154-God’s Word is Truth with Eric Metaxes

The spiritual condition of America, politics, culture, and current events, analyzed through the lens of Scripture.

Welcome to the Alex McFarland Show. You know, in John 17, 17, Jesus said, Sanctify them by thy truth. And then here's what Jesus said about the Word of God.

Thy Word is truth. Hi, Alex McFarland here. We're coming to you from the floor of the NRB, National Religious Broadcasters.

If you hear some ambient noise in the background, there's a lot going on here, a lot of ministries and people strategizing. And I've got the great privilege, and folks, you do not want to miss the next 30 minutes because you're going to hear from really, all kidding aside, one of the preeminent Christian thinkers in the world, one of the most salient, insightful voices of our lifetime. He's a friend and a colleague, and he is here at NRB, and we're going to talk about truth and a message for all of our lives. But across the table from me is Eric Metaxas. He is a best-selling author, a prolific author.

He led Socrates in the City, which was a series of talks, is a series of talks, to promote thinking and truth. And Eric very famously wrote a book some years ago on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, really a name that should not be forgotten. And Eric's book on Bonhoeffer introduced this seminal Christian figure to generations of new readers.

More recently, he's written a book, A Letter to the American Church. We'll get to that in a moment. But what a privilege, just someone that I admire beyond words. Eric Metaxas, he's our guest today. Welcome, my dear friend.

Well, listen, you humble me. It's so kind and generous of you. It's a joy to speak with you. And it's a joy to know, too, that we share some important values. And so it's always encouraging when you have friends that you realize they're on the same page.

They're in the battle. So thanks for what you do, Alex. Well, you're very kind. And I love to hear people's story.

You and I have talked about that. And I want to get into the work that you're doing and tell people where they can find your books and follow what you do on Salem Radio. But I want to learn a bit of your story.

Who is Eric Metaxas? Where did you grow up? How did the Lord get a hold of your life? Well, I wrote a book called Fish Out of Water, A Search for the Meaning of Life.

That came out about four years ago. And in Fish Out of Water, I tell my story. And it's basically that my mom and dad—my dad came from Greece in the mid-'50s. My mom came from Germany, what was East Germany. And they met in an English class in New York City. I was just talking to my mom, who's 90 years old, just before I came on the program here.

Wonderful. And they met in an English class in New York City, got married. And of course, you know, raised my brother and me first in Queens in New York. And then I was born in Astoria. All the Greeks were born in Astoria.

Sure. And then moved to Danbury, Connecticut, where I grew up. But I always say that if you're raised by a Greek and a German, that means you will be raised Greek. Because the Greek personality, the Greek civilization, it's like so dominant. So of course, we went to the Greek church.

Yeah, sure. I was an altar boy. But I was raised with heartland values. My parents experienced communism and the hell of the war.

And so, you know, they raised me to love America and to be respectful of God and all that kind of stuff. And then I went to Yale University to be an English major. In New Haven.

And that was the first time, what's that? New Haven. In New Haven, Connecticut. And that's where I first encountered the secular humanist thinking of the cultural elites. Because I'm a working class kid, grew up in a working class home, European immigrants. And suddenly, I encounter, you know, the wealthy elites who go to Yale. And their worldview is kind of hostile to born-again Christians, hostile to conservatism. Reagan was president at the time, hostile to Reagan, hostile to patriotism.

I never had encountered that before. And so, not really being prepared for it, I kind of drank the Kool-Aid and kind of drifted along. It's not like I became some radical leftist. But I was certainly not outspoken about my faith or what.

I was very kind of cowed by the social pressure. And so, by the time I graduated, I knew I wanted to be a writer. But I was really lost, because I didn't know what I believed.

I had had a Christian faith, really, when I got there. But it really drifted away, so that I was quite confused, really. And really wondering, what's the meaning of life? And the reason the title of my book is Fish Out of Water, A Search for the Meaning of Life, is that I really wanted to know, what is the meaning of life? But then I also had taken in this idea that probably life has no meaning.

Probably we just evolved out of the primordial soup. There's no meaning. There's no good. There's no evil.

Really, really sick, dark stuff. And I had taken this in, because that's the worldview of the cultural elite. And so, I graduated really lost and confused. And long story short, I ended up moving back in with my parents, who were kind of like, what the heck are you doing here?

We work menial jobs to put you through Yale University. What's going on? And I was really lost. And so, the Lord in his dramatic mercy, Alex, spoke to me in a dream around my 25th birthday. And I've written about this and talked about it.

People go to my website, ericmataxis.com. There's a video where I tell the story. But it was a dramatic, utterly miraculous conversion. I was literally overnight changed. I woke up a different person. I knew Jesus as Lord.

And that was in 1988. I've never looked back. But it was an absolutely miraculous conversion. And so, from that point on, I was like, okay, Lord, what do you want me to do now? I haven't done such a good job with my career.

Why don't you take a crack at it? So the Lord led me really dramatically. I've written a lot of children's books. I worked for Chuck Colson.

I worked for Veggie Tales. I was, in some ways, really, it was a long kind of journey. I never dreamt I would write the books that I have written. I had absolutely no clue. I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I thought, oh, I'm going to write fiction.

I had no clue. But the Lord, it's so clear to me now that the Lord was leading me to write Bonhoeffer to write my book about Wilberforce and all of this stuff. And the seven men that influenced.

Seven men, seven women, seven more men. I mean, it's so obvious to me that the Lord had prepared this stuff for me to do. Even as a child, and I'm fascinated to hear about your upbringing.

Yeah, you know, I'm kind of in awe because I'm like, Greek, you're related to Aristotle. Yeah, yeah. Even as a child, did you have this instinctive feeling that you had a purpose? I did. Oh, no, I absolutely did. I mean, I was very gifted, you know, I knew that. I mean, I skipped first grade, so I always was kind of tagged as like, oh, he's the smart kid, you know.

But I didn't know, you know, what do you do with that? If you grow up in a working class home, you don't think about, I want to be a writer. You know, we weren't readers, much less writers. So I really didn't know, but I did have an innate sense that God had a purpose for me. I really, really did. I knew that.

I just didn't know what that was. Sure. We've got a brief break in just a moment. If you're just tuning in, the voice you're hearing is that of Eric Metaxas, prolific author.

Just one of the great opinion makers of our time. And we've got to take a brief break, but a website. Where may people find you online, Eric? If they can spell it, ericmetaxas.com. Everything is there, ericmetaxas.com. Or they can also go to socratesinthecity.com.

Tremendous content, socratesinthecity.com. Stay tuned, folks. We're back with more of Eric Metaxas after this. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching through August 1st with J. Warner Wallace, a week of apologetics with myself and Jim Wallace.

Go to thecove.org, thecove.org, and I hope to see you next summer. He's been called trusted, truthful and timely. Welcome back to The Alex McFarland Show. Welcome back to the program. We're talking with author and broadcaster, Eric Metaxas. And, Eric, before the break, you were talking about your upbringing. And I want to get back to how the Lord got a hold of your life, but you mentioned heartland values upbringing.

And those words warm my heart because I think I know what you mean by that. But I want you to elaborate on that because there is a unique American culture. And do you know working class parents, values of ethics, morality, the sacredness of a hard day's work? I fear sometimes those are dismissed.

Sure. I mean, it's funny because I grew up, as I said, in a working class home. My father from Greece is now in America where, you know, he has a heavy accent. He works hard. My mother has an accent.

She worked hard. You know, and you see that as a kid. And then you hear the stories of your parents suffering World War II. Both my father and mother lost their fathers when they were very young. I think they both were 10. My father was, it would have been, yeah, he was 10 years old when he lost his father in Greece.

My mother was, I guess, nine and a half. She lost her father in the war. So these are, you know, two people that grew up without their fathers and experienced tremendous suffering. World War II was hell in Europe.

Oh, yes. And then after the war, my mother experienced even more suffering because Germany had been defeated. There's literally no food. My mother remembers, you know, being malnourished and literally being hungry, both of them. So when you hear of these stories of privation and you're an American, you don't ever dream of, I'm going to be hungry or anything like that. So it gives you deep respect for them because they have suffered and they are now working hard and loving you as parents.

And that's a moving thing. And I think it speaks to, you know, the way the Lord created the universe is that when somebody does something for you, self-sacrifice, Jesus dies for you, that affects your heart. It just makes you say, okay, you did that for me. You didn't need to do that. That breaks your heart.

Yeah. And so I saw that in my parents, my father working hard for me. It gives him moral authority over you because it's like if he's doing that for you, it just touches you. So I grew up with that and we were a very loving family. It's interesting. My mom's, it's kind of funny because the Germans were very tremendous humor. And not when you think of Germans. I mean, if you've read my Luther book, Luther is from the part of Germany that my mother's from. And they kind of had this like hilarious sense of humor. Incredible.

When you think of Germany, you don't think of it. So I got a lot of the humor. My grandmother was like hilarious, constant joking, very warm family, very loving and all that stuff. You know, it just makes you who you are. And I realize apart from talking about Jesus and the Bible and all that, because sometimes people get all caught up in that.

And it's like, well, how does that get transferred realistically through people? So I met Jesus, you know, before I knew his name, I met him through the love of my father because that love is of Jesus, even if my father didn't know what it is. So that love, that self-sacrificial love, that family stuff, it's so beautiful. And it just makes you who you are.

Well, it is beautiful. And, you know, as you're talking about this, your upbringing, the post-World War II, America, I'm thinking about everything since the Protestant Reformation context. A twofold question. How important is it for people to understand the context in which we live and really to appreciate some of the historical events that got us to where we are? Well, I don't know if I'm hearing you right, but I guess I think the standard problem that people have is they think that whatever they're going through is normal. They kind of think like, oh, this is just the way things are.

And you realize, well, no. I mean, you know, when you think of post-war American dominance and flourishing, that's not normal in world history. In world history, there's hunger, there's war, there's rape, there's murder.

I mean, in world history, there's so much horror. And what we grew up with in America is absolutely out of the ordinary. To live in a free country where you can say whatever you want, where you can get food anytime you want, all of that stuff warps you into not appreciating it. And that's why I think my parents, because of where they came from, they gave me an appreciation, also a hatred for communism, a love of freedom. And they gave that to me, and I write about this in the book Fish Out of Water, that a lot of my schoolmates growing up, I realized they grew up in America.

Their parents are American. They don't get this. They kind of think this is normal.

This is not normal. My parents fled war-torn Europe for a better life, and that was something that I kind of innately understood, that there's real evil in the world and that what we have here is it's not normal. It's a gift from God, and we've been blessed to be a blessing. We're not just blessed to be like, I'm glad I'm blessed, and you're not. We're blessed to be a blessing, so we have an obligation, just as much as we have an obligation to share the good news of Jesus, we have an obligation to share any good news and the good news of the freedoms that we have in this country and how God intended this kind of self-government for the whole world.

You can't force it on people, but we ought to be evangelistic about every good thing because it's not something we deserve any more than anybody else does. You know, what you're saying reminds me of a quote from the statesman in colonial America, Edmund Burke, a quote attributed to him, that which we obtain too easily we esteem too lightly. That sums it up. Thank you, Edmund Burke. Translate that for the modern world.

That's it. I mean, yeah, if you don't, and this is the kind of thing nobody wants to suffer, but obviously if you suffer and you struggle, when you think of the pioneers who made America, when you think of the founding generation, the hellish war to win freedom, they were not going to give that up. But if it's just handed to you on a silver platter, which it was to us, you think, oh, well, why do I need to do anything? Why do I need to suffer? I'm writing a book right now on the American Revolution and it'll come out next year, and I've got to say, when you see what they went through, that we're the beneficiaries of it, it just makes you feel guilty.

You think, why? They went through this hell so that I could have freedom. I need to give back. I need to do something about it.

I can't just take it. Well, and the Continental Army and the colonists defeating Britain and General Cornwallis, I mean, that is a miracle of miracles. Oh, there's no doubt about it. I think one of the subtexts of the book that I'm writing is it's so obvious that God's hand was in this. It's just impossible to miss. And nobody said it more often than George Washington. It was just obvious.

It was obvious that the Lord was with them in their cause of liberty. There was just no doubt about it. Indeed.

Well, we've got to take a brief break. We're talking with Eric Metaxas coming to you live from the National Religious Broadcasters. His website, spelled just like it sounds, ericmetaxas.com, right?

And you're on Salem and TBN, right? I'm everywhere. If you just look up Eric Metaxas in your Google search engine or DuckDuckGo, you'll get more of me than you want. Well, I don't know about that, because every time I hear you, I learn new things, and you inspire people, and we thank God for you.

We've got a break. Stay tuned, folks. We're back with more of our conversation with Eric Metaxas in just a moment.

Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Dinesh is going to be talking about Trump's first 100 days, and his talk is entitled American Politics, Past, Present, and Future.

Join us for this unforgettable, life-changing evening of one of America's most astute thinkers and opinion makers. Dinesh D'Souza, May 4th, 7 p.m. The Greg Rolls Legacy Theater. Visit gregrollslegacytheater.com slash tickets.

That's gregrolls, R-O-W-L-E-S. gregrollslegacytheater.com slash tickets. And I would like to see you May 4th to hear in person Dinesh D'Souza. He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to The Alex McFarland Show. Welcome back to The program. Alex McFarland will resume our conversation with Eric Metaxas here from NRB in just a moment. But I wanna remind you about our speaker series coming up. Dinesh D'Souza, Charlie Kirk, a lot of great speakers.

It's called Conversations That Matter. It begins May 4th in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The Greg Rolls Legacy Theater. You might not know from the comments the Gregg Rolls Legacy Theater. We've rented the theaters down in Myrtle Beach, and we want you to come enjoy the Grand Strand, but get some biblical worldview training.

You can go to my website, which is alexmcfarland.com. Also, may I remind you, our seven summer youth camps are coming up. The website for that is equipretreat.org. And just a $400 tax-deductible contribution will pay for a week at camp for a young person. And so you may give securely online at alexmcfarland.com.

You can mail a check to TNG, as in Truth for a New Generation, PO Box 485, Pleasant Garden, North Carolina, 27313. And all of your contributions are faithfully handled, gratefully received, and we thank you. But with us now is Eric Metaxas. And Eric, you and I were talking, I don't know, five years ago.

It was during COVID, actually, and I was interviewing you. And I mentioned, because I've had so many pastors that have almost like reprimanded me for speaking about the need to be culturally involved. And in the minds of a lot of Christians...

They're insane and wrong, but please continue. Well, exactly. And you and I were on a show, and I said, I fear that the American church is like the German church in 1939. And, you know, there was the incremental rise of the Third Reich, and the watchmen on the wall were silent. And you said exactly... Oh, look, and it's way before 39.

It's, you know, 33, 34. The German church... I mean, I have to say that many in the American church are dreadfully, frighteningly guilty of the same thing that the German church was guilty of in the 30s. And look, it's despicable, because God calls us to act, not just to believe in our heads. This is this Enlightenment rationalist ridiculous view of the faith. That's not the faith. That's not the faith. I believe this stuff in my head.

Oh, really? If you're not living it, God knows you don't believe it in your head. You're a liar.

You're a hypocrite, right? And but there are many Christians that go, Oh, no, it's faith. It's faith. I believe it. I believe it.

If you're not living it, God knows and the devil knows you do not believe it. And we have peddled this. It's cheap grace. That's what Bonhoeffer talks about. We've peddled this idea.

It's so easy. Just do you agree with this? You're saved.

I think that's wrong. I think that, you know, God requires more of us. And if you said, Oh, God doesn't require everything. He did it all.

Yeah, he did it all. And if you believe that, you will give your all in response. And if you don't give your all in response, it proves you don't actually believe it. And so I really think we don't deal with that.

We deal with it. We want everybody to, you know, we talk about evangelism, so we make it sound so easy. You just have to agree to this and you're saved. It's that simple. Well, to really put your trust in Jesus and what he did, that's more than just, I check a box, you know, and I go, okay, I'm in.

If you're in, it will change your life. You will give up whatever sin, whatever, you will give that up joyfully when you realize what he's done for you, or you at least will want to. But there are a lot of people that they kind of act like that separate. And so what we're talking about here is the abdication of the church's role in understanding. We are called to stand against evil, not simply to make converts, but to make disciples and to make disciples means the people in the congregation need to understand what is my duty in this culture. If I see evil as a Christian, shall I not stand against it? Shall I not speak against it? Many Christians today and many Christians in Bonhoeffer's day said, you know, that's not my job.

And America has slid to the lip of the abyss of hell as a result of Christian leaders not understanding this issue or, or maybe not wanting to understand it because it made them uncomfortable and it's just easier to quote unquote preach the gospel. But I've, I mean, I've, I've made some radical statements that where I've actually said, you know, you know who wants you to just preach the gospel? Satan wants you to just preach your fake little gospel. He does not want you to live your faith out.

He would be delighted if he can't get you to sin openly, he will get you to sin by omission. Just do not speak up for the Jews in 1933. Do not speak up for the unborn. Do not speak up for the, just be quiet and have your little religious services. And that's sounds radical, but that's the basic faith. People around the world, including today, have suffered for their Christian faith and American Christians somehow act like, well, we don't, we don't have to, we don't have to stand and go. We don't, I don't have to pay any price.

I don't have to do anything. And if you understand the price Jesus paid, then you want to participate in that. You want to, and so if it didn't happen in Germany, we wouldn't have any excuse or we would have an excuse, but it happened.

We can see what happened. And so if you read the Bonhoeffer book, you see the story. But I wrote a letter to the American church, which is my shortest book, to show clearly the parallels between the German church in the thirties of the American church today. And we know sitting here, there are many, many Christian leaders who still don't get this. And there are people who go to those churches and they think everything's fine. Well, let me tell you, the Germans who went to those churches, they thought everything was fine. They were participating with evil, but they, they, I guess didn't know it. So I wrote a letter to the American church to wake people up and to say, folks, this is our hour to stand.

I want to encourage people, look, even though the election of 2024 has passed and maybe some conservatives and or Christians are saying, okay, everything's great now. Look, this is the time in your church. You need to read, teach through this book. Is there a curriculum that goes with it or a study guide? There's a study guide, letter to the American church is the book. There is a study guide. I wrote a sequel called religionless Christianity. That's a Bonhoeffer phrase. So those two books both have a study guides, I believe.

But I know letter to the American church as a study guide and it is sort of, oh yeah, well there was a documentary film that was made hour long called letter to the American church. But what I wrote in that book, you know, I would challenge anybody, is there anything in that book that I wrote, let me make a church that's not biblical. That's just my opinion. Read it for yourself.

I mean, that's the shocker is there's nothing in there that's not biblical. It's just that we have ignored this stuff. And I think that we almost lost America. If Donald Trump had not been reelected, we would have lost the nation and the suffering around the whole globe would be dramatic. I mean, you want to talk about, you know, God has given us, God has blessed us in America to be a blessing. And if we don't hold up our end of the bargain, the whole world suffers. So the Lord holds us responsible. We can't just say, well, we just care about America.

America stands in the unique position in the world. And if we don't do the right thing, millions around the world will suffer. And so I think we have to take seriously. God has given us this gift of this nation and we have to take seriously the responsibility that comes with it. Eric, for the last several years, and we're almost out of time regrettably, but I've spoken at pastors conferences and I've challenged pastors.

And if I'm speaking out of school, I want you to correct me. But I've told pastors, I said, look, you need to be preaching sermons that have the potential to get you fired. Amen.

Amen. Look, if you have real faith, of course you're going to do that. But a lot of people, they claim to have faith, but they clearly are hedging their bets. And I think that even when people would say, oh, I could lose my 501c3 status, every sermon you preach should be pushing against that. And if more pastors did that, there aren't enough IRS agents in the world to be bothering you. We have freedom of speech. You can say anything you want in America. And since when do we preach truth?

Only if the financial bottom line works out. No, look, it's scandalous. God is a judge and God is going to judge pastors that are not doing what he called them to do. He died and bled for you to have total freedom in the pulpit. And this idea that, well, I can't speak about a political candidate or I can't, I mean, if Lincoln was on the ballot and slavery was on an issue, would you say, well, I don't know if that's a gospel related issue. I don't know.

Are you kidding me? That, but that lie has been prevalent in the evangelical church. People like Tim Keller and the gospel coalition, all these folks, they have pushed this stuff.

And it's astonishing that it's gone as far as it has to make a lot of people complicit with evil. That's a dramatic thing. Yeah. Eric, we're out of time today. And I just want to say, I appreciate you so much for making time to be with us. With all sincerity, I ask you one final question. How may we pray for you? Well, you know, you know this, Alex, we're in a spiritual battle. And so I ask people to pray for me just knowing that the Lord has put me in a spiritual battle. It's a joy to be in the battle, but it is a battle. It's a spiritual battle. And, you know, there are all kinds of things that I could bring up, but it's real.

A lot of struggles, you know, and just like anybody else, you know, whether it's family or finances or whatever, there's just a lot of struggles. And, but I praise God that he has us where we are. Metaxas Media, we're creating a lot of projects. We're trying to raise funds to do, I wrote a book called Is Atheism Dead, which is some amazing apologetic stuff.

We're making a TV series, we're trying to raise funds for that. But I really want to believe, I really want to, you know, God has called me to the culture. And this is, in a sense, at the very heart of what we're doing. So it's a battle.

And I just ask people to pray for me in the battle. You know, shortly after the passing of C.S. Lewis, God raised up Francis Schaeffer. And shortly after the passing of Francis Schaeffer, in the forefront, to a large degree, with C.S.

Lewis. And my dear brother, I believe that mantle is now on you. And may the Lord bless you, may the Lord keep you, may the Lord use you as he is doing. And folks, I encourage you, in the strongest possible terms, to read the books by Eric Metaxas.

You will learn, you will be inspired, you will be motivated, and you will be equipped. He's been our guest on the program today. We're out of time right now. His website, ericmetaxas.com, ours, alexmcfarland.com. Stand strong, be bold, and remember John 17, 17, that God's Word is truth. Alex McFarland Ministries are made possible through the prayers and financial support of partners like you. For over 20 years, this ministry has been bringing individuals into a personal relationship with Christ and has been equipping people to stand strong for truth. Learn more and donate securely online at alexmcfarland.com. You may also reach us by calling 1-877-YES-GOD and the number 1. That's 1-877-Y-E-S-G-O-D 1. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again on the next edition of The Alex McFarland Show.