***
BREAKINGISRAELNEWS
All Aboard the Temple Mount Express: Massive Government Infrastructure Underway to Bring Millions of Worshipers to Temple
By Joshua Wander
June 27, 2017
“Thou shalt also be a crown of beauty in the hand of Hashem, and a royal diadem in the open hand of thy God.” Isaiah 62:3 (The Israel Bible™)
A model of the second Holy Temple (Photo: Shutterstock.com)
For the first time in approximately 2,000 years, since the time of the Second Temple, plans are being formed by the Israeli government to build an effective infrastructure for Jews to make their obligatory pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem.
God commands in the Bible that all Jews make their way to the Temple three times a year.
“Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before Hashem thy God in the place which He shall choose; on the feast of unleavened bread, and on the Shavuot, and on the Sukkot; and they shall not appear before Hashem empty.” Deuteronomy 16:16
The Third Temple will require a functional infrastructure that could facilitate the transportation of millions of Jews to Jerusalem during and after these festivals. Israel’s Minister of Transportation, Yisroel Katz, has publicly stated that facilitating this was his intention when planning the line of the fast train currently under construction between the airport in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
In a meeting with Temple Movement representatives in February, the minister explained, “As a Kohen (Jew of the priestly caste) I have a special connection to the holy site. In front of my eyes I constantly see the words ‘Prepare the way, prepare the way…’”
Construction of the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv express train, seen outside of Jerusalem on December 20, 2015. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
Katz is planning on extending the line of the fast train to transport people from Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem directly to the Western Wall. The final stop will be the “Kotel/Har Habayit Stop” (Western Wall/Temple Mount Stop).
Yaakov Hayman, Chairman of the Friends of the the Temple Organization, noted that the Ministry of Transportation’s involvement was a necessary first step.
“We expect millions of Jews coming to the Temple Mount even before the Temple is built, so transportation is a potential bottleneck,” Hayman explained to Breaking Israel News. “We need to open up more entrances to the Temple Mount, since there is currently only one entrance available to the Jews.”
In a similar vein, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat has recently announced plans to build a cable car system that will be capable of transporting thousands of people per hour to the area of the Western Wall and Temple Mount. The Israeli government ministers just recently approved this plan during a cabinet meeting held inside the Western Wall Tunnels.
The stated purpose of all of these plans is to modernize the capital city, making it easier for both residents and tourists to navigate its increasing traffic. But it is abundantly clear that all of these upgrades will soon be used for the purpose of allowing millions of Jews from around the globe to quickly and easily visit the Temple and to fulfill their Biblical obligation.
“We need to establish express service bus transportation to the Temple Mount from all parts of the country,” Hayman said. “The Temple Mount Express bus lines will have special blue and white bus stops enabling Jews to regularly travel directly to the Temple Mount, pray and return home.”
Since the Modern State of Israel was created in 1948, and even to a greater extent, since the liberation and reunification of Jerusalem in 1967, building has been non-stop in the capital city. Nonetheless, all this progress is only the first step.
Many new hotels will need to be built and upgraded. Roads will need to be widened and extended. Utilities will need to be improved and upgraded. And new methods of transportation will need to be implemented.
“What we are seeing is to prepare the way for Jews to go up to the Temple Mount,” Hayman said. “When the Temple is built, the changes will be even greater.”
One of the principles of the final redemption is that it will come about through a series of processes that will seem to most to be no more than natural evolution. For those that have a better understanding and knowledge of these processes it is clear that in order to accommodate the masses that will need to come to Jerusalem three times a year, a massive upgrade to the current Jerusalem infrastructures is required.
With additional reporting by Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz
***
WND
TOP VATICAN OFFICIAL: SATAN HURLING 'ANTI-CREATION' AT GOD
'This signifies calling what is good, evil, what is light, shadow'
Published July 4, 2017
When God created the world, the Bible says He saw it was “very good.” A natural order had been established. But mankind fell to sin and death, and that order was destroyed.
Still, throughout human history, mankind possessed some inherent sense of what the world should be like. Religion, morality and law were ways to restrain the depraved impulses of mankind. And in the Christian West, there was general agreement about how society should run.
But that consensus has been shattered.
Christianity is being driven from public life. Homosexuality, transsexuality and other “identities” and sexual activities that were once considered perverse are now regarded by elites as core to Western civilization.
Among the younger generation, more evangelicals are accepting of same-sex marriage. And the only time liberals seem willing to side against sexual degeneracy is when it means aiding the cause of the Muslims who are colonizing the West in ever-growing numbers.
To traditionally minded Christians, it may seem like the world has gone insane. Now, one of the Vatican’s intellectual leaders, Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, has declared Satan launched the “ultimate and terrible challenge” in a form of an “anti-creation” being constructed around the world.
In an address to the Rome Life Forum, Cardinal Caffarra identified Satan with the drive to deny the truth within the heart of man. He specifically said two innovations are core to this “anti-creation” – abortion and homosexuality.
The cardinal condemned “the transformation of a crime into a right” when it comes to abortion.
“This signifies calling what is good, evil, what is light, shadow,” he said.
Caffarra declared abortion signifies the “profoundest negation of the truth of man.”
Secondly, Caffarra argued the “ennoblement of homosexuality” has the effect of denying “entirely the truth of marriage.”
“In the mind of God, marriage has a permanent structure, based on the duality of the human mode of being: femininity and masculinity,” the cardinal explained. “Not two opposite poles, but the one with and for the other. Only thus does man escape his original solitude.”
Caffarra claimed the new world created by these moral perversions is an attempt by Satan to build an alternative to God’s creation in which man would prefer to live.
“This is the frightful strategy of the lie,” said the cardinal.
He said Christians have a responsibility to “testify” to the truth of the Christian faith, “openly and publicly,” condemning those who do not do so as not “witnesses, but deserters.”
“I have spoken frequently of a confrontation,” the cardinal said of the situation of contemporary believers. “This confrontation is increasingly assuming the appearance of a trial, of a legal proceeding, in which the defendant is Jesus and his Gospel.”
He concluded by quoting John 12:32, in which Jesus states: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”
Professor Paul Kengor, who penned “Takedown” about the war on family and marriage, welcomed Caffarra’s comments as a promising sign for the future of the Roman Catholic Church.
“This is powerful and provocative imagery from a cardinal who is a serious thinker, a highly intelligent and educated man and a very high-ranking official in the Roman Catholic Church,” Kengor told WND.
“Caffarra in 1981 was appointed by Pope John Paul II as the founding head of John Paul II’s crucial institute on the family and marriage. That is the Vatican group that has led the battle against abortion, the ‘Culture of Death,’ and the vast efforts by today’s forces of radical secularism and the dictatorship of relativism to redefine marriage, family, unborn human life, sexuality, and (now) even each and every person’s individual and biologically predetermined gender.
“In fact, that’s precisely Caffarra’s target with this imagery. He is arguing that Satan, in seeking to establish his earthly kingdom, is currently seeking to spawn an anti-creation”
Kengor said the cardinal is “saying that this would constitute – and fully mock and subvert – God’s image in His original creation.”
“Satan’s world would flaunt an inversion of God’s design for man, woman, gender, sexuality, marriage, the family, children, the unborn. It’s a complete rejection of God’s image and plan for humanity. An anti-creation. The cardinal is saying that the devil himself is currently generating his own anti-God versions of human life and human living.”
Kengor said Christians of all denominations should pay careful attention to the cardinal’s comments because they will affect even people outside the church.
“This is getting attention in the Catholic world, and it’s bound to make some waves in the larger world and culture,” Kengor said. “Moreover, this is one area where Pope Francis will almost certainly fully agree. Pope Francis has blasted same-sex marriage, abortion, gender theory, transgenderism. He excoriates these things, saying they are ‘Satanic.’ He says that ‘gender ideology is demonic’ and that it militates against ‘the order of creation.’ He has compared feminist gender theory to ‘the educational policies of Hitler.’ Those are his very words – direct quotes.
“This is one aspect of Pope Francis – the pope of mercy and tolerance and non-judgmentalism – that liberals have colossally tried to ignore. Francis has been very outspoken on these things,” he said.
“So, Cardinal Caffarra surely has a sympathetic ear from the top man in the Roman Catholic Church. I wonder if the Vatican gave him a green light on this – to speak boldly and openly.”
David Kupelian, managing editor of WND and author of “The Marketing of Evil” and “The Snapping of the American Mind,” said Caffarra has accurately identified the wholesale inversion of values that has occurred in the United States over the past generation.
“Whatever our nation’s problems were during the 1950s when I was growing up, pretty much every American embraced certain basic Judeo-Christian assumptions about life,” he said. “One of those assumptions was that human life is sacred – which means you don’t kill little babies before they’re born, and you don’t kill your parents when they get too old, ornery and expensive to conveniently take care of.
“That understanding – that human life is sacred – was based on the core conviction that we are created in God’s image,” he said.
“The other thing almost all Americans once accepted as foundational truth – at least as an ideal, even if they faltered in its practice – was that sex is sacred. Meaning, intended for marriage only, between a man and a woman who make a lifetime commitment to God and each other. Since sex generates children, and since children really need a stable, intact family with both their father and mother in the home, common sense and experience strongly bolster this biblical ideal that sex is meant for marriage only.”
Kupelian agreed with the cardinal about how the deconstruction of these moral premises has destroyed American culture and that this destruction was no accident.
“These two basic assumptions – about the sacredness of human life and God’s intended role of sex – were literally the glue that held Western civilization together,” he said.
“Obviously, both have been under unrelenting, full-scale attack by the left for decades. It’s often said that destruction is the devil’s creation, and that’s what the nihilistic left is all about today. It stands for nothing, except amassing power through its purposely divisive tribal identity politics, and then using that power to tear down Western mores, values and institutions. At its core, the radical left is at war with God and His laws of life.”
In his column “How the left revels in violating the 10 Commandments,” Kupelian said God’s commandments are essential to building a functional society and condemned the left for constantly striving to break them apart. He also warned every attempt to undermine Christian values ultimately ends with the persecution of Christians.
Judeo-Christian principles, he wrote, “encourage and enable the good and noble side of human nature to flower, and restrain the evil side, whereas Marxism-socialism and the left’s rebellious and immoral political and cultural agenda do exactly the opposite,” he wrote.
“Whether consciously or not, in its fanatical pursuit of man-made utopia and freedom apart from God, the left elevates and glorifies everything ignoble about human nature – and in the process, persecutes genuine goodness,” he said.
Kupelian said for that reason Christians should take up the cardinal’s challenge and speak boldly about issues such as abortion and homosexuality.
“Ironically, many people – including Republicans – are eager to put aside these divisive ‘social issues’ or ‘moral issues,’ namely abortion and ‘gay rights,’ and not talk about them, as though they’re not important, not central,” he said. “Yet they are arguably the most profoundly consequential issues confronting us.”
If Christians remain silent, Kupelian warned, the “anti-creation” will remain triumphant. And America will continue to be a “bizarre” version of what it once was. Kupelian concluded by citing the dark vision of the country he outlined in “The Snapping of the American Mind”:
“Compared with the shining and vibrant nation it once was, today’s America has become a different country: deeply and angrily divided, unable to deal with crises foreign or domestic, the world’s greatest debtor nation with 50 million people on food stamps, rampant divorce and family breakdown, unprecedented sexual anarchy with 110 million with STDs, almost 60 million abusing alcohol, and over 70 million taking mood-altering drugs. On so many levels, America is becoming ever more ‘bizarro’ – diametrically opposed to logic and common sense.”
You might even call it Satanic.
***
MailOnline
Pope Francis shakes up the Vatican by replacing Catholicism's hardline leading doctrine chief
Cardinal Gerhard Mueller had been the Vatican's top doctrinal watchdog
His conservative views put him at odds with the pontiff's progressive vision
Mueller and Francis have publicly clashed over potential divorce reforms
The Cardinal will be replaced by his deputy, Archbishop Luis Ladaria
But one Vatican insider described Ladaria as 'meek' and unthreatening
By Luke Barnes For Mailonline
PUBLISHED: 20:03, 1 July 2017 | UPDATED: 12:22, 2 July 2017
Pope Francis has replaced the Catholic Church's top theologian in a major shake up of the Vatican.
It emerged today that Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller - the Church's hardline doctrinal watchdog who has publicly clashed with the pope over divorce reforms - will not have his five-year mandate renewed.
The position will instead be filled by his deputy, Jesuit Archbishop Luis Ladaria.
Mueller, 69, from Mainz in Germany, was appointed by the former Pope Benedict in 2012 as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith.
He has been in charge of keeping the church's orthodoxy and presiding over sexual abuse allegations.
His conservative ideology has led to him clashing publicly with Pope Francis several times, as the pontiff forges ahead with his vision of a more inclusive church.
In 2015 Mueller was one of 13 cardinals who signed a secret letter complaining that a meeting of bishops discussing family issues was biased in favour of liberals.
In 2016 he criticised the papal treatise called 'The Joy of Love', which was an attempt by Pope Francis to make the Catholic Church more inclusive and less condemning.
In the document the pontiff sided with progressive proposal to allow some divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion.
This horrified traditionalists, who believed divorcing and remarrying was adultery and therefore a sin.
Mueller then became a conservative hero by saying there should be no exceptions to the rule, because in the eyes of the Church their first marriage is still valid.
During a trip to Philadelphia in September 2015, he said 'it's not possible' for violators of doctrine on divorce, homosexuality and abortion to be welcomed completely back into the church.
Mueller's resignation is seen as a chance for the pontiff to reorganise the Catholic church in his vision.
Reverend James Martin told the New York Times: 'This gives the pope the chance to finally place his own man in a very important spot.
'For many admirers of Benedict, Cardinal Mueller was the last link to Benedict's way of doing things.'
However not all within the Vatican were fans of new appointment Luis Ladaria.
One priest who knows both men said: 'They [Francis and Ladaria] speak the same language and Ladaria is someone who is meek. He does not agitate the pope and does not threaten him.'
In March, a prominent church reform group called for Mueller's resignation after accusations that senior officials had willfully ignored Pope Francis' decision to create a new tribunal to judge bishops who cover up sexual abuse.
THE TABLET
VATICAN INVESTIGATES CATHOLIC GROUP AFTER EXORCISM CLAIM THAT FRANCIS IS DEVIL'S MAN
26 June 2017 | by Daniele Palmer
On 2 June Herald's leader, Mgr. Clá Dias, unexpectedly resigned and reports emerged of a Vatican investigation into the group
The leader of a Brazilian traditionalist movement that was praised in the past two pontificates has resigned, and a video has subsequently emerged of the leader relaying bizarre claims by one of his priests regarding Pope Francis. Mgr João Scognamiglio Clá Dias, the founder and now ex-leader of the Heralds of the Gospel, can be seen in the video saying that the devil had told the Heralds priest that Francis was “my man”. Satan said Francis is “stupid” and does “everything I want”, Clá Dias says.
But speaking to The Tablet, Fr Angel Veiga, a Rome-based leader of the order, said the video has been “taken out of context”, and what was said in it does not equate to the position of the Heralds. They were simply relaying Satan’s message.
“It’s the Devil, no? The Devil is the father of lies,” Fr Veiga explained, adding that the video showed “a private, intimate conversation between our founder [Clá Dias] and various priests.”
The video, first reported by respected Vatican journalist Andrea Tornielli, shows around 60 priests listening to Mgr Clá Dias relaying what the priest said to him. The things had been said - the priest believed by the devil - when the priest was carrying out an exorcism.
The Heralds of the Gospel were founded in 1998 and received pontifical approval in 2001 under John Paul II, making them the first private association of faithful to receive Vatican approval in the third millennium — an achievement which the group is keen to underline.
They are made up of 200 priests, 2,820 consecrated members and are present in 78 countries. Under Benedict XVI, two other societies grew out of the Heralds.
Although not widely known outside Brazil and some circles in Rome, the Heralds’ religious dress — a Medieval-looking dark brown tunic with a long, Gothic looking cross in the middle — has given them visibility in the Church.
However, on 2 June, their leader Mgr. Clá Dias unexpectedly resigned and reports emerged of a Vatican investigation into the group. A Heralds spokesman in Brazil confirmed the probe saying that it was a routine apostolic investigation which “can occur at any moment for any religious institution.”
It was in the days following Mgr Clá Dias’ resignation that the video emerged.
In it, Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, the spiritual inspiration for the Heralds, is described as being in heaven “incentivising the death of the Pope” and saying that “the next Pope will be good.”
The devil is said to be seeking to “kill the man that God is calling” who, according to what is said in the video, is Cardinal Franc Rodé, the 82-year-old former leader of the congregation for religious. Cardinal Rodé has been a public critic of Francis.
Corrêa, whose secretary for 40 years was Clá Dias, was known in Brazil for his staunch and trenchant criticism of liberation theology, setting up Tradition, Family and Property (TFP), in 1960, to act as a bulwark against the influence of progressive politics and thought. Earlier this year Francis told a meeting of Religious superiors he is worried by “restorationist” orders that “offer security but instead give only rigidity”.
Under Benedict XVI, however, the Heralds were more in favour with Rome. In a book-length interview with Peter Seewald Benedict XVI praised the Heralds — the only religious movement he mentioned by name in the book — lauding them for being “full of enthusiasm for having recognised Christ the Son of God” and being key “in assisting with a great Catholic rebirth” in Brazil.
In Brazil, the Heralds are known for going into the country’s favelas after the Protestant evangelicals in an effort to reconvert those who chose to abandon Catholicism.
Fr Angel Veiga described the group as a “realisation of an ideal, the ideal to give oneself completely to the service and defence of the Holy Church.”
Mgr Clá Dias, he explained, envisaged a movement that would “give itself completely to the Holy Catholic Church,” that would act as a “truly Catholic institution, a truly religious institution, whose members would live as really consecrated to God.”
One of the main activities of the Heralds is to provide assistance to parish priests in areas where the number of faithful is witnessing a reduction. A division of the groups, called the “Knights of Mary,” can be called on to help strengthen the local Church’s presence in a way reminiscent of the practice of other movements, such as the Neocatechumenal Way.
They also run a programme that helps finance on-the-ground projects called the “Mercy Fund”. This fund is a part of a wider effort on behalf of the Heralds to have some kind of social presence within the Church by helping the poor, the homeless and youths — one of the group’s strongest demographics.
At the heart of the Herald’s spirituality, Fr Veiga stressed, is a calling “to perfection,” the perfection of “Christ [which is achieved] by following his evangelical advice of chastity, poverty, obedience.”
In his letter of resignation, Mgr Clá Dias stated that, despite having to step down as superior general of the group, he remains “the model and living guardian of this [perfect] charism transmitted by the Holy Spirit.”
When asked if they supported Francis’ papacy, Fr Veiga said that the Pope has “inherited a very difficult situation for the Church…he has inherited a lot of problems that don’t have an easy solution.”
He declined to comment on controversies surrounding Francis’ family life document, Amoris Laetitia, although another Herald priest, who was present during the interview, Fr Javier Benjumea, said they preferred to work directly with the “people of God.”
Additional reporting: Isabella Haberstock de Carvalho
PICTURE: Mgr João Scognamiglio Clá Dias ©YouTube
FAITHWIRE
‘God, if you Exist’: Famous Singer Turns to Prayer After Struggling to Conceive — and Receives Awesome ‘Gift’
Former Spice Girl Geri Horner (formerly Halliwell) is speaking out about a blessing she believes God bestowed upon her after she struggled to conceive her second child and turned to prayer for help.
Horner told the Toronto Sun in a recent interview that she decided to appeal to God one day when she was uncertain whether naturally conceiving her baby with husband Christian Horner would be possible. She’s 44 and wasn’t quite sure if having another kid would even be possible.
“Bluebell, my daughter, said to me, ‘Please don’t give up,'” Horner said. “Sometimes in life, when our back is against the wall, you suddenly think, ‘Maybe I’m not running the show here, maybe there’s something bigger than myself.'”
So, the ex-Spice Girl whose stage name was “Ginger” said she decided to turn to prayer and ask God for some help.
“I actually said a prayer. I went, ‘God, if you exist, then I’ll have a baby naturally.’ I swear on my life that’s what I did. I put my hands together and I prayed and two months later I got pregnant. It was really bizarre. I was like, ‘OK, that’s testimony that sometimes in life maybe there is something bigger.'”
Horner had her son, Monty, in January, whom she said is a “little gift.” While the singer didn’t seem too bent on sharing her definition of who God is, she did credit the pregnancy to a higher power.
“This little baby, Monty, felt like this little gift from something bigger, whatever we choose to believe in,” she said. “I just did acupuncture and prayer and that was it.”
Horner’s daughter, Bluebell, whom the singer had with journalist Sacha Gervasi, is 11 years old.
***
WND
SERVE SOMEBODY: BOB DYLAN'S FAITH HITS AIRWAVES
Music icon's beliefs much more than flirtation
July 2, 2017
Bob Dylan
It’s become a cliché. A famous person discovers faith. Instantly, he, or she, begins traveling the circuit with pastors and preachers, hawking books and giving speeches. Christians rejoice; the mainstream press sneers. And rather than a real testimonial about his or her faith journey, the whole thing comes off like a celebrity marketing effort.
But that’s not what legendary American artist Bob Dylan did after revealing his faith in Jesus Christ. Though Dylan incorporated his faith in his songs, the spiritual life of this American icon remains mysterious even today, as fans and critics continue to ask questions about what the iconic performer does or doesn’t believe.
Author Scott Marshall reveals the truth in his new book “Bob Dylan: The Spiritual Life.” And in a recent interview on “The Drew Marshall Show,” Scott Marshall discussed the rather unique way the fiercely private Dylan reconciled his fame and his faith.
As Marshall points out, Dylan went public about his faith in Jesus Christ at a time when the “Jesus Movement” of the late 1960s and early 1970s already had peaked in terms of media attention.
Thus, Dylan never lost his independence by becoming too closely associated with a particular subculture. Marshall said no particular movement or organization was able to “sink their hooks into him.”
“When Dylan embraced Jesus in 1979, the ‘Jesus People’ movement seems to have fizzled out somewhat,” Scott Marshall explained. “There is this tendency for some Christians, I don’t know if it’s an American phenomenon, it certainly happens in America, of trotting somebody out who is a public figure to try to score points and this and that. … And Dylan just did what he normally does which is that he just wrote his songs and went on stage. The first in-depth public interview he gave was nearly two years after his experience, so he had some restraint after this experience of his in terms of going public other than in his songs.”
But Dylan’s involvement in the emerging Christian musical scene was not simply a flirtation. Marshall revealed Dylan contributed to “So You Wanna Go Back To Egypt” from the Christian artist Keith Green. Like Green, Dylan was a Christian believer of Jewish heritage, and Marshall believes it was one reason why Dylan accepted the offer to collaborate.
As Marshall’s book explains, one of the keys to understanding Dylan’s spiritual journey is knowing the importance of his Jewish heritage.
“Whether you’re Jewish or Christian or claim to be a Jewish Christian or even if you don’t give a flip about any of this and just happen to be a fan of Dylan, a lot of people are aware of this religious question in terms of Dylan in terms of where is he or where is he not,” explained Marshall.
“I would just say there is no doubt about it – he’s a Jewish man and he’s got strong Jewish roots and he still is spotted in recent decades in synagogues. I know he was involved with the Vineyard Church in terms of attending and worship until the press found out, but, as I referenced the synagogues, he certainly tries to slip in privately wherever he goes and sometimes he gets found out. I would just say that he was bar mitzvahed at 13 in 1954 in his home state of Minnesota.
“In 1971, someone quoted him in Israel asking him, ‘Why don’t you just proclaim that you’re a Jew, what’s the problem?’ And Dylan’s response was, ‘Why should I have to proclaim something that’s so obvious?’ Dylan was basically saying that his Jewishness has touched his life and his art in ways that he can’t describe. Those Jewish roots were there.”
According to Marshall, Dylan also spoke publicly about how he saw no contradiction between these “Jewish roots” and his faith in Jesus Christ as the Messiah for both Jews and Gentiles.
“When he came to know Jesus in about 1979, even his album ‘Saved,’ which was released in 1980, included the one Scripture from the so-called Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, and it was a passage from Jeremiah.”
The passage Marshall refers to is Jeremiah 31:31, found inside the album’s liner notes. It seems almost explicitly directed to Messianic Jews, as it reads: “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.”
Marshall recalled that on one of his tours before one of his songs, Dylan “went on a lengthy rap session about the Passover.”
“A couple years later … someone asked, ‘What’s with your interest in Israel and then this new Gospel stuff, isn’t it incompatible?’ And Dylan’s response was that it was not incompatible in his mind,” Marshall said. “And again, a significant part of the story as well is what it means or what it might mean for a man or a woman or a child who is Jewish to not just believe in Jesus in Messiah or God but to be a public figure and actually speak out.”
Marshall believes Dylan’s Christianity and his willingness to incorporate his faith into his art has made some people take him less seriously. He noted how many Dylan fans saw the singer as something akin to a prophet during the early 1960s, but as soon as Dylan started talking about matters of eternal importance, they tuned out.
Dylan himself recognized this, as Marshall recounted what the singer said from the stage during one of his tours in Omaha, Nebraska.
“For years people used to say he was a prophet, people would try to convince me I was a prophet and I’d say, ‘No, no, it’s not me,'” Marshall said, paraphrasing Dylan. “And they’d say, ‘Yes, yes.’ And now I come out and say Jesus is the answer, and these people say, ‘Oh Bob Dylan, he’s no prophet.’ A number of his fans turned on him at the time; it wasn’t just commercially and critically.”
Marshall said the damage Dylan took from music critics because of his belief in Jesus was serious, with even some longtime fans having jumped ship after Dylan became a believer. However, understanding Dylan’s faith, as well as his songs, is now considered essential to interpreting Dylan as an artist.
And as “Bob Dylan: The Spiritual Life” shows, Dylan’s art may live forever, but the artist himself understands that only faith is of eternal importance.
“Bob Dylan: The Spiritual Life” is not just another biography. It’s an exposé on the hidden life of a legend and an examination of the interaction between faith and fame. And it might just change your own spiritual life.
***
AUSTRIA DEPLOYS MILITARY TO ITALIAN BORDER AS MIGRANT CRISIS EXPLODES
Europe under siege as migrants cross Mediterranean in record numbers
Dan Lyman | Infowars.com - JULY 4, 2017
Austria has mobilized its military to maintain security along its border with Italy as the explosion of migrants crossing over from Africa reaches catastrophic proportions.
The Austrian government has moved 750 troops and four Pandur armored vehicles into the Tyrol region, where they can quickly deploy to the Brenner Pass, the primary connector between Austria and Italy through the Alps, if necessary.
“We need to prepare for the migration development in Italy, and I expect very promptly that border controls will be activated and assistance requested,” said Austrian Defense Minister Hans Peter Doskozil in comments to local press.
His spokesman said the flood of migrants into Italy is unsustainable, and that riot tanks would have to be deployed.
“These are not battle tanks,” he said. “These are armoured vehicles without weapons which could block roads. These were already used during the refugee crisis of 2015/16 at the Spielfeld border crossing (with Slovenia).”
Italy’s foreign ministry has summoned the Austrian ambassador to discuss Vienna’s statements and movements.
The UN International Organization for Migration has announced that over 100,000 migrants have entered Europe in the first six months of 2017 via the Mediterranean, with nearly 85% arriving in Italy from Libya alone.
At the same time, the UN refugee agency just released a new report stating that at least seven out of 10 illegal immigrants from Africa are not refugees at all, but instead are economic migrants, as Infowars has documented at length.
Austria’s decision to militarily fortify its border comes on the heels of a recent meeting between six central European nations seeking to form a new anti-migrant defense coalition.
Defense ministers and officials from Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Croatia met in Prague earlier this month to discuss the details of the Central European Defence Cooperation (CEDC) that will act as “the framework of civil-military cooperation” between the nations who seek to handle the on-going crisis in a markedly different manner than Brussels and other EU member states, such as Germany, Sweden and Italy.
“At the meeting, the participants issued a short declaration which welcomes the Joint Action Plan and calls on the interior ministers of the involved countries to finalize it in the shortest time possible,” read a statement from the Hungarian Ministry of Defense regarding the meeting and developments to come. “The declaration takes note of the unified situation assessment, which facilitates the quick and joint mobilization of civilian, police and military capabilities, and states that the most important task is the protection of the external borders of the EU and the elimination of the root causes of migration in the sending countries.”
“Finally, the participants of the meeting talked about the wider context of Europe’s security situation and the next steps in strengthening the European common security and defence policy.”
***
BREITBART
Majority of Poles Would Rather Leave EU than Be Forced to Take Muslim Migrants
by VIRGINIA HALE 6 Jul 2017
Most Poles would rather leave the European Union (EU) than have Brussels force migrants from third world nations on their country, a poll has shown.
Conducted by pollster IBRiS and published in weekly news magazine Polityka, the survey found that 57 per cent of respondents would be willing to forego EU development funds if it meant Poland retains sovereignty on the issue of accepting migrants from outside Europe.
The seventh-poorest, and fifth most populous nation in the bloc, Poland is the largest beneficiary of its development funds and membership has high support — with 71 per cent of Poles believing that belonging to the EU is a “good thing”, according to a March survey by Eurobarometer.
But the June survey, published Wednesday to coincide with a visit by U.S. President Donald Trump, showed that more than half of Poles would rather their country exit the 28-member economic and political union than be forced to surrender border controls to Brussels.
Head of IBRiS Marcin Duma told Bloomberg News that the government’s “anti-refugee rhetoric” has caused Poles to oppose the EU scheme, which insists that countries across the bloc be forced to welcome quotas of the thousands of migrants arriving in Europe weekly by boats — an influx the UN said it expects only to increase, and which consists mostly of young, male economic migrants.
Poland’s ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party has stood firm against the plan and, pointing to terror attacks in Western Europe, has argued that rejecting migrant quotas is the only way to keep the country safe.
Writing in Wpolityce, Konrad Kołodziejski slammed the frequent claim by liberals that Poles’ increasing resistance to the EU quota scheme was “due to PiS frightening people about Muslim immigration”.
“The truth is quite different”, said the veteran journalist, describing Poles’ disenchantment with Brussels as “the result of EU policy, EU leaders and their Polish puppets, who have for years now run a suicidal strategy of destroying European identity and replacing it with a volcanic multicultural mishmash”.
“It will not result — as liberal elites would like — in the creation of a harmonious society, devoid of any identity or culture.”
Urging Europeans to “wake up”, Kołodziejski writes: “Watching what is happening today in Western Europe, revealing its weaknesses both civilisational and demographic, we instead see Islam becoming stronger and more aggressive.
“It is utterly wrong to say Poland is anti-European,” he concludes. “The liberal elite is possessed with the Bolshevik mission of building a new society, and to do so they are lighting the fuse to set fire to, and destroy European civilisation.
“We do not want to take part in this suicide.”
***
***
SPUTNIK
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Confirms Daesh Chief Baghdadi is Dead
29.06.2017
The elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard verified the death of Daesh mastermind Abu Bakr al-Bagdhadi “through multiple channels,” a representative said Thursday.
Ali Shirazi, a top Iranian cleric, told Asr-e Iran News Agency there is "no doubt" Baghdadi is deceased.
Irib, Iranian media outlet, has posted photos of Baghdadi's dead body. The man's face resembles Baghdadi extremely closely. Sputnik has learned that the photo is from 2015 and is actually a fake.
Reports have circulated for weeks that a Russian sortie may have eliminated al-Baghdadi during an airstrike on a suburb south of Raqqa, Syria.
“It is highly likely that Daesh leader al-Baghdadi was eliminated as a result of a Russian Aerospace Forces strike on the terrorists' command post in the southern suburb of the city of Raqqa in late May this year," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov told Sputnik last week.
Counterterrorism sources have noticed increased conflict within the ranks of Daesh over its top leadership spot, which analysts interpret as a signal that al-Baghdadi has been killed, Russian lawmaker Alexei Pushkov told Sputnik on June 29. “If he were alive, then as a demonstration of power and as a means of increasing war morale, a refutation would have already been announced,” Pushkov added.
On June 11, US officials told Voice of America they could not confirm that al-Baghdadi was killed in the strike. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation on June 29.
According to Islamabad-based analyst Nauman Sadiq, "It is not in Washington’s interests right now to confirm the deaths of the Islamic State’s top leaders even if it has received credible reports of their deaths because the US troops and affiliated local militias have mounted offensives against the Islamic State’s strongholds of Mosul and Raqqa which have caused colossal loss of human lives."
Al-Baghdadi gained worldwide notoriety for declaring a new caliphate in the Middle East in 2014. The al-Nuri mosque in Mosul, Iraq, where he proclaimed the caliphate, was liberated by Iraqi security forces on June 29, according to the Independent.
"It’s now undeniable that reduced external support for the 'rebels' was a critical turning point for really crushing ISIS," said Max Abrahms, a political science professor at Northeastern University and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
***
BREITBART
Emmanuel Bonaparte: Macron Declares He Will Govern Like a Roman God
By JACK MONTGOMERY4 Jul 2017
French president Emmanuel Macron has declared he will govern France like Jupiter, the Roman king of the gods, shortly after officials told the media his thought process was “too complex” for journalists to understand.
Summoning over 900 politicians from both houses of the French parliament to a rare Congress at the palace of Louis XIV – the ‘Sun King’ – in Versailles, he threatened to overrule lawmakers with a referendum if they try to frustrate the “reforms” he wishes to impose on the legislature. Such assemblies are usually reserved for times of national crisis.
Reuters reports him as saying he desires to reign as a “Jupiterian” president – “a remote, dignified figure, like the Roman god of gods, who weighs his rare pronouncements carefully”.
This bizarre statement of intent comes just days after Macron scrapped the president’s traditional Bastille Day press conference, with an Elysée Palace official claiming the 39-year-old’s thoughts are “too complex” for journalists.
Macron’s “complex thought process lends itself badly to the game of question-and-answer with journalists”, the spokesman explained – prompting much mockery in the French press.
It has been speculated that Macron is keen to cultivate an aloof, almost imperial aura after being derided as a placeman for the unpopular socialist François Hollande, in whose government he served as economy minister, or as a poodle for Angela Merkel, the German chancellor widely regarded as the European Union’s driving force.
“You are the heir of François Hollande,” scoffed nationalist rival Marine Le Pen during their head-to-head election debate. “We now call you Baby Hollande; Hollande Junior!”
She added that, whatever the outcome of the election, “France will be led by a woman: either me or Mrs. Merkel.”
Much of the commentary on Macron’s alleged natural submissiveness hints at his relationship with his wife – twenty-five years his senior – with Italy’s larger-than-life former president Silvio Berlusconi teasing that he is “a nice lad with a good-looking mum”.
Efforts by the EU loyalist to strengthen his public standing by picking fights with the governments of Central Europe, who have been resolutely defiant in the face of attempts by Brussels to impose compulsory migrant quotas on them, have been less than successful.
Hungarian premier Viktor Orbán gently dismissed him as “a new boy” who had yet to find his feet.
“Macron’s entrance wasn’t too encouraging, as he thought the best way to show friendship was to immediately kick Central European countries. This isn’t how we do things around here, but he’ll soon get to know his way around,” he added.
Posing as the EU’s champion against President Donald Trump has also backfired, with a pointed, public snub of the U.S. leader in favour of Angela Merkel and other Europeans at a G20 summit ending in embarrassment when the 70-year-old manhandled him with a powerful handshake.
Macron was clearly rattled by the exchange, granting a brief interview with journalists in order to emphasise that another handshake with President Trump – in which the Frenchman clung on for dear life – was a “moment of truth” in which he supposedly demonstrated that he “would not make small concessions, not even symbolic ones”.
ENENEWS
Record radiation detected at Fukushima nuclear plant — Multiple locations register highest levels ever measured — “Radioactive materials in groundwater toward the ocean”
Published: July 3rd, 2017 at 12:12 pm ET
By ENENews
***
NextBIGfuture
Cable free elevator has been built and it will boost capacity and cut wait times in half
June 23, 2017
Thyssenkrupp has built the first rope (cable) free elevator. This will enable system like the Star Trek Turbolift which can move up down and side to side. This is elevator industry’s holy grail. It ends the 160-year reign of the rope-dependent elevator.
MULTI harnesses the power of linear motor technology to move multiple cars in a single shaft both vertically and horizontally!
* magnetic system enables faster elevators to be built
* horizontal movement allows more than one cabin per shaft
* horizontal movement allows more efficient routing where there was no routing flexibility before
* magnetic and ropeless system removes 500 meter height limit for one elevator shaft
* 50% more capacity and half the wait times
* economic benefits to skyscraper owners with less wasted space
“Eventually it could solve the last mile,” Schierenbeck said. “With the horizontal movement of the Multi you can connect buildings, you can connect trains stations with your buildings, you could even have your own cabin waiting for you at your hotel room – all these things which have been a little bit science fiction maybe three, four, five years ago are now possible.”
* Cities could be massively more efficient for movement within multiple buildings.
* Skyscrapers could be taller.
* One up down and side to side network of elevators could for example connect all the casinos on the Vegas strip
Instead of one elevator cabin per shaft moving up and down, the MULTI offers multiple cabins operating in loop, like a metro system inside a building.
By removing ropes and equipping with linear motors, elevators will be transformed completely – increasing capacity by 50 % and reducing the elevator footprint within a building by half.
In the same way the train slides along a track horizontally, the lift travels both vertically, horizontally and diagonally around a building riding an electromagnetic field, a system known as a linear drive. “If you can run a 500-tonne train on magnets at 500km/h you should be able to elevate a cabin of 500 kilograms or 1,000 kilograms at a speed of five metres per second,” Schierenbeck said.
The number of buildings over 200 meters has tripled since 2000. More than 180 buildings over 250 meters are currently under construction.
The only visible difference to passengers – and it’s a welcome one – is that the doors open every 15 to 30 seconds, despite having fewer shafts compared to standard elevator systems.
Standard rope and pulley lifts today can only rise to a maximum of around 500 metres. But, skyscrapers are much taller and they are only getting higher. So far, the solution to this has been to build multiple elevators and therefore more shafts but the space required can cost a building up to 40 per cent of highly valuable floor space. “This cannot go on forever,” Schierenbeck said. While the Multi can cost three to five times more than a standard lift system, Schierenbeck claims saving that much space in a central downtown building, for example, is “definitely overcompensating the price of the product.”
***
***
COSMOS
How your body packs a metre of DNA inside every cell
30 June, 2017
A protein called linker histone H1 plays a key role in stowing away all that genetic information, according to new research.
It’s one of those statistics that makes you pause – or win the pub trivia contest, depending on your lifestyle.
Human cells that carry a full complement of DNA range in volume from a very tiny 130 cubic micrometres for a white blood cell to a comparatively massive 600,000 cubic micrometres for a fat cell.
But even at the top end of the scale, cells are very tiny things. A micrometre, after all, is just one millionth of a metre.
Yet here’s the thing: every cell in the body (bar sperm, eggs, and red blood cells) contains a whole metre of DNA.
Just how we have evolved to manage this sort of TARDIS-like achievement is now a little clearer, thanks to research conducted by a team led by Jeffrey Hayes of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in New York, US.
Hayes and his team set out to discover exactly how such a great length of genetic material could be packed into super-tight cell spaces.
To do that, they looked closely at the nucleosome, the most basic building block of chromosomes – the rigid framework that holds the DNA.
The team identified a target protein, known as linker histone H1 – or H1, for short – which the scientists suspected played a key role in inducing chromosomes to be inflexible and compact.
Hayes recruited fellow researchers in France and Japan to take high-magnification X-ray images of H1 and other DNA proteins in an effort to better understand the mechanisms involved. The resulting images were useful, but the resolution was insufficient to enable unambiguous interpretation.
To the rescue came co-author Amber Cutter, who conducted a series of test-tube experiments using a range of DNA proteins. The result, added to the information obtained through the X-rays, was clear: with H1, chromosomes were tight and strong; without it, they were long and floppy.
Apart from its use as a storage enabler, Hayes and his team suggest the protein may have a protective effect, buffering DNA from deforming pressure, and shielding it from physical damage.
The research is published in the journal Molecular Cell.
***
Until
next week...keep on believing.
Almondtree Productions
“For thou, O Lord, hast possessed my reins; thou hast helped me from my mother’s womb. I will give thee thanks; for thou art fearfully wondrous; wondrous are thy works; and my soul knows it well. My bones, which thou madest in secret were not hidden from thee.”
(Psalm 139:13-15)
Links:
This
site is partially sponsored by Association of Missionary-Minded
Christians.