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May 2, 2024 - Epoch Times

22:20

Exposing Communist Infiltration of the Church: Eric Metaxas

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	All right, Eric, thank you so much for joining us.
	So to start with, your film, which I saw, by the way, very good, it draws a lot of parallels, especially at the beginning, between what happened in Nazi Germany in the 30s and the church there, and what's happening with the American church today.
	Can you sort of lay out for the audience what those parallels are?
	Yeah, and first of all, it's very shocking.
	And I, you know, I can say that I'm an expert on this because I wrote a 600 page book on the subject.
	My Bonhoeffer book tells the story of When the Nazis were trying to take over in the early 30s, I mean, we have to be clear, most Germans and most Germans in the churches had no idea, no idea where it was going.
	So you have the Nazis, in a sense, wanting not to wake up the That's basically where we are in America today.
	to keep sleeping and let them gain control, let them gain control.
	And then, of course, at some point, the Nazis gained enough control that they could crush the church, crush dissent in Germany.
	That's basically where we are in America today.
	You have many people thinking that, well, it's not so bad, or if it's bad, it'll get better.
	They don't realize that in the churches specifically, God has given them the job, the assignment to stand against evil.
	And so the parallel with the German church is that they had many theological objections and excuses for doing nothing initially.
	And the point is right in the beginning, 1933, 1934, that was the time when they had the ability actually to do something.
	If they didn't do something in that short window, if they didn't stand and recognize the evil and stand very, very firmly against it, if they didn't in a sense, go to war with it, I don't mean with guns, but if they did not, as the church, stand against what the Nazis were doing and beginning to do, Pretty soon, the window would close.
	So Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others tried very, very hard to wake up the church, to say, Church, you're the only institution culturally in Germany that can stand against this evil.
	You need to recognize it and do something now.
	And of course, we know the story.
	They did not.
	They dithered and dithered.
	By the time they recognized that these evils aren't going away, It was too late.
	And so the parallel with the American church is precisely similar, is that we see evils rising around us that we've never seen.
	Anyone my age or younger, you think we have never in the history of the United States of America seen madness, seen a presidential administration that is lying so brazenly, that has opened up our borders, that doesn't seem to care about We have rampant crime in the inner city.
	The entire nation seems to be in free fall.
	We have transgender lunacy destroying families, fentanyl destroying families.
	We have authoritarian government taking children away from their parents because the parents won't affirm their crazy gender thinking that they have picked up in schools.
	I mean, wherever you look, you see unprecedented madness.
	And it's, to my mind, God's mercy to say, do you see what is happening?
	This is just the beginning of what will happen.
	Anybody who lives in China, anybody who grew up in Cuba or in East Germany, as my mother did under the the Stalinist Soviet bloc authoritarianism, they understand where this goes.
	They understand the evil that we've never seen in America.
	And so most Americans don't get it.
	But people who have lived in the communist world or under authoritarian governments understand this is very wicked and the government is not exactly going to stop unless people push back.
	So the point of my book letter to the American church is to say to the church, it is your job and the excuses the German church gave in the 1930s, they really were pathetic excuses.
	They got it wrong.
	They had this idea that it wasn't their job in the churches to stand up against this.
	And of course, history shows, and the Bible says, that it is the job of Christians.
	So Bonhoeffer was very strong about that, and I'm trying to really resurrect the voice of Bonhoeffer to speak to the American churches today, because the hour is late, and the results are going to be far more horrible than I think most people imagine, unless we stand up.
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	Well, let me ask you this.
	In the course of your research, did you find that there are parallels in this respect between Nazi Germany and today's America?
	Which is that it seems like right now, a lot of the churches, they're not Just not resisting some of the things you mentioned, as you know, the manifestations of evil in the society.
	They're not just not resisting them, but they're actually embracing them.
	I mean, here in New York, you walk around the streets and I would say, A minimum of 50% of the churches have iconography outside of them that's like pro-trans and things like that.
	Listen, I have to tell you Roman, here's the thing.
	The churches that are supporting this, I'm not even talking to them.
	They're gone.
	In Germany, there were churches totally supporting Hitler.
	I'm not talking to those folks.
	Those folks are crazy and they're gone.
	It doesn't matter.
	I'm talking to people who think they're in the middle, who think, well, we're preaching clearly about these issues in our church.
	Here's the issue.
	They are not involved politically and otherwise.
	You have to get involved.
	So churches that are essentially saying, well, we're just doing church.
	We're playing church, really, is what they're doing.
	They're not being the church.
	So the radical churches that have embraced wokeness, that have You know, crazy rainbow flags or BLM stuff or whatever.
	They have sold their souls to the zeitgeist, to the cultural Marxism, and to all of this madness, which is ultimately atheistic, right?
	I mean, if you're embracing cultural Marxism, it's by definition atheistic, it's authoritarianism, it's the enemy of the American founders' vision of self-government and everything we've had.
	But I'm not talking to those crazy churches that are already gone.
	I'm talking to the ones in the middle.
	I'm talking to churches that say, well, we believe in the Bible, we teach what the Bible says, but they're doing exactly what most German churches did in the early 30s.
	They're saying, this is not our battle.
	We're just going to do church.
	We don't want to get involved in these controversial things.
	We're going to carve out a neutral role, not knowing That there is no neutral path, there's no neutral place.
	If you are not in the battle against the wokeism, the madness, the authoritarianism that is coming from our own government, from the deep state, if you are not aware of this and fighting against it and exhorting your parishioners to fight against it, to be a part of the solution, you are going along with
	You might as well be one of the churches with the rainbow banners and that have basically really run from the gospel and from biblical teaching.
	And so this is the key.
	We're speaking of those in the middle that think we're just we're doing church.
	We don't want to get involved those churches in Germany.
	Bitterly, bitterly regretted not doing everything they could while they could.
	The window is shutting.
	We probably have a year in this country, literally not more than a year, that if we do not get serious about this, if we do not link arms and understand God is calling those in the church to stand against this, Exactly what happened in Germany will happen.
	By 1935 in Germany, it was over.
	If they hadn't acted in 1933 and 1934, and I document this in my book, Letter to the American Church, it was over.
	There were many who woke up in 1935 and 1936 and 1937 and 1938.
	They woke up.
	By then, they had no power.
	Because they didn't act in time, it was over.
	And so this film, Letter to the American Church, is meant to wake people up and meant to say, you have to act now.
	If you don't, if you sit on the fence, You think you're sitting on the fence?
	The devil owns the fence.
	He would love you to stay right there, just as Hitler was thrilled with the churches that said, oh, we don't want to be involved in this.
	We're not going to be pro-Nazi, but we're not going to be anti-Nazi.
	We're just going to sit here and we're going to do church.
	Maybe they'll leave us alone.
	That is exactly where many pastors are today.
	And listen, many notable, big names in the evangelical world, people that I have been friends with, people that I would have considered allies in the past, have either taken a neutral role or are advocating not speaking up.
	Rick Warren, John Maxwell, Andy Stanley, Russell Moore, David French, many, many, many of these evangelical leaders have adopted this madness and basically said, oh, the church shouldn't be political.
	If you're fighting against cultural Marxism, you're fighting against globalist forces that want to wipe out American sovereignty, that want to take away the liberties that we have, the religious liberty we've had in this country, and on and on and on that want to look the other way while we have sex trafficking going on on our southern border, drug trafficking going on, Chinese nationals being sent by the communists into our country.
	If you want to look the other way, you are guilty of these things.
	And we have prominent voices in the evangelical church advocating this madness, this self-destructive lunacy.
	And so I speak to people, anybody who says, I'm a Christian, if you're going to a church that is not taking a strong stand on this, for the sake of your soul, get out of that church.
	The hour is that late.
	And by the way, I should say, we've made the film free.
	To any church that wants to do a screening, lettertotheamericanchurch.com is the website.
	Please go to lettertotheamericanchurch.com.
	There's all kinds of resources there, lists of churches that are doing free screenings.
	Obviously, you can pay to see the film, but if you want to go to a free screening or if you want your church This is a movement.
	If enough in the church will wake up now, we have a chance.
	lettertotheamericanchurch.com.
	This is a movement.
	If enough in the church will wake up now, we have a chance.
	And if enough in the church do not wake up now, it is game over for the United States of America.
	And God will blame the American church just as he blamed the German church for looking the other way while evil was happening in Germany.
	It's a grim thing.
	I'm hopeful because, you know, folks like you and Epoch Times and Epoch TV and others around the country are saying, yes, we see this, we want to help.
	But there are tons of people that are going to churches that are looking the other way.
	And there's a famous story of Germans in a church in Germany in the 30s singing their hymns loudly because the boxcars carrying Jews to the death camps, they could hear the cries of the Jews and they thought, that's not our thing.
	Let's just do church.
	Let's just praise God.
	And Bonhoeffer spoke clearly.
	He said, unless you are speaking out for the Jews, In other words, unless you're willing to take a political stand, a controversial stand, risk your life, you claim to be a Christian, unless you're willing to do that, God is not interested in your singing to Him.
	He has asked you to get involved.
	That's where we are in America today.
	So lettertotheamericanchurch.com is the website.
	Any church that wants to do a free screening, they're welcome to go there and sign up.
	Well, you kind of alluded to it, but that was going to be my next question, which was, you mentioned rising up in Nazi Germany, but not taking up arms.
	And so, with that parallel being now to America in the year 2024, so what would that actually look like?
	What would it look like to rise up and fight back without taking up arms?
	Well, there are a million things.
	Actually, at the website, lettertotheamericanchurch.com, we have a list of things people can do.
	But I think the first thing is to understand that biblically, it is your job.
	If you're a Christian, you are the church.
	It is your job to do something about this.
	So first you have to Understand, it is your job.
	It's not somebody else's job.
	It's not Donald Trump's job.
	It is your job to get involved politically and to do whatever you can do.
	Everyone can do something.
	And the question is, what can I do?
	Everyone will have a different answer to that.
	But I think, first of all, spreading the message that it is biblically The church's job, just as the German church said, no, it's not our job and got it wrong.
	Many in the American church are saying, oh, it's not our job.
	We don't want to be political in our church.
	I want to say that those who did that in Germany for the rest of their lives, They bitterly, bitterly regretted looking the other way as evil rose.
	Our neighbors are being subjected to indoctrination on the trans stuff.
	Your kids in schools are being subjected to indoctrination.
	In the film Letter to the American Church, we show a pastor, John Amanchukwu, who goes to school boards and he reads from books that are in the school libraries.
	And it is pornographic, sick stuff in school libraries.
	Now, if you care about the kids in these schools, if you call yourself a Christian, you should care about them.
	You're commanded to love your neighbor.
	You need to get involved in what is going on.
	And people say, well, I don't want to get involved.
	I'm going to look the other way.
	God will judge you.
	It's a scary thing that you have the power to do something, to use your voice, and you're not using it.
	That's again what happened in Germany, and I just want to say the main thing that people can do is if your church is not interested in this, they're not interested in doing a free screening of the film, Get out of that church.
	Find a church or find a group of people that cares about what is happening and that wants to be involved in making it right.
	There are a host of battlefronts in this war.
	I've just mentioned a few of them.
	Tremendous corruption in our government.
	When we think of the vaccine mandates, the push from big pharma and social media, I simply think that if the American church were to awaken now, we could fight against this in exactly the way that the Germans could have and didn't.
	And I simply can't underscore how crucial and how late the hour is.
	I beg people to think about this.
	Do you feel like a lot of churches aren't willing to stand up because of the Franklin Amendment and the IRS code that sort of makes it such that they can't?
	Oh, yes.
	I was just at NRB in Nashville where President Trump spoke and he said, we did an executive order to get rid of the Johnson Amendment so that you could speak freely from your pulpits.
	And I thought, Who cares?
	Most pastors are too cowardly or too confused to speak, even though Donald Trump went to the trouble of issuing an executive order during his administration to say the Johnson Amendment is not in effect.
	If you want to speak from your pulpit on anything, We have free speech in America.
	The Johnson Amendment is unconstitutional.
	But just as pastors, I write about this in the book, Letter to the American Church, pastors looked the other way in 1954 when the corrupt politician Lyndon Johnson shoved this into the IRS code to silence the voice of the church.
	It was a despicable, unconstitutional, un-American thing and pastors accepted it.
	So here you have Donald Trump trying to do the right thing.
	Tons of pastors are still So fearful that they will not speak out.
	And I'm here to say they should fear God because what God is going to allow to happen, if his people do not speak up, whether there is a threat from the IRS or not, we should not be afraid of the IRS.
	We should be afraid of disobeying God.
	That is where we are in America right now.
	If pastors will understand what God is calling them to do and do it, they need fear absolutely nothing.
	You're familiar with the story of Bishop Strickland, right?
	How he was forced out of the church by Pope Francis.
	What's your opinion of that?
	He wasn't included in the documentary, but it almost seems like he would be a modern example of what you're describing.
	Oh, absolutely.
	Strickland is a hero.
	Listen, there are many folks that are not included in the documentary that we would love to have in, and if we do a sequel, we would put them in.
	Because, listen, there are people in the Catholic Church, in various wings of the Evangelical Church that are heroes, And there are folks in every one of those churches that are cowards, and there are folks in every one of those churches that are confused and they're hanging in the middle as though they can play it safe.
	Let hotheads like Strickland or Eric Metaxas or others, let them take the heat.
	If you're letting others take the heat and you're saying, we're going to sit this one out, you are marked down as guilty.
	And I am saying this, hoping that people will hear this and say, okay, it's time for me to repent.
	It's time for me to look at this.
	In my book, I'm writing to the people in the middle and saying, this is for you.
	Am I making a biblical case or is this just politics?
	God calls us to be involved in Everything.
	And now, with all these evils rising around us like we have never seen, it is time for the church to wake up.
	So again, I just say, please go to lettertotheamericanchurch.com, sign your church up for a free screening.
	If your church isn't interested in a free screening, Leave that church.
	Take your tithe money and your friends and get out because it's like when Jesus cursed the fig tree.
	If you're not bearing fruit, you wither and you die.
	That is what's happening to those kinds of churches in America.
	So this is a decision time for every Christian in the United States.
	Eric, last question.
	There was about a week ago, there was a segment on, I believe it was MSNBC that went pretty viral online.
	Their guest was describing Christian nationalism.
	Yeah.
	And she said something along the lines of like, you know, Christian nationalists are the ones who believe that their rights come from God rather than from God.
	I think it was George Washington, John Adams.
	Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, who put that idea into our founding documents.
	So if you want to know how far America has slid, you can have prominent people on television so stunningly ignorant of our founding documents that they would cavalierly say things like that.
	Listen, Anybody who uses the term Christian nationalism, that's the devil's term for actual Christian.
	They've just created this term to silence Christians, to get Christians not to vote, to get Christians not to be involved politically.
	When Christians are involved politically, okay, it blesses everybody.
	It's more liberty for everybody.
	So this idea that Christians want to impose some kind of view, no, any more than George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, All of the patriots that have fought for our liberties.
	So this is a boogeyman set up by the secular left and there's complicity from Russell Moore, Phil Vischer, I mentioned all these names, John Maxwell, these prominent Christians that have been deluded into thinking the church should be silent on these issues.
	Shame on them.
	But I hope that some of them will understand that they got it wrong and will repent, will wake up and begin to be a part of the solution.
	Martin Niemöller, one of the great heroes in Nazi Germany, he got it wrong initially.
	And then he repented and he got it right.
	I have hope for my brothers and sisters in the church who haven't got it right.
	But the time could not be shorter.
	We just have a few months, really, to get this right.
	So folks, go to letteroftheamericanchurch.com.
	They can see all the resources and they can sign up for a free screening.
	No strings attached.
	We just want to get the word out.
	Alright, anyone watching it, we'll throw those links down into the description box below.
	Eric, thank you so much for your time and best of luck.

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