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The growing political dating divide — and its consequences
There’s a movement on the right that’s been growing in momentum: that men and women are becoming proud of building the traditional nuclear family — despite decades of propaganda urging both men and women to put their careers first.
However, while the movement is strong, the increase of women who self-identify as liberal and men who self-identify as conservative appears to be stronger. This has made it harder for those who want a traditional family unit to find those ideologically aligned partners who want to build that family unit.
“A growing political divide between men and women has compounded the challenges of finding love. Around 39% of women ages 18 to 29 identified as liberal in 2024, according to Gallup, compared with 25% of their male peers. This gap has more than tripled in a decade: 32% of women and 28% of men called themselves liberal in 2014,” claims a recent report from the Wall Street Journal.
“So it was a gap of four points; now it’s a gap of 14 points,” Stu Burguiere of “Stu Does America” comments. “And you think about when we were going through the election time. All the stories of women who would not date a man who had a MAGA hat on or had some conservative indicators in their profile.”
“We saw it the other way around, too; women who would be like, ‘I’m proud of being a Trump supporter,’ would get boycotted essentially by all the men that they would be matched with because they didn’t want anything to do with it,” he continues.
While politics is making it harder for single men and women to find eligible partners, Stu doesn’t believe it’s all bad.
“Having massive disagreements about core issues of humanity is not the worst reason to not get with someone,” Stu says, “That being said, when more and more people are of one persuasion or the other, and especially with white women in particular, they’re becoming more and more liberal by the day for whatever reason, that makes matchmaking a little bit more difficult.”
Want more from Stu?
To enjoy more of Stu’s lethal wit, wisdom, and mockery, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
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What in the Dickens? Think twice before seeing this new Jesus movie
If you want to make a movie about Jesus, the Bible is a great place to start — and end.
So it was an odd choice for Mofac Studios, a South Korean production company, to use Charles Dickens’ work “The Life of Our Lord” as the basis for its new animated children’s movie, “The King of Kings.”
Emotional moment aborted, unless you count the emotion of annoyance, which I experienced in abundance.
Dickens appears to have had a great deal of respect for Jesus because “The Life of Our Lord” is a work he wrote for his children to understand Jesus’ life. He never intended for the book to be shared outside his own family.
Nevertheless, this is the route the filmmakers decided to take with this retelling of scenes from Jesus’ life — through the eyes of Charles Dickens. Or rather, through the eyes of one of his young sons, Walter. And this route ends up being a confusing journey, especially for the audience of children the film targets.
An ode to gentle parenting
I first must address the movie’s opening scene, which is jarringly not Dickensian, but seems to have been conceived by a gentle-parenting influencer.
Here is how it unfolds: Charles Dickens is giving a dramatic reading of his work “A Christmas Carol” at a packed theater. Backstage, his wife and three young children (he actually had 10 kids, but who’s counting?) are noisily wreaking havoc as son Walter and his pet cat playact scenes from “King Arthur,” who is Walter’s hero.
The mayhem interrupts father’s performance so much that he has to ask the audience to wait while he goes behind the curtain. Walter is portrayed as a cherubic-looking but straight-up disrespectful and petulant brat. Somehow, Dad not appreciating his child wrecking his performance makes him the bad guy, as mom pleads for his understanding (um, why wasn’t she keeping them quiet, for heaven’s sake?). Even the cat is shown to be ticked at dad.
This whole interaction takes too long, considering that hundreds of people who paid to attend are just waiting on the other side of the curtain. I thought maybe the filmmakers forgot they left them out there. Eventually Walter pouts and says he’s going home. His parents are dismayed at this. Go figure.
I’m always a little uncomfortable with depictions for children that normalize or even elevate selfish, bratty behavior. So in a movie theater full of children, I was uncomfortable with this opening — and it was not the only discomfort I was about to experience.
The odd filmmaking choices just keep coming
That scene sets the stage for the rest of the film, in which (back at home that night) Charles Dickens narrates his entire manuscript for “The Life of Our Lord” to Walter by way of proving to him that there is a king even more impressive than “King Arthur.”
Many familiar Bible scenes come to life as the tale unfolds, and I expected a kind of “Princess Bride” experience, where the action would return to the narrator telling the story to a child. Instead, the child and the narrator (Walter, his dad, and the cat) are transported into Bible scenes.
Sitting in the movie theater full of children, I couldn’t help but think how confusing these Bible stories would seem when the Dickens family is suddenly a part of each one — not only witnessing action but also interacting with it.
One of the most egregious examples is when Walter and his cat are following Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Walter loses his cat, which his dad finds (also in the scene), but then Jesus is holding the cat while looking lovingly at Walter. Weirdly, Jesus then turns into Walter’s dad again. Good grief.
The kid also follows Jesus to the cross, attempting to take him a container of water, but he trips and the container rolls toward Jesus, who looks at it while he’s collapsed under the cross, exhausted. This mixture of sacred and silly is hard to stomach.
My personal opposite-of-favorite, however, was the scene where Peter hears the cock crow at dawn and sinks to his knees, realizing the weight of what he has done. The animation in that scene is beautiful, and I felt tears coming — that scripture always gets me — but then the kid and his cat walk into the scene to comfort Peter.
Emotional moment aborted — unless you count the emotion of annoyance, which I experienced in abundance.
But how did they do with the Bible stories?
Other than a couple of figures (with a cat) from the 1800s repeatedly showing up in first-century Israel, the Bible stories are mostly accurate. Mostly.
For example, though it is commonly believed, the film perpetuates the myth of “no room at the inn.”
Jesus’ words are subtly changed a few times, and not for the better. When at age 12 his parents find him in the temple, the Bible says he told them, “Did you not know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But in the movie, he tells them he feels like he needs to be there.
That’s not the only time Jesus seems to be using present-day language. When he tells the people who want to stone the adulterous woman that they can do so if they’ve never sinned and they start backing away, he seems to taunt them with a “that’s what I thought” comment.
There is also language that doesn’t seem to acknowledge that Jesus was always God, including a remark about how he was able to do something because “his faith was so strong,” as if he was just a man with extraordinary faith — instead of God himself.
How the film looks
Some of the big panoramic scene shots are beautiful, cinematic, and richly detailed. However, the animation is hit-and-miss because many of the Bible characters look cartoonishly grotesque — and not just the bad guys. Peter and John are pretty ugly; Jesus, though, is much better looking.
I appreciated that in deference to its target audience, the filmmakers managed to depict the cruelty to Jesus with considerable discretion.
For instance, his flogging is shown, but he is not shown receiving it. The crucifixion is hard to watch, although not gory. But the crucifixion should be hard to watch.
How it all ends
Strangely, the resurrection gets short shrift here. The empty tomb is shown and the fact that Jesus is alive is made very clear, but it’s almost glossed over.
Back at home, Walter is so excited about his new favorite king that he wakes up his brother and sister in the middle of the night to tell them the story. Then the credits roll with an awful song by Kristin Chenoweth that includes lyrics about how if you just believe, anything can happen.
Not the “just believe” message again! This wasn’t a “Grinch” movie, for heaven’s sake. Ugh.
After the credits, there’s a “special message” in which a group of kids who’ve seen the movie talk about how great it is and how you can pay for more kids to see it by using a QR code.
Should I have used that QR code?
No. I wouldn’t recommend this as a good use of money or time for your kids.
However, if your kids are at least later-elementary age and already conversant with the Bible’s depiction of Jesus, and you are willing to take them out after the movie to talk about it with the goal of building up their discernment skills, then “The King of Kings” is a great parenting opportunity.
Editor’s note: “The King of Kings” and distributor Angel Studios are sponsors of BlazeTV. The independent views of the author do not necessarily represent the views of Blaze Media.
The king of kings, Angel studios, Charles dickens, God, Jesus, Easter, Resurrection, Christianity, Faith
Faith meets excellence in a stunning new animated film
I don’t throw around the word “masterpiece” lightly. In fact, I’ve developed something of a reputation for being hard to impress. I don’t think that’s unfair. My standards aren’t unusually high — contemporary standards are just too low.
So when I find something that deserves real praise, I won’t hold back. And the new animated film “The King of Kings” comes about as close to a masterpiece as anything I’ve seen in a long time.
Sola scriptura doesn’t mean solo scriptura. Artistic license is perfectly legitimate — so long as it serves, rather than subverts, the gospel message.
The latest release from Angel Studios is the most compelling telling of the gospel for children I’ve ever encountered — and I’ve seen plenty as a homeschool dad. Honestly, it’s one of the best animated films I’ve seen in years, period.
Framing the story with Charles Dickens as narrator was a brilliant decision. Dickens, arguably the greatest storyteller in the Western canon, guides the audience through the life of Christ by telling it to his young son for the first time. That structure — Dickens’ son imagining the gospel story and entering the narrative — creates a vivid, emotionally immersive experience.
It works. In fact, it’s what makes the whole film so powerful.
To witness the gospel again, this time through a child’s innocent eyes, restored my own “faith like a child.” I choked up more than once, as did my wife. The film’s depiction of the great exchange — Christ’s life for ours — comes through in a way that a child can grasp and can move adults to tears.
The animation is exceptional. Multiple visual styles blend seamlessly. The voice cast includes familiar names, many with
more major awards than Ralphie’s old man. This isn’t just Christian entertainment — it’s top-tier craftsmanship. The filmmakers took excellence seriously. They treated the source material with the respect it deserves.
Audiences noticed. “The King of Kings” became
the top new release in the country.
There’s a message here — one Hollywood and faith-based filmmakers alike would do well to hear.
To Hollywood: Enough with the agitprop. Stop desecrating beloved stories with political sermons. Honor the source material. The audience will show up.
To faith-based creators: Make something
great first. Let its moral or religious value emerge from its quality — not the other way around.
A final word to my fellow believers: I know it’s easy to nitpick. I do it myself. But don’t become the kind of person who’d complain about being hanged with a new rope. The Gospel of John ends with this:
Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.
The Bible never claims to include every word or deed of Christ. And telling a story for modern audiences sometimes requires creative choices. That’s not heresy. That’s storytelling. Sola scriptura doesn’t mean solo scriptura. Artistic license is perfectly legitimate — so long as it serves, rather than subverts, the gospel message. That goes for more than just “The King of Kings.”
Soapbox dismounted. Time for you to get off the couch and go see this movie.
Editor’s note: “The King of Kings” and distributor Angel Studios are sponsors of BlazeTV. The independent views of the author do not necessarily represent the views of Blaze Media.
Opinion & analysis, Religion, Hollywood, Movie review, Movies, The king of kings, Animation, Angel studios, Charles dickens, Faith-based, Storytelling, Heresy
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ACLU fights to restore woke books Trump banned to protect military kids from gender ideology
The American Civil Liberties Union announced Tuesday that it filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense’s school system for removing books that reference “race and gender” from its libraries.
President Donald Trump previously signed executive actions banning diversity, equity, and inclusion from the federal government, resulting in the removal of woke gender ideology books from the Department of Defense Education Activity’s schools.
‘I assume the ACLU will now support school choice for military families, so the federal government won’t get to dictate what is or is not in military kids’ education.’
A presidential action titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling” argued that the American school system has “indoctrinate[d]” students with “radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight.”
In February, the DOD distributed a memo to parents of children within the school system explaining that the agency was reevaluating library books “potentially related to gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology topics.”
The DOD and the Department of Education released a joint statement earlier this month announcing the creation of the Title IX Special Investigations Team, tasked with protecting students “from the pernicious effects of gender ideology in school programs and activities.”
The ACLU’s lawsuit, filed on behalf of a dozen students, accuses the DODEA of violating students’ First Amendment rights by removing the materials.
“Since January, their schools have systemically removed books, altered curricula, and canceled events that the government has accused of promoting ‘gender ideology’ or ‘divisive equity ideology,'” the ACLU claimed. “This has included materials about slavery, Native American history, LGBTQ identities and history, and preventing sexual harassment and abuse, as well as portions of the Advanced Placement (AP) Psychology curriculum.”
Natalie Tolley, a parent with three children in DODEA schools, stated that Trump’s executive orders were “a violation of our children’s right to access information that prevents them from learning about their own histories, bodies, and identities.”
“I have three daughters, and they, like all children, deserve access to books that both mirror their own life experiences and that act as windows that expose them to greater diversity,” she continued. “The administration has now made that verboten in DODEA schools.”
Neal McCluskey, the director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Education Freedom, reacted to the lawsuit, stating, “I assume the ACLU will now support school choice for military families, so the federal government won’t get to dictate what is or is not in military kids’ education.”
A spokesperson for the DODEA told the Associated Press that the school system does not comment on ongoing litigation.
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Judge Boasberg finds probable cause to hold Trump in contempt for refusing to stop deportation flights
A federal judge says there is probable cause to hold President Donald Trump in contempt for refusing to end deportation flights from a previous ruling.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg had issued the emergency order on March 15 against the flights of illegal immigrants that were ordered by President Donald Trump. The president invoked the Alien Enemies Act from 1798, which critics say is being improperly applied to the immigration crisis.
‘The president is 100% committed to ensuring that terrorists and criminal illegal migrants are no longer a threat to Americans and their communities across the country.’
Boasberg, who has been criticized by many accusing him of political bias, said Wednesday that he found probable cause that Trump had showed a “willful disregard” for the order.
“The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders — especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it,” he said Wednesday.
“The Court ultimately determines that the Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt,” he added.
The emergency order was meant to allow the court time to fully consider the merits of the case. Boasberg said all flights must be canceled and those on the way must return to the U.S., but that did not happen.
Boasberg called on the administration to make declarations by April 23 or face a referral for prosecution.
White House communications director Steven Cheung responded to the order in a brief statement on social media.
“We plan to seek immediate appellate relief,” he said. “The president is 100% committed to ensuring that terrorists and criminal illegal migrants are no longer a threat to Americans and their communities across the country.”
Boasberg has lambasted Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign for failing to fulfill his requests for information about the flights.
“If you really believed everything you did that day was legal and would survive a court challenge, you would not have operated the way that you did,” said the judge to Ensign.
The Trump administration had previously responded by saying the judge was mounting a “massive, unauthorized imposition on the Executive’s authority to remove dangerous aliens.”
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Deported Salvadoran MS-13 Gang Member’s Wife Requests Trump Bring Him Back To USA Despite Domestic Abuse Claims
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Navigating financial turmoil with James Rickards’ “The Big Drop: How To Grow Your Wealth During the Coming Collapse”
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‘Praise the Lord!’ Kidnapped American pastor rescued in South Africa as 3 suspects gunned down in ‘high-intensity shoot-out’
An American pastor who was kidnapped by armed men while preaching a sermon in South Africa last week was rescued days later as part of a remarkable mission, according to law enforcement.
As Blaze News previously reported, Josh Sullivan was preaching during a Thursday evening service at the Fellowship Baptist Church in Motherwell — a township outside Gqeberha in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province. Suddenly four armed men abducted Sullivan, who is from Tennessee, in front of his wife and six children.
‘Thank you for your support and prayers. Please do not stop praying for the Sullivans.’
The Hawks — a specialized police unit that investigates organized crime, economic crime, corruption, and other serious crimes — reportedly tracked down the kidnappers. On Tuesday, law enforcement engaged in a “high-intensity shoot-out” with alleged kidnappers at a safe house and rescued Sullivan.
The South African Police Service said in a statement, “As officers approached the house, they observed a vehicle on the premises. The suspects inside the vehicle, upon seeing law enforcement, allegedly attempted to flee and opened fire on the team.”
“The officers responded with tactical precision, leading to a high-intensity shoot-out in which three unidentified suspects were fatally wounded,” police stated.
Law enforcement officers rescued Sullivan from the vehicle, who reportedly was unharmed and in “excellent condition.”
The Fellowship Baptist Church in Tennessee stated, “Praise the Lord!” Tom Hatley, the church’s pastor, said that “Josh has been released. Thank you for your support and prayers. Please do not stop praying for the Sullivans.”
Church secretary Heather Shirley told the Christian Post that God “was the one protecting him and taking care of him. And that’s what we were praying for all along, that He would take care of him and bring him home.”
Shirley added, “We want to let Josh tell the whole story as he wants to or give us something to give to our people so that they understand exactly how he felt. I don’t think any of us can understand how he felt in that situation. I mean, there had to just be a hedge of protection around him, provided by God; that’s the only explanation for it.”
Sullivan — a self-described “church planting missionary” — arrived in South Africa in 2018 with plans to “finish language school … and plant a church to the Xhosa-speaking people.”
Missionary Mark Coffey said of Sullivan, “Josh’s love for the Xhosa people is evident in everything he does. He doesn’t just serve them — he walks with them, learns from them, and pours his life into building lasting relationships rooted in the love of Christ. He often says that learning the Xhosa language wasn’t just about communication — it was about connection.”
There were an average of 51 kidnappings every day in the country in 2023, according to the government.
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Spy Wednesday: A chilling warning from the man who betrayed Christ
Since the earliest times, the Catholic Church has commemorated the Wednesday of Holy Week as Spy Wednesday, the day Judas Iscariot slipped away to negotiate the traitor’s price to turn Jesus Christ over to the chief priests in Jerusalem.
The betrayal of Judas deserves plenty of attention as we prepare to recall Christ’s Passion and death on Good Friday. The remembrance of Judas’ treachery serves as a warning to all, important enough to have its own commemoration on a weekday traditionally associated with bodily mortification.
‘They weighed for my wages thirty pieces of silver.’
The chief priests were actively looking for a means to seize Jesus without triggering a riot. As they deliberated, suddenly Judas appeared, seeking an audience.
“The chief priests and the scribes sought how they might put Jesus to death; but they feared the people,” wrote Dom Prosper Guéranger, the late French abbot and author of the comprehensive 15-volume series “The Liturgical Year.”
“And Satan entered into Judas, who was surnamed Iscariot, one of the twelve; and he went, and discoursed with the chief priests and the magistrates, how he might betray him to them. And they were glad, and covenanted to give him money. And he promised; and he sought opportunity to betray him in the absence of the multitude.
“They admit him and he says to them, ‘What will you give me and I will deliver him unto you?’” (from Matthew 26:15) Guéranger wrote. “They are delighted at this proposition and yet, how is it, that they, doctors of the law, forget that this infamous bargain between themselves and Judas has all been foretold by David in the 108th Psalm?
Judas Iscariot settled for 30 pieces of silver, the price of a slave, to betray Jesus Christ.P. Molnar/Wikimedia Commons
“They know the Scriptures from beginning to end — how comes it,” Guéranger wrote, “that they forget the words of the prophet, who even mentions the sum of thirty pieces of silver?”
Thirty pieces of silver was typically the price of a slave. The amount of this shameful bargain is mentioned in Zechariah 11:12, “And they weighed for my wages thirty pieces of silver.” The words of the prophets, which would have been clear to these men who plotted against Jesus, did not give them pause as they prepared to carry out the gravest crime in history.
“On this day, Judas leaves his Master, and takes the devil for his guide,” Guéranger wrote. “The love of money blinds him. He fell from the light, he became darkened; for how could he be said to see, who sold the Light for thirty pieces of silver?”
According to the Jewish historian Josephus, there were about 2.7 million people in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. The people had welcomed Jesus as a king on Palm Sunday, laying their cloaks and palm branches along the path as he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.
Jesus was determined to eat the Passover alone with his apostles. So he frustrated Judas’ scheming by the way he selected the place to eat the Passover meal.
‘This sort of talk is hard to take. Who can stand it?’
“Our Lord knows that Judas had sold him and is about to betray him and Judas therefore is laying plans,” said Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen in one of his Holy Week discourses. “Our Lord now begins to thwart his plans.”
How does our Lord do it? He says to some of his disciples, go into the city and you will find a man with a water pot on his head. Ask him, where has he prepared the house for the Passover meal? The disciples went into the city. They found a man with a water pot on his head. Why did our Lord use that particular sign?
Well, because men never carry water pots on their head. Women carry water pots on their head. That would be just like saying, go into the city and find a man who’s carrying a pink parasol. So the disciples then found the man who had prepared the upper room. Judas therefore did not know where he was being led. Our Lord wanted the last meal alone with his apostles, and Judas would now have to come with him and no one would know except the disciples who met the man with a water pot on the head.
The Agony in the Garden.Giovanni Bellini, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Why did Judas go on his spy mission, scheming to betray his Redeemer? Sheen said a popular theory was that Judas had succumbed to avarice. But despite some evidence for this in Scripture, Sheen said the downfall of Iscariot’s faith came when Christ introduced the Holy Eucharist while teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
“In truth, in very truth I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you can have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood possesses eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day. My flesh is real food; my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells continuously in me and I dwell in him” (from John 6:52-57).
This core mystery of the Catholic faith became an insurmountable stumbling block for Judas and other followers of Christ, according to Fr. William Patrick Casey of the Fathers of Mercy.
“Jesus said this over and over again, and the Jews heard him,” Fr. Casey said in a popular audio talk on the Holy Eucharist. “They knew what he was saying, but it was just too much for them. It was too much even for some of his own disciples. They just couldn’t believe it. They said, ‘This sort of talk is hard to take. Who can stand it?’ He said, ‘If you don’t eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.’”
Archbishop Sheen places the start of Judas’ fall on this day in Capernaum.
“Where is the first mention of the fall of Judas?” Sheen asked in one of his audio talks. “The day our Lord announced the Eucharist. When did Judas leave? The night our Lord gave the Eucharist. He broke at the announcement of the Eucharist. As a matter of fact, that was the critical moment in the life of our blessed Lord. When he announced the Eucharist, he lost the masses, because he refused to be a bread king.”
At the Last Supper, Jesus asked Judas to sit near him.
Engraving of the Last Supper.Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons
“Christ chose Judas to be an apostle,” Sheen said. “He did not choose him to be a traitor, but to be an apostle.”
Judas had worked out a sign with the brigands who would seize Jesus in the Garden of Olives: a kiss.
“How shall they, who are sent to seize him, be able to distinguish him from his disciples?” Guéranger asked. “Judas will lead the way; he will show them which is Jesus, by going up to him and kissing him!”
Judas thought Christ to be a coward who would retreat into the olive grove when soldiers came to seize him. But when death came for Christ that night, He went out to meet it face to face.
Judas’ betrayal was no kiss of peace or friendship.
“The Lord came forward and Judas reached out his arms and threw them around the Lord’s neck,” Sheen said. “And the Greek word in the Gospel is καταφιλέω; he smothered him with kisses. Divinity is so sacred, it is always betrayed by some sign of affection. And our Lord says, ‘Friend, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?’”
On the traditional calendar, the Church keeps a penitential fast on Spy Wednesday as a reminder of Judas’ betrayal of Christ, according to Dom Benedict Baur, the late German Benedictine theologian.
“What a spectacle! Christ betrayed by one of His own apostles and handed over to His enemies,” Dom Baur wrote in a reflection published in the Mass companion “Benedictus.” “That act sounded the depths of ingratitude, hypocrisy, and baseness. The act was made more despicable by the fact that it was performed for money.”
Baur said the stakes are high for all Christians who neglect and lose their faith or chase after worldly gains.
“Often they forsake religion and neglect the sacraments,” he wrote. “What remains to them from all the temporal advantages they may gain? They soon prove empty; this discovery drove Judas to despair.”
Catholicism, Spy wednesday, Judas iscariot, Judas, Betrayal, Eucharist, Abide, Christianity, Christians, Holy week, Faith