The war on Christians

The global persecution of churchgoers is the unreported catastrophe of our time

 

534 Comments John L. Allen Jr.    

Imagine if correspondents in late 1944 had reported the Battle of the Bulge, but without explaining that it was a turning point in the second world war. Or what if finance reporters had told the story of the AIG meltdown in 2008 without adding that it raised questions about derivatives and sub-prime mortgages that could augur a vast financial implosion?

Most people would say that journalists had failed to provide the proper context to understand the news. Yet that’s routinely what media outlets do when it comes to outbreaks of anti-Christian persecution around the world, which is why the global war on Christians remains the greatest story never told of the early 21st century.

In recent days, people around the world have been appalled by images of attacks on churches in Pakistan, where 85 people died when two suicide bombers rushed the Anglican All Saints Church in Peshawar, and in Kenya, where an assault on a Catholic church in Wajir left one dead and two injured.

Those atrocities are indeed appalling, but they cannot truly be understood without being seen as small pieces of a much larger narrative. Consider three points about the landscape of anti-Christian persecution today, as shocking as they are generally unknown. According to the International Society for Human Rights, a secular observatory based in Frankfurt, Germany, 80 per cent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed at Christians. Statistically speaking, that makes Christians by far the most persecuted religious body on the planet.

According to the Pew Forum, between 2006 and 2010 Christians faced some form of discrimination, either de jure or de facto, in a staggering total of 139 nations, which is almost three-quarters of all the countries on earth. According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, an average of 100,000 Christians have been killed in what the centre calls a ‘situation of witness’ each year for the past decade. That works out to 11 Christians killed somewhere in the world every hour, seven days a week and 365 days a year, for reasons related to their faith.

Read the full article at - http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9041841/the-war-on-christians/

Russia's response to Ukraine coup has revealed the depths of western impotence

  Russia has complete control of the Ukraine in the sense of whatever they decide they will do, that will be done.  If the U.S. tries economic sanctions, Russia can retaliate in a significant way, perhaps even to cause the U.S. Dollar to crash.  The American government is simply giving lip service in the hope they won't be seen as completely impotent to insure the Ukraine as a democracy in the days to come. 

So what's the larger game afoot?  The larger game is bringing Germany and Russia together and paving the way for the last days invasion from the North to Israel as described in Ezekiel 38, also known as the "Gog/Magog Invasion".  Read for yourself.  A great invasion is coming from the north to Israel in these days at the end of this age.  Are you ready for what comes next? 

Simon Jenkins
The Guardian

       

© ITAR-TASS/Barcroft Media
William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary, meets Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the Ukrainian prime minister in Kiev on 3 March.

    

I am starting to lose this one. How dare anyone excuse a great power hurling brute force against a small one, justifying it with some nonsense about extremists and a "responsibility to protect". There should be no place for such cynical bullying in a 21st-century world order. And for what? So a leader with a virility complex can play to his domestic gallery. The whole thing is utterly unacceptable. There must be costs and consequences.

But enough of Iraq. What of Ukraine? We can only gasp at the hypocrisy of a British foreign secretary and an American secretary of state lecturing Russia from a Kiev street corner on the evil of invading small countries. Did no ghost of Iraq or Afghanistan, of Kosovo or Libya, hover over their shoulders? To be sure there are motes in Vladimir Putin's eye, but they are nothing as to the beams in the eyes of Washington and London. The occupation of Crimea is a village fete compared with shock and awe over Baghdad and Belgrade and the killing fields of Falluja and Helmand. As the western powers repatriate their blood-stained legions, surely a twinge of humility is in order.

Apparently not. The west is now chanting psalms of self-righteousness. David Cameron agrees with Barack Obama that Crimea is "completely unacceptable". John Kerry calls the occupation "an incredible act of aggression ... on a trumped-up pretext". To the Republican senator John McCain, "allowing" Russia to take Crimea makes him "remember the 1930s when Hitler took the Sudetenland".

The catchphrase for this crisis has become "costs and consequences". Obama threatens them, Cameron threatens them. The Commons Ukraine committee chairman, John Whittingdale, wants them "to send a very strong message" to Putin to "return to the table". Nick Clegg froths over them from his armchair. He is "absolutely not ruling out now the kind of options we will look at in order to make it very clear to Putin that there will be very real consequences". Wow.

The only costs and consequences on which anyone can agree is to cancel a G-something summit in a luxury hotel somewhere, and to ban oligarchs from shopping at Harrods and sending their sons to Eton. We might also keep our royals from their Paralympics. To this has the mighty British empire fallen. For all its armies, fleets and nuclear warheads, it can punish Russia's bear with nothing more terrifying than Harrods, Eton and the royal family. Putin must be rolling on the floor with laughter.

The truth is that western diplomacy has no language for the new impotence. It used to get its way by "drawing red lines" and threatening actual violence. So ineptly have post-cold war politicians deployed this threat, so exorbitant has been the cost, that enemies have come to treat it as bluff. Iran and Syria are the most recent examples. By the time Cameron tried to threaten Damascus with bombs, the British parliament had had enough. If Syria could call Cameron's bluff, how much more likely would Russia be to do so?

What has been encouraging about the Ukraine crisis so far has been the unusual emergence of a "case to be made" on both sides. For once we have seen a "revolution" with some balanced coverage. The BBC's Newsnight investigated the "fascist coup" in Kiev thesis, and found some truth in it. The legitimacy of Viktor Yanukovych as elected leader was contrasted with his manifest flaws, as was the motley character of the Maidan crowd. We know of the divided loyalties of Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

In the past week I have read more than I dreamed possible of the vexed history of Crimea, of Ukraine's role in Russian identity, and of Putin's complex relationship with Russian pride and paranoia. I have seen Moscow's re-occupation of Crimea as both understandable and illegitimate. Its legal crudity - without even awaiting a local referendum - compares with the political crudity of Nato's attempted encirclement.

This is a theatre on whose stage the fidgeting warmongers of London and Washington fear to tread. Even when McCain crassly compares Putin to Hitler, he nervously adds that he is against military action. The west can huff and puff, but dare not bomb. In a Pavlovian trance that requires "something to be done", it cannot think what that might be.

 

Read the full article at - http://www.sott.net/article/275068-Russias-response-to-Ukraine-coup-has-revealed-the-depths-of-western-impotence

Popes Tortured Thousands Of Women Burned Alive - The Secret History of the Roman Catholic Church

When I watched the movie “The Da Vinci Code” when Tom Hanks went to the English mansion, he was talking to the older man about history, and they showed this book below, then I spent hours and hours learning this…
Such a horrible crime against women healers….You could make a lifetime study of it…
I’m adding this post to Before Its News, as to many of you, it may be the first time you heard of it….
Women were the healers and the men that killed them were the Popes, while the government took over their land from fraud and lies.

Why or why isnt this taught in schools? Does war ever stop agsinst humanity in this world?

The European Witch Hunts  

Wise Women were Healers

• Birth and midwives
• The rise and destruction of science
• Historical Background: the church and the state
• How the trials were executed
• Indigestible independent women
• Reconstructing women‘s sexuality •
• Social control – from village to state
• Older women and the rise of private property
• Organized women, organized resistance; the witch trials  crushing resistance to capitalism

The Malleus Maleficarum was the manual of how to torture women and burn them at the stakes during the middle ages; written by 3 Swiss – Heinrich Kramer, Jacobus Sprenger and Johannes Nider.
It was a swiss idea, and started just after the founding of Switzerland by the Templars on august 1st in 1291.

 

The tactic of demonisation along with gender violence being used to break up communities, resistance to exploitation and foster class divides (gender divides and between sections of the class) has been used across centuries and around the world.

Demonisation of ‘negros’ during the first phase of colonialisation played a similar function. Stereotypes are created and backed up by terror of violence to enable the expropriation of land, resources, bodies or time.

The resulting deep-rooted sexism or racism remains in our psyches to continue to justify on-going exploitation and oppression. The social, economic, and political exclusion enforced during this phase echoes on in the present.

We need to bring this subject to light in order to understand where we are today – the gendered origins of capitalism, and the capitalist origins of this current form of patriarchy.

We can use the knowledge to make us stronger in the fight against the on-going repressions and in celebration of those women staying strong and fighting back, past present and future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read more at - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbBBezxalXU and at http://beforeitsnews.com/strange/2013/12/popes-tortured-thousands-of-women-burned-alive-malleus-maleficarum-what-they-dont-teach-you-in-school-2-2453206.html

Team Obama wins fight to have Christian home-school family deported

Because we know how awful Christian home schooling is for kids (see Tim Tebow).  The best thing we can do for these folks is send them back to receive a proper state education from the German government.  You know, the same German government that prints pamphlets explaining that fathers should "touch their young children" in sensitive places to help prepare them for a sexual lifestyle when they get older (say, 8 years old?).  Pathetic!  All of it, pathetic.  We deport Christian homschoolers but accept anyone who can walk across our Southern border.  Yes, never fear, everything is completely under control...under control of psychopaths that is...

By Todd Starnes

Todd's American Dispatch

FoxNews.com

• 
  Courtesy: Home School Legal Defense Association (Courtesy Romeike family)

Uwe and Hannelore Romeike came to the United States in 2008 seeking political asylum. They fled their German homeland in the face of religious persecution for homeschooling their children.
They wanted to live in a country where they could raise their children in accordance with their Christian beliefs.
The Romeikes were initially given asylum, but the Obama administration objected – claiming that German laws that outlaw homeschooling do not constitute persecution.

Please, Mr. President, have mercy on this Christian family. They came to our shores longing to be free.

“The goal in Germany is for an open, pluralistic society,” the Justice Department wrote in a legal brief last year. “Teaching tolerance to children of all backgrounds helps to develop the ability to interact as a fully functioning citizen in Germany.”

On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear the Romeike’s appeal – paving the way for the Christian family of eight to be deported.

“I think this is a part of the Obama administration’s overall campaign to crush religious freedom in this country,” said Michael Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association. His organization is representing family.

Read the full article at - http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/03/03/team-obama-wins-fight-to-have-christian-home-school-family-deported/?intcmp=trending

Of Wars and Rumors of Wars - What's next in the Russia-Ukraine-NATO struggle and the China-Japan warnings

I don't know if this could get more confusing, but here it goes.  On the surface it appears the U.S. government consciously overthrew the pro-Russian elected government of the Ukraine.  This despite Russia and Germany (speaking for the European Union) agreeing to a peace deal and changes in the country just two days before the overthrow.  In addition to that, China has made a significant pact and business deal with the Ukraine.  Meanwhile China continues to threaten Japan and their Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, known for his "right-wing nationalist views" and belief that war in defense of the country's honor is always a good choice.  In the midst of all these stories and videos, I must say it appears the Russians and U.S. agreed to tear Ukraine to pieces, with NATO possibly holding the northern parts while Russia maintains it' naval bases in Crimea.  The end result?  Possibly, very possibly World War III.  Remember we are in March, the month named for Mars, the Roman god of war...

US Government Caught Funding The Coup In Ukraine

(Mark Ames)  Just hours after last weekend’s ouster of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, one of Pierre Omidyar’s newest hires at national security blog “The Intercept,” was already digging for the truth.
Marcy Wheeler, who is the new site’s “senior policy analyst,” speculated that the Ukraine revolution was likely a “coup” engineered by “deep” forces on behalf of “Pax Americana”:

“There’s quite a bit of evidence of coup-ness. Q is how many levels deep interference from both sides is.”

These are serious claims. So serious that I decided to investigate them. And what I found was shocking.
Wheeler is partly correct. Pando has confirmed that the American government – in the form of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) – played a major role in funding opposition groups prior to the revolution. Moreover, a large percentage of the rest of the funding to those same groups came from a US billionaire who has previously worked closely with US government agencies to further his own business interests. This was by no means a US-backed “coup,” but clear evidence shows that US investment was a force multiplier for many of the groups involved in overthrowing Yanukovych.

But that’s not the shocking part.

- See more at: http://govtslaves.info/us-government-caught-funding-coup-ukraine/#sthash.qWOSwPMD.dpuf

Ukrainian troops dispatched in Crimea switch sides

RT
Sun, 02 Mar 2014 15:25 CST

© RT

    

Ukrainian armed forces dispatched to Crimea have switched to the side of local authorities and are expected to take military oath soon, Russian news agencies report.

"Today the majority of the Ukrainian armed forces deployed in Crimea passed to the side of the authorities of the Crimean autonomous region. The transition was absolutely peaceful, without a single shot fired either by the military or by the forces of self-defense," an unnamed source told RIA Novosti news agency.

The source added that some of the servicemen also ran away, while some submitted letters of resignation.

The local military have not been paid for many months, the source also told RIA Novosti.

Earlier, Ukrainian troops in Crimea were said to be resigning on a massive scale. Living quarters, weapons and ammunition have all been left under the protection of the so-called 'self-defense forces.'

Letters of resignation have been coming in since early morning, as the self-defense forces continue to preserve order on the streets of Simferopol, RIA Novosti said citing own reporters on the ground.

Read more of this article at - http://www.sott.net/article/274879-Ukrainian-troops-dispatched-in-Crimea-switch-sides

Ukraine crisis: No wonder Vladimir Putin says Crimea is Russian

Saturday 1 March 2014

Ukraine crisis: No wonder Vladimir Putin says Crimea is Russian

With irresponsible talk of EU and NATO membership, the West has badly mishandled relations with Ukraine – and with Moscow

1 / 1

Silhouetted supporters of the pro-Western opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko wave flags during a rally in central Kiev

 

Much recent comment on Ukraine in the British press has been marked by a barely forgivable ignorance about its history and politics, an overhasty willingness to put the blame for all its troubles on Vladimir Putin, and an almost total inability to suggest practical ways of bringing effective Western influence to bear on a solution. So perhaps we should start with a short history lesson. A thousand years ago Kiev was the capital of an Orthodox Christian state called Rus with links reaching as far west as England. But Rus was swept away by the Tatars in the 13th century, leaving only a few principalities in the north, including an obscure town deep in the forests, called Moscow. What became known as Ukraine – a Slav phrase meaning “borderlands” – was regularly fought over by Tatars, Poles, Lithuanians, Russians, Turks, Swedes and Cossacks. One large chunk, including Kiev itself, joined Russia in the 17th century. Galicia in the west fell to the Austrians in the following century, but was taken by Poland after the First World War, when the rest of Ukraine joined the Soviet Federation. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin handed Galicia and its capital Lviv to Ukraine in 1945. All these changes were accompanied by much bloody fighting. Read more of this article at - http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/ukraine-crisis-no-wonder-vladimir-putin-says-crimea-is-russian-9162734.html China and Japan on the brink of Third World War

WHILE vast swathes of the Middle East are embroiled in conflict and Ukraine teeters on the brink, many believe the real flashpoint for war is between China and Japan. By: Hilary Douglas                Japanese patrols drive off foreign fi shing boats near the disputed Senkaku islands [GETTY] As China flexes its military might, with huge increases in defence spending and increasingly assertive patrols in disputed territories, Japan has compared the tensions to those between England and Germany before the First World War.   So far it has been a war of words.   However, historian Niall Ferguson has warned that US President Barack Obama’s policy of non-intervention, or, as he puts it, his being “resolved only to avoid being George W Bush”, also resembles the incoherent foreign policies of British Liberals a century ago before the First World War.   Against this background, a dispute over five uninhabited islands and three barren rocks looks increasingly dangerous.   China views the “nationalisation” of what it calls the Diaoyu Islands by the Japanese in 2012 as a serious provocation and will do whatever is necessary to assert its sovereignty. Japan, meanwhile, which calls the territory the Senkaku Islands, is using an ever increasing number of naval ships and warplanes to guard them and is trying to involve the US. If war were to break out, the US is bound by treaty to come to the aid of Japan.   Read more of this article at - http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/462565/China-and-Japan-on-the-brink-of-Third-World-War   Newly sworn in head of Ukrainian Navy defects one day later, forms new Navy for Crimea   RT         © RT Denis Berezovsky      Rear admiral Denis Berezovsky, appointed as head of Ukraine's Navy forces just two days ago, has sworn allegiance to the people of Crimea. Taking his oath, regional Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov announced creating Crimea's Navy. "I, Berezovsky Denis, swear allegiance to the Crimean people and pledge to protect it, as required by the [army] regulations. I swear to take orders of Crimea and Sevastopol's Supreme Commander," Berezovsky said as seen in video footage. The region's Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov announced the creation of Crimea's Navy forces and appointed Berezovsky its head. "The Republic will have its own navy, which will be commanded by rear admiral Berezovsky," Aksyonov told the journalists Sunday. "Subsequently, this day will be considered the birthday of the naval forces of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea," he added. "All Navy troops dislocated in Sevastopol are ordered to disregard any commands coming from Ukraine's new self-proclaimed authorities," the PM also declared. "Do not take any orders of using arms till my personal instructions." Aksyonov promised that "all soldiers, who'll swear allegiance to the Crimean people, will retain their allowance, health and social benefits, military rank and position." As for those, who wouldn't want to join the Crimean navy, they have the full right "to retire" and "won't be prosecuted" afterwards, the PM stressed.   Read more of this article at - http://www.sott.net/article/274895-Newly-sworn-in-head-of-Ukrainian-Navy-defects-one-day-later-forms-new-Navy-for-Crimea   There's so much going on here, with rising tensions between Israel, the U.S. and Iran, China and Japan, Russia, China and Germany (repping the E.U.) against the U.S./NATO factions....apparently this is the time the Red Horseman rides....

 

 

 

 

Mysterious booms continue around New Madrid region, cause?

More from theunitedknowledge Youtube channel, this time about the continuing mystery booms in the New Madrid region of the U.S.  Remember that it was theunitedknowledge who picked up on the data pattern that something was causing the planet to experience extreme seismic stress from late January through April each year.  The only explanation I'm aware of is a large mass object which has extreme gravitational pull that passes near us each year during this time period.  See what you think...

 

The Great Vanishing Giant Asteroid Mystery of 2014

More interesting strange science outer space asteroid space stuff observations from Thornews...and that's just the opening...

https://www.youtube.com/thornews On February 18th, 2014 a very large asteroid EM 2006 zoomed past unearth unrefound and undetected. Astronomers have put out the call to relocate this chunk of space rock.

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