A Daily Thunder Series with Eric Ludy
Spiritual Lessons from Black & White America
Part 1: The Fight of the Century
This is the first episode in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this inaugural installment, he declares his seemingly impossible goal for this series–to address the most sensitive issues of our day in such a way that the Church is strengthened rather than divided. This episode centers around one of the key powder kegs of the era–that of race. Using the famous heavyweight bout between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling as his muse, he unpacks a powerful picture of racial redemption and, simultaneously, a proposal for how we as the Church can handle these delicate issues in a way that changes the storyline of racial combat.
Part 2: Carrying Royalty to the Bus
This is the second installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he attempts to lift the topic of racial bigotry from the scrap heap of political spin. The pre-conditioning of both conservative and liberal thought on this matter has led to a senseless, ongoing, and seemingly unquenchable battle. As Christians, we mustn’t look at the issue of an oppressed people group through a political lens, but through the lens of the Word of God. The matters of racial interaction and racial sensitivity are perfectly suited to the makeup of the Church of Jesus Christ. It’s our opportunity to shine. After all, we are specialists in love, kindness, and caring for the underdog. And we should be world-renowned experts at ensuring no one is treated as lesser because of their clothing, their wealth (or lack of it), their education, and their skin color. There is a political machine that has grabbed this issue as its headliner, and we must not shy away from it because it has been weaponized to be used against us. As the Church, we must have wisdom, love, kindness, and care to seek a way to inject Jesus into this matter, and all matters pertaining to the oppressed, the downtrodden, the imprisoned, the naked, and the hungry.
Part 3: The Key to the Beautiful City
This is the third installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode he shows how one shocking event of kindness in 1903 altered the course of the twentieth century. Edward VII, the King of England, was trained from birth to hate the French, just as the French from birth were trained to hate him, a Brit. But, Edward altered the storyline of the age-old French-English feud by humbling himself and visiting Paris with the sole intention of restoring a lost fellowship, a lost trust, and a lost grace. It may be time for us to break similar age-old patterns of disgust in our own lives. But, if you are going to visit “the Beautiful City” and witness the same miracle Edward witnessed, you will need to pack something along with you. The key for entry.
Part 4: The Ethics of Much
This is the fourth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode he dives headlong into the idea of “privilege”–acknowledging frankly that he has received great privilege in his life. But, he clarifies that there are two ways to handle privilege. It can be clung to and preserved for one’s own use, or it can be extravagantly shared. Jesus Christ modeled the second option and changed the world. This message is a call to step out from under the dark ideological specter of Critical Race Theory, and live a thankful, grateful, joy-filled, generous, outward-focused life–not for politcial reasons, but in order to showcase Jesus.
Part 5: The Red Summer
This is the fifth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode he explores the incident in American history known as The Red Summer. In 1919, hundreds of thousands of Black men returned home from Europe after serving heroically in WW1 and fighting for the freedoms we enjoy here in America. Upon returning to the States, these men expected to be treated as full citizens after serving in this fashion, but instead, they were deemed a collossal threat to the established social order of the day.
Part 6: Becoming a Big Shot
This is the sixth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode he enters the Roaring Twenties and explains the rise of the Gangster Movement. Prohibition in 1919 makes the sale of alcohol illegal and gangsters take full advantage of this situation in the 1920s, turning the sale of illegal liquor into a booming trade. The Big Shot is the lead gangster, the mastermind behind the operation. His goal? To be above the law, untouchable, and able to smile at the feeble attempts of the lowly local police force trying their best to stop him. Such is the dream of the Mob Boss. And strangely, if we squint and scrub away all the evil encrusting it, it’s not all that different from the dream that we dream as Christians and see fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
Part 7: rIse of the white hoods
This is the seventh installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode he does a deeper dive into The Uncomfortable by analyzing the rise, the motivations, and the machinations of the infamous Ku Klux Klan. With membership rising into the multi-millions in the late 1920s, the Klan is a mere shadow today of its former glory back in that day. But, even though today’s membership roles are low (a mere 5,000), we should be aware that the wicked spirit that inspired and covertly operated that movement over this past century is still actively plotting today under different guises.
Part 8: The Legendary G-Men
This is the eighth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode he explores the beginnings of the FBI and the rise of its powerful leader, J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover’s demand for perfection, excellence, accuracy, and moral purity within his Bureau were inspiring, but they also functioned as a cloak for seedier behaviors in the work of the FBI–a hypocritical practice the Church has been known to utilize in its history as well.
Part 9: The Man I’m Not Supposed to Like
This is the ninth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. Due to Monday’s technical glitch and lost recording, this episode supplies a quick review of what has now become “the missing episode in the series” and then builds on this drama of the 1929 stock market crash by investigating the 1932 election between Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s resounding victory in 1932 still, to this day, causes Conservatives to wince with pain. And, honestly, it did effectively alter our country and proved the undeniable origin of Big Government here in the United States. But, hidden in the folds of this “political nightmare for conservatism,” is a very unique and special man that is hard not to like.
Part 10: Pretty Boy Floyd
This is the tenth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode he addresses the bizarre gangster craze that swept the nation in the early 1930s. One particular gangster named Charles Floyd embodied the angst of the common man during the early Depression days. The Midwest was swirling with soot and so were the souls of many of its citizens.
Part 11: Romanticizing Dillinger
This is the eleventh installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode he explores the strange fascination that America had with its chief villain, John Dillinger, in the early 1930s. Whenever evil becomes cool in a nation, then that nation becomes the enemy’s playground.
Part 12: Taming Hollywood
This is the twelfth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode he dives into the growing corruption of Hollywood in the 1920s and the attempt to correct that corruption in the 1930s. Who would have ever guessed that Hollywood could supply the Church of Jesus Christ with an amazing picture of the spiritually successful life?
Part 13: The Iron Chin
This is the thirteenth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he explores the extraordinary life of James J. Braddock and his indomitable spirit. In 1935, many Americans were at wit’s end, not knowing how long this Depression would last and how they could possibly take another step forward. In the midst of this harrowing time in our nation’s history, Jimmy Braddock showed everyone the power of an iron chin.
Part 14: Standing with Joe
This is the fourteenth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he treads upon the uncomfortable topic of lynching in American history. This is a very important message in the series, but it would be recommended for parents to preview this episode prior to sharing it with their younger children.
Part 15: The Secrets of Room 5235
This is the fifteenth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he dives into one of the great American moments in 1942—the FBI capture of eight German spies attempting to wreak destruction upon our nation in the midst of WW2. This great counter-espionage victory for the FBI, secured J. Edgar Hoover a place in the pantheon of great American heroes. Behind the closed doors of Room 5235, the case of the eight German saboteurs was heard by a military tribunal—clearly showing that the FBI didn’t solve this case alone. However, the American public didn’t hear that story. They only heard Hoover’s misleading story that declared the FBI did this amazing work all by their lonesome. It’s easy for us all to keep the secrets of Room 5235 from the public. This message is about opening up the doors and letting credit be given to whom credit is due.
Part 16: The Providence of 42
This is the sixteenth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he pays tribute to his parents by creatively linking them with providential events of 1942 in American history. ’42 was a year of extreme crisis in America, but it also proved to be a year of amazing breakthrough. Such is the storyline of every ’42 in our lives when we place our hope in God.
Part 17: Fighting Like a Wildcat
This is the seventeenth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he unpacks the life of Eddie Rickenbacker, the WW1 fighting ace, and shows how our prayer lives ought to show the same gumption, grit, and gusto that Eddie showed in his life.
Part 18: Victorious Love
Leslie Ludy is the special guest for the eighteenth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, Leslie showcases how Christians fought to overcome evil with good during this defining time in history.
Part 19: The Power of the White House
This is the nineteenth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he visits a war conference in January of 1943 in Casablanca, Morocco. It is there that the Allied leadership in WWII are attempting to pull off the impossible: find a way to agree and miraculously stay alive the entire while they are trying to do it.
Part 20: Being Jackie
This is the twentieth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he observes the extraordinary life of Jackie Robinson and marvels. It takes a special man to do what he did. And in studying his life, actions, and attitude, we are beautifully reminded of the behavior of our King who endured great injury and yet took it with kindly grace.
Part 21: Small Beginnings, Mighty Outcomes
Leslie Ludy is the special guest for this twenty-first installment in Eric Ludy’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, Leslie wields three powerful stories in American history demonstrating how we ought not to despise the day of small beginnings and how God loves to use simple, humble things to make enormous impact.
Part 22:The Blond Spy Queen
This is the twenty-second installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he begins to unpack the Red Scare that begins to sweep across our country at the close of WW2. In the dangerous and dogmatic machinery of this anti-communist backlash, one woman, known as “The Blond Spy Queen” is caught. Her name is Elizabeth Bentley, and she wasn’t blond and she wasn’t glamorous. She was simply a woman in need of help.
Part 23: Bleeding Red
This is the twenty-third installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he explores the strange magnetic attraction that the ideals of Communism have historically had upon a radicalized portion of society. Such a hold, in fact, that the adherents would gladly betray their country, lie to their families, and be willing to murder dear friends in order to serve the god that is Moscow. God created us for dynamic and fervent loyalty, but there is a counterfeit to every good and noble thing. Loyalty to Stalin’s Soviet Russia is one of history’s great counterfeits to God’s Kingdom pattern of joy-filled fidelity unto death.
Part 24: Operation Snow Job
This is the twenty-fourth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he unpacks the intricate plans of Joseph Stalin and the Soviets to manipulate the American government and to steer it in the direction that was most advantageous to their agenda. Harry Dexter White, a government official high up in the U.S. State Department was the clandestine tool with which the Soviets used to pull off this ruse. Like America in the 1940s, we also have an enemy that is seeking to steer our lives into disaster.
Part 25: McCarthy for President
This is the twenty-fifth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he dives into the drama surrounding Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1953. McCarthyism was fast becoming a powerful, potent, and even destructive element in America. Meanwhile, President Dwight Eisenhower was in the unenviable position of leading America through this season of Red Scare and McCarthy Baiting. He must somehow address the power-hungry McCarthy, but, how?
Part 26: Not Home YEt
Leslie Ludy is the special guest for this twenty-sixth installment in Eric Ludy’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, Leslie unpacks the fascinating history of the Women Air Force Service Pilots in WW2 and reminds us that even if we are walking through suffering, discouragement or rejection in the service of our King—we should not grow weary. The suffering we may experience now is not even worthy to be compared with the glory that awaits us in eternity.
Part 27: The Witness of Whittaker Chambers
This is the twenty-seventh installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he highlights the key event in this past century that sparked the liberal/conservative philosophical divide that we still struggle with in America today. It was a court case. The first televised court case in American history.
Part 28: Chicago Boy
This is the twenty-eighth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he dives into the story of Emmett Till, a fun-loving 14-year-old boy, whose social faux pas in the year 1955 will utterly change our nation. This is a very important message in the series, but it would be recommended for parents to preview this episode prior to sharing it with their younger children.
Part 29: Special Christians VS. Faithful Christians
Leslie Ludy is the special guest for this twenty-ninth installment in Eric Ludy’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, Leslie revisits two amazing stories from Christian history in the 1950’s—the five missionaries killed in Ecuador and David Wilkerson’s impact upon the gangs in inner-city New York. Through these reflections on God’s world-changing work through ordinary men and women, Leslie reminds us that there are no “special Christians”, only faithful Christians. We don’t need special qualifications to bear eternal fruit through our lives. We only need a heart fully surrendered to Jesus Christ, and faith in a mighty, faithful God.
Part 30: The Freedom Riders
This is the thirtieth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he investigates the Freedom Riders of 1961 and how their efforts to force President Kennedy into enforcing the laws of the Land are oddly similar to what we must do in our Christianity today to activate the legal power we have received in and through the Cross.
Part 31: Hoover's New Boss
This is the thirty-first installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he dives into the meteoric rise of Bobby Kennedy to the position of Attorney General of the United States in late 1960. As a thirty-five year old, Bobby became the boss of the most legendary and intimidating man in Washington–The seventy-year-old J. Edgar Hoover–Director of the FBI. Sparks flew when Bobby stepped into this position, and the comical relationship that unfolded between these two men supplies us as Christians today with an amazing peek into the inner workings of our own relationship with spiritual change and growth.
Part 32: Self-Protection vs. Sacrificial Love
Leslie Ludy is the special guest for this thirty-second installment in Eric Ludy’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, Leslie pays tribute to Lilian Trasher, the American who gave up everything to serve God in Egypt. Lilian died in 1961, and her example of sacrificial love stands out in the past century as one of the great marvels of God’s working in and through the lives of willing vessels.
Part 33: The Cuban Missile Crisis
This is the thirty-third installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he explores the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962. This extraordinary thirteen day event ranks as possibly the most dreadful and fearful two week period in American history. And the man given the task of leading America through this dark hour was President John F. Kennedy. His decisions under pressure have defined the world in which we live.
Part 34: Princeton vs. Agnes Scott
This is the thirty-fourth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he showcases an unusual event in 1966 which boasted David and Goliath significance—the little women’s college, Agnes Scott, defeated the powerhouse all-men’s university Princeton in the GE College Bowl.
Part 35: Red, White, and Kablooie
This is the thirty-fifth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he uncovers the federal governments attempts to rescue America from its downward social and moral spiral in the sixties. Unfortunately, America’s “noble” efforts at maintaining the status quo read like an exposé of Satan’s ancient tactics to deceive the nations.
Part 36: The Unwanted Life
This is the thirty-sixth installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he explores the American mindset towards the unwanted and inconvenient by using Lee Harvey Oswald as a symbol of the American desire to eradicate that which disturbs our status quo. This particular message set us up to better understand a monumental court case in 1973 in which the right to eliminate a different sort of “unwanted life” was in question.
Part 37: No Compromise
Leslie Ludy is the special guest for this thirty-seventh installment in Eric Ludy’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, Leslie dives into the lives of Keith Green and Leonard Ravenhill, showing the impact of their lives and ministries in the 70’s, as well as key spiritual truths for today’s American Church.
Part 38: Watergate
This is the thirty-eighth and final installment in Eric’s epic summer series covering the contentious and war-torn season of American history from 1914 to 1974. In this episode, he unpacks the explosive political event in the early 70’s that history simply refers to as Watergate. It’s an extraordinary event that has greatly altered and influenced American society. What is a nation to do when its trusted leaders are corrupt?
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