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President Trump directs Pam Bondi to release Epstein testimony · The Daily Article

• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Good day, it's Friday, July the eighteenth, twenty twenty five and this is the daily article podcast from Denison Forum.
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome, I'm narrator Chris Elkins, voicing today's daily article written by our co-founder, Dr. Jim Denison.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Last night, President Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to ask a court for the release of all relevant grand jury testimony from the prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein.
• 0:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Bondi responded that she is, quote, ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mr. Trump has been under intense pressure after the DOJ Department of Justice released a two-page memo last week stating that Epstein left no client list of those involved in his abusive underage girls.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: The department also stated that no further evidence would be released and no additional charges would be brought against third parties.
• 0:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, only three percent of those surveyed are satisfied with the amount of Epstein information that has been released.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: In another survey, sixty-three percent disapprove of the Trump administration's handling of the issue.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: House Republicans agreed last night to lay the groundwork for a potential vote calling for the DOJ to release material from its investigation of Epstein.
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: In totalitarian countries, this wouldn't be an issue, but people want to know about their government doesn't affect their government.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: According to a recent report, seventy-two percent of the world's population of five-point-seven billion people live under authoritarian rule.
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: When I traveled in Russia and China, I was told to assume that the government was bugging my hotel room and listening to my conversations.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: In my mini trips to Cuba,
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had to be careful never to criticize the Communist Party, or the pastors and churches we serve there would face persecution after we left.
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: But America has found it on the belief that, quote, all men are created equal, and that our government should therefore be of the people by the people for the people.
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: As a result, we are free to criticize our leaders and seek transparency in their actions.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: People are responding to the central Texas floods with a massive outpouring of financial support and personal engagement.
• 2:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: This should not surprise us.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Americans are by far the most generous people in the world.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Our annual private philanthropy as a percentage of GDP is twice that of Canada, four times that of the UK, and fifty times that of China.
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: According to theologian Peter J. Leithart, PhD University of Cambridge, the great awakenings and other revival movements fundamentally shaped the shape of the church in America.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: This emphasis on the individual's relationship with God stood apart from the institutional Christendom with its clergy-driven, liturgical collectivism.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: In Leithart's view, quote, revivalism is the main source of the uniquely vibrant social activism of American Christianity.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Temperance, urban renewal, prison ministry, abolitionism, and education reform were all energized by awakenings.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks to revivalism, Americans donate a larger portion of their money to charities than any other people on the planet.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Without revivalist Christianity, America would have rolled over and succumb to secularism long ago.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Without the unchurchy American church, we'd be so much more like Europe, in quote.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Religion is still at the heart of American generosity today.
• 3:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Those who attend religious services twice a month or more
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: give over four times more to charitable causes than those who never attend religious services.
• 3:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Among Americans who have volunteered within the last year, three quarters belong to a religious organization.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: The U.S.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: states that are the most religiously active are the most generous.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some of our wealthiest, but less religiously active states are the least generous.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, we have a choice to make.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: The revivalism that has produced sacrificial generosity has also shaped the larger American culture.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: For example, the first great awakening of the seventeenth thirties in seventeenth thirties made a huge impact on colonial society, encouraging the notions of individual rights that became embedded in our declaration of independence and US constitution.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: But absent-spiritual renewal, our individual rights become in rather than means.
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: We engage in political activism to advance political agendas, but confine our service to secular outcomes.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: We climb the ladder of individualistic faith only to kick it out from beneath us.
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: The reason is simple.
• 4:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Our innate desire to help those in need is a reflection of our creation in the image of God who is love revealed by Genesis one verse twenty seven and first John four verse eight.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, our created character is deeply at odds with our fallen nature and our quest to be our own God at the expense of others noted by Romans three verse twenty three and Genesis three verse five.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: The good news is that Jesus cannot only forgive our sins, but remake our sinful hearts, according to second Corinthians five verse seventeen, so that we are partakers of the divine nature as revealed by second Peter one verse four.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: His Spirit will produce the selfless character of Christ in every Christian who truly wants to be like their Lord.
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then, the more we become like Christ, the more altruistic and sacrificially we serve others as He serves us.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: The more secularized our culture becomes, the more urgent and unique our service.
• 5:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the more we attract others to the source of our differences.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: When I was a teenager, I joined the Christian Student Union at my very secular high school.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: We met before class in the balcony of the auditorium.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: where we would pray and sing worship choruses, one especially inspired me.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: They will know we are Christians by our love.
• 6:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Over the decades and across the six continents I have traveled, I have yet to witness a more powerful way to change the culture.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Have you?