← The Charlie Kirk Show
The Charlie Kirk Show
Why Christians, Conservatives, and Eric Metaxas Are 'Fish Out of Water'
00:40:20
Loading summary
Transcript57 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hey, everybody. Special episode today with Eric Metaxas, best selling author, wrote Bonhoeffer, dear friend of mine. You guys are gonna love it. We have a lot of fun. We talk about Christianity, his story, and so much more. In his new book, Fish out of Water, you're gonna hear us talk about Mike Lindell and MyPillow. And just a reminder, when you go to MyPillow.com, use the promo code Kirk. K I R K. Promo code Kirk. Help up Mike Lindell. Get a pillow, get a sheet, get something like that. MyPillow.com, promo code Kirk. Eric Metaxas is here. Before I say here we go, email us your questions freedomarliekirk.com and support us@charliekirk.com support. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
- [00:40]
B
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are
- [00:43]
A
lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
- [00:45]
B
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point us.
- [00:59]
A
We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives. And we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this very special episode of the Charlie Kirk Show. I finally get to interview him, the great one, His Excellency. I am honored to have him on the show. And he has a new book out, Eric Metaxas. How you doing?
- [01:29]
B
Doing swell. I'm talking to Charlie Kirk. How are you? This is fun. It's always fun to talk to Charlie. There's certain people, they just cheer me up. Thank you for being one of those people.
- [01:38]
A
Yada, yada, yada. It's always the same. But only you would understand that reference. So, actually, I thought of you yesterday when I was doing some podcast prep and we were talking about Myanmar, and I said, it will always be Burma to me. Do you get the reference?
- [01:56]
B
J. Peterman catalog.
- [01:57]
A
Well done. See, this is why you're a New York Times best seller.
- [02:00]
B
Well, actually, now, you don't know this, but the book that is launching today, which is called Fish out of Water, A Search for the Meaning of Life. In here, I talk about meeting Larry David, the creator of Seinfeld, with Seinfeld. It's in the book and it's true and it's insane. But, yes, you and I are talking about Seinfeld. People maybe didn't get Those references, but right over there. Yeah. I thought I was gonna be a writer for Seinfeld, but maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves.
- [02:30]
A
No, it's actually right into it. I wanna talk about the book. So it's the Fish out of Water, the Search for Meaning. It reminded me of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. I've only read the title. I haven't.
- [02:41]
B
This is much better. Much better written. And much better jokes.
- [02:45]
A
I was going to say probably more uplifting.
- [02:48]
B
He doesn't know how to tell a funny story. No, this is called Fish out of A Search for the Meaning of Life because it tells the story of my early years. I was really not. It's not like I was, like, looking for the meaning of life, really. I was like. Many people kind of drifting along, not sure what to think or who to take seriously. I didn't want to be a religious fanatic and so avoiding people who were very religious. And at the same time, after graduating from Yale, I floundered and went through a lot of real pain where I kind of thought, what am I doing with life? And what am I. I was really in a place where God kind of had me cornered. And so the. The end of the book. It's only the end of the book. There's this. There's this epiphany where you don't really know what's happening sometimes in life, but God is there and he wants us to know him personally. And so looking back now and telling the story, it's kind of amazing to me. But it's not the kind of thing you could see while it was happening. So I wrote the book from the point of view of myself at the time. It's not like I look back and I comment. I just tell it, you know, from the point of view of the. The person there. I tell my memories and stuff. A lot of it is funny because there's some insane, almost unbelievable stories, but they're all. Every syllable is true. And a lot of it is, you know, a little poignant and wistful.
- [04:21]
A
So did you find the meaning of life?
- [04:25]
B
I did. I did. I don't. I don't want to. I don't want to say too much, but you always hear these cliches, right? Like, you don't find God, God finds you. And I think that the story of my search for the meaning of life, it is like that and the ending of it, which. Cause it's not really a religious book. It's not a spiritual memoir. It's A memoir, which I think of as a literary memoir. There are notes of God and stuff through it, but just kind of like the way there are for anybody in life. You meet people that are. But it's not until the end that God essentially takes the different strands of my life and weaves together something and blows my mind. I mean, it literally changed me overnight. It was like a miraculous reveal that you're just speechless and you don't know what to do. It was just God revealed himself to me in a way that was so personal. I said, I do have to tell this story because people need to know. God wants to reach us, but he's not a religious God. He's the God of all of reality. And so it's never what you think it is. It's never, you know. So I've become very serious about faith, but it's really being serious about reality, because it's not like some version of reality or. This is my philosophy, like, who cares? I want to know what is real and what is reality. So the meaning of life, the reason I call it a search for the meaning of life, not a search for God, is I wasn't looking for God. I was just looking for, like, what's my. What's the point of my existence? What's the meaning of my life? And in the course of that, I discovered some other stuff. So it's kind of, you know, I want it to be something that everyone. People who are not on the same page as we are, politically or theologically. I wrote this book for them. To be perfectly blunt. This is the kind of book you can give to somebody with whom you disagree on a lot of stuff. And I think that because of the humor and the weird stuff and that, you know, I think people will track and will enjoy it just as a read.
- [06:26]
A
You're a prolific author. You wrote Bonhoeffer. It's still selling in languages all across the country. You wrote Miracles. You wrote I can't remember. It's either In God We Trust or Last Best Hope or.
- [06:38]
B
Oh, if you can keep it.
- [06:40]
A
See, I get it confused with Prager's anyway. Phenomenal.
- [06:43]
B
How dare you. No, it's. If he can keep it. Yeah.
- [06:45]
A
How dare I compare you to Prager? That would be a terrible.
- [06:48]
B
Unbelievable. He's much taller.
- [06:50]
A
He writes Bible commentaries. Who does things like that? But this book you've mentioned, it's a labor of love, and it's somewhat of an autobiography. Is that fair to say?
- [07:00]
B
Well, it's a memoir. It's not really a full autobiography. It only goes up to around my 25th birthday, which was when I had this insane dream that totally, totally, totally blew my mind and changed my world forever. I mean, you can't make that stuff up, you know, like, there's no way you can make that up. So. But it's a memoir. I talk about the immigrant experience growing up as the son of European immigrants. My mom and dad, who are still with us, thank the Lord, are. My dad came from Greece, my mom came from Germany. They met in an English class in New York City. And so trying to figure out who you are when your dad is Greek and your mother's German, you don't really fit in anywhere. Which is why I say fish out of water. I was a fish out of water among the Greek community. There's a lot of funny Greek stuff in there, but I never quite fit in because we didn't speak Greek at home. My mother wasn't cooking Greek meals every night. And then when I got around the American kids in Connecticut, and I never quite fit in because my parents are European immigrants and we had this kind of European thing going on. And then when I went to Yale, I was kind of a working class kid, and so that was kind of a theme for me. So it's about finding our identities. And in the course of finding our identities, sort of, whether you're witting or unwitting, in the process, you're really trying to find out who you are ultimately, which is a way of finding God, so to speak. And so it's kind of woven together. But I think it's a good read. And that's the best thing for me is that it's something I think people will enjoy reading because I always want my. I don't want my books to be turgid and difficult. I want them to be something that you kind of can't put down. And I think there's enough funny stuff. And again, it's all true, so.
- [08:44]
A
And as Woody Allen said. Well, he didn't say it, but he wrote in one of his films, comedy is tragedy plus time. So there must be a lot of tragedy in that book, Eric.
- [08:53]
B
Yeah, but it's totally true. Like, there's stuff that happened to me that I look back on it. But. No, no, no. But what I'm saying is, like, this is only 25 years of my life, but because I was very young, in certain stories, it's funnier because I was so naive that I did things or didn't do things. There's an insane chapter with this Italian Guy on a train going through Italy. People won't believe it. Every syllable is true. And I look back on it now and I think, Eric, you idiot. What? Like why didn't you. If you read the story, you'll see. But it's the naivete that I had back then. I wasn't, you know, as sophisticated as Charlie Kirk at that age. And honestly that to me becomes high comedy because it's true. It's not like it was. I wasn't finding it funny at the time. And in retrospect it's insane.
- [09:48]
A
So looking back at some of the lessons that are derived from this book, without spoiling the book, we have a lot of young people that listen to this. What if you could go back and tell your 20 year old something, something your 20 year old self something, I guess the way to word it. Or there's a lot of young people and we get this, Eric, a lot. We get thousands of emails a week of students and young people that are honestly searching direction. The academy has become a place absent of beauty or truth. It has become an anger filled rage, post modern just circus.
- [10:24]
B
It's a joke, Charlie. It has become a screaming joke. It was always bad, but it has become a total parody of itself. If you can't see that, you're not even trying. It's become nothing that we ever dreamt. As bad as it got, it has gotten worse. So yeah, and look, that's. But actually that's part of my story is like here I am at Yale University. I grew up with working class European immigrants who didn't go to college. So I go to this place thinking they're gonna teach me about life. These are the elites. These are the people who grew up with money and with all the. So suddenly I'm among them. And what I discovered was shocking. In other words, here I am not sure what my worldview is. I wasn't like a clearly a conservative or any kind of a Christian. I didn't know what I believed. But I was suddenly surrounded by people for whom life clearly had no meaning. They kind of settled on the idea that to think about meaning or truth or those things is kind of old fashioned. We don't believe in that anymore. We kind of believe life has no meaning and we're kind of grooving on the rubble, trying to have a good time.
- [11:29]
A
We're Jacques Peregre, postmodern yalies. Come on. What do you actually believe in this God? Well, that's.
- [11:34]
B
But that's exact. That's exactly right. And I do. I met Jacques Derrida. That's gotta be kidding me.
- [11:38]
A
Well, now I have to read it.
- [11:40]
B
No, I'm not kidding. You're not gonna believe it. I met Gary David.
- [11:43]
A
Jacques Derrida. What do you Forrest Gump like? I mean, you've been everywhere.
- [11:46]
B
No, it's kind of weird. I kind of met a lot of weird. I met Vincent Price, I met Phillips.
- [11:50]
A
They also helped free Nelson Mandela and, you know, end the Spanish Inquisition. Besides that, you've lived a very uneventful life.
- [11:57]
B
No, no, there's an anecdote in here with Jacques Derrida. I'm not making it up. I did meet him, and I escorted him. Yeah. I held an umbrella for him. I actually wrote a poem about it, but I didn't put the poem in the book. The poem is on my website. But it's totally true. But I confronted this at Yale. I shouldn't say I confronted it. I bumped into. Confronted me, this postmodern, post meaning world, and coming from a working class family where my parents taught me, and this is a big part of the book, they taught me to hate communism. They taught me to love freedom. They taught me to love America. They weren't really like, big about it. It was just who they were. They'd experienced the evil of totalitarian governments and economies. And my parents had lived this. And so that was part of who I was growing up. I mean, in the Cold War, I had no doubt that that's the evil empire. That's evil. And. And we're the good guys because we even in the most basic way, believe in God, believe in freedom, believe in the sanctity of the individual. I got that from my mom and dad, just from who they were. So suddenly I'm at Yale bumping into people that they don't get, that they don't believe in good or evil. They just don't know. And that's when I got really puzzled and really, like, I wasn't sure where to go, where to turn. And there's a couple of. There's just some good stuff in here about what happened to me at Yale. But then I graduated, just lost, like, thinking. I, you know, and what's interesting, and a lot of people who listen to you and know you, they won't have this problem. But my problem was I bought into the demonization of conservatives and evangelical serious Christians. In other words, I was one of those people on the campus who. I was not active in persecuting them. But I didn't say anything. I kind of went along with the crowd that Says conservatives are like fascist jerks and Christians are insane. And they're, you know, I went along with that basically, and by not saying anything, and I graduated. And suddenly I didn't know where I was. And I had been trained to look down my nose at conservatives, to look down my nose at patriots, and definitely to look down my nose at people who took the Bible seriously. And when I think how that hurt me, I was. I bought the lie. And many people today have bought the lie that anybody who takes the Bible really seriously must be half nuts. Anybody who, you know, believes in God and countrymen, they must be nuts. I bought that lie. And so I bring that perspective in a way. I'll tell you, I wrote this book for people who don't agree with me. As you know, I'm hoping people who do agree with me will buy the book and give it to those people and say, just see what you think of this. Because this is not an apology for the conservative worldview or for faith. It's just a story. And just see if you track with it, see what happens. Because it's just my story. And I really do feel, speaking to young people today, if you understand that being conservative is not just the right worldview, but it's gonna help you and other people, how can you not care about these things? How can you say, I don't want to bring that up because somebody might look at me funny. And that goes double for the Christian faith. I say to people, God is real. The only reason conservatism even makes sense is because of God. So you can blow off God, but you're being intellectually dishonest. The God of the Bible is the one who determines reality. And conservatism is a response to reality, whereas the utopianist leftist view is not a response to real. It's kicking against the goads of reality. And I guess, finally, I would say that today, the one thing we have today, which we did not have when I was a young man, is today we have people who talk about being Christians, who are woke, foolish young people. They are very confused about what the Bible says about things, and they have a kind of angry leftist puritanical streak. We all know this and that, you know, that kind of feeds the mobs of the French Revolution and any utopian, anything that puts something in place of God as a religion. And there are a lot of people who call themselves Christians, who don't understand what Christianity has been historically, who don't love America, who don't. And that to me is tragic. And we need to try to love those people, not just argue with them, but understand that I was one of those people. I was just drifting. I was just lost, and I didn't know where to turn. And they're in pain, those people, a lot of them, you know, maybe not yet, but they will be.
- [16:38]
A
So we have lots of people that listen to us, that admit they're kind of drifting. Our program, I think, does some good for them, but they have gone through such incredible indoctrination for years that they almost are conditioned not to believe that God is real, that the Creator. A creator wants. Our creator wants to come in a relationship with them. What do you think young people can do to kind of jolt themselves back into a sense of direction? I think that you cannot have direction without meaning. Obviously, you talk about that, but specifically, what do you think is missing most with this generation of young people?
- [17:17]
B
Well, first you said they're almost conditioned, and I would say they are almost totally conditioned. If you. You know what it is? It's hard for us to imagine. It's kind of like if you're in a movie and somebody says, like, you know, everybody there, they're all pod people. They're all aliens. They're all. What? You'd be like, come on, what are you. What are you talking about? What are you talking about? That's effectively where we are in life. In other words, the truth of God is sort of shocking, and it takes time to wrap your head around it, that we're in an eternal battle. God is real. Hell is real. There's right and wrong, whatever. It's really easy to drift along with the American zeitgeist that says, you know, everything's cool and it's not. And so when you say, how can you shake people? I think ultimately God has to do that. But I would say I was not exposed to anybody who was reputable or intellectually impressive, who was serious about his or her faith. I bought into this lie that it's only, like, these jugheads who. They're not that bright and they're not that philosophically astute, and they bought into this stuff. I hadn't encountered, you know, C.S. lewis or G.K. chesterton or who. Whoever. There's a million books by a million people. Those people didn't exist. They were kept from me. So I was conditioned. And that happens in the academy, it happens in college, but it also happens in the culture. The culture. And now we're seeing it in spades with, you know, Twitter and Facebook is shadow banning me. Whatever they're they're basically saying we don't want to hear that stuff because it cuts against the narrative. Well, that's been going on forever. If you turned on TV in the 70s, the 80s, when I was growing up, you would never see anything that I have seen. Since I came to faith. Since I came to faith, I've met these unbelievable people. I've interviewed some of them at Socrates in the City. Scientific geniuses who are more sure of faith in the Bible than we are. These are the smartest people on the planet. Those people have been whitewashed or airbrushed out of the culture in a Stalin esque way. They don't exist. So when I started bumping into them I thought how is it possible that I've gone through most of my life I never heard of, you know, again. CS Lewis is usually the easiest one. But there, there are a host of books and things that I read and I like to have a lot of these people on my radio program today to introduce people. But they're these amazing scientists, these amazing thinkers, historians and on and on.
- [19:58]
A
I was not exactly. Exactly.
- [20:01]
B
Yes, Vishal Mangalwadi, that's right. I mean there's so many though and they were utterly non existent in the culture and in college for sure. You didn't even look at that stuff. But it goes beyond that, Charlie, because also in many churches they don't exist. Many churches are kind of happy clappy. They're not really feeding the ideas. We need to know this is true. This is not just what my parents do or it's just kind of it's good, it's good. Who cares if it's good? It's true. It is right and true. That's what you know, we need to understand that that is true. But I'll say this to scare people. Not only is hell real, but like the devil is real. And if you ever encounter evil, you will run to Jesus. Most people have never encountered evil. We live in kind of this happy, successful society. Even at its worst, everything's great. If encounter real evil you will run to Jesus because you will understand he is the antithesis of that. He is a goodness that I can't even look at. He's so good. The love and goodness of God is unbelievable. And I think that dealing with evil, understanding that there are dark forces, and I don't just mean socialism, although of course it's at the root of all that stuff. The dark forces are at the root of all bad political ideas, but the dark forces themselves, the satanic evil, we don't talk about that. And I want to say to people that is real and that was part of my story is bumping into actual evil. I made the mistake of watching the Exorcist when I was like 17 years old. And it was so horrifying that briefly I turned toward God, but then there was no follow up and I kind of drifted away. But if you see real evil, you'll understand. I want God. I don't just want to have pleasure. I don't want to be like an idiot just having a good time. People need to take that seriously. And by the way, if you don't take it seriously, you know, to guilt trip people. There are millions of people around the world that are depending on us in America to live out the truth. And if you kind of take a pass on that, you know, you're, you don't care about those people. If you care about people around the world who don't have any kind of liberty or even possibility of thriving, then you know, where, where are you coming from? And I think growing up is part of that. Realizing that I've got to choose in this battle, where do I stand, what is true? And as I say, in some ways my parents helped me to see that. They laid a foundation. But I almost really missed it because as I say, I went to Yale and I just got in with a crowd that didn't even give it the time of day, briefly.
- [22:44]
A
So I want to focus on something you mentioned that is a big focus of mine lately. And I come from the political world as a Christian looking into the Christian world, whereas most people are in the Christian world looking into the political world.
- [23:00]
B
Right.
- [23:00]
A
And so I am still learning and still trying to understand the Christian world. And I'm struggling with a lot, Eric. I really am. And I am so stunned at how weak Christians are, especially in America, about how social justice they have become. SJW BLM Incorporated woke. I'll use an example. A church you and I both spoke at in the fall is Calvary Chapel, San Jose. Mike McClure. He has remained open. You're scheduled to speak there again, I believe later this month. Yeah, and he has remained open since last spring. He is facing $1.7 million in fines. The bank threatened to pull his note. No other church around him is supporting him. And very few churches in the country are even aware that a pastor is fighting the government for the ecclesia. And so I'm just looking around and I see, for example, in just the Houston general area, billions of dollars in buildings, hundreds of Millions of dollars for Christian Incorporated. Yet here is Mike McClure in San Jose, which is just basically the same as doing a mission trip overseas, considering the Christian to citizen ratio in San Jose is probably lower than most totalitarian dictatorships, and yet most people are not supporting him or even aware of it in conservative world. Eric, when an example, one of our turning point USA Kids gets in a controversy on campus, that person's on Tucker Carlson the next night or Sean Hannity show, doing a full media circuit. There's articles written everywhere. There's donations coming in. We congregate together. We have a mobilized action we're calling donors. In the Christian world, when a pastor decides to open their church, there's crickets and pastors come out against him. How are we supposed to make sense of this? Why are Christians so weak?
- [24:49]
B
This is complicated. I mean, in my Bonhoeffer book, I saw this happen in the 30s in Germany, right? Good people looked the other way because it was too steep of a hill to climb. Right now we're gonna wait this one out. We're not gonna die on that hill. That's human nature. We're all sinners. We're all cowards in some ways. And to really be courageous when other people aren't being courageous, it costs us something. And I learned that in the last whatever number of months, standing up for Trump and this election fraud, which I just thought, how come everybody in America is not screaming? This is not okay. This is not you.
- [25:33]
A
And I had many conversations about it. Yeah.
- [25:36]
B
Yes. And a lot of people were quiet. And I thought, how the heck can you be quiet? This is like evil. I mean, look, if this guy won, show me your cards. Like, let everybody see that this was on the up and up. And because you're not doing that, because you're doing the opposite, you're making me very suspicious. In fact, I know you're hiding something. Well, many people I just felt just kind of looked the other way. Or they're like, well, I don't want to get into that. That's our nature. Right, Charlie? And I think that in the church, the biggest lie, and I bought into this for years, is that we want to be friendly to everybody. We want to because we believe in evangelism, and we want to be there for people who are on the other side politically. Now, that's true, but there are times when you have no choice but to fight. Bonhoeffer saw the moment and he said, now I'm going to fight, and I'm going to try to get the church to fight with me. They didn't get it. They got it too late. And then they thought, oh, if we had fought when he told us now is the time, we wouldn't be here. That's where the American church is today. You've got a lot of people thinking, not yet, not yet. I don't want to be labeled conspiracy theorist or I don't want to be labeled it. That's really gutless and it's sad and it's pathetic. But I listen. I think God is the one who's going to deal with this. God is going to deal. A lot of these mega churches and places that have been shy about this. You want to kind of ask them, what gospel is it that you're preaching? Like what pablum are you feeding your people when evil comes, when government comes and wants to find you and to do these things? What fake God are you going to turn to? What happy clappy God are you going to turn to? God is real and he's looking at us right now. And I really do think that this is something that some people aren't going to learn. They're going to get it wrong. But I never dreamt until the last four years, roughly that I would see so many so called Christians not understand that we're in a battle. There's good and there's evil. And you've got to figure out how you want to, how you want to go. And if you say, well, I don't like that guy, he's got a lot of tattoos, it's like, well, here's, here's your choice. There's the guy without the tattoos and there's a guy with the tattoos. Now you got to pick one of those guys. You cannot sit on your hands. You're going to pick one of those guys. And if you don't pick the guy that you hate, the other guy is going to win. You're gonna have to figure this out. There is no third option. A lot of people are sitting on the sides. They think, I don't need to get in the battle right now. And the fact is, you are in the battle. If you're not fighting, then you're allowing dark forces to win, which is what is happening.
- [28:25]
A
And so that is one component of it. A lot of people say the church should not be involved in politics. Christians will stay out of it. And you and I have talked about why that's wrong from a biblical nature, extensively. However, Eric, it's very interesting, the people that are in the middle use that as an excuse Never use that as an accusation against churches that go woke or liberal. For example, many of these mega churches say they're only. A lot of the mega churches say, well, we're not a political church. But they have problems with really, churches becoming conservative, not churches becoming liberal. I have recently got into a. I guess you could call it a Twitter feud. And it never meant to be anything personal against the rapper Lecrae, who allegedly. People like his music.
- [29:10]
B
I saw that actually this morning. I totally forgot. Yeah, yeah.
- [29:14]
A
And so he responded to me and just basically, and I don't wanna mischaracterize it, but basically said, how does no one see how this is not racist and white supremacist for a white guy to say a black guy shouldn't be allowed to perform at church. And of course, nothing that I said was racially motivated or charged. I just don't think he should be able to perform at church because he endorsed the murder of children. Right. That's a basic thing. He doesn't see that way. However, Lecrae, who is still on Caleb, despite. So this is interesting. I called out Caleb. Caleb did not. Caleb got a lot of calls from people because they said, oh, no, Lecrae is not part of our network. They literally have a webpage on lecrae on klove.com. so that goes to show how corrupt they have become. Anyway, so.
- [30:00]
B
Well, you have a lot of things going on here. First of all, I think. I mean, I have met Lecrae a number of times. I think, you know what it is, Charlie, and this is where we have to have grace. There are a lot of people that are. They're straight up misled. In other words, I think that this is kind of the problem is that the left is so vicious and belligerent that if you hesitate, they are, you know, you're dead. Like, you have to agree with them. You have to, whatever. And so the pressure being put on people like Lecrae, I'm not at all surprised in some ways that he would be confused about this or whatever. I think he's a really good guy living. But we're living in really tough times. And the pressure on somebody like that is horrifying.
- [30:51]
A
You know what he did? He went and did a campaign event for Raphael Warnock.
- [30:55]
B
Well, no, look, obviously, you know where I stand on that. But I'm still saying that it's kind of no wonder because I really think that there's so many people that they really know not what they do. They don't understand that this is about killing the unborn. They don't understand who somebody like a Warnock really is or whatever, or everybody around them is telling them, no, no, he's cool, he's cool. It's okay, it's okay. And so I think it's correct. My issue is when you mentioned Kaleb or whatever, the fact that they're not willing to take a stand, that would matter. In other words, that would say to somebody like Lecrae, listen, there's a price to be paid on either side. Like, you don't want to tick off the woke people, okay, that's fine. But if you take off these other people, you're also going to pay a price. That, to me is the issue, is that we typically don't make people pay a price. Which is why I've been so outspoken and enraged about the Mike Lindell thing. All of the stores that have said, we're going to throw him out, Kohl's, Heb stores, Wayfair stores, and Bed, Bath and Beyond. No one should ever spend a penny in those stores ever again. They should understand that if you want to play this game, you are anti American. That's number one. And I will not shop in a store that is anti American. It's one thing to be un American, that is anti American. And they need to understand that if you do that in America, you're gonna pay a price either way. So you choose. But typically, conservatives, Christians, they say, oh, I don't wanna get involved in a boycott. I love everybody. You know this blather, it's just stupid. Of course you shouldn't shop in a store that has abrogated religious liberty, that has abrogated free speech. These people are making money off of effectively Marxist ideas. You can't let them make money. You have to make them understand that in America, we play by these rules. We need to let them know if you behave like that, you're gonna pay a price. And I ask everybody listening, those stores, remember Kohl's, Bed, Bath and Beyond, H E B and Mayfair, Wayfair. They have done a terrible thing, and they need to apologize to Mike Lindell. Otherwise, never, never go to them again.
- [33:12]
A
Well, and you know, some of these stores, H E B are owned by conservatives. It's amazing. And yet they do whatever they want to do and with no recourse at all whatsoever. Are you guys sick of all the cancel culture? Stand with one of the fighters, Mike Lindell, right now. I want to talk to you about how mypillow has changed so many people's lives. I know people that use MyPillow made in America, by the way, and they say they're sleeping better, they're a better person, and it's just a game changer. For a limited time, Mike is offering his premium MyPillows for his lowest price ever. You can get a Queen size premium MyPillow for $29.98 regular, $69.98, and that's $40 savings. Kings are $5 more. Not only are you getting the lowest price ever, $29.98 for a queen size premium, but Mike is extending a 60 day money back guarantee to March 1, 2021. So right now, support the good guys. Support the people that are trying to cancel. Go to mypillow.com and click on the radio listener square and use the promo code Kirk. You will also get deep discounts on MyPillow products, including the Giza Dream Bed Sheets, the MyPillow Mattress Topper, and MyPillow towel sets. Or call 800-876-0227 and use promo code Kirk. Support Mike Lindell. He's a good American. He's fighting hard. Go to mypillow.com, promo code Kirk. But Eric, I guess what I am confused about, which is what inspired the whole thing, is that just how indifferent Christians are to the downfall of the country. Maybe I'm being too harsh on them. Maybe I should just judge them as normal people. But. But your Bonhoeffer book is very instructive and it goes to show that maybe there isn't a difference to how Christians should act.
- [34:57]
B
Well, I really think the issue, Charlie, is that we gotta know we're no different than the Germans in 30s Germany. If you think we're better than them inherently, you're a racist. Right? Everybody's a sinner. So what happened in Germany? Anybody who thinks like, well, I wouldn't have been one of those people or I wouldn't have shouted, crucify him. Of course you would. If you don't get that, you obviously aren't any kind of a real Christian, because the first thing you'll understand is you are one of those people. And it's only by the grace of God that you wouldn't be. And in Germany, what happened, I have to say God used Bonhoeffer prophetically and usually the prophets. People don't listen to the prophets. So in America today, I want to say this is often an issue of bad theology. So here's what I say and what I wish I could have said in Germany in the 30s is like, listen, folks, you talk about you just want to preach the gospel. You don't want to get political. That is garbage. You need to understand that is idiocy. There's no such thing as only preaching the gospel. The gospel inevitably bumps into politics. If people are being tortured for their faith, if people are being enslaved, if people are being sent in boxcars to death camps. And you say, well, I can't get involved in that because that's political. You have no faith and the gospel you believe in is fake. The gospel drives us. This is real justice issues. To say, when I see something wrong, somebody getting beat up in the street, if I don't do something, you know, the Good Samaritan, this is like the most basic parable. We need to be the ones. When we see something, we try to help, we try to do the right thing. So if you don't do that, when your country is going to hell, you've got bad theology on what I just said, because you think, like, politics is separate from your faith. It is not, number one. Number two, you don't really get to make that choice for everybody else. If you wanna suffer, that's one thing. But if you elect somebody with socialist policies, you are punishing the poor. You care about the black kid in the ghetto. You claim to, you are hurting that kid. Because you have either elected somebody who's gonna enact policies that are gonna harm that community, or you didn't vote at all and allowed that person to get elected. You're on the hook. And if you care about people around the world, you have to care about America being free and strong. We noticed that China, the second Joe Biden got in office, they understand, well, now we're gonna have some fun because we don't have Trump to deal with. So we're gonna persecute our Uyghur Muslims even more. We're gonna persecute our people. We're gon Taiwan, Hong Kong. We are gonna flex our muscles now, ladies and gentlemen, that's because of us. We allowed that to happen. If we are not strong in the mold of Reagan or Trump, evil around the world is going to harm people. And God judges us for that. Because we have a voice, we have an ability to vote, we have an ability to do something. So when somebody says, well, I don't care, you don't understand that God expects us to care. I mean, it's the famous quote that Bonhoeffer supposedly said, although nobody can find it. So I'll take credit for it. I Don't care who said it, but it says, silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak, not to act is to act. God will not hold us guiltless. You cannot pretend that people in China don't exist. The kid in the ghetto doesn't exist. You're just cool with everything burning down because everything will be fine for you. That is selfish. It's fundamentally unbiblical. And that terrible theology has crept into the church, and anytime I get a chance to talk about it, I'm grateful. So thank you for letting me bring that up. Because people, honestly, Charlie, they don't realize. They just don't realize what's happening. So we have to keep talking about it. And I think. I don't know if I said it earlier today, but the memoir that came out today, fish out of Water. When I talk about my parents growing up, they just told me these stories of growing up in Europe where there was evil, there was communism. So that became part of me. So I think it's part of the reason that I see these things. Whereas your average American, we've all had it pretty good over here. We don't understand there is real evil. Communism is evil. It is really hurting people horribly. We need to wake up to it. So if I can help a handful of people wake up to it, I just feel like what my parents lived, they taught me, you don't want to go through that, and you don't want your neighbors to go through that. You don't want anybody to go through that. And if you drift, you're going to go there. That's where you go. If you don't protect liberty and understand liberty and live these things out. So there you go.
- [39:55]
A
Well, very good, Eric. Thank you for joining our program. And Fish out of Water. Check it out, everybody. God bless you, Eric.
- [40:01]
B
Thank you. God bless you, too.
- [40:02]
A
See you soon, man. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. If you want to get involved with Turning Point USA, go to tpusa.com, email us your questions, freedomarliekirk.com thanks so much for listening, everybody. God bless.