June 2, 2018 - The Political Cesspool - James Edwards
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You're listening to the Liberty News Radio Network, and this is the Political Cesspool.
The Political Cesspool, known across the South and worldwide as the South's foremost populist conservative radio program.
And here to guide you through the murky waters of the Political Cesspool is your host, James Edwards.
Let us labor for the master from the younger setting sun.
Let us talk of all these wondrous love and change.
And when all of us over and our work on earth is done, and the road is called beyond your ally.
And the world is called God.
When the road is called, when the road is called, when the roll is falling beyond your ally.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to tonight's broadcast.
A very special broadcast tonight.
And, well, it's nothing new that we are suffering the attacks of our enemies.
This one's a little different, I guess you could say.
But that's the song.
That's a song I grew up singing in church with my pastor for many, many, many years.
When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there.
And it obviously gives me great comfort to know that fortunately, our salvation is a personal thing with God through his Son, Jesus Christ, and not something granted to one by the likes of the Southern Baptist Convention or any other religious organization.
I grew up singing songs like that, and it's such a big part of how I came to be the man that I am today.
And because it's such a big part of who I am, that's why, as I said earlier, we do talk about matters of faith.
I cannot withhold that from the audience.
We do this show essentially as volunteers, and we ask that our audience give us enough to pay the bills and meet our meager budget and keep things going.
But other than that, we do this as a labor of love, and we've done it for 14 years.
And the only way I can, it's worth it to me is if I share my entire self with the audience, which is why I always look forward to April when we talk about Confederate History Month, which is why I do like talking about matters of faith, because it's such an integral part of who I am.
Now, yes, we are a political talk show.
We talk about contemporary political issues every week.
We talk about matters of interest pertaining to our people.
We talk with guests who are in the news, and we do everything that a political program would normally do.
But much more than that, we do talk about history.
We talk about faith.
It just doesn't hold up without that for me.
And I was talking about these issues with Sam Bushman.
Sam Bushman, I appeared on Sam Bushman's show on Thursday to talk about the issue Pastor was talking about tonight.
And in his show notes, he wrote that Christians are facing intense increasing persecution in America, sadly, even at the hands of fellow saints.
And I think if Sam doesn't mind, I may hijack that line and put it in my own archive notes because he really nailed it.
And that is, of course, what we're talking about tonight, which is why I say it's a special broadcast of the Political Cesspool, because it is one that we're talking about an issue that surrounds us.
We were bringing it to our extended family, which is our audience of listeners.
And I was talking with a few listeners off the air about this, some personal friends, people who I met through the show, but through their listenership, we have become great personal friends.
And there was just a few people, a handful of people that I let know about what's going on.
And one of our dear friends in Arkansas said, when they fight you, they fight the whole family.
Anything you need, I'm there.
Folks, I want you to know what a blessing you are in my life and what a blessing my pastor has been and what a blessing Sam Bushman is and Eddie.
And one thing we like to do is we exercise the great commission with our family.
When we do talk about matters of faith, and I know not everybody here is a Christian, so maybe sometimes your eyes glaze over, or I guess your ears may glaze over when we talk about things that don't necessarily pertain to you, but I take seriously that charge.
And God has given me this arena, this media outlet, to talk about it.
Now, yes, sometimes we mix the two, and we talk, faith and politics comes together, and sometimes that includes criticizing or rebuking people who we think have erred, even if they are members of the church.
But I'll tell you, I've never rebuked them in such a way that they are attempting to rebuke us to disfellowship our entire church because they disagree with non-salvational issues that I may hold.
They have called me a white supremacist.
There are members, leaders of the church who have called me a Klansman.
This is what we're talking about, ladies and gentlemen.
So there's no issue that there is sin involved in this question that they want to bring to the convention.
But I would argue and wonder aloud which of the two belligerents have disobeyed the commandments more.
And of course, even the New Testament, Romans 13, for instance, all about government and politics.
But I like sharing with you stories from my life.
I look back on my life, and I wrote about this in an article for the Christian web zine Faith and Heritage that recounted my journey from the intersection of Christianity to the intersection of Christianity and ethno-politics or ethno-nationalism.
And as I said, I look back growing up on my life to this point.
Every day I am so proud to have been born, or thankful, I should say.
I don't guess I had anything to do with it, but I am thankful that I was born into a conservative Christian family with a mother and father who loved me enough to take me to church where I met that man that you heard in the first hour.
And I just can't overstate how much of an impact he has had on the James Edwards you know today.
And from the time I was old enough to retain memory, I knew that on Sunday morning we would go to his church and we would worship Jesus Christ at that small Southern Baptist congregation.
On those pews where I sat with my parents and grandparents, I spent the early years of my life marinating in the word of God and it has made me a better man and a more effective advocate.
And I talked to you about coming to accept Christ at an early age and having been sent to a Christian school.
And I shudder what to think, what paths I may have taken had it not been for the solid foundation upon which my upbringing was built.
And I was very fortunate to have had the stability of consistent parents and grandparents who always let me know how much I was loved, the importance of our cultural and spiritual heritage, and the difference between right and wrong.
And that was the nest I flourished in.
And had it not been for that upbringing, I wouldn't be here today.
There would have never been a political cesspool.
I do believe that God's hand is on this work.
14 years on the radio, have I ever said something that I probably could have said a little better?
Now, for the life of me, I cannot think of anything that I would apologize for.
Now, there are things attributed to me that have been taken out of context, or perhaps I didn't even say at all, and that's not unusual.
There's nothing that I would apologize for because I've always taken great care with the message of our cause, and I've always wanted to be the most faithful and responsible steward that I could be of our heartfelt opinions.
And so, yeah, sure, over 14 years, you could probably find a couple of things where I said, well, you know what, I probably would have worded that better if I had it to do over again, but nothing that I would apologize for, nothing that brings me shame.
What does bring me shame is the state of religion today, as A.W. Tozer put it, and we bring forth this quote fairly often on the show: Religion today is not transforming people, rather, it is being transformed by the people.
It is not raising the moral level of society.
It is descending to society's own level and congratulating itself that it has scored a victory because society is smilingly accepting its surrender.
I think that is perfectly applicable to what's going on right now in certain denominations.
We'll be right back, ladies and gentlemen.
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Okay, girls, about finished with your lesson on money?
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Well, when you sell a gold coin to a coin shop that's worth, say, $1,200, you don't actually get $1,200.
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Daddy, why is some of my silver gold?
We don't have any gold at the house.
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Daddy, gold is a bad investment.
Some people do think of it that way, but actually, gold is money.
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Or I can ask them to drop it right into Mommy and Daddy's bank account because we're a UPMA member family.
Find out more at UPMA.org.
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To get on the show and speak with James and the gang, call us toll-free at 1-866-986-6397.
And now back to tonight's show.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're talking the first two hours tonight about the situation in the Southern Baptist Convention.
And apparently, out of 15 million members, the one who is the most abhorrent is yours truly.
Now, for the people who know me, you know, you know the truth.
One of the things I was going to ask Pastor about, but we didn't have time.
After this came up, he was sitting in his living room with his daughter, and he was talking to her about this, and he said, Google James Edwards.
And she put it in her phone, and she Googled my name.
Of course, I've known her my whole life.
She's known me her whole life.
And he said she literally just busted out laughing at everything that she read, you know, from all of these hate groups.
And, of course, anybody who knows me, that's their reaction.
And that's not to say at all, obviously, it's not to say at all, that I'm anything other than a white advocate.
I am proud I am a white racial advocate.
And you have some anti-white activists in the church, people who would claim that the Confederate flag is satanic, that you may not be a Christian if you voted for Donald Trump.
I mean, these are people that lead the Southern Baptist Convention saying these things, condemning.
It's just incredible.
And again, I have taken issue with that, and I have talked very pointedly many, many times over how I believe that is a violation of the commandment to honor your father and your mother.
To say that righteous men who fought under the Christian flag of St. Andrews in the war between the states are somehow evil now because society has reevaluated who they were.
No.
I won't go for that.
And I won't stand for anyone, whether they're in the church or in the world or both, condemning my ancestors.
That is personal, and I'll never allow that.
So yes, I have been openly, vocally critical over the Southern Baptist Convention.
But one constant of my life has been that I've always been in a Southern Baptist church.
That change, the fact that the leadership of it is rotten, but the people in the Southern Baptist Church, the people that I've gone to church with my whole life, are just some of the finest people, godly, good people.
So I guess after next week, I may be a heathen again.
Maybe my whole church will.
Now, that's a joke, of course, because the church doesn't sanction our salvation.
And I'm glad that they don't.
But, you know, it is.
My pastor's 70 years old, and he's just such a fantastic human being.
And obviously, it doesn't bring me any joy to know that this is something that they have brought to him.
And I am so proud of the positions that he's taken.
But there's nothing enjoyable about this, ladies and gentlemen.
But I felt it important that we say our peace right now.
I actually have an open letter.
Still a rough draft.
An open letter to the Southern Baptist Convention that I'm going to publish in advance of the convention.
It's what I would say at the convention on the floor if they gave me the opportunity to speak.
But of course, they don't intend for me to speak.
They don't intend for me to be there.
As far as they're concerned, they really didn't intend for me to even know that they were taking this action against me.
And they didn't want me to know because if they did, they would have called me as the Bible instructs them to do.
They would have brought it to me personally first.
And then they would have come back with one or two other brothers.
And then they would have taken it to my church.
And they didn't do any of that.
They were going to take it straight to the floor and hopefully get patted on the head by CNN on the way out.
Which it was interesting with CNN, by the way.
They quoted one of the charges against me was something CNN had said about me.
Well, I was good enough for CNN for them to have me on their network multiple times to talk about matters of race.
Why did CNN reach out to me?
Because they knew that I offered a conservative opinion, a traditionalist opinion on racial matters.
That's why they reached out to me.
They knew of my reputation as someone who was courageous enough to talk about these matters publicly, so they came to me, and I appeared with them for several shows.
And in each of these shows, we talked about racial issues.
And in each of these shows, I was introduced invariably as a conservative talk radio host.
Well, after CNN quit having me on, even though my positions never changed, and they were positions that were good enough to get me called a conservative by them when I was on their network, I was all of a sudden a white supremacist to them after I was no longer one of their contributors.
So it was interesting that CNN was used as one of the sources that the Southern Baptist Convention is using to firm up the charges against me.
But even the murderer has a right to a hearing, but they don't intend for me to be there.
But that's not going to stop me from publishing this open letter that I'm about to read to you that would be a speech that I would deliver on the floor.
And since they're not going to give me the courtesy of that, they will have to read it.
And you will be able to read it too.
But folks, I just can't lose.
To know that my pastor, my family, my wife, my children, my audience is with me.
I think for lesser men, the psychological toll of being told how evil you were, it may begin to have an effect.
And maybe it would even get the heart of me after all these years if it were not the fact that I am so sure that I am right on these issues that it has never once caused me to question anything.
It never has, and it never will.
But the support that I receive from the people who I love and who love me, I have never once taken any of this in any way other than in total stride.
It doesn't mean that it's enjoyable.
It doesn't mean that it's something that I enjoy dealing with.
But I'm never going to let them run me off the field of battle, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm just not going to do it.
I'm just not going to do it.
And so when we come back after this next break, I am going to read that to you.
But I want to reiterate again, I cannot back down.
I will not back down.
I'm sure that the enemy has their plans well in order.
But this is a pretty extreme action they're trying to pull off.
Expelling an entire church is outrageous.
Some of the people in the church, I'm sure, like to talk about how Christ associated with Samaritans and prostitutes and tax collectors and sinners, but certainly they're not so inclusive anymore.
They're interested in expelling people and entire congregations.
And despite their advanced planning, if they're met with even somewhat organized opposition, they may meet with an embarrassing setback on this, which is why I felt the decision to talk about this in advance was the right decision.
For any honest messengers who go to that convention, and I would be happy to go there, but they're not going to let me in.
They will not credential me.
I don't think.
Maybe we should try.
Maybe I will try this week.
Maybe I'll go to church tomorrow and talk about getting nominated to be a messenger from our congregation.
Maybe I'll do that.
But this is where we stand.
You would almost have to say that some in the Southern Baptist leadership may not even be our brothers in Christ if they can take actions like this.
Their hero, Martin Luther King, it works as he said, not for the new Jerusalem, but the new Birmingham and the new Atlanta.
I don't know what's going on here.
But it's amazing that the liberal element would even think about moving against us in this way at a very tense and almost explosive moment in Southern Baptist life.
I don't know if my audience is aware of the travails of the SBC on a regular basis or if you follow them on a regular basis.
But if the convention follows this course of action, it would be another factor in making this annual meeting in Dallas in 10 days time one of the most contentious in years.
I was talking with a Southern Baptist messenger who has been attending conventions all the way back to 1985.
And he says that he was at that contentious convention in 85 and he thinks that what's going on right now will make this convention even more volatile.
And it doesn't even have anything to do with me.
Just Google the name Paige Patterson.
Google the name Paige Patterson.
Paige Patterson spoke here in Memphis not long ago and I went to hear him speak.
He's 75 years old.
I think he's probably a pretty decent guy.
But they're coming apart at the seams because me too has targeted Paige Patterson.
Now add this onto the mix.
Hey, we're Scotsmen.
We're ready for a challenge.
Let's see what happens.
Let's go.
I'm going to read to you what I would read to them when we come back.
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Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, this is an open letter.
I think I sent this to Eddie and Sam Bushman at about 3 a.m. a couple of days ago.
And this is a rough draft.
The final draft will probably change a little bit.
I'm going to add some more scripture to it.
But in fact, I had a dear friend in Nashville.
I bounced this off of her and she sent me some more scriptures to prop this thing up a little bit better because you do need to have some scriptures to reinforce your positions.
We're going to do that.
I actually just got that email from her and I haven't had a time to incorporate that into this, but we'll put some of that on the website when we publish it.
But this is how I would address the convention.
Good afternoon.
My name is James Edwards.
You've already heard a good deal about me.
Some of it is even accurate.
Much of it is not.
I regret to say that my detractors have chosen to go off the Southern Poverty Law Center for much of their information.
It would only take the work of only a few seconds to find out on the internet what an awful organization this is.
I don't have sufficient time to delve into it today.
In my opinion, it is not a Christ-centered organization.
Returning to the subject matter before us today, let me tell you a little bit about myself.
I was raised in a Southern Baptist Church.
I believe in the virgin birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I believe that he died on the cross for our sins and was raised from the dead on the third day in accordance with prophetic scripture and the testimony of hundreds of witnesses.
I believe that the Holy Bible is the inerrant word of God.
I believe that the mission of the church is the salvation of souls and not political activism.
Why are we here today?
We're here today because some of our leaders have chosen to conform to the wishes of persons who do not hold any of the beliefs that I've outlined above.
Yes, I regret to say that my attackers have demanded that I be expelled from my church.
My pastor asked the Inquisitor if he had spoken with me.
He said he had not.
And then I did include the verse about coming to your brother in private and on and on.
We read that in the last, we read that earlier, so I won't read it again now.
So, I was condemned without the benefit of any response.
That doesn't strike me as the definition of Christian charity.
That doesn't strike me as the appropriate way to guide someone who you believe to be an erring member back to the light.
Instead, it's the kind of hasty and rash judgment that is so popular in our society today.
As Christians, I would think that the Southern Baptist Convention would at least be interested in speaking with me.
Regrettably, our leadership prefers the word of a hardcore leftist fundraising organization and media outlets like CNN to any conversation with a Bible-believing conservative who has been a member of the Baptist Church his whole life.
This is very sad, but it gets worse.
Pastor next informed me that if our church did not expel me, a member for so many years, then our church itself would be expelled from the convention.
So, the people who know me best were told that they must knuckle under to the wishes of a distant leadership that does not know me, will not talk to me, and bases its information on a non-Christian, if not anti-Christian, source.
Permit me to make a comparison.
Earlier, I commented that as a Bible-believing Christian, I hold that the salvation plan of God includes belief in the virgin birth of our Lord and Savior, his death upon the cross for our sins, and his physical resurrection on the third day.
Additionally, I believe in the inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures.
Is there anyone assembled here today who would disagree with any of these fundamental tenets of our faith?
Apparently, there are, and those people occupy some of the highest positions in the Southern Baptist Convention.
I say this because there is no explicit scriptural condemnation of the belief in the provable fact that individuals as well as racial groups may differ in their accomplishments and achievements.
That is the heresy that I am accused of.
I may be right, I may be wrong.
Those opinions do not impair personal salvation.
You will not be washed of your sins by merely believing that all men and all races are exactly equal.
Neither will you be condemned to eternal damnation if you believe that individuals and people groups differ substantially in many important ways.
Let me just make the point in one sentence.
When we believe that people are exactly equal, and yet some people do not cross the finish line in this material life in the exact same position as someone else, we are encouraging a covetous spirit.
We are encouraging a hatred towards other groups who are perceived to be the cause of individual or group failure in this life.
That is documented on a daily basis by anyone who has access to the corporate media.
But leadership elements in the Southern Baptist Convention make allowance for some people who repudiate some of the basic values, which I would hope that every Bible-believing Christian would hold.
I refer to a denial of the virgin birth, a denial that Christ was the Son of God, a denial of the physical resurrection of Christ, and a denial of the inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures.
One of the great heroes, indeed a virtual saint to our leadership, is the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Peace Prize laureate and slain civil rights leader.
In Dr. King's writings at the Crozier Seminary, you will find that he denies the virgin birth.
He denies that Christ was the Son of God.
He denies the physical resurrection of Christ, and he denies the inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures.
Despite these serious and, as far as I know, unrepentant statements, we are informed that he is a role model for this convention as based on the recent comfab in Memphis, Tennessee.
I stand before you today willing to be humbly instructed as to where I am wrong.
I am also willing to hear from our leadership how Dr. King's apostasy excuses us from calling his moral leadership into question.
Can he probably be called a Christian at all while holding these opinions?
And all this material is available for your study on the Stanford University website.
You may see these words in Dr. King's own handwriting.
You will shortly vote as to whether or not I and my church should be expelled from the Southern Baptist Convention.
Can you honestly say that I have strayed from the Holy Scriptures and the salvation plan of God so dramatically as to require that I may no longer be in Christian fellowship with you?
Conversely, can you say that you approve of the apostate opinions of our leadership's hero, the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Your vote will unequivocally state to the world that momentarily unpopular political opinions are cause for expulsion from the Southern Baptist Convention, whereas opinions that have always been viewed as apostasy are now acceptable.
I respectfully request that you seek guidance through prayer on your vote.
So that is the speech that I would have given had I been invited to defend myself against these charges that are going to be presented to the floor of the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting in Dallas, Texas, June the 12th.
I was not invited to defend myself.
And so I am posting this open letter that serves dually as both an open letter and a copy of the remarks I would have made at this convention.
Now, again, that's a rough draft.
We may reinforce it a little bit.
We may have an addendum or something of that nature, but it will be posted to our website this week.
There was also a second speech, an alternative speech.
I wrote two speeches that I was going to give, two open letters, and they are both a little different from one another.
The second one is shorter.
That one is my first choice.
My second choice for a speech, if they allowed me the microphone at the convention, would be this.
I'll read my second speech to you.
Give us Barabbas.
That's the second speech.
Give us Barabbas.
So anyway, ladies and gentlemen, that pretty much does it.
I'll offer some cleanup and some wrap-up in the final segment.
And then in the third hour of tonight's broadcast, we're going to bring on Eddie the Bombardier Miller, and we're going to talk about some other issues.
But there's really not much more to say.
Pastor said it best earlier when we were talking before the show tonight.
He just said, once you've made your point, shut up.
Not talking about me on the radio tonight, but he said he was joking about a general rule of being a church pastor is after you've made your point, shut up.
And so I'm going to follow that example and do that and not dwell on this anymore.
I think two hours is sufficient.
But I would say this.
2 Timothy 3.12 reads, yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
So, hey, folks, this isn't a crying in my tea type of thing.
I wanted to bring it to your attention because you're my family and I don't withhold important things from my family.
And so I'm sharing it with you now.
I'm telling the truth in love.
But this is nothing.
I mean, we're still Christians if they vote us out of the convention.
We'll still go to the same church if they vote us out of the convention.
We may not be official Southern Baptists anymore.
But I think we may have a better chance of meeting King Jesus one day than perhaps some of the people who will still be Southern Baptists after next week.
We'll see what happens.
But far worse things have happened to much better Christians than yours truly.
I mean, much better Christians than me.
Think of Sir Thomas Moore, for instance, who was beheaded for not backing down from his beliefs.
Henry VIII beheaded him for not being on board with him getting a divorce to Captain of Aragon.
So, hey, this is nothing, but it needed to be said.
They're going to have their say about me at the convention.
We wanted to have, we wanted to say something about ourselves tonight.
We'll be right back.
Let's hang on and come back to our political sesh pool right after these messages here on the Liberty News Radio Network.
Regrets?
Oh, we're all gonna have them.
Doesn't matter who you are or what you do.
At some point, you're gonna wish you'd done something differently.
You know, the woulda, coulda, shouldas.
But let me tell you a couple of things you'll never regret.
You'll never regret spending extra time talking to your teenager.
Trust me.
You'll never regret answering your three-year-old's question about where the water in the bathtub comes from.
And I've never seen anyone wish they hadn't sat in the kitchen laughing with their children and telling them goofy stories about when they were kids.
Yeah, sure.
We're all gonna have regrets, but talking too much with our kids won't be one of them.
No matter what you talk about, love is what they'll hear.
A thought from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, visit us at Mormon.org.
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Welcome back.
Get on the show.
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Okay, everybody, welcome back.
Last segment on this, and then we're going to bring Eddie the Bombardier Miller on, and we're going to rock and roll in the third hour, get back to business as usual.
But I want you to know a couple of things, and this will bring it to a close.
We may follow up on this.
I mean, obviously, this thing isn't settled yet.
This is going to evolve, and we don't know how it's going to play out.
But we'll let you know what happens, and we'll give you our response, as always.
But anytime something like this comes up, I have the ability to perform a self-assessment, and I try to see it from the other side.
I try to understand their arguments, and so I've performed that self-assessment again this week, and I look long and hard and revisit my beliefs and what I stand for and what this program is all about.
And I firmly believe that I have done no wrong on this question, and that what they are coming after me for is no sin, and that the work of this show is righteous and good.
I can't say the same about their Confederate flag resolution.
I can't say the same for this motion that they're undertaking right here.
I'm not saying I'm holier than thou.
I sin every day.
I'm sure probably every day I commit a sin of some variation or another.
But I want you to know this.
I want you to know that whatever happens and whatever action that the Southern Baptist Convention may take next week, it will have no influence over my work whatsoever.
And that's for a couple of reasons.
Number one, it's because I know my salvation lies in the hands of God and not men and not even church leaders.
And that weak-minded men and those who hate our people will never have the power to make me reconsider that which I know to be true.
That's one of the marks of a man, ladies and gentlemen.
And because I am a man, I cannot retreat.
I cannot surrender.
I cannot apologize.
I will not.
And I want to thank you, audience.
You as much as anybody in the world.
In fact, more than anybody in the world outside of the people that I've talked about tonight, my wife.
And by the way, my wife.
Of course, I talked to my wife about this.
I talked to my pastor.
I sought his wisdom and counsel as to whether or not we should talk about this on the air publicly.
I talked to my family about this.
My wife, you would think something like this would rattle a woman, but my wife is a Celt.
I mean, she's a southern woman.
And she, her reaction was, let's go to the convention.
I want to go.
I want Isabel and Henry to go, our children.
And I want to stand there with you when they take this vote.
And I want our children to see what is going on in this church.
And I want to ask the church what their action is telling our children about Jesus Christ.
That was my wife's reaction to it.
I know some men who are married to women whose reaction would be, oh, no, this is so horrible.
How could you bring this down on us?
You got to make it right.
You got to make it better.
No, my wife was ready to go and stand by her man and go and face our accusers with our children.
So that's where the Edwards family stands.
That's where, you know, where our church stands.
If those people and this audience stands with me, who do I have to fear?
If I am confident in my beliefs and confident that what I've done doesn't contradict my faith, they have no power or authority over me.
That's not to say I want them to throw out my church and take some sort of a token victory from that and give them the satisfaction of believing that they've done right by CNN or the SPLC.
I don't want that to happen.
I didn't want any of this to happen.
But because it did happen, it's not going to shake my resolve.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, just know that your prayerful and your prayerful support of our work means more to me than you'll ever know.
I would do anything for y'all.
You know that.
And I love you.
And it's like Martin Luther said, the real Martin Luther.
Here I stand.
I can do no more.
It has not shaken my commitment to my work on the radio.
We will continue on as we have always done.
And if anything, this strengthens my resolve to continue on because I know that the people that I care about are ministered to by this program.
And I don't just mean spiritually.
Sometimes we do talk about those things.
Obviously, tonight we are.
But politically.
And we receive emails and letters every week, literally every week, from people who share with me how much this show encourages them and inspires them.
And so to me, to receive those emails, it's worth all the pain I've ever had to suffer to know that my decision to be a front man for this cause has had a positive impact on the lives of the people that I love.
So I will face our enemies and our critics like a man.
I will never forsake you.
I will never betray our cause and I will never bring dishonor upon you.
And so if there's ever any question about that, let me just, of course, there's not, and there never should be.
I want to thank a few people.
Obviously, my pastor.
I want to thank some other members of our listening audience who I've talked to this week.
Essie and Keith and Peter in California, Rich and Janice Hamblin, my goodness.
Kim in Missouri.
Jack Ryan, who won't be on the show tonight.
These are people that I have talked to.
Sam Dixon, Jared Taylor, Martin, Greg, Hank in Florida, Winston, Christopher, Bill in Kentucky, Brian in Arkansas, R.G. in Arkansas.
These are some of the people, Charles in North Carolina.
These are members of our listening audience who I have fellowshiped with this week and who have encouraged me and who knew about the situation before I brought it to the wider audience's attention this evening.
And I'm sure I'm leaving some people out in that.
Bill, Billy here in Memphis.
Gosh, now that I've named so many people, I know I'm going to miss somebody.
I don't mean to Nathaniel.
Anyway, I want to thank everybody for the encouragement that they've given me.
Obviously, this is a little bit of an unusual attack.
We've suffered more attack.
Well, I say suffered.
I welcome the attacks.
In fact, to be completely honest, if we go a couple of weeks, a few weeks without there being an attack against us in the media, I begin to get a little nervous that we're not doing our jobs correctly.
That doesn't mean we go out of our way to be offensive or to be sensational or be shock radio or anything like that, shock jocks, no.
But we need to be doing good work.
And if you're over the target, you're going to catch that flack.
And so if we're not catching flack, we have to reassess, are we reaching people in the way that we need to reach people?
There is something that a gentleman sent me, though, that I would like to read.
He said, James, it's regrettable this situation that your pastor must be thrust into in this show trial.
It certainly sounds like our enemy is at work and that both of you are courageously winning over the beast.
I just finished Orwell's 1984 the other day.
In this dystopian future, the party would not stand for you having those good memories of the time spent in the pews of your church.
They would reform you until they became false memories.
Take measure and pleasure of your current predicament.
Your traditional family is intact, and it is a beautiful family.
You and your pastor can formally reject and stand against these forces while keeping the faith in the God and religion you hold most dear in your heart.
And you still have those cherished memories, and they are truly eternal.
In Orwell's book, the party first tortures the dissident miserably, then reforms and conditions them until they completely accept the monster that they previously rebelled against.
It is precisely at that time of acceptance that the party then executes the former dissident.
And so there never would be any martyrs for the future dissidents to hail.
James, you and your pastor are proving that the beast is on retreat.
There is hope for all the good in this world, thanks to men like you.
And that comes from a man that I respect a great deal, a very generous listener of this program.
And again, if I have the support of my friends and my family, what can I lose?
Can I lose the income that this show doesn't bring in for my family?
I mean, we pay the bills, but that's not why I do this show.
I do the show because I believe in it.
And because that's why I do the show, that's why I will always continue on.
This attack is a little different.
Normally, we are attacked by hate groups or we're attacked by the lying press.
To be attacked by your own church is unusual, which is why it's gotten so much play tonight.
Otherwise, it would just be another day at the office.
But anyway, so that's it.
That's it.
When we come back, we're going to talk about some issues that have been in the news.
Hey, at least I don't have it as bad as Roseanne.
Roseanne's had a worse week than me.
If you followed that, maybe we'll talk about that coming back.
But it's always, always, always such a treat to be with you, ladies and gentlemen.
Even if I'm here and you're there and I'm in the studio and you're listening on the radio, we're still together.
And that spirit is still together.
And that spirit that we felt at our conference is still together.
And by the way, you know, my pastor gave the opening prayer at our anniversary celebration just as he gave the closing prayer in the first hour tonight.
Just such a fantastic man.
Such a fantastic man.
Well, we'll see what happens.
And we'll see what news it makes and we'll see where it goes.
And either way, it doesn't really matter.
I just wanted to tell you about it.
And I wanted to tell you that this is how you stand up.
This is how you stand up and set an example for your peers to follow.
This is how you stand up and set an example for your family to follow.
This is how you set an example for your enemy.
You have to let them know that no matter what they throw at you, what lies they tell about you, and no matter who's telling the lie, whether it's a church leader, whether it's the media, whether it's the man across the street, you are not going to betray your convictions.
You're going to stand up and you're going to be a man.
Let's be men together, men.
We'll be back with the third hour right after this.
Another hour of the political cesspool is in the can, but don't go away.