21 Burst results for "Michael Wilkerson"
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Market Strategist Michael Wilkerson Believes US Inflation Could Rise to 12 by YearEnd Despite Predictions of Decrease
"7 p.m. Sunday February 26th, 2023. Market strategist Michael wilkerson believes U.S. inflation could rise to 12 by yearend despite predictions of decrease. While several market strategists and analysts expect U.S. inflation to drop considerably in 2023 compared with last year, Michael wilkerson founder of storm wall advisers thinks the inflation rate could climb as high as 12 by the end of this year. The country's inflation rate has cooled down over the past 7 months, but wilkerson insists
The Eric Metaxas Show
"michael wilkerson" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"It's kind of this free thing. So we're going to continue to explore this with Michael wilkerson, the new book superb book. It's called why America matters. We'll be right back. I've got to keep on chasing that dream though I may never find it. Hey there folks, we're talking with the author of a new book why America matters and Michael, there's a lot to talk about here, but we're kind of reprising the history of America. And you were touching on this idea, which is so utterly important of how in America we sort of took the best of the enlightenment, we didn't take the hyper secular atheistic part of it, which of course is false. The way France did, so we took the good part of the enlightenment and what it did to these new ideas of freedom and we created this nation that, I mean, if anybody wants it's sort of funny when people celebrate best deal day, I think do they even know what a mess. What an absolute a bloodbath and a mess. The French Revolution is just the most bizarre checkered way to begin anything. And I think we could argue that it totally didn't succeed. I mean, it's kind of weird because they act like, oh, it was a good thing, and we believe in these values. But how did that go? It led to Napoleon and it led to whatever. I mean, it did not lead to anything comparable to what our revolution led to because those kinds of revolutions simply by definition can not. You know, you said something earlier that the famous quote of we hold these truths to be self evident. The interesting thing is they were hardly self evident at the time. The idea of equality that all men were created equal was novel in history. No civilization really had practiced that. There were always classes. There were always casts. That enlightenment idea succeeded in the U.S. in America, I would argue because of the Christian foundation that went alongside of it. It's often been said that founding fathers necessarily have been Christians the way we understood them, but they were steeped like a tea in a long cultural history, the importance of religion in America and the idea that virtue was necessary for a republic to survive. And so it was a very different, very different foundation. You mentioned tocqueville by the time he started writing about America in the 1830s, 1840s. A real narrative of who America was had began to coalesce. It was a time when history was an important most important category of books that American history was becoming extremely popular. And a lot of it was about for the first time laying out the foundations of who are we as a people. Where did we come from? What is our destiny? And of course, right in the middle of a terrible conflict, which was the unresolved issue of slavery that the founding fathers were not able to or willing to address at the time of the constitution and the foundations of the country, which unfortunately then echoed as a contradiction to the founding ideals of the country that unfortunately ultimately tore the country apart in order to resolve it. And even then not perfectly. Well, and of course, is still tearing the country apart. I mean, it's so fascinating to look back. And let's be honest, many of the founders despised slavery. I mean, the idea that they were okay with it is a joke. They despised it. And it was sickening to them that they had to make this evil compromise. It was clearly sickening to them. But they didn't know any way forward, but to do that, and of course it resolves itself as bloodily as can be with 600 thousand men dying, not to say how many wounded. Again, we're living through these kind of the woke madness of our day that forgets that 600,000 men died in a war over this issue. It would have been very easy for Lincoln and company to kind of let it ride. Like, who cares? We'll just keep going and we'll figure it out as we go along. But it came to this bloody clash because Lincoln was obviously really to my mind kind of a prophet. He was out of time. When we come back, we're just going to continue the wonderful conversation, at least I think it's wonderful with the author of why America matters, Michael wilkerson, don't go away. Since 1981, unbound is connected people like you with families worldwide on their self directed paths out of poverty, a brighter future as possible for these families when we all walk together. Sponsor a child today and you'll help a family take the first steps on their path..
The Eric Metaxas Show
"michael wilkerson" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Folks, welcome back. I'm talking to my friend Michael wilkerson. He's a strategic adviser and investor. Now an author of two books. The first book storm wall you can find at storm wall dot com. But the brand new book, which is out today, is called why America matters. And I have a number of friends that write books and they ask me if I can give them an endorsement or something like that. And it's very tough because I don't have time. But I managed to read all, I think it was 400 pages of white America matters because it's so good. It's so compelling. And when I was finished reading it, the blurb, the endorsement that I gave is why America matters by Michael wilkerson is an astonishing achievement, wilkerson's masterful synthesis of our history as it relates to where we are right at this moment and how we can and must go forward is an inestimable gift and can hardly be praised enough. Mike, your book, why America matters, the reason it's amazing is at least two reasons. But one is you get right to the heart of this question. It's the ultimate question why America matters. Let's try to figure out who we are, whether we matter, and if we matter why we matter. But in order to do that, you really do, as I put it, you do this masterful synthesis of our history. You take us through our history in a way that is valuable, at least because most Americans have forgotten. Most of us either were never taught in school or we've kind of accepted the narrative of the last 40 or so years, which pretty much ignores this history. That's what I find fascinating is that if you don't know this history, you are really ripe for deception. But so in the book, you choose to tell that history on your way to getting to where we are now and how it matters..
The Eric Metaxas Show
"michael wilkerson" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Thanks, sir. Let me back up and just describe a little bit of the trajectory. So I started my career on Wall Street as a merger and acquisition adviser for lazard, as you mentioned, spent over a dozen years advising large companies on complex cross border transactions. And over the next decade, during the last decade, between 2012 and lockdowns in 2020 was running an investment company focused on investing in quality businesses in Africa around a thesis of food security, energy security, investing in financial services companies, agribusiness companies. And during that entire time, I was very focused on what was going on in Africa, which was politically socially, big transformations happening all across the continent. But I think in fairness I had lost track of what was happening in my own country here in the U.S. here in America. And as everyone who's here with us today will know, in 2020, life as we knew it came to an abrupt halt. When lockdowns came in March 2020, travel restrictions came. The life that I've been living for a decade or more, which involved a lot of international travel, bouncing around from place to place, came to an absolute halt. And when it did, my attention turned back as it did for all of us to, what did the world is going on around us? These seem like very strange things that are happening. The word unprecedented was overused, but it certainly was unexperienced by anyone in our generation. Is he something like this? And so during that time, during 2020, early on in the lockdown, someone said to me, if you're not picking up a new hobby, you're doing something wrong. And for me, that was to begin to write publicly about some of the things that I saw going on. It was something that I'd always wanted to do have been too busy with work, had a moment in time where not only did I have the time to do it, but I had, I would say, a burning interest in trying, even to understand for myself and articulate what is happening. What is this thing? Well, you and I are both men of faith. I know you from way back, there were not many serious Christians in Manhattan. 20 something years ago, you were on the board of my daughter's school, Christian school, here in New York City. So I think anybody who's a serious person of faith when the lockdowns happened, you just said, this smells really weird. This doesn't, this doesn't feel it just doesn't feel good. It feels like something is happening. And so you and many others were trying to process this. I was one of them, obviously, but you pretty quickly transitioned to writing about it and writing quite a bit. I did. So one of the things that happened to me personally was I started to I needed to do my own research. I need to understand, I was being told one thing on a media headline. And there's something about it and this happened over and over again that just didn't feel right. And so I would go to the source. I'd go look at the original transcript of a speech, go look at the original video of something that happened. And it started to dawn on me for the first time in my life that fake news was real. Now many yourselves and others have come to this awareness long before. So I was late to the party. But as soon as I did, it was a wake up call. That I felt compelled to point it out that this stuff was happening that something was being said that didn't comport with reality didn't comport with the facts. And I started to do it around things that I knew best, which was around the markets, the economy, finance, things that were going on. I started to write in 2000 in the summer about a looming inflationary crisis. And at that point, that was French. I was already immediately discounted by a lot of my call it Wall Street peers, because that didn't happen. We lived in a deflationary period for three decades. 30 years. And so, but I could see it that we were creating a scenario where this was a likely outcome. And like you as a student of history, I know that there are patterns that can be seen over time. The problem for most of us is we only have lived to have a century plus or minus, which isn't long enough to really understand what's going on. So to answer your question, I think I started to write because I was increasingly concerned that the wool was being pulled over our collective eyes. On that issue and on a number of others. And I want to say, to my audience, folks listening here, it is not easy to face the horror of what's going on. It took me quite some time to understand, you know, because we talk about fake news, we talk about these things. I have seen, I mean, the moment I was born again and accepted Jesus. I understood, I now live in a world that's crazy because that world pretends Jesus is not lord. There is no God. They actually pretend as though that's okay, as though saying that, I think math is stupid and I'm going to live my life without math or science or and I thought to myself, so once you accept that you're living in a crazy world, in a fallen, broken world that doesn't embrace truth or the one who is truth, now you have to figure out where are we on the spectrum, right? And so I start noticing, okay, we have secular bias. We have left wing bias in The New York Times. So for years, I'm watching this. I'm watching this. But it got worse and worse and worse. And when Trump became president, I had never seen anything like it. I said the left wing New York Times went crazy. The left wing CNN has gone crazy. These folks are now committed to a cause that has nothing to do with truth or journalistic standards. So, but I want to say to accept that, it's not easy. It's like suddenly you're living in a new world. And none of us wants to live in that world. But it kept going and you just said, when 2020 hits and we have lockdowns and we're hearing things, I think I'm saying this mic just because I know there are people who are still having a hard time processing that these things have happened in America. One of the things that happened to me at the time was I have two then late teenage boys. And we would have dinner together. And they would bring up an event that had happened that day, something on the news, a social unrest, a Black Lives Matter riot as they turned out to be, or otherwise. And they took very different perspectives on this. One tended to be very sympathetic on a basis of just justice and fairness. The other who had been at a military school very much backed law enforcement thought it would fund the police. That sounds terrible. And we would have these debates. And what I realized is that I wasn't smart enough that was going on. I needed to get smarter. But that part of it was being able to make sure that because they both had their own version of fake narratives. And yet, to be able to articulate the truth. And it led me to I started writing, as I mentioned, op eds and things like this. But all of a sudden, I realized I had so much to say so quickly that to finally answer your question, I wrote my first book storm wall observations on America and peril about the madness of 2020. The idea of that book was that look at these four different waves that are happening to us. The pandemic. Social unrest domestically. Economic issues, especially looming inflation. And finally, the rising challenge with China and all the things that had gone on around it. I basically said that each of these individual ways are severe enough, but they're coming together and what physicists call constructive amplitude. They come together in a perfect match. They mount and it creates this giant tsunami of events. Lo and behold, as I wrote, this is happening as we're about to enter the most controversial election in American history, at least since the mid 19th century. So that was a lot of the motivation initially to get to get really to answer the question that you just asked to say, how is the Americans are looking at and thinking about these issues? Let me just say, we're going to go to break folks. You can find out about Michael wilkerson's first book storm wall. You can go to storm wall dot com storm wall dot com, Michael wilkerson..
The Eric Metaxas Show
"michael wilkerson" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Start a journey. Not a fad. Pick off your fitness journey with up to $500 off peloton bike like plus or tread packages. Choose the package that will take your training to the next level with accessories, like our cycling shoes, heart rate band, non slip grip dumbbells, and more. Join now and you'll see why 92% of households that start the year with peloton are still active a year later. All access membership separate offer ends January 8th, 2023, excludes by 5 plus and shred basics, the additional terms at one peloton dot com. Folks, welcome to the Eric metaxas show, sponsored by legacy precious metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals, visit legacy p.m. investments dot com that's legacy p.m. investments dot com. Welcome to the Eric metaxas show with your host, Eric the Texas. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Oh boy. How about I get to say Merry Christmas because Christmas is not just one day. It's what's in your heart. Actually, what a dopey cliche. It's not what's in your heart. But there are 12 days of Christmas. We're in the Christmas season. And I just love the idea that we get to. Now, people often ask me, Eric, what's the true meaning of Christmas? And I say it's about giving gifts and being nice. Am I getting it right? Yes. It was spot on spot on. Yeah, it's about giving gifts and being nicer. Not being as mean as you usually are. That's the true meaning of Christmas. Now I'm being sarcastic. The true meaning of Christmas is that the God who created the universe came into the world as a human being. I can't go into details now because it's a little bit mind-blowing, came into the world as a human being 2000 years ago, and through his life and death and resurrection made it possible for anyone who wants to join him in eternity forever. It is the most beautiful, heartbreaking, glorious, thought, story, period in history in the world. And that's Christmas, and it's beautiful, and we need to make sure that we don't get lost in all the other stuff, because all the other stuff is just a result of that, which is the central hope of mankind. Am I putting putting too fine a point on it? I don't think so. Now Alvin, we haven't been together on the air like this for quite a while and I want to make sure that we catch our audience up on everything we've been doing and there's a ton. Yeah, okay. Number 28. Today's December 28 just got to say today's December 28th, Wednesday. Yesterday, folks. Yesterday, December 27th was John's mirac birthday. Yes. Yes. Yes. He's a real human being. He's not a robot. He's not, he's a human being with a birthday. He was born December 27th, like a year and a half after I was born in the same hospital, different mothers, and yesterday was John Smyrna's birthday. And he was supposed to be our guest on the program today, but he got sick. He's so sick. He's so hacking and unable to talk. That we decided, all right, we'll have him on either tomorrow or as soon as he's not hacking. But we're going to talk about other stuff. Now, Alvin, I want to talk about everything I've done over Christmas and before that, you are obviously, I can see from your background, not in your normal home. No, no, I borrowed the set here. It's my nephew's bedroom actually to do this. And you know, I've got to talk about Christmas Eve for some reason. I was visited by three spirits. I don't know why. I think they were supposed to meet. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Seriously, was one of them? Yeah. And pom pom were the other two, yeah. That was clever. That was very, very good. It's Christmas. What do you say? Was it vodka? No, you say you were visited by three spirits. And so did your heart grow three sizes, Albin. One of the lightbulbs was out on one side. Okay, so we actually have a lot to cover folks. This is hard even to get started because so much has happened. We've taken so much time off, let me. Start by saying that we've been away for quite a while. Now, I was, I interviewed Ricky skaggs. That was here in New York. I'm in New York now, but we interviewed Ricky skegs. That night was the show at Carnegie Hall, our Friends, the gettys, Keith and Kristen Getty, where Carnegie Hall. And Ricky skaggs was one of the featured, you know, big shots because they live in Nashville. They're friends with all these like big shots. And Ricky was, of course, fantastic. But he was fantastic on this show. You can watch it on rumble if you, if you're signed up for a newsletter, you probably already have.
The Eric Metaxas Show
"michael wilkerson" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Out. Alvin, I wanted to talk about we were mentioning earlier about the alliance defending freedom. This one thing I didn't mention that again, I keep saying we're raising money for the United States financing. We're asking you to give generously. But here's what I haven't said. They've already won 14 cases at the Supreme Court. I want you to think about the level of lawyer we're talking about that works pro Bono, right? One of them is on behalf of Jack Phillips, the masterpiece cake shop owner from Denver in Colorado. They tried to force him to bake a cake celebrating same sex wedding. He said he couldn't do that. And they told him to shove it. Bake your cake. 80 F stood up and one the battle for him. Now I should say ADF is also urgently active with its academic freedom project on college campuses. It also operates a center for life that focuses on the new realities now that roe V wade has been overturned sent back to the 50 states. So Denise Harley, I want to play the clip. She's ADF's director at the center for life aligns to finding freedom. She's excited to help promote alternatives to abortion. Let's play that clip. Oh, we have these fantastic resources. We have nonprofits, thousands of them around the nation. And so I'm really excited that we'll have an opportunity to hopefully to divert funds away from places like Planned Parenthood that are profiting off of the destruction of human life and into more resources for these moms. I'm amazed the lines to finding freedom is also working on that battle. So look, they never charge a dime to their clients because their legal costs are defrayed by generous tax deductible donations from listeners like you. So again, the website is metaxas talk dot com. You can see the banner. We really need your help. We're behind, these are our God given freedoms and shrine your constitution. They're under attack. Line spending freedom steps up. There's a phone number, some people prefer to call, and I will give that phone number now, but it is important that you know whatever you give is doubled. So give what you can today. Here's the phone number. 8 5 5 three 8 5 O 5 9 6 8 5 5 three 8 5 O 5 9 6. We really are behind. I don't know why, but I want to say, if you haven't yet participated, we really need your help. The alliance of having freedom, they rely to do what they do. They rely on generous folks like you love liberty and who believe in these things. Yeah, and any gift, any amount that you give, your entered into a grand prize drawing. So we're going to draw a three names, any gift amount, $10, 2000, you get involved in the grand prize drawing, and if your name is drawn, you get books, you get stickers, you get t-shirts and hats and all kinds of goodies from the show. It's exciting. It is exciting. And we just want to do that for fun to encourage you to give. But look, don't let these pro life women down align spending freedom has stepped up for them and stuffed up for so many. And I just want to say we're in a battle. If it's not all hands on deck now, you know, people say, if you're saving your courage for a rainy day, it's pouring outside..
The Eric Metaxas Show
"michael wilkerson" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Well, that's what's so interesting is that I wrote a book called if you can keep it. And one of the big takeaways for me as I was processing this and thanks to Oz Guinness, to try to understand what America is. And so the title of your book is why America matters. And part of the answer, why American matters is because America is unique and exceptional in that it doesn't only exist for itself. There's something really wild about that. And there's something profoundly biblical about that. A nation that exists for others, a nation that cares about other nations. The nation that cares about transcendent ideas like liberty, not just being an American, but what does it mean to be an American? What are these concept of these are universal concepts? And so when Jefferson writes, we hold these truths to be self evident, it's amazing because it is universal. So we're talking about this thing called truth. And there hadn't been nations before that were wrestling with what is truth. And so there is something beautiful about America and that's been largely lost in the last decades and we're talking about that. And you're talking also about another unprecedented thing. Of course, tocqueville couldn't believe he thought, my goodness. Liberty is always at war with the church, but in America, which is what you just said. Bizarrely amazingly, they're actually bolstering each other because we don't have an established church. The church is not a powerful organization like the monarchy. It's kind of this free thing. So we're going to continue to explore this with Michael wilkerson, the new book superb book. It's called why America matters. We'll be right back. I've got to keep on chasing that dream I may never find it. Hey there folks we're talking with the author of a new book why America matters and Michael, there's a lot to talk about here, but we're kind of reprising the history of America and you were touching on this idea, which is so utterly important of how in America we sort of took the best of the enlightenment, we didn't take the hyper secular atheistic part of it, which of course is false. The way France did, so we took the good part of the enlightenment and what it did to these new ideas of freedom and we created this nation that, I mean, if anybody wants it's sort of funny when people celebrate best deal day, I think do they even know what a mess. What an absolute bloodbath and a mess. The French Revolution is just the most bizarre checkered way to begin anything. And I think we could argue that it totally didn't succeed. I mean, it's kind of weird because they act like, oh, it was a good thing and we believe in these values. But how did that go? It led to Napoleon and it led to whatever. I mean, it did not lead to anything comparable to what our revolution led to because those kinds of revolutions simply by definition can not. You know, you said something earlier that the famous quote of we hold these truths to be self evident. The interesting thing is they were hardly self evident at the time. The idea of equality that all men were created equal was novel in history. No civilization really had practiced that. There were always classes. There were always casts. That enlightenment idea succeeded in the U.S. in America, I would argue because of the Christian foundation that went alongside of it. It's often been said that the founding fathers necessarily been Christians the way we understood them, but they were steeped like a T in a long cultural history, the importance of religion in America and the idea that virtue was necessary for a republic to survive. And so it was a very different, very different foundation. You mentioned talk filled by the time he started writing about America in the 1830s, 1840s. A real narrative of who America was had began to coalesce. It was a time when history was an important category of books that American history was becoming extremely popular. And a lot of it was about for the first time laying out the foundations of who are we as a people. Where did we come from? What is our destiny? And of course, right in the middle of a terrible conflict, which was the unresolved issue of slavery that the founding fathers were not able to or willing to address at the time of the constitution and the foundations of the country, which unfortunately then echoed as a contradiction to the founding ideals of the country that unfortunately ultimately tore the country apart in order to resolve it. And even then not perfectly. Well, and of course, is still tearing the country apart. I mean, it's so fascinating to look back. And let's be honest, many of the founders despised slavery. I mean, the idea that they were okay with it is a joke. They despised it. And it was sickening to them that they had to make this evil compromise. It was clearly sickening to them. But they didn't know any way forward, but to do that, and of course it resolves itself as bloodily as can be with 600 thousand men dying, not to say how many wounded. Again, we're living through these kind of the woke madness of our day that forgets that 600,000 men died in a war over this issue. It would have been very easy for Lincoln and company to kind of let it ride. Who cares? We'll just keep going and we'll figure it out as we go along. But it came to this bloody clash because Lincoln was obviously really to my mind kind of a prophet. He was out of time. When we come back, we're just going to continue the wonderful conversation, at least I think it's wonderful with the author of why America matters. Michael wilkerson don't go away. Membership he's apply after free trial, cancel any time. 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The Eric Metaxas Show
"michael wilkerson" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Yeah. At some point, you can no longer stand up and resist. Well, that's that has animated me what you just said for the last number of years. I've said we no longer have anything to lose. We have to fight. I can not keep my powder dry for another day. The battle is now, but there are many people still thinking, well, not yet, not yet. And obviously in my new book letter to the American church, I am horrified at Christian leaders who still they kind of want to go back to where we were 5 or ten years ago. They don't understand that the people in Europe are going through agony. They're looking for leadership. And it ought to be the church that has the courage that has no excuse in terms of speaking out as church leaders did during the revolution up to the revolution against the slave trade. People who kind of put two and two together. And that to me, again, the reason it's horrifying is because we know what happens in Germany when the church was silent. There came a point you just said it where now if you figured it out, it's too late. You missed your window, shut up. You have nothing to say. And so if people don't fight now, it's over. So I don't remember exactly how you conclude your book, but I know that that's part of it. It's part of it. And by the way, I have read your new book letter to the American church. It is excellent. And this is a great book that everyone should read if you haven't already. Because it is a wake-up call. It is the task and sounding, the alarm bell that we need to hear as Americans. The what Tuscan bell, the ringing of the bell. Oh, right. Right, right. My book's longer. And that's the only problem with it. Is you got it done. There are different kinds of books, but listen, part of the good news is that the horrible crises through which we are living is leading people like you and me to write books and to shout and it's leading people to take action and to understand where we are. Yeah, and we've talked about a lot of heavy things. And some of them can be discouraging. What I will say is writing this book left me with a great hope that just at the beginning God does care about the future of America. He does have his hand on this nation. He loves it. The only nation in history that actually chose God as sort of a foundational idea. He chose the Israelites. We chose him. And even today, where goes America so goes the world. And I take comfort and courage in knowing that our virtues of justice equality, democracy, all the things that we stand for, have a place in the world. And in fact, are more needed today than ever. And so I take heart and I want Americans to take hard as well. The book is why America matters, the author, Michael wilkerson, Michael, thank you so much. Thank you, all right. Great to be with you. Hey folks, welcome back. Lots more ahead, but I want to remind everybody this month only nutrimetics dot com 30 percent off if you use the code Eric. If you don't use the code Eric, you get zero percent off. That's not as good as 30% off. New traumatic dot com use the code Eric. You get 30% off. Obviously, at Mike lindell's my pillow dot com and my store dot com, you get even more percent off if you use the code, Eric. So we recommend that. I also want to say, if you go to Salem now dot com, there's a few films we would like to highlight. One of them is called no vacancies at Salem now dot com. Also, the streaming series on the border battle, Charlie Kirk and our friends telling the story of what's going on on our southern border in the short term, it's called invasion, but if you want more on what that is, you go to Salem now dot com and you can check that.
The Eric Metaxas Show
"michael wilkerson" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"And I think that's what your book helps us do. You have written in many books around issues like this, Bond Hoff for being the most notable example of how an entire culture can be assumed with a false ideology, a political ideology that actually supplants the real values of the nation. America was special in one way because it had seen forms of tyranny, forms of oppression, had seen them in the pre colonial era and coming out of England looking for a place where religious and civic freedom forgive me, this is a very terrible interruption because this is radio. We're going to cut you off mid sentence. We will be back with the rest of that sentence and Mike wilkerson, the book is why America matters. We'll lead me. Folks, welcome back, talking to Michael wilkerson, his new book is why America matters. And Michael, I just cut you off in the break there. You were talking about American history. You remind me that you made a comment that described how Americans have experienced, let's say, in the last decade, an increasing degree of what feels like totalitarianism. Surveillance from government surveillance from corporations, various forms of tyranny. And I was getting to make a comment that America was birthed in a less technologically sophisticated rejection of tyranny. So pre colonial period, the Puritans and others left England in order to find religious freedom, civic freedom, to create a different kind of government that hadn't existed before. Contemporaneous with our American Revolution, the French Revolution was going on. But it became extremely autocratic, extremely controlled, extremely tyrannical. And something unique happened in America at that time that allowed this nation to go in a different direction than where the French Revolution went. You've written about a 20th century variations of this with bahnhof and otherwise where in Europe in authoritarian movements, whether labeled communism or fascism or otherwise. A more modern manifestation of this. In America has been largely free of that for its three centuries of history. We're now at a period where those same forces in disguise are taking root in our own in our own nation and our own country. And it's coming in ways that are more or less obvious, but from points of origin that one would not have expected. It isn't just a fascist leader who's taking control of the police state, although there are elements of concern now in our national security apparatus in our intelligence apparatus in the Federal Bureau of Investigation or federalized police force, that give rise to the same kind of concerns. It's also happening in the private sector in a way that hasn't been seen before. Prior to this technological revolution, it was not possible for a small group of very large, very powerful companies, more powerful than most nation states, to be able to influence what we hear, what we see and what we think. And this is where it's very subtle and very dangerous because this indoctrination is going on. Day after day after day. And when you're able to step away from it through perspectives that you provide or others provide, it's only then when you can start to see the force for the trees and realize, hold on, this looks awfully familiar to a student of history to somebody who's seen these patterns before in new garb in modern art. That's what's so interesting to me is that people always expect things to happen in the same way, right? Like we're going to get a fascist dictator, it's Trump. He's, you know, Hitler two. Simple. No, it's often dramatically different. What you just said. I mean, who could have foreseen social media, big tech, who could have foreseen that corporate America would get woke and be effectively pro diversity quote unquote, that they would have swallowed that pill of madness and that that would come into corporate America. So we see a kind of collection of bizarre, unprecedented things, working together, and it really isn't easy to step back. And to see it, although sometimes it's clear, like when you make the point between there's the French Revolution and the American Revolution, when you really understand how dramatically different those revolutions were from where they were coming from and where they ended, when you see when you understand what happened in Nazi Germany, you have, in a sense, a vocabulary to process this. But a lot of people haven't been processing it, which is one of the reasons that I wanted to have you on because it's just, I'll say it again, it's simply not easy to swallow this. This is an amazing thing that we're going through. One of the things that made that transition unique in America is that at the time, the French Revolution, for example, the enlightenment movement, that represented the revolutionary France, was completely anti religious. He was a secular movement. They wanted to erase the infamy of the church. They wanted to basically destroy an entire civilization's legacy. Something different happened in America, which was because of our pre colonial history. The enlightenment embraced the church and the church embraced enlightenment. And I argue, as others do, that the only way that the American experiment could have happened was by that successful integration of the virtues of the enlightenment around knowledge around political thinking that arose out of it around separation of powers around the rights of the citizens were the actual rulers of the country. Novel idea. That that was actually embraced alongside a very unique American theology that believed that God had a special place in his heart for America that there was something new, a new experiment that God was undertaking for a purpose that was intended as a blessing to America, but more importantly, are equally as a blessing to the world that the role that this country would play would resonate as it has over time..
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"michael wilkerson" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Toast. Folks, welcome back. I'm talking to my friend Michael wilkerson. He's a strategic adviser and investor. Now an author of two books, the first book storm wall you can find at storm wall dot com, but the brand new book, which is out today, is called why America matters. And I have a number of friends that write books and they ask me if I can give them an endorsement or something like that. And it's very tough because I don't have time, but I managed to read all, I think it was 400 pages of white America matters because it's so good. It's so compelling. And when I was finished reading it, the blurb, the endorsement that I gave is why America matters by Michael wilkerson is an astonishing achievement wilkerson's masterful synthesis of our history as it relates to where we are right at this moment and how we can and must go forward is an inestimable gift and can hardly be praised enough. Mike, your book why America matters, the reason it's amazing is at least two reasons. But one is you get right to the heart of this question. It's the ultimate question why America matters. Let's try to figure out who we are, whether we matter, and if we matter why we matter. But in order to do that, you really do, as I put it, you do this masterful synthesis of our history. You take us through our history in a way that is valuable, at least because most Americans have forgotten. Most of us either were never taught in school or we've kind of accepted the narrative of the last 40 or so years, which pretty much ignores this history. That's what I find fascinating is that if you don't know this history, you are really ripe for deception. But so in the book, you choose to tell that history on your way to getting to where we are now and how it matters. So I don't know where you want to start. Well, let me just maybe address the question of why I did that. I think you said you described two types of Americans. One is people who have forgotten their history. So perhaps our generation been around for a long time during a period of time that has been laden with cynicism about the meaning of America about whether America was special. That's right. About whether there was anything of value in our national patrimony. And even if we grew up in an environment that's still said the Pledge of Allegiance still taught American history, still taught civics. That foundation has been eroded and eroding away for an entire generation. So I'm 50 some years old. I remember getting those kinds of instructions, but I also remember what life was like in graduate schools and elite liberal arts colleges. And intentional undermining you and I have lived through this because we're old enough to remember when America was still vaguely patriotic. And when these basics were taken for granted. And when the older generation certainly loved the country and many of them had fought for the country. But you and I had the fortune and misfortune of going into these elite institutions where we pretty much picked up, there's another narrative. There's an anti American narrative, and the cultural leads today almost universally have adopted that narrative. And as a result of that, several decades worth of Americans have not been getting the memo that America is special that America matters. That's exactly right. And the second group that you described were those who have never learned it. So for a younger generation, we call them Gen Z now Gen Z that age group, that cohort have probably never had even the foundational experience that our generation might have had, at least getting the basics down. And we're facing a time when an entire generation doesn't know its own history doesn't understand the meaning of America, have lived with the narrative that you just described, what I would say is a false narrative about America's meaning and its history. And you see it when you look at their beliefs. So you look at all the polls, they no longer really believe in democracy. They see it as one choice among many, maybe socialism is great. Maybe communism is great. Maybe being run by a technocratic elite is just fine. They really don't appreciate the value. And why American matters was written for those two groups to help remind and to perhaps instruct for the very first time, just for someone to say, wow, I never knew that this was true about this place we call home. Well, it's an astonishing thing to realize that, I mean, I think everybody says this, you know, you get older, time kind of speeds up. And you really can't help but live in the past. Because it seems like 5 minutes ago, you know, we were kids and we lived in this kind of America. And it's hard to believe how far America has drifted. And so waking up during the pandemic, you suddenly look around and you think, wow, I see a lot of the earmarks of Marxism, I see communist style state control of the people. Notice the kind of thing that would have been antithetical to any generation before, suddenly became possible, and a lot of people who I mentioned before that accepting that there are these elites trying to manipulate you. That's not easy. I can understand why people would drag their feet and saying, well, it's overblown. Come on, come on. Because it's too painful to think that there are people like blue state governors putting COVID patients in nursing homes that they would be that cavalier about. It never happened in America, or at least not in our America. So when it does happen, it takes some time to kind of recalibrate..
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"michael wilkerson" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"It is why America matters. So you take us through the history of America to help us understand where we are now. It's important that we understand this. And that's why I'm so grateful to you for writing this book. Obviously, you're not the only person trying to make sense of things, but you do so in a unique way. And let me ask you, Michael, how do you think your book is unique? In other words, because there are people writing books trying to make sense of where we are. What is it about your book that you think is different? I think the perspective of really starting with what do we see going on around us in the last couple of years. I talked about four crises. The crisis of circumstances, all the things that are happening pandemic, China, secondly, the crisis of institutions, they don't trust us, and we don't trust them. The crisis of identity that Americans no longer know who we are. And finally, the crisis of engagement, which means that all three of those things conspire to limit America's ability to engage with itself and to engage with the world. We can't make good policies because we have a confused sense of what we're trying to accomplish. So number one, I think the perspective, what's different, the perspective that I come at it in time. Secondly, I really do try to move on from problem identification to what can we do to address this issue? How can America be restored? And I'm making a point that says, we can't just go back to the past. This isn't about just a lament for traditional values. They're important. I affirm them. But I make a statement. Let's take the example of foreign policy. America was very isolationist for its first 150 years. The wars of the 20th century made that position impossible forever more. On the other hand, at the turn of the next millennium, what I call the book, the millennial turning, we took the opposite approach of interventionism everywhere. Endless wars, having to be everywhere at all times. Forcing American values on people that may or may not have wanted them at enormous cost and consequence to our own nation and our identity. Well, look, you can not force self government on people any more than you can force believing in Jesus on people. There are certain things that are by definition free and so yeah, that's kind of what happened under George Bush and obviously it didn't go well. It didn't go well. Having said that, one of the links that I make in the book right before the break, we were talking about what I called the ideological attack. What is happening inside of America and our confusion has been clearly identified as an opportunity by our adversaries. China in the lead, Russia, Iran and others. Have noticed and are taking advantage of it, taking opportunity. We've seen it in terms of China's incursions, espionage dealing of massive amounts of information and data. We see it in their influencing of the same social media, the same surveillance, the same issues that we've talked about in other aspects. This is something that, again, I think more so today, Americans are aware of it, but even two years ago, I would suggest the vast majority of Americans had no idea. The undermining of our economy, of our society, of our culture, our values, that was being taken place. Surreptitiously, it's now coming to light, and Americans are starting to wait. Well, it does seem to me that Trump was awake to much of this. In other words, he knew the game that China was playing. And I think that the reason he's been so attacked is because he did begin to go against that. And when you go against that, you're going against those in this country who have been appeasing China, which is to say, many Republicans, most of the Democrats, it's good for business. Biden, I can't imagine that anyone today doesn't think that Biden is deeply corrupt along with the clintons and was making millions and millions of dollars by not going there by not confronting any of this stuff. So it seems to me part of the solution has to be to elect people that understand this. And there are just a handful of them..
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Eric and Michael Wilkerson Unpack His New Book and Post-Modernism
"Book, you do really beautifully move through the decades and help us understand kind of how we got here. So in the 20th century, this new idea comes in. And again, there are no new ideas. It's just the new version or the new manifestation of it. But yeah, this war on truth, which if you don't believe in truth, it's really hard to believe in transcendent values in the dignity of the human being. And so the deconstruction critical theory really undermines everything that makes liberty and freedom possible. I mean, liberty and truth possible. You know, I think in the 60s and the 70s, even in the 80s, post modernism was in a corner of academia. It was seen as, okay, there it is. I don't think we've appreciated how pervasive it's become, how much it has leaked out into society as a whole. And what is it? What are we talking about? It's the idea that there is no truth that you can't make any judgment on absolute sense. It really is subjective as to the meaning. And the way this manifests is in power and language in a view in that world that power, you can understand everything by looking at the power structure, who's in charge. And that's how identity politics really comes up with this idea of intersectionality and being able to look at somebody based on an oppressor victim construct. But it also comes down to language. And one of the things that this ideological attack is doing is systematically undermining for all of us, the meaning of words,
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"michael wilkerson" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"It took me quite some time to understand, you know, because we talk about fake news, we talk about these things. I have seen, I mean, the moment I was born again and accepted Jesus. I understood, I now live in a world that's crazy because that world pretends Jesus is not lord. There is no God. They actually pretend as though that's okay as though saying that I think math is stupid and I'm going to live my life without math or science or you know, and I thought to myself, so once you accept that you're living in a crazy world in a fallen, broken world that doesn't embrace truth or the one who is truth, now you have to figure out where are we on the spectrum, right? And so I start noticing, okay, we have secular bias. We have left wing bias in The New York Times. So for years, I'm watching this. I'm watching this. But it got worse and worse and worse. And when Trump became president, I had never seen anything like it. I said the left wing New York Times went crazy. The left left wing CNN has gone crazy. These folks are now committed to a cause that has nothing to do with truth or journalistic standards. So, but I want to say to accept that, it's not easy. It's like suddenly you're living in a new world. And none of us wants to live in that world. But it kept going and you just said, when 2020 hits and we have lockdowns and we're hearing things, I think I'm saying this might just because I know there are people who are still having a hard time processing that these things have happened in America. One of the things that happened to me at the time was I have two then late teenage boys. And we would have dinner together. And they would bring up an event that had happened that day, something on the news, a social unrest, a Black Lives Matter riot as they turned out to be or otherwise. And they took very different perspectives on this. One tended to be very sympathetic on a basis of just justice and fairness. The other who had been at a military school very much back law enforcement thought to define the police, that sounds terrible. And we would have these debates. And what I realized is that I wasn't smart enough about what's going on. I needed to get smarter. But that part of it was being able to make sure that because they both had their own version of fake narratives. And yet, to be able to articulate the truth. And it led me to, I started writing, as I mentioned, op eds and things like this. But all of a sudden, I realized I had so much to say so quickly that to finally answer your question, I wrote my first book storm wall observations on America and peril about the madness of 2020. The idea of that book was that look at these four different waves that are happening to us. The pandemic, social unrest, domestically, economic issues, especially looming inflation. And finally, the rising challenge with China and all the things that had gone on around it. I basically said that each of these individual ways are severe enough, but they're coming together and what physicists call constructive amplitude. They come together in a perfect match. They mount and it creates this giant tsunami of events. Lo and behold, as I wrote, this is happening as we're about to enter the most controversial election in American history, at least since the mid 19th century. So that was a lot of the motivation initially to get to get really to answer the question that you just asked to say, how is the Americans are looking at and thinking about these issues?.
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"michael wilkerson" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Thanks, Eric. Let me back up and just describe a little bit of the trajectory. So I started my career on Wall Street as a merger and acquisition adviser for lazard, as you mentioned, spent over a dozen years advising large companies on complex cross border transactions. And over the next decade, during the last decade, between 2012 and lockdowns of 2020 was running an investment company focused on investing in quality businesses in Africa around a thesis of food security, energy security, investing in financial services companies, agribusiness companies. And during that entire time, I was very focused on what was going on in Africa in terms of politically socially big transformations happening all across the continent. But I think in fairness, I had lost track of what was happening in my own country here in the U.S. here in America. And as everyone who's here with us today will know in 2020, life as we knew it came to an abrupt halt. When lockdowns came in March 20 20, travel restrictions came. The life that I've been living for a decade or more, which involved a lot of international travel. Bouncing around from place to place came to an absolute halt. And when it did, my attention turned back as it did for all of us to what in the world is going on around us. These seem like very strange things that are happening. The word unprecedented was overused, but it certainly was unexperienced by anyone in our generation to see something like this. And so during that time, during 2020, early on in the lockdown, someone said to me, if you're not picking up a new hobby, you're doing something wrong. And for me, that was to begin to write publicly about some of the things that I saw going on. It was something that I'd always wanted to do have been too busy with work, had a moment in time where not only did I have the time to do it, but I had, I would say, a burning interest in trying, even to understand for myself and articulate what is happening. What is this thing? Well, you and I are both men of faith. I know you from way back, there were not many serious Christians in Manhattan. 20 something years ago, you were on the board of my daughter's school, Christian school here in New York City. So I think anybody who's a serious person of faith when the lockdowns happened, you just said, this smells really weird. This doesn't feel it just doesn't feel good. It feels like something is happening. And so you and many others, we're trying to process this. I was one of them, obviously, but you pretty quickly transitioned to writing about it and writing quite a bit. I did. So one of the things that happened to me personally was I started to I needed to do my own research. I need to understand, I was being told one thing on a media headline. And there's something about it and this happened over and over again that just didn't feel right. And so I would go to the source. I'd go look at the original transcript of a speech, go look at the original video of something that happened. And it started to dawn on me for the first time in my life that fake news was a real. Now many yourselves and others have come to this awareness long before. So I was late to the party. But as soon as I did, it was a wake-up call. That I felt compelled to point it out that this stuff was happening that something was being said that didn't comport with reality. It didn't comport with the facts. And I started to do it around things that I knew best, which was around the markets, the economy, finance, things that were going on. I started to write in 2000 in the summer about a looming inflationary crisis. And at that point, that was French. I was already immediately discounted by a lot of my call it Wall Street peers, because that didn't happen. We lived in a deflationary period for three decades. 30 years. And so, but I could see it that we were creating a scenario where this was a likely outcome. And like you as a student of history, I know that there are patterns that can be seen over time. The problem for most of us is we only have lived to have a century plus or minus, which isn't long enough to really understand what's going on. So to answer your question, I think I started to write because I was increasingly concerned that the wool was being pulled over our collective eyes. On that issue and on a number of others. And I want to say, to my audience, folks listening here, it is not easy to face the horror of what's going on..
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"michael wilkerson" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"I am really blessed over the years just to get to know so many people, not imagining that sometime in the future they might write a book and I might get to tell the world about it on my radio or TV program. But today, I have to say, I have a dear friend with me as my guest, Michael wilkerson, no relation to David wilkerson. My former pastor, Mike wilkerson, is a strategic adviser, he was a managing director at Lazar frere, some of you that might mean something to you. He's an investor, he's a former CEO of fairfax, Africa, but right now I know him in this new capacity as an author as someone who writes about American history about current events and I'm just thrilled to have him with me in the studio to talk about his brand new book. Why America matters? Mike, wilkerson, welcome. Thank you, Eric. It's great to be here with you. It is amazing, you know, as years pass and your friends go through their careers and things and only recently have you morphed from this investment guy, this financial guy that I've known for so long into somebody who writes in many places about what's going on in the country today. And if you would cheer a little bit of that journey before we get to the book because the book titled why America matters is kind of it ends up being sort of a summation of what you have learned on this journey from investment guide to author, who's still an investment guy, but to who's writing big books..
The Eric Metaxas Show
"michael wilkerson" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Thank you. I've been the first to last look at how the time goes back. But I'm all alone at last rolling on to you. In case you haven't been paying attention. The Biden administration has caused a financial crisis and they have no clue how to fix it. Oil prices have skyrocketed and when oil prices go up, the cost of transportation and shipping spikes leading the prices of goods to rise. And when we're already seeing record inflation, that's the last thing we need. Our economy is in trouble and you need to take steps to protect yourself. If all your money is tied up in stocks, bonds and traditional markets, you are vulnerable. Gold is one of the best ways to protect your retirement. No matter what happens, you own your gold. It is real. It is physical. It's always been valuable since the dawn of time. Legacy precious metals is the company I trust for investing in gold. They can help you roll your retirement account into a gold backed IRA where you still own the physical gold. They can also ship gold and precious metals safely and securely to your house called legacy at 8 6 6 5 two 8 1903 or visit them online at legacy p.m. investments dot com. If you want to know what the left's real plan is for your kids, just look at the reaction to the work patriot mobile did in multiple school districts in Texas. The left is losing their minds over it. Patriot mobile is America's only Christian conservative mobile phone provider and a force for conservative values. That's because they take a portion of your Bill and fund conservative causes and candidates who believe in the sanctity of life, freedom of speech, the Second Amendment, and they're winning patriot mobile, has affordable plans for you, your family, even your business. They are for the same nationwide coverage as the major carriers because they use multiple major networks. Plus you're supporting conservative values with every phone call, go to patriot mobile dot com slash Eric, patriot mobile dot com slash Eric or call 9 7 two patriot, get free activation with the offer code Eric special discounts available for veterans and first responders join our movement, make the switch today in a difference tomorrow patriot mobile dot com slash Eric patriot mobile dot com slash Eric or call 9 7 two, patriot. Hey folks, welcome back as I warned you I have yet another friend of mine on the program..
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"michael wilkerson" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"I just want to say folks, it gets a little complicated, but this goes way back. In 1965, one of the heroes, the intellectually honest members of the Democratic Party, senator moynihan, wrote extensively about how the breakdown of family was destroying black communities. He dared to say that in 1965. In other words, that that issue was at the heart of everything, and he was shut down. It was kind of like, well, no, that's considered racist, even though he was very liberal. He was honest about talking about some of these policies, big government policies. These kinds of things are destroying black communities. And so we've been living with that ever since that, you know, doctor king, of course, was openly Christian in what he was writing about and what he's advocating for, but there's this other side of black activism, whether it's Malcolm X going into Al sharpton and the radical left that we see today. But they are advocating policies. We need to be clear that are harmful to black Americans. And so just because I'm white doesn't prevent me from saying that. If I love my black brothers and sisters, I'm going to say those policies are wicked. And so there's always been this kind of battle in a way, and I would like to think that today a lot of black Americans are kind of waking up to this. They've been taken for granted, they've been targeted by Planned Parenthood, getting into so much more recent stuff. But keep going on Frederick Douglas. One of the things I was going to say is that in the book, I move away from the history of events like the wars and foundational events like the revolution of war the signing of the constitution. I move into the what I call the ideological attack that occurred in really beginning in the 60s. And I think that that's very foundational what's going on right now, because at the same time, one of the things that Frederick Douglas himself pointed out was he articulated very clearly that the institutions of the slave power, including the slave trade, including what was going on interstate, was affecting black slaves and the white poor equally. So Irish immigrants coming across getting oppressed to work in the shipyards and other things that basically slavery dishes, not nearly as bad as being an African American black American in the south. But nonetheless, Frederick Douglas was the first one to say, this is not about race. This is about class. This is about an elite cabal trying to keep down certain parts of society. And those two, the black slave and the poor immigrant, white immigrants have more in common with each other than they do with their so called racial racial brothers or sisters..
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"michael wilkerson" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Bad. I have to design after 45 days. Exit stage right, yeah. Okay, so before we get to Mike, I got to say, we are still way behind in our attempt to help our Friends at the alliance defending freedom. We need your help. If you haven't given, let me just say you're not off the hook. Everyone was listening to this program. I want to say I consider this your duty even more than paying your taxes far more. We need people who are fighting our taxes, of course, have been given to people who are fighting against our liberties at this point. King George the third and the tyrants in Washington, they are using our tax dollars to destroy our liberties. Our God given liberties enshrined in our founding documents. The folks at alliance defending freedom, when you give them your money, they use it to fight often in the Supreme Court to defend religious liberty. I simply can not underscore how important this is. These are battles that are not being fought by many others. This is, you know, an opportunity to give to the people who are standing up who are going to court whenever religious liberty battle comes up and you know there's a host of them you've heard about them. We've talked about them on this show. They go to bat and they do this pro Bono. That means pro for Bono good. That's Latin for good. Not for money. Pro Bono, they do this free. So when somebody is attacked like Jack Phillips in Colorado a few years ago, we're a host of others that you've heard me talk about. They can't afford legal costs. So they go to the lines of spending freedom and they have the best, the best, the best lawyers, take the case on. And then without charging the client a dime, they help them. But we need to help lines defending freedom. Otherwise, they can't do this. So you need to go to our website and metaxas talk dot com. I've said it before. Whatever you give is doubled, folks. Your first gift to the line spending freedom is doubled because of a very generous donor. So I want to encourage you to do this. But to do this also because it's your duty as an American, you know, we said, we've got to speak out. We've got to do this. If everybody would do their little bit, it would change the nation. And so lies funding freedom. I literally can't think of anybody fighting harder and better than they do. There are others, but there is nobody that does it better than the lines of any.
The Eric Metaxas Show
Michael Wilkerson: Slavery Defined Who We Would Become as a Nation
"Our two in my conversation with my friend Michael wilkerson, the book, really an amazing book. It's called why America matters. Okay, so Michael, we left off talking about the issue of slavery. And you write really extensively about that battle in our history, because a lot of times we get the short version of it. To me, this was the foundational challenge. This was the question that was going to define who would we become as a nation. Slavery was an aberration. It was inimical to the ideals articulated in the declaration in the constitution. And yet we allowed it to live. There was a belief that, oh, it'll just go away on its own. Later in following the signing of the declaration, a lot of the signatories and others really begin to rally around resistance to the idea of slavery. But we were in conflict because half of the nation in the south were very much wedded to it from their economic and cultural social life. John Quincy Adams, after he left The White House for the next three decades in the House of Representatives, haranguing about the issue of slavery, Benjamin Franklin, in his last decade, really devoted himself to abolitionist causes. The rise of the abolitionist movements in the 1830s through 50 60s really were a catalyst to begin to awaken public consciousness at a broader level to the evil that was the institution of slavery. The most fascinating person that I found in this whole period of history was Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass was an escaped slave who, in his youth, had taught himself to read, taught him itself, got all kinds of books whenever he could. Eventually escape to the north. And long story short became a leading abolitionist, a leading voice, a friend of president Lincoln. And in my view was the most prophetic voice speaking to the conscious of America saying, this thing is evil and it has to be destroyed. And
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"michael wilkerson" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Duncan is ready for you to fall hard so when you hear those leaves wrestling, it's time to eat sleep and drink pumpkin at Dunkin with pumpkin muffins, munchkins and donuts pair them with a classic pumpkin spice signature latte or the ultra smooth pumpkin cream cold brew, America runs on Dunkin, price and participation in my very limited time offer terms apply. Welcome to the Eric metaxas show with your host, Eric the Texas. Alvin it's Friday. It's Friday, yeah. I'm still in Williamsburg, Virginia. Yesterday we were we were shearing the sheep here. And it's time consuming, but we need the wall, which we're going to weave into garments. To keep us warm this winter, it being 1745. And so there's no central heating in 1745. And so we didn't finish shearing the sheep. And so today we've got to finish. We got to wrap that up. After that, I got to jump on a plane to go to Columbus, Ohio. Today, tonight, it's Friday tonight. I'm doing a Salem talkers tour event in Columbus, Ohio, folks. If you have any friends, listeners who are in the Columbus, Ohio area. And you don't come to this. I'm going to be very upset because I will know. I will feel it. And that's tonight, Columbus, Ohio. If you want details, you go to metaxas. I'm sorry, you go to Erik metaxas dot com, my website, you click on speaking, it'll give you the details. But that is tonight. In Columbus, after the sheep are shorn, I'm going to proceed to the airport and fly to Columbus. Tomorrow, I'm going to fly to Cleveland, Ohio. And in Cleveland, we're going to do another that's Saturday night that's tomorrow. Another Salem talkers tour, I'll be there, I think Brandon Tatum and Hugh Hewitt, I don't know who else. Anyway, so that's very exciting. I want to let you all know, I also want to say next week I'm doing a big event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania with Sean Foyt and all the crazies, all the maga crazies, me, Sean foy, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that's next Wednesday, the 26th. Then I'm going to be doing a prayer breakfast in valley forge Pennsylvania that's next Friday, very early, and then we have a Socrates in the city event on November 1st. I can't believe it's coming up. With David berlinsky, I'm not kidding. I say this. People know that I'm pretty careful with my words. I literally can not think of a conversationalist who is more fascinating than David berlinsky. I honestly think I would put him at the top of the list. He is amazing. He has a book out called human nature. He's just incredibly brilliant and fun. And sauteing city events are a lot of fun. They're just delightful. That's a New York City on November 1st. After that, I go to Lynchburg, Virginia, I'm looking at my calendar. I go to college for Virginia. They're not being Los Angeles. They're not being Denver, Colorado. Like, what the heck is what's going on? I forgot I have a family in New York. I go to Atlanta at the end of November. I'm just looking at this here. I'm going to Atlanta. I'm going to be in Seattle and it's getting crazy. So anyway, those are the details of the next few weeks. I am today. You live the life I only dream about there, mister metaxas. Yes, oh, it's incredible on planes and stuff. It's just crazy. So, and when I'm not on planes, I'm not on planes. It's amazing. Either way, so often I'm either on a plane or not on a plane and it just, it's just crazy stuff. Okay, so last night here in Williamsburg, Pennsylvania. I was so tired, right? And because I'd had an exhausting day and I looked at my watch, I was like so wiped out and I looked at my watch and it was, it was ten, right? But I was so tired that I said, what did I say? Did I write this down? This was one of the weirdest things I have ever said in my life. Let me see if I wrote this down. I think I wrote this down because it was just too weird. I said, I said, it's so tired, I'm 10 o'clock. I didn't say I'm so tired. It's 10 o'clock. I said, it's so tired, I'm 10 o'clock. Like my brain. Wow. I was so fatigued. Anyway, as I mentioned, I'm still in Williamsburg, but I'm heading to Columbus, but I did sleep last night. And that's always a positive thing if you're exhausted. Alvin mentioned, I should have I always forget to do this. In both hours today, an old friend of mine, Michael wilkerson, is my guest. He has a book out. It's an amazing book. I read every page. It's a big deal. And so this is an important conversation I'm having with my friend today. Michael, wilkerson, both hours today. I also want to say on Monday, we recorded a conversation a couple of days ago with the ultra super genius Hugh Ross. If you know Hugh Ross, he has a book out that talks about the fine tuning of the universe on a whole new level, like new stuff that's come out. There's nobody more amazing and brilliant than he Ross. So on Monday, both hours, we're talking to him, we've also got Ted Cruz coming up next week. Supposed to be up next week. We get Ted Cruz. Katie Hopkins. Katie Hopkins, we haven't had her in a while. I'm gonna ask her about Liz truss, who resigned the prime as prime minister of England after 44 days. It's like, it's an astonishing thing. I want to get her British perspective. President Harrison or whatever, who was it that had about 30 days in office? Exactly. But this is yeah, this is nuts. Okay, but that was like death. This was not death. This was like things are so.
The Eric Metaxas Show
Author Michael Wilkerson on 'Why America Matters'
"Your book why America matters, the reason it's amazing is at least two reasons. But one is you get right to the heart of this question. It's the ultimate question why America matters. Let's try to figure out who we are, whether we matter, and if we matter why we matter. But in order to do that, you really do, as I put it, you do this masterful synthesis of our history. You take us through our history in a way that is valuable, at least because most Americans have forgotten. Most of us either were never taught in school or we've kind of accepted the narrative of the last 40 or so years, which pretty much ignores this history. That's what I find fascinating is that if you don't know this history, you are really ripe for deception. But so in the book, you choose to tell that history on your way to getting to where we are now and how it matters. So I don't know where you want to start. Well, let me just maybe address the question of why I did that. I think you said you described two types of Americans. One is people who have forgotten their history. So perhaps our generation been around for a long time during a period of time that has been laden with cynicism about the meaning of America about whether America was special. That's right. About whether there was anything of value in our national patrimony. And even if we grew up in an environment that's still said the Pledge of Allegiance still taught American history, still taught civics. That foundation has been eroded and eroding away for an entire generation. So I'm 50 some years old. I remember getting those kinds of instructions, but I also remember what life was like in graduate schools and elite liberal arts colleges. And intentional undermining