0:00
LinkedIn is pretty great at a lot of things, like helping you tap into the latest trends
0:04
and insights in your field.
0:06
We cannot stop your co-worker from tapping her pencil.
0:09
LinkedIn can help you find new jobs that align with your career goals.
0:13
We cannot help you find the source of that weird smell in the office fridge.
0:18
And while we can't stop your co-workers from bringing their hobbies into the office, LinkedIn
0:24
can help you bring your career to the next level.
0:27
LinkedIn is the network that works for you.
0:30
This is Undaunted Life, a Man's Podcast.
0:54
I'm your host Kyle Thompson, and let's get into it.
0:57
All right, guys.
0:58
We got a special return guest on the podcast.
0:59
He's one of my favorite return guests.
1:00
This is Eric Metaxas.
1:01
So he's the number one New York Times bestselling author, a speaker and conservative radio show
1:05
host.
1:06
He's written amazing biographies about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, William Wilberforce, Martin Luther.
1:11
He's been on the show twice before.
1:12
He's been on episode 248 and 364, and he's the author of a new book called Religionless
1:17
Christianity, God's Answer to Evil.
1:19
Now that book is the follow up to his last book, which was Letter to the American Church,
1:22
which I've talked about a lot on this podcast.
1:24
It goes even further into Dietrich Bonhoeffer and what was happening between the German
1:28
Church and the Confessing Church and what would have happened if more people from the German
1:32
Church, more pastors specifically, had stood up.
1:34
Essentially, there would have been no rise in the Nazi Party, no Third Reich, no World
1:38
War II, no Holocaust, and none of those things, but a lot of them stayed silent because they
1:43
wanted to be known for what they were for and not what they were against.
1:45
And so today on this podcast, we talked a little bit about a work that he's got coming
1:48
up so he doesn't ever get really asked about, "Hey, what's the next thing you're working
1:51
on?"
1:52
It's a really interesting answer to that, so I thought that that was a lot of fun.
1:55
But then we talked about why he would word it as we are in our third existential crisis
2:00
as a country, okay?
2:02
So there's the Revolution, there's the Civil War, and then there's what we're currently
2:06
experiencing.
2:07
So I'll let him explain that.
2:08
But then we talk about where this phrase, "Religionless Christianity" comes from and
2:11
what Bonhoeffer was talking about whenever he used that phraseology, but then we talked
2:15
about really a lot of different things about how secret sensitive churches are really
2:19
not doing us any favors, how a lot of pastors and a lot of individual Christians are just
2:23
never finding a battle that's worth fighting.
2:25
You've heard me talk about things like that before, how we're capitulating to culture,
2:28
okay, we'll post a black square on our Instagram, okay, we'll put up a rainbow flag inside
2:33
of the lobby of our church, okay, okay, we'll do all these things.
2:36
But then how all this kind of coalesces to where each one of us is going to have a boat
2:40
burning moment at some point in our life.
2:42
And Dietrich Bonhoeffer had one of those in July of 1939 and he gets into that as well.
2:46
Guys, I always enjoy having them on the show, so I'm not going to keep them from you any
2:49
longer.
2:50
So without further ado, let's get into it.
2:52
Now Eric Mataksus, I would normally give you like the normal welcome back to the show
2:55
kind of thing, but this is your third appearance on Daunte to Life of Man's podcast, and I'm
3:00
not sure if you're aware or not.
3:01
But if you get five appearances in a row, you'll have a full punch card.
3:05
That means you get your sixth one for free.
3:07
So is that pretty exciting?
3:08
No, actually it's very exciting.
3:09
I wish I had known earlier.
3:12
The good thing about it is you seem to be releasing a new book every like 14 to 17 days.
3:17
And so I think we'll have more opportunities for you to come out because you're so prolific.
3:20
Can we just kind of keep that pace going?
3:22
Yeah, absolutely.
3:23
No, it's so funny because writing books is hard.
3:26
I don't want to fool anybody.
3:27
People say like, you know, I got an idea for a book.
3:30
Well, that's like saying I got an idea for chopping down a forest.
3:33
Good luck.
3:34
It's a lot.
3:35
It's a lot.
3:36
Yeah.
3:37
But you know what?
3:39
I've never written a book that I didn't think I had to write, you know?
3:42
So the new one, Religionless Christianity, it's the sequel to Letter to the American
3:46
Church.
3:47
And you know, I'm saying some heavy stuff in there.
3:49
So I'm glad I'm glad I got it.
3:52
I'm glad I got it done.
3:53
I'm glad I can talk about it now.
3:55
Well, I'm glad you got it done as well and letter to the American church and religionless
3:58
Christianity.
3:59
One could flow right into the other.
4:00
So guys, if you haven't read either, I might suggest that you get both and then read one
4:04
right after the other.
4:05
But before we get into Religionless Christianity, I do want to be selfish and ask no one else's
4:10
listening.
4:11
Don't worry.
4:12
So what's the next, the next couple of books?
4:13
Just kind of tell me what they're going to be about, who they're going to be about.
4:15
Just kind of let us all know.
4:16
You know, it's wild that people never ask me that.
4:19
So it's, uh, it's excited to be asked the question that I'm never asked seriously.
4:24
And the answer is always a little complicated because I haven't yet fully committed to writing
4:31
it.
4:32
I haven't started.
4:33
And just about starting to write a book is the first book.
4:36
I mean, religionless Christianity, I mean, let me put it this way.
4:41
All my books are for everybody.
4:44
But the last two, letter to the American church and religionless Christianity have been specifically
4:49
for Christians.
4:50
Like, Hey, if you think you're a Christian, this is for you.
4:54
So letter to the American church and religionless Christianity, which we'll talk about very much
4:59
for, uh, for people who say they're Christians, everything else I write usually has some Christian
5:06
angle to it or some faith angle for sure.
5:10
But I kind of write it for everybody.
5:13
But the book that I'm working on now, or that I'm just about to start working on is the first
5:18
book I've ever written that has no ostensible connection to the faith.
5:23
Um, it is about, um, actually tonight, I know this is not going to air tonight, but on PBS
5:29
I was involved in making a documentary about the discovery of the tomb of Homer's Odysseus.
5:39
It's a mind blowing story.
5:41
My book on his atheism dead gets into biblical archaeology, archaeology is so fascinating.
5:47
This is archaeology, uh, from the Mycenaean world, the world of Homer.
5:51
It is so fascinating.
5:53
And the Lord miraculously led me in 1992 to the story.
5:58
I won't tell that now, but the Lord led me miraculously to the story.
6:02
And when I say miraculously, I don't say that lightly.
6:04
I don't mean like, oh, it was kind of a blessing.
6:06
No, it was like crazy.
6:08
And so it's about the discovery of the tomb of Homer's Odysseus, which nobody would think
6:16
you could discover.
6:17
Nobody would think that it's real.
6:19
So in writing the book, I have to kind of set it up.
6:21
Like why would we think that Homer who was writing, you know, 800 BC about a world for
6:27
1200 BC or whatever, why would we think any of those characters would be real characters?
6:32
We could find the cities, the towns, the tombs or whatever.
6:37
So it takes a lot of explaining, but it is a detective story and I don't mean it's an
6:41
actual detective story, but it is fascinating because it's a puzzle that has defied people
6:49
for over a hundred years.
6:51
And this friend of mine cracked the code, figured it out, and then said, okay, if I'm
6:55
right, I'm going to find the tomb and he did.
6:59
So there's a documentary on PBS.
7:01
People can look it up.
7:02
It's Odysseus returns, but I'm writing a book about it, different title, probably.
7:08
But it's absolutely fascinating and you can tell I'm thinking about it a lot.
7:13
So yeah.
7:14
Well, that sounds pretty awesome and I'm very excited to check that out.
7:18
And in addition to that, I still like my idea for your next biography, which will be
7:23
a mega bestseller because it's going to be on St. Nicholas.
7:25
So you just need to keep that in the back of your brain and needs to be St. Nicholas.
7:29
You'll release it sometime right after Thanksgiving or right around Black Friday.
7:32
Cause I mean, that's, that's the lowest hanging of low hanging fruit will be, it'll be your
7:35
best big seller.
7:36
Eric, come on.
7:37
I need, listen, I need some low hanging fruit.
7:39
Cause as I said before, writing books is hard, writing long books is really hard.
7:43
It's a killer, but that is something that it's rare that people give me an idea and I go,
7:48
you know what?
7:49
Yeah, that's a good idea.
7:50
Maybe I'll do that.
7:51
So let me say, yeah, maybe I'll do that.
7:53
I appreciate you're reminding me.
7:55
All right.
7:56
Very good.
7:57
Well, let's get into religionless Christianity.
7:58
It was a fantastic, fantastic read.
7:59
I just finished it last week.
8:01
The very first words of the book are gripping, which again, primacy and recency, you need
8:06
to make sure people feel the beginning and the end of everything that you do.
8:09
But the first words of the book are we are in a war.
8:12
So what war is that Eric?
8:13
Yeah.
8:14
The first words of the book are we are in a war because I feel like I got to lay it out.
8:21
What are we talking about?
8:22
This is not just, hey, let's have a conversation, some theological ideas, no, we are in a war.
8:27
And what I say in the book is that this is the third existential crisis in American history.
8:36
This is big.
8:37
This is not just some war.
8:39
The first existential crisis is the revolution.
8:41
Do we come into being as the first nation in the history of the universe where people
8:45
govern themselves, where people are freed?
8:47
Does that happen?
8:48
That's an existential crisis.
8:50
It shouldn't have happened.
8:51
You know the details.
8:52
I wrote a book called If You Can Keep It, The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty.
8:57
And I talk about this a little bit, the uniqueness of the United States of America.
9:01
We ought not to have existed.
9:03
We came into existence by God's grace.
9:05
God was involved.
9:06
Amazing story.
9:07
Second existential crisis to civil war.
9:10
We are now in the third existential crisis.
9:13
It is profoundly spiritual.
9:16
The church is very involved in where we are right now.
9:21
But the church does or doesn't do.
9:24
That is what's going to make or break where we are now.
9:27
And the time is short.
9:28
It's not like this is, we have five years, like this is it basically where we're in it
9:32
right now.
9:33
And so the name religionless Christianity, that comes right from the mouth or pen of
9:38
Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
9:39
And you wrote his, you know, your seminal work on his biography there.
9:43
So what was Bonhoeffer getting at whenever he used that phraseology?
9:47
Yeah, I have to explain that because it's the ugliest title ever except it's Bonhoeffer's
9:53
words.
9:54
And it sums up perfectly what I'm trying to communicate.
9:56
So religionless Christianity basically led to the American church and the new book "Religionless
10:02
Christianity" are reprising the story of Bonhoeffer and trying to remind the reader in America.
10:09
It's like, hey, Christian, Bonhoeffer tried to warn the German church loudly, clearly.
10:15
If you do not stand against the evil that you're standing that we're seeing now, if
10:20
you don't recognize it as evil and then stand against it and go to war with it on your knees
10:24
and in every other way, we lose everything as the church goes, so goes the nation.
10:30
He said the church is the conscience of the state.
10:33
The church in Germany mostly did not take it seriously.
10:38
And what I say in these two books, led to the American church and religionless Christianity
10:41
is the American church is essentially going down the same path where you say, you know
10:46
what?
10:47
It's not that bad.
10:48
It's not that serious.
10:49
I don't know that I need to vote.
10:50
I don't know that I need to get involved.
10:53
Now there are many in the holy remnant, serious Christians.
10:56
They are fasting and praying and they are in this war and they know this is for all
11:00
the marbles.
11:01
We're going to lose the nation.
11:02
We're going to lose any semblance of freedom, free speech, freedom of religion, everything
11:08
that we've basically taken for granted for quite a while, we're going to lose it all.
11:11
So Bonhoeffer saw that coming in Germany, tried to warn people, they didn't respond
11:17
quickly and they lost everything, the death camps, what happened, just a nightmare that
11:23
none of us could even dream about, it happened.
11:26
But at the end of his life, Bonhoeffer's in prison in 1944, it's all over.
11:31
He knows.
11:32
He's probably going to go to his death, but Germany certainly has lost everything.
11:37
And a letter to his best friend is the title of the book, he basically says, how do we
11:44
get here?
11:45
What happened?
11:46
And then he answers his own question.
11:47
He says what we had needed in Germany and what we didn't have was a religion less Christianity.
11:53
In other words, not just religion, not just people going through the motions, going through
11:57
the liturgy, going through doing church, but actually living out their faith 24/7.
12:08
So not mere religion or religiosity or pietism, but actually living out our faith, going to
12:13
war with the weapons that God has given us.
12:17
And he says if we had had that, like real true Christianity, not dead religion, we might
12:23
have prevailed and probably would have prevailed.
12:26
And what I say is that that's exactly where we are now.
12:29
And what is dead religion?
12:31
What does it look like?
12:32
So in the book, I talk about religious idols, which are satanic, they're far worse than any
12:36
other idol because they counterfeit faith.
12:40
So you have a lot of Christians who say, well, I don't want to dirty my hands by getting
12:44
involved in politics.
12:45
It sounds so holy and it's demonic because it's like saying, I don't want to get involved
12:50
in politics and let slavery happen.
12:53
Who cares?
12:54
Well, God cares.
12:55
And you're supposed to care.
12:56
But there were a lot of pious Christians during slavery times.
12:58
There were a lot of pious Christians all through the history of the church.
13:02
There were a lot of pious religious people in Jesus's day whom he condemned dramatically.
13:10
So dead religion, religion apart from living out your faith genuinely is satanic.
13:17
And in the book, as you've read, I spell out how it's actually satanic.
13:21
It's not just like, oh, you get a B minus or you missed it.
13:23
It's the devil working in the church, the devil working among religious people.
13:29
It is true evil in that it masquerades as good.
13:34
And that's exactly where we are.
13:36
And so in the book, I try to spell out what does religionless Christianity look like?
13:40
What is it?
13:41
What does it look like to live out your faith?
13:42
But then what does dead religion look like?
13:43
What do these religious idols look like?
13:46
Because there are a lot of people who they think they're doing what God wants, but they're
13:52
actually worshiping religious idols.
13:53
And that's, I want to make that real clear.
13:55
So that's what that's why I wrote the book.
13:58
Well, absolutely.
13:59
It's piety that is masquerading or I guess hiding cowardice.
14:03
That's basically what it is because Bonhoeffer was very outspoken about not just having correct
14:07
theology, but living it out and you elucidate that in the book.
14:10
But in your biography of Bonhoeffer in letter to the American church and in religionless
14:14
Christianity, you go into detail about the separation that came between what was called
14:19
the German church and the confessing church.
14:22
And so guys, you're just going to have to read it, especially in letter to the American
14:24
church.
14:25
You really get into the detail and make it very, very palatable for everyone.
14:28
But give us just a sense of that separation and the chasm that that was created between
14:33
the German church and the confessing church during the rise of the Nazi party.
14:36
Yeah.
14:37
And I just want to say to folks, like, this is important.
14:41
This is not like some extra credit stuff.
14:43
This is where we are now.
14:45
You want to know where we are now in the church in America and why, apart from God's grace,
14:51
apart from a holy remnant rising up and getting others to rise up, were doomed, you need to
14:58
know what happened.
14:59
And so the Bonhoeffer book is a big book, 600 pages.
15:01
But in these two books, I explain in detail the parallels.
15:05
And so yes, in Germany, you had the holy remnant who was the holy remnant.
15:12
Well, I say that there were 18,000 Lutheran pastors in the early thirties in Germany,
15:19
about 3,000 by 1935.
15:21
So two years into the Nazi reign, you had about 3,000 of the 18,000 willing to stand,
15:31
no matter what, willing to live out their faith.
15:33
Just like there are people around the country right now that you declare yourself as a Christian,
15:37
you may be sent to prison, you may be tortured, you may be killed, you may be...
15:41
That's the price that people throughout history have been willing to pay for their faith because
15:45
they knew the Lord and they knew that you cannot give God in whatever it is, but I'm
15:50
going to stand with God.
15:51
You had 3,000 of the 18,000 German pastors effectively standing firmly and strongly.
15:59
But then at the other end of this spectrum, you had about 3,000.
16:02
Today we'd think of them as like the woke LGBTQ flag waving churches that are just who knows
16:09
what they think.
16:11
They're all in with the regime, whatever it is, what everybody tells me I should believe.
16:16
I'm all in with that and I kind of call it Christianity.
16:19
But in the middle, in the middle, in Germany, right?
16:24
So you had 3,000 heroes, 3,000 totally pro-Nazi pseudo-Christians.
16:30
But in the middle, you had 12,000 who said, "You know what?
16:34
We're not going to choose, we're just going to play the game and we're going to preach
16:39
the gospel, we're going to do church, but we're not going to get involved politically."
16:43
So no, we're not going to, you know, maybe wave the rainbow flag on Sunday morning, but
16:50
we're not exactly going to, you know, go to war with the regime that is trying to harm
16:55
us.
16:56
We're not going to be outspoken and maybe get threatened with going, being arrested by
17:01
the Stoppo.
17:02
Whatever we're going to, we're going to play it safe, we're just going to do church.
17:05
And that's kind of where we are today, where you have a lot of people that are saying,
17:09
"Well, oh, yeah, in our church, we believe in all the right things."
17:13
Well, but you're not sticking your neck out for the right things.
17:17
Are you going to the school board?
17:18
Are you telling people who they need to vote for?
17:21
Or are you saying, "Well, listen, it doesn't really matter.
17:23
We're just all about the kingdom and God's on his throne."
17:27
That was the attitude of the German church in Bonhoeffer's time.
17:35
And again, think about it.
17:37
You will always have wicked people like David Fringe, who has a column in The New York Times.
17:45
He claims to be a conservative Christian and he just endorsed Kamala Harris and Tim Walts
17:51
for president.
17:52
Now, this is the level of looniness.
17:53
You don't know whether to laugh or cry, but you have people like that.
17:57
You have people like Russell Moore, the head of Christianity today.
18:02
They are basically, they might as well be full on woke, but they're pretending to be
18:08
faithful Christians, which is preposterous.
18:11
It's really mocking God.
18:13
But there are plenty people that are not willing to stick their necks out in either direction.
18:20
They're just saying, "Well, you know what, this will pass."
18:24
The pendulum swings back and forth.
18:26
Imagine somebody in Germany in 1934, '35 saying, "You know what, hey, how bad can it get?"
18:31
"Well, I'm going to keep my head down.
18:33
I'm going to stay out of trouble."
18:35
God is going to judge you, Mr. Christian, if you keep your head down and stay out of trouble
18:39
when God is calling you to stand and fight and love your neighbor by fighting for what
18:45
is right and good and true.
18:47
If you want to sit on the sidelines on this one, God is judging you as guilty.
18:52
That's the famous phrase that it wasn't said by Bonhoeffer, but it's attributed to him that
18:57
silence in the face of evil is itself evil.
19:00
Because there are people that think, "Well, if I just keep my mouth shut, I'm not really
19:03
guilty.
19:04
I'm just kind of neutral."
19:06
If you're sitting on the fence, here's the bad news.
19:08
The devil owns the fence.
19:09
You're serving the devil's purposes.
19:11
We have many Christians in America now going to churches just like that.
19:17
They say, "Well, but I believe in the right stuff."
19:20
Well, if you're not living it out, I think God says, "No, you don't believe it."
19:26
Because if you live it out, that's proof that you believe it.
19:30
A big part of both of these books is this idea that you have to live out your faith.
19:36
No, it's not work's righteousness, no, you're not saved by your works.
19:40
If there are no works, if there's not evidence that you really believe that stuff, then you
19:44
don't believe it and you're not fooling God and you're not fooling the devil.
19:47
The devil is thrilled with your inaction and your silence and he is winning because of
19:53
that.
19:54
Hey, guys, real quick.
19:56
Here recently, one of my family members was telling me about how they partnered with another
19:59
family and they bought some beef from this local cattle producer.
20:02
When they got the beef, it was unbelievably terrible.
20:06
I can tell you this from experience because they made me some beef ribs from that animal
20:10
and they were terrible and they even gave me some stakes and some ground and it was basically
20:14
inedible.
20:15
I couldn't believe how bad it was and they ended up finding out that the person killed
20:19
an old bull or something like that and just the meat was old and tough and awful and that's
20:23
just what happens when you don't have a quality cattle operation that you can trust to give
20:28
you a quality beef product on the back end and that's guys why I want to introduce you
20:32
to the official beef delivery partner of Undaunted Life, my friends at Primal Beef.
20:37
So Primal Beef is a cattle operation owned and operated by Sean Glass.
20:41
He's a retired Navy SEAL that has partnered with Jocko willing to launch Primal Beef.
20:45
So what makes Primal Beef different from some of these other cattle operations where you're
20:48
going to end up getting bad beef?
20:50
This operation is all American black Angus cattle.
20:53
The beef comes from one farm and that's in Virginia Shenandoah Valley.
20:57
The beef is all natural, no hormones ever, no mRNA ever, no vaccines ever and after slaughter,
21:03
this is a big deal.
21:04
The beef is dry aged and then it's hand cut by artisan butchers and then flash frozen
21:07
to ensure that it maintains tenderness, marbling and flavor.
21:10
And here's another great thing about it.
21:11
For every box sold, Primal Beef donates meat directly to a member of America's Special Operations
21:17
forces through the C4 Foundation so you can take pride knowing that your purchase will
21:21
help to put literal food on the table for America's finest warriors.
21:25
If you're not salivating yet, it's probably because you're a communist.
21:28
Don't be a communist.
21:29
Try Primal Beef out today by going to www.primalbeef.com.
21:34
That's primalbeef.com.
21:35
Use the promo code Kyle, that's my first name, to get 10% off of your order.
21:39
The great thing about that promo code is you can stack that on other deals as well and
21:42
get all this money off.
21:43
Again, that's primalbeef.com, promo code Kyle, that's K-Y-L-E to get 10% off your order.
21:49
Well, neutrality is a myth, but a lot of people bought into the myth of neutrality and you
21:55
even talk about this in the book where you talk about people might ask themselves, "Why
21:58
not keep some of my powder dry for tomorrow's battle?"
22:01
And a direct quote from the book is, "But what if there is no battle tomorrow?
22:05
What if this is the last battle?"
22:06
And I've used something similar to that for years now to where it's like Christians and
22:09
conservatives were all about, "We'll get backed up and backed up and hey, hey, you
22:14
don't want to see me when I'm angry, see, don't be pushing on me, see?"
22:17
And then one day the battle, the war will be over and we'll realize that we've never
22:21
picked up our helmet, we never picked up our shield, we never picked up our sword.
22:24
We never got into the battle because there was no hill that was worth dying on, babies
22:27
being murdered in the womb, not a hill worth dying on, kids having their healthy sexual
22:31
organs chopped off their bodies, "Ah, that's not a hill worth dying on, hey, let's just
22:34
be about the gospel."
22:35
But they're hiding.
22:36
I think all of that really dovetails into what is my favorite quote of the entire book
22:41
because it really drives home this point, so indulge me as I read it here.
22:44
Unfortunately, many do and have made peace with the devilish madness.
22:48
Worse still, many churches are actually going further than mere silence by aiding and abetting
22:53
these false ideologies and deconstructing what 10 minutes ago was the reality in which
22:58
we all lived.
22:59
Such churches have festooned their facilities with rainbow banners and BLM flags with the
23:04
same alacrity and fear that many churches in the 1930s hung swastika flags seeming to
23:09
have no real idea what these things could mean but only wishing to keep the angry hoards
23:14
from targeting them as though this were a genuine Christian effort at peacemaking rather
23:19
than a capitulation to evil that it is.
23:22
Now I want to really tie this in very specifically because there are the churches that are, they
23:27
are churches in name only, they're so far away from any type of a biblical ethic as to
23:32
just be like, it's just ridiculous to even comment on them.
23:36
I'm talking about the churches that have well-meaning pastors, right?
23:40
So for these ideas to take hold, you need conscious nefarious actors and you need useful
23:45
idiots.
23:46
I want you to talk about the useful idiots that go along to get along pastors that I want
23:49
to be known for what I'm for, not what I'm against pastors and hey, let's just use pronouns
23:53
that people say, let's just have pronoun hospitality.
23:56
Hey, let's just put a flag up in the lobby, it's no big deal.
23:58
What is your message to those pastors that are able to be swayed and we see that in
24:03
the evidence that they've been swayed to even capitulate this much?
24:06
Well, first of all, I wrote both books to, I hope to reach some of those folks to say
24:15
please, brothers and sisters, please take this seriously, that where you are standing
24:22
and what you are doing is aiding and abetting evil and this idea that you can be neutral,
24:30
this idea that it's nice to be neutral, that it's biblical to be nice, no, no, no, no.
24:37
David went to war with Goliath and cut off his head.
24:40
There is a time when we're called to fight, now I'm not talking about swords and guns,
24:46
but speaking out, saying things that some people don't want to hear, there's a time
24:51
for that.
24:52
So the scripture says, and I quote this in religionless Christianity, I say that, you
24:57
know, the scripture says, be at peace with all men, where possible, it doesn't say be
25:04
at peace with all men, always, because there's a time where that's not possible.
25:08
So you have to have discernment from the Holy Spirit to say right now, God is calling me
25:14
to stand up for those kids that are being subjected to pornography in their school libraries
25:19
in the name of free speech, what a joke, right?
25:22
We're not banning the books, but how about banning them for 10 year olds?
25:26
That's not banning, that's wisdom, right?
25:29
So there's all kinds of sophistry out there, and a lot of people are confused, a lot of
25:33
Christians are confused, and I'm here to say to those Christians, really right now, this
25:37
is the time to stand and fight.
25:39
And if you're not doing that, whatever excuses you have, they're not God's excuses.
25:45
You fooled yourself, and I think that that is a spirit that has come into the church over
25:51
time that we can be nice.
25:55
It's nice to be nice when you can be nice, but there's a time when you can't be nice.
25:59
And if you're being nice, when you can't be nice, you're not serving God's purposes.
26:05
You have to speak out, and there are so many, there are so many things when churches shut
26:10
down during COVID.
26:11
How many of those pastors have repented have understood?
26:14
You know what?
26:15
I got it wrong.
26:16
I meant well, but I got it wrong, and if it happens again, I'm not shutting down.
26:21
How many of them would risk being arrested?
26:24
There are people all around the world today risking their lives, risking being arrested
26:28
for their faith.
26:29
American Christians have acted like, "Well, that's not going to happen here.
26:32
We've kind of figured it out.
26:33
We're going to be nice.
26:34
We don't need to, and we want to be a good witness."
26:38
Well, I'm here to tell you it's exactly the opposite, that you're not being a good witness.
26:42
There are people in America today hungry for truth.
26:45
They've never been hungry for truth.
26:46
They've never been hungry for leaders to show them what is right and good and true.
26:52
And if they see that, you know what?
26:53
They're going to be attracted to that kind of Christian faith.
26:57
They're not attracted to the, you know, Nambi Pambi religiosity, that why don't they go
27:02
to those churches?
27:03
Because it's irrelevant.
27:04
Those places are irrelevant to their lives, and how much of Christian faith is irrelevant
27:08
to most people's lives?
27:10
It's just a nice, churchy thing.
27:12
The church is supposed to be, you know, God's presence on earth, in his people.
27:19
And when you see that, most people, especially during difficult times like now, they're attracted
27:25
to it.
27:26
They say, "You know what?
27:27
My kid at school, he's getting all this garbage.
27:28
Is anybody standing up against that?
27:29
I don't even know what's right or wrong."
27:31
And then you hear somebody willing to stick their neck out and you go, "Thank you.
27:35
Thank you.
27:36
I'm with you."
27:37
You're finding this a lot with people like, whether it's Joe Rogan or, you know, you're
27:41
finding people that are just reality-based, and they're going, "You know what?
27:46
Something's wrong.
27:47
Is there anybody out there who knows?
27:50
Is there such a thing as what's right?"
27:52
Because I think there is, but I'm not, you know, I'm not a religious person, but they're
27:56
attracted to the faith.
27:58
They're coming around.
27:59
So you're getting a lot of people, whether it's Tucker Carlson or Elon Musk, they're
28:02
beginning to see things, Jordan Peterson, in good and evil, in a way that they would not
28:06
have 10 or 20 years ago.
28:08
But right now, you're seeing raw evil.
28:10
You're seeing children's lives being destroyed through the transgender, satanic madness.
28:16
And the idea that Christians would not stand up against this, that's the horror, because
28:21
it's one thing for a pagan to say, "I'm confused.
28:23
I don't understand."
28:25
Christians were supposed to know better.
28:26
We're supposed to stand against that.
28:28
We're supposed to stand against voter fraud.
28:29
We're supposed to stand against lying and corruption.
28:33
And if your church is not in this war, I say to people, get out of that church.
28:39
Get out of that church.
28:40
And pastor, if you're pastoring a church like that, repent immediately, because the time
28:45
is extremely short.
28:46
If we lose a selection, they're going to come after you.
28:50
That's what happened in Germany.
28:51
The moment the Nazis had enough power, they came after the churches, even the ones that
28:56
had been quiet.
28:57
They're like, "Well, you're not quiet enough.
28:58
We want you to say how Hitler allowed her."
29:00
That is what is happening in America.
29:02
It's already happening.
29:03
I just read a couple days ago, some of these in the National Guard, and they were relieved
29:08
of duty because on their own time, private time, not while they're serving in the National
29:12
Guard, they espoused the biblical view of sexuality.
29:16
And so it's like, "Okay, you're out.
29:18
This is what is happening."
29:19
And so if Kamala Harris and Tim Walz get in, it's game over for happy Christianity in America.
29:25
They're coming for you.
29:26
They don't like your views and your values.
29:29
And so the time to fight is now and to say, "We've got to elect people who will protect
29:33
our religious liberty."
29:34
They don't have to agree with us, but they have to believe in what the Constitution says.
29:38
Protect our religious liberty and understand that that's what America has been and needs
29:43
to be.
29:44
And the moment we see to be that, it is over for everybody.
29:46
But I want to warn pastors, they will come for you.
29:49
You can't be nice enough for the devil.
29:52
At some point, he's going to say, "Okay, I now have the power.
29:55
I'm going to crush you.
29:56
I'm going to come after anybody who dissents.
29:58
Maybe you doesn't scream the right things loud enough."
30:01
That's what they do into totalitarian societies.
30:04
And that's where we are drifting very rapidly.
30:07
I'm sorry to say it's real.
30:08
Well, Eric, the time to fight is surely now, but it's also the time right now to decide.
30:13
My wife and I just had this conversation a couple of weeks ago.
30:16
I was like, "Babe, if things keep going the way that they're going with me talking about
30:19
the things on my show and the way that I talk about them, I could be arrested for saying
30:25
the things for being a prophet into our culture, and we've just got to be okay with that."
30:29
So there's not going to be a decision when the Gestapo is at the door.
30:33
The decision will be made prior too.
30:34
And you talked about these other true seekers, these Joe Rogans, these Tucker Carlson's and
30:39
Jordan Peterson's.
30:41
It's like these guys, because if you're a Christian, you understand capital T truth.
30:45
But these guys are like truth adjacent, right?
30:47
So they're like in and around the capital T truth, and they just haven't like dedicated
30:52
their entire lives to it and repented of who they were before.
30:54
But they're kind of circling the drain as it were.
30:57
Now we're running out of time, so I'll have to make this the last question in the day.
31:00
But it kind of goes into what you were still talking about, Eric.
31:02
In the book, you talked about these seeker sensitive churches, the seeker sensitive movement.
31:07
And you talked about kind of this chronological snobbery of modern churches where they're,
31:12
"Oh, we're not reinventing the Christian faith.
31:14
We're just getting rid of the old modalities that clearly don't work in a modern culture."
31:19
And you kind of rail there, albeit briefly against churches that are big on making converts,
31:24
but not on making disciples.
31:26
And so it's kind of this, there are mega churches with big parking lots and big buildings that
31:31
do take conversions seriously and discipleship seriously.
31:34
But most of them don't.
31:36
We want to whip you up into an emotionalized frenzy.
31:38
We want to get you to raise your hand so that we can count you in our annual report without
31:42
any regard for whether or not you're performing headship over your household, catechizing your
31:46
children, have a prayer life, you're in the word every day, any of those types of things.
31:51
So talk to me a little bit more about that and how that has really kind of led to some
31:54
of the issues that we're seeing right now.
31:56
Well, I want to be clear in the new book, "Religionless Christianity," I don't know
32:01
if I say it exactly, but the point of the book is to say that what we have seen as the
32:07
church is really not the church.
32:09
Many of us have been fooled just as Jews in the first century were fooled by the religious
32:15
leaders.
32:16
Jesus shows up, he says, "No, not it, wrong.
32:22
You are of your father, the devil."
32:28
What would make us think that they could get it so wrong but that the church in America
32:33
could not get it that wrong?
32:35
A lot of people say, "Oh, they were Jewish.
32:36
They rejected Jesus."
32:37
Well, I'm here to tell you not exactly.
32:40
They rejected God.
32:42
They rejected the God of the Bible and Jesus, God in human form, knew that and He condemned
32:47
them.
32:48
You have just as many pastors today rejecting the God of the Bible.
32:53
They wouldn't say it.
32:54
They wouldn't even acknowledge it to themselves.
32:56
But effectively speaking, that's what they're doing.
32:58
Their model of the church is not God's model and God will judge them for that and it was
33:05
if you're not making disciples.
33:08
If you're playing the game, the church game, where we just want people in our pews and
33:12
they'll get it eventually, if you're playing that game, if you're not discerning the time
33:17
in which you live, it's no different than the Jewish leaders who did not discern that
33:22
Jesus is the Messiah, you're not going to be graded on a curve.
33:26
You got it wrong.
33:28
By the way, you tried to murder Him.
33:31
That spirit is in the American church today.
33:35
Think of the nightmare of what I'm saying, that you have churches that are in bed with
33:41
the devil.
33:42
They don't know it.
33:43
Do you think, does anybody here think that the religious leaders in Jesus, they thought
33:48
they were in bed with the devil, that they were railing against God Almighty?
33:54
No, no, no.
33:55
They were so full of religious pride.
33:56
They were sure that they were standing up for God, but they were working for the devil.
34:03
They murdered God when he shows up in human form.
34:06
That's a religious spirit.
34:07
That is in the church today.
34:09
There are many people going to "nice churches" where everything seems nice and they've got
34:14
a great children's program and they're ostensibly preaching the right things, but they're not
34:20
living it out.
34:24
If you're alive at a time when that's what the Lord is asking you to do, you're guilty.
34:29
Luther, I wrote a biography on Martin Luther, I don't think I quote this in my Luther biography,
34:35
but at one point he says something like, "If you are not fighting on that issue that God
34:42
is calling you to fight on, you're judged as guilty."
34:48
The Lord doesn't say it's exactly like, "If you tell your kid, I need you to wash the
34:52
car on Saturday."
34:54
He doesn't do it, but he says, "But I took out the trash."
34:56
Okay, so you didn't do what I asked you to do.
34:59
That's really the issue, isn't it?
35:01
You're trying to play a game with me.
35:05
That's what a lot of Christians do.
35:06
It's like God is saying, "I need you to talk about this."
35:08
We'll say, "Well, I'll talk about that other stuff."
35:10
No, it's not okay.
35:12
God is saying, "I need you to have wisdom and discernment now."
35:16
These are the issues now.
35:18
You want to do your nice church and think everything will blow over and you'll be fine,
35:23
but I'm here to say no, Lord wants us all in, and it's no different than in Bonhoeffer's
35:29
Day.
35:30
Many, many, many pastors, ostensibly good men.
35:36
When the trial came, they blew it.
35:40
When the trial came, they said, "You know what, I'm not going to go there.
35:44
I'm not going to stick my neck out.
35:45
I'm not going to risk getting arrested, losing my livelihood.
35:48
No, I'm not going to risk that."
35:50
Well, the Lord was calling them to risk that because the Lord calls you to risk something.
35:54
You can't outgive God.
35:55
If you trust God with your career and your life and your money and everything, you can
36:01
trust Him with it.
36:02
But a lot of people aren't so sure.
36:04
They're confused and so they're playing it safe.
36:06
That's basically where we are today.
36:10
We're living in an environment where people are thinking, "Well, I don't need to be the
36:14
one to stick my neck out.
36:16
Let someone else do that.
36:18
Let somebody else take the heat."
36:21
I want to be real clear that it is participation with the demonic.
36:26
It's not just like, "Well, you got to be minus."
36:28
No, this is the time that God is calling us to have that discernment.
36:36
I guess I have faith that maybe enough will, just enough will have that kind of discernment
36:43
because things are bad and maybe getting worse and maybe people are waking up.
36:48
When you have somebody like RFK Jr. say, "I'm in with Trump," trust me when I tell you,
36:55
that kind of faith, think about this, you say, "He's speaking up for the truth.
37:01
I'm going to stick my neck out.
37:03
I'm going to lose friends.
37:04
My family's going to condemn me, but I believe these things are right."
37:09
That kind of, you have Jesus saying, "I haven't seen this faith in Israel."
37:14
In other words, you see somebody who's sort of maybe outside the camp or outside our group,
37:20
but he's exhibiting more faith and more courage than I'm seeing inside the church.
37:27
I've seen this over and over.
37:28
We see it with Donald Trump.
37:29
Donald Trump is, I don't know where he stands in terms of the faith, but God has used him
37:35
to show the church what courage looks like, to shame the church and say, "Hey, church.
37:40
I expect better from you," but they're all these people, Elon Musk.
37:46
They're people that are willing to stick their necks out and they're demonstrating faith.
37:52
Now, people say, "Is it faith in Jesus?
37:55
It's faith in what's true and good.
37:57
It's faith that I'm going to risk everything for what's good and true.
38:04
What people say about me, I'm going to risk it."
38:07
There's something beautiful and noble about that.
38:11
I believe to some extent the Lord judges that as faith, as real faith, because when you're
38:16
willing to risk what you have for what you believe is right, that's what God calls us
38:23
to do.
38:24
There are many in the church who've been persuaded like, "Well, I don't need to do that."
38:27
Well, that's exactly what God is calling us to do.
38:30
Absolutely.
38:31
My team says I have five more minutes, I don't know if you have another question, but I just
38:35
got to tell you, this is when I wrote this book, Religionless Christianity, that's what
38:40
I'm talking about.
38:41
There's a kind of a reformation going on in the church.
38:44
What is the church?
38:45
What does the church look like?
38:46
What does the church look like?
38:47
Who has real faith and who has fake faith pretends that they have faith, but God doesn't
38:54
see it as faith.
38:55
That's a scary question which we all have to ask ourselves.
38:58
Well, since we're working on borrowed time right here, I'll give you a short question
39:04
and you can give me a really cogent answer.
39:06
How about that?
39:07
I think all of us in our lives, Eric, we have an opportunity to burn the boats, but we still
39:11
get to decide whether or not we're going to burn them.
39:14
In Religionless Christianity, you talk about a boat burning moment in Bonhoeffer's life
39:17
in July of 1939, where he was essentially, "Well, I'll let him speak for himself in
39:22
one of his writings.
39:23
I shall have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany
39:27
after war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people."
39:32
He wrote that while he was basically escaped to America and realized, "No, I can't just
39:38
live out the war here in New York City and then go back and try to help everybody else
39:44
pick up the rubble."
39:46
Talk just a little bit about that, about all of us, including the pastors you're talking
39:50
about, are going to have an opportunity to burn the boats, but we still have an option
39:53
as to whether or not we're going to do it.
39:55
Well, yeah, and I write about this in the book, "Burning the boats" means that you say
39:59
there is no option for retreat.
40:04
I'm going to burn my boats and I'm going to fight and win or I'm going to die.
40:09
I think there's two examples from history that I quote in the book where military leaders
40:15
actually did this.
40:16
They said, "We're going to burn the boats so that my men are going to fight to the
40:20
death and we're going to win or we're going to lose, but we're not going to have a retreat
40:23
because there's no more time.
40:26
We have to win now.
40:27
We're there now."
40:29
So the point is, there are many people that think, "Well, I don't know if I've come to
40:33
that point yet.
40:34
I don't know if I've come to that point."
40:35
And I'm here to say, folks, we're at that point now, but to end on a positive note, if
40:42
you really believe in the Lord, this is a glorious opportunity.
40:48
This is such a glorious, glorious opportunity.
40:51
The Lord is saying, "Stand with me now.
40:53
Fight with me now.
40:54
I will be with you.
40:56
You're not alone.
40:58
If you think you're alone, you have no faith.
41:00
If you know that I'm real, stand with me now.
41:04
Do the right thing now.
41:06
And for the rest of your life, you will hold your head up because you knew at the time
41:13
that I'm going to do what God called me to do and the results are in his hands.
41:17
And we Christians, we say, "Well, oh, Jesus, the feet of death on the cross, really?
41:21
Because if he did, then you don't fear death.
41:23
Then you know that even if you kill me, if I lose my job, if I lose friends, if I lose,
41:29
if you kill me, I don't die.
41:31
The Lord is everything I need."
41:34
So this is an amazing opportunity for every believer to actually live out your faith.
41:39
We don't get this a lot in life, to really live out your faith at a time when the whole
41:44
world is watching the church.
41:46
The whole world is watching.
41:48
And so I want to exhort anybody with ears to hear and eyes to see.
41:54
Take this seriously.
41:55
God is calling us to stand now, to fast and pray for the election, to be all in, to understand
42:04
what is at stake.
42:05
It's an existential crisis.
42:07
And if we don't win, we lose everything.
42:11
We're not going to get to talk about the unborn or a biblical view of sexuality.
42:17
You will be shut down.
42:19
This is it.
42:20
But I believe the Lord has called us to this.
42:22
So I'm genuinely, Kyle, hopeful that the Lord has called us to this and that enough
42:28
will rise to the occasion.
42:30
That's a genuine hope.
42:31
I don't just say that.
42:32
I think that that's real, that people are waking up right now.
42:36
Well, I think it's good for me as a pessimist to make sure we leave this on an optimistic
42:41
note, but you have officially clicked your third tab on your punch card.
42:45
You've got two more to go until you get your freebie.
42:47
But that's all for me.
42:48
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
42:50
I absolutely not.
42:51
It's always fun to talk to you.
42:53
Listen, the truth is beautiful and fun and wonderful.
42:58
It's a wonderful thing to be in the battle for God's purposes.
43:03
Human lives are at stake.
43:04
There are people out there will never meet them and they're relying on Christians to
43:09
live out our faith.
43:11
And the Lord has commanded us to love our neighbors by living out our faith totally.
43:17
So this is, as I said, a glorious opportunity for us.
43:20
Things are so bad that if we will stand now, it counts.
43:25
It counts more than it has in all of our lifetimes.
43:28
So I just want to exhort people to not to miss the opportunity.
43:32
This is God's gift to us right now.
43:34
All right, Eric, thanks again for coming on.
43:37
My pleasure.
43:38
Thank you so much.
43:39
There you go, guys.
43:40
I hope you enjoyed the third appearance of Eric Metax on our show.
43:42
But before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost at Undaunted Life.
43:45
Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual
43:48
mental and physical resilience.
43:50
Two links for you today.
43:51
One link to Eric's website.
43:52
If you want any information on him or anything that he's done, you can go there and an Amazon
43:55
link to where you can pick up his latest book.
43:57
Thank you for listening to this podcast.
43:59
Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five
44:02
star review.
44:03
If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, shoot me an email to info
44:07
at undaunted.life.
44:08
Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else,
44:14
including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way.
44:16
Just go to www.undaunted.life.
44:19
And as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their music for
44:22
our content.
44:23
The music on this podcast is our song Perpetua, which is off their self titled debut album
44:27
on Face Down Records.
44:29
The links are in the description.
44:30
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
44:32
Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience
44:38
keep seeking the lion of Judah.
45:08
in the next video.