Friday, December 31, 2021
Thursday, December 30, 2021
What role should religion play when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines?
Image: REUTERS
09 Dec 2021
Requests for religious exemptions are rising as COVID-19 vaccine mandates spread.
These are being made even as religious leaders support vaccination efforts.
A new World Economic Forum-Ipsos survey shows most workers back vaccine mandates, and few say they would seek a way around them.
An actor on an American soap opera recently sought to sidestep a COVID-19 vaccination mandate by doing something fairly common: requesting a religious exemption. Less common was the way his employment was killed off in a dramatic tunnel collapse after the request was denied.
Applications for religious exemptions are on the rise, amid new mandates designed to check the Omicron variant and contain the pandemic. New York City has unveiled plans for a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all private employers, Greece has a mandate lined up for people over 60, and South Africa is considering its own versions.
Employers and schools may struggle to discern the requests for religious exemptions from mandates like these that are genuinely sincere – and puzzle over how to respect an applicant’s beliefs while also preventing the harm they may inflict on others. Some places simply decided this isn’t possible, and stopped making faith-based dispensations.
Research overwhelmingly indicates that getting vaccinated is the best way to stem the spread of the coronavirus. Most religious leaders are framing their messaging accordingly.
“It’s actually a mitzvah,” one rabbi told a reporter, referring to deeds performed to fulfil divine commandments.
Yet, applications for religious exemptions continue to roll in. The US Air Force, for example, has received nearly 5,000 from active-duty airmen.
In search of a religious reason to avoid COVID-19 vaccine
The UN adopted an international right to freedom of religion more than a half-century ago. It also said that right can be limited when it’s necessary to protect public health.
One reason given for religious exemption requests is the use of fetal cells derived from terminated pregnancies to develop vaccines. But experts say this results from a misunderstanding of the actual science involved. They also note that truly avoiding anything developed using fetal cells would mean abstaining from aspirin and cold medication.
That didn’t stop one American pastor from pointing to the fetal cell issue as a reason to avoid vaccines. He died of COVID-19 in September.
A recent Ipsos survey for the World Economic Forum suggests that 8 out 10 workers in the world back workplace COVID-19 vaccine mandates, and only one in 10 say they'd try to find a way to avoid them. Many people take a dim view of citing faith to do so – one survey of Canadians found that 79% didn’t think there’s a legitimate religious reason to seek an exemption.
That hasn’t prevented the aggrieved from trying. About 5% of all employees of the state of Oregon in the US filed requests for exemptions to its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, and 90% of them were religious.
The history of religion and vaccination efforts
Thomas More offered one definition of faith when the English statesman described his role as “the King’s good servant and God’s first,” which didn't end well for him in 1535 (a firm named after More recently sued a medical school for denying religious exemptions to a COVID-19 vaccination mandate).
Maybe faith could mean avoiding animal products – a US court once ruled that a sincere adherence to veganism was grounds for a religious exemption to mandated flu vaccinations.
Image: World Economic Forum
While new wrinkles are constantly being added, like the Muslims in Indonesia who now reportedly believe (incorrectly) that most COVID-19 vaccines aren’t permitted under Islamic law, citing religion to avoid vaccination is a time-honored tradition.
An anti-vaccination movement that gripped Victorian England included religious opposition, and the objections of Christian Scientists to a 1966 New York state law mandating polio vaccinations led to it being the first of its kind in the US with a religious exemption.
Some conscientious vaccine objectors are banking on the idea that mandates will simply peter out. The American soap opera actor who lost his job, for example, played a character in a fictional world where death is often a temporary condition. He says he’d be happy to return, too, once the show’s workplace vaccine mandate is history.
More reading on religion and COVID-19 vaccine mandate
For more context, here are links to further reading from the World Economic Forum's Strategic Intelligence platform:
After petitioners including religious groups challenged a national workplace-vaccination mandate in the US last month, a court put a hold on it. This piece argues that the court got the underlying science “completely wrong.” (STAT)
Just as the world should’ve been getting ready to celebrate the first anniversary of COVID-19 vaccine rollouts, Omicron came along to spoil the party; this piece traces the ups and downs of immunization efforts in the UK. (The Conversation)
Even before COVID-19, research in California showed the percentage of kindergarteners with parents claiming vaccines conflict with their religious beliefs was rising, according to this piece. (Harvard Kennedy School)
How the role of faith in vaccination is considered in a relatively religion-averse country like France – one debate there centred on whether Muslim women administering COVID-19 vaccine doses should be able to do so in headscarves, according to this piece. (The Atlantic)
When American men suddenly found religion after being drafted to fight in Viet Nam, it fell to local draft boards to assess requests for faith-based exemptions; this piece suggests recreating those boards for COVID-19 vaccine mandate exemption requests. (STAT)
Religion “provides tools for resisting information from secular sources,” according to this political scientist, who has found that faith has an independent negative effect on media trust. (LSE)
Beyond Omicron: one future path for the coronavirus, according to this analysis, would be to parallel respiratory syncytial virus by infecting most people during their first years of life and later – aided by vaccines – causing only mild symptoms. (Nature)
On the Strategic Intelligence platform, you can find feeds of expert analysis related to Vaccination, the Role of Religion and hundreds of additional topics. You’ll need to register to view.
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Written by
John Letzing, Digital Editor, Strategic Intelligence, World Economic Forum
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
A new edition of the Bible, with 20,000 revisions
A new edition of the Bible, with 20,000 revisions, should spark 20,000 thoughtful conversations
BY HAL TAUSSIG
DEC. 24, 2021 3 AM PT
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
This sentiment is expressed in at least five other places in the Bible, and yet perhaps the most erudite institution of biblical scholars has just released 20,000 changes in the Bible.
An update to the New Revised Standard Version was released digitally this month and is to be in print next May. As you can imagine, such a task is not undertaken lightly. The update represents more than four years of intense work of the National Council of Churches and a large group of scholars in the Society of Biblical Literature.
The result is careful and creative revisions. Like all new biblical translations and updates over the past millennium, including the King James Version, this brings new meanings to biblical texts. Each iteration of the Bible addresses some need in the culture at that moment. I hope the updated edition (known as NRSVue) fuels a wider public discussion about what the Bible is becoming in our era. For instance, the reasons for revisions vary greatly, prompting the overall textual meanings to spin out in many directions and broadening dialogue.
For the past 70 years, the Revised Standard Version and 1989’s NRSV have been the go-to English Bible for students and scholars. This month’s NRSV update is especially well suited to opening a broader public conversation because it is not revised with a single-minded agenda by one denomination or faith, but with multiple nuanced goals by a joint working group including Jewish, Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic scholars. For the public then, these revisions are not so much fine-tuning of doctrine as expansion of the Bible’s range.
A handful of examples give a taste of that potential.
Mark 14:69 (and similar verses)
NRSV: And the servant-girl, on seeing him, began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one of them.”
NRSVue: And the female servant, on seeing him, began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one of them.”
This revision brings — with good reason — feminist consciousness to take away a demeaning translation that calls a woman a girl. So the “female servant” quickly becomes someone with more agency and character. Literally the revision makes her a bigger person, and the readers of the Bible today themselves have more room to be engaged.
Leviticus 4:8 (and more than 125 other verses with the same issue)
NRSV: He shall remove all the fat from the bull of sin offering.
NRSVue: He shall remove all the fat from the bull of purification offering.
The scholars explain that this improves upon an earlier distortion of Hebrew hatta’t. The notion of “sin” has been removed, because they believe “purification offering” more closely reflects the ancient Hebrew word. This revision opens up new biblical conversation and subject matter without taking “sin” out of the larger biblical picture. With this revision, the 21st century Bible now joins the many world cultures in which “purifying” is a regular practice but is less entangled in “sin” considerations.
Matthew 4:24
NRSV: So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them.
NRSVue: So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, people possessed by demons or having epilepsy or afflicted with paralysis, and he cured them.
The scholars explain: “When context permits, NRSVue avoids translations that identify people in terms of a disability.” This brings a modern sensibility to bear, because we now believe that an illness or symptom is something a person has, not who they are. This rewording is helpful for scholarly, church and public readers. The reference to demon possession … well, modern audiences can make of that what they will, no matter how we phrase it.
Each change illuminates not only how the old and new language speak to us, but also how we filter and frame the texts we consume. As this edition attempts to both modernize and improve historical accuracy, we need to notice some of the stunning cross-purposes in play within and about the Bible in any particular era.
To consider these 20,000-plus revisions, and to observe how our own understanding changes, is to see why many scholars refer to “living” biblical texts. The real character of such material develops and is alive in new ways for each different time and situation.
Over the past 10 years I have been part of a project considering a fecund moment almost 2,000 years ago in the formation of texts that eventually became Christian canon. Our findings, presented in “After Jesus Before Christianity,” portray a living and often shifting “word.” One sees that ancient meaning-making, even among the early authors and audiences in the original languages, was strikingly similar to today’s expanding territory for Bible engagement through swirling conversations, translations, revisions and interpretations.
Those texts from the first few centuries of multiple Jesus groups were full of creativity, rich with nuance from a time of great diversity. The word “christian” certainly did not mean a member of a religion in the early centuries. The word hardly existed at all in the first century and varied widely in meanings among the second and third century users of the term. These authors’ concept of gender was full of fluidity, which manifested in word choice and practice.
Modern audiences might squirm over these agendas and ambiguities, but they are intrinsic to texts that come to be called scripture. Biblical scholar Vincent Wimbush has coined a term for the process, “scripturalizing,” which acknowledges the aliveness of texts and how they become present through modifications in words and meanings. He now uses scripturalizing particularly in the ways the Bible belongs to African Americans throughout the last 400 years. Integrating earlier scholarship in cultural studies while challenging white domination of biblical study, Wimbush writes: “This means seeing scripture as reflective of the basic ‘play-element’ in culture, as rites, performances, and their varied veiling and unveiling operations and effects.”
Don’t look to the latest biblical revision to settle theological questions, but to raise important new ones, urging us to look deeper and wider into the texts as well as into ourselves. The updated edition of the New Revised Standard Version is its own act of unveiling.
Hal Taussig is the editor of “A New New Testament” and co-author of “After Jesus Before Christianity.”
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Wednesday, December 29, 2021
Tuesday, December 28, 2021
Rome Undermines the Protestant Foundations
Chapter 3
Rome Undermines the Protestant Foundations
The second, and more effective, weapon Rome used against the Reformation was "higher criticism," in an effort to undermine the very foundation of Protestantism.
The strongest appeal of the Roman Catholic Church lies in its claim to "apostolic succession," that is, that its popes descended in direct line from the apostles. Protestants, originating in the sixteenth century, have no such appeal. Their strong argument lies in their exact conformity with the Bible in faith and morals. "The Bible, and the Bible only" is their battle cry. The Bible reveals man's utter inability to attain justification by his own works, and offers it as a "free gift," obtained by faith in the merits of Jesus Christ alone. The Bible presents good works only as the natural fruit of genuine faith. On this foundation was Protestantism built. Before going further we shall let Catholics and Protestants state their foundations.
Catholic Foundation
"Like two sacred rivers flowing from paradise, the Bible and divine Tradition contain the Word of God, the precious gems of revealed truths. Though these two divine streams are in themselves, on account of their divine origin, of equal sacredness, and are both full of revealed truths, still, of the two, Tradition is to us more clear and safe"–"Catholic Belief," Joseph Faa di Bruno, D.D., p. 33. New York: Benziger Brothers., 1912.
"But since Divine revelation is contained in the written books and the unwritten traditions (Vatican Council, I, II), the Bible and Divine tradition must be the rule of our faith; since, however, these are only silent witnesses, . . we must look for some proximate rule which shall be animate or living .... The Bible could not be left to interpret itself." Therefore Catholics declare the "Church to be its acknowledged interpreter.'' And under the heading: "The Catholic Doctrine Touching the Church as the Rule of Faith," we read: "Now the teaching Church is the Apostolic body continuing to the end of time." But of the teachers of this body, they say: "Unless they be united with the Vicar of Christ [the Pope], it is futile to appeal to the episcopate in general as the rule of faith." They then sum up their rule of faith thus: "'Hence we must stand rather by the decisions which the pope judicially pronounces than by the opinions of men, however learned they may be in Holy Scripture.' "–" Catholic Encyclopedia," Vol. V, pp. 766- 768, art. "Faith, Rule of." The teaching Church, with the pope at its head, is therefore the Catholic "rule of faith."
Thus we see that the Roman Catholic Church places tradition above the Bible as more safe, and substitutes the pope for the Holy Spirit as the guide. Christ promised His followers: "Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth." "He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance." John 16:13; 14:23. That these promises are not confined to the leaders of the church, is made plain by John, who applies them to all Christians: "But the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, . . . ye shall abide in Him." I John 2:27. In answer to these Scriptures the Catholic writers say: "Nor can it be said that being a divinely inspired book, its prime Author, the Holy Ghost, will guide the reader to the right meaning"–" Things Catholics Are Asked About," M. J. Scott, S. J., p. 119. New York: 1927.
Protestant Foundation
Protestants have announced as their rule of faith: "The Bible, and the Bible only," with the Holy Spirit as its sole Interpreter. William Chillingworth, M. A., says:
"The Bible, I say, the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants! . . . I for my part, after a long and (as I verily believe and hope) impartial search of the true way to eternal happiness,' do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my foot but upon this rock only. I see plainly and with my own eyes, that there are popes against popes, councils against councils, some fathers against others, the same fathers against themselves, a consent of fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age, the church of one age against the church of another age .... In a word, there is no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering man to build upon." –" The Religion of Protestants," William Chillingworth, M. A., p. 463. London: 1866.
"The Bible, I say, the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants!' Nor is it of any account in the estimation of the genuine Protestant, how early a doctrine originated, if it is not found in the Bible .... "He who receives a single doctrine upon the mere authority of tradition, let him be called by what name he will, by so doing, steps down from the Protestant rock, passes over the line which separates Protestantism from Popery, and can give no valid reason why he should not receive all the earlier doctrines and ceremonies of Romanism, upon the same authority"–" History of Romanism," John Dowling, D. D., pp. 67, 68. New York: 1871.
This childlike faith in the Bible as God's infallible word carried the Reformers above all opposition, and swept over Europe with an irresistible force which threatened to engulf the old, decaying structure of the Roman church. This unabated force could be broken only by robbing Protestants of their implicit faith in the Bible. They would then lose their power as surely as did Samson, when he was shorn of his locks. (Judges 16:19, 20.)
Rome Undermining Protestant Foundations
Richard Simon, a Roman Catholic priest, called the "Father of Higher Criticism," in 1678 wrote "A Critical History of the Old Testament" in three books, laying down the rules for a more exact translation. He advanced the new theory that only the ordinances and commands of the books of Moses were written by him, while the historical parts were the product of various other writers. Simon's declared purpose was to show that the Protestants had no assured principle for their religion. (See edition of 1782.) "This work led to a very extended controversy and the first edition was suppressed." *7 So vigorous was the opposition of the learned, that his theory lay dormant for seventy-five years.
The Catholic Encyclopedia says:
"A French priest, Richard Simon (1638-1712), was the first who subjected the general questions concerning the Bible to a treatment which was at once comprehensive in scope and scientific in method. Simon is the forerunner of modern Biblical criticism .... A reaction against the rigid view of the Bible [was one of] the factors which produced Simon's first great work, the 'Histoire critique du Vieux Testament' [' Critical History of the Old Testament '] which was published in 1678 .... It entitles him to be called the father of Biblical criticism."–Vol. IV, p. 492.
"In 1753 Jean Astruc, a French Catholic physician of considerable note, published a little book, 'Conjectures sur les memoires originaux dont il parait que Moyse s'est servi pour composer le livre de la Genese (Conjectures on the original records from which it appears that Moses composed the book of Genesis).'"–Id., same page. (See also New Schaff- Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. I, p. 336, art, "Jean Astruc. ")
His book is rightly named, for in it he conjectured that the book of Genesis must have been written by two different authors. because the Creator is there called "God" (" Elohim") in some places, and "Lord" (" Jehovah ") in other places. Such a line of reasoning would be as inconsistent as to claim that Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, for instance, must have been written by two different apostles, because our Saviour is there called "Jesus" in some places, and "Christ" in others. But what about the places where He is called "Jesus Christ"? And so in Genesis. Who wrote the five passages where He is called "Lord God" ("Jehovah Elohim")? In 1792, Dr. Alexander Geddes, a Roman Catholic priest of Scottish origin, carried this "fragmentary hypothesis" still further. Absurd as this theory was, the Protestants fell into the trap set for them, and Germany, the seat of the Reformation, became the seat of this destructive "higher criticism." Today this inconsistent criticism of the Bible has invaded the seminaries` colleges, and universities of practically all Protestant denominations, and few ministers are free from its blighting influence. Edwin Cone Bissell, Professor in McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, carried out this "fragmentary" theory in his book, "Genesis Printed in Colors, Showing the Original Sources from Which It Is Supposed to Have Been Compiled" (Hartford, 1892), displaying the seven colors of the rainbow in shorter or longer fragments, each representing a different author or editor.
Bolce spent two years investigating American colleges from Maine to California, and wrote his astounding findings in the Cosmopolitan Magazine, May to August, 1909. Here are a few expressions culled from his report: "In hundreds of classrooms it is being taught daily that the Decalogue is no more sacred than a syllabus; that the home as an institution is doomed; that there are no absolute evils; that immorality is simply an act in contravention of society's accepted standards; . . . and that the daring who defy the code [the moral law] do not offend any Deity, but simply arouse the venom of the majority–the majority that has not yet grasped the new idea; . . . and that the highest ethical life consists at all times in the breaking of rules which have grown too narrow for the actual case ....
"There can be and are holier alliances without the marriage bond than within it Anything tolerated by the world in general is right The notion, . . . that there is anything fundamentally correct implies the existence of a standard outside and above usage, and no such standard exists. "–Pp. 665, 666, 674, 675, 676,
Can anyone wonder at what Dr. Charles Jefferson declares? He says: "A theological student at the end of the first year of his seminary course is the most demoralized individual to be found on this earth, his early conception of the Bible has been torn down all the way to the cellar, and he is obliged to build up a new conception from the foundations."–" Things Fundamental,'' pp. 120, 121.
In regard to the inevitable result of teaching the rising generation such revolutionary ideas, and of undermining completely their moral standards, and their belief in God, the editor of the Cosmopolitan Magazine says in a note to Mr. Bolce's articles: "These are some of the revolutionary and sensational teachings submitted with academic warrant to the minds of hundreds of thousands of students in the United States. It is time that the public realized what is being taught to the youth of this country. 'The social question of to-day,' said Disraeli, 'is only a zephyr which rustles the leaves, but will soon become a hurricane.' It is a dull ear that cannot hear the mutterings of the coming storm."– "Cosmopolitan Magazine," May, 1909, p. 665.
The Bible declares: "They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." "There is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood." Hosea 8:7; 4:1, 2. (Compare 2 Timothy 3:1-5.) Yes, the saying is true, that "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Galatians 6:7.
The Christian Register for June 18, 1891, page 389, commenting favorably on the work of higher criticism, says:
"Thomas Paine, though stigmatized and set aside as an infidel, finds reincarnation in the modern scientific Biblical critic .... He lived too far in advance of his age. The spirit of modern scientific criticism had not yet come .... And now it is interesting to find that, in a different spirit and with different tools, and bound by certain traditions, . . . the professors in our orthodox seminaries are doing again the work which Paine did,"
As long as these men domineered over the Old Testament, most of the Christian teachers remained silent. But the work did not stop there. The Lutheran Pastor Storjohan of Oslo, Norway, says of Wellhausen: "After they have permitted him to domineer over the Old Testament for more than twenty-five years, it is not more than reasonable, and a just punishment, that he in his presumption has now undertaken his war on the Gospels"–"Bibelen paa Pinebaenk [The Bible on the Inquisitorial Rack]," p. 7. Christiania, 1907. In closing let us briefly point out the road which higher criticism had to travel, after it had taken the first step. When critics had denied the historicity of the books of Moses (the Pentateuch), they discovered that the Psalms referred to them as acknowledged history. (Psalms 33:6, 9; 29:10; 77:23; 103:7; 105:6-45; 106:7-33.) To be consistent, the Psalms had to be rejected. They also found that the books of Joshua, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, and Nehemiah, and the prophets acknowledged the Pentateuch as the inspired work of Moses (Joshua 23:6; 1 Kings 2:3; 2 Chronicles 35:6; Nehemiah 8:1, 8; Daniel 9:11, 13; Malachi 4:4), so these books had to be rejected.
But then they found that the New Testament repeatedly referred to the Old Testament as inspired authority (about eight hundred twenty-four times), and to their consternation they discovered that Jesus declared the first five books in the Bible were written by Moses (Mark 12:26; Luke 24:25, 44, 45), and that He asked: "If ye believe not his [Moses'] writings, how shall ye believe My words?" John 5:46, 47. The critics had declared that the account of the Flood was only a myth, which no intelligent person could believe. But Jesus said: "Noe entered into the ark," and "the Flood came, and took them all away." Matthew 24:38, 39. He even believed the truthfulness of the account of Jonah's being in the great fish for three days, and of his preaching in Nineveh afterwards. (Matthew 12:40, 41) There was, therefore, no way of reconciling Jesus to higher criticism, so they rejected Him as the divine Son of God. For if Jesus did not know that those Old Testament stories were only myths, He was deceived. If He knew this, and yet taught them, He was a deceiver. In either case He could not be divine, they reasoned.
Some might properly ask how Romanists dared to start higher criticism. Would not this menace be equally dangerous to their church? Absolutely not! The Roman church rests on an entirely different foundation. The Church, and not the Bible, is her authority. She flourishes best where the Bible is least circulated, as history amply shows. But Protestantism that rejects the inspiration of the Bible, has abandoned its foundation, and stands helpless. It is like a ship that has lost its mooring, thrown away its chart and compass, and is drifting toward–Rome."If in the dawning of the fortieth century, it shall be found that the law and the prophets are obsolete, the Gospels and Epistles discarded, Moses forgotten, and Paul and his writings set aside to make room for the inerrant productions of [higher critics, . . . if it shall then appear that the hunted prophets who wandered in sheepskins and goatskins, and were destitute, afflicted, and tormented, of whom the world was not worthy,' have gone down before the onslaught of the learned and well-salaried professors of modern universities; if it shall appear that the word of the Lord which they uttered at the loss of all things and at the peril of life itself has paled its ineffectual fires before the rising radiance of oracular higher criticism; if it shall then be learned that God hath chosen the rich in this world, poor in faith, and heirs of the kingdom–who can ten how welcome this information may prove to those who suppose that gain is godliness, and that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a poor man to enter the kingdom of heaven?" –" The Anti-Infidel Library," H. L. Hastings, "More Bricks from the Babel of the Higher Critics," pp. 172, 173. Boston: Scriptural Tract Repository, 1895.
Facts Of Faith, By Christian Edwardson.
Ben Carson Lines Up w/ Sunday Law Advocates | The Renewal | America’s Cu...
Amen!
Thanks for the awareness, Bro. Andrew Henriques.
I believe that some (probably honest) people are
misinterpreting the words in this Bible Verse:
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble
themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then
will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
- II Chronicles 7:14.
Some folks are confused about what happened 400 years ago in
Massachusetts (when the Pilgrims arrived seeking Liberty of Conscience), and
the present time. Right after the Pilgrims settled in their new home, they were
followed by the Puritans who wanted to reform the Church of England by
returning to the fundamental faith of the Mother Anglican church (reform from
within the DENOMI-NATION). The Pilgrims had left England and had separated
themselves from the Church of England. As time progressed the Puritans became
the dominant Denomination within the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Puritans
were intolerant of Christians of other persuasions and expelled them from the
colony. Eventually, a Separatist Minister named Roger Williams was banished
from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, he then established the Colony of Rhode
Island and Providence Plantations; a colony providing Religious Liberty to all
seeking to worship according to the dictates of their conscience and providing
religious liberty and separation of church and state. On the southern part of
the colony on Aquidneck Island in Newport, in1644 the first Seventh Day Baptist
Church in the New World was founded, along with Touro Synagogue in 1763, the
first Jewish temple.
There has only been one Theocracy in history according to my
understanding. That Theocracy was Israel, after the Lord led them from
captivity in Egypt unto the Promised Land in Canaan. The Lord led them through
the wilderness by day with a Pillar of Cloud and provided a Pillar of Light by
night. From that point onward as the Children of Israel laid claim to their
tribal inheritance, asked for a King, the King of Kings came and dwelt among
them, and they rejected & crucified Him (as he said "your house is
left unto you desolate”) ... Since then, there have been no other authentic
Theocracies.
In America any effort to bring "the Nation back to God" is futile. First, the Lord cannot save America as a whole, the United States is a Secular nation. It was never a Theocracy, it was founded by men, not God. Though, the Lord in His infinite wisdom did lead those Pilgrims to the shores of Plymouth Rock. But, ever since those seeking to worship The Lord Almighty, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, many of the enemies of the True Faith have taken advantage of the opportunities provided by the Religious Freedoms provided by the Bill of Rights and the Ten Amendments. America is now home to Christians, Atheists, Papists, New Agers, Wiccans, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, Baháʼí, Sikhs, and Animists. It's inconceivable that any RENEWAL MOVEMENT will reform the whole nation to receive God's approval, per se. It's a Fool's Errand!
According to
what I have read in the book of Revelation of the Bible, there will be no
wholesale reformation anywhere on Earth. There will rather be an imposed
pseudo-religious dictatorship led by Rome which will control the whole world
for a short period before Jesus returns in Glory and Strength to redeem His
faithful remnant. I have not read anywhere in the Bible where the United States
returns to God as a nation. On the contrary, the U.S. will lead the world in
persecution of true Christians and will establish a Global Sunday Law. Those
who refuse to obey the mandates of the Image of the Beast will be marked for
death. The Image of the Beast is the Church/State conglomeration that we see
forming itself before our eyes. And the Mark of the Beast (the Papacy) is
SUN-DAY Worship.
Monday, December 27, 2021
Please—Stop the Coup Porn
December 24, 2021 Updated: December 24, 2021
Commentary
In a recent Washington Post op-ed, three retired generals, Paul Eaton, Antonio Taguba, and Steven Anderson warn of a supposedly impending coup should Donald Trump be elected in 2024.
The column seemed strangely timed to coincide with a storm of recent Democratic talking points that a re-elected Trump, or even a Republican sweep of the 2022 midterms, would spell a virtual end of democracy.
Ironies abound.
From Election Day in 2020 to Inauguration Day 2021, we were told by the Left that democracy was resilient and rightly rid the nation of Trump.
The hard Left, for one of the rare times in U.S. history, was now in complete control of both houses of Congress and the presidency.
Spiking inflation, supply-chain shortages, near-record gas prices, open borders, the flight from Afghanistan, multi-trillion-dollar deficits, and polarizing racial rhetoric all followed.
MOST READ
In response to these events, Joe Biden’s popularity utterly collapsed. His own cognitive challenges multiplied the unpopularity of his failed policies.
In reaction, the Left again pivoted. It suddenly announced that should it lose congressional power in 2022 or the presidency in 2024, democracy was all but doomed.
Apparently, what changed Democrats’ views was that democracy was working all too well in expressing widespread public disgust… with the Left.
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Even more ironies followed.
The three retired generals shrilly write of the dangers of insurrection and coups. Yet the FBI found no such insurrection or conspiracy in the buffoonish riot on January 6.
Only serial media misinformation and lies turned a ragtag band of misfits into an existential threat to the nation.
Almost every media talking point turned out to be untrue. No Capitol police officer died at the hands of the mob. (Early reports that Officer Brian Sicknick had been beaten into a coma by protesters were incorrect. The Washington, D.C., medical examiner ruled Sicknick died the next day of a stroke.) The media all but ignored the lethal police shooting of a military veteran and unarmed petite female trespasser, for the apparent crime of trying to enter Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office through a broken window. There were no gun-toting “insurrectionists” arrested inside the Capitol.
Another irony. The three retired generals say nothing about the Russia collusion hoax in which Obama administration officials at the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the CIA helped to seed a fake dossier—paid for by candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Ex-British intelligence operative Christopher Steele’s made-up opposition research was designed first to derail Trump’s campaign, then to disable his transition and finally sabotage his presidency. All that seems rather coup-like.
In truth, coups were regularly discussed during the last four years—but only in the context of a by-any-means-necessary way of deposing Donald Trump extralegally before his term ran out.
In August 2020, two retired officers John Nagl and Paul Yingling, urged Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley to remove Trump from office if Milley felt it necessary after a contested election.
Both officers knew that the law forbids Milley from interfering in the chain of command, given his mere advisory role to the president.
Yet Milley himself had dangerously violated his purview at least twice. He once ordered subordinate officers to report to him first should Donald Trump consider any nuclear action against China. And Milley additionally called his Chinese communist counterpart to warn him that he would tip the Chinese off about any preemptive American strike on China.
Earlier, Rosa Brooks, a former Obama Pentagon legal official, wrote a now infamous essay in Foreign Policy, listing the choices available in removing Donald Trump from his less than two-week-old presidency. Among the possible means, she listed a potential military coup.
Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice forbids even retired military officers publicly attacking or disparaging their current commander-in-chief. Yet several retired generals and admirals serially did just that during the last administration, smearing their president in every imaginable way, from being a Mussolini-like fascist to a veritable Nazi.
The officers published in the Washington Post are clueless as to why the military is now suffering its most dismal public approval ratings of the modern era—with only 45 percent of the public registering trust and confidence in their armed forces.
The nation is clearly not blaming the courageous soldiers in the enlisted ranks. But it has had enough of the Pentagon’s loud top brass who seem more interested in stirring up political divisions at home than adopting winning strategies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, or deterring China and Russia.
The officer corps too often broadcasts its woke credentials, calibrated for career advancement. Top-ranking officers upon retirement too predictably head for corporate defense contractor boards and procurement lobbying firms.
To restore the military’s reputation, officers should eschew politics to focus on restoring strategic deterrence and military readiness. They should keep clear of divisive domestic issues. They should stop virtue signaling to the media and influential members of Congress.
But most importantly, officers should quit all their coup porn talk—either to remove a president they don’t like, or to project their own reckless, insurrectionary behavior onto their political opponents.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Holy Year 2025 coordination assigned to New Evangelization
Holy Year 2025 coordination assigned to New Evangelization
The Holy See Press Office announces today that Pope Francis has entrusted Holy Year 2025 preparations to the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization.
By Vatican News staff writer
Pope Francis has given the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization responsibility on coordinating the Holy See's preparations for the Holy Year 2025. In recent days the President of the Council, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, met with Superiors of the Secretariat of State, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA) and the Secretariat for the Economy to discuss the upcoming jubilee.
In the Roman Catholic tradition, a Holy Year, or Jubilee is a great religious event. It traditionally marks a year of forgiveness of sins and also the punishment due to sin, a year of reconciliation between adversaries, a time of conversion and receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Themes receiving special focus include: solidarity, hope, justice, commitment to serve God with joy and in peace with our brothers and sisters. A Jubilee year is above all the year of Christ, who brings life and grace to humanity.
Sunday, December 26, 2021
Saturday, December 25, 2021
Ross Patterson : “The COVID-19 Crisis and the Loss of Our Liberties”
Friday, December 24, 2021
This 2008 Stock Market Crash Conspiracy Theory Will Give You ShiversIt's so spot-on, it's eerie...
By ABBY HIGGS,
The 2008 stock market crash first started with irresponsible financiers who doled out loans to "subprime" borrowers with poor credit histories. They knew the borrowers would struggle to repay them. Meanwhile, the risky mortgages were being passed on by the financiers to the big banks, which then spun them into allegedly low-risk securities. Investors bought the securities up.
According to The Economist, "Failures in finance were at the heart of the crash. But bankers were not the only people to blame. Central bankers and other regulators bear responsibility too, for mishandling the crisis, for failing to keep economic imbalances in check and for failing to exercise proper oversight of financial institutions."
While these are the events that lead to full-blown economic disaster, the mid-September 2008 bankruptcy of global bank Lehman Brothers was the harbinger of the Great Recession's arrival.
One lone Internet user - Reinhardt - saw it coming. And he issued a warning. Unfortunately, his prediction went unnoticed.
Here are the events that led Reinhardt to make his astonishing forecast.
All Roads Lead to Rome - and Then a Stock Market Crash
The media blames big banks for the 2008 stock market crash. But Reinhardt pinned the crash on Legatus, a Catholic networking group formed in 2007 by powerful businessmen.
"[Legatus] are the richest and the most influential. While they advertise for open membership, they have closed-door meetings. They've been compared to Opus Dei," Michael Stone, a subscriber to the same Internet finance message board as Reinhardt, explained to former Minnesota governor Jessie Ventura in a truTV interview on Nov. 5, 2010.
Who Is Opus Dei?
Opus Dei, as some of us know thanks to Dan Brown's bestseller The Da Vinci Code, is an institution of the Roman Catholic Church. Founded in 1928 by a Spanish priest, it allegedly employs cult-like recruitment practices, including corporal mortification (flagellation).
Like Legatus today, it also supposedly once wielded incredible influence over the Church and global government entities while in its prime.
Reinhardt believed members of Opus Dei and Legatus made pilgrimages to the Vatican in Rome right before the stock market crashes they're respectively tied to:
Opus Dei - the Stock Market Crash of 1929.
Legatus - the 2008 stock market crash and Great Recession.
Reinhardt also claimed the organizations made these "pilgrimages" regularly, with the true intention of laundering large amounts of money by means of massive checks made to the church.
Later, these checks would conspicuously clear all at once on a single day.
In July 2008, Reinhardt declared in a Google Finance Group that members of Legatus had just made a pilgrimage to Rome. He saw the trip as a catalyst, and predicted that the U.S. stock market would crash Sept. 15, 2008.
Reinhardt derived the date by examining two major pilgrimages that took place in the past - one preceding the crash of 1928, the other before the crash of 1987.
He also referred to an incident with Tyco International Ltd.'s Chief Legal Officer Mark Belnick, who was accused of securities fraud in 2002. Belnick received at least $12 million in low-to-no interest loans, without shareholder approval. These funds were smuggled out of the company, usually disguised as executive bonuses or benefits.
According to Wall Street Journal reporter Laurie Cohen, during this time Belnick also converted to Catholicism, met the Pope and other Vatican members of Opus Dei, and donated several million to Catholic charities.
Cohen says Belnick was particularly close to a Father McCloskey, a known active Opus Dei member who many believe helped orchestrate Tyco's downfall using Belnick as a channel. In early 2002, Tyco stock fell almost 80% in a six-week period of time. Belnick was sentenced to 25 years in jail, then was later acquitted.
Still today, Father McCloskey continues to "guide people to the church."
Here is Reinhardt's original prediction of a Sept. 15, 2008 stock market crash, the first archived by Gawker on Sept. 15, 2008; the second archived by abovetopsecret.com on the same date:
And crash it did.
Monday, Sept. 15, 2008, was the day Lehman Bros. failed. We know that for sure. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 504 points, or 4.4%, that day. The slip triggered what would culminate in a 35% crash over six months ending mid-March 2009.
You see, the same day, billions of dollars were taken from money market accounts around the nation in one massive outflow, accelerating the crash. Several money market accounts were heavily invested in - you guessed it - Lehman Bros.
That accounts for a portion of the outflow at least, but not billions worth. There are two versions of what accounts for the rest - one told to the public, and one according to Reinhardt...
What Caused the Massive Outflow-Turned-Stock Market Crash?
Reason Behind Disappearing Funds - the Version Told to the Public: It marked the first day of a slow and steady draw-down of money market accounts. Under this theory, $550 billion was not yanked away from money markets on Sept. 15, 2008 alone. Rather, the money poured out over the course of a few days, due to Lehman Bros. going belly up.
In response to the money outflow from the Reserve Primary Fund, a giant money market fund that had heavy investments tied to Lehman Bros., New York Times reporter Tara Siegel Bernard said, "So far, it appears that no other money market funds have fallen below a dollar a share. And other money market managers have hastened to reassure investors that their money is safe. But the Primary Fund's announcement did raise this question: What, in today's world, is truly safe?"
Felix Salmon of Upstart Business Journal explained the phenomenon this way: "On September 15, Lehman Brothers failed. The Reserve fund - which was $64 billion that morning, and which had a substantial investment in Lehman debt - saw $10 billion of withdrawals that day. The following day, Sept. 16, it saw another $10 billion of withdrawals; on Sept. 17, when withdrawals had reached a total of about $40 billion, it announced that redemptions would take 'as long as seven days'; as we all know, that was massively overoptimistic."
This seems a logical scenario behind the massive money outflow on Sept. 15.
But another plausible theory exists...
Reason Behind Disappearing Funds - Reinhardt's Theory: A mysterious person or organization stole the money out from under our noses: In a video clip that went viral on Feb. 6, 2009, Capital Markets Subcommittee Chair Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) told C-SPAN that on Sept. 15, 2008, there had been "a tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the U.S., to the tune of $550 billion." [Note that the video clip has since been removed from the Internet, but is still written about extensively.]
Kajorski explained the public couldn't know about it; making such an announcement would surely would have incited instantaneous mass panic. So it was kept a secret. Kajorski also said while the Treasury tried to help salvage the massive damage done on that day by putting up $150 billion of its own reserve, it still wasn't enough.
It was this devastating "run on the banks" that sank the U.S. economy - coordinated by Legatus, according to Reinhardt.
However, the stock market crash could have been worse, apparently. Kajorski told C-SPAN that "had they not closed down the accounts, they estimated that by 2:00 PM that afternoon - within 3 hours - five trillion dollars would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States and would have collapsed within 24 hours the world economy."
Reinhardt - if you're out there - let us know when Legatus makes their next move...
And Then I Said... "Pay taxes? What Am I - Poor?!" This year, the IRS collected roughly $1.4 trillion from U.S. taxpayers on April 15. Even individuals exempt from the federal income tax are subject to payroll taxes - and even the 14% exempt from both still must pay a sales tax. But there are 11 S&P 500 Index giants that pay no taxes. None. Nada. In fact, most of them got refunds. Here they are all are, on one conveniently organized chart...
Source
Pope Francis names Jesuit Cardinal Michael Czerny as interim head of Vatican office
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Thanking Cardinal Peter Turkson for his five years of service as prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Pope Francis has decided to name new leadership for the office, said a Vatican communique.
Beginning Jan. 1 and for a limited time, Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny will serve as prefect and Salesian Sister Alessandra Smerilli will continue to serve as interim secretary, Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, said in a statement Dec. 23.
In August 2016, Pope Francis had announced the formation of the dicastery by merging the former pontifical councils for Justice and Peace, Cor Unum, Migrants and Travelers, and Health Care Ministry.
The dicastery began operations Jan. 1, 2017, under statutes approved for a five-year experimental period. The pope tapped Cardinal Turkson, who had led the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace since 2009, to lead the office for that five-year period.
With that mandate up, Bruni said, all the "superiors" of the office offered Pope Francis their resignations. Those superiors apparently included Cardinal Czerny and Scalabrinian Father Fabio Baggio, both of whom were undersecretaries of the dicastery's Migrants and Refugees Section. Bruni did not say if Father Baggio will continue in his role.
Rumors about the dicastery leadership offering the pope their resignations began a week before the Vatican announcement.
Presenting Pope Francis' message for World Peace Day 2022 at a Vatican news conference Dec. 21, the 73-year-old Cardinal Turkson told reporters, "All assignments, appointments in the Holy See have a five-year limit. And when five years are up, it is expected that we place our mandate back in the hands of the Holy Father and await whether he confirms, reassigns or prolongs the appointment."
The cardinal, who'd had a private meeting with the pope Dec. 20, did not provide any details about the meeting. All he would tell reporters Dec. 21 was that he was waiting to hear from Pope Francis.
"If the Holy Father decides to have me continue, that's what it is. If he decides to reassign me, that's what it is," he said. "All of us come here to help and support the Holy Father in his ministry."
Cardinal Turkson, who was born in Nsuta-Wassaw, Ghana, is the only African currently heading a major Vatican office.
Cardinal Czerny, a 75-year-old Jesuit who was born in the Czech Republic but grew up in Canada, has been one of the two undersecretaries for migrants and refugees since the dicastery was founded. Pope Francis ordained him a bishop and inducted him into the College of Cardinals in 2019.
In March, Pope Francis had named Sister Smerilli, an Italian economist, undersecretary for faith and development at the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. He named her interim secretary of the dicastery in August after the resignations of Msgr. Bruno-Marie Duffé, secretary, and Argentine Father Augusto Zampini, adjunct secretary.
The change in leadership at the dicastery comes not only at the end of the office's first five years of existence, it also comes six months after Pope Francis asked Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago to conduct a visitation of the dicastery "in the context of a normal examination of the activity of the dicasteries, aimed at obtaining an updated understanding on the conditions in which they operate."
Similar visitations had been conducted of the congregations for Clergy and for Divine Worship and the Sacraments before new prefects were appointed for each.
Cardinal Turkson continues to serve as a member of congregations for the Doctrine of the Faith, Catholic Education, Divine Worship and the Sacraments and the Evangelization of Peoples, as well as the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
The former archbishop of Cape Coast, Ghana, Cardinal Turkson has worked at the Vatican since 2009 when Pope Benedict XVI called him to lead the then-Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
Thursday, December 23, 2021
Harvard chemistry professor found guilty of hiding ties to China
Conviction is a victory for U.S. initiative against ‘economic espionage’
By Bryan Pietsch
Yesterday at 3:43 a.m. EST|Updated yesterday at 10:01 a.m. EST
A Harvard University chemistry professor was convicted in federal court on Tuesday of concealing his ties to China, securing a victory for the Justice Department’s controversial and faltering initiative to address accusations of “Chinese economic espionage” in the United States.
A jury in U.S. District Court in Boston found the professor, Charles Lieber, guilty on two counts of lying to federal authorities, two counts of falsifying tax returns and two counts of failing to report foreign finances.
Lieber, a former chair of Harvard’s chemistry department, had for three years worked as a “strategic scientist” at the Wuhan University of Technology in China as part of Beijing’s Thousand Talents recruitment program. As part of his contract from 2012 to 2015, according to an affidavit, the university in Wuhan paid Lieber a salary of as much as $50,000 per month, $150,000 in annual living expenses and grants of more than $1.5 million to create a research lab at the Chinese university.
A Chinese contract described him as a “high-level foreign expert,” and in exchanges with officials at the university in Wuhan, he specified how he preferred to receive his salary — half in U.S. dollars, “with the remainder deposited” into a Chinese bank account, he wrote in 2014, according to the affidavit.
But in an interview with Defense Department investigators at his lab on Harvard’s campus in 2018, according to the affidavit, Lieber said he had never been asked to participate in the Thousand Talents program, and that he “wasn’t sure” how China categorized him.
Lieber also misled Harvard into making false statements to investigators from the National Institutes of Health about his involvement with the university in Wuhan and the Chinese program, prosecutors alleged. Harvard, which placed Lieber on paid administrative leave after his indictment in January 2020, did not comment on the verdict, spokesman Jason Newton said.
Lieber had secured millions of dollars in funding for Harvard, but the university left him “holding the bag” when he was charged, a defense attorney, Marc Mukasey, said in closing arguments, the Boston Globe reported. Harvard and Lieber had been engaged in a separate legal battle over the professor’s argument that the university was obligated to pay for his defense in the federal trial.
The Justice Department says China’s Thousand Talents program is an initiative designed to motivate experts in research and development to “transmit the knowledge and research they gain” in the United States to China. Participation in the program is not illegal; rather, Lieber’s charges centered on his false statements and concealment related to his involvement.
China Initiative aims to stop economic espionage. Is targeting academics over grant fraud ‘overkill’?
Mukasey said in an email regarding the conviction, “We respect the jury’s verdict and will keep fighting.” Mukasey had argued in court that federal prosecutors lacked evidence to support their charges and criticized their reliance on a “confused” interview between Lieber and federal investigators following his arrest, Reuters reported.
Lieber had said in the interview that he participated in the Chinese program not for the money, but for a chance at scientific recognition, according to the Globe. “Every scientist wants a Nobel Prize,” he said.
A sentencing date has yet to be set. The charges carry a combined prison time of up to 13 years, though it is unclear whether Lieber, who has cancer, will face a maximum sentence. Lieber has “a very advanced form of lymphoma,” Mukasey said in a status conference in March. “His body is self-destructing,” Mukasey said, adding that Lieber’s scans were “lighted up with cancer.”
In 2018, the Justice Department — then led by former attorney general Jeff Sessions under the Trump administration — launched what it called the “China Initiative” to target concerns of “economic espionage against the United States,” Sessions said at the time.
Tuesday’s conviction of Philadelphia-born Lieber was the first high-profile win for the initiative, following a series of dismissed cases.
Under the Biden administration, the effort has continued despite concerns by civil rights activists that it has amounted to racial profiling, amid a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States. Some in academia have argued that the initiative has fueled fear and had a chilling effect in research communities.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, declined at a news conference to speak specifically on the verdict, but said that China’s international exchange of academics is “essentially no different from the common practice of other countries, including the U.S.” Zhao added that “U.S. government institutions and politicians should not stigmatize this.”
Pope demands humility in new zinger-filled Christmas speech
Pope Francis has urged Vatican cardinals, bishops and bureaucrats to embrace humility this Christmas season
By
NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press
December 23, 2021, 6:57 AM ET
ROME -- Pope Francis urged Vatican cardinals, bishops and bureaucrats Thursday to embrace humility this Christmas season, saying their pride, self-interest and the “glitter of our armor” was perverting their spiritual lives and corrupting the church’s mission.
As he has in the past, Francis used his annual Christmas address to take Vatican administrators to task for their perceived moral and personal failings, denouncing in particular those pride-filled clerics who “rigidly” hide behind Catholic Church traditions rather than seek out the neediest with humility.
As they have in the past, cardinals and bishops sat stone-faced as they listened to Francis lecture them in the Hall of Blessings, which was otherwise decked out in jolly twinkling Christmas trees and poinsettias.
“The humble are those who are concerned not simply with the past but also with the future, since they know how to look ahead, to spread their branches, remembering the past with gratitude," Francis told them. “The proud, on the other hand, simply repeat, grow rigid and enclose themselves in that repetition, feeling certain about what they know and fearful of anything new because they cannot control it."
The proud who are so inward-looking are consumed with their own interests, the pontiff said.
“As a consequence, they neither learn from their sins nor are they genuinely open to forgiveness. This is a tremendous corruption disguised as a good. We need to avoid it," he added.
Since becoming pope in 2013, Francis has used his Christmas address to rail against the Curia, as the Holy See's bureaucracy is known, denouncing the “spiritual Alzheimer’s” that some members suffer and the resistance he had encountered to his efforts to reform and revitalize the institution and the broader Catholic Church.
Those reforms kicked into high gear this year, and some of the top Catholic hierarchy bore the brunt as Francis ordered a 10% pay cut for cardinals, imposed a 40-euro ($45) gift cap for Holy See personnel and passed a law allowing cardinals and bishops to be criminally prosecuted by the Vatican’s own tribunal.
On top of that, Francis added his Christmas greetings in the form of another public brow-beating of Vatican clerics, who normally are treated with the utmost deference by their underling and the faithful at large.
Francis told them to stop hiding behind the “armor” of their titles and to recognize that they, like the Biblical figure of Naaman, a wealthy and decorated general, were lepers in need of healing.
“The story of Naaman reminds us that Christmas is the time when each of us needs to find the courage to take off our armor, discard the trappings of our roles, our social recognition and the glitter of this world and adopt the humility of Naaman,” he said.
Francis also repeated his call for tradition-minded clerics to stop living in the past, saying their obsession with old doctrine and liturgy concealed a “spiritual worldliness” that was corrupting.
“Seeking those kinds of reassurance is the most perverse fruit of spiritual worldliness, for it reveals a lack of faith, hope and love; it leads to an inability to discern the truth of things,” he said.
Francis this year took his biggest step yet to rein in the traditionalist wing of the church, reimposing restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass that Pope Benedict XVI had relaxed in 2007.
He intensified those restrictions last weekend with a new set of rules that forbids even the publication of Tridentine Mass times in parish bulletins.
Francis said the proud who remain stuck in the past, “enclosed in their little world, have neither past nor future, roots or branches, and live with the bitter taste of a melancholy that weighs on their hearts as the most precious of the devil’s potions.”
“All of us are called to humility, because all of us are called to remember and to give life. We are called to find a right relationship with our roots and our branches. Without those two things, we become sick, destined to disappear,” he warned.
Source
Wednesday, December 22, 2021
Meagan Good, DeVon Franklin to divorce after nine years of marriage
By Karen Butler
Dec. 22, 2021 at 8:14 AM
DeVon Franklin (L) and Meagan Good, who married in 2012, have announced they are divorcing. File Photo by Chris Chew/UPI
Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Harlem and Deception actress Meagan Good and (Seventh-day Adventist) minister/author DeVon Franklin are divorcing after nine years of marriage.
Good, 40, and Franklin, 43, met on the set of the 2011 film, Jumping the Broom, got engaged in May 2012 and tied the knot in June 2012.
Franklin filed for divorce Monday, citing "irreconcilable differences" as the reason for their split.
"After much prayer and consideration, we have decided to go into our futures separately but forever connected," the estranged couple said in a joint statement Tuesday.
"We celebrate almost a decade of marriage together and a love that is eternal. There's no one at fault, we believe this is the next best chapter in the evolution of our love," they added.
"We are incredibly grateful for the life-changing years we've spent together as husband and wife. We are also extremely thankful to God for the testimony being created inside us both and for blessing our lives with each other."
Tuesday, December 21, 2021
Pentagon issues rules aimed at stopping rise of extremism
By LOLITA C. BALDOR The Associated Press,Updated December 20, 2021, 5:01 p.m.
WASHINGTON — Warning that extremism in the ranks is increasing, Pentagon officials are issuing detailed new rules prohibiting service members from actively engaging in extremist activities. The new guidelines come nearly a year after some current and former service members participated in the riot at the US Capitol, triggering a broad department review.
Senior defense officials tell the Associated Press that fewer than 100 military members are known to have been involved in substantiated cases of extremist activity in the past year, but they warn that the number may grow given recent spikes in domestic violent extremism, particularly among veterans.
Officials said the new policy doesn't largely change what is prohibited, but is more of an effort to make sure troops are clear on what they can and can't do, while still protecting their First Amendment free speech rights. And for the first time, it is far more specific about social media.
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The new policy lays out in detail the banned activities, which range from advocating terrorism or supporting the overthrow of the government to fundraising or rallying on behalf of an extremist group or “liking” or reposting extremist views on social media. The rules also specify that commanders must determine two things in order for someone to be held accountable: that the action was an extremist activity, as defined in the rules, and that the service member “actively participated” in that prohibited activity.
Previous policies banned extremist activities but didn't go into such great detail, and also did not specify the two step process to determine someone accountable.
What was wrong yesterday is still wrong today, said one senior defense official. But several officials said that as a study group spoke with service members this year they found that many wanted clearer definitions of what was not allowed. The officials spoke about the new rules on condition of anonymity because they have not yet been made public.
The military has long been aware of small numbers of white supremacists and other extremists among the troops. But Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other leaders launched a broader campaign to root out extremism in the force after it became clear that military veterans and some current service members were present at the Jan. 6 insurrection.
In a message to the force on Monday, Austin said the department believes that only a few service members violate their oath and participate in extremist activities. But, he added, “even the actions of a few can have an outsized impact on unit cohesion, morale and readiness — and the physical harm some of these activities can engender can undermine the safety of our people.”
The risk of extremism in the military can be more dangerous because many service members have access to classified information about sensitive military operations or other national security information that could help adversaries. And extremist groups routinely recruit former and current service members because of their familiarity with weapons and combat tactics.
Officials said that while the substantiated cases may be small, compared to the size of the military, which includes more than 2 million active duty and reserve troops. The number appears to be an increase over previous years where the totals were in the low two-digits. But they also noted that data has not been consistent so it is difficult to identify trends.
The new rules do not provide a list of extremist organizations. Instead, it is up to commanders to determine if a service member is actively conducting extremist activities based on the definitions, rather than on a list of groups that may be constantly changing, officials said.
Asked whether troops can simply be members of an extremist organization, officials said the rules effectively prohibit membership in any meaningful way — such as the payment of dues or other actions that could be considered “active participation.”
The regulations lay out six broad groups of extremist activities, and then provide 14 different definitions that constitute active participation.
Soon after taking office, Austin ordered military leaders to schedule a so-called “stand-down” day and spend time talking to their troops about extremism in the ranks.
The new rules apply to all of the military services, including the Coast Guard, which in peacetime is part of the Department of Homeland Security. They were developed through recommendations from the Countering Extremist Activities Working Group. And they make the distinction, for example, that troops may possess extremist materials, but they can’t attempt to distribute them, and while they can observe an extremist rally, they can’t participate, fund, or support one.
The rules, said the officials, focus on behavior not ideology. So service members have whatever political, religious, or other beliefs that they want, but their actions and behavior are governed.
In addition to the new rules, the Pentagon is expanding its screening for recruits to include a deeper look at potential extremist activities. Some activities may not totally prevent someone from joining the military, but require a closer look at the applicant.
The department also is expanding education and training for current military members, and more specifically for those leaving the service who may be suddenly subject to recruitment by extremist organizations.
More than 650 people have been charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, including dozens of veterans and about a half dozen active duty service members. Among them — an Army reservist who wore a Hitler mustache to his job at a Navy base.
Some of the rioters facing the most serious charges, including members of far-right extremist groups, have military backgrounds. In several of the prosecution cases already, the Justice Department has cited a rioter’s military service as a factor weighing in favor of a jail sentence or house arrest. Prosecutors have repeatedly maintained that veterans’ service, while commendable, made their actions on Jan. 6 more egregious.