The following is a transcript from the Pro America Report.
Welcome, welcome, welcome. It’s Ed Martin here on the Pro America Report. Well, I have to tell you, I was getting ready to prepare for this. There were lots of topics I was going to touch on. I was going to touch on the infrastructure failures. You know, that bridge crashing in Baltimore, terrible thing and also the fact that there’s a competence crisis. I tried to call my local town court. Long story, but it was. There was a friend of mine got a speeding ticket. It wasn’t me, I promise. And I was calling the court. Incompetence on every level. It was incredible. I mean, double talk, didn’t know what they were doing. Anyway, there’s an incompetence problem. I was going to talk about a lot of things and I decided before I saw the news.
I would talk about Easter and the preparation for Easter being as it’s now mid week in what’s called Holy Week for Christians. And then I saw Donald J. Trump posted a video, not a short video, a long video, maybe 3 minutes, 3 1/2 minutes. And in the video, he talked about his favorite book, his favorite book The Bible, and many people’s Favorite book is what he says. And he talked about a special edition of the Bible, not, not a. It’s the King James version. So don’t worry. But it’s the putting the book together. That Lee Greenwood did the very famous singer who sings God bless the USA and it’s called God Bless the USA Bible. And Donald Trump did a video endorsing this Bible and saying he partnered up with Lee Greenwood and wanted to sell the Bible and. It was perfect.
In fact, excuse me, I saw Mark Krikorian, who is one of the leaders over at. Is it Center for Immigration Studies. A wonderful guy, Missouri guy, originally, by the way, and it does good work and has been doing incredible work for a long time highlighting the issues around immigration and immigration and the problems, et cetera, et cetera, really articulate and really serious guy. So the the he said about Trump’s sale of Bibles. He said Trump is now a Bible, a Bible salesman. It’s almost too on the nose. And it was perfect.
But here’s what you don’t know, I think, most people don’t realize. Donald Trump from the time he was just a little boy, two or three or four years old, his father began taking him every single Sunday to what’s called Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan. And the man who led Marble Collegiate Church is Norm, was Norman Vincent Peale. He was a a pastor and Norman Vincent Peale was famous from about 1935 until he died in the mid ’90s. I think it was, excuse me, mid ’80s. As a great preacher, but more importantly, he wrote a book called The Power of Positive Thinking, and that book became one of the seminal sort of self help books it it sold gazillions of copies, that and Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Those two books and and Dale Carnegie, another Missouri man, was from, was written early in the last century too. He was born in early last century. He wrote his book. Around the same time.
Coming out of the Great Depression, there was a lot of sense. I think that people wanted to know how to think about the American dream and what to think about what was going on. And these books tapped into it.
But back to Norman Vincent Peale. Every Sunday, young Donald Trump, all the way into his himself into his 30s when Peale died. I think Peale died in the ’80s. There was another pastor that took over and he was not as dynamic as Norman Vincent Peale and I think that’s when Trump stopped going to church every week.
But for the formative years of his life. In other words, from the time he was a small boy, he did go away to boarding school. Trump did. So. I don’t know if he went to Church when he was at boarding school, but whenever he was home, his father took him and his family to hear Norman Vincent Peale.
And here’s where it gets interesting. The Power of Positive Thinking is not a self help book like Tony Robbins or a self help book like all the gurus you know. It was a overtly and very prominently, a Christian book. In fact, the earliest recommendations of Peale in the book are to learn by memory aspects of the Bible, and to have a Bible and to read the Bible, but then also to memorize, go through your Bible and underline all the places where Christ gives you power. I think that’s one of the things he says where Christ is, speaks of power for individuals. And he says underline those and memorize them.
And throughout his book and his life, which included all his help, help, stuff about up from your bootstraps, he, he, he he started and then for revolutionized made popular the whole notion of the Horatio Alger stories he started the Horatio Alger Society which the whole that that those set of those set of those sets of books. Came out of the 1880s and ’90s and into the early 1900s, and they were all about individuals making it on their own wits. All the odds stacked against them, but they they pull themselves up from their bootstraps. Horatio Alger. Well, Horatio Alger was popular at the time, but then he died in the early 1900s and he was out of favor. Even if people didn’t read him. But Norman Vincent Peale popularized him. And the notion of up from your bootstraps. So here’s Trump all those years. His the seminal leader in his life, the man who, other than his father, who would have been present and talking like that. And he talks about him before, is this extraordinary Christian pastor. Who said you have to, you know, have to rely on Christ, through Christ all things are possible. That’s one of his favorite passages. The ah, Peale’s favorite passages.
And so when you hear Donald Trump, albeit a flawed guy, I don’t judge him, you know, divorced twice. I get it. You know, I, I I understand. But I also get enough about the psychology of human beings, especially Christians, that a lot of them are fallen and a lot of them are fallen again, just like they’re born again. A lot of them fall into sin again and again and again.
And at the one standpoint, the one steadfast point in a universe that spins. Is Christ, and that truth.
And so you can fall again and again and again, and be born again. The truth is, you could be born again once according to the teaching, and even when you fall away in sin, you can go back to that, that you’re saved.
But well, the way I would see it, and I think the way Trump would see it. And the way Norman Vincent Peale would see it, is you’re constantly renewing yourself. And the way to renew yourself is through the Bible. Through the word of God. And through Prayer. And there you have it.
So when Donald Trump in Holy Week says we’re going to make prayer great again. When he says we’re going to go back to our roots and have more people energized about religion, it’s hard not to believe. Well, you have to really stretch yourself to believe that he doesn’t mean it.
And for me, it’s easy to believe that it’s gonna happen. Because that’s the other thing Peale did, was he said Don’t dream about what’s going to happen. Speak it into reality. Speak it out loud. You mean, when you say it out loud? When you write it down? When you say this, what I’m going to do this. I’m going to do it. You you create a set of of of inertia of energy in the direction.
And for Peale, it was always Christian energy. It was always energy of Christ. And it was an inspiration to generations and generations of people. Inspired the country, inspired the communities. Made a great, great difference.
And my point again. Is don’t look at Trump and say, how can he talk about a Bible. Look in the mirror and say why can’t I? Why? Why won’t I? Or if you want to say to yourself I’m better than he is, I don’t. I didn’t mess up my marriages or whatever you want to think about the other person and therefore you can get there too. It’s open to everybody.
Christ’s arms are open to everybody, and the sacrifice of Easter. The sacrifice of Good Friday, actually. And the gift of Easter, the Risen Christ is, is there for everybody. And one of the great pathways to it. Is the Scripture, the holy words in that Bible.
And so when Donald Trump invites you to get a Bible, maybe you don’t have a Bible, or maybe him asking you to get one is going to make you say I’m gonna get one and do something more with it. Whatever it is.
Use it as the chance for you, not for him. Use the chance for you, not for Lee Greenwood. Use that as a chance for you and your family. I remember someone telling me that there’s nothing more powerful than a father expressing his faith. That mother is nurturing in the family and then all that. But the father expressing his faith. Is powerful, and Trump’s figure in our community, our our America. Is a kind of father figure you don’t have to like him. I’m just describing. And him making this a priority is yet again an example for us. An example towards us and I have to say, I can’t help but think it’s so powerful. It’s so persuasive. It’s so perfect for Holy Week.
So there you. Have it. I hope you have a good Bible. I hope you have a blessed Easter. I hope if you don’t know the Lord Jesus Christ that you’ll get a Bible and you’ll find your way there and that you’ll pray for me. And I’ll pray for you and so many of the folks that are with us on the Pro America Report. That’s by the way, that’s what being pro America is about. Not for broken pasts, not for. Errors, sins. But for the future. And for the righteousness. And for goodness. So, happy Easter everybody. God bless you. God Bless America. Thank you to our team, Ryan Hite. Mason Mohan. Others on our team. Gwen. Caroline, thank you for all you do. For our work. Thank you to the folks in San Diego. And we will talk to you soon. Happy Easter, Ed Martin here. Pro America Report. Talk to you soon.
