(pleasant music) - Dinner Conversations is
brought to you by ChildFund, a community development organization that has been envisioning a
world where every child is free to live at their fullest potential no matter where they're from or what challenges they face since 1938. - Partner with us and our
good friends at ChildFund to change the world in the life of a child by considering sponsoring a child today. - It really does take so
little to make a difference. - Visit childfund.org/dinnerconversations. - A child is waiting. (pleasant music) Today's guest is Eric Metaxas. Now Eric is an author, a scholar. His book on Martin Luther,
incredible. I love it. And I've read his book on Bonhoeffer, and Bill Gaither is his biggest fan. I'm telling you, I've never seen Bill Gaither be a fan of someone,
but he loves Eric Metaxas, and come to find out, Eric is funny. - Yeah, he's super funny. He
seems like this intellectual, heady type. He's a New
Yorker, he's got cool glasses, he always wears suits, and
he writes about these amazing people in history,
especially in our Christian, spiritual history, but he is super funny. And he talks about in this first segment about a common culture where at one point in time as Americans we had more shared ideals
and so conversation was a little bit easier
because we came to the table already with some common experiences, and that has changed a lot more recently. So we're gonna talk with him some. We're at a special conference. - National Religious
Broadcasters Conference. - Yup, at Opryland
Hotel, here in Nashville, a new location and a fun conversation with our friend Eric Metaxas. - And there's one seat left
at the table, and it's yours. Let's join the conversation. (pleasant music) - And who are you guys again? - I'm Mark Lowry.
- You're Mark. - And I'm Andrew Greer.
- You're Andrew. And you're hosting this show?
- That's right. - And have we started rolling? Are we on? - We're rolling.
- We're rolling? (Andrew laughs) - So you're the world's
greatest authority. - You know what, Professor Irwin Corey, the famous Professor Irwin Corey whom I had the privilege of meeting, he always billed himself as
the world's greatest authority, but he passed away about a year ago and I thought the mantle, I
prayed for a double portion. I am the world's greatest authority now, only because he's no longer with us, so yeah, I'm the world's
greatest authority, generally speaking, generally speaking. - I don't know if you
know who Bill Gaither is. - Um, I think I do. - You mentioned his name
the other day on the show. - You guys think I'm some idiot? - Well, I don't know.
You're from New York. (laughter)
- Oh snap. That hurt. Is this microphone on? - Yeah, yeah.
(Andrew laughs) - Now you are Bill Gaither's hero. And I don't say that
lightly. Let me explain. - Now I'm real confused. - Let me tell you. He reads all your books. - Bill Gaither reads my books,
the 81-year-old Bill Gaither? - Yes, he reads everything
that he can get his hands on. He called me the other day and said, "I just read a great
book on Martin Luther." And I said, "Who wrote it?" "Eric Metaxas." "Oh, that's Bonhoeffer." 'Cause we both have read that. And I said, "I'm gonna
interview him next week." He said, "Can I come?" And he was gonna fly down.
- But he can't make it. - Now you mentioned him on
your show the other day-- - But I always mention him as a punchline. (Andrew laughs)
- What is the joke? - I'm not trying to be
mean, but I'm saying that I'll have like
Supertramp will be playing, or something like that will be playing or Amy Winehouse or something else. I'll say, "Ladies and gentlemen, "as you know, that's the
great Bill Gaither." And I just keep going. And today, we were playing
some music up there, and I said, "Oh, that's just fantastic. "That's the lovely Sandi Patty," and some people in the audience were like, "That's not Sandi Patty." It's like, "No, it was Elton
John. That was a joke." - When I read your
books, I would never know that humor is a major part of who you are. - Not really.
- Well, it seems to be. - Satire humor? - And it also is kind of humor where if someone doesn't get
hurt, it's not that funny. - Whoa. I've just been called mean. - No, but it is... I love that kind of humor 'cause it's like pointing out the truth. - Well, a little bit. I think that some humor has an edge, but you know, here's the thing.
If your humor has an edge, you can still do it in a loving way. There's mean humor. Not all
edgy humor has to be mean. And I think that my love language, I joke around there's
a sixth love language, Don Rickles and I are
the only ones who got it, but the sixth love language
is to make fun of someone in public to express your love. I tease people to express my affection. That's a fact, that's a fact. And I've driven away four wives. (Mark laughs)
That's not true. - I'm starting to get it.
(Andrew laughs) - Yeah, but it's kinda
funny because it is true that that's how I express... I
think I got that from my mom. My mom was always joking
around and teasing and stuff. It's a way of expressing
affection. It's what I do. And the older you get,
the more you feel free to speak your mind in a way. And I think there's a joy in that, but again, you wanna do it in such a way that you're not really... I
mean, if you can serve God with sarcasm, then it's good sarcasm. But if you're not serving
God with the sarcasm, you need to cut out the sarcasm. - Is there ever a rub? A New Yorker in an evangelical world, like
those don't go together for me. - Well, theoretically they don't, but I think that's part of the problem. That's kind of my raison
d'être. My life's calling is to be who God made me to be where I am, and I think that the Lord is
the one that sent me to Yale and gave me the credentials
that I could fool people into thinking I'm
some kind of intellectual or whatever. It's the glasses. And the point is that we, believers, have been underrepresented dramatically in the world of the secular elites, and that has caused a very
bizarre skewing in the culture. In other words, if you watch
TV or movies, whatever, you get the idea that anybody with a brain is sure that God didn't
exist and we evolved out of the primordial
soup by random mutations and there's no meaning to life. Now nobody actually drills down into what that means,
but they just act like yeah, all the smart people know that, and all those jugheads
who believe in Jesus and all that crazy stuff, we
just don't talk about them. And the fact of the matter is that the greatest people I've
ever known intellectually, emotionally in terms of
humor have been people who have a full-throated Christian faith, so I thought how come the
world doesn't portray that, so part of what I wanna do with my life is to tell people, "Hey, there
are a lot of extraordinary "human beings that you
would admire on every level "who believe Jesus rose from the dead, "was born of a virgin, did these miracles, "walked on water, and
they're bright people "who understand that you
know, maybe this sounds odd, "but it actually happened," I mean, that's part of my who I am. - Let me ask you. I'm sorry,
I'm spilling me water. - Is this prop food? - No, you can eat it. - Oh, like I'm gonna eat it
on camera, Oh sure, yeah. - That's all we do, that's right. - Now, do you think the divide I'm seeing in Christians even over politics... When I was growing up my
grandmother, who was a Republican, took my grandfather, who was a
Democrat, to the voting booth. They'd vote each other
out and then come home. What has changed? Why can't we have a civil discussion any more? I used to get Jerry
Falwell's Christmas card and Tony Campolo's Christmas card. I'd set 'em side by side. - Well, now hold on because Tony Campolo, if he's your representative
of the hard left, there's your answer. Tony Campolo, you might disagree with him, but you don't think of
him as a screeching ninny. You think of him as somebody
who has some points to be made. - And he's in love with Jesus. - And who actually loves Jesus. But to be fair, Tony Campolo did not take positions that I would say,
"That's insane, that's unbiblical." I mean, maybe more recently
he's taken some that I would quibble with, but
you cannot compare him to some of the voices
that are out there today. - So you see a difference
in the current climate? - I see several differences, I mean, I see several differences. I think that there was, first of all, we had a common culture. We had a culture where
we had more in common than we do now, and what we had in common enabled us to have our
differences with civility. Something has happened.
It's been accelerated, you could say by the internet, that has made that less possible. I wrote a book called "If You Can Keep It," which is all about America, and in it I tried to stress what does it mean to be an American for all Americans. If we can all focus on
that, it really will change the things that we differ about. - Can we do that? I
mean, that kind of unity? - Well look, I don't think... There are always gonna be
insane, angry people. - On both sides. - On both sides, and I'm
sitting with two of 'em. (laughter) Now here's the issue, here's the issue. Despite you guys, there
are people out there that I think they're just
trying to raise their kids, and they're trying to have...
They don't wanna have arguments all the time. They want
to understand the basics. And so what we have done,
I really do think that in the 60s a cultural narrative took hold that was fundamentally anti-American, anti-God, anti-family. It's just a fact. Now those folks all had good points, and that's why those narratives
came into being, right? If your father's abusive,
you might end up hating men. You might end up not thinking
marriage is a good idea. Now all these things
come out of a good place, but when that narrative takes hold, it's an entirely negative
narrative, takes hold and you start suppressing
the other side of the story that family could be the biggest
blessing on planet Earth, or that some men are the
greatest, most self-sacrificial human beings who ever walked the planet, and they died for their wives
and their children and strangers, and let's celebrate those people. Once you buy into a narrative that says, "No, we don't wanna talk about that. "We just wanna talk about how men are bad, "and masculinity is by definition "toxic and harmful," whatever. Once that narrative takes hold, you can't have a substantive conversation because you're only representing one side, and happened in the culture because really of the sexual revolution where that narrative took hold. I argue it's because of
the rise of mass media. In other words, before mass media information was processed more locally, but once you have a mass media, whatever that mass media thinks is gonna be magnified with
megaphones and on and on and on, and it just so happens
that those cultural elites bought into that worldview more than not and so they live in a
bubble. But then that bubble is presented every day via
TV or movies or the culture so that you really don't have an ability to compete with that, and so I think that narrative took over. And to say that I'm
proud to be an American, suddenly for a lot of
segments of culture became a dirty word. We don't
say that because America did this and did this and this. Well, of course every reality
is a little complicated, but when you swallow it to the point where you say, "Well,
I can't say I'm proud "to be an American," now you got a problem because if you understand
the sins of other countries, you're getting silly.
You're getting simplistic. But I think we're living in a culture that's grabbed onto these narratives, and I just wanna rant for 40
more minutes. Let me rant. - I would love it. - So has that eliminated our
ability to think critically? Has mass media just eliminated our...? - It hasn't eliminated it,
but it's gone a long way toward harming it. I mean, one of the most
depressing things for me is I'll post something on
Facebook or on Twitter, and the responses that must be categorized as idiotic. Why? Not because
I disagree with them, but because they have clearly not understood what I even said. Now some of them are unable
to understand what I said. Others, who are far
worse, didn't even try. They just saw an
opportunity to flick back-- - With their own biases. - And at that moment you
realize this is useless. In other words, I don't think you need to have a substantive
conversation on Twitter, but it can be thoughtful. You
can post a thoughtful article. People can think about it. But what a lot of people do is they use it as a place to vent, and
that's not biblical. You're not blessing people if you just sit in there, you're
angry and you thought, "Well, I can kick a few dogs
today. Let me get on Twitter, "and I can just bang,
bang, bang-bang-bang." So you really do have an opportunity to behave that way that
it simply didn't exist. You literally had to kick a literal dog if you just wanted to
take out your feelings, but today, you can do it on
social media all day long. - What I love about your authorship, what I love about usually
what you have to say is the critical thinking
among evangelicals, among Christianity, that this true faith is not a leap into the dark, it's always a leap into the light. This idea that blind faith is not a thing. Even though like I grew up
in somewhat of an environment though my parents filtered
it differently for me, it was this kind of don't ask questions. - Well see, that's the
point, is it cuts both ways. Blind faith, I get the
idea of blind faith, but at the same time, we
wanna believe in what's true. If Jesus didn't rise from
the dead, if he was not the Messiah, if he's the
second person of the Trinity, we don't wanna waste our
lives believing in him. We want it to be true. Now, it's not about apologetics and proving that it's
true, but at the same time, let's not pretend that it's not true. Let's not pretend that we can
all believe whatever we want. I choose to believe Jesus
died on a cross for my sins. Either he did or didn't. And that's an aspect that,
because of the enlightenment, we've divided into there's rationality and then there's spirituality. And you realize, look, you can
talk about quantum physics as though it's all
theory, but the point is that people say, "Well, no, this is real." Just 'cause I can't see
it, I don't say, "Whatever." I'm still trying to figure it out. And I think when it come
to spirituality and faith, we still ought to use our
minds to try to understand it. And again, to get back to this narrative since the 60s, I think we've
been living in a culture that says, "Faith is
sort of for crazy people, "so we're gonna put it over there, "and we're gonna let
like African-Americans "and other exotic people,
they can have their faith "because they need it, but
those of us in the newsroom "and stuff, we're gonna be hyper-rational. "We're not gonna get sucked
into that crazy stuff, "so we're gonna let some groups have that. "We're not gonna criticize them, "but we've already decided
that's just crazy talk." And my etiquette is it's not crazy talk. The greatest people in the planet have believed this stuff,
and it's important for us to understand that it's
either true or it's not. Jesus either rose from the
dead bodily or he didn't. Now, nobody can force you to believe it, but the idea that who's to say. Well,
that's like saying, "Well, who's to say if
Columbus sailed here "in 1492 or 1392? Who's to say?" We oughta be dealing with reality. And I think the church
has fallen into this trap of we're gonna have our little
religious corner over here, and all that other stuff for the big boys, politics and policy and
science, that's over here. And you think, God is supposed to be
in everything, you know? - And you can speak to that, right, 'cause your background,
would you say that comes from agnosticism, like before you
had your conversion experience? - I don't know. I don't really know. Here's what I would say, I
think that because I went to Yale University, I
was surrounded by people who were not like the
people I grew up with. I mean, I grew up in a working class home. And so suddenly you're
around all these smart people who come from wealthy families and stuff, and they all act as though this
Christian stuff or whatever or conservative politics,
it's all nutcases. So you kinda drink that Kool-Aid, and then when I came to
faith supernaturally, the Lord spoke to me in a dream. It was like this mind-blowing experience. Suddenly I thought, "Well,
now I gotta deal with all "those friends of mine that
are gonna think I'm crazy. "I know I'm not crazy,
but I'm gonna have to have "some vocabulary to be able to talk "to them in case they're interested. "A lot of 'em won't be, but let me see." So I started reading books and things, and the more I read, the
more I was kind of scandalized, and I think I'm perpetually
scandalized by this that the reality that I encountered in all these amazing books and minds and people doesn't exist in American reality. It's as if those names don't exist. Like you'll never hear
about all the people that I have read about and stuff. It's like a separate reality. We're gonna live in our
little secular culture, and we're gonna act like
that religion stuff, it's for those people
that they need a crutch. Maybe they've been oppressed,
or they come from a poor home or whatever it is. They can have that, but we know it's just crazy. More and more and more, I read more and more books, and I thought, not only is this not crazy, but this is dramatically
true. It explains everything. I mean, even science, when I
wrote my book on miracles, when I was doing all the reading about the fine tuned universe, and Christopher Hitchens
said that he was asked, "What is the most compelling argument "on the other side, on the God side?" He said, "Without question,
the fine tuned universe," blah-bl-bl-blah. He
was like, "That's the one "that kind of scares us, all of us, "me and my colleagues on the atheist side." Well, I wrote a piece in
the Wall Street journal on this subject, on the
fine tuned universe, people came out of the woodwork, basically saying it's stupid, it was disproved a million years ago, and I thought look, first
of all, A, that's not true, B, Christopher Hitchens
says it's not true. Christopher Hitchens says
that even though he's maybe not buying it, it's a
sophisticated, troubling argument. But I'm saying again, we kind of live in a culture where when do you ever get that argument? It's just that you're
always getting this idea that oh, there's zillions of planets, and there's life evolving out of puddles everywhere and we're just... That's just unscientific. - Dinner Conversations is
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to make a big difference. Visit childfund.org/dinnerconversations. A child is waiting. To learn more about Dinner Conversations, visit dinner-conversations.com - And while you're there, check out some of our friendly merch. We've got show mugs and
Season One and Two DVDs, and we got these little note cards so Mark can write me a note that says "You're the best co-host ever." - Oh yes, well you know, you
get that after every episode. And what about this mug
with our faces on it? - What says good morning better? - It's like we're on both sides so lefty or a righty, you
get to see us every morning. - You know, I think it's time
we get back to those guests. - Yeah, probably. (pleasant music) Well, come to find out Eric Metaxas is also a born-again
believer. I mean, hardcore. And he's gonna give you his testimony. Now I always love finding out how people find their way to God. You know, I believe
there's many ways to Jesus, but there's only one way to God. And that is Jesus. But his route to Jesus
was quite interesting. - A unique experience. You know, I think we're
hearing more and more, just as we hear more
and more about the world and people in different parts of the world and how they are experiencing
Jesus, the Christ, and a lot of 'em are
experiencing it through dreams, and Eric has a really
incredible story. What's amazing to me is we hear all these stories from around the world about people having some,
what I would consider, seemingly miraculous experiences, as far as their first
introduction to God through Jesus. Maybe people who have
an Islamic background and territories there, having
dreams about Jesus and grace and love that they've
never experienced before. But Eric's an American.
He was here in our culture. He went to church growing up, and yet still had this
supernatural experience that actually brought him to
faith and God through Jesus. (pleasant music) Tell us your personal
story because I think like I read a book, maybe
five, six years ago, Brother Andrew, who was
this Catholic priest who works with a lot in Islamic
countries and territories in the 50s and the 60s
and what they called Muslim background believers, MBBs, and it was dreams, it was
visions, that were bringing them to literally a contrast of what they never experienced before. I mean, that kind of personal story speaks. - So wasn't it a person
who told you about Jesus? - Well no, it was. It's
a little complicated. It's not that complicated.
Basically, I had had some faith, and then by the time I graduated Yale, more and more I just thought that's just for crazy, right-wing people and I live in a world of
cultural sophisticates and we don't know what's true. And guess what, we know that
you can't know what's true. We know that if you're really smart, you know that nobody can have the answers to these unanswerable
questions, so you're adrift. I was not pleased to be
adrift. I was not happy. I wasn't saying, "I'm psyched.
I can sin. Let's have fun." I was just confused. And so I wasn't like a militant atheist, I wasn't happy about it,
but I just didn't see that the Christians could be right or anybody could be right
so I was drifting along. I fell on really hard times, which is to say I moved
back in with my parents, and that was tough 'cause my parents are working-class European immigrants. They don't have any patience for like, oh, we work menial jobs
to send you to Yale and now you got problems? Like you should be buying us a house. (laughter) So I moved back in with
them. I was about 24, and it was really a tough time for me. And I got the worst job you could get. What job can you get with an
English degree from Yale? None. I got a job as a proofreader
at Union Carbide Corporation in Danbury, Connecticut,
hell on Earth for me. Just miserable. And in that time, in that
miserable, miserable, miserable time, I met a
man, graphic designer, who started sharing his faith with me, and he was relentless, and
I was relentlessly like, "Don't get too close. I'm not interested." But we kept talking, and
I was in enough pain that I'm willing to listen. Well, that went on for
like 10 or 11 months of cat and mouse where I'm
pretending to believe it, but I haven't had an experience. But every once in a while I'm like, "Lord, if you're there, give me a sign." I don't even believe I'm talking to God. I'm just like, "If you're
there, give me a sign. "I hope you're there, but
I don't think you're there, "but if you are there, give me a sign." Well, one day right around my
25th birthday, I had a dream and in the dream, it's a long story. If you go to my website, it's
just my name, ericmetaxas.com, there's an I Am Second video. - Oh, I saw that. It's fantastic. - And in my miracles book,
I tell the story as well, but for our purposes here, I'll just say that in the dream Jesus
made it super clear he's real, he knows me
better than I know myself. I mean, he blew my mind. And when it was over, I was
like, that's it, game over. I know Jesus is Lord. The Bible is true. - Like a Damascus.
- It was. And from that day, I'm
born again, I'm sold out. - Were your parents along for that ride? - My parents were not happy with this. They were not happy with the fanatical Eric Metaxas that they raised, no. Because look, imagine the
arrogance of a 25-year-old son saying to his father who took
him to Greek Orthodox Church every week, I've become a Christian. He'd be like, "You've become a Christian? "What have we been? Buddhists,
Muslims, atheists? "Like we go to church
every Sunday, remember?" So he was hurt and
offended, and I was like, "Well, that's a dead religion," you know, as young men can be, arrogant and testosterone-filled, and so I basically was not able to really square the circle at that time. And so for many, many years I think it was upsetting to my dad. It was like I rejected
him and his background, and it's really not a good thing. And I think Christians,
especially new Christians, need to be encouraged
to shut up sometimes. You know, I think it was confusing for them and my whole family
because I was, you know, even more fanatical then
I am now in a sense, right, because it's just the zeal of a converted, yeah.
- Fresh and new. - And so it took years, I
think, of them watching my life to see no, I'm not
crazy. No, God has made a better person of me.
But it took a long time. And my dad in particular, he's 90 now. He clearly gets it, and
that's the joy of my life that the father that I
love, he understands Jesus is his friend, he prays. But
let this be a lesson to people. It can take a long time,
and if you think you're gonna argue somebody into
the kingdom, you're a fool. Shut up, love 'em.
- A baby's never been argued out of the womb.
- There you go. - Okay, so the conversion thing, though. This I think is really relatable to a lot of people who are thinking that what conversion means
is this moment in time, this one experience, there's a flip, everything is reversed.
- For some people, that's true. - But you said your conversion experience was not something of
suddenly feeling guilty about everything and changing. - No, no, no. I'm not kidding, and
this is important, right, that when I came to faith, I wasn't like, oh, Jesus forgave me my sins or whatever. Absolutely not. That
was not an issue for me. I wasn't walking around
with a load of guilt. Now intellectually I
got that. Intellectually, I understood that, but
that's not what moved me. Now a lot of people say, "Well then, that's not
a thorough conversion." It is what it is. I mean, I had been a believer
before I had that conversion. Maybe the Lord used this to close the deal and to make it clear who he is because my heart was inclined to him, but I didn't understand it. I mean, who knows? All I know is it's really bad
when you create a paradigm and you insist that people
buy into that paradigm because that way if
you've always believed, you think like, "Well,
I guess I gotta have "a period of backsliding
so I can come to faith, "otherwise it's not authentic." For me, I really had a
heart for God as a teenager, and I was not discipled
and I just drifted, but even when I was at Yale,
I went to the Christian group on campus for a semester. I don't know what the heck I was thinking,
but I went, and I was there, and I didn't like it, and
I just kinda drifted away. And then next thing you know,
four, five years have passed and I'm lost. I'm sleeping
with my girlfriend. I don't know the meaning of life. I'm pretty sure you can't
know the meaning of life. That's how far I drifted. And so the Lord brought me back. Now was I hell-bound the
day before that dream? I hope not, but I certainly
may have been. I don't know. All I know is that after that
dream I knew Jesus was Lord. I knew that I was a sinner
that needed to have grace and love my enemies and
on and on and on and on and that I'm under his judgment, that I need to care about what he thinks, not what other people think. You know, something
happened to me overnight. It happened in a dream. I don't know anybody else to whom that kind of thing happened in a dream. Maybe that proves I'm a
Muslim secretly. I don't know. (Andrew laughs) - Okay, I love quotes in general, and you're very quotable,
which I'm very happy about. Okay, "It was as though I was
a prince exiled from another "kingdom, and whenever I saw
hints of that other kingdom, "I hoped to find the way back." - I wrote that? - You did.
- Where? - In Miracles. - Wow. Hey, that's not bad. - It's beautiful, unless you
were quoting someone else, and I quoted it as you. - No, no-no-no-no. - It's an inborn longing is what I hear. I remember asking my
dad as a five-year-old, being like, "I feel foreign.
I feel away from something." And he was like, "You are." You know, so this inborn longing, like I don't think we always like to... I think there's importance
in being here now because we can bide our
time, and I think this is already bringing
God's kingdom as it is. - And that's quite right. The idea that when we go to
heaven, God's kingdom starts. No, Jesus said, "It starts
the minute you receive me. "It starts here, and
you are my ambassadors, "and the kingdom expands from here," which is why we need to serve the poor and the hungry and the downtrodden. We're meant to start
here, but we don't get all the way there until he
returns or we get to heaven. But yeah, this has been a big
problem of evangelicalism, right, is that we make it really cerebral and really other-worldly, and
it's all about salvation. And what that does is it leaves all of God's work to like the government or to leftist humanists who just say, "Well, we're doing
this. We don't know why, "but we're just doing this." We're supposed to know
why, we're supposed to-- - We have the motivation. - We're supposed to have the motivation, but I think that that's
what happened in the church is that there's this
divide. Something happened, let's say in the 1920s right
around the Scopes trial, is this cultural divide
where some people said, "Well, we're just gonna
do the good stuff," and other people said, "We're just gonna "believe the important stuff," and they sort of drifted
away from each other. That's a bummer because
we are meant to be doing God's work here, which is
one of the reasons ironically that I think Christian's
need to be political. It doesn't mean only political, but the point is that
we need to be involved in the things of this world
'cause God is in this world 'cause human beings are
suffering in this world. I mean, when I told people that I thought they should vote for
Trump, it didn't mean, "Hey, I think Trump's awesome." It meant that I made a calculation that if you care about that
8-year-old black kid in the project, you need
to think in your head which president is gonna help him more. Now if you think there's
an easy answer to that, there's no easy answer, but
don't pretend your faith can let you say, "I'm
gonna sit this one out." I think this world is dirty.
We need to roll up our sleeves, It's kind of like Bonhoeffer. He would've preferred not
to get involved in the plot to kill Hitler, but he said, "I don't think God's given me that option. "I think that God's gonna judge me, "did I try to figure it out. "And I tried, and this was my solution. "If I'm wrong, I cast
myself on the mercy of God "and say, 'Lord, please forgive me. "'I've led others astray, forgive me.'" But we've gotta try, Wilberforce was told by everyone, "Keep your faith private. "Slavery has always been
with us. It's a reality," and he said, "No, I think God
is calling me to get involved. "Now my salvation is
not in the slave issue, "but my faith leads me to care
about the suffering people," and so I really think that
that's an important part of real faith is living out our faith in every aspect to the best that we can. - But it's almost become like,
if you're not a Republican, you're not a Christian. - Well, isn't that true? What do you mean? (Andrew laughs) - No, seriously. I mean, do you believe if Christ was here he would've been a Republican? - If Christ were here, I am
sure he would've been a Whig. - A who?
- A Whig. - Oh really?
- No. I mean, I think you can't...
Christ be a Republican... I mean, there's no way he would
be a Republican or Democrat. - These are two different kingdoms. - Two paradigms? - But let me say this. Let me say this. We all have to make
political calculations, but let's face it, both
parties are darn flawed. Like there's no doubt about it. So anybody who says the
Republican party is the solution or Trump is the solution, never, never! Then you're making an idol of politics. But I still do think
we have to work it out. - You can help change
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for you child sponsorship, we will send you an
autographed Season Two DVD and Songs From The Set CD. - Yes, plus a special
item made just for you by the communities in Guatemala. - And every sponsor and a guest is invited to a Dinner Conversations Friends & Family Weekend in Nashville. - Hey now, which includes
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Family Weekend in Nashville. - Does it get better than
that? Does it, Mark? Does it? Stay tuned for exact
details and don't forget to visit childfund.org/dinnerconversations to sponsor your child today. - All right, let me ask you this. You start to say in the
book, and for our viewers I think this will be interesting, is you said you were gonna change some misconceptions about Luther. Give me some of those. - Well, there are a lot. And it's kind of funny,
it's almost like a pass your first sermon. I found seven, right? And some of them are big,
some of them are not. A lot of people believe, 'cause
you see things in retrospect, they believe that he was this reformer who was just hopped up to
kill the pope from day one. Absolutely not true. He was a humble son of the
church who loved his church, and when he nailed the
95 Theses to the door of the castle church, if he
did, we think he did, whatever, but whenever that happened,
he was trying to get a civil, think of the irony, trying to
get a civil conversation going on the issue of indulgences, which he knew most people would agree like,
yeah, there's problems here. But instead, and it's kinda like
the climate we're in today, instead it's as if he
tweeted something out and everybody went nuts,
and we never got back to the actual conversation.
He didn't get to say, "Oh, by the way, I made
a mistake on that word." It just went insane, and so
basically, you have a situation where people think of
him as a troublemaker. Now he did become a troublemaker, but that was really in response to what happened. In
other words, he felt that he was so mistreated that he thought, "Am I dealing with antichrists? "I mean, if I'm dealing with the church, "they should be thanking me "for trying to bring this stuff up." I mean, I'm speaking
after the manner of men. It's much more complicated,
but it is interesting that things quickly spun out of control. But when he nailed the
95 Theses to the door, he really was not
looking to start trouble. People act like this was the moment, like he's with the hammer, he's there, and it's like nothing of the kind. In fact, it was like a bulletin board, and if you did it with Scotch tape, it had all the effect of a guy going down to the laundry room to the bulletin board and putting up with Scotch tape, "We're gonna have a theological debate," and he put it up there. It had all the drama of
that, but it's portrayed in retrospect like this was
the moment when he stood. Even the Diet of Worms, as brave as his stand was four years later, he was not there shaking
his fist at anybody. He was hoping desperately that
God could bring about peace. And so I think you're being
told you have five minutes. - Yes, I see.
- Something like that. It was a metaphor. It was a hand, but I read it as a metaphor. (laughter) So that's one, and then
we don't even know, we're pretty sure he
didn't nail the theses up on the date we say, number one. We don't even know that
he did nail the theses up. He might've used paste
or he might've given 'em to the custodian, no joke, to post 'em. We see that in retrospect. One of my favorite ones is the theory that the nine nuns that escaped
from the Nimschen convent you hear over and over and
over, every book on Luther says that they escaped in herring barrels, barrels that held herring,
that they hid in them. I said, "Oh, that's so cool.
I'm gonna put that in my book," so I did all this research and I found not only do we not know
whether it happened, we actually do know that it didn't happen. Totally didn't happen, but there's all kinds of stuff like that. I mean we don't have time here, but there's some significant
things and some little things. It's important to know what's true. And I say that in my own life today about whether we're arguing
politics or whatever. Argue about what you know is true. Don't argue from your emotion
or what you wanna believe. Let's try to get it right. And when you're writing biography, history, try to get it right. And so anybody who accuses
me of putting myself into the book, I'm like,
listen, dudes, I'm trying harder than anybody not to do that. If you think I did, what can I tell ya, but if you can show me I will change it 'cause I think that history
and facts and reason are really important. What can I tell you? - Well, I appreciate it 'cause you put the cookies on the bottom
shelf, and I like that. - That is so funny 'cause
so many people said, "Like I need a dictionary
reading your book, Eric," and you make it sound like I wrote a book for everybody, which was my goal. - Well, you did 'cause I'm everybody. I am. I'm not the smartest. - Thank you. That's been amply demonstrated in this conversation, honestly.
- And I agree, that's no joke. - I appreciate that. I love people pretend to be all
humble. This is a smart guy. - Take this. We only go a couple minutes, but secret vocabulary of the heart, when you say that, do
you believe that God is literally trying to reach us
in that most intimate place? - Yeah, of course, that's the point. In other words, people kind
of act like you're the gospel and that, it's like, no-no-no-no. We have a God that wants
to translate the gospel, the good news that he loves you, in the most personal language imaginable. Imagine kissing your kid on the face, how much you love them! God says like,
"No-no-no-no, it's a theory. "It's a doctrine. Here it is. Have you "heard it in English? Well then, good." He wants to communicate it to us, so how will he communicate
it to us? In a million ways. And since every child is different, God is the same, but he communicates differently to each one of us. To me, he communicated in a dream in a way that would've made no
sense to anybody else. - And a New Yorker got a dream. - And a dadgum New Yorker. - And you're not Pentecostal, right? - Actually, I pray in tongues
and I believe in the move. I believe in all that crazy stuff. You think, well,
a sophisticated Yale graduate surely wouldn't believe in that stuff. I believe Jesus rose from the dead. I believe in tongues. I'm straight up Jesus freak on every level. - I am too.
- Praise God. - I really am. I am. I believe in healing, deliverance, all that crazy
stuff, because it's true. - I've enjoyed this.
- Well, me too. - What an honor this is. I'm serious. - I'm so glad I didn't take a bite, I would've missed something. (pleasant music) - The kingdom of God and
America or any other kingdom in this world, they're
two separate kingdoms. To live in the kingdom
of God, you've gotta die. To get, you gotta give. To be first, you gotta be last. I heard a pastor say one
time the kingdom of God is like backing up a trailer. Which ever way you think
to go, do the opposite and you're probably right. So it's two separate kingdoms and I vote, but that's all I'm
gonna tell you about how I think politically 'cause
it's none of your business and I think it clouds the waters. When you're trying to tell 'em about Jesus, I think it clouds the waters. - Right, if Jesus is the main point, which in my life he has
been the main point, and it's who I want to be,
my focus, my focal point, so I feel like it's just
such an easy distraction to get into the game of
whether it be politics or whether it be any hot topic in culture. These are important
conversation. As you know, we love hard conversations
here at Dinner Conversations, but the main focus of any conversation, the foundation of the reason we even sit at the same table and talk together, sometimes we disagree on certain things. - Oh yeah, gosh.
(Andrew laughs) - But it's Jesus. What
I always love to say is he sets the table for communion. We just all get invited to it. And everyone is invited. So I love how Eric has expressed that through his story of spirituality. - Let everybody get next to Jesus, and he'll fix what's broken in all of us. - So thank you so much to
our new friend, Eric Metaxas. We have loved having him on this episode of Dinner Conversations. - And we love you
joining us every episode. We'll see you next time
on Dinner Conversations. Well, we wanna thank Eric Metaxas for giving us his opinion today. - That's right. You can find his books in the Amazon affiliate link in the episode description below. - And if you wanna binge
watch Dinner Conversations, you can do that right now. - You really should. - On Amazon Prime. Dinner Conversations is
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