RLL 56 The Religious Wars of the 21st Century

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May 15, 2021

00:19: Good evening, everybody. This is Steve Matthews. Thanks for joining me for Radio Look Solicit episode 56 and the title of tonight's episode
00:27: Is the religious wars of the 21st century? now if you are like me and in you're a an admirer of the work of Dr.
00:39: John Robbins, you might recognize that title. That's the I'm completely totally shamelessly ripping off his title of his 2006
00:52: Essay that he wrote by that with with that exact same title. It was published as a
00:57: Trinity Review in When was that I know is in 2006 it was the
01:02: August 2006 Trinity Review. So this is a title that is It's 15 years old or almost 15 years old and yet it's it's a title that is really as fresh as as today's headlines
01:16: It's really a remarkable piece and I'm gonna get get into talking about that in just a minute
01:22: But first of all, I just want to say hey, thanks for joining me here today. Anybody that's watching live Thanks for joining me for the for the live
01:30: The live I guess what they call it a simulcast. That's not the right word for the live stream. I'm sorry I guess
01:35: I'm using old -school technology terms here. They used to call it a simulcast that was way back in the day
01:40: But I guess we'll go with a go with a live stream and for those of you listening to the the podcast welcome as well
01:49: So hope you had a good week. That's Friday night. It's actually May the 14th.
01:54: It's Well, it is. It's what about it's almost quarter till till 12.
02:00: It's a 1142 a p .m. Excuse me on late on a
02:06: On a Friday evening headed into Saturday, I thought about not doing the podcast your night. It's a little bit late
02:11: I wanted to get to bed early You kind of want to get up early ish in the morning because I want to go Get my bike out supposed to be a really nice day tomorrow
02:19: And I'm gonna go enjoy a little bit the time on on Saturday because I've got a lot to do tomorrow
02:25: Quite a bit actually and just I need to if I'm gonna go right I need to go right early So Lord willing
02:31: I'll be able to to get out of bed at a reasonable hour But I wanted to get a podcast in to here tonight because it's been well,
02:38: I guess three weeks I missed a couple of weeks in there and I I hated that you know, I had a actually a pretty nice write -up last week already and Ready to go and and I wasn't
02:48: I just wasn't able to do it. I just wasn't feeling all that. Well Last week for for whatever reason, but I feel pretty good this week
02:56: And so I thought I'd go ahead and squeeze in a podcast, even though it's late night I'm probably should be in bed.
03:02: But you know, hey got to do what you got to do, right something like that So anyway, you know,
03:08: I report I think the last time I did a podcast I was seeing Some reports the cicadas were almost here, you know, the the big 17 -year cicada invasion were supposed to get well
03:19: They haven't shown up yet. It's kind of interesting they they were talking about how the ground has to get to 68 degrees
03:26: Fahrenheit 8 inches below the ground and As soon as it hits that that tripwire that threshold those things come popping up out of the ground and you know
03:35: They make our lives miserable for about a month and a half well, that hasn't happened and I guess part of that is due to the fact it's been a little bit cooler than than the usual spring here so far and you know really most of It actually got down pretty close to freezing
03:51: I remember I last Saturday I got up early to to get out and I remember there's actually frost on my windshield
03:58: And so that's we're still dealing with that right now But I think it's gonna be warming up here over the next week or two
04:04: I think next weekend supposed to get into the 80s So I think that grounds gonna be warming up pretty soon and probably in a week or maybe two weeks
04:12: We're gonna be right on the leading edge of those those little nasty Nasty cicadas.
04:17: I saw something today where they said that I guess with a normal There's a yearly variety of cicada that comes out and they say that that there's about two
04:26: Cicadas for every square yard, but they say with the the 17 -year cicadas, which is what we're gonna be getting
04:32: There's 200 per square yard roughly in some places is actually more than that in some less, but that's about the average density of these things and That's a whole lot of cicadas.
04:43: Yeah, and I just I'm really not looking forward to this I know a friend of a friend of my mom's
04:49: Actually moved to South Carolina to get away from these things. Now if you live in a part of the country
04:56: That that doesn't get these. Well, you're you're blessed and consider yourself to be Be in a very good place
05:03: If you want to know what they're like, I mean, this is my how many go -rounds is this? Let's see one two
05:11: Three, I guess this is my fourth go -around. I guess I'm getting pretty old now, huh? anyway
05:18: So I've seen these things before and I guess the closest I would If you've never seen them,
05:24: I would say, you know Think of like an Old Testament style plague and that that kind of gets you in the ballpark of what these things are like So anyway a little more on that when we when we get there in a in a couple weeks here
05:36: So let's move on here. I wanted to go ahead and talk a bit today about the religious wars the 21st century now
05:43: There's a cheery title for you, right? Well, maybe not but it is a
05:49: I think a very appropriate title it's a Title that that I think is very much
05:56: What you and I are dealing with right now, you know And I'm thinking specifically this this last week of some of the events that have been going on in Israel and in the
06:05: Gaza Strip and with with some of the Fighting that's been going back and forth between Hamas and and between Israel And it got me to thinking about the about John Robbins essay the religious wars of the 21st century and I'd like to go ahead.
06:22: This is such an amazing article I sometimes I talk and if you've listened to the program or already in my blog writing you probably already know
06:30: I'm a huge fan huge admirer of The work of dr. John Robbins. I think that he was
06:36: One of the really great teachers that God has ever Gifted to the church and and I don't say that lightly either
06:45: I I maybe that sounds like I'm overstating it to some people, but I I don't think that I am that that really is my
06:53: My opinion of his work and sometimes when I I read his stuff. I always have to say well, you know
06:59: Well, this is my favorite essay. This is my favorite thing. They wrote or this or that well It's kind of hard to settle on on one particular thing
07:08: You know, I found his work to be really just a very high quality throughout and very consistent
07:15: But this is I guess if I had to pick Maybe a few essays that I had that if you're really twisted my arm and say well
07:22: Which ones are your favorite or which ones do you do you really think are? Essays that people should read now
07:29: This one is certainly would be on that that short list of if I think they're the really
07:36: Finest essays that he's done and and it's the religious wars of 20 cent 21st century
07:41: As I said, this was written back in 2006 I'm gonna put a link to this. It's out there on the
07:47: Trinity Foundation website There's also a a version of this where he gives a there's an audio version where he presents the paper
07:55: And he takes some questions in a does some Q &A at the end of the the lecture as well
08:01: I'm actually gonna go ahead and put that link up too because the The audio version is is brilliant and what's even the thing that's amazing is as good as his essay is his
08:12: Q &A session at the end of that of that talk is is at least as good as is what the the paper was that Is the paper itself?
08:23: so Anyway with all of that being said, why don't we dive in here?
08:29: and I want to read just a couple of paragraphs at the beginning of this and It kind of set the the tone here and then discuss
08:38: Maybe get into some some contemporary application of some of what he says here.
08:43: So here's here's what John Robbins wrote the phrase collapse of a civilization is a common figure of speech that misleads many into thinking that Civilizations collapse in much the same way as buildings collapse during controlled demolitions like let me
08:59: Go ahead and share the screen there. Okay, there we go Let's start that again from the top here the phrase collapse of a civilization is a common figure of speech that misleads many into thinking that Civilizations collapse in much the same way that buildings collapse during controlled demolitions
09:16: Or like the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11th 2001 the whole affair they think is dramatic obvious and over in a relatively short period of time and When it is done, nothing is left but dust and rubble
09:32: The metaphor of civilizational collapse is misleading and some people under its influence deny that the
09:37: West is in collapse But civilizations do not come crashing down in a matter of months or even years and it is foolish to expect them to do so I'm just gonna stop right there and pause it and just comment on that.
09:52: This is one of the things John Robbins wrote a number of things on the the decline the collapse decline of the
10:02: West as did Gordon Clark, you know, Gordon Clark wrote his
10:08: His book Christian view of men and things. I think it if I'm recalling correctly I believe the publication date of of Clark's book was 1952 now if you're an
10:18: American you think back Oh 1952 why that was you know, that was a guy was a great time you know America just won the you know, the the
10:27: World War two and you know Korea was still ongoing but You know America was riding high to the middle class was growing.
10:34: The baby boom was going on You know you had see Eisenhower became president in 1952
10:40: So, I mean you handle, you know, there's a lot of nostalgia in the United States certainly for the 1950s it was very prosperous time and in a lot of ways it was a very
10:49: Very happy very good time for for the American people, especially after years of you know they had the
10:55: Depression in the 1930s and you had the the big war the the World War two in the 1940s when people were
11:03: Getting out from under all that they were you know, they're building houses. They were moving in the suburbs There's a lot of a lot of a good good stuff a lot of exciting things that were happening
11:11: It was a very affordable time in the United States Unlike Europe, you know had not been devastated by World War two
11:21: Or Japan had been devastated during World War two. I mean we had our industrial base I mean essentially the United States was unscathed and was probably its strongest position.
11:29: It's ever been both maybe certainly militarily, but it was also very strong politically and and even economically, you know coming coming out of the
11:39: Great Great Depression and and when People began to regain control over their their their income with the tax cuts and the shrinkage of government that took place at the end of World War two that was a boom time it was huge and Yet Gordon Clark in 1952 wrote this book that actually was talking about and not all of it
12:01: But but he had some very there's a very strong theme of civilizational collapse in that book and maybe in some ways
12:09: John Robbins is picking up on on some of that and expanding on it. So let's continue again.
12:16: This is The second paragraph here of the religious wars of the 21st century quote The West has been in collapse for more than a century the biblical theology that created
12:25: Western civilization 500 years ago has all but disappeared in the West The rejection of Christianity in North America and Europe and the rise of several false religions including
12:35: Arminianism Romanism Pentecostalism atheism and mysticism have led to the collapse of the
12:41: West the collapse is marked by or More accurately is the dissolution of the biblical family husband wife and children the economic and political regimentation of the individual in business enterprises government ownership and control of most educational institutions
12:58: The growth of crime the waning of civility the acceptance of public profanity obscenity and homosexuality the resurgence of brutality
13:07: To oppose some of the civilizational collapse the religious right in America has embraced both
13:12: Romanism and Judaism as saviors of the West Foolishly ignorant of the fact that they as forms of unbelief are destroyers of the
13:20: West and causes of the collapse What we call Western civilization arose because of the widespread preaching and belief of the gospel of justification by faith alone
13:31: Theologies that deny this doctrine are fatal to both souls and societies end quote
13:37: That is an amazing paragraph. And again, this was written in 2006 and when you read through, you know
13:44: Just going back here. He talks about the the collapse of the
13:49: West is marked by or more accurately is and he lists a number of things he lists the
13:55: Dissolution of the biblical family the economic and political political regimentation of the individual and business enterprises government ownership and control of most educational institutions the growth of crime the waning of civility the acceptance of public profanity obscenity and Homosexuality and the resurgence of brutality.
14:12: Well, have we seen any of that over the last year? You know since since 2006,
14:18: I mean all of those trends were in place back then. I mean that was 15 years ago And it's only gotten worse so I mean what what he said here
14:25: I mean it was certainly true in 2006 I suppose you could say it's even more true today And this is he shows remarkable insight here
14:35: And I'm not gonna I'm gonna dig through all of that But I think you can probably think very clearly about about some of these things
14:42: I mean he talks about the the the acceptance of public profanity obscenity and homosexuality
14:48: I mean, it's gotten to the point right now where you've got a transgender individual Bruce Jenner who's running for For the governor of California and taking me taken seriously as a candidate.
15:01: I mean that would never have happened in 2006 I mean, it wasn't the transgenderism wasn't around. It wasn't that the homosexual rights movement wasn't
15:08: Around it very much was there's very much active but something like that would never have been acceptable
15:13: You know and the thing is the Bruce Jenner's doing this as a Republican as supposedly the coin of the party of the religious right and the conservatives and I don't know if he's gonna win or not
15:23: I don't think he's even polling as the the top candidate among Republicans But he's definitely gotten a lot of attention if nothing else because he's a big celebrity.
15:34: I mean, he's without question the most famous Transgender a person in the
15:39: United States. I don't think there's any question about that Certainly not the only one, but I think he's certainly the most famous And and when you look at the acceptance of crime,
15:49: I mean crime has exploded over the last year I mean, we've spent all of our time demonizing the police and exalting criminals and It's not a surprise that that we have massive spikes in crime
16:02: There are hundreds if not thousands of people who are dead today because of violent crime who otherwise would be alive you know it had it not been for all of the the the foolish activity that's been done in the wake of George Floyd and in some of the other some of the other instance instances
16:26: That have taken place over the past year, you know defund the police I mean, well, that's you know, the police that's one of the few legitimate functions of government you know as the
16:34: Apostle Paul teaches I mean he teaches us that that the The the government it really has two main functions that is to praise the good which is to pass laws that are in accord with the law of God and to punish those who practice evil and The that that's that that's the job of the police that's a job of the justice system is to punish those who practice evil well
16:59: I mean you've got a lot of people out there that want to tell you that the cops are the bad guys and the the criminals are the good guys and You know, that's that's just a that's an example of calling evil good and good evil
17:10: And and John Robbins picked up on this very clearly back in in 2006 now one of the things that he talks about in here and and I think that this is
17:23: The title of the piece of course is the religious wars the 20th century 21st century and he's looking and so this is a
17:30: Predictive piece in a lot of ways was written in 2006 the first decade of the century and in John Robbins is looking ahead to the the remainder of the century and he sees a century of a religious wars and The reason
17:48: I was thinking about this particular piece this week is of course what's been going on in the headlines You know think about all the recent violence that has occurred in With Hamas and with Israel and the
18:02: Israeli army, in fact just invaded Gaza the Gaza Strip here within I guess the last day or two and there have been
18:11: There's been a lot of fighting There's been a lot of fighting in the territory of Israel proper And a lot of demonstrations and things look to be getting pretty serious now who knows maybe all of this will
18:22: Will die down and in a month from now. We'll have forgotten about this But it's also possible something like this could lead to a broader
18:30: Middle Eastern war and and that is a real concern It's a real possibility You know, we don't know right now and I'm not saying that I know right now
18:39: But it's it certainly is a dangerous and destabilizing situation Now it one of the things in one of my purposes here in doing this program is
18:51: Not to take sides Between the Palestinians and the
18:56: Israelis now that in itself probably requires some explanation due to the reflexive support
19:04: For Israel that's expected from both Americans in general and Christians in particular.
19:10: I'm both. I'm an American and I'm a Christian but I'm taking a neutral stance here on What's going on between the
19:19: Palestinians and the Israelis because I believe that is the proper biblical stance To borrow in fact, this is to borrow a phrase that the
19:29: John Robbins used in his his essay Americans in general and Christians in particular do not have a dog in the fight
19:39: That's going on over there in the Middle East and we ought to remain neutral Yeah, Israel and in this in this statement here would probably surprise a lot of Americans to hear this but Israel is a foreign nation
19:52: It's a foreign country Israel is not America America is not Israel they're separate entities and This is a biblical stance.
20:02: As I said the idea that were to remain neutral again That sounds very strange to people but the biblical stance is that national governments whether it's the
20:11: United States government the Canadian government the government of Great Britain the government of Israel any country
20:20: The job of that nation the job of that national government is to mind its own business, you know
20:25: My OB mind your own business. I mean that maybe sounds kind of strange, but that actually is a biblical principle for for geopolitics and that's actually a pretty good summary of What's been known since the 1640s as Westphalian Sovereignty I've written some and I've talked some about the
20:46: Westphalian world order and the Westphalian world order is the idea that the highest level of government is national government and it's the job of the each national government to take care of its own business within its own territory and Leave other people alone mind your own business
21:07: But, you know, we've long forgotten that I mean the original foreign policy of the United States Sometimes that in fact again referring to John Robbins essay
21:16: He called it strategic independence and one of the best and most famous statements of the idea of strategic
21:23: Independence is this and this was expressed by John Quincy Adams in in 1821
21:28: I'm just gonna read this to you here quote Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled
21:36: There will her and by her Adams means the United States There will her heart her benedictions and her prayers be
21:45: But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy She is the well -wisher of the freedom and independence of all she's the champion and vindicator only of her own
21:57: So, you know that that's where that quote that's a very famous quote You know going abroad in search of monsters to destroy but what
22:04: Adams does here is is he summarizes very well The idea of the Westphalian world order and what a
22:11: Christian foreign policy looks like It's the job of the United States government to oversee and to take care of the
22:17: United States That's quite enough on its own. I mean, it's not like we don't have any problems here in the United States, right? I mean, yeah, we got our act together perfectly
22:23: And so we've got all the time and money to go tell everybody else how to live Well, no, we don't and I mean very obviously we don't and and we have a lot of very serious problems in the
22:34: United States of America But there are relatively few people who take seriously the idea that We we don't go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
22:47: There's a term that sometimes used for that and it's isolationist and when Someone calls a person an isolationist.
22:54: That's a that's actually kind of a swear word. It's one of those words it's used to discredit somebody and essentially remove them
23:03: From the discussion and when you if if I call you an isolationist What I'm saying is that your ideas are beyond the pale.
23:10: You're a very very bad person and nobody should listen to you It's a debate ender.
23:17: It's it's it's not even it. It's not a debating point. It's it's designed to end a debate It's kind of like calling somebody a racist.
23:23: You know that there's that old joke, you know, what? You're a racist as a conservative who's winning an argument with a liberal and I think there's some truth to that you know that that a lot of times people will employ that term and say well so -and -so is a racist just to try to Tar and feather him
23:38: As somebody that's it's a bad person somebody who ought not to be listened to by right -thinking people
23:44: Well isolationist serves in kind of the same way It's the same sort of thing with respect to foreign policy.
23:52: You call somebody an isolationist Well, that's just a that person is a terrible person when we're not going to listen to him
23:57: But that actually, you know the so -called isolationist that actually is a
24:03: Christian foreign policy and and in fact the the funny thing is the the real isolationists are the people who continually want to Set one country against another
24:15: People who believe in the Westphalian world order people who believe in a a
24:21: A foreign policy that doesn't involve trying to strong -arm every other country
24:26: They actually are the people who are the anti isolationist because they want to trade and they want to do business
24:32: And they want to be able to work with other countries You know It's it's the people that are constantly trying to to start wars that are trying to divide one nation or or maybe even one whole region against another region pit people against one another
24:46: And a Ron Paul's made that argument. I think he's absolutely right to say that One thing
24:51: I wanted to do and just maybe to to bring the the focus of this into the current events
24:56: I want to talk a little bit here about a piece that I read by a journalist a young man a journalist that maybe he's in his 30s,
25:05: I believe by the name of Michael Tracy and This was a piece that he had written gosh
25:10: I guess within just the last few days But the title of his America first conservative declare actually we meant
25:16: Israel first and what he does is he talks about? all of the the sort of usual kind of mindless we stand with Israel Comments that are made by American politicians in particular not just conservatives not just liberals
25:32: But politicians of every stripe and he cites here quite a few Examples of Republicans coming out in an almost reflexive unthinking defense of Israel.
25:45: I'll just read through a few of these here quickly Here's Kevin McCarthy's a GOP minority leader Israel has every right to defend itself against violence in the barrage of rockets from Hamas the
25:55: United States unequivocally stands with our ally Israel and the Jewish people and Ronna McDaniel Republican Party.
26:01: She's the the GOP chairwoman The Republican Party stands with Israel a nation has every right to defend itself against violence in the barrage of rockets from Hamas And the
26:13: RNC even puts out an official statement on on Israel The Senate Republicans as terrorists in Gaza fire rockets at Israeli citizens
26:21: Israel has every right to defend itself. The actions of Hamas are despicable. We are proud to stand with a partner and ally
26:27: Israel against terrorism Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama, Alabama stands with Israel Doug Ducey another
26:34: Republican Arizona stands with Israel Madison Cawthorne, he's a Republican congressman,
26:41: I think from North Carolina America has and always will stand with Israel. I Got I saw something that was put out by Donald Trump's organization here this evening.
26:50: He said America must stand with Israel And so you see this type of thing. Here's Ted Cruz another big -name
26:56: Republican I unequivocally stand with Israel with its right to defend itself so you have all these people popping up and in basically falling all over themselves to to defend and and to to identify with Israel and to basically insert themselves into this this conflict going on in a foreign nation that's 6 ,000 miles away from American shores and And You know again, one of the things about this is that America does not have a dog in this fight
27:32: Let me go ahead and I'm gonna read. This is some additional Let's see if I can find this here
27:46: Yeah, let's let's take a look at this I'm gonna read a few more paragraphs out of the religious wars of the 21st century
27:52: So here we go. The result of two centuries of irrationalism Irrationalism is that at the beginning of the 21st century?
28:00: We are faced not with a hopeful prospect but with an even more dismal prospect than our great -grandfathers faced a hundred years ago
28:07: The last hundred years has seen the resurgence of medieval Romanism in the emergence of a Romanist zealot organization such as Opus Dei Medieval Romanism is not just confined to the
28:18: Roman Catholic Church State and its thousands of educational institutions but it's gained many adherents among nominal
28:24: Protestants as well the prolific authors Norman Geisler and R .C. Sproul and many lesser -known
28:29: Protestant theologians and philosophers as well are disciples of the official philosopher of the Roman Church State Thomas Aquinas their influence has misled most
28:38: Protestants away from a biblical and reformed view of philosophy and apologetics and into a compromise with Rome Medieval Islam is now usually called fundamentalist
28:48: Islam and medieval Judaism with the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948 are on the rise as well
28:55: All three religions Romanism Islam and Judaism are false militant and violent devout members of each group hate oppose and plot against members of the other two but today the date is 2006 not 10 ,000 six or 1006 excuse me and The true believers of each of these medieval religions have access to nuclear biological chemical and electromagnetic weapons
29:20: Barring dramatic divine intervention such as a new reformation or the second coming of Christ the wars of the 21st century will be religious wars
29:29: They will be worse than the secular wars of the 20th century The three principal protagonists will be the three medieval religions that have warred with each other for centuries
29:38: Already the battles have begun It's important to realize that the Christian has no dog in this fight neither
29:44: Romanism nor Judaism nor Islam as Christianity Yet many who profess to be
29:50: Christians support either Judaism or Romanism the so -called Christian right in the United States influenced by Romanism Dispensationalism and reconstructionism has been a supporter of Israel Judaism in Rome for decades
30:02: The principal figures in the American conservative movement have been Romanist though Their source of funds has largely been
30:08: Protestant the principal figures of the so -called neo -conservatives neocons or Jews The US government in violation of the
30:17: US Constitution has taken tens If not hundreds of billions of dollars from American taxpayers and given them to the government
30:23: Israel over the past 50 years We have fought wars and spent billions trying to prop up various Roman Catholic dictatorships
30:30: More recently the US government has started sending money taken by force from the American people to Arab and Muslim nations as well
30:36: The conservative movement in the United States has abandoned the American and biblical foreign policy of strategic independence pursued by our governments in 1776 for a policy of global interventionism and has anchored many foreign nations and peoples most recently the
30:51: Muslims Because Christianity is neither Romanism nor Judaism nor Islam There's no need for the
30:59: United States Historically, if not currently Christian nation to be involved in the religious wars of the 21st century
31:07: But because of the influence of American citizens and non -citizens who are Jews Catholics and dispensational evangelicals
31:14: We are already involved in fact because of our foreign policy of interventionism developed in the 20th century
31:20: And because of a more recent policy of preemptive war the United States has become the primary target of militant
31:26: Muslims worldwide and not of Muslims only agents of both Israel and Rome are active in the
31:32: United States both gathering intelligence and Influencing policy the US government is manipulated by foreign interests
31:39: Both Israel and Nevada can see the United States as their proxy in this religious war
31:46: Now in that extended reading there that I just gave from the religious wars of the 21st century
31:51: Robin cites Irrationalism as a general cause of our foreign porn current foreign policy mess and he gives two particular examples he talks about the aggressive growth of medieval
32:02: Roman Catholicism and its influence in Protestant circles and the rise of Judaism and he also talks about Islam as well, but just kind of focusing on the
32:16: The rise of the the Roman Catholicism and the the the the Jewish angle for a moment
32:22: America now has its second Catholic president who's hard at work carrying out the Pope's political and economic agenda
32:28: I was going to actually do this last week and I was going to talk about a
32:35: Conference that was well as a virtual conference, I guess a zoom conference Vatican zoom conference
32:42: Here's a headline if you happen to be watching it. Let's see. Oh goodness. What do I have here?
32:47: And popping up I don't want yes, so here's the headline the Vatican coronavirus conference features
32:53: Fauci Francis and Aerosmith This is from Fox News and this is a story from May 7th
33:01: So it was from last week It says the CEOs of vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna joined
33:06: Cardinals academics and a lead guitarist of Aerosmith and opening unique Vatican conference on kovat 19 other global health threat threats and how science and solidarity and spirituality can address them and the
33:21: Dr. Anthony Fauci was was one of the the presenters or the speakers at this conference and of course, so is
33:29: Pope Francis and You know, Pope Francis is a Jesuit Anthony Fauci is a is
33:37: Jesuit trained. He's not formally a Jesuit. I was listening to a a piece by It was a podcast by Chris Pinto not too long ago he he talked he used a term
33:49: Jesuit of the short robe which apparently is a term that originated in the 19th century and it was used to describe somebody who wasn't maybe necessarily
33:58: Formally part of the Jesuit order at least publicly, you know, who knows what really goes on but somebody who wasn't, you know a
34:06: Fully identified as a member of the Jesuits but somebody who is Jesuit influence somebody who is was
34:13: Sympathetic to them and of course Anthony Fauci went to Jesuit school from his youth all the way through his undergrad years.
34:19: I Believe he went to Cornell. I think he went to Cornell for his medical degree But he was was
34:24: Jesuit trained all the way up through his his undergraduate I know he went to Regis High School in in New York, and I believe he went to a
34:31: Jesuit elementary school Then I also believe memory serves me correctly. He went to Holy Cross University, which is also a
34:38: Jesuit school. So, you know, you have this substantial influence I mean Anthony Fauci and and Pope Francis are basically an echo chamber
34:47: And what's also very interesting too is with our second Roman Catholic president Basically everything that that Joe Biden the policies that he's pursuing flooding the country with immigrants the
34:58: Green New Deal Things like universal basic income, he doesn't call it by it hasn't called it that yet But he's kind of pushing it off all this socialism.
35:07: This is all stuff straight out of Pope Francis playbook Essentially, you know, it seems like Joe Biden and the
35:15: Democrats are trying to implement politically in the United States the Policy positions that that Pope Francis has laid out in his encyclicals and and what also other
35:27: Popes have set forth prior to that So, you know you have this very strong Vatican influence that that is trying to really
35:38: Assert itself in the United States and has been very successful Actually in doing that So that's that's one side of it, you know, then the other side of it is is that Many evangelicals many of American evangelicals have been blinded
35:57: By dispensational eschatology they've been blinded both the papal
36:02: Antichrist and They have also Become obsessed with the state of Israel at the same time
36:09: And so what they do is they fail to understand that neither Roman Catholicism nor Judaism or Christianity that neither one of them are
36:19: Have the necessary propositions to create or sustain a free society and as John Robbins noted in his essay as Forms of unbelief they are destroyers of the
36:30: West You know, you're not going to to Save Western civilization.
36:36: You're not going to save the United States of America Christians are not by making alliances with with Roman Catholics and with Jews because they do not believe the necessary Ideas in order to be able to correct the problems that we have and in fact the ideas that are promoted by Individuals of both of those groups are destructive of the the principles of a free republic
37:07: Now we've talked a little bit about the the Roman Catholic influence on the United States now This would take probably several programs if we were to even explore that in depth
37:16: I just kind of very briefly went over a few things, but I also wanted to talk a bit about Israeli influence on the
37:23: United States For instance here You know
37:29: John Robbins wrote he said the US government is manipulated by foreign interest both Israel and the Vatican see the
37:34: United States as They're proxying this religious war now. Here's a headline and this was just from About a year and a half ago
37:41: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House The likely Israeli spying efforts were uncovered during the
37:48: Trump presidency several former top US officials said and This is from Politico, which is it's certainly not a conservative publication.
37:56: I think you can probably call them Center or certainly. I think they're they're much more favorable to the
38:02: Democrats. So this isn't anything that's coming from some I don't know right -wing publication or or certainly from Donald Trump supporters
38:13: Let's read just a little bit of this the US government can concluded within the past two years that Israel was most likely behind the placement of Cellphone surveillance devices that were found near the
38:23: White House and other sensitive locations around Washington according to three former senior u .s Officials with knowledge of the matter now, this is not the first time that Israel has been caught spying on the
38:33: United States This is something they do regularly. I'm sure they're doing it at the very moment. I'm doing this podcast
38:40: You know and yet there are so many Evangelicals blinded by dispensationalist eschatology that Israel can do no wrong in their eyes
38:49: In fact, you can't criticize Israel at all because if you criticize Israel somehow you're you're breaking a commandment somewhere in Scripture And you're an all -around very bad person.
39:02: Yeah, but but there's a lot that Israel has done that can be criticized. They're a foreign country and When they do these kinds of things like spy on the
39:12: United States of America They justly deserve to be criticized and they can say there are many there are many examples of this
39:19: And I'm just going to cite a few here's another example back in in 9 -11 and this is something that Has been memory hold largely speaking, but you had the the so -called dancing
39:31: Israelis and what it was is The you can see this picture here, this is if you're looking at the
39:41: The the live stream there's a picture there This is taken in the morning 9 -11 and it shows both the
39:47: Twin Towers on fire Taken probably I guess it's from the New Jersey side of the river and I guess that's the
39:54: Hudson River there and and there's taken from the New Jersey side and there was a person
40:00: There was a housewife the this particular article identifies who
40:07: Noticed some very strange behavior And that was these these men that were dancing and they were looking at the
40:14: Twin Towers and they were dancing and They're kind of high -fiving it. I don't know if they're actually giving high -fives or not but you know, they were celebrating and let me read a little bit out of this article is written by Philip Giraldi and He writes this he says but the hands -off attitude toward Israel shifted dramatically when on September 11th 2001 a
40:33: New Jersey housewife saw something from the window of her apartment building which overlooked the World Trade Center She watches the buildings burned and crumbled but also noted something strange
40:42: Three young men were kneeling on the roof of a white transit van parked by the water's edge Making a movie in which they featured themselves
40:49: High -fiving and laughing in front of the catastrophic scene unfolding behind them the woman wrote down the license plate number of the van and called the police who responded quickly and soon both the local force and The FBI began looking for the vehicle
41:02: Which was subsequently seen by other witnesses in the various in various locations along the New Jersey waterfront.
41:08: It's occupants celebrating and filming The license plate number revealed the van belonged to a
41:14: New Jersey registered company called urban moving systems at 4 p .m The vehicle was spotted and pulled over five men between the ages 22 and 27 years of age emerged
41:23: They were detained at gunpoint and handcuffed. They were all Israelis One of them had $4 ,700 in cash hidden in a sock and another had two foreign passports
41:33: Bomb -stuffing dogs reacted the smell of explosives in the van According to the initial police report driver identified
41:41: Sivan Kurtzberg The driver identified as Sivan Kurtzberg stated. We are Israeli.
41:46: We are not your problem Your problems are our problems the Palestinians are problem The other four passengers were
41:53: Sivan's brother Paul, Yaron Shmuel Oded Elner and Omer Marmari The men were detained at the
42:00: Bergen County Jail in New Jersey before being transferred to the FBI's foreign counterintelligence section Which handles allegations of spying so they had the dancing
42:08: Israelis and I remember when that came out I remember is reported by Carl Cameron on on Fox News and and that report came out within a day or maybe the same day or the next day at right after 9 -11 and then the story was was deep -sixed.
42:22: It kind of was flushed down the memory hole But there are some people that still still remember this very well and have written about it to give you another example of say perfidy by Israel against the
42:35: United States Here's a headline. This is from the Guardian. This is from from December and it says former
42:42: US spy Jonathan Pollard arrives in Israel and You know, this is a case where That looks like I wasn't able to to get the the whole the whole story
42:55: But Jonathan Pollard and it says here that you know He was a former Navy analyst who served three decades in prison for leaking thousands of classified documents to Israel And he has arrived has arrived in Tel Aviv after being released from parole.
43:09: So he was paroled right at the end of the Trump administration And he was was sent back back to Israel And he had been part of the
43:18: US Navy. He was a US citizen but he he did enormous damage to the
43:24: United States of America with his spine back in the 1980s and both he and his handler his
43:29: Israeli handler were pardoned by the by the Trump administration And I think that that is an outrage
43:37: So, I mean here you have Israel is is not a great ally of the
43:43: United States It's a foreign country, it's a foreign country that showed itself to be very hostile to the
43:52: United States in some respects now as as a Christian as as someone who who believes in In the
44:02: Westphalian world order that that's the biblical Approach to to geopolitics.
44:08: I don't wish Israel. Well, I don't wish the people of Israel ill I don't wish bad things to happen to people but we also have to understand that they are a foreign country and the
44:20: United States of America more specifically the people of the United States of America do not owe
44:27: The Israel there's no moral debt.
44:32: There's no Obligation either financial or morally to support Israel. It's a foreign country.
44:39: Yeah, we wish them well But it's not our job to To defend their liberties.
44:45: That's their job to take care of that Yeah, and when you see all these politicians coming out in sort of reflexive support of Israel I think that's a big problem.
44:55: And I think that that's something that That we need to you know as Americans take a closer look at well
45:01: That's about all the time that I had for this week. Let's see. I've been going on here for I guess about 45 minutes Yeah, that's about a wrap here
45:08: Say there's so much more that I wanted to talk about but it's yeah, there's there's only so much you can do in one podcast
45:14: So Lord willing, I'll be back again and we can maybe either pick this up or maybe move on to a different topic
45:20: But I'm sure I'll come back and revisit some of this again. But I mean right now, you know, we live at a time where you have
45:28: Religious wars of the 20th century as John Robbins talked about Seem to be coming to a head now again, you know, we don't know what's gonna happen
45:35: I mean, maybe all of this stuff will blow over and there won't be much that will come of it But I mean, it's it's a dangerous situation and it's been a dangerous situation for many years
45:44: It's a powder keg as as some people term it Certainly the Middle East is and and something could go off, you know, and we don't know
45:53: As as Christians, of course, we pray for wisdom in those Those who who lead our country and and for those in in other countries
46:03: The leaders of other countries we pay we pray for peace We ask the cooler heads would prevail and we also, you know pray that The the irrationalism that has so gripped the
46:18: West over the past hundred plus years as John Robbins talked about would be replaced by Discernment and that sermon can only come through the preaching of and belief in the gospel of justification by belief alone
46:33: That's where it has to begin. This is ultimately it's all spiritual problem. It's not a political problem. It's not a an economic problem
46:39: This is a pull This is a spiritual problem and it's a problem of unbelief and and right now the
46:45: West has become Unbelieving the formerly Christian West I hate to say that but but that's that's where we are today
46:52: So as I said, that's that's about a wrap for this week. Thanks so much for listening I really appreciate that for those watching on the live stream.
46:59: Thanks for joining me and for those of you listening the podcast Thanks again. It's been been great to have you here and I look forward to to talking to you again until next time