The World and Everything in It: April 22, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. Hi, I'm Alyssa Smith, and I live in Valdosta, Georgia with my wonderful husband and my sweet son. I teach AP U.S. government and politics at one of the local high schools. And every morning when I listen to the episode, I always hear something I can use in my lesson for that day. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! Did the government go too far charging January 6 rioters with a law intended for financial fraud?

JUSTICE THOMAS: There’ve been many violent protests that have interfered with proceedings. Has the government applied this provision to other protests?

NICK EICHER, HOST: Legal Docket coming up.

Also today the Monday Moneybeat. Later: the WORLD History Book. Today, persecution of some of the earliest evangelicals.

DE BOER: So these eyewitness accounts really gives some gruesome details about the massacres. So one of the authors actually says like, the pen falls from my hand describing these horrible things.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, April 22nd. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Senate debate on foreign aid » The U.S. Senate this week is expected to approve $95 billion dollars in foreign aid funding which passed in the House over the weekend. That would include some $60 billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine, and Democratic Sen. Mark Warner says the need is dire.

WARNER: They have been literally given out rationed bullets, 8 to 10 bullets a day. On artillery shells, Russians 10 to 1. You can’t underestimate the Ukrainians’ grit, determination, but if they don’t have the materials, they can’t carry this fight.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham says the aid to Ukraine is not charity. He noted that a major U.S. adversary is being weakened every day without a drop of American blood being spilled.

GRAHAM: The Ukrainian military, with our help, has killed about 50 percent of the combat power of the Russians.

Not every Senate Republican is on board, certainly, but the chamber is expected to have more than enough votes to pass the bill potentially as soon as tomorrow.

House foreign aid » Passing foreign aid funding in the House was a much tougher task for Speaker Mike Johnson who split up the package into separate bills, allowing members to vote separately on funding for Israel and Taiwan as well as Ukraine.

SOUND: On this vote, the yeas are 311 and the nays are 112. The bill is passed.

A comfortable margin on the House floor, but Republicans were split almost right down the middle. 122 GOP members voted “no” on the Ukraine bill.

Motion to vacate » And Speaker Johnson put his job on the line by bringing those bills to the floor. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has for many weeks threatened to move to oust him. She said of the aid votes that Washington—her words just betrayed the American people.

GREENE: Mike Johnson’s speakership is over. He needs to do the right thing to resign and allow us to move forward in a controlled process. If he doesn’t do so, he will be vacated.

For his part, Johnson says he can’t operate out of fear of a motion to vacate.

JOHNSON: I have to do my job. We did. I’ve done here what I believe to be the right thing, and that is to allow the House to work its will. And as I’ve said, you do the right thing and let the chips fall where they may.

Greene began openly talking about vacating the speaker after the House passed a funding bill to avert an election-year government shutdown.

Foreign aid reax–In Ukraine » Meantime, in Ukraine …

Soldier: [Speaking Ukrainian]

An artillery soldier seated in a foxhole in Ukraine says he believes with the House vote that ammunition and shells will arrive quickly at the front line. Then, he said, “We can do our job. We’ll defend ourselves from their attacks, and counter-attack.”

ZELENSKYY: [Speaking Ukrainian]

President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked leaders in Washington.

ZELENSKYY: [Speaking Ukrainian]

He added that the military also needs frontline air defenses and long-range strike capabilities to beat back Russian forces.

The Kremlin called the House approval of aid to Ukraine “expected and predictable" and warned it would result in—“further ruin.”

Israel » The legislation would also send $16 billion dollars in aid to Israel amid the war in Gaza.

Democratic Congressman Jared Moskowitz says Israel has been left with no option but to destroy Hamas.

MOSKOWITZ: This war that’s going on in Gaza right now is about the survival of the state of Israel. Right? When you have Iran launching ballistic missiles, 130 of them, towards the state of Israel. Remember, ballistic missiles could carry a nuclear payload if Iran every got nuclear weapons.

Iran has long funded and armed Hamas and other groups dedicated to Israel’s destruction.

NETANYAHU: [Speaking Hebrew]

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Israeli forces will ramp up military pressure against Hamas in the coming days in a bid to force it to release remaining Israeli hostages.

In recent months, the terror group has rejected every cease-fire proposal brought to them by mediators like the governments of Egypt and Jordan.

TikTok measure in bill » There was another measure in the legislation passed over the weekend not as widely talked about. GOP Sen. Ted Cruz:

CRUZ: Very important in this bill is the TikTok prohibition. That is major, major legislation.

The measure would bar any company from owning or operating an app or social media platform if they’re under the thumb of foreign adversaries like China.

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is Chinese. U.S. intelligence officials have serious security concerns about the app.

The bill could force ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a nationwide ban.

Gas prices » Gas prices are up again almost a nickel per gallon from this time last week. AAA puts the new national average at $3.67.

Industry analyst Trilby Lundberg says that continues a monthslong trend.

LUNDBERG: It’s been rising for 15 weeks now. It’s up 59 cents since early January.

Seasonal costs and global conflict are large factors in that.

Drivers in Mississippi are enjoying the cheapest gas right now with a per-gallon average of $3.10.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: A January 6th Capitol protestor at the Supreme Court on this week’s Legal Docket. Plus, the Monday Moneybeat.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for this 22nd day of April, 2024. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. It’s time for Legal Docket.

AUDIO: [“We want Trump” chant]

This was the scene on January 6th 2021. Crowds of people on the grounds of the capitol in Washington in the run up to the shocking breach of the building itself.

EICHER: The big case at the U.S. Supreme Court last week stems from the events of that day.

Hundreds of people have been charged with multiple crimes. Some are already convicted, serving time, or released after having served time. Others still wait, three years later.

REICHARD: One of the most common charges involves a law passed in 2002. It came in response to a financial scandal around an energy company called Enron. The company and auditor Arthur Anderson, among others, fabricated records and shredded documents to conceal wrongdoing.

Congress responded to the scandal by passing legislation aimed at preventing another Enron. The bill was named after the two lead sponsors Senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael Oxley, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. It closed loopholes in criminal laws related to financial records.

But what does Sarbanes-Oxley have to do with January 6th?

EICHER: That’s what a man by the name of Joseph W. Fischer wants to know. He was charged with violating Sarbanes-Oxley for his actions on January 6th. It’s a big deal because a conviction carries up to 20 years in prison.

Police video shows Fischer making his way through the crowd to about 20 feet inside the building. Factual accounts differ on what happened next: the government claims he assaulted an officer; he claims he was pushed by the crowd into the officer.

Regardless, Fischer was forcibly removed after about four minutes.

A grand jury would indict him on several counts, and the government added in that charge under Sarbanes-Oxley.

REICHARD: And now Fischer asks the high court to remove that particular Sarbanes-Oxley charge.

But the federal government wants to keep using the law in this way. Here’s how the lawyer against Fischer put it. U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar:

ELIZABETH PRELOGAR: Many crimes occurred that day, but in plain English, the fundamental wrong committed by many of the rioters, including Petitioner, was a deliberate attempt to stop the joint session of Congress from certifying the results of the election. That is, they obstructed Congress's work in that official proceeding.

She connects that obstruction to Sarbanes-Oxley. The law makes it a crime to interfere with an official proceeding, which was at the heart of the Enron white collar crime. I’ll quote from the language of the statute: It’s a federal crime to “corruptly alter or attempt to alter a document with the intent to impair its availability for use in an official proceeding; or otherwise obstruct.”

The government says that last bit, “otherwise obstruct,” sweeps in the actions of the January 6 defendants.

EICHER: But what does that phrase mean, “otherwise obstruct?” Especially in the context of why Congress passed Sarbanes-Oxley in the first place. Fischer’s lawyer pointed out that the early 2000’s was the dawn of the Information Age. So Congress added that phrase to cover other kinds of tampering of documents. You’ll hear lawyer Jeffrey Green mention (C)(2) — he’s referring to the section of the law in question.

JEFFREY GREEN: Until the January 6th prosecutions, the "otherwise" provision had never been used to prosecute anything other than evidence tampering, and that was for good reason. This Court has said that "otherwise," when used in a criminal statute, means to do similar conduct in a different way. The government would have you ignore all that or disregard all that and instead convert (c)(2) from a catchall provision into a dragnet.

Dragging in all sorts of conduct not anticipated by Congress, such as what his client allegedly did on January 6th.

Justice Clarence Thomas tried to confirm that fact in an exchange with the solicitor general:

JUSTICE THOMAS: General, there have been many violent protests that have interfered with proceedings. Has the government applied this provision to other protests in the past, and has this been the government's position throughout the lifespan of this statute?

Justice Thomas perhaps hinting at selective prosecution here. Prelogar hedged a bit, saying the government has used Sarbanes-Oxley in myriad other cases, but:

PRELOGAR: Now I can't give you an example of enforcing it in a situation where people have violently stormed a building in order to prevent an official proceeding, a specified one, from occurring…

REICHARD: January 6th is unique, she argued, so there’s nothing with which to compare it. Still, jurisprudence requires limiting principles. Several justices spun hypotheticals to test what would qualify as “otherwise obstructing” under this particular law.

First, Justice Samuel Alito:

JUSTICE ALITO: So we've had a number of protests in the courtroom. Let's say that today, while you're arguing or Mr. Green is arguing, five people get up, one after the other, and they shout either "Keep the January 6th insurrectionists in jail" or "Free the January 6th patriots." And as a result of this, our police officers have to remove them forcibly from the courtroom and let's say we have to -- it delays the proceeding for five minutes. And I know that experienced advocates like you and Mr. Green are not going to be flustered by that, but, you know, in another case, an advocate might lose his or her train of thought and not provide the best argument. So would that be a violation of 1512(c)(2)?

PRELOGAR: I think it would be difficult for the government to prove that.

ALITO: Why?

PRELOGAR: At the outset, we don't think that 1512(c)(2) picks up minimal, de minimis, minor interferences. We think that the term "obstruct" on its face connotes a meaningful interference with a proceeding that actually blocks --

ALITO: Well, it doesn't say -- I'm sorry. (c)(2) does not refer just to “obstruct.” It says "obstructs, influences, or impedes." Impedes is something less than obstructs.

EICHER: Justice Neil Gorsuch posed several scenarios, including one that actually happened. In September, Democrat Congressman Jamaal Bowman pulled a fire alarm in a House office building that ended up delaying a vote. Bowman denied doing it at first, but security cameras caught him in the act. Republicans knew the Justice Department would never charge him for “disrupting an official proceeding,” but still, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, they said.

Bowman would end up copping to a much lesser charge and paying a small fine. His probation is already over.

JUSTICE GORSUCH: Would a sit-in that disrupts a trial or access to a federal courthouse qualify? Would a heckler in today's audience qualify, or at the state of the union address? Would pulling a fire alarm before a vote qualify for 20 years in federal prison?

PRELOGAR: There are multiple elements of the statute that I think might not be satisfied by those hypotheticals…

REICHARD: Justice Elena Kagan seemed receptive to the government’s take. She noted that it’s plausible to read the statute in different ways. When Green argued the law is overbroad and vague, she countered with this:

JUSTICE KAGAN: There's a good case that this provision -- everybody knew it was going to be superfluous because it was a provision that was meant to function as a backstop. It was a later-enacted provision. Congress had all these statutes all over the place. It had just gone through Enron. What Enron convinced them of was that… there were gaps in these statutes. And they tried to fill the gaps. They tried to fill the particular gap that they found out about in Enron. And then they said, you know, this is a lesson to us. There are probably other gaps in this statute. But they didn't know exactly what those gaps were. So they said, let's have a backstop provision. And this is their backstop provision.

EICHER: Justice Brett Kavanaugh wondered why the government can’t be satisfied with other counts against Fischer and the hundreds of others? Why fight to apply this particular law?

Prelogar homed in on the unique nature of January 6th:

PRELOGAR: Because those counts don't fully reflect the culpability of Petitioner's conduct on January 6th. …But one of the distinct strands of harm, one of the -- the -- the root problems with Petitioner's conduct is that he knew about that proceeding, he had said in advance of January 6th that he was prepared to storm the Capitol, prepared to use violence, he wanted to intimidate Congress. He said they can't vote if they can't breathe. And then he went to the Capitol on January 6th with that intent in mind and took action, including assaulting a law enforcement officer. That did impede the ability of the officers to regain control of the Capitol and let Congress finish its work in that session.

REICHARD: But in a decision handed down earlier this month, the court reiterated that when a general catchall phrase is stuck onto the end of a statute, it refers only to the terms earlier in the sentence. The Chief Justice pointed that out. So to be consistent, the justices would need to limit the phrase “otherwise disrupts” to activities related to document or evidence destruction as what happened with Enron.

Green for Fischer ended this way:

GREEN: So the government is suggesting that the Court should unleash a 20-year … maximum obstruction statute on civil litigation in federal courts. I submit that that is…a very serious tool to put in the hands of prosecutors.

EICHER: A decision for Fischer could mean charges against other January 6th defendants will be dropped, including some charges under Sarbanes-Oxley against former President Donald Trump. The court will consider his immunity claim on Thursday, the very last argument of the term.

Analysis of that case one week from today.

REICHARD: OK, before we go, I’ll briefly touch on another case that was argued in February, Ohio v Environmental Protection Agency.

This concerns the EPA’s so-called “Good Neighbor Plan.” EPA was aiming to reduce air pollution affecting downwind states. Upwind states including Ohio, West Virginia, and Indiana sued, citing economic damage and disruption of the electric grid.

EICHER: But the agency says reducing ozone smog drifting across state lines is a public health matter that overrides all that.

So the legal question is whether the Supreme Court should put a hold on the regulations while lower courts sort whether EPA even has the authority to regulate across state lines in the first place.

REICHARD: I think lawyer for the states against EPA’s plan likely has the winning argument. Listen to lawyer Mathura Sridharan: 

MATHURA SRIDHARAN: The EPA's choice of method, that is, selecting a single cost threshold and applying it uniformly across all 23 states to establish emissions limits, has consequences; namely, the math doesn't work when the inputs don't match the outputs.

In other words: garbage in-put, garbage out-put.

Deference to agency regulations is under serious scrutiny this term. I think the EPA will have to cool its heels and the high court will grant the temporary hold on the regulations.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket!

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: the Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: All right, it's time now to talk business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and advisor David Bahnsen. David is head of the wealth management firm, the Bahnsen Group, and he is here now. David, good morning.

DAVID BAHNSEN: Well, good morning, Nick. Good to be with you.

EICHER: Hey, well first, welcome to World Opinions, David! I'm glad to hear that, that you'll be writing for us each week.

BAHNSEN: Yes, it was a lot of fun to be joining that fray. The article that just came out, I'm kind of addressing the subject of inflation in really a way we've talked about it here on the podcast many times. The different nuances that go into things, what had the kind of history of inflation has been over the last several decades and what put upward pressure on it in times past, and then what put downward pressure on it. And then the unique circumstances out of COVID in the last couple of years, and really where we stand now, what governments and central banks can do to make things worse. So that was the theme of that article, kind of a high level, and I think very nonpartisan attempt to understand the subject better. 

But on a go-forward basis, something that will address the economy and finance at large in a way that is thoughtful. I would like to introduce some of those economic concepts that are first principles and apply them to the different issues that come up week by week. I think a lot of us—and you know I speak to myself here as well—we have a tendency to see an issue that comes up in the news and immediately interpreted according to, you know, certain instinct. And I like those instincts when it comes to economics to be rooted in first principles, connected to a biblical worldview. And that's going to be the general theme of that weekly writing.

EICHER: Yeah, that's great. I'll put up a link to all of your WORLD stuff in today's program transcript. But moving right along here, David, we have not talked about the stock market in a good little while. It appears we're now in a period of volatility. What are your thoughts on that?

BAHNSEN: Well, it's interesting, where we sit now getting to the later portion of the month of April, is that the markets did very well through the first quarter, and then really just started off in the month of April, to the downside. And in the first couple of weeks, the market had dropped 3-4%, depending on the index. And now we kind of, you know, come into this new week here on this Monday, and we'll see where things go.

But, you know, more than just I think the very recent volatility, the bigger point I'd make is that the S&P 500 is trading at a valuation about 22 times forward earnings. And the market has historically traded at about 16 times earnings. And at this point, when it's this expensive, the stock market is vulnerable to sell offs when earnings disappoint, or when there's geopolitical aggravation, or when there is unexpected things from the Fed and so forth. I don't mind the noise, you know, I don't mind volatility. But I do think people have to be careful when you're talking about something that is expensive. One of the biggest factors in a long term return for an index will be the entry point. And when you enter at an overly expensive point, it can really take away from the long term expected return.

And so I am very, very bullish on individual companies and bullish on individual opportunities. But I think people have to realize the S&P 500 right now has become about 10 companies more or less, because of the way it's weighted. Ten companies represent about 30% of the index, and 490 companies represent the rest. And there is such an extremely expensive valuation on a big portion of that top heavy stuff that it's it's, I think, going to have an impact on markets. And a lot of what we call a range bound market, where you may be up a certain amount one year down a certain amount the next but over 5-6-7 years, doesn't move a ton. And that is historically what has happened every single time for 100 years that we have left a secular long-term bull market. When we've had a you know 10 to 15 year period of rising stocks, you generally get a multi-year period of flat, choppy, range bound market. That's the period I believe we're in now. One of the reasons that I'm so focused on dividend growth, companies individually growing the dividends. Those dividends become a vital part of return in a market like this.

EICHER: All right, gross domestic product for the first quarter GDP. It's due out this week. Any thought on how that will end up looking?

BAHNSEN: Well, all the revisions to GDP in the United States as of late have been upward revisions. Forward, you know, I think most people are aware that there's a lot of indicators that are sort of frozen. You know, manufacturing has had a couple good reports lately, but that was after 14 or so months in a row of negative activity manufacturing. So that would be interesting to see if that can get a little more consistent and at least be in some positive expansion.

We talk on this podcast all the time about the jobs data, and I think that we're all well aware that what the different tension points are in the jobs data. A good amount of people are employed who want a job, but a still high amount of people are not looking for work. And that's a long term trend that is pretty embedded in the culture right now. And I think productivity is the big issue. You know, there are certain policies that have passed that I don't agree with, but nevertheless, could have a chance of impacting productivity.

But then even apart from anything in the public policy sphere, you know, we've had downward pressure on productivity for a long time, and there's been signs of life there. And so I'm hopeful that at least in the short-to-intermediate term, there could be a pickup, but it's all work in progress, and this GDP coming this coming Friday is going to be very interesting, because, you know, if you think about it, Nick, there are indicators that people know to look for, like the employment report, the CPI, where the inflation side is. But then you're supposed to kind of get a summary of it all. Like, okay, get validation for how things are going in the GDP. And what's interesting is the GDP, that kind of sum, the net sum of the output, has been pretty good for the last couple quarters. And yet, I haven't really seen a lot of people that are feeling it's going better. They have forward-looking indicators that try to estimate. The Atlanta Fed tracker is the most well known. And it's notoriously off. I mean, it can be up or down quite a bit. So I wouldn't view it as a super reliable indicator, but it's been more accurate lately. They're estimating 2.9% real GDP growth, annualized coming in this next quarter. So we'll see how that holds up.

EICHER: Okay. And “Defining Terms” for this week, David, I'd like to go back to your discussion on stocks. And what you said today, I have heard you say a form of on Fox Business and CNBC, that a lot of stocks are just overvalued. They're too expensive. Could you talk a little bit about how you even come to those conclusions? I mean, how do you figure stock valuations? We hear the term thrown around quite a bit.

BAHNSEN: Valuation is an extremely important component of how we think about stocks. And the way I would summarize it is like this: if a company is trading at 20 times earnings, what that means is that if the company gave you all the earnings, all the profits for 20 years, that's when you'd get your money back. Now, of course, they're not going to give you all the profits. But also, hopefully, the profit level is growing year by year. So it doesn't mean it would take 20 years, but at the current level of profits, it would take 20 years to get your money back, if you were getting all the profits. So nobody really thinks that's a good investment to wait 20 years to get their money back. So they're hoping profits will grow a lot. But then again, the other component is what level of the profits you're getting back.

When I talk about something being expensive or cheap, all you can do is look at what historical averages have been. There's a concept called reversion to the mean, that you're going to get back to—one way or the other—sort of historical level at which something has traded. And we use price to earnings as a very common valuation metric, because stocks ultimately that's all they are, is a discounted value brought into the present of future expected earnings. That's why people buy stocks. They paid today to get a right to future earnings. But of course, there's other components that go into earnings, Nick. There's the revenues that a company generates. So we can look at price to sales. There's the assets that a company has. You know, there's companies we own, that one of the most attractive things about it are the assets that they have the real estate, the intellectual property, the inventory, the brand name, and so you can look at what's called a price to assets ratio or a price to book value, what the kind of value of the company is relative the price. That famously is a metric that Benjamin Graham, the great value investor who taught Warren Buffett, used. So you have to look at all these metrics. And yes, they all come down to valuation, trying to look at whether or not a stock is cheap or fairly valued or expensive. And yet, even from there, I just want to make sure everyone understands, expensive stocks can get more expensive. They can stay more expensive. Theap stocks can get cheaper and stay cheap. So it doesn't tell you anything about the next price movement. It is not a timing indicator. But like I said, valuation matters a lot for long term results.

EICHER: Okay, David Bahnsen, founder, managing partner and chief investment officer of the Bahnsen Group. You can check out David's latest book, it's titled Full Time: Work and the Meaning of Life at fulltimebook.com. Have a great week, David.

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday April 22nd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, the WORLD History Book. Three- hundred sixty- nine years ago this week, more than 1,500 Christians died at the hands of mercenaries in the Italian Alps. Here’s WORLD Associate Correspondent Caleb Welde.

CALEB WELDE: In late April, 1655, spring is blooming in the coastal towns of Italy. But in the Piedmont valleys, near Italy’s border with France, there is still snow on the ground.

On Saturday, April 24th, local soldiers, joined by thousands of French and Irish reinforcements wake up before dawn, get dressed and prepare to start killing their hosts– an isolated group of Christians that the Catholic Church has declared are heretics.

They’re known as the Waldensians—meaning “people of the valleys.”

Tradition says these villagers received the Gospel during the first century—perhaps by two of the 70 missionaries sent out by Jesus—or, by the Apostle Paul himself if he carried out his plans to visit Spain mentioned in Romans 15, verse 28 and visited the valleys on his way.

Waldensian manuscripts from the 12th century—in the heart of the dark ages—affirm they believed in salvation by faith alone, through grace alone, in Christ alone 400 years before Calvin and Luther.

Dr. David De Boer teaches political history in the Netherlands or Amsterdam.

DAVID DE BOER: So already, in the late Middle Ages, they find it very important that people read the Bible themselves, that they translate the Bible into the vernacular so that, you know, normal people can actually read what's in there.

Young Waldensians would attend “colleges” where they memorized and copied entire books of the Bible. Then, they would be sent out…with both the Gospel, and a useful trade to serve as cover for their real mission. They hid their precious manuscripts in coat linings and sometimes … in loaves of bread. The missionaries could be miles away before the illegal texts were discovered. Persecution intensified in the 14th and 15th centuries.

GAVIN ORTLUND: This particular group was savagely persecuted.

Gavin Ortlund is author of “What It Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church.” Audio from his YouTube channel, “Truth Unites.”

ORTLUND: This was a part of the official catholic theology at the time. Again, don’t get mad at me, Okay? I’m not making this up. There was a theology of the extermination of heretics.

In 1487, Pope Innocent the 8th promised indulgences, or spiritual merit, to anyone willing to join a crusade against the Waldensians. 18,000 crusaders attacked the valleys the next year killing thousands including 400 children who eventually succumbed to the smoke filling their cave hideout.

Things get worse one hundred fifty years later when a new Catholic duke comes to power in northern Italy—the Duke of Savoy.

In January, 1655, he issues a new decree “under pain of death and confiscation of houses and goods” the Waldensians must convert to Catholicism, or leave the valleys.

They have three days to decide. The vast majority flee in the dead of winter to settlements higher up the mountains.

That brings us to the Spring morning of April 15th. An army begins amassing near the Waldensian villages. Its number grows to 15,000 by the 19th.

On April 21st, the military commander in charge asks for a meeting with the Waldensian leaders. He asks them to house soldiers … as a show of good faith—saying they will only punish those who actively resist. The Waldensians are greatly outnumbered and acquiesce on April 23rd—quartering some of the troops in their homes that night.

And so, in the early morning of April 24th, the soldiers wake up early and set to work.

DE BOER: Eyewitness accounts really give some gruesome details about the massacres. Right? So one of the authors actually says like, the pen falls from my hand describing these horrible things. And they really described like these outrageous games with body parts and cannibalism and sexual violence.

Those who escape climb Mount Castelluzzo while their homes burn below them. The soldiers pursue and throw them from cliffs, and worse.

DE BOER: And it really shows that this was really a massacre. Right? That a whole community was basically destroyed by an army.

As many as 2,000 Waldensians are tortured and killed that day, though some estimates suggest as many as 6,000. When news of the massacre reaches England, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, declares a national day of prayer.

DE BOER: He at some point threatened to send the English fleet to Nice, which is a city close by, and sort of forced Duke of Savoy to stop any persecution, or stop any violence against the Waldensians, or otherwise England would attack.

News travels to other protestant centers like Geneva, Paris, and Amsterdam. At least 30 pamphlets and periodicals circulate throughout Europe with the story.

John Milton writes:

ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN THE PIEDMONT:
Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter’d saints, whose bones
Lie scatter’d on the Alpine mountains cold,
Ev’n them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipp’d stocks and stones;
Forget not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piemontese that roll’d
Mother with infant down the rocks.

DE BOER: And there was actually so much compassion with all the Waldensians in these Protestant countries that they raised enormous amounts of money. And some observers back in the day were actually starting to worry again, that England and the Dutch Republic might declare war on the Duke of Savoy.

Under mounting international pressure, the Duke eventually backs down. But then, in 1686, another Duke orders another Protestant purge in Southern Europe. Survivors flee through the mountains to Switzerland. 200 die along the way. Most of these refugees eventually return to the valleys, but some stay in Switzerland.

DE BOER: Even though it was a small community, this made the Waldensians very important throughout Europe - sort of the first Protestants.

Others move to Germany, France, the Balkans, and eventually, across the Atlantic. They settle in North Carolina, Missouri, and Texas where congregations continue worshiping today.

DE BOER: It’s interesting, a couple of years ago, Pope Francis for the first time visited the Walendian community, and he apologized for what had happened in the 17th century.

Some consider the Waldensians the first evangelicals because of their fidelity to God and the purity of His Word beginning in the dark ages and continuing to encourage the church, two thousand years on

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Caleb Welde.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: more from the Supreme Court, including resolution of a major case involving property rights under the 5th Amendment. We’ll talk with the winner. And, a Christian radio ministry broadcasting hope, as Haiti contends with chaos. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: “For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.” —Romans 2:13

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