Wings of Liberty • April 11, 2024

How much of the Word is truth? All of it!

Part 1: Jordan Peterson and the Lobsters

Christianity distilled to its basic fundamental level involves one question and one question only.

Do you place full trust in the Word of God?


That was the question for Eve when she stood before the Serpent, and it was the question for Jesus in the wilderness when He was tempted by the Devil. It is still the question for you and I today.


Unfortunately, while there are many professed Christians in the world, most of them do not trust the Bible.

A 2014 study revealed that only 41% of American Christians are certain that humans did not evolve from non-human life forms. The study also found that only 44% are sure that Adam and Eve were real people. Only 15% of those surveyed were “absolutely/very certain” that humans came into existence within the last 10,000 years.i Similar and more recent studies have confirmed the trend of questioning and rejecting the plain words of Scripture.ii


This all means that the majority of Christians (at least 59%), some of whom are doubtless the same Christians who assert that America is a “Christian Nation”, believe that humans descended from lower life forms through processes of natural selection over the course of millions of years.


If Christianity is the religion of the Bible, and vast swaths of Christians reject the Biblical pronouncement of Creation and the Fall, then what religion are they actually? Who are they following?


To be a Christian is to be a declared follower and believer in Christ. Christ is specific. Christ taught Creationism. Christ taught that Adam and Eve were real people. The New Testament states that Cain and Abel were real people – Matthew 23:35; Hebrews 11:4, that Noah was a real person – Matthew 24:37, and that the Flood was a real event – Matthew 24:37.


When the Pharisees asked Jesus about whether it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife, Jesus referred them back to Creation:


4 And He answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, 5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? 6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.


Jesus could ask Christians today the same question regarding their doubts on the origins of the human race: Have you not read your Bible?


Christianity, which is the religion which follows the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, believes in Creationism. It has no doubts as to whether Adam and Eve were real people because Jesus says they were real people. “Without Him nothing was made that was made” – John 1:3. The Bible says Jesus created Adam and Eve – just like Genesis says. To disbelieve this is to transfer the authority in your life from the Word of God to the words and opinions of finite man.


Now let’s talk about hypocrisy.


Christians vocally lament the loss of sexual and gender norms in today’s culture. Many of them would assert that the fundamental destabilizing mistake which is ruining western culture is the rejection of the Word of God. Which is true. But they are doing the exact same thing when they throw away the Genesis account of Creation and claim to still be followers of Christ.


This is hypocrisy.


The Bible teaches that God personally formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life – Genesis 2:7. The Bible says that Adam transgressed and fell – see Genesis 3 – and that God interposed Himself to save humanity from the consequence of their sin. Christianity is all about the redemption and restoration of the fallen sons and daughters of God.


Therefore, to reject the literal creation and fall as set out in Genesis is to reject the atonement and the plan to restore the lost image of God in man.


This brings us to Professor Jordan Peterson, who has obtained something akin to rock star status in conservative Christian circles for his commentary on gender pronouns and free speech. Peterson, formerly an atheist, has publicly asserted recently that he now believes in God.i


Before going further, I wish to say – I appreciate Jordan Peterson. I appreciate his willingness to speak unpopular truth to an angry mob. We know the mob is angry and violent. It is standing up to the mob – any mob – that is one of the qualities in short supply today.


Jordan Peterson has made no professions of Christianity, and people should stop attempting to make him do so.ii Speaking of the mob, there is almost an obsession on the conservative side of the political spectrum with forcing Jordan Peterson to pronounce some sort of orthodoxy. His wife has been confirmed in the Catholic Church, and there is pressure for him to declare that he is a Catholic, for example.iii


Jordan Peterson has a massive following, and substantial influence. There is no doubt he has taught some important truth. But do the Christian people who follow Jordan Peterson know that God’s Word is a higher authority than Jordan Peterson? That in the event of a conflict between what Jordan Peterson says and the Bible, that the Word is supreme? That it is impossible to follow God without accepting the authority of the Bible as objective truth?


Do Christians realize that Jordan Peterson and the Bible completely disagree about the origins of humanity and life on this earth?


The Bible says that it is by faith that “we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” Hebrews 11:3. The Bible says, “He spoke and it was so. He commanded and it stood fast.” Psalms 33:9. The Bible says God “formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” Genesis 2:7. The Bible says that Adam is the son of God – Luke 3:38.


But Jordan Peterson says that Adam is the son of Larry Lobster. And Mike the Monkey.iv Yes, he reads the Bible and says he appreciates the story of the cross of Christ, but he also says you are a highly developed crustacean.


There is a growing contingent in western society which likes some of the traditions of cultural Christianity, and enjoys speaking truth to progressive power, but places a low priority on the Word of God. When evolution clashes glaringly with the Bible, so-called Christians prefer cultural orthodoxy to God’s Word. It’s much easier to stay with the ecumenical conservative crowd that way.


But make no mistake: There were NO monkeys or lobsters in the genealogy of Adam. Christ came to die for His fallen child, made in the image of God. Christ did not leave His throne of glory to die for the descendants of the lobsters. Apart from the fact that the very contention is ridiculous, what would be the point?


Did the lobsters sin? Or was it their ancestors? How did they sin? When? Against what commandment? Sin is the transgression of the law – 1 John 3:4. What law did the lobsters transgress?


Did the lobsters know that they were sinning? Were they warned in advance not to sin?


The Bible teaches that in the beginning everything was made good – very good. The world was perfect. There was no death. Not for Adam or the lobsters. The Bible teaches that death did not enter until sin, and the world deteriorated as a consequence of that sin – Romans 5:12.


But according to Darwin, death has been the norm since the sloppy goo got hit by lightning and turned into the great grandaddy of the craw daddy. The lobsters and their variants grew up with death. They fought, they ate, they lived, they died. For millions of years. Until they became monkeys.


This is progressivism. This is evolutionism. It is not Christianity.


Darwinism has no place for the Fall or the entrance of sin. Darwinism has no place even for the concept of sin or for the broken law of God. This means Darwinism has no place for redemption. There is no need for Jesus in evolution. Jesus does not need to die to save the lobsters or their descendants.


While Jordan Peterson champions the cause of free speech, and the obvious reality that there are only two sexes, male and female, he truly destabilizes the foundation of his arguments by, on one hand, publicly confessing his belief in God, and on the other hand, repeatedly asserting that humanity had lobsters for ancestors.


Perhaps Peterson does not realize he is undermining the foundations of the rights he is championing.


For example, where does free speech come from if we come from crustaceans? Shall we pretend that God gave freedom of speech to lobsters?


Who made men’s mouths, asks God rhetorically – Exodus 4:11. He did. He formed the mouth of Adam, and gave him the breath of life, and the ability to reason and communicate. The right to speak comes directly from the Creator. At Creation.


The right did not evolve. It did not come from millions of years of social hierarchies where the lobsters duked it out and eventually organized themselves into the early beginnings of the modern state, which then condescended to give free speech to mankind.


We need to ask ourselves - Do “we hold these truths to be self-evident” or not? Are all people endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, or aren’t they?


When "Christians” reject the book of Genesis and reject creation, they also undermine the rights the Creator gave humanity.. Evolution is undermining the concept of God-given individual rights every day, all around the world. The Declaration of Independence says rights come from the Creator. Darwinism says rights come from the state.


With evolution being taught around the world, is it any wonder that the concept of inalienable rights is also weakening simultaneously?


Christians need to stop pretending that evolution and Christianity are harmonious. They aren’t. The plain word of Scripture simply does not allow for that interpretation.


Darwin didn’t love you, but Jesus does. So, pick a side.


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1.  https://slate.com/technology/2014/12/creationism-poll-how-many-americans-believe-the-bible-is-literal-inerrant-or-symbolic.html


2. https://news.gallup.com/poll/394262/fewer-bible-literal-word-god.aspx; https://julieroys.com/george-barna-survey-biblical-worldview/


3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrXU-JJ8d-E


4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe-OAa4jqok


5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe-OAa4jqok


6.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZOkxuNbsXU;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j-llZc9X70;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACt5D6xVRx8


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Coming Soon, Part 2: In Darwin We Trust

Religious Liberty Comments Needed

By Wings of Liberty • July 7, 2026
TO: THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Via EMAIL: RLC@usdoj.gov RE: RECOMMENDATIONS OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY COMMISSION Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback to the recommendations of the Religious Liberty Committee submitted to President Donald J. Trump on June 26, 2026. While we are mindful of the Committee’s labors which resulted in the 12 recommendations released June 26, certain of which we agree with, we write to voice our concerns and objections to the Committee’s first and ninth recommendations, 1 and its obviously insufficient consideration of the warnings of the Founding Fathers of the dangers of a union of church and state, or the many lessons of history regarding same. The Committee recommended that the Department of Justice “issue guidance clarifying the proper understanding of the Establishment Clause and separation of church and state.” 2 At the formal release of the Committee’s recommendations on the same day, Committee Chair Dan Patrick publicly stated that, “The separation of church and state is not in the constitution, ” and that the phrase “ has no constitutional basis .” 3 As citizens and students of history, and as Christians, we are alarmed, lest the flawed and unconstitutional view of the Chair of the Committee of the so-called “ proper understanding of the Establishment Clause and the separation of church and state”, prove influential or worse, instructive, to the Department of Justice. If the Committee’s opinion of the so-called “proper understanding” of the Establishment Clause is the same as that of its Chair, it is apparent that its understanding is not proper, but rather improper. Founding Father, “Father of the Constitution”, and fourth President of the United States, James Madison, contradicted Chair Dan Patrick’s claim that the separation of church and state is not in the Constitution. Madison stated that, “ Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States , the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history." According to James Madison, the separation of church and state is in the Constitution. As to whether James Madison, who is the principle author of the Establishment Clause, or Dan Patrick, is the greater authority on this subject, we think it not difficult for reasonably minded people to ascertain. Certainly, the Founding Fathers were all aware of the persecution of the Baptists, Quakers, Jews, and others in some of the colonies. They had seen first hand the ear croppings, whippings, imprisonment and hangings in Massachusetts and other colonies. In Europe, the persecution of the martyrs is well documented. Today we take the Bible for granted, but forget that William Tyndale was executed for translating the Bible into the English language not by atheists, but by religious bigots. It was a union of church and state which suppressed speech and the freedom of the press in England. It was a union of church and state which prohibited the work of translation of the Bible which changed the world. It was a union of church and state which necessitated his flight to Europe. It was a union of church and state which killed him. We respectfully ask that the Department of Justice, in considering the issue of public guidance of the separation of church and state, consider the history of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, and early Founding Father, who was repeatedly jailed for his religious faith in England. Pennsylvania Colony became a haven, not from atheist persecutors, but religious persecutors who did not believe in the separation of church and state. The same is true of Roger Williams, founder of the colony of Rhode Island, who was ordered arrested for declaring that the civil magistrate cannot enforce the first table of the Decalogue. We ask that the Committee take into account the brutal public whipping of President Abraham Lincoln’s five-time great grandfather, Obadiah Holmes, in Massachusetts colony, for the “crime” of religious dissent. Obadiah Holmes was not whipped by atheists. He was whipped by Puritan bigots who did not believe in the separation of church and state. We respectfully request that the Department of Justice consider this history in the issuance of public guidance on the subject. We are concerned that the Committee neglected to take into account the impact of the separation of church and state on the other rights codified in the First Amendment. Free speech and freedom of the press, for example, owe their flourishing in the modern world in large part to the separation of church and state in America. Prior to the protections in the First Amendment, the Roman Catholic Church for centuries maintained a list of banned books called the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. The books were subject to confiscation, and the possession of them resulted in the punishment of the owner. Unfortunately, the Committee makes no mention of the censorship in this context of Galileo and Kepler, Kant and Locke, John Milton and Maimonedes, John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, David Hume and Edward Gibbon, and many others, all at the behest of the Roman Papacy, which is itself a union of church and state. Free speech in the western world is the legacy of those who risked the wrath of a unified church and state, often at the cost of their lives. We would also ask that the Department of Justice consider the repeated modern calls from the papal power today for the censorship of the internet, and the suppression of free speech, contrary to the First Amendment. 4 We have no doubt that the censorship of Galileo, Kepler, Milton and others was prosecuted under the justification of the censorship of misinformation, also. The Roman Church was not alone in this persecution, either. We would ask the Department of Justice in its formulation of public guidance on the separation of church and state to remember the religious persecutions carried out at the behest of John Calvin in Geneva against religious dissenters such as Michael Servetus, who paid with his life for his writings and teachings. Servetus was executed by a union of church and state. We are concerned at the public statements of those who would create such a system in America. 5 Therefore we respectfully ask what proper guidance can the Department of Justice hope to give to the public on the “proper understanding of the Establishment Clause and the separation of church and state” if it is directed in its object by a Committee and a Committee Chair, who has neglected to more fully analyze the reasons for the separation of church and state, or the reasons why the United States codified the disestablishment of church and state in the First Amendment in the first instance? Reference to the wall of separation between church and state is not only mentioned by President Thomas Jefferson in the letter to the Danbury Baptists, which of course it is. 6 What is often left out of the narrative is that Jefferson said that he personally believed that the principle of the separation of church and state is codified in the Constitution. Therein, Jefferson wrote: Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, ¬t opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. 7 James Madison wrote, It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of Citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The free men of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much soon to forget it. 8 Lastly, we object to the recommendation of the Committee that the Johnson Amendment be removed. As followers of Jesus Christ, we are mindful of Our Lord’s words that we “render to Caesar what is Caesar, and to God the things that are God’s.” 9 Jesus Christ established the principle of the separation of church and state, and taught that what belongs to God cannot be rendered to Caesar. The application of this teaching is that religionists, ambitious for civil power, and politicians ambitious for their endorsement, are to be kept separate in the American system of politics, as the Constitution requires. The union of church and state results in the corruption of both, a result which neither should desire, and neither can afford. Madison stated that “The number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood, & the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church from the State." 10 And he was right. If the Johnson Amendment is removed, religionists who want civil power will publicly stump and promise their votes and congregational dollars in exchange for political favors, and the politicians will be doubtless all too eager to reciprocate in the form of legislation which the religionists desire provided they will aid their attempts to gain office. In his anonymous treatise published in the Boston Gazette, John Adams, later the second President of the United States, wrote that canon law was a tyrannical form of government, as was feudal law, but that the worst of all forms of governments was a union of the two. 11 And it was Madison who stated that, “In the Papal System, Government and Religion are in a manner consolidated, & that is found to be the worst of Governments.” We respectfully request therefore that the Department Justice not adopt recommendations 1 and 9 of the Committee, and that it does adopt recommendation 1 of the Committee that it convene a public hearing, with written and oral submissions from the public, to more comprehensively study the question of the separation of church and state in history, and in American history in particular, a study which we would enthusiastically support. We remain yours truly, [THE UNDERSIGNED] ------------------------------------------------------- 1 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/president-trumps-religious-liberty-commission-delivers-historic-report-draft 2 Ibid, [Emphasis added]. 3 https://www.chron.com/politics/article/dan-patrick-church-state-constitution-viral-22323383.php 4 https://reclaimthenet.org/pope-francis-calls-on-social-media-platforms-to-censor-more-misinformation ; 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAUkMwlWYB8 ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMBiPIfx-UA 6 https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html 7 https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html - Jefferson here is clearly referring to Congress. That Congress is prohibited by the Constitution from making a union of church and state. 8 James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments 9 Matthew 22:21 10 James Madison, Letter to Robert Walsh, March 2, 1819. 11 John Adams, Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765. https://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-papers/index.php/view/PJA01dg2 Since the Promulgation of Christianity the two greatest systems of Tyranny that have Sprung from this source, are the Cannon and the feudal Law. The Desire of Dominion, however noble and useful on the whole, is however, when unawed and unrestrained by Hopes and Fears, an encroaching, grasping, restless and ungovernable Principle. And among all the Variety of iniquitous systems that have been contrived by the great, for the Gratification of it, in themselves was never So successful, as in the Invention and Establishment of the Cannon and the Feudal Law. In the former, the most refined, sublime, extensive and astonishing Constitution of Policy that was ever conceived by the human Mind, we find was framed by the Romish Clergy, for the Aggrandisement of their own order. All the Epithets, that I have given to the Romish Policy, will be owned to be just, when it is considered, that they found it practicable to persuade Mankind, that God almighty had intrusted them with the Keys of Heaven, whose Gate they might open and Close at Pleasure—With a Power of Dispensation over all the Rules and Obligations of Morality—With an Authority to Licence all sorts both of Sins and Crimes.—With a Power of deposing Princes, and absolving subjects from their Allegiance.—With a Power of procuring or witholding the Rain of Heaven and the Beams of the Sun—With the Management of Earthquakes, Pestilence and Famine—Nay with the misterious, awful Incomprehensible Power of Creating out of Bread and Wine the Flesh and Blood of the great Creator of the Universe. And all these opinions, they were enabled to propagate and rivet in the Minds of the People, by reducing the Minds of the Common People them to a State of Sordid Ignorance and staring Timidity, and by infusing into them a religious Horror of Letters and Knowledge of every Kind. Thus was human Nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, deplorable Servitude, to him and his Subordinate Tyrants, who it was foretold, would exalt himself above all that was called God and that was worshiped. In the latter We find another System, Similar in many Respects to the former: which, altho it was originally formed, perhaps for the necessary Defense of a barbarous People, against the Inroads and Invasions of her neighboring nations; Yet for the Same Purposes of Tyranny, Cruelty and Lust, which had dictated the Cannon Law, it was soon adopted by allmost all the Princes of Europe and wrought into the Constitution of their Govt. It was originally a Code of Laws 110for a vast Army in a Perpetual Encampment. The General was invested with the Sovereign Propriety of all the Lands within their Territory—of Him the first Rank of his great officers, held the Lands, immediately, and the other subordinate Ranks, held of them, and all held by a Variety of Duties and services, tending to bind the Chains the faster on every order of Mankind. In this Manner the Common People were held together in Clans and Herds in a State of Servile Dependance on their Lords, bound by the tenure of their lands to follow them to their Wars whenever they commanded, and in a state of total Ignorance of every Thing divine and humane, excepting the Use of Arms and the Culture of the Lands. But another Event, still more calamitous to human Liberty, was a wicked Confederacy between the two Systems of Tyrany above described. It seems to have been even stipulated between them that the temporal Grandees, should contribute every Thing in their Power to maintain the Ascendancy of the Priesthood, and the Spiritual Grandees in their turn, shold employ that ascendancy over the Consciences of the People, in impressing on their Minds a blind, implicit obedience to civil Magistracy. [emphasis added]

Liberty and Healthcare in Canada

By QV.tv • July 2, 2026

The New Rome?

By Wings of Liberty • June 18, 2026
Of all the world empires of human history one name stands above all the rest for its cruel brutality and extreme public debauchery: Rome. At the height of its dissipation, up to a full third of its annual financial expenditures were made to create public spectacles for its citizens. Fights between wild beasts. Deadly gladiator battles. Gruesome public executions of religious or civil dissenters. The spectacles were more than mere entertainment – they were a political strategy to help control the overpopulated capital. Thus panem et circenses – bread and circuses. A well entertained mob is less inclined to political involvement or protest. The bloodiest place in the wicked, degenerate empire was the Roman Colosseum. It seated 50,000 people, comparable to many modern sporting stadiums. 9000 animals were slaughtered at its inauguration to pagan deities. It was inaugurated with the blood of animals. It was then soaked in the blood of men. It is almost forgotten history that it was named after the depraved and notorious tyrant Nero, who murdered thousands upon thousands of Christians, and killed the Apostle Paul. The very same Nero who killed his own mother and then his wife. History records that a giant statue of the notoriously degenerate Caesar called the Colossus of Nero once stood near the Colosseum. The bronze statue has been lost to history – but some sources say that it stood over 120 feet tall. It is fitting that the most bloodthirsty venue, in the most bloodthirsty empire in history should be named for such a man. Gladiator battles were a regular occurrence in the Colosseum, and in other parts of the Roman Empire. The fights were bloody, with real weapons, but often not deadly because gladiators were too expensive for every match to be fatal. The fighters were highly specialized, with trainers and owners. The bouts had rules and referees similar to modern combat sports and historians estimate only 1 in 8 fights ended in the death of one of the combatants. The violence was the entertainment. Gambling, or what we would call sports betting, was a central part of the entertainment experience. And the pagan mob of Rome loved every minute of it. Gladiator fighting lasted for a period of nearly 700 years, from 264 BC to 404 AD, when the fights were permanently banned by the Emperor Honorius in 404. The sudden and surprising end of the violent entertainment was the direct result of not just Christian influence, but direct Christian intervention. The story of Telemachus is the stuff of legends and was once well known in the Christian world, but like much of Christian history is being forgotten or replaced as so-called Christian culture goes back to paganism, and back to Roman paganism in particular. Telemachus was a monk who lived in a small monastic community and who spent his time studying the Bible, praying and gardening. Little is known of his quiet existence. It was his death during a trip to Rome that he is remembered for. Nothing could quite prepare a quiet Christian farmer for the shock of the capital of the ancient world. It was not just the wild debauchery and feasting, or the political corruption. At the time Telemachus arrived in the city of Rome, the gladiator games were taking place to celebrate another military victory. Rome was constantly at war with this vassal or that, or this barbarian or that, and when it wasn’t fighting external enemies its generals and its emperors were fighting each other. Telemachus witnessed the incredible excitement in the city. The citizens discussed the upcoming combats, their favorite gladiators, the placing of their bets. On that fateful day in 404 AD, Telemachus followed the mob into the Colosseum to observe what would take place. Christians for some centuries publicly opposed the games, which endeared them neither to the masses nor the government. The early church father Turtullian some two centuries earlier had written a treatise on the subject discussing the pagan origins of the spectacles, which can be read here: https://www.pseudepigrapha.com/LostBooks/tertullian_spectacles.htm In this treatise, Turtullian described the history of this entertainment, it's relationship to the celebration and worship of pagan gods and goddesses in various cultures, and the arguments that pagans made to justify the events in the face of Christian criticism. Tertullian's conclusions in Spectacles are stark and direct: he called the gladiator games idolatry, and murder, born out of pagan honoring of the dead, and consecrated with the costumes, rites, and names of deities of pagan religion. No Christian, he says, should have any confusion about involvement or participation in these pagan events, where men made in the image of God fought and died. A few notable and compelling excerpts are footnoted here.[1] His arguments are worth reading. On that fateful day when Telemachus entered the Colosseum, he saw the gladiators turn and salute and declare, “We who are about to die salute you!” He saw the seething masses gathered to watch the violence with breathless anticipation, and a sense of horror overwhelmed him. He could not sit quietly and passively witness the violence without doing something. As the fighting started, Telemachus climbed onto a wall, and yelled, “In the name of Christ stop this! Stop this now!” Nobody paid any attention to him. The mob was transfixed by events in the arena. So Telemachus entered the arena. And suddenly the eyes of fifty thousand people were fixed on him. He approached the warring gladiators, shouting, “In the name of Christ, stop this! Stop it!” At first they ignored him, intent on their battle. But then the crowd's cheers changed to murmuring - who was this man interfering in their entertainment? Telemachus attempted to interpose physically between the gladiators, and was pushed back. The citizens in the seats quickly grew angry. Suddenly, a voice in the crowd shouted, “Kill him! Kill him!” The rest of the mob joined in. The chant went up – “kill him!”. The gladiators turned and began to stab Telemachus. History records that some of the Roman citizens pelted him with rocks. He was mortally wounded and collapsed on the sand, dying. Telemachus looked up at the gladiators, and with his dying breath said once more, “In the name of Christ, stop.” And then he lay still. A hush fell over the crowd which a moment before had been seized with the spirit of violence and murder. The gladiators stood over the body of Telemachus. Silence overtook the arena. Soon one citizen quietly left the Colosseum. Then another. Every person who had witnessed the death of the innocent man was forced by the Holy Spirit to feel that their blood lust and love of violence had been the cause of his death. Soon afterward, and as a result of that day's events, Emperor Honorius banned the gladiator games permanently. Fast forward to our day, to the modern western world. To our Christian modern world. On June 14, 2026, an arena was set up on the White House grounds and an event dedicated to everything that the Roman Colosseum stood for was held for the viewing pleasure of the supposedly Christian nation. Men made in the image of God bloodied each other before the politicians and soldiers of the new Rome. People cheered. Wagers were made. Millions changed hands. The event was streamed on Paramount+ and while there has been no official release of the number of viewers, commentators speculate the event drew a Super Bowl size online crowd. Tell me, Reader, as you think about these things. Does the Christian west love Christ and the principles of His kingdom? Does it love mercy and kindness and peace and good will toward all men? Or does it love violence, blood and debauchery? What does it mean when the leaders of the supposedly Christian nation sit mere feet from the violence and the blood, in the midst of the maddened throng? When Telemachus gave his life to stop the gladiatorial games, Christianity in its simple, self-sacrificing power stopped the frenzied pagan mob. But who will rebuke the blood thirsty mob when it gathers under the pretended cloak of Christianity? Revelation 13 says that the power which looked like a lamb will speak like a dragon. The dragon was Rome. Look around you and consider. Are we not living in the new Rome? ======================== Tertullian's Letter on Spectacles www.pseudepigrapha.com https://www.pseudepigrapha.com/LostBooks/tertullian_spectacles.htm [1] Now let us also point out that the other characteristics of the things which are going on at the spectacles are all opposed to God. God has given us the command both to deal with the Holy Spirit in tranquillity, gentleness, quiet, and peace, inasmuch as, in accordance with the goodness of His nature, He is tender and sensitive, and also not to vex Him by frenzy, bitterness of feeling, anger, and grief. How, then, can the Holy Spirit have anything to do with spectacles? There is no spectacle without violent agitation of the soul. For, where you have pleasure, there also is desire which gives pleasure its savor; where you have desire, there is rivalry which gives desire its savor. And where, in turn, you have rivalry, there also are frenzy and bitterness of feeling and anger and grief and the other effects that spring from them, and, moreover, are incompatible with our moral discipline. For, even if a man enjoys spectacles modestly and soberly, as befits his rank, age, and natural disposition, he cannot go to them without his mind being roused and his soul being stirred by some unspoken agitation. No one ever approaches a pleasure such as this without passion; no one experiences this passion without its damaging effects. These very effects are incitements to passion. On the other hand, if the passion ceases, there is no pleasure, and he who goes where he gains nothing is convicted of foolishness. Since, then, frenzy is forbidden us, we are debarred from every type of spectacle, including the circus, where frenzy rules supreme. Look at the populace, frenzied even as it comes to the show, already in violent commotion, blind, wildly excited over its wagers. Accordingly, from such beginnings the affair progresses to outbursts of fury and passion and discord and to everything forbidden to the priests of peace. Next come curses, insults without any justified reason for the hatred, and rounds of applause without the reward of affection. You have, therefore, the theater prohibited in the prohibition of uncleanness. Again, if we reject the learning of the world's literature as convicted of foolishness before God, we have a sufficiently clear rule also concerning those types of spectacles which, in profane literature, are classified as belonging to the comic or tragic stage. Now, if tragedies and comedies are bloody and wanton, impious and prodigal inventors of outrage and lust, the recounting of what is atrocious or base is no better; neither is what is objectionable in deed acceptable in word. Now, if you maintain that the stadium is not mentioned in the Scriptures, I will admit at once that you have a point. But as for what is done in the stadium, you cannot deny that it is unfit for you to see--punches and kicks and blows and all the reckless use of the fist and every disfiguration of the human face, that is, of God's image. Never can you approve the foolish racing and throwing feats and the more foolish jumping contests ; never can you be pleased with either harmful or foolish exhibitions of strength nor with the cultivation of an unnatural body, outdoing the craftsmanship of God; you will hate men bred to amuse the idleness of Greece.