Our Friday News Analysis | What the World THINKS Now!

Living Words of Saint Pope John Paul II | “I Trust in You, Lord ... You Are My God”

How could humankind have such utter contempt for humanity?

Because humankind had reached the point of contempt for God!

Only a Godless ideology could plan and carry out the extermination of [the other].

The Church rejects racism in any form as a denial of the Creator's image inherent in every human being (Genesis 1:26).

Jews and Christians [and Muslims] share an immense spiritual patrimony, flowing from God's self-revelation. Our religious teachings and our spiritual experience demand that we overcome evil with good. We remember, but not with any desire for vengeance or as an incentive to hatred. For us, to remember is to pray for peace and justice and to commit ourselves to their cause. Only a world at peace, with justice for all, can avoid repeating the mistakes and terrible crimes of the past.

Let us build a new future in which there will be no more anti-Jewish feeling
among Christians or anti-Christian feeling among Jews
[or anti-Muslim sentiments among Jews and Christians and vice-versa].

Let us move toward the mutual respect required of those who adore the one Creator and Lord and look to Abraham as our common father in faith.

Saint Pope John Paul II

JUBILEE PILGRIMAGE

OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II
TO THE HOLY LAND (MARCH 20-26, 2000)

SPEECH OF JOHN PAUL II

VISIT TO THE YAD VASHEM MUSEUM

Jerusalem – Yad Vashem
Thursday, 23 March 2000

This week’s reflection: “I Trust in You, Lord ... You Are My God”

Building the Bridge Foundation

               Saint Pope John Paul II spoke to billions over six decades, to young people, to presidents and peacemakers, and to the forgotten and the powerful alike.

               John Paul II was a theologian, a world leader, a statesman, a poet, and a pastor, revered by billions.

               He addressed war and peace, human dignity, mercy, and the deepest longings of the human heart.

               Those words did not stay in the past. They are living words. And they speak now.

               Even more alive in our times, the Pope's Message invites readers to pause and reflect.

               evangelicalpope.org

               There is no cost. There never will be.

OUR WEDNESDAY NEWS ANALYSIS | MACKLEMORE AND THE US CULTURAL REVOLUTION FOR PALESTINE

The attempt to punish Macklemore ultimately placed Robert Kraft, Ed Sheeran, and the entertainment establishment itself under unprecedented scrutiny. Far from silencing the message of Palestinian freedom, their actions amplified it.

A Palestinian man walks past a mural painted on the rubble of a destroyed building and dedicated to US rapper, singer, dancer, and DJ, Benjamin Haggerty, known as Macklemore, in Gaza City on September 19, 2026. (Photo by Omar Al-Qattaa / AFP via Getty Images)

By Ramzy Baroud
Source: Common Dreams
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/macklemore-palestine

24 September 2026

In the past, the story might have ended there. Macklemore would have been isolated and his career placed in jeopardy, while Sheeran, the promoters, and the stadium owners continued largely untouched.

Those days are gone. Global solidarity with Macklemore—and, by extension, with Palestine—spread so rapidly that the people responsible for his removal were forced to issue a series of defensive, sometimes contradictory explanations.

By then, however, the damage had been done. Sheeran faced mounting boycott calls, protests, and even an Irish radio station suspending his music. Finneas, Lukas Graham, and Aaron Rowe withdrew from the tour, while Beoga, Sheeran’s backing band, also pulled out. Artists and public figures began speaking openly about the genocide, freedom of expression, and the power of billionaires to dictate the political boundaries of art.

Podcasters and social-media commentators also mobilized, reaching audiences of millions and digging deeper into the controversy. They began asking who Kraft was, examining his longstanding relationship with Israel; his campaign against Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions; and the enormous financial machinery behind his political advocacy.

The attempt to punish Macklemore ultimately placed Kraft, Sheeran, and the entertainment establishment itself under unprecedented scrutiny. Far from silencing the message of Palestinian freedom, their actions amplified it.

Please continue reading ...

FROM THE BRIDGE | Building Bridges Where Others See Walls

By Abraham A. van Kempen
Founder and Chairman
02 October 2026

This is one of our busiest weeks. The Building the Bridge Foundation has grown from a hobby into a geopolitical policy think tank. Our new website launches in about three months—you’ll be impressed. It took time to get here. Please review our ‘About Page’ below; you’re part of our evolution.

Thanks!

Scroll through this edition—it’s always changing. I’m sharing my essay on Revelation with a different take: ‘Revelation Is Not a Horror Story.’ That’s what you expect from me, right? I read Revelation as a lively comedy, like a musical on the world’s stage, moving effortlessly from here to eternity and back at the speed of light, with thrilling divine allure in between. Compared to all the books I’ve ever enjoyed reading, Revelation is my favorite. Okay, call me crazy. But maybe I’m just several light-years ahead (one light-year equals 5.85 trillion miles).

The biggest news this week is that several journalists have picked up our press release; see below. Don’t worry—it’s only 395 words and takes less than four minutes to read.

I’m not expecting a nuclear bust—not yet. That’s why I urge Presidents Trump, Xi, and Putin to set a positive example. Only they can help counter the mindset—sometimes called the ‘Deep State’—driving today’s turmoil. It isn’t especially hidden: much of its activity is public. It leads people without encouraging independent thought, like mindless sheep following one another.

So, let us know what you think about our current ‘About Page:’ ‘Building Bridges Where Others See Walls ...”

Building Bridges Where Others See Walls -- Bridging Differences to Help Heal a Broken Humanity

The Building the Bridge Foundation exists because wisdom traditions teach that walls may protect briefly, but bridges heal the human family. We create sacred spaces for people, communities, faiths, cultures, and nations to listen humbly and rediscover our shared humanity.

Based in The Hague since 2015, we connect painful memories with future possibilities, inviting people to see faces, hear stories, honor responsibility, and make room for mercy, truth, and hope.

Making a Difference – The Means, Methods, and Mechanism for Many to Move Mountains

Accurate knowledge deepens understanding, dispels prejudice, and encourages learning. Words can unite or divide, build friendships, or stir hostility. Modern technology can foster harmony and reconciliation, but misuse fuels misunderstanding, prejudice, and conflict.

When portrayed as enemies, other social, ethnic, and religious groups can become targets of media-fueled fear and hostility, deepening divisions and sometimes leading to violence, war, or genocide.

Areopagus of the Modern Age

The media can teach billions about other parts of the world and different cultures. With good reason, it has been called "the first Areopagus of the modern age . . . for many the chief means of information and education, guidance and inspiration.”

Areopagus Hill Athens

Images leave lasting impressions, shaping attitudes toward other groups and nations and influencing whether people see them as friends, enemies, allies, or adversaries.

Indeed, the Building the Bridge Foundation (BTB) and other media outlets have enormous potential to promote peace and build bridges between peoples, breaking the fatal cycle of violence, reprisal, and fresh violence that is so widespread today.

Who We Are

We unite readers, leaders, communities, and institutions around a humane table in a divided world—where bread is broken, blessings shared, questions welcomed, and listening begins anew.

We stand coexistentially with all humanity—Israelis, Palestinians, Russians, Ukrainians, Iranians, Arabs, Asians, Europeans, North and South Americans; all humanity. No one should choose between one people’s safety and another’s dignity. Lasting peace means hearing difficult voices, facing painful memories, and ensuring security and dignity for all.

What We Believe

Across faiths and philosophies, strangers matter, and neighbors remain neighbors. Peace starts in the heart: protect dignity, speak truth kindly, and listen with humility.

• The Building, the Bridge Foundation, asserts that progress requires respecting everyone's inalienable dignity and rights.
• Every democratic system must demand and protect fundamental human rights in all categories.
• This applies to the rights related to material survival and to the human mind’s incessant search for truth and freedom.
• The many forms of injustice and discrimination inflicted on the weak in too many parts of the world prove that the world is still far from achieving that goal.

Today, the international community urgently needs a renewed and more practical commitment to respond to the needs of all.

Our Mission

Our mission is to bridge cultural, religious, civic, and geopolitical divides by creating spaces to surface old narratives, loosen prejudice, and help people meet as neighbors—not enemies or abstractions—each bearing sacred worth on our fragile earth.

Human progress depends on protecting everyone’s inalienable dignity and rights. Building bridges is essential, not sentimental: it helps wounded communities preserve their humanity and urges the international community to renew its practical commitment to meeting everyone’s needs.

Dialogue keeps us together. It is the thread that keeps the fabric from tearing. Your support helps us weave pathways of understanding where suspicion once stood. Listening serves, honesty repairs, and hope becomes a shared spiritual discipline.

How We Work

Building the Bridge offers perspectives, not prescriptions. We propose rather than impose, bringing global voices together to invite humble reflection, resist dehumanization, and find neighbors—even beloved strangers—in unfamiliar stories.

Media is today’s public square, shaping perceptions of communities and nations. Responsible communication counters dehumanization, expands evidence, amplifies unheard voices, and enables reconciliation.

We support active repair by giving people tools, shared language, and courage to move mountains from ignorance to knowledge, prejudice to understanding, and fear to responsible action.

What We Stand For

• Dialogue that stays open before, during, and after crisis.
• Human dignity as the foundation of security for every person and community.
• Reciprocity over domination so no one’s safety depends on another’s permanent insecurity.
• Faith, moral imagination, and public responsibility as forces for mercy, restraint, hospitality, accountability, and solidarity.
• Civil society as a peace multiplier in classrooms, congregations, newsrooms, families, cultural institutions, civic networks, and local communities.
• Justice, memory, and reconciliation so truthful memory does not become inherited hatred.

What We Do

With your support, a sentence becomes a seed, a story becomes a window, and a conversation becomes the first plank of a bridge someone thought could never be built.

• We bring together a range of perspectives, giving readers a welcoming way to compare multiple narratives instead of relying on a single narrative.
• We promote accurate knowledge as a remedy against prejudice, propaganda, and fear.
• We encourage dialogue across religions, cultures, civic spheres, and geopolitical contexts.
• We champion human dignity, mutual trust, shared security, and peace grounded in justice.
• We urge readers and communities to turn reflection into constructive action.

Can we leave the world gentler, wiser, and more whole than we found it? Your generosity answers yes: repair is possible, mercy is stronger than hatred, and humanity is one family, entrusted to care for one another.

Your Support Builds the Bridge

When fear spreads faster than understanding, your gift can shine like a candle in the window—a warm sign that someone is still listening, still believing that hatred will not have the final word, and still making room for the meaningful work of reconciliation.

Give today. From me to you, heart to heart: let your gift be a blessing in motion, a quiet act of faith in humanity, a prayer with hands, and one generous plank in a bridge strong enough to help many move mountains.

Be part of building the bridge.

Come aboard and imagine an extraordinary adventure filled with life-changing, life-giving possibilities.

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OUR FRIDAY NEWS ANALYSIS
OUR WEDNESDAY NEWS ANALYSIS
OUR MONDAY EDITION

Now, Presidents Trump, Xi, and Putin must step up to help heal our broken humanity, guided by the enduring axiom: “Destroy your enemies by becoming friends.” If they do, each deserves to share the 2026 or 2027 Nobel Peace Prize.

Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at Yalta brokering peace that turned out to be make-believe

To be continued on Monday, 05 October 2026.

With Every Good Wish to you, I am,

Sincerely yours,

Abraham A. van Kempen
Founder and Chairman

Building the Bridge Foundation, The Hague
A Way to Get to Know One Another and the Other

Remember! Diplomacy is catalytic—transformative —while military action is cataclysmic—destructive and catastrophic.

When faced with the options to be good, bad, or ugly, let’s build bridges, not burn them. After all, mutual deterrence reigns.

ESSAY | YEAR 5779 … CAN OIL AND VINEGAR BECOME ONE?

Yes! Just shake the bottle! The particles will freely move and become one. Freedom of movement – freedom from bondage, freedom from borders – is the essence that sparks fusion. Freedom is catalytic. Bondage is cataclysmic.

Originally published on 10 September 2018

By Abraham A. van Kempen
The Times of Israel
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/year-5779-can-oil-and-vinegar-become-one/

10 September 2018

Shake the Bottle

I mentioned this in my letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, referring to the once foes of foes, the Germans and the Jews: “Breaking the ice between the Germans and the Israelis is like mixing oil and vinegar. When combined, they add zest to a tossed green salad to make it come alive.” Jews and Germans are by no means the best of friends. Yet the fact that 119,000 Jews live and work in Germany speaks volumes.

What about the Israeli-Palestinian quest to co-exist? What have the Palestinians ever done to the Israelis that the Israelis haven’t done to the Palestinians, but with a factor of 10 times 10 times 10; not with an eye for an eye, but with one-thousand (1,000) eyes for one eye, one-thousand (1,000) teeth for one tooth? Israelis cannot love Israel enough unless they also love Palestine, all of Palestine, and I’m not referring merely to the granules of sand sculpting the land; and the same is true on the other side. Palestinians cannot love Palestine enough unless they recognize the divinely inspired and inherent goodness of Israel, despite those few rotten apples spoiling the bunch. And all the sand in Israel and all the sand in Palestine are ONE. So permit others to call the Land by the name of their conscience (‘A Catalytic Thrust Toward Trust,’ Kindle Locations 421-425).

My letter to Dr. Merkel continues: “Through you, Madam Chancellor, I would like to appeal to the people of Germany to help Israel. Germany can help forewarn Israel what NOT to do, that enough is enough, and that the tragedy of Auschwitz should remain in a permanent state of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ for time in ad infinitum.”

Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery insists, “… Germans know that our present policy is disastrous for Israel and the entire world. It leads towards permanent war, the empowerment of radical fundamentalist Islam throughout the region, the isolation of Israel in the world, and an occupation-state in which the Jews will become an oppressing minority.”

My friends in Germany tend to be ‘pro-Israeli’ and ‘pro-Palestinian’ in the sense that they believe Israel and Palestine have a right to co-exist and that both are obligated to find ways to live together peacefully, with neither help nor hindrance from Germany. But what do my German friends say about: the Israeli pretext of defending themselves against a defenseless people whom the Israelis subject to a systematic series of blitzkriegs, complete with lethal military invasions; confiscation of personal property; and displacement and dispossession at gunpoint, causing the indigenous people to flee their homes and, for many, live as refugees behind fortified walls in bondage, poverty, and servitude?

Initially, the Teutonic mind idles in neutral and responds objectively and analytically. From them, I hear: “It takes two to tango. The Palestinians have caused lots of problems, too. Both people are equally stubborn." But after a few beers too many, the threshold of truth becomes more fluid. This is when every one of my German friends shows their true colors, vehemently expressing their antifascist convictions.

Every single German I know opposes radical far-right authoritarian nationalism. Few dare to say out loud (other than in close quarters) that what the Israelis have done since 1948 brings back memories of conversations with parents or grandparents describing the days leading up to the Nazi onslaught. Despite this dark period, my friends in Germany persist in believing “light outshines darkness.”

Of course, though Chancellor Merkel prefers to stay out of the quagmire, I’ve hopefully piqued her interest with: “This, Dr. Merkel, is the warning. Their warnings stemming from their [the German] collective experiences and guilt could be Germany’s contribution … to challenge the Israelis and the Palestinians to converge toward a series of catalytic possibilities.”

Imagine the Israelis and the Palestinians in full reconciliation, living side by side within one homeland, divided into two borderless sovereign zones, working together as one, rejoicing in freedom of movement and the right of passage, sharing Jerusalem and the region, not too different from the BENELUX countries (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg), the forerunners of the open borders of the European Union (EU)?

As Rabbi Michael Lerner states in ‘Embracing Israel/Palestine’: “The task is no longer a question of ‘who is right’ but to focus on building a path that will be best served for all, a path that embraces human courtesy predicated on kindness and a generosity of spirit.”

Can and will the GOOD Israelis and the GOOD Palestinians destroy their enemies by becoming friends, with give-and-take to build and sustain that friendship? Israel and Germany are becoming friends. Israelis and Palestinians? Oil and vinegar can become one. When the Palestinians are free, SO ARE WE.

Happy Rosh Hashanah!

PRESS RELEASE 3

For Immediate Release

Stichting Building the Bridge Foundation: Dutch Foreign Policy Think Tank Urges Trump, Xi, Putin to Open Crisis Talks Now

The Hague-based foundation says its January 2026 Nobel Peace Prize nomination urged earnest dialogue, restraint, humanitarian action, and renewed major-power cooperation.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands, Oct. 1, 2026 — The Building the Bridge Foundation today urged Presidents Trump, Xi, and Putin to open immediate crisis talks and create a permanent Great-Power Bridge Forum for Peace, warning that global confrontation is nearing a breaking point.

Building, not burning, bridges is a practical geopolitical foreign policy. We’re clear on this, right?

RT-BTB composite. © Getty Images/Jeff Bottari;Sefa Karacan;Suo Takekuma

The appeal follows the Foundation’s Jan. 28, 2026, Nobel Peace Prize nomination of the three leaders—a direct challenge to keep channels open, show restraint, ensure humanitarian access, and share responsibility as global tensions rise.

               “Time is short for the 2026 prize consideration—but no worries! We’ll renominate them next January if warranted,” says founder and chairman Abraham A. van Kempen.

The proposed forum would create a standing channel to restore military and nuclear-risk hotlines; resume arms-control, cyber-stability, and AI-risk talks; support humanitarian corridors and prisoner exchanges; protect academic, cultural, religious, youth, scientific, and journalistic exchanges; and include smaller nations and affected communities.

               “They do not need to agree on everything to begin,” van Kempen added. “Silence, escalation, and humiliation are not strategies. The first step is to keep talking. Right now they’re stuck in their ruts, neither winning nor losing, wasting lives and treasure.”

The Foundation urged renewed support for open, responsible trade, warning that conflict, sanctions, protectionism, supply-chain bottlenecks, and policy uncertainty are raising costs and eroding trust.

               Van Kempen emphasizes: “Stabilizing trade can ease pressure while adapting globalization to current security, labor, and environmental realities.”

The Foundation urged restoring hotlines, resuming risk-reduction talks, opening humanitarian corridors, arranging prisoner exchanges, protecting people-to-people contacts, establishing verification mechanisms, and renewing trade cooperation.

               “Build the bridge before dialogue ceases,” van Kempen said, adding, “We’re clear on that, right?”

About the Bridge

Since 2015, the Building the Bridge Foundation has been a Netherlands-based geopolitical policy think tank in The Hague, working to turn conflict into dialogue and rivalry into responsibility through practical dialogue, humanitarian concern, reciprocity, solidarity, justice, liberty, and peace.

Media Contact
Abraham A. van Kempen
Founder and Chairman
Building the Bridge Foundation
The Hague, Netherlands
Email: abraham@buildingthebridgefoundation.com

Website: www.buildingthebridgefoundation.com

Review our latest Monday Edition: https://buildingthebridge.eu/the-monday-edition/general-2/our-monday-news-analysis-what-the-world-thinks-now/2794

COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON: IRAN WAR SPREADS - COULD ISRAEL FALL?

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson is a retired U.S. Army colonel who formerly served as chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Watch the Video Here (46 minutes, 33 seconds)

Host: Prof. Glenn Diesen
Substack.com
30 September 2026

TRUMP TALKS GENOCIDE -- AGAIN!

John J. Mearsheimer
Substack.com
29 September 2026

On 29 September 2026, I appeared on “Judging Freedom” to speak with the Judge about Iran. We devoted considerable attention to President Trump’s genocidal threat against Iran, which he made at the UN on 22 September 2026. I noted that, by my count, this was the seventh time he had said he would wipe Iran off the face of the Earth. Recall that on 7 April 2026, he said, “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again." It is also paramount never to forget that Trump is complicit in the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Thankfully, he has backed away from all his threats to eliminate Iran from the planet.

In fact, I do not believe the US could destroy Iran with conventional weapons. That raises the question of whether he would use nuclear weapons to achieve that goal. As I told the Judge, I cannot imagine the US doing so, though I am sure many people think I am naive and believe Trump is not above carpet-bombing Iran with nuclear weapons.

We also discussed recent revelations that Prime Minister Netanyahu ignored warnings from senior officials in both Egypt and the UAE, issued before 7 October 2023, that Hamas was preparing to attack Israel. I noted that this is one reason Netanyahu has resisted establishing an independent commission to determine why Israel was caught with its pants down that day. If such a commission is ever established, it will surely find that Netanyahu bears great responsibility for the disaster his country suffered.

PROF. JOHN MEARSHEIMER: IS TRUMP OUT OF OPTIONS IN IRAN?

Watch the Video Here (25 minutes, 46 seconds)

Host: Judge Andrew Napolitano
Judging Freedom
30 September 2026

IRAN DEMANDS US ADMIT DEFEAT, 23 YEARS OVER IN IRAQ /COL DOUG MACGREGOR

Douglas Macgregor, PhD, is a retired Colonel, combat veteran, and former senior advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.

Watch the Video Here (51 minutes, 11 seconds)

Host: Lt. Col. Daniel Davis (Ret.)
Deep Dive
30 September 2026

LARRY JOHNSON: EUROPE-RUSSIA WAR IS NOW "INEVITABLE"

Larry Johnson is a former CIA intelligence analyst who also worked in the U.S. State Department's Office of Counterterrorism.

Watch the Video Here (41 minutes, 39 seconds)

Host: Prof. Glenn Diesen
Substack.com
30 September 2026

EUROPEANS TO THE NUCLEAR FRONT!

Europe marches towards the nuclear abyss.

Stanislav Krapivnik explains how Europe’s willingness to host nuclear weapons is bringing the prospect of Russian nuclear strikes on European soil dangerously close.

By Stanislav Krapivnik
Multipolar Press
30 September 2026

Lithuania is the latest, though certainly not the last, country whose parliament has voted to lift restrictions on stationing nuclear weapons. In other words, yet another European state with a death wish has chosen to remove the legal barriers to deploying nuclear warheads on its territory. The weapons are expected to be primarily American, though French nuclear weapons could also be used. Britain’s nuclear arsenal—which, strictly speaking, is not entirely British but relies heavily on American systems—is not under consideration, as it consists exclusively of submarines, many of which are currently undergoing maintenance because of funding shortages. Quite simply, the money isn’t there.

The discussion focuses on the American B61-12 guided nuclear gravity bomb. It can be carried by strategic bombers as well as tactical aircraft, including the F-16 and F-35.

However, one small detail has not been properly considered: modern F-16 and F-35 fighters can carry a 50-kiloton nuclear bomb. In the event of an armed conflict between the United States and Russia, the Russian side would be compelled to destroy all relevant storage facilities and air bases.

If these bunkers are dispersed throughout the European Union and heavily fortified, neutralizing them would require medium-yield nuclear weapons—around 50 to 100 kilotons, with the upper end roughly equivalent to five Hiroshima-type bombs.

Given the European Union’s population density, a series of such strikes would be catastrophic and could kill a substantial share of its population. What is striking, however, is how shortsighted the EU population as a whole appears to be, failing to grasp the scale of the consequences. Europeans are actively supporting conditions that could effectively turn their own territory into a “human shield” for American nuclear weapons.

What can one say?

As the American saying goes: “Stupidity should hurt.”

(Translated from the Russian)

PETER THIEL VS POPE LEO XIV: TWO VISIONS OF THE ANTICHRIST

Two men hold the field on what technology is for, and they cannot both be right.

By Richard Storey
Arktos Journal
29 September 2026

On 25 May, Pope Leo XIV published his first encyclical, *Magnifica humanitas*, marking the 135th anniversary of his namesake’s *Rerum novarum*. He argues technology is neither hostile nor inherently evil, but ‘never neutral’: it reflects those who devise, fund, regulate, and use it. The encyclical opens with a choice between a new Tower of Babel and St. Augustine’s city, where God and humanity dwell together.

Just this week, that tension escalated. At the Élysée on Friday, the Pope reiterated that we must avoid ‘losing our humanity amid a “paradise of machines”’; this came a day after Peter Thiel called the Pope a useful idiot for the Chinese Communist Party.

Thiel, PayPal and Palantir co-founder, early patron of J. D. Vance, René Girard student, and non-Catholic, has spent the past year telling wealthy audiences that AI guardrail advocates are unwitting infantry of the Antichrist—or, more precisely, of his particular vision of it.

This recalls Zoltan Istvan’s cringeworthy 2013 novel, *The Transhumanist Wager*, where a Randian entrepreneur defeats a villainous Reverend’s anti-tech Christian coalition. Thiel may seem to be larping as the protagonist, but the impasse is real. I’ll explain where he’s wrong—and what critics miss.

Thiel’s Growing Animus

The escalation is documented: four off-the-record Commonwealth Club lectures in San Francisco in autumn 2025; leaked audio published by the Washington Post that October, including seven hours reviewed by Reason; and a First Things essay co-written with Thiel Capital researcher Sam Wolfe, titled “Voyages to the End of the World”.

In leaked lectures, Thiel called Leo XIV ‘the woke American pope’, placed Greta Thunberg among the ‘legionnaires of the Antichrist’, told his friend, Vice President Vance, ‘I don’t like his popeism’, and warned of a ‘Caesaro-Papist fusion’ merging temporal and spiritual power.

He repeated the series in Rome in mid-March, by invitation only, changing venues and making no recordings. The Angelicum, where young Robert Prevost earned his canon law doctorate, denied hosting it; Fr Paolo Benanti called the teaching “a sustained act of heresy.”

Thiel’s July essay, “The Pope and the Antichrist”, is not about Leo. Its pope is Benedict XVI, whom Thiel admires. Thiel instead names Hans Küng, who died in 2021, as a candidate for the Antichrist, linking Küng’s pan-religious Weltethos to Solovyov’s Antichrist and his slogan ‘peace and safety’ (1 Thess. 5:3). Leo is never mentioned, suggesting Thiel is oddly a better reader of Ratzinger than most Catholics.

Once, the insult seemed meant for the room and the theology for the record. That changed on 30 June at the Aspen Ideas Festival, where Thiel called Leo an inadvertent ‘Chinese communist agent...working for the Chinese Communists’ during an unrecorded panel before reporters. The audience laughed. On 24 September in Berlin, accepting the Axel Springer Award, he sharpened the charge to Mathias Döpfner: Leo’s encyclical ‘was working for the Communist Party’ and ‘he was at least acting as a useful idiot for the CCP.’ Though he conceded ‘maybe it was too harsh’, he repeated it anyway.

Please continue reading ...

ESSAY | Revelation Is Not a Horror Story

A personal plea to read its thunder as worship, warning, and hope

By Abraham A. van Kempen
2 October 2026

If Revelation has ever made your stomach tighten, you’re not alone. Many first imagine it as a midnight storm: beasts, blaring trumpets, horizon fires, and mysterious numbers. We were taught to read it fearfully, as though fear were the point. But in Reversed Thunder, Eugene Peterson invites us into that storm-lit room as worshipers, not codebreakers—learning to pray, not control the future.

Revelation is not a secret map for anxious minds but a blazing vision meant to reshape the soul. Its blessing is for those who read, hear, and keep its words—not those who decode every symbol. It asks not, “Can you predict tomorrow?” but, “Can you remain faithful today?”

Peterson brings us back to the throne room. Before showing beasts, bowls, Babylon, or battle, John reveals heaven alive with color, sound, flame, song, and awe. At its center is not a vengeful tyrant or warrior, but a slain Lamb: self-giving love rules the universe, and victory comes through sacrifice, power through wounds.

This is where Peterson’s “praying imagination” shines: in Revelation, ordinary saints’ prayers rise before God like incense—not weak background music. Every whispered plea, hospital-room prayer, weary “Lord, have mercy,” and tear-stained silence is gathered, rises, and matters in heaven.

Peterson’s reading needs sharpening. Revelation comforts believers while exposing empire’s glittering lies. Babylon is not merely a mood or metaphor; it is luxury built on suffering, an economy that turns people into cargo, and any power demanding worship while consuming human lives.

That is why Revelation should not be reduced to spiritual therapy. The Lamb is gentle, not harmless. Its judgment recognizes real evil, cries of the oppressed, and God’s refusal to ignore suffering forever. Though severe to modern ears, judgment offers hope to the crushed, trafficked, silenced, and grieving: brutality will not have the last word.

Peterson rightly warns against turning Revelation into a timetable. Fixating on dates, charts, and headlines can make us miss the thunder before us. Revelation doesn’t help us escape the present; it helps us see it clearly. Peterson highlights the beast in Revelation 17:8, which “was and is not and is to come.” Chilling yet revealing, this suggests the antichrist haunts us through the past and threatens us through the future, but has no true present. He rummages through memory, whispers of tomorrow, and disguises himself with permanence, glamour, and fear. Yet now, he is only a fraud. The beast wants to seem eternal. Revelation says: don’t believe the costume.

Here, Alpha and Omega shines. God is not merely history’s beginning and end, like bookends, but holds the whole alphabet of meaning. Every true word, prayer, witness, and cry for justice lives within God’s speech. So does your life. From first to final breath, through birth, burial, joy, failure, repentance, and hope, the Lamb holds your story’s grammar.

That is deeply personal. Revelation isn’t just about the world’s end; it shows how to live when your own world shakes. It speaks at bedsides and gravesides, in pews and protest lines, and in midnight kitchens. The beast has no true “is,” no honest present tense—but God does. All God has been and will be presses into this moment. God is never distant, trapped in memory or deferred to the future. In God, past and future break into the present. Death cannot punctuate God’s sentence. The One who was, is, and is to come still speaks.

N. T. Wright completes the picture: Peterson shows how Revelation forms worshipers; Wright reminds us Christian hope means creation’s resurrection and renewal, not escape. Together, they present a fuller gospel: we pray before the throne, then live faithfully in the world God will renew.

So I’d say this: read Revelation with your eyes wide open and your knees bent. Don’t read it as a horror story or as a puzzle designed to make you feel proud. Read it as a song strong enough to steady trembling people, a warning against every Babylon that dazzles while destroying, and a promise that the Lamb’s wounds are stronger than the beast’s roar.

Peterson’s vision is necessary but insufficient. Revelation forms the praying imagination and calls for concrete resistance, public courage, and hope reaching beyond the soul into history, bodies, economies, nations, and the earth. We cannot calculate the future, but can trust it; we cannot escape the present, but can inhabit it faithfully.

Perhaps the word we need most is faithful—not frantic, fearful, or seduced by Babylon’s lights. Sing as the empire shouts, pray as smoke rises, witness as the beast performs, and hope while graves are fresh. When thunder rolls through Revelation, listen: beneath the roar is a song. Its final word belongs not to violence, luxury, death, or despair, but to the Lamb.

THE DECLINE OF THE UNITED NATIONS

The Emptying Hall

Jerry B. Marchant of IS IT PROPAGANDA?® asks whether the United Nations still reflects the world it claims to represent.

By Jerry B. Marchant
Multipolar Press
1 October 2026

The 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly, held from September 22 to 27, 2026, opened under the theme of restoring trust and managing transformation. Its most widely reported image was of a room emptying. On September 24, more than 100 delegates left their seats before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke, marking the second consecutive year he faced a mass walkout. The Palestinian Mission had urged member states to organize the walkout. Although it was a targeted political protest, not a general expression of boredom, its form still matters analytically. When members of a deliberative body leave the chamber to register dissent while the speaker continues addressing the cameras, the assembly has become an arena for signaling rather than decision-making.

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BUILDING THE BRIDGE! | A WAY TO GET TO KNOW THE OTHER AND ONE ANOTHER

Making a Difference – The Means, Methods, and Mechanisms for Many to Move Mountains

Photo Credit: Abraham A. van Kempen, our home away from home on the Dead Sea

By Abraham A. van Kempen
Senior Editor
Updated 19 January 2024

Those who commit to 'healing our broken humanity' build intercultural bridges to learn to know and understand one another and others. Readers who thumb through the Building the Bridge (BTB) pages are not mindless sheep following other mindless sheep. They THINK. They want to be at the forefront of making a difference. They're seeking the bigger picture to expand their horizons. They don't need BTB or anyone else to confirm their biases.

Making a Difference – The Means, Methods, and Mechanisms for Many to Move Mountains

Accurate knowledge fosters understanding, dispels prejudice, and sparks a desire to learn more about the subject. Words have an extraordinary power to bring people together, divide them, forge bonds of friendship, or provoke hostility. Modern technology offers unprecedented possibilities for good, fostering harmony and reconciliation. Yet, its misuse can cause untold harm, leading to misunderstandings, prejudices, and conflicts.

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The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of the Building the Bridge Foundation