IN MEMORIAM: Pope Francis Dies as Catholic Church’s Reckoning with Racism Remains

IN MEMORIAM: Pope Francis Dies as Catholic Church’s Reckoning with Racism Remains

Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on December 17, 1936, Francis was the son of Italian immigrants.

by NNPA

Apr 21, 2025

By Stacy M. Brown, BlackPressUSA.com Senior National Correspondent

Pope Francis, the first Latin American pontiff and a global voice for the poor, immigrants, and the environment, died Monday at age 88. Cardinal Kevin Farrell announced his death from the Domus Santa Marta, the Vatican residence where Francis chose to live instead of the Apostolic Palace. “At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home of the Father,” said Farrell. “His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of his Church.” Church bells rang across Rome as word spread. The pope had been hospitalized since mid-February with double pneumonia, marking his longest hospitalization during his 12-year papacy. Despite his declining health, he finally appeared before thousands in St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday.

Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on December 17, 1936, Francis was the son of Italian immigrants. A former chemical technician, he entered the Jesuit order in 1958, was ordained in 1969, and rose through the ranks to become Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and Cardinal in 2001. Elected pope in 2013 following Benedict XVI’s resignation, Francis quickly distinguished himself with a reformist tone. He rejected the papal palace and wore simpler vestments. He condemned economic exploitation, called for urgent action on climate change, and made the inclusion of migrants, the poor, and LGBTQ+ Catholics central to his mission. However, his papacy also deepened tensions within the Catholic Church, especially in the United States. While Francis urged compassion and social justice, many American Catholics—particularly white conservatives—supported political figures whose policies ran counter to the pope’s teachings.

In a February op-ed for the National Catholic Reporter, writer Alessandra Harris addressed the disconnect: “We are living in a time when self-professed Catholics are not only turning a blind eye to evil but have elected and are supporting President Donald Trump, who is against diversity, against immigrants, against the poor.” Harris cited a long history of racism in the Church, from segregation and exclusion in Catholic schools and neighborhoods to the silence of Church leaders during Jim Crow and beyond. She noted that 59% of white Catholics voted for Trump, writing that “the Catholic Church is once again siding with white supremacy or hoping to benefit from its proximity to whiteness at the expense of people who are Black, Native, noncitizens and LGBTQIA+.” Though Pope Francis spoke forcefully against racism, xenophobia, and exclusion, the institutional Church in the U.S. has often lagged behind his moral calls. “Trampling upon a person’s dignity is a serious sin,” Francis once said—a principle he lived by and preached consistently. Now, as the Church prepares for its next chapter, many are left wondering whether his vision of inclusion will take deeper root or fade with him. “His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of his Church,” said Cardinal Farrell.

https://sdvoice.info/in-memoriam-pope-francis-dies-as-catholic-churchs-reckoning-with-racism-remains/

Who will be the next pope? Some potential candidates to succeed Francis

A ‘continuity’ pick, the possible first Asian pope or first black pontiff in centuries are among likely contenders

Pope Francis, groundbreaking Jesuit pontiff, dies

Latest updates: tributes paid after Pope Francis dies

Harriet Sherwood

Mon 21 Apr 2025 10.08 EDT

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Predicting the outcome of the highly secretive papal conclave is near impossible as cardinals’ positions shift over successive votes and some try to game the system to influence the chances of their favoured – or least-favoured – candidates. In the last conclave in 2013, few predicted that Jorge Mario Bergoglio would be elected as Pope Francis. At the moment, speculation is focusing on these men to succeed him:

Pietro Parolin, 70, Italy

Cardinal Pietro Parolin celebrates Holy Mass

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Pietro Parolin has been the Vatican’s secretary of state since 2013. Photograph: Evandro Inetti/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

Seen as a moderate “continuity candidate”, Parolin was close to Francis. He has been the Vatican’s secretary of state since 2013, playing a key role in diplomatic affairs, including delicate negotiations with China and governments in the Middle East. He is regarded as a reliable and trusted papal representative by secular diplomats. In 2018, he was the driving force behind a controversial agreement with the Chinese government on the appointment of bishops, criticised by some as a sellout to the communist regime. Parolin’s critics see him as a modernist and a pragmatist who places ideology and diplomatic solutions above hard truths of the faith. To his supporters, he is a courageous idealist and avid proponent of peace.

Luis Antonio Tagle, 67, the Philippines

Tagle praying while attending the solemn liturgy of the lord’s passion in the Vatican

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Luis Antonio Tagle would be the first Asian pope. Photograph: Franco Origlia/Getty Images

Tagle, a former archbishop of Manila, would be the first Asian pope, the region with the fastest-growing Catholic population. At one time he was considered to be Francis’s preferred successor and a strong contender to continue the late pope’s progressive agenda, but recently appears to have fallen out of favour. He has suggested that the Catholic church’s stance on gay and divorced couples is too harsh, but has opposed abortion rights in the Philippines.

Peter Turkson, 76, Ghana

Turkson headshot

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Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson would be the first black pope in centuries. Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images

Turkson would be the first black pope in centuries. He has been vocal on issues such the climate crisis, poverty and economic justice while affirming the church’s traditional positions on the priesthood, marriage between a man and a woman, and homosexuality. However, his views on the latter have loosened and he has argued that laws in many African countries are too harsh. He has spoken out on corruption and human rights.

Péter Erdő, 72, Hungary

Erdő leading Easter Sunday mass

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Péter Erdő would represent a big shift away from Francis’s approach. Photograph: Attila Kovács/EPA

A leading conservative candidate, Erdő has been a strong advocate for traditional Catholic teachings and doctrine. He would represent a big shift away from Francis’s approach. He is widely regarded as a great intellect and a man of culture. Erdő was a favourite of the late cardinal George Pell who believed he would restore the rule of law in the post-Francis Vatican. In 2015, Erdő appeared to align himself with Hungary’s nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, when he opposed Francis’s call for churches to take in migrants.

Matteo Zuppi, 69, Italy

Matteo Zuppi leading mass

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Matteo Zuppi is considered to be on the progressive wing of the church. Photograph: Olesya Kurpyayeva/AFP/Getty Images

Appointed a cardinal by Francis in 2019, Zuppi is considered to be on the progressive wing of the church, and would be expected to continue Francis’s legacy, sharing the late pope’s concern for the poor and marginalised. He is (relatively) liberal on same-sex relationships. Two years ago, Francis made him the Vatican peace envoy for Ukraine, in which capacity he visited Moscow to “encourage gestures of humanity”. While there he met Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox church and Vladimir Putin’s ally. He has also met Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president.

José Tolentino Calaça de Mendonça, 59, Portugal

José Tolentino Calaça de Mendonça

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José Tolentino Calaça de Mendonça’s relative youth may rule him out. Photograph: Anadolu/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Tolentino is one of the youngest potential successors to Francis, which could count against him – ambitious cardinals may not want to wait another 20 or 30 years before another shot at the top job. He has attracted controversy for sympathising with tolerant views on same-sex relationships and allying himself with a feminist Benedictine sister who favours women’s ordination and is pro-choice. He was close to Francis on most issues, and argues that the church must engage with modern culture.

Mario Grech, 68, Malta

Mario Grech headshot

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Mario Grech has expressed support for female deacons. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Grech was seen as a traditionalist but began to embrace more progressive views after Francis was elected in 2013. His supporters argue that his changing opinions show his capacity for growth and change. He has criticised European political leaders who sought to limit the activities of NGO ships and has expressed support for female deacons.

Pierbattista Pizzaballa, 60, Italy

Pierbattista Pizzaballa raises both hands while speaking

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Pierbattista Pizzaballa is the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian

Since 2020, Pizzaballa has been the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, a crucial role in advocating for the Christian minority in the Holy Land. After Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, Pizzaballa offered himself as a hostage in exchange for children who were being held by Hamas in Gaza. He visited Gaza in May 2024 after months of negotiations. He would be expected to continue some aspects of Francis’s leadership of the church, but has made few public statements on controversial issues.

Robert Sarah, 79, Guinea

Robert Sarah wearing a mitre cap

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Robert Sarah has denounced ‘gender ideology’ as a threat to society. Photograph: Maria Grazia Picciarella/Rex/Shutterstock

Sarah is a traditional, Orthodox cardinal who at one time sought to present himself as a “parallel authority” to Francis, according to a Vatican observer. In 2020, he co-authored a book with the then retired Pope Benedict defending clerical celibacy that was seen as a challenge to Francis’s authority. He has denounced “gender ideology” as a threat to society, and has spoken out against Islamic fundamentalism. Like Turkson, he could make history as the first black pope in centuries.

 This article was amended on 21 April 2025. An earlier version stated that Luis Antonio Tagle could become the first black pope in centuries, however this should have said Peter Turkson.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/21/who-next-pope-francis-potential-candidates-succeed#:~:text=Peter%20Turkson%2C%2076%2C%20Ghana&text=NurPhoto%2FGetty%20Images-,Turkson%20would%20be%20the%20first%20black%20pope%20in%20centuries.,and%20a%20woman%2C%20and%20homosexuality.

Sargon of Akkad (/ˈsɑːrɡɒn/; Akkadian: 𒊬𒊒𒄀, romanized: Šarrugi; died c. 2279 BC),[3] also known as Sargon the Great,[4] was the first ruler of the Akkadian Empire, known for his conquests of the Sumerian city-states in the 24th to 23rd centuries BC.[2] He is sometimes identified as the first person in recorded history to rule over an empire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon_of_Akkad

Arcadia (Greek: Αρκαδία) refers to a vision of pastoralism and harmony with nature. The term is derived from the Greek province of the same name which dates to antiquity; the province's mountainous topography and sparse population of pastoralists later caused the word Arcadia to develop into a poetic byword for an idyllic vision of unspoiled wilderness. Arcadia is a poetic term associated with bountiful natural splendor and harmony. The 'Garden' is often inhabited by shepherds. The concept also figures in Renaissance mythology. Although commonly thought of as being in line with Utopian ideals, Arcadia differs from that tradition in that it is more often specifically regarded as unattainable. Furthermore, it is seen as a lost, Edenic form of life, contrasting to the progressive nature of Utopian desires.

The inhabitants were often regarded as having continued to live after the manner of the Golden Age, without the pride and avarice that corrupted other regions.[1] It is also sometimes referred to in English poetry as Arcady. The inhabitants of this region bear an obvious connection to the figure of the NOBLE SAVAGE, both being regarded as living close to nature, uncorrupted by civilization, and virtuous.

In antiquity

According to Greek mythology, Arcadia of Peloponnesus was the domain of Pan, a virgin wilderness home to the god of the forest and his court of dryads, nymphs and other spirits of nature. It was one version of paradise, though only in the sense of being the abode of supernatural entities, not an afterlife for deceased mortals.

An artist's vision of Arcadia

In the 3rd century BCE the Greek poet Theocritus wrote idealised views of the lives of peasants in Arcadia for his fellow educated inhabitants of the squalid and disease-ridden city of Alexandria.[2]

Greek mythology inspired the Roman poet Virgil to write his Eclogues, a series of poems set in Arcadia.

In the Renaissance

Arcadia has remained a popular artistic subject since antiquity, both in visual arts and literature.[citation needed] Images of beautiful nymphs frolicking in lush forests have been a frequent source of inspiration for painters and sculptors. Because of the influence of Virgil in medieval European literature, e. g. in Divine Comedy, Arcadia became a symbol of pastoral simplicity. European Renaissance writers (for instance, the Spanish poet Garcilaso de la Vega) often revisited the theme, and the name came to apply to any idyllic location or paradise.

Of particular note is Et in Arcadia Ego by Nicolas Poussin. In 1502 Jacopo Sannazaro published his long poem Arcadia that fixed the Early Modern perception of Arcadia as a lost world of idyllic bliss, remembered in regretful dirges.

In the 1580s Sir Philip Sidney circulated copies of his influential heroic romance poem The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, which established Arcadia as an icon of the Renaissance; although the story is plentifully supplied with shepherds and other pastoral characters, the primary characters are all royal visitors of the countryside. In 1598 the Spanish playwright and poet Lope de Vega published Arcadia: Prose and Verse, which was a bestseller at the time.

Friedrich August von Kaulbach's In Arcadia

Though depicted as contemporary, this pastoral form is often connected with the Golden Age. It may be suggested that its inhabitants have merely continued to live as persons did in the Golden Age, and all other nations have less pleasant lives because they have allowed themselves to depart from original simplicity.

Acadia

The 16th-century Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano applied the name "Arcadia" to the entire North American Atlantic coast north of Virginia. In time, this mutated to Acadia. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography says: "Arcadia, the name Verrazzano gave to Maryland or Virginia 'on account of the beauty of the trees', made its first cartographical appearance in the 1548 Gastaldo map and is the only name on that map to survive in Canadian usage. . . . In the 17th century Champlain fixed its present orthography, with the 'r' omitted, and Ganong has shown its gradual progress northwards, in a succession of maps, to its resting place in the Atlantic Provinces".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia_(utopia)

ark (n.)

Middle English arke, from Old English earc, Old Northumbrian arc, mainly meaning Noah's, but also the Ark of the Covenant (the coffer holding the tables of the law in the sanctum sanctorum), from Latin arca "large box, chest" (see arcane), the word used in the Vulgate. It also was borrowed in Old High German (arahha, Modern German Arche).

In general as "a coffer, a box" by late 12c. Also sometimes in Middle English "the breast or chest as the seat of emotions." From the Noachian sense comes the extended meaning "place of refuge" (17c.). As the name of a type of ship or boat, from late 15c. In 19c. U.S., especially a large, flat-bottomed river boat to move produce, livestock, etc. to market.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/ark 

archaeology (n.)

c. 1600, "ancient history," from French archéologie (16c.) or directly from Greek arkhaiologia "the study of ancient things;" see archaeo- + -ology. The meaning "scientific study of ancient peoples and past civilizations" is recorded by 1825.

also from c. 1600

https://www.etymonline.com/word/archaeology

archaic (adj.)

1810, from or by influence of French archaique (1776), ultimately from Greek arkhaikos "old-fashioned," from arkhaios "ancient, old-fashioned, antiquated, primitive," from arkhē "beginning, origin," verbal noun of arkhein "to be the first," hence "to begin" and "to rule" (see archon). Not merely crude, the archaic has "a rudeness and imperfection implying the promise of future advance" [Century Dictionary]. Archaical is attested from 1799.

also from 1810

https://www.etymonline.com/word/archaic 

The Royal Arch is a degree of Freemasonry. The Royal Arch is present in all main masonic systems, though in some it is worked as part of Craft ('mainstream') Freemasonry, and in others in an appendant ('additional') order. Royal Arch Masons meet as a Chapter; in the Supreme Order of the Royal Arch as practised in the British Isles, much of Europe and the Commonwealth, Chapters confer the single degree of Royal Arch Mason.

Membership

In the British Isles, most of continental Europe (including the masonically expanding states of eastern Europe),[1] and most nations of the Commonwealth (with the notable exception of Canada), the teachings of Royal Arch Masonry are contained in the "Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch" – a stand-alone degree of Freemasonry which is open to those who have completed the three Craft degrees. Until 1823, only freemasons who had previously passed through the chair of a Craft lodge were allowed to join. Today, candidates for an English Royal Arch Chapter are required to have been a Master Mason for four weeks or more.[2]

In Freemasonry in Scotland, the candidate for the Royal Arch must also be a Mark Master Mason, a degree which is part of the Royal Arch series. It can be worked in the Chapter, or more often has been worked in a Scottish Lodge. After the Mark degree, a candidate must receive the Excellent Master degree, before being exalted to the Royal Arch degree. In Ireland a candidate must be a Master Mason for one year before being admitted as a member of a Royal Arch Chapter. The Degree of Mark Master Mason is taken separately first and only then can the Royal Arch Degree be taken.

In the United States, Canada, Brazil, Israel, Mexico, Paraguay and the Philippines, the Royal Arch is not worked as a stand-alone degree as described above, but forms part of the York Rite system of additional Masonic degrees. Royal Arch Masons in the York Rite also meet as a Chapter, but the Royal Arch Chapter of the York Rite confers four different degrees: 'Mark Master Mason', 'Virtual Past Master', 'Most Excellent Master', and 'Royal Arch Mason'. While the York Rite degree of 'Royal Arch Mason' is roughly comparable to the Supreme Order of the Royal Arch as practised in England and Wales, the other degrees may have equivalents in other appendant orders.

The Royal Arch is also the subject of the 13th and 14th degrees of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (called "Ancient and Accepted Rite" in England and Wales).

Purpose and teaching

Similarly to Craft Freemasonry, the Royal Arch conveys moral and ethical lessons. In the three degrees of the Craft, the candidate is presented with a series of practical principles of service to his fellow man and begins journey of self discovery. The Royal Arch completes this journey by developing this latter aspect. In the Chapter, the teachings of the Royal Arch are conveyed using a ritualised allegory based on the Old Testament telling of the return to Jerusalem from the Babylonian captivity to rebuild the City and Temple. In clearing the ground of Solomon's Temple for the foundations of a new temple, the candidate makes important discoveries.[3] By adding a further explanation to the practical lessons of Craft Freemasonry, the Royal Arch is seen as an extension of the preceding degrees[4] and the philosophical lessons conveyed are appropriate to that stage in a candidate's Masonic development. The symbol or Grand Emblem of Royal Arch Masonry is the Triple Tau.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Royal_Arch

Thirteenth Rule. To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it, believing that between Christ our Lord, the Bridegroom, and the Church, His Bride, there is the same Spirit which governs and directs us for the salvation of our souls. Because by the same Spirit and our Lord Who gave the ten Commandments, our holy Mother the Church is directed and governed."

The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YC_luOfFWl0Bm0BWkbANKZGC1kkmdHQf/view?usp=sharing

Fourteenth Rule. Although there is much truth in the assertion that no one can save himself without being predestined and without having faith and grace; we must be very cautious in the manner of speaking and communicating with others about all these things.

The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YC_luOfFWl0Bm0BWkbANKZGC1kkmdHQf/view?usp=sharing

PART X THE PRESERVATION AND INCREASE OF THE SOCIETY

410 §1. As a sign of gratitude and devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, let that feast be solemnly celebrated; and on that day is to be renewed the consecration by which the Society on January 1, 1872, dedicated and consecrated itself totally and perpetually.

§2. The consecration to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary is to be renewed each year on the feast of the Immaculate Heart.[1]

411 The sense of belonging and responsibility that each individual one of Ours has toward the whole Society should be manifested in a knowledge of our spirituality, our history, our saints, our apostolic labors, and our men, especially of those who are suffering difficulties for the sake of Christ; it is to be manifested as well by maintaining Ignatian mobility and flexibility with a view to helping any region of the Society whatsoever.[2]

412 §1. All our members should have at heart a shared concern for attracting new members to the Society, especially by prayer and the example of their lives as individuals and in community.[3]

§2. Therefore, we must do everything possible actively to present the Society in such a way that those whom God calls will know and appreciate who and what we are and what is our distinctive way of proceeding in the following of Christ.[4]

§3. We must also promote vocations as widely as possible, in order to reflect the culture and experience of those we seek to serve, including minority cultures, immigrants, and indigenous people.[5]

413 The Society should always show itself bound to its benefactors in charity and gratitude. Superiors should ensure that prayers are offered for them and other appropriate signs of our gratitude are shown them.[6]

414 In the perfect observance of all the Constitutions and in the particular fulfillment of our Institute, our formed members should excel, setting a good example and spreading the good odor of Christ, keeping before their eyes the serious obligation they have of giving edification especially to our younger members.[ 7]

415 All by earnest reading and meditation (in particular, at the time of the annual Spiritual Exercises, renewal of vows, monthly recollection, beginning of the year, and so forth) should strive ever to know, esteem, and love better our Constitutions and the special nature of our Institute,[ 8] which are to be faithfully observed, and which for each and all of us are the one, true, and safe way that surely leads to the perfection to which our Lord calls and invites all sons of the Society.[9] §2. Major superiors, especially at the time of the annual visitation, should see that this is faithfully observed.

416 Finally, those means that are proposed by our holy father Saint Ignatius in Part X of the Constitutions for the preservation and development not only of the body or exterior of the Society but also of its spirit, and for the attainment of the objective it seeks, which is to aid souls to reach their ultimate and supernatural end, [10] are to be observed eagerly and diligently by all, with a truly personal sense of responsibility for its increase and development, for the praise and service of our God and Lord Jesus Christ, and the help of souls.[11]

L. D. S.

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf

PART VI 1THE PERSONAL LIFE OF THOSE ALREADY ADMITTED AND INCORPORATED INTO THE BODY OF THE SOCIETY

SECTION 1: THE APOSTOLIC CHARACTER OF OUR VOWS IN GENERAL

143 §1. Our consecration by profession of the evangelical counsels, by which we respond to a divine vocation, is at one and the same time the following of Christ poor, virginal, and obedient and a rejection of those idols that the world is always prepared to adore, especially wealth, pleasure, prestige, and power. Hence, our poverty, chastity, and obedience ought visibly and efficaciously to bear witness to this attitude, whereby we proclaim the evangelical possibility of a certain communion among men and women that is a foretaste of the future kingdom of God.[1]

§2. Our religious vows, while binding us, also set us FREE:

FREE, by our vow of poverty, to share the life of the poor and to use whatever resources we may have, not for our own security and comfort, but for service;

FREE, by our vow of chastity, to be men for others, in friendship and communion with all, but especially with those who share our mission of service;

FREE, by our vow of obedience, to respond to the call of Christ as made known to us by him whom the Spirit has placed over the Church, and to follow the lead of all our superiors.[2] [1] See GC 32, d. 4, no. 16; see GC 31, d. 16, no. 4; d. 17, no. 2; d. 18, no. 3. [2] GC 32, d. 2, no. 20. 215

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf

Valley of Traverse City

ANCIENT ACCEPTED SCOTTISH RITE

The History and Legend of Scottish Rite Origins

The Story Unfolds…

Like much of early Masonic history, the origins of the Scottish Rite are uncertain. This is primarily due to the lack of historic documentation prior to the early 1700’s and not to any great veiled mystery. The few records kept were subject to loss, fire, weather and aging. So we can at best only speculate on many of our origins by looking at the few documents, historical references and legends that remain.

What We Know

n 1754, near Paris, Chevalier de Bonneville established the Chapter of Clermont. The Chapter resided in the College of Jesuits of Clermont, hence the name. It is said to have been created to honor the Duc de Clermont, then Grand Master of the English Grand Lodge of France.

The Chapter of Clermont was a “Chapter of the Advanced Degrees” and initially entailed six degrees and was later extended to 25 known degrees. The six initial degrees were 1˚, 2˚ and 3˚ St John’s Masonry, 4˚ Knight of the Eagle, 5˚ Illustrious Knight or Templar, 6˚ Sublime Illustrious Knight.

Interestingly enough historically, prior to the time of the Rite’s creation, James II had been in residence at Clermont in exile from Britain from 1688 to his death in 1701. As noted by German Masonic historian, Lenning… “whilst in exile, James II residing at the Jesuit College of Clermont in France, allowed his closest associates to fabricate certain degrees in order to extend their political views.” Lenning believed this to have been an attempt on the part of James and his associates to regain control of the British throne for the House of Stuart. If Lenning is right, this places the origins of the “Rite of Perfection” in the hands of James II and the Jacobite (Stuart) Freemasons who at the time were in exile from Great Britain throughout France and Italy. Lenning also contends that these degrees were introduced into French Freemasonry under the name of the Clermont System.

James II died in exile in 1701. His son James III is said to have continued his father’s Masonic legacy and later created further higher degrees.

Perhaps James II saw in the Jesuit morality plays of the College of Clermont a vessel for passing on a set of moral lessons. Some of the world’s greatest playwrights had emerged from Clermont. Jesuit tutelage had previously produced great writers such as Lope de Vega, Moliere, Racine, and the Corneille brothers. Ensconced in exile, I believe James II did find the inspiration and the training to help produce what would later become the first six degrees. From out of the darkness… comes light.

To be continued… (Author’s note… An in depth look at the Templar influence in Scottish Rite masonry’s origins can be found by visiting the Rosslyn Templars’ website.)"

https://web.archive.org/web/20190615041607/http://www.traversecityscottishrite.com/scottish-rite-history.html

32 Let Christ the king of Israel now come down from the cross, that we may see, and believe. They also that were crucified with him, reviled him.

Mark 15:32

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark%2015&version=GNV

MISSIONS FROM THE SUPREME PONTIFF

252 §1. To be truly Christian, our service to the Church must be anchored in fidelity to Christ, who makes all things new; to be proper to the Society, it must be done in union with the successors of Peter[32]

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts

THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES

SAINT LOUIS, 1996

https://web.archive.org/web/20200211182223/https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf

Note 370.—"Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret. The 32nd degree of the Ancient and Accepted rite, and for many years, or until the institution of the 33d degree, this was the highest degree, or ne plus ultra of Masonry. The body is styled a Consistory, and should be held in a building of two stories. The officers are, a Thrice Illustrious Commander, First and Second Lieutenants, a Minister of State, a Grand Chancellor, a Grand Treasurer, a Grand Secretary, and a Grand Captain of the Guard. In the East a throne, elevated on seven steps, which is the seat of the Thrice Illustrious Commander, who wears a robe of royal purple, and he and the Lieutenants, wear swords. The collar of this degree is black, lined with scarlet, and in the center, at the point, a double-headed eagle, of silver or gold, on a red Teutonic cross. The apron is of white satin, with a border of gold lace, one inch wide, lined with scarlet; on the flap is a double-headed eagle, on each side of which is the flag of the country in which the body is located, the flag of Prussia and the Beause- -ant of the Kadosh degree; on the apron is the camp of the Crusaders, , which is thus explained; it is composed of an enneagon, within which is ' inscribed a heptagon, within that a pentagon, and in the center an equilateral triangle, within which is a circle. Between the heptagon and pentagon are placed five standards, in the designs of whigjl are five letters, which form a particular word. The first standard is purple, on which is emblazoned the ark of the covenant, with a palm, tree on each side; the ark has the motto Laus Deo. The second is blue, on which is a lion, of gold, couchant, holding in his mouth a golden key, with a collar of the same metal on his neck, and on it is the device, Ad majorem Dei gloriam. The third is white, and displays a heart in flames, with two wings; it is surmounted by a crown of laurels. The fourth is green, and bears a double-headed black eagle, crowned, holding a sword in his right claw, and a bleeding heart in his left. The fifth bears a black ox. on a field of gold. On the sides of the enneagon are nine tents, with flags, representing the divisions of the Masonic army; on the angles are nine pinions, of the same color as the flag of the tent that precedes it. The hall of the Consistory is hung with black, strewed with tears of silver. The jewel is a double-headed white and black eagle, resting on a Teutonic cross, of gold, worn attached to the collar or ribbon. ^The members are called Sublime Princes of the Royal Secret. The moral of the degree teaches opposition to bigotry, superstition, and all the passions and vices which disgrace human nature."—Macoy's Encyclopaedia and Pictionary of Freemasonry, Article Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret

Genesis 16

1599 Geneva Bible

16 3 Sarai being barren giveth Hagar to Abram. 4 Which conceiveth and despiseth her dame: 6 And being ill handled, fleeth. 7 The Angel comforteth her. 11, 12 The name and manners of her son. 13 She calleth upon the Lord, whom she findeth true.

1 Now [a]Sarai Abram’s wife bore him no children, and she had a maid an Egyptian, Hagar by name.

2 And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the Lord hath [b]restrained me from childbearing, I pray thee go in unto my maid: [c]it may be that I shall [d]receive a child by her. And Abram obeyed the voice of Sarai.

3 Then Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelled ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram for his wife.

4 ¶ And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her dame was [e]despised in her eyes.

5 Then Sarai said to Abram, [f]Thou doest me wrong, I have given my maid into thy bosom, and she seeth that she hath conceived, and I am despised in her eyes: the Lord judge between me and thee.

6 Then Abram said to Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thine [g]hand: do with her as it pleaseth thee. Then Sarai dealt roughly with her: wherefore she fled from her.

7 ¶ But the [h]Angel of the Lord found her beside a fountain in the way of Shur,

8 And he said, Hagar Sarai’s maid, whence comest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from my dame Sarai.

9 Then the Angel of the Lord said to her, [i]Return to thy dame, and humble thyself under her hands.

10 Again the Angel of the Lord said unto her, I will so greatly increase thy seed, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.

11 Also the Angel of the Lord said unto her, See, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael: for the Lord hath heard thy tribulation.

12 And he shall be a [j]wild man: his hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him, and [k]he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.

13 Then she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God lookest on me: for she said, [l]Have I not also here looked after him that seeth me?

14 Wherefore the Well was called, [m]Beer Lahai Roi: lo, it is between Kadesh and Bered.

15 ¶ And Hagar bare Abram a son, and Abram called his son’s name which Hagar bare, Ishmael.

16 And Abram was four score and six years old when Hagar bare him Ishmael.

Footnotes

Genesis 16:1 It seemeth that she had respect to God’s promise, which could not be accomplished without issue.

Genesis 16:2 She faileth in binding God’s power to the common order of nature, as though God could not give her children in her old age.

Genesis 16:2 Or, peradventure.

Genesis 16:2 Hebrew, be built by her.

Genesis 16:4 This punishment declareth what they gain that attempt anything against the word of God.

Genesis 16:5 Hebrew, mine injury is upon thee.

Genesis 16:6 Or, power.

Genesis 16:7 Which was Christ, as appeareth verse 13 and Gen. 18:17.

Genesis 16:9 God rejecteth none estate of people in their misery, but sendeth them comfort.

Genesis 16:12 Or, fierce and cruel, or; as a wild ass.

Genesis 16:12 That is, the Ishmaelites shall be a peculiar people by themselves, and not a portion of another people.

Genesis 16:13 She rebuketh her own dullness and acknowledgeth God’s graces, who was present with her everywhere.

Genesis 16:14 Or, the well of the living, and seeing me.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2016&version=GNV

Ignatius of Loyola: Apostle to the Muslims

Posted on: 26th July 2016  |Author: Damian Howard SJ

Category: The Jesuits

Tags: Feast of St Ignatius, Ignatius, Islam, interreligious, Jesuit history

To educate the youth of Europe? To fight the spread of Protestantism? While many people would guess that one or both of these ambitions drove Ignatius of Loyola to found the Jesuits, he actually had something else in mind: a mission to the Muslim world. For the feast of St Ignatius, Damian Howard SJ considers how ‘Islam haunted Ignatius’s understanding of his calling’ and celebrates the fruitful work of the many Jesuits who have tried to realise Ignatius’s vision in their engagement with Muslims.

Ask the average Catholic why St Ignatius of Loyola founded the Society of Jesus and they will likely say one of two things. First, remembering the Jesuits as bastions of the Counter-Reformation they might assume that Ignatius, militant Catholic that he was, had set out with a dream of a new religious order capable of defeating Protestantism. But whilst it was the case that the Jesuits would be active in efforts to reform the Catholic Church from within and to take on the growing power of Protestant theology and culture as it spread across Europe, this was never Ignatius’s underlying vision. Second, they might suppose that Ignatius had planned from the start a vast network of new schools which would revolutionise education throughout the continent. It’s true that this is indeed what Jesuit schools ended up doing, earning the order’s members the epithet of the ‘schoolmasters of Europe’, but this huge and innovative project came about as the result of a proposal made to Ignatius after he had already become Superior General of the new order; it was never education per se that he saw as its prime mission.

So the following claim may be unexpected: Ignatius’s original apostolic orientation was actually defined in relation to the Muslim world.

This shouldn’t be entirely surprising given the state of Europe at that time in history. Ignatius was born in the Basque country in 1491. Just one year later, the Reconquista reached its conclusion with the Catholic Kings finally ousting the last Muslim rulers from their vestigial Andalusian states, giving Christian princes possession of the whole Iberian Peninsula. The year 1492 was also notable for another major geopolitical event involving Spain: the European discovery of the New World. It was all but impossible to avoid the thought that America was the reward for Spanish triumph against the Moors. Now, the energy which had propelled the Spanish conquest of the Iberian Peninsula would be released outwards; the colonial age of conquest and exploitation was dawning for a new Catholic Spain and it was to be a golden age for Spanish Catholicism. We may rightly harbour ambiguous feelings about this aggressively Christian state but this was a moment when Spanish Catholics must have felt like masters of the world.

But Spain was the exception in Europe. The rest of the continent cowered under the threat of imminent Muslim invasion, not from the South but from the Ottoman Turks in the East. The sixteenth century was to see the high-water mark of Ottoman interest in Central and Eastern Europe. Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan from 1520-1566, would personally lead the push all the way into Hungary as well as taking control of Mediterranean islands like Rhodes and swathes of North Africa. With Turkish armies besieging Vienna, no-one on the continental mainland could feel confident that Christianity would retain indefinitely its hegemonic grip. It’s worth remembering that part of the urgency of the Reformation itself lay in its apocalyptic fear of the Turkish menace. Luther thought that the Muslim invaders were to be God’s chastisement for a Europe mired in the ‘horrible abomination of the papal darkness and idolatry’.[i] He wanted his Protestant Christians to die martyrs of the true faith rather than fighting in some allegedly holy war blasphemously prosecuted in Christ’s name.

The Reformation can be better understood within the context of this much larger clash, dare I say, of civilisations. And Ignatius wanted to play his part in it. How can one be confident of such a claim? Because, right from the start, Ignatius’s stated apostolic impulse was towards the Muslim world.

You can see it most obviously in the account given in his Autobiography of the conversion experience he went through as he was convalescing in his ancestral home in Loyola. He had suffered a severe cannon wound in the leg during military action in Pamplona. His moment of conversion came about when he noticed the subtlest of differences between the after-effects of two daydreams:

When he thought of worldly things it gave him great pleasure, but afterward he found himself dry and sad. But when he thought of journeying to Jerusalem, and of living only on herbs, and practising austerities, he found pleasure not only while thinking of them, but also when he had ceased.

He took that difference between his affective responses to be indicative of the way God was leading him on his life journey. Judging that the enduring good feelings associated with the journey to Jerusalem showed it to be God’s will for him, he undertook to follow the second programme, going on pilgrimage and living the ascetical, penitential life of a mendicant. The journey to Jerusalem, then, was what he presented to the outside world as his earliest apostolic desire. Its association with his conversion experience also makes it, surely, something of a touchstone of his on-going spiritual discernment.[ii]

But what exactly did pilgrimage to Jerusalem signify? Pilgrimage to the Holy Land had been the most potent form of devotion available to medieval Christians and, for Ignatius, it is clear that proximity to the site of the incarnation was a central attraction; at one stage, he would go to extravagant lengths to work out the precise direction in which the Lord must have been looking at the moment of his Ascension. But at the time, the Holy City was also under the rule of the Ottoman Turks, the Crusades having failed to win back for Christian Europe the territory once held by the Roman Empire. To visit Jerusalem was, thus, to enter the House of Islam.

If we look at the Spiritual Exercises, especially the ‘Call of the Eternal King’ (93), we might surmise that the trip had a crusading flavour to it. But Ignatius wasn’t planning to travel as a soldier. Instead, in addition to visiting the holy places, he intended to stay in Jerusalem permanently, if the Lord was pleased to allow him, so as to preach Christian doctrine to the infidel (probably Jews as well as Muslims), this, even though European Christians had long found such missionary work to be not particularly fruitful.[iii] There is clearly a penitential streak to Ignatius’s intentions at this stage and so perhaps we should also allow for the possible presence of a darker scenario: a veiled desire here to win martyrdom. We are reminded of the martyrs of Córdoba, a group consisting principally of Franciscan friars who, in spite of St Francis’ directive to live as silent witness among the Muslims, had sought to goad their Muslim governors into executing them by making overtly blasphemous statements about Muhammad. It’s a repeated trope in the early Middle Ages and it is possible that Ignatius felt himself drawn to act after their example.

Whatever Ignatius was up to, this pilgrimage project came to encapsulate his self-understanding, certainly for the first few years after his conversion and, arguably, for the rest of his life; moreover, it gave him the epithet of ‘the Pilgrim’ which he uses in his Autobiography to designate himself in the third person. When he finally made it to the Holy Land in 1523, he desired to remain there but the Provincial of the Franciscans told him that others in the past who had had the same idea had either died or ended up in a Turkish prison. Ignatius was stubborn. The Franciscan, knowing trouble when he saw it, threatened him with excommunication and so the Basque Pilgrim finally relented. But the longing to return to and remain in Jerusalem was strong enough in Ignatius’s heart that it survived fifteen years of studies and apostolic activities; for when as late as 1538 he finally managed to assemble the group of Companions who would go on to form the core of the new Society of Jesus, he was still intent on their heading back to the Holy Land. It was only the impossibility of travelling that year, thanks to the activity of the Turks themselves, which led him finally to give up on Jerusalem and turn his sights to Rome.

It was a fateful shift. Gradually, the dream of Jerusalem would be side-lined and a new apostolic orientation would move centre stage. Italy, as Pope Paul III put it, would be Ignatius’s Jerusalem. And so it was that the young Jesuit order placed itself at the disposal of the universal Church directly under the Roman Pontiff where it would be best placed to meet the various needs that would present themselves. ‘The infidel’ still manages an appearance in the ‘Formula of the Institute’ which founds the Society of Jesus but it looks like an afterthought.  So much, you might think, for Ignatius’s apostolate to the Muslims…

There are good reasons, nevertheless, for believing that Islam continued to haunt Ignatius’s understanding of his calling. A curious incident early on in the pilgrimage narrative gives us a clue. It is an encounter between the Pilgrim and a Moor whom he meets as he makes his way through the Spanish countryside. Here is how he tells the story with hindsight in his Autobiography:

As he continued on his way a Moor riding on a mule caught up with him, and in their conversation they began to speak about our Lady. The Moor said that it certainly seemed to him that the Virgin had conceived without the aid of man, but he could not believe that in giving birth she remained a virgin. To substantiate his opinion, he offered the natural reasons that occurred to him. Though the pilgrim countered with many arguments he could not alter the Moor’s opinion. The Moor then went on ahead in great haste so that he lost sight of him; being left behind, he reflected on what took place between him and the Moor. Various emotions welled up in him and he became disturbed in soul, thinking that he had failed to do what he should have done. Filled with anger against the Moor and thinking that he had done wrong in allowing the Moor to utter such things about our Lady, he concluded that he was obliged to restore her honour. He now desired to search out the Moor and strike him with his dagger for all that he had said. This conflict in his desires remained with him for some time, but in the end he was still uncertain for he did not know what was required of him.

As well as giving a precious insight into Christian-Muslim relations in the early sixteenth century, this cameo tells us much about how Ignatius looked back in later life over the winding journey that had brought him to Rome. He wants his readers to be shocked by the spiritual ineptitude which characterised his early years. His confusion is resolved in rather a worrying manner: he leaves it to his mule to decide whether or not to take a human life. The sage beast, seemingly much more attuned to the promptings of the Spirit than the saint-to-be, rejects the path of violence and the rest, as they say, is history. What is significant for our purposes is that Ignatius’s story suggests an association in his mind between startling spiritual immaturity and a violent, confrontational approach to Muslims. He may not have drawn any solid conclusions about what a more mature response might look like but the doubt must have niggled.

Ignatius definitely did not give up on his ideas of a mission to Muslims, even if they take a back seat: during his tenure as General he set up a Casa dei catechumeni in Rome for Jews and Muslims wanting to convert to Christianity, an Arabic-speaking house in Messina, a college for the study of Arabic in Monreale and a study programme in Islamics in Malta. He had further plans for projects aimed at the mission to Muslims in Beirut, Cyprus and Djerba in modern Tunisia.

We also have two letters, written in August 1552 by his secretary, Juan de Polanco, to Jerónimo Nadal, in which Ignatius advocates the raising of a European fleet to fight off the Ottoman Turks. As Philip Endean points out, even if the older Ignatius had learned to be suspicious of his earlier, irascible impulses towards a Muslim, still, when it comes to thinking of the Turks, it is purely as an

enemy to be conquered, the enemy menacing Christendom. Any full statement of mission at the frontiers had to include them, but in immediate practice they were simply an unknown and destabilising threat, one perhaps that it was often impolite to name.[iv]

A Challenging Legacy

Ignatius’s Islamic itinerary leaves us with bewildering questions rather than a coherent vision and it may or may not be significant that all these grand endeavours vis-à-vis the Muslims either did not get off the ground in the first place or did not last. If there is, indeed, a palpable sense of unresolved business here, Islam had, nevertheless, lodged itself as a constituent part of the Jesuits’ DNA, as we can see with the benefit of hindsight. For Ignatius’s sons (along with members of other religious orders, not least the Franciscans, the Dominicans and the White Fathers) have demonstrated consistent and persistent interest in the Muslim world.

Jesuits were present in Istanbul by 1582 and by 1650 had set up a presence in Izmir, Aleppo, Damascus, Sidon and Lebanese Tripoli. Their most iconic engagement with the Muslim world was the series of missions sent to the court of the Mogul Emperor Akbar in late sixteenth century India. Fr Jerome Xavier (1549-1617), the great-nephew of St Francis Xavier, was to be the principal protagonist in a bold engagement with Persian-speaking Islam. His most significant literary work was an explanation of Christianity aimed at the Emperor and other Muslims, the so-called Mirror of Holiness (Mir’at al-Quds) (1602).

Actually meeting Muslims in their own countries may not instantly have changed the way Jesuits thought theologically about Islam but it did help them slowly to develop an accurate understanding of the religion rather than rely on the polemics and distortions which had been the medieval default position. And that did bear fruit quite quickly: back in the Jesuit colleges of Europe, lessons on Islam were an integral part of Antonio Possevino’s great Ratio Studiorum (1593), a standard text which deals with Islam at some length and in a surprisingly sympathetic manner.

For most of their history, Jesuits were not allowed to converse about matters religious with Muslims in Muslim-majority countries for fear that in doing so they might jeopardise their freedom to act in those territories. This did not prevent them from chatting to them on their holidays. Tirso González (1624-1705), a future Jesuit General himself, wrote his Manductio ad conversionem mahumetanorum out of his personal experience preaching to Muslims in the coastal towns of Spain during his vacation. A huge volume at nearly 900 pages, it shows a surprisingly accurate knowledge of Islam, of typical Muslim objections to Christianity, of tafsir (Qur’anic commentaries) and hadith. For a polemical text it is also disarmingly sympathetic to Islamic beliefs and practices.

A French Jesuit, Michel Nau (1633-1683) had travelled to the Holy Land and engaged in conversation with Muslims there. His Religio christiana contra Alcoranum per Alcoranum pacifiche defensa ac probate stands out from similar texts as a refreshing defence of respectful interreligious encounter. Written as a fictional dialogue, it assumes a startlingly modern mood of respect, humility and friendship. Perhaps such openness is down to the fact that he was operating outside Europe and knew he could not proselytise openly. More likely, it is part of that Jesuit tradition of generous engagement with the religious other that can be found in a number of early Jesuits, including Ignatius’s Letters, the ministry of St Pierre Favre to European Protestants, and the approach advocated at various times by Jerónimo Nadal and Diego Laínez. The denouement of Nau’s dialogue must have been shocking at a time when Christianity thought of itself as being in the ascendant: the Muslim protagonist agrees that Christianity is a legitimate expression of monotheism (no mean concession given traditional Muslim hostility to the doctrine of the Trinity) but he does not accept Christianity as the only way to salvation and refuses to convert.

A moment of great significance in the evolution of the Jesuit mission to Muslims occurs in 1937 when Fr General Ledochowski sends a letter to Jesuits around the globe appealing for a new generation of missionaries to be trained with the explicit task of converting the Muslim world. Ledochowski was a strong personality of markedly right wing views and his letter is far from betokening an enlightened vision; during his time as General, he seems to have been behind a move to bolster anti-Semitic sentiment in Rome. Behind his letter can be traced the influence of an energetic Frenchman, Christophe de Bonneville, regional superior in Egypt at a time when the domination of that great Muslim country by European powers seemed to open up new missionary possibilities. The idea of Jesuits explicitly setting out to convert Muslims in Muslim-majority lands represented a fundamental break with previous practice.

This opportunistic ploy, which relied on raw European power, never took off in the way Ledochowski had intended, thwarted by the outbreak of war. By the time the dust had settled, the world had moved on. Newly independent Muslim-majority nations, having flung off the yoke of their former colonial masters, would make such blatant missionary work all but impossible; already in the offing was a freshly assertive Islam. As things turned out, the one practical outcome of the General’s letter was the establishment of a course in Islamics at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome.

But Ledochowski’s idea of training a generation of Jesuits as specialists in Islam lingered on, even if the style of their engagement would turn out not to be polemically confrontational but dialogical. A group of inspiring Catholics would now come to the fore whose example instilled into this new generation a genuine desire to study the Islamic tradition in depth: the Cistercian Blessed Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), the great French Islamicist, Louis Massignon (1883 – 1962) and the Spanish priest and expert in Islamic spirituality, Miguel Asín Palacios (1871-1944).

By the latter half of the twentieth century, the fruits of this new engagement were already palpable. Some Jesuits had studied Sufism. Paul Nwyia’s work on the mystic Ibn Abbād of Ronda stands out as a fine example, consummated in a remarkable book on Qur’anic exegesis and the language of mysticism, published in 1969. Still very much alive is an Australian Jesuit, Paul Jackson, who has spent the latter half of his life in India working on the letters of a Sufi saint, Sharfuddin Ahmed Yahya Maneri, whose splendid shrine can be seen in Biharsharif.

Others have explored the question of the reform of modern Islam. The German scholar, Christian Troll, was inspired by a plea from a Dutch Jesuit, J.J. Houben, calling for Islamic renewal and suggesting that Catholics were in a position to help. His experience of the Second Vatican Council’s inner tensions between conservatives and reformers led him to look at the inner dynamics at work in the Muslim world. Troll’s book on the Indian reformer, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, remains the standard text on his theology. Alongside him is an Egyptian Jesuit, Samir Khalil Samir, who has worked for decades on the patrimony of Eastern Christianity and so finds himself regularly writing about Islam with a particular concern for its engagement with modern values.

There are experts, too, in dialogue with Muslims. I think of Thomas Michel, an American Jesuit who worked for many years in Indonesia before being sent to work at the Curia of Pope St John Paul II, the Pontiff who did more than any other to build bonds of friendship between the Church and Muslims. Then there is Daniel Madigan, another Australian, whose interest in Islam started during his time in Pakistan. He pursued an interest in Qur’anic studies and taught at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome for some time, and now teaches at Georgetown University in the States. From there, he directs a uniquely fruitful dialogue: an annual series of encounters between Muslim and Christian scholars called ‘Building Bridges’. Felix Körner, a German Jesuit, took over Madigan’s work with Muslims at the Gregorian and has published books on Qur’anic exegesis and Christian approaches to Islam.

https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/ignatius-loyola-apostle-muslims

Ignatius Loyola, a Catholic Priest, theologian and founder of the Jesuit Order of the Catholic Church in the 16th Century, said, among his many inspiring sayings, “Go forth and set the world on fire."

Inferno (Italian: [iɱˈfɛrno]; Italian for "Hell") is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. The Inferno describes Dante's journey through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth; it is the "realm ... of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen".[1] As an allegory, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul toward God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin.[2]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)

Fire as the agent of Truth

Asha Vahishta is closely associated with fire. Fire is "grandly conceived as a force informing all the other Amesha Spentas, giving them warmth and the spark of life."[27] In Yasht 17.20, Angra Mainyu clamours that Zoroaster burns him with Asha Vahishta. In Vendidad 4.54-55, speaking against the truth and violating the sanctity of promise is detected by the consumption of "water, blazing, of golden color, having the power to detect guilt."

This analogy of truth that burns and detecting truth through fire is already attested in the very earliest texts, that is, in the Gathas and in the Yasna Haptanghaiti. In Yasna 43–44, Ahura Mazda dispenses justice through radiance of His fire and the strength of aṣ̌a. Fire "detects" sinners "by hand-grasping" (Yasna 34.4). An individual who has passed the fiery test (garmo-varah, ordeal by heat), has attained physical and spiritual strength, wisdom, truth and love with serenity (Yasna 30.7). Altogether, "there are said to have been some 30 kinds of fiery tests in all."[28] According to the post-Sassanid Dadestan i denig (I.31.10), at the final judgement a river of molten metal will cover the earth. The righteous, as they wade through this river, will perceive the molten metal as a bath of warm milk. The wicked will be scorched. For details on aṣ̌a's role in personal and final judgement, see aṣ̌a in eschatology, below.

Fire is moreover the "auxiliary of the truth," "and not only, as in the ordeal, of justice and of truth at the same time."[11] In Yasna 31.19, "the man who thinks of aṣ̌a, [...] who uses his tongue in order to speak correctly, [does so] with the aid of brilliant fire". In Yasna 34-44 devotees "ardently desire [Mazda's] mighty fire, through aṣ̌a." In Yasna 43–44, Ahura Mazda "shall come to [Zoroaster] through the splendour of [Mazda's] fire, possessing the strength of (through) aṣ̌a and good mind (=Vohu Manah)." That fire "possesses strength through aṣ̌a" is repeated again in Yasna 43.4. In Yasna 43.9, Zoroaster, wishing to serve fire, gives his attention to aṣ̌a. In Yasna 37.1, in a list of what are otherwise all physical creations, aṣ̌a takes the place of fire.

Asha Vahishta's association with atar is carried forward in the post-Gathic texts, and they are often mentioned together. In Zoroastrian cosmogony, each of the Amesha Spentas represents one aspect of creation and one of seven primordial elements that in Zoroastrian tradition are the basis of that creation. In this matrix, aṣ̌a/arta is the origin of fire, Avestan atar, which permeates through all Creation. The correspondence then is that aṣ̌a/arta "penetrates all ethical life, as fire penetrates all physical being."[12]

In the liturgy Asha Vahishta is frequently invoked together with fire. (Yasna l.4, 2.4, 3.6, 4.9, 6.3, 7.6, 17.3, 22.6, 59.3, 62.3 etc.). In one passage, fire is a protector of aṣ̌a: "when the Evil Spirit assailed the creation of Good Truth, Good Thought and Fire intervened" (Yasht 13.77)

In later Zoroastrian tradition, Asha Vahishta is still at times identified with the fire of the household hearth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asha

The Knight’s Templar was expelled from the Papacy in 1312 by Pope Clement V and Philip IV of France. The few Templars who escaped went to the powerful kingdom of Aragon and became known as the Order of the Calatrava, who would later align with the the Montessa. In 1534, a Spanish nobleman by the name of Ignatius Loyola would revive the Templars and call them the "Society of Jesus." Loyola was a Templar, and a member of a secret society called the "Alumbrados."  The third Superior General and co-founder of the order was Francis Borgia. The Borgia bloodline is part of the notorious "Black Nobility" which dates back to the ancient Ptolemaic period in history."

Exposing the Jesuits and the Papacy: The Jesuits are the revived Knights Templar (jesuitinquisition.blogspot.com)

http://jesuitinquisition.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-jesuits-are-revived-knights-templar.html

"The Order of Calatrava (Spanish: Orden de Calatrava, Portuguese: Ordem de Calatrava) was one of the four Spanish military orders and the first military order founded in Castile, but the second to receive papal approval. The papal bull confirming the Order of Calatrava was given by Pope Alexander III on September 26, 1164. Most of the political and military power of the order had dissipated by the end of the 15th century, but the last dissolution of the order's property did not occur until 1838.'

"Modern TimesIn 1931, once again unilaterally, the Second Spanish Republic suppressed the Spanish Orders. To survive, they had to resort to the Ley de Asociaciones Civiles ("Law of Civil Associations"), leading a precarious existence until the Concordat of 1953 recognized the Priory. Afterward, by the papal bull Constat militarium, the Priory was reduced to a mere title of the Bishop of Ciudad Real.In 1980, upon request by his august father, who was appointed Dean President of the Council, King Juan Carlos I by royal initiative caused the rebirth of the Orders. Under the Apostolic Pastoral Tertio millennio adveniente, the Spanish Orders began their renewal in 1996.Today, the aim of the Spanish Orders is basically the same as they had when founded: the defense of the Catholic faith. The sword has been put aside, but their doctrine, example, self-sanctification, and divine worship remain active, aside from their cultural and social activities.Their two hundred and fifty members guard the spirit and life of the Orders of Santiago, Calatrava, Alcántara, and Montesa under their Grand Master, King Felipe VI, and the Real Consejo de las Órdenes (Royal Council of the Orders) presided over by his Royal Highness Pedro of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Duke of Calabria.[4]The Swiss luxury watchmaker Patek Philippe took the cross of the order in 1887 and established it as its company logo as a tribute to the knights, which remains until today.[5][6]""

Order of Calatrava - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Calatrava

The Oculus was positioned as part of the World Trade Center masterplan by Daniel Libeskind and designed by SANTIAGO CALATRAVA. The structure’s white metal-clad steel ribs reach up and out in a monumental move symbolic of a hand releasing a dove.The structure's orientation serves as a lasting reminder of the attacks of September 11, 2001. It is in alignment with the sun’s solar angles on each September 11, from 8:46 am, when the first plane struck, until 10:28 am, when the second tower collapsed. Its central skylight fits this alignment and washes the Oculus floor with a beam of light."

World Trade Center Oculus

50 Church Street New York, NY 10007

Oculus Transportation Hub | World Trade Center (officialworldtradecenter.com)

https://www.officialworldtradecenter.com/en/local/learn-about-wtc/oculus-transportation-hub.html

Eataly NYC Downtown - Italian restaurant

101 Liberty St

New York, NY 10007

Bread-themed branch of the famed Italian market, offering counters, restaurants & cooking demos.

(212) 897-2895

Closed ⋅ Opens 7 AM Sat

Eataly: authentic Italian products, restaurants, cooking classes | Eataly https://www.eataly.com/us_en

Todd Morgan Beamer was an American passenger aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which was hijacked and crashed as part of the September 11 attacks in 2001. He was one of the passengers who attempted to regain control of the aircraft from the hijackers."

"Following this, the passengers and flight crew decided to act.[1] According to accounts of cell phone conversations, Beamer, along with Mark Bingham, Tom Burnett, and Jeremy Glick, formed a plan to take the plane back from the hijackers.[10] They were joined by other passengers, including Lou Nacke, Rich Guadagno, Alan Beaven, Honor Elizabeth Wainio, Linda Gronlund, and William Cashman, along with flight attendants Sandra Bradshaw and CeeCee Lyles, in discussing their options and voting on a course of action, ultimately deciding to storm the cockpit and take over the plane.[1] Beamer told Jefferson that the group was planning to "jump on" the hijackers and fly the plane into the ground before the hijackers' plan could be followed through.[7][8] Beamer recited the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm with Jefferson, prompting others to join in. Beamer requested of Jefferson, "If I don't make it, please call my family and let them know how much I love them." After this, Jefferson heard muffled voices and Beamer clearly answering, "Are you ready? Okay. Let's ROLL." These were the last words spoken by Beamer heard by Lisa Jefferson.[1][8][9]"

Todd Beamer - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Beamer

Jefferson Airplane - House at Pooneil Corners - Manhattan Rooftop Concert (1968) - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuwMEiNg3B8

Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams" is an assertion made by September 11th, 2001 attack conspiracy theorists that the burning fuel from crashed planes would not have been able to melt the supporting beams of the World Trade Center. The claim is widely mocked online for being based on flawed evidence."

Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams | Know Your Meme

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/jet-fuel-cant-melt-steel-beams

Six months after the Twin Towers fell, they returned in the form of two blue beams of light illuminating the Manhattan skyline. Since then, they have lit the sky annually as a Sept. 11 commemoration known as Tribute in Light. The tradition will continue this year to remember the 14th anniversary of the attacks."

A Look at Tribute in Light | National September 11 Memorial & Museum (911memorial.org)

https://www.911memorial.org/connect/blog/look-tribute-light

A Blue Mass is a Mass celebrated annually throughout the United States[1] in the Catholic Church for those employed in the "public safety field" (i.e. police officers, firefighters, correctional officers, 911 operators and EMS personnel).[2] The color blue relates to the blue-colored uniforms predominantly used by these services.[3] Similar to the Red Mass, the service honors those who have died in the line of duty and those currently serving as first responders.[4] The Mass is an opportunity for the community to show gratitude to first responders and their families.[5]"

Blue Mass - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Mass

The story behind this image of slain Davis police officer Natalie CORONA

By Lisa Fernandez and KTVU Published January 12, 2019 Updated December 28, 2020 California KTVU FOX 2

DAVIS, Calif. (KTVU) - In the image, she's wearing a royal BLUE gown, carrying a black-striped American flag with a thin blue line streaked across it.

Her heels are high. Her hair is done. Her smile is beaming. And she's standing in the middle of Leesville Grade Road next to a field in Williams, Colusa County, population 21,000, in California's Central Valley, where her father was a sheriff's deputy and now a county supervisor.

It's this compelling photograph of slain Davis police officer Natalie Corona that circulated throughout the country on Friday, hours after the 22-year-old was shot to death by a suspect identified on Saturday as Kevin Douglas Limbaugh, 48. A note found on his bed inside his home, where he later killed himself, stated that he believed Davis police bombarded him with ultrasonic waves."

The story behind this image of slain Davis police officer Natalie Corona (ktvu.com)

https://www.ktvu.com/news/the-story-behind-this-image-of-slain-davis-police-officer-natalie-corona

Serge Monast (1945 – 5 or 6 December 1996[1][2]) was a Canadian investigative journalist, poet, essayist and conspiracy theorist. He is known to English-speaking readers mainly for the originating the conspiracy theory Project BLUE BEAM, which concerns an alleged plot to facilitate a totalitarian world government by destroying traditional religions and replacing them with a new-age belief system using NASA technology.[3][unreliable source?]"

Serge Monast - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_Monast

SEPTEMBER 11, 1990 | CLIP OF PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS ON PERSIAN GULF

George H.W. Bush describes the New World Order in his address to the US Congress on the Crisis in the Persian Gulf.

User Clip: George Bush defines the New World Order | C-SPAN.org

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4528359/user-clip-george-bush-defines-world-order

ROLLback of governments hostile to the U.S. took place during World War II (against Fascist Italy in 1943, Nazi Germany in 1945, and Imperial Japan in 1945), Afghanistan (against the Taliban in 2001), and Iraq (against Saddam Hussein in 2003). When directed against an established government, rollback is sometimes called "regime change".[2]"

Rollback - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollback

In 1917, the Virgin appeared in Fatima. "The Mother of God" was a smashing success, playing to overflow crowds. As a result, the Socialists of Portugal suffered a major defeat. "Roman Catholics world-wide began praying for the conversion of Russia and the Jesuits invented the Novenas to Fatima which they could perform throughout North Africa, spreading good public relations to the Muslim world. The Arabs thought they were honoring the daughter of Muhammad, which is what the Jesuits wanted them to believe. "As a result of the vision of Fatima, Pope Pius XII ordered his Nazi army to crush Russia and the Orthodox religion and make Russia Roman Catholic." A few years after he lost World war II, Pope Pius XII startled the world with his phoney dancing sun vision to keep Fatima in the news. It was great religious show biz and the world swallowed it. "Not surprisingly, Pope Pius was the only one to see this vision. As a result, a group of followers has grown into a BLUE Army world-wide, totaling millions of faithful Roman Catholics ready to die for the blessed virgin. "But we haven't seen anything yet. The Jesuits have their Virgin Mary scheduled to appear four or five times in China, Russia, and major appearance in the U.S.

"What has this got to do with Islam?

Note Bishop Sheen's statement: "Our Lady's appearances at Fatima marked the turning point in the history of the world's 350 million Muslims. After the death of his daughter, Muhammad wrote that she "is the most holy of all women in Paradise, next to Mary."

"He believed that the Virgin Mary chose to be known as Our Lady of Fatima as a sign and a pledge that the Muslims who believe in Christ's virgin birth, will come to believe in His divinity.

"Bishop Sheen pointed out that the pilgrim virgin statues of Our Lady of Fatima were enthusiastically received by Muslims in Africa, India, and elsewhere, and that many Muslims are now coming into the Roman Catholic Church."

How the Vatican created Islam (remnantofgod.org)

http://www.remnantofgod.org/books/docs/how-the-vatican-created-islam.pdf

Mario Van Peebles (born January 15, 1957)[1] is a Mexican-born American director and actor. He is best known for appearing in Heartbreak Ridge in 1986 and known for directing and starring in New Jack City in 1991 and USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage in 2016. He is the son of actor and filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles, whom he portrayed in the 2003 biopic Baadasssss!, which he also co-wrote and directed.

Early life and education

Van Peebles was born on January 15, 1957, in Mexico City, Mexico,[2] the son of writer, director, actor and musician Melvin Van Peebles[1] and Maria Marx.[3][4]

He traveled often with his parents between Europe and the United States.[5]

He majored in economics at Columbia College, the undergraduate division of Columbia University. He was invited to speak as the Class Day Speaker as part of the annual commencement exercises in 2021.[6]

Career

1968 to 1971: First roles

Van Peebles' first screen appearance was in 1968, in the soap opera One Life to Live.[citation needed]

In 1971, he appeared in the film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. Melvin Van Peebles directed and played the lead role, and Mario played his father's character as a child. The film became a hit and a historical American film, because it was widely credited with showing Hollywood that a viable black audience existed and thus influenced the creation of the Blaxploitation genre. That year, Mario acted in a TV movie called Crosscurrent.[citation needed]

For the rest of the decade, he did not appear in other productions.

1981 to 1985: Subsequent roles and first lead

In 1981, Van Peebles acted in the miniseries The Sophisticated Gents.[citation needed]

He appeared in the action film Exterminator 2 (1984), as the main villain against its protagonist, played by Robert Ginty.[citation needed] When the production wrapped, the producers were unhappy and wanted a re-shoot. They replaced the original director, but the main star was no longer available so they made Van Peebles' character more central.[7]

That same year, Van Peebles appeared as a dancer in Francis Ford Coppola's movie The Cotton Club.[citation needed]

In 1985, he landed his first leading role in the film Rappin'[8] as Rappin' John Hood, an ex-convict who attempts to save his neighborhood from developers and hoodlums.

1985 to 1991: continued acting career and early directorial effort to breakthrough

In 1985, he played in the comedy Delivery Boys, was one of the central characters in the action drama South Bronx Heroes, and acted in the dramatic TV film Children of the Night and one episode of the Cosby Show.[9]

In 1986, he acted in the urban action film 3:15, the comedy Last Resort, the TV film D.C. Cops, four episodes of L.A. Law, and the Clint Eastwood military film Heartbreak Ridge based on the United States Marine Corps.

In 1987, he played in the sport film Hotshot, the TV film The Facts of Life Down Under, and Jaws: The Revenge, the fourth installment of the Jaws franchise.

In 1988, Van Peebles played the lead in the short-lived detective show Sonny Spoon. The show ran for two brief seasons, both of which aired in 1988 before the series was canceled. The show would mark his directorial debut, for which he tackled the task for one episode. That same year, he also acted in the TV film The Child Saver.

In 1989, he directed for the show Top of the Hill, three episodes of 21 Jump Street, two of which he acted in, and an episode of the TV series Wiseguy.

He also acted in one episode of American Playwrights Theater: The One-Acts, and the film Identity Crisis directed by his father.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Van_Peebles

The Temple of Set recognizes several stages or degrees of initiation. The degrees indicate the individual Setian's development and skill in magic.[96] The degree structure is based on that of the Church of Satan, which in turn was based on the degrees of a nineteenth-century occult group, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.[97] The Temple terms the progression through degrees as "recognitions", because the organization's philosophy sees that the individual member initiates themselves and that the Temple merely acknowledges this by granting the degree.[98] These degrees are:[99]

Setian (First Degree)

Adept (Second Degree)

Priest / Priestess of Set (Third Degree)

Magister / Magistra Templi (Fourth Degree)

Magus / Maga (Fifth Degree)

Ipsissimus / Ipsissima (Sixth Degree)

The priesthood of the Temple of Set consists of members holding the third degree or higher; those in the first and second degrees are considered "lay members" of the Temple.[100] The first degree serves as a space for mutual evaluation, in which the Temple assesses whether the individual is appropriate for the group, and the individual decides whether they wish to further their involvement with it.[101] Full membership comes with recognition to the second degree.[98] Many members do not advance beyond the second degree, nor is this expected of them, as while the first and second degree members use the organization's teachings and tools for their own development, the priesthood involves greater responsibilities towards the organization, such as being its official representatives.[102]

Recognition is performed by members of the priesthood.[98] The fourth degree, which is acknowledged by the high priest/priestess, entails that the individual is so advanced in their magical skills that they are able to found their own school of magic, represented in the different orders of the Temple.[98] The fifth degree can only be awarded by the unanimous decision of the Council of Nine and by the approval of the Temple's high priest/priestess.[98] A fifth degree member has the power to utter and define a concept which somehow affects the philosophy of the organization, such as the concept of Xeper defined by Aquino in 1975.[98] Only a handful of members have attained this degree and most "fifth-degree" concepts defined in such a manner are no longer studied in the organization.[98] The final sixth degree represents a Magus "whose Task is complete".[98] This degree is held by a very select few in the Temple, although any fifth-degree member can assume the sixth degree based on their own assessment.[98]

Leadership

The organization is led by a high priest/priestess, who is also the public face of the Temple.[89] The high priest is chosen among fourth or higher degree members by the chairman of the Council of Nine.[89] This ruling council has nine members chosen from the priesthood (third degree or higher), whose mandate lasts for nine years with a new member being elected every year.[89] The chairman of the council is chosen from among the council members each year.[89] The council has the ultimate ruling power in the Temple and even the high priest is responsible to it.[89] The Temple also has an executive director, whose task is to deal with administrative issues.[89]

Since its founding in 1975, the temple has had the following high priests/priestesses:[89]

Michael A. Aquino (1975–1979, 1982–1996, 2002–2004)

Ronald K. Barrett (1979–1982)

Don Webb (1996–2002)

Zeena Schreck (2002)

Patricia Hardy (2004–2013)

James Fitzsimmons (2013–present)

Pylons, elements, and orders

Setian groups, or pylons, are named after the fortified gateways to ancient Egyptian temples (pictured here at the Isis Temple on Philae Island)

In addition to the international organization, the Temple sponsors initiatory Orders and Elements and local groups called Pylons. Pylons are intended to facilitate the initiatory work of the Temple's members by conducting meetings where discussions and magical works take place.[97] The purpose of a pylon is to provide a space in which the Setian can focus on their religion, aided by like-minded individuals.[103] Pylons typically meet in a member's home.[103] Members usually join the Pylon located geographically closest to them.[97] Correspondence- or Internet-based Pylons also exist,[97] with Harvey noting that this online networking is more common than in-person interaction.[71] A Pylon is led by a second-degree (or higher) member who is called a Sentinel.[97][103] The term pylon derives from the architectural features which served as fortified gateways to ancient Egyptian temples.[104] One Finnish Setian informed Granholm that the relationship between the orders and the temple was like that of different departments in a university.[97]

Elements are loosely structured interest groups, where specific themes and issues are addressed.[97] They can be open for non-members and are commonly in operation only for short periods.[97] Topics of interest include, for example, animal rights, which was the subject of the Arkte element operated by Aquino's wife Lilith.[97]

There are sections of the Temple known as Orders, each of which focus on a particular theme, for instance ancient Egypt, Norse culture, Tantric Hinduism, or vampirism.[105] Others focus on a particular skill, for instance the Order of Uart focuses on the visual arts and the Order of Taliesin on music.[106] Orders can be understood as schools of different aspects of magic providing different paths of initiation.[97] Orders are led by grand masters, who will usually be the founder of the order.[97] In longer-lived orders the founder may have a successive grand master.[97] Orders are founded by members of the fourth degree.[98] When members reaches the second degree of initiation, they are expected to join an order of their own choosing.[97] In normal circumstances, a Setian is only permitted to join one order, however special dispensation can be obtained for a practitioner to join two.[5]

Setians also hold annual International Conclaves. First Degree Initiates who obtain sponsorship by a member of the Priesthood are permitted to attend the International Conclave and Regional Gatherings.[107]

Demographics

In 2000, the Temple had thirteen pylons, which were operating in the United States, Australia, Germany, and across Sweden and Finland.[72] The extent of the Temple's membership has not been publicly revealed by the group;[103] however, in 2005 Petersen noted that academic estimates for the Temple's membership varied from between 300 and 500,[9] and Granholm suggested that in 2007 the Temple contained circa 200 members.[108] The Temple's members come from a variety of racial backgrounds.[109]

In 1999, the anthropologist Jean La Fontaine suggested that in Britain there were 100 members of the Temple at most, and possibly "considerably fewer".[110] In 2001 the scholar Gareth Medway posited that the group had 70 to 80 members in the United Kingdom, adding that it was the largest Satanic group then active in the country.[111] In 2009, Harvey concurred with La Fontaine's assessment, although still believed that it was the largest Satanic group in the United Kingdom.[112] He noted that most members were male, between the ages of twenty and fifty, and that—despite his expectation that they might be political extremists—they endorsed mainstream political positions, with all those whom he communicated with stating that they had voted for either the Conservative Party, Labour Party, or Liberal Democrats.[71]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Set

Kamala Devi Harris (English: /ˈkɑːmələ ˈdeɪvi/ ⓘ,[1] born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who has been the 49th and current vice president of the United States since 2021, serving under President Joe Biden. Harris is the Democratic presidential nominee in the 2024 United States presidential election. She is the first female vice president of the United States, making her the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history. She is also the first African American and first Asian American vice president. From 2017 to 2021, she represented California in the United States Senate. Before that, she was Attorney General of California from 2011 to 2017.

Born in Oakland, California, Harris graduated from Howard University and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She began her law career in the office of the district attorney of Alameda County. She was recruited to the San Francisco District Attorney's Office and later to the office of the city attorney of San Francisco. She was elected district attorney of San Francisco in 2003 and attorney general of California in 2010, and reelected as attorney general in 2014. As the San Francisco district attorney and the attorney general of California, Harris was the first woman, the first African American, and the first Asian American to hold each office.

Harris was the junior U.S. senator from California from 2017 to 2021. She won the 2016 Senate election, becoming the second Black woman and first South Asian American U.S. senator. As a senator, Harris advocated for stricter gun control laws, the DREAM Act, federal legalization of cannabis, and reforms to healthcare and taxation. She gained a national profile for her pointed questioning of Trump administration officials during Senate hearings, including Trump's second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.

Harris sought the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination in 2019, but withdrew from the race before the primaries. Biden selected her as his running mate, and their ticket defeated the incumbent president and vice president, Donald Trump and Mike Pence, in the 2020 election. Presiding over an evenly split Senate upon entering office, Harris played a crucial role as president of the Senate. She cast more tie-breaking votes than any other vice president, which helped pass bills such as the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 stimulus package and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. After Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential election, Harris launched her campaign with Biden's endorsement and soon became the presumptive nominee. On August 6, 2024, she chose Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, as her running mate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris

Devī (/ˈdeɪvi/;[1] Sanskrit: देवी) is the Sanskrit word for 'goddess'; the masculine form is deva. Devi and deva mean 'heavenly, divine, anything of excellence', and are also gender-specific terms for a deity in Hinduism.

The concept and reverence for goddesses appears in the Vedas, which were composed around the 2nd millennium BCE. However, they did not play a vital role in that era.[2] Goddesses such as Durga, Kali, Lakshmi, Parvati, Radha, Saraswati and Sita have continued to be revered in the modern era.[2] The medieval era Puranas witness a major expansion in mythology and literature associated with Devi, with texts such as the Devi Mahatmya, wherein she manifests as the ultimate truth and supreme power. She has inspired the Shaktism tradition of Hinduism. Further, Devi is viewed as central in the Hindu traditions of Shaktism and Shaivism.[2][3]

Etymology

Devi and deva are Sanskrit terms found in Vedic literature around the 3rd millennium BCE. Deva is masculine, and the related feminine equivalent is devi.[4] Monier-Williams translates it as 'heavenly, divine, terrestrial things of high excellence, exalted, shining ones'.[5][6] Etymologically, a cognate of devi is Latin dea.[7] When capitalised, Devi maata refers to the mother goddess in Hinduism.[8] Deva is short for devatā and devi for devika.[5]

According to Douglas Harper, the etymological root dev- means "a shining one", from *div-, "to shine", it is an Indo-European cognate of the Greek dios, Gothic divine and Latin deus (Old Latin deivos); see also *Dyēus.[9]

A synonym for the word Devi in the Vedas is Bhagavati. Bhagavatī (Devanagari: भगवती, IAST: Bhagavatī), is an Indian epithet of Sanskrit origin, used as an honorific title for goddesses in Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, it is primarily used to address the goddesses Lakshmi and Durga. In Buddhism, it is used to refer to several Mahayana Buddhist female deities, like Cundā.[10]

History

The worship of Devi-like deities dates back to period of Indus Valley civilisation.[11][12]

The Devīsūkta of the Rigveda (10.125.1 to 10.125.8) is among the most studied hymns declaring that the ultimate reality is a goddess:[13][14]

I have created all worlds at my will without being urged by any higher Being, and dwell within them. I permeate the earth and heaven, and all created entities with my greatness and dwell in them as eternal and infinite consciousness.

— Devi Sukta, Rigveda 10.125.8, Translated by June McDaniel[15][16]

The Vedas name numerous cosmic goddesses such as Devi (power), Prithvi (earth), Aditi (cosmic moral order), Vāc (sound), Nirṛti (destruction), Ratri (night) and Aranyani (forest); bounty goddesses such as Dinsana, Raka, Puramdhi, Parendi, Bharati and Mahi are among others are mentioned in the Rigveda.[2]: 6–17, 55–64  However, the goddesses are not discussed as frequently as gods (devas).[2] Devi appears in late Vedic texts dated to be pre-Buddhist, but verses dedicated to her do not suggest that her characteristics were fully developed in the Vedic era.[2]: 18–19  All gods and goddesses are distinguished in Vedic times,[2]: 18  but in post-Vedic texts, particularly in the early medieval era literature, they are ultimately seen as aspects or manifestations of one Devi, the Supreme Power.[17]

Devi is the supreme being in the Shakta tradition of Hinduism; in the Smarta tradition, she is one of the five primary forms of Brahman that is revered.[18][19] In other Hindu traditions, Devi embodies the active energy and power of Deva, and they always appear together complementing each other. Examples of this are Parvati with Shiva in Shaivism, Saraswati with Brahma in Brahmanism and Lakshmi with Vishnu, Sita with Rama and Radha with Krishna in Vaishnavism.[20][21][22]

Devi-inspired philosophy is propounded in many Hindu texts such as the Devi Upanishad, which teaches that Shakti is essentially Brahman (ultimate metaphysical Reality) and that from her arises prakṛti (matter) and purusha (consciousness) and that she is bliss and non-bliss, the Vedas and what is different from it, the born and the unborn and all of the universe. Shakti is Parvati, Shiva’s wife. [23] She is also mentioned as the creative power of Shiva in Tripura Upanishad, Bahvricha Upanishad and Guhyakali Upanishad.[13]

Devi identifies herself in the Devi Upanishad as Brahman in her reply to the gods stating that she rules the world, blesses devotees with riches, that she is the supreme deity to whom all worship is to be offered and that she infuses Ātman in every soul.[23] Devi asserts that she is the creator of earth and heaven and resides there.[13] Her creation of the sky as father and the seas as the mother is reflected as the 'Inner Supreme Self'.[13] Her creations are not prompted by any higher being and she resides in all her creations. She is, states Devi, the eternal and infinite consciousness engulfing earth and heaven, and 'all forms of bliss and non-bliss, knowledge and ignorance, Brahman and Non-Brahman'. The tantric aspect in Devi Upanishad, says June McDaniel, is the usage of the terms yantra, bindu, bija, mantra, shakti and chakra.[13]

Among the major world religions, the concept of Goddess in Hinduism as the divine feminine has had the strongest presence since ancient times.[24]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devi

Presidential elections are scheduled to be held in the United States on November 7, 2028, to elect the president and vice president of the United States for a term of four years.

In the 2024 elections, the Republican Party gained a majority of seats in the House of Representatives and Senate. Incumbent president Donald Trump won a non-consecutive second term; per the limits set by the 22nd Amendment, he is constitutionally barred from being elected president again.[1]

Background

See also: 2024 United States elections

The Republican Party returned to power in the United States with a government trifecta in January 2025 following the 2024 election. Trump, who was elected president in 2016 but lost a re-election bid in 2020 to Joe Biden, and JD Vance, a then-senator from Ohio defeated vice president Kamala Harris, who began her campaign following Biden's exit from the 2024 election, and Minnesota governor Tim Walz. Trump's victory was credited to a post-pandemic surge in inflation,[a] a migrant crisis at the U.S.–Mexico border,[b] and a global anti-incumbent backlash.[8][9][10] In addition, Republicans secured control of the Senate, flipping four seats and earning a three seat majority, while also retaining a House majority, though the party's majority narrowed to three seats after losing two seats.[11]

Electoral system

Main article: United States Electoral College

See also: United States presidential primary and Primary elections in the United States

The president and vice president of the United States are elected through the Electoral College, determined by the number of senators and representatives with an additional three representatives for Washington, D.C. A majority of 270 votes is needed to win the election. Forty-eight states use a winner-take-all system, in which states award all of their electors to the winner of the popular vote. In Maine and Nebraska, two votes are allocated to the winner of the popular vote, while each of the individual congressional districts have one vote. Electoral votes are certified by state electors in December and by Congress on January 6.[12] Presidential candidates are selected in a presidential primary, conducted through primary elections run by state governments or caucuses run by state parties which bind convention delegates to candidates.[13] A brokered convention occurs when a candidate does not receive a majority of votes on the first round of voting,[14] or when a candidate withdraws.[15]

Election Day in the United States has been held on the first Tuesday that falls after the first Monday in November.[16] Previously, states could determine their own Election Day prior to the first Wednesday in December. The 2028 presidential election will occur on November 7, 2028.[17]

Eligibility

The United States Constitution limits occupancy of the presidency to individuals who are at least thirty-five, who have been a resident in the United States for at least fourteen years, and who are a natural-born citizen.[18] Section three of the Fourteenth Amendment prevents current and former federal, state, and military officials from holding office—including the presidency—if they have "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the United States;[19] in March 2024, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Trump v. Anderson that former president Donald Trump could seek office after challenges to his ballot eligibility were raised by several state attorneys general.[20] A convicted felon may serve as president.[21] Elon Musk, who emerged as a political influencer in the 2024 presidential election, is ineligible to serve as president as he was born in South Africa and is a naturalized citizen.[22]

Trump is ineligible to be elected to a third term, as the Twenty-Second Amendment forbids any person from being elected president more than twice.[23] Nonetheless, he has repeatedly suggested running for a third term, an idea supported by several of his allies, including Steve Bannon.[24] In January 2025, Tennessee representative Andy Ogles proposed a resolution to amend the Twenty-Second Amendment, allowing for presidents who have served two non-consecutive terms to seek a third term. The verbiage of the amendment would prevent living presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, all currently ineligible under the 22nd Amendment, from running for a third term.[25] At CPAC 2025, conservative groups, such as the Third Term Project, supported the Ogles resolution and promoted the idea of Trump running for an as-yet unconstitutional third term.[26][27] In response, New York Democratic representative Dan Goldman planned to introduce a resolution affirming the Twenty-Second Amendment.[28]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2028_United_States_presidential_election

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations members in 2015, created 17 world Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They were created with the aim of "peace and prosperity for people and the planet..."[1][2][3] – while tackling climate change and working to preserve oceans and forests. The SDGs highlight the connections between the environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainable development. Sustainability is at the center of the SDGs.[4][5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goals

CHAPTER SEVEN – SHABTAI, SHIMON AND SHARON – DESTROYING THE JEWS

ALM 1 - THE DEUTSCH DEVILS

Rabbi Marvin Antelman was right all along. Way back in 1974, he identified the source of all the evil against Jews and humanity but his message and style were too unaccessible to get through to anyone but the most advanced students of antisemitism. What he lacked most was simplicity, a common enough failure of thinkers decades in advance of their contemporaries. What he needed was someone to put out a Cliff's Notes simplified explanation of his thesis...and someone, without intention, just did. The name of the book is, 50 Jewish Messiahs by Jerry Rabow (Gefen Publishing, Jerusalem). It is an informative but shallow overview of just what the title says, but in its shallowness lies vital depth. We begin with Chapter 17, about the "most damaging messiah to the Jewish people," Shabbatai Zvi. First we'll read Rabow and then add commentary opening Rabbi Antelman's work to the wide world. Recall that there are various accepted English spellings for Shabtai Tzvi, and the Sabbataians. The spelling presented depends on the writer:

pp 91 - Shabbatai Zvi was born in Smyrna, Turkey on the ninth of Av, 1626. The ninth day of Av is the day of a triple tragedy for the Jewish nation. According to tradition, the First Temple, the Second Temple and Bar Kokhba's Betar fortress all fell on this day.

pp 93 - He changed the holiday celebrations and violated the dietary prohibitions. All of this followed from his declaration that the usual rules were inapplicable to messianic times.

pp 95 - He declared that the coming of the messianic era meant that the biblical commandments were no longer binding. He proclaimed that God now permitted everything. ** This is Rabbi Antelman's central assertion; that Shabbataism was the polar opposite of Judaism. That Shabbatai Zvi's program was to destroy all the tenets of the Torah and replace them with their opposites. Incredibly, more than half the Jews of the world at the time, believed he would be revealed as their promised messiah: **

pp 101 - Then he finally made the announcement for which the Jewish community had been waiting for 1600 years - he would begin the Redemption on the 15th day of the month of Sivan, June 18, 1666. ** There are many who will recognize the significance of the date. June is the sixth month, 18 divided by three is 6+6+6 and 1666 is clear enough. Either he knew what he was doing or the prophesies of the emergence of an evil false messiah or anti-Christ are right, and Shabbatai Zvi was him. **

pp 110 - Through all of this, Shabbatai continued to issue proclamations of the theological changes wrought by the coming of the messianic age. Shabbatai's new prayer was, "Praised be He who permits the forbidden." Since all things would be permitted in the age of the messiah, Shabbatai declared many of the old restrictions of the Torah no longer applicable. He abolished the laws concerning sexual relationships. He eventually declared that all of the thirty six major biblical sins were now permitted and instructed some of his followers that it was their duty to perform such sins in order to hasten the Redemption.

Shabtai Tzvi, Labor Zionism and the Holocaust

by Barry Chamish

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B66Pc9x2hkIrV2Y3QWxPbkpKYWc/view?usp=sharing&resourcekey=0-5ak831cRNQohyyjZYfFKvw

2030-2031 APPARITION CHARACTERISTICS

Another general rule for predicting oppositions of Mars is from the following: the planet has an approximate 15.8-year periodic opposition cycle, which consists of three or four Aphelic oppositions and three consecutive Perihelic oppositions. Perihelic oppositions are also called "favorable" because the Earth and Mars come closest to each other on those occasions. We sometimes refer to this as the seven Martian synodic periods. This cycle is repeated every 79 years (± 4 to 5 days) and, if one were to live long enough, one would see this cycle nearly replicated in approximately 284 years. The 2031 Mars apparition is considered Transitional (between Aphelic and Perihelic) because the orbital longitude at opposition will be 68.4° from the aphelion longitude of 70° Ls and 111.6° Ls from perihelion (250° Ls).

NOTE: Ls is the planetocentric longitude of the Sun along the ecliptic of Mars’ sky. 0° Ls is defined as that point where the Sun crosses the Martian celestial equator from south to north, that is the planet’s northern hemisphere vernal equinox. The other Ls values that define the beginnings of Martian northern hemisphere seasons are: summer, 90° Ls; autumn, 180° Ls; and winter, 270° Ls. For Mars’ southern hemisphere these values represent the opposite seasons. Distance (A.U.) - Distance from Earth to Mars in astronomical units, where one (1) A.U. equals 92,955,807.267 miles or 149,597,870.691 km.

Opposition occurs 11 months after conjunction when Mars is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. At that time, the two planets will lie nearly in a straight line with respect to the Sun, or five weeks after retrogression begins. Opposition will occur at 1157 UT on May 04, 2031 (138.4° Ls) with an apparent planetary disk diameter of 16.7 arcsec. Mars will remain visible for more than twelve months after opposition and then become lost in the glare of the Sun around May 31, 2032 as it approaches the next conjunction (July 11, 2032). The cycle is complete in 780 Earth days.

Closest approach occurs at 0350 UT on May 12, 2031 (142.1° Ls) with an apparent planetary disk diameter of 16.9 at a distance of 0.5533578 astronomical units (AU) or 51,437,823 miles (82,781,152 km). During closest approach in 2031 the apparent diameter of Mars will be 2.4 arcsec larger than it was at the same period in 2029; however, it will be 17.1 degrees lower in the sky - not quite as good for observing the Red Planet for observers in the northern hemisphere. It should also be noted that closest approach between Earth and Mars is not necessarily coincident with the time of opposition but varies by as much as two weeks.

https://www.alpo-astronomy.org/jbeish/2031_MARS.htm

The Arab Spring (Arabic: الربيع العربي, romanized: ar-rabīʻ al-ʻarabī) or the First Arab Spring (to distinguish from the Second Arab Spring) was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to corruption and economic stagnation.[1][2] From Tunisia, the protests then spread to five other countries: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain. Rulers were deposed (Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia in 2011, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya in 2011, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in 2011, and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen in 2012) or major uprisings and social violence occurred including riots, civil wars, or insurgencies. Sustained street demonstrations took place in Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Minor protests took place in Djibouti, Mauritania, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara.[3] A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world is ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām! (Arabic: الشعب يريد إسقاط النظام, lit. 'the people want to bring down the regime').[4]

The wave of initial revolutions and protests faded by mid-2012, as many Arab Spring demonstrations were met with violent responses from authorities,[5][6][7] pro-government militias, counterdemonstrators, and militaries. These attacks were answered with violence from protesters in some cases.[8][9][10] Multiple large-scale conflicts followed: the Syrian civil war;[11][12] the rise of ISIL,[13] insurgency in Iraq and the following civil war;[14] the Egyptian Crisis, election and removal from office of Mohamed Morsi, and subsequent unrest and insurgency;[15] the Libyan Crisis; and the Yemeni crisis and subsequent civil war.[16] Regimes that lacked major oil wealth and hereditary succession arrangements were more likely to undergo regime change.[17]

A power struggle continued after the immediate response to the Arab Spring. While leadership changed and regimes were held accountable, power vacuums opened across the Arab world. Ultimately, it resulted in a contentious battle between a consolidation of power by religious elites and the growing support for democracy in many Muslim-majority states.[18] The early hopes that these popular movements would end corruption, increase political participation, and bring about greater economic equity quickly collapsed in the wake of the counter-revolutionary moves by foreign state actors in Yemen,[19] the regional and international military interventions in Bahrain and Yemen, and the destructive civil wars in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen.[20]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring

Shanksville is a borough in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, United States. It has a population of 197 as of the 2020 U.S. census.[2] It is part of the Somerset, Pennsylvania Micropolitan Statistical Area and is located 78 miles (126 km) southeast of Pittsburgh and 226 miles (364 km) west of Philadelphia.

Shanksville garnered global attention during the September 11 attacks when United Airlines Flight 93, bound from Newark, New Jersey, for San Francisco, crashed in adjacent Stonycreek Township after its passengers rebelled against the flight's al-Qaeda terrorist hijackers. It was the only one of the four hijacked planes that failed to reach the terrorists' intended target.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanksville,_Pennsylvania

A shiv, also chiv, schiv, shivvie or shank,[1][2] is a handcrafted bladed weapon resembling a knife that is commonly associated with prison inmates.

Since weapons are prohibited in prisons, the intended mode of concealment is central to a shiv's construction. An especially thin handle, for instance, makes it easier to conceal in available cracks or crevices in the prison's construction, or in stacks of objects, such as books, permitted to the prisoners; however, this can also render the shiv difficult to grip and wield. Routine body searches in prison make it difficult to conceal a shiv on one's person on a continuous basis. As well as the prison authorities, it is also desirable to conceal possession of a shiv from members of rival prison populations.

The word is recorded from the 1670s in the spelling chive as cant for knife, whose pronunciation is reflected in the spelling shiv recorded in underworld slang from 1915 and possibly used since the 1890s or earlier. The cant word probably came from the Romani word chiv for "blade" (compare Romani chivomengro "knifeman").[3][4] The derived verb shiv means "to stab someone", and a shivver is an archaic term for a criminal who attacks victims with a knife.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiv_(weapon)

There are multiple matches for Shiva, including a Hindu god and a Jewish mourning period.

Shiva (Hindu god)

Shiva is a major god in Hinduism, known as the god of destruction.

His name means "auspicious one".

He is also known as Mahadeva, which means "the great god".

Shiva is part of the Hindu trinity, the Trimurti, along with Brahma and Vishnu.

He is worshipped at many shrines in India and around the world.

Shiva is said to live in the Himalayas with his wife, Parvati.

Shiva (Jewish mourning period)

Shiva is a seven-day period of mourning that begins after the burial of a loved one.

The word "shiva" comes from the Hebrew word sheva, which means "seven".

During shiva, mourners traditionally stay home or at the home of the deceased.

They also wear torn clothing or a black ribbon pinned to their clothes.

Shiva is a time to remember, accept death, and return to life.

Generative AI is experimental.

Elon Musk: “We’re going straight to Mars. The Moon is a distraction.”

Eric Berger – Jan 3, 2025 9:28 AM |  1.1k

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/elon-musk-were-going-straight-to-mars-the-moon-is-a-distraction/

In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Mars (Latin: Mārs, pronounced [maːrs])[4] is the god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome.[5] He is the son of Jupiter and Juno, and was pre-eminent among the Roman army's military gods. Most of his festivals were held in March, the month named for him (Latin Martius), and in October, the months which traditionally began and ended the season for both military campaigning and farming.[6]

Under the influence of Greek culture, Mars was identified with the Greek god Ares,[7] whose myths were reinterpreted in Roman literature and art under the name of Mars. The character and dignity of Mars differs in fundamental ways from that of his Greek counterpart, who is often treated with contempt and revulsion in Greek literature.[8] Mars's altar in the Campus Martius, the area of Rome that took its name from him, was supposed to have been dedicated by Numa, the peace-loving semi-legendary second king of Rome; in Republican times it was a focus of electoral activities. Augustus shifted the focus of Mars' cult to within the pomerium (Rome's ritual boundary), and built a temple to Mars Ultor as a key religious feature of his new forum.[9]

Unlike Ares, who was viewed primarily as a destructive and destabilizing force, Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace, and was a father (pater) of the Roman people.[10] In Rome's mythic genealogy and founding, Mars fathered Romulus and Remus through his rape of Rhea Silvia. His love affair with Venus symbolically reconciled two different traditions of Rome's founding; Venus was the divine mother of the hero Aeneas, celebrated as the Trojan refugee who "founded" Rome several generations before Romulus laid out the city walls.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_(mythology)

Spring 2030 in United States

Spring Starts: Wednesday, Mar 20 6:51 am PDT

https://www.calendardate.com/spring_2030.htm

Easter in 2030

Date: April 21, 2030

Day: Sunday

Historical Basis for Believing Jesus was Crucified in AD 30

by Avatar photoJim Liles

6 years ago

[Editor’s note: I asked Jim for clarification on his belief about this since I’ve encountered people equally sure of the years 29, 30, and 33 AD for the death and resurrection of Christ. This article is his response.

Although such a topic may seem far afield from our usual creation vs. evolution discussions, it is still at the intersection of the Bible and science. It may not change anything about how you interact with others, but it can strengthen your confidence that we have not believed cleverly devised fables, but historically verifiable reality!]

Is 30 AD the Year of the Crucifixion?

To answer this question, I will combine information from Scripture as well as extra-biblical material on which there is much, but not total, agreement.  Let’s begin with the year of Jesus birth:

Year of Birth: We know from Scripture that Jesus is born at the time of the first Roman census (Luke 2:1-2Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)) when Quirinius was Governor of Syria. A review of Roman documents describe this time frame as late October or November of 5 BC. We know that the second census, 10 years later, was in 6 AD at the same time of year when Caesar Augustus ruled.

Year of Baptism: This birth date above would mean that Jesus was 12 years old at Passover in 9 AD as described in Luke 2:41-52Open in Logos Bible Software (if available). From these two dated events we can determine that Jesus is about 33.5 years old twenty-one years later at Passover in 30 AD. This is consistent with the Baptism of Jesus in August or September of 26 AD, in the fifteenth year of Tiberius (Luke 3:1-23Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)) whose reign began in July of 11 AD. This is followed by a public ministry lasting a little over three-and-a-half years ending on Passover in 30 AD.

Date of Crucifixion: The year of the Crucifixion is confirmed by several historians due to the darkness that occurred from noon until 3:00 PM on Nisan 14-Passover in 30 AD. It is important to note that the term ‘Passover’ can refer to Nisan 14, the Preparation for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, or Nisan 15-the first day of seven for the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The historians Phlegon, Thallus, Africanus and Tertullian all mention this three hour period of darkness that does not have a scientific explanation. It was neither a lunar or solar eclipse for many reasons. Eclipses do not last three hours and cannot happen during the full moon of Passover.

Julius Africanus, writing about the historian Thallus states:

Upon the whole world there came a most fearful darkness.  Many rocks were split in two by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down.

It seems very unreasonable to me that Thallus, in the third book of his histories, would try to explain away this darkness as an eclipse of the sun. For the Jews celebrate their Passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the death of our Saviour falls on the day before the Passover. But an eclipse of the sun can only take place when the moon comes under the sun, how then could an eclipse have occurred when the moon is directly opposite the sun? (Scientifically it is impossible to have a full moon on the same day that there is an eclipse of the sun.)

The Roman historian Phlegon is mentioned by Origen who describes a darkening of the sun in the eighteenth year of Tiberius on Nisan 14-Passover which would be 30 AD. A few people have used this Roman history report stating the year of the Crucifixion is 33 AD. They mistakenly start Tiberius’ reign in 14 AD after the death of Augustus instead of the start of his joint reign in 11 AD.

On the Gregorian-Hebrew solar calendar found in ESC, the date of the Crucifixion is Friday April 5-Nisan 14, 30 AD. On this Hebrew solar calendar Nisan 14-Passover always falls on April 5 in a non-leap year and April 3 in a leap or special year on the Gregorian calendar we use today. This is clearly new information about the accuracy and inerrancy of the specific dates in Scripture.

This type of assessment of the Bible’s accuracy was only possible in recent years with computers, Excel spreadsheets, Bible software, and calendar converters like www.rosettacalendar.com.

Resources:

ESC = Earth’s Sacred Calendar: The Dated Events of the Old Testament by Jim Liles; Pub 2014.

CARM: Is there non-biblical evidence of a day of darkness at Christ’s death?

Bible History.net The Crucifixion Darkness

https://thecreationclub.com/historical-basis-for-believing-jesus-was-crucified-in-ad-30/

14We ought to act on the principle that everyone who lives under obedience should let himself be carried and directed by Divine Providence through the agency of the superior 15as if he were a lifeless body, which allows itself to be carried to any place and treated in any way; or an old man s staff, which serves at any place and for any purpose in which the one holding it in his hand wishes to employ it. 16For in this way the obedient man ought joyfully to employ himself in any task in which the superior desires to employ him in aid of the whole body of the religious order; 17and he ought to hold it certain that by so doing he conforms himself with the divine will more than by anything else he could do while following his own will and different judgment.[3]"

page 221

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts

THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES

SAINT LOUIS, 1996

https://web.archive.org/web/20200211182223/https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf

Fourteenth Rule. Although there is much truth in the assertion that no one can save himself without being predestined and without having faith and grace; we must be very cautious in the manner of speaking and communicating with others about all these things.

The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YC_luOfFWl0Bm0BWkbANKZGC1kkmdHQf/view?usp=sharing

AI Overview

Learn more

When someone says "2000 years of age," it means a period of time spanning 2,000 years, often used in historical or astrological contexts to refer to a specific era or "age" like the "Age of Pisces" which is considered to have lasted for 2,000 years in some interpretations.

Key points about "2000 years of age":

Astrological usage:

In astrology, different "ages" are associated with different zodiac signs, and each age is often calculated as lasting around 2,000 years based on the Earth's axial precession.

Example:

Currently, many astrologers consider the "Age of Aquarius" to be starting around the year 2000, signifying a new era.

Not perfectly accurate:

While 2,000 years is often used for simplicity, the actual length of an astrological age based on precession is closer to 2,160 years.

Generative AI is experimental.

Luke 21:29-36

29 He told them this parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees.

30 When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near.

31 Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near.

32 “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.

33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

34 “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap.

35 For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth.

36 Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”

https://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/summer-bible-verses/

The Scorpion King is a 2002 action adventure film directed by Chuck Russell. The film stars Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson as the lead, with Steven Brand, Kelly Hu, Grant Heslov, and Michael Clarke Duncan in supporting roles. It is both a prequel and spin-off of The Mummy franchise and launched The Scorpion King film series. The film was Johnson's first lead role. The film received mixed reviews and grossed $180.6 million worldwide against the production budget of $60 million.

The events of The Scorpion King take place 5,001 years before the events of The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, revealing the origins of Mathayus and his rise to power as the titular Scorpion King. This name is a reference to a historical king of the Protodynastic Period of Egypt, King Scorpion. The film was released on April 19, 2002.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_King

Arturo Marcelino Sosa Abascal SJ (born 12 November 1948) is a Venezuelan Catholic priest who serves as the 31st and present superior general of the Society of Jesus. He was elected by the Society's 36th General Congregation on 14 October 2016, succeeding Adolfo Nicolás. He is the first person born in Latin America to lead the Jesuits.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arturo_Sosa

Resident Evil 5[b] is a 2009 third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. It is a major installment in the Resident Evil series, and was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles in March 2009 and for Windows in September 2009. It was re-released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in June 2016. The plot involves an investigation of a terrorist threat by Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance agents Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar in Kijuju, a fictional region of West Africa. Chris learns that he must confront his past in the form of an old enemy, Albert Wesker, and his former partner, Jill Valentine.

The gameplay of Resident Evil 5 is similar to that of the previous installment, though it is the first in the series designed for two-player cooperative gameplay. It has also been considered the first game in the main series to depart from the survival horror genre, with critics saying it bore more resemblance to an action game. Motion capture was used for the cutscenes, and it was the first video game to use a virtual camera system. Several staff members from the original Resident Evil worked on Resident Evil 5. The Windows version was developed by Mercenary Technology.

Resident Evil 5 received a positive reception, despite some criticism for its control scheme. The game received divided opinions on whether aspects of it were racist; an investigation by the British Board of Film Classification found the complaints were unsubstantiated. It is the best-selling game of the Resident Evil franchise when not including remakes,[c] and the original version remained the best-selling individual Capcom release until March 2018, when it was outsold by Monster Hunter: World. A sequel, Resident Evil 6, was released in 2012.

Plot

In 2009, five years after the events of Resident Evil 4, Chris Redfield, now an agent of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA), is dispatched to Kijuju in West Africa. He and his new partner Sheva Alomar are tasked with apprehending Ricardo Irving before he can sell a bio-organic weapon (BOW) on the black market. When they arrive, they discover that the locals have been infected by the Las Plagas parasite (those infected are called "Majini") and the BSAA Alpha Team have been killed. Chris and Sheva are rescued by BSAA's Delta Team, which includes Sheva's mentor Captain Josh Stone. In Stone's data Chris sees a photograph of Jill Valentine, his old partner, who has been presumed dead after a confrontation with Albert Wesker. Chris, Sheva and Delta Team close in on Irving, but he escapes with the aid of a hooded and masked figure. Irving leaves behind documents that lead Chris and Sheva to marshy oilfields, where Irving's deal is to occur, but they discover that the documents are a diversion. When Chris and Sheva try to regroup with Delta Team, they find the team slaughtered by a BOW: a mutating troll-like giant. Sheva cannot find Stone among the dead. Determined to learn if Jill is still alive, Chris does not report to headquarters and proceeds on their quest.[4]

Continuing through the marsh, they reunite with Stone and track down Irving's boat with his help. Irving injects himself with a variant of the Las Plagas parasite and mutates into a huge octopus-like beast. Chris and Sheva defeat him, and his dying words lead them to a nearby cave. The cave is the source of a flower used to create viruses previously used by the Umbrella Corporation, as well as a new strain named Uroboros. Chris and Sheva find evidence that Tricell, the company funding the BSAA, took over a former Umbrella underground laboratory and continued Umbrella's research. In the facility, they discover thousands of capsules holding human test subjects. Chris finds Jill's capsule, but it is empty. When they leave, they discover that Tricell CEO Excella Gionne has been plotting with Wesker to launch missiles with the Uroboros virus across the globe; it is eventually revealed that Wesker hopes to take a chosen few from the chaos of infection and rule them, creating a new breed of humanity. Chris and Sheva pursue Gionne but are stopped by Wesker and the hooded figure, who is revealed to be a brainwashed Jill. Gionne and Wesker escape to a Tricell oil tanker; Chris and Sheva fight Jill, subduing her and removing the mind-control device before she urges Chris to follow Wesker.[4]

Chris and Sheva board the tanker and encounter Gionne, who escapes after dropping a case of syringes; Sheva keeps several. When Chris and Sheva reach the main deck, Wesker announces over the ship's intercom that he has betrayed Gionne and infected her with Uroboros. She mutates into a giant monster, which Chris and Sheva defeat. Jill radios in, telling Chris and Sheva that Wesker must take precise, regular doses of a serum to maintain his strength and speed; a larger or smaller dose would poison him. Sheva realizes that Gionne's syringes are doses of the drug. Chris and Sheva follow Wesker to a bomber loaded with missiles containing the Uroboros virus, injecting him with the syringes Gionne dropped. Wesker tries to escape on the bomber; Chris and Sheva disable it, making him crash-land in a volcano. Furious‚ Wesker exposes himself to Uroboros and chases Chris and Sheva through the volcano. They fight him, and the weakened Wesker falls into the lava before Chris and Sheva are rescued by a helicopter, which is piloted by Jill and Stone. As a dying Wesker attempts to drag the helicopter into the volcano, Chris and Sheva fire rocket-propelled grenades at Wesker, killing him.[5] In the game's final cutscene, Chris wonders if the world is worth fighting for. Looking at Sheva and Jill, he decides to live in a world without fear.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil_5

AI Overview

Racial justice is about achieving a society where people of all races have equal opportunities and outcomes, free from the effects of systemic racism. It goes beyond simply addressing individual acts of discrimination; it requires addressing the root causes of racial oppression and working towards systemic change. This includes dismantling discriminatory laws, policies, and practices, and ensuring fair access to resources and opportunities for all, according to Amnesty International. 

Key aspects of racial justice include:

Addressing systemic racism:

This involves dismantling discriminatory structures and processes that perpetuate racial inequality in areas like education, housing, employment, and the criminal justice system. 

Ensuring equitable outcomes:

This means creating a society where people of all races have equal opportunities to thrive, regardless of their racial background, according to PolicyLink. 

Repairing historical harms:

This involves acknowledging and addressing the legacy of past injustices, such as slavery, segregation, and other forms of discrimination, according to the Equal Justice Initiative. 

Advocating for policy changes:

This involves working to change laws, policies, and practices that perpetuate racial inequality, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. 

Promoting racial understanding and empathy:

This involves educating people about the history and impact of racism and fostering dialogue and understanding between different racial groups. 

Examples of racial justice initiatives include:

Legal challenges to discriminatory practices:

The American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations bring lawsuits to challenge discriminatory laws and policies. 

Advocacy for policy changes:

Organizations like the NAACP work to influence legislation and policy at all levels of government. 

Community organizing and mobilization:

Grassroots movements and organizations empower communities to advocate for their own rights and interests. 

Education and awareness programs:

Organizations like the Racial Justice Initiative and Race Forward aim to educate the public about racism and its impact. 

In Mount Olympus, Millcreek, UT, individuals and organizations can contribute to racial justice by:

Supporting local organizations: Engage with local organizations working on racial justice issues. 

Educating themselves and others: Learn about the history and impact of racism and share that knowledge with others. 

Advocating for policy changes: Contact elected officials to advocate for racial justice policies. 

Participating in local protests and demonstrations: Support and participate in peaceful protests and demonstrations advocating for racial justice. 

Generative AI is experimental.

What reason(s) did your employer give for the action taken against you? Or, what do you believe the employer will tell the EEOC?

I wouldn't be suprised by anything he says. He seems to Act like Eto rules of any kind, and of any rules of CommoN decency, do not Apply to him.

Name others who were treated like you: Witnesses

NAME

TWYLA Bruno

JOB TITLE

RACE/NATIONAL ORIGIN

GS-11 301 Series

SEX

AGE 2

(801) White 586-2562 F

ROSE STANLEY QDR Support White 586-3304 F

DDR Support White

DAWN Gray

586- 5474 F

2

-STACY Soren SON QOR Support.

white

717-

0565 F

Z

Name others who did the same thing you did, but were treated differently:

NAME

Who are your witnesses?

NAME

JOB TITLE

JOB TITLE

RACE/NATIONAL ORIGIN

ADDRESS/PHONE #

SEX

AGE

1..

Mike Perez

HILL AFB.

tool + FOD Manager (801) 775-3431

What will #1 tell us? About how many times

2.

Steve Thomas talked about the Lady in the FOD Video. the prejudicial slanderous embarrassing remans?

What will #2 tell us?

3.

Jeff Titen SoR

(801) 775-3581

he was at the meeting. He might confer/validate.

Clint Perigo

What will #13 tell us? he was at the meeting. He might confer/val date 

What does the Bible say about white lies?

Answer

We know lying is a sin (Leviticus 19:11; Proverbs 12:22). But what about those “little white lies” that involve an ever-so-slight stretching of the truth? Do the small lies matter, or are they harmless? What if telling the truth might hurt someone?

Lying is defined as “making an untrue statement with the intent to deceive.” A white lie is an untrue statement, but it is usually considered unimportant because it does not cover up a serious wrongdoing. A white lie is deceptive, but it may also be polite or diplomatic at the same time. It could be a “tactful” lie told to keep the peace in a relationship; it could be a “helpful” lie to ostensibly benefit someone else; it could be a “minor” lie to make oneself look better in some area.

Some white lies are common: lying about one’s age, for example, or the size of the fish that got away. We live in a society that conditions us to lie by telling us that, in many situations, lies are justified. The secretary “covers” for the boss who doesn’t want to be disturbed; the salesman exaggerates the qualities of his product; the job applicant pads his résumé. The reasoning is, as long as no one is hurt or the result is good, little lies are fine.

It is true that some sins bring about worse consequences than others. And it is true that telling a white lie will not have the same serious effect as, say, murdering someone. But all sins are equally offensive to God (Romans 6:23a), and there are good reasons to avoid telling white lies.

First, the belief that a white lie is “helpful” is rooted in the idea that the end justifies the means. If the lie results in a perceived “good,” then the lie was justified. However, God’s condemnation of lying in Proverbs 6:16–19 contains no exception clause. Also, who defines the “good” that results from the lie? A salesman telling white lies may sell his product—a “good” thing for him—but what about the customer who was taken advantage of?

Telling a white lie to be “tactful” or to spare someone’s feelings is also a foolish thing to do. A person who consistently lies to make people feel good will eventually be seen for what he is: a liar. Those who traffic in white lies will damage their credibility.

White lies have a way of propagating themselves. Telling more lies to cover up the original lie is standard procedure, and the lies get progressively less “white.” Trying to remember what lies were told to what person also complicates relationships and makes further lying even more likely.

Telling a white lie to benefit oneself is nothing but selfishness. When our words are motivated by the pride of life, we are falling into temptation (1 John 2:16).

Little white lies are often told to preserve the peace, as if telling the truth would in some way destroy peace. Yet the Bible presents truth and peace as existing together: “Love truth and peace” (Zechariah 8:19). Tellers of white lies believe they are speaking lies out of “love”; however, the Bible tells us to speak “the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15).

Sometimes telling the truth is not easy; in fact, it can be downright unpleasant. But we are called to be truth-tellers. Being truthful is precious to God (Proverbs 12:22); it demonstrates the fear of Lord. Furthermore, to tell the truth is not a suggestion, it is a command (Psalm 15:2; Zechariah 8:16; Ephesians 4:25). Being truthful flies in the face of Satan, the “father of lies” (John 8:44). Being truthful honors the Lord, who is the “God of truth” (Psalm 31:5, ISV).

What does the Bible say about white lies?

Answer

We know lying is a sin (Leviticus 19:11; Proverbs 12:22). But what about those “little white lies” that involve an ever-so-slight stretching of the truth? Do the small lies matter, or are they harmless? What if telling the truth might hurt someone?

Lying is defined as “making an untrue statement with the intent to deceive.” A white lie is an untrue statement, but it is usually considered unimportant because it does not cover up a serious wrongdoing. A white lie is deceptive, but it may also be polite or diplomatic at the same time. It could be a “tactful” lie told to keep the peace in a relationship; it could be a “helpful” lie to ostensibly benefit someone else; it could be a “minor” lie to make oneself look better in some area.

Some white lies are common: lying about one’s age, for example, or the size of the fish that got away. We live in a society that conditions us to lie by telling us that, in many situations, lies are justified. The secretary “covers” for the boss who doesn’t want to be disturbed; the salesman exaggerates the qualities of his product; the job applicant pads his résumé. The reasoning is, as long as no one is hurt or the result is good, little lies are fine.

It is true that some sins bring about worse consequences than others. And it is true that telling a white lie will not have the same serious effect as, say, murdering someone. But all sins are equally offensive to God (Romans 6:23a), and there are good reasons to avoid telling white lies.

First, the belief that a white lie is “helpful” is rooted in the idea that the end justifies the means. If the lie results in a perceived “good,” then the lie was justified. However, God’s condemnation of lying in Proverbs 6:16–19 contains no exception clause. Also, who defines the “good” that results from the lie? A salesman telling white lies may sell his product—a “good” thing for him—but what about the customer who was taken advantage of?

Telling a white lie to be “tactful” or to spare someone’s feelings is also a foolish thing to do. A person who consistently lies to make people feel good will eventually be seen for what he is: a liar. Those who traffic in white lies will damage their credibility.

White lies have a way of propagating themselves. Telling more lies to cover up the original lie is standard procedure, and the lies get progressively less “white.” Trying to remember what lies were told to what person also complicates relationships and makes further lying even more likely.

Telling a white lie to benefit oneself is nothing but selfishness. When our words are motivated by the pride of life, we are falling into temptation (1 John 2:16).

Little white lies are often told to preserve the peace, as if telling the truth would in some way destroy peace. Yet the Bible presents truth and peace as existing together: “Love truth and peace” (Zechariah 8:19). Tellers of white lies believe they are speaking lies out of “love”; however, the Bible tells us to speak “the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15).

Sometimes telling the truth is not easy; in fact, it can be downright unpleasant. But we are called to be truth-tellers. Being truthful is precious to God (Proverbs 12:22); it demonstrates the fear of Lord. Furthermore, to tell the truth is not a suggestion, it is a command (Psalm 15:2; Zechariah 8:16; Ephesians 4:25). Being truthful flies in the face of Satan, the “father of lies” (John 8:44). Being truthful honors the Lord, who is the “God of truth” (Psalm 31:5, ISV).

https://www.gotquestions.org/white-lies.html 

In the Jesuits-with few exceptions-we are dealing with men whose weapons are not prayers, fasting and tears but perfidies, poisons, deadly maxims, leaden bullets and gunpowder plots. By their doctrines, all that decent men call crimes-robberies, calumnies, murders, blasphemies, seductions, treasons, etc.-flourish. In the words of one writer, "the Jesuit principle is the negation of all principle, and their moral code the subversion of all moral law." Yet, on the exterior they are unsurpassed in knowledge, allable of manners, and able to be all things to all men. But these Jesuits, as Spanish history shows, are men in borrowed robes: taking empty vows of chastity and poverty; dignified without, but seething cauldrons within; full of every sort of 'concupiscence' and equivocation. Their erudition and 'sophistication' being no more than confetti, tinsel and faisandé, adorning the deadly pit into which many innocent and well-meaning victims fall. Jesuitism is the Devil's franchise! One witty commentator summed up the Jesuit qualities thus: "unscrupulous duplicity... vicious doctrines of probabilism, mental reservation, amphibologia fi.c. double sensed words], justification of the means by the end, and many other maxims subversive of honesty and morality. And former priest Paolo Sarpi says, that when the Jesuits. *seek entrance into any place, they do not hesitate to make what lever promises may be demanded of them, possessing as they do the art of escape by lying with equivocations and mental reservations." Their cloak is religion-the fig-leaf for their vicious and shameful doctrines. For despite their pretensions, these men do not "watch and pray, but watch to prey." With a labyrinth of conceits and equivocations, and the most ghostly counsel, they are joined together at the tails like Samson's foxes and sent into the field to wreak devastation in the midst of their enemies. Even Pope Gregory IX had to admit. The Jesuit foxes have various faces, but they all hang together by their tails."

"The Art Of Evil: "The Moral Theology" Of The Jesuits"

Codeword Barbelon book One

by P.D. Stuart

https://www.facebook.com/billy.dunn.50767/posts/635833580700078 

MEMORANDUM FOR OO-ALC/CCD   September 24, 2006  

FROM:    SUSAN L. DUNN                  

2995 N 1050 E                  

N. OGDEN, UTAH   84414  

SUBJECT:   EEO Complaint/reprisals  

This EEO complaint is about reprisals due to a sexual harassment and hostile work environment suit, case number 8L1M06060 filed by me against my immediate supervisor 309 EMXG/Steven M. Thomas/QPC, this reprisal suit is also to include Buddy Paden/QPQ my 2nd line supervisor.  The reprisal issues and dates are as followed:  On Sept 21, 2006 someone changed my chart that I changed on Monday the 18th Sept. So the wrong (old) information was still on it for the bi weekly meeting.  I think Steve did this because it was hi lighted in red font for everyone to see. I’m the only person he does this to.  When other people numbers are wrong or information incorrect, he doesn’t hi light theirs in red.  Showing prejudice, ostracizing and humiliating me in front of my peers.  On or about Sept 12, 2006 Steve called an office meeting and when I went in and sat down he told me the meeting was about the Deficiency reporting problems and didn’t concern me and told me I should leave and said “Goodbye” with a big sneer on his face, as he shut the door behind me.  As all my co workers were in attendance watching me be dismissed by Steve, I was feeling ostracized and demoralized and not a part of his group.  On August 8, 2006 after the Quality Management Board dry run, I asked Buddy if I was going to talk at the QMB and he said no, that he was going to.  I then gave him a copy of the MXW (Wing) Program Manager’s (Mr. Fred Smith) Executive Summary about the “Scrap Material Reclamation Function” surveillance in which I was given a noteworthy kudos for being the 309 EMXG group POC (I’ve done this for almost a year).  Buddy Paden called me later that afternoon and told me that “I’m going to make your day” and told me to give my SMRF book and any other information I had and to catch Warren Ferree up and that Warren was going to be the Group’s POC now.  When I talked to Warren he didn’t know why they passed the job to him.   I was doing an excellent job and I feel that this was an act of reprisal.  I enjoyed this job a lot and did very well at it. By taking this job away management can use this against me on my next appraisal.  This is also age discrimination and sexism.  On August 2, 2006,  My boss Steve Thomas was talking to Mike Perez (who sits 4 feet from me in our cubicle),   about the Quarterly Award Ceremonies and the people who were participating in the cheering competition were “faggots” .  Since I attended also I felt Steve was calling me a faggot.  He also was belittling us women in the office because we wouldn’t help carry in 40 lb. boxes of paper in from the dock.  After I complained to

Col. Hoffman about this incident he asked me to send him a memo, and on Aug. 3, 2006 I did.  Later on (that same day) after I sent the memo, Steve sent me a 192 page OC-ALC IG report which he got on July 25, 2006 FYI to him, and told me I had 3 days to get a draft on his desk.  I also feel the August 2nd and August 3rd events were sexual harassment and reprisal.   Since March 1, 2006 I have had such deterioration of my health, specifically of my heart, I’ve had to take time off to have many tests and procedures done, all because of the anxiety and hostile work environment created by Mr. Steven Thomas and now my temporary 2nd line supervisor is contributing also, with these reprisals based on my first EEO complaint.  For this damage I’d like the remedy to be firing Steve Thomas from his supervising job and returning 175 hours of my sick leave.    Buddy Paden told me once that they fire people downtown if they can’t meet their suspenses.  Steve has said on more than one occasion that he would demote me if I couldn’t handle an 11’s job. He said that whatever I did over in Commodities as an 11 they don’t give people that grade over here in Electronics doing that.  Possibly he will downgrade my position he always holds that over me. This is all part of my stress and anxiety levels.  Another remedy I would like, is to be reassigned immediately into a Deficiency Reporting job outside Electronics, any action point, support point, single point of contact office, file manager office for the DR system.  Possibly reassign me back into the 1910 series I came out of. And reassign me to a different Directorate.   I would take a job at the Utah test training range as long as I didn’t lose pay.  I think that is Civil Engineering outfit.    I hereby designate William Dunn as my representative and he can be reached at 801-737-5932.  

Signed___________________________________________________  

Personal Representative______________________________________

Pope Francis apologizes for using homophobic slur in closed-door meeting with bishops

A Vatican spokesperson shared an apology from Pope Francis after Italian media reported he used a homophobic slur in a meeting with bishops.

Ryan Ross

published 4:42p.m. ET May 28, 2024

https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/2024/05/28/pope-francis-apologizes-for-using-homophobic-slur-in-meeting/73883299007/

If these top level intellectuals who advocate the establishment of a One World Government intended to put God’s plan for the rule of the whole of the universe into effect upon this earth it hardly seems likely that they would pack the civil services of ALL remaining governments with homosexuals. Any person who has had to live in London, Ottawa and/or Washington knows that as far as homosexualism is concerned all three are modern cities like Sodom and Gomorrah. “Burgess and McLean Case” is typical of what I mean. Professor Pitrim Sorokin of Harvard University published an exposure of this angle of the Luciferian conspiracy in a book entitled The American Sex Revolution. The author states that perverted sexual behaviour plays a major part in modern U.S. political life and that sex bribery and blackmail are now as prevalent as monetary corruption. He states “sexually infamous persons, or their protege, are being appointed to ambassadorships and other high offices; profligates sometimes become popular mayors of metropolises, members of cabinets, or leaders of political parties. Among our political officials there is a vast legion of profligates both heterosexual and homosexual. Our morals have changed so notably that continency, chastity, and faithfulness are increasingly viewed as oddities."

Satan Prince of this World

by William Guy Carr

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hw94yTrcRzvZjNQOo8T5_w-jqL8v5IMu/view?usp=sharing

Compressed, Orderly, Rapid, Equitable (CORE) Process Election Form

TO: SAF/MRBA (CORE Processing Office)

FROM: Susan L. Dunn, Docket # 8L1M06060

I certify that I have been informed on the difference between the traditional EEO process and the Air Force EEO Pilot CORE process. I understand that if I elect the CORE process in lieu of the traditional EEO process, I can opt out of the process prior to the issuance of the Final Agency Decision (FAD) and my EEO complaint will continue to be processed under the traditional EEO process, at a point corresponding to the point at which I opt out.

I understand that if I opt out of the CORE process after the Core Fact Finding Conference (CFFC), the CFFC will count as the investigation and I may either request a hearing before an EEOC Administrative Judge or a FAD. I further understand that the CORE process ends once a FAD is issued and I will have the option of appealing the decision to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), or filing an action in Federal District Court, within the periods specified in 29 CFR 1614.

I further understand that mediation is a key part of the CORE process and if I elect to proceed with the CORE process, mediation may be offered prior to the CFFC. If mediation is offered, I will have the opportunity to accept or decline. Accepting an offer to mediate does not obligate me to agree to settle my complaint, however if I do fully settle my complaint through mediation, further processing of my complaint will cease.

Based upon that understanding, I have elected to use the following to process my complaint. Check only one:

CORE Process forma

Traditional EEO Process

SLD

I understand this decision is final and I will not be offered another chance to use the CORE Process for this claim or any related claim. I also have been made aware of the Department of Defense's need for information concerning reasons for my not choosing the CORE process. For this reason, I have been provided a survey form with instructions for getting it to the proper office for review. I understand the completion of the survey is completely voluntary. The survey form will allow for anonymous submission.

COMPLAINANT. Dusan J. Dunn

COMPLAINANT'S PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE

EEO SPECIALIST;

5 June 2006

DATE: DAT

June

DATE

DATE: JUN 06

0027

0026 

Sunday August 13, 1961 continued

The ride into Jackson was uneventful. It was dark and few people noticed our being sirened through all the traffic lights by our escort of police cars. The Masonic Temple is located in the middle of downtown Jackson, on Lynch Street. When we entered, it was almost full, a sea of Negro faces (although I became aware later that there were some whites among them, even some Jackson whites, particularly from Temple Beth Israel, the Jewish congregation in Jackson). As we filed to the seats reserved for us, the people of Jackson stood up and cheered us. I felt very strange; I had never been the guest of honor at a larger meeting before, and even sharing the limelight with almost two hundred others, it gave me a feeling of mixed humility and pride.

The opening invocation was given by Freedom Rider who was a rabbi from San Francisco, Joseph Gumbiner, and I was at this point introduced to on of the strangest (to me) aspects of southern Negro audience, their habit of responding aloud to sentiments with which they are pleased. As the rabbi repeated some of the most common and familiar (to me) phrases of Jewish ritual, I heard choruses of "That's right," "We believe," and "A-men!" At first I could not help feeling that this was impolite and inappropriate, but as it continues through the evening I began to get into the spirit too and to shed some of my northern reserve. The speeches, by Reverent C.T. Vivian, Jim Farmer, and various other leaders of the movement from all over the country."

page 113 

Chapter 12 "Events"

Freedom Rider Diary 

by Carol Ruth Silver 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ySwr5Z2ARlgLZc67EyuyjUR9B7iorZM8/view

In 1843, New York Reform Jews founded the exclusively Jewish Masonic Lodge, B'nai B'rith.

Their institutions and influence grew. At the turn of the 20th century, the B'nai B'rith founded the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Congress and Federations of Jewish Charities.

According to Rabbi Antelman, Reform #Jews who became lawyers were, and still are, active in the subversively oriented National Lawyers Guild. In addition these lawyers were instrumental

in founding the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Once the Frankist-Reform Jews were well established in the illuminated Masonic Lodges, they pushed for civil rights for the downtrodden, primarily for Blacks, according to Antelman, "to

exploit them for their own ends." He further remarks on their influence on the events of the 1960s:

"I have found their descendants in the United States to be very active in Marxist-Leninist and Third World activities. They have attempted to convert the Civil Rights movement into a Black

revolution, and are attempting to further polarize this country by promoting women's liberation. Their children who are prominent in the SDS [Students for a Democratic Society] organize and recruit for the El Fatah, and have succeeded in destroying synagogues and

Jewish institutions by instigating Black radicals mostly concentrated in nine urban centers in the U.S."

Rabbi Antelman lists three steps Reform Jews plan to use to eliminate all Jewry: "The initial thrust was philosophically Karaitic, an attack on the Talmud. [The Karaites were a Jewish sect founded in Babylonia toward the end of the 8th century, who denied the authority of the Oral Law and the Talmud.] The intermediate stage was complete apostasy, an attack on the Torah.

However, the final state is even worse": a complete reversal of all Biblical law. Antelman, writing in 1974, said the Reform "has followers today who are now calling for abolition of capital punishment in our society, who endorse abortion, who seek to justify the tolerance of criminal elements, who approve of adultery and illicit sexual relations and who have even incorporated homosexual congregations into their structure and praise for 'atheistic' rabbis...."

The Reform's planned destruction of traditionally Jewish and #Christian society through Masonic revolution was premeditated. Antelman states that "when attempts were made by the Illuminati,

Jacobins and Frankists to infiltrate the Masons.. .their infiltration did not mean that they harbored any particular love for Freemasonry. On the contrary, they hated it with a passion and only wished to utilize the cover of Freemasonry as a means of spreading their revolutionary doctrines and to provide a place where they could covertly meet without arousing suspicion."

Antelman wrote eight years before the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail exposed Freemasonry as a front for both Sion and the Templars. Now we know that instead of taking over #Freemasonry, as many conspiracy researchers have thought, the Illuminati-Frankist Jews were absorbed, then exploited, by the more powerful Masonic Lodges. Freemasonry learned well the Frankist doctrines and usurped their Reform system to destroy the existing order. Jews such as Moses Mendelssohn, and later Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Leon Trotsky, were used by Freemasonry to replace the old order with their own Gentile Masonic New World Order. Should

the conspiracy be exposed, the doctrinally subversive Frankist/Reform Jews would be the scapegoat." 

Chapter 8 "The Jewish Connection" 

Scarlet and the Beast 

by John Daniel

https://ia803001.us.archive.org/28/items/ScarletAndTheBeastJohnDaniel1995/Scarlet%20and%20the%20Beast,%20John%20Daniel%20(1995).pdf

Wednesday, May 31, 1961

In the afternoon mail today I received the material from CORE, some descriptive little pamphlets and a mimeographed form to be signed and returned to them. For the first time I began to learn just who and what CORE is. Actually I never herd of the organization until the beginning of the sit-in demonstrations last year, and I got the impression then that it had been formed not more than a year or so ago, with participation in the sit-ins its primary activity.

On the contrary, CORE has been around for something like twenty years. In the beginning it was a small organization dedicated to bettering race relations by applying Gandhian techniques although I could not get quite clear about what exactly this entailed). Its current ASCENDANCY began with the beginning of the sit-in demonstrations. These broke out like a highly CONTAGIOUS rash over the face of the South after having been started (more or less) by a small group in Greensboro, North Carolina. The students had gone up to a lunch counter together, sat down, and waited for service. The lunch counter closed up.

CORE came in as those in jail or otherwise in need of help. And some of its local chapters began challenge segregation by organizing their own lunch counter sit-ins, or wade-ins at beaches and public pools, stand-ins at movie ticket lines, read-ins at libraries and the like. The method used in all cases was nonviolent resistance, with Martin Luther King, Jr's bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, as the prime example."

page 9 

Freedom Rider Diary 

by Carol Ruth Silver

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ySwr5Z2ARlgLZc67EyuyjUR9B7iorZM8/view

Chapter 43 The Jesuits — 1960 – 1963 1455 A. Philip Randolph Leading Black Civil Rights Leaders, 1964 

Here sit the greatest traitors to American Black People who ever disgraced the sad, tragic history of this generally servile and downtrodden race. With no true Black men loyal to their race allowed to advocate a “Back to Africa” movement or the establishment of a new Black nation in North America—to the exclusion of all White people—, these Jesuit-ruled, Masonic “Uncle Toms” of the Black Pope championed an integrationist agitation that has only antagonized the relationship between American Whites and Blacks for the last sixty years—while further centralizing executive power in Washington! Massive unconstitutional socialism, such as President Johnson’s “War on [Black] Poverty” igniting a sky-rocketing national debt, has given rise to huge, easily-agitated, welfare-dependent, savage, inner-city, Black populations whose bent to illegitimacy, vice and Black-on- White crime has been continually stoked by the Company’s CIA/Mafia gunrunners, illicit drug trade, Jesuit/Knight of Malta-controlled Hollywood theater movies and now “gangster rap.” From the Order’s NAACP headquarters in New York City we see (L-R): Bayard Rustin, co-founder of the Rockefellerfunded University of Chicago’s Congress of Racial Equality (CORE); Jewish Jack Greenberg, NAACP New York lawyer; Masonic Whitney M. Young, Jr., National Urban League executive director; James Farmer, cofounder and national CORE director; Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP later awarded St. Louis University’s “Sword of Ignatius Loyola” in 1976; Martin Luther King, Jr. (groomed for the movement while a student at the all-Blackmale Morehouse College by its Masonic president, Benjamin Elijah Mays) president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; John Lewis, radical chairman of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee; Masonic A. Philip Randolph, “the Chief;” and Courtney Young of Lewis’ student group. Socialist Martin King with his White Master, Pope Paul VI, 1964 #612 Archbishop Paul Marcinkus gazes at King after an “audience” with the Pope. SMOM Henry R. Luce’s Time magazine named King “Man of the Year” in 1964 on orders from Cardinal Spellman, furthering Rome’s Civil Rights agitation. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4737372.stm "

Vatican Assassins Third Edition

by Eric Jon Phelps

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uQl1CmWeLL87RWVtzKttGFKm0frSNR8D/view?usp=sharing

The advertisement billed the December 2 benefit gala as “A Struggle Against Oppression.” Scheduled speakers included rising Assemblyman Willie Brown as the master of ceremonies and funnyman Dick Gregory as the keynote. Supervisor Harvey Milk and other movers and shakers of an oft moved and shaken city crammed their big names into a small font on the flyer. For the bargain of $25—and “tax deductible” at that—influence seekers could seek to influence the mighty of a great American city. In addition to mingling with such power brokers as Brown and Milk, they could corner Sheriff Eugene Brown, physician and newspaper publisher Carlton Goodlett, and Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver at San Francisco’s Hyatt Regency. And doing well meant doing good. The dinner’s proceeds subsidized the Peoples Temple Medical Program.

The Hyatt ballroom remained empty on December 2, 1978. Two weeks earlier, the small staff of the Peoples Temple Medical Program had mixed cyanide with Flavor Aid and administered the poisonous, sugary elixir to hundreds of people in faraway Guyana. The smiling seniors and racial rainbow of children touting the wholesomeness of the agricultural commune in the fundraiser’s promotional literature rotted in piles in the steamy South American jungle. On an airstrip in nearby Port Kaituma, five people, including Congressman Leo Ryan, lay dead, gunned down by Peoples Temple assassins. Others, including future congresswoman Jackie Speier, State Department official Richard Dwyer, and San Francisco Examiner reporter Tim Reiterman, nursed bullet wounds. In Guyana’s capital city, a former Harvey Milk campaign volunteer slashed her children’s throats.

The Reverend Jim Jones, the darling of the San Francisco political establishment, orchestrated the murders and suicides of 918 people on November 18, 1978. The man-made cataclysm represented the largest such loss of civilian life in American history until 9/11 and the largest mass suicide of the modern age. Nothing before or after struck Americans as so bizarre.

The event shocked the world. But the small world surrounding Peoples Temple predicted it—loudly and repeatedly. Not every utterance from Jonestown’s namesake, after all, proved as cryptic as the one block-quoted on the “Struggle Against Oppression” promotional literature: “We have tasted life based on total equality and now have no desire to live otherwise."

https://isi.org/intercollegiate-review/socialists-in-the-kool-aid/

To sum up: men crucified to the world, and to whom the world itself is crucified[7] such would our Constitutions have us to be; new men, I say, who have put off their affections to put on Christ;[8] dead to themselves to live to justice; who, with St. Paul in labors, in watchings, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in long suffering, in sweetness, in the Holy Spirit, in charity unfeigned, in the word of truth, show themselves ministers of God[9] and by the armor of Justice on the right hand and, on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report, by good success finally and ill success, press forward with great strides to their heavenly country. This is the sum and aim of our institute."

The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms

https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf

In a punch bowl, combine KOOL-AID Soft Drink Mix, Splenda Sweetener, and water; stir until granules are dissolved. Stir in pineapple juice.

https://www.splenda.com/recipe/kool-aid-paradise-punch/

Few national cemeteries can compete with the dramatic natural setting of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. The "Punchbowl" was formed some 75,000 to 100,000 years ago during the Honolulu period of secondary volcanic activity. A crater resulted from the ejection of hot lava through cracks in the old coral reefs which, at the time, extended to the foot of the Koolau Mountain Range.

Although there are various translations of the Punchbowl's Hawaiian name, "Puowaina," the most common is "Hill of Sacrifice." This translation closely relates to the history of the crater. The first known use was as an altar where Hawaiians offered human sacrifices to pagan gods and the killed violators of the many taboos. Later, during the reign of Kamehameha the Great, a battery of two cannons was mounted at the rim of the crater to salute distinguished arrivals and signify important occasions. Early in the 1880s, leasehold land on the slopes of the Punchbowl opened for settlement and in the 1930s, the crater was used as a rifle range for the Hawaii National Guard. Toward the end of World War II, tunnels were dug through the rim of the crater for the placement of shore batteries to guard Honolulu Harbor and the south edge of Pearl Harbor.

https://www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/nmcp.asp 

The ankh or key of life is an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol used to represent the word for "life" and, by extension, as a symbol of life itself.

The ankh has a T-shape topped by a droplet-shaped loop. It was used in writing as a triliteral sign, representing a sequence of three consonants, Ꜥ-n-ḫ. This sequence was found in several Egyptian words, including the terms for "mirror", "floral bouquet", and "life". The symbol often appeared in Egyptian art as a physical object representing either life or related life-giving substances such as air or water. Commonly depicted in the hands of ancient Egyptian deities, sometimes being given by them to the pharaoh, it represents their power to sustain life and to revive human souls in the afterlife.

The ankh was a widespread decorative motif in ancient Egypt, also used decoratively by neighbouring cultures. Copts adapted it into the crux ansata, a shape with a circular rather than droplet loop, and used it as a variant of the Christian cross. The ankh came into widespread use in Western culture in the 1960s, appearing as a symbol of African cultural identity, Neopagan belief systems, and later, the goth subculture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankh

The crucifixion darkness is an event described in the synoptic gospels in which the sky becomes dark in daytime during the crucifixion of Jesus for roughly three hours.[1][2][3] Most ancient and medieval Christian writers treated this as a miracle, and believed it to be one of the few episodes from the New Testament which were confirmed by non-Christian sources. Modern scholars have found no contemporary references to it outside the New Testament.[4]

In his Apologeticus, Christian apologist Tertullian in AD 197 considered this not an eclipse but an omen, which is recorded in Roman archives. In his apologetic work Contra Celsum, the third-century Christian scholar Origen offered two natural explanations for the darkness: that it might have been the eclipse described by Phlegon of Tralles in his Chronicle or that it might have been clouds. In his Chronicle of Theophanes the fifth-century chronicler George Syncellus quotes the History of the World of Sextus Julius Africanus as stating that a world eclipse and an earthquake in Judea had been reported by the Greek 1st century historian Thallus in his Histories.

Modern scholarship, noting the way in which similar accounts were associated in ancient times with the deaths of notable figures, sees the phenomenon as a sign of God's displeasure with the Jewish people, or a literary invention that attempts to convey a sense of the power of Jesus in the face of death. Scholars have also noted the ways in which this episode appears to draw on accounts of darkness from the Old Testament.

Biblical accounts

The oldest extant references to the crucifixion darkness are found in all three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). The majority view among scholars is that Matthew was a product of the last quarter of the 1st century.[5][Notes 1] The majority also believe that Mark was the first gospel to be composed and that Matthew (who includes some 600 of Mark's 661 verses) and Luke both drew upon it as a major source for their works.[6][7] Matthew did not simply copy Mark, but used it as a base, emphasizing Jesus' place in the Jewish tradition and including other details not covered in Mark.[8]

Composition of the Gospel of Mark is usually dated through the eschatological discourse in Mark 13. Most scholars interpret this as pointing to the First Jewish–Roman War (66–74 AD) that would lead to the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70, with the composition of Mark taking place either immediately after the destruction (the majority position) or during the years immediately prior.[9] Earlier dates in the range AD 35–45 are sometimes proposed,[10] but are usually dismissed.[11]

The text of the Gospel of Matthew reads: "From noon on, darkness came over the whole land [or, earth] until three in the afternoon."[12] The author includes dramatic details following the death of Jesus, including an earthquake and the raising of the dead, which were also common motifs in Jewish apocalyptic literature:[13][14] "At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised."[15]

The Gospel of Mark concurs with the timing of events, stating that, on preparation day (the eve of the Sabbath), Jesus was crucified at "the sixth hour", or around noon, and darkness fell over all the land, or all the world (‹See Tfd›Greek: γῆν, translit. gēn can mean either) from around noon ("the sixth hour") until 3 o'clock ("the ninth hour").[16] It adds, immediately after the death of Jesus, "The curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom",[17] but does not mention an earthquake or the opening of tombs.

The Gospel of Luke concurs with the length and timing of the darkness but also does not mention an earthquake or the opening of tombs. Contrary to Matthew and Mark, however, the text mentions the tearing of the Temple veil prior to the death of Jesus,[18] and provides the obscuring of the Sun as the cause of the darkness:[19][20]

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land [or, earth] until three in the afternoon, while the sun's light failed [or, the sun was eclipsed]; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.[21]

It appears that Luke may have originally explained the event as a miraculous solar eclipse. The majority of manuscripts of the Gospel of Luke have the Greek phrase eskotisthe ho helios ("the sun was darkened"), but the earliest manuscripts say tou heliou eklipontos ("the sun's light failed" or "the sun was in eclipse").[22] This earlier version may have been amended by later scribes to correct what they assumed was an error, since Passover occurs during a full moon but a solar eclipse occurs during a new moon.[23][24] Furthermore, a total eclipse provides darkness at one location during totality for a maximum of seven and a half minutes,[25] whereas the gospel texts state that the darkness covered the land for roughly three hours. For these reasons, one early Christian commentator suggested that the early text attributing the event to an eclipse had been deliberately corrupted by opponents of the Church to make it easier to attack on naturalist grounds.[26]

In the account of the crucifixion given in the Gospel of John,[27] which is generally accepted to have been written much later and which focuses on different themes, events, and sayings than the synoptic gospels, there is no mention of darkness, the tearing of the veil, the earthquake, or the raising of the dead.[28]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion_darkness

2030-2031 APPARITION CHARACTERISTICS

Another general rule for predicting oppositions of Mars is from the following: the planet has an approximate 15.8-year periodic opposition cycle, which consists of three or four Aphelic oppositions and three consecutive Perihelic oppositions. Perihelic oppositions are also called "favorable" because the Earth and Mars come closest to each other on those occasions. We sometimes refer to this as the seven Martian synodic periods. This cycle is repeated every 79 years (± 4 to 5 days) and, if one were to live long enough, one would see this cycle nearly replicated in approximately 284 years. The 2031 Mars apparition is considered Transitional (between Aphelic and Perihelic) because the orbital longitude at opposition will be 68.4° from the aphelion longitude of 70° Ls and 111.6° Ls from perihelion (250° Ls).

NOTE: Ls is the planetocentric longitude of the Sun along the ecliptic of Mars’ sky. 0° Ls is defined as that point where the Sun crosses the Martian celestial equator from south to north, that is the planet’s northern hemisphere vernal equinox. The other Ls values that define the beginnings of Martian northern hemisphere seasons are: summer, 90° Ls; autumn, 180° Ls; and winter, 270° Ls. For Mars’ southern hemisphere these values represent the opposite seasons. Distance (A.U.) - Distance from Earth to Mars in astronomical units, where one (1) A.U. equals 92,955,807.267 miles or 149,597,870.691 km.

Opposition occurs 11 months after conjunction when Mars is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. At that time, the two planets will lie nearly in a straight line with respect to the Sun, or five weeks after retrogression begins. Opposition will occur at 1157 UT on May 04, 2031 (138.4° Ls) with an apparent planetary disk diameter of 16.7 arcsec. Mars will remain visible for more than twelve months after opposition and then become lost in the glare of the Sun around May 31, 2032 as it approaches the next conjunction (July 11, 2032). The cycle is complete in 780 Earth days.

Closest approach occurs at 0350 UT on May 12, 2031 (142.1° Ls) with an apparent planetary disk diameter of 16.9 at a distance of 0.5533578 astronomical units (AU) or 51,437,823 miles (82,781,152 km). During closest approach in 2031 the apparent diameter of Mars will be 2.4 arcsec larger than it was at the same period in 2029; however, it will be 17.1 degrees lower in the sky - not quite as good for observing the Red Planet for observers in the northern hemisphere. It should also be noted that closest approach between Earth and Mars is not necessarily coincident with the time of opposition but varies by as much as two weeks.

https://www.alpo-astronomy.org/jbeish/2031_MARS.htm 

Grammar - Conjunction Junction - Schoolhouse Rock

With lyrics by Bob Dorough, Jack Sheldon providing lead vocal and Terry Morrell backing vocal, "Conjunction Junction" is another great "Schoolhouse Rock!" short animated musical that entertains while educating about the importance of "hooking up words and phrases and clauses" with and, but, or. The leading character is a train conductor who has those words printed on the side of the train cars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjdCFat9rjI

Philalethes, who in his Entrke ouverte au Palais ferd du Roi has dealt at greatest length on the practice of the Work, mentions the hermetic star and infers the cosmic magic of its appearance. 

'It is the miracle of the world, the assembly of superior virtues in the inferior ones. That is why the Almighty has marked it with an extraordinary sign. The Wise Men saw it in the east, were struck with amazement and knew at once that a King most pure had been born into the the world. 

'As for you, as soon as you see his star, follow it to the Cradle, where you will see the lovely Child." Then the Adept reveals the manner of operating : 

'Let four parts be taken of our fiery dragon, which hides our Preface to the Second Edition 15 magic steel in its belly, and nine parts of our lodestone; mix them together, by burning Vulcan, in the form of mineral water, on which a scum will float which must be removed. Throw away th crust, take the inner part, purge three times, by fire and by salt, which will be done easily if Saturn has seen his image in the mirror of Mars.' 

Finally Philalethes adds : 

'And the Almighty sets his royal seal on the Work and adorns it specially therewith.'

Fulcanelli

Mystery of the Cathedrals

http://www.mtanthony13.org/library/Fulcanelli%20-%20The%20Mystery%20of%20the%20Cathedrals.pdf  

Fire as the agent of Truth

Asha Vahishta is closely associated with fire. Fire is "grandly conceived as a force informing all the other Amesha Spentas, giving them warmth and the spark of life."[27] In Yasht 17.20, Angra Mainyu clamours that Zoroaster burns him with Asha Vahishta. In Vendidad 4.54-55, speaking against the truth and violating the sanctity of promise is detected by the consumption of "water, blazing, of golden color, having the power to detect guilt."

This analogy of truth that burns and detecting truth through fire is already attested in the very earliest texts, that is, in the Gathas and in the Yasna Haptanghaiti. In Yasna 43–44, Ahura Mazda dispenses justice through radiance of His fire and the strength of aṣ̌a. Fire "detects" sinners "by hand-grasping" (Yasna 34.4). An individual who has passed the fiery test (garmo-varah, ordeal by heat), has attained physical and spiritual strength, wisdom, truth and love with serenity (Yasna 30.7). Altogether, "there are said to have been some 30 kinds of fiery tests in all."[28] According to the post-Sassanid Dadestan i denig (I.31.10), at the final judgement a river of molten metal will cover the earth. The righteous, as they wade through this river, will perceive the molten metal as a bath of warm milk. The wicked will be scorched. For details on aṣ̌a's role in personal and final judgement, see aṣ̌a in eschatology, below.

Fire is moreover the "auxiliary of the truth," "and not only, as in the ordeal, of justice and of truth at the same time."[11] In Yasna 31.19, "the man who thinks of aṣ̌a, [...] who uses his tongue in order to speak correctly, [does so] with the aid of brilliant fire". In Yasna 34-44 devotees "ardently desire [Mazda's] mighty fire, through aṣ̌a." In Yasna 43–44, Ahura Mazda "shall come to [Zoroaster] through the splendour of [Mazda's] fire, possessing the strength of (through) aṣ̌a and good mind (=Vohu Manah)." That fire "possesses strength through aṣ̌a" is repeated again in Yasna 43.4. In Yasna 43.9, Zoroaster, wishing to serve fire, gives his attention to aṣ̌a. In Yasna 37.1, in a list of what are otherwise all physical creations, aṣ̌a takes the place of fire.

Asha Vahishta's association with atar is carried forward in the post-Gathic texts, and they are often mentioned together. In Zoroastrian cosmogony, each of the Amesha Spentas represents one aspect of creation and one of seven primordial elements that in Zoroastrian tradition are the basis of that creation. In this matrix, aṣ̌a/arta is the origin of fire, Avestan atar, which permeates through all Creation. The correspondence then is that aṣ̌a/arta "penetrates all ethical life, as fire penetrates all physical being."[12]

In the liturgy Asha Vahishta is frequently invoked together with fire. (Yasna l.4, 2.4, 3.6, 4.9, 6.3, 7.6, 17.3, 22.6, 59.3, 62.3 etc.). In one passage, fire is a protector of aṣ̌a: "when the Evil Spirit assailed the creation of Good Truth, Good Thought and Fire intervened" (Yasht 13.77)

In later Zoroastrian tradition, Asha Vahishta is still at times identified with the fire of the household hearth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asha 

The Sphere (officially Große Kugelkaryatide N.Y., also known as Sphere at Plaza Fountain, WTC Sphere or Koenig Sphere) is a monumental cast bronze sculpture by German artist Fritz Koenig (1924–2017).[2]

The world's largest bronze sculpture of modern times stood between the Twin Towers on the Austin J. Tobin Plaza of the World Trade Center in New York City from 1972 until the September 11 attacks. The work, weighing more than 20 tons, was the only remaining work of art to be recovered largely intact from the ruins of the collapsed Twin Towers. After being dismantled and stored near a hangar at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the sculpture was the subject of the 2001 documentary Koenig's Sphere. Since then, the bronze sphere has become a memorial for the attacks.

The sculpture was installed in Battery Park between 2002 and 2017, when the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey moved it to Liberty Park, overlooking the September 11 Memorial and its original location.[2] The sculpture, rededicated at its permanent location on August 16, 2017, has been kept in the badly damaged condition it was found in after the September 11 attacks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sphere

Social Park USA

November 15 at 9:11 AM   

The Sphere and the North Tower 🇺🇸

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid02Ggy86MmsLCbJAubHGqxADhb5N4Au3hWPsHkTKjXqKuZbsb2wuZGWHHutJUST59r3l&id=61555655113607

THE NEW AGE 

GOD'S PLAN IN AMERICA C. WILLIAM SMITH, New Orleans, La.  September 1950

THERE are three plans in action in America today and they all have different purposes. The first plan is God's plan, a nonsectarian plan; the second is the Roman Catholic plan, and this is a denominational or sectarian plan, and the third is the Communistic plan, an anticapitalist plan. 

God's plan is dedicated to the unification of all races, religions and creeds. This plan, dedicated to the new order of things, is to make all things new-s new nation, a new race, a new civilization and a new religion, a nonsectarian religion that has already been recognized and called the religion of "The Great Light." 

Looking back into history, we can easily see that the Guiding Hand of Providence has chosen the Nordic people to bring in and unfold the new order of the world. Records clearly show that 95 percent of the colonists were Nordics-Anglo-Saxons. 

Providence has chosen the Nordics because the Nordics have prepared themselves and have chosen God. They are not church worshippers, for they worship God's word-the Holy Bible. The Nordics are. the great Bible-reading people of the world today, and the Nordics-Anglo-Saxons -were the first people to print the Holy Bible in great quantity, and they were known as the people of a book, that book being the Holy Bible. 

But, in order to read the Bible, it is necessary to know how to read. In the Nordic race there is no illiteracy. In Norway there has been no illiteracy for more than a hundred years. Another fact that shows clearly that the Nordics are God's chosen people this time is they are always looking for more light on the mission of life. 

Looking at their station of life, these great Bible-reading people should open the eyes of the world, King Gustaf of Sweden is a great light in the nonsectarian Masonic Brotherhood, and King Haakon of Norway is a Masonic light in Norway. 

The late King Christian of Denmark was a Masonic spirit in his Denmark; also King George of England is a Masonic light to his Anglo-Saxon people.  Just as Providence has chosen the Jewish race-the children of Israel-to bring into the world righteousness by carrying the "Ten Commandments" which emphasize 'Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy," so also Providence has chosen the Nordic race to unfold the 'New Age" of the world-a "Novus Ordo Seclorum." One of the first of the Nordics to reach the New World was the Viking, Leif Ericsson. He sailed from Norway to bring his people in Iceland a new message, the message of the Chritian God. But Providence moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform, and so Leif the Lucky was sent by Providence to the New World. From the abundance of grapes found there Leif Ericsson called the place Vinland. It is easy to sense that Leif Ericsson was sent by the Guiding Hand of Providence to bring the Norse spirit of the "All-Father" to the shores of the New World. 

The Nordics are the highest branch of the fifth Aryan Civilization.; The Latins are of the fourth Aryan Civilization, and the American race will be the sixth Aryan Civilization. This new and great civilization is like an American Beauty rosebud, ready to open and send its wonderful fragrance to all the world. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Paine and many others of the founders of the New World were Nordics. Thomas Paine, the spark plug of the American Revolution, loved God but hated sectarianism. In 'These Are the times," he wrote: "We have it in our power to begin the world all over again! A situation familiar to the present hath not happened since the days of Noah, till now. The birthday of a New World is at hand." 

As stated before, God's Plan in America is nonsectarian plan. Our Constitution is nonsectarian. Our great American Public Schools-God's chosen schools-are nonsectarian. The Great Spirit behind this great nation is nonsectarian.

Our great American Public Schools have never taken away from any child the freedom of will, freedom of Spirit or freedom of mind. That is the divine reason that Great God our King has chosen the great American Public Schools to pave the way for the new race, the new religion and the new civilization that is taking place in America.

Any mother, father or guardian who is responsible for taking away of freedom of mind, freedom of will or freedom of spirit is the lowest criminal on this earth, because they take away from that child the God-given right to become a part of God's great plan in America for the dawn of the New Age of the world."

The Official Organ of The Supreme Council 33° A. & A. Scottish Rite of Freemasonry S. J. 

U. S. A. 

PUBLISHED AT 1735 SIXTEENTH STREET N, W. WASHINGTON, D. C. 

The philosophy at the core of all the Mystery Schools is secular humanism, the foundation and the font of socialism/communism. Most socialists/communists don't have the slightest idea that they are puppets of an arcane philosophy bent upon world domination. They actually believe they will ultimately realize a world where everything is free courtesy of Big Brother and where all risk and worry has disappeared... any such world would only be a world of slaves dependent upon an elite class of "Masters".

The Knights Templar were an communist organization symbolized by the two knights riding one horse. Each initiate had to give up all wealth, property, and worldly goods to the Order. Each performed according to his ability and received according to the need of his position within the order. They were pledged to absolute and unquestioning obedience to their superior Knight or knights, the Grand Master, and the Order. In that respect every knight and every piece of property, all wealth, was totally owned and controlled by the Order.

According to MAJESTYTWELVE the Knights Templar have become the driving influence at the highest levels of all the secret societies among the adepts known as the Illuminati. The most accessible font of their influence will be found in the (Cecil Rhodes) Roundtable Group (The Group), The Royal Institute Of International Affairs, the Church of Saint John the Divine in New York City, the Council On Foreign Relations, the Jason Society, the Skull and Bones Society (Russell Trust), the Scroll and Key Fraternity, the highest Degrees of the York and Scottish Rites of Freemasonry, the Ancient Order of Rosae Crucae, and many other secret societies which collectively make up the modern equivalent of the "Brotherhood of the Snake" also known as (a.k.a.) the "Guardians," the "Builders," the "Philosophers of Fire," or the "Illuminati".

The Philosophy of the Mystery Schools is the Luciferian Philosophy as espoused by General (Christopher) Albert Pike, one of the founders of the KKK. But it is not his original thought... he just expounded upon it in forms that eventually became accessible to those who seek it out. Christopher means Christ-like. To the adept, Albert Pike achieved a mystical apotheosis in the Lodge of Perfection and brought forth the Christ within. He thus became Christed taking on the name Christopher.

Watch "StarTrek" from the beginning episodes up to the present, and you will begin to realize that it was an indoctrination into the concepts of socialism through subliminal initiation of the youth of the nation. The Captains James T. Kirk (JTK = K(nights) (of the) T(emple) (of) J(erusalem) and Christopher Pike are symbolic salutes to the Order of the Templars, and to the Brotherhoods greatest philosopher and probably its most prolific writer the Christed General Albert Pike. The Enterprise represents their great work or plan which if navigated properly will lead them to the realization of their dream of a united socialist utopian world.

"As nearly as I can concentrate on the question today, I believe I am God; certainly you are, I think we intelligent beings on this planet are all a piece of God, are becoming God." Interview with Gene Roddenberry in "Star Trek Creator" by David Alexander, Roc, an imprint of Dutton Signet a division of Penguin Books New York, page 568, par 1

Those who understand the symbolic language will have noticed that the most recent Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award Ceremony recognized the coming of the New Dawn. The rising Sun on the backdrop and the two triple crowns of the Mysteries representing the Trinity of Osiris, Isis, and the child Horus were revealing. Trooping before it were the Stars, some of the thousand points of light, who make the movies that mold the minds of the sheople, creating the future world.

Very simply the Luciferian philosophy is, "Adam and Eve were held prisoner in the bonds of ignorance by an unjust and vindictive God in the Garden of Eden. They were set free from their chains (Evolution through "Primordial Knowing") by Lucifer (Prometheus) through his agent Satan in the guise of a serpent (ancient symbol of Wisdom) with the gift of Intellect (Fire). Through the use of his intellect man will perfect the race (Anglo/Aryan) and will himself become God (promise of Satan to Adam and Eve)." Any religion, church, organization, or People who believe they are God, will become God, or are becoming God is practicing the Luciferian philosophy of the Mystery Schools, and are acting in furtherance of the conspiracy.

The Luciferian philosophy is a metaphor for the development of the perfected man (Marxist/Leninist) through the process of evolution by learning how to dominate and control nature (called science). The result (they say) will be the apotheosis of the race of mankind and the elimination of all who cannot make this paradigm shift in the coming New Age. The Soviet Union was the most perfect expression of illuminist secular humanist philosophy that has ever been presented before the eyes of an ignorant but gullible public. Now they strive for enslavement of the human race in the new utopia. This will be brought about through deception, manipulation, and psychological operations which make up the art of illusion called magic.

The Alchemists had the same religion but disguised it under the profane interpretation of the exoteric or outward expression of mutating lead into gold. The search for the philosophers stone was the attempt to perfect the race (Anglo/Aryan) and lead the evolution of what the Illuminati believe to be the inferior races of mankind, what they believe to be useless eaters.

Those who are attracted to the Mysteries who are unable to grasp the esoteric meaning of their education often take the exoteric interpretation to be truth. They often turn to Satan or Lucifer (Light) as their object of worship never understanding the metaphor for a much deeper philosophy. These Satan worshipers are useful. They furnish a diversion and are often a source of large sums of money. The Brotherhood has seldom found itself lacking in fools or funds. Ex-FBI operative Ted Gunderson is the hegelian tool in this instance pointing you off after Satanists, a cull-d-sac where you will chase your own tail round, and round, and round. I do not believe that Ted knows that he is being used in this regard. I may be wrong.

Shirley McClain understands the philosophy, though probably not in its correct interpretation. She is a member in good standing. "I am GOD," is her message.

Fire (Intellect, Light, Illumination) is the God of the Mysteries and its Priests are the Philosophers of Fire (Illumined Ones or Illuminati). They believe that any concept of creation must contain the idea that all things are manifestations of a supreme force (Pantheism). Since man is the only creation with intelligence and original thought, they believe that the combined, or collective consciousness of mankind, is the mind of the Great Architect of the Universe, ergo Man IS GOD. And that should "enlighten" you to the source of some of the more difficult to understand concepts of the New Age movement.

Please do not get the fool (profane = you) mixed up with the adepts, or Fraternitis Rex Mundi, or Brotherhood (Illuminati) of the king of the World (Lucifer or Satan). Those who cannot understand this philosophy through the occult language of symbology and make the shift in thinking for the coming millenium may be doomed to extinction. The spokespersons for the New Age make no secret of their intent in that regard.

This is the age of deception. The world is on the razor. One half is scheduled to be exterminated if these people have their way, and the other half is scheduled to be enslaved when the mystical union between the moon IS (Isis or Church) and the sun RA (Osiris or Doctrine) greets the Son of the morning EL (Horus or full body of Adepts) on the horizon (Horus risen)  in the New Dawn (ISRAEL or realization of the New World Order). When the process is complete a new worldwide Soviet Union will emerge to thin the herd, shear the sheople, and march them off to enslavement or slaughter depending upon their individual ability to accept and adhere to their reeducation.

A prime illustration of the symbology of the Mystery Schools is the following Art Bell logo.

Notice the hidden messages, A.L. and R.T. Bel? Can you decipher them? Notice that a capstone is in place? Did you notice Bel is placed above the capstone by the flying arrow? Do you know what that means? Did you spot the all seeing eye?

Here is a clue... A.L. is the abbreviation for the Latin which translates Year of Light referring to the year 6,000 when the Illuminati believe Prometheus, Lucifer, Baal, Bel, Satan, the angel of light who was cast out of heaven, will triumph over God and mount the throne in the north (A metaphor for the triumph of socialism over religion, nation states, and the common herd). A.L. can be found by adding 4,000 to the current year, 1998 + 4000 = 5998. All who say they are Light Workers are engaged in the battle against God on Lucifer's behalf.

I have long recognized that Art Bell is a shill for the New World Odor. It is confirmed in his book . World government is, in fact, the theme of the book.

Did you know that the sea (mare or Mary) is a symbol of vast numbers of People, the masses in Marxist symbology? Did you notice that the pyramid rises from the sea (People) and dominates the scene as a promise, or savior? Did you know the pyramid missing the capstone represents the Great (unfinished) Work of the Mystery School? Did you know that the Great Work represents social engineering (socialism) working toward the apotheosis of the race (perfected man, sixth root race) as promised to Adam and Eve by Satan, and a New World Order? Did you notice that the name Art Bell straddles the capstone signifying that he is the Light Worker, or Illumined Man, or Master Mason, or Horus, or perfected god-Man, or Savior, who completes the Great Work? Did you notice the Bright Star fallen from heaven just above the capstone? Do you know who or what it represents? Do you see the Thousand Points of Light working in silence behind the veil (clouds) in the heavens. Illuminism is Marxism. It is a false promise that the human race will be perfected bringing a perfect utopian society through social engineering. This is a brainwashing mechanism whereby an ignorant slave race may be created to be ruled by a totalitarian socialist world government.

Art Bell is a Freemason. He is a member of the Illuminati. Art Bell's book The Quickening is one of the most blatant, in your face, pieces of new world order propaganda that I have ever seen. In it Art Bell, claiming to be a patriotic American, shamelessly advocates the formation of a world totalitarian socialist government.

"Will there be a global government with a benevolent dictator, overseeing global law, global police and a global judiciary in an attempt to make the world cleaner, peaceful and prosperous? If that's what it takes to achieve these ends, so be it." -- from The Quickening by Art Bell, page 309

The Art Bell Overnight and Dreamland radio shows dish up nightly servings of ridiculous, outrageous, and fantastic conspiracy fantasies. Occasionally Bell stirs in legitimate, real and dangerous conspiracies. Although Art Bell pretends to be serious, the mix of incredulous fantasy with fact serves to debunk all conspiracies. Bell effectively implants the idea that anyone who believes in any conspiracy is a whacked out nutcase that should be locked up in a mental institution. He is a most effective change agent operating on behalf of our enemies.

The conspiracy is racist, considering Blacks, Hispanics, and Aboriginal Peoples to be inferior races of useless eaters. They believe or at least profess that the Anglo/Aryan race is the true Israel (British Israel and Christian Identity for the dupes and an Anglophile Secular Humanism for the leaders) and thus the Master race. They have convinced the so-called useless eaters that they are friends, benefactors, and protectors. In the meantime they plan to enslave these poor People under socialism or eliminate them altogether. The Illuminati has convinced them that Karl Marx is their savior, and the sheople follow this Judas goat eagerly.

There will be no individual Rights only privileges. These will be granted or denied at will by the world supra government. All property is to be owned by the State. There will be a redistribution of wealth. They plan to eliminate class differences and reduce the standard of living to a lower level in the advanced nations, such as the united States, and to a higher standard of living in the so-called third world nations. This leveling of the standard of living will be accomplished through a global economic collapse which is in its beginning stages. The economic collapse will fulfill the goal of Marx and Engles' Communist Manifesto mandating the elimination of the middle class. The graduated income tax was the first implementation of this process and is one of the planks of the Communist Manifesto. NAFTA and GATT are a part of this process encouraging industry to move into third-world nations in order to exploit cheap labor.

All existing religions will disappear. The only religion will be the state religion (humanism or illuminism).

All County and State governments will be eliminated and replaced with regional government. These regional governments (Home Rule) are already in place. Regionalism is gradually taking control throughout America.

There will be no more cash. Trade will be accomplished by a system of computer credits with accounts accessed through debit cards or computer chip implants. The cards or implants will also serve as personal identification, drivers license, and etc. When this is completed the human race will be shackled to a computer in a never ending cycle of debt. No action or movement will ever again be private.

The plan for the creation of a socialist world government is protected by an artificial extraterrestrial threat from space. The entire UFO phenomenon and the uFOOLogy movement has been created to further the protection and activation of the plan.

Within MAJESTYTWELVE is Operation Majority justifying the plan by presenting an extraterrestrial threat as the reason for the necessity for world government ala "Who speaks for planet Earth... Argentina?" Exactly the manner in which Stanton T. Friedman ends his UFOs Are Real lectures.

Operation Majority is named after the original Bolshevik party which sparked the Russian Revolution. Bolshevik means the majority. The plan claims that if the American people are ever told of this extraterrestrial presence aliens will destroy the United States. All who have access to the plan or who inadvertently discover the plan are silenced by that warning. They believe in the government and thus believe the extraterrestrial lie. These dupes do not know that the Illuminati are the aliens who plan to destroy the United States of America in any event.

The natural skepticism of reporters insures that anyone who believes in extraterrestrial visitation or who links the so-called alien threat with the coming world government will be ridiculed and discredited.

When I saw Operation Majority while serving in the Navy I believed the alien threat was real just like everyone else. It was not until I had performed many years of research that I was able to fully understand exactly what it was that I had seen. It was extremely difficult for me to believe that my government and the United States Navy had used me, especially since I had dedicated my life to government and military service. Most government and military personnel cannot and will not believe such and idea.

The plan is real. The extraterrestrial threat is artificial. The threat is presented through the use of secret technology originally developed by the Germans in their secret weapons programs during WW-II, by geniuses like Nikola Tesla, and many others.

Military and government personnel who have access to this material believe it is real. None of them, however, has ever seen any evidence of the existence of any extraterrestrial creature nor any advanced technology other that that of human origin. It is not what they see that convinces them it is extraterrestrial in origin but the manner in which it is presented. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to believe that Top Secret government or military documentation could be lies. It is trust in government by men and women who have given their lives in its service that keeps this monumental lie a alive.

All so-called leaks are intentional misinformation projects designed to promote the alien threat scenario while allowing for complete deniability on the part of government. The antics of Vicki (Cooper) Ecker (CIA), Donald Francis Ecker III (Dupe), William Moore, Jaime Shandera, Stanton T. Friedman, Bruce Maccabee (CIA, ONI), Barry Taff PhD.(Pneuropsychiatric Institute of UCLA worked with recently deceased Dr. Louis Jollyn "Jolly" West), Whitley Strieber, Bud Hopkins (CIA), John Lear (CIA), Linda Moulton Howe Order of the Eastern Star and American Federation of Human Rights (American co-masonry), Art Bell (Freemason), Glen Campbell, George Knapp (Freemason), Colonel Philip Corso (CIA, a monumental liar now Deceased), Richard Hoagland and his Face on Mars, the so-called alien autopsy film, NASA and the Apollo Moon Missions, the so-called Mars Meteorite which was fraudulently promoted as containing fossil evidence of life on Mars, the War Of The Worlds, and many other people and events are projects of this type. Some (very few) of these People are unwitting accomplices in the charade and truly believe in the extraterrestrial threat.

Most of those named, and others not named, are active, and with full knowledge, agents of illuminism/socialism. The most well known are active Fellow Travelers, communist agents of the KGB, the Central Intelligence Agency, or one of the many psychological warfare agencies founded by the Rhodes Round Table Group (The Group), the Royal Institute of International Affairs, and the Council On Foreign Relations.

MAJESTYTWELVE by William Cooper Copyright © 1997 William Cooper All Rights Reserved

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White Irritability: How to talk to white evangelicals about racism

One of the first courses in my Doctor of Ministry program at Dallas Theological Seminary was Trends in Contemporary Theological Movements. One of the primary topics we discussed was racism. Both the reading and the in-class conversation was informative and intriguing. So, when it came time to propose to the professor topics for the final paper, I requested to write on racism. Below is the paper that resulted. My understanding of the evils of racism is still a work in progress. In no sense do I think I have arrived at a complete understanding. Nor do I think anything below is a revolutionary thought or development. It simply represents my observations as to what is part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

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Racism has been a problem for most of human history. Based on what the Bible says about humanity after our fall into sin, that, “every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time” (Genesis 6:5, NIV), racism surely began very early in our history. Sin hinders our ability to see other people as being equally created in the image of God. In fact, sin causes us to hate and strike out against our fellow image-bearers (Genesis 9:6). Because sin is a universal problem (Ecclesiastes 7:20; Romans 3:23), racism is, and always has been, to varying degrees, a universal problem.

Racism has been a problem for most, if not all, of American history. Whether it was the chattel slavery of the 18th and 19th centuries, or the Jim Crow era and segregation that followed, racism has taken on some particularly insidious forms in the history of the United States of America. While racism has primarily been against those of African descent, in no sense have Blacks been the only recipients of racism, prejudice, and discrimination. And, while no race or ethnicity has ever been entirely innocent of racist thoughts and actions, in the history of the USA, the vast majority of racist sentiments and injustices have been committed by whites.

In recent years, race-driven, or at least race-connected, incidents involving police officers and Blacks have driven the race issue back to the forefront of the American consciousness. As a result of these incidents, there have been riots, violent protests, peaceful demonstrations, calls for political action, and demands for societal revolution. Most would agree that significant progress has been made in eliminating racism, but there is a wide divergence of opinion as to how to root out the remaining vestiges of racism, whether individual or systemic.

Whites have been, and continue to be, the most resistant, whether it is to the recognition of racism as a systemic issue, or to the drastic measures being proposed to eliminate racism and its effects. Most white evangelicals, while fully agreeing that racism is a horrendously immoral evil, tend to respond with hostility to many of the anti-racism proposals, whether those proposals come from victims, protestors, or politicians. This resistance is perplexing to much of the American culture. Why would a group that loudly proclaims themselves to be absolutely opposed to racism be so vehemently opposed to many of the proposed solutions? Further, why do white evangelicals seem to quickly get irritated with both the propositions and the terminology being employed in the national conversation?

What does the Bible say about race and racism?

Biblically speaking, there is one race: the human race. There are different ethnicities and nations (ethnos), but only one race. The same physical traits, with variations in size, shape, and skin color, exist in all human beings. The Bible does not focus on the differences between human beings. Rather, the Bible’s primary focus when it comes to humanity is on the fact that we are all created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-27). No human being is more in the image of God than any other human being. John 3:16 informs us that God’s love extends to the entire world. First John 2:2 declares that the sacrifice of Jesus was for the sins of the entire world. The “entire world” includes all the ethnicities of humanity.

The different features human beings possess, therefore, are an aspect of God “knitting us together” and creating us “fearfully and wonderfully” (Psalm 139:13-14). These variations in size, shape, and color are not errors. They are evidence of God’s creativity. The range in skin color from near white to near black is an artist’s palette, not a ranking system. “God’s fingerprints rest upon every single person without restriction…All people equally bear the likeness of God and thus possess incalculable and inviolable value.”1

The Bible does not explicitly give the origin of the different ethnicities of humanity. Some propose that they developed after the Tower of Babel, with ethnic traits becoming more and more pronounced as people with the same language became increasingly isolated. Others propose that humanity has always been multi-ethnic, all the way back to Adam and Eve. The Bible is completely silent on ethnicity until the Table of Nations in Genesis chapter 10, and even there, nothing is said of ethnic features. The focus is on different people groups and nations, not on the physical appearances of those groups and nations. Simply put, the origin of human ethnicity is not significant, biblically speaking.

The Bible also nowhere explicitly mentions racism, as least not in the modern sense of the word. Until recently, the term racism was near universally understood as something to the effect of “evil, unjust, and/or disrespectful feelings and/or actions towards a person or group of people due to the color of their skin and/or other ethnic features.” While the Bible repeatedly mentions nations being at war with each other and different peoples having hatred for one another, nowhere are these hostilities attributed to anything related to differing physical appearances.

This is not to say that the people in the Bible were colorblind or ignorant of ethnic distinctions. Rather, it appears that people in the ancient Near East were not focused on ethnic differences in appearance, at least nowhere near the extent to which many people are today. As a result, the Bible does not directly address racism. The Bible does, however, contain numerous principles that either explicitly or implicitly condemn the evil that is racism.

Deuteronomy 10:17 states that God shows no partiality. Acts 10:34, Romans 2:11 and Ephesians 6:9 exclaim that there is no favoritism with God. James 2:4 describes those who discriminate as “judges with evil thoughts” (NIV). Instead, we are to demonstrate sacrificial love to our neighbors (Leviticus 19:18; James 2:8), and the concept of “neighbor” is to extend well beyond cultural and ethnic boundaries (Luke 10:29-37).

In the old covenant system, God separated humanity into two groups: Jews and Gentiles. God’s desire in doing this was for the Jews to be a kingdom of priests (Exodus 19:6; Isaiah 61:6) and a light to the Gentiles (Isaiah 42:6; 49:6; 52:10; 60:3). Instead, for most of its history, Israel despised its neighbors. By the time of Jesus, Jews hated Gentiles and separated themselves from Gentiles as much as possible. In His death on the cross for the entire world, Jesus became our peace, destroying the barrier, tearing down the dividing wall of hostility (Ephesians 2:14). In Christ, there is neither Jew or Gentile (Galatians 3:28). For followers of Christ, racism, prejudice, and discrimination are antithetical to the life He calls us to.

The Definition of Racism

If white evangelicals, are, or at least should be, strongly opposed to all forms of racism, why are so many white evangelicals opposed to, or at least not supportive of, the current anti-racism agenda? Why do many white evangelicals become so irritated when racism is being discussed? One of the primary issues is how the definition of racism has changed, or at least been expanded, to include things outside the historical definition of racism.

For the past century, or more, the sentence “You are a racist” would essentially communicate “you hate people of different ethnicities.” It was very specific and very personal. It was something you believed and something you sometimes acted on based on your beliefs. It was identifiable. Specific beliefs and actions were clearly evidence of racism. A racist could be identified by the actions he/she took and the words he/she said. While these clear racist attitudes and actions are still considered racist, when the term racism is employed today, it is often being used to refer to something else entirely.

There are two primary recent adaptations to the understanding of what is racism. The first is that racism is a system that is advantageous to white people while being disadvantageous to all other ethnicities. In White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo defines racism as, “a deeply embedded historical system of institutional power.”2 This adaptation focuses racism more on society as a whole and less on individual thoughts and actions. A racist, then, can be anyone who participates, even unknowingly, in the system of racism.

The second adaptation is that racism can only be perpetrated by those who are in power. Essentially, you can only be a racist if you hate people of other ethnicities and have the power to put that hatred into action in harming or making life more difficult for people of other ethnicities. This qualification can take a person who, under the historical definition of racism, would have been guilty of racist thoughts, words, and/or actions and make him innocent of racism because he was not in a position powerful enough to disadvantage another person.

If racism is societal, political, corporate, and systemic, it is far less personal. If racism can only be held by those in power, it is far less universal. White evangelicals often react with hostility and irritability to these adaptations because Scripture teaches us that sin is personal (Romans 3:23) and universal (1 John 1:8). There is no sin that is limited to a particular ethnicity or societal class. There is no sin that is restricted to those who possess power over other people. How the sin of racism plays out can look very different between a powerful person and a disadvantaged person, but everyone is capable of discriminating against and having prejudices against people of different ethnicities. So, yes, most white evangelicals have biblical and theological problems with these additions to the definition of racism.

As strong as those objections may be, the primary white evangelical irritation with how the terms racism and racist are being used is the fact that they are being used at all. Definitions change, but they rarely change quickly. Perhaps someday the institutional and power addendums to the definition of racism will be fully accepted and embraced. But, that has not happened yet. The vast majority of people do not think of anything systemic or limited-to-power when someone is accused of being a racist. What they think of is “someone who hates people of other ethnicities.”

Ibram X. Kendi disagrees: “‘Racist’ is not…a pejorative. It is not the worst word in the English language; it is not the equivalent of a slur. It is descriptive, and the only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it—and then dismantle it. The attempt to turn this usefully descriptive term into an almost unusable slur is, of course, designed to do the opposite: to freeze us into inaction.”3 Kendi’s contention fails the test of history. For much of the past 200 years, “racist” has been consistently defined in dictionaries and used in society as a pejorative. Even if “racist” had not been used almost always exclusively in that manner, the fact that people react to its usage as if it was a slur should prevent its usage unless a slur is being intended. A rule of communication is to understand how your words are going to be interpreted by your audience, especially if your intention is to have a productive dialogue.

As a result, the terms racism and racist should not be employed to refer to the alternate understandings. Why use a term that is very likely going to be misunderstood? Especially, why use a term that is going to be interpreted as a strong pejorative if that is not the intended meaning? If the goal is for racism to be understood so that it can be eliminated, why use terminology that is going to result in hostility rather than openness and desire for further dialogue?

Using the terms “racist” and “racism” outside of their historical and near universal understandings does not lead to understanding, peace, reconciliation, or progress. It leads to irritability, conflict, misunderstanding, and resistance. It does not matter if the intended meaning is “participant in the system of institutional power,” if that is not how the vast majority of people will understand the terms. Are we aiming for conflict or communication? Proverbs 25:11 instructs us to use “words fitly spoken.” Using terms that will be badly misunderstood—misunderstood to the detriment of the conversation on a vitally important topic—is the antithesis of “fitly spoken.” Freeing the nation and the world of racism is vitally important, and as history demonstrates, exceedingly difficult. Let’s not make it even more arduous by using terminology that creates far more heat than light.

In White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo writes, “It is white people’s responsibility to be less fragile; people of color don’t need to twist themselves into knots trying to navigate us as painlessly as possible.”4 Perhaps it isn’t that white people are fragile. Perhaps it is that white people’s heads are spinning so fast trying to keep up with the definitions: “DiAngelo’s book is replete with definitions of various forms of racism, including colorblind racism, aversive racism, cultural racism, and more. In the end, she defines racism in so many ways that the reader is left with no choice but to agree with her statement that…we must continue to ask how our racism manifests, not if.”5

Systemic Racism

In addition to the resistance to including systemic racism in the core definition of racism, many white evangelicals are also wary of systemic racism as a concept. Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, defines systemic racism as “systems and structures that have procedures or processes that disadvantages African Americans.”6 Glenn Harris, president of Race Forward, gives the following definition: “the complex interaction of culture, policy and institutions that holds in place the outcomes we see in our lives…Systemic racism is naming the process of white supremacy.”7

Why do many white evangelicals struggle with systemic racism as a concept? There are two primary aspects of the common definitions of systemic racism that cause white irritability. The first is in the lack of specificity. Phrases like “systems and structures” and “complex interaction” are nebulous. What systems and structures are infected with racism? Which institutions are intractably racist?

When a sin/evil is identified to a white evangelical, whether the sin is personal or societal, the reaction is typically “how do I fix it?” The response “well, it’s complicated” is a non-starter. White evangelicals strongly prefer a reply along the lines of “stop doing these things” (Galatians 5:19-21) and “do more of these things” (Galatians 5:22-23). And, again, for white evangelicals, sin is primarily personal, not corporate. The cure for sin is individual repentance, not societal revolution. Now, mass individual repentance may result of massive societal transformation, but the individual change must come first.

Further, after the “it’s complicated” response, many of the proposals to fight systemic racism coming out of the anti-racism movement are to essentially “tear it all down.” Such radical propositions are likely to instantly result in opposition from white evangelicals. Why? They see the systems, structures, and institutions around them largely working well, not just for them, but for everyone within their purview.

Granted, the purview of many white evangelicals needs to be expanded. There are many corners of American culture that are woefully inadequately informed of how the other corners live. And that is the point. Proposing massive societal change without first educating people on the need is destined to meet hardened resistance. Few would accept a doctor’s prescription of major surgery without first being convinced of the presence of extensive damage. The greater the change, the greater the necessary explanation of why that change is needed.

Further, the “tear it all down” appeals are rarely, in fact, truly proposing that all systems, structures, and institutions actually be torn down. The language itself needs to be toned down. If what is being proposed is reasonable, workable, and practical, why make it sound revolutionary? A revolution is catchier than a re-evaluation. “Tear it all down” is easier to fit on a banner than “pass new laws that ensure all people are treated equally and fairly.” Assuming the goal is interest and openness instead of irritability, clarity and accuracy in messaging is crucially important.

The second primary reason many white evangelicals resist systemic racism as a concept is the fact that the term “white supremacy” is so often included in some aspect of the definition, as demonstrated by the quote from Glenn Harris above. This is closely related to the redefining of the terms racist and racism. When the vast majority of people hear the terms “white supremacy” or “white supremacist,” they think of hooded Ku Klux Klan members, neo-Nazis, and those who participated in lynchings during the reconstruction, Jim Crow, and segregation eras. For most, “white supremacist” equals “evil white person who hates all of the other races because he views them as subhuman.” When white evangelicals hear a claim that our institutions are designed to promote and protect white supremacy, they hear, “Evil white people are controlling everything to give themselves significant advantages and to prevent people of color, whom they passionately hate, from succeeding or changing the status quo.”

“White supremacist” is even more of a pejorative than “racist.” There may be aspects of banking, housing, policing, employment, etc., that disadvantage people of color, and those evils should be corrected, but that is not white supremacy. There are some aspects of our society that are, to some degree, controlled by a good old white boys’ club, and those clubs need to be eradicated, but that is not white supremacy. Again, the over-the-top language must be eliminated. Unless one is aiming for division, conflict, and resistance instead of unity, peace, and progress, we have to use terms that actually carry the meaning we are trying to communicate. We have to say what we mean and mean what we say.

Reverse Racism

Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous quote, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” used to be the rallying cry for civil rights and anti-racism causes. Now, we hear claims of “all white people are racist” and “only white people can be racist.” Understandably, most white people, not just white evangelicals, bristle at such statements. Is that not the exact thing Martin Luther King Jr. rallied against? Are not white people being judged by the color of their skin?

Granted, there is context to the quote from Martin Luther King Jr. that should not be ignored. The core message, though, is that people should be judged for their character, not the color of their skin. Declaring that all white people have an undesirable trait, that all white people are infected with an evil that does not afflict people of color, clearly sounds like racism. So, how do the anti-racists who make statements akin to “all white people are racist” defend their accusations against the charge of being racist?

It is all the same methods that have already been mentioned above. (1) “All white people are racist” does not mean that all white people hate/mistreat people of color (the historical/universal definition). It means all white people are participants in the system of institutional power. (2) It is not racist for a person of color to say “all white people are racist” because a person can only be racist if he/she is in a position of power/influence sufficient to disadvantage a person of another ethnicity. Only white people have that power/influence, therefore, only white people can be racist.

Essentially, a statement that would be considered explicitly racist by the historical and nearly universal definition of racism is not racist because it doesn’t mean what it appears to mean and it is made by a person who under the new definition cannot possibly be racist. The absurdity of this would be laughable were it not so distressing. Is there any other situation in which such verbal gymnastics are allowed, embraced even? A disparagement made by one ethnicity would be considered racist, but is allowable and innocent if made by any other ethnicity. Is there any other situation in which a strongly negative term can be quickly redefined and then used against only one particular group, and that group is to accept it, not be offended by it, and even embrace its new usage?

Irritability does not even come close to describing the reaction of most white evangelicals when they hear statements similar to “all white people are racist” or “only white people can be racist.” There are white people who are racist. There are black people who are racist. There are Asians who are racist. There are Latinos who are racist. There are people of all ethnicities who are in positions of power who use that power to advantage themselves and/or people of their ethnicity to the disadvantage of others. The “all white people are racist” and “only white people can be racist” mindsets contradict reality. They contradict the experiences of people of all different skin colors. White evangelicals strive to be people who speak the “truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). The statements “all white people are racist” and “only white people can be racist” are lies spoken in hate.

The cure of racism is not more racism. The fix for discrimination is not to change who is being discriminated against. The remedy to prejudice is not a change in who is pre-judging whom. The resolution to injustice is not more injustice. If a productive dialogue and forward momentum is ever going to be achieved with white evangelicals, reverse racism must be recognized and removed from the table. While in no sense does the reverse racism directed towards white compare in severity or consequences to what people of color have and still are suffering, again, the cure for racism is not more racism.

Irredeemably Racist

“If you’re a white person in America, social justice educator Robin DiAngelo has a message for you: You’re a racist, pure and simple, and without a lifetime of conscious effort you always will be. You just can’t help it, you see, because you’ve been swaddled in the cocoon of white privilege since you came sputtering out of your mother’s womb, protesting the indignity of it all.”8 There is another message out there that makes white evangelicals particularly irritable. It is that not only are all white people racist, it is that they always will be.

If there is one aspect of the anti-racism movement that white evangelicals will never accept, it is that white people, or any people for that matter, will always be anything. The possibility of transformation is a key aspect of evangelical theology. Second Corinthians 5:17 declares, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (NKJV). The Greek word translated “new” twice in 2 Corinthians 5:17, καινος, refers to something new that has never been before, as opposed to a new version of something that existed previously. Faith in Christ as Savior results in a person becoming entirely new. There is nothing about a Christian’s nature that has not changed. That changed nature is the impetus for everything else changing as well, as the Christian progressively more and more closely follows Christ.

Speaking of transformative change, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11, ESV, emphasis added). “Nor racists” could easily be added to this list of sins. The key point is the beginning of verse 11: “and that is what some of you were.” “Were,” not “are.” Past tense, not present tense. You were one or more or all of those things, but you are not anymore. What you were no longer accurately describes what you now are.

While becoming and/or being a Christian does not always result in instantaneous outward change and victory over sin, change is possible. Radical, transformative, permanent change is possible. The Holy Spirit can transform a murderer into a missionary, an adulterer into a faithful spouse, and a racist into a person who recognizes and loves the image of God in people of all ethnicities. The idea that only “a lifetime of conscious effort” is sufficient to make oneself a non-racist is antithetical to the power of God through salvation in Christ.

Further, some who grant the possibility of white people no longer being racist often do so only if their preferred acts of penance are completed. These acts of penance can be anything from voting for certain candidates, to financially supporting certain causes, to reorienting your entire life to be a social justice warrior, to separating yourself from friends and family who are not sufficiently anti-racist.

In contrast, the Bible instructs us to “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32, ESV). The forgiveness we grant to others is to be connected to the forgiveness God grants us in Christ. God does not require a laundry list of reparations before or after He forgives. While some forms of restitution are often appropriate, to require them goes against the heart of the gospel. It is putting yourself in the place of God to require certain specific acts of recompense rather than allowing Him to lead people into the actions He desires them to take. Christ says, “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11), not “Go and do every act of restitution and restoration everyone you have ever sinned against demands of you.”

There is a practical reason why “you always will be a racist” does not work, not just for white evangelicals, but for virtually anyone. It is a hopeless statement. Why even bother? Why undertake all the herculean tasks required of white people to possibly be declared adequately anti-racist, if, in the end, it is never enough? “You will never be able to do enough to be accepted” is a miserable motivational slogan. Relying on white guilt will only get the anti-racist movement so far. Instead, a far more motivating tactic would be to convince people of the truth or your claims and the validity of your proposed solutions.

“When it comes to racism, the American church does not have a ‘how to’ problem but a ‘want to’ problem. Given ten minutes, a pen, and paper, most American Christians could come up with a list of ways to increase racial equity in our congregations and communities.”9 If that statement is true, should not the focus be on the “want to”? And when has hopelessness ever led to a want to do something? “If there is no hope, then why would I bother myself with efforts in racial harmony? Why would I care about anybody? If there is no hope, why would I care about your civil rights? … Hopelessness destroys moral conviction by making it look ludicrous. And therefore it destroys almost everything that is beautiful and precious.”10

Restitution

Another issue that is frequently a source of racial conflict is restitution. Restitution itself is a biblical concept (Exodus 22:1-15; Luke 19:8-9). While there are several different systems of restitution being proposed, the one that causes the greatest amount of white irritability is the idea of reparations. Reparations can be defined as, “a program of acknowledgement, redress, and closure for a grievous injustice.”11 There are varied approaches to the concept of reparations, but the essential idea is that Black Americans who can demonstrate that they are descended from slaves should be compensated financially for the benefit the white slave owners gained by the slave labor of their ancestors.

The idea of reparations is an irritation activator for most white evangelicals (and many others). Why? White evangelicals do not deny that a grievous injustice was done to Blacks in the era of slavery and thereafter. The disagreements are regarding whether reparations will actually bring closure and whether it is just for people who did not commit the crime to pay the fine.

In the midst of an extended passage on the justice of sons being punished for the sins of their fathers, the prophet Ezekiel wrote, “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself” (ESV).

This verse, and other passages of Scripture, deliver an important principle: the innocent should not be punished for the sins of the guilty, even if there is a direct connection between the innocent person and the guilty person. Earlier in the passage, the father is described as, “He oppresses the poor and needy. He commits robbery. He does not return what he took in pledge...He lends at interest and takes a profit” (Ezekiel 18:12-13). The father financially benefited from his evil acts. Still, the son is not to be held accountable. In the list of the righteous acts of the son in verses 14-17, it nowhere describes him making restitution for the sins of his father. It nowhere describes the son returning what his father had stolen.

The idea of one generation making restitution for the sins of a previous generation is nowhere found in Scripture. How much less should it be required for a person four to five generations later to make restitution for the sins of their ancestors? Further still, many white Americans today are descendants of immigrants who came to the United States after slavery was abolished. Why should Americans whose ancestors never owned slaves pay restitution for sins committed generations ago simply because those sins were committed by people with a similar amount of melanin in their skin? In addition, why limit the reparations to the descendants of slaves? What about all the people of color who immigrated to the United States of America after slavery ended but have suffered through varying degrees of racial discrimination?

It is argued that reparations will be paid for by the government, not by individuals. While this is technically true, the billions of dollars that would be sent to Black Americans would result in higher inflation and likely higher taxes for all Americans, including those who received the reparations. The government would directly pay for it, but all citizens would indirectly pay for it, most of whom have absolutely no historical connection to the sin of slavery.

Most white evangelicals are opposed to the concept of reparations and/or any formal government enforced system of restitution because it is unbiblical, untenable, impractical, and in reality, unjust. Beyond that, the idea that over 200 years of slavery could be “atoned for” by cash payments hundreds of years later to some of the descendants of some of those slaves trivializes the horrendous sins that occurred. The idea that financial reparations would bring any kind of lasting closure is absurd. It would make millions of people temporarily happy at the cost of even further racial strife and likely eventual financial hardships for all.

If the goal is white capability instead of white irritability, the focus has to be removed from atoning for the sins of the past and aimed instead at solutions for the sins of the present and prevention of those sins in the future. Agreement on the precise nature of the solutions may be difficult to achieve, but, generally speaking, white evangelicals are people who love to solve problems and rid the world of its plagues and sufferings.

White Improvability

All of the issues mentioned above, and many others, contribute to white irritability, especially among white evangelicals. The essential themes are that people do not appreciate being accused of things that are innocent of, will not accept rapidly changing definitions of words, react strongly negatively to being told they are irredeemably anything, do not agree with the idea that they must make restitution for things that happened in the past, and feel no need or ability to apologize for the evil actions that other people with similar skim pigmentation have committed. But, above all, white evangelicals get easily irritated by these issues because they do not believe they are the right solution, or even a solution at all.

Most white evangelicals recognize that there is still a race problem in the United States and around the world. Most white evangelicals desire for the situation to be improved. Even more so, white evangelicals have a desire to improve themselves, to increase and mature in their understanding of the evils that have been perpetuated and the ongoing impacts those evils have on society today. Above all, most white evangelicals long to be a part of the solution rather than, in any way, a contributor to the problem.

For white evangelicals, though, any proposal that is not centered on the gospel, is doomed to failure. Political solutions will always fall short. Guilt will only result in superficial progress. Reverse racism will eventually, or very quickly, backfire. Arguments over dictionaries produce far more papercuts than progress. Most of what is being proposed by the anti-racist movement are, in fact, making race-relations worse. It is stoking the fires of the racism that remains. It is causing hostility and animosity, on both sites.

Evangelicals believe that every evil in this world has sin at its core. Sin is what ails us (Romans 3:10-18). Sin is what causes us to hate each other (Galatians 5:19-21). Sin is what leads us to believe ourselves to be superior to others. Sin is what causes us to advantage ourselves, and those like us, to the disadvantage of others, whether personally, structurally, or institutionally. “Our racial divide is a sinful disease. Over-the-counter human remedies won’t fix it; they merely mask the symptoms for a season. What we need is a prescription from the Creator to destroy this cancer before it destroys us.”12

The only solution to sin is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only Savior (John 14:6; Acts 4:12). Faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to be forgiven of sin and to begin the journey of having sin eradicated from your life (1 John 1:7). It is only the transformative rule of Jesus Christ in our hearts that will transform the world for the better. His kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36), and yet it is within those who follow Him (Luke 17:21). “When we don’t share the gospel, we leave people shackled to soul-crushing ideologies, enslaved to sin, and captive to forces of darkness. The oppression unleashed by the world, the flesh, and the devil is real.”13

Proposals that ignore the reality of sin and its only solution are like playing whack-a-mole. You may be able to bludgeon an aspect of society into submission, but the sin of racism will very soon rear its exceedingly ugly head in some other facet of our culture. What our nation needs, no, what the people of our nation need, is a heart transplant. Creation of new laws, new policies, and new institutions will not solve the ultimate problem. People becoming new creations will solve the problem (2 Corinthians 5:17). “History will repeat itself as long we keep living as though there’s nothing except what we can see under the sun—that is, if we ignore the God who created us. Like Solomon before us, we must lift up our eyes to heaven and follow the commandments of our Maker. As we walk in His ways, we will find that we can indeed break the cycles of racism, violence, and child sacrifice in our communities.”14

Jemar Tisby writes, “Fighting racism does not consist of a set of isolated actions that you take; rather these actions must flow from an entire disposition that is oriented toward racial justice. We have to reposition ourselves spiritually, emotionally, culturally, intellectually, and politically to address the myriad ways that racism manifests in the present day. Racial justice is a lifestyle not an agenda item.”15 Only a spiritual transformation can reorient an entire disposition. Only a new creation can radically revolutionize a lifestyle.

That is not to say political, societal, structural, and institutional changes are unnecessary. White evangelicals are prone to hypocrisy in demanding the legislation of morality in some areas while opposing it when it impacts how they live their own lives. Where there is structural/institutional racism, it must be eliminated. Where there are laws that disadvantage any group of people, they must be erased. Where there is prejudice and discrimination, it must be extinguished. “Jesus’ ministry and the kingdom that he embodies involve nothing less than the creation of a new world in which the marginalized are healed spiritually, economically, and psychologically.”16

But, again, the biblical solution to the treacherous evil of racism is not political. It is personal. Perpetuators of racism and victims of racism both need salvation through Jesus Christ. Racists need repentance and transformative change in how they think, feel, act, and react. Victims need the ability to forgive, restore, and move forward rather than seeking empty solutions and retaining a tight grasp on bitterness (Hebrews 12:15). Neither of these needs are easy, simple, or necessarily fast. But, they are possible through the power of the Holy Spirit, who is given to all those who receive Jesus Christ as Savior, by grace alone, through faith alone (Romans 8:9; Ephesians 2:8-9). “This effect of the gospel of Christ would transform the world of race and ethnicity more than we can imagine. Who can begin to describe the possibilities of reconciliation and harmony where the work of Christ replace hatred with love, anger with patience, and blaming with forgiving, and all of this without surrendering a passion that justice must be done.”17

The Cure for White Irritability

To my fellow bearers of the imago dei in the anti-racist movement: you have potentially powerful allies in white evangelicals. We agree that racism is an atrocious evil that should be conquered. We desire a nation and a world in which justice reigns for everyone (Isaiah 1:17; Amos 5:24; Micah 6:8; Zechariah 7:9; Matthew 7:12; Galatians 6:2; James 1:27). While there are no universalities in any group or sub-group of humanity, as a whole, white evangelicals are able to recognize their faults and mistakes and have a desire to become more like Christ, the only Person who lived a live free of racism, prejudice, and discrimination.

So, my plea to you is to stop pushing us away. Stop accusing us with loaded terminology and then using our hostile reaction as evidence of what you accused us of. Stop demanding that we apologize for what we have not done and make restitution for what we have not stolen. Stop holding us accountable for the evil actions of those with similar ethnic features. Instead of doing, saying, and proposing things that will irritate us, invite us to the table. “…The general trend among antiracists is to denigrate everything connected to whiteness. The seeds of improving antiracism can be planted in efforts to include whites as equals—not superior of inferior—partners in the discussion of how we end multifaceted racism.”18

Be patient with us. Help us to understand. Help us to see. You will then discover many of us to be strong allies. We may not necessarily do everything you think we should, but we will do what we believe our Savior desires of us. He calls us, “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly” with our God (Micah 6:8, ESV). If you will allow us, our walking with God can also be with you.

----------

1Jemar Tisby, How to Fight Racism: Courageous Christianity and the Journey toward Racial Justice, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2021), 28-29.

2Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism, (Boston: Beacon, 2018), 24.

3Ibram X. Kendi, How to be an Antiracist, (New York: Random House, 2019), 17.

4Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism, (Boston: Beacon, 2018), 24.

5Voddie Baucham, Faultlines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe, (Washington, D.C.: Salem, 2021), 79.

6N'dea Yancey-Bragg, “What is systemic racism? Here's what it means and how you can help dismantle it,” accessed September 7, 2022, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/15/systemic-racism-what-does-mean/5343549002/

7Ibid.

8Sandee LaMotte, “Robin DiAngelo: How ‘white fragility’ supports racism and how whites can stop it,” accessed September 7, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/07/health/white-fragility-robin-diangelo-wellness/index.html

9Jemar Tisby, The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2019), 213.

10John Piper, Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian, (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 91.

11William Darity and Kirsten Mullen, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020), 2.

12Tony Evans, Kingdom Race Theology: God’s Answer to our Racial Crisis, (Chicago, Moody, 2022), 11.

13Thaddeus Williams, Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth: 12 Questions Christians Should Ask About Social Justice, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2020), 136.

14John Amanchukwu, Eraced: Uncovering the Lies of Critical Race Theory and Abortion, (Washington D.C.: Salem, 2022), 52.

15Jemar Tisby, How to Fight Racism: Courageous Christianity and the Journey toward Racial Justice, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2021), 181-182.

16Esau McCaulley, Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope, (Downers Grove: IVP, 2020), 84.

17John Piper, Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian, (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 99.

18George Yancey, Beyond Racial Division: A Unifying Alternative to Colorblindness and Antiracism, (Downers Grove: IVP, 2022), 105.

S. Michael Houdmann

https://www.gotquestions.blog/white-irritability.html

Romans 2

1599 Geneva Bible

2 1 He bringeth all before the judgment seat of God. 12 The excuse the Gentiles might pretend, 14 of ignorance, he taketh quite away. 17 He urgeth the Jews with the written Law, 23 in which they boasted. 27 And so maketh both Jew and Gentile alike.

1 Therefore [a]thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that condemnest: for in that thou condemnest another, thou condemnest thyself: for thou that condemnest, doest the same things.

2 But we [b]know that the judgment of God is according to [c]truth, against them which commit such things.

3 And thinkest thou this, O thou man, that condemnest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?

4 [d]Or despisest thou the riches of his bountifulness, and patience, and long sufferance, not knowing that the bountifulness of God leadeth thee to repentance?

5 But thou, after thine hardness, and heart that cannot repent, [e]heapest up as a treasure unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath, and of the declaration of the just judgment of God,

6 [f]Who will reward every man according to his works:

7 That is, to them which through patience in well doing, seek [g]glory, and honor, and immortality, everlasting life:

8 But unto them that are contentious, and disobey the [h]truth, and obey unrighteousness, shall be [i]indignation and wrath.

9 Tribulation and anguish shall be upon the soul of every man that doeth evil: of the Jew first, and also of the Grecian.

10 But to every man that doeth good, shall be glory, and honor, and peace: to the Jew first, and also to the Grecian.

11 For there is [j]no respect of persons with God.

12 [k]For as many as have sinned without the Law, shall perish also without the Law: and as many as have sinned in the Law, shall be judged by the Law,

13 [l](For the hearers of the Law are not righteous before God: but the doers of the Law shall be [m]justified.

14 [n]For when the Gentiles which have [o]not the Law, do by [p]nature the things contained in the Law, they having not the Law, are a Law unto themselves,

15 Which show the effect of the Law [q]written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness and their thoughts accusing one another, or excusing.)

16 [r]At the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to [s]my Gospel.

17 ¶ [t]Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the Law, and gloriest in God,

18 And knowest his will, and [u][v]triest the things that dissent from it, in that thou art instructed by the Law:

19 And persuadest thyself that thou art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness,

20 An instructor of them which lack discretion, a teacher of the unlearned, which hast the [w]form of knowledge, and of the truth in the [x]law.

21 Thou therefore, which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest, A man should not steal, dost thou steal?

22 Thou that sayest, A man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, committest thou sacrilege?

23 Thou that gloriest in the Law, through breaking the Law, dishonorest thou God?

24 For the Name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.

25 [y]For circumcision verily is profitable, if thou do the Law: but if thou be a transgressor of the Law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision.

26 Therefore [z]if the uncircumcision keep the ordinances of the Law, shall not his [aa]uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?

27 And shall not [ab]uncircumcision which is by nature (if it keep the Law) condemn thee which by the [ac]letter and circumcision art a transgressor of the Law?

28 For he is not a Jew, which is one [ad]outward: neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:

29 But he is a Jew which is one within, and the circumcision is of the heart, in the [ae]spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God.

Footnotes

Romans 2:1 He convinceth them which would seem to be exempt out of the number of other men, because they reprehend other men’s faults, and saith that they are least of all to be excused, for if they were well and narrowly searched (as God surely doth) they themselves would be found guilty in those things which they reprehend, and punish in others: so that in condemning others they pronounce sentence against themselves.

Romans 2:2 Paul allegeth no places of Scripture, for he reasoneth generally against all men: but he bringeth such reasons as every man is persuaded of in his mind, so that the devil himself is not able to pluck them clean out.

Romans 2:2 Considering and judging things aright, and not by any outward show.

Romans 2:4 A vehement and grievous crying out against them that please themselves, because they see more than others do, and yet are no whit better than others are.

Romans 2:5 Whilst thou givest thyself to pleasures, thinking to increase thy goods, thou shalt find God’s wrath.

Romans 2:6 The ground of the former disputation, That both the Jews and Gentiles have together need of righteousness.

Romans 2:7 Glory which followeth good works, which he layeth not out before us, as though there were any that could attain to salvation by his own strength, but, by laying this condition of salvation before us, which no man can perform, to bring men to Christ, who alone justified the believers, as he himself concludeth, Rom. 2:21-22, following.

Romans 2:8 By truth, he meaneth that knowledge which we have of nature.

Romans 2:8 God’s indignation against sinners, which shall quickly be kindled.

Romans 2:11 God doth not measure men either by their blood, or by their country, either to receive them, or to cast them away.

Romans 2:12 He applieth that general accusation of mankind particularly both to the Gentiles, and to the Jews.

Romans 2:13 He preventeth an objection which might be made by the Jews, whom the Law doth not excuse, but condemns, because that not the hearing of the Law, but the keeping of the Law doth justify.

Romans 2:13 Shall be pronounced just before God’s judgment seat: which is true indeed, if any such could be found that had fulfilled the law: but seeing Abraham was not justified by the Law, but by faith, it followeth that no man can be justified by works.

Romans 2:14 He preventeth an objection which might be made by the Gentiles, who although they have not the Law of Moses, yet they have no reason whereby they may excuse their wickedness in that they have somewhat written in their hearts instead of a Law, as men that forbid, and punish some things as wicked, and command and commend other some as good.

Romans 2:14 Not simply, but in comparison of the Jews.

Romans 2:14 Command honest things, and forbid dishonest.

Romans 2:15 This knowledge is a natural knowledge.

Romans 2:16 God deferreth many judgments, which notwithstanding he will execute at their convenient time by Jesus Christ, with a most straight examination, not only of words and deeds, but of thoughts also, be they never so hidden or secret.

Romans 2:16 As this my doctrine witnesseth, which I am appointed to preach.

Romans 2:17 He proveth by the testimony of David, and the other Prophets, that God bestowed greatest benefits upon the Jews, in giving them also the Law, but that they are the most unthankful and unkindest of all men.

Romans 2:18 Canst try and discern what things swerve from God’s will.

Romans 2:18 Or allowest the things that are excellent.

Romans 2:20 The way to teach and frame others in the knowledge of the truth.

Romans 2:20 As though he said, that the Jews under a color of an outward serving of God, challenged all to themselves, when as indeed, they did nothing less than observe the Law.

Romans 2:25 He precisely preventeth their objection, which set an holiness in circumcision, and the outward observation of the Law: So that he showeth that the outward circumcision, if it be separated from the inward, doth not only not justify, but also condemns them that are indeed circumcised, of whom requireth that, which is signifieth, that is to say, cleanness of the heart and the whole life, according to the commandment of the Law, so that if there be a man uncircumcised according to the flesh, who is circumcised in heart, he is far better and more to be more accounted of, than any Jew that is circumcised according to the flesh only.

Romans 2:26 This is the figure Metonymy, for, if the uncircumcised.

Romans 2:26 The state and condition of the uncircumcised.

Romans 2:27 He which is uncircumcised by nature and blood.

Romans 2:27 Paul useth oftentimes to set the letter against the Spirit: but in this place, the circumcision which is according to the letter, is the cutting off of the foreskin, but the circumcision of the Spirit, is the circumcision of the heart, that is to say, the spiritual end of the ceremony, is true holiness and righteousness whereby the people of God is known from profane and heathenish men.

Romans 2:28 By the outward ceremony only.

Romans 2:29 Whose force is inward, and in the heart.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%201&version=GNV

https://www.facebook.com/HisHolyChurchofAnonymous/posts/pfbid031zmoKkxWTiCEKRM4XpQHm4qQqD67SpjHVG8TNcYR3fVqMqYv7HeK4ijuqieWuvVzl