Letter To The American Church with Eric Metaxas - Part 1

00:00 - Announcer (Announcement)
Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture.

00:09 - Jack Hibbs (Host)
I think it's very clear in archaeology, sociology, just psychology and of course, theology that all men I say that men and women, mankind, believe in something. There is no true atheism. It's impossible. Everyone believes in something. Many might pride themselves tonight in saying well, you silly little Christians, I'm an atheist. That's your religion. Everyone's got a religion and you're going to live it out if you really believe it.

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01:10 - Jack Hibbs (Host)
So, eric, if somebody's watching right now or somebody's here right now, they're thinking you graduated from Yale. You should know that there's a separation of church and state. What would you say to somebody who would say well, the church needs to stay in its box Right.

01:21 - Eric Metaxas (Guest)
We got to be real clear. The idea of the separate church and state was put in place by the founders of this nation to keep the government, to keep the state out of the church's business. Now, that's not my opinion, that's not your opinion, it's not my opinion. This is what every single one of the founders understood that you cannot have real freedom, you cannot have a people who govern themselves, unless they are free to believe as they like, whether they like.

01:53
If you want to be an atheist, you want to be a Buddhist, you want to be Christian, whatever, the government has zero right to bother you about that, any more than they can tell you what car you need to drive or whatever it was the government has, according to our founding documents, according to the founding vision of this nation, it must keep away from those issues and allow the people themselves to decide. So every other country that we had fled from Europe, they had no separation church and state. If you go to that, if you're part of that country or whatever, everybody goes to that church or everybody goes to that church or you see this, or everybody goes to is Muslim, or everybody is atheist.

02:40
If you're North Korea or everybody America, they said we're going to have religious liberty and they understood that that undergirds all of our liberties. They knew this. This is like math, this is not opinions, folks. This is the key. Like you cannot have American style liberty and self-government unless you have actual liberty, particularly with regard to religious liberty, that the government cannot tell you what to think, cannot tell you what to believe, and it definitely cannot get involved in your whether you go to church or how you go to church or where you go to church. This is utterly, utterly foundational. But at the same time, all of the founders understood if most people don't have some religious faith, we can't force it, but if they don't have it, we're not going to have virtue, we're not going to have people who can govern themselves. So there's like a conundrum at the heart. Of the founders said religious freedom is sacred. We're going to have religious freedom. We're not going to tell people they need to believe in God. We're not going to tell people they need to go to church. We have no business doing that. But if they don't do it on their own, they're going to have to believe in God, our liberties will evaporate. So this was this risk that's it's at the heart of all liberty and we always knew that as a people, right, we knew that as Americans, that nobody's gonna force you to go to church. But we believe in God, we respect God. We have presidents like Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln and every single president. They understood this is the foundation. We can't force it on anybody. But without this we're not America. This is what makes us free.

04:21
So that kind of shifted in the 60s and you get a lot of people misunderstanding this, like willfully, basically, and basically saying oh, separation of church and state, that means we've got to remove any religious stuff out of the culture. And it doesn't say separation of church and culture, it's a separation of church and state. In other words, the government cannot officially establish a religion. You all need to go to this church or everybody in this state needs to go to that church, whatever. But somehow Richard John Newhouse wrote a book in 1984 called the Naked Public Square. Talking about that, we're trying to strip the public square of any trappings of religion, which is the opposite of what the founders wanted.

05:02
The founders knew that if we don't have a lot of religious people in this country, we're not gonna have freedom. So all of the founders understood this, but roughly since the 60s, a lot of our cultural elites have turned it around and made it sound as though we've got to take God out, and they are undeniably wrong. These ideas have come into the church, where people in the church think well, I can have my private faith or I can have my faith in my church, and we need to understand like no, no, no, no, no, that's not what the Bible says and that's not what our founding documents say. Our founding documents say if you have a faith, you can exercise it freely. You cannot be prohibited from exercising your faith anywhere you go and, by the way, god gave you your faith to take it with you out of the church building and into every sphere in the culture.

06:03
That's the point of your going to church is you learn stuff and you take it out and you apply it out there.

06:10 - Jack Hibbs (Host)
I think it's very clear in archeology, sociology, just psychology and, of course, theology that all men I say that men and women, mankind, believe in something. There is no true atheism. It's impossible. Everyone believes in something. Somebody might pride themselves tonight and saying well, you silly little Christians, I'm an atheist, that's your religion, Everyone's got a religion and you're gonna live it out if you really believe it.

06:40
So we look around the world right now, and the world is doing tonight, today, what it is supposed to do when it believes what it believes apart from God. They are very committed evangelists, are they not? They're evangelizing your children right now in school. They're evangelizing you through the LA Dodgers. They're evangelizing you through Target. They're evangelizing you through Kohl's, the media, commercials, constantly. The pulpits of their belief system is bold and it's vibrant and it's, you know, in the words of, again, Gavin Newsom, it's coming, if you like it or not.

07:21
Well, imagine if we stood up and said here's the gospel. What's amazing to me is our gospel invites you. The gospel of God. I shouldn't say our gospel is that we follow his gospel, which invites you to experience forgiveness, invite you to have your sins forgiven and invite you to have eternal life. It's an invitation. It's not tyrannical Right now. If you say something about gender to government, to Biden, to Trump, to whatever it might be, whatever the thing is, fireworks go off. Christianity invites you to know God. Our founding fathers, Eric pointed this out. It's brilliant when you study these guys and read their own mail. I really recommend get books that have been written by them. You can do that. Do it. Why not just go straight to their mailbox and read it? When you read what they believed, and even those that we would say, well, we don't know if they're evangelicals, Listen, even those who we would say are not our flavor still said that the best thing for America is for people to obey God.

08:31 - Eric Metaxas (Guest)
Every single one of them this is incredible, the ones that we think of as somehow enlightenment rationalist, like ungodly, whatever, total baloney. Every single one of them Benjamin Franklin, at the top of the list knew that if people believe in the God of the Bible, they are going to be able to govern themselves and have liberty. They knew, like it's math, there's no way you can get real liberty, real freedom, real self-government, unless people have faith. Every one of them didn't just believe it, but encouraged it. Franklin encouraged it.

09:11
So this is part of the warp and woof of what it is to be American, whether you like it or not. Now again, you can't force people, and our laws are never supposed to force. You can't force people to believe, but the fact of the matter is that the founders understood that without this you can't have America, and so the reason we have drifted to where we are now this is a part from the church's silence, okay, but I'm saying the reason we've drifted is because, as you take God out, what is replaced is satanic. There's no neutral. We've been fooled into thinking well, neutral, secular is neutral, but if you really look at it, you cannot be neutral.

09:53
Listen, if you don't believe in the Bible. Let's say, you just say oh, I just believe in science, I just believe in evolution. Okay, then you tell me why is racism wrong Based on science? Now people go what do you mean? What do you mean? Of course it's wrong. Yes, it's wrong. Tell me why. If you are a Bible believing Christian, you know it's wrong. Because everywhere in the Bible it says God's no respecter of persons, he loves us equally. In other words, it's a biblical idea that we're all equal, but science tells us, while we've evolved, some people might be more evolved than others. And the eugenics movement in this country, which the Nazis borrowed from Margaret's-.

10:37
When they wanted to kill Jews, they borrowed it. Margaret sang, the eugenics movement. They said this is science. Science says that some groups are more evolved than others. So when you take God out, you can't even say racism is wrong. But notice that people aren't talking about that. They kind of act like what are you talking about? Critical race theory. Critical race theory is founded on its cultural Marxism.

11:02
It's absolutely and it's total gobbledygook and it's ultimately racist. It has no basis even on which to say race is wrong. So we're living in a time where we need to know what we believe and we need to live out our faith and we need to tell people the truth that, apart from the God of the Bible, we don't have the possibility of freedom, we don't have the possibility of eradicating racism or any bad thing. And so the church, rather than be bold, we've kind of, as I say, we've retreated and retreated and we've been silent in the face of evil, because we bought the lie. And you think, where does that come? That's not even a biblical idea. What are you talking about?

11:44
If slavery is on the docket and you're voting, would you say well, I don't want to take up from my pulpit, I don't want to lose my 501c3 status, so I'm not going to take a position on slavery. If you don't take a position on slavery, you're a pig. How? What kind of Christian would you be if you would not say that is evil from the pit of hell? Right, and it was Christians who led the battle for abolition of the slave trade, who led the battle of abolition of slavery. It was Christians who led all those battles because they knew from the word of God this is wrong and we're living in a time when people don't want to talk about that and then they want to say well, we don't think you should be political in churches.

12:25
Listen, folks, if we don't live out our faith in every sphere, including the political, satanic values replace it, and that is what is happening now. It is only when the church lives out its faith and understands that it is our duty before God to live out our faith in every single sphere and to push back hard against the evil that is all around us, against the bad ideas that are all around us. Why do we push back? We push back because God commands us to love our neighbor, and if you love your neighbor, you will advocate for the truth. You will speak out against the transgender madness, because lives are being destroyed and God holds you responsible as the church. You need to speak up against that. They're parents, that they don't know what to think. They don't know what to do. The church needs to be a strong voice. I mean, I thought of this earlier this morning. What could be possibly clearer? Then? He made us male and female in his Image we're the image bearers of God.

13:25 - Jack Hibbs (Host)
The Bible tells us that God has stamped, he's placed eternity in your hearts. That's why atheists struggle at night when they lay their head down at night. Look, christian, you lay your head down at night and you fall asleep. And atheists lays down at night and says, man, I hope God's not real. I hope he's not real because listen, though, he's going up against the witness of the Holy Spirit. For one thing, who's like knocking on his head, saying I'm here, I can hear you, but that's a tough way to live.

13:50
But the the fact of the matter is that we who believe in God it's funny, what drives us, I guess, to be such a problem to an unbelieving culture now is that we, we actually love them. We love the people that hate us, which is a miracle. Come on, let's be honest. We weren't always Christians. You remember? I remember when I wasn't a Christian. I Hurt people. That hated me seems normal to me. Then I became a Christian and the big shock to me was I started loving people that I couldn't stand.

14:23
And it's like what is going on here, and that's just God taking over your life, something or someone's going to take over your life and we will risk our own safety For our enemy to hear the gospel, not to bend their arm into heaven. Thus there's no state church. Thus there's no man mandatory belief. This is not Islam. Believe or your head comes off. What kind of a deal is that? God is so amazing, the God of the Bible, that he invites you to make a willful decision to love him, because he's a real personality. If somebody puts a gun to your head and says we're gonna have sex right now because I've got a gun to your head, that's not love. Or if somebody says, I'm gonna control you for my gratification, that's not love. That's animalistic, animalistic tyranny. God invites you, and here we are in a culture right now. They hate us.

15:27
Like it was said of George Whitfield. It said that he loved the world that hated him, and George Whitfield's greatest passion was that people would be saved. And so we wanna announce to the world the gospel, but Satan doesn't want that to be said. And so the silencing, the canceling and all these kinds of things going on. But, eric, what would you say to this when I? I thought, when I was reading Roosevelt there, that I could just see if this was like a Facebook post and people are commenting oh my goodness, there they go. Nash, what's it called Christian?

16:07 - Announcer (Announcement)
nationalism.

16:08 - Jack Hibbs (Host)
Christian nationalism. You know it's so because people are saying that like a parrot and they don't even know what they're talking about.

16:14 - Eric Metaxas (Guest)
First of all, anytime anybody uses the phrase Christian nationalism like, laugh in their face and walk away quick, because it's like somebody says I think you're racist or I think they're using a term designed specifically to shut you up. They do not, they're not interested in what you have to say, so they're using this as a cudgel just to beat you into silence. And you need to Christians, you know. It says be wise as serpents. It doesn't say be wise as doves. Did you know that? But we sometimes allow the enemies of God to play games with us and we answer fools according to their folly. We cast our pearls before swine. Our time and our energy is God's time and energy and you should never argue with somebody who is not interested in the truth. Walk away, because pray for them, but don't argue with somebody who simply wants to shut you up. And right now, a lot of Christians think that, like there's one Christian value, it's being nice, and I have to tell you that that's not a biblical value.

17:21
Folks, sometimes speaking the truth is what God is calling us to do, and when we don't do it, when lies are being promoted in the culture and we are silent, the Lord is holding us accountable because we are to be voice for the voiceless. So, whatever you're talking about, whatever issue there is, and we say, well, I don't wanna be divisive Folks, god does not call us not to be divisive Now, he doesn't call us to be divisive. But the point is it shouldn't be whether you're divisive or not divisive. There are people outside this building, there are people out in the world who don't know God, who are depending on those of us who know the truth to advocate for the truth, to advocate for the truth in the public square, to make noise.

18:10
When people are lying, when there is corruption, I don't care what the issue is. You pick the most controversial issue Election fraud, vaccine mandates and others. That doesn't even matter what you think about that. The point is, when somebody tells you you can't talk about that, you say excuse me. Excuse me, I'm a Christian, I could talk about anything I want because I don't even fear death. Number one Now a lot in the church are being shamed by non-Christians who are saying I can say whatever I want because I'm an American. Patriots died so that I can talk about whatever I want, I don't need anybody's permission because I'm an American. These things are enshrined in our founding documents.

18:53 - Jack Hibbs (Host)
But the church has been complicit in its own silencing, in its own marginalization, right now, today we have people in church life who'll say Eric, jack, just come down because God is sovereign and you know, I'm just gonna trust in the Lord. Listen when you. Of course God is sovereign, but you shouldn't say that the way that you mean it, because it's actually here a sin?

19:20 - Eric Metaxas (Guest)
Well, it's actually. It's a call to inaction, right?

19:24 - Announcer (Announcement)
Yes, it says do nothing. It's false doctrine.

19:26 - Eric Metaxas (Guest)
Because God is sovereign, you can wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Like I mean, you know, george Washington, when he was fighting, kind of knew in the natural that they would not succeed in the natural, that's right. But if the Lord was with them, that if they really thought they might have the victory, Isn't that amazing. So they fought Because they thought if God wants us to win, we will fight and the Lord will do what the Lord's going to do. To counsel someone like God is sovereign. Therefore, george Washington, sit down. We would never have this nation. And there are many voices in the church today saying just don't do anything or you know what it's already lost. So just don't do anything, don't bother, don't bother. If you don't bother, you're helping it be lost. God calls us to fight until he decides when the battle is over. This, jack.

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