, about terrorism, about tearing down statues. And we're laughing, we're cutting up. And I'll tell you, Eric, the most frequent comment we get on the comment sections on YouTube or the podcast is people say, you know,

I actually learned something. And I remember the Barr episode, the people were commenting, wow, I didn't know Barr was so funny. And, you know, he's got this wickedly dry sardonic sense of humor. So that's what we're trying to do with the podcast. It's a lot of what you're doing with your show, which is trying to speak on matters of faith, on matters of fundamental truth that a lot of the media doesn't want to cover.

I have to say, you know, when I heard you describe why you were doing this, you wouldn't necessarily know it. but it's exactly why I do everything I do, because I finally figured out that for about 50 years, we have not been teaching the basics of what is it going to be an American and how does it work and what is my role in self-government, whether I'm a representative or a senator or just a citizen, what is my role?

We haven't been teaching that, and we are now reaping the whirlwind. And I think the hunger for things like what you all are doing, obviously for what I try to do, it's extraordinary, but it does give us, as you said earlier, Senator Cruz, hope that the American people really are interested in these things. They're not bored by these things. They're not ready to be governed from above or from without. They still want to govern themselves. At least most of them do. And I have to say, I notice that all around the country, and it's exciting to me. If only voices like ours could get out there more, but we know that the media, my goodness, what has happened to the media? We know the New York Times died. Yep. It was buried. But it seems like most of what was once journalism is now dead. That's a pretty

dramatic thing. In the history books future, this will be written about as a major inflection point in the course of this republic. Well, it's sad that the media is not even trying to be objective anymore. They're not trying to be journalists. Just a few years ago, reporters used to argue, I don't know, we're not biased. Have you noticed nobody argues that anymore? They have accepted their roles. You know, this week we saw Barry Weiss step down from the New York Times editorial board because, as she described, they view their roles as propagandists. They believe they have enlightened truth, and it's not to have any alternative views. It is to redefine history. Their 1619 project is shameless in that regard.

And something you said just a minute ago, Eric, I think is really important, which is people want substance. They want to understand. It's hard in today's world. I find it hard as a consumer of news. Just about any TV station you turn on as a propaganda, whether for the left or for the right. And if you want to know the truth,

it often is somewhere in between. You're not getting the whole picture. And I can tell you, when we started the podcast, our production team, their initial advice was, okay, dumb it down a little. Yeah. And Michael and I pressed back. We said, no, we're not going to do that.

People are smart and they want to understand. What I did think made sense is make it understandable. And the analogy we used, if you go to the doctor and you've got some terrible disease, you don't want the doctor to dumb it down for you. You know what the doctor just say, well, you're sick. I'm not going to tell you anymore. You want the doctor to really explain it to you. But you don't want the doctor to explain it in a way that you've got to be a medical doctor to understand.

You don't want a bunch of jargon that if you haven't gone to med school, you can't figure out. We try to do the same thing. And so when I was talking about impeachment, I didn't want you to have to be a lawyer or a constitutional litigator to get it. But so we try to explain it. And Eric, as an historian, you are a master at that. I will tell you, I am actually very conflicted of your works, which I like better, Bonhoeffer or Amazing Grace, but the level of detail, the level of inspiration. And actually, both Bonhoeffer and Amazing Grace are incredibly inspirational stories that people need to hear more. And you're doing exactly the same thing, which is recognizing we ain't dumbing anything down for anybody.

The American people are smart and we need to help give them the tools that they're hungry for. Well, the funny thing is exactly what you're saying. First of all, thank you for your kind words. and I will later thank my mother for sending you the check because she does that. But I want to be honest and say that when that book first came out, my Bonhofer book, right, the initial publisher, I had to move it, but, you know, they say 600-page book about a German theologian. We actually wanted to sell books. This isn't going to work.

And I was so infuriated because I thought to myself, I know for a fact that people are interested in this. I'm not just a long-winded writer. I know that there's not a lot of fat here. And if you cut it, people aren't, they want more. So we switched publishers, and of course it ended up, you know, doing dramatically well. But it taught the whole publishing industry in the Christian world. Yeah. There is a hunger for death.

And the plans they may put an end to you. I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song. I just can from me. Remember who to send it to. I've seen... President Trump has a huge announcement for his top supporters. We'll be celebrating the 2020 Republican National Convention this summer, and he wants you to enter for your chance to join him at the convention.

If you win, the team will cover the flight, hotel, and give you VIP passes for yourself and a guest. All you have to do is text Metaxus to 88022. Today, for your chance to meet President Trump at the convention. Again, that's METAXAS to 88022 to enter to win this once-in-lifetime opportunity, be a special guest paid for by Donald J. Trump for president. Hey, the folks. I have Senator Ted Cruz and Michael Knowles, who's the host of the Michael Knowles show. Well, listen, Senator Ted Cruz. You know, you referenced your mother. A quick story on that, Eric. So with the Bonhofer book, I had a friend of mine who gave it to me.

And look, you know, different people give you books. And I'd be honest, when a friend of mine gave it to me, I just said it on the bookshelf and I didn't read it. And then at Christmas time, my mother gave it to me. And I actually, that two people gave me the same hardcover book. I've got two of them at home. And when my mom gave it to me, I actually took it as a sign. I was like, all right, God, you want me to read this book? And so I did it.

It was powerful and beautiful. Although I said, I'm on the fence with Amazing Grace, and I think the movie is also wonderful. In my office in the Senate, I have a letter from William Wilberforce. And I'll confess I have some fondness in my heart. for that story because he was working in the fields of politics. And there are times, you know, as you chronicle so beautifully, when he started out and started speaking out against the slave trade, he was a lonely voice. And it was an absurd hubris. I mean, it was unimaginable to take on the

slave trade and the journey of fighting for what you believe in and doing so in a clear, principled way that moves and transforms hearts and transforms the society, that inspires me powerfully and deeply. Well, again, you're very kind. I have to say that both of those books, when I wrote them, I had no sense really of what I was doing except trying to follow God's leading. when I wrote the Wilberforce book, since then, people have constantly said to me, this is the story of defending the unborn today.

This is that story. It just gives us inspiration to carry on. And the Bonhofer book, I had a keen sense. I tried not to underscore it in the book, but I had a keen sense that it was a prophetic story about what is happening in our country right now and of how difficult it would be and how the church would often be guilty. of, you know, falling in in this case with the Marxists, for example, rather than really understanding what's at stake and bravely speaking up. So obviously history is important. I want to send both of you a

copy of my book, if you can keep it, because it gets to the issue of what we're talking about is what does it mean to keep the Republic and why have we allowed decades to go by, really since the 60s, where we've not taught these basics. The good news is there's a huge hunger for it, and you've guys are filling it. I have to ask you, why did you call your podcast that you're doing together the verdict? Is that a nod to the Paul Newman movie? Well, you know, one thing we always try to do to make the podcast really relatable is have plays on Latin etymology. We just find there's nothing more popular than that. And so, obviously, there is a little play here because it began during impeachment. You understand, Michael's a Yale graduate, and so we do give him some grief for that when he

invokes his Latin. Senator, I think you're outnumbered here on the show with Eric is Well, I understand. That's why I said that. So we did have these jokes about it because we start during impeachment, but we obviously always wanted the show to be about many more issues and really focus on the broader conversations. So verdict obviously relates to trials and to the courts, but verdict also means to tell the truth.

Ver, the truth, dict is a true saying. That's right. So we like to think that in a culture, where the mainstream media in particular are just telling you outright lies very often, where it's very hard to get around that. We would like to get to the truth of the matters. And that can be on the day-by-day issues. That can be on the underlying political issues.

And it can even get to the values, the religious values, the spiritual values, that undergird our system. You know, as we've just been talking about here, as Cardinal Manning famously said, a lot of conflict boils down to debates over fundamental values, over religion. And so we want to address all of that. It gets into history. It gets into philosophy. And of course, that feeds up to our political problems. Well, and we try to do it also in a way that is fun and interesting. That, you know, most people don't necessarily want sort of a dry lecture. They want to have some fun. And so we'll talk about things like, like, for example, during the

impeachment trial, we talked about one of the Senate rules, which concerns. There are two things you can drink on the Senate floor. You can drink water and you can drink milk. And the reason for that, and this is where the Senate is a curious place with strange rules, it goes back to Senator Everett Dirkson, who was speaking on the Senate floor and he said to the presiding officer, he said, my throat is a little parched. Is it consistent with the Senate rule for a page to bring me a glass of milk? and the presiding officer said there's nothing in the Senate rules that prohibits the senators getting a glass of milk. That statement, that exchange ended up, that that is a precedent now in the Senate. And it's written in what's called Riddick's procedures.

So we all have a book in our desks on the Senate floor that lists Riddick's precedents. And because of that exchange, it is now a precedent that you can get milk. So during the impeachment trial, I ordered some milk. And we told that story. It's just kind of a fun, like, inside piece of it. You guys have quetted my appetite dramatically, and it's tough to do because I don't care about anything. But let me tell you, I care about what you're doing.

Congratulations on the verdict. They're telling me I need to wrap this up. But it's such a joy to speak with both of you. I look forward to doing it again. When you raise the funds, I'll come on your program. In fact, I will have my fee because I know that you guys are struggling financially. So all kidding aside, it's so much fun to talk to you. I do hope I can come on your program.

We would love to have you on. And I'd love to do something like a deep dive into Wilberforce and tell his story. I think that would be a very interesting podcast. Well, listen, I'm at your service. These things, let's face it, gents, these things are very important. And I look forward to more conversation with you. Thank you so much. Hey, folks.

Before we get to the comedy part of this segment, I want to tell you, I did not know that Mypillow.com sells face masks and hand sanitizer, among other things like pillows and sheets and body pillows and mattress toppers. Oh my gosh, those mattress toppers. Albin.

Yes. I can't play. But you know what really amazes me? He now sells bobblehead dolls of himself. Is that amazing or what? I know, what about me? What about bobblehead dolls of me, Mike Lindell? Come on, man.

I thought we were friends. Hey, seriously, you got to use the code Eric. Otherwise, you don't get our whopping discount. Okay. I'm my own bobbled head. Don't realize that you got to use the code. Eric, tell your friends we get a great discount. Okay, now, Chris, are we interrupting a meal?

Sorry, I made a really good Cuban sandwich, and it's really hard to say no to after it's done. Make enough for everyone? No, no. Typical Chris, thank you very much. I'm starving. All right, Albin, are you chewing? I'm not chewing. I finished up a while ago. That's something that you wanted to share with the group. Go ahead. No, I noticed that there's so many comments going back and forth about our Richard E. Simmons post. You know, he has that book out about God, whether God exists or not. Reflections on the existence of God.

It is a magnificent book. We've aired that interview with him on this program a number of times because it's a really wonderful book. But you're saying, you're responding to comments? Go ahead. Yeah, no. What's really amazing is that people keep going back and forth. And most of the comments are basically this. God doesn't exist.

And the other person will say, like, yes, he does. And then they'll say, prove it. No, you'll prove it. It's back and forth like that. And I have an answer for those out there. And I think it's a good answer. If they say to you, you can't prove God exists. My answer is this. It's not my job to prove that God exists. I mean, think about it. He created that COVID-19 virus that unfortunately has stymied the world. A lot of people are dying. Whoa, whoa, well, excuse me. I may take issue with you here. We live in a fallen world. Yeah. do. And I don't think God creates evil or, in other words, because we live in a fallen world, he created it good, but the fall touched everything. And I would say that disease and those kinds of things, it's an open question whether you'd want to say God created that. He allowed it, for sure. But maybe you want to talk about something positive like the Milky Way? Yes, but I want to point out the creation of this organism, whether it's good or bad, or whether that organism is a

creation in God's world. Let's specify it like that. But right. And on the other hand, when you look up at the galaxies, you see there are supposedly millions of galaxies like ours, trillions, billions, okay. So now, now he, so at one end, there's something you cannot even see with a microscope. then there's another one. You've got to use another kind of microscope to see that. At those two ends, there's all part of the creation that God has put in order. So he's done all that, right? And we're just specks ourselves.

So I'm a speck that's supposed to prove that that God exists. No, he will prove to you that he exists. He will prove it. You just got to keep an open mind. And I have a very short little story about keeping an open mind. I had a friend named Becky, who had a very bad childhood, okay? and she was out on her back porch. Her parents were fighting, and she was so upset,

she was on the verge of suicide, and she looked out in the woods behind her house, and she said, God, God, if you exist, prove to me, prove to me that you exist. And she said she waited at least five minutes, and then suddenly a little bunny came hopping out of the woods, and she felt such joy and such peace that she said to me, you know what?

That's the moment I knew that only nature existed. There was no God. And I said, Becky, what are you talking about? Who do you think sent that bunny? And who do you think made that bunny? Chris Heimes? No, Chris Heimes makes Cuban sandwiches. God makes bunnies.

Yeah, bad news, Alvin. I know people like to argue about the mask right now, but you do have to wear a mask if you go out into space. That scene, now look at that. Look at that. Well, listen, I got to throw some stuff in here. you know, you said it's not our job to prove God. I half agree with that. I think the real issue is this. There are people who don't want to believe in God. And the idea that you could ever prove God to those people needs to be dealt with. There are people for whom nothing will suffice. I would argue that the evidence for God, if you really wanted to know, which some people, don't but if you really want to know if God exists the evidence for God at this

point is so overwhelming it's stunning it's I don't think if there's any question now you can quibble about who is God why would God allow this evil and that evil and what you can talk about God but the idea that we're living in a universe where there is no God where every exceedingly microscopic complex organism and every invisible to our eyes galaxy just, you know, came into existence

randomly. That to me is profoundly irrational. I mean, it's easier to believe in a flat earth who are flying spaghetti monster at this point, given the evidence, than to believe that there's no God. But you make a lot of good points,

Alvin, because really, it is one of those things where it does become subjective what people consider proof. You know, there are just plenty people who they don't want to believe in God. And if you start talking about evidence for God, they either change the subject or they bring up some other unrelated objection. Because the evidence, unfortunately, for those folks, really does point at this point in history, inevitably, toward the existence of God. 50 years ago, you would have a better argument for saying there's no God.

But now with the science that we have and all the things that we know, even many, many devoted atheists are being shaken. Yeah. Well, I love the thing that you said about the microorganism. That's what people say, well, if he's a god that exists and he's an evil god, because look at that microorganism. You know, they'll say that that's a proof that's an evil God, not a good God. But you pointed out that it proves that we're living in a

a fallen world. That's part of what the Bible tells us. And that's where it gets complicated, because there are people that would argue that, you know, the vulture and every poisonous snake and whatever that God created these things. And I would say, well, I don't know. I'd be willing to think that he created a good world and that somehow that's part of the fall. But that's a big conversation. When we come back, something far less substantive, we promise you. Hey there, welcome back, folks. Albin, what's with the? my hair. I look like my own dog. It looks like I'm not even wearing my own wig. Who's wig am I wearing? We said we often say that we get these amazing letters from listeners and viewers

and things. And I thought in this final segment today, let me read one that we got just a couple of days ago because it means so much to me. I want people to know we read every single letter and we really appreciate the encouragement. There is so much encouraging. that we get from viewers. We can't share much of it, but I thought, let me at least read this one today since we have the time. All right. This is from somebody in Scottsdale, Arizona. Rhymes with Dixon. Rimes with Dixon. Okay. Okay, ready? It says, your show about everything has made me laugh, cry, ponder, reflect, and think. Your show has motivated, inspired, informed, and convicted me. John Lennox and Michael Gillen speak above my level of understanding, but your commentary and restatements allow me to process the information.

Actually, oftentimes I'm interrupting and restating things, and some people are annoyed by it, but then we get letters from folks like this who appreciate it, so it's always a tricky line to walk. This person writes, reading Bonhoeffer gave my husband and me common ground with an elderly gentleman in Isigni Surmare, whose relative was part of the Valkyri plot. He was so impressed that we had read a book about Bonhofer. You introduced me to Zmirak and thestream.org. Zmirak is one of my favorites. You have provided ideas for books, podcasts, Voddy Balcom movies, DVD series. DVD series is what motivated me to write today. We watched season one of The Chosen this past week for the second time.

Dallas Jenkins' portrayal of Jesus in The Chosen expanded my view of him from 2D to 3D. I fell more in love with my Savior. Hey, that's pretty cool. That something that we did helped somebody to deepen her faith. Wow. Then I received an update from Dallas. Alice Jenkins, titled, I'm in a tough spot. I guess they need to raise funds for season two of the chosen.

And I don't remember where is it. Does that air on Netflix? I can't remember. It's on a streaming service, but it's supposed to be spectacular. In any event, this person says, I appreciate you, your show and your unabashed love for Jesus. P.S. I hope I got Oxford commas correct. Hey, you know what? Seriously.

that just means so much to me. Folks, thank you for listening, for writing in when you do. I'm sorry, I can't read everything on the air. But that one, we just got that. And I thought, oh, my goodness. Yeah, yeah. Eric, if you remember, when I forwarded it to you, I said, like, if you got a letter like this every week, you would die happy. Now, you're going to die happy anyway.

Right. Right. But I hear you, man. I hear you. Yeah. And by the way, and a lot of people are raving about the movie Uncle Tom. You go to Uncle Tom.com, Uncle Tom.com, Uncle Tom.com. We should give a warning out that I think there are some expletives that are not deleted.

So if you're watching this with kids, you may let them know that there's a little raw language in it. Somebody wrote with us upset that we hadn't warned about that. And I have to say, honestly, none of us remembered it or noticed. it and so I kind of thought like is it really there so I have to go back and watch but evidently one listener said that it was and they were embarrassed with their 14 year

old daughter and stuff and I thought gosh so yeah if you watch it with your kids which I hope you do you may want to warn them that unfortunately there are some words in it that aren't ideal we're out of time but it just thrills me that people are watching

and sharing this program sharing it on YouTube and elsewhere folks Thank you for being a part of what we do. We couldn't do without you. I hope you know that. We'll catch you tomorrow.