Eric Metaxas: The FIGHT for FREEDOM in America’s Media WAR | Kirk Cameron on TBN

Eric Metaxas joins Kirk Cameron to discuss the current media landscape in America. He examines the changing factors that have led to a greater conservative footprint in U.S. media and what additional steps may be taken to further that reach. Don’t miss this informative interview on Takeaways with Kirk Cameron on TBN!

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Speaker 1: A lot of people borrow truth from scripture, but they don’t acknowledge it.
Speaker 1: If you believe racism is wrong, I’m here to tell you, you got that from scripture, whether you acknowledge it or not.
Speaker 1: Can’t be an atheist who says I think racism is wrong because you’re an atheist, it means there is no god.
Speaker 1: We’re not created in god’s image. Some races might be more evolved than others.
Speaker 1: Why would I believe racism is wrong? The reason we know it’s wrong is because God says it’s wrong.
Speaker 2: Most people know you, Eric, for the books that you’ve written. I mean, look at them.
Speaker 2: They’re to your or to your left, you you’ve written all of these books on these great heroes of the past and now ideas like atheism is dead and and other important topics.
Speaker 2: I see you shifting, though, more and more toward media guru, not just author. You’ve got a radio show.
Speaker 2: I see you on your podcast.
Speaker 2: Uh, was that a natural shift for you, or did one day you wake up and you said, hey.
Speaker 2: I got a face for TV.
Speaker 1: That’s funny. Thank you. Um, honestly, Kirk, it’s hard to say because I’ve always felt called by the lord to do both these things.
Speaker 1: And and a lot of people say, well, you gotta choose. You’re gonna do this. You’re gonna do this.
Speaker 1: And I think, well, I don’t have to choose.
Speaker 1: The lord created me to do these things and I’m just gonna do what I think he wants me to do.
Speaker 1: And I’m gonna let him sort it out. He’s my manager, and I totally mean that.
Speaker 1: People who know me, you’re one of them, you realize that, like, I’m nuts. Right?
Speaker 1: Like, I can be really serious. And when I’m being serious, I’m actually being serious.
Speaker 1: Because there’s a lot of important things to talk about, but I can be a cut up and a goofball and do comedy and stuff.
Speaker 1: And I and I think part of it To be honest, part of it is that the lord just wants us to communicate.
Speaker 1: And sometimes humor is one of the most powerful ways that we do communicate when you when you kid around with people, you’re letting them know, you know, you’re not a glassy eyed member of some religious cult or, uh, you’re you’re I think it’s it’s part of the, you know, the lingua franca of our time.
Speaker 1: It’s the language that everybody understands.
Speaker 1: And if you’re able to joke around, and be silly, uh, and talk about different things.
Speaker 1: People may give you more of a hearing when you are talking about deadly serious things.
Speaker 1: So a little bit all over the place.
Speaker 1: We did a Christmas special for TBN, which was it was kind of like a, you know, a retro variety Christmas special comedy sketches and stuff.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people thought that’s certainly not the guy who wrote Bonhoeffer. It it can’t be.
Speaker 1: Because I’m gonna get whiplash trying to figure that out.
Speaker 1: But actually, you know, the lord made me this way, and I just decided to go with it.
Speaker 2: I love the way that you present the ideas that you talk about. And you help us to understand them.
Speaker 2: Um, Eric, back in the ancient days when you attended Yale, uh, media was was different than it is today.
Speaker 2: How have you seen media change over the years?
Speaker 1: Well, back in those days, we had the old Edison Wax cylinders, uh, just kidding.
Speaker 1: Uh, no, I was a year on the eighties.
Speaker 1: And what has happened, I’ll tell you, this is and this is a big part of god’s calling on my life.
Speaker 1: The media has always been kind of leftist and kind of secular. They don’t do god.
Speaker 1: They don’t understand god. That has been changing because media itself has been changing.
Speaker 1: You know, you can now via the internet via cable, uh, and and all kinds of other media, you can access things, right, at one excessive.
Speaker 1: When I was growing up and, you know, you have 3 networks. You had PBS. You had a local program.
Speaker 1: That was it. You’re not gonna get a great variety.
Speaker 1: Today, it is possible for people coming from our point of view politically, uh, more conservative, uh, you know, radicals for Jesus, it’s more possible for us to speak into the culture or to hear from people who think the way we do.
Speaker 1: I mean, we’ve seen that with news because you have all these conservative news outlets.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to faith, when it comes to the culture itself, we’re still taking baby steps.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I wanna do uh, is due a late night talk show.
Speaker 1: We’ve seen Johnny Carson. We’ve seen Letterman. We’ve seen all those shows.
Speaker 1: They’ve gotten more and more kind of hostile to faith, I would say.
Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
Speaker 1: And and I think that we we we need that.
Speaker 1: Uh, I think people want that, and we’re just beginning with shows like yours and with what I’m doing, um, to begin to speak to that part of America that fell for many years, people aren’t talking to me.
Speaker 1: I have to kinda take what I can get. Eric, you
Speaker 2: talked a little bit about the news, and so many of us are are just riveted watching the news to find out what in the world is going on in our world.
Speaker 2: And we’re finding fewer and fewer places that we can trust because it seems like the news is turning into opinions and we’re having to struggle to understand the difference between the 2.
Speaker 2: What happens when well, first of all, what is real news as opposed to somebody’s opinion?
Speaker 2: And what happens when we start to combine those things?
Speaker 1: What we’re really talking about is freedom. Right?
Speaker 1: We’re we’re we’re talking about the ability to live in a free culture where I am able to get information from a variety of sources and make my own decision and what I think is happening.
Speaker 1: Right? We used to be able to trust news when Walter Cronkite came on, uh, there was a time in America.
Speaker 1: When generally speaking, people trusted the news. They trusted their doctors, but things have changed.
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, doctors were telling you, hey. You can smoke. You can smoke cigarettes.
Speaker 1: They were doing ads for, you know, uh, for cigarettes in the in in newspapers.
Speaker 1: And magazines in the 19 fifties.
Speaker 1: As time has passed, I think people have begun to realize I need to think for myself there’s some sources that I can’t trust.
Speaker 1: So we’re sort of experiencing a revolution where many Americans are aware that if the government says something, they may need to check the source.
Speaker 1: They may need to say, uh, I I wanna I wanna talk to somebody who says, That’s completely untrue.
Speaker 1: What’s interesting to me is that that is healthy American freedom.
Speaker 1: But there are people, usually people in power who say, we don’t want that kind of diversity.
Speaker 1: If you say something we don’t like, where that contradict us, we wanna shut you down.
Speaker 1: My entire show, the Eric Mataxa show, was taken off of YouTube because I had the temerity to speak to a liberal feminist, Naomi Wolf.
Speaker 1: She was in my class at Yale, She’s not a Christian.
Speaker 1: She’s not politically conservative, but she had a different view on vaccine passports.
Speaker 1: And because of that, they completely took off our entire program.
Speaker 1: And I thought no matter what you think of the issues, that’s a chilling thing in the United States of America.
Speaker 1: But there are people that they say, look. We’ve had some power. We don’t wanna lose our power.
Speaker 1: And if you step out of line, we’re gonna try to crush you.
Speaker 1: But the funny thing is, Kirk, this happens over and over in history. They did this to Galileo. Right?
Speaker 1: This it wasn’t really the church. I mean, I write about this in my book as atheism dead.
Speaker 1: There were a number of people that had a point of view. They were sort of the civilians.
Speaker 1: When Galileo starts talking about, it doesn’t look like the earth is the center of the solar system.
Speaker 1: They weren’t interested in Why do you say that? The their answer was, hey.
Speaker 1: Shut up or we’ll throw you in prison. People in power always have the temptation.
Speaker 1: And if you’re a believer, you understand there’s original sin. Right?
Speaker 1: People attempted to cling to power and to oppress people who don’t have power We’re seeing it in the media today.
Speaker 1: I personally am excited. I think god is at work.
Speaker 1: Uh, I think there’s a lot of alternative me to popping up, but but we are in kind of a war right now because there are some people that don’t like it, and we have to be brave and courageous and simply speak the truth as god allows us.
Speaker 2: And, Eric, you’re one of those brave and courageous people. And, uh, I thank god for you.
Speaker 2: How do we with our differing opinions in a free society like America has been, and I hope that we continue to resecure.
Speaker 2: How do we differ with one another without dividing over things with one another?
Speaker 2: I’ve seen you, uh, respectfully talk to people who have different opinions, but I’ve seen you interviewed by others on other networks who have differing opinions, and they wanna cut you in half.
Speaker 2: Because you don’t agree with their opinions. What’s the trick?
Speaker 1: It’s kind of funny that you say cut you in half. I’ll tell you why.
Speaker 1: I always think of in scripture, the story of Solomon and the baby. Right?
Speaker 1: There are 2 women who come and they say, that’s my baby. No. That’s my baby. No.
Speaker 1: That’s my baby. And Solomon, He has great wisdom. He says, well, we’ll solve the problem.
Speaker 1: Why don’t we just cut the baby in half? And we’ll give half to each of you. Right?
Speaker 1: Well, guess what? The real mother says, don’t cut the baby. Take the baby.
Speaker 1: I don’t care if I don’t get my baby just don’t harm the baby.
Speaker 1: But the woman who is trying to steal the baby says, no. Go ahead.
Speaker 1: Cut cut the baby in half.
Speaker 1: In other words, this spiteful attitude when you have people really interested in truth, you can tell that the they are the ones that they don’t mind disagreement.
Speaker 1: It’s the people that that say we cannot abide. We will not abide disagreement or dissent.
Speaker 1: You already know that there’s trouble.
Speaker 1: In other words, you don’t even need to hear what their point of view is when they’re trying to crush dissent and telling you, hey, shut up.
Speaker 1: You know right away. Wait a minute.
Speaker 1: If you’re telling me to shut up that I can’t speak, that I shouldn’t speak, I already am tipped off that I’m not interested in what you have to say because you’re not interested in what I have to say.
Speaker 1: And I think that we have to be honest there are limits to civility.
Speaker 1: Um, if somebody says to me, if I say something they don’t like, I’m a bigot or I’m a racist, it’s game over.
Speaker 1: There’s no longer a conversation. And I think we’re even seeing that in the churches.
Speaker 1: Um, I think Christians, uh, in particular, need to make room for civil debate.
Speaker 1: You can disagree on things But when you start canceling people, when you start saying that guy can never, uh, have his voice heard, we need to to get rid of him.
Speaker 1: And I think most Christians are nice people, and they don’t like conflict.
Speaker 1: But I think if the conflict comes to you, you have to decide.
Speaker 1: Am I gonna Am I gonna battle heroically, or am I gonna shrink into the back and say, oh, I I don’t I don’t wanna get involved in that.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the lord brings us to a place where we’re forced to get involved.
Speaker 1: I think I might hear a William Wilbur force. He battled against the slave trade.
Speaker 1: Tons of people sort of Christians were saying, keep your politics out of religion and keep your religion out of politics.
Speaker 1: And he said, what kind of a Christian would I be if I don’t bring my faith, which says that god is no respect of persons.
Speaker 1: He died for everyone, including the Africans, that are being enslaved. What kind of a Christian would I be?
Speaker 1: What kind of fake gospel would I be preaching if I don’t speak up for them?
Speaker 1: And if you wanna call that political, call it political.
Speaker 1: God demands that I speak up for my brothers and sisters. The same thing happened with Bonhoeffer.
Speaker 1: People in the church said why are you being political?
Speaker 1: You know, Romans is clear obey the authorities, and he said, no. No. No.
Speaker 1: That’s that’s not what it says. You’re you’re you’re misreading what the scripture says.
Speaker 1: The scripture demands that I could be a voice for the voiceless if you wanna call it political, call it political, but I fear god and doing nothing and sitting on my hands and playing it safe, uh, I fear that god will judge me for that.
Speaker 1: And you should too. So we’re living in, uh, in complicated times.
Speaker 1: And by god’s grace alone, uh, I try to say these things wherever I go because we’re in a tough spot
Speaker 2: As an author, you are truly a man of the book.
Speaker 2: Every book that’s that you’ve written that I see there, uh, behind you, is ultimately dependent upon one book.
Speaker 2: And and I’ve learned about you that you you look through a set of lenses that are biblical lenses to understand the world around you.
Speaker 2: And, uh, I wonder why you do that.
Speaker 2: Why why do you openly process everything through the lens of the Bible.
Speaker 1: You know, it’s it’s kinda like saying to, uh, scientists, why do you process everything through through math and evidence?
Speaker 1: Anything else would be crazy.
Speaker 1: I mean, the scripture is the word of god, uh, and Jesus is truth.
Speaker 1: And so I think a lot of times we pretend that we can have it both ways.
Speaker 1: Like, I’m a Christian over here, but over here, I’m secular.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, you don’t need to bring up Jesus in every conversation, but the fact of the matter is if something that you’re doing or saying is not consonant with what the scripture says, you’re probably out of line.
Speaker 1: I don’t wanna build buildings that fall down. Uh, I want my lines to be straight.
Speaker 1: I want the math to to to work out. Right. You know what it is, Kirk?
Speaker 1: A lot of people borrow truth from scripture, but they don’t acknowledge it.
Speaker 1: If you believe racism is wrong, I’m here to tell you.
Speaker 1: You got that from scripture whether you acknowledge it or not.
Speaker 1: You can’t be an atheist who says I think racism is wrong because you’re an atheist It means there is no god.
Speaker 1: We’re not creating god’s image. Some races might be more evolved than others. Why would I believe ism is wrong.
Speaker 1: The reason we know it’s wrong is because god says it’s wrong. That’s right.
Speaker 1: And there are many things that people wanna borrow but they don’t want to acknowledge where they got that idea from.
Speaker 1: The idea that I’m supposed to care for the poor people act like, well, of course, of course, what we’ve had many civilizations over history, including now that do not care about the poor.
Speaker 1: Why do we care about the poor? Even if you’re an atheist from agnostic, you have to trace that back.
Speaker 1: That’s because of Christians in the culture through the centuries have made it understood that we’ll, of course, we do this.
Speaker 1: So I think sometimes you have to talk about that.
Speaker 1: You have to let people know you know, I can’t force you to believe in god, but don’t tell me you believe in freedom,
Speaker 2: right,
Speaker 1: and equal rights, and racism is bad, and slavery’s wrong, and and you wanna care for the poor, but you just kinda came up with that on your own.
Speaker 1: You’re you’re blowing smoke, and I’m gonna call you on it.
Speaker 2: That’s right. Some people say that the Christian worldview is underrepresented in the media. Whose fault is that?
Speaker 1: Many, uh, people in the secular world simply don’t like the Christian point of view for whatever reason, or maybe they’re just uncomfortable by it.
Speaker 1: And so they tend to ignore it. But oftentimes, Christians have participated in our own marginalization.
Speaker 1: We kind of act like, if you just wanna just wanna preach the gospel.
Speaker 1: I don’t wanna get involved in this or this or this or this.
Speaker 1: And you think, where did you get the idea that this gospel is some little religious thing? It affects everything.
Speaker 1: And it’s going to affect how you treat the poor. It’s going to affect your views on on everything.
Speaker 1: We have often participated in our marginalization, or we’ve insisted that, well, Christian programming is just like sort of mediocre programming with no swear words.
Speaker 1: And you think wait a second.
Speaker 1: All of reality is belongs to god, and he wants us to glorify him and and and and tell his story and get out his information.
Speaker 1: And so I think sometimes we just haven’t known how to do it.
Speaker 1: It’s it’s funny because the new book that I came out with, I guess, right behind me here is atheism dead.
Speaker 1: That that was the big headline for me. I said there’s all this information proving god from science.
Speaker 1: You never hear about it in the media. It’s like it doesn’t exist.
Speaker 1: There’s all this archaeological evidence that scripture is history. You never hear about it in the media.
Speaker 1: And and we have to work harder to get this stuff out there because first of all, believers need to know it.
Speaker 1: But also there are a lot of people in the world that they wanna know what’s what. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If they never hear about this stuff, they’re they’re just gonna take what they can get. You know?
Speaker 1: And if you’re watching PBS or whatever, you’re you’re you’re probably not gonna bump into this kind of information.
Speaker 1: You really do have to reach into the media, into the mainstream part of the media uh, to whatever extent you can.
Speaker 1: And that is something that’s very, very close to my heart.
Speaker 2: Some people say that the mainstream media, however, needs to work harder and do more to allow Christians to represent themselves at the table.
Speaker 2: And I say that’s That may be true, but don’t hold your breath.
Speaker 2: I say Christians need to make more of an effort
Speaker 1: to actually build the table
Speaker 2: and prepare the food and invite their own guests. What do you say?
Speaker 1: Listen, I’m I am absolutely with you. It’s a joke.
Speaker 1: Why would somebody that has a monopoly say, well, you know what? Let’s open up our monopoly.
Speaker 1: Let’s have some competitors. There’s no reason. There’s no incentive for them to do that. That’s right.
Speaker 1: I think we do have to build our own thing.
Speaker 1: And it and and I know I’ve shared this with you I may have just said it a minute ago, but I I I have felt a calling by god for years to do a late night TV talk show, you know, letterman, Carson, that kind of tradition because our values, our people, uh, they simply don’t exist in that universe.
Speaker 1: And I think that there’s a there’s a huge country of people who would want it to be something that reflects their values a little bit.
Speaker 1: It doesn’t need to be religious or politically conservative for it. But we haven’t been able to do that.
Speaker 1: Part of the reason is because we haven’t been welcomed in to do that.
Speaker 1: Like, come on in here with your cornpone biblical values.
Speaker 1: Uh, you know, and at the same time, uh, that’s something I feel god’s called me to do because I know there are people really hungry for entertainment, for humor, but that’s coming from a point of view that they’re comfortable with.
Speaker 1: That’s not sneering at them. That that’s not looking down its nose at how they wanna raise their kids.
Speaker 1: So, you know, the free market should allow that but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Speaker 1: Uh, it’s it’s a it’s an uphill battle. But by god’s grace, I do think that will happen.
Speaker 2: I do too, and I think it starts with a mindset shift.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine Jesus going to the Farrisays saying, guys, give me a seat at the table. Guys, plea no.
Speaker 2: No. No. Jesus would be like, no. I’m a carpenter. I build tables. Right?
Speaker 2: And and that’s what we need to do is we need to build the tables and and and serve up biblical worldview to a dying world that desperately needs its its blessing.
Speaker 2: Eric, I I got a question here for you.
Speaker 2: Uh, what does it look like when the average person like you and me takes our biblical thinking and ideas and applies it to an issue in our culture.
Speaker 2: Can you get an example of just some sort of biblical principle, maybe one of the 10 commandments or something or an issue going on in culture and say, this is the Christianly way of viewing that issue.
Speaker 1: There are a 100 things I could say, but let’s just say the scripture, it doesn’t say thou shall not kill.
Speaker 1: It says thou shall do no murder. Okay?
Speaker 1: So uh, if you’re in a war, uh, if if you’re, uh, you know, in a police force, whatever, sometimes you use a gun of this violence, but you you don’t murder.
Speaker 1: Murder is always wrong. So as a believer, I look at the unborn and I say, This is a major major major issue for the lord.
Speaker 1: He wants me to use my voice to do anything I can to help people know that it’s not acceptable, uh, to use abortion as birth control.
Speaker 1: This is never acceptable. Now what that means, and this is where it gets tricky for some people, it means I may need to vote for a politician that cusses or that has lived a life that I don’t like.
Speaker 1: If I believe he takes this issue seriously, but some people say, well, no. No. No.
Speaker 1: I just I just can’t do that. I wanna be pure. And I think folks, that’s not biblical.
Speaker 1: If it were biblical, I would say, yes. Don’t vote.
Speaker 1: But you have to vote for a flawed candidate based on the fact that god commands you to care for the poor, to care for the unborn, you have to do those things.
Speaker 1: And so a lot of Christians have misapplied theology, and they basically said that it’s not about policy.
Speaker 1: It’s about is it an is he a nice guy? Does he profess faith?
Speaker 1: We have had many politicians who have professed faith who have put forward profoundly ungodly, uh, legislation, god’s gonna hold us accountable because we were the ones that either elected them or allowed them to be elected.
Speaker 1: Uh, and we’ve had a big divide in this country over that, and I’m here to say folks, We need to grow up.
Speaker 1: We are responsible for the unborn. We are responsible. We are allowed to elect people.
Speaker 1: And if you think that you’re supposed to elect somebody based on if you like him, lives are at stake.
Speaker 1: And in the case of the unborn, we we had a president I believe his name was Trump, who appointed 3 justices to the Supreme Court who are originalists they know that the constitution doesn’t provide a right for abortion.
Speaker 1: It’s only because of that because of somebody who is a a Philandering Thrice married Manhattan real estate developer.
Speaker 1: Because of him, we are going to overturn Roe V Wade, one of the greatest dreams of Christians in this nation for 50 years.
Speaker 1: And so I try to help people understand that we we have a responsibility.
Speaker 1: We can’t sit on our hands.
Speaker 1: The German Christians in Germany when Hitler was taking power, said, we’re gonna sit on our hands.
Speaker 1: We don’t wanna get political. And I think the lord was saying, I need you to get political.
Speaker 1: My chosen people are being slaughtered. I need you to get political.
Speaker 1: And so you don’t make an idol of politics. God forbid.
Speaker 1: But when we Christians, circumscribe our faith and say, well, I’m not gonna go there.
Speaker 1: I can’t vote for this person. I can’t do this.
Speaker 1: I can’t we’re misunderstanding scripture, and we need leaders to explain that because there’s so much at stake.
Speaker 1: There’s so much at stake, Kirk. Uh, we cannot we just cannot sit idly by.
Speaker 1: We’re we’re living in a real battle right now, and biblical values, not just on abortion, but biblical values religious liberty are under threat now in a way they have never ever been in America.
Speaker 1: God is looking looking to his people to be his people.
Speaker 2: What do you say to the people who say, yeah, but, Eric, you have a Christian bias.
Speaker 2: You you you admit it. I mean, you don’t even hide your bias.
Speaker 2: You you just you look keep looking through those Christian lenses that you that you wear.
Speaker 2: And, uh, therefore, you’ve got an agenda. What do you say to them?
Speaker 2: Don’t don’t don’t doesn’t everyone have an agenda?
Speaker 1: Just say that everyone has an agenda is ultimately, ultimately, to be cynical and to say there’s no such thing as truth.
Speaker 1: When the Bible says do no murder or when the Bible tells us don’t lie, when the Bible sell tells us to care for the poor.
Speaker 1: I can’t say, well, that’s just my Christian point of view. There’s some things that are true. 1+1 equals 2.
Speaker 1: There are 2 sexes both made the image of god. There’s certain things that are true.
Speaker 1: And to pretend that there’s another side to the story is silly.
Speaker 1: Uh, I’m not gonna say 1+20 equals to for me. That’s my Christian bias.
Speaker 1: I think oftentimes Christians are way too timid. Um, I mean, there’s a good time to be timid and respectful.
Speaker 1: But there’s another time that god calls us to be bold.
Speaker 1: Uh, and when people’s lives are at on the line, when you have young women having to compete against men in swimming competitions, and nobody has the courage to stand up and say, this is preposterous.
Speaker 1: This girl has trained and trained and trained and and you’re allowing somebody to destroy her dreams because you don’t have the guts to speak up because you’re afraid somebody might say you’re a bigot or you’re out of step.
Speaker 1: That’s where we are. We need people to be bold and to speak the truth.
Speaker 1: We’re we’re supposed to speak in love, but we’re supposed to speak