A Conversation with Jim Caviezel

[Music] hi i'm megan west with my faith votes thanks so much for joining us today i'm extremely honored to bring this conversation to you with jim caviezel you may know him as portraying jesus in the passion of the christ he's been on tv person of interest he's an actor director and he has a new movie coming out called infidel so please welcome jim caviezel jim it's great to see you thanks for joining us today i have seen the trailer for this movie it looks so good but it's extremely intense um because it's about a really difficult subject about christian persecution in the middle east tell us a little bit about infidel and why you're stepping into this role and what that message is well it was the best uh screenplay available um the director i i worked with him on a movie called the stonius psaria m about 15 years ago and then steve mcaveedy who produced the passion asked me to do that and so i became very familiar with iran iranian culture and the persecutions that that go on over there with the islamic regime and he uh approached me again about a smaller role i have a another film that it's coming out uh soon uh on the um the uh trafficking of children and so that i i just got off that he hand me the script and then i i looked at it and i said boy i could i could probably i should probably do this and we talked about it um and really it's essentially um short sweet stories you have a uh evangelical a theologian at a university married to a you know a wonderful lady but a secular woman loves him regardless of his beliefs but he felt called to obviously be with her and she is very important to this story because he goes to saudi arabia is invited to speak on the uh on theology on christianity yeah in the conversation going back and forth and this is all on uh islamic tv um he pivots the the man interviewing my character and he says that yes we see jesus like you he's a prophet and that's where my character doug has to make a decision and it's one that it has huge um effects that would go back to the times of biblical times where now he needs to deny his faith uh or die and so um he uh i won't tell you that what ends up happening but it's it's uh quite an interesting story because of his um he uh is persecuted heavily and tortured heavily by hezbollah and has this long conversation back and forth um with the uh his persecutor um um and and and and and ultimately is will this guy in the 21st century can he lay his life down for for jesus and many christians today and are especially in our our um our country we have a lot of uh creature comforts right so we we don't ever think that that could take place but um you mentioned something earlier about you know um abortion um and right now you know the inalienable rights the life liberty and the pursuit of happiness well what is happiness you know to that we can pray and and and we are um that right has been taken from us you see we can't go into the church and pray we see people getting on airplanes and we say okay what does that take root over our faith in jesus you know do can we put you know i'd rather drive across the country than be forbidden to go into a church and pray and this is part of our inalienable rights and why are pastors why are and some are um in fact uh the the gentleman that is uh here in southern california made a ruckus about that um well there's been a few john macarthur for one partner here i'm a roman catholic and you know i'm sure he has his view of us but i would say he's closer to a roman catholic in my opinion over all of our bishops who haven't spoke out and have allowed our statues of christ of our of great saints to be ripped down and nothing absolutely nothing so my bishop i made some statement that that's up to the laity well fine and then i'll i'll leave from behind but i think that jesus if the pastor or a priest and you can't tell the difference between a politician and a priest that is a sad day um look the the gospels are what they are um it was hell to uh play jesus i loved being i didn't play him i couldn't have done it in that kind of level he played me he came into my heart and uh i was never the same i never felt worthy of it yet i came back to my industry and i was put point blank you know on the human side i was pretty pissed off at where were a lot of people that you know allowed that movie to be ransacked here in our industry there was not a voice so you know this is being a christian unlike and i go back to my character in this movie you know why would you be so stupid to go to the middle east and his wife would make comments like that because obviously she didn't understand but she did an incredible thing she went at the risk of her own life to to try to save her husband and and we just know we didn't you know pull these stories out of thin air you know cyrus norris that who um who um directed this and wrote it you know he is from iran and he understands he grew up there he understands the persecutions like no other and his parents do and his family is muslim but he is a convert and he converted because his wife had this extraordinary level level of magnetism from heaven that um he couldn't continue to go in that direction any longer but i think that is what they're threatened of the islamic regime is afraid of that truth you see and when you have ideology here um that that that stands in the way like this liberal learning uh group that now says well there's certain types of hate speech well you understand now that we fall under hate speech but we're in that place now where the gospel of jesus christ is going to be centered uh uh removed and when you look at a way of life right if christians in this country continue to not say anything continue to think for some way they think this is a holy way to go but if if they want to continue to remain silent then when you look at a way of life christian culture will no longer be a part of that it will be something else well and it's interesting because but yet that's starting to happen here in the united states and i don't think christians understand the severity of how quickly that can be taken away so speak to what you saw happening in the middle east and how you know there's a cost for following christ and like you said we're becoming so comfortable here do we really understand what that cost is when we came into our hotel just to paint a picture you have a place where first of all i have security in the front and in the back i have guys all of my guys are carrying heavy guns when you go into the building there is a place where a wall comes up steel walls so you can't drive a truck up and blow it up and kill people inside now why would they have that that's ridiculous well no it's actually not because there were over 60 people killed in the lobby when a guy walked up got himself an ice cream cone sat down and detonated a bomb on his chest so this is what we're uh living at but looking at but this film is not an anti uh muslim film um actually it is that there are actually heroes in this character that are um that are muslims that actually stand up for christians in this uh movie so i and i i was looking at some of my notes when cyrus my director talked to me he said this right from the get-go says i don't want you to be concerned with offending muslims and i was laughing because here is a former muslim and his family is right there a muslim it was very callous the way he said it and i know that sounds callous at first glance but he said but while the rest of the world panders to extremist muslims the real victims are muslims the ones who aren't extreme the ones who want peace they are the people group most oppressed by islamic regimes such as iran he said to me you're not harming muslims by taking a stand against radicals you're helping them and again you were mentioning about christians they have to start waking up and and getting to that that level he also um well go ahead and you ask questions sometimes i well actually but we talk so much about christian persecution but i think we forget that there's a massive christian underground in the middle east particularly in iran where christianity is growing leaps and bounds we don't hear about that did you discover that as you were filming this movie oh my gosh i thought even more profound um was the amount of guys that i worked with because they knew i played jesus they saw that film and then it unearthed them you know you think about you're you're absolutely pulled out of your roots that there's something far greater um than muhammad and that jesus you see so you have muhammad here and then you have jesus down here yeah jesus is here and so we have jesus way above who we obviously say is is god almighty the father the son the holy spirit the holy trinity and so we are um but um we are in awe of of who he is and um and i explained that to them and they had the utmost respect of the passion because um what we claimed in front of the world that he isn't just some uh do good or guy you know like you see the movie the last temptation of christ you know jesus and i was asked questions about that and i said but we didn't make that film that movie is saying and why it's offensive to christians is because you're saying that our god was tempted to attempted to sin that you're saying oh he didn't sin no but i'm telling you my god was never tempted to sin and that's hard for you to hear that but he allowed himself to be tempted in all ways his flesh under undertook the tortures of satan the luciferians everything they could throw at him and he took it because love was so much more powerful and that's what they're drawn to they were raised you know many of them you know believe this or die if if you have a woman right now i i was we were we went took a trip over to um um the one of the areas and there was a the war had been quiet at this point and they said uh i said if um you're a man okay and you grew up in a family and you convert to you're a muslim and you convert to the christian faith uh would you be killed for that and he said you would if it was war but we're in peace time now but if it's a girl she would be killed wow just the way they said it was just like you know not a big deal yeah and this film also you know goes into um you know a father if his daughter converts like that they he would kill her um and it would be great if we didn't have to raise awareness on topics like that but those those things still go on today there was just one in july where a dad chased down his own daughter and beat her to death and drank tea next to her corpse while waiting for authorities to arrive now we can't even fathom this kind of evil but if we want to stop it it is necessary to call it out and show it for what it is and that's what we do in infidel well it's fascinating well i know that some of our audience will would want to know a little bit more about just relating back to the passion of the christ it's been 16 years since that came out and obviously you referred to that still has a massive impact on people's lives and what are you seeing personally just as that role still carries such weight even today 16 years later and the impact that it's had on you personally i did this film a few years before the passion called frequency the man that played my father in it was dennis quaid and after the after we had done we knew we we had done a a really good film this was the second film that dennis and i worked on i met him during a movie called um wide herb and it was the early days of of being in this business and you don't know how long it's going to last you he said to me okay i'm going to give you my one advice to you he says never play superman wow what was extraordinary i went in made the movie the passion the film came out and it was uh it was one of the wonderful experiences i've ever gone through and definitely one of the worst experiences i've ever been through and um so i was in the khan film festival and it was very unpleasant as you can imagine that would be the secular capital of the industry during the summer months and i went there and i ran into dennis quaid and uh he saw me and he he saw how we would say back in the old day you know i kind of had my dapper down um it was uh i you know i never really talked about it much and then carrie my wife was with me and he says yeah i'm not gonna tell you i saw the film and he says if you never do another thing in this industry that's it he says you did something so you know um i went to the academy awards one during that time i wasn't i i wasn't invited or anything like that but we were the biggest film at the time in that year and one of the biggest in the world history and it was just an independent film you know and i was watching the uh the uh people surrounding walk in the wife watching the people who just won the academy award for best actor and best actors and best director and they were all around them but where god gives me eyes to see is i looked in the crowd and i could see last year's winners sitting on the sideline you know how quick glory just vanishes you know so it's really not worth um what we have waiting for us in heaven you know yeah absolutely this is don't make don't make this your heaven um my friend she uh she and she said make sure you tell them that and i said well this is too loud [Music] for a bit of a thunderstorm coming through here oh i thought that was my father speaking sorry he is you have to hold on to your convictions regardless of what and how much they offer all money all money isn't good some fame is infamous well part of my grammar infamous yeah well as we just talk a little bit about this movie and then as we talk about the context of where christians are in this country right now obviously we're coming up on a critical election season and really putting in perspective that we can use this as a way to put our faith in action especially in the context of looking at the events around the world and seeing that we have the opportunity here in the united states to act on our freedom and to be able to vote and we can extend that religious freedom for as much as we can in the voting booth even though yes this is our earthly realm and we you know have a kingdom that we're going to be with christ one day and but we've been given the task of being faithful to what he's given us here on this earth what would you say to people to take the responsibility as christians to live out their faith through the voting group but also just every day as we just need to be that light that um that example of christ living through us in a culture that is so divided that is so desperate for hope i'll start with the film and i'll work my way around to that yeah that was a long question so i understand let's talk about this film where here you have um we're trying to bridge the gaps between muslims and christians in this film this is how it begins why is he there because he believes he has an ideal in his heart that means something that he could write a guy a letter and it would mean nothing something in him knew that if he went to this country and he spoke the truth that maybe they would find christ but maybe something in his heart was maybe i gotta go there and maybe i got to die to make a point and there this has happened before right yeah um when we look at the 21 christian martyrs slaughtered by isis on the beaches of libya those people those christians understood what was about to happen to them and they had every chance to not to deny jesus christ but they didn't they put their love of jesus christ above even their own lives my character does the same thing he is willing to give up his life experience the same fate because he understands that our lord died for him and he takes it to heart and when you have the heart you have everything none of these things of this world mean anything anymore we continue to in this culture with all of these and i'm pardon my language there's no perfect word than saying all of these pastors and bishops that are full and i say and and i would throw them out of the temple because many of their modern day pharisees in my opinion they're as lukewarm as our lord speaks about but you can't bridge these gaps today between muslims and christians by pretending that we're something we're not by not being true to ourselves and to our beliefs when we all pretend that's a fake peace when we all pretend that's a fake respect and that solves nothing if we were at war and we should be at war we should be at war with secular extremists now this is a war that needs to be fought and must be won no one has ever rode to victory on the back of fake moral platitudes we have to speak the truth boldly and now when you go into voting it's not a big deal to you okay my character gets electrocuted gets straight to all the things that they do in fact i'm sure when they watch the islamic regimes watch this they'll know that we did our homework on how they torture people it's not a big issue to you well i gotta say that democracy is basically an experiment that is lasted less or just over 200 years and what we're about to experience is something like a group of peop god's chosen people did during the times of pharaoh god had a plan for them nope so they got themselves end up with a king named pharaoh and under that world they lived under huge slavery and they were tortured and they were murdered and that's just the way it goes and they killed the babies during that time as well yeah and during the time of roman empire they again slavery again this is most of the time you'll wish that you aren't even alive you will wish you never even know what democracy was this christian way of living will soon be gone i mean we will be around forever because we know that jesus is coming and that you know but we're talking about massive massive persecutions and i i make a bold statement on this because if you can kill the babies during the time of pharaoh and you can kill the time during the time of rome okay and killing those babies and you try to snuff out the voice of moses and then you try to snuff out the voice of jesus during the time of rome well now we are murdering children on a level that is unprecedented not even close what those two uh places did in rome and pharaoh in egypt nothing close to what we're doing now and i just don't want to be a part of god's wrath when that time does come i will feel a part of it but i want to be on his side so um the last thing i'll say about it is first you said the first trimester then the second then the third and of course it's only the first trimester but all you got to say that a mother's psychology has to be a little off she can do it in any three stage and then you said partial birth abortion and now you're saying she can kill it when it's born well that's not true oh okay well let's look up virginia let's look up cuomo in new york yes you can kill a woman can kill her live born baby now this is luciferian and this is enough when i come after the church leaders for sitting back and doing nothing when you again i said this before when you cannot tell the difference between a politician and a priest that's a sad day many of us right now in this world we i got to play jesus in the passion of the christ you know but who would you say one of my favorite saints i'd say probably peter james i'd say uh saint paul i'd say i'm very very close with those guys i'd say luke after i got to be play him in the film some people would say that they loved mary or elizabeth some would you know talk about john the baptist we all get to play a different character in scripture scripture is not a history book where it it was just like this is what happened during the third right this is what happened during who joseph goebbels was under um hitler and all of that that's a history lesson but the the word of god is a is is a uh ins when i read it i i pray before i read it because i'm i'm i'm elevated outside my own sin and i'm able to see the things not the way i want to see the world but how god sees the world how he sees me and that's where i know that if i can't live in that truth then i'm going to be absolutely miserable and no amount of money no power no things are going to make me happy and it's sad because so many people today that they are more concerned about how many people are following them now look i'm not bashing technology but really where what what happened to prayer yeah where what happened to prayer in the family right you know and and you see during this time where all of these bishops and priests and and and pastors and hierarchy of the church have said nothing absolutely nothing and all of these suicides are happening i had a friend of mine who's a navy seal he's lost seven brothers seven guys they couldn't go to church we need the church we need to keep it essential and we need to see that yes there's a cost following christ but my goodness we cannot be silent and it's part of the reason why my faith votes was formed is because we saw the silent christians sitting on the sidelines not being active in what we can do but we need to be living on our faith every day and what happens when we live out our faith well we become emboldened when we see others absolutely absolutely i know the resurrection is coming the film and i know because i feel it here i feel it here and this this is my body it's my temple i'm a sinner and one of the things i bugged the hell out of me is i should be better than i was maybe i am maybe i've made increments but when i sin it hurts and thank god it still does because so many people and i mean they're walking around um that that are you know all about saving their their lives and their things guys when he comes it's gonna be all taken from us and all i know is that when i'm when i'm gone i got nobody else with me i i'm gonna be standing there naked in front of our lord and hopefully he won't say what'd you do for me hopefully it's gonna be him running to me and hugging me and you know and thinking i owe him so much i can't even imagine him thanking me you know but i i do believe this deeply and profoundly is it yes i know god loves me but dog god we gotta love him yeah he deserves to be loved and how i love him you know and i and i talk to people and they say well you know you don't have to do these things for for jesus and i said well who's going to do you want a leader do you do would you want someone like ronald reagan to sit around and uh you know say get someone else i'm a hollywood actor how about donald trump he didn't he had a nice show going for him for about nine years well he's doing it for money really wasn't he making more money just having his trump palace obviously something's entered into him where he realizes he's not getting any younger neither am i i i did the passion i had my shoulder ripped out i had a prayer when i was up there i said uh i'd asked jesus to come into me and that the world wouldn't see me that he won't see him and at one point he asked me am i too close and i gotta tell you i i said if you're asking me that you're not close enough so well jim my life is you know this idea of people saying you know well jesus did that jesus did that i said god when is it a point where god's gonna look to each one of us and say why didn't you do this well you did that you paid that price you died for our sins why do i have to do that i'm called to resurrection i'm called to you know happy jesus stuff no this is when i was a boy i would go and i would watch movies just like any other never knowing what was going to happen with me i would go to movies i saw ben hur it was profoundly moved by charlton heston i was profoundly moved by the movie the robe and i and i i saw these movies on the big screen and and small and i just watched hours and hours of of any kind of film footage or tv and whatnot not knowing where i was going to go and now i'm playing you know a character who's here he is suffering for his faith and uh also i have read this scripture where those people suffered for the faith watching characters in the movies suffering for their faith and yet they kept going on and the challenge to me from god is it's like you know this is all when i was a boy but yes jim now you you have a purpose but i'm not asking you as a boy now i'm asking you as a man as a man and so many young men now they're not even men you see because in order to be called a men you have to accept responsibility but you won't accept responsibility so you're you go from a boy to a guy you're a guy because because you don't have any responsibility with a child losing abortion or not accepting responsibility for the baby or anything not or as a husband that you're you you don't like responsibility i i see a lot of 60 70 year old guys now sad um do i pray for them yes but uh pastors priests say well jim don't you judge and i say oh yeah well that's about the biggest sin in the world right now isn't it i said very clearly jesus talks about holding our brothers and sisters accountable and you will not let me do that why why won't you do that i've always used my better judgment and maybe that's just the problem that you don't want to go deeper and deeper to what he's asking clearly there's many places in scripture where he talks about when we die and he will turn to me and say why didn't you where were you when your brother was here well i didn't want to judge him yeah it's a culture that we've got to get back to scripture and know the word of god because that's how we need to live what this character an infidel understands so this is the separation between heart and head that maybe god when he first asked him and he was so turned on about the word of god i mean really turned on in a way where something touched him so deeply and and so he wanted to to to witness the truth to people and to his students but then god's asking them something deeper like go to them go to saudi arabia now his wife would probably say to him you know because she's protecting him that's nuts in this culture in cancel culture you are going to go over and do this that's asinine if the scene is set for you to go there you will die because you will not have uh help here in the united states now this is not like the 70s when we had asked hostages in iran and many of them were christian and they were taken hostage but our media did a good thing they kept them out there every day in the papers put a lot of pressure on our politicians and so but was a different time back then now he would go and he would probably die and yet his heart was on fire for our lord i think that that was why i wanted to do this film because i saw a man standing up like me for his faith and maybe maybe maybe no one else will but the fact is is that i know our lord deserves to be loved and uh and come hell or high water i'm gonna do it and i'll tell you when i looked at those 21 christians that were martyred that god they knew they were going to die but they refused refused to deny jesus christ wouldn't do it they had every chance to do it i mean even the point where they're holding their hair and their hands and they're saying deny him no you will take allah no wouldn't do it yeah and that was it and i i saw saint paul i i i saw peter i saw the rest of the apostles and i said why not you're now you know we have video and television and what you could do with that technology i mean more than just you know pornography and and uh using uh i've seen secularism um going down the wrong way and and uh being provocative but we can provoke on ways i mean just one guy can provoke and be provocative and you know when we do the resurrection when you go see infidel your heart's going to get on fire and that's that's a better f word than what they use right well may that be the prayer of our heart that we just turn towards god and that that's who we choose to serve and seek and not ourselves and that's so counter-cultural but that's where we're living today and we've got to be in the word and we've got to be living for christ in all things um because that's what the world is desperately waiting for so jim we just appreciate your time gosh we appreciate them can i say one thing absolutely i i recently uh some my friend asked me if if if i was interested in um ronald reagan and if that was possible to do it and uh i you know i started researching him and it's fascinating i don't know if you knew but he had this book that he came out with on abortion and and how against it he was and and he actually released the book before um his second election and that he would he possibly lose if this book came out and he he had believed that god had saved his life from the assassin that almost took his life he almost died but he believed he needed to do this for god no matter what didn't matter he wasn't a politician yet he didn't stick his finger in his mouth and see where the wind blew because you have to understand is that ronald reagan was the one that brought in abortion in the state of california and he deeply deeply regretted it to make amends to god he came out with this book and i started looking up some of his speeches one of them was a rendezvous with destiny and that one touched me so hard that i thought gosh if that was done now why i mean it's the most perfect speech and without changing up maybe a couple words here and there i i wanted to to tell your audience this there's not a man alive who would carelessly send another person's son to war and that is the real issue with this campaign that makes all other problems i've discussed academic unless we realize that we're in a war that must be won those of us who would trade our freedoms for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us that they have a utopian solution of peace without victory they call their policy accommodation and they say if we'll only avoid any direct confrontation with this enemy he'll forget his evil ways and learn to love us all those who oppose them are indicted as warmongers they say we offer simple answers to complex problems and yet they have the nerve to call it choice well perhaps there is a simple answer not an easy answer but a simple one that you and i would have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right ladies and gentlemen we cannot abide our security of one nation under god our freedoms in christ our savior from the threat of the devil any longer by committing an act of immorality so great as saying to millions and millions of little children now caught behind the iron curtain of sex trafficking and abortion give up your dreams of freedom now because in order to save our own skins we're just too willing to make a deal with your slave masters and alexander hamilton said that any nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one now let's set the record straight there's no argument over the choice between peace and war but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace and you can have it in the next second surrender admittedly there's a risk in any course we follow other than this but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement and this is the specter our well-meaning christian liberal friends refuse to face that their policy of accommodation is appeasement and it gives us no choice between peace and war only between fight and surrender if we continue to accommodate continue to back and retreat eventually we will have to face the final demand the final ultimatum and what then when satan has told the people of this world he knows what our answer will be he has told them that we're retreating under the pressure his of his cold war and someday when the time is right to deliver his final ultimatum our surrender will be voluntary because you see by then we will have been so weakened from within spiritually morally economically he believes us because from our side he's heard voices pleading for peace at any price or better red than dead or as one commentator put it he'd rather live on his knees than die in his feet and therein lies the road to war because those voices don't speak for the rest of us you and i know it and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery if nothing in life is worth dying for when did this begin just in the face of this enemy or should moses have told the children of israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs should christ have refused the cross should the patriots at concord ridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard around the world the martyrs of history were not fools and our beloved dead who gave their lives to stop the advance and the nazis did not die in vain where then lies the road to peace you say well it's a simple answer after all that you and i have the courage to tell our enemies that there is a price we will not pay there is a point beyond which evil must not advance and this is the meaning of our lord's scriptures as well to be holy both heart mind body and soul which backs our country's constitution that all men are created equal not born equal winston churchill said that the destiny of man is not measured by material computations when great forces are on the move throughout the world we learn we are spirits not animals and he said there's something going on in time and space and beyond time and space which whether we like it or not spells duty my fellow americans you and i have a rendezvous at destiny we'll preserve for our children this the last best hope of man on earth or will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness we're at war now with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars and it's been said if we lose this war and in so doing lose this great way of freedom of ours history will record with the greatest astonishment that those that had the most to lose did the least to prevent it from happening well i think it's high time now we ask ourselves if we still even know the freedoms that were intended for us for our founding fathers every generation of americans needs to know that freedom exists not to do what you like but having the right to do what you ought my brothers and sisters set yourselves apart from this corrupt generation be saints you are not made to fit in you are born to stand out and in the words of ronald reagan evil is powerless if the good or unafraid god bless you and god bless america amen extremely powerful thank you so much for sharing that not at all oh we appreciate never get i'll never get to do it here anyway in this industry so we will share it loudly and boldly goodness thank you so much we will be praying for you as this movie releases we will be praying for you as you continue to stand horribly for christ and we just thank you for doing that and being an inspiration for us and me personally well to stand firm and not be ashamed of the gospel christ please don't be compelled to have to put that out that was a little long so you don't have no i loved it i absolutely loved it gosh thank you so much have a great evening and again we will just earnestly be praying for you so thank you so much have a good night you

Channel: My Faith Votes

Views: 221,815

Rating: 4.9493513 out of 5

Keywords: my faith votes, mfv, myfaithvotes, christian politics, Jim Caviezel, The Passion of the Christ, Person of Interest, Infidel, Vote, praythinkvote, persecution

Id: luU0TPVkydE

Length: 46min 18sec (2778 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 16 2020