A Baptist pastor becoming an FBI agent sounds like a movie plot, but for Eric Robinson it was a real-life answer to stress, calling, and a deep need to put justice into action. We talk with Eric about the surprising moment he realized ministry was wearing him down in ways he couldn’t ignore, and why stepping into federal law enforcement actually brought clarity and relief. If you care about purpose, faith, and courage, this conversation goes beyond headlines and gets honest about what it costs to serve people well.
Eric shares what 24 years in the FBI taught him about fear and capability, including 15 years as a SWAT operator. We dig into the messy reality of crimes against children and human trafficking investigations, where “rescue” is not always welcomed and trust has to be earned through consistency. He explains how victim advocates, counselors, and agents work together, and why victims may lash out at the very people trying to help them.
We also get into financial fraud, elder exploitation, and romance scams that trap smart people through emotion, urgency, and loneliness. Eric breaks down common scam patterns and the one simple protective habit that matters most: verify through a second source before you click, send, or wire money. We wrap with what retirement looks like for him now, why he’s writing a memoir, and how he’s thinking about purpose as a season-by-season calling.
If this helped you, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show and step into their purpose with confidence.
To connect with Eric you can do so Instagram @_eric_robinson
To download a free chapter of host Sylvia Worsham’s bestselling book, In Faith, I Thrive: Finding Joy Through God’s Masterplan, purchase any of her products, or book a call with her, visit her website at www.sylviaworsham.com
Transcript:
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt, or worry and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, Sylvia Warsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, Sylvia Warsham.
Hey Lightbringers, it’s Sylvia Warsham. Welcome to Released At Reviewer Purpose, and today is Eric Robinson. And let me tell you, you guys have got a story to hear. This guy comes from Baptist Pastor to FBI. How on earth do you do that? I just don’t. When I read that, I thought this is so interesting. Usually it’s the other way around. That’s what I found very, very interesting. So without further ado, Eric, thank you so much for joining us on release at Reveal Purpose.
Thank you, Sylvia. I’m glad to be here. Yeah, I I I had not met in my 24 years in the FBI somebody who went from full-time ministry into the FBI, but yeah, lots of people they get in their 50s, 60s and say, you know what, I’m gonna settle down and do ministry. But I I I spent my early strong years in uh the pulpit and then went on to FBI uh SWAT operator for 15 years as well. Never never handled a gun before I got in.
Wow, I’m just curious, what happened? What was that pivotal moment for you that said, I need to transition from being a Baptist pastor to going into the FBI? I’m sure God came into the mix somewhere in the world.
I we had my wife and I, with a core group of Christians, had planted a church that was meant for outreach. We were trying to welcome people who may not have felt otherwise welcomed into the church. So I made sure that everyone on board knew that if we were going to make an error, it would be on the side of grace. We wanted people to come in, nothing on your face that says, is that how you’re gonna dress, or I don’t like your style. Everything was to be welcoming so that we could have an audience with them. And one thing, and we were we were successful, we were doing well. I and I was excited about getting to do church the way that I felt it should be done. And and then we saw results too. But one of the issues with bringing in people who may not have grown up in church is they had a lot of life problems, and I found that I was not capable of separating their problems from me, and so I bore their burdens in ways I shouldn’t.
Yeah, because it has less stress, right? I mean, seriously, FBI?
It’s a it’s a different stress. When bad guys get away, I don’t that’s fine. You know, when you come to me and say, I think my husband and I are breaking up, and you know, he’s gonna say all these terrible things about me, I cared. If bad guys act like bad guys, like okay, that’s what they do. So I the what the day that I got accepted in the FBI, the headaches went away. So that was a cue that I was probably making the right decision.
I get that, but I really want to know more about why the FBI, particularly, because it is not a very obvious move.
No, it’s not. Well, and and I I wrote a memoir, having just retired, about that move and some of the experience I had, and copy editors keep asking me the same, and I thought, oh, I just thought it was inherent that that’s pretty cool. Like the FBI is the highest level of law enforcement in the world, and that would be nice to be a part of that. And I never like from the beginning when I was filling out those long pre-internet forms, um, I was in awe, like this is amazing. And though I did tedious everyday work many times in the FBI, I didn’t lose that awe of that’s amazing. I get to be here, they they plucked the Baptist pastor out of the church and did a social experiment and say, hey, what would happen if we stuck him in the FBI for 24 years? Let’s see. And I had a lot of interactions with terrible people, and then with the folks I worked next to, they were some of the best I’d ever met.
So did your faith come in a lot into your work?
It it did. It was I didn’t find it very difficult to see a similarity that what I was doing in law enforcement was still doing God’s work. Because obviously in the church I’m doing that, but when you have an injustice brought to you, the church can step in. You know, we can pray, we can send a casserole, go fund me, raise money, but ultimately you’re not going to find justice. And you know, if your child is harmed or y you’ve been defrauded, that’s there’s a place that God wants justice for people, and the church is not capable of doing that. So I felt fortunate that I could work in a noble job in in the church, and then also I still got to do something that was noble, but in a much different way.
You see films like um what was the film with uh Jim Cavizel just recently? He wasn’t he was working for a special task force. Um, and of course, we know Jim Cavizel was the one passion of the Christ, so we know that he’s only taking on roles that reflect his character, and he’s a man of God, so he’s pursuing, actively pursuing God, much like you. And so it is very noble to go after the bad guys, the people that have hurt children, uh, especially those that are trafficking children. I think that was the movie. Do you remember the name of it?
I can’t I remember that I don’t recall the name, but yeah, it was on uh sex trafficking. And and that was something that I worked for a few years in uh the Cleveland division as well, rescuing teenage prostitutes who were being manipulated by pimps.
Tell us more about those stories and how you were able to use the skills and the gifts that God gave you to bring justice.
Well, I I worked next to a good friend, Laura, and she showed me what it was like, which is trying to break through to some of the hardest people you can imagine. Like their victims, they had been choosing to prostitute on their own because they were runaways wanting to make money. They had never had adults in their lives who had any value. Parents were you know absent or harsh, other adults didn’t benefit them, the police were always chasing them, and here come two FBI agents and some other officers trying to convince them that there’s a better way, but why would you trust an adult? An adult has always been useless, and so we would find them, arrest the pimps, and I ultimately, you know, I get spit at, slapped, yelled at, cursed at because I was taking away the one man in their life that meant something to them. And it took some time that eventually, when they could see consistency from us, from Guardian Ed Lightems who were representing them in court, counselors, victim assistants from the FBI, that now they could begin to realize okay, there are some people who are working for me, and then we could see their lives begin that path of turning around.
Wow. Wow. I just can’t imagine how you restrained yourself from like not slapping them back. There’s one place where it’s like self-control. But maybe being a man of God helped you in that in that regard, where you’re agreed, you know, because men can get aggressive at times. I mean, obviously, there’s a lot of scripture around that. Like, husbands, be gentle with your wives. They’re not saying that because men are gentle to begin with, they’re saying that because of testosterone.
So well, they they were victims, and that was very clear. Um, and even though they opposed us, and in my first introduction, working with my partner Laura, you know, we go to a door of one of the gals that she was trying to reach out to, and you know, we just hear from the other side of the door, what? And she says, Oh, it’s you know, it’s Agent Laura, and I just hear, uh, and you know, and then she talks through a crack in the door and then slams it. And I ask Laura, like, this is what it’s like. Like, I thought here we are, we’re heroes, we’re giving them hope and taking them out of a terrible situation, and they did not like us.
No, I bet they didn’t, because it’s sinful ways, and it’s it’s your desires of your flesh, and those are really strong within us. So you want to keep doing that. It’s hard when somebody um to really face that and say, I don’t want to be that person anymore, and I need to be better. I would find that that is very tough, especially for for girls that didn’t have solid role models in their fathers, and then they seek the attention of these guys that are just taking advantage of them and probably very young, too. How young were these girls primarily?
15, 16. And but for them, it was very much survival. It was not a moral issue. I mean, if I asked you or any of your friends, oh, what what kind of threshold would you have to cross to start giving your body to strange men all day, every day? Like that that that doesn’t make sense to you. That’s repulsive. But for them, many had already crossed that threshold through abuse in their homes before. So they’re broken. What what does it matter if you’re gonna play with broken parts? And that was the one way that they could make money to find some independence. And here we are saying, Well, you don’t realize this, you’re 15, you’re 16, let’s let’s put you on a path where you can walk properly in society and and earn money in a different way.
Yeah, yeah, I see that. I see that. And you know, the one question that I think the Holy Spirit’s asking me to ask you is what was that one case that just gave you that sense of I’m in I’m in the place I’m meant to be, that this is my purpose in life.
Can you share with well yeah, related to this, uh it was after I got out of uh working crimes against children, but a friend of mine, Alex, had a case where this will give you pause, a uh a pastor in our area had taken to pimping out uh uh a foster daughter that he had brought in, and he was pimping her to other pastors. So because I was to arrest one of these pastors, I assume Alex asked me to be the one doing the interview. Um, and and I came to the pastor with like I hadn’t preached a sermon in a while, but I I had all the Bible verses down and I was ready to talk about how God wants us to confess our sins and and repent. And as I started talking about that, and I had the evidence as well, he stopped me and said, Hey man, I’ll talk with you, but I don’t want to bring Jesus into this. And it was evident that just as he had with this young girl, he had compartmentalized. There was the man who preached on Sundays, and then there was a sinner, and somehow those two didn’t touch. And he ended up making a pretty decent confession to what he had done, but it was after that, it was all it was just facts and evidence. There was no more discussion of God and moral failures, it was legal failures. But that young girl, then as we brought her out of that, um, she was later kidnapped by the pastor’s wife and her foster sister. They were trying to convince her that she should not testify, and she broke free, but ultimately we brought justice. Uh two of the pastors were asked, you know, how about a 12-year plea deal? They said no, and they got a very rare life sentence for what they did. And when I spoke uh about a year ago with our victim coordinator, longtime victim coordinator Jen, she said, Oh yeah, that victim, that young girl, now works with the city. She showed me a picture of her son, you know, maybe one year old, and and told me that she even sometimes speaks at FBI gatherings so that she can tell this is how the FBI rescued me. This is how that brought me to a place where now I’m healthy, I’m strong, and I’m contributing.
Talk about a redemptive story. Think about, oh my goodness, like to come back to the initial steps of where she was broken to come back and say that was wrong, what they were doing to me, and and confront it, be courageous enough to confront. And then not only that, now start working, actively working in that space. I think this is what most people miss about him, about God, is that he loves us so much that where we were broken is where we get to be healed. And I say get to be healed because it’s a gift he’s giving us to free us from that torment that we carry within ourselves, like the guilt and the shame, which are useless feelings. I’m a certified life coach, and those are two of the most biggest blocks I’ve seen in people moving forward into their light, much like you did, where you just answered a call from the Lord to say, You’re in the wrong space, and I need you to use your background and how I’ve equipped you as a pastor to then come in and work with these pastors that are breaking my heart and my law. Like, and and I find it interesting that that particular case how people that that’s somebody that Jesus himself would have called a hypocrite back in the in the days of the Pharisees. You know, these are people that are claiming to be men of God and yet on the side are doing everything that pleases them and thinking that’s okay, and then telling people that they’re wrong in their churches for doing some of these sins of the flesh. Um, so I commend you, number one, for stepping into that light and doing it. I I bet that case transformed you in a way. Can you share a little bit about how it changed you?
Well, uh it wasn’t until a year ago that I got because you know, we have other cases to work, so you know, we step in and and it’s a you know weeks and months long process of building the case and then finding services for the victims, and sometimes we’ll see them again because they just run away and and do the same again. But what was I was so pleased by was that chance encounter at a friend’s retirement party where I’m recounting you know one of these amazing stories that I got to be a part of with our victim coordinator that she got to fill me in and say this was redemption because otherwise, you know, I remember some of the girls’ names, but you know, they they move on, and I’m hoping that things work, but we’re we’re not social workers, we interact with them, but we we’ve got to move on to the next victim. So that was an unexpected present for me that somebody could then say, By the way, I know you hoped there was a happy ending to this, there was. There was this redemption. And so that that’s part of, you know, I we do what we do, or I did what I did with the FBI just because it was the right thing to do, and the results after the fact is not something I could depend upon. But in this case, I was very pleased to know great, you know, this is satisfying to hear the end of the story.
It very much is. I love I love stories like that because it gives us purpose and it’s the stories we can go back to when we’re having a bad day. Those days come where you question, like, oh, why am I here? You know, like why did you put me in this in this place, like to speak into people? Like, why did you choose me? I I know I’ve had those questions where I’m like, who am I to guide people in this? I’m the I fall into temptation like constantly, you know, with small things, but still fall into temptation. Like what we what he sees, what his expectations are so much higher than what we have for ourselves. And um, I find myself repenting almost daily, and it’s like, I like because I come from that background of wanting to prove and to achieve and do all these things, right? So um, but I’m curious because what is one of the the craziest cases you’ve ever done? Just I’m I’m just very curious about your role.
Well, I so I’ve worked other than like cyber or foreign counterintelligence, I’ve worked just about everything that every violation the FBI has. I work gangs and drugs, uh public corruption, civil rights, all of these counterterrorism. And one another case that I had that was fulfilling was it was a spin-off of another financial fraud case where a realtor in our area uh had committed bankruptcy fraud, and he was also part of stealing a half a million dollars with his partner from an investor. They they were investing in a fraudulent bond, and so somebody thought the bond was worth much more than expected, and so they’re willing to give a million dollars for it. So here’s a half million up front, and he and his partner spent a half a million dollars in 45 days, which I would challenge you that I doubt you could do that, and and they bought nothing, they bought nothing, nothing. What did they do with it? They went out to eat and you know, like had parties. Here’s a five thousand dollar restaurant bill, here’s luggage. It like they took private flights. Like you could spend a half a million dollars, you buy a house, you buy a nice car, and you put the rest away. But he had also so they they they burned the money, had nothing to show for it, but then he had also stolen twenty thousand dollars from uh an elderly woman who was disabled, and it that that was disgusting. Yeah, so I I’ve met I’ve met significant drug dealers in Chicago, guys who deal with 20 kilograms of cocaine every month. And some of those guys like they broke the law, but they’re they’re nice people, like they were decent, they tr treated me with respect. This guy was the worst person just you know to to knowingly take money from uh this uh woman who she didn’t have money as it was, so uh relevant to the story, he was gay, very openly gay, and he had convinced her that he might marry her someday. He was fifty, she was seventy-five. And she had and she had never had a boyfriend, so she was very naive to all of this. And uh talking to her initially to get evidence and just have her handed over to me, I didn’t bring a warrant. She was very reluctant because much like the teenage prostitutes, here was the FBI stepping in, trying to ruin the The one love that she’s ever had, and she didn’t trust me, but along the way, as I was able to show her what her boyfriend was doing, uh, she came around and man, when she’s she stood on the witness stand, she tore them apart, and the defense had no questions wisely because it would have looked bad for them.
It it that angers me. Like my mother was taken advantage of um about a year after my father passed away. My dad almost, it’s almost been two years on Father’s Day this year. And she was so ashamed. She she had to reach out to the FBI to let them know about the fraud. Um, she felt so humiliated. And the agent was actually very compassionate and said, you know, you have nothing to be ashamed of. These guys are ruthless, they will go to every end of the earth to get your money.
And they’re very talented. They’re very talented in doing this.
Yes. And so for future, uh, for those listening, do not respond. They will never, you know, a an actual bank, an actual uh credible entity is never gonna reach out to you on email ever or by a text. That’s gonna be a scam. Um, and so can you speak to that to the listener so that you know those of us that have aging parents can kind of warn them of like, hey, these are the scams.
Yeah, uh I had one gentleman who was a walk-in complainant, and he was he came in to tell me that he thought his girlfriend had been kidnapped. Well, his girlfriend was someone he had never met. They just talked online as and this was this was an intelligent man. Uh along the way, I coaxed out of him. Oh, yeah, yeah, I have sent her money, but she needed it for travel, and every time they were to meet up in person, something would come up. And and it it was amazing. He wasn’t an old man, he wasn’t a stupid man, but oftentimes, like s so criminals can fish and get you to click on things you shouldn’t, or they can convince you that your uh child got arrested overseas, or whatever it might be, and then there is those who use romance to win people over, and this man was legitimately in love with nobody, but he was in love, and it pushed him to give thousands of dollars, and there was nothing I could say that convinced him, even showing him there as we sat in the room that this is not real because you can’t argue with love. So there’s there are many avenues that the criminals will use, and I would just check with another source before ever clicking, sending. And the problem with that is, and I I would assume this is something that you got from the FBI agent, there’s very little that we can do because when the criminal enterprise is a group of Romanians and they stole$20,000, you know, the the only way that justice will come is if that’s aggregated by a a criminal organization and now it’s up to twelve million dollars through a number of people, and now our teams are working with overseas law enforcement and hoping something comes out of it. So if if your money is lost, it’s it’s lost.
It’s lost, yeah. She did say, she’s like, I, you know, lost this. And I said, Mom, don’t be ashamed, ashamed. It it could happen to anybody. You’re and she’s a smart woman, she’s very savvy. And she just she was vulnerable. They caught her at a time when you know she was missing dad, and and I think they know because of things that they’re clicking on, and they look at histories and they and they do their homework. They’re not stupid, they know how to do this um very well. Tell me, is this now that you’re retired, you you said you became an author? Is this now your your your divine purpose, or do you think this is just one more seasonal purpose for you?
For now, for now. Uh so I I wrote the book, my wife said, What are you gonna do when you retire? And I said, I don’t know. And she said, You should write a book, and I said, Yeah, but I didn’t like take notes along the way of like oh these stories and that one. But I found as I sat down, boy, they oh, that’s right, and then this one, and I’d put notes and it flowed and flowed and flowed. Um but I also look at it, and I don’t mean this arrogantly, but the FBI taught me a lot, and so I have things that I’d like to pass on too. So uh I’m looking at speaking and teaching and trying to take the many years that the FBI trained me to do things well to say, okay, well, let’s pass that on to some other people too.
You know, I think God equips us along our journeys. You know, like you’re equipped with being a man of God and then using that in your current role, and then that will equip you for what’s coming next. I think God does do that because I’ve I’ve actually lived that in my life. When I went back and reflected on the major turning points of my life in my first manuscript, I saw how his hand was in everything. Do you see that in your life?
I do. I I when I was a pastor and struggling with the stress and the the strain, part of part of if I could go back in time, I would have said, Hey, hey, just go ahead and take the steps. This stop like the the difficulty was not just the fear of doing something different, but also this is what I want to do. And I did have that hesitancy to surrender and say, look, you can’t do this, you’ve toughed it out. And if I could go back in time, I’d say, Man, you look good for 56. That’s that that looks good on you. But also just realizing there are steps to take, God will be with you. If there are pains and difficulties, people are resilient, you will get through. And you know, now as I’m moving into the next step, I’m like, okay, I’m a little excited to see what it might be, and uh we’ll see where God leads in that.
I love how he leads us. We just take it in faith, and we don’t know where we’re stepping into, but we do it with confidence because we know he’s come through for us in the past. I know he came through for me, and I’m sure he came through for you. Any last words of encouragement for the listeners who released out reveal purpose? And Eric, if I wanted to contact you to bring you to come and speak about all those amazing stories from the FBI, where can I find you?
You can find me on Instagram at underscore Eric underscore Robinson, which I’m amazed that wasn’t taken. So that’s good, or on LinkedIn where you put in my name and FBI, and you’ll see this mug on there too. Um and then my book, my book is called Irreverend, from Saving Souls to Chasing Sinners with the FBI, and that’ll be out in the fall. And uh it’s irreverent because I was a reverend, and then some of the things we did were a bit irreverent, and there’s humor in there, and so uh the feedback I’ve gotten is people say this is a fun book, and I had fun writing it too.
Well, that’s amazing. I mean, seriously, I I want to be like you now. I go for those rules that I always wanted to when I was a kid, but was too scared to do, you know. Our fear doesn’t help us when we are you know journeying through this life. I I think if if you had one word of encouragement to share with us on on your journey, what would that be?
So from my experience in in the FBI, and I don’t I don’t know that I got to get this because I was still quite young as a pastor, but in my experience in the FBI, I encountered some very dangerous things, and I wasn’t scared. And some of that is knowing your purpose and your place with God, but in the moment it was because I was well trained, I was capable, and here’s 15 or 20 other men next to me in with SWAT that I knew could get the job done too. So when you know where you stand, when you know what you’re capable of and believe in that, uh for me that took away any hesitancy or fear, and it’s also a matter of getting to that place of striving to reach that place where you know you have an ability to proceed and do things successfully.
I love that. I do, I love that. And then we’re gonna end the show there. Eric, thank you so much for joining us on Released Out Reveal Purpose. And for the listeners, you know how I usually sign off. Uh, be remember Matthew 5.14 to be the light. Be the light, like Eric was the light. Step into your purpose with confidence, don’t be scared. Uh, do it on purpose. That’s what God is wanting us to do, and he’s given us these amazing gifts to use for the betterment of humanity. And look at look how Eric did that. I mean, to go from Baptist pastor to FBI and now author, that that’s an amazing life and an amazing light. And we’re just so blessed to have had him here on the show today. So everybody have a wonderful stay blessed. Love y’all.
Bye now. Thanks, Sylvia.
So that’s it for today’s episode of Release Doubt, Reveal Purpose. Head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on iTunes. We’ll win a chance the grand prize drawing to win a twenty-five thousand dollar private VIP day with Sylvia Worsham herself. Be sure to head on over to sylviaworsham.com and pick up a free copy of Sylvia’s gift and join us on the next episode.