Episode 203: Candid Favorites: Consumed By Hate, Redeemed By Love: Thomas Tarrants

[00:00:05] Hello and welcome to Candid, where we never settle for less than the truth. I'm your host, Jonathan Youssef. Each week, we'll tackle tough issues, answer your hard questions, and take a candid look at the Christian faith. This month, the Candid production team is taking over the podcast to share their favorite episodes as we hit our 200th episode milestone. Here's the team.

[00:00:31] Hey, we are the Candid team and we're excited to be here with you guys today. We meet weekly. We help Jonathan brainstorm. We help support him in this adventure because it's definitely an adventure. And like we say, it's constantly feeding the machine here, pumping out weekly episodes of Candid. And for this 200th episode, we thought, why not? You guys get to know a little bit about us, what we do.

[00:01:01] Kind of a sneak peek. And we're going to share with you our favorite episode. And let's introduce ourselves. How about that? I'm Lauren. I'm Bethany. I'm Autumn. And I'm Faith. Awesome. Lauren here again. I'm one of the Candid producers. And my favorite episode had to be Thomas Tarrant's, how a violent Klansman came to Christ. And I have to preface this by saying I read Thomas's book, Consumed by Hate, Redeemed by Love.

[00:01:30] I read it one summer aloud with my nephew. And it was at the end of the day. And we're on the beach. Everyone is packing up. The sun is going down. And my nephew Jack is begging me, don't stop, please. Will you keep reading it to me? And I'm like, the sun is going down. We have to go in. But I will say, side note, this is not a kid's story. So of course, I had to edit some things out.

[00:01:51] But it reads like a movie. And it's just, I'm a sucker for anything that keeps me on the edge of my seat. So I loved it. But to keep you in on the inside of what this episode is about, so go with me here. Imagine, if you will, a live action drama through the lens of like a Guy Ritchie film. It's dark, it's fast paced, and it's violent. The antagonist is Thomas Tarrant, who in the 1960s grew up in the Deep South.

[00:02:21] He was highly influenced by the culture of segregation, racism, and anti-Semitic propaganda. So he joins the KKK in his attempt to plant a bomb at a Jewish man's home. He's surrounded by a SWAT team. He becomes labeled as the most dangerous man in Mississippi. He's captured and imprisoned. And Thomas comes to know Jesus and is completely radically transformed.

[00:02:46] And now in this present day, he's the president emeritus of the C.S. Lewis Institute. So that's to give you a little snippet of what this is about. And it's just mind-blowing. As I was revisiting this, the things that just popped out to me is that God had a purpose for his life. He shouldn't be alive. And he is. I'll give examples. He drops the bomb that was going to be planted at a Jewish man's home. That bomb didn't go off. That's wild.

[00:03:15] He should have died enduring multiple gunshots. The ambulance that came up the moment the policeman was about to give him his final blow. Wow. He tried to commit suicide in jail. His attempt failed. Whoa. He escapes prison, hides out, and survives gunfire, snipers, grenades, and machine guns from the FBI.

[00:03:39] He survives completely unscathed. His story, like we were saying, we should write the screenplay for this. Why is this not a movie? Like, it's just—and that is something grand and big when you read something like this. But even in my little life, I think, okay, yeah, God does have a purpose. Maybe I haven't experienced something that radical. But in each of our lives, no matter how big or small, like, God does have a purpose, you know. We're here for a reason.

[00:04:08] Oh, it was just so good. So good. Yeah. I think what's so scandalous about this episode is it's not just the things he did. It's that God would forgive him and God would use him. And I remember when we did the social media ads for this, we were like, they didn't do as well as we thought. And we were like, was there some, like, social media censorship? But then we were also—I don't know. It just kind of struck me, this is offensive. It's really offensive that God would use someone like him.

[00:04:38] It's offensive to our flesh. It's offensive to our culture because in our culture, there are sins that are completely unforgivable. And when you look at some of the things he did on the surface, it's like, that seems unforgivable. Yeah. But also just the fact—it's just a testament of how God completely changed him. Yeah. I think it's also interesting because how I expected him to sound. Like, you expect him to be this, like, loud, bold guy. But he's this quiet, humble man. Yes.

[00:05:05] And you're like, wow, the Holy Spirit did some work in him. Absolutely. And now, you know, what he's doing, he's given his whole life to ministry and to discipling people. You know, you were saying, why isn't it a movie? If I recall correctly, I think Jonathan had said that he's turned down a lot of opportunities because he—you know, maybe he's just not really an attention-seeking guy or whatever. But he didn't want to, like—maybe it was just that he felt like to glorify God was to not make such a big deal about the story.

[00:05:35] Which just really, truly speaks to the kind of man that he is now in Christ as a new creation. Oh, absolutely. I agree with his voice. It's so warm and inviting. And it felt like it's like Jonathan's talking with his grandfather. And you're like, I really want to get to know this person. How? Wait, he did these things? And then you read his book and you're like, whoa, wait. Look what you came—look what Christ brought you through. Look how he transformed you. And that's when we were talking kind of offline about our favorite episodes.

[00:06:01] That was one of the themes that really stuck out to me is a lot of our favorites were these stories of beautiful, radical transformation. And Thomas is just a beautiful example of that. Well, and two, he's such an example of at the time he was rolling really with the culture, the culture that he was living in and growing in. And so it just reminds us in this time of such extremes. Be careful what you loop into and what you run with.

[00:06:28] You know, take time to really think through what is the truth in this situation. He may not have been able to see the truth without that transformation from Christ. But in that, especially as believers, we need to constantly be taking things back to God and thinking through, is this a godly frame of mind or am I being influenced by the culture? Yeah, that's a great point because I remember there was a point maybe where Jonathan asked him, like, how did you justify what you believed? And, you know, maybe he talks about this more in the book.

[00:06:57] But he really just went along with the propaganda and the pamphlets that people gave him and never truly searched out the scripture. Because there was almost this, like, weird southern religious undertone of some of it. But he never really went back to the scripture to say is this. He just kind of accepted, like, this is how the people are living and it's whatever way appealing to him. So that was really interesting and challenging. Yeah. I agree with that. I also had a quote that I thought you might enjoy from him.

[00:07:25] He said, life is hard. It's a lot harder when you're stupid. That's the truth. Yeah. We can all say amen to that. I've lived that quote a few times. I know. So with that, I encourage you to listen to this episode. It's going to keep you on the edge of your seat. Like we said, this is like a movie. It's hard to believe that this is real life, you know. God's got a purpose for Thomas' life. So we hope you enjoy this episode.

[00:07:53] Today's episode of Candid Conversations is not suitable for children. Parents, please listen to this podcast without your children present. You may choose to share portions of this podcast with them later. But please listen to it first. I look back on it as certainly a time when I was just focused on doing something very evil.

[00:08:21] But God was, for his reasons, intervening. And I look at it as just a series of divine interventions that were examples of his grace and mercy. Because I certainly didn't deserve it. I deserved to die. And I deserved to go to hell.

[00:08:47] Hello and welcome to Candid, where we never settle for less than the truth. I'm your host, Jonathan Youssef. Each week, we'll tackle tough issues, answer your hard questions, and take a candid look at the Christian faith. I first heard of Thomas in a talk from Amy Orr Ewing while I was in Australia. My wife, Lindsay, and I read his book, Consumed by Hate, Redeemed by Love,

[00:09:17] how a violent Klansman became a champion of radical reconciliation. And we were captivated by his incredible story of transformation from hate to love, from death to life. Before you hear the first part of our conversation, I want to set the stage for you. On June 30th, 1968, Thomas Terrence is bloodied and lying on the ground in Meridian, Mississippi.

[00:09:44] Eager to prove his allegiance to the Ku Klux Klan, he has just planted a bomb at the home of a Jewish businessman. But the SWAT team has foiled this plan. He's been shot multiple times. He's on his way to a long prison sentence. And it's the best thing that will ever happen to him. In the 1960s, he was a high-level operative for the KKK.

[00:10:10] Now he's a passionate follower of Jesus Christ, serving as President Emeritus of the C.S. Lewis Institute. How does someone with true hatred in his heart, even to the point of murder, experience such a radical transformation? Before we begin, I want to let you know that this story might evoke a lot of different emotions for you. You might feel angry when you hear some of the things Thomas did.

[00:10:38] You might feel uncomfortable as you hear some of the things he believed, and rightly so. I hope Candid is a place where we can wrestle with these things together. I also hope that you are encouraged by the incredible change in Thomas' life. The kind of change that only the Holy Spirit can accomplish from hate to love. Now, on to our episode.

[00:11:04] I grew up in the late 50s and came of age, so to speak, in the 60s in Mobile, Alabama. And it was a very traditional southern town, and it was totally segregated. Black people lived in their part of town. White people lived in their part of town.

[00:11:27] It was a society that people today probably would have a hard time imagining. And that began to change in the early 60s, and that's where things went off the rails for me. But prior to that, I had been influenced a lot by the southern culture. Family members fought for the Confederacy, stuff like that.

[00:11:52] My whole worldview was influenced by the culture that I was in. So I went to church. In those days, down in Alabama, there are way more Christians than there are people. So it didn't occur to me to question whether I should go to church. And my mother wanted to make sure that all of us were there every Sunday.

[00:12:19] And so I dutifully went along and went to Sunday school and big church after that and sat through lots of sermons. But it never penetrated my heart and mind. I was becoming more and more aware at about age 13 that, according to the teaching, I was at the age of accountability.

[00:12:45] And so now it was on me to make a decision about Christ. And so being a Baptist church, you can imagine they didn't fail to talk about heaven and hell. And I knew I didn't want to go to hell. Right. I made a profession of faith at age 13, baptized that night, I think it was.

[00:13:13] But all it did was get me wet on the outside. It didn't change me on the inside. You know, I was a baptized lost person. I don't think I'd ever heard the word discipleship. And nothing about growing in the Christian life, anything like that, which probably wouldn't have mattered anyway because I was just thoroughly dead in sin.

[00:13:40] But I just went on about my business and continued the things that I was doing before. My life didn't change at all. And actually, as time passed, it got worse. But that didn't bother me because after all, you know, when I die, I'll go to heaven. Growing up in the Deep South during this time period, were the sermons sort of leaning into some of the political conversations that were taking place?

[00:14:07] Or was it, you know, just sticking to the sort of exegetical preaching through the Bible? What were you kind of listening to in the church when you were growing up? Well, to be honest with you, I don't have any idea. You weren't listening. I can't remember. But I can tell you this. If it had been pro-segregation or pro-desegregation, I would have remembered. Sure.

[00:14:35] So my assumption is that it just stuck to preaching and teaching the Bible without reference to any of the political issues of the day. So let's recap for a moment. Thomas is growing up in a church going home, but with no real biblical commentary on the issues going on in the culture.

[00:15:00] Next, as you'll hear, his hometown of Mobile, Alabama would begin the process of desegregation, which was a major step forward in American history. But unfortunately, many churches were not supportive of the desegregation movement. And we'll see that Thomas was one of those people who may have been going to church, but God's word was not taking root in his heart.

[00:15:25] He was becoming more a product of his culture than of the faith he claimed to profess. And that had a serious implication for the next chapter of his life, one where he became increasingly radicalized.

[00:15:40] When I arrived at school to start my junior year, I found the campus surrounded by federalized National Guard troops to ensure the peaceful admission of two or three black girls. And literature was being distributed by some folks opposing this.

[00:16:08] And so I got some of the literature and began to read it. And I got additional literature and then met some of the people distributing the stuff and talked with them. And before long, I was drawn in to a way of thinking that was much more extreme than what I had grown up with.

[00:16:38] Right. Basically, put it in contemporary terms, I had been exposed to propaganda, racist, anti-Semitic propaganda, anti-communist as well. Right. And I bought into it. And then it seemed plausible. Of course, I was just a high school student.

[00:17:00] I didn't have a breadth of reading and learning and critical thinking skills to be able to process this very well. Right. So anyway, I bought into it. And the people that were distributing it, older people, were quite happy to explain all the nuances.

[00:17:23] And so I looked to them for guidance and just got drawn in quite easily, I think, into that and became more and more obsessed with it all. Right.

[00:17:40] And if you're dead in sin and blind to spiritual truth, you're much more vulnerable to believing such nonsense than you would be if you were alive and the Holy Spirit was working in your life to open your eyes. Okay. So you're in this process of being radicalized in some sense. How's that sort of taking shape in your life? Is that coming out in a visible sense in any way?

[00:18:09] Well, yes. It took the form of harassing black people when I had the chance. Those two girls I mentioned that desegregated the high school, making nasty comments to them and Jewish students. And then kind of progressed from there, making threatening calls to local rabbi, painting a swastika on the synagogue. Okay, let's pause here.

[00:18:38] This reminds me of a lot of the political extremism that we saw during the last election cycle on both the right and the left. This should be a cautionary tale to all of us, how prone we all are to political extremism and the us versus them narrative that our culture and the media are always trying to push. It's the civil war all over again. Yeah, yeah.

[00:19:07] So it's not unlike what's been going on here in the U.S. for the last several years more broadly. And it's just a time of social upheaval. And when you enter into periods of social upheaval, the more intense it is, the more disoriented people become. It's like, you know, everything's sort of thrown up in the air.

[00:19:37] Things that were stable before are now just floating out there, being blown away by the wind. And so the traditions that people had lived with for a very, very long time were being attacked and undermined. And, you know, folks were saying, what in the world is happening? You know, where are we headed?

[00:19:59] And there was a sense of we're besieged by the federal government and by liberal social workers and civil rights workers and that sort of thing. So it created a climate that really was kind of like a wartime occupation type thing. Like, you know, the people in France that were under the Nazis when they took over France, you know, they knew they were occupied.

[00:20:29] But they, you know, so it's that kind of a mentality that was very, very common in that day. And the organizations that were resisting and opposing this, various ones at different levels of society and with different methods were quite active. And so I got involved. At a certain point, I thought, well, somebody needs to do something. Right.

[00:20:59] And so I joined with a group over in Mississippi. I didn't become an official member, but I got involved with a group there called the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Right. Which was the most violent of all these groups. And I got involved right at the end of its heyday.

[00:21:24] And that's where things spiraled down quite rapidly for me. It all came to a crashing halt one night. I went to plant a bomb at the home of a Jewish businessman in Meridian, Mississippi. He had spoken out publicly about the Klan and denounced it. And he made himself, so to speak, a target.

[00:21:53] And so I went along with another person, a young school teacher from Jackson, Mississippi, who was a part of the Klan, to deliver this bomb. And about somewhere between one and two o'clock in the morning, we pulled up in front of his house to put it on his carport. And shots rang out.

[00:22:18] Turns out there was a SWAT team, 26 men concealed behind trees and bushes, knew that we were coming. And they opened fire. I was hit. As I ran back to the car, I dropped the bomb I had. I had gotten close to the house up the carport with the bomb and dropped it. And that was a miracle right there that it didn't explode.

[00:22:46] But I spun around, ran back to the car, and I was hit with a load of double-off buckshot in my upper right leg. Somehow managed to get to the door of the car. The person with me, Kathy Ainsworth, reached over, tried to open the door, helped me get in the car. Bullets were flying everywhere from close range and punching through the car right and left. And so I was able to get in, start the car, speed away. In the process, she was hit with a round of rifle fire.

[00:23:17] And she died on the seat there next to me. Things were moving very, very fast at that point. And a police car had appeared out of nowhere and was on my bumper. And the guy on the passenger side was blasting away with a shotgun. And so they chased me for about 15 blocks, I think it was, in this residential neighborhood.

[00:23:46] And blew out the back windshield and then hit the tires. My car came to a screeching halt, and they rammed into the rear. And I got out. I had a submachine gun on the front seat, and I opened fire on the police car. And the officer on the passenger side was getting out with his shotgun.

[00:24:12] And he took three rounds in the chest, one of them in the heart. So his partner ducked. And when the clip emptied my gun, I dropped it there in the street because I was gushing blood just from where I'd been shot earlier. And so he then popped up and fired on me with his pistol.

[00:24:41] I was hit again. For some reason, he didn't carry on. Opening fire. Yeah. I'm not sure exactly why. It gave me just enough time to get out of a line of fire. And I collapsed behind a house right there at the site and was just losing a lot of blood. Oh, gosh.

[00:25:06] With five minutes, police, state troopers, FBI agents were all over the place trying to find me. And a small group of police officers, I think it was four of them, shining their lights all around. Then they saw me there and came up very cautiously, got right over me, turned off their lights and opened fire with their shotguns.

[00:25:30] And I was hit twice in that encounter from a range of probably three feet maybe. Wow. And they turned on the lights after the shooting stopped. And I saw that I was still breathing. One of them pulled out his pistol to finish the job.

[00:25:55] And precisely that moment, an ambulance driver came up who was on the scene and heard the shooting, wanting to know if he could help. And so they couldn't finish me off. And I was loaded on a stretcher and taken to the hospital. So that was a miracle for sure. It genuinely sounds like a scene from a movie, right?

[00:26:21] I mean, it's hard to believe that I'm having a conversation with someone who's been through that. And having conversations that you and I have had about different things, it just sounds so removed. How do you sort of look back at that very intense moment? How do you personally, theologically, how do you look back on that time?

[00:26:40] Well, I look back on it as certainly at time when I was just focused on doing something very evil. But God was, for his reasons, intervening.

[00:26:59] And I look at it as just a series of divine interventions that were examples of his grace and mercy. Because I certainly didn't deserve it. I deserved to die, just like Kathy Ainsworth did. And I deserved to go to hell. Well, but God, and this will puzzle some people.

[00:27:28] Why in the world would God be merciful to somebody like me? But he was. And even in the shooting of the police officer, three times in the chest, once in the heart, he didn't die. Right. That was a miracle. So it was a miracle there at the initial shootout that I survived that hail of gunfire from all those men. It was a miracle that the police officer didn't die.

[00:27:56] It was a miracle that, you know, shooting from just three feet away, I survived that. And so how do you make sense of all this stuff? Yeah. Well, it didn't make sense at the time. But, you know, once I came to the Lord, my eyes were opened.

[00:28:18] I began to realize that God had some purpose for my life and that he had kept me alive in order to fulfill that purpose. And then I saw that, you know, there's another example of this. In fact, there's more than one.

[00:28:39] And but Paul, we don't describe him this way, but Paul was a religious terrorist going and rampaging through the city of Jerusalem and then heading up to Damascus, arresting all these people, throwing them in jail and trying to force them to recant. But God had a purpose for his life. Yeah.

[00:29:03] And so I thought, well, you know, God must have a purpose for keeping me alive through all of this because I should have died numerous times. Yeah. So you're admitted into the hospital, obviously under arrest. What are sort of those next steps in your story? And through that, I guess, what is your thought process about what had just happened to you in that moment?

[00:29:32] Well, my thought process was that someone spilled the beans. And that's how they were able to know about what was planned and be there waiting. And so I spent a lot of time and mental energy trying to figure out who that was. One thing I did not do, I did not repent and come to the Lord because I'd been baptized. I've made a profession of faith. So that didn't even enter my mind.

[00:29:59] And I didn't see anything wrong with what I was doing. I didn't consider it sin. I considered it fighting for God and country, just like someone would if they were in the military. So I spent a number of weeks in the hospital with some incredible pain from the wounds that I had.

[00:30:23] And eventually got to the point where I could be put in jail and spent, I think, five months in jail. Was then just all by myself in a solitary confinement situation. And just continued to think the way I did. It seemed so hopeless at one point.

[00:30:47] And, you know, my whole life revolved around this now, this ideology, this set of beliefs. Yeah. You're entrenched at this point, right? Thoroughly entrenched. And it's what you could rightly call an idol. An idol of the mind. People have all kinds of idols. John Calvin said the human heart is an idol factory. A perpetual idol factory. Indeed, it is.

[00:31:16] And, you know, it's not stone or wooden idols today like it was in biblical times. It can be all kinds of things. And so ideologies become idols. And that was the case with me. I was blinded and deceived by this idol.

[00:31:37] And now that I had been arrested and was certainly going to be convicted and sent to prison, my life was just devastated. I mean, I couldn't carry on the fight anymore. You know, I was locked away. And so, you know, I came to a point of increasing depression and then kind of despair. And there in the jail cell waiting trial, I tried to commit suicide.

[00:32:05] I thought, well, that's the best way out of all this. Nothing in the future for me except misery. So why not end it now? And I had been given pain medications every day by the jail personnel. And they didn't wait around to see if I actually swallowed it.

[00:32:27] So I saved up a good bit of that stuff and took it all one night expecting I would wake up in heaven. Because you were saved. I was saved. Well, had I died, I would have woken up in hell. But God had mercy on me again. And I woke up with the worst feeling I'd ever had in my life.

[00:32:55] Worse than any hangover from drinking too much. But there I was still alive. And so anyway, I muddled on and had a trial. Lasted two days, I think. And I was convicted, sentenced to 30 years in the state prison in Mississippi, which was regarded as one of the worst in the country at that point. So I went there.

[00:33:21] And the only thing on my mind was, well, how can I escape from this place and go back to what I was doing? Yeah. Get back to your cause. Back to my cause. Worshipping my idol. So it took about six months. I recruited a couple of other inmates and made contact with some of my friends in the clan. Planned out an escape that worked smoothly.

[00:33:50] And before they really knew what had happened, we were a couple of hundred miles away from the prison in a densely wooded area outside of Jackson, Mississippi. And we were very pleased with ourselves. We thought we really pulled a fast one. So I'd been standing watch. And one of the other inmates came and relieved me about half an hour early.

[00:34:18] I went back to the tent that set up there. And, oh, gosh, five, maybe ten minutes at the most had passed. I heard this incredible barrage of gunfire right up there where I had been. And it turned out that the FBI had learned of our location, again, inside information.

[00:34:40] And they came heavily armed, machine guns, grenade launchers, shotguns, sniper rifles, all the artillery that you could imagine. And so this guy who had just relieved me early was standing in that forward position. So they saw him first.

[00:35:05] And they knew that we were heavily armed, had hand grenades and automatic weapons and things like that. And so they were not taking any chances. He was killed instantly in that hail of gunfire. And then the FBI chief from Mississippi gave over a bullhorn, gave the opportunity to surrender.

[00:35:30] And myself and the other guy, we did that. And we were taken back to the prison. And I was put in a little six by nine cell where I spent the next three years. But also got five more years added to my sentence for escaping.

[00:35:54] So almost successful escape recaptured back into federal penitentiary. And what begins this the next step in the journey? I guess in that moment, are you still entrenched in that worldview, that radical mindset worldview? More than ever. Wow. And it's not a federal prison. It was a state prison. Oh, sorry. State. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:21] So when I got back, well, after settling down a little bit, I tried to assess my situation and see if there was any way of escaping from there. But I had to finally conclude that there was not. So just tried to make the best of a bad situation. You know, life, you've heard this, I'm sure. Life is hard, but it's a lot harder when you're stupid.

[00:36:54] That's an excellent quote. That was me. Good grief. I was still in this, this total fanatic. In spite of everything I'd been through, man, I'd have been doing some stupid things. Right.

[00:37:13] All in the belief that I was a patriotic American fighting for God and country and that I was the good guy and, you know, I was against the bad guys. But anyway, you know, there I was stuck and no way to get out. And all I could do to keep from going crazier than I already was, was to read.

[00:37:38] And so I started off with all the racist, anti-Semitic books that I hadn't gotten around to yet. And, you know, I read, read that type of material. And in one of the books, it was a book on fascist political theory. And I found, you know, references to different philosophers and it prompted within me an interest to read classical philosophy.

[00:38:06] And so I got Plato, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius and went through all of that. And now I'm not saying philosophy will lead you to Christ. Many have tried. Yes, usually it will take you in the opposite direction. Right. But it was the instrument that broke down the current entrenched worldview that you held. It was.

[00:38:36] It was kind of pre-evangelistic in a sense, because the two things that I came away with that just sort of really gripped me were, first of all, that there is such a thing as truth, absolute truth. Right. And that it's there to be discovered. We don't create it. It's not something that is a human invention.

[00:39:06] You know, it exists independently of what we wish or prefer would be the case. And so seeking truth was a great challenge for human beings to seek truth, to know truth. And then the other thing was the well-known comment of Socrates that unexamined life is not worth living.

[00:39:35] And I thought, well, you know, that makes sense. I should examine my life. And as I'm going about the business of seeking truth and I'll seek truth wherever that takes me. Yeah. Wherever that takes me, I'm going to seek truth no matter where it might be. And so, you know, I continued reading, actually reading some conservative political philosophy.

[00:39:59] One of the books I read debunked anti-Semitism and racism, not as the main thrust of the book, but just in a couple of pages, well, several pages, he addressed that. And he basically put the pen in the balloon and let all the air out for me. Right.

[00:40:24] It's just like, gosh, it all collapsed right there. And I realized I had been in the grip of error and total nonsense. You weren't the good guy anymore. Not the good guy. No, no. I was basically a fool. I had been deceived like many other people.

[00:40:48] So that really worked to take away my animus toward Jewish people and black people. I thought, why do I hate these people? You know, there's no basis for it. I've just been believing lies. I came to a point where I felt drawn to read the Bible, particularly the Gospels.

[00:41:14] And it was there that I found Jesus reading through the Gospels. The Holy Spirit opened my eyes and enabled me to see what I had never seen before. And I was given repentance, which I'd never had. Wow. Not sure I even knew the word. Right. It was all just believe in Jesus and you'll be fine.

[00:41:42] Well, of course, you've got to believe in Jesus. But, you know, the message of the New Testament is repent and believe the gospel. Right. And so I was brought to a place of conviction for my sins and shedding a lot of tears and sorrow for what I had done.

[00:42:00] And one night, this played out over a number of days, and I got on my knees one night and prayed in a very simple prayer and asked Jesus to have mercy on me and forgive me of my sins and take over my life. And that's what happened. Something changed inside of me. And the next day, it was different.

[00:42:28] I mean, I was alive and alive to God and spiritual things, hungry for the Bible, to read it more and more and more and to pray and to live for God. Those things have stuck with me now for over 50 years and strong as ever. And just God's grace. And the more I read the word, the more change came into my life.

[00:42:57] You know, God gave me grace. The Holy Spirit was working and helping me to love others. So quite a radical transformation, not in that you had arrived all of a sudden, but, you know, obviously there's a process of sanctification that you're still going through. But, you know, some people's testimony is sort of incremental and sort of slowly learning more, growing. And then there's that point of heading things over.

[00:43:26] But for you, it seems like it was sort of this almost an overnight episode where the transformation seemed immediate in that sense. Well, I would say that the way I would put it is that new birth or regeneration is instantaneous. Right. But that, if it's genuine, is always followed by sanctification, which is lifelong. Right.

[00:43:51] So I've been in the process of reconstruction for 50 plus years now. And, you know, God's been very patient with me and very kind and helping me to grow. But I still have plenty of growing to do. Well, Thomas, my wife and I, when we were in Australia, we heard your story from Amy Orr Ewing when she was giving a public talk.

[00:44:17] And she had mentioned that there was a lady who was the wife of an FBI agent who had begun to pray for you. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about the background of that story. Yes, that was Joyce Watts, the wife of the FBI agent Frank Watts, who was involved in my capture, I suppose you could say.

[00:44:42] And once that shootout occurred there in Meridian and everything was public, she and her prayer group began to pray for me weekly. And I was told that sometimes they would spend hours praying for me, praying for me to be converted. And they did that for two years before I finally came to know Jesus.

[00:45:08] It's just an amazing story to me. And I'm just so grateful to those women. They were not people that you would ever read about in the newspaper. They were just faithful, godly women who met regularly to pray together for things that they thought were really important in the kingdom of God. And trusted that God could do great things.

[00:45:37] Yes, they were women of faith. They believed that God answered prayer. They didn't just throw out prayers and forget about it. They expected answers. And so the Lord did answer that prayer. And then after I was converted, J. Edgar Hoover got word of it. He had what you might call the network of all networks. And so he somehow heard about it.

[00:46:04] And he thought it was a scam, you know, to try to escape again. And he sent this agent, Frank Watts and his partner up to interview me at the prison and try to see what was going on, assess the situation. Right. They had met with me prior when I was in jail and Meridian. They'd come over to try to question me. So I'd known them from before.

[00:46:34] They came and we sat down and talked. And Frank, you know, they asked me, well, what's going on in your life? What's happened to you? And I was not a sophisticated person. I was a brand new believer and I just told my testimony. That's all I could do. Right. And they went away scratching their heads. But a couple of months later, Frank had the same experience I did.

[00:47:05] And he came to really know the Lord, even though he had been a good, faithful, moral man and Southern Baptist like his wife. He really didn't know the Lord. And boy, his life changed dramatically. And he became a witness in the FBI. And anyway, we could go on and on about that story.

[00:47:28] But to me, it's a great example of the power of prayer, which the Bible has a lot to say about, that God does answer prayer. And we're encouraged again and again to pray and to pray with faith and believe God. Well, and thinking about this, the Lord has really upended your worldview, the lens through which you looked at everything.

[00:47:53] What were some of the feelings and ideas that you had to sort of sort through in this sort of post-salvific time in your life? Well, of course, I had a lot of sorrow and heartache about all that had gone on. And the loss of life with Kathy Ainsworth there in that first shootout in Meridian.

[00:48:23] And then the fellow that escaped with me that was killed in the second one. So that was percolating in my mind and heart. The Lord was working in me to bring me to a place of loving my neighbors. And it just came. I think when I was converted, a lot of these things just happened, rearranged my mind and heart.

[00:48:53] One particular thing that might be of interest is, as I mentioned earlier, I had come to realize that the whole racist thing was false. It was based on false assumptions and also the whole anti-Semitic ideology and conspiratorial thinking.

[00:49:17] So that defused, I suppose you'd say, my racism and anti-Semitism. So I no longer held those attitudes against black people and Jewish people. But there's a world of difference between that and actually loving your brother, loving your neighbor. Right. You know? One sort of passive versus active. Right. Right.

[00:49:48] And so God was working in me to deal with this whole thing of loving my neighbor. And the way he did it, particularly on the race thing with African-Americans. And this was a huge thing in my life, reading the scripture. I had plenty of time on my hands. Right. You know, I could read the Bible six, eight hours a day. I loved it. I couldn't get enough of it.

[00:50:12] And Paul talks about being transformed through the renewal of your mind. And the chief instrument that the Holy Spirit uses to transform us is the scripture. Not the only thing, but it's the chief thing. And so I was reading along in 1 John in chapter four, and I came to the end of the chapter, and it says this.

[00:50:39] If anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. Yes. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, whoever loves God must also love his brother. And that got my attention.

[00:51:04] I started thinking, well, black people that know the Lord, they are my brothers and sisters, and I should love them, and just black people in general. They're my neighbors. I should love them. Right. You know, and so it sort of registered on me. This was new for me. I never read anything like this or had thoughts like this. I mean, the listener might think, well, dude, where have you been all your life? Right, right.

[00:51:34] But, you know, I'd had very little real teaching of the Bible, and so this was sort of new information to me. And the Lord just, you know, became a very clear thing, like light shining into my heart about this particular issue. And it was settled. Once I saw what God said and what he wanted, it was done.

[00:51:58] And then the Lord worked in me in such a way that I was able to be free of any negative attitudes and found myself actually there in the prison working. The first guy that I had any dealings with about discipleship and about Christian faith was a black guy there in the prison.

[00:52:26] He was a cook, and he and I began talking, and I discovered that he had just become awakened to the Bible and was reading it and seemed to have a hunger for the Lord. So he was asking me questions. He knew that in my cell I had a stack of books and Bibles and stuff like that about Christianity, about the faith.

[00:52:51] So he thought, well, maybe I could answer some of the questions he was pondering. And the truth of the matter was I was only one step ahead of him. Right. But I did have some things that I could say to him. And that's actually a good message for a lot of people. No matter where you are, you've got a message.

[00:53:17] If you were just born again yesterday, you've got a huge message for the vast majority of people in this country. Yeah. You don't have to wait. You don't have to go get a PhD in religion. Right. You don't have to be certified. So anyway, I passed on to him what I knew to say in response to his questions. And little did I know that that experience was the beginning of something I would be doing for the rest of my life,

[00:53:44] working with men to help them grow as disciples of Jesus. So it was quite amazing how the Lord started me off like that. And then I had relationships after that with other black guys in the prison. One of them was a civil rights lawyer who was serving a sentence there. And we and I became great friends.

[00:54:08] It seems like, you know, the Lord really opened that door immediately to show you, at least in your specific case, and I would venture to say in most, is that there's an element of this sharing of good news. And for those who are in Christ, a discipleship. Yes. Yes. It's sharing good news and seeking the good of the other person. You know, we've got these flawed ideas of what it means to love, love your neighbor.

[00:54:37] And as if, you know, the word these days, the word love is typically associated with feelings and emotions and sentiment. And there's a place for that, for sure. But the word agape isn't deeply about feelings. It's chiefly about the will, about actions.

[00:54:58] And you see this, for example, when Jesus says, whatever you want someone to do for you, do that for them. It's taking action to seek the good of the other person. Now, sure, feelings come along. They have a place in it. But the heart of agape is really acting in the best interest of the other person. Yeah.

[00:55:26] You see the example in the parable of the Good Samaritan, you know. Right. The Good Samaritan acts. He doesn't sit around probing his heart to see what he's feeling like. He just jumps in and acts to help somebody in need. And it's not a reciprocal thing. It's not that, you know, the Jewish man did something for him. In fact, he owed him nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly right.

[00:55:54] And, you know, jumping in here was, number one, dangerous on that road. And secondly, it was costly. He had to put out some money for the man's care and keeping after he took him to the inn. And then another thing that people don't think too much about, I'm afraid, is that this was actually a Samaritan that did this.

[00:56:23] A Samaritan did for the Jew in distress, what the Jew desperately needed. So it is, the Samaritans were a mixed race people. Right. And they were also heterodox. They believed error. And the Jews hated them with a passion. Right. So there's some lessons there.

[00:56:46] And the point here I'm trying to make is that, well, like C.S. Lewis said, don't wait until you feel some emotion towards somebody. Just act. Do the right thing. The feelings will come along later. Yeah. So your foundation of Christ has been laid and you're reading the word and you're building a structure. A word that's been used a lot lately is deconstruction. And we've heard a lot about prominent and not so prominent Christians who are beginning to deconstruct their faith.

[00:57:16] I wonder if you've spent any time sort of thinking about that as here is someone who, you know, your faith has been constructed and built. You know, do you feel like it's those people, perhaps their foundation that was laid was an incorrect foundation? Perhaps it wasn't Christ. Maybe it was a feeling or a ritual or something like that. I'm just just in looking and seeing the comparison with the trajectory of today as compared to, you know, the story of your own life.

[00:57:46] And, of course, all of us who have put our faith and trust in Christ. It's a good question, Jonathan. For me, it was sort of a blank slate as I began to feed on the word of God and then began to read theology and apologetics and things like that. I loved it. And I couldn't get enough of it. But here's something that may be relevant to your question.

[00:58:15] You know, we all tend to play to our strengths. Right. And I was a fairly bright guy. And using my cognitive abilities was something that was very much active at that point.

[00:58:34] And so what I did was consume a lot of biblical truth, orthodox, solid biblical truth. Yeah. But here's the problem. There's more to knowing God than simply your intellect and simply understanding cognitively what the scripture teaches.

[00:59:00] Jesus says in John 17, 3, this is eternal life, that they know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you sent. And that word know, you know, in that context, it's talking about not simply intellectual grasp, knowledge of facts about God and about Jesus, although that's certainly included. Absolutely. Right.

[00:59:30] But it's talking about a relational dimension to it, a personal knowing. You know, I can know a lot about George Washington. Right. I can be the expert in America on George Washington, but I don't have a relationship with George Washington. I don't know him personally. Yeah.

[00:59:50] And that's the way it can be with some of us that maybe we were raised in a Christian context, a church where we heard a lot of Bible teaching. And so we have biblical knowledge, good, solid biblical knowledge.

[01:00:11] But in terms of actually knowing Christ, that part has not been nurtured and developed nearly as much.

[01:00:22] You know, it's really a knowing, a personal I-thou kind of relationship where we're knowing in our daily experience, increasingly knowing Christ, knowing the Father, growing to trust them more and to love and obey them more. This is the core. This is the core.

[01:00:52] This is the heart of authentic Christian life in this world. And of course it involves, absolutely it involves correct understanding of Scripture. But that's only one part. You know, we're called to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to trust him with all our heart. And a lot of times we just say, oh, the heart, that's the emotions and the feelings. No, no, no, no, no.

[01:01:17] And biblical thinking, Hebrew thought, for example, the heart is not simply the emotions. The heart is the whole person. It's all that you are. It includes the will, the intellect, the emotions, the desires. All of those things are sort of woven together. That's what the heart is. And so if you overdevelop the intellect to the neglect of these other things, you're going to be in an unhealthy position spiritually.

[01:01:45] And same is true if you overdevelop the emotions. Yes. And so we probably all know people and churches where the emotions are very strongly prominent. That's great. Emotions are important. And a vital part. But we can't neglect the mind, you know, and the intellect and certainly the will.

[01:02:11] And there are folks that are there geared toward the will, you know, and they don't waste time talking and thinking about anything. Just go do something, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I'm going on and on about this. No, but this is a good, healthy trajectory today because, I mean, think about this is sort of the dichotomy that we're seeing, or even a trichotomy, if you will, in our nation today. Right? So even within churches, you can walk into a church and recognize whether this is a mind church.

[01:02:41] Or I can walk in and recognize that this is clearly an emotion-driven church. And so with those trying to control you in some sense. So that's created a divide within our churches. So what would you say in your years of experience in working closely with churches, how do you come with resolution to that? How do we navigate that sort of difficult terrain well in our churches and in our own lives?

[01:03:09] Well, I think that, first of all, the church is desperately in need of revival and reform in America and in Europe. At least I'm more familiar with those areas. But that revival is not simply a bunch of excitement.

[01:03:29] And it's not, as in the South, when I was growing up, a week-long series of special meetings to try to challenge people in their faith. I mean, it's something much different than that. Authentic revival in history is a subject people would do well to study. But the change we need really needs to come in the leadership.

[01:03:58] The pastors and the elders of the churches really need to be touched by a new vision of what it means to know God and to be faithful disciples of Jesus and to be about the mission of his kingdom in the world. So fundamentally, it's personal life. It's the starting point.

[01:04:23] And, you know, a lot of times we're so caught up in activities, religious activities, church activities. You know, we're kind of on a treadmill and we're neglecting our hearts. And so that's where I would say the starting point is for leaders to do some self-examination before God. Take time away. Just take a retreat some days away.

[01:04:52] Fast and pray and seek God and seek personal revival. Yeah. And really keep that going. I mean, Paul, not long before he was executed, before he was beheaded. We've heard a lot about beheadings over in the Middle East. Paul was Roman citizen, so he was given the privilege of a beheading as opposed to the arena or the cross.

[01:05:22] So several years before he was beheaded, he wrote this epistle to the Philippians. So Paul has known Jesus now after a radical encounter on the Damascus Road, life-changing,

[01:05:42] and several times had encounters with Jesus after that through dreams and whatnot. He's still saying in Philippians 3.10 that his passion is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. And again, that word know in Greek is talking about a personal knowing.

[01:06:11] It's not talking about simply doctrinal knowledge as important as doctrinal knowledge is. He's talking about that and he's saying to people, well, that's a really important section of Philippians to read. He says, you know, I really desire perfection, but I haven't found it yet. But I'm still going and forgetting what lies behind. I'm striving and pushing forward for the prize.

[01:06:41] And so that kind of attitude, you know, of a continuing hunger for Christ, not for success in ministry. If God gives it, fine, but you can be successful in ministry and not even know the Lord. All you have to do is read Matthew 7 verses, well, 21 to 23, I think.

[01:07:07] Jesus says, on the day of judgment, many, not a few, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? And did we not cast out demons and do all kinds of miraculous things? And Jesus will say, I never knew you. And, of course, the classic example of this is Judas, who went around with the 12 preaching the kingdom. Knew the truth.

[01:07:36] Preaching the truth. Yeah. And, you know, these people would say, Lord, Lord. I mean, that's an orthodox confession of faith. These weren't a bunch of theological, well, liberals, I guess you'd say. No, these people were solid. And yet, and Judas was part of casting out demons and like the rest of the disciples. And yet he never knew Christ.

[01:08:01] And so, you know, it's so crucial that that be our chief concern is to grow in the knowledge and love of the Father and the Son and the experience of the Holy Spirit daily in our lives being transformed.

[01:08:20] You know, it's Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 3.18, where it talks about as we behold Christ, as we behold him, we are being transformed from glory to glory.

[01:08:36] I should just read that verse so I get it exact because it's one of the key verses about this whole business of transformation and doesn't get a lot of attention, I'm afraid. Not the attention it deserves.

[01:08:54] Paul says, we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. So, you know, that really lies at the heart of things, focusing. We know the Father through Jesus.

[01:09:22] He's the clearest representation of the Father to us. And Paul is talking about the importance here of beholding the glory of Jesus and being transformed into his image and likeness by degrees. It happens over time. It's not instant. It's the work of a lifetime. And it's the work of the Holy Spirit in us. And that's what every believer needs, including and especially pastors and church leaders.

[01:09:51] But, you know, evangelicalism is sadly focused too much on gifts and too little on graces. And then people get put in these positions because they have gifts of preachings, teaching, whatever, that are quite strong. And people turn out and love to listen to them and all the rest. But where is the attention to the heart, to the soul, and to really knowing God?

[01:10:21] That often gets pushed to the side, to the periphery in the midst of all the success and the acclaim and the way that feeds pride and narcissism, which is an epidemic in the Christian church these days and ministry. Well, even in the second Corinthians passage that you're using, there's a lot of we language.

[01:10:45] And kind of coming back to some of the things that we're talking about, these sort of dichotomies that we see between churches and divisions that have created. And one of the things we, you know, you've even written about in your book is seeing the cultural climate of America and seeing some of this fabric and commonality in the church being sort of frayed at the edges and frayed all over the place.

[01:11:10] So we're seeing, and I'm not trying to get you to say anything you don't want to say so we can speak in generalities, but, you know, we are seeing a lot of this cultural climate issue in America where things have become very political and very polarizing.

[01:11:23] How do we, as believers together in uniformity in some sense, particularly within the, as you use the phrase, the graces that God has given us, which includes a body of believers, you know, a family to which we can belong and share in those doctrines of grace and things together. You know, how do we go back and work against some of that cultural climate that is wearing down on people?

[01:11:53] Well, you've raised something that is crucial. What I've been describing here about really knowing God and knowing Christ, it happens in a context. It's not something that occurs in a vacuum, some house out on the top of a mountain all alone. There can be a time for that, but it happens in a context, and the context is the body of Christ, the church.

[01:12:23] And you see very clearly in Acts, just starting off immediately, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the preaching of the gospel message, and the conversion of 3,000 people. And the Holy Spirit leads them together to do four things. And it says that they devoted themselves to these four things.

[01:12:51] And that word in the Greek is a strong word. It means that they gave themselves steadfastly to each of these things, not casually. They gave themselves steadfastly to these four things. And the first off was the apostles' teaching. You know, that was teaching about Jesus and his message and his works and other things related to the kingdom.

[01:13:20] But it was, you know, it was solidly grounded in the word. And that comes first, the apostles' teaching. And then the fellowship, to your point here, the next thing is to the fellowship. The fellowship is not coffee and donuts between services. The fellowship is a koinonia. It's the sharing of life at all levels, you know. And that's what they did. They shared their lives.

[01:13:49] They shared their possessions with anyone that had need, you know, anybody in the church. There was not a poor Christian among them, so to speak, because of that. So this translates into something that's really crucial for us to grow in grace. And that is relationships that have some depth to them. Seeking together to know the Lord. And it takes the form of small groups where you're studying the word together,

[01:14:19] where you're sharing your burdens together, bearing one another's burdens, praying together, crucial part of what we're talking about. And it's often the case the Holy Spirit works in us through somebody else. If we will have that kind of relationship, you know, it's been said we meet God and others. Others in the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit dwells in all true believers.

[01:14:46] And he can speak and he can use the gifts he's given them to minister to us. And likewise, we can use the gifts he's given us to minister to them. That's what this whole thing about spiritual gifts revolves around. The gifts are not given for us. Right, for your own edification. They are enablements. The Holy Spirit allots to us to seek the common good, to help our brothers and sisters, to love, to serve one another in love.

[01:15:14] And so, you know, you don't need to go through a course on all of this. But my point here is that in this fellowship, you need that fellowship as a context where kind of womb, so to speak, where you grow. And the next thing is the breaking of bread. The breaking of bread. In this context, it's not simply breaking a loaf and everybody having a piece. Yeah, sort of a modern communion ideology, right?

[01:15:44] Yeah. I mean, the thing Jesus did with the Twelve, I mean, it was in the context of breaking bread and drinking wine. It was in the context of a meal. And that's the way it was in the early church. It was kind of an agape meal. In the midst of that, they had communion. And so this is talking about kind of communion, worship as another key part of it. And finally, the prayers. And so those four things are like a four-cylinder engine for the Christian life.

[01:16:12] You know, and you need all four cylinders working together in full strength. And these things I'm describing are called, in some circles, they're called spiritual disciplines. More correct, I think, term would be means of grace. Grace means that God has given us to grow in grace. And so for all I was talking about earlier about knowing the Lord, it happens in this context.

[01:16:40] Now, can you grow outside of that? Well, yes, you can to some extent. But it's not going to be strong, robust, healthy growth. It's not going to be what God calls us to. We're missing out on his best. But that is crucial for us. And, you know, we will be able to thrive and flourish in that kind of a context. Of course, when I'm talking about a church, I'm talking about a place where they really, truly believe that the Bible is the Word of God.

[01:17:10] And they preach it as such. And, you know, there's a love for Christ and love for one another. That's the kind of thing we are wanting to be in or as close as we can find. Yeah. And that really pushes against some of the narrative that we hear today. You know, we hear a lot about systems. And so we talk about the systemic racism and, you know, sort of Marxist ideology and the systems that are against people and for people.

[01:17:37] But it's really that agape, koinonia, you know, these things, these biblical concepts that really Christ instituted that kind of shatter through a lot of the ideology behind the systems and really pushes a completely different narrative than from kind of what you hear from left and right.

[01:17:57] At least in terms of the political spectrum, you know, Christianity has really created its own separate, unique ideology concepts, view of imagio Dei, you know, the image of God, image bearers. It's really the thing that's pushed against all of that. It certainly is. I think it's so good that you call attention to that.

[01:18:19] We need to rise above thinking in terms of left or right and think in terms of the kingdom of God and God's perspective. That needs to rule over everything else. And so many of us have been hijacked by ideologies of the left or the right, even religious ones.

[01:18:47] You know, living in the times we are in is perilous for the Christian life and in other ways, certainly as well. There is this swirling vortex of cultural, social, political, racial conflict. And, you know, we're, we're fallen human beings.

[01:19:15] Even if we're born again, we still have the baggage to deal with from the past. And we can be hooked by these things and drawn off down a path that takes us in a direction that we may later look back and regret and pulls us away from Christ. And, you know, what I see is a lot of anger and hatred, even bubbling up on all sides.

[01:19:45] And, you know, where is the love of Jesus in the midst of all this? You know something is wrong when you are being drawn away from the love of Christ and the love of your neighbor. Regardless of what their views are. I mean, if God could save a far right extremist like me and I was to the right of Attila the Hun. Well, why is it hard for us to think that God could save a liberal?

[01:20:14] Right. Or a socialist or a progressive or, you know, a leftist, a Marxist. Yeah. God can do anything. And he has, in fact, saved some people exactly like that. There are stories, real credible stories of the Lord saving people like that. Yeah.

[01:20:32] And I think I fear that many of us have fallen into the mindset that, oh, those people are hopeless. We're not responsible for trying to be a good witness to them and evangelize them and love them and speak the gospel to them and be friends with them and reach out to them. They're beyond hope. God can't reach them.

[01:21:01] I think that has seeped into the minds of a lot of folks. And they are the enemy. You know, they're just the enemy. We need to hate them and destroy them. Well, okay. If you want to define them as the enemy, that's fine. Open your Bible to the Sermon on the Mount, chapter 5. Jesus said, love your enemies.

[01:21:27] You know, a lot of people wish that weren't in the Bible, but it is. And it's like Abraham Lincoln said. He was asked about his enemies. And he said, I don't have enemies. And the question was, how in the world can you not have enemies? Right. Well, I make them my friends. And you can be friends with liberals or progressives. You don't have to believe what they believe.

[01:21:57] You can be friends with people that are very different in their thinking and living. You know, you can be friendly to people and you can be loving to them and be light in the darkness, the darkness which they are living in. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, we're commanded to do so. Yeah. And I think the lack thereof can show our lack of obedience to Christ because we think we know what's better. I mean, it's all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

[01:22:26] Lord, you've said this, but I'm choosing to do it this way because I think that this is the more correct way. Yes. Jonathan, we're in a mess. We're in a mess in the church. But the good news is, and each one of us in the church is a mess, but the good news is that God is in the business of cleaning up messes. Amen to that. We just need to turn to Him.

[01:22:54] I'd be remiss if I were to leave people hanging on your story. We've kind of gone down the issues of the day and some of those things. But, you know, I'm not calling you in prison. Your story continued on. Your faith grew. You know, I wonder if you could just sort of talk us through that last sort of bit of transition and then even to the things that you're doing today. Yeah.

[01:23:17] Well, as I was saying before I went off on the rabbit trail, you know, I was really immersing myself in study and loving it. But what I found is that the sounder and sounder I got, the drier and drier I got. Interesting. I came to a point where I began to realize that I needed to really seek to know the Lord in a deeper way.

[01:23:46] And then I've elaborated a bit on that. Yeah. I'm still in that journey of trying to know the Lord. It's been over 50 years now since He first opened my eyes. And it's like a Christian leader now deceased. Many years ago, he said, getting to know God is a long, slow business.

[01:24:14] And I have found that it is. It's not something happens overnight to know Him better and better. It's something we need to stay with. And that's what I've been trying to do is to be faithful day by day and to really seek to grow in grace. And the Lord has helped me. And I've stumbled plenty and fumbled and mulled along various times. And other times I've made more rapid progress.

[01:24:43] But God's been faithful. And He has done some amazing things. I should have spent, well, I went to prison with 30 years. And then after I escaped, they gave me five more. So I had a pretty stiff sentence there to deal with. But God had a different plan for my life.

[01:25:10] So He worked in some amazing ways to release me after just eight years of that sentence. I may have gotten out at 10 years. I don't know. But the Lord intervened. And I was able to, it was kind of a miracle story too, but I was able to go to the University of Mississippi. And the Lord blessed me there. I love studying.

[01:25:39] I could have stayed at Ole Miss the rest of my life and enjoyed academics. But the Lord had other plans. And He brought me to the Washington area where I've been for the last 43 years. He's given me opportunities to minister. I started off in campus ministry and really didn't know which end was up. But the Lord helped me and amazingly brought some good fruit out of it.

[01:26:09] Then I sort of got to the level of my incompetence and realized I need more training, more education to be able to do a better job of this. And so I went to seminary. That was a time of real growth for me. It wasn't just intellectual. It certainly had that component to it. It was very good. But spiritual growth and the Lord just kept working.

[01:26:35] Brought me under the influence of some really good mentors like Richard Lovelace, who was a professor at Gordon-Conwell. I did not attend Gordon-Conwell, but through friends, I got to know Richard and he had a big impact on my life and a number of others. And Dr. J. Edwin Orr is another great soul that had a big impact on me. He was the world's foremost authority on revival, seminary professor like Richard.

[01:27:04] Anyway, I could go on and on about the ways God has worked to give me opportunities to grow and to serve. After seminary, I did some teaching work with Richard Lovelace and some other places around the country.

[01:27:27] But eventually I came around to I did some teaching work in the city, a school for urban mission that I was able to organize for college students. Come get some training about world missions, which was going urban. And then I was called to be a co-pastor at a church in Washington, D.C. And that was just an amazing experience.

[01:27:54] I was there for about five years and great, great experience of growing myself and working with some wonderful elders. And that was a racially diverse church. It was. It was.

[01:28:13] Although, you know, in the interest of full disclosure, as they say these days, a lot of churches that are described as interracial are mostly white with a few people of other ethnicities. And that was certainly the case here. We had some African-Americans and a few Hispanic people and Asian folks, but mostly white.

[01:28:44] But it was nonetheless a good experience. And where there was lots of love, people loved one another in that church. And it's carrying on now that there's an African-American pastor and a white pastor together. And elders are mixed. Wow. And there's more mixing in the congregation.

[01:29:09] I would say it's lots more people of different ethnic backgrounds. And focus is still on Christ and on the word and missions. And just great. I don't attend there anymore. I'm not really involved. But it's good to see how God works. And he knows how to take care of his church. Jesus said, I'm building the church. Gates of hell will not prevail against it. Well, and what are the things that are keeping you busy these days?

[01:29:39] What are sort of the projects you're working on? After the church, I was called to work at the C.S. Lewis Institute. So that kept me busy for quite some time from 1998 until 2020, I guess it was.

[01:29:59] Basically doing designing programs for discipleship and leading a discipling program, year-long, in-depth discipling program for men and women here in the Washington area. And that has been an amazing experience. I had no clue where that was going when I started.

[01:30:23] But it has grown to, I think we've had 1,000 people here in the Washington area over the 20-plus years. And then it started growing. And I think we were in 16, last I heard, 16 cities. One in Toronto. One in Belfast. We have one in London. And then over in India as well.

[01:30:49] There's several cities, large cities in India where we have some work going. It's all focused on one thing, and that is discipleship. Knowing, loving, following, serving Jesus. It's not a big, high-flying, highly promoted kind of thing. We're not out trying to plant flags around the earth. We just pray that the Lord will cause it to grow wherever He wants it to grow. And people come to us.

[01:31:18] We don't go to them. So we're just trying to be simple followers of Jesus. He said, go make disciples. And that's what we're trying to do. That's right. And so that's what I've been about all these years, whether working at the church or at the campus or with C.S. Lewis or whatever. It's about making disciples. So I've been doing some writing of the book, Consumed by Hate, Redeemed by Love.

[01:31:43] It's something I wanted to do, which I hope will be of help to people in their following Jesus. I mean, that's the main concern, was to try to show that God can save anybody, even the worst person imaginable. And He can work in their lives and change them, make them different, and make them to become more and more like Jesus. And that's basically what the book is about. Yeah. Let me ask you this.

[01:32:12] What is the typical reaction when people have either read your book or they find out a little bit about your story? I'm sure you've gotten sort of across the spectrum response to this radical, you know, clearly Christ-centered transformation in your life. What are sort of the reactions that stand out to you? Well, probably the thing I hear most frequently is, wow, that's amazing. It sounds like the Apostle Paul. Right.

[01:32:41] Well, I would never want to put myself in the company of the Apostle Paul. But the fact is that Paul was a religious terrorist and also part of a lynching with Stephen and the stoning of Stephen. Yeah. And he's a great example that God can change anybody. Yeah.

[01:33:06] Well, again, I'm not putting myself in his company, but there are many, many, many other people that have experienced the same kind of grace that transforms. I mean, Augustine was a sex addict and immersed in philosophies and heretical beliefs and everything else. And God plucked him out of that and made him arguably the most influential thinker in the history of the church. Yeah.

[01:33:35] And you could go on and on with things like that. Augustine, Francis of Assisi is another great example. And on up to modern times, you know, somebody like Chuck Colson. Yeah. You know, what's going on here is simply what Paul described in 1 Timothy chapter 1. And sometimes I say, well, this is part of God's marketing plan.

[01:34:07] That may be a little sacrilegious. I'm not sure I should keep saying that. But Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter 1 verse 15.

[01:34:44] And so, I mean, the Lord saved me as an example for others so that they would have hope. If he could save me, he can save them. It doesn't matter where you are. The Lord can reach you. And so, the Lord saved Paul. He saved lots of other people that we look at as, oh, wow. What an exciting, extraordinary testimony.

[01:35:09] Well, God is just simply displaying his grace to encourage the lost and help people see that there's hope for them no matter where they are. Yeah. Yeah. And so, that's kind of my story, you know. I mean, there's nothing special about me, to be sure. But there's a lot that's special about God. And that's what I'm trying to point people to. Well, amen to that.

[01:35:37] Well, Thomas, I do want to say thank you so much for taking the time to share your story and discuss some insights with us in the world that we are faced with each and every day. Thank you so much. Well, you are welcome, Jonathan, and thank you for giving me the opportunity.

[01:35:56] And I just pray that the Lord will use it in some way to glorify himself and help his people and also to get the attention of those who don't know him yet. Well, amen to that. Thomas Terrence, thank you so much for being on Candid Conversations. Thank you. Candid is a podcast from Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. Don't forget to connect with our social media pages on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

[01:36:25] And subscribe to Candid Conversations on your favorite podcast platform so that you never miss an episode. While there, please leave a review. It does help people to find us. And perhaps next episode, we will mention you on the show. As always, thank you for listening to and sharing this episode.