The Legacy of Banking and Usury on World HistoryShow # 213 
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14 JUNE 2010
AUTHOR JACK CASHILL EXPLAINS THE INTRIGUING HISTORY OF THE SPIRITUAL AND MORAL DEBATE OVER OUR EVOLVING WORLDWIDE FINANCIAL SYSTEM, ON THE 14 - 18 JUNE 2010 “FUTURE QUAKE” RADIO PROGRAMS
Nashville, TN – Jack Cashill (
www.cashill.com), author of the newly-released book “Popes and Bankers – A Cultural History Of Credit and Debt, From Aristotle to AIG”, reveals the little-known issues pertaining to financial matters that have been a source of contention for millennia for people of the Judeo-Christian faith, and continue to impact society today, with host “Doctor Future” and co-host Tom Bionic, airing daily during the week of 14 June on the “Future Quake” program, broadcast on the Christian talk radio station WENO, 760 AM in Nashville, TN (and archived at
http://www.futurequake.com). Jack Cashill is a popular and prominent author, his writing having appeared in “Fortune”, “The Wall Street Journal” and “The Weekly Standard” magazines, and in regular columns for “The American Thinker” and “WorldNetDaily”. He has a doctorate in American Studies, and his recent books include “Hoodwinked”, “Sucker Punch”, and “What’s The Matter With California?”. In this discussion, he begins with defining two key ancient financial terms which are almost universally misunderstood by the public – “usury”, which is the simple charging of interest on loans, and “prodigal”, which means excessive and unsupportable luxuriant spending (as opposed to meaning some type of “rebellion”, as is presumed by many when hearing the parable of the “Prodigal Son”). He explains how usury was forbidden by God in His Law given to the Hebrews, however an interpretation of such Old Testament guidelines provided a justification to charge interest to “strangers” (typically interpreted to be Gentiles). Members of the early Church, however, commonly interpreted all usury as against the principles of the teachings of Christ to “lend, seeking nothing in return”, although wrestling with the fact that Jesus cited usury as an option for the Master in one of His famous parables. This tension continued throughout the centuries and the dominant period of the Catholic Church, in addition to the frustration of desperate Christians needing to secure loans from the Jewish community, subject to terms of usury, and building resentment and animosity that manifested in incidents and attitudes of anti-Semitism. He also explains one of his novel insights from his book in the identification of “usurers” as residing in one of the lowest and most damnable positions in the Seventh Ring of Hell in “Dante’s Inferno”, as one whose activities were “against nature”, as were others such as sodomites in that domain. He furthermore points out how Aristotle, arguably the most influential human being on the thinking of humanity after Christ, proposed how wealth generation through usury was not the intended means by Divinity, as opposed to the cultivation of Earth, or the work of one’s hands, which influenced Judeo-Christian thinking thereafter. The history of this struggle to align financial activity with morality and ethics as outlined in his book is also discussed in brief, including the rise of new structures in finance via the Knights Templar and subsequent banking families, up to today’s complex international financial systems, and the implications of the timeless moral issues on the financial decisions of each individual today.
“Future Quake”, hosted by “Doctor Future”, is a daily Christian interview and news review radio program, focusing on issues and events that will soon impact our collective futures. It features interviews with international experts on the topics covered (such as recent guests Alvin Toffler, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Alex Jones, Joseph Farah, Chuck Baldwin and Dr. Jerome Corsi), with constructive, intellectual discussions intended to better inform the public and provide useful information to prepare for the days ahead. It airs each weekday at 4 PM on WENO, 760 AM in Nashville, TN, the most popular Christian talk station in Middle Tennessee, and extending into much of the Mid-South. For those that miss the live broadcast, prior shows are archived in .mp3 format for listening on demand at
http://www.futurequake.com, or available as a podcast (under “future quake”) at I-Tunes (
www.itunes.com).
CONTACT: “Dr. Future”, Host, “Future Quake” Radio Show (
drfuture@futurequake.com)
Author