The Eric Metaxas Show - Topher Field (continued), Kent Strang, and Chris Stigall

Episode Date: May 21, 2024

Topher Field continues sharing his personal struggle for freedom during Australia's draconian lock down under Covid. Kent Strang of AFP shares an update on Biden's failed economic policies. Chris Stigall shares Christian education support available for families at HerzorgFoundation.org.

Folks, welcome to the Eric Metaxus show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m. Investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Have you checked your bucket list lately? Are you ready to take care of item number seven? Listening to the Eric Metaxe show? Well, welcome. Tune in and then move on to item number eight, skydiving with Chuck Schumer and AOC. Here now is Mr. Completed Monarches'all. bucket list at age 12, Eric Matt, Texas. Welcome back, folks. I continue my conversation with Tofer Field.

So Tofer, we're talking about many things, but at the heart of what we're discussing is what is self-government, what is freedom. I wrote a book called If You Can Keep It, and when I wrote that book, for the first time in my life, I'm embarrassed to say I understood what American-style self-government is, what the founders had in mind, and how it was inevitably predicated on what John Adams called, you know, a virtuous and moral populace. If you do not have people who understand these things who govern themselves, you cannot have self-government. In other words, there's no way that this works unless people get it and live it out. And Lincoln, in his 1838 speech, to the young men's Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois, the very young Lincoln understood this brilliantly.

He understood that. I mean, he was alive at a time when there were people who remembered the revolution. They remembered what that was to go to war with tyranny. They understood that. But it was going away already in 1838. And he was warning that we're drifting away from these foundational ideas. and we're going to lose them. And so he understood this brilliantly.

It's so amazing to me that we're talking about 1838. He saw that unless we know what it was that the founders saw, unless we relive that, constantly, we drift away. And you and I have in our lifetimes, we've seen this drifting away, dramatic drifting away, until you get to the point where people like you are literally arrested. You're not in North Korea, you're not in China. you're in Australia.

This is an amazing, amazing thing. Tell us a little bit more about your arrest because that's an amazing thing that you were willing to bravely stand up as you did and that you were arrested. Sure. So I was one of the very first public figures, not that I'm a big public figure, but I do have some profile.

I was one of the very first to speak out in Australia. I released my first video opposed to lockdowns before the end of March in 2020, and lockdowns only began in March of 2020. By late April 2020, I'd spoken at my first illegal protest. And I've been such a goody-to-shoes all my life. I was raised as a Christian conservative. I'm a pastor's son.

I was a do-gooder to a fault. I'm almost embarrassed to admit just how careful I always was to follow the rules and do what I was told. Did you have a Mike Pence tattoo? I'm just curious. Well, the joke that I tell that it'll probably be lost on it. Americans is that I was raised with the Holy Trinity in my household was God the Father, God the Son and God the Johnny Howard. And John Howard was a very influential conservative by minister in my childhood. So to Australians, that's funny. But to Americans, obviously,

it'd be a little bit like, God the Father, God, the Son, and God the Michael Pence. It would be a little bit of that. What I keep talking about in my, you know, semi-jokey way is that there are people who don't understand the title of your book, Good People, Bad, Bad, Law. There are many people who say, oh, Romans 828, whatever, I'm sorry, not Romans 828. Right, Romans 13. Whatever the government says I'm supposed to do that. And you think, ah, I, I, no. No, you haven't read the whole Bible.

You're making some big mistakes. But this is something that many of us were trained that way in a way. You know, obey the speed limit, whatever it is. And you go, okay, okay, okay, okay. But then when they come into you, by the way, the government says, you know, abortion is legal. The government says, shut down your church. The government says, now you have an obligation as a person of faith to say, no, this is wrong. This is unjust.

This brings us to, you know, Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter to the Birmingham jail. We have to understand that we are alive at a time where we need to act on what God tells us to do, which will at times be at odds with what the government tells us to do. but there are many Christians unwilling to go there. And that's why I often bring up my pen. But talk about that. Your book is called Good People Break Bad Laws. The new book is called Good Christians Break Bad Laws,

which is not out yet. But what prepared you, because you said you weren't like that? What changed when you, in 2020, that you said, no, we have to speak again. for us. What was it that did that for you? Fundamentally, I saw an injustice that I couldn't walk past. And it's funny you mentioned Martin Luther King Jr. Good People Break Bad Laws is my five word paraphrase of his very famous quote, one has not only illegal, but also a moral obligation to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral obligation to disobey unjust laws. That was Martin Luther King,

Jr. I paraphrase that down to five words. Good people break bad laws. So for me, it was about Psalm 94. people preach Romans 13. They preach First Peter chapter 2. They preach about the tribute coin and there's various other things that I will be dealing with in detail in my upcoming book. Good Christians break bad laws. But they don't talk about Psalm 94. Now Psalm 94 verse 20 says crooked leaders cannot be your friends. And then it goes on to define what a crooked leader is. It says they use the law to cause injustice. So once a ruler begins to use the law for the purpose of doing evil, our relationship with them has to change. And we see that, in fact, in the lives of the apostles, the very apostles that wrote the Romans and wrote First Peter didn't actually live it out in the way that it often

gets preached today. And we have so many examples in Scripture. We have Esther. She knew she was breaking the law when she went before the king. She says so. It was premeditated. She said, I will go before the king, even though it is against the law. And this was in it to do with trying to save the Israeli people from a plot at the time. We see it with the midwives that saved Moses. we see it time and again through scripture that people disobeyed the rulers of their day and it was counted to them for righteousness. So that strict interpretation of Romans 13 at 1st Peter chapter 2 cannot be correct. And if you look into the Greek, they don't use the absolute Greek word, the Hupecuro, the absolute Greek word for obey. They use a softer form, which is Hupertassa.

And what essentially they're saying is your default position should be obedience. And even when you're disobeying, you should be orderly and you should be respectful. But it is not an absolute obey in the same way that it would be, for example, obeying God. So there's a, there's a, there's a lot of that I'll be diving into all of that in my upcoming book and when Christians break bad laws. But in terms of my own story, once I spoke at that protest, I had so many people reaching out to me wanting to tell me their stories, people who were suffering enormously. So I was already aware of the suffering. That's why I spoke at that protest. And then I just got an avalanche of people in a really desperate position. And so I resolved that I was going to be a voice for

those people because they felt voiceless. They felt powerless. And so, So I continued to attend the protests. I became someone who was asked to speak at the protests. I would live stream the protests, putting evidence of me breaking the law all over the incident. And I knew that sooner or later this was going to lead to my arrest. They were arresting a lot of people at the time, usually violently. A lot of people got hospitalized in the arrests. They would smash through the front doors with battering rams, completely unnecessarily, and four or five guys would come diving in. The way I would explain these protests is they're not really protests in the American understanding that probably what Americans would

call rallies. They would be people completely unarmed. In the early days, showing up with kids, there were families coming along because no one imagined the police would respond with the kind of mindless violence that they did. And we would show up and sing songs and chants and hold slogans and placards and try and march down a street. And the police would move in with weapons. And initially it was tear gas. And then they started tettling. They would trap us all in one spot and they'd come in and arrest us one by one. And then they began to escalate the violence until ultimately we saw these incredible scenes that you'll see in my documentary, Battleground Melbourne, where they had armored vehicles on the streets and they were firing rubber bullets,

again, at completely unarmed people. This was not Black Lives Matter, burned down the courthouse, you know, mostly peaceful kind of protests. These were actually peaceful events. And the police brought the violence. Ultimately, I actually announced that I was going to make the documentary of Battleground Melbourne because I saw that the courage of my fellow Victorians was something that needed to be memorialized. and the police were lying about us, the government was lying about us, the media were lying about us,

and so I resolved to set the records straight. And then a week after that announcement, my arrest all of a sudden came. Now, I was very fortunate. God was very gracious to me. I was out later the same day on bail, and I was then able to actually continue making the documentary. But even that was actually illegal at the time. I never took the experimental vaccines, or are they even vaccines? I never took them. And so I wasn't allowed to be indoors. in any kind of a workplace. I wasn't allowed to be in the studio. It was a madness. I mean, even revisiting this with you, the madness. Folks, we will continue our conversation talking to Tofer Field. The book is,

Good People Break Bad Laws. We'll be right back. For 10 years, Patriot Mobile has been America's only Christian conservative wireless provider. And when I say only, trust me, they're the only one. Glenn and the team have been great supporters of this show, which is why I am proud to partner with them. Patriot Mobile offers to dependable nationwide coverage, giving you the ability to access all three major networks, which means you get the same coverage you've been accustomed to without funding the left. When you switch to Patriot Mobile, you're sending the message that you support free speech, religious freedom, the sanctity of life, Second Amendment, and our military, veterans, and first responder heroes.

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Field. Tofer Field. is not sure for anything. No, no, that is right. Surname. Toferfield. Yes. Can you share that name unapologetically with your parents? Yeah, we don't do the whole, we don't do the second thing.

Yeah, you, Christopher Field the second. We don't do that over here. That's a very American kind of thing. And we don't really do junior either. So what we did was we took the name. We tatted in half. My dad got first dibs. So he picked the first half.

the name and I got the leftovers and to be honest I'm quite happy with that I was going to say I think you did just fine um we want to talk a little bit about uh your book and your film the film is battleground melbourne melbourne and you said people see that for free at battleground melbourne dot com absolutely all right um and then uh your book is good people break bad laws now I want to talk about when you describe what went on uh you know that leading up to you arrest, the way the police were treating peaceful citizens, it really seems like something out of China. It doesn't seem like something that could happen in Australia. I'm grieved and shocked to hear about it. What do you suppose? Was it the head of Victoria, the man you mentioned,

who was behind this? That's certainly where it started, Daniel Andrews being the premier at the time, our equivalent of a governor. But he was surrounded by sycophants and surrounded by weak men that had no moral fortitude of their own, that had no moral compass of their own and really became enablers. So I'm talking about the chief of police. I'm talking about many media personalities. Sadly, a lot of our religious leaders and church leaders were really kind of cheering him on and championing him. There was a period of time. The church leaders and the church leaders are certainly the most guilty. They are the ones who ought to have read the book of Esther. They're the ones who ought to understand these things. So shame on them.

I wrote a book called Letter to the American Church, which was my own response to the church in America because we saw so much of this. Fundamental misunderstanding of what the scripture says about our duties as citizens in a free republic, such as we live in the United States. And it's a horrifying thing. But we also have to say that all kinds of people elected these horrific. Yes. Power, hungry leaders. As you mentioned, Andrews in Victoria. And in the United States, we've had, we had many governors, Gavin Newsom at the head of the

pack of hyenas, I think is in the original Greek hyenas, Gretchen Whitmer. These were really people that you suddenly thought, oh, my goodness, who are these people? These people, they don't seem to have as their heroes, Washington and Lincoln. They seem to have as their heroes, you know, I don't know, Hitler and Stalin. They're much more in line with that kind of thinking about what it means to be a political leader. So, Eric, not only were they elected, but actually what we're seeing is they're getting reelected. We are seeing that people are celebrating and rewarding this kind of tyranny. And that's what happened with our Premier Daniel Andrews.

He's since resigned, but he didn't actually win an election following all of his human rights abuses. And I know that you're on the same page on this particular point, Eric, but I want to say it anyway, for the benefit of everyone listening, if you are a Christian, and especially if you are a pastor, and you get the news that lots of people are about to die, there's a plague coming, the black death is coming, one third of the population are going to die. and you hold the keys to eternal life because you know the truth about Jesus Christ. How dare you shut your doors and tell people, oh no, we can't help you here, go to the government and ask for a handout. How dare you move that sound system onto the steps of the church, turn it up as loud as it can possibly go and preach, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. your judgment day might be just around the corner, save your soul from the fires of hell while there is still time. If you understand what it means to be a Christian and to be a pastor, and you know that death is coming, how dare you do anything less? And this is what really

riles me and really fires me up, Eric, and that's why my next book is dealing with this specifically. I think we are about to enter or have entered a very dark time largely because the church needs to repent of its idolatry of worship and government. Oh, there's, there's, there's, There's no doubt about it. And again, I've written about it and spoken about it incessantly. My new book is called Religionless Christianity. It's a Bonhofer phrase. And I think what we're seeing, part one way of describing it is you see people that they're worshipping religious idols, not the God of the scripture. But it's very close. It's a counterfeit. And so they've been fooled, many of them. And so you have many, many, many pastors and many, many Christian leaders and many.

many Christians who have drunk the Kool-Aid of secularism. They have drifted off to where they really and truly are closer to the Pharisees, the hyper-religious people of Jesus' day, who in fact would murder Jesus. Oh, excuse me, they got it a little bit wrong. They murdered God. And you start realizing this is the stakes of getting this wrong, that it can lead you in direction utterly antithetical to God. It's a rage against God, but it's even worse because, and you quoted Lewis earlier,

but that they give approval, they have this religious approval that they feel like I'm doing the right thing. It is, it's a nightmare moment. But as I say, because of where we are, some people by the grace of God are waking up. Some people are recognizing, oh, we got this wrong. But as you know, many are not. It came through the worship of money. It came through Maman. And it's so tragic that we have such a specific warning about this in scripture,

and yet so many people didn't see it. I had a pastor, look me in the eye and tell me point blank, Tofer, I can't open my doors. I can't do what you want me to do, because if I do that, the government will cut the funding to our soccer program that we run for migrants. And they ran a million dollar a year soccer program for migrants in the community, which was paid for entirely out of government funding.

And what we saw, what I saw in that moment was a pastor. consciously making the choice to serve money rather than God, consciously choosing the mammon and the worship of government, oh, the government is my provider. Well, if God wants you to run a soccer program, I'm sure he can sort out the paying of the bills. If that really is God's program and God's service, can you not trust him to provide for that? And if you are looking to government and compromising on your witness and you're preaching of the gospel in order to get money for a government program and I suggest that you've lost sight of what it means to be a Christian pastor and what it means to be a church. And listen, the best of us lose sight of things. And so that's what repentance

is for and eventually realize, I got it very wrong. Wow. I need to repent. So I think that there's some who understand that they did wrong, that they sinned and that they have to repent. But there are many, as you've said, who they're not willing. And I keep saying they've drunk the Kool-Aid of secularism. really, really have bought so much of the lies of the secular world. And then they have this Christian patina, a veneer of faith. But in fact, they don't really believe in a God who parts the Red Sea, who raises the dead, who casts demons. They don't, they're not there anymore.

They've drifted along to, well, I've got to do what I've got to do. The world works the way it works. I'm getting some money. And look, again, in my Bonhofer book and in my most two recent books, I talk how German pastors made these calculations. And these were not wicked people. These were earnest pastors who got it wrong. Some of them were wicked, but I'm saying many of them simply were foolish. They got it wrong. The question is, will you repent in time? The German Christians did not repent in time. So will pastors in Australia and America repent in time? That's the question.

And Eric, that's such an important point that you make. I am wholly dependent on the finessexie. work of Christ on the cross for the forgiveness of my sins. I'm not pretending to be better than any of these people. They're but by the grace of God, go I. But repentance is key. And we need to see that. And even though I'm a political commentator, Eric, we are not, well, we are so far past the point where a political solution is possible. You know, and I say that as a political commentator. I say that as someone who watches politics, commentates on politics, who, I do think that politics matters and we should be engaged with it. But don't tell yourself that if we could just elect the right person that that's going to solve the problem. The problem is so much deeper than that. It goes deep

into the idolatry of our age, the positioning of government onto the throne where only God belongs. And the only solution now, in my view, is a whole sale, sincere, widespread repentance across the church. And just as the children of Israel could go completely off the rails and they're worshipping Baal, and they were sacrificing their children to Moloch. And they were engaging in pagan rituals with Ishtar and all of the pagan gods and the death and the destruction that came with that, when they turned back to God and repented, God forgave them and restored them and gave them back peace and prosperity and all the things that those pagan gods are taken from. And we're in exactly that moment.

We're out of time, Tofer Field, a joy to speak with you. I want to be clear to my audience. Folks, you do need to understand politics is vital. Voting for the right person is vital. but it is not sufficient. We need more. If Christians do not live out their faith, which includes voting for the right person or not the wrong person or not voting. But there's so much more than that. Tofer, feel the joy to speak with the books.

The book is Good People Break Bad Laws. The film is Battleground Mel Byrne. Tofer, thank you so much. Eric, what an absolute pleasure. Thank you. Hey, this is Eric Metaxus. For years, I've told you about neutromedics, a professional. Supplement brand trusted by doctors since 1993. Nutrametics offers a variety of health bundles. Whether you want to support your immune system, improve your sleep, promote joint comfort or

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as you know, Americans for Prosperity have joined us as partners on this program. And I get now to talk to Kent Strang of Americans for Prosperity. Kent, welcome back. Thank you. Thanks for having me on again. I appreciate it. I want to talk about, you know, the basics, problems facing the country and how Americans for Prosperity is launching this bus tour to sort of education. well, to educate Americans about our economy, our problems, and how we can fix them. Yeah, that's right. I mean, we all know that over the last three and a half years, Joe Biden and his allies have pumped in over $6 trillion in new spending. It overcooked our economy. And we're dealing with the impact of that. And the impact is higher prices across the board. Americans are paying $11,400 more since just to maintain their lifestyle since Joe Biden took office.

Hang on a second. Whenever I hear something like that, I just have to hit pause. Sure. That is unbelievable. In other words, people can talk and talk and talk. You know this is a fact. And I want my audience to hear this. Since Biden has taken office, the average American family is paying $11,400 more.

for the same thing. For the exact same thing. And Americans feel it every day at the grocery store, at the gas station. No matter what they buy, it cost Americans more and they get less. I mean, look, these are facts. And so I want my audience to hear that. Ladies and gentlemen, did you hear that? It's a fact.

People can say what they want. They can have their anecdotal, you know, I think things feel. But $11,400 on average. That is a lot of money. to your average American. That is a lot of money. Where is that supposed to come from? So thank you for that. I know people can go to this is, I just love this. You guys have bought the website bidanomics.com. So if you want to read that statistic and other statistics folks, our friends at Americans for Prosperity have bought the website, bidinomics.com, and that and other

things are available there. So what else can we talk about? I mean, in a sense, you guys call this a super tax on the hardworking people in the country. I mean, that that is $11,400 more is it's a tax effectively on everybody because of the Biden administration's policies. That's right. And it's made life completely unaffordable. And we talk to folks every single day. That's part of what we're doing with bidonomics.com connecting folks to the rhetoric that Joe Biden and his allies in Congress talk about how they're improving the economy. versus a reality, which is what you just talked about.

Prices are up 20% across the board. They're paying $11,400 more to maintain their lifestyle. Their energy is more expensive. Their real wages are down. And so every single metric that you look at in the way that people feel, people are hurting from Bidenomics because of those failed policies. And you guys say that it's not just Joe Biden. It's the folks in Congress who have rubber-stamped his policy.

That's right. He can't do it alone. I mean, he uses the executive order pen quite a bit, but it's folks in the Senate like Bob Casey and Tammy Baldwin and Jackie Rosen and John Tester that have rubber stamped these policies. And it's not just Joe Biden spending the money. Congress has to spend that money. And so part of what we're doing in Americans for Prosperity right now with our Bidenomics campaign and our Bidenomics as bad economics tour is connecting the American people to, hey, this is not just a Joe Biden problem. It's perhaps your member. a Congress or your United States Senator who ushered in this $6 trillion, put too much money of the economy resulted in 40-year high inflation and resulted in the higher prices that you

pay every single day. What is the name of the tour this summer? Yeah, Bidenomics is bad economics. And we're going to go hit the road. We're going to hit 25 states over 300 events connecting people to these exact problems. I just want to tell people, Bidenomics.com is the website, folks. This is American Prosperity, Bidonomics.com. So, yeah, let's let's unpack this.

I mean, what Joe Biden has done, I guess what fascinates me, Kent, is that there are people who don't get this. There are people who, I don't know if they're, you know, they're like low information voters. I don't know what they're called, but they don't seem to understand how bad it is. I mean, that, you know, in Trump's last year, we had COVID, we had a pandemic, we had everything shut down, we had this nightmare.

All that goes away and Biden manages to make things horrible. It's just, it's kind of, it's almost like you have to work hard to make things this bad, this quickly. Yeah, it's pretty wild. And in addition to the spending problem is after they hit that inflation, well, they have to correct it. And so the Fed comes in and raises interest rates. And well, what has that done to people?

Now, if you want to buy a new car or a used car and you need to get a loan, it costs significantly more to go get that. So the price to own vehicles goes up. You want to buy a new home. The interest rates have skyrocketed on a 15 and 30 year mortgage. It costs more to get a home. And then people who have homes that are like, yeah, I'd like to move and are in a lower rate, they don't want to move because then they're going to have to take on a new loan somewhere at those high interest rates. And so even his cause of the out of control spending and then the impact of let's try to, you know, bring this back with higher rates is also impacting people and impacting their American dream for homeownership and to live the lifestyle that they'd like to live here in America. And it just costs them more everywhere they go.

That's Bidenomics. We understand every one of us has a job to do. Every single one of us has to do something. If you're an American, you need to do something to save this nation from ruin. So check out any of these websites and especially Bidonomics.com. Thank you, Kent String. Absolutely. Thanks, sir.

Appreciate it. Welcome back. Thanks to our friends at the Herzog Foundation. We have as our guest right now, Chris Stigal. Am I pronouncing it correctly, Chris? You nailed it. You'd tell me if I got it wrong. Chris Stigal.

Bingo. Beautifully said. Beautifully said. Thank you very much. I think we're done here. That was really cool. Thank you. Good night.

question. How do we pronounce Stigal? Okay, so there's a lot of stories in the news having to do with, you know, school, I mean, tell my audience just very briefly about the Herzog Foundation before we leap in to the news of the day. I appreciate that, Eric. Our foundation is devoted to one thing and one thing only, and that is promoting Christ-centered education in every child's life in this country. And we hope that whether people seek homeschooling or whether they, and really we were agnostic on the kind of Christian education, that's certainly up to the parents. But we obviously believe that there's a better choice out there than public education. And so we explore promotion of homeschooling, private Christian education. And the purpose of this is to train up and catalyze and grow Christian schools that already exist, help them meet with folks that want to create new Christian schools and kind of commiserate.

share best practices. We provide people with mentorships, all for free, by the way, I should mention. If people have an existing Christian schooler would like to start one or maybe thinking of homeschooling, if you go to Herzog Foundation.com, we have programs called Schoolbox, and it's a multi-step process to help you begin to think through the process of starting your own school or homeschooling your child, and we provide you with trainings and mentors at our cost. Ladies and gentlemen, are you listening? Are you listening? you're crazy not to take them up on this. Herzog Foundation.com.

Chris, thank you for giving us that, you know, Pressee on the Herzog Foundation. Now, I've got to ask you, there's some stuff in the news. Let's start with Title IX. The madness, the utter madness of where we are in this sick, sick culture that Joe Biden, well, you tell the story. Go ahead. Yeah, well, I mean, it's Riley Gaines has kind of become the face

this movement, hasn't she? And we're excited. She's got a new book out. She'll be coming to visit the foundation this summer and we're really excited about that. We have been writing a lot about this at read lion.com, our crack staff there. In fact, they covered the story of Donald Trump in a recent conversation said day one. That's one of his first items up for bids is to reverse what Joe Biden has done to extend Title IX to, as you know, allow men to compete against women, biological men against women, allow men into the private spaces of women, locker rooms and restrooms. The idea that men make the best women is basically what he's tried to codify into law, Eric. And so we've got a story there at readlion.com all about it.

It's so sick. It's just bizarre. I mean, I live in a world where one plus one always equals two. There are people who don't. There are people who are so diluted that they have persuaded that they have persuaded. themselves of the insane. I mean, the insane idea that meant, I mean, where do we begin, Chris? I mean, imagine you're a guy, I'm a guy. Imagine feeling like, well, I think maybe I'm a girl. Okay, that's one level of trouble. Imagine saying, I think I'm a girl and I think I want to

be an athlete competing against women and then actually doing it. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. And then to take it one step further, you know, on the wacky scale, to have somebody like bumbling Joe Biden say, yep, that's good. And we're going to codify that. And there it is. And we've wiped out decades of progress in women's sports. I don't know who said it. I don't want to steal the quote. And I won't get it right anyway. But it was something to the effect of this entire notion of biological men or boys pretending to be women and competing against women is basically an excuse for mediocre male athletes to become successes. I mean, it's basically rigging it for men to excel in a sport they couldn't excel in as men. And I think that's pretty apt. I mean,

we've really stacked the deck against women with this notion. Can you believe that they're not laughed off the track? Can you believe that there are people who don't say, excuse me, sir? excuse me, sir, I don't think so. Are you out of your skull? Parentheses, yes. Can you imagine that people say, yep, we're going to take you up on this. So please, come here, you know, get into the blocks and the starting pistol's going to go off. And you can make a mockery of this entire spectacle in every single witness in the stands. You can mock it. Okay, so at readlion.com, there's an article about how Trump, I always find this funny.

This is like when DeSantis, a few years ago, was that something, and Governor DeSantis was saying, and we're going to fight so that, you know, in Florida, men are only competing against other men. Everybody cheered, and I'm cheering. And I thought, what am I? This is crazy. It's nuts. That's speaking the most basic common sense. I mean, in some ways, that's a clarifying moment.

But that's where Donald Trump is. All he has to do, all he has to do is say the most basic thing. And, you know, most people are going to be with you. So I guess that's, there's something healthy going on here. Well, as I know you're a man of faith, and I know you talk a lot about this, the most insidious part about this entire notion is that our very youngest kids in K through 12 public education are being pumped full of this bilge. Eric, they're being encouraged in some cases to, you know, transition or explore it and even keep it secret from parents. And, of course, as you know, that erodes the entire principle of a creator that were fearfully and wonderfully made. And if you can get kids to buy into that, what can't you get them to buy into?

Well, look, this is propaganda would be a good thing compared to what this is. This is demonic. This is child abuse. And ladies and gentlemen, let me just say this. If you're sending your kid to a public school where they're hearing this, I'm sorry, but you're guilty of child abuse. Not just the people doing it. You are sending your kid into the precincts of mad men and mad women, lunatics who are sharing things with your kids that are profoundly inappropriate for kids to hear.

And this is why you've got to either homeschool your kids or send them to a Christian school where this is not happening. And Eric, there's so many, if I may, there are so many options today. The option is not public school or some $100,000 private pennyloa wearing, you know, ascot and blazer private school. It's not that anymore. You can micro-school with communities. you can homeschool.

Christian schools are all over the country and help you with tuition if you need it. Hopefully there will be more school choice bills passing through legislatures. They're 12 right now with universal school choice. So the days of it being this binary choice of a going, broke on private school or public school, those are over.

Look, and most of those secular private schools are insane themselves. So if you're not trying to get to a straight-up classical Christian school or homeschooling, forget it, folks. I encourage you to go to Herzog Foundation. and readlion.com. Chris Stagall, thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you, Eric. Welcome back, folks. And I welcome to the program, Chris Stegal, with the Herzog Foundation and readlion.com. There's an article, Chris, I don't know if it's on the Herzog Foundation

website or at readlion.com, but about how kids are being sacrificed on this altar of gender ideology. Let's talk about that for a minute. There is an author, Eric, and I thank you for mentioning it. If you go to readline.com, where we have a lot of news on schools, the culture, and so much more, I think it's a real destination for people that want truth in journalism. It exists, and our staff at readlion.com, they're fantastic. But this particular story is a profile story of a woman called Mary Margaret Ollahan, and she has written extensively in her book, Detrans, True Stories of Escaping the gender ideology cult about what young people going through these gender transitions, I hate to even say it as though it's legitimate, but they take the puberty blockers and the hormones,

they physically, surgically remove their genitals, and then Shazam, they regret it. Shocker. I mean, we're finding this in Europe, right? And this is what she chronicles in this book, that people that have come through that regretted it and then tried to reverse course. She profiles a young woman who, in fact, tried to transition to become a man, then said, I made a mistake. Now she's a mother, but can't breastfeed because she had her breasts surgically removed. It's psychotic. It's demonic. It's all of those things. And so the author in this story that we chronicle there at readline.com talks about the warning signs. And what we need to know, Europe is already jumping up and down, telling people, we tried this

a decade ago. It was a terrible mistake. We're not letting our young people transition. We're not giving them pills and hormones and surgeries in or more that's over here in Europe. So I'm not sure why we're not listening other than it's a multi-billion dollar industry. I've come to find out surgically monkeying around with children like this. It's awful, but it's something we ought to pay attention to. Well, listen, it is demonic. Let's be clear, folks, there is evil in the world. I think there are a lot of people, many self-described Christians, that don't understand

the satanic evilness of evil. It exists as much today as it ever has. and any brutal, cruel, sadistic past you can think of in any civilization where there was human sacrifice, torture, whatever it is. It exists today. It's just, you know, shifted over to things that in some circles are respectable. But the idea that greed is at the heart of this industry, of mutilating children. Just think about this, that there are people willing to deceive themselves. Well, we're only doing what the parents want. We're only doing what the literature tells us. us is okay.

We're only doing, yes, that's exactly what the Nazis said. We're only doing what we're told. We're only doing evil is real. And that's what we're talking about. And when it's directed to kids, you better be paying attention, which is why we're glad to partner with you guys at the Herzog Foundation. And I want to say to folks, Hertzsock Foundation.com is the website. The article that you were referencing is at readlion.com.

We've just got about a minute left. What else might people find at readlion.com, Chris? I would say all the stories of the day, some of the most pertinent cultural stories you'll find at readline.com. If I could quickly, Eric, I'll just give a plug for a brand new program we're offering this year and we're going out on the road to do some trainings. If there are public school teachers in your audience, Eric, that think, you know what, it's on my heart to still teach, but I really want to do it in a Christ-centered school.

We actually now have new trainings that we're offering. can travel to our training, we'll pay for it all, teachers, public school teachers that would like to transition to become Christian school teachers. It's our new Making the Leaps seminar for teachers that want to stay in the profession, but in a Christ-centered way. So that and so many more trainings are available, too, at Herzog Foundation.com. This is just good news. I am thrilled that on the Erkin, Texas show, we're partnering with you at the Herzog

Foundation. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you're listening. I hope you understand this is wonderful that somebody, is helping us, you know, to get our kids plugged in to good Christian schools, to start Christian schools, to homeschool, Herzog Foundation.com, and readlion.com. Chris Stigal, thank you. Eric, thanks for your friendship.