Some of you indeed have lived long enough to see what does appear to be, history repeating itself. Take a look!
Author Eric Metaxis’s interview from last fall, replayed today, March 13, 2023 on LIFEToday,where Eric introduced his recent book Letters to the American Church, which he nearly named Faith Without Works is Dead. Eric earlier wrote Amazing Grace and Bonhoeffer. As the title reveals, Letters to the American Church is comparable to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship, written in 1933 after only 5000-6000 of Germany’s 18000 protestant pastors signed the Barnam Declaration in opposition to the Nazi German Christian movement. By 1935 only 3000 remained standing. Do realize these German pastors were all supposedly paid German government positions, perhaps a distant cousin of our 501c3 as granted to American churches and a multitude of not-for-profits. Click on the link below to view the 19 minute interview.
PS. I find it interesting how Eric’s last book so closely follows in the theological footsteps of Francis Chan and his book, Letters to the Church, lacking only the word American, being another must read revealing snapshot of the spirituality of American megachurches and Chan’s personal revitalization after deliberately downsizing his surroundings but upgrading his vital connections in community with truth tellers!
https://lifetoday.org/video/deadly-silence-2/
I apologize for the weird script format. You can print your own copy off the link.
JAMES: Welcome to LIFE Today! I am right here in the studio, rushed up here
to talk to Eric Metaxas. He wrote Amazing Grace, how slavery was basically overthrown by
the grace of God; Amazing Grace, John Newton, as much as Wilberforce, I think more.
And the author of the book I’m holding, who wrote Amazing Grace, and also wrote
Bonhoeffer. And boy, did we see the miracle that could have saved the horrors
t hatoccurred in Germany under Hitler if the church had heard what God revealed to
and ultimately through Bonhoeffer. It was written by Eric Metaxas. Well, here is
Eric Metaxas’ new book, Letter to the American Church. He is sitting here with me.
And Eric, I love you. And I want to thank you for Amazing Grace, I want to
thank you for the miracle that you revealed so clearly. It wasn’t just Wilberforce, but
it was John Newton keeping Amazing Grace, keeping him in the fire. Then you wrote
Bonhoeffer. You said to me when I talked to you, right before you came here and we talked
yesterday, you said, “James, this is the Bonhoeffer message to America today.”
Do you believe that?
ERIC: You know when you say things like that you have to understand how it sounds.
So I have to be very, very clear—crystal clear. There is no hyperbole in what
I’m saying. The thesis of this book, the reason I know the Lord made me write this short
book is because the silence of the church in Germany that led to the satanic evil of
the Nazis in the holocaust is exactly the same as the silence of the church in America
today, which will, without question, lead us to horrors unimaginable unless we repent,
unless we cease being silent. I cannot think of a more urgent message. I beg people—I beg
people to take what I’m saying in this book seriously because of course, it is not me talking.
When you title a book Letter to the American Church, I’m not arrogant enough to think
that this is a letter from Eric Metaxas. This is in the tradition of the letter to the
Philippians. You know? You want to write exactly what you think the Lord is
saying.
So I’ve never been more humbled in writing something because I thought this is
so important and this has to be what God is trying to say. But what I believe the
Lord is trying to say in this book is exactly what he said through Bonhoeffer to the
German church, which they did not listen to. It was the prophet, the Lord always sends
his prophets. And many years later we go wow, wasn’t that prophet great! Jeremiah,
Isaiah, they’re so great! In their day they were not listened to, they were murdered.
Bonhoeffer’s message which was from God to the German church was ignored. And we saw what happened. I believe that the Lord called me to write the Bonhoeffer book, which
we’ve talked about on this program years ago, to help America see that is what
happens when a church is silent.
So in this book, I’m basically taking what Bonhoeffer said and speaking it to
the church in America today; and saying unless you repent of your silence, unless you
repent of playing this game that you think you can be neutral when evil rises and you say
nothing, God will judge you. There is no neutral ground. The German church tried to take
that neutral ground and the enemy destroyed that nation and destroyed millions of
lives.
I believe we’re facing something extremely similar, and the church, most of the church
right now is using the same excuses for their silence. They say things like well, we don’t
want to be political. They have all kinds of reasons. The same reasons the German church
had in that day. When you see the similarity, I think most people would be shocked.
JAMES: You illustrate and give clarity to the understanding of the reality that there is
only one force on God’s planet, heaven and the earth is the Lord’s. We were left here as
overseers of this planet. The king is here; his kingdom is established in us. We can make
an impact in this world and the only force that can overpower the deception and destruction of the gates of hell is what? The church of Jesus Christ.
That’s what you’re writing. You start, “What is the church? Does God ask us to see the future?” Of course, his will being done now, which is future too because we have nothing
to do with the next kingdom; we have everything to do with this one. And we are
not left here to get out of here, we’re left here to see his will done on his earth.
ERIC: That’s the amazing thing. People act like well, it is all about getting saved. Well,
you’re saved, now what? Now, you’re part of the church and the Lord expects you
to live out your faith that you claim to have totally, fearlessly and self-sacrificially until he calls you to be with him. And I think that we’ve been so blessed in America, just as
Germans were blessed, that they thought, well, that doesn’t apply to me. I can have a
nice life and I’ll go to church. Oh, I believe these things—I believe these things.
When the Lord requires something of you and you don’t do it, the Lord knows you don’t
believe what you say you believe. So I talk about the deception of when we talk
about faith. Luther, I wrote a biography of Luther, about the idea of faith. It is
all about faith—it is all about faith. Yeah, it is all about faith if it’s real faith; not fake
faith where I say I believe stuff.
And faith, I was going to—this book, Letter to the American Church, I was going to title
the book, not kidding, Faith Without Works is Dead. Because we have a lot of people
who claim they have faith and the Lord says, well, I see your fruit, I see your heart. If you
believed that I defeated death on the cross, you would live differently. And it is exactly
what Bonhoeffer writes about, he talks about cheap grace. And it is a prophetic word that
the Lord gave him. And I believe that it didn’t work on the German church. They
did not hear it.
But my prayer, my hope, is that exactly what the Lord spoke through Bonhoeffer would
be heard and heeded by the American church. And I will say again, if not, we
are going down precisely the same path. And people say I can’t believe it, I can’t
believe it. Trust me when I tell you the Germans did not believe that that future was even
possible. But it happened and we are no different than the Germans.
JAMES: Erwin Lutzer, one of my good friends, a guest here frequently, told
the story about the church singing louder in Germany when the trains came by with the
Jewish people headed to be annihilated, even with their families; and the church sang
louder so they didn’t hear their cries. Today it seems like we just continue to persist
in singing louder while we’re headed right over the cliff under demonic control and a
greater force coming to destroy the freedom that we have known because of the way our nation was birthed with truth and biblical principles.
We are right now under a power that can totally overthrow us and put us in the
dark and take away every freedom we have ever known; the stage is set for that. And the
only forces, as I said a moment ago, that can stop this overthrowing power is the
church of Jesus Christ, the body of Christ supernaturally united with one head leading.
You write this chapter about 12,000 pastors. Tell us the significance.
ERIC: It’s a chilling—this is really—I didn’t even know this when I was writing my
Bonhoeffer book. When I started writing this book and I dipped back into my
Bonhoeffer book and into that period I realized something, and I said this is chilling
because this isexactly where we are today—exactly!
In Germany, in the ’30s, there were about 18,000 protestant pastors roughly. In
1933, when Hitler took power and began to instantly try to transform that whole
culture in every way along Nazi lines, he included the church. He said well, the church is
part of the state. We pay the pastors. We don’t have separation of church and state. So
that’s when folks like Bonhoeffer said wait a minute! No. We must stand against this. We
cannot have the government dictating to the church. We answer to Jesus Christ.
So they wrote this thing called the Barmen Declaration; maybe 5,000-6,000 pastors
signed it, very brave. By 1935, only 3,000 were standing strong. In other words, the Nazis persecuted the church and bullied and threatened the whole
culture in such a way which we’re seeing today, that if you don’t play the game, you’re going to get it. You’ll get canceled, you’ll get sent to a concentration camp, you’ll lose this,
you’ll lose that—brutal persecution, cultural persecution. But by 1935, only
3,000 who had signed the Barmen Declaration were standing firm. So of the 18,000 pastors, by 1935 you have 3,000 standing firm. On the other end of the spectrum, you have about 3,000 standing strongly with Hitler happy to crush the church, or happy to give the church over to the devil or whatever it is.
But in the middle, there were 12,000 pastors that basically would not commit one way or
the other. That is the nightmare that they thought it would be safe. We won’t take a
position. We don’t want to be “political.” We don’t want to confuse the gospel and
politics. We’re just going to keep our nose down, preach our little stuff on Sunday
mornings, and when we leave this building, we’re going to bow to the authority of the
state. That lie which you hear over and over, you’re hearing it again today, they bought it
because it was the safe path.
Many of them, there are all kinds of reasons people bought into it but the point of that
chapter and in many ways the point of the book is that it was the silence of those 12,000 that enabled the Nazis to crush the 3,000 heroes, to marginalize them and put them in concentration camps and do whatever. It was the silence of that 12,000—their failure to
stand with the heroic 3,000—because many of those 12,000 kind of knew what was
right; but they said we’re just going to be quiet. We’re pastors, we don’t want to be
involved in anything political because people will criticize us as being political. And
Romans 13, oh that’s so clear!
Well, it is not so clear. Bonhoeffer understood that it was not so clear. Bonhoeffer in fact
in his book Cost of Discipleship says he was disgusted with what he called the
theologically based restraint of all these pastors, he said, which is nothing but fear.
They’re using these excuses to stay out of trouble. They’re playing this little religious
game.
And so one of the things I write about in here is like, so, if the Gestapo comes to the door
and asks are you hiding a Jew in your basement? If you’re a religious Christian who doesn’t want to get in trouble, religious in the negative sense, you’d say, oh, yeah, I’m hiding a Jew in my basement. Help yourself to the Jew; torture and kill the Jew, but I don’t lie. I’m justified before God. It is the most religious in the negative sense, legalistic response which breaks God’s heart. And many in Germany said we’re going to take that path. We’re just going to “preach the gospel,” we’re going to stick to our little sermons.
But anybody who knows the Lord knows that’s not what God calls you to do. God calls
you to speak his truth wherever you go, fearlessly. And the German church did not do
that. They hesitated, they had their reasons. By the time they realized what the Nazis
were doing it was too late. It was game over.
And so what I’m saying is that today in America we are in the early ’30s and anybody
who would say I’m exaggerating, I beg them to consider the details because I know that
this true. This is not like well, I have some interpretation. We are hearing the same
silence from pastors around this country who are saying that I don’t want to offend
anyone in my congregation. I’m going to keep my nose out of that. There is a time in a
culture when you can do that. If it was 1985, and you say well, listen, we’ve got some
Democrats in our audience. We’re just preaching the gospel. But when you have
cultural Marxism coming into schools and into the culture, which many churches are
allowing in, critical race theory, you can look in any direction, transgender madness, a
government demonizing half of the population publicly, there are things that if you do not
speak now God will hold you responsible for your silence.
And the reason I wrote this is because I believe that there are still people that can be
reached, there are still some among the 12,000 who could be awakened. And it is
my prayer and my hope that they will, that they will repent. Because you know if
somebody came to you in 1840 and said, don’t mention slavery. Just stick to
gospel-related issues because we’ve got some slaveholders in our audience and our congregation making—you say wait a second, I have an obligation before God to speak on that issue. And if it on offends someone, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. God will judge me if I’m silent on that issue. If I’m silent on the sanctity of the unborn, God will hold me to account.Where do you get this idea that I’m just supposed to stick to John 3:16
for every sermon? But that’s the lie and it is a diabolical lie that has been pushed on the
church. And many in the church have said, oh okay. Now I have my reason I can be quiet. I don’t have to take that on.
I say, James, it is precisely because of that, that we are where we are. If somebody says to
me today, why is America in free fall, falling apart in any direction? We’ve never seen anything like it. I would say frankly because of the silence of the church. God will judge
the church for its silence. We’re the ones who are supposed to know better. We are the
ones that know difference between a man and a woman. We’re the ones that are
supposed to believe that Jesus defeated death on the cross. So we say these things with no
fear. We say these things with joy, that innumerable lives will be affected.
So the idea that we’re supposed to avoid politics or that we’re supposed to—this is not
wisdom and that’s why I wrote the book. You can tell, there’s deep sobriety and humility
that I have in writing something like this because I thought, people in Germany
didn’t believe that this hell could happen to them. They were convinced this can’t
happen. I think that there are many Americans that believe the same thing. That if I just
keep quiet it will all be okay. That’s not what history shows us, and I don’t think that’s
what the Lord says.
JAMES: Let me try to summarize and I want you to listen closely. Bonhoeffer is a long book. Amazing Grace is a long book. I was amazed, this is a very brief book, but it is a powerful book. It is like a letter from our Lord to us in America at this moment in history.
And the future of freedom here and around the world depends upon the church’s
response right now. The one force, the gates of hell, Jesus said, cannot prevail against
is the body of Christ, the church. But that’s the body of Christ born from above, connected
to one another in supernatural unity like body parts submitted to the one head Christ
standing against the forces, against all the forces of deception, dissension, division,
and destruction.
I believe that right now we begin to correct course or we’re over the cliff—freedom’s gone! Now I think it is going to happen very rapidly too. But I also believe if the church would come together in supernatural unity that Jesus prayed for, submit to the one head,
and speak the truth not only in love but that New Testament group of Christians, those
apostles, they turned the world upside down because they proclaimed another king than
the government or any other power on this earth than Caesar. There is only one king, the
church is the only one that can present that.
This is a letter, I’m telling you, you can read this fast. We’ll send it to you. You can go
online right now and get it. They probably can get it in print online, but you can order the
book right now. You can get it normally in a day. But we’ll send it to you if you simply
help us do what we give you an opportunity to do, to put your arms around the broken
and the suffering and see them free, we’ll send it to you. I want you to read this. You can
read it. This is the kind of book you can read in one day. And he wrote it that way
deliberately. I believe that it is not just a draft from Eric Metaxas, I believe it is from God
and used somebody gifted to write who recognized the greatness of God in a man that
could have saved the horrible holocaust.
Refute the Evil. Live & Share the Joy! Share this message TODAY! merlin