bbc--2019-08-13--Hillsong A church with rock concerts and 2m followers

Hillsong: A church with rock concerts and 2m followers

As Christian churches throughout the US face widespread decline, one church is bucking the trend. But is Hillsong a triumph of marketing or faith?  If someone were to choreograph an ideal concert audience, it would look something like this.  Everyone has their hands up and everyone is swaying. The opening bars of each song are met with a roar of frenzied recognition. For the few who don't already know them by heart, the lyrics beam down from massive screens flanking the stage.  The songs sound expertly engineered to elicit an emotional reaction. The melodies rise, fall, then rise again like a more dramatic version of Mumford and Sons. The band, Hillsong United, had sold out the Anthem, among Washington's favourite venues.  The collective style of the 10 members on stage is mirrored by their audience: skinny jeans, over-sized T-shirts and tattoos. This uniformity makes the fans look less like a crowd and more like a congregation.  There are a few hints that the members of Hillsong are not your average rockstars, different to a musician like Billie Eilish, who took the same stage just days before.  First, there is no alcohol being sold anywhere in the venue. Any related branding has been hidden. Second, there are volunteers in blue vests slowly circling the concert floor, seeking donations for a Christian ministry group. And third, there is a massive CGI recreation of Jesus Christ on the cross, beamed up above the stage.  This isn't just a concert, this is church.  The band, Hillsong United, is a vital limb of Hillsong Church. Founded by husband and wife duo Brian and Bobbie Houston in Sydney, Australia, in 1983, the ministry has expanded into a global Evangelical phenomenon.  It spans six continents and claims churches in 23 cities. Every Sunday, an average of 130,000 worshippers will attend a Hillsong service somewhere around the world.  Hillsong's congregation now boasts a celebrity following: Justin Bieber and his wife, Hailey Baldwin Bieber, are famed members. NBA players Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving have been known to seek guidance from Hillsong New York's head pastor, Carl Lentz. Chris Pratt, Kylie Jenner and Kourtney Kardashian have also been tied to the church.  "They are one massively impactful ministry right now," says Mack Brock, who opened for Hillsong during its North American tour this year, after more than a decade as a worship leader at Elevation, a megachurch based in North Carolina.  Hillsong calls itself a "contemporary" Christian church, "on a mission to see God's kingdom established across the earth". This mission is being manifested in its ministry and its sprawling brand. Hillsong lays claim to two colleges (one in Sydney and one in Phoenix, Arizona), annual conferences, a 24-hour TV channel, community service initiatives and a music label.  Of these, Hillsong United is arguably the most visible and, certainly, the most accessible to the mainstream.  The band has more than 2 million followers on Instagram, with an additional 1.5 million combined from its 10 members. Their songs have almost 3.5 million weekly listens on Spotify. Their followers nearly double that of the platform's Top Christian channel.  Its most popular song to date, Oceans, has been played more than 155 million times on Spotify alone. For context, that is more than twice the plays than Billie Eilish's recent collaboration with Justin Bieber.  The tie between Christianity and rock music is not new, but the expanse of Hillsong's reach may be. The North America leg of its People tour included stops in more than 30 cities in the US and Canada. In November, they will take on Latin America, covering Brazil, Argentina and Peru.  Hillsong is "on the forefront of church music" Brock says. "They're the ones that I think do it best."  The meteoric rise of Hillsong, in all its various forms, is particularly striking given persistent declines in religiosity worldwide. For years, the Christian share of the US population has fallen, paralleled by an increase in those who do not identify with any religion at all.  Over a period of seven years - 2007 to 2014 - the percentage of adults who describe themselves as Christian dropped by almost eight percentage points. This drop is most pronounced among young people, a demographic that is especially enthralled by Hillsong.  At the Anthem, the line to enter formed about an hour before the doors to the venue opened, more than two before anyone started singing.  "We've waited our whole lives to see them" says Danielle Caputo, 27, as she waited to see the band in July. "On earth, it's the easiest way to see God's love in person." Her friend, Kristin Maghamez adds: "Hillsong concerts are a place where you can truly worship."  Most of the people I spoke to answered with some version of this: Hillsong's music is an embodiment of their faith, and their concerts are a chance to share in it with others. "You feel like sometimes there's nobody with our views," Maghamez says. "[Christianity] is almost looked down upon."  Many intimated a visceral connection to Hillsong or, as Caputo put it: "I'm going to cry my eyes out." And there were plenty of tears, especially when Hillsong, the band, leaned more toward Hillsong, the church.  "God's been doing something," says lead singer Joel Houston - son of Bobbie and Brian - to the crowd, resting his hands on his guitar. "I believe there's not one person here by accident." "I believe God is going to meet you where you're at."  This notion - of meeting followers where they are - is central to Hillsong's mission, and to its appeal.  Hillsong is located squarely in the thoroughfare of the young and hip. Hillsong's band sells out arenas, its church services fill Manhattan's Hammerstein Ballroom, its pastors sit courtside at NBA games.  Brock and other followers interviewed reject the idea that Hillsong's designer aesthetic is either a deliberate choice on the part of its leaders, or a calculated marketing scheme. But to an outsider, Hillsong's initial appeal lies in the visuals. Its brand looks and feels like your cool friend on Instagram.  "They're relevant," says Joe Adevai, who attended Hillsong College in Sydney before becoming a worship leader in New Jersey. "They're keeping up with the culture," he said. "How do you stay cool and be a Christian?"  Whatever the packaging, Hillsong is, fundamentally, a religious institution. More specifically, it is an Evangelical church, one that sees the Bible as "accurate, authoritative, and applicable to our everyday lives".  To some, this presents an inherent contradiction: a church marketed widely, with contemporary branding, that remains decidedly conservative.  Josh Canfield knows this tension intimately. He first joined Hillsong in 2008, soon becoming a vocalist on their worship team. Compared to the church of his youth, Hillsong seemed "edgy".  When Canfield, who is gay, joined Hillsong, he was still grappling with his sexuality in the context of his faith. While his parents' church was explicit in its stance - homosexuality is a sin - Hillsong was less transparent.  "It did feel like a "don't ask don't tell" kind of situation," Canfield says. "No one is going to ask, because no one wants to ask."  Sermons were resolutely positive, Canfield tells me, calling upon congregants to love the marginalised, immigrants and the poor. "But it does seem like they just forget about the LGBTQ group," he says.  In 2014, Canfield appeared on the reality show Survivor, speaking openly about his sexuality and his role at Hillsong. Canfield had told leadership at Hillsong New York of his plans, who "gave the go-ahead".  But after episodes began to air and Canfield's storyline gained media attention, head pastor Brian Houston publicly "clarified" Hillsong's stance on homosexuality.  In a blog post on Hillsong's website called Do I Love Gay People, Houston wrote that "God's word is clear" on homosexuality.  "Hillsong Church welcomes ALL people but does not affirm all lifestyles," he said. "Put clearly, we do not affirm a gay lifestyle and because of this we do not knowingly have actively gay people in positions of leadership, either paid or unpaid."  Canfield was asked to step down from his position with the vocalist team. After a series of private meetings with New York's head pastor, Carl Lentz, Canfield decided to leave the church.  "My problem is not that Hillsong believes that homosexuality is a sin, that is their prerogative to have that belief," he says. "But the problem is they're not being completely open about their beliefs because they don't want those people to leave… is that lying? In religious terms, is that a sin of omission?"  The semantic two-step in Houston's statement is a common refrain among Hillsong congregants: the church welcomes all people, but does not condone all "lifestyles". They prefer to talk about what they are for rather than what they are against, turning to some version of "love the sinner, not the sin".  "I think the Bible calls it out as a sin," Caputo says to me of gay marriage, a few weeks after the concert. "I don't think it's wrong to say that, but it needs to follow up with: God will love you anyway."  Steven Paulikas, a priest at All Saints Episcopal Church in Brooklyn and a doctoral student at Oxford's school of theology, argues there is a cost to this type of nuance.  "If a church says that it's welcoming in one part of its way of being, but explicitly says it's not welcoming in another place - those things are irreconcilable," he says. "And one thing trumps the other."  Paulikas did not comment specifically on Hillsong, but spoke about churches in general that include all people, but not all parts of them.  "That form of bait and switch is a type of spiritual violence," Paulikas says. "As a queer person… it's profoundly disturbing."  On the surface, Paulikas' steepled church lacks some of the star power claimed by Hillsong. And though he says that his own congregation has grown in recent years, he acknowledges the institutional slide hurting others like it.  "We see our numbers declining and it is very distressing," he says. Looking at churches like Hillsong, "there are feelings of envy because our institutions are by and large losing people".  Paulikas and his colleagues talk about ways to expand their circles of faith - something Hillsong has mastered - "to an obsessive extent". But he objects to the "success" of a church being measured in relation to its fan following. The shine associated with Hillsong is of no interest to him.  "I see that as a distraction," he says. "Is that Evangelism or is that marketing?"  Moral teaching is strongest when it is removed from earthly markers of success like wealth and popularity, he continued.  After leaving Hillsong, Canfield has turned to a smaller congregation, one without the celebrity of Hillsong.  "When the cameras aren't there, and no one is interviewing you, that's where most true Christianity resides," he says.  But he is still defensive of his former church.  "You walk into Hillsong and it's cool and it's dark and there are lights going and there are all these people around you who are your age who are smiling and talking," Canfield says. "And then the music starts and it washes over you… the noise of outside gets cancelled out."  "The music is so beautiful and uplifting and it makes you feel better," he continued. "I don't think there's anything in the Bible that says we can't feel good."


bbc--2019-12-17--Pope lifts 'pontifical secret' rule in sex abuse cases

The Pope has declared that the rule of "pontifical secrecy" no longer applies to the sexual abuse of minors, in a bid to improve transparency in such cases.  The Church previously shrouded sexual abuse cases in secrecy, in what it said was an effort to protect the privacy of victims and reputations of the accused.  But new papal documents on Tuesday lifted restrictions on those who report abuse or say they have been victims.  Church leaders called for the rule's abolition at a February Vatican summit.  They said the lifting of the rule in such cases would improve transparency and the ability of the police and other civil legal authorities to request information from the Church.  Information in abuse cases should still be treated with "security, integrity and confidentiality", the Pope said in his announcement. He instructed Vatican officials to comply with civil laws and assist civil judicial authorities in investigating such cases.  The Pope also changed the Vatican's definition of child pornography, increasing the age of the subject from 14 or under to 18 or under.  Charles Scicluna, the Archbishop of Malta and the Vatican's most experienced sex abuse investigator, called the move an "epochal decision that removes obstacles and impediments", telling Vatican news that "the question of transparency now is being implemented at the highest level". • Child sexual abuse and the Catholic Church: What you need to know  The Church has been rocked by thousands of reports of sexual abuse by priests and accusations of cover-ups by senior clergy around the world. Pope Francis has faced serious pressure to provide leadership and generate workable solutions to the crisis, which has engulfed the Church in recent years.  Pontifical secrecy was designed to protect sensitive information such as communications between the Vatican and papal embassies - in a similar fashion to the secrecy applied to diplomatic cables. But it was also applied over the years to judicial cases, to protect the privacy of victims and the identities of those accused.  Critics said pontifical secrecy had been abused by some Church officials to avoid co-operation with the police in abuse cases.  "Certain jurisdictions would have easily quoted the pontifical secret ... to say that they could not, and that they were not, authorised to share information with either state authorities or the victims," Archbishop Scicluna said. "Now that impediment, we might call it that way, has been lifted, and the pontifical secret is no more an excuse."  Under the new instruction, the pontifical secret no longer binds those working in offices of the Roman Curia to confidentiality on other offences if committed in conjunction with child abuse or child pornography. Witnesses, alleged victims, and the person who filed the report are also be unbound from obligations of silence.  On his 83rd birthday, Pope Francis has responded to a longstanding complaint from survivors by announcing that any testimony gathered by the Church in relation to cases of sexual violence, the abuse of minors and child pornography will now be made available to state authorities.  In the past, the Church has been accused of using secrecy laws as a justification for not reporting cases of abuse. The consequence of breaching the pontifical secret was excommunication from the Church, so there was little incentive to be open to state authorities. That prohibition has now been abolished.  It is the latest attempt by the Roman Catholic Church to address the scourge of clerical abuse that has manifested itself across continents and in a range of religious institutions.

religious institutions and state relations


bbcuk--2019-12-06--Stansted Airport puts new terminal plan on hold

Stansted Airport has put its new £150m arrivals terminal on hold while it reviews the plans.  Economic and political uncertainty, fresh demands from airlines, and delays in approval for further expansion are behind the rethink, bosses said.  The terminal was due to open in 2020, as part of an ongoing £600m plan to create capacity and improve facilities at the Essex airport.  Stansted is consulting with airlines to "future-proof" the building.  The airport said uncertainty over what border controls would be required after Brexit and wider economic doubts had also influenced the review.  It is reconsidering the interior design of the building, to ensure it can use new technologies and install facilities - such as passenger lounges - that will appeal to the long-haul operators it wants to attract.  It has also been waiting for more than a year for approval from Uttlesford District Council for its plan to increase passenger numbers.  Stansted currently handles 28 million passengers a year, and has permission to increase capacity to 35 million. It wants to increase that number to 43 million.  Brian Ross, of campaign group Stop Stansted Expansion, said there had been a recent dip in passenger numbers at the airport.  "There are a bunch of reasons for it but the fact is that Stansted is in decline rather than moving ahead," he said.  "So why would they have any urgency to build a new arrivals terminal? There isn't that urgency."  The airport denied passenger numbers had been a factor in reviewing the terminal.


observer--2019-06-17--So Much for a Woke Catholic Church

So Much for a Woke Catholic Church

What can you expect from someone with (at least nominal) complete control over a powerful and fabulously wealthy organization and its 1.2 billion adherents as well as infallibility—as in he is never wrong, can never be wrong, an always-rightness gifted straight from the divine? Not a whole hell of a lot, if that person is the pope, the supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church, and your expectation is a religious and charitable institution able to adjust to meet the reality in which it exists rather than drawing ever deeper from a well dug during the Dark Ages.  The bar was admittedly low, as it ought to be for any outfit that systematically shielded serial child molesters so that they could re-offend, consequence-free, over a period spanning decades, in almost every corner of the globe. And lo, over the past year, the Catholic Church has managed to crawl under it. But by re-embracing homophobia, injecting itself into the gender debate and exploiting its great shame—the ongoing sex abuse scandal—as a tool for internecine power politics, the church is merely staying true to its values and its identity. And we should expect more of the same.  The Catholic Church was back in the news this month for the wrong reasons, because it is LGBTQ Pride month, and there is no progressive and secular event religion can’t try to ruin. Catholics were told to avoid Pride parades and related events because LGBTQ people and LGBTQ rights are “contrary to Catholic faith and morals” and “especially harmful for children,” as the “[p]roudly pro-life” Bishop Thomas Tobin of Rhode Island tweeted earlier this month. Tobin’s tweet went viral because he chose to tweet it rather than merely declaim it from the pulpit, but it shouldn’t be surprising. As Tobin explained in a non-apology, outre homophobia—like the homily given during Palm Sunday mass by a priest in Corpus Christi, Texas, in which he declared that “the LGBTQIA plus whatever values are not the values” of the area—is merely consistent with the official teachings of the church. All of this is in the catechism, and there are many Catholics who are just fine with it.  In more worldly dealings, the church remains a slick and secretive operator, recently convincing a German court that it has no prerogative to reveal how it spends the billions of dollars it receives from taxpayers every year.  Any disappointment or outrage felt at this return to the normal stems from false hope that things would get better—more just—and things like this would not happen, or happen less, or become marginalized and not mainstream (again). The false hope radiated from Pope Francis, the “People’s Pope,” the broke-ass-by-choice priest from Latin America elected to God’s top job in 2013. Francis eschewed the baroque luxuries in which his predecessor seemed to wallow. Francis said the right things. He said that climate change is real and a “moral issue.” He said gay people should be embraced and not condemned. “Who am I to judge?” he asked in 2013, when the notorious Vatican gossip machine spread the rumor of a gay priest working in the Holy See.  Francis even offered economic critiques. When he denounced the “idolatry of money,” the lifeblood of the market-based capitalism keeping billions of people in poverty’s bondage, could you hear a faint whisper of “liberation theology,” the “Marxist Catholicism” that helped make Latin American priests targets of CIA-connected right-wing death squads?  There was promise that Francis would be a sort of social justice warrior pope—a pejorative on the right-wing that is basically the papal job description, as given by Jesus Christ himself—and that his church would follow. It hasn’t. From the very beginning, Francis found himself besieged by reactionary elements within the church (which could also be a way to say, “the church”). Last August, Carlo Maria Viganò, an ur-conservative archbishop, landed the heaviest blow yet: In an 11-page letter, he accused Francis of participating in the modern church’s most profound sin, condoning and hiding priestly sexual molestation. Francis denied the accusation, but it was a clear sign of “war” against Francis by church conservatives—and it is working.  Last week, the Vatican issued a document on gender, in which it declared that trans and gender-fluid people are “confused” and that gender is not a construct or a “choice” but a God-given identity issued at birth.  It’s tempting to credit Viganò’s broadside with shaking Francis’ faith, but the letter merely followed other signs that the pope wasn’t so woke—or at least his wokeness was susceptible to a revolt in his ranks. In January 2018, eight months prior, the pope dismissed credible accusations of child abuse against a Chilean priest as “calumny.” Gender theory, in particular, has been a bête noire for Francis, who has blasted academia for introducing notions that threaten the family.  This is not to say that Francis is so craven or so susceptible to palace intrigue that he has lost all faith. Last week, Francis repeated earlier condemnations of an economic system that finds “new ways” to keep poor people “in bondage.” The pope would not be down with the gig economy. He is not the problem. The problem is his institution and trends identified by social scientists in healthy religious institutions. Religions that are rigid and inflexible and reactionary attract and keep adherents. Religions that are open and welcoming and pluralistic shed followers. This is partially why the church is re-embracing wildly unscientific practices, like exorcism, even as Francis preaches data-driven acknowledgments of climate change.  This path is a straight line heading only one way. You must think of any church first and foremost as a business. (If you disagree or doubt, spend a couple of Sundays in prayer and count the number of times you are hit up for money.) Businesses need customers to keep the lights on and to buy fancy robes and candles and stuff and to maintain a real estate portfolio that has been the envy of the most vain potentates the world has seen. Wokeness is death, and you would be a fool to believe the Catholic Church is interested in that particular eschatological method. The Catholic Church on view this month, petty and ugly and venal, is the Catholic Church, and will be ever thus.


rawstory--2019-05-05--Here is how the Founding Fathers ensured America would not be a Christian nation

When I was growing up in the fifties and sixties, almost no one in politics or everyday life went around proclaiming, “I am a Christian.” If indeed you were a Christian—that is, someone who considers Jesus Christ the Messiah—you identified yourself as a Lutheran, a Methodist, a Baptist, a Catholic, and so on in excelsis in order to let others know where you stood in the vast American religious landscape.  Calling oneself a Christian today, by contrast, has a special, politicized meaning. For most people in public life, this self-identification suggests a particular form of conservative Christianity, a brand of religion that seeks not only to proselytize but to impose its values on others through the machinery of the state. The huge exception to this rule is President Barack Obama, who has been forced by the birther-paranoids to advertise his credentials as a Christian in order to refute the lie that he is a “secret Muslim.”  Once upon a time (until around 1980, actually), the appellation “Christian” used to mean “right-wing Protestant,” as a consequence of the historic animosity between many forms of American Protestantism and the Roman Catholic Church. That is no longer true, as demonstrated by GOP primary hopefuls Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, the darlings of Protestant fundamentalists, although they personify the cliché “more Catholic than the pope.” (In Gingrich’s case, the relevant pontiffs would be certain medieval and Renaissance vicars of Christ who produced numerous children through extra-pontifical liaisons.) Santorum is in fact a Catholic fundamentalist—unlike the majority of American Catholics, who do not accept either the notion of papal infallibility or the Vatican line on sexual behavior. Liberal Catholics, well aware of the political meaning of Christian in American politics, generally call themselves plain old “Catholics.”  Thus, when Santorum and Gingrich used their dog whistles throughout the Republican primaries to imply that Obama is not the Christian he claims to be, what they really meant is that he is not their kind of Christian. It has also become standard for politicians to offer a nod to “our Judeo-Christian heritage” in an effort to display theocratic inclusiveness. The slippery Gingrich never stumbled over this phrase, but Santorum often did, dragging Judeo out to four syllables so that it came out “Jew-day-ee-oh.” It is clear that this ecumenical platitude was not a part of the sanctimonious Santorum’s upbringing.  Was the United States founded as a Christian nation, meaning that the framers of the Constitution established a government whose laws would not only reflect but also enforce the rules of a particular brand of Christianity? No, period. The answer is as clear as Santorum’s pronunciation of Judeo is slurred, and the explanation can be found in the old (i.e., pre-1980) American practice of identifying oneself by denomination.  Denominational identification is as old as the earliest colonies in the New World, given that the first Puritan theocrats were fleeing persecution by adherents of another denomination—the Church of England. By the revolutionary era, doctrinal and intellectual distinctions separating one Christian denomination from another remained as immense as the gulf between the beliefs of a Jew and any Christian, or between any orthodox religious believer and a deist.  The founders did not want doctrinal differences to wreak civic havoc of the kind then evident throughout Europe. That is why they left not only Jesus but indeed any deity out of the Constitution. That the American population was and is overwhelmingly Christian is a fact. That makes it all the more remarkable that the founders did not establish a Christian government.  The Christian Right cannot point to a single mention of Jesus or Christianity in any of the nation’s founding documents and is forced to rely, for divine antecedents, on the line in the Declaration of Independence that talks about all men being endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. But even if this were a statement of belief in a specific god rather than a general assertion of the philosophy of natural rights, it is most decidedly not a statement of faith in Jesus Christ.  In any event, it is futile to engage in debate with spokespeople for the Christian Right on this subject, because for them, the Christian origin of the American state is an article of faith that cannot be disproved by facts or plain English. Tell them, for instance, that the godlessness of the Constitution was taken for granted and attacked by conservatives at state ratifying conventions in 1787 and 1788, and they will point to the conventional “Year of Our Lord” dating of the document. This supposedly refutes hundreds of statements by angry ministers complaining about the absence of God from the document that would furnish the young government’s written foundation. As one cleric observed at North Carolina’s state convention, the Constitution’s ban on religious tests for public office in Article VI, Section 3 amounted to “an invitation for Jews and pagans of every kind to come among us.” He was entirely accurate in his description of the potential effects of letting anyone, regardless of religious belief, run for public office. And when it came time to ratify the Constitution, he and his fellow theocrats were voted down in every state.  The ungodliness of the Constitution kept popping up in public discourse throughout the nineteenth century, most notably when a powerful group of Protestant ministers came to Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and demanded that he support an amendment to declare Jesus Christ, not “We the People,” the source of all governmental power. Lincoln, a canny politician who knew when not to take on another battle in the middle of a bloody civil war, declined to take any action and instead went along with a move to placate the ministers by putting “In God We Trust” on a two-penny coin in 1864. Lincoln presumably viewed the inscription of trust in a deity on a coin as an innocuous action calculated to avoid the trouble that would surely be generated by a Christian amendment to the Constitution. Little did he know that nearly 150 years in the future, right-wing politicians would employ that slogan to attack the much older motto E Pluribus Unum.  Lincoln’s brand of compromise was described by Jon Meacham in Time magazine as “a long-standing covenant between believers and nonbelievers in which secularists live with public religious appeals and images in exchange for self-regulating moderation on the part of the faithful. It’s an ancient and wise accommodation that allows religion and politics to inform each other without promoting an eschatological war between church and state.”  In fairness, Meacham argues that extremists like Santorum had violated this unspoken and unsigned “covenant.” However, “self-regulating moderation on the part of the faithful” is a flimsy altar upon which to base any agreement regarding the separation of church and state. Had the founders believed in the capacity of the faithful for such “self-regulation,” they never would have prohibited religious tests for national office at a time when most state governments still had religious discrimination written into their laws.  One aspect of the imaginary covenant between religious believers and secularists began to break down in the 1960s, long before the rise of the Christian Right. Since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid and the expansion of federal aid to education during Lyndon Johnson’s administration, secularists have rarely objected to the expenditure of federal funds through religious institutions like hospitals and charities. This is hardly a symbolic matter. It is far more important than the symbolic victories won by secularists of that era in the Supreme Court on issues like school prayer.  The firestorm set off by the Obama administration’s effort to make Catholic institutions offer insurance policies that cover contraception was described by the media as a dispute over religious liberty. Religious liberty meant, to the Catholic bishops, the right to participate in federal programs and receive funds provided by all taxpayers while imposing their religious doctrines on employees and patients alike—whatever their religion or lack thereof. Not every religion wants to have the taxpayers’ cake and eat it too. Mormon charities, for instance, do not accept government money.  The ability of the religious Right to frame this dispute purely as a matter of religious freedom—meaning freedom for the most conservative forms of religion—is a direct result of the long erosion of the separation of church and state at the practical level of taxpayer funding. Throughout these decades of erosion, what was once the religious center has constantly been pulled to the right.  There is no real answer to be found in the nation’s founding documents about this question, because the founders never envisioned an America in which the federal government would spend billions of dollars on health and education, whether through religious or nonreligious institutions. It is worth noting, however, that Virginia’s 1786 Act for Establishing Religious Freedom—which later served as the template for the Bill of Rights—came into being in opposition to a proposal that would have taxed Virginians for the support of Christian teaching in the public schools. Virginia’s law, not the statutes of states that still had established churches, became the template for Article VI, which was supposed to ban religious preference within the government, and the First Amendment, which prevented government from favoring one religion over another. The issue in Virginia, then, like the national issue over the prerogatives of sectarian hospitals today, encompassed both religious freedom and money.  The bishops are not the least bit concerned about the freedom of non-Catholic (or, for that matter, Catholic) employees whose consciences tell them that contraception is just fine. They are not concerned about rape victims, whatever their religion, who will not only be refused the morning-after pill by their hospitals but also will not even be told about other nonsectarian hospitals that provide such services. They will not be concerned if someday the Vatican decides that living wills are a usurpation of divine and ecclesiastical authority and that everyone has a duty to go on living and suffering until some deity decides to pull the plug.  The question is not whether the United States is a Christian nation: it is whether church authorities adhering to a deeply conservative brand of Christianity (along with some ultra-Orthodox rabbis who do not speak for most American Jews, any more than bishops speak for most American Catholics or the Family Research Council speaks for most American Protestants) get to use taxpayer money to further their parochial agenda.  It is true that most American secularists tolerate a good deal more religious symbolism in public life than we would like, but it is sheer fantasy to suggest that we have signed on to any covenant that tolerates the expenditure of public money according to the prescriptions and proscriptions of canon law or general biblical laws.  Oh, wait. There really weren’t any biblical laws about contraception because there wasn’t any effective contraception. But then, biblical Israel was definitely not a Christian nation. It was, however, a theocracy, like every Christian feudal monarchy and nation-state that succeeded the Roman Empire. The founders made a noble effort to say goodbye to all that in order to secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and their posterity.  Susan Jacoby is the author of Freethinkers: a History of American Secularism (Metropolitan, 2004) and a forthcoming biography of Robert Green Ingersoll, to be published next January by Yale University Press.


redstate--2019-01-23--Lady Gaga Declares Mike Pence the Worst Type of Christian Yes THAT Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga Declares Mike Pence the “Worst” Type of Christian – Yes, THAT Lady Gaga

When it comes to condemning someone’s faith I’ll need a better source.      The Academy Awards were announced yesterday and, as expected, Lady Gaga received two nominations. One was for her role in the film “A Star Is Born”, and the other is for the song “Shallow”, on which she is a co-writer. This good news was highly anticipated, as the film was positioned as one of the favorites going into the Oscars. However Ms. Gaga does not seem all that happy.  Just days ahead of the announcement the singer was performing in Las vegas, and during her set she took the time to pause and deliver a barb-filled political message. As she first addressed the government shutdown (the nation is now jubilant as she has lent her opposition to the issue) she then took the time to segue into delivering invective towards Vice President Mike Pence.  “You are the worst representation of what it means to be a Christian,” the singer stated, in her revealing sequined leotard. If you think it odd that the meat-wearing entertainer is weighing in on the theistic bonafides of a politician well, the item that set her off will be even more confounding. It is that Pence’s wife took a job at a private school as an art teacher.  “And to Mike Pence who thinks that it’s acceptable that his wife works at a school that bans LGBTQ. You are wrong. You said we should not discriminate against Christianity? You’re the worst representation of what it means to be a Christian,” Gaga said to a cheering crowd. “I am a Christian woman, and what I do know about Christianity is that we bear no prejudice and everybody is welcome. So you can take all that disgrace, Mr. Pence, and look yourself in the mirror and you’ll find it right there.”  The video of her lecture is here:  It seems revealing that while she delivers what sounds like scorn from within the faith she uses terms that emanate from a removed source. “You say we should not discriminate against Christianity” are the words that would be spoken by those on the outside. And in discussing “what I do know about” Christianity it sure sounds like someone studying from afar, not one who feels they exist within the faith.  But note her stark contradiction while delivering her hectoring message. She takes issue with supposed prejudice, and being unwelcoming, while casting harsh judgement about another’s faith. This is not the action of someone operating within the Christian framework. Where does her own tolerance exist? Where is her willingness to forgive and reach out to assist, if she is convinced of errant?  What led to this particular condemnation is a recent announcement made that Karen Pence would be teaching an art class two days a week at Immanuel Christian School, in Springfield, Virginia. ICS has a policy that disallows LGBTQ students, and this interpreted level of intolerance is foisted upon Karen, and then is projected onto the Vice President.  The result? Pence is declared the “worst Christian” because a Christian school adheres to Christian principles.  What has Lady Gaga (an avowed supporter of gay agendas) in a dander is the school issues a parental agreement that outlines what they deem to be moral standards that need to followed:  Seems that this is not unfairly targeting Gaga’s beloved group, as it is a blanket statement of a moral code. While homosexual activity is in fact addressed, that is preceded by declaring heterosexual activity is also disallowed. That hardly then can be declared as discriminatory.  What gets lost in the social signaling furor of course is that there need not be a focus placed on the sexual activities of the students by entertainers and the media. ICS is a school that teaches students from kindergarten to 8th grade. Putting the focus on matters of a sexual nature, in a Christian school, is an effort at injecting secular standards onto a religious institution, and then delivering scorn for not following a secular conscript.  That this comes from a singer who last appeared at the Oscars singing about sexxual assault victims is somewhat priceless. The film that her song was featured in that year? It was produced by Harvey Weinstein, well before his scandal was made public, but at a time when his sexual predatory behavior was an opeen secret in Hollywood.  The hollowness of Gaga’s charge here is exposed if we are to apply the same measurement to the standards of the entertainment and press elitess. Were they not the same crowd who expressed outrage at the concept of a husband telling his wife how to vote. Now the message is a husband SHOULD be directing his wife on how to behave, but in order to meet the standards of those who said that kind of action is wrong.  Huh. Seems hypocritical, and therefore of no substance. Same result if a Christian school were to turn away from the teachings in the Bible to appease the social activists in Hollywood.


drudgereport--2019-05-03--Violence prompts houses of worship to beef up security

Violence prompts houses of worship to beef up security...

When members of the Bayside Shul gathered for Passover last month, it was behind the locked doors of the synagogue, an armed security guard patrolling its parking lot.  And when Milwaukee-area Muslims kneel in prayer for the start of Ramadan on Sunday, many local mosques will be taking those same precautions.  Seven years after a white supremacist killed six worshipers at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin — after Charleston and Pittsburgh, Christchurch, Sri Lanka and now Poway — faith leaders are increasingly hardening their buildings against potential attacks.  Many are hiring off-duty police officers or armed security guards for services and special events. They are locking doors, installing cameras, taking active-shooter training and in some cases tacitly allowing the carrying of concealed weapons during services.  These are necessary precautions, they say. But they worry that they cut at the very heart of their faith traditions, which call on them to welcome the stranger, to open their doors as places of prayer and refuge.  "It is really disheartening," said Othman Atta of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, which operates three mosques in Milwaukee and Brookfield.  "You don't want to be a fortress, where you're turning people away or creating a separation. But you don't want to be sitting targets either," he said. "This is something all religious institutions are really struggling with."  RELATED: Daughter of the rabbi injured in the San Diego synagogue shooting has a connection to the Milwaukee area  RELATED: 500 attended a vigil at the Islamic Center of Milwaukee for victims of the New Zealand mosque attacks  Last week's shooting at a San Diego-area synagogue was the latest in a series of deadly attacks on houses of worship in the United States and abroad in recent years. Last fall, 11 people were killed when a gunman opened fire at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. This year, 50 people died when a white supremacist attacked mosques during Friday prayers in Christchurch, New Zealand. And more than 200 were killed in the Easter Sunday bombings of Catholic churches by Islamic militants in Sri Lanka.  At the same time, the FBI and other organizations have documented an increase in hate crimes, including those based on race and religion, and spikes in anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic incidents. In the most recent FBI report, hate crimes committed on the basis of religious identity jumped 23 percent, the biggest annual increase since 2001.  Many Milwaukee-area houses of worship began seriously evaluating their security after the Sikh Temple shooting in 2012, with the help of local and federal authorities. And they have added security measures over the years, driven at times by the most recent attack.  James Davis, an elder at New Testament Church in Milwaukee, said his church began hiring an armed security guard in 2015 after white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine people during a Bible study at an African American church in Charleston, S.C.  After Pittsburgh, Congregation Emanu-El B'Ne Jeshurun in River Hills, which had been securing its doors for a while, hired a full-time director of security — a first for a Milwaukee-area synagogue. And the Bayside Shul beefed up its security, locking doors at all times, installing new security cameras inside and out, and hiring armed security for services and events.  Some Milwaukee-area mosques have been using armed security guards for a while, but interest has increased over the last year, according to Atta.  "There's definitely a sadness that this had to happen," Rabbi Cheski Edelman said of the heightened measures at the Bayside Shul. "But people understand that this is the reality ... and that it's the best way to protect the community."  Some congregations have begun drafting their own members to assist in security, whether that's greeting newcomers at the door or patrolling their parking lots, with an eye toward spotting anyone who looks unfamiliar or out of place.  And some are turning a blind eye to the "no-weapons" signs they posted after Wisconsin passed its concealed carry law in 2011, believing that congregants who are trained and licensed to carry firearms could save lives in the minutes it takes for police to respond to an attack.  "It's kind of a don't-ask-don't-tell policy," said Noman Hussain, the imam at the Islamic Society's Masjid Al-Noor mosque in Brookfield, which has used an off-duty Waukesha County sheriff's deputy for security for about two year.  "But we're going to highly recommend that anyone who wants to carry makes sure they have multiple hours of training, so they don't do more harm than good," he said. "For now, we're not officially allowing guns. But if someone does and we don't know about it ..."  At New Testament, where several members work in law enforcement or other jobs in which they're licensed to carry firearms, church leaders are taking a more direct approach.  According to Davis, the church is developing a security "ministry" that would sanction the carrying of concealed firearms by certain qualified members. And it would revamp its "no-weapons" signage to make it clear that some members "have the permission of the board of elders to carry a concealed weapon."  "We want to do as much as we can to let folks know that this may be the wrong building to go after," said Davis.  Many faith leaders blame the increase in hate crimes on the rise of President Donald Trump, whose anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric, they believe, has emboldened extremists, and the power of social media to amplify their views and inspire copycats.  "We live in a much more polarized society right now. And that's part of the problem," said Atta. "I think it's empowering more people to think they have free rein to say and do what they want to do."  There is a long history in African American churches of some members carrying firearms because of racist attacks, according to the Rev. Walter Lanier, pastor of Progressive Baptist Church on Milwaukee's northwest side. Still, he said, it is seen by some as a lack of faith that God will protect them.  Edelman, of the Bayside Shul, does not share that view.  "The Jewish tradition is pretty clear that we are partners with God. We have to do our part, and God will do His part," he said.  To illustrate, he shared the biblical story of Jacob's meeting with his brother, Esau, after two decades estranged.  "When Jacob was going to confront his brother, it says he prayed, but he also prepared for war," said Edelman. "He did both."  Contact Annysa Johnson at anjohnson@jrn.com or 414-224-2061. Follow her on Twitter at @JSEdbeat. And join the Journal Sentinel conversation about education issues at www.facebook.com/groups/WisconsinEducation.


realclearpolitics--2019-11-20--Will 2020 Dems Turn Off More Faith Voters in Fifth Debate?

Will Democrats upset more faith voters in tonight’s debate? A new extensive study released today suggests they better not.  In the last debate, Beto O’Rourke said that churches that espouse traditional marriage should be taxed. When asked by CNN’s Don Lemon, “Do you think religious institutions like colleges, churches, charities—should they lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage?” O’Rourke didn’t flinch. “Yes,” he replied. “There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone, or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us.”  Democrats balked. Frontrunners Senator Warren and Mayor Buttigieg tripped over themselves to disagree. “I’m not sure he understood the implications of what he was saying,” Buttigieg said. “Going after the tax exemption of churches, Islamic centers or other religious facilities in this country is just going to deepen the divisions we’re already experiencing.” Even The New Republic, hardly a bastion of moderate liberal thinking, proclaimed that O’Rourke “is out over his skis.” Two weeks later, O’Rourke ended his campaign.  The resounding backlash to O’Rourke, even from the left, was a striking example of a reality that a report from the pro-bono law firm The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty makes clear -- namely, that Americans of all stripes still deeply value religious liberty and don’t want to see people of faith and their institutions punished for their beliefs.  The report, a statistical index that gives extensive coverage to nearly every corner of the issue of religious liberty, finds that support for a broad interpretation of religious liberty remains strong, despite having weathered a battering in the culture wars. Eighty-seven percent of respondents, for example, believe in the “freedom to practice a religion in daily life without facing discrimination or harm from others.”  The index authors note a particularly strong desire among respondents for a “hands off government approach” when it comes to the treatment of religion in society. Overwhelming majorities support allowing religious organizations and groups to make their own hiring and leadership decisions (an issue that recently played out at the Supreme Court in the case of Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC) and oppose penalizing individuals or groups for their religious views about marriage (an issue that is still playing out in the Court and is bound to be for years to come).  Above all, the index finds that religious liberty is a point of consensus in a deeply divided nation, a conclusion that is also backed up by a report released just days ago from the Pew Research Center. While respondents in that survey disagreed about the mixing of religion and politics, majorities agreed that religion is a force for good in society and is something that generally brings people together.  In short, though we may be becoming less religious as a country, we still value the role of religion and value the principle of religious liberty even more.  And while Democrats may pay lip service to these ideas in tepid statements, the reality is that the party walks a different line. Democrats are only increasing their efforts to punish charities like adoption agencies for their religious views about marriage, to force healthcare workers to perform procedures that violate their religious beliefs and religious employers and taxpayers to pay for them, and to exclude religious schools and charities from public funding programs, yet another issue currently before the highest court. The party talks like Buttigieg but acts like Beto.  The American people strongly agree that Americans should not pay a price, literal or figurative, for their faith. And they deserve to know in clear terms that their potential president does too. A perfect task for a primary debate moderator.


theindependent--2019-08-01--Three wedding rules you should never ignore as a guest according to etiquette expert

Three wedding rules you should never ignore as a guest, according to etiquette expert

With the introduction of flower walls, millennial pink wedding dresses, and wedding hashtags, it would be fair to assume that weddings have become anything-goes affairs that are evolving with the times.  After all, millennial brides and grooms tend to avoid many traditional wedding elements, such as ceremonies held in religious institutions, and the bridal bouquet toss, which is now done by fewer than half of brides, according to The Knot.  The role of guests has also changed, with a focus on guest experience now an ever-increasing aspect of wedding planning.  However, when it comes to the question of whether everything has fundamentally changed for those invited to a wedding, according to an etiquette expert, the answer is no.  We spoke to national etiquette expert Diane Gottsman, who told us that there are still some traditions that it is never acceptable for wedding guests to ignore - and that the main ones still hold true.  We've all heard of mothers-of-the-groom upstaging their son's wife with a white dress of their own but even for those with no ill intentions, white is still off-limits for anyone other than the bride.  “White is still reserved for the bride,” Gottsman told us. “A guest should select another colour and there are plenty of beautiful options when it comes to picking out a great wedding outfit.”  She also said the rule applies to guests of all genders, so men who are not the groom should avoid showing up in a white suit.  Do not propose during someone else's wedding  Stealing any of the bride and groom’s attention during the big day is also a huge no, which means guests should avoid behaviours such as using the time to propose.  It may seem romantic to become engaged on the love-filled day, especially if the wedding happens to be of the destination variety, but Gottsman advises against it.  She said: “Regardless of where another person’s wedding is located, the celebration should be reserved for the bride and groom.  “A proposal by another individual, unless agreed-upon by the bride and groom in advance, should wait for another time.”  According to The Knot, you shouldn’t even ask the bride and groom for permission - as chances are they would prefer you didn’t and it may put them in an awkward position.  There are no exceptions to kid-free weddings  Taking into account the bride and groom’s wishes also means abiding by their rules, whether that means wearing black-tie or not bringing children.  Although kid-free weddings can be difficult to plan for for guests with young children, Gottsman says “guests should honour the request”.  “However, parents can opt to pass on the wedding if it causes issues,” she told us. “The bride and groom should be prepared for the circumstances without getting their feelings hurt.”  In addition to abiding by the general rules, guests should also be considerate of unspoken expectations - such as arriving on time rather than early or late and only bringing a plus-one if you’re explicitly invited to.  Unplanned speeches, not giving a gift, skipping the ceremony, or drinking too much should also to be avoided, according to Brides.  Millennials may be changing up the wedding industry, but some wedding rules are here to stay.


globalresearch--2019-12-17--The Child that Christmas Forgot: How Would Jesus Fare in the American Police State?

“Once upon a midnight clear, there was a child’s cry, a blazing star hung over a stable, and wise men came with birthday gifts. We haven’t forgotten that night down the centuries. We celebrate it with stars on Christmas trees, with the sound of bells, and with gifts… We forget nobody, adult or child. All the stockings are filled, all that is, except one. And we have even forgotten to hang it up. The stocking for the child born in a manger. It’s his birthday we’re celebrating. Don’t let us ever forget that. Let us ask ourselves what He would wish for most. And then, let each put in his share, loving kindness, warm hearts, and a stretched out hand of tolerance. All the shining gifts that make peace on earth.”—The Bishop’s Wife (1947)  The Christmas story of a baby born in a manger is a familiar one.  The Roman Empire, a police state in its own right, had ordered that a census be conducted. Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary traveled to the little town of Bethlehem so that they could be counted. There being no room for the couple at any of the inns, they stayed in a stable (a barn), where Mary gave birth to a baby boy, Jesus. Warned that the government planned to kill the baby, Jesus’ family fled with him to Egypt until it was safe to return to their native land.  Yet what if Jesus had been born 2,000 years later?  What if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, Jesus had been born at this moment in time? What kind of reception would Jesus and his family be given? Would we recognize the Christ child’s humanity, let alone his divinity? Would we treat him any differently than he was treated by the Roman Empire? If his family were forced to flee violence in their native country and sought refuge and asylum within our borders, what sanctuary would we offer them?  A singular number of churches across the country are asking those very questions, and their conclusions are being depicted with unnerving accuracy by nativity scenes in which Jesus and his family are separated, segregated and caged in individual chain-link pens, topped by barbed wire fencing.  These nativity scenes are a pointed attempt to remind the modern world that the narrative about the birth of Jesus is one that speaks on multiple fronts to a world that has allowed the life, teachings and crucifixion of Jesus to be drowned out by partisan politics, secularism, materialism and war.  The modern-day church has largely shied away from applying Jesus’ teachings to modern problems such as war, poverty, immigration, etc., but thankfully there have been individuals throughout history who ask themselves and the world: what would Jesus do?  What would Jesus—the baby born in Bethlehem who grew into an itinerant preacher and revolutionary activist, who not only died challenging the police state of his day (namely, the Roman Empire) but spent his adult life speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo of his day, and pushing back against the abuses of the Roman Empire—do?  Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked himself what Jesus would have done about the horrors perpetrated by Hitler and his assassins. The answer: Bonhoeffer risked his life to undermine the tyranny at the heart of Nazi Germany.  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asked himself what Jesus would have done about the soul-destroying gulags and labor camps of the Soviet Union. The answer: Solzhenitsyn found his voice and used it to speak out about government oppression and brutality.  Martin Luther King Jr. asked himself what Jesus would have done about America’s warmongering. The answer: declaring “my conscience leaves me no other choice,” King risked widespread condemnation when he publicly opposed the Vietnam War on moral and economic grounds.  Even now, despite the popularity of the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” (WWJD) in Christian circles, there remains a disconnect in the modern church between the teachings of Christ and the suffering of what Jesus in Matthew 25 refers to as the “least of these.”  “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’”  This is not a theological gray area: Jesus was unequivocal about his views on many things, not the least of which was charity, compassion, war, tyranny and love.  After all, Jesus—the revered preacher, teacher, radical and prophet—was born into a police state not unlike the growing menace of the American police state. When he grew up, he had powerful, profound things to say, things that would change how we view people, alter government policies and change the world. “Blessed are the merciful,” “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and “Love your enemies” are just a few examples of his most profound and revolutionary teachings.  When confronted by those in authority, Jesus did not shy away from speaking truth to power. Indeed, his teachings undermined the political and religious establishment of his day. It cost him his life. He was eventually crucified as a warning to others not to challenge the powers-that-be.  Can you imagine what Jesus’ life would have been like if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, he had been born and raised in the American police state?  Consider the following if you will.  Had Jesus been born in the era of the America police state, rather than traveling to Bethlehem for a census, Jesus’ parents would have been mailed a 28-page American Community Survey, a mandatory government questionnaire documenting their habits, household inhabitants, work schedule, how many toilets are in your home, etc. The penalty for not responding to this invasive survey can go as high as $5,000.  Instead of being born in a manger, Jesus might have been born at home. Rather than wise men and shepherds bringing gifts, however, the baby’s parents might have been forced to ward off visits from state social workers intent on prosecuting them for the home birth. One couple in Washington had all three of their children removed after social services objected to the two youngest being birthed in an unassisted home delivery.  Had Jesus been born in a hospital, his blood and DNA would have been taken without his parents’ knowledge or consent and entered into a government biobank. While most states require newborn screening, a growing number are holding onto that genetic material long-term for research, analysis and purposes yet to be disclosed.  Then again, had Jesus’ parents been undocumented immigrants, they and the newborn baby might have been shuffled to a profit-driven, private prison for illegals where they first would have been separated from each other, the children detained in make-shift cages, and the parents eventually turned into cheap, forced laborers for corporations such as Starbucks, Microsoft, Walmart, and Victoria’s Secret. There’s quite a lot of money to be made from imprisoning immigrants, especially when taxpayers are footing the bill.  From the time he was old enough to attend school, Jesus would have been drilled in lessons of compliance and obedience to government authorities, while learning little about his own rights. Had he been daring enough to speak out against injustice while still in school, he might have found himself tasered or beaten by a school resource officer, or at the very least suspended under a school zero tolerance policy that punishes minor infractions as harshly as more serious offenses.  Had Jesus disappeared for a few hours let alone days as a 12-year-old, his parents would have been handcuffed, arrested and jailed for parental negligence. Parents across the country have been arrested for far less “offenses” such as allowing their children to walk to the park unaccompanied and play in their front yard alone.  Rather than disappearing from the history books from his early teenaged years to adulthood, Jesus’ movements and personal data—including his biometrics—would have been documented, tracked, monitored and filed by governmental agencies and corporations such as Google and Microsoft. Incredibly, 95 percent of school districts share their student records with outside companies that are contracted to manage data, which they then use to market products to us.  From the moment Jesus made contact with an “extremist” such as John the Baptist, he would have been flagged for surveillance because of his association with a prominent activist, peaceful or otherwise. Since 9/11, the FBI has actively carried out surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations on a broad range of activist groups, from animal rights groups to poverty relief, anti-war groups and other such “extremist” organizations.  Jesus’ anti-government views would certainly have resulted in him being labeled a domestic extremist. Law enforcement agencies are being trained to recognize signs of anti-government extremism during interactions with potential extremists who share a “belief in the approaching collapse of government and the economy.”  While traveling from community to community, Jesus might have been reported to government officials as “suspicious” under the Department of Homeland Security’s “See Something, Say Something” programs. Many states, including New York, are providing individuals with phone apps that allow them to take photos of suspicious activity and report them to their state Intelligence Center, where they are reviewed and forwarded to law-enforcement agencies.  Rather than being permitted to live as an itinerant preacher, Jesus might have found himself threatened with arrest for daring to live off the grid or sleeping outside. In fact, the number of cities that have resorted to criminalizing homelessness by enacting bans on camping, sleeping in vehicles, loitering and begging in public has doubled.  Viewed by the government as a dissident and a potential threat to its power, Jesus might have had government spies planted among his followers to monitor his activities, report on his movements, and entrap him into breaking the law. Such Judases today—called informants—often receive hefty paychecks from the government for their treachery.  Had Jesus used the internet to spread his radical message of peace and love, he might have found his blog posts infiltrated by government spies attempting to undermine his integrity, discredit him or plant incriminating information online about him. At the very least, he would have had his website hacked and his email monitored.  Had Jesus attempted to feed large crowds of people, he would have been threatened with arrest for violating various ordinances prohibiting the distribution of food without a permit. Florida officials arrested a 90-year-old man for feeding the homeless on a public beach.  Had Jesus spoken publicly about his 40 days in the desert and his conversations with the devil, he might have been labeled mentally ill and detained in a psych ward against his will for a mandatory involuntary psychiatric hold with no access to family or friends. One Virginia man was arrested, strip searched, handcuffed to a table, diagnosed as having “mental health issues,” and locked up for five days in a mental health facility against his will apparently because of his slurred speech and unsteady gait.  Without a doubt, had Jesus attempted to overturn tables in a Jewish temple and rage against the materialism of religious institutions, he would have been charged with a hate crime. Currently, 45 states and the federal government have hate crime laws on the books.  Had anyone reported Jesus to the police as being potentially dangerous, he might have found himself confronted—and killed—by police officers for whom any perceived act of non-compliance (a twitch, a question, a frown) can result in them shooting first and asking questions later.  Rather than having armed guards capture Jesus in a public place, government officials would have ordered that a SWAT team carry out a raid on Jesus and his followers, complete with flash-bang grenades and military equipment. There are upwards of 80,000 such SWAT team raids carried out every year, many on unsuspecting Americans who have no defense against such government invaders, even when such raids are done in error.  Instead of being detained by Roman guards, Jesus might have been made to “disappear” into a secret government detention center where he would have been interrogated, tortured and subjected to all manner of abuses. Chicago police have “disappeared” more than 7,000 people into a secret, off-the-books interrogation warehouse at Homan Square.  Charged with treason and labeled a domestic terrorist, Jesus might have been sentenced to a life-term in a private prison where he would have been forced to provide slave labor for corporations or put to death by way of the electric chair or a lethal mixture of drugs.  Indeed, as I show in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, given the nature of government then and now, it is painfully evident that whether Jesus had been born in our modern age or his own, he still would have died at the hands of a police state.  Thus, as we draw near to Christmas with its celebrations and gift-giving, we would do well to remember that what happened on that starry night in Bethlehem is only part of the story. That baby in the manger grew up to be a man who did not turn away from evil but instead spoke out against it, and we must do no less.  Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.  This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.  Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of . His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People is available at . Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].


usatoday--2019-02-27--Supreme Court justices search for middle ground in church-state fight over 40-foot Latin cross on st

Supreme Court justices search for middle ground in church-state fight over 40-foot Latin cross on state land

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court wrestled Wednesday with how to maintain a constitutional distance between church and state while preserving a 40-foot Latin cross on government property.  By the end of the oral argument, it appeared the justices had found a way: By deciding that the "Peace Cross" in Bladensburg, Maryland, is essentially grandfathered in, but new religious displays might not get equal treatment.  "What about saying past is past," Associate Justice Stephen Breyer said by way of defending the towering monument, "but no more?"  Part of the problem was the high court's own convoluted case history: a series of high court rulings on the intersection of government and religion that some justices acknowledged has left the rules in disarray.  But by setting clear rules for such displays, the justices knew they could endanger monuments from coast to coast – or allow even more to be built. Their goal appeared to be simple: Don't add or subtract from the status quo.  "There are cross monuments all over the country, many of them quite old," Associate Justice Samuel Alito told Monica Miller, the lawyer representing an association of atheists and others objecting to the Christian cross on government land. "Do you want them all taken down?"  When Miller sought to allay those concerns by differentiating the Bladensburg cross from others in Arlington National Cemetery and across the country, Alito shot back: "Would you like us to write that in our opinion?"  Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor appeared most intent on declaring the Peace Cross unconstitutional, with Associate Justice Elena Kagan a possible objection as well.  "People wear crosses to show their devotion to the Christian faith," Ginsburg said.  But the remaining justices seemed ready to let it stand while searching for a plausible explanation.  The question before the court was simple: Does the 93-year-old monument violate the First Amendment, which prohibits government establishment of religion?  The answer might very well be yes, but few of the justices want to see it moved, mutilated or demolished. Conceived in 1919 by bereaved mothers of the fallen and completed by the American Legion six years later, the war memorial has become part of the town's landscape.  "It's no ordinary cross," said Neal Katyal, the lawyer representing the American Legion. "Not a single word of religious content appears anywhere."  Against that backdrop, Miller had a difficult time convincing the justices that the Maryland war memorial cannot stand. Nevertheless, she argued that religion, not commemoration, is what most observers see as they drive by.  For nearly a half century, the court's seminal doctrine has been the "Lemon test," named after the decision in 1971 that was intended to define what government could and could not do when it comes to religion. But over the years, the justices have ignored the very rules that lower courts continue to follow.  In 1971, the court said any government role must have a secular purpose, cannot favor or inhibit religion and cannot excessively entangle church and state. Years later, it outsourced part of the decision-making process to a "reasonable observer."  In 2005, the justices created exceptions to their original test for passive religious displays, such as Nativity scenes or the Ten Commandments. In a case upholding legislative prayer in 2014, they incorporated history and tradition into the mix.  That led Associate Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to suggest that the Lemon test should be retired.  "Is it time for this court to thank Lemon for its services and send it on its way?" Gorsuch asked by way of suggestion.  In the Peace Cross case, a federal district court judge ruled in 2015 that the monument was OK under the Lemon test. But in 2017, a federal appeals court panel ruled 2-1 that the cross failed to pass the test, calling it the "preeminent symbol of Christianity." The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit voted 8-6 not to reconsider that ruling.  The Trump administration joined dozens of religious, municipal and veterans groups defending the memorial and complaining that the court's mixed messages force legal battles to be decided "display by display.”  The case has stood out on the court's humdrum docket this term as a likely win for the conservative majority, bolstered by Kavanaugh's confirmation in 2018. Even before his elevation, the court had ruled in favor of many religious groups and causes.  In 2014, the court ruled that corporations with religious objections do not have to include free coverage of contraceptives in health insurance policies. In 2017, it said religious institutions can receive public funds for secular purposes, such as playground renovation. Last year, it absolved a Colorado baker of discrimination for refusing on religious grounds to serve a same-sex wedding.  Watching what the court does with the Peace Cross are state and local governments across the country that have their own monuments to worry about. The Veterans of Foreign Wars and municipal groups claim hundreds could be affected, from the steel beams that form the Ground Zero cross in New York City to a memorial in Taos, New Mexico, that commemorates the Bataan Death March.  Two of the most prominent displays rise above Arlington National Cemetery: the 13-foot Argonne Cross, erected in 1923 and dedicated to "our men in France," and the 24-foot Canadian Cross of Sacrifice, donated in 1927 to honor U.S. citizens who served abroad in the Canadian army.  A group of 30 states led by West Virginia listed dozens of war monuments large and small that could be challenged if the Supreme Court rules against the Peace Cross, from Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania and Georgia's Chickamauga Battlefield to La Mesa, California, and Coos Bay, Oregon.  The American Humanist Association disputes those numbers and says very few crosses or monuments are in jeopardy. The group won a federal appeals court ruling last summer that threatens a 34-foot cross towering over a city park in Pensacola, Florida.


usatoday--2019-02-20--Does a 40-foot Latin cross honoring World War I veterans violate the Constitution The Supreme Court

Does a 40-foot Latin cross honoring World War I veterans violate the Constitution? The Supreme Court will decide.

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court will be on trial itself next week when it weighs the fate of a 40-foot Latin cross honoring World War I dead that reignited the nation's never-ending battle between church and state.  At first glance, the question before the Supreme Court seems simple enough:  Does the monument violate the First Amendment, which prohibits government establishment of religion?  But the answer is complicated by opinion after opinion from the court over the past several decades.  Look no further than how the judicial system itself has officially characterized the thorny issue – "murky," "muddled" and "morass" are ways judges, lawyers and constitutional scholars describe the court's rules for government involvement with religion. Also "unclear," "unsound" and "unworkable."  By the justices' own admission, the court's interpretations of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause have left the law in "chaos," "disarray" and "shambles."  Into this steps a 93-year-old memorial that towers over the small town of Bladensburg, Maryland. Conceived in 1919 by bereaved mothers of the fallen, and completed by the American Legion six years later, it's owned and operated by a government agency.  In 1971, the court said any government role must have a secular purpose, cannot favor or inhibit religion and cannot excessively entangle church and state. Years later, it outsourced part of the decision-making process to a "reasonable observer."  In 2005, the justices created exceptions to their original test for passive religious displays, such as Nativity scenes or the Ten Commandments. In a case upholding legislative prayer in 2014, they incorporated history and tradition into the mix.  All of which led Associate Justice Clarence Thomas to conclude last year that "this court's Establishment Clause jurisprudence is in disarray."  "We don’t have a real strong sense of what the rules are, and this has been true for a while," says Richard Garnett, founding director of Notre Dame Law School’s Program on Church, State and Society.  The Trump administration agrees. It joined dozens of religious, municipal and veterans groups defending the "Peace Cross" and complaining that the court's mixed messages force legal battles to be decided "display by display.” The Justice Department says that turns the purpose of the Establishment Clause on its head by creating even more disputes.  The case stands out on the court's humdrum docket this term as a likely win for the conservative majority, bolstered by Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation in 2018. Even before his elevation, the court had ruled in favor of many religious groups and causes. When it did not, several conservative justices usually complained.  In 2014, the court ruled that corporations with religious objections do not have to include free coverage of contraceptives in health insurance policies. In 2017, it said religious institutions can receive public funds for secular purposes, such as playground renovation. Last year, it absolved a Colorado baker of discrimination for refusing on religious grounds to serve a same-sex wedding.  Against that backdrop, the American Humanist Association will have a hard time convincing the justices that the Maryland war memorial should be moved or redesigned, perhaps as a slab or obelisk. Nevertheless, it argues vociferously that religion, not commemoration, is what most observers see in a 40-foot Latin cross.  "This is the most intensely religious and most intensely sectarian symbol that there is," says Douglas Laycock, a leading scholar on religious liberty and law professor at the University of Virginia and University of Texas-Austin.  As for the difficult church-state divide, he says, "All the justices, left to right, have a problem trying to draw lines."  The attack on the cross has mobilized the religious right like few issues before. Its wrath mostly is focused not on the challengers but the court itself.  For nearly a half century, the court's seminal doctrine has been the "Lemon test," named after the decision in 1971 that was intended to define what government could and could not do when it comes to religion. But over the years, the justices have ignored the very rules that lower courts continue to follow.  Shortly after joining the high court in 1986, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia said contemporaneous decisions on the subject "leave the theme of chaos securely unimpaired." Around the same time, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy called the test "flawed in its fundamentals and unworkable in practice.”  Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was responsible for adding the "reasonable observer" test for determining where the line is drawn between government and religion. In 2010, when a federal appeals court that included future Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch ruled that 12-foot crosses honoring fallen state troopers on the side of Utah highways were unconstitutional, Gorsuch said the fictional observer turned out to be "biased, replete with foibles and prone to mistake."  Associate Justice Stephen Breyer – one of three Jews on the high court – swung his colleagues in both directions on the same day in 2005. A Ten Commandments display in a Kentucky courthouse was unconstitutional, he said, but a Ten Commandments monument outside the Texas State Capitol was not.  "This case is an opportunity for the court to clean up Establishment Clause jurisprudence," says David Cortman, senior counsel with the conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom, who successfully argued the Supreme Court case for a Lutheran church seeking public funds for playground repairs in 2017.  According to the libertarian Cato Institute, "The court should now squeeze Lemon out of its jurisprudence."  In the Peace Cross case, a federal district court judge ruled in 2015 that the monument was OK under the Lemon test. In 2017, a federal appeals court panel ruled 2-1 that the cross failed to pass the test, calling it the "preeminent symbol of Christianity." The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit voted 8-6 not to reconsider that ruling.  The high court is poised to overrule that decision. Despite urging from about 40 groups defending the war monument, the justices may not issue a sweeping decision with clear rules for church-state disputes. Those who favor more church-state separation hope the Bladensburg cross, at best, will be given a pass because it's been standing for so long.  Watching what the court does with the "Peace Cross" will be state and local governments across the country that have their own monuments to worry about. The Veterans of Foreign Wars and municipal groups claim hundreds could be affected, from the steel beams that form the Ground Zero cross in New York City to a memorial in Taos, New Mexico, that commemorates the Bataan Death March.  Two of the most prominent displays rise above Arlington National Cemetery: the 13-foot Argonne Cross, erected in 1923 and dedicated to "our men in France," and the 24-foot Canadian Cross of Sacrifice, donated in 1927 to honor U.S. citizens who served abroad in the Canadian army. Another is the Ground Zero Cross in the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York.  A group of 30 states led by West Virginia listed dozens of war monuments large and small that could be challenged if the Supreme Court rules against the Peace Cross, from Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania and Georgia's Chickamauga Battlefield to La Mesa, California, and Coos Bay, Oregon.  The appeals court decision "puts at risk hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of similar monuments," 4th Circuit Judge Paul Niemeyer said.  The American Humanist Association disputes those numbers and says very few crosses or monuments are in jeopardy. The group won a federal appeals court ruling last summer that threatens a 34-foot cross towering over a city park in Pensacola, Florida.  Senior counsel Monica Miller says the Bladensburg war memorial is unique because of its size and location. Even so, she says, the dispute could be resolved by transferring the land to private ownership and incorporating a disclaimer sign on the property.  "The cross being physically removed is not necessary," she says. "We’ve never said 'rip it to shreds, bulldoze it.' "  But Miller acknowledges that in her view, "there's no principled way to uphold this cross. ... It’s imposing on every driver who goes through that intersection, whether they want to see it or not."


freebeacon--2019-11-02--Continetti: Beto Got Nowhere Campaigning on Cultural Issues

Washington Free Beacon founding editor Matthew Continetti on Friday said failed 2020 presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke’s cultural platform did not attract Democrats.  "Beto, with the strong claims on guns and same-sex marriage, wasn't able to get traction with his own party," Continetti said on MSNBC's Meet the Press Daily.  He pointed out that the progressive Democratic candidates leading in the race are the ones campaigning on economic issues rather than cultural ones.  "When you look at the other candidates in that progressive part of the party who are leading, they're the ones who focus on economic issues," he said, naming Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.). "They're the ones who have a large part of the party behind them right now."  O’Rourke campaigned on a controversial gun buy-back plan and proposed revoking the tax-exempt status of religious institutions that would not support same-sex marriage.  Anchor Chuck Todd said conservatives might wish O'Rourke were staying in the spotlight, given how much ammunition he's provided them with his extreme positions.  "I have a feeling there are some folks in the conservative movement who don't want to see Beto O'Rourke go away too quickly," Todd said. "Because there are two things he brought into the debate that freaked out Democrats… One was the ‘you're darn right we're going to take your guns.’ And the other was getting rid of the tax exemption for churches, which wouldn't please some churches on the left-hand side."  Continetti said he expects O'Rourke's far-left rhetoric to continue to be a factor.  "The good news for Republicans is that's all on video," Continetti said. "The video isn't going anywhere. I'd say what's striking is Beto swung for the fences on the cultural issues."


therussophileorg--2019-07-02--Anger grows over Israels controversial al-Quds dig in presence of US officials

Anger grows over Israel’s controversial al-Quds dig in presence of US officials

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt and Senator Lindsey Graham (From L) attend the opening of an ancient road underneath the Palestinian Silwan neighborhood in East Jerusalem al-Quds on June 30, 2019. (Photo by AFP)  **Palestinians and several organizations have condemned the inauguration of a highly contentious tunnel built by the Israeli regime at an archaeological site in occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds and the attendance of American officials at the event.**  On Sunday, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt along with Sara Netanyahu, wife of the Israeli Prime Minister, wielded sledgehammers to break open the so-called “Path of Pilgrims,” which lies underneath the Palestinian Silwan neighborhood.   “Were there any doubts about the accuracy, the wisdom, the propriety of President Trump recognizing Jerusalem (al-Quds) as the capital of Israel, I certainly think this lays all doubts to rest,” he said.  US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman speaks at the opening ceremony of an ancient road underneath the Palestinian Silwan neighborhood in East Jerusalem al-Quds on June 30, 2019. (Photo by AFP)  In a statement issued on Monday, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry strongly condemned “the colonialist plans to replace the existing reality in occupied Jerusalem (al-Quds) and the environs of the Old City.”  It also denounced the presence of American officials at the ceremony as a hostile act against the Palestinians.  “The administration of President Donald Trump proves day by day its … unlimited affiliation to the colonial settlement project led by the extremist right in the state of the occupation,” it added.  The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) also slammed the US officials’ participation in the event, saying Friedman and Greenblatt “were not American diplomats, they were extremist fanatic Israeli settlers.”  PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat said the pair had hurled insults at international law “by blessing a project of settlers that has dispossessed dozens of Palestinian families nearby Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.”  He further called on all Arab and Muslim leaders to condemn in strongest terms the provocations of Greenblatt and Friedman and the threats their actions pose to the Palestinians and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.  The tunnel, he added, is “a settlement project” based on “a lie that has nothing to do with history.” Israelis say the now-subterranean path served as a pilgrimage route to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as Temple Mount, some 2,000 years ago.  In addition, the Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement in a statement Tuesday described Friedman’s participation in the ceremony as “aggressive behavior that violates all diplomatic norms and puts the international laws at risk.”  “This criminal act reflects the US position, which totally supports the Israeli occupation,” it added.  The resistance group also held those who joined a recent US-sponsored Bahrain conference responsible for Washington’s “disdain for Jerusalem (al-Quds) and its holy sites.”  The workshop, meant to promote a “deal” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was held in Manama on June 25-26 despite a Palestinian boycott.  **Arab League, Al-Azhar join Palestinians**  Moreover, the Arab League condemned Israel’s opening of the so-called “Road of Pilgrims” as a flagrant violation of international law.  Saeed Abu Ali, Arab League’s assistant secretary general for Palestine and occupied Arab lands, said the participation of American officials in the inauguration of the tunnel proves the Trump administration’s “absolute bias and full adoption of these settlement projects in violation of international consensus and legitimacy.”  He also warned of the serious consequences of continued Israeli excavations in occupied Jerusalem al-Quds.  Similarly, Egypt’s Al-Azhar, which is the foremost religious institution for Sunni Muslims, criticized Israel’s attempts to alter the identity of Jerusalem al-Quds and Al-Aqsa Mosque.  In a statement, Al-Azhar urged all countries to adopt decisive positions in order to stop Israel’s repeated disregard for the rights of the Palestinian people, their land and holy sites.  It further reiterated its firm opposition to any measures that would infringe the rights of the Palestinian people to establish their independent state with Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.


fortruss--2019-01-17--RUSSIA RISING Russia On Course to be Top 5 Economy by 2020 DESPITE Sanctions

RUSSIA RISING: Russia On Course to be Top 5 Economy by 2020 DESPITE Sanctions  MOSCOW, Russia – Despite years of Western sanctions, Russia will become the fifth largest economy in the world next year, surpassing Germany and the United Kingdom, British bank Standard Chartered said in its long-term growth forecast.  In a report describing projections about the world economy by 2030, the bank said that China will likely bring down the US to become the world’s largest economy sometime next year when measured by a combination of purchasing power parity, exchange rates and nominal gross domestic product.  Beijing will be followed by the USA, India, Japan and Russia in the top five. The top 10 countries will also include Germany, Indonesia, Brazil, Turkey and the United Kingdom.  “By 2020, most of the world’s population will be classified as middle class. Asia will lead the rise of middle-class populations, even as the middle classes stagnate in the West,” said Standard Chartered researcher Madhur Jha.  The report predicted that Asian economies will grow significantly in the next decade, taking seven of the top ten in the list of the world’s largest economies by 2030.  Last week, the World Bank said in its economic outlook it expects Russia’s GDP growth rate to rise to 1.8 percent in 2020 and 2021. The bank said the Russian economy grew 1.6 percent last year, registering “relatively low and stable inflation and increasing oil production”, despite the more restrictive economic sanctions.  The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised its forecast for Russia’s GDP growth in 2019 to 1.8%. The positive impact of rising world oil prices on the Russian economy would outweigh the negative effect of Washington’s sanctions, the IMF said.  Meanwhile, official figures from the Federal Bureau of Statistics showed that Europe’s largest economy, Germany, decelerated sharply in 2018. It grew by 1.5% last year, its lowest rate since 2013. A weaker global economy problems in the auto industry were cited as contributing to the slowdown.


fortruss--2019-02-01--Ukraines economy to collapse without Russia

Ukraine’s economy to collapse without Russia

KIEV, Ukraine – Kiev must stop being a “beggar” who humbles himself to the West and normalize relations with Moscow, otherwise its economy will collapse, opines former minister of the country.  When it comes to Russian-Ukrainian relations, there is a threat of an economic collapse for Ukraine, says former Minister of Infrastructure Yegeny Chervonenko.  “There is an objective reality – January is almost over, and together with it, European quotas end. The figures are indomitable,” he told TV NewsOne .  In his view, it would be better for Ukraine to conduct an independent policy and stop acting as a “beggar” who humbles himself to the West. Instead, Kiev should establish a dialogue with Moscow.  At the same time, the former minister recalled that Russia has not taken any action against the factories of the president of Ukraine, Pyotr Poroshenko, nor against three million Ukrainians who are working in Russian territory, since “Ukraine does not give opportunities.”  Moscow and Kiev have negotiated trade restrictions since September 2015. Russia has repeatedly said it will suspend the bans in response to similar actions by Ukraine.  At the end of December last year, the Russian government expanded the list of banned Ukrainian products for import. Both food products and industrial products have entered the list. The Russian measure was taken in response to the Kiev sanctions.  After the Euromaidan (nationalist demonstrations) in 2014, Ukraine’s economy is declining. Kiev is attempting to carry out economic reforms by borrowing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which affects the well-being of citizens: taxes are rising while wages and pensions remain low. It also increased the country’s external debt.  Ukraine, despite being economically dependent on Russia, chooses at every moment to prioritize hostile relations to serve Western imperialist and corporate interests. For this reason, Ukraine has one of the worse economies in the western world despite being highly industrialized.