RLL 131: Thomas Aquinas in Da House!

You're listening to Radio Luke Solicit. I'm your host Steve Matthews. Thanks for joining me for episode 131. The title of this episode is Thomas Aquinas in the house. Yes, that's right. Thomas Aquinas.

He paid a visit here to River City, to Cincinnati here. Well, sort of in a manner of speaking. Actually, it was just a skull that showed up. There's some interesting stuff. I want to talk about that. But first, before I get into that, as I was preparing for tonight's show, there's been some big news come out of the Middle East here.

Apparently, the government of Syria has fallen to the, I guess they're Al-Qaeda, sort of jihadist rebels. The report is here. And this is what's just kind of, I've been going through X and some of my foreign policy guys and see what they have to say.

And there's a report here, and this is from Patrick Hennigsten's feed on X. He's quoting someone else, but he says, there's no doubt that the rebels in Syria are creations of the CIA and Israel. It's an attempt by the US, Israel, and Turkey to overthrow the government in Damascus in order to block assistance flowing through Syria to Lebanon.

And that cites a former UK diplomat. I think it was, in fact, I think it must be Craig Murray, who's a guy that I've listened to. And Craig Murray seems like a pretty reliable, sensible fellow. And I suspect he's right about that.

So, yeah, that's kind of a big deal. And they say this just happened. Bashar al-Assad is out. In fact, there's even reports that his airplane, because he fled on a jet, and there's some reports that it disappeared from radar.

So nobody really quite knows what's going on. It's a pretty fluid situation right now, and I'm sure we'll know more in the next few days about that. But I just wanted to at least mention that. Yeah, and yeah, I think the US is definitely involved in this, which it shouldn't be, but it is.

And we've been continually involved in the Middle East now for decades upon decades upon decades. Before I was born, I guess going back almost to the creation of the state of Israel. And we don't have any business being involved in that part of the world.

We shouldn't be involved in that part of the world, and yet we are. And I think back to some things that John Robbins wrote. I want to go back, and I'd like to read this a bit, too, because one of my very favorite essays, and I've read this before on this podcast, but I wanted to go back and touch base on this again, because I just think that what John Robbins said was so on point.

And I think it's something that Christians need to hear. And this is from his essay, The Religious Wars of the 21st Century. And let's see here. He talks here about the 21st century. The result of two centuries of irrationalism is the beginning of the 21st century.

We are faced not with a hopeful prospect, but with an even more dismal prospect than our great-grandfathers faced 100 years ago. And he goes on, he talks about the rise of these various non-Christian religions.

He talks here about medieval Romanism and how medieval Romanism has influenced even many Protestants. And he cites a couple of names here, Norman Geisler and R .C. Sproul. He says many lesser-known Protestant theologians and philosophers, as well as disciples of the official philosopher of the Roman church state, Thomas Aquinas.

So yeah, that's actually going to be a good lead-in to what we're going to talk about here in just a minute. But it also ties in with some things that are going on in the Middle East. I mean, you've got all of these non-Christian influences that are pouring into the evangelical, to the Protestant church.

One of them is Romanism. There's another strain of influence of Christian Zionism and fascination and adherence with the nation-state of Israel. Let's see, he talks about medieval Judaism. And this is John Robbins.

He says medieval Judaism with the establishment of the modern state of Israel. He says that that's on the rise, and that's true. Robbins continues, he says, all three religions, Romanism, Islam, and Judaism, are false, militant, and violent.

Devout members of each group hate, oppose, and plot against the members of the other two. Well, yeah, and one of the things we see, a lot of people would not be surprised to hear, well, that Islam is violent.

I mean, we've seen various types of Islamic violence. So I think probably most Americans would say, yeah, that's not a surprise. But I think some people would be very surprised to find out how violent Romanism and Judaism can be.

Romanism has killed many, many people over the centuries. I was talking to a friend of mine here recently, he sent me an article. This particular gentleman that wrote this article, he estimated 50 million deaths had been caused by the Roman Catholic Church over the centuries as a result of their various persecutions and what have you.

And of course, the violence of Zionism, of Judaism, has become very evident in the Middle East here recently. And of course, Israel's knee deep in this overthrow of the Assad government in Syria as well.

But yes, Judaism is extremely violent. And what ends up happening is that there are so many Christians have become involved in supporting either Roman Catholicism or Judaism. Some of them support both.

In fact, Donald Trump's nominee for the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, seems to draw on the Crusades as well as Christian Zionism. So that's not really a very healthy combination. I wouldn't think.

I wouldn't say. So let's dive in a little bit more here. And this is Robbins, and he says, it's important to realize that the Christian has no dog in his fight. He's talking about the religious wars of the Muslims and the Jews and the Catholics.

He says, it's important to realize that the Christian has no dog in this fight. Neither Romanism or Judaism or Islam is Christianity, yet many who profess to be Christian support either Judaism or Romanism.

And this is a lesson that the Protestant Church, the American Protestant Church needs to repent of this. I've been doing, I've had an opportunity to study Revelation here recently and get into dealing with some of the end times.

Now, in terms of my approach to eschatology, I am a historicist, which makes me kind of a dinosaur. I realize that there aren't too many historicists out there. I am not a dispensationalist. I am not a preterist.

I'm certainly not a Christian Zionist. And yet, I mean, that's the majority report among Christians. I mean, there are Christians I've really, and I would use the term brainwashed, and maybe some people would be offended by that, into thinking that they have this obligation before God to support the nation state of Israel.

They do not. There is zero obligation on the part of the United States of America to give one dime of support to the nation state of Israel. But that's very difficult to convince people of. So, yeah, we don't have a dog in that fight.

But Robinson continues, he says, the so-called Christian right in the United States influenced by Romanism, dispensationalism, and Reconstructionism has been a supporter of Israel, Judaism, and Rome for decades.

The principal figures in the American conservative movement have been Romanist, though their source of funds has largely been Protestant. The principal figures of the so-called neoconservatives are Jews.

The U .S. government, in violation of the U .S. Constitution, has taken tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars from American taxpayers and given them to the government of Israel over the past 50 years.

Now, that's a really important point that John Robbins makes right there. And I would even add to it, I was watching an interview with, I think maybe I've mentioned it before on the podcast, but it was with a gentleman, he's an economics professor at Columbia University, Jeffrey Sachs.

And he was actually putting the figure at trillions of dollars that the U .S. has given to Israel. Now, these weren't trillions of dollars of cash donations, but what he was talking about is the wars that the U .S. has fought in the Middle East have been on the behalf of Israel.

And the bill for all of these wars, whether it's the first Gulf War, the second Gulf War, whether it's this thing that's going on over in Syria right now, I mean, the United States has occupied 25 of Syria since the Iraq War back in 2003.

The United States has never left Syria. A lot of people don't know that. And apparently was involved very deeply in this ouster of Bashar al-Assad, which the U .S. has been trying to do for over a decade as well.

So, yeah, I mean, all of these wars that we have fought on behalf of the nation state of Israel and on behalf of Zionism have come to the cost of probably trillions of dollars to the United States taxpayer.

In addition to all the cash awards and various things that we have given to the Israeli government over the decades. So, it's an enormous cost. And I'm just talking about dollars here. I'm not even talking about the loss of lives and those other things which need to be considered, although it's harder to put a dollar value on something like that.

But I mean, the destruction that's gone on in the Middle East as a result of the actions of the United States and in Israel is just, it's off the charts. And yet there are many Christians that are happy about this or that think that this is somehow required of us by God, which it is not.

In fact, I would say that lending support to the Zionists and essentially to support the false religion of Judaism is sinful and it's something that Christians need to repent of. And yet that reckoning doesn't seem to be becoming anytime soon.

Perhaps by God's grace it will. But people need to repent of their false eschatology and the false ideas that are leading them to support the nation-state of Israel. Unquestionably, a lot of people say you have to support Israel, no questions asked.

Well, I think there's a perfectly good reason for Americans to ask questions about this. In fact, I think not to ask questions, again, is foolish, dangerous, and I would even say it's sinful. But anyway, I don't want to get too far off onto that.

The Skull of Thomas Aquinas in Cincinnati and the Roman Catholic Cult of Relics

I did want to talk about, as I said, an interesting headline that I saw in the local paper here, kind of changing gears. I'm going to get this. I'm going to do a screen share here. Let's see. What do we got?

Get this here in front of us. Yeah, here we go. This was a headline in Fox News. My mom sent this to me earlier this week. It says, Skull of St. Thomas Aquinas Arrives in U .S., Offers Rare Chance to View First-Class Relic.

It's a 10-City Tour, it says. This is in Fox News. It says, 10-City Tour that began in Washington, D .C., continues through December 18th. So, let's read through this a little bit here. It says, The Skull of St. Thomas Aquinas has begun a three-week tour of the eastern United States, offering a rare chance for Americans to view a first-class relic of a 13th-century saint.

Quote, The visit of a major relic of St. Thomas Aquinas to the United States is a great blessing. It is especially meaningful this year when we are celebrating 750 years since the entrance of St. Thomas into heaven.

Fr. Ambrose Little, O .P. told Fox News Digital, Little, a Catholic priest and Dominican friar, is the Assistant Director of the Thomistic Institute of Washington, D .C. The Thomistic Institute is an academic institute of the Pontifical Faculty of the Dominican House of Studies, according to its website.

And it goes on here, and it shows, I guess, the relics are normally kept at Toulouse, France, but have been traveling through Europe for the last year. It's part of the celebration of milestone anniversaries in the life of the saint.

Little acknowledges the concept of relics might seem off-putting to some. Yes, it is off-putting. And it shows here, this is the reliquary, which is where they keep the skull, and it's got several people, several of them children, gathering around, some of them kneeling before this thing, so I guess they worship it.

Now, I know they'd say they venerate it, but you know, as Tim Coffman has explained, I know I talked to him about this in an interview one time, he said really the difference is just who it's directed at.

I mean, if you listen to the language that Roman Catholics use when talking about Mary, this is the way Tim explained it to me, is you could have somebody, say, venerate Mary, or maybe the skull of St. Thomas, maybe they do the same thing, and they would talk to Mary, oh, Mary, you're queen of heaven, oh, Mary, you're awesome and amazing and incredible, and you do all these wonderful things.

And they say, well, that's not worship because it's directed at Mary. But on the other hand, somebody could say, well, you know Jesus, yeah, he's pretty good, I like him. And they say, well, that's worship because it's directed at Jesus, even though all of the words that are used to describe Mary are maybe much more superlative than anything somebody would say about Jesus.

And that's how they maintain this artificial distinction. I mean, these people are in a posture of kneeling, that is a posture of prayer that they are doing here. And they're kneeling before a skull of a dead man who's been dead for 750 years.

But what's maybe even a little bit more interesting is, if you scroll down to the bottom of this article, at least interesting if you're me and you live in the area, what I do in the Cincinnati area, you scroll down here, and it talks about, they've got a tour, so this is like a rock band or something, this skull is touring the eastern United States.

And if you scroll down here, it says the remaining tour dates include December 6, St. Gregory Priory, Cincinnati, right here in River City. So actually this was yesterday, so St. Thomas, his skull paid a city here to Cincinnati yesterday, that's why I said St. Thomas in the house, sort of, in a manner of speaking, while his skull was in the house, I guess.

And now it's passed on, it's going to be up in Columbus, it's going to spend two days in Columbus, which I don't know, I guess they get a double blessing. And it's going to Louisville, Kentucky, and it's going to go to Springfield, Kentucky, so there's two places there in Kentucky that are getting this.

And it's back to New York City and Philadelphia, and then I guess it goes, oh, and then it goes to Baltimore, which isn't a big surprise. But yeah, so we had this great opportunity. And what's interesting, I went to the St. Gertrude Church website, that's the church here in Cincinnati, and you can see they've got a thing here that says, Revivals and Relics, it says, join us for the once in a lifetime opportunity to venerate the relic of the skull of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Now, St. Thomas Aquinas, I've talked a lot on this podcast, I've written a lot on my blog about the Roman Catholic influence in the immigrant invasion of the United States of America, all these illegal aliens that are pouring into the country.

The Roman Catholic Church is the, there are a number of organizations that promote this, but chief among them, the 800-pound gorilla in the room, if you want to use the, that's the way one of someone from the Heritage Foundation, that's a conservative think tank, that's the way someone from the Heritage Foundation described the role of the Roman Catholic Church and Catholic Charities, they described him as the 800-pound gorilla of the illegal alien invasion, because they're the chief organization that promotes this.

Well, one of the intellectual underpinnings, in fact, I guess I would put it this way, you can, if you don't like the illegal alien invasion, blame Thomas Aquinas, because he's one of the chief intellectual architects of this.

I mean, he was one of the people who promoted this idea of called the universal destination of all goods. And universal destination of all goods says when somebody needs something, he has the right to take it, and it's no sin.

And that is one of the primary ideas that undergirds Rome's invasion of the United States of America. They think it's a righteous thing because Rome claims that all these people need this, need to come to the United States, and they have need of all these goods and services, and so they have a right to take them.

Now, they don't quite phrase it that bluntly, but that's their argument. I'm just making their argument very explicit in the argument of the Roman Church state. So yeah, if you don't like the illegal alien invasion, blame Thomas Aquinas.

He's not the only one that caused this, but he is one of the chief intellectual architects of it. No question about it. So anyway, this St. Gertrude Church, they say, you know, the relics available for veneration from 7 a .m. to 6 .30 p .m., so almost a full, that's 11 and a half hours of veneration.

And let's see, they've got some masses, they've got confessions, they've got a revivals and relics event, so there's some preaching. And oh, and over here, it's got a few bullet points. It says, you will also learn about this great Eucharistic saint, discover the connection between St. Thomas and St. Nicholas, be inspired to grow in holiness through Eucharistic devotion, that is, idolatry of worshipping the communion wafer.

And then finally, it says, receive a plenary indulgence. So see, if you go and you venerate the skull of St. Thomas, you also get a plenary indulgence, which I looked that up, and you know, what a plenary indulgence is, this is from the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, and it says, even though confessed and forgiven sins will not send a person to hell, consequences are made to be paid on earth or in purgatory, and indulgence frees the recipient from those consequences.

So it's kind of like a get-out-of-jail-free card. And this goes, this is actually one of the things that kicked off the Protestant Reformation. Some of the things that got Martin Luther all worked up is, there was this guy, what happened at the time of the Reformation is, Rome had started building St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome, but they ran out of money, and the work was stalled, and I've read about, you know, how there were weeds sprouting up out of the unfinished foundation and the columns and this type of thing.

And, you know, well, what's a pope to do? Well, they decided to have this great big indulgence sale. And one of their chief salesmen, probably their most famous and the best salesman was this one guy, I'm having a senior moment, I can't think of his name right now.

But he was this, oh, Johannes Tetzel. Yeah, Johannes Tetzel. And Tetzel had this little jingle, this little ditty that he would use. I mean, if he was alive today, he'd probably be this really successful Madison Avenue advertiser, because he had this little clever jingle that he would use.

He would say, as soon as the coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs. So, if you went and you purchased these indulgences that, you know, and you put your money in the coffer, you get your dear departed relatives out of purgatory.

A soul from purgatory springs. Well, so this is kind of this thing, if you go and you worship the skull of St. Thomas, supposedly, I guess it helps you or maybe it helps somebody else. I don't know. I don't know if you can do it on somebody else's behalf or not.

But it helps get people out of purgatory faster. So, that's what we're told. That's what the plenary indulgence does, is it gets, I guess, apparently, it wipes out the penalty, at least for certain sins.

Let's see, how do they say this here? An indulgence, a partial indulgence covers part of the punishment due for sins. A plenary indulgence removes all of it. Both kinds of indulgence come from the merits of Jesus, the Blessed Mother, and the saints.

Now, of course, all this is in contradiction to the Bible. There's no purgatory. When we die, we are judged, and we are either going to heaven or we are going to hell. And there's not anything subsequent to that that's going to change what our destination is.

And the only way to get into heaven is through faith in Christ Jesus alone, through his righteousness being imputed to us, ascribed to us, credited to our account. And we're considered by God as not having sinned, not on our own merits, not because we've done anything great, but because of what Jesus did, because of his great work, his perfect work, his perfect crosswork.

I had a professor one time when I was in seminary. My brief stay in seminary, I was thinking of Robert Raymond, and he used to always talk about the crosswork of Christ. And I think that's good language.

I always appreciated that. And I always appreciated Dr. Raymond. He was a good man, and a fine teacher, and someone who loved the Lord, and he loved teaching. And I had the opportunity to learn a lot from him, even though I only studied with him for a brief time.

And I'm thankful for having that. But anyway, yeah, this is all a lot of nonsense. But this is one of the things, I wanted to highlight this, because sometimes I talk to people about Roman Catholicism, and what ends up happening is, a lot of people tend not to believe that this stuff actually goes on.

But it does. I mean, this stuff goes on to this very day. This is what Rome teaches. I mean, this is right from the website. You see this right now, this thing I've got up, this is St. Gertrude Church right here in Cincinnati.

It's not too far away from where I live. And it, yeah, I mean, you can see what they're pushing. I mean, they've never stopped pushing this kind of thing. And I think it's actually pretty ghoulish to send a skull around and tell people to kneel before it.

It's an affront to God, and it will not, it's not something that will help anybody standing before the Lord. Anyway, so there's that going on. Let's see, what else do we have? This is kind of an odd week.

There's just a lot of different, unrelated things going on. Here's one I wanted to at least briefly mention. Now, this is a column by, let's see, who wrote this column? This is Jonathan Turley. And he's got a headline here, it says, The Pocket Pardon Strategy and the Final Corruption of the Biden Administration.

And this was a column he wrote earlier in the week, just talking about all these pardons that have been done by Joe Biden. Now, this was like the most obvious thing in the world that you could see coming.

I mean, everybody knew this was coming. Everybody knew that Joe would pardon Biden, or that Joe would pardon his son, Hunter Biden. And in effect, really, what he did is he pardoned himself because there was a ton of incriminating evidence on that laptop that Hunter left behind by accident.

Very serious things on there that really implicated Joe and influence peddling bribery. And apparently, I guess, Hunter Biden was the guy that was doing the deals and he had to give 10 or something like this to his dad.

And I guess, Hunter Biden even griped about all the money he had. He had to send to the quote, the big guy. And everybody knew this pardon was coming, but there were lots and lots of people who, on legacy media, they would go out there and say, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Joe Biden will never pardon his son. Well, why not? Well, because Joe Biden said he wouldn't do it. Well, I mean, that was a lie. It was always a lie. And anybody with any sense about him knew full well that that was a lie.

And so, yeah, he came out this past week, I guess it was last Sunday, and pardoned his son. Now, one of the things that's interesting here, if you look at Jonathan Turley's article here, you look over to the side, he's got his XFeed over here.

And here's one comment from X. He says, today, more names were added to the list for White Knight pardons, including retired General Mark Milley and Alejandro Mayorkas. And some call for hundreds or even thousands to be included.

Pardon envy is sweeping over Washington. And let's see, even links to another article here. This is another Jonathan Turley article. Pardon envy Democrats vied to make the Biden pardon list. He writes, liberal pundits and press in Washington are facing a growing nightmare in Washington.

No, it's not the victory of President-elect Donald Trump or the Democrats' loss of both houses of Congress to the popular vote in this election. It is a possibility that democracy may not collapse as predicted, and Trump might not even round up his opponents en masse.

And, yeah, he just goes on to talk about how there's this expansion of the possible pardons. And he named some individuals here. He says, the White House is reportedly exploring giving preemptive pardons, preemptive.

You know, this is something, I didn't know you could do that. I thought you had to be charged with something to pardon. But apparently, I guess this is some novel legal theory. I guess it's a new thing.

I've never heard of this before. So I'm thinking this must be like a new legal approach where you give preemptive pardons, preemptive pardon. I haven't been charged yet with anything, but I'm going to give you, I want a preemptive pardon.

In case I am charged with something, then I might get a jail-free card. But, yeah, he named some names. And let's see, it just happened here. It says, yeah, the White House is reportedly exploring giving preemptive pardons to figures ranging from Dr. Anthony Fauci, Senator-elect Adam Schiff, and former Representative Liz Cheney.

Cheney previously declared that this, quote, may well be the last real vote you ever get to cast, end quote. A pardon would preserve her persona as a modern-day Joan of Arc who avoided being burnt at stake only by the grace of a Biden pardon.

I detect a little sarcasm there from Jonathan Turley. Yeah, this stuff, it's just amazing. Let's see here. Oh, Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post, she's all worked up that some people might be left off.

Not really terribly interested in what Jennifer Rubin has to say. She's a very odd individual. Anyway, I'm not going to read through all of that. But yeah, it's really something to see how the pardon mania seems to be sweeping Washington, D .C.

Nobody wants to have to answer for all the lies and the crimes that they have committed here over the past few years. Personally, I'm of the opinion that some people need to be held accountable. You know, Alejandro Mayorkas wants to get a pardon.

Alejandro Mayorkas, as far as I'm concerned, has committed treason against the United States of America. I guess you would call him maybe the chief architect in the Biden regime of the migrant invasion of the United States.

Now, Alejandro Mayorkas is a very, as far as I'm concerned, he's an evil man. And yes, he has, I believe he's committed certainly treasonous acts in promoting the illegal alien invasion of the United States of America.

It would be hard to really calculate how much damage that man has actually done. Extraordinary stuff. Another thing that is kind of interesting going on here is there's been a lot of talk, maybe you follow this, Donald Trump's appointee for Secretary of Defense is this fellow named Pete Hegseth.

He's a former Fox News commentator. I guess he's a former military guy. And I found an interesting article here in the New York Times. I know some of you might say, oh, it's the New York Times. I don't want to pay attention to the New York Times.

You know, it's just all these flame liberals. Well, yeah, the New York Times is pretty bad in a lot of ways. But sometimes they do have some articles that actually are worth reading. I know that's kind of surprising.

Now, of course, to be sure, they're not very friendly to Pete Hegseth. I wouldn't expect that they would be. However, editorial stance aside, I think there's some interesting things in here that are worth talking about.

So, here's a headline. It says, Pete Hegseth and his battle cry for a new Christian crusade. The veteran picked to lead the Defense Department has praised the brutal religious military campaigns of the past and has called for a Christian approach to governing.

Sorry about that. I had to cough a little bit there. I tried to turn the volume down on the microphone here. Let's see here. So, in his book, American Crusade, Pete Hegseth wrote, we don't want to fight, but like our fellow Christians 1 ,000 years ago, we must.

So, the article starts off and says, before Donald J. Trump picked him to lead the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth spoke often about a medieval military campaign they saw as a model for today, the Crusades, in which Christian warriors from Western Europe embarked on ruthless missions to wrest control of Jerusalem and other areas under Muslim rule.

And this Pete Hegseth fellow, he's got lots of tattoos, and one of them he has on his, I think, one of his forearms. It says Deus Vult, D-E-U-S-V-U-L-T, Deus Vult, which means God wills or God wills it.

And that was a battle cry of the Crusaders. In fact, they even reference it here. It says, on his arm he has a tattoo with the words Deus Vult, which he has described as a battle cry of the Crusades. So, yeah, that's exactly right.

And voting is a weapon, but it's not enough, he wrote in a book. American Crusade published in May 2020, quote, we don't want to fight, but like our fellow Christians 1 ,000 years ago, we must, end quote.

And I guess there have been various charges brought against him, and some people say, well, he may not make it as Secretary of Defense. I don't know right now. Let's go continue on through here. It says, the issue of Mr. Hegseth's religious expressions has come up in the past.

He said he was barred from participating in the military security detail for President Biden's inauguration in 2021 because of a tattoo on his chest depicting the Jerusalem cross, a religious emblem that was also a symbol used by Crusaders.

Reuters and others reported that his tattoos, including the Deus Vult motto that has been used by white supremacists, prompted a fellow service member to flag Hegseth as a potential insider threat. Mr. Hegseth's interest in the Crusades campaigns have followed so many atrocities that many Christian leaders today view them as a shameful stain on a religion's history.

It's linked both to his Christian beliefs and world view. Well, you know, the Crusades were not a Christian undertaking. The Crusades were a Roman Catholic undertaking. And, you know, in fact, there was something that, you know, I should have gotten this night.

You know, I don't think that I did, unfortunately. Let me see about the Crusades and about this speech that Pope Urban II gave. It dates back to the, I think it was in the 12th century. I may be getting my dates mixed up.

I'm going by memory here. But it was this speech that this Pope gave, this Antichrist Pope gave, and it got everybody all fired up. And for the next 150 years, there was just, there were several Crusades that were launched to the Middle East.

And, you know, there were many, many deaths. I mean, the amount of blood that was spilled, the amount of treasure that was wasted is, again, it's hard to calculate. And this article here, this New York Times talks about some of the deaths of Muslims and Jews.

They don't talk about the deaths of Christians that were put, Christians who were put to death by Rome. You know, the Albigensies, for example, that was a group that stood outside the Roman Catholic Church.

They were slaughtered by the Roman Catholics. I think it was an army that was returning from the Middle East that did the slaughter. So, Rome used the Crusading armies against its enemies in Europe as well, some of whom were Christians.

And I remember a few years ago, too, there was something, I saw, there's a guy, there's a name you may have heard of. He's a fellow, oh, he's a pastor of a megachurch in Dallas. He's a Baptist, I think, probably a Southern Baptist.

Tim Jeffress, yeah, Jeffress is his name. And he spoke at Trump's first inauguration in 2016. But he was on the Bill O 'Reilly Show, I wanna say maybe back, this is when Bill O 'Reilly was still on Fox.

He was on Bill O 'Reilly Show, oh, maybe back in 2014, 2015, about 10 years ago or so. And Barack Obama had spoken at National Prayer Breakfast, and he had made some negative comments about the Crusades.

And this Baptist minister goes on the Bill O 'Reilly Show, and he actually defends the Crusades, for Pete's sake. I couldn't believe it. I never thought in my life I'd ever hear a Baptist minister defending the Crusades.

I mean, and what he should have said is, yeah, the Crusades were awful. A lot of people were murdered by these crusading armies. It was not a Christian enterprise. And, you know, it's just one more example of the brutality of the Roman church state.

And that's what he should have said, but instead he got on there and actually defended. He said, well, you know, there really weren't that many people that were killed. Or no, you know what, I'm sorry, you know, I'm actually mixing things up.

It wasn't the Crusades that Jeffress was defending. It was the Spanish Inquisition. That's what it was. It was the Spanish Inquisition. He says, well, you know, the Spanish Inquisition, it wasn't really all that bad.

Actually, it was really horrible. And, you know, Christians should not be defending. I mean, if you're a Protestant, if you're a saved believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you're saved by grace through faith alone in the Lord Jesus Christ, do not defend the Crusades.

Use that as an example to point out the brutality and the murderous nature of the Roman church state. That's what you need to be doing. That's what we as Christians need to be doing, not defending this stuff.

You know, and what's interesting here is this Hexeth fellow. You read down through it. Let's see, it says Hexeth grew up in a Christian home. Even so, he told a Christian magazine in Nashville last year that he underwent a religious transformation in 2018 in his late 30s when he and his current wife, Jennifer Hexeth, began attending Colts Neck Community Church in New Jersey.

The church's pastor, Chris Durkin, remains close to Mr. Hexeth and recently recorded a video supporting his nomination, describing him as a genuine patriot who loves God. Mr. Hexeth and his family moved to Nashville area about two years ago.

A decision he said was based on a desire to Jonathan Edwards Classical Academy, a Christian school founded in 2009. Classical education in which classrooms focus primarily on the Western canon has become a fast-growing movement among conservatives who are wary of secular public schools.

In Tennessee, the Hexeth family joined Pilgrim Road Reformed Fellowship, a small church opened in 2021 as part of the growing communion of Reformed evangelical churches. The denomination was co-founded by Doug Wilson, a pastor based in Idaho.

His religious empire now includes a college, a classical school network, a publishing house, a podcast network, and multiple churches among other entities. Well, Doug Wilson is a notorious heretic. He's somebody who has consistently attacked the doctrine of justification by faith alone and he's continually pushed a lot of false doctrine.

I know it's something that John Robbins wrote quite extensively about Doug Wilson, I don't know, probably 15 or 20 years ago, the late 90s, early 2000s. There's a number of articles on the Trinity Foundation website about Doug Wilson.