This week.

This week, the quagmire in Iran turned into a Catholic quagmire in the United States as the Pope received attack after attack from not only Donald Trump, but remarks from the Catholic Vice President J.D. Vance and the Protestant Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson.

This was one of those weeks where it was hard to keep up with the various religious and theological conflicts happening here in the United States.

Luckily, we are two religion scholars, trained in theology, ready to break it down for you and anyone who will listen.

Lots to cover. Let's go.

Let's go.

Welcome to Straight White American Jesus. I'm Brad Onishi, author of American Caesar, how theocrats and tech lords are turning the United States into a monarchy, founder of Axis Moody Media, here today with my co-host.

I'm Dan Miller, Professor of Religion and Social Thought, Lamar College. Glad to be with you, Brad.

Getting over like my third cold of the season.

So just in case anybody hears me coughing or wheezing or anything, that's what that'll be.

So good times.

You ever had a dean or a smart business school person or a arrogant scientist say, oh, who needs religion majors?

That's the stupidest department on campus.

Why do we have the humanities? And I don't know. Just weeks like this. I just, I don't even need to say anything. We just hold up the week and be like, hey, here you go. We kind of need people who know about this stuff. And that's what we do. We've been studying this stuff for two decades. We lived it. This is who we are.

And, all right.

Even more importantly, Brad, if we get to it, if we get far enough to delve into the world of Pete Heggseth this week, some of us are old enough to remember Pulp Fiction. So I think that that just feels relevant this week as well. So, you know, this is like a, if you are a humanities person who is a like elder millennial, this week was just for you. This was your week. You know what I'm saying? Because

the pulp fiction, just war, it just, who, it's hard to keep up. Okay. So everybody is aware

that Donald Trump attacked the Pope and has started a quagmire of his own doing here at home.

And I'll say quickly, Dan, I think he did that because he got his ass handed to him in Iran.

He did not. He started a war he couldn't finish. He tried to bully Iran. Iran didn't back down.

They had one Trump card, pun intended, in their back pocket, which was the Strait of Hormuz.

The war just sort of turned into something real.

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