This video was uploaded to You Tube on August 6, 2020
Carlson: Since the day it was founded, the United States has been a refuge for people from around the world to worship their gods as they choose. That’s precisely why so many of our first European settlers came here. When they wrote our Constitution, in the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights [sic] they explicitly protected religious freedom. Unlike [other] countries around the world—particularly like China, which openly persecute Christians. Unfortunately America, as we noted in the last block, is becoming much more like what we say we hate—the government of China. Many states have cancelled in person church services under the pretext of protecting the rest of us from the Wuhan coronavirus. Places like New Jersey and California consider Christianity, quote, non-essential, unlike abortion clinics, or liquor stores, lotto-ticket kiosks.
None of this is related to science, of course, it’s about punishing people they don’t think vote for them. If you don’t believe it, ask the rioters; they were allowed to burn a stack of Bibles in Portland, Oregon last weekend. Try that with the Koran and see how long you remain free. You’d be in prison immediately. But Bibles? No problem! Why? Because Democratic leaders in Congress despise traditional Christians because they don’t vote for them. Here’s House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn explaining his view on Fox.
Clyburn: Well, I don’t know anything about burning Bibles. People — everybody’s got their own religion. And I know the Koran, and I know the Bible, both New and Old Testaments very well. And so, just because somebody may believe in the Koran, that’s their business. So burning a Bible doesn’t do anything about burning down a general building. I don’t know if I’ve seen it. Maybe y’all know something I don’t know. What federal building has been under threat?
Carlson: What does that even mean? It doesn’t mean anything, but we’ll tell you what it isn’t, and that’s a clear declaration of disapproval of rioters burning Bibles. If you can’t say that, there’s probably a reason you can’t say that. What is that reason? Eric Metaxas has thought through it. He’s the author of the book If You Can Keep It. We’re happy to have him on tonight. Eric, that’s so much for coming on. Why is it so hard for our Democratic leaders to say unequivocally I’m against attacks on churches. I’m against touching Bibles. And why is this hard for Republican leaders to do anything about it?
Metaxas: It’s ignorance, Tucker. Clyburn reminds me of Biden. He’s sort of like a career politician, an animated waxworks dummy. He has no idea of our history. He just wants to cling to power. He hasn’t thought it through. He has no idea, just like, you know, maybe, fifty years of Americans have no idea. We’ve forgotten that freedom is utterly impossible on the American model without the values we got from the Bible. It doesn’t mean we can force people to be Christians or anything absurd like that, but the point is all the Founders understood that the Bible — it wasn’t just a sacred book for some people. It was what gave us the West, what led to the idea of freedom and self-government. And when you attack that, you’re not just attacking a few people who believe in that Book. You’re attacking foundational ideas that most of our career politicians have no clue about anymore.
Carlson: So, Christianity, among other things, limits the excesses of the state. That’s why all authoritarian governments hate it. Because when your population worships an actual God, that suggests that you are not God, and they’re some things that you can’t do. So without it, there’s nothing they can’t do. Isn’t that the whole point?
Metaxas: That is precisely the point. Look, say Jesus is Lord in China, or try it in North Korea. Try it in Chop or Chaz or whatever it was called. They’re certain things that are so fundamentally threatening — the Bible, and people who say, I have a higher authority than the state. I will bow to nothing but the God that I worship. Those people are tremendously frightening to authoritarian leaders. Hitler was one of them. He played patty-cake with the church until the gloves came off, and he made it very clear that those people are the enemy, they’re my real threat. And if I can defang them, if I can take power then they will be utterly defanged. And if I can kind of keep them quiet for now. So if any Christians who are not absolutely — and I don’t mean just Christians — patriotic Americans, any people who understand the role that faith had played in our history — if you do not stand up and push back with everything you have, against the idea we can be a secular nation. A secular nation will ultimately be China. It will be a place where the Fauci’s of this world will and can tell you what to do by force. And when people are burning Bibles and American flags, you might as well be cutting your hands off. These are the things that have created more human flourishing, that have lifted human dignity on a level we’ve never seen in the history of the world. Those are the two things. If you’re burning those things, something suggests to me that you don’t understand that.
Carlson: We should also say they went after in a big way the Orthodox in New York and New Jersey who persisted in worshiping their God.
Metaxas: Of course, of course.
Carlson: And they were arrested for it in some cases. Eric Metaxas, thank you!
Metaxas: No question. Thank you.