Welcome to the Conversations, That Matter podcast where we are forging a bold Christian vision for America.

I'm your host,

John Harris. We are going to talk today about Russell Brand's book, How to Become a Christian in seven days. It's hot off the press. It is trending on Amazon. We would not be talking about it

if it was just Russell Brand's opinion, but it has a much wider, broader, and deeper meaning.

And that's the reason I want to talk about it on the podcast.

I have been wondering for years whether or not we are in a spiritual awakening.

And I've said so many times that I am cautiously optimistic.

There is a renewed interest in the things of God and spirituality.

There's also a lot of error out there.

And given the metrics that we're able to study, it does not appear that we are in an awakening

at least yet. When we start seeing a lot more people signing up for ministry positions,

the churches, membership, busting the people, evangelizing,

the understandings that people have and the relationship to God's law and to sin changing

in extraordinary ways. I mean, these are the kind of metrics I'm looking at, and I'm not seeing

that we're in something like that quite yet, but there's a lot of interest

in the things of God.

And so, especially post-Charlie Kirk's funeral, I've really wanted to be optimistic about this.

But unfortunately, I become more and more cautious in my optimism.

I'm still optimistic, but I have a lot of caution there.

And that caution is rooted in things like the message in Russell Brand's book.

There's some truth in it.

But there's also cults that can give you truth.

...