When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.
(Isaiah 59:19)
Like A Flood

***

***

WND

SANHEDRIN BANS ALL MESSIANIC JEWISH MARRIAGES IN ISRAEL

'Nothing changed in 2,000 years,' says Jesus-believing rabbi

Leo Hohmann

08/31/2017

Jewish weddings in Israel are conducted under the authority of a religious council known as a rabbinic court or Sanhedrin.

The state of Israel’s religious establishment is taking its persecution of Messianic Jewish believers in Jesus to a new level.

A rabbinic court, or Sanhedrin, has ruled that a Jew who believes in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah is no longer considered a Jew for purposes of marriage in Israel. This makes it impossible for two Messianic Jews to get married inside the country.

“An Israeli couple who are Messianic Jews cannot marry in a traditional Jewish religious ceremony in Israel because they are considered converts to Christianity, a rabbinical court ruled on Tuesday,” according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

It was the first time a rabbinical court has ruled on the issue of the status of Jews who believe in Jesus as Son of God, after a Messianic couple requested they be married in Israel according to Jewish law or “halacha.”

The couple was essentially told they would need to deny their faith in Jesus as the Son of God to have a state-recognized Jewish wedding ceremony in Israel.

All marriages in Israel are controlled by religious authorities, whether Jewish, Islamic, Christian or Druze, according to laws first handed down under the Ottoman Empire. These laws were retained by the British Mandate and continued after the state of Israel was founded in 1948.

The judges wrote that if the couple “declares before the court they have completely given up their Christian beliefs, including their belonging to a Messianic Jewish community and missionary activities, the court will discuss their matter anew.”

The two in question were both born Jewish, according to Haaretz, and submitted a marriage request at their local rabbinate in Shoham, central Israel. According to halacha, they are seen as Jewish because even Jews who convert to another religion can still be considered Jewish.

Because of the seriousness of the issue, the case was given to a special panel of three very senior judges: Rabbi Zevadia Cohen, head of the rabbinical court, Rabbi Ahiezer Amrani and Rabbi Zvi Ben-Yaakov, Haaretz reports.

The judges consulted with a scholar on Christianity and missionary cults, as well as speaking with and questioning the couple.

“Although I was disappointed to see the decision of the rabbinic court, it doesn’t surprise me at all,” said Dr. Michael Brown, a Messianic Jewish scholar and author of many books on Christianity and Judaism, including “The Real Kosher Jesus.”

“In the eyes of most Orthodox Jews, Messianic Jews are heretics and idolaters, unworthy of being part of the larger Jewish community, even though they would consider us still Jews,” Brown told WND. “Many of them want to keep us out of Israel entirely, so refusing to grant two Messianic Jews an official rabbinic wedding is in keeping with their hostility toward us.”

Still, the decision is disappointing, he said, since all official Jewish weddings performed in Israel must be done by Orthodox rabbis, “who would gladly perform a ceremony for two atheists.”

“So we should protest this decision to the government while still recognizing that our calling to follow Yeshua will bring us persecution and rejection.”

Messianic Rabbi Zev Porat is founder of the Tel Aviv-based Messiah of Israel Ministries. He grew up an Orthodox Jew, and his grandfather, Rabbi Pinchas Porat, was a Holocaust survivor who later became one of the heads of the Sanhedrin in Israel.

Contacted Thursday by WND, Porat was not at all happy about the rabbinic court’s ruling.

He said this decision will deprive people of retirement, medical and other benefits that come with a state-recognized marriage. He said Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders are celebrating this move because they have long been “furious” about Jews coming to Jesus Christ.

Porat said in an email to WND it is very important for Jewish believers in Messiah to keep their Jewish identity.

“A shocking new law passed in Israel by the Sanhedrin forbids the marriage of Messianic Jews in Israel. According to the Sanhedrin (Rabbinic Court), a messianic Jew is no longer a Jew but is now a Christian,” he said. “It is unprecedented and is the first time in Israel’s history since its inception in 1948 that the Messianic Jews are being targeted.”

The new law will have huge ramifications for the Messianics in Israel, he said.

“Currently, if one gets married in Israel, it must be in a rabbinic court. It is mandatory even for atheists, so we can see what dire consequences this new law will have on Messianic believers desiring to marry, as they will not be allowed to marry in a rabbinic court, which is where they get the document that is ultimately validated by the Ministry of Interior.”

They will now be required to leave Israel, get married, return and apply for this certification of marriage to the Ministry of Interior.

“The ministry, of course, will delay the certification and legitimization of their marriage for up to as many as five to seven years,” he noted. “While they are waiting, by design, the Ministry is going to make this process as difficult as possible because the ultimate goal is for the Messianic believers to vacate Israel all together.”

While waiting for this lengthy process, their rights will be grossly limited, the rabbi said.

“They can live there but they cannot be deemed as ‘married,’ which would afford them certain rights in Israeli law, but now with this new law in place by the Sanhedrin ‘Rabbinical Courts,’ which control most everything in Israel. Nothing has changed in 2,000 years, the same anti-Yeshua demonic spirit is operating in Israel today.”

This ruling did not just pop out of nowhere, he said.

“What is the true motivation behind this new law? Jews to leave, get out of Israel and go preach your Jesus elsewhere,” Porat said. “They have no problem with all manner of sin including a gay pride parade in the main streets of Israel, which is a total abomination to the word of God. Not one rabbi comes out against this, but yet [they] will do all manner of gymnastics to go after Messianic Jews! God forbid they should be allowed live in Israel! There is a huge, unreported spiritual revival in Israel that the rabbis are apoplectic over. They deem the rise of believers in Yeshua as a danger to their futures, just as 2,000 years ago. Nothing changes.”

The role of the Orthodox community is to obstruct and to destroy the Messianic Jews, he lamented.

“It is a demonic spirit that is operating in Israel,” he said. “Jesus said, ‘if they will do this unto me, they will do it unto you.’

“The goal of the the Sanhedrin is to intimidate the Messianic believers into leaving Israel, deny their faith in Yeshua, and to prevent new believers from making Aliyah (moving) to Israel. … they want all believers out of Israel. Just as in the days of Yeshua.”

Porat said Christians of the West have a biblical obligation to Israel and “we must be in constant prayer against this anti-Yeshua spirit. The Messianic believers are depending on the believers around the world to pray and stand with them during this time of persecution by the rabbinic community.”

The upshot of this complex situation is that the court’s ruling is seen as a direct attack by Israel’s ultra-Orthodox religious leaders, who many believe seek to expunge the nation of as many Jews as possible who are now claiming they are believers in Jesus.

“This new law apparently will cause Messianic Jews wishing to be married to jump through mountains of red tape, huge expenses, and years of waiting for many national rights to be restored – if they are ever actually restored,” said Carl Gallups, a former police officer turned Christian pastor in Florida also has a radio show and has interviewed Porat on several occasions.

“This process makes for an interesting and unprecedented prophetic mix: At the same time record numbers of Jews around the world, and especially in Israel, are turning to Yeshua as Messiah there is a direct targeting of those Messianic Jews in an attempt to keep them from acknowledging Jesus Christ as Messiah, and even more significantly – to renounce their new found faith in Yeshua entirely,” said Gallups, the author of several books about biblical prophecy and the end times.

“Jesus warned His disciples, as He was standing in Jerusalem, that in the very last days His disciples would undergo intense persecution for His name’s sake,” he said. “He warned them about their closest friends and, perhaps, even family members turning against them and ‘delivering them up to the authorities.'”

One thing is certain: Tuesday’s rabbinic ruling will not stop Messianic Rabbi Zev Porat from continuing his mission with Messiah of Israel Ministries.

“This only encourages us to further evangelize to the Jews in Israel,” he said. “The rabbis are so upset as so many Jews are coming to faith in Yeshua and the book, ‘The Rabbi Who Found Messiah‘ by pastor Carl Gallups has them in great fear because it is an evangelistic tool being used to draw many a Jew to the written word of God and to salvation in Yeshua. This they fear more than anything else, which is why they must get rid of the believers. … Sound like history repeating itself?”

Christian Answers For The New Age

THE DARK SIDE: BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL

By Marcia Montenegro

The display was titled, "Going Back to Wizardry School," a play on the normal "Going Back to School" theme. About a dozen different books were featured in this children's section of a large chain bookstore. In one book, a young boy at a wizardry school (not Harry Potter) is listening to the professor explain that practicing the black arts is not really evil at all, but is just the exaggeration and twisting of normal human traits: "By 'black,' I do not mean evil. Or wicked. I mean dark and deep, as in the black water of the deepest lakes."1 This view of evil is not uncommon in occult philosophies. Evil is usually expressed in one or more of the following ways, which may overlap: the dark side is just another aspect of the good; both good and evil are needed for the balancing of energy and life (polarity); a magician must master and control all aspects of himself in order to master the spirits and forces of sorcery; evil is a force; good & evil are part of the whole, and therefore, are ultimately the same thing; and, finally, good and evil are transcended and combined in the One.

The dark side

Dark is just the other side of light or good, and these two balance each other. In this case, dark and light are equal (dualism). This philosophy is found explicitly in Deepak Chopra's recent best-selling book, How To Know God, in which Chopra claims that in the 6th of 7 stages of knowing God, good and evil to the visionary "are two sides of the same force. God created both because both are needed; God is in the evil as much as in the good."2

The Kabbalah (also spelled Qabbala, Cabala, Kabbala, etc.), a Gnostic spin-off of mystical Judaism that has been enjoying a revival, and which is also a foundation for many forms of sorcery (namely, ritual or ceremonial magick), teaches that good and evil each "has the spark of the other,"3 according to Rabbi David Cooper.

Cooper quotes a story told by Rabbi in which a boy named Israel has the chance to destroy Satan's "heart of evil" which Satan has placed inside a monster, but is unable to do so when he sees the heart bleed, for Israel realizes that "even the heart of evil has within it a spark of the Divine."4 The lesson, according to the storyteller, is that "even the heart of Satan has a divine spark; even the heart of evil yearns to be redeemed...our job is not to set up a battleground to eradicate evil, but to search out its spark of holiness."5 Cooper tells us that "Evil has divine nature within it," and quotes the Zohar, the sacred book of the Kabbalah, as saying "There is no sphere of the Other Side (evil) that entirely lacks some streak of light from the side of holiness."6

Echoing this view are Mark and Isha Lerner,7 creators of the "Inner Child Cards," a Tarot deck and book using imagery from fairy tales and myth. In their section on the The Big Bad Wolf card (traditionally the Devil card), the Lerners state that the darker sides of life are not necessarily evil, but rather represent a struggle for "the human ego" as it "seeks balance and understanding in the physical universe."8 They further state that "[i]n the dark or ugly side of human nature lies the seed of true spiritual integration."9

Witches Janet and Stewart Farrar claim that "[t]he Theory of Polarity maintains that all activity, all manifestation, arises from (and is inconceivable without) the interaction of pairs and complementary opposites...and that this polarity is not a conflict between 'good' and 'evil', but a creative tension like that between the positive and negative terminals of an electric battery. Good and evil only arise with the constructive or destructive application of the polarity's output..."10 They further state that monotheists are trapped in the belief that good vs. evil is a polarity, and that "Under the unchallenged rule of a non-polarized Creator, nothing can happen."11 Two essential ideas relevant to this discussion are stated here: the basis for polarity is not good versus evil, and good cannot exist without evil.

The quintessential illustration of this philosophy is the yin-yang symbol. One side is black with a white dot in it, and the other side is white with a black dot in it. Most people believe that this symbol represents opposites, but it actually represents the concept of polarity, although people use the term "opposite" to describe it. The dark and light sides are polarities that need to be balanced. If they are opposite, why does each have a dot of the other color in it? It is because though they appear to be opposites, in actuality they are constantly changing and merging with each other, thus becoming each other. The dark becomes light and light becomes dark. There is no absolute dark or absolute light. [See CANA document on the Yin-Yang.]

The Yin-Yang view is even referred to by Cooper: "[T]he constant tension of opposing forces is a universal law. . . .In the East the principle is described as yin and yang. In Kabbalah it is called gevurot (restrictive powers) and chasidim (expansive powers)," and these "forces of the universe are constantly tugging and pushing."12 This is a concept I learned in psychic development classes,13 that the "energy of the universe" moved in patterns of constriction and expansion.

A popular display of polarity thinking is in the Star Wars movie, Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Anakin, the future Darth Vader, is accepted as a Jedi apprentice in order to "balance the force." In recalling the first movie where Luke Skywalker discovers his father is Darth Vader, the message is that Darth Vader has gone over to "the dark side," not that he is evil. As Luke faces his father, together they represent the polarity of dark and light. The implication is that in looking at his father, Luke is seeing himself.

Lucifer, the Angel of Light

Medium and psychic Sylvia Browne admits there are dark entities that choose from the beginning to be this way, but she denies the devil. According to Browne, God sent Lucifer down to watch over people when God saw they had chosen "the dark side." According to Browne, "Lucifer is neither dark nor fallen. He wasn't rejected by God or banished from the light."14

Another book, purported to be bringing a message from the real Christ, tells us that in the Garden of Eden, God "sent the sacred snake to you with an apple and invited you to eat."15 Although God warned man that this would cause "duality and feelings of separation" in man's mind, God does not condemn us for this or any action because he "is not concerned about" our actions.16

According to author Ferrini, evil comes from judgment, and the devil is the "ego mind," and is our "angelic presence defiled" caught in "the savage pull of worldly incarnation."17 Lucifer is not the devil; he is the Antichrist, but is not really bad at all. Lucifer "is the wounded child transformed into the risen Christ, the angelic presence leading the human into God's eternal embrace."18 God himself will say, "Welcome home, Lucifer" and, in fact, "when Lucifer is redeemed, the light comes to man."19

So Lucifer is a protector in one view and, in another, he is the one whose redemption brings light to man. Much like the Satan in Cooper's story, who is not all evil but contains divinity, this Lucifer will be redeemed.

Evil as a force

Occult dualism also teaches that evil is a force, an idea seen most popularly in the Star Wars movies in which either the dark or light sides of the Force can be accessed. "Star Wars" is another example of the philosophy that these two "forces" are complementary. Calling evil a force makes it seem less evil by turning it into an impersonal energy that is not particularly attached to human nature.

One does not necessarily choose evil but goes to the dark side almost inadvertently through emotions that one has failed to control. The very Zen-like Yoda in "Star Wars" says that the dark side of the Force is accessed through fear and anger (natural emotions, not evil). This is similar to what the teacher says to the boy at the wizardry school. The young wizard is told that "[w]e are all made up of such deep and dark emotions, and as we grow more mature, we learn to control them."20 The message is, control your emotions, master yourself, and you will keep the dark side at bay. This message is also found in the first four Harry Potter books. Harry is not taught so much to do moral good, as he is to control his powers. Even in using his powers for a heroic act, Harry practices deception and disobedience on an almost constant basis. Morality is irrelevant as a value in itself; what matters is that the ends justify the means. This kind of compromise is accepted, even lauded, in a world where there is no absolute good or evil. Of course, for a wizard (sorcerer), self-mastery is of paramount importance since self-mastery precedes mastery of the forces and spirits he believes he will be manipulating in his occult art.

In this view, man is morally neutral, like the Force. As Rabbi Cooper states, "[W]e are neither good nor evil in our nature. We are simply the product of the accumulated influences in our lives, plus the most important variable: our free will."21

In "Star Wars," however, there is a big contradiction in the idea of the Force. In Episode One: The Phantom Menace, characters in the movie refer several times to the "will" of the Force. But an impersonal Force cannot have a will since it does not possess an intelligence. And if it does possess a will, it cannot be a Force. So how can a Force have will, and how can a Force have the qualities of good and evil, or dark and light?

Beyond Good and Evil

In the 7th stage of knowing God, according to Chopra in his How to Know God, one learns that God encompasses everything, even what we call evil. Chopra writes, "What is the nature of good and evil? God is the union of all opposites. Evil no longer exists."22 Duality disappears into nonduality, the true nature of reality.

Chopra is presenting what seems to be a beautiful spirituality. But his message is similar to the teachings of sorcery. A novel about murders committed by a practitioner of Palo Mayombe, the "dark side" of Santeria, offers this description of the black magician, "He was a gifted, powerful, man...Beyond good and evil, like any master magician."23 In this way, the master of the dark art of Palo Mayombe becomes the same as Chopra's God. In transcending good and evil, one is making one's self into a god, putting the self above the need to answer to anyone higher for one's actions.

From a website titled Teen Wicca Page, an article, "What is Wicca?" makes a statement that "most" Wiccans recognize three levels of reality, two of which are dualism (God and Goddess) and pantheism. The other level is defined as "The Ultimate One: All power comes from this level. Power at this level is neither good nor evil, only power. . . We do not believe in the concept of ultimate good or ultimate evil. Instead we believe that all is power and it therefore depends on how the power is used. It is up to us to use this power wisely."24

Tibetan Tantric Buddhism offers the view that good and evil are both tools in the journey for spiritual mastery. The students of such a path "welcome both demons and angels as their allies. Transcending good and evil, they transmute them both back into that pure essence" from which they come.25 In fact, it is the "manipulation of the forces of good and evil" which "provides the power."26 These views are not surprising given the statement that they perceive "everything in the universe as holy."27

Although magician28 Arthur Edward Waite, in his book on ceremonial magick, discusses black magick, he states several times that the differences between white and black magic are surface and verbal. In the preface, Waite discusses "the good and evil side of the arts," stating that "the two aspects dissolve into one another and belong one to another in the root that is common to both."29

These are examples of the belief that all is ultimately one; dark and light are not really distinct from each other, but are part of the whole. Believing that all is One must assume that good and evil are the same or do not really exist. Good and evil are swallowed by the One. In another book on the Kabbalah, the author quotes a Taoist text that she believes echo teachings from the Zohar: "Through this step-by-step nonattachment he achieves enlightenment and is able to see all things as One."30

As Chopra's book shows, and as the study of occult philosophy reveals, the goal is to transcend good and evil. Good and evil are merely temporary forces of dark and light; the truly enlightened person will go beyond these through knowledge and mastery of these "forces," arriving at that state where his power and his control are pre-eminent. In this sense, these occult teachings attempt to raise self to God's level by accessing what is perceived to be divine power for one's own use. Good and evil as concepts are ultimately discarded, for the occult is about accessing energy or power and the mastery of forces, not good versus evil. It is not even about evil, and certainly not about defeating evil, since evil itself is ultimately denied, transcended, or absorbed into a neutral force.

A God who encompasses evil

Any god of a spiritual system that denies evil or teaches that good and evil are ultimately one, cannot be absolutely good. Or this god might be a force or impersonal power containing all opposites, including good and evil, within him/herself. And so we find that according to the Kabbalah, "In our limited perception we cannot reconcile the sacred and the secular, we cannot harmonize their contradictions. Yet at the pinnacle of the universe they are reconciled, at the site of the holy of holies."31

According to Cooper, even though the Kabbalistic Satan is associated with evil and the Biblical God is associated with good, this Biblical God is considered a lesser God than the real "God," the ultimate One that is called Ein Sof. Ein Sof is perceived as a principle rather than as a person. Going beyond Satan and God to Ein Sof is to transcend good and evil, for "Ein Sof is beyond good and evil; we must not attribute ‘goodness' to It. . . . Simply said, Ein Sof embraces everything, including the totality of good and evil."32 This brings us back to Chopra's god, who, combining all opposites in his being, exemplifies the mystical occult transcendence of good and evil.

The serpent

However one may view the serpent in the Garden of Eden -- as myth, as Satan, as the Wise One who imparted wisdom to man, it is true that the Genesis account reports that in tempting Eve, the serpent told her that in eating the forbidden fruit, "you will be like God, knowing good and evil."33 Eve already knew it was wrong to eat the fruit, so what was the temptation here? It was thinking that if one knows good and evil, one goes to the next step to then decide what is good and evil; one becomes his own god ("be like God") in determining what is right and wrong. The outright temptation was not to do evil (although in eating the fruit, Adam and Eve disobeyed God), but to bypass God?s word, and be one?s own god. In disobeying God, Adam and Eve did not become gods and they did not gain wisdom; instead, they broke the fellowship with God, who created and loved them, and they lost the Garden.

If the serpent had merely urged Eve34 to disobey God, Eve might have been shocked and refused. But the serpent was crafty; he appealed to human pride, a trait that today still seduces humanity into a desire to be our own god, thinking that thus we achieve a spiritual wisdom. This human ?wisdom? that overrides God?s word creates a society that determines its own moral values, an environment where morality shifts and becomes a matter of personal expedience. The line in the sand was crossed in the Garden of Eden, and it has been blurred by humanity ever since.

The God of absolute good and light

In contrast to these occult philosophies, absolute good and evil is a spiritual teaching of the Hebrew Scriptures and of the New Testament. God is absolutely good: "And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all."35 God is described in 1 Timothy 6:16 as the one "who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light." The Psalmist urges us to "taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him."36

Satan, the fallen angel, is in total rebellion against God, and is evil. Referring to Satan as a personal being, Jesus said, "there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature; for he is a liar, and the father of lies,"37 and he "comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy."38 But Satan disguises himself as something beautiful, as someone who offers man wisdom, enlightenment, power. As the angel of light, he is more deadly since he is not recognized as easily: "...for Satan himself masquerades an angel of light."39 Satan in the Garden of Eden was not man's protector, but twisted God's words and by directly contradicting God, urged Eve to disobey God.40 By disobeying God and yielding to the serpent's temptation, Adam and Eve made it possible for sin and death to enter the world.41

Neither is Satan part of a dualism with God. Satan is not an opposing god, equal in power and authority to God. Satan is not a necessary being. Satan is a created being, limited in his knowledge and abilities. Satan is never spoken of in the Bible as someone who now rules or will rule hell, but as one who will be cast into a lake of fire: "And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet were also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever."42

Evil is not necessary for good, nor should we seek balance between light and darkness: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."43 While current culture denies absolute good and evil, God's word is clear that there is a line between good and evil: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter."44

Evil is not a force, but an action against God: "And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed."45

Evil is also a part of our own fallen nature. When sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, the rebellion against God became part of human nature -- the desire to exert our own will over God's will. This tendency to sin, that is, to defy God's goodness and serve ourselves, imprisons us and separates us from a just and holy God. So what is the answer? A restoration of society to traditional moral values, whatever those might be? Is the answer going back to the Garden, as Joni Mitchell sang in her song, "Woodstock" to an idealistic and troubled generation? Working on ourselves through meditation and mantras?

We cannot go back and erase that line in the sand that was crossed in the Garden; we cannot build a new Garden; we cannot please God by trying to live a moral life. In fact, trying to be moral or spiritual feeds the same human pride that the serpent fueled in Eve; we want recognition and reward for it. There is no action we can take, no matter how good or noble it may appear, to overcome the sin nature. It is for that very reason that Christ came to bridge the gap between God and humanity by paying the penalty for our sins on the cross:

"Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. "46

Evil is not ultimately transcended through a spiritual occult path. Rather, the evil one, Satan, will be destroyed by Christ:

"And then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming."47

The world will be redeemed and made anew.48 Light and good will prevail over darkness and evil: "And there shall no longer be any night; and they shall not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God shall illumine them..."49

Redemption

In the midst of the darkness of crime, war, conflict, poverty, illness, oppression, and abuse, Jesus said, "I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."50 Individually, today, one can recognize the huge gap between God's perfection and goodness, and one's own fallen nature, and turn to Christ, the promised Messiah, the light of the world. Just as society cannot restore the Garden, neither can a person redeem him/herself. Jesus is the Redeemer, the one who came and lived a perfect life so that he could atone for our sins on the cross, then rise again the third day with power over death. Thus, both sin and death, which entered the Garden upon Adam and Eve's disobedience, are crushed under the feet of Christ.51

When we trust Christ, we are not left to manage on our own. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who regenerates us and begins our inner transformation.52 In contrast to the sophisticated complexities of occult philosophies, those layers upon layers of metaphysical mazes, it is with simple childlike trust that we turn to Christ, letting the burden fall from us, and depending totally on him.

"I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."53

The dark side, evil as a force, Satan, a god who contains both good and evil -- all wither before the shining goodness of God and the redemption offered us through Christ: "And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life." 1 John 5: 11, 12

Endnotes
1Jean Yolen, Wizardry Hall (NY: Magic Carpet Books/Harcourt, Inc., 1999), 83.
2Deepak Chopra, How to Know God (NY, NY: Harmony Books/Random House, 2000), 151. This book has endorsements from several people including the Dalai Lama, Dr. Andrew Weil (alternative healing), Larry King, Mikhail Gorbachev, James Redfield (author of The Celestine Prophecy), Rabbi S. Boteach (author of Kosher Sex), Marianne Williamson (author of A Return to Love), Father J. Francis Stroud, S.J. at Fordham University, Dr. Bernie S. Siegel (alternative healing), Dr. Dean Ornish, Wayne W. Dyer (author of several New Age self-help books), Uri Geller (psychic), Dr. Larry Dossey (who states that the book is about "who we really are: infinite, immortal, eternal"), Arianna Huffington, and Neale Donald Walsch (author of Conversations with God, who states that we will recall this as a time in history "when the final veil was lifted from the face of God").
3Rabbi David A. Cooper, God is A Verb (NY, NY: Riverhead Books/Penguin Putnam, 1997), 159.
4Ibid., 155.
5Ibid., 156.
6Ibid., 160.
7The writer of this article knew Mark Lerner when she was an astrologer. Lerner published an astrological/New Age magazine, "Welcome to Planet Earth," for which the writer wrote for three years. She also participated as a workshop leader at Lerner's conferences in Eugene, OR in August of 1988 and 1990.
8Isha and Mark Lerner, Inner Child Cards (Santa Fe: Bear & Company, 1992), 104.
9Ibid.
10Janet and Stewart Farrar, A Witches' Bible, Part 2, (Custer, WA: Phoenix Publishing, Inc., 1996), 107.
11Ibid., 111.
12Cooper, 157. This was also a view this writer was taught in the psychic development classes taken at the now defunct Foundation of Truth in Atlanta, Georgia.
13Classes taken at the Foundation of Truth (not longer extant) in Atlanta, GA, in 1980 and 1981.
14Sylvia Browne, The Other Side and Back (Signet, 2000), 180-1.
15Paul Ferrini, Reflections of the Christ Mind (NY, NY: Doubleday/Random House, 2000), 248. Note: the Foreword is by Neale Donald Walsch.
16Ibid., 249.
17Ibid., 172, 173.
18Ibid., 173.
19Ibid.
20Yolen, 83.
21Cooper, 157.
22Chopra, 170.
23Alison Drake, Black Moon (NY: Ballantine Books/Random House, 1989), 288.
24http://geocities.yahoo.com/addons/interact/mbe.html
25John Blofield, The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet (George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1970/NY, NY: Arkana/Penguin Group, 1992), 32.
26Ibid.
27Ibid., 77.
28"Magician" here does not mean a stage magician doing tricks, but one who is practicing magick or sorcery.
29Arthur Edward Waite, The Book of Ceremonial Magick (NY, NY: Citatdel Press Book/Carol Publishing Group, 1994), xxiv.
30Chang Chung-Yuan, Creativity and Taoism (NY: Harper & Row, 1970), pp. 131, 157, 159, as quoted in Perle Epstien, Kabbalah (Barnes & Noble, Inc. in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1998), 69.
31Daniel C. Matt, The Essential Kabbalah (HarperCollins/HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), 153.
32Cooper, 156.
33Genesis 3:5
34Adam and Eve were equally culpable: "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it," Genesis 3:6; see also Romans 5:12, 18, and 19.
35First John 1:5
36Psalm 34:8
37John 8:44
38John 10:10
39Second Corinthians 11:14
40Compare Genesis 3:1 and 4 to 2:16, 17
41Genesis 3:14-24; Romans 5:12-19
42Revelation 20:10
43Romans 12:21
44Isaiah 5:20
45John 3:19, 20
46Romans 5:18 2
47Thessalonians 2:8
48Revelation 21:1-5
49Revelation 22:5
50John 8:12
511 Corinthians 15:20-22, 55-57
52John 14:26; Romans 15:13; 1 Corinthians 6:19, 12:13; Galatians 5:22; 1 Thessalonians 4:7, 8; 2 Timothy 1:14
53Mark 10:15
Cited works
Blofield, John. The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet. NY, NY: Arkana/Penguin Group, 1992.
Browne, Sylvia. The Other Side and Back. Signet, 2000.
Chopra, Deepak. How to Know God. NY, NY: Harmony Books/Random House, 2000.
Chung-Yuan, Chang. Creativity and Taoism. NY: Harper & Row, 1970. Quoted in Perle Epstien, Kabbalah, Barnes & Noble, Inc., in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1998.
Cooper, Rabbi David A. God is A Verb. NY, NY: Riverhead Books/Penguin Putnam, 1997.
Drake, Alison Drake. Black Moon. NY: Ballantine Books/Random House, 1989.
Farrar, Janet and Stewart. A Witches' Bible. Custer, WA: Phoenix Publishing, Inc., 1996.
Ferrini, Paul. Reflections of the Christ Mind. Foreword by Neale Donald Walsch.NY, NY: Doubleday/Random House, 2000,
Lerner, Isha and Mark. Inner Child Cards. Santa Fe: Bear & Company, 1992.
Matt, Daniel C. The Essential Kabbalah. HarperCollins/HarperSanFrancisco, 1995.
Waite, Arthur Edward. The Book of Ceremonial Magick. NY, NY: Citatdel Press Book/Carol Publishing Group, 1994.
Yolen, Jean. Wizardry Hall. NY, NY: Magic Carpet Books/Harcourt, Inc., 1999.

The Economic Collapse

Hurricane Harvey Will Render Some Parts Of Texas ‘Uninhabitable For An Extended Period Of Time’

By Michael Snyder, on August 27th, 2017

Do you remember what Hurricane Katrina did to New Orleans? Well, now we are watching the same thing happen to southeast Texas. On Friday, Hurricane Harvey made landfall as a category 4 hurricane. It is the first hurricane to make landfall in the United States in 12 years, and it is the most powerful storm to hit the state of Texas in at least 50 years. One meteorologist is saying that what we are witnessing is “worse than the worst-case scenario for Houston”, and another stated that this storm “could easily be one of the worst flooding disasters in U.S. history”.

It would be difficult to overstate the devastation in the Houston area at this moment. Hurricane Harvey has ripped roofs off of homes, turned vehicles over and snapped thousands of trees. Thousands have been rescued from their homes and vehicles, and it is being reported that so far five people have died. In fact, one woman’s dead body was actually spotted floating down the street.

According to the National Weather Service, over 24 inches of rain fell in Houston in just a 24 hour period. More rain continues to fall in southeast Texas, and meteorologists are running out of adjectives to describe the nightmare that is currently unfolding…

“It’s catastrophic, unprecedented, epic — whatever adjective you want to use,” Patrick Blood, a National Weather Service meteorologist, told the Chronicle. “It’s pretty horrible right now.” The newspaper reported the weather service said five people have died in the Houston area in unconfirmed flood-related deaths.

The latest forecasts are telling us that we could see a total of 40 to 50 inches of rain in southeast Texas by Thursday, and so some areas will actually receive a “year’s worth of rain” in less than a week…

“A year’s worth of rain may fall in the span of a few days near the Texas Gulf Coast,” reported Weather.com. “A multi-day deluge of the Texas Gulf Coast with catastrophic and life-threatening flooding and destructive winds through could leave areas uninhabitable for an extended period of time, the National Weather Service has warned.”

Did you catch that last part?

The National Weather Service is actually saying that some portions of Texas could be “uninhabitable for an extended period of time” as a result of this storm.

It appears to be inevitable that more people are doing to die before this is all over. Authorities are trying to rescue as many people as they can, but there just aren’t enough resources.

As the water continues to climb, some people are actually climbing into their atticsin a desperate attempt to save themselves, but that is a very bad idea…

“We are getting calls from people climbing into their attic. This is along I-45 between downtown and Clear Lake,” Lindner said. “This is along Berry Bayou, Beamer Ditch, Turkey Creek, portions of Clear Creek, Vince Bayou, Little Vince Bayou in Pasadena,” he said. “Pretty much the entire southeast side of Harris County has had 13 to 15 inches of rain in three hours.”

Lindner said they’re also seeing flooding along portions of Hunting Bayou, downtown along Buffalo Bayou, Brays Bayou and Keegan’s Bayou.

Chief Art Acevedo tweeted,” have reports of people getting into attic to escape floodwater do not do so unless you have an ax or means to break through onto your roof.”

This is already being called “a once in a 500 year flood”, and the experts are already telling us that the total economic damage is going to be in the tens of billions of dollars.

Earlier this month, I wrote about an unusual series of events that would happen over a 40 day period starting with the recent solar eclipse, but of course at the time I couldn’t account for additional unexpected events such as Hurricane Harvey. And I find it very interesting that this hurricane began forming just about the same time as the eclipse. The following comes from Wikipedia…

The eighth named storm, third hurricane, and the first major hurricane of the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, Harvey developed from a tropical wave to the east of the Lesser Antilles on August 17. The storm crossed through the Windward Islands on the following day, passing just south of Barbados and later near Saint Vincent. Upon entering the Caribbean Sea, Harvey began to weaken due to moderate wind shear and degenerated into a tropical wave north of Colombia early on August 19. The remnants were monitored for regeneration as it continued west-northwestward across the Caribbean and the Yucatán Peninsula, before re-developing over the Bay of Campeche on August 23. Harvey then began to rapidly intensify on August 24, re-gaining tropical storm status and becoming a hurricane later that day. Moving generally northwestwards, Harvey’s intensification phase stalled slightly overnight from August 24–25, however Harvey soon resumed strengthening and became a Category 4 hurricane late on August 25. Hours later, Harvey made landfall near Rockport, Texas, at peak intensity.

As a result of this storm, thousands could be trapped in their homes without power for an extended period of time.

Do you think that those that have been storing up food and emergency supplies all this time will be glad that they have done so?

Of course the answer to that question is obvious. If you wait until disaster strikes to get prepared, it will be too late. A whole lot of people down in Texas are going to end up in some very desperate situations because they never believed that something like this could ever happen to them.

For those of you that would like some helpful advice on getting prepared for future disasters, I would encourage you to check out a book that I co-authored with Barbara Fix entitled “Get Prepared Now”. Barbara is a highly respected prepping expert, and she is also getting heavily involved in my campaign for Congress. So much of the information in that book is timeless, and my hope is that we can encourage as many people as possible to start getting prepared because very troubled times are ahead of us.

Please pray for the people in Houston and throughout the entire southeast Texas area. We truly have not seen a storm like this since Hurricane Katrina, and many portions of the Texas Gulf Coast will be changed forever by this disaster.

Zero Hedge

Shocking Drone Footage Shows Harvey's "Unprecedented" Devastation, "No Parallel To Any Rainstorm In US History"

by Tyler Durden

Aug 28, 2017 3:33 PM

Based on the number of people affected, amount of water involved, and other factors, meteorologists have warned, there may be no parallel available to any other rainstorm in U.S. history as Mashable's Andrew Freeman reportsTropical Storm Harvey has dropped more than 11 trillion gallons of water on Texas, triggering catastrophic, unprecedented flooding in the Houston area.

The rains have broken all-time records, exceeding the rainfall totals seen during Tropical Storm Allison in 2001... and it could be about to get a lot worse as forecasters are expecting the storm to turn back and drench what is left of Houston once again midweek.

According to Ryan Maue, a meteorologist at WeatherBell, a private forecasting firm, there is still up to 16 trillion gallons more rain likely to fall in the state, based on forecasts from the National Weather Service (NWS).

The Weather Service office in Houston reported just over 2 feet of rain in 24 hours between 7 a.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. Sunday morning, causing August to become the wettest month on record there. Forecast totals call for isolated rainfall amounts of up to 50 inches before Harvey finally releases its grip on the Lone Star state late this week. If this comes to fruition, it would be the greatest rainfall totals from a tropical storm or hurricane in U.S. history.

Maue estimates that at otal of around 25 trillion gallons may be the final statewide rainfall total for Harvey, which is such a unique storm due to its slow-moving nature that the NWS has nearly run out of superlatives describing it.

Due to its wide geographic scope across America's 4th-largest city, the ensuing flood disaster may rank as one of the most, if not the most, expensive natural disaster in U.S. history.

According to a tweet the NWS sent, "this event is unprecedented & all impacts are unknown & beyond anything experienced."

With more rain to come, and rivers still rising to expected record-shattering crests early this week, the disaster continues to unfold.

The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Brock Long, predicted that the aftermath of the storm would require FEMA’s involvement for years. “This disaster’s going to be a landmark event,” Long said.

***

RT

Texas air pollution sensors switched off as refineries seep toxic chemicals into air & water

August 31, 2017

US crude oil and petrochemical refining capacity in Texas has been severely damaged by Hurricane Harvey, releasing hazardous pollutants into the air and flood waters left in the wake of the storm.

Arkema, a global chemical major, warned Wednesday that flooding has severely damaged their Houston plant's refrigeration systems, increasing the likelihood of an explosion in the coming week and a heightened risk of yet more pollutants leaking into the ecosystem.

“At this time, while we do not believe there is any imminent danger, the potential for a chemical reaction leading to a fire and/or explosion within the site confines is real,” Arkema said in a statement.

Oil giant Exxon Mobil is among the companies to report incidents of emissions released at its refineries as a result of the hurricane which ransacked coastal parts of Texas and caused widespread flooding in the country’s fourth biggest city, Houston.

However, the true extent of the air pollution will prove hard to determine for some time after the storm subsides as The Texas Council on Environmental Quality shut down all of its air quality monitors in the Houston area, according to the Houston Press.

This effectively means the affected companies can report whatever they wish without any oversight from the state regulators.

Texas is also home to several so-called superfund sites, designated areas of extreme pollution "which warrant further investigation" according to the Environmental Protection Agency. As shown in the before and after maps below, the vast majority of these toxic sites are now flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.

On Wednesday, Saudi-owned Motiva shuttered its refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, the largest facility in the US, which normally produces 600,000 barrels a day.

At least 13 other refineries in the area closed as a result of Harvey, the US Department of Energy reported, while others are operating at limited capacity.

Exxon admitted there were issues at its plants in a regulatory filing to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Its Baytown refinery near Houston, the second-largest in the country, was shutdown on Sunday as Harvey moved inland.

The refinery reported two controlled emission release events, which included carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and benzene being released into the atmosphere.

The chemicals and pollutants released from refineries and plants in Texas’ petrochemical hub are known to have a damaging effect on the environment and could pose a risk of contaminating floodwaters left in the hurricane’s wake.

The petrochemical Benzene, a carcinogen and major component in fossil fuels, reduces red and white blood cell production and decreases auto-immune cell function following prolonged exposure.

While other emissions, including, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are particle-forming air pollutants that contribute to cardiopulmonary health issues, like lung cancer, bronchitis and emphysema.

In a third reported incident since Harvey made landfall in Texas, Exxon said a floating roof over a tank in its Baytown refinery sank as a result of the rain, causing unusually high levels of emissions to be released.

Floating roofs are common in oil tanks and are a way to control how much oil is lost to evaporation by allowing the roof to move based on the amount of liquid in the tank.

Exxon said it would “conduct an assessment to determine the impact of the storm once it’s safe to do so,” the Washington Post reports.

The company said it needed to make repairs on the tank, which would involve first emptying it, though Exxon could not confirm in what time frame.

One of the company’s other facilities, in Beaumont, east of Houston, also released 1,300lbs of sulphur dioxide in one hour on Sunday, exceeding its allocated emissions limit by a factor of ten to one.

“Excess emissions occurred during an upset on the Sulfur Plant Thermal Oxidizer,” Exxon said in the report.

“The unit was stabilized. No impact to the community has been reported,” the company said. “Actions were taken to minimize emissions and to restore the refinery to normal operations.”

Petrochemical giant Chevron Phillips reported an estimated 776,000 pounds of combined chemicals released from its Cedar Bayou plant in Baytown as part of its plant shutdown.

Kinder Morgan, the largest energy infrastructure company in North America, stores petroleum products for companies such as Chevron and Shell at its terminal in Pasadena, Harris.

It reported 394,000 pounds of combined hazardous chemicals on Sunday and Monday, also as a result of a malfunctioning floating roof. In this case, it caused product to spill to the ground.

Kinder Morgan said it will “attempt to safely land roof of Tank 150-39 and remove product when conditions are safe.” It added it was “taking all necessary steps to prevent or minimize any increased risk to human health and safety and to the environment.”

Almost one third of US oil refining capacity is located on the Gulf Coast. The US produces about 17.5 million barrels of oil per day. According to oil market analysts cited by CNBC, about 20 percent of the country’s oil refining operations are out of service.

Ships carrying crude oil from the Mexican Gulf are not able to port in the area due to swelling waters caused by Harvey, resulting in a backlog of ships waiting to dock and unload their cargo. The Gulf of Mexico accounts for close to 20 percent of total US crude oil production.

CNBC estimates the port closures cost roughly $350 million a day. The port hold-up also affects the amount of crude oil refineries have access to once they return to full operation.

Gas prices across the US have already risen to a two-year high, with the increase likely to hit consumers at the pump in a week.

It is unknown how long the refineries will remain out of production, as the extent of flood damage is not yet known. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, refineries in the area didn’t return to normal production capacity for two months.

+++

Houston also happens to be the center of the US oil industry. Offices can be moved elsewhere, of course, but not so easily the nine major oil refineries that sprawl between Buffalo Bayou over to Beaumont, Port Arthur, and then Lake Charles, Louisiana. Harvey is inching back out to the Gulf where it will inhale more energy over the warm ocean waters and then return inland in the direction of those refineries.

The economic damage could be epic. Much of the supply for the Colonial Pipeline system emanates from the region around Houston, running through Atlanta and clear up to Philadelphia and New York. There could be lines at the gas stations along the eastern seaboard in early September.

The event is converging with the US government running out of money this fall without new authority to borrow more by congress voting to raise the US debt ceiling. Perhaps the emergency of Hurricane Harvey and its costly aftermath will bludgeon congress into quickly raising the debt ceiling. If that doesn’t happen, and the debt ceiling is not raised, the federal government might have to pretend that it can pay for emergency assistance to Texas and Louisiana. That pretense can only go so far before government contractors balk and maybe even walk.

Ordinarily, failure to raise the debt ceiling would lead to a government shut-down, including hurricane recovery operations, unless the president invoked some kind of emergency powers. That would be decisive action, but it could also be the beginning of something that looks like a full-out dictatorship. Powers assumed are often not surrendered when the original emergency is over. And what would the president use for money if a substantial enough number of congresspersons and senators are prompted by their distaste for Mr. Trump to drag out the process of financially re-liquefying the government? (And nevermind even passing a budget.)

Meanwhile, two other major sources of aggravation are waiting off-stage: one is North Korea. Why wouldn’t Kim Jong-un use the opportunity of political disarray in the US to create more headaches for a distracted US government? Never let a crisis go to waste. Another potential irritant is the return of students to American college campuses. Imagine how the campus Antifa forces would react to Mr. Trump assuming emergency powers. It’s easy to foresee an acceleration of violence between the extreme Left and the Extreme right during what is shaping up to look like a major crisis in governing. If the campus Left had any tactical brains, they’d stop marching around in black uniforms and instead organize a mass renunciation of college loan debt.

Behind all this political strife will be wobbling financial markets. The message from the debt ceiling stalemate to the bond market would be that the US can no longer be relied on to pay its debts. Interest rates on US Treasury paper would have to go up as the long-lost concept of risk returned to the bond scene. People and institutions will not be induced to hold bonds unless the yield is recalibrated to the actual risk. Of course, in the mysterious world of bonds (i.e. securitized debt), the price of bonds goes down as interest rates rise. Meaning a lot of current holders of bonds would be hammered if they tried to sell. Rates rising would also spell big trouble for corporations and governments who have to make regular interest payments to bond-holders. A rate rise to as little as 3 percent on US Treasury bonds could spin the country into comprehensive bankruptcy.

How might stock markets and currency markets react to the scenario above? To me it would look like a drop of at least 1000 points on the S & P. The US dollar might actually rise initially as a whole lot of debt is renounced — which makes money actually disappear — but then you have the Federal Reserve waiting on another flank to roll out their own emergency response: Quantitative Easing No. 4, flooding the system with new “money” that has all the appearance and none of the mojo of value, tanking the dollar anew. As a wise correspondent of mine wrote a while back: “financialization is nothing more than money with its value removed.” (Graham Reinders.)

A lot can happen when a faraway butterfly flaps its wings and sets a slight current of air in motion.

***

***

Hal Turner Radio Show

Major Fuel Pipeline Supplying New Jersey/New York City & New England SHUT DOWN

The Colonial Pipeline, which carries huge amounts of gasoline and other fuel between Houston and the Linden, New Jersey refinery for much of the East Coast, is shutting down after Harvey forced the closure of refineries around Houston and some of the pipeline's own facilities.

The pipeline has two main lines that together transport more than 100 million gallons of gasoline, heating oil and aviation fuel as far as the New York harbor each day.

Its operator said the line that carries mainly diesel and aviation fuels will stop running Wednesday evening, and the line for gasoline, which is already operating at a reduced rate, will be suspended Thursday.

Half of the 26 refineries that supply Colonial's 5,500 miles of pipeline are located between Houston and Lake Charles, Louisiana, the area struck by Hurricane Harvey.

"Once Colonial is able to ensure that its facilities are safe to operate and refiners in Lake Charles and points east have the ability to move product to Colonial, our system will resume operations," the operator said.

Power outages during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 forced the shutdown of parts of the Colonial Pipeline for several days. It also twice had to suspend services last year due to a leak and a fire.

Colonial noted that there are other ways of delivering fuel to limit the disruption to supply, including trucks, barges and other pipelines.

But pipelines are the safest and most cost effective way to move oil, gasoline, jet fuel and other petroleum products around the country. And in the massive underground interstate system that is the nation's pipeline network, the Colonial Pipeline is I-95.

Earlier Wednesday, the largest oil refinery in the country started shutting down as Harvey, which has now weakened to become a tropical depression, caused more catastrophic flooding along the Gulf Coast.

Thirteen oil refineries have been shut down or are in the process of closing, while several others are operating at reduced rates. Altogether, the disruption has knocked out about a fifth of the nation's refining capacity, according to S&P Global Platts.

That's led to a spike in U.S. gasoline futures, which reflect wholesale prices and eventually trickle down to consumers.

After gaining 6% during the day Wednesday, gasoline futures jumped a further 7% in the evening to more than $2 a gallon.

Harvey's impact on gasoline prices hasn't made much of a difference to prices at the pump yet. But gas stations will eventually have to respond by raising prices for consumers, at least temporarily.

Experts say pump prices could take weeks to come back down to earlier levels.

Persons in all the states where this pipeline runs (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and especially those living in New York City and New Jersey) are advised to fill-up all their vehicles RIGHT NOW, and to have one or two gas cans filled to tie them over if the pipeline and refineries cannot come back before our local fuel reserves run out.

If you wait to fill-up - you will quickly find yourself not only out of fuel, but out of luck as well.

21 Houston Flood Photos

WND

TEXAS GOVERNOR DECLARES DAY OF PRAYER

'It was God, acting through the lives of so many Texans who came to the rescue'

Art Moore

August 31, 2017

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, accompanied by Vice President Mike Pence and Rev. Franklin Graham in Rockport, Texas, Aug. 31, 2017, declares Sunday a day of prayer in his state (Screenshot Fox Business Network)

Outside a heavily damaged church building in the battered Gulf Coast town of Rockport, Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott issued a proclamation declaring this Sunday a day of prayer in the state.

“As we gather today here at this church, it’s important that we remember that the greatest power that exists is the power of God and the way that God can touch and move all of our lives,” the governor said Thursday, nearing the end of a week in which his state suffered what many are calling the worst natural disaster in American history in terms of its scope.

Abbott was accompanied by Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen Pence, and Rev. Franklin Graham, whose relief organization Samaritan’s Purse is on the ground in Southeast Texas mobilizing volunteers.

“It was God, acting through the lives of so many Texans, who came to the rescue of other Texans. It was the power of God that was able to pull the people out of the water and literally save them,” the governor said.

Like the reporting you see here? Sign up for free news alerts from WND.com, America’s independent news network.

Declaring “there is no storm as tough as the people of Texas,” he vowed, “We will rise again, and we will rebuild this great town and the affected areas across the entire state of Texas.”

Abbott, who has earned praise for his oversight of the crisis response, said Sunday will be a day to pray for those affected by Harvey, which hit the Texas coast Friday as a Category 4 hurricane and then lingered over the Houston area as a tropical storm, dumping as much as 50 inches of rain on some areas.

He also encouraged prayer for the first responders and the volunteers.

“We will pray regardless of what faith or church background you may have,” Abbott said. “We will pray as one united people, for the future of the state and the future of this country, for healing and for hope, for rebuilding and for the next great generation of Texans.”

Prior to Abbott’s remarks, Graham recalled the Gospel story of Jesus and his disciples in a boat during a storm.

“You’ve gone through a storm, and let me tell you, the Lord Jesus Christ, he’s still here,” Graham told the crowd gathered in Rockport.

He then prayed for the people of Texas, asking for “an army of volunteers from across the country” to help rebuild.

The vice president said he wanted Texans to know that President Trump and the American people “are with you.”

“We are here today, we will be here tomorrow, and we will be here every day until this city and this state and this region rebuild bigger and better than ever before.”

With first responders overwhelmed by the unprecedented disaster, churches and Christian organizations have played an important role in the response, including the rescue effort, as WND reported, and will be relied upon in the long rebuilding effort.

Karen Pence was also asked to pray. She prayed, in part: “Heavenly Father, we thank you for these amazing people, who are an inspiration to us all across the United States and across the world. We pray you would build them up, give them the strength and the endurance as they go forward.”

‘It is right and fitting’

In his declaration, Abbott said “it is right and fitting that the people of Texas should join with their fellow residents and with others from across the country and around the world to seek God’s wisdom for ourselves and our leaders and ask for His merciful intervention and healing in this time of crisis.”

Abbott told reporters Wednesday the Texas National Guard has made more than 8,500 rescues and 26,000 evacuations. He has activated 14,000 members of the Texas National Guard and is asking for another 10,000 National Guard members from other states.

“The worst is not yet over for southeast Texas,” he said.

Mockery

Meanwhile, two flood-themed drawings that invoke faith in God – one regarded as a mockery of Texans and the other a smear – are stirring controversy.

A political cartoon published Wednesday by Politico depicts a Texas secessionist who attributes his rescue from the flood to God rather than the government.

The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo ran a cover that reads “God Exists! He Drowned All the Neo-Nazis of Texas.”

The cover image features swastika flags and arms, submerged in water, giving the Nazi salute.

The magazine was the target of an Islamic terrorist attack in 2015 that killed 12 of its staffers after it published caricatures of Islam’s prophet Muhammad.

Responding to a tweet calling his Politico cartoon “vile and contemptible,” Matt Wuerker said: “Just trying to point out times like this we’re lucky to have rescue services. Don’t see how this takes away from private individuals heroism.”

***

Floods in Bangladesh

***

RT

China says it will never allow war or chaos on its doorstep as tensions escalate on Korean Peninsula

31 August 2017

© Damir Sagolj / Reuters

Beijing has said it will not allow war or chaos on the Korean Peninsula, as two US B-1B bombers conducted a new flight in the area, joined by South Korean and Japanese fighter jets in a show of force amid mounting tensions.

The statement was made by defense ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang at a monthly news briefing on Thursday, Sina reports.

Six American warplanes - two nuclear-capable B-1B strategic bombers and four Marine Corps F-35Bs - held a joint flight operation with Japanese F-15 fighter jets on Thursday, Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF) said in a statement. The squadron flew near the island of Kyushu, south of the Korean Peninsula.

Following that, the US warplanes, accompanied by South Korean F-15K fighter jets, conducted a joint operation over South Korea as well as bombing drills over the Pilseung range in the eastern province of Gangwon, according to Yonhap.

The maneuvers come just two days after North Korea’s launch of a missile over Japan.

Ren Guoqiang also reiterated China’s position that the North Korean crisis should be resolved through dialogue, and insisted on the denuclearization of the peninsula, according to Sina, citing the spokesman.

Russia also insists that there cannot be any military solution to the crisis on the Korean Peninsula. At the latest UNSC meeting, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, reiterated Beijing and Moscow’s ‘double freeze’ initiative, recommending Pyongyang halt all nuclear and missile tests while the US and South Korea cease the military build-up in the region.

On Thursday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry also expressed concern, saying that the Korean issue is serious and not a computer game, Reuters reports, citing the ministry’s spokeswoman, Hua Chunying.

During a previous news briefing, Hua responded to British Prime Minister Theresa May’s call on Beijing to exert more pressure on Pyongyang voiced during her trip to Japan on Wednesday. Hua also questioned whether other relevant parties implement the UN resolutions “without holding back anything.”

“They are the loudest when it comes to sanctions, but nowhere to be found when it comes to making efforts to promote peace talks. They want nothing to do with responsibility,” Hua told reporters on Wednesday.

The flyover of the North Korean medium-range missile was unanimously condemned by the UN Security Council, which convened for an emergency meeting following the test. The UN called on Pyongyang to halt their activities, which are “not just a threat to the region, but to all UN member states.”

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that “all options are on the table” regarding North Korea, later tweeting that “talking is not the answer.” Trump also said that Washington has been paying Pyongyang “extortion money” while negotiating for over two decades.

***

Newsweek

POPE'S SWISS GUARDS SAY 'ONLY MATTER OF TIME' BEFORE ISIS ATTACKS ROME, VATICAN

BY JACK MOORE

8/25/17

The chief of the Swiss Guards, the force that protects the Vatican, has said it is only “a matter of time” before an attack that is inspired or directed by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) against the home of the Catholic church.

Commander Christoph Graf, speaking to Swiss Catholic news website cath.ch, said that the security force for Pope Francis is prepared for any act of extremism.

“Perhaps it is only a matter of time before an attack like that happens in Rome. But we are ready also for this,” he said. Created in the 16th century, the force is one of the oldest armies in the world and consists solely of young Swiss adult men.

Graf said the guards are there to defend one of the most famous world figures and one of the most important religious sites. Because of their unique uniforms, the guards are popular with tourists.

Swiss Guards attend a swearing-in ceremony in Vatican City on May 6.

TIZIANA FABI/AFP/GETTY

The radical Islamist group has regularly used the imagery of the Pope and the Vatican in its propaganda output, and has claimed it will overthrow Rome, a symbol of the Roman Catholic religion, whose followers the group considers to be “apostates” and “crusaders.” In February 2015, ISIS released a video showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians.

It included a message to Italy that called the nation “signed with the blood of the cross.” It also released an issue of its now-defunct propaganda magazine Dabiq with the Vatican’s famous St. Peter’s Square on the cover, with the headline “The Failed Crusade."

In April 2016, Italian authorities foiled a jihadist plot to target the Vatican as well as the Israeli embassy in Rome. Police arrested four people, one of which had received orders from an ISIS militant in Syria via the WhatsApp messaging service.

“For these enemies, I swear if I manage to bring my family to safety, I swear I will be the first to attack...in this crusading Italy...the Vatican, with the will of God,” the suspected would-be attacker in the cell allegedly told another member in an audio message Italian authorities intercepted.

The main boulevard that leads to St. Peter’s Square remains closed to traffic because of fears of an attack, and security has been increased amid a spate of ISIS-inspired attacks across Europe this year.

***

WND

CATHOLIC SCHOOL REMOVES JESUS STATUES TO BE 'MORE INCLUSIVE'

167-year-old California institution fears 'alienating' students

Art Moore

August 26, 2017

Shannon Fitzpatrick, who has an 8-year-old son at San Domenico School in San Anselmo told the local Marin Independent Journal that “articulating an inclusive foundation appears to mean letting go of San Domenico’s 167-year tradition as a Dominican Catholic school and being both afraid and ashamed to celebrate one’s heritage and beliefs.”

She said that during the time of her family’s association with the K-12 independent school, “the word ‘Catholic’ has been removed from the mission statement, sacraments were removed from the curriculum, the lower school curriculum was changed to world religions, the logo and colors were changed to be ‘less Catholic,’ and the uniform was changed to be less Catholic.”

The chair of the school’s board of trustees, Amy Skewes-Cox, explained to the local paper that the move was made to help non-Christian students feel more welcome.

“If you walk on the campus and the first thing you confront is three or four statues of St. Dominic or St. Francis, it could be alienating for that other religion, and we didn’t want to further that feeling,” she said.

The removal of a statue of Mary and the Christ child from the school’s center courtyard was especially troubling to parents.

Fitzpatrick said other families share her concern.

“Many parents feel if the school is heading in a different direction then the San Domenico community should have been notified before the signing of the enrollment for the following year,” she said.

Another parent, Cheryl Newell, told the Independent Journal the school is “trying to be something for everyone, and they’re making no one happy.”

Skewes-Cox told the Marin County paper the relocation and removal of some of the school’s 180 religious statues was “completely in compliance” with a new strategic plan approved unanimously last year by the board and the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael.

She said at least 18 remain, including a statue of St. Dominic at the center of the campus.

The trustees’ director insisted that while the removal coincides with the removal of Confederate statues across the United States, the issues are “totally different” and have “absolutely no connection other than it is change, and people have a hard time with change.”

In 2006, WND reported a cross in the chapel at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, was removed to make the chapel “a faith-specific space, and to make it more welcoming to students, faculty, staff and visitors of all faiths.”

San Domenico, founded by the Dominican Sisters in 1850 as an independent, Catholic school, meaning its not owned by a religious order, has 660 students, including 98 from foreign nations. Among the religions they represent are Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam.

Instead of teaching Catholic theology, the school provides instruction in world religions and philosophy.

The head of the school, Cecily Stock, told the Independent Journal the school’s approach is “really about empowering each student and giving them the information so they can discover their own purpose, their own truth.”

Mirza Khan, the school’s director of philosophy, ethics and world religions, told the paper the Dominican teaching philosophy “is not to teach there is only one truth.”

“It is to foster conversation, to intentionally invite in participants that have different perspectives in a very open-ended process of philosophical and spiritual inquiry. That has been a long-standing part of the Dominican tradition.”

***

The Pass Lest Taken

I do not believe The Third Secret of Fatima came to pass with the attempted assassination of John Paul II in 1981

August 26, 2017

I may sound alarmist but heart and soul I believe the Third Secret of Fatima has not yet fully come to pass: that the bloodbath foretold by Our Lady when she appeared to Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco has not reached its bitter conclusion which will be marked by a massacre of the Holy Father, bishops, men and women religious and lay faithful. Indeed, I believe that this rude shock is ahead of us, not behind us.
A full 100 years ago this year Our Lady cautioned that if humankind did not turn from sin, repent and offer prayers and penance in reparation all the while honouring her specific requests then the contents of the Third Secret would be our fate.

That faithful day on the hillside Our Lady revealed a vision to the 3 children which was later relayed (fully or edited; many of us are not quite sure) by the last surviving seer, Sr Lucia. Relying on Lucia's words, our mental cinema can create a surreal sequence of events where the Holy Father in a trembling and down-trodden way threads his path through a city destroyed and littered with dead bodies. Offering prayers for the souls of the dead the Holy Father trudges his way up a steep mountain whereupon reaching the top he falls to his knees before a big rudely hewn Cross and is set upon by soldiers who puncture his body with arrows and bullets. Surrounding the Holy Father are the cadavers of bishops, priests, men and women religious who have been slain in the same way.
This precise chain of events has not yet happened - but I take it literally - for two reasons. Firstly, Our Lady intended her words at Fatima to be taken as portending potentially to a real reality if her requests were not honoured which is my second reason for believing the Third Secret is unfolding and will reach a bloody climax depicted by Lucia's words. The Third Secret may well happen to the letter; otherwise it is the anomaly among the Secrets and inconsistent with the justice of God who visited the Second World War on humanity which was prophesised by Our Lady in the Second Secret.
I was at school in Ireland in the year 2000 when I was first heard the thought campaign that there were a lot of metaphors and symbols sprinkled throughout the Third Secret, which risks reducing it to a poetic theory. They say the Third Secret came to pass with the attempted assassination of John Paul II in 1981. Truly a bullet did pierce the body of the Polish Pope, but to collapse all the arrows and bullets that ring through the air in the vision given the little children is an exercise in coddling the masses to the point where they relax and refrain from amending their lives in accordance with Our Lady's wishes. For one thing the Third Secret is carried out in microcosm each day in the Middle East where Christians know a red martyrdom while in our part of the globe thus far we are more likely to know a white martyrdom.
I've often felt tempted to allow myself to be lulled into thinking the Third Secret began and ended with the attempt on John Paul II's life. But it is self-deception when we self-deceive ourselves into thinking humanity has appeased the Heavenly court by having satisfactorily honoured Our Lady's requests.
Transposing the attempted murder of John Paul II onto the whole of the Third Secret is actually destructive and undermines Our Lady's warnings and has the deleterious effect of calling into question the First Secret - the vision of Hell - as being more made of metaphor than realism. If Our Lady relied on imagery that would not correspond to real life, what's to say she didn't use such imagery when the ground opened up and she gave the children a vision or a look into Hell? Put bluntly, if you pass off so easily the Third Secret as a careless mishmash of scary symbols what's not to the say the vision of Hell given the children where flames licked the souls of 'poor sinners' and the stench of putrefied flesh filled the air is not in the realm of the fantastic?
The Holy Mother of God has never appeared under the title, “Our Lady the Fantasist.” But after all my years attending youth groups and meeting every variety of devout Catholic as a journalist, I've known too many people for too long who are in the grips of an actual fantasy that Hell isn't all that bad, that they can carry on with lives of great sin because if they are sent down it will not be worse than sitting too close to a popping log fire at Christmas. They take Our Lady of Fatima seriously to a point, but do not take her at her word in so far as it will impact them to change their lives. The burning irony is that Hell may be all the more certain for those who in this life think it is made merely of macabre metaphor.

CT

Our Two Spiritual Time Zones

Living in the tension between present promise and future fulfillment.

SANDRA MCCRACKEN| AUGUST 18, 2017

“As we have heard, so we have seen in the city of the Lord Almighty, in the city of our God: God makes her secure forever. Within your temple, O God, we meditate on your unfailing love.” –Psalm 48:8–9

Iwoke up before the sun on a recent morning, just home from some overseas travel. The discomfort of jet lag is one of my favorite embodied metaphors of our spiritual reality. We live in liminal space. We are pulled between two time zones. On the one hand, by faith we are held secure in the love of God. We have received full redemption. On the other hand, though we have been made secure in Christ, we continue to experience uncertainty. We are sojourners, not yet home.

Psalm 48, which on the surface is a song about the temple in Jerusalem, acknowledges this truth. “As we have heard” is the first phrase, a suggestion that we know certain things to be true even if we haven’t seen them. “Seeing” often comes later. Present grace pushes us toward the future, while future grace comes to meet us in the present. Grace propels our movement toward restoration, even as we run forward in the strength God gives us.

But often just because something is true doesn’t mean it feels true. What I believe often feels out-of-sync with my circumstances. Reality unleashes pervasive brokenness: job loss, abuse, oppression, poverty, divorce, illness, and persecution. But in gospel hope, we are supported by the good news that God’s restoration is tenaciously breaking in. He is with us.

Sometimes we don’t sense that God is with us. Our understanding is often delayed. In suffering we wait with expectation, but it takes time for our hearts to catch up to the reality of things.

Not long ago, I traveled to Israel and walked around in Jerusalem. I circled with others and sang a hymn in an ancient chapel. Our voices reverberated in all directions, bouncing off the stone and marble surfaces. As we live in these two spiritual time zones, we hear the echoes of grace and strain our ears to hear the words of truth.

Psalm 48 is a song about the temple in Jerusalem. In the Old Testament, this place signified the presence of God. But since Jesus came to dwell with us, we can meet with God without making a pilgrimage. By the Holy Spirit, God comes to meet us right where we are.

Visiting the old city in Israel, I was reminded that in Jesus, we ourselves are the living stones. He shapes us to resonate the memory of his unfailing love, within our own physical bodies. We are each a holy chapel; in the particularities of our fingerprints, our shoulders, our smiles, and the color variations in our eyes. Hearing, seeing, and resonating, we are living sacrifices, echo chambers of praise.

Jet lag is oddly comforting for me because it reminds me that much conflict in life takes time to resolve; there’s no way around it. Our bodies—and our hearts—require patience as they acclimate to new surroundings. In seasons of doubt or slow change, I come back to the truth of this gospel hymn: “Time is filled with swift transition / naught of earth unmoved can stand. / Build your hopes on things eternal. / Hold to God’s unchanging hand.” Above my uncertainty, I am secure.

When I come home to an empty house, God is my provision. In my parenting failures, I am sustained. When I grasp for control, I open my hands to receive forgiveness. No penance required. Patience is the practice of faith. His love draws us with great gentleness.

With Psalm 48 as my companion, I pause to list moments of God’s steadfast love in my own story and when I have felt close to him. Some are celebratory, some sorrowful. They are not necessarily a promise of happiness. These moments are like stars, forming shapes and constellations. The more I study the patterns, the more I see the beauty of their shape. Friendship with God is richer than glad feelings—it is like sitting together beside him beneath those stars.

When I get restless and make a mess of things, grace upon grace rushes to meet me in the in-between. In these echoes of jet lag, I’m learning to resonate the memory of grace.

THEWEEK

The rise and fall of the Christian bookstore

Johnathon Merritt

August 28, 2017

Back in the 1990s, it often seemed that every city and town in America had a strip mall with a Christian bookstore where you could purchase WWJD bracelets and enough devotional books to fill up the Ark of the Covenant. But today, these Christian bookstores are a dying breed. Indeed, it seems we are fast approaching an America where this particular brand of religious retailer will be no more than a memory.

Over the last decade, Christian bookstores across the nation have been shuttering. In some cases, consumers are just less interested in the stores' God-blessed inventory. But plenty of others are just opting to purchase religious items from online retailers, with Christian bookstores humbled before the same digital market forces that felled secular mom-and-pop bookstores.

The flailing Christian bookstore industry reached code red status earlier this year when Family Christian Stores, touted as "the world's largest retailer of Christian-themed merchandise," declared it would shutter all of its 240 stores across America and lay off 3,000 employees. The 85-year-old chain said that "changing consumer behavior and declining sales" left it no choice.

Given the state of the industry and larger retailing trends, Family Christian Stores' closure is seen by many as a harbinger of things to come. If trends persist, Christian bookstores may well be destined for the history books.

But Christian consumers should not let their hearts go troubled. This trend may turn out to be good news for the faithful.

Christian publishing has long been a presence in American life. But it was a renewed desire to evangelize the world following World War II that fueled the modern rise of Christian publishing, which focused mostly on Bibles and gospel tracts at the time. In 1950, the Christian Booksellers Association (CBA) formed in response to the growing need to connect and equip Christian product providers in the marketplace.

As time passed, religious retailers slowly spread across America and expanded their offerings. Then the industry truly exploded during the 1970s, and the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) was formed in 1974 to help give these new religious storeowners a chance to network and strategize.

It's difficult to pinpoint exactly which cultural trend triggered the renewed interest in Christian content, but the American cultural revolution in the '60s and '70s seems like a plausible candidate. A perfect storm of progressive social change movements — from civil rights to feminism, anti-war protesting to environmentalism — swept across America. Many traditionalist Christians felt as if their religious values were under siege. In response, these believers mobilized and became more visible and vocal. The cultural unrest created an opportunity for printed content that spoke to these Christians' concerns and anxieties.

In 1970, Hal Lindsay's The Late Great Planet Earth rocked the marketplace with claims that the biblical end of the world was fast approaching. Bantam picked up the title in 1973, making it the first Christian prophecy book released by a secular publisher, and it went on to sell more than 30 million copies. The Living Bible was the bestselling non-fiction title of 1972 and 1973, and Billy Graham's Angels was the bestselling non-fiction title of 1975. The mainstream success of books like these proved that a hungry market of religious readers existed in America.

The trend continued to build. In December 1983, an Associated Press article titled "Christian book sales are booming" relayed that Christian booksellers had grown by 20 to 25 percent over the past decade.

As Sue Smith, president of CBA notes, industry growth continued into the '90s thanks to several breakout bestsellers. "People who would never walk into a Christian store suddenly would come in for The Prayer of Jabez, The Purpose Driven Life, and the Left Behind series," she says. Each of these titles became #1 New York Times bestsellers.

In the late '90s, however, the advent of the digital age began to transform the way Americans shopped and consumed media. The rise of online retailers created stiff competition for brick-and-mortar stores. The absence of rent, real estate, and large staffs allowed these emerging distributors to offer deep discounts that traditional booksellers simply could not match. The internet also created options for authors to affordably self-publish their work and distribute it straight to consumers. This, combined with a sharp decline in book sales generally and the rise of reduced price e-books, ate into publishers' profits.

These converging trends decimated the print publishing industry. And retailers, which form the industry's front line, bore the brunt of it. Many prominent chains, such as Borders, B. Dalton, and Waldenbooks, floundered and eventually folded. Others, including industry giant Barnes & Noble, teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.

Religious chains faced even more harrowing circumstances than their larger secular cousins. In addition to the transformation of media, the American religious landscape was shifting rapidly. According to Gallup, church attendance and religiosity declined during the '90s and early 2000s. Americans identifying as non-religious rose during this period. As younger Christians came of age, they found themselves less interested in the American Christian subculture and its institutions. Demand for religious books fell, and the once healthy Christian marketplace hemorrhaged.

By the earliest part of the 21st century, the Christian publishing industry was in major trouble. Christian publishers struggled to stay afloat, and religious retailers were taking on water. The once-booming CBA, which boasted 3,000 members and approximately 4,000 Christian retail stores in the mid-'80s, had dwindled to 1,813 members and 2,800 stores by 2008. More than 300 Christian retailers closed in 2005 alone.

With the shuttering of Family Christian Stores this year, only a couple of sizeable chains and a smattering of independents remain. We may be witnessing the dawning of the last days for these once vibrant institutions.

But here's the real shocker: The demise of Christian bookstores may actually be good news for American Christianity itself.

If you've visited a Christian bookstore lately, you might have noticed that they traffic in much more than just books. As the market contracted, the diversity of inventory expanded to include products with higher profit margins. Shelves are filled to overflow with a range of religious home décor, toys, music, and clothing designed to appeal to spiritual shoppers. You'll find inspirational figurines, Bible-themed Monopoly-style board games, automobile decals, and even religious breath mints.

Christian kitsch can help retailers pay the rent. But the "trinketization of Christianity" has plastered a cheap face onto a rich religious movement with a more than 2,000-year history. Purging these items from the marketplace helps strip the consumerist veneer off the faith.

The disappearance of Christian retailers will also likely improve the quality of religious books. Christian authors can no longer be the strongest voice in their small religious pond. Beating out the quarter's best niche devotional will no longer suffice. Authors will now have to compete with Chabon and Patchett, Franzen and Friedman.

"We're seeing that the stiff competition in the general market requires that you publish Christian books with quality writing," as Stan Jantz, head of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, notes. "Because the bar is being raised, there is a real desire among Christian publishers to find quality writing right now."

Competing in a broader marketplace will also require a broader diversity of religious content. Christian retailers have often curated their inventory based on their theological leanings. For example, Lifeway Christian Stores requires authors to adhere to the beliefs of the Southern Baptist Convention, the denomination that owns the chain. If an author supports gay marriage, doesn't interpret the Bible in strictly literal ways, or supports the equality of women in church leadership, they will be banned from Lifeway's shelves. As these retailers disappear, there will no longer be gatekeepers policing the market with the same rigor. And this may plow the ground for fresh and even risky theological reflections.

These three developments — the purging of religious kitsch, better quality prose, and a greater diversity of ideas — means the loss for retailers is a gain for readers. Hallelujah.

***

***

The Freedom Articles

Total Individual Control Technology: Insider Exposes How You & Your DNA are Being Targeted

Total Individual Control Technology

is a nefarious type of EM (Electromagnetic) and V2K (Voice to Skull) weaponized technology that is being experimented with and deployed against segments of the American population. Those attacked by this electronic stalking are known as TIs(Targeted Individuals). Recently another brave whistleblower has stepped forward to expose it. Bryan Kofron (who formerly used the alias of Justin Carter) is a security industry specialist who used to work for a private security company SIS

(Security Industry Specialists) in Seattle, Washington. He quit in disgust after realizing that his former firm, and others just like it, were actively using this so-called total individual control technology to target people, then ultimately control and destroy their lives. Since he quit, he has himself become a victim of the technology via gangstalking.

What Total Individual Control Technology is Capable Of

According to Kofron, this technology is so advanced that it can be used to read your mind, program your mind with thoughts (that you would believe are your own) and induce emotional states in you (including pain, hate and fear). It can be used to tap into your optical nerve and auditory systems to see and hear what you are seeing and hearing. It can target particular people by engaging in individual-specific attacks (based on the target’s DNA resonance). Finally, it is being used in vast social engineering programs as a way to experiment upon poor, homeless and weak people who have little or no chance of fighting back.

In interviews or presentations such as this and this, Kofron explains that this technology is being used by psychopaths who have little scruples about the harm they are causing. They are targeting specific groups of people: those who are cognitively inclined, highly intelligent, knowledgeable about advanced technology or interested in alternative research (i.e. conspiracy research). In general, they are either targeting empowered individuals with free minds (to stop dissidents and revolutionaries) or those too poor and weak to fight back.

Using Kofron’s own words, here are some of the things Total Individual Control Technology is able to do:

“This technology manipulates the electrical signals in the brain, thus controlling thoughts and feelings and emotions and sensations throughout the body. It works by rewiring the brain by creating new neural pathways and destroying existing neural pathways, thus this literally changes the way a person thinks and thus behaves.”

“This technology can also be used to control the muscle movement of the target. It can take over one’s hands or feet while driving and make you press on the accelerator or press on the brake or turn. This can be used to cause accidents it can also be used to prevent accidents from happening.”

“This technology can also tap into the optical nerve of the target, and the auditory system of the target, so that those monitoring the target can see what the target is seeing and hear what target is hearing. This information is then downloaded and stored on a computer, in a highly secure classified site on servers that are guarded by some of the tightest security in the world. This results in the individual’s entire day, everything they see, everything they hear, everything they experiment, everything they experience, and everything they feel being recorded till the end of time.”

“This technology can also be used to manipulate the emotions of the target. It can induce fear, love, hate.”

“This technology can be used to beam images and even motion pictures into one’s brain. Images and motion pictures that are so realistic that you think you are actually watching a movie or seeing something in reality. It’s like a virtual reality 3D rendering that takes place within the target’s mind. The images and motion pictures manifest themselves in such a way that the target if they are not aware that this technology is being used on them will believe that they are natural thoughts and natural images.”

“This technology can also be used to induce and control dreams. It can be used to control dream cycles and sleep patterns. To cause one to sleep very deeply or to cause one to not sleep at all. REM cycles, alpha beta and delta brainwaves can be induced immediately by this technology. And this technology can also be used to mimic spiritual experiences. Joy, love, peace that passes understanding can all be induced artificially by this technology to make the target believe that they are having a genuine spiritual experience when they’re not.”

“This technology can also be used to sexually manipulate the target. Make them feel sexual arousal or turn off their sexuality altogether, it can stimulate them and it can shut them down at a moments notice. It can also be used to manipulate the hormones of the target, thus lowering and raising estrogen and testosterone levels in women and men respectively.”

“This technology can also be used to read the thoughts of the target in real time … they can read your thoughts verbatim as they occur within your own mind.”

“Anywhere from small groups of people 10-20 to 100, to medium size groups of people several thousand to tens of thousands. This is done by creating a field effect, where an entire field of electromagnetic energy is created in a geographical location and any human being within that geographical location within that electromagnetic field affecting that geographical location will be effected by the technology. This can be used to induce a general mood in a population or a crowd of people. It can be used to make them passive, it can be used to make them agitated. And this can be used to cause or stop, induce riots. Stop crime, start crime. Stop thoughts, start thoughts. Massive mind control on a citywide level.”

The nationwide then worldwide DNA database … coming to a town near you.

Total Individual Control Technology Attacks Specific Individuals Based on DNA Resonance

As I have discussed in previous articles on mind control such as “They” Can’t Read Your Thoughts … Right?, the state of current mind control technology is beyond most’s people comprehension and idea of what is possible. Yet, we have had enough out-of-the-closet whistleblowers and leaked or declassified documents to give us a clear idea of the scary extent to which we can be psychically attacked. Whistleblowers such as Dr. Robert Duncan have lectured at length about the capabilities of V2K technology, which is defined as an EM frequency technology that utilizes RF (Radio Frequency) signals to induce sound within the cranial cavity of the target. V2K literally pipes thoughts directly into people’s heads without them knowing it.

Kofron bases his information on his own experience as an insider in this field, and also as recent victim of V2K himself. He was attacked once he went public. He claims he has been assaulted with a beta version which is especially nasty, piping thoughts into his head such as:

“Everyone’s against you”
“Please be quiet or we’re going to kill you”
“Don’t work again or we’re going to kill you”
“You’re the lab rat now motherfucker”

Kofron claims the Total Individual Control Technology attacks are attempting to turn him against his former work colleagues, friends and family. However, since he was trained in this area, he knows that the voices are technological and can defend himself against the manipulations once he hears them.

Kofron echoes exactly what Duncan has warned about: individual-specific attacks. Duncan states that every person has a “unique resonance signature”, and in almost exactly the same words, Kofron states that:

“… the DNA of the individual is used to determine the resonant frequency of the DNA itself, the resonant frequency is then used to fine tune the technology … to tune it perfectly to the resonant frequency of the targeted individual’s DNA.”

The Drive to Create a Worldwide DNA Database

This leads into another aspect of the NWO agenda: the drive to create a worldwide DNA database. When seen in the light of Total Individual Control Technology, the acquisition of an entire population’s DNA takes on a very sinister meaning. It is no coincidence that Amazon and Google (who are ultimately controlled by the same force as David Icke suggests) are racing each other, along with Microsoft, IBM and other companies, to assemble a DNA database as quickly as they can. Those in power who gain access a completed worldwide DNA database and total individual control technology would have a horrifying weapon at their disposal to target literally anyone they wanted.

Kofron exposes how prospective employees are tricked out of their DNA. They apply for a job at SIS, get told they have to do a drug test, and when the urine sample is sent to a lab, part is siphoned off as DNA to go into Amazon’s burgeoning DNA database.

Americans, in the millions, are having their DNA stolen from them, without their knowledge or consent, so they become unwitting targets of this insidious program!

Social Engineering with Total Individual Control Technology

Kofron talks at length about how this technology is fully operational and is already being tested upon those in society who are struggling (such as those who are homeless, poor and who don’t have much family or many friends) since they make the easiest targets. On his website GangstalkerWars.com, he exposes the details of ongoing operations within Seattle (where he used to work for SIS). This social engineering is being done by the Federal Government, the Military Intelligence agencies, private security firms (more on this below), some of the largest US corporations (after all, we live in a corporatocracy), local and state police, and social programs within inner-city America.

In one such operation, the perpetrators would target certain geographical blocks of the city, and, for instance, cause everyone in that area to be in a bad mood. In another operation, SIS (employed by Amazon whose headquarters are in Seattle) would test upon Amazon employees. In another operation, SIS would experiment upon its own low level employees. In another operation, homeless people were brought in from all over the nation to special buildings that were then targeted. This is true gangstalking – the ganging up by sociopaths and psychopaths upon the innocent to electronically harass and stalk them.

The Rising Danger of the Private Security Firm Industry in America

Kofron warns about an alarming trend in American society: the rise of private security companies who mostly employ ex-military and ex-intelligence agents. As I covered in this 2-part series, the US Military Intelligence Complex is completely and utterly out of control. It runs the government and pulls the strings attached to all the puppet politicians, who don’t have the necessary “clearance” to access the truly top secret information. These security firms, like the MIC itself, appear to operate above and outside the law.

The culture inside of these companies is toxic. People rising up the ranks are conditioned to use this technology against innocent victims, and are told they will be rewarded with everything (money, power, women, sex, connection, access, status, belonging to the power club) if they go along with the program and become perpetrators. If they have a strong conscience and refuse, they will be sacked, shunned, cut off, threatened and even made into TIs themselves.

The Human Rights Loophole: False Diagnoses

Another aspect of Total Individual Control Technology which the perpetrators use to shield themselves is the cruel use of false psychiatric diagnoses. Here’s how it works: they manipulate TI victims to see a psychiatrist, and then they bribe the psychiatrist to deliver a fake diagnosis that the victim is mentally unstable, deranged, delusional, crazy, incompetent, paranoid, schizophrenic, suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder – or they invent some similar legal-medical-psychobabble diagnosis. This has the unfortunate effect of stripping away the victim’s natural or human rights, which leaves him or her with no recourse to fight back against his attackers, since his claims and testimonies will be dismissed as the ravings of a madman.

This is a similar tactic to what is used with other victims of mind control. In my interview with Max Spiers, he touched on the use of the Big Pharma “false memory” foundation, which includes bogus therapists and psychiatrists who convince mind control victims that they’re having false memories (when they are actually recalling how they were tortured and programmed).

The Infrastructure Underlying Total Individual Control Technology

The infrastructure that is enabling the total individual control technology is composed mostly of antennae, radar and cell phone towers. Often, the antennae are camouflaged (hidden behind walls). Some or most of theradar used is from military bases. Kofron was not able to explain much of how the technology actually works, although an electrical engineer who called in on one of the radio interviews suggested that the perpetrators are setting up a standing wave of DNA, then doing slight variations in the phasing using pulse code modulation.

Final Thoughts:Total Individual Control Technology Perpetrated by the Cult of Power

In concluding, it’s important to realize how such cruel surveillance is being perpetuated. As Kofron explains, it’s all about creating an “in” club of perpetrators who get rewarded with money, sex, power and the intrinsic human need for belonging, get told they are on the “right” side and the TIs are on the “wrong” side – and get threatened that if they speak up or quit, they may end up on that wrong side. It’s the cult of power.

Hopefully this testimony can serve as a wakeup call for those on the fence who can’t quite bring themselves to believe or act. In many ways, time is running out and the net is being drawn tighter and tighter. The more technology advances, the more weapons the cult of power will have to enslave those who stand for truth and freedom. At a certain point, there will literally be nowhere to run or hide. The only option is to face it now before it’s too late.

*****

Makia Freeman is the editor of alternative media / independent news site The Freedom Articles and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com, writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the worldwide conspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance.

Sources:
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdqL64rHVB4
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLqhjU4jlec
*http://www.declassifieddocuments.com
*http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/mind-control-technology-current-state/
*https://gangstalkerwars.com

(If this article is true and correct this is really not so different from the way we are attacked by the enemy of our souls today and in the past, through our thoughts. This is why the Bible says: “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:6)

***

RFID JOURNAL

Researchers Develop Microscopic RFID Chip to Embed in Human Cells

One physical limitation that RFID technology has faced as it has been adopted in most vertical markets is chip size. Although chips have become smaller (they can now be inserted into a tag the size of a grain of rice, for instance), that is still too large for some applications.

Researchers at Stanford University are now several phases into a development project to create a passive, 60 GHz RFID transponder that is small enough to be inserted into a human body's cell. Thus far, the group has been able to scale the chip and antenna down to about 22 microns (0.0009 inch) wide—one fifth the diameter of an average human hair—which is small enough that it could be inserted inside a cell, and thus be readthroughout a person's body. The chip, in fact, has been inserted into a mouse melanoma cell. RFID could also be placed within a mass of cells, such as a tumor.

The group has designed a specialized RFID reader to transmit to—and receive responses from—a tag that small. Researchers call this miniaturized tag and associated specialized reader a promising step toward continuous, real-time monitoring of activities at cellular levels.

Both Hitachi and Murata have developed very small RFID tags. Hitachi's chip measures 300 microns (0.01 inch)—see Hitachi Unveils Smallest RFID Chip. The Murata tag, however, measures approximately 700 microns (0.03 inch)—see Murata Mass-Produces 'World's Smallest HF Tag'.

The Stanford team's chip is too small to be seen with the human eye. The researchers—members of the university's electrical engineering department—call the system a micrometer-scale magnetic resonance-coupled RFID transceiver for wireless sensors in cells. Their goal is to create the chip with an associated RF antenna at a microscopic size, so that it could be used for health-care diagnostic and research purposes. For instance, a chip embedded in a person's living cell could remain inert in a specific part of the body, and respond to interrogation from a reader outside the body, in order to indicate where it is located, as well as any sensor-based data if linked to such technology.

The octagonal-shaped tag consists of several layers. One layer is a piece of titanium measuring 5 nanometers (0.0000002 inch) in thickness, with gold film measuring 200 nanometers (0.000008 inch) laid on it, while the second layer is a sheet of aluminum 1,000 nanometers (0.00004 inch) in thickness. Finally, a 16 nanometer (0.0000006-inch)-thick electrical insulated layer of hafnium dioxide is included. The layers are encapsulated in silicon dioxide to protect the tag and the cells that come in contact with it. The tag is encoded with a unique identifier that makes it possible for health-care providers and other users to identify it within a mass of tissue or cells.

However, a tag that small traditionally would not be able to receive and respond to interrogation from a typical RFID reader. For that reason, the researchers designed a specialized reader. While most handhelds used on RFID tags have a single antenna, in this case they designed a reader with two antennas measuring about twice the transceiver's diameter. The extra antenna enables them to boost the signal to and from the tag approximately tenfold.

The project was designed with three phases, says Mimi X. Yang, a Stanford researcher. The first phase consisted of reducing the tag to the microscopic level, which they have accomplished, though they still need to reduce it further to embed it in a single cell. The second phase involved embedding the chip within a biological mass of cells. So far, the researchers have embedded the tags in the melanoma of a mouse. The chip's management poses a challenge due to its microscopic size, Yang says. Part of this process involved ensuring that tags would not be so close to each other that they would create confusion when a reader was used on a cell or a mass of cells.

The third phase will be to read the chips. "We have reduced the tag to a microscopic level," Yang states. "What we are missing is measuring electrical data [the RF transmission] while the tag is inside the cell." Therefore, the project's next phase will consist of implanting tags in an aqueous solution that will move through a microscopic silicone rubber tube. The team will then attempt to read the tags at close range as they move through the tube.

"What we're trying to develop is a very general electronic system" for the body, Yang says, while the long-term goal is to link the RFID chip with sensors to accomplish additional diagnostics, such as detecting antibodies or chemicals within the body. In this case, for instance, pressure or PH sensors could be of value, she says.

The system could also potentially be used to destroy a cell, such as cancer, if a chip could be prompted, based on a transmission from the reader, to emit sufficient voltage to kill that cell. In the meantime, the Stanford group will continue to determine whether the chips can be read by an interrogator in an environment similar to being embedded in living cells within a human body.

Once the tags are found to be effective, and are possibly miniaturized further to fit within a single cell, the functionality would enable individuals to identify specific cells without damaging them. This, Yang says, would enable disease study and detection, as well as a variety of other diagnostics and even treatments.

***

ACTIVIST POST

Border Patrol Launches Program To Scan The Face Of Every Person Leaving U.S.

August 30, 2017

By Derrick Broze

Private airlines are the last line of defense against the growing use of biometric facial recognition software at American airports.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have announced plans to scan the faces of all flyers exiting the United States. The American Civil Liberties Union reported:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has launched a “Traveler Verification Service” (TVS) that envisions applying face recognition to all airline passengers, including U.S. citizens, boarding flights exiting the United States. This system raises very serious privacy issues.

The only publicly available information comes from a privacy impact statement the Department of Homeland Security issued on the program, and a briefing CBP Deputy Executive Assistant Commissioner John Wagner gave to privacy advocates in Washington this week. The CBP envisions a system where airports install cameras at boarding gates to take pictures of all passengers leaving and entering the country. The pictures will have facial recognition software applied to them.

The Traveler Verification Service is currently being tested at six airports, including Boston Logan, New York JFK, Dulles in D.C., Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, Chicago O’Hare, and Bush in Houston. TVS itself is part of the larger “Biometric Entry/Exit” program which was created in response to a congressional requirement to use biometrics to track individuals who may have overstayed their visas.

The ACLU explains how the program works:

The way the system works is that before departure, CBP obtains the passenger manifest for each flight, and then reaches through the government’s extensive, interconnected set of databases to assemble photographs on each passenger. Those include passport and visa photos as well as photos “captured by CBP during the entry inspection” and “from other DHS encounters.” The agency then compares face recognition templates (essentially, patterns) derived from those database photos to templates derived from live photographs taken by a camera at the boarding gate.

The ACLU warns the program will endanger civil liberties in several ways. The organization says the program will normalize facial recognition as a checkpoint technology. The danger, the ACLU says, is that once the government begins to collect biometrics from every person crossing the border, they will likely expand the practice to new places and for new purposes. Border Patrol told the ACLU they will delete live photos after 14 days, but that could change.

The most disturbing detail of this program is the fact that Congress has never authorized the use of facial recognition technology on Americans. That is set to change with the start of this new program. The ACLU says the onus is on airlines to begin resisting the implementation of this program and call for Congressional approval. The ACLU is not only calling on private airlines to demand transparency from the DHS, but to allow any passenger to opt out of the program.

“The airlines have a responsibility to ensure that customers’ rights are respected, yet they have not taken even some basic steps to fulfill this obligation,” the ACLU writes. “Until they have taken these steps—and received assurances from CBP that the agency will abide by certain privacy standards —they should not participate in these programs.”

Earlier in the summer, a writer with Yahoo Finance discussed new biometric policies on display during a recent demonstration at Washington’s National Airport.

“Instead of handing your boarding pass and ID to a Transportation Security Administration agent, you could soon simply place two fingerprints on a scanner to be recognized and ushered through security — and then you could repeat the process to board the plane,” Yahoo writes.

The reporter also had to scan their driver’s license and enter their Social Security number to participate in the fingerprint scan. The fingerprint and iris scans will be stored with the private company Clear. The company is promising not to sell the information to third parties, but Jeramie Scott, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s Domestic Surveillance Project, says that Clear’s privacy policy doesn’t require it to delete your data if you cancel your membership.

The use of biometrics is only the latest infringement on privacy and liberty at the airport. In June, Activist Post reported that the TSA was testing out new measures that require passengers to remove books and paper goods from their carry-on luggage. According to reports from The Wall Street Journal and Sacramento Bee, the TSA has already begun to roll out these new invasive policies.

As the Bee notes, reading material is extremely personal and revealing about a person. If individuals know that their reading habits – whether they relate to philosophy, politics, sexuality, or religion – will be scrutinized they may began a process of self-censorship. It also presents the question, what type of reading material could be questionable or even, banned?

At this point the TSA is claiming that bombs could be hidden within books and are not focusing their efforts on content specifically. However, this is likely the beginning of an incremental strategy to remove as much freedom as possible for travelers. As the Sac Bee wrote, “We need to resist the creep of authoritarianism. During the Cold War, spying on neighbors was common in the Soviet Bloc. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, people reported others for listening to Western Classical Music.”

The American Civil Liberties Union noted that there have already been multiple cases of passengers singled out for their First Amendment-protected expressions. “For example, in 2010 the ACLU sued on behalf of a man who was abusively interrogated, handcuffed, and detained for nearly five hours because he was carrying a set of Arabic-language flash cards and a book critical of U.S. foreign policy,” the ACLU writes. We also know that the DHS database known as the “Automated Targeting System,” which tracks information on international travelers, has included notations in travelers’ permanent files about controversial books in their possession.”

In a recent interview with Fox News, John Kelly, Secretary of Homeland Security, seemed to confirm the goal of implementing the strategy on a nationwide scale. Kelly was asked whether or not the new policy of unpacking carry on luggage and separating food and electronics into separate bins will indeed go nationwide.

Although DHS officials declined to comment on specifics, ABC News reports that passengers may notice more swabbing of passengers’ hands and luggage to test for explosives. It is highly likely that the agencies book policy will be a part of these new strategies.

What are Americans going to do in order to combat the growth of the police state? Surveillance and militarization is the order of the day in America 2017. We need to demand airlines reject these biometric policies and stand together against further invasion of our privacy.

Geometric ordered mysterious holes in the ground discovered in the impenetrable Russian Taiga

Natural News

Over a million children under the age of six are currently on psychiatric drugs in America

Sunday, August 27, 2017 by: Isabelle Z.

(Natural News) Psychiatric drug use is on the rise in the U.S., with one out of every six Americans now taking some type of medication in this category. This is highly concerning given the scary side effects and poor effectiveness of many of these drugs, but there is one particularly disturbing aspect of this trend that seems to get glossed over, and that is the extraordinary number of children who are taking such drugs.

Mental health watchdog group Citizens Commission on Human Rights is drawing attention to the concerning fact that more than a million kids younger than six in our nation are currently taking psychiatric drugs.

While around half of these children are four to five years old, an incredible 274,804 of them are younger than a year old. That’s right: babies are being given psychiatric drugs. The number rises for toddlers aged two to three, with 370,778 kids in this category taking psychiatric drugs overall.

Data from IMS Health shows that the situation only gets worse as kids get older, with 4,130,340 kids aged 6 to 12 taking some type of psychiatric drug.

You might be forgiven for assuming that most of these statistics are made up by kids taking ADHD drugs given how common that approach seems to be nowadays, but it really only accounts for a small portion of it, with 1,422 of those younger than a year old and just over 181,000 of those aged four to five taking ADHD drugs.

Antidepressants and antipsychotics put forth some surprising figures, but the biggest category of psychotic drugs given to children appears to be anti-anxiety drugs. Just over 227,132 babies under one and nearly 248,000 of those aged four to five take these medications.

These numbers are even more shocking when you consider the fact that experts believe these estimates are far too low and the real numbers are actually much higher, due in part to the tendency for some doctors to hand out psychiatric medications for “off-label” uses. This risky practice entails giving out a drug to treat something that it is not indicated for, and the long-term effects of such an approach are completely unknown.

Safer alternatives to giving kids mind-altering meds

When adults choose to take psychiatric medication, it may be ill-advised in many cases, but it is still their choice to make. Children, on the other hand, lack the cognition to fully understand the lifelong impact of such a choice, and this essentially amounts to forced medication. We already know that many doctors have a financial incentive to get young people to start taking these drugs, but why are their parents so willing to get on board? Many of them are also taking psychiatric medications, of course. In fact, it has practically become a way of life in our nation and many people think of these meds as harmless.

The side effects of these drugs are nothing to scoff at, however, with antianxiety, antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs linked to heart attacks, psychosis, suicidal ideation, diabetes, stroke, mania and sudden death. As if that weren’t bad enough, there’s also the fact that many of the high-profile public shootings in recent years were perpetrated by young people on such drugs, so not only do kids have the risk of dying when they take these meds, but they could also take out a whole classroom or movie theater with them.

Psychiatric medications affect a child’s brain chemistry and could impact their development in irreversible ways, so it’s important for doctors and parents alike to reserve them as an absolute last resort. Some degree of anxiety is normal in children as they start to understand the way the world works. Life is full of ups and downs, and children who learn coping strategies when they’re young will have a valuable skill that can serve them well throughout their lifetime. There are lots of good coping mechanisms that can help children with depression, anxiety, and those who have been labeled with ADHD, including yoga,(We do not recommend yoga. Ed) art therapy, breathing exercises, and physical exercise, to name just a few.

Sources include:
Newswire.com
CCHRInt.org
WakingTimes.com
NaturalNews.com
ScientificAmerican.com

***

Until next week...keep on believing.
Almondtree Productions

“And if thou pass through water, I am with thee; and the rivers shall not overflow thee: and if thou go through fire, thou shalt not be burned; the flame shall not burn thee.”
(Isaiah 43:2)

Links:
This site is partially sponsered by Association of Missionary-Minded Christians.