brian: at the prayer breakfast in washington. let's run a little clip of you speaking. [video clip] eric: people would say who are you going to write about next? i say, whom will you next write? as a yale major i want to say whom. you may want to use the word whom and you can use it as an app. you just download it. whom will you next write? there's only one person besides wilberforce whom i would write. i remember bonhoeffer. and i did write that book. i know it was read even by president george w. bush who's intellectually incurious. as we have all read. he read the book. no pressure. i just want to say, no pressure. [laughter] [applause]

brian: how long in advance did you plan that? eric: well, to be perfectly honest, as with all of my answers, i will be bold and mili-mouth simultaneously. i did not planet. i really thought, maybe i will do that. a lot of people think of me as somebody who does comedy. i can be and often am but often i'm deadly serious. i thought i would be standing next to the president speaking to 3500 of the most important people in the world here in d.c., who knows how i will feel in the moment. i do not know. so i had the idea i might to do , that. i thought maybe i would give him the book later. but if i feel, as the new yorker i would use the word chutzpah. if i feel in the moment to pull off the goofiness, i will do it. i honestly had no idea whether i would feel confident enough to

joke with the president. turns out i did. but i just -- i had no idea. i was prepared because i had the books. know,en that was, you last-minute. brian: what impact has there been on bonhoeffer now that the president is seen holding it up? eric: honestly, the book -- and there is no doubt. i have been a writer since i graduated jail in 1984. i was the editor of the humor magazine. i wanted to be a fiction writer. i had no idea generally, no idea, i would ever write a biography. if you asked me 10 years ago, do you everything you would write a biography? my answer would've been an emphatic no. but i really do believe god has led me into my career to do things i never would have wanted to do or expected to do. and then in retrospect you say that was what i was created to , do.

the bonhoeffer book was the first hit. it was "the new york times" bestseller and was translated into 19 languages. it will shortly be translated back into english. i want to say that. can we edit that out? but what i'm saying is i was not , used to that kind of success. it was staggering. to go in front of the nation and joke with the president kicked that even higher. so since then, i've had numerous , people come up to me and say, this book some with tears in -- their eyes, this book has changed their life. book. know it is not this it is the life of bonhoeffer, he lived his life. i only wrote about it. to use the cliche, it is humbling to me to think that god allowed me the privilege of writing this book about this truly great human being about whom many people do not know anything. and so that opened up the door for me on a number of levels.

everywhere i go, people refer to the bonhoeffer book and the one -- that is usually the one people have read. almost equally, people refer to the prayer breakfast which kind of went viral and was one of the viral things. i'm sure if that happened to you. you do not know what did it. but more people saw that than i , ever would've dreamt in my life. and it has been used in college courses to talk about public speaking. i mean all of the bizarre stuff let youru do not even head go there, you just think i , want to get through the speech and go home. it opened the door to many things. now, as i said, i wrote a book on miracles a year ago. i am really eclectic and i think intentionally so. i do not think i'd know how not to be eclectic. brian: it you mentioned god's mentioned god.

when did god first matter to you? eric: i guess i was raised -- my mom is german from germany and escaped east germany when she was 17. my dad left greece in 1954. they met in an english class here in new york city. i grew up in new york city in astoria, queens. if you -- if your dad is greek, you will be raised in the greek orthodox church. i never rejected god. i always -- i think most greeks, is a cultural experience. there is a reference for god and the things a you really do not understand. by the time i got to college, secular yale and you question things. at least i began to question things. by the time i graduated, i was so confused as to be utterly agnostic. and when i say utterly agnostic, i think maybe that is an oxymoron. i was just lost, wondering what is the meaning of life. i think most people got really good jobs and you do not have to think about the big questions. but being an english major, wanting to be a writer, i drifted.

i had plenty of time to think about the horrible questions like is life meaningless or whatever. around my 25th birthday, and probably the worst year of , my life. i had just moved back in with my parents. who, as european immigrants, they are not going to say, "he's finding himself," they are going to say, find yourself a job and get out. we put you through yale with our menial jobs. do you think you could get it together? really, yourents, know -- they gave me so much love. but that year i was so miserable. how do you graduate from yale with an english degree and flounder around like an idiot? i have a dramatic conversion experience. it was one of the things you read in a book. very dramatic. i did write about in my miracles book. you think it will happen to somebody else. but it happened to me. and that was in the summer of 1988. since then for good or ill, i have been someone who has no

doubt, that is a big statement, that the god of the bible is real and he loves us and has a plan for us. even though there is evil and suffering in the world, that is not his first plan and he is here to be with us in the midst of it. it has informed virtually everything in my adult life. that is what has informed me, and i hope always will do. brian: when did you first connect god and politics? eric: almost immediately. i voted for dukakis and jesse jackson. and i thought to myself, well, i think i misread the democratic party. because, i feel that for people , who are politically liberal, most of them in their heart is in the right place. no doubt about it. mostly conservative have to see that, right? but i do feel that -- just when

i look at it logically, i thought, if i really care about the poor, those politics to me do not seem to be working. in fact, they seem to be harming people. the issue of life, the issue of the unborn is important. numr of things that fairly quickly, within a year of conversion, made me change my political thinking. but, i am not a political activist. i feel kind of like my hero, wilberforce, culture is upstream of politics. what happened is people who are serious christians, whether catholics or evangelicals in particular, they finally figured out around 1980 that they needed to get serious about politics. everyone should say that. to say that it does not involve me, is ridiculous. as long as people are suffering and there is injustices, we need

to be active. the problem is serious christians put all of their eggs in a political basket which is utterly foolish. is culture in which we live not more powerful or equally important to politics. -- is more powerful or equally important to politics. in my wilberforce book, i write about wilberforce who is a politician and understood cultures equally important. you can pass all of the laws you want. you have a bully pulpit especially if you are the president of the united states, but you need to understand it is the culture, truly for good or ill, that shapes us before we get to the voting booth and while we are voting, it is something we have to take seriously. so i think it is important for everybody to take politics seriously and at least to vote. but never to make what we christians would call an idol of politics. there are people who have done that and are sort of worshiping that idol rather than the god who caused them to care for the

poor and injustices. and i think that that is a -- it is a fine line. something i talk about fairly often. brian: has there been a politician you can name who you think misused god in campaigning? eric: that to misused god and campaigning? -- that misused god in campaigning? well -- nobody that -- nobody that pops into my head at the moment. i think politician -- brian: when do you say, when you're watching the political campaign, "that is baloney"? i am talking about the whole relationship with religion. the republican side or democratic side. eric: i say both. it is, to me, patently humorous that joe biden and nancy pelosi would talk about being catholic

when they reject the most central teachings about the unborn, about sexuality. i could say the thing about mario cuomo. the point is, no one says you're not supposed to love those with whom you disagree. in fact, if you are a catholic or any type of christian, you know you are commanded to love those with whom you disagree. it does not mean you take lightly the issues. you do not say i have no enemies. you take those issues seriously. when i see pelosi or biden pretend as though they can somehow be faithful catholics when they are overtly rejecting central tenets of the christian faith, i do not know whether to laugh or cry. but it seems to be ridiculous. in other words, it seems to me you have got to say, look, i will respect people the other side of the issue but i have no choice on that issue. it is like saying stealing is maybe wrong for you but who am i to say? i think it is your job to say.

now if you can love the thief , and try to help him see the error of his ways, it is one thing. but you have to take a stand. and so, for pelosi and biden, i had the joy of meeting them and the honor of meeting them at the prayer breakfast, that seems to be a disconnect. and it seems politically very cynical. it is pragmatism to the point of cynicism. i am sure they do not see it that way, but -- brian: why would the pope spent as much time at the deal with the joe biden when he was here? eric: the previous pope spent time in the cell with a man who tried to kill him. you show love and try to be pastoral. and you know something, to some extent, catholics, serious catholics, the pope does not exactly speak for the catholic church. right? now that's -- if you take that out of context, it sounds silly. the pope is a human being, he is a pastoral figure.

he is not speaking ex cathedra all the time. he has opinions. every pope whether pope john or -- they all have ideas and inclinations the and things. and i think we have to be careful about pretending as though what the pope says in front of the joint houses of congress is the same as the magisterium so to speak. now i don't mean to get so inside baseball inside catholicism, but i think that's partially the job of the pope like the job of any figurehead to love everybody. and so what he is doing, he is doing the right thing. and probably may be privately trying to influence people like biden the to say, listen. you understandd this issue and this issue, but on this issue, you know, you put me in eight cups hot.

as you have been publicly catholic and then publicly pro-abortion. and, you know, i suspect that as part of the conversation. brian: back to the bonhoeffer story. i want to run video you produced in relation to the book coming out. and then we can talk when you get a chance to see what it looks like. [video clip] announcer: he left a pastoral position in new york city and returned on the last ship to germany. he astounded prominent politicians with his passionate rhetoric. now, hitler viewed him as a threat. he was banned from berlin, forbidden to speak or write or publish. wore the mask of a patriotic pastor that became a double agent. in the abwehr intelligence agency, he traveled to norway and sweden and switzerland and

used his ecumenical contacts to sabotage nazi war strategy is smuggling the jewish. the gestapo uncovered the smuggling activity and hitler discovered his assassination plot. weeks before the inevitable fall of the third reich, bonhoeffer another spiritualist conspirators were executed by hitler's direct command. dietrich was honored to follow the guards and pulled his fellow prisoners aside and said "this is the end for me, the beginning of life." brian: when did you first know about somebody named bonhoeffer? eric: the summer of 1988. the summer that i came to face dramatically, as i said, the video of that is on my website, i do not want to go into details now. a tremendously significant

summer for me. in one week, i had a dream and changed as though the kind of thing you read about in the book. the man who was sharing his faith with me, my dear friend, he headed me of bonhoeffer copy of "cost of discipleship." he asked if i'd ever heard of bonhoeffer? i said no, i was 25 years old. he said, he is a german pastor and theologian, series christian christian who got involved in speaking up for the jews in nazi germany, speaking out against hitler and was killed by the nazis for his faith and beliefs. i thought, you have to be kidding? my mother is from germany. i speak some german. i grew up with the german accents in my house. my mother, my grandfather was killed in the war. this is my life and my history and i never heard of this man. so, i started looking into him and i was truly flabbergasted. i don't think you can be literally flabbergasted, otherwise i would have said that. i said this story needs to be

known. you know maybe someday i will be , involved in making a movie or something. i never thought i would write a biography. never. brian: what were you doing at the time? eric: floundering. i was a copy editor. i was a proofreader in danbury, connecticut. if you get a yale degree in english, that's only way to make money. i was basically trying to be a writer. trying to write action, short stories. i sold humor to "atlantic" and i wanted to be in the footsteps of my heroes like woody allen, be one of those kinds of writers. mostly on the fiction side. in the middle of that difficult year and getting no real writing done, i read bonhoeffer's writings "the cost of discipleship." and i thought, this is the type of christianity i could be interested in. i had never encountered this. here is a man comfortable yet utterly serious in his faith.

here is a man who is very political, but he does not make an idol of politics. in other words, he is willing to do what is necessary. to help those who are suffering. the jews. i said i've never seen anything like this. though i got interested in him, course i did not write about him until many years later. brian: when you say political, he was 39 when he was hanged, and who hung him? eric: nobody hung him, he was hanged. i got you. [laughter] i will tell you what it was. the nazi's -- he got involved -- this is why he is so fascinating. so fascinating, his faith was so serious that he kept applying to the situation. it was not a one-size-fits-all kind of eighth. he kept saying, what do i do now? lord, what do i do now. what one does in 1933 and 1935 and 1937 that he kept changing because the situation kept changing. and he kept praying and saying, how do i react now?

he knew in the beginning that the church in germany and i feel them the same is true everywhere but particularly in the united states at this time, the church must be the church. and the church usually gets it wrong. in the old testament, the people of god get it wrong and the prophets try to get the people to be the people of god. and now you say, how ridiculous. of course, it is ridiculous. the prophets usually are not rewarded for their -- for being peopleic in getting the of god to be the people of god. bonhoeffer to me is a modern prophet they speak into the german church and saying you have to wake up and stand against the nazis. what the nazi stand for is antithetical to what we stand for. we have got to see this clearly, and we have got to speak up. and, if we speak up in time, we can win. there was no doubt in his mind and no doubt in my mind

retrospectively that the german church was very strong. that culturally, christianity was very strong in germany. if the church had linked arms linked arms en masse and spoken out against the nazis, that the ability to do something. all he could do was to wake up the church and realized he failed. he felt that god led him to get involved in the political conspiracy against hitler. so he really went underground and became on the surface, he looked like a pastor. but he was now involved with the abwehr, which is german military intelligence. that is where the center of the conspiracy to kill hitler and his top lieutenants were in the abwehr. this that is what makes story so crazy, so dramatic, so fascinating. you think, here is a man who is very serious about his faith.

god ledally believes him into conspiracy to assassinate the head of state. that is not a story one hears every day. and so it was, in fact -- he was arrested by the nazis for his involvement in something called operation seven. he was saving jews. that had nothing to do with the assassination attempt. he was arrested and he was in prison when they discovered he had been involved also in the plot to kill hitler. this is where it is tragic. three weeks before the end of the war, he is hanged by the nazis and a concentration camp. that is the long answer. if you prefer the short answer, i can try again. brian: any ideas how many copies of bonhoeffer you have sold? eric: yeah, about one million. it has been translated to 19 languages. most of the copies are u.s. editions.

but roughly a million over five years. if you had -- i remember asking the publisher before the book came out, what would be a success on this book? thomas nelson, he said, i do not know, 30,000, 40,000. because it is a 600-page book on a german theologian. you done -- you do not expect notbush was she -- you do expect them to buy a 600 page book on a german theologian. well, it turned out they were mis-underestimated. to quote my favorite recent president. into the book had a much wider field. dan rather loved the book. lots of people on the left loved the book. why? because bonhoeffer defies political categorization. me, iat is why he, for would say probably the ultimate model for christians, people of

faith today. he reached out everywyhere. brian: you said you are not a political activist but here you are in 2013 speaking to the conservative political action conference in washington. eric: you bet. [video clip] eric: i wrote a biography about dietrich bonhoeffer. is because of him that i find myself thinking about the issue of religious freedom in america. many people of said they see disturbing parallels between what was happening in germany in the 1930's and america today. and i am very sorry to agree. , eric: boy, am i. brian: freedom in the united states to practice whatever religion, is it being impeded? eric: hugely. brian: where? eric: the founders said we have not freedom of worship, they

have freedom of worship in china. we have freedom of religion to free exercise thereof. we do not have the freedom to think what we like, we have the freedom to act on our thoughts. i have the freedom to leave church on sunday morning and for the rest of the week to act on my thoughts. there is no official constitutional point of view on the great questions of life. there cannot be. the government has to be agnostic on that. the government has to be the way it is with the free market. hands off, the free market will decide similarly with the free market of ideas, we do not get involved. well, what has been happening, of course, is the culture in the government have sort of said we will go with his version area -- what i will call may be a secular human liberal version about sexuality or whatever. i would say constitutionally,

you cannot do that. you have to be careful. there are people whose faith says i cannot go along with that. i cannot support killing the babies in the womb. i cannot do it. maybe they would want to, but they say, i can't. it goes against my conscience. i can't. the government now says to them, you have to do it if you want to be an american, you have to support the hhs mandate. you have to fund abortions. you have to do these things. now, i am not a catholic. so i do not care much about that , issue but the idea the government would say we do not care what your faith is, you better pony up the money or you will be in trouble. it is a small thing on one level but a principle. and i think once the government gets in that business and let me say, the business of redefining marriage, you pumped up against now, you where you

have to figure out how do we remain america where we say we want to respect the rights of this group, but we are obliged to respect the rights of this group that disagrees with this group. we have to figure this out. i really haven't seen much zeal for that. brian: you mentioned about catholics and abortion. why do protestants do not feel the same? eric: we do. i am sorry, we -- i was not clear. we are talking about contraception. the catholics follow certain doctrine. most evangelicals do not share those believes. but i think that most people who are serious about their faith would say, i do not have to agree with that, that i have to agree with the idea the constitution says those people with those views, many -- meaning catholics, need to be protected. it has nothing to do with what i believe. they need to be protected. once you stop doing that, all of

the freedoms unravel. and i think that is fundamentally american doctrine. it really does not have that much to do with religious doctrine. if the founders said that for the freedoms to floors, we need to a have all of these freedoms and place, then this is where had -- this is where i have seen, because of the parallels with germany in the 19 90's, that one knee state feels it can push the church, the state pushes the church, and the church needs to figure out, what should our response be? it should not be to sit on our hands nor should it be to simply try to defend our rights. it is not about our rights as christians do what is right in america? brian: from a political standpoint, what you recommend if someone was to come to you running for office on the abortion issue? do you ever expect it to be changed, roe versus wade to be overturned?

and, is it worth taking the chance with the body politic? eric: this is one of the things that is very complicated and this is why wilberforce is my other model. brian: who is wilberforce? eric: i am sorry. my first biography is william wilberforce. wilberforce is the man who led the battle in the early part of 1780's, 1790's, early part of the 19th century in parliament against the slave trade in the british empire. in 1807 after almost 20 years, he had a great victory. and so he was heralded as the he was heralded as the george , washington of humanity. i mean a man who advocated , liberty literally for the great cost to himself politically. he probably would have been prime minister. his dear friend william pitt became prime minister. so wilberforce did this principally because of his

faith. in other words, he was not a party man. he was someone whose faith demanded that he's your way from -- he barrel away from his party. he was willing to do that. on the slavery issue and the slavery issue, he was a hero. the man that frederick douglass and abraham lincoln looked back to and said, he is the pioneer of abolition. and it was because of his christian faith that t did it. so he really is a hero. brian: put it in context. you said you were introduced to bonhoeffer in 1980 but wrote wilberforce before? eric: i never thought i would write a biography. i wrote three books in a series. was called, everything you wanted to know about god but was afraid to ask. it was a humorous q&a about everything the bible says. and i thought, this is something

i wish i had when i was growing up. in the course of writing the first book, i put in a paragraph about wilberforce. only knew a little bit about him. he said we must stand against slavery. in great britain. so i mentioned it on a cnn , interview which led to somebody contacting me, eric, it is the bicentennial of wilberforce's victory in parliament and a movie being made. would you like to write a biography about wilberforce? brian: why were you on cnn? eric: i was on about the book "everything you wanted to know about god but was afraid to ask." it was near christmastime, they were willing to talk about god. and so i, in the middle of the conversation i mentioned , wilberforce and a led to my being contacted. somebody saying eric, would you , like to write a biography? i thought, my goodness, i never thought of writing a biography. brian: how does it compare to bonhoeffer? eric: the title is "amazing grace." it has sold reasonably well. people who read bonhoeffer want to know if i wrote other books.

they find their way to this. honestly, i feel been equally about the books and proud of them. they are both heroes. we need heroes which leads to the book you're holding in your hand. brian: "seven men," a man named chuck. here is one of them, a man who in our past was very lyrical. a man named chuck holder. [video clip] >> the truth is so precious that it must be guarded. there are times when the government simply cannot tell the truth and make full disclosure to the nuclear age. spending my life as i do in christian service have some difficulties with this. and yet, i looked back to the bible and see consider one of the heroes. rahab the harlot she, of course, , lied to protect israeli spies, jewish spies as they enter the promised land.

there are cases in government going back at least as far as rahab the harlot, where lying is justified to prevent a much greater evil. and that is not situational ethics. brian: i know you are a friend of his. the question i have is after the man was involved in obstruction in justice and the nixon administration and the only one to resign and went to prison. -- mr. chuck colson went to prison. what do you believe he is doing here? he was so interested in power. isn't this the same thing? eric: no. no, no, no. this is one of those things where something is hard to believe and they should be hard to believe. it is hard to believe that jesus rose from the dead bodily. it should be hard to believe, but i do believe it. it is hard to believe. we talk about chuck, here is a guy that was, mr. dirty tricks, the hatchet man in the nixon white house. we were right to hate him and

think he is less than ideal for our political culture. but he had an experience of faith that to i would say, similar to mine, was deep. people just thought, you know, did he lose his mind? what happened to him? he was brilliant. but, it was authentic and it's a led him to do things people could not believe. his lawyer got him after he volunteered information around the watergate thing. said, iof his faith, he cannot lie and he volunteered information. most people do not know the details. as lawyer basically got him plea bargain and he said, i will not take it because i would have to lie. maybe i will not get jail time but i cannot lie in this case. he goes to jail.

he had teenage kids. he really felt like his faith was the most important thing and he had to do the right thing. when he got out of prison, he could've done what anybody would do like martha stewart, put it behind you and you race forward. but he spent the rest of his life going back into prison sharing his faith with prisoners. he is one of those people that i can look at and go he is the real deal. this guy was the real deal. he was willing to do whatever because of his faith. and, if you got to know him personally like i did, you saw he was the same in private. he was no phony. he was a breath of fresh air. like, as i mentioned,

bonhoeffer. when i understood who he was, it is possible to be intelligent and educated and really serious about your faith and is doing that. he may not be doing it perfectly but wow, he is doing it. people who know him saw that. it is so inspiring. i know a lot of younger people do not know. he was literally on his deathbed when i decided to put him in my "seven men" book. i would not put anybody living. abraham lincoln was slated. when he was on deathbed, history had to be told. lincoln is still angry at him, but i had to put him in. brian: your new book on "seven women." eric: i never thought i would write "seven women" and i wrote "seven men" when it came to the time that i was thinking about , i thought, shouldn't we have a book about the crisis of manhood in our culture? since i've grown up, we are less and less comfortable showing sort of heroic figures.

we know about the downside about heroic figures but we do not tell kids in school why george washington was great. we either avoid the subject or talk about how he was a slave owner and never mentioning there as not anybody who is not landowner in virginia at the time who was not a slave owner. we focus on the negative and it is harming young men in particular. we need heroes and for up and say he was not perfect but look at life. one of the last books bonhoeffer had with him was -- plutarch's. we really have had some appraisal of the heroes throughout the millennia and we have stopped doing that. this is not healthy for the culture. it is good to know that so-and-so was hypocritical on this issue.

but it is also good to know what made george washington great. what made many of those folks great. i wrote seven men around the same time i was writing this, and people would say, when are you going to write "seven women"? i said, i should do that. as i go out of my way in the introduction, these women were great because they were women. something that arises out of home they were as women. [video clip] brian: let's watch a little bit of rosa parks. rosa parks: we thank you. i thank you. this is encouragement for all of us. to continue until all people have equal rights. brian: near the end of her life there. but what led you to putting her , in the book and how did you do

something nobody else had done? or did you? eric: i am not a historian or scholar. i am not about being original, so, coming up with new things. -- i amind, you note sort of a popularizer to some extent. culture,itive to the and not in the world of academia. i often aware of the things i know about are not well known. the story of bonhoeffer and wilberforce and the story of rosa parks. people do not know she and jackie robinson were serious -- profoundly serious christians. this is kind of important. are we forgetting the civil rights movement just like the abolitionist movement was really fueled by people of profound christian faith? i think we're forgotten about that. rosa parks was very serious about her faith. in fact, it was because of that and jackie robinson's christian faith they were chosen to lead

the civil rights battles. most people do not know that. i did not know. when i discovered it, i said, i want to tell the world. this is exciting. and so they were -- yeah, they were very serious christians. and most people do not know that. brian: another woman -- when does this new book come out? eric: about 10 minutes ago. brian: here is mother teresa. [video clip] >> [indiscernible] that is why you have five fingers. to remind you. you did it to me. the five words of jesus in your five fingers. you can look at your hands and be reminded of jesus today. brian: what was your reaction when christopher hitchens wrote the book that was not kind of

-- to mother teresa? eric: people often do things that are disappointing. christopher hitchens, a few times in his life, did things that were tremendously disappointing. two people who admired him. i am one of them. i thought his book was an example of that is book on mother teresa is a horrific example of that. he could descend to level of nastiness and ad hominem attacks and anecdotal cheap shots that i would say were really unworthy of him. i do not know what to make of his hit piece on mother teresa except to say it was unworthy of him. it was really -- actually at the end of the day, it is bizarre. i do not think there is any making sense of it. i just think that for some reason he was so angry he would say anything. if i decide to pick anyone and focus on the stuff about them

that you hate and anything that you can find that causes you to question them and just go with it and do not even try to be fair-minded. it is sad. i mean, it is sad. i am sure she was not perfect and she would be the first to say she was not. i debated christopher hitchens on cnn once. for about 11 or 12 minutes. and he edges said some vicious things about jerry falwell. arry falwell had just died few hours before. i thought to myself, i have never been a great fan of jerry falwell but it is unseemly for somebody to go on the air and spew vitriolic hours after they died. it really was -- he had unfortunately had moments like that. brian: 7 billion people in the world and 30% of them are christians. 1.6 billion are muslims. buddhists and hindus are large. put that all into context as you look at the world, why are there

this different religions and who do you believe? eric: "whom" do you believe? [laughter] eric: i got you. people know me know i make a mistake more often than you make it. brian: you have to come back more often so i can learn from you. eric: i am very at the medical. -- i am very ecumenical. i think doctrine is important, but as i have learned after writing bonhoeffer there are people out there that worship and title of theological perfection. they are not worshiping god, they are worshiping an idol of theological perfection. and i think when you look at the god of the bible, not that theology is not imporant and doctrine is unimportant, but we are not to worship that but to worship the living god. he is a god of infinite love. infinite love.

think of those two words. we cannot even imagine what it means, the answer is no. it means you are to love people. it does not mean we are to constantly corrected them on their theology. because i think as one of my great heroes, c.s. lewis made clear in one of the narnia books, what somebody says that they are worshiping is not always what they are worshiping. god looks at the heart. there is a figure in lewis's book, the horse and his boy. muslimechnically a figure, but we found out in his heart, he is worshiping god. world,d out around the there are people who would say, i am a christian. god looks at their heart and knows they are putting their trust in jesus. or, they are putting their trust in labels and theology. it cuts both ways. we have to be very careful in judging people's salvation.

our job is to love, speak the truth in love, but not to say i know so and so will not be in heaven. god wants everyone to be in heaven. that is my theology because i think that's what the bible teaches. so, the details are complicated. i've got to have grace and and humility knowing that i , deserve to go to heaven less than anyone. you know? i say that just as st. paul said it. and, i think that we need to live that. so, this idea that every christian is going to heaven, that is complete nonsense and unbiblical. and i think we have to do, just as we need to take theology seriously, we have to be careful about, you know, in a way taking it so seriously that we are worshiping the elegy and doctrine more thing and we are worshiping god. brian: you told us you do your radio show and the empire state building.

you are in the middle of new york city. how are you treated in the middle of new york city? if you walked into the new york times newsroom, how many people would agree with your philosophy? eric: to some extent, i believe we go where god calls us to go. i was born in new york city. i have lived in new york city most of my life. god has allowed me to have a yale education and speak the language of the cultural elites. i really believe god has called me and my wife to be here. so it does not matter so much , who agrees with us because -- brian: do you get eye rolling? eric: if i put myself more often in those situations, i might. but i guess, my attitude, a get need toat people do not agree with me. i need to love people where they

are. there are people who disagree with me on issue and dock turns. disagreementre with them on other issues than i might have with somebody who is political. brian: when do you start socrates in the city and what is it? eric: in the year 2000, one of my heroes is dick cavett, i love his shows. i just followed him over the years, and i just said i want to have conversations with people whose voices we're not hearing very much in places like new york. many of them christians, not all. many of them conservative, not all. because i feel like these ideas that are not really part of the mix of the cultural conversation. and so i said let's have these , people and you can ask any tough question. any question you want. let's just have fun. and so i started in 2000 every month or two months, will have a speaker. i would introduce them usually with a lot of goofiness and humor.

because i do not want people to get idea that we are supposed to have a ponderous intellectual conversation, but to be fun. the search for truth should be fun. socrates said, the unexamined life it is not worth living. so i say, let's examine life and ask the big questions. we typically have done them in private clubs in manhattan. university clubs area we have done them and a number of places. there is wine and hors d'oeuvres. brian: do you have to pay to come? eric: yes but heavily subsidized. have done if -- we all we can to make it affordable to everybody. the cost keeps changing. recently, it was like $35 or $40. it costs more than double to pull them off. we are looking at different economic models. brian: how many are on youtube? eric: i do not know but a lot are on youtube. and they have aired on the nrb channel.

many get to the around the country. the network, total living network, one of those. anyway, but i want to get them out. we taped a bunch in oxford, england this summer. because there were a lot of people i wanted to talk to in oxford, england. it's a little like this, a little bit goofier. but it is fun. if i like you, i will correct you. that is my compliment if i tease people. that is my love language. brian: i can use it. c.s. lewis you named. here is some audio of c.s. lewis from the bbc back in march of 1944 during the war. [video clip] t.s. eliot: history is not just a story of bad people doing bad things. quite as much a story of people trying to do good things. somehow, something goes wrong. take the common expression -- [indiscernible]

from experience. we have learned how unsympathetic patronizing and conceited charitable people often are, and yet hundreds of thousands of them started out anxious to do good. and when they have done it, somehow it just was not as good as it ought to have been. brian: why are you such a big fan of him? eric: he is his own literature. he wrote in every genre. there is something about him which is utterly, i guess of the word would be unprecedented. inadmissible. inimitable. he was a super genius with an ability to communicate through various genres and that is rare. he wrote the narnia chronicles.

i did not read them until i was an adult. they are some the greatest books ever written. they are stunning. he wrote the space trilogy, which is kind of like the narnia trilogy for adults. there are passages that are better than anything get garcia marquez ever wrote. he is hugely underrated by the intelligence because presently known as a christian apologist. it ought to be taught in every college and university in america alongside paradise lost. it is simply that good. but i think that he was -- you know, in some ways he is perceived as too old-fashioned or traditional to be in the modernistic 20th-century world of literature. but there is no one like him. , he was a polymath. what he was saying, i think of the modern democratic party. in that last piece, people whose heart is in the right place but

sometimes institutionalized charity becomes dead. we saw it in the church in the 19th century and away that the private sector took it over the 20th century. when charity becomes institutionalized, there is always the tendency for to grow cold and forget about the person and, you know, to make it -- it becomes about the organization or whatever. was a prophetic voice and he would probably cringe if he heard somebody call him that will stop -- if he heard somebody call him that. brian: do you live in manhattan? eric: i do. brian: where did you meet your wife? eric: in a pentecostal church on 51st and broadway. an amazing place. i remember the first time i went there. i thought how could it be here? it was one of the most god-filled places i have ever been in. we went there for number of years. i still visit when i can.

we met there. and we went, was subsequently have been to a number of churches. as i said, we are really ecumenical, i do not care about denominations. i would like to think i am like c.s. lewis' phrase, a mere christian. somebody who cares more about the nicene creed than he does about the denomination. brian: how do you feel about children? eric: i am for them. i approve of them. we have one child, she is 16. brian: what did she think about your philosophy a life? eric: she will not tell me. ask a 16-year-old girl, who can fathom? i don't know. i just hope that -- you know, this is the thing. talk about philosophy, we took about politics, you have to live what you say you believe. this is what i talk about with bonhoeffer quite often and wilberforce, it is how you behave more than what you say you believe. god looks on the heart and sees what we believe by how we treat

others around us. so, i really think that especially with kids, they are looking at how do you behave behind the closed doors of your apartment more than what you say on a piece of paper. and so i think that is one the reasons having kids is the greatest thing in the world. because they do keep you humble and force you to see where you have a long way to go. brian: in the very brief time remaining, those who have enough of eric metaxas. -- not had enough can find the books? amazon? eric: my website is my name ericmetaxas.com. and the radio website is metaxastalk.com.

brian: religion, based? eric: i do not think they are religion based. they have a lot of religion shows. newstalk stations. where they are officially? honestly? i don't know. brian: religion is a very important part. eric: yes. dennis and medved, both of whom i adore, are jewish. at they are, i guess, in vague sense, pro-faith. they believe that faith is good in public place area brian: to -- in public life. station, to find your go to your website? eric: if you cannot find a station on my website, it is all over the country. like 300 stations. if you cannot find it or whatever, go to metaxastalk.com, you can listen to it 24 hours a day. brian: you have the books bonhoeffer and wilberforce. and the book, "miracles." into the two we talked about.

eric: miracles, we did not get to talk about that. i wrote a piece for "the wall street journal" about miracles, science and faith, it is literally the most popular thing ever pub wished on their website. not because i am a therewriter that because is a great hunger in america for the subject. science, what can we know? yeah, that is something i burn with interest. brian: eric metaxas, thank you very much. we're out of time. eric: thank you. ♪ >> for free transcripts or to give us your comments, visit us at qanda.org. q&a programs are also available as c-span podcasts. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute,

which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: if you enjoyed this week's program, here are some other programs you might also like. washington post columnist sally quinn, christopher hitchens on his career as a writer and social critic and an author and michael gersten talking about his work as a speechwriter for president george w bush. you can watch these anytime or search our entire library at c-span.org. >> next, live, your calls and comments on washington journal.

today, the arkansas governor talks about changes to the new insurance program and the rising number of people receiving benefits. and live at 3:00 p.m. eastern, a former minister of affairs for afghanistan talks about the future of that country. >> all persons having business before the honorable supreme court of the united states, draw near and give their attention. >> boldly opposed the forced japanese veterans during world war ii. after being convicted of failing to report for relocation, he took his case all the way to the supreme court. >> this week, on landmark cases, we discussed the supreme court korematsu versus the

united states. many were sent to internment camps throughout the united states. >> this is a re-creation of one of the barracks. wide, 120 feet long come divided into six rooms. they not have sheet rock, did not have ceilings or masonite on the lore. it was freezing, even in the daytime. -- only ceilings they heating they would've had would've been a potbellied stove. this would not have been able to heat the entire room in a comfortable way. >> challenging the vac galatian -- challenging the brought a order, fred suit. with our guest, the story of the

japanese-american internment karen korematsu, daughter of the plaintiff. will explore the mood of america and the u.s. government's policies during world war ii. before,follow his life during, and after the court decision. on the nextng up landmark cases, live tonight at 9:00 on c-span, c-span2, and c-span radio. for background information while you watch, order the book formark cases, available $8.95 at c-span.org. washingtonning, examiner reporter has the latest on campaign 2016 in the key primary state. then, talking about the pharmaceutical industry reaction on attacks on rising drug prices.

from the accountability office, we look at the estimated cost of conduct and the 2020 census. as always, you can join us on ♪ morning.d it is monday november 9 2015. in onnate will not be wednesday in observance of the veterans day holiday. he bumped preparing for a meeting with benjamin netanyahu -- president obama is preparing for a meeting with e the benjamin netanyahu. a case about the birth control mandate that is part of the affordable care act. the challenge brought by faith-based colleges and ni