Taking a Stand

When your eyesight is at stake, it pays to travel to one of the world's leading eye surgeons. Dr. Johnny Gayton is an author, speaker, Christian leader, and a renowned surgical eye expert, whether it's cataracts, PRK, Lasix, or implanted lenses.

When only the best is needed, see Dr. Johnny Gayton at eyesightassociates.com. where we search the ancient paths to find ways that God brings light into a dark world and helps set men free from the struggles that we all face on a day to day basis. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it.

Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up. Welcome back to another episode of The Man Up Show.

Yours truly, Nikita Kolov. Don't give up America. Don't give up. Give up what? Give up your rights. Have you ever thought about that in the current culture and climate that we find ourselves in?

Lots of controversy swirling around our rights. Well, today with me, I am honored to have this young man. And when I say this young man, Christian Hodges, welcome to The Man Up Show. Hi, Nikita. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Well, it's great to have you with us, Christian.

And I was excited about having you on the show. I have before me a book, America, Don't Give Up Your Right to Freedom of Speech, a Teenager's Urgent Call to Action. And you are, for our listeners to understand, 17 years old.

Is that correct? I wrote the book when I was 17. I'm currently 18. Oh, you've had a birthday. All right. Well, happy belated birthday, Christian.

Thank you. So you wrote the book when you were 17. And I guess what really piqued my interest, you and I met just a while back. We were actually, a friend of mine, Frank Shelton, he and I tag teamed on a men's event up in Delaware. And that's where you and I, I met you, your brother, your dad as well, right?

That's correct. So you're up in Delaware. So before we dive into what inspired you as a 17 year old, one, to write a book and for that book to be published. And then really you're, you know, at such a young age to be such a patriot. I want to dive into all of that.

But before we do, give us a little back. So like I mentioned Delaware, now you're living in Delaware or tell us a little bit about your family and just a little bit about your upbringing. Yeah, of course, Nikita. So I'm currently 18 years old. I was born and raised in a little small town in Delaware, about 5000 people in the town. Me and my mom's family's been in that town for over 200 years.

So we've got some deep roots there. My dad is from Florida. They met in college in Oklahoma. And they came back to Delaware to raise a family. I'm one of four, one of four kids, my brother went to law school, other brother works for NASA, my sisters, computer engineer. But my parents put all of us through a Christian education because that's the way they were raised. They were raised to love God and to love people. That's what scripture calls us to do, right?

It does. So, so Christian, so are you the youngest of four? I am the youngest of four. Okay.

Well, you and I have that in common, just so you know. I am the youngest of four. There you go. Both my parents are as well. Okay.

Well, and got an older sister and two older brothers. There we go. That's kind of cool. It is cool.

A little trivia thing there. So anyway, so, okay. So, well, all right.

So let me just back up. So your one brother went to law school. So he's a lawyer.

And then you got, did you say another brother, NASA, did you say? Yeah, he works for NASA. He's a rocket, basically rocket scientist.

Okay. He puts a, he gives a whole new meaning to, hey, this is not rocket science here, but for him it is, right? It is rocket science. It is, yeah. That's, wow.

That's pretty cool. So he works for NASA. And then your sister, what did you say your sister does? She's a computer engineer. She works for the Marines at a naval base in North Carolina. Wow.

Computer engineer. And so you're the youngest of four. So you have, wow, you have quite a lineage in front of you.

And you said, and you said your mom, did I hear you right? You said your mom's, the history, 200 years that, that her family tree, the family roots go back to there in Delaware? That's right. Yeah.

At least 200. Back a few years ago, she started tracking her lineage. Yeah. She stopped when she got to around the 1700s. So I've been there a while.

Been there a while. And so here's what's interesting. My dad, prior to his passing, took it upon himself to also retrace some of the ancestry and all the way back to as many in America, back to European heritage there and went back to the 1700s, maybe as far back as the late 1600s that my dad was able to trace some of our family history in. So, so out of her, out of her research, so then, you know, what, what's like, what, what, what's the background there?

Like, like they come, now I'm trying to do the math here. Like your, her ancestors didn't come over on the Mayflower or anything, right? Or am I going too far back? Not, we haven't gone that far back. I wouldn't be too surprised if that came back true. Wow. That's pretty, but that's pretty cool.

200 years. And so you say, and you know, much of that. So you, you have, you have the, those, some deep roots there.

Yeah, we definitely do. Um, that's, that's something that really contributes to our community really wants us to, uh, pour back into the community. I think I really got my start in politics because of that, because my dad, um, he served on our local town council, uh, local politics for about 15 years, uh, ended up coming off a year or two ago. But I remember when I was like 11 or 12, um, back when I was little, I'd be going to these meetings with them every Monday night, the first Monday of every month, just to go sit on the back, um, and just to listen to everything that was going on in the local government. Uh, so I could try and learn, just be a sponge and it's a fire hydrant, uh, pouring at me, but just trying to soak up all the knowledge, um, that can about government.

That's really where my passion is. That's really led into this book, I think. Well, I, yeah, I mean, that's, it's a really, it's, it's fascinating that at such a young age now, it makes more sense to me now, why one, why you'd be inspired to, uh, you know, to, to write the book. Um, and, and certainly why at such a young age, you'd be such a patriot. I mean, let's be, you know, let's be straight up.

There's a lot of others your age that have a little or no interest in, in, in our great nation and one, whether it's, whether it's saving our nation or, or, or whatever else. Right. Um, yeah, you're right.

Yeah. I think we've done that to ourselves through the education system. Um, because if we look at Gen Z, my generation, 13% of Gen Z females are conservative. And I want to say it's 25 or 30% of the males are conservative. And the past three classes of high school boys and graduating from high school, they've been the most conservative in the past 40 years. So this is the most conservative we've been.

So you see a shift, you see a shift taking place. Oh, we definitely do. Um, and we see that with the upcoming 2024 election, we see one of the most recent poll was about the youth. So that those younger than 29 are leaning towards Trump in a Trump V Biden rematch in the 2024 election. Even NBC said that. Um, so I think these polls are beginning to come out now.

They're just reflecting what we've been seeing over the past few years. Well, you're, you're certainly a voice for your generation. Uh, no doubt. Uh, you know, even as I, uh, I'm looking at the, uh, I'm looking at the back cover here and, and you're certainly you're, you're, you're not only, uh, an, uh, you know, uh, a, uh, aspiring author, uh, and, you know, venturing into the world of, uh, of politics. Uh, you, you, you could be a, um, you're a handsome young man.

You can, you can be doing a lot of other things, Christian, other than what you're doing. And so, uh, I just find it fascinating. I'm looking at, uh, I love what you wrote on the kind of not the inside cover here, a love letter to the present and future generations of America. A love letter to the present and future generations of America. Then you write, don't give up.

Uh, what, what inspired you to, to view your book as, as a love letter? Well, I think if you look at politics over the past few decades in America, we'll see a lot of leaders, even a Reagan or a Clinton or the Bush or Obama, Trump, any of them. We'll see each one of them. They have their own agendas, right? There's not many commonalities between both sides, but I think there's one thing we can all agree on, whether it's in 2024 or is in 1776 when our nation was founded. And it's that we believe in America. We want a future of our nation, right?

We don't want to give up. Uh, we want to preserve the future for our kids. Ronald Reagan once said in 1967 when he was first inaugurated as governor of California, he said, freedom is never one generation away from extinction.

It must be fought for because it is not passed through the bloodstream because I don't want to, uh, one day be sitting on my porch telling my grandkids what it was once like when America is free. So I think that quote really shaped my, uh, philosophy for this book because I'm the youth. Um, your generation is a generation or two ahead of us, right? Even my parents' generation, same, same age as you. Um, I think not in a way that you guys have failed us, but each generation has steadily lost a love for America.

I would argue. Um, I think if we want a future of this nation, Gen Z and Gen Alpha are going to be the ones that save us. So, and I think Gen Z, they don't really respect people who are older than them because everyone, everything they've heard throughout their whole lives has been from someone older than them. They're tired of that.

They want to hear it from someone like them, someone who's young. So I wanted to be that voice. Um, I really want to reach Gen Z through this book and just be the leader, if no one else will, who tells them to not give up on America. Yeah. Well, and I certainly, you know, commend you for, for stepping up. And in fact, you, you quote, uh, you know, you quoted, you gave the Ronald Reagan quote, um, and it's, it's in your, your book and really just that first sentence, freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. I mean, just the, you know, that's a very sober thought and, and, and you're right. I mean, um, when it, you know, each generation that, that passes, depending on what they're exposed to, right. Can certainly form and shape their thinking, their, their ideologies and, and just all of that, right?

Mm hmm. I was completely right. Um, and I think we're definitely seeing an deterioration within the youth today because the education system has taught my generation to hate America.

What nation would ever teach their youth to hate the nation that they're living in and they said, they're the future leaders of. You're listening to the truth network and truthnetwork.com Nikita Koloff here, and I am excited. Did you hear the huge announcement, the big announcement?

Well, maybe it's a minor announcement. Anyway, Facebook, go look up my new fan page, Nikita Koloff fans and like it and follow today. Many people often ask me, is Nikita Koloff your real name?

Well, I have news for you. Now you can get the whole story on my audio book. Nikita, a tale of the ring and redemption narrated in my own voice, gaining all perspective and insight into my whole life, including my redemption. Would your company, business, or you personally like to partner with me in supporting Koloff for Christ Ministries, the Man Up Show and Man Up Minutes, go to koloff.net and click the donate button. You can give monthly, annually or one time. God bless you for making a difference around the world. If you would like to support Koloff for Christ Ministries for a gift of $25, Nikita will send you his two CDs adoration and declaration for a gift of $50.

Nikita will include his book Wrestling with Success and for a gift of $100 or more, Nikita will include a signed copy of his newly updated life story, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption. Go to www.koloff.net and donate today. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. I think once we do that, we're on a really fast decline. There's few things that can save us. And obviously the first thing that can save us and our only hope really is God. But faith without action is really void. We have to do something if we believe something, right? I believe that God's providence was on the hand of the founding of this nation.

I see that the deterioration of this nation is steady, but it's more than ever before right now. So I want to step out and do something, lead a charge, lead a movement and not give up on our nation. Well, and you're quoting a scripture from the book of James there where you're talking about faith without action is like the body without breath.

One translation says it, right? And so it's one thing to have faith, it's another thing to put action, mix that together with action, right? And certainly that's what you're doing. Now let me backtrack just for a moment. You mentioned you had a Christian upbringing as did your parents. So it sounds like those Christian roots go back, I mean your mom's family goes back 200 plus years here in America. Do those Christian roots that you know of go back that far as well in your lineage?

They actually do. I know at least my grandparents' generation, the ones that I've known, the ones that I've lived with in my life. My grandmother actually just passed a few days before Christmas this year, last year, my mother's mom. But reading, helping to write her obituary, reflecting on her life at the funeral and everything, she was 84 years old, just reading what she did, what she did with my pop-up, how they led a life, they cultivated a life not only for themselves but for their children behind them to love the Lord and to truly live like that. Because to have real faith, it has to be lived, right? My grandmother was an ordained minister, always involved in church.

She typically sat in the back of the church and the pastor said he never saw her face because her head was always down in the Bible reading ahead while the pastor is preaching. So I think even on my dad's side, the same is true, my grandmother on the other side of the family was a devout Christian and really led her family to the Lord and my grandfather and my dad got baptized before he went on a trip. That's really what my grandmother wanted for him there and he made it a professional faith. So I think looking back at those generations, I'm really thankful for the influence that they had on my parents so that my parents had the same influence on me.

So that one day, I too can have the same impact on my kids and continue not legacy but just the lineage of believing in Christ and living like it for generations to come. Yeah, fighting the good fight. I think you bring up a valid point. Of course we're talking about the fight for America and the fight for freedom and Christian, I'm reminded of a number of things come to mind and certainly some that are related to Scripture and to the Bible. Fighting the good fight of faith, certainly. But at the end of the day, you're talking about, and really your book is, it is a call to action.

We're talking about action. Your book is a call to action. And I like to say it this way, whichever side you fall on, as the media covers left or right or center left, center right, wherever you fall, I like to say it this way. At the end of the day, in God's view, in God's eyes, it's not really about an elephant or a donkey. It's all about the Lamb, right?

It's all about the Lamb of God. And ultimately what could turn our nation around or you made reference to our nation being founded on God in history really speaks for itself that those nations that have essentially kicked God out, so to speak, that it didn't turn out so well. And would you agree that as much as politics plays a major role, certainly in America, that at the end of the day what we really need really is a spiritual awakening? Would you agree with that?

Yeah, I completely agree with that Nikita. And everyone always says that politics is downstream in culture, right? I would argue that point because I would say, and ultimately at the root of it, the church influences culture and the culture influences politics. And even sometimes it's almost reversed because even as we saw with the legalization of gay marriage in America, when Obama was running for president in 2008, he did not support gay marriage. And then with the Supreme Court decision of Obergefell v. Hodges, actually in the years of Obama, the culture shifted after the decision of politics.

The majority of people did not support gay marriage before the Supreme Court decision, but afterwards they began to support it. As we analyze that, we can also see that our nation came to the point of legalizing a sin because the church has failed. And I think if we want to reverse course in America, the church has to stand up now more than ever and fight to preserve biblical Christianity, not this progressive Christianity that's taking over not only our nation but the world in general. And actually stand firm on biblical truth. A biblical worldview, and those numbers are dwindling actually, the percentages of those who take a stand and have a biblical worldview. I'm going to go back to, you mentioned our founding fathers, and I brought up an awakening doing some recent research on that first great awakening in America, George Whitefield, covering the 13 colonies, which there were many different religious factions back in those days in the 1700s. And he preached one very simple message, John 3.3, you must be born again. He traveled up and down, and of course it really brought the colonies together, that first great awakening, and then there was a bit of a lull, kind of the dust kind of settled, and then we hit the, moving into the end of the 1700s into the 1800s, the second great awakening in America.

And by my calculations, those two great awakenings really solidified Christianity in America as a foundation, and as time has once again gone on, if you want to say the dust settling, that it is really, in one sense, I think, Christian, setting the stage for perhaps a third great awakening in America. You know, your book, let me go back to your book for like, so they can get this on Amazon, where can they get your book? Yeah, it's available on Amazon, also on my website, americadontgiveup.com, and every copy sold on my website or bought on my website, I'll sign for you, whatever you want, write a little note for you, make it personal. Yeah, you asked me when we were together, you're like, hey, I'd like to give you a copy of my book, I said in one condition, you've got to autograph it though first, because one day, Christian, I just sense you are destined for greatness, really, and I mean that wholeheartedly. So your passion and desire, I hope our listeners are picking up on, is coming through loud and clear, your love for America, your love for your generation, you know, when I look at what you wrote on the back cover of your book here, that American citizens have become so accustomed to exercising their God-given right to freedom of speech that many have forgotten its immense worth. And you know, you mentioned the church as well, so not only just American citizens, but I think even those who walk through the doorways of a church week in and week out, and so certainly there's a daunting task ahead of us and ahead of you.

What could someone who picks up a copy of your book and reads it, what will they walk away with? Oh, of course, so if you read my book, the book is about freedom of speech, right, because I think freedom of speech is a lynchpin of liberty, a lynchpin of American liberty. Without freedom of speech, if you're not able to express the values, the beliefs, the thoughts you hold dearly to yourself, right, you're really free. You can't express what you believe. Are you free?

I don't think so. And if we don't have freedom of speech for everyone, whether you're black, you're white, you're Hispanic, whether you're an immigrant, or whether you're a Christian, you're a Muslim, or whoever you might be, if we don't have freedom of speech for all, do we have freedom at all? That's a deep question that I hold. So in this book, I go through the history of freedom of speech, how James Madison crafted the Bill of Rights to add to the Constitution, 1787, how we go through the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and get the Bill of Rights. And then we go through the history of it, how freedom of speech has been reduced over the years of American history, and how it's under attack today.

We answer the question of what it is, what's the biggest threat against it. I believe that hate speech laws, we're seeing those take place all over the world, and even in America, Michigan just passed a bill where they made it hate speech and a felony, a fine up to $10,000 if you misgender a transgender person. We all know that's ridiculous, that's nonsense, you're either biological male or female, you can't change genders, but why should someone lose their freedom of speech to call them what they truly are, to call them what God created them to be? It's wrong.

It's wrong on every measure. And there's a lot of people who say that self-censorship is the biggest threat to freedom of speech today. I would agree with that to a certain extent, but at the root of it, hate speech drives self-censorship, because you and I might be afraid to say we truly believe that someone's going to cancel us, someone's going to tell us that we're wrong, we can never speak again on that matter, right? But that comes from hate speech, that comes from a fear of knowing that what we say is going to offend someone. But at the end of the day, we have to understand that even if we offend someone with what we say, we're not accountable to the government, the government does not have the right to revoke our freedom of speech. The government never gave us the right to freedom of speech. God gave us the right to speak freely, and we see that in the story of Adam and Eve, if you assess that situation, we see that's the root of freedom of speech. Well, yeah, free will, right? Freedom of speech and free will.

And to summarize, let me just summarize here, because we're almost out of time. So when I look at the value, the benefit of somebody reading a book, freedom of speech preserves the Constitution, free speech limits governmental overreach, freedom of speech protects America's fundamental principles. And then you have a quote in here from Eric Metaxas, who is an amazing, amazing man of God himself. When people fail to speak, the price of speaking rises.

As the price of speaking rises, still fewer speak out until the whole culture or nation is silenced. And that's a sobering thought in and of itself. And Christian, I'm glad the Lord crossed our paths. I appreciate you being on the Man Up show. You, young man, 18 years old, would qualify, you have manned up. I just want you to know, Christian. You have put that on your resume.

Nikita Kolov said, Christian Hodges, manned up. And you are stepping out and being a voice for your generation and a voice for America, a young, rising, aspiring leader who I believe is going to make a great impact here in the not so distant future. And so thank you for being a part of the show today. And thank you, Nikita. It's really been a pleasure to be on. I really appreciate all you're doing on the fight for truth and fight for biblical truth, especially. Well, and I can, your fire is coming through loud and clear.

And so one more time. So America, don't give up your right to freedom of speech. Christian Hodges, a teenager's urgent call to action. And just remember, you know, the body without, right, faith without action is like the body without breath.

Well, the body without breath is dead. And so go on Amazon, pick up a copy of Christian's book. If you go on his website, what's your website one more time, Christian? America, don't give up. And every copy is $17.76.

I love that. America, don't give up.com.org. What is it? America, don't give up.com.

$17.76. I absolutely love it. And I hope you were blessed by this young man's story today. Go out and support him, pray for him and look forward to the future, his future. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of The Man Up Show. Go out today and you live a God-filled, God-blessed life and go out and make a difference. This podcast is made possible by the grace of God and your faithful prayers, support and generous gifts.

May God bless you for your continual contributions. Go to kolof.net and donate today. If you are enjoying The Man Up Show, would you help us spread the word? Tell your family, tell your friends, tell your neighbors to download, subscribe and leave a comment. Ah, Nikita Koloff.

Be sure to check out The Man Up Show, now available on television, broadcast and podcast. Go to MorningStarTV.com or The Truth Radio Network. Check out your local listings or better yet, download The Truth Network app today. Nikita Koloff here.

If you're needing to buy a car and have marginal credit and considering using buy here, pay here, that's worse than taking the Russian sickle. Winston-Salem motor cars will put you behind the wheel of a car you can rely on while helping rebuild, repair or establish your credit score. Conveniently located on Silas Creek Parkway in Winston-Salem. Be sure to check them out today at wsmc1.com because you are number one. This is the Truth Network.