Eric Metaxas challenges pastors to speak boldly on issues
Now is the time to speak out boldly on important cultural and political issues, bestselling author Eric Metaxas told a recent pastors’ summit.
“We need to be living our faith out so that the devil is threatened by how you live out your faith,” he says. “Freedom or liberty or self-government requires virtue, virtue requires faith and faith requires freedom.”
Metaxas perhaps is best known for his biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose bold stand against the Nazi regime ultimately cost him his life. Although he commended recent actions by the Trump administration to encourage greater religious freedom, he called the willingness of Christians to stay silent on important issues in the first place a danger to the republic.
“How pathetic that we need a presidential memo to tell us that we have freedom of speech and freedom of faith,” he said. “I need to be told by a presidential memo, ‘Oh, it’s now OK for me to talk about Jesus?’ That church is a dead church. And I’m telling you, folks, the reason we got into the problems we did in the United States of America up until recently — and of course, we’re trying to dig our way out — is because of those kinds of Christians.”
Metaxas encouraged the church to rise to the challenges it faces today. “If you’re not living fearlessly, you’re failing,” he said. “And by the way, this is not a guilt trip. God created us to live that way. He created us to live freely and to rejoice in him.”
He also praised recent opposition to the Johnson Amendment, a 1954 provision in the tax code that makes religious leaders and entities liable to lose their tax-exempt status if they endorse specific candidates ahead of elections or engage in other types of political activity.
“Patriots have bled and died so you can say whatever you want,” he said. “It doesn’t even have to be true. You can speak your mind on anything, because we have religious liberty and freedom of speech in America.”
Metaxas concluded by expressing hope for revival in the nation.
“When the church begins to be the church of the United States of America — and that is happening, by God’s grace — we will see revival,” he said. “We’re seeing the beginnings of revival. The spirit of revival in America really has a lot to do with loving Jesus. It’s not about doctrines, because you can have doctrines and not love Jesus. And the Lord wants us to have an experience with Jesus.”
–Alan Goforth
