See no evil, speak no evil. It’s been nearly two years since I spoke with radio host and author Eric Metaxas about his Letter to American Church. In the book he posited that there are disturbing parallels between the pre-Holocaust Germany of the 1930s and America today, distressingly including how the German church responded the ominous signs then and how the American church is responding today to what he views as a gathering storm of evil that could rival the evil perpetrated by the Nazis nearly a century ago. With a film version of his book set to be released via EpochTV tomorrow (followed by a national tour that will be free to churches), we spoke again.

JWK: So, compare the dynamic between the American church and the American government now with that of the German church and the Third Reich in the 1930s. Can you elaborate on that?

Eric Metaxas: When I wrote my book on Dietrich Bonhoeffer a number of years ago, I couldn’t have dreamt that that story would become our story – but then you think, well, why not? The church in Germany at the time, they were good people who just got it wrong. They didn’t understand the threat of evil. They thought “You know what? It’s not our job to get political or whatever. How bad could it get? We think everything will be fine. We’re just gonna do church. We think that that’s our biblical mandate – to just do church and stay in our theological lane and preach the Gospel.”

What they didn’t see at the time was that God called them to stand against evil. God called them to recognize what was happening at the time and to be actively working against it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer very early on in the Nazi’s time saw this. He wrote about it. He was trying to get his fellow pastors to wake up and to see that it is was their job. God was calling them as Christians to stand against the evil that was coming. They didn’t really want to hear it. They thought “You know what? He doesn’t understand Romans 13. We’re not supposed to be political.”

Bonhoeffer was trying to say “No, no, no. We’re not talking about committing crimes. We’re talking about being the conscience of the the state. The Church is called to be the conscience of the state. In America, when we had slavery here, it was Christians that said “We need to abolish slavery. This is evil. If we really are Christians we’re going to take our Christian values – which is to say that we believe in freedom, that God is no respecter of persons, He loves everyone equally, ‘Do unto other as you would have others do unto you’ – into the public sphere and we’re gonna fight in every way, including politically, to abolish slavery.”

But there were many, at the time, who said “No, no, no, no. We don’t want to take sides. There are good people on both sides of that issue. We don’t need to get involved. We’re just gonna do church.” I really think that many people in the American church today have that idea – that it’s not our job as Christians to get involved in some of these things. I think that that’s not biblical. It’s not theologically correct but there are many people that have that idea. I wrote Letter to the American Church – and we made this documentary film – really to help wake people up and to say what happened in Bonhoeffer’s time is happening now. Will you open your minds to that? Will you try to understand that what happened in Germany really is happening here?

JWK: What do you think are some of the primary issues going on currently in America that are similar to what the church in Germany was facing in the 1930s?

EM: It’s basically an atheistic mindset. In other words, the Nazis were not stupid. They basically said “We’re fine with the Church. We have no problem with the Church. We’re not going to persecute the Jews.” I mean they gave church leaders their word. Hitler gave Martin Niemöller his word that “We’re not gonna institute pogroms against the Jews and we’re not gonna mess with the Church.”

Well, of course, Hitler was a liar. He would say anything to neutralize the Church because he knew if the Church woke up He was in trouble. He knew that the Church was the only institution in Germany that had the cultural power to stand against the evil of the Nazis.

When we say “the evil of the Nazis” we’re talking about everything that stems from their worldview. If you are a Nazi, ultimately you don’t believe in the values of The Bible. You think the values of The Bible are for suckers. You believe in winning. You believe in crushing your enemy. You believe in crushing the Jews and anyone that gets in your way. That’s kind of what authoritarian states do. They don’t believe in anything transcendent. They don’t believe in God. They’re simply enacting an atheistic worldview that says “Power is everything and we’re going to use our power to get more power.” The Church didn’t see it.

I see that happening today. Many churches don’t understand (the danger of allowing) cultural Marxism in the door, allowing Critical Theory in the door (and) allowing transgender ideology in the door. We have to stand up for biblical values. These are not neutral things that are being brought in – but they’re not going to advertise themselves as evil (or) as antithetical to the Scriptures. They’re going to pretend that they’re coming from the same place that we are, exactly as Hitler did. He didn’t say “Here’s what I’m going to do.” He basically said “You know, we’re gonna be friends with the Church. We’ve got a great relationship! We believe in God.” He was not going to spell out where he was going. While he was fooling the Church into thinking he wasn’t doing anything, behind the scenes he was working very, very hard to neutralize the Church – on the one hand to infiltrate the Church with Nazi values to change the Church from within and, on the other hand, to demonize and crush anyone who dared challenge his authority.

I think that in the United States we’ve had such blessings of religious freedom over that decades that we’ve really not understood that we have to speak up for biblical values. Biblical values are not natural. If we don’t speak against slavery, if we don’t speak against the idea of killing the unborn or if we don’t advocate for what we believe, you create a vacuum and evil wins. I think that that, to some extent, is happening.

JWK: When you talk about creating a vacuum if the Church doesn’t speak up for its values, would you say that Woke ideology has come into that vacuum – and that it is those ideas that filling are filling it?

EM: Yes. I think Woke ideology ultimately pretends to be for everybody. It pretends to be against racism. It pretends to care about those who are marginalized but it really has no actual basis on which to make those claims. It’s just making those claims in exactly the way Hitler said “I care about the German people.” Well…what do you mean? What are you going to do?

We’re seeing incredibly aggressive things happening in our country. Woke ideology, wherever you look, it’s extremely aggressive. I think it’s the job of the Church to recognize it and to say “By the way, a lot of these people, maybe they mean well but where are they getting their ideas?” It’s not from The Bible. They don’t have a biblical view of the human person. They’re just kind of making it up as they go along. They’re interested in gaining power. They’re ultimately interested in destroying the family. They’re interested in destroying the culture. They want to “smash the patriarchy.” They’re basically interested in tearing down what we have had over the years – and they have done a good job (of that) over the decades. It’s now gotten really, really dramatic. I think people are seeing it and they’re kind of wondering what’s going on.

I say in Letter to the American Church – and in the documentary film Letter to the American Church – that it is the job of the Church today, just as it was the job of the Church in Germany in the thirties, to stand up and to be fearlessly advocating for biblical values, not to pretend that that’s not our job. It is our job.

JWK: Just one more question. Every presidential election they’ll tell you that this is most important election of our lifetime. A lot of people seem to feel that it might actually be true this time. What are your thoughts on that?

EM: Listen, I don’t have any doubt that that’s the case. I think we’re in an existential crisis. We’re talking about “Are we going to have America existing?” or “Are globalist Chinese Communist forces working with Woke ideology (going) to destroy the nation?” When the nation is destroyed you don’t really ever have another election. So, we’re in a crucial moment. I believe God is calling the Church to recognize this and to stand up and live out our faith. We are privileged to live in this time in history. God is looking to His Church to be the Church.

Note: Click here for a list of churches currently scheduled to screen Letter to the American Church.
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